Washington – As President, Harris Would Pursue Trump Obstruction Case

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    Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during the Iowa Democratic Party's Hall of Fame Celebration, Sunday, June 9, 2019, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)Washington – Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Wednesday that if she wins the White House, her Justice Department “would have no choice” but to pursue an obstruction of justice case against President Donald Trump after he leaves office.

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    The California senator and some other Democrats in the 2020 race are pushing their party to initiate the impeachment process in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller ‘s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

    Mueller has said he was unable to exonerate Trump of obstruction but couldn’t pursue potential charges because of a Justice Department policy that bars the indictment of a sitting president — a policy Harris has said she would ask her Justice Department to re-examine.

    “Everyone should be held accountable,” Harris told NPR in an interview that aired Wednesday. “And the president is not above the law.”

    Harris, a former California attorney general who also was San Francisco’s district attorney, later said she would not dictate the outcome of any prospective efforts to charge Trump. “The facts and the evidence will take the process where it leads,” she said.

    Suggesting that Trump face prosecution after he leaves office is a fine line for any Democrat after the party has excoriating him for politicizing the Justice Department. Impeachment remains popular with Democrats’ base voters, but the party’s congressional leaders are more cautious because the Republican-controlled Senate doesn’t likely have the votes to remove Trump from office.

    Harris is not alone among 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls in criticizing the Justice Department policy that Mueller cited in declining to look at obstruction charges in his nearly two-year investigation of Trump. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the first candidate to fully endorse the start of impeachment proceedings in the wake of Mueller’s report, pledged last month to end that policy if she’s elected president.

    Harris and Warren are among nearly one-half of their party’s 20-plus primary field in calling for the start of an impeachment inquiry, though few contenders are making that stance a centerpiece of their campaigns.

    But Harris, who is running in part on the strength of her legal and law enforcement experience, appears to have taken a step further than her opponents in affirming that a Justice Department in her administration “should” look at charging Trump with obstruction once he no longer is president.

    “I do believe that we should believe Bob Mueller when he tells us, essentially, that the only reason an indictment was not returned” was because of the current policy that bars indictment of a president while in office, Harris told NPR. “But I’ve seen prosecution of cases on much less evidence.”

    Eric Columbus, who served as a Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security attorney during the Obama administration, suggested recently on Twitter that any Democratic candidate asked about seeking charges against Trump answer by promising, “unlike the current president,” not to “interfere with” the impartial administration of justice.

    The statute of limitation for seeking obstruction charges, as in most federal criminal cases, is five years from the time an alleged crime is committed. The time limit for charges in conspiracy cases begins at the time of the last act in an alleged conspiracy.

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    11 Comments
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    4 years ago

    The poor thing thinks it’s not gonna be Trump or Biden, but it will be one of those two, because the nation has decided that sexual harassment isn’t a crime after all.

    hashomer
    hashomer
    4 years ago

    Traitor Trump’s world is collapsing on his head. Yesterday he said he wouldn’t authorize spying on his boyfriend in North Korea. Congress is having 20 hearings about his corruption. His ‘secret’ Mexico deal is a global joke. McConnell’s wife is in trouble as Cabinet Sec of Transportation for taking BRIBES from China! All in one day.

    stamnamefortrump
    Noble Member
    stamnamefortrump
    4 years ago

    It’s so sad that this is all the Democrats have to offer. Literally high taxes, illegals and antitrump. Oh and anti-Semitism. Loosers

    ralph1527
    ralph1527
    4 years ago

    Wow is to us !!!

    puppydogs
    puppydogs
    4 years ago

    23 candidates and not one has anything to offer the citizens of the United States other than going after Trump for some fake collusion that has been proven false. This is what happens when the President has created millions of jobs, has unemployment at record lows, stock market at record highs. Yes the Dems would rather have AOC who caused he constituents to lose 25,000 well paying jobs only for her to ask for a raise for herself.

    qazxc
    qazxc
    4 years ago

    Sorry, Trump Chumps but we are a nation of laws. Hopefully the Democrats will nominate someone more to the center politically but whoever gets the nomination, if they win the general election, will have to either allow the DOJ to indict or pardon the error of presidential proportion.

    Personally I wouldn’t mind another four years of the greed and hypocrisy of the entire GOP and ‘religous right’ being on full public display.

    The longer McConnell and Graham and their House counterparts openly prostitute themselves for Trump’s anti-American agenda the stronger will be the backlash against the Greedy Old Perverts party.

    Independent voters are the voters who elect the president and they are an increasingly liberal and well educated constituency. The Republican patry is left to gerrymandering and begging foreign entities to interfere in our elections on their behalf in order to cling to power. Dictatorships eventually fail.