Andrew McCabe Stepping Aside Is More Evidence of Obstruction

Now that FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe is stepping aside -- he's taking vacation until he becomes eligible to retire, it's clearer than ever that Trump is continuing to obstruct justice. That is, he continues to impede and undermine the investigation into Trump's and his associates' conduct during the campaign and his presidency. Allegations include collusion with Russia in a conspiracy to sway the 2016 presidential election. Collusion is not a crime.

"There's been no collusion whatsoever!" Trump repeatedly claims, apropos of nothing whatever.

However, conspiracy and obstruction of justice are crimes. Perjury, money laundering, and tax fraud are crimes.

Trump has cottoned on to the fact that maybe he should deny conspiracy, so he's started to say, "There's been no collusion and no conspiracy whatsoever!"

The more fervently and frequently Trump denies something, the more certain we can be that whatever he denies is true.

Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, is on home arrest after surrendering to the FBI and being charged with tax fraud and money laundering. Manafort refuses, so far, to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller. But according to Franklin Foer, who Terry Gross interviewed on NPR and who wrote an article for the March 2018 Atlantic magazine, Manafort's associate, Rick Gates, a man of lesser financial means than Manafort, is cooperating with Mueller. So are Michael Flynn, ex-national security advisor, who admitted to lying to the FBI (which is a felony) about meetings with the Russian ambassador weeks before the election, and George Papadopoulos, who began the Russia inquiry after a night of heavy drinking and some indiscreet gossip, later confessed to lying to the FBI as well.

When Pres. Trump is interviewed by Robert Mueller, which is almost inevitable, despite Trump's attorneys best efforts to avoid such a face-to-face interview, Mueller will know a lot, and Trump won't know what he knows. Trump's habit of telling lies instead of telling the truth could really put him in legal difficulties very quickly once Mueller gets hold of him. If Trump refuses to voluntarily submit to oral testimony, Mueller could subpoena him to testify to a grand jury. A president of the United States taking the Fifth to avoid self-incrimination would be a weird sight. If he talks, and he loves to talk, he'll get in trouble almost immediately. His lawyers know that. Trump doesn't.