Former Attorney General Eric Holder believes special counsel Robert Mueller already has plans to charge President Donald Trump with obstructing justice.
Mueller is holding back on charging Trump until he can make sure he has the president dead-to-rights, Holder, who served under former President Barack Obama, said Friday night on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.” He has made similar arguments in the past regarding Trump’s behavior.
“I’ve known Bob Mueller for 20, 30 years; my guess is he’s just trying to make the case as good as he possibly can. So, I think that we have to be patient in that regard,” Holder said. He has long-suggested that Trump should be held criminally liable for ousting former FBI Director James Comey during the midst of an investigation into Russian meddling.
Some of Trump’s supporters argue that the U.S. Constitution gives the president authority to fire the FBI director at any time and for any reason.
“You cannot charge a president with obstruction of justice for exercising his constitutional power to fire Comey and his constitutional authority to tell the Justice Department who to investigate, who not to investigate,” Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz said last year.
Trump has recently chided Attorney General Jeff Sessions for going out of his way to ensure the investigation into collusion lingered in the public. The president even suggested at one time that Holder defended Obama from accusations of wrong-doing.
Holder pushed back against Trump’s characterization of his role as AG. “The difference between me and Jeff Sessions is that I had a president I didn’t have to protect,” he told Maher, adding that Sessions should consider stepping down to avoid taking any more barbs from his boss.
“At some point, though, you would hope that you would have the intestinal fortitude or the pride to simply say, you know, ‘I wanted this job all my life, but it’s not worth it, and I’m not going to take that kind of abuse, and I’m simply going to tell you, you know, go screw yourself, and I’m out,'” Holder said.
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