We have been told Donald Trump’s tweets are official statements from the president. They could also be the building blocks of an obstruction of justice case. Trump’s twitter feed has caught the eye of Robert Mueller. The New York Times reports:
“The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, is scrutinizing tweets and negative statements from the president about Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, according to three people briefed on the matter.
Several of the remarks came as Mr. Trump was also privately pressuring the men — both key witnesses in the inquiry — about the investigation, and Mr. Mueller is examining whether the actions add up to attempts to obstruct the investigation by both intimidating witnesses and pressuring senior law enforcement officials to tamp down the inquiry.”
Privately, some Trump lawyers have expressed concern that Mueller will stitch together several episodes, encounters and pieces of evidence, like tweets, to build a case that Trump embarked on a broad effort to interfere with the investigation, NYT reports. https://t.co/kxeWA4bLyS
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 26, 2018
Quartz has put together a list of tweets “that could be clues for Mueller.”
Today on MSNBC Former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks said she has long thought Trump’s Twitter account has held a lot of clues:
“It establishes a pattern of behavior and it shows what his intent really is. So it will be very helpful to see that as part of the evidence against the president. I have been saying for more than a year that the case for obstruction is in plain sight and part of it is that he talks to the public and he talks through Twitter and that is the same as if he approached someone in private. He’s sending a message to all these people, do what I want you to do or else. He could say that in a one-on-one meeting or he could say it through his twitter account, both of which amount to obstruction of justice and the president should be held accountable.”
Will this be death by a thousand tweets? https://t.co/DlqxNhbs3T
— Chris Matthews (@HardballChris) July 26, 2018
When I think back to how roundly I was criticized for saying that Trump's Twitter feed contained evidence of criminal conduct, I have to calm myself. *Anyone* who's worked in the criminal justice system knows Trump was creating *serious* inculpatory evidence in the public sphere. https://t.co/fWxOHWlBaR
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) July 26, 2018
Former federal prosecutor to me, just now: "Between the Lester Holt interview and the tweets, Trump puts them on the 5 yard line," on making an obstruction of justice case. https://t.co/VBEng4x3U7
— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) July 26, 2018