Republicans who worked for presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and George H.W. Bush say the Mueller report contains evidence that Trump broke the law.
A video released Thursday from a Republican group features three high-profile former federal prosecutors laying out the case that Trump committed criminal acts.
"Were the president anyone other than the president, he would have been subject to indictment," Paul Rosenzweig, George W. Bush's deputy assistant secretary of Homeland Security, says in the video created by Republicans for the Rule of Law and Protect Democracy.
Rosenzweig is joined in the video by Jeffery Harris, Reagan's deputy associate attorney general, and Donald Ayer, George H.W. Bush's deputy attorney general. The three men, still Republicans, say the Mueller report lays out clear and compelling evidence that Trump was not only dishonest, but obstructed justice.
"In the Mueller report, there is a damning case of obstruction of justice by the president," Ayer said, noting that he came to the conclusion after reading the report.
"As a former prosecutor, I did not think it was even a close prosecutorial call as to whether the president obstructed justice," Harris said.
The prosecutors say that Trump firing FBI Director James Comey with the intention of stopping any investigation into his own campaign's interaction with Russians, as well as Trump dangling pardons before former campaign aides such as Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, are clearly obstruction.
Another example given is that Trump ordered his White House counsel, Don McGahn, to fire Mueller, and then ordered McGahn not only to lie about it, but to create a false paper trail saying Trump never ordered him to do so.
"Asking a witness to lie, to create a false record, is a classic case of obstruction of justice," Rosenzweig said.
While the group calls out Trump for his criminal conduct, they also chastise Republicans in Congress for their cowardice in not standing up to Trump.
"One of the most disturbing things to me is the conduct of Republicans in the Senate and in the House," Ayer said. "These are actually smart people. They know that there is a damning case in the Mueller report of obstruction of justice by the president, and they are acting like there's not. And that's just flatly dishonest."
As if to prove Ayer correct, after Mueller spoke on Wednesday and explicitly said Trump is not innocent of crimes, Republicans in Congress reacted dishonestly, saying it was time to "move on" from holding Trump accountable.
Trump's criminal activity is clear, which is why 50 members of Congress are calling to begin an impeachment inquiry into his conduct. And even Republicans are beginning to admit it.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
