Trump's Personal Lawyer And Campaign Manager Both Going To Prison

[Final-Fan]

NightlyPoe said:

Hiku said:

By desires, you mean the way he phrased it to Comey? It may depend on how a jury would see it.
If someone walks up to you and says "That's a nice daughter you have there. It'd be a shame if something were to happen to her...", the "I was just expressing my thoughts and concerns" defense probably wouldn't convince a jury.
Comey said under oath that he was "stunned" by Trump's request, and that he "saw it as a direction".

Let me make this as clear as I can.  If Trump had walked up to Comey and said "I order you to drop the matter and will fire you if you don't" that still would have been legal.  As the president, that's completely within his power and is not obstruction of justice.  We don't have to dance around whether it was an implied order or threat or whatever.

Heck, Trump publicly attacks and threatens to fire Sessions and Rosenstein all the time on this matter and others.  It's still not obstruction of justice.

You throw around the term "obstruction of justice", but as a criminal matter, Trump is totally in the clear as far as his conversation with Comey goes.

Of course, impeachment is a political matter, so the law is more vague.  If Trump were using his position to defend himself, one could say that it is "high crimes" which is a lower standard than it sounds.  It basically means that people in office need to execute their duties faithfully, which, if Trump is refusing to execute laws faithfully, he is not doing.  Of course, the last president expanded the definition of prosecutorial discretion rather broadly.

It wasn't illegal to fire Comey or do those other things per se, but it was illegal if he did so with corrupt motivation.  Right?  Just checking because "totally in the clear" sends the wrong message to me.