BREAKING: Trump Ordered White House Counsel to Keep Sessions From Recusing Himself, Said Sessions Was Obligated to Protect Him From the Russia Probe nytimes.com/2018/01/04/us/…
2/ That a White House lawyer lied to the president to keep him from firing Jim Comey confirms that legal experts in his employ, along with everyone else, considered it necessary to save the country from the president rather than permitting him to govern in his current condition.
3/ The fact that Sessions' team secretly queried GOP members of Congress for damaging info on Comey—to use as cover for firing him over Russia—confirms, yet again, that Sessions was/is one of Mueller's primary targets for indictment alongside Manafort, Flynn, Kushner, and Don Jr.
4/ This NYT story makes clear that Sessions, with the assistance of at least one aide—and was it Gordon or Dearborn, both implicated in the Russia probe?—was trying to cover up what he knew as an attorney (much like Corallo knew) was a course of conduct constituting Obstruction.
5/ I did a long thread on "consciousness of guilt" recently, and Jeff Sessions ordering aides to find pretextual reasons to fire Comey, so that it wouldn't be obvious the firing was over the Flynn case—which Trump knew from McGahn was *valid*—is definitely consciousness of guilt.
6/ As for Mueller needing proof the president instructed someone to lie for an Obstruction case, (a) no, you don't, and (b) remember that a Flynn confidant told ABC that Flynn says Trump ordered him to negotiate with Russia—then tried to end the probe that would reveal that fact.
7/ So even if Trump didn't tell Flynn to lie to the FBI, his intent was that the truth of what occurred not be known to the FBI or public—that's why he didn't fire Flynn for 3 weeks, immediately threatened to rehire him, tried to end his prosecution, then told him to stay strong.
8/ Remember too that the period during which Trump was trying to avoid firing Flynn, and then trying to get Comey to drop Flynn's case, was also the period when the "blank check" job offer Trump gave George Papadopoulos was suddenly taken away. Trump knew justice was closing in.
9/ I've said this over and over, as have many other attorneys (Laurence Tribe being a prominent example): the Obstruction of Justice case against Trump is extremely strong even if Mueller *only* has the evidence that's been made public—but as we learned today, he has *much* more.
10/ So this is a good time to repeat what I've said on the subject of a future Special Counsel referral to the DOJ: Bob Mueller *will* refer at *least* one impeachable offense to Rod Rosenstein at DOJ, because he *will* refer Obstruction of Justice (i.e., recommend that charge).
PS/ Per NYT, the effort to fire Comey began the moment Comey refused to permanently exonerate Trump on TV. While a POTUS doesn't need grounds to fire an FBI Director, firing him because he won't swear never to charge you—when an investigation involving you is pending—is a crime.
