Sen. Richard Blumenthal claimed Monday that President Donald Trump has shown evidence of obstruction of justice as well as evidence of corrupt intent and accused Trump of using words of “a criminal defendant who has something to hide.”
Watch:
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough asked Blumenthal to break down the argument for Trump’s obstruction of justice.
“Well, if you take the president’s own statement, his tweet that he knew Michael Flynn was lying when he fired him,” Blumenthal stated, “which means that he knew Michael Flynn had committed a felony when he asked Comey to stop the investigation of him, and when he fired Comey when he refused to do it.”
The Connecticut senator continued, “And when he fired Sally Yates and when he called Michael Flynn in April to tell him to stay strong, all of these acts are to impede and obstruct justice, and then when you take the corrupt intent, which is the second element, just his tweet yesterday, his attack on the FBI is evidence of corrupt intent.”
“It was stunning. These words are of a criminal defendant who has something to hide, the president of the United States, and to say that he is somehow above the law and cannot commit obstruction of justice simply because he is the president of the United States is absolutely absurd,” Blumenthal stated.
Michael Flynn, the former national security advisor for the president until he was fired for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about his connections to Russia, has recently pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
The president tweeted this on Saturday:
I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017