Washington – Former top Justice Department official Sally Yates said on Sunday that if Donald Trump were not president, he would have been indicted on obstruction charges in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
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Yates, a career federal prosecutor who rose to acting attorney general before Trump fired her in 2017 less than two weeks into his presidency, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” the Republican president was shielded by department guidelines that a sitting president should not be indicted.
“I’ve personally prosecuted obstruction cases on far, far less evidence than this,” Yates said. “And yes, I believe, if he were not the president of the United States, he would likely be indicted on obstruction.”
Mueller’s report, redacted for classified and other sensitive information, detailed a series of actions by Trump to impede the investigation. It did not make a conclusion on whether those actions constituted the crime of obstruction said the findings did not exonerate him.
The report cited attempts by Trump to thwart the Mueller investigation, as well as the president telling Russian officials he had faced “great pressure” from the probe but that it had been eased after he fired FBI Director James Comey. [nL1N22015W]
Mueller also said Congress has the power to address whether Trump violated the law and Congress is conducting its own investigations into whether he obstructed justice.
Yates told NBC there was a larger question raised by the report, which she said painted a “devastating portrait” of a campaign that welcomed Russian intervention, lied about it and then tried to cover it up.
“Is this the kind of conduct that we should expect from the president of the United States?” she said. “I mean, when the Russians came knocking at their door, you would expect that a man who likes to make a show of hugging the flag would’ve done the patriotic thing and would’ve notified law enforcement.”
Yates was fired by Trump after she took the extraordinarily rare step of defying the White House and refused to defend new travel restrictions targeting seven Muslim-majority nations. (https://reut.rs/2PCUkvd)
We will talk at a later date when you will be in jail.
If yates wasn’t a Democrat she would be disbarred.
So Trump is above the Law. What happens when he gets out of office? What then?
Politically motivated revision of history. When the family was Democrat leaning the investigators were Republican appointed prosecutors (and the family was protected and shielded by the Democrats, which is why the damage was minimal) and when the family went Republican the prosecutors are Democrat (or Democrat-like “deep state” Republican haters).
“devastating portrait” of a campaign that welcomed Russian intervention”
Whats wrong with Russian help? Doesn’t the USA help foreign govt’s as well in their elections? That’s the point “collusion” is nit a crime in it of itself. Thats why the whole thing is nonsense. So why the cover up you ask? The answer is because I agree the optics don’t look good. It gives lots of fodder for the other side to blow things up. That doesn’t make it bad.
And come on what do you think the ruskies did already? Some silly e-mails? Time to get past this stupidty. This is such nonsense that people say its an “invasion” and “a threat to our democracy”. Kinderish. Yet you laugh when Trump says that caravans are an invasion despite the obvious mess in El-Paso
You have the right to remain silent, Sally, and I suggest you listen to that advice because you should have been indicted for signing the application for the bogus FISA Warrant and hopefully soon Attorney General Barr will see to it that you and your cohorts are indicted and eventually sent to prison.
YATES should be in jail along with obumma. Obumma messed in Israeli elections but that was okay he was a democrap and black.More because he was a democrap
and if Hilary wasnt a clinton…..
To:Sally Yates-You are nothing but sour grapes, since Trump fired your dumb tuchas. Where were you in the Justice Department, when that organization refused to indict anyone at the FBI or CIA, for misfeasance and malfeasance in office, pertaining to failing to detect the 9/11/01 plot? Trump should have fired you even sooner!
It seems quite obvious he would be under charges if he were not president. Further, he will be in court once he is no longer president. It is very important to President Trump personally that he be reelected. I would suppose his plan is to be reelected and then die in office.
To PaulinSaudi-Your remark about Trump expiring in office, is stupid, idiotic, moronic, insensitive, and disrespectful to him, and his family.