The talk about violating the emoluments clause never struck me as something that could ever really get anywhere because it was too arcane and complex for the average person to easily understand. But Obstruction Of Justice in a situation like this is very easy to follow.
First, here's an excerpt from an article that talks about the criminal standards for obstruction of justice:
https://www.lawfareblog.com/was-firing- ... on-justiceThe statutory language is broad: it covers any attempt, even unsuccessful, to “influence, obstruct, or impede” the administration of the law in a pending proceeding. As the Department of Justice U.S. Attorneys’ Manual explains, the crime is found on proof of three elements: “(1) there was a proceeding pending before a department or agency of the United States; (2) the defendant knew of or had a reasonably founded belief that the proceeding was pending; and (3) the defendant corruptly endeavored to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which the proceeding was pending.”
As applied to the President and his staff, the first two elements appear to be a slam dunk. First, courts have given “proceeding” a broad definition. As the DOJ Manual notes, “the Sixth Circuit held that the term ‘proceeding’ is ‘of broad scope, encompassing both the investigative and adjudicative functions of a department or agency.’” The Russia investigation pretty clearly counts. Second, Comey himself had recently confirmed that the investigation was ongoing—in extremely public and publicized congressional hearings. So no relevant actor could claim he did not know or “have a reasonably founded belief” that the investigation was ongoing.
The questions here surround the third element. One must not merely “influence, obstruct, or impede” but also do so corruptly. Under § 1515(b), a corrupt state of mind requires intent: “acting with an improper purpose.” While the President routinely influences federal law enforcement at a high level—including prioritizing certain categories of crimes or appointing officials based on certain expertise that is bound to influence the Bureau’s work—those contacts would not be considered obstruction because in those scenarios, the President is acting with a proper purpose, his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
Ultimately the answer goes to the motives: Did the President or Attorney General intend for Comey’s firing to “influence, obstruct, or impede” the Russia investigation? Even if they had other reasons or goals—including perfectly lawful ones, such as concerns about the public’s perception of the FBI and the Director—if obstructing or impeding the Russia investigation was a goal, that would constitute obstruction of justice. Therefore, inquiries as to whether Trump’s conduct amount to obstruction will center on his motives.
By late afternoon yesterday, the lie that the White House had been spinning all day, that the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had been the one recommending Comey's firing and that Trump had merely accepted his recommendation had completely fell apart, after Rosenstein threatened to resign if that cover story wasn't withdrawn.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ey/526173/At a packed White House briefing Wednesday afternoon White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered some new explanations and some more detailed ones for how Trump reached his decision. The new narrative helps explain the president’s decision better, but also raises new and troubling questions.
Sanders, filling in for Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who is fulfilling Navy Reserve duties, said that Trump had in fact lost confidence in Comey over a period of time, a gradual erosion. She denied a New York Times report that Trump had asked the Justice Department to concoct a rationale for firing Comey, and said he had not requested that Rosenstein write his memo.
“No, the president had lost … confidence in Director Comey and frankly he’d been considering letting Director Comey go since the day he was elected,” Sanders said.
Yet moments later Sanders suggested that Trump had in fact asked for the memo. Rosenstein and Sessions were at the White House on Monday discussing an unrelated matter, she said, when Rosenstein asked to speak with Trump about Comey. He then laid out his concerns, and the president asked him to put them in writing. After receiving the memo the following day, on Tuesday, Trump decided to fire Comey.
Here's an excerpt from a much longer WaPo article that helps clear some of this up:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... 06dafec296Every time FBI Director James B. Comey appeared in public, an ever-watchful President Trump grew increasingly agitated that the topic was the one that he was most desperate to avoid: Russia.
Trump had long questioned Comey’s loyalty and judgment, and was infuriated by what he viewed as the director’s lack of action in recent weeks on leaks from within the federal government. By last weekend, he had made up his mind: Comey had to go.
At his golf course in Bedminster, N.J., Trump groused over Comey’s latest congressional testimony, which he thought was “strange,” and grew impatient with what he viewed as his sanctimony, according to White House officials. Comey, Trump figured, was using the Russia probe to become a martyr.
Back at work Monday morning in Washington, Trump told Vice President Pence and several senior aides — Reince Priebus, Stephen K. Bannon and Donald McGahn, among others — that he was ready to move on Comey. First, though, he wanted to talk with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his trusted confidant, and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, to whom Comey reported directly. Trump summoned the two of them to the White House for a meeting, according to a person close to the White House.
The president already had decided to fire Comey, according to this person. But in the meeting, several White House officials said Trump gave Sessions and Rosenstein a directive: to explain in writing the case against Comey.
The pair quickly fulfilled the boss’s orders, and the next day Trump fired Comey — a breathtaking move that thrust a White House already accustomed to chaos into a new level of tumult, one that has legal as well as political consequences.
Rosenstein threatened to resign after the narrative emerging from the White House on Tuesday evening cast him as a prime mover of the decision to fire Comey and that the president acted only on his recommendation, said the person close to the White House, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Justice Department officials declined to comment.
The stated rationale for Comey’s firing delivered Wednesday by principal deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was that he had committed “atrocities” in overseeing the FBI’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state, hurting morale in the bureau and compromising public trust.
“He wasn’t doing a good job,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “Very simple. He wasn’t doing a good job.”
But the private accounts of more than 30 officials at the White House, the Justice Department, the FBI and on Capitol Hill, as well as Trump confidants and other senior Republicans, paint a conflicting narrative centered on the president’s brewing personal animus toward Comey.
Trump was angry that Comey would not support his baseless claim that President Barack Obama had his campaign offices wiretapped. Trump was frustrated when Comey revealed in Senate testimony the breadth of the counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s effort to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And he fumed that Comey was giving too much attention to the Russia probe and not enough to investigating leaks to journalists.
Here's another critically important piece to drop into the timeline of the Comey firing:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... ar-BBAZ6m1Days Before He Was Fired, Comey Asked for Money for Russia Investigation
WASHINGTON — Days before he was fired, James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, asked the Justice Department for a significant increase in resources for the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election, according to three congressional officials who were briefed on his request.
Mr. Comey asked for the resources last week from Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who also wrote the Justice Department’s memo that was used to justify the firing of Mr. Comey this week, the officials said.
Mr. Comey then briefed members of Congress on the meeting in recent days, telling them about his meeting with Mr. Rosenstein, who is the most senior law enforcement official supervising the Russia investigation. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself because of his close ties to the Trump campaign and his undisclosed meetings with the Russian ambassador.
The timing of Mr. Comey’s request is not clear-cut evidence that his firing was related to the Russia investigation. But it is certain to fuel bipartisan criticism that President Trump appeared to be meddling in an investigation that had the potential to damage his presidency.
The F.B.I. declined to comment. But Sarah Isgur Flores, the Justice Department spokeswoman, said “the idea that he asked for more funding” for the Russia investigation was “totally false.” She did not elaborate.[So, given the track record here, which more likely? That a Trump spokes shill at the DOJ is lying, or that Comey lied when he briefed Congress?]
In his briefing with members of Congress, Mr. Comey said he had been frustrated with the amount of resources being dedicated to the Russia investigation, according to two of the officials. Until two weeks ago, when Mr. Rosenstein took over as deputy attorney general, the investigation was being overseen by Dana Boente, who was acting as the deputy and is now the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
So here's what we have:
Trump has been pissed off with Comey for his focus on the Russiagate investigation for a long time. Then Comey goes to his superior at the DOJ and asks for more resources to further expand and ramp up the investigation.
Then Trump decides to fire Comey and summons the Deputy AG and the Attorney General, (who shouldn't even have been involved in the process since he had supposedly recused himself because of his own lying about communications with Russian officials) to the White House to instruct them to write up a rationale for his dismissal. Then Trump fires Comey. (And then of course Trump sends all his minions out to lie about how this process unfolded.)
The $64,000 question here, is whether or not Trump was aware of the fact that Comey was seeking to ramp up and expand the investigation into his ties (and the ties of others close to him) to Russia prior to deciding to fire him. If so, given the timeline and Trump's record of already being furious about the investigation, any rational, objective person would have to conclude that Comey's intent to expand the investigation was the immediate proximate cause for his dismissal, and that would be a clear cut case of Obstruction of Justice...