Feinstein Says Trump Obstruction of Justice Case Developing

(Bloomberg) -- A Senate investigation into connections between Donald Trump's campaign and Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election suggests a potential case of obstruction of justice is developing against the president, Senator Dianne Feinstein said.

“What we're beginning to see is the putting together of a case of obstruction of justice,” Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday on NBC's “Meet the Press” about the committee's probe.

“We see this in the indictments, the four indictments, and pleas that have just taken place, and some of the comments that are being made,” said Feinstein, who's also a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “I see it in the hyper-frenetic attitude of the White House: the comments every day, the continual tweets.”

Feinstein was referring to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates, who face charges including money laundering uncovered by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation; former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos; and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The latter two pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

Trump was unusually active on Twitter over the weekend, assailing former FBI Director James Comey, complaining about why 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton wasn't prosecuted, and highlighting reports that an FBI agent was removed from Mueller's team after sending anti-Trump and pro-Clinton text messages.

On Sunday, the president told his 44 million followers that after Comey's tenure, the FBI's “reputation is in Tatters - worst in History!” Contrary to what Comey testified to Congress, the president also said “I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn. Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie.”

The comment raising the most eyebrows was Trump's on Saturday that “he had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!”

Your Guide to Understanding the Trump-Russia Saga: QuickTake Q&A

The tweet caused a commotion among Democratic lawmakers and others. It showed “knowledge of lawbreaking he concealed -- never before disclosed,” Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, said on Twitter on Saturday.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that Trump's lawyer, John Dowd, had drafted the tweet, citing people familiar with the situation. The missive was sent while Trump was between fund-raising appearances in New York. Dowd later told ABC News that the wording of the message had been “sloppy.”

White House Worries

Feinstein said the most important incident involving Trump was the president's firing in May of Comey, which she believes was “directly because he did not agree to ‘lift the cloud' of the Russia investigation” as he said Trump requested.

“That's obstruction of justice,” Feinstein said.

Feinstein, 84, said her concern about the Trump White House “rises with the day” and hit a tipping point about a month ago. “There is a kind of instability, unpredictability,” she said. “It's one issue after the other.”

In a statement released on Friday, Feinstein called Flynn's guilty plea on Friday regarding his conversations with Russians a “stunning revelation.” 

“This shows a Trump associate negotiating with the Russians against U.S. policy and interests before Donald Trump took office and after it was announced that Russia had interfered in our election,” Feinstein said in the statement.

Not ‘Rogue Agent'

Asked on Sunday on NBC whether Trump is a target of the investigation, Feinstein said she assumes that “many in the White House are under investigation in this” and that she doesn't believe that Flynn “was a rogue agent.”

“I think he had to have been directed,” Feinstein said. “Now whether the special counsel can find that evidence or not, whether we can, I don't know yet. But I see that that's where this is going.”

In a separate “Meet the Press” interview, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine said Mueller's investigation was “making progress.”

Collins, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she didn't know whether collusion had taken place between Russia and the Trump campaign, “but what we do know is there were conversations during the transition period.”

Democracy ‘Attacked'

There's only one president during the transition period and that was President Barack Obama, so those conversations “should not have been taking place, but that does not confirm collusion,” Collins said.

Senator Angus King of Maine said Sunday that the Senate Intelligence Committee is focused more on Russia's actions during 2016 than on Trump and his associates, and is not looking into obstruction of justice.

“The hot political issue of Trump and the Russians and the campaign is obscuring the larger issue, which is: the Russians attacked our democracy, and they're going to do it again,” King, an independent who typically caucuses with Democrats, said on CBS's “Face the Nation.”

In November, officials from Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Twitter Inc. faced hours of questioning from members of Congress -- including the Senate Intelligence Committee -- about how their platforms were used by Russian operatives to manipulate voters in 2016.

--With assistance from Ben Brody

To contact the reporter on this story: Ros Krasny in Washington at rkrasny1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bernard Kohn at bkohn2@bloomberg.net, Mark Niquette, Ros Krasny

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