Ex-Watergate prosecutor on Trump: I can make a case for obstruction of justice

A former Watergate prosecutor said Thursday she believes there is enough evidence to bring an obstruction-of-justice case against President Trump over his firing of FBI Director James Comey last year.

Jill Wine-Banks told MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes” that she believes she could bring a successful case against Trump, adding that there is “so much evidence” that Trump meant to obstruct the investigation into possible collusion between his campaign and Russia by firing Comey.

“I was asked in May whether I thought I could make an obstruction case, I said ‘I thought I could’ … I know I can,” she told MSNBC.

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“There is so much evidence now, and as was said, it’s not one piece, it’s the total picture. The pieces of the puzzle are fitting together and they spell obstruction,” Wine-Banks said.

“You don’t need an underlying crime for the crime of obstruction,” she added. “To impede an investigation, whether you were part of the original crime or not, you have committed a separate crime: Obstruction of justice.”

Wine-Banks has also pointed to Trump and other Republicans’ frequent attacks on FBI agents’ integrity as “witness intimidation.”

“It is also a possible obstruction of justice, witness intimidation, and it’s obstructing justice by saying to agents, ‘You better not dig too deep, you better not find anything because I will attack you,'” she said in December.

“And this is the president of the United States, it is congressmen who have a national audience and can make people’s lives miserable,” she said.

The former Watergate investigator is a frequent critic of Trump and his administration’s handling of the Russia probe. Last July, she called Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner’s explanations about his meetings with Russian nationals during the presidential race “utterly ridiculous” in another MSNBC appearance.

“He clearly has a very good lawyer, but as soon as you start to probe it it falls apart,” she said at the time. “The explanations that are offered seem blatantly ridiculous.”