Newt Gingrich screws up and admits Donald Trump is guilty of a crime
Newt Gingrich has been strangely loyal to Donald Trump’s foray in politics over the past year, despite seemingly not getting a thing out of it. Gingrich is also trying to promote his new book about Trump, which means he needs to be talking about Trump at all times. That may be what led Gingrich to screw up today and admit that Donald Trump committed a crime.
Donald Trump admitted today via Twitter that he never did secretly tape his conversations with FBI Director James Comey, as he had previously accused himself of having done: “With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea whether there are “tapes” or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings” (link). That was bad enough on his part. But then Newt Gingrich went and made it worse.
Gingrich told the Associated Press that “I think he was, in his way, instinctively trying to rattle Comey … He’s not a professional politician. He doesn’t come back and think about Nixon and Watergate. His instinct is: ‘I’ll outbluff you.'” (link). That’s more than a little bit of problem, because Gingrich just admitted that Trump was specifically trying to alter former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before Congress.
It’s bad enough for Donald Trump that he’s admitting he lied about the existence of any such tapes. It’s far worse for Trump that Newt Gingrich is admitting Trump was specifically trying rattle Comey. That meets the legal definition of witness tampering. With Gingrich being a confidant of Trump, Gingrich shouldn’t be surprised if he ends up getting a call from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, asking him to reveal under oath whether or not Trump admitted this crime to him.
