Those obstruction of justice charges against Donald Trump just got a whole lot stronger

| 8:08 pm EDT July 20, 2018
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It’s long been clear that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been building an obstruction of justice case against Donald Trump, along with the various other criminal charges he’s pursuing against Trump. Much of Trump’s obstructive behavior has taken place in plain sight, but legal experts tell Palmer Report that the key to proving obstruction is centered around intent. In that regard, the obstruction charges against Trump just got a whole lot stronger.

While you and I know that Donald Trump rather obviously fired Sally Yates and James Comey in an attempt at fending off the Trump-Russia investigation, meeting the legal threshold of proof requires eliminating reasonable doubt. Trump could argue that he fired these people for what he perceived as general incompetence. What matters here, legally speaking, is whether it can be demonstrated that Trump was specifically motivated to fire them because he feared the Russia investigation.

This was always going to come down to whatever specific behind-the-scenes evidence Robert Mueller has gotten his hands on. That’s why this week has been so important. After Trump’s treasonous performance at his press conference with Vladimir Putin on Monday, someone in the federal government got spooked and decided to squeal to the New York Times about something that happened a year and a half ago. It turns out the U.S. intel community informed Trump in early January of 2017 that Vladimir Putin had personally ordered the Russian attack on the 2016 U.S. election.

So now we know that Donald Trump has known for as long as he’s been in office that Vladimir Putin was behind the whole thing. Of course we have little doubt that Trump and Putin were directly conspiring during the election, but again, this all comes down to what can be proved. Now it’s been proven that Trump knew it was Putin, which means Trump was lying all those times he claimed it wasn’t Putin, or that it wasn’t Russia. This serves to demonstrate bad faith intent on Trump’s part, which helps bolster the obstruction charges against him. This is a historically bad week for America, but it’s also Trump’s worst week ever.