Trump’s own words add fuel to FBI controversy

WASHINGTON - With his own words over the past two days, President Donald Trump has vastly escalated the stakes and potential consequences of his decision to fire James Comey as FBI director, provoking questions about whether his motivations and tactics ran afoul of the law.

The president also suggested on Twitter he may have 'tapes” of private conversations with Comey, evoking echoes of Watergate and demands by Democrats that he produce what could be key evidence.

All of that undermines Trump's credibility as he seeks to name a new FBI director whose independence will be under intense scrutiny and whose most critical job will be to lead the probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election and any ties to Trump's inner circle in the campaign.

In a television interview and on Twitter, the president has given ammunition to arguments by some legal experts that his actions constitute a possible case of obstruction of justice - a central charge in the impeachment proceedings against two presidents in the last 43 years.

Obstruction is 'a very mental-state-based crime,” said Duke University law professor Samuel Buell, a former federal prosecutor. 'It's all about the purpose with which it's done. In theory, trying to intimidate, silence or even influence someone who is investigating you could be obstruction of justice.”

But whether the unfolding controversy ultimately puts Trump's presidency at risk is more a question of politics than law.

Given that both houses of Congress are in Republican control, it would take an enormous public outcry for lawmakers to begin the process of attempting to remove the president from office. The same, it appears, probably would have to happen before the Justice Department that reports to him would be compelled to appoint a special prosecutor, much less actually bring charges.

But Democrats have escalated the pressure for a more vigorous probe amid statements by Trump that contradict his White House's initial contentions that Comey's dismissal was based on the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

In an interview Thursday with NBC News's Lester Holt, the president said: 'I was going to fire regardless of recommendation.” He also said that he had pressed Comey during a private dinner to tell him if he was under investigation.

Trump further revealed that the ongoing probe into questions of Russian influence was one of the factors he considered in firing Comey.

'In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won,' ' he said.

Friday, Trump created another stir with a flurry of tweets, one of which warned that Comey 'better hope that there are no ‘tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”

In an interview with Fox News, Trump declined to say such tapes actually exist, even as Democrats demanded he produce them.

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., the second-ranking Democratic senator and a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, said that Trump's tweet was a 'thinly veiled threat” that 'could be construed as threatening a witness in this investigation, which is another violation of federal law.”

The issue is not Trump's legal authority to dismiss Comey, which he possesses with or without cause.

That decision in Comey's case, however, becomes legally problematic if it is done with the intent of circumventing an investigation.

'If shown that Trump removed Comey to avoid being investigated? Yes impeachable: abuse of power, corruption, undermines rule of law,” Harvard University law professor Noah Feldman tweeted Friday.

Whether any of this could jeopardize the survival of Trump's presidency is another question, and one whose answer is much farther down the road.

The Constitution specifies that a president can be removed for treason, bribery or 'other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” the definition of which is left to Congress.

Obstruction of justice, however, was seen as one of the infractions meriting impeachment proceedings of Richard M. Nixon in 1974 and of Bill Clinton in 1998.

Nixon resigned after the House Judiciary Committee passed three articles of impeachment in connection with the Watergate scandal. Clinton remained in office after being acquitted by the Senate in articles that stemmed from his efforts to cover up an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Thus far, only a handful of the more strident Democrats have engaged the possibility of impeachment of Trump.

The better strategy at this point, party leaders have decided, is to pepper Rosenstein and others at the Justice Department with letters, call for hearings and pressure Republicans to get on board with a more aggressive investigation.