John Dowd, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, revealed possible legal defense in the ongoing Russia probe, claiming a president canno…
WASHINGTON (NBC News /AP) — John Dowd, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, revealed possible legal defense in the ongoing Russia probe, claiming a president cannot obstruct justice.
“The President cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under (the Constitution’s Article II) and has every right to express his view of any case,” Dowd told NBC News Monday.
Dowd also said that the tweet Trump sent over the weekend “did not admit obstruction,” in reference to what some had argued helped Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s case.
On Saturday, Trump tweeted that he “had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!”
The tweet suggested that Trump was aware when the White House dismissed Flynn on Feb. 13 that he had lied to the FBI, which had interviewed him weeks earlier. Comey has said Trump the following day brought up the Flynn investigation in private at the White House and told him he hoped he could “let this go.”
With questions raised by the tweet, Trump associates tried to put distance Saturday evening between the president himself and the tweet. Trump’s personal lawyer John Dowd told ABC News that he drafted the tweet and gave it to the president’s social media director Dan Scavino. Dowd had declined to comment when reached by the AP on Saturday night.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the panel is beginning to see “the putting together of a case of obstruction of justice” against Trump.
Advertisement
