Dispatch January 18, 2019

Trump’s Long Pattern of Obstruction


The report that Donald Trump personally directed his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about efforts to develop Trump Tower Moscow during the 2016 campaign is the clearest evidence yet that the president obstructed justice to cover up the evidence of his collusion with Russia.

It’s not just us saying that. William Barr, Trump’s own nominee for Attorney General, confirmed to Senator Amy Klobuchar in his confirmation hearings earlier this week that “a president persuading a person to commit perjury would be obstruction.”

Then there are the articles of impeachment against Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, both of whom were accused of illegally directing others to lie to investigators on their behalf.

Of course, this just adds to a long list of examples of the president obstructing justice, including:

There is no question that Trump obstructed justice. It’s time for the American public to learn just how deep the wrongdoing he has tried to cover up truly goes—and whether he’s once again coordinating his illegal behavior with Putin and the Kremlin.