Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Deadline,” network national affairs analyst John Heilemann said there was a “reasonable chance” if President Donald Trump were to testify to prosecutors from special counsel Robert Muller’s Russian probe he would “couch up” having obstructed justice.
Heilemann said, “One thing, though, you’re Bob Mueller and you know that to prove an obstruction case against the president of the United States, you need to prove corrupt intent. All you lawyers have told me this: Corrupt intent is really important to obstruction of justice. You’ve seen Donald Trump interviews like the one he did with Lester Holt, basically blurt out, ‘Yeah, Russia was on my mind when I fired Comey.’ If I’m Bob Mueller, I want to interview that guy because there is a reasonable chance I can get him to not just perjure himself but to tell the truth. And in the course of telling the truth basically laying bare his own corrupt intent which would actually help you. Rather than making a circumstantial case or a case with witnesses on the president’s intent, you can get him to cough up corrupt intent in a really good cross-examination in the room.”
He added, “He could be the slam dunk witness against himself on obstruction of justice.”
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