Special Counsel Robert Mueller continues to tighten the screws on President Donald Trump, and Trump’s Twitter feed could wind up coming back to bite him. In fact, one of Trump’s lawyers is preemptively trying to get out in front of something dumb the President tweeted, as many people started pointing out it could amount to an admission of obstruction of justice.
John Dowd, Trump’s personal lawyer, has told several news outlets, including CNN and NBC, that he authored the following tweet about the dismissal of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, which was posted on the President’s personal Twitter account:
I 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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017
The tweet reads:
“I 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!”
The tweet could have wound up being used as damning evidence about whether or not Trump committed obstruction of justice. If Trump knew Flynn had lied to the FBI, and still asked then FBI directer Jim Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn, as Comey has stated, then an attempt to obstruct justice seems fairly obvious.
However, if Dowd takes the blame for the message, it may not follow quite as cleanly. He claims to have written the tweet, and White House social media director Dan Scavino posted it online.
Naturally, he refused to answer any questions on whether or not President Trump reviewed the tweet before it was posted.
The Trump team was warned repeatedly about signing Michael Flynn on board, including former President Barack Obama and former Attorney General Sally Yates. Yates was fired by Trump for refusing to enforce the “Muslim Ban” from Trump’s early days in office.
Watch Yates discussing Michael Flynn below. Maybe Team Trump should have listened to someone, for once.
Featured image via Flickr user Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0.
