Out MSNBC host Rachel Maddow reminded everyone yesterday that Donald Trump can still be charged with obstruction of justice after he pretty much admitted to it in a television interview.
“If somebody were going to bring an obstruction of justice prosecution against him for that: firing the FBI director in order to get rid of the investigation that stood to remove him from office…. We are still within the statute of limitations for that if that, in fact, was a crime,” Maddow said on her show last night. “I’m just saying. He did just confess to that in detail on national TV last night.”
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Maddow was referring to an interview Trump did with Fox News over the weekend where he talked about how he fired FBI Director James Comey in 2017 while Comey was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.
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The official reason Comey was fired at the time was his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, and the White House denied that Comey was fired in order to protect Trump.
But that’s not what Trump said on Fox this weekend.
“Don’t forget, I fired Comey,” Trump said on Life, Liberty & Levin. “Had I not fired Comey, you might not be talking to me right now about the beautiful book of four years at the White House.”
“If I didn’t fire Comey… they were looking to take down the president of the United States. If I didn’t fire him…. And some people said, ‘He made a mistake when he fired Comey.’ Now those same people said it was one of the most incredible, instinctual moves they’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t think I could have survived if I didn’t fire him.”
“He doesn’t mean he’d be dead,” Maddow explained. “He means he couldn’t have survived as president. He couldn’t have made it four years as president because of the FBI investigations that were in place under Comey that stood to remove him from office. So he fired the FBI director in order to divert those investigations, in order to keep himself in power.
“He just admitted that’s why he did it,” she said. “And then it worked! That’s how he managed to stay in office for four years!”
“This is him confessing.”
“If somebody were going to bring an obstruction of justice prosecution for that, we are still within the statute of limitations for that if that in fact was a crime. I’m just saying. He did just confess to that in detail on national TV” pic.twitter.com/VzCpKdhwpv
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 7, 2021
Trump: If I didn’t fire Comey, they were looking to take down the President of the United States… I don’t think could’ve survived if I didn’t fire him pic.twitter.com/AHxYyPBZA6
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 6, 2021
The statute of limitations on federal obstruction of justice is five years. Trump fired Comey less than five years ago.
