Journalist Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame said Tuesday the FBI raid on President Donald Trump’s lawyer was designed for “scaring the hell out of the president.”
As the Washington Examiner notes, Bernstein told CNN that Trump’s angry reaction to the FBI’s search of attorney Michael Cohen’s residence, office and hotel room indicates that Trump is worried because the president “knows better than anyone what he and his lawyer have discussed.”
Trump was furious over the FBI visitation, calling it “an attack on our country.”
“This investigation is closing in on him and the prosecutors in New York now have his lawyer’s computers and what is on them,” Bernstein said. “That is a big fact here.”
Bernstein’s hypothesis was representative of most of the guessing that followed the enigmatic decision by the FBI to ferret through Cohen’s documents, as it is unclear what it had to do with the parameters of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian collusion.
But Bernstein begged to differ, saying that evidence of any “conspiracy between the president and his lawyer” would be useful to Mueller.
The agents reportedly were looking for files relating to ongoing questions about Trump’s relationship with porn star Stormy Daniels and why Cohen apparently paid her $130,000 to keep silent about an alleged affair.
Bernstein called Trump a “lawless president” and suggested a looming “constitutional crisis” based on a report that Trump was considering firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
“We have a president of the United States willing to risk a constitutional crisis for this nation so he can avoid legitimate investigation and letting the facts roll out the way they ought to,” Bernstein said.