An obstruction case against President Donald Trump is “virtually inconceivable,” George Washington Law professor Jonathan Turley told Fox News Monday.
“This IG report makes a difficult obstruction claim based on the Comey firing virtually inconceivable,” Turley told Bret Baier on “Special Report.”
“You have the Inspector General saying Comey was insubordinate, that he deviated from policy, that these were serious violations, the FBI director echoed that today. those were all good reasons to fire him. So unless you’re going to make assumptions that Trump acted for every wrong reason instead of the obvious right ones it’s going to be real hard to make out a criminal case.”
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is moving to finalize his report by September 1 on whether Trump obstructed the Russia inquiry, and part of his investigation was focused on whether the president fired the chief investigator, Comey, in order to do so.
But an Inspector General report released last Thursday said Comey was “insubordinate” in handling the probe into former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and that his actions damaged the bureau and the Justice Department’s image of impartiality even though he wasn’t motivated by politics.
Turley, though, said Congress has an oversight duty to look into bias at the FBI.
“The report is heavily laden with very disturbing statements of bias, including from the chief investigator, so the question then is: that wasn’t his mandate, he’s not going to make those assumptions, so where do you go from here? The answer in the Constitution is Congress. Congress has an oversight duty to look into this,” he said.
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