The Trump Obstruction of Justice Mueller Missed?

[Nevilledog]

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/08/17/the-trump-obstruction-of-justice-mueller-missed/

On the afternoon of March 4, 2017, Mary McCord, who was the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, received an unexpected, urgent phone call from White House official John Eisenberg, the legal counsel to the National Security Council (one of several titles he holds in the White House). Earlier that morning, President Donald Trump had posted no less than four tweets claiming, without evidence, that his predecessor, Barack Obama, had personally ordered the wiretapping of Trump to spy on him and his presidential campaign.

The White House refused to issue any statement about what underlying factual basis there might be for the president’s allegations, most likely because, as became apparent, there was none. But behind the scenes, according to a former senior administration official, the president then ordered White House Counsel Don McGahn to discover whatever evidence he could, after the fact, that might lend even some credence to Trump’s claims. Although Trump’s instruction meant violating the ethics policy McGahn himself had drawn up on January 27, he chose to carry it out by delegating the task to Eisenberg.

Trump was unambiguous in asserting that he had personally been wiretapped, that the electronic surveillance had taken place at Trump Tower, that its purpose was to spy on his presidential campaign, and that President Obama had ordered this political espionage. At 6:35 AM, the president tweeted: “Terrible! Just found that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism.” At 6:49 AM: “Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election?” At 7:02 AM: “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”

McCord, when later questioned by the FBI, said Eisenberg asked her, “What would we have to do to find out if this evidence exists?” As she explained to the FBI, McCord said she’d found Eisenberg’s request highly unusual, improper even. She asked Eisenberg if he was asking her “if this coverage exists,” meaning the alleged wiretapping. Apparently wary of the task at hand, Eisenberg sheepishly replied: “I guess so.”

According to a since declassified FBI report recounting what McCord told agents in an interview:

McCord asked Eisenberg to tell her exactly what he was asking for. Eisenberg told her he would send her an article, and he wanted to know if she could tell him if it was true. McCord told Eisenberg she would get back to him. McCord doesn’t recall if he sent her an article or if she looked it up on her own, but she recalled reading an article from the Breitbart website on Trump’s statements about Trump Tower being tapped.

*snip*

[Lotusflower70]

1. Hmm

Probably because of the bogus pardon of Susan B. Anthony to distract and deflect.

[crickets]

2. Effing Breitbart and Fox News. So ticked off I can't even type straight. Ugh.

Apologies, I can't brain right now, so - this is the paragraph to read:

But the episode also raises even more troubling questions about whether Eisenberg’s fact-finding was part of a scheme to undermine the investigations by the Justice Department and FBI into Russian election interference; that might be construed as an obstruction of justice. Had Eisenberg obtained information about possible FISA surveillance of people in Trump’s circle, and provided the president or anyone else in the White House with that information, the individuals involved would almost certainly have taken measures to defeat the eavesdropping; that scenario would entail hampering a federal investigation. And if the president or a White House official had gone public about such highly classified eavesdropping, that would have also interfered with the DOJ’s and FBI’s Russia investigations, by tipping off possible surveillance targets. To expose or stymie the FISA warrants in such a manner would almost certainly have been an obstruction of justice.