The threshold for obstruction of justice and witness tampering
Good lord.
Hey @MichaelCohen212 – Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she’ll remain faithful when you’re in prison. She’s about to learn a lot…
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) February 26, 2019
I seem to follow a lot of lawyers.
See 18 U.S.C. §§ 1512(b), 1515(a)(1)(B).
— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) February 26, 2019
1st q asked by @NicolleDWallace about this despicable tweet was "is this illegal?" Answer is it's likely witness threat, but q should be why is MOC allowed to act this way even if it wasn't a crime.
— Jill Wine-Banks (@JillWineBanks) February 26, 2019
A Republican member of Congress on Tuesday suggested without evidence that Michael Cohen engaged in affairs with multiple “girlfriends” and suggested his wife might cheat on him while he’s in prison — all on the eve of Cohen’s public testimony.
President Trump and his allies have camped out in a whole host of gray areas when it comes to obstruction of justice and witness tampering over the last two years. But this one from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) doesn’t appear to be nearly so gray.
…
We’re about to find out what Mueller’s thresholds are for obstruction of justice and witness tampering. But whatever they are, Trump is insulated because Justice Department rules say a sitting president can’t be indicted. That means Congress is the arbiter, and even if Trump would be convicted of witness tampering in a court of law, he could survive.
But Gaetz has no such insulation, and you can make a pretty convincing argument that his witness-related tweet is far less veiled that Trump’s have ever have been.
I wonder what he hopes to get out of it.
I see this as a really stupid rule. Yes, I understand the need to protect presidents from partisan political maneuvering, but that could be managed by setting a high standard of evidence. To allow a sitting president to do whatever he wants as long as Congress doesn’t care? That was rather…inept…
Yes it was. Then again, I doubt the framers of the Constitution ever imagined a world in which Gentlemen would ever behave in such a craven and dishonourable manner in public.
Rob, it’s a Department of Justice rule. I don’t think that’s in the Constitution.
A member of Congress from Florida is free to reveal anything they want about lawyers from New York.
The question is how does a member of Congress from Florida happen to have salacious information about a lawyer from New York?
Enquiring minds want to know!
Like me.
Iknkl;ast, true, I’d overlooked that in my haste. In that case, lawyers who are also politicians*, what do you expect…
* anyone working at an organisation like that at a high enough pay grade has an element of political behaviour about them.
@iknklast @Rob – Maddow had a really interesting piece on the history of that rule, and how its applicability to the president is not necessarily absolute, a few days ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oku6xbbbJN0
Thanks Karellen, interesting. I’d always heard that opinion was linked back to Nixon.
“Justice Department rules say a sitting president can’t be indicted”
They aren’t rules – they’re policies – based on “Opinion Letters” (letters which define how a certain lawyer thinks judges might rule) from the Nixon and Clinton eras.
There is no law preventing the Federal Justice Department from indicting a sitting president. There’s even less than nothing stopping a State Justice Department from indicting a president.
https://verdict.justia.com/2017/08/14/indicting-president-president-clintons-justice-department-says-no
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/12/10/constitution-rules-out-sitting-president-immunity-from-criminal-prosecution/6Byq7Qw6TeJlPVUhlgABPM/story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2018/08/29/yes-its-possible-to-indict-a-sitting-u-s-president-heres-why/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.aef0c4211620
We’re getting reports on Manafort’s sexual predilections. His daughters’ emails about leveraging their knowledge about them to get their weddings paid for etc. He seems to be in good company with Trump and Stone. Whether Epstein is another fellow traveler remains a possibility.
Tweet deleted, state bar investigation opened:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/matt-gaetz-under-investigation-by-florida-state-bar-over-michael-cohen-threat
Not sure I understand exactly what the threat is. It’s nasty, to be sure, and maybe false too, but I’m not sure what about the comment constitutes an attempt to influence a witness’s testimony or dissuade them from giving evidence.
Uh…threat to provide information to wife that might be bad for your marriage? Threat to disclose personal information that could change his life status? Of course, if such information does not exist, it is just blowing smoke. But if sender might be expected to have such information…or be able to concoct it in a believable manner…threat exists.