The
Sixth Amendment says that the U.S. Constitution is the “law of the Land” and
that all elected officials are bound by oath to obey it. This means that no
one, not even the Chief Executive is above the law. As it pertains to president
Trump, there are two legal issues that are under consideration:
1)
Did the president commit an impeachable offense in violation of Article
2, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution?
2) Was the president’s actions an abuse of power as
stipulated by 18 U.S.
Code § 1505?
I
believe it was Sen. Angus King of the Senate Intelligence Committee that
affirmed the applicable legal standard when he mentioned to James Comey: “In a
court case when you are weighing evidence, contemporaneous memos, statements to
third parties are ‘probative’ in terms of validity of testimony.” It is with
this basis in mind that the following timeline of events and sources are
offered:
Washington Post:
December
29, 2016
Flynn,
incoming national security adviser for Trump, phone
with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, and discusses
the sanctions and suggests the possibility of sanctions relief once Trump is
president. The call is monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Jan
26, 2017
Acting
Attorney General Sally Yates, accompanied by an aide, goes to the White House
and tells White House Counsel Donald McGahn that, contrary to Flynn’s
claims to White House officials, sanctions had been discussed in the calls,
based on the monitoring of the conversations by intelligence agencies. She
also warns that Flynn is vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow.
Jan
27, 2017
McGahn asks Yates to come to
the White House again to discuss the matter further. Yates testified that he
did not indicate whether he had discussed the Flynn situation with anyone else
at the White House, but White House press secretary Sean Spicer told
reporters “the president was immediately informed of the situation.”
McGahn asked why the Justice Department would be concerned whether one
White House official lied to another, she said. “Logic would tell you that
you don’t want the national security adviser to be in a position where the
Russians have leverage over him,” she said. McGahn also asks to see the
underlying evidence. Yates says she would work with the FBI to assemble the
material, and McGahn’s review is scheduled for Jan. 30.NOTE: The White House lawyer though it was such an inconsequential matter and didn’t recognize the legal seriousness of Flynn’s contact with the Russians; not to mention lying about it?
Jan 30, 2017
Trump fires Yates, allegedly over an unrelated matter — her conclusion that Trump’s executive order barring travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries was “unlawful.” The executive order is later blocked by the courts.
NOTE: This firing is suspicious.
Feb 13, 2017
The Washington Post reports that the White House had known for weeks that Flynn had misled people about the nature of the Kislyak calls.
Comey’s
version (from written congressional
testimony, June 8): “On February 14, I went
to the Oval Office for a scheduled counterterrorism briefing of the President,”
Comey said in his congressional testimony. “The President signaled the end of
the briefing by thanking the group and telling them all that he wanted to speak
to me alone….When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone,
the President began by saying, ‘I want to talk about Mike Flynn.’ … The
President began by saying Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong in speaking with the
Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President. He
added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify…
‘He is a good guy and has been through a lot.’ He repeated that Flynn hadn’t
done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice
President. He then said, ‘I hope you can see your way clear to letting this
go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let
this go.’ I replied only that ‘he is a good guy.’ …I did not say I would
‘let this go.’” Comey said that given the setting and the fact that Trump asked
to see him alone, he took the president’s words as a directive.
Comey
also testified before the Committee that General Flynn, at that point in time
was in legal jeopardy-there was an open FBI criminal investigation of his
statements in connection with Russian contacts and the contacts themselves.
NOTE: In the
statement taken from James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee
(memo page 5, par. 3), these 28 words reflect president Trump’s ‘intent’ because
the phrase “let him go/let Flynn go” is repeated three times. Let’s see is
there is further proof offered to determine if one has difficulty understanding
what president Trump wants done. Donald Trump Jr. — the president's eldest son
— seemed to confirm Comey's version of events in a Saturday, June 11, 2017,
interview on Fox News as he tried to emphasize the fact that
his father did not directly order Comey to stop investigating Flynn. “When
he tells you to do something, guess what? There's no ambiguity in
it, there's no, 'Hey, I'm hoping,'"
CNN:
May
9, 2017
Trump fires Comey,
effective immediately. In his dismissal letter, Trump cites a recommendation from Deputy Attorney General
Rod Rosenstein, who wrote in an attached memo that Comey's handling of the
investigation into Clinton's email server was to blame. CNN reports that federal prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas to associates of
former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of the investigation
into Russian meddling in the election. CNN learned of the subpoenas hours
before Comey's firing.
May
10, 2017
In
a morning "tweetstorm," Trump says Democrats have wanted Comey gone
for a while and are now faking outrage at his firing. "Comey lost the
confidence of almost everyone in Washington, Republican and Democrat alike.
When things calm down, they will be thanking me!" n a photo-op with former
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Trump says he fired Comey "because he wasn't doing a good job."
The
same day, Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval
Office, but the White House blocks US media from photographing the event.
Russian state-sponsored media post photos of the meeting, angering a White House official. Deputy press secretary Sarah
Huckabee Sanders says Comey committed "basic atrocities" by going around
the Justice Department chain of command and speaking out during the Clinton
email investigation. She also says Trump had considered letting Comey go as
early as Election Day.
NOTE: Let’s see if that last part is really true, shall we?
OCTOBER
31, 2016 – Trump holds a rally in Grand Rapids, MI
“You know that. It took a lot of guts. I really disagreed
with him. I was not his fan,” Trump said of Comey. “I tell you what, what he
did, he brought back his reputation. He brought it back. He's got to hang
tough. A lot of people want him to do the wrong thing. What he did was the
right thing.”
NOVEMBER 13, 2016 – Trump’s ‘60
Minutes’ interview with Lesley Stahl
“I respect him a lot. I respect the FBI a lot,” Trump said.
During the interview, Stahl asked if Trump wanted Comey gone
when he came into office, to which Trump replied that he wasn’t sure. He said
despite what he perceived as “leaks” coming from the FBI, he wanted to speak
with Comey before answering that kind of question.
APRIL 12, 2017 - Trump's interview
with Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo
It's not too late [to ask Comey to step down], but, you know,
I
have confidence in him. We'll see what happens, you know, it's going to
be interesting," Trump said.
This last part has to do with Attorney General Jeff Sessions
testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 13. Atty. Gen.
Sessions was asked about what former FBI Director James Comey said about meeting
with president Trump alone. He said, “There is nothing wrong with the president
having communication with the FBI director. What is problematic for any
Department of Justice employee is to talk to any cabinet persons or White House
officials about ongoing investigations that are not properly cleared through
the top levels of the Department of Justice. I took it as a concern that he
might be asked something that was improper, and I affirmed to him his
willingness to say no or not go in an improper way, improper direction. I will
say it this way.
We were there and I was standing there and without revealing
any conversation that took place, what I recall is that I did depart and I
believe everyone else did depart and Director Comey was sitting in front of the
president's desk and they were talking. I believe it was the next day that he
said something and expressed concern about being left alone with the president.
That in itself is not problematic. He did not tell me at that time any details
about anything that was said that was improper. I affirmed his concern that we
should be following the proper guidelines of the Department of Justice and
basically backed him up in his concerns. He should not carry on any
conversation with the president or anyone else about an investigation in a way
that was not proper.
NOTE:
This is puzzling because if the Attorney General thought that president Trump
might breach the proper policies between branches of government, why didn’t he
insist on staying; and why wasn’t the White House counsel present? Maybe the president wanted some kind of “patronage” relationship after-all.
President Trump had or placed 2
telephone calls to FBI Director James Comey on March 30 and April 11, where he
mentioned that the Russia investigation was “a cloud that was impairing his
ability as president” and that he wanted him to “lift the cloud.” On May 11, 2017 Trump, in an interview with Lester Holt
of NBC News, says he had already decided to fire Comey before receiving Rosenstein's recommendation.
"Regardless of the recommendation I was going to fire Comey," Trump
tells NBC. Trump also says he was thinking of "this Russia thing" when he made the decision. "When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I
said 'you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story,
it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should
have won'."
NOTE: I presume these calls were recorded or the conversation
was overheard over the speakerphone by one of James Comey's staff. Not only
that, but wasn't it unusual and outside the chain-of-command for the Executive
branch of the White House to be speaking directly with the FBI Director, and
not through Comey's boss, the Attorney General?
To
sum it all up then:
President Trump fires acting Attorney General Sally Yates because of her
investigation into Michael Flynn. President Trump fires FBI Director James
Comey because of “not letting Flynn go” and also “not lifting the cloud” of the
Russia investigation. Whether there is sufficient probable cause that president
Trump acted illegally has to be weighed in the Court of public opinion, as well
in the halls of Congress. The thing is though, would a ‘reasonable’ person not
think that there is more than circumstantial evidence, rising to the level of “probable
cause” that the president’s actions constitute abuse of power; amounting to Obstruction
of Justice in violation of 18 U.S. Code § 1505 and Art. II, Sect. 4
(High Crimes and Misdemeanors. . .). Ironically, Senator Lindsey Graham
probably said it best on Face the Nation, June 11, 2017: “What is so
frustrating for Republicans like me is that Trump may be the first president in
history to go down because you can’t stop inappropriately talking about an
investigation that, if you were just quiet, would clear you.” Well, I guess president Trump can always “refudiate”
(Sarah Palin) any testimony presented against him as ‘alternative facts’ “Fake
News” and a political “Witch Hunt.” Oh, wait; he’s already used that one, but
ignorance of the law is not a legal defense.
Robert
Randle
776
Commerce St Apt 701
Tacoma,
WA 98402
June
20, 2017
