Former Bush ethics lawyer and current Democratic Senate candidate Richard Painter questioned Trump’s mental stability after the president incriminated himself for obstructing justice on Twitter.
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Painter said, “Well, it’s certainly evidence of obstruction of justice. And first, we really have to worry about the mental stability of our president when he is incriminating himself on Twitter. This is very, very damaging, very incriminating tweet. It’s part of a long pattern of obstruction of justice. He fired James Comey. He has repeatedly tried to pressure Jeff Sessions to and fire Robert Mueller. And the prosecutor will find evidence of obstruction inside the White House, I’m sure. But, you know, the House and Senate judiciary committee should be investigating this. We’re way past the time of 1973 where they were investigating Richard Nixon. I’m shocked there is no investigation for obstruction of justice and abuse of power and other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
The Minnesota Democratic Senate candidate added, “I think we were past that point when he fired James Comey. It was clear he fired James Comey in order to obstruct the Russia investigation, and he admitted to that in front of the Russian ambassador in several TV interviews. We should have had hearings in the House and Senate judiciary committee at the same time that Robert Mueller was hired. And that’s the way it was done in the Nixon days. They had the House and Senate actually doing their jobs, and investigating. This is and has been evidence of obstruction of justice going all the way back to the Comey firing, at least. It’s shameful it’s not being investigated. He ought to be out of office by now.”
Painter’s point was that only a crazy person would be incriminating themselves in public and that Trump would already be out of office if Republicans in the House and Senate would do their jobs and conduct a real investigation into his actions and behavior. Trump’s mental stability has been in question since the day that he began his presidential campaign.
The problem isn’t only that the president is unwell. It is also that the Republican Party has been transformed into a circle of enabling that both condones and encourages Trump’s behavior. The president incriminated himself today by demanding that the attorney general end the Mueller investigation. The White House can try to spin it any way that they want, but with each tweet, Trump keeps doing something that no sane person would ever do.
He is giving Mueller the evidence that he needs to build the case that Donald Trump has an ongoing pattern of obstructing justice.
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Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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