In the age of Donald Trump, conservative jurists, legal theorists, and political commentators have adopted a very, very narrow definition of what constitutes “obstruction of justice.” That’s because the current Republican president of the United States’ conduct—irrespective of what did or did not happen during the campaign—clearly violates the spirt of the “obstruction” law, if not (yet) the letter. The president can fire who he wants; he can bully and cajole, order and insinuate, their thinking goes, but, throughout, the one thing these definitional constrictionists have agreed upon as legally problematic—and often point to as a counterexample of what would constitute obstruction of justice—is if the president ordered a witness to lie to investigators. A New York Times report Wednesday doesn’t go that far, but it does reveal that President Trump discussed with witnesses after the fact their testimony to investigators, which has the president again tiptoeing along a very slippery legal slope.
from Stories from Slate http://ift.tt/2G4VKKp
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