CNN's Jeffrey Toobin: Bombshell NY Times Report On Trump Points To “Obstruction Of Justice”

Toobin: "'Close It Down' Is An Instruction To Stop Investigating President Trump's Campaign"

From the May 16 edition of CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer:

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WOLF BLITZER (HOST): Jeffrey Toobin, you're our senior legal analyst. The third sentence in this article, The New York Times says this; “the existence of Mr. Trump's request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the justice department and FBI investigations into links between Mr. Trump's associates and Russia.” Your reaction to this bombshell report and the White House denial. 

JEFFREY TOOBIN: Three words. Obstruction of justice. Teling the FBI director to close down an investigation of your senior campaign adviser for his activities during your campaign for president, if that's true, that is obstruction of justice. Why do you think Director Comey wrote a memo to the file about it? Because he was so appalled that a president of the United States would behave in this way. Close it down is an instruction to stop investigating President Trump's campaign. Richard Nixon was impeached in 1974 for telling the FBI to stop an investigation of his campaign. That's what Watergate was, and, you know, if Comey was telling the truth in this memo, and obviously there's a dispute about that from the FBI -- from the White House, but if he's telling the truth, I don't know how anyone can see this comment as anything but obstruction of justice. 

Related:

New York Times: Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him To End Flynn Investigation

Previously:

Fox's First Reaction On Bombshell Flynn/Trump New York Times Report Was To Call The Story “Fake News”

When Fox News Said That Public Officials Mishandling Classified Information Was A Big Deal

Fox News Downplayed Trump Revealing Classified Info, Focused On These Other Stories Instead