Breaking: Trump Suborned Perjury According To Buzzfeed Report

Ken AshfordBreaking News, Courts/Law, L'Affaire Russe, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

A bombshell from Buzzfeed, which, if true, is grounds for impeachment:

President Donald Trump directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter.

Trump also supported a plan, set up by Cohen, to visit Russia during the presidential campaign, in order to personally meet President Vladimir Putin and jump-start the tower negotiations. “Make it happen,” the sources said Trump told Cohen.

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[T]wo sources have told BuzzFeed News that Cohen also told the special counsel that after the election, the president personally instructed him to lie — by claiming that negotiations ended months earlier than they actually did — in order to obscure Trump’s involvement.

The special counsel’s office learned about Trump’s directive for Cohen to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents. Cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office.

This revelation is not the first evidence to suggest the president may have attempted to obstruct the FBI and special counsel investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

But Cohen’s testimony marks a significant new frontier: It is the first known example of Trump explicitly telling a subordinate to lie directly about his own dealings with Russia

Interestingly, the Senate Judiciary Committee drilled down on this point with Barr in his confirmation hearing on Tuesday. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar tackled it first, asking Barr, “You wrote on page one that a president persuading a person to commit perjury would be obstruction, is that right?”

Barr replied, “Yes.” He then clarified that “any person” who persuades someone else to commit perjury would be guilty of obstruction.

Klobuchar continued, “you also said that the president or any person convincing a witness to change testimony would be obstruction, is that right?”

“Yes,” the nominee affirmed.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the committee chairman, later returned to this point, asking, “if there was some reason to believe that the president tried to coach somebody not to testify or testify falsely, that could be obstruction of justice?”

Barr again replied: “Yes.”

“So, if there’s some evidence that the president tried to conceal evidence, that would be obstruction of justice, potentially, right?”

“Right,” Barr agreed.