I'm still waiting for someone to offer an explanation as to why Trump lying to the FBI on a fact material to a pending investigation is not a violation of federal criminal law. Mueller has already indicted several Trump compatriots for less egregious versions of the same conduct.
2/ It's not complicated:
(1) Trump learns from the FBI that they have a pending investigation into allegations made in the Steele dossier.
(2) Trump, having just been told the allegations involve him, manufactures an exculpatory alibi he knows is false and gives it to the FBI.
(1) Trump learns from the FBI that they have a pending investigation into allegations made in the Steele dossier.
(2) Trump, having just been told the allegations involve him, manufactures an exculpatory alibi he knows is false and gives it to the FBI.
3/ The government must also show the president knew his lies to the FBI were unlawful. I'll check the dates again, but wasn't Trump already aware of the trouble Mike Flynn was in for violating the very same statute at the time he lied to the FBI? That would establish knowledge.
4/ The Trump-Comey talk fits the statute, as a discussion with the FBI on a pending investigation. It doesn't matter if Trump was sworn, because the statute doesn't require that. And faking an alibi is worse than lying about a discussion (Flynn; Papadopoulos; the Dutch lawyer).
5/ Moreover, whether or not Comey had intended his conversations with Trump to touch on the hookers (or even be interviews) or not, Trump's own conduct treated them as FBI interviews with a witness and in all respects turned them into just that from an investigatory perspective.
6/ Trump's clear intent, in multiple conversations with Comey on Moscow, including the conversation in which he manufactured an alibi, was (and willfully) to confuse and frustrate and disable the very FBI investigation Trump was well aware the two men were discussing at the time.
7/ In interrogations, law enforcement officers are generally allowed to lie without it impacting criminal statutes (entrapment excepted). Comey telling Trump he wasn't under investigation doesn't permit Trump to make false statements on a matter he knew the FBI was investigating.
8/ While Trump cannot be indicted for a crime while in office, Mueller can certainly refer impeachable offenses to the DOJ, and will be doing exactly that (in the case of Obstruction). If Obstruction is an impeachable offense, and it is, so is Making False Statements to the FBI.
