Donald Trump desperately wants to be thought of as intelligent and competent, but then he starts talking and you quickly realize this is a man who’s all flash and no substance; a moron who pretends to have a clue.
Take, for example, the rambling half-hour interview Trump gave Thursday morning on Fox & Friends. It ranged over a plethora of topics, including the withdrawal of his VA nominee, Michael Cohen, James Comey, the Department of Justice, the Russia investigation, Robert Mueller, and other assorted topics Trump thought it a good idea to pontificate on.
At one point during the Fox interview, Trump referenced the ongoing Russia probe and was asked if he planned to sit down for an interview with Mueller. He responded:
“Well, if I can. The problem is that it’s such a—if you take a look, they’re so conflicted, the people that are doing the investigation. You have 13 people that are Democrats, you have Hillary Clinton people, you have people that worked on Hillary Clinton’s foundation. They’re all—I don’t mean Democrats. I mean, like, the real deal. And then you look at the phony Lisa Page and [Peter] Strzok and the memos back and forth and the F.B.I.—and by the way, you take a poll at the F.B.I. I love the F.B.I.; the F.B.I. loves me. But the top people at the F.B.I., headed by Comey, were crooked.”
The irony of a con man like Donald Trump calling other people “crooked” is enough to make you do a double-take and throw up in your mouth a little bit.
He followed that demented soliloquy with this:
“You look at the corruption at the top of the F.B.I.—it’s a disgrace. And our Justice Department—which I try and stay away from, but at some point I won’t—our Justice Department should be looking at that kind of stuff, not the nonsense of collusion with Russia. There is no collusion with me, and everyone knows it.”
Those two statements gave Special Counsel Robert Mueller exactly what he needs to prove that not only has Trump already obstructed justice, he has plans to do so again. And that’s significant.
In order to be charged with obstruction of justice under federal law, there has to be proof of what’s called “corrupt intent.” In other words, if you just so happen to interfere with an investigation but had no intention of doing so, there’s a chance you won’t be charged, and even if you are, you have a way for your attorney to place doubt in the mind of a jury.
But if there’s corrupt intent — if a prosecutor can prove you meant to hinder an investigation, prosecution, or other legal proceeding — you’ve just handed yourself over on the proverbial silver platter.
On Thursday, on national TV, Trump managed to seal the deal for Mueller’s obstruction of justice case against him. And it’s a safe bet that Trump still doesn’t understand just how badly he screwed himself with that one appearance on his favorite morning show.
Here’s the entire Fox segment that helped seal Trump’s fate: