By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
Donald Trump and his personal lawyer may have stepped into serious legal trouble with controversial tweets and remarks this weekend about former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Trump, who continues to ignore his aides’ advice to stop tweeting about the special counsel investigation, acknowledged in a tweet on Saturday that he was aware of allegations that Flynn lied to the FBI. It’s a crime to lie to the FBI. If fact, Flynn pleaded guilty Friday to lying to the FBI about conversations with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition in December 2016.
By acknowledging that he knew about the alleged crime – lying to the FBI – Trump may have bolstered the special counsel’s investigation into whether he obstructed justice by urging then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the Flynn investigation, according to legal analysts.
“It bolsters the intent for committing obstruction,” Barak Cohen, a former federal prosecutor who does white-collar defense work at Perkins Coie law firm, told the Washington Post.
A source close to the White House and the case described the tweet as “a screw-up of historic proportions.”
Trump’s lawyer, John Dowd, signed off on the tweet and then repeated the admission on Sunday, baffling legal observers.
