President's Lawyer Says "He Is Above The Law"

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Dowd has shot down any speculation that his client obstructed justice, saying Trump is president and therefore above the law.

The “President cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution’s Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case,” Dowd told Axios in an interview published Monday.

That's an interesting contention.  We'll see if it stands up in a court of law.

Apparently Trump picks his lawyers the same way he picks Cabinet secretaries: loyalty over competence.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2017/Senate/Maps/Dec05.html#item-6

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Donald Trump's personal lawyer, John Dowd, has asserted that a president can never obstruct justice by definition. Louis XIV of France had the same view, which he summed up by l'état, c'est moi. That didn't work out so well for his relatives, one or two of whom lost their heads over the matter, but maybe it will work out better for Trump. One potential problem for Trump, however, is that one of the articles of impeachment drawn up by the House Judiciary Committee against Richard Nixon charged him with obstruction of justice, so there is precedent for it.

Of course, that was a long time ago. What about more recent cases? Well, in 1999, a U.S. senator laid out a very impassioned case for impeaching Bill Clinton for obstructing justice. The Congressional Record documents him as saying: "The facts are disturbing and compelling on the President's intent to obstruct justice." Who was this senator? None other than Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, currently the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. Sessions wasn't alone, either. More than 40 current Republican members of Congress voted for the impeachment or conviction of Clinton for obstruction of justice. One of them was Mitch McConnell (R-KY), now Senate majority leader, who then said: "I am completely and utterly perplexed by those who argue that perjury and obstruction of justice are not high crimes and misdemeanors." In short, there are many statements by Republicans still in Congress stating unequivocally that obstruction of justice fits the Constitution's definition of the high crimes and misdemeanors required to impeach a president. If the Democrats take back the House in 2018, expect many of them to begin quoting their Republican colleagues on the subject. (V)

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.