Two former White House ethics lawyers are warning that President Trump’s recent tweets about former FBI Director James Comey, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and outgoing FBI general counsel James Baker may violate witness protection statutes and constitute intimidation.
According to Newsweek, Norm Eisen, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and special assistant for ethics and government reform for former President Obama. and Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota Law School professor and former chief ethics lawyer for the George W. Bush administration, both agreed that Trump’s recent tweets could put the President at risk.
Trump has sent out a series of tweets attacking the three FBI figures in recent days:
How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin’ James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife’s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017
Wow, “FBI lawyer James Baker reassigned,” according to @FoxNews.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017
.@FoxNews-FBI’s Andrew McCabe, “in addition to his wife getting all of this money from M (Clinton Puppet), he was using, allegedly, his FBI Official Email Account to promote her campaign. You obviously cannot do this. These were the people who were investigating Hillary Clinton.”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 24, 2017
These tweets may well be entered into evidence soon in a potential witness tampering case against the President by Robert Mueller according to the ethics attorneys.
Normally, someone being investigated for obstruction of justice who intimidates and threatens three key witnesses against him (here Comey, McCabe and Baker) risks additional witness tampering charges. https://t.co/oLgBbKdus0
— Norm Eisen (@NormEisen) December 24, 2017
Using Twitter on Christmas Eve to intimidate a witness (McCabe) in a criminal investigation is not a very Christian way to celebrate the holiday. But it does make Mr. Mueller’s job easier and that’s a nice thing to do. Merry Christmas!
— Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) December 24, 2017
The federal law that covers witness intimidation or tampering says that
“whoever knowingly uses intimidation, threatens or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so” in order to “influence, delay or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding” or “cause or induce any person to withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document or other object, from an official proceeding” is subject to prosecution.
The bigger question is whether three FBI officials with actual knowledge of law and government ethics rules would actually be intimidated by the tweets of an unhinged and desperate president who is not smart enough to avoid falling into rage-fueled rants that could lead to his own demise in office.
