impeachment. let s take a look at it. here s trump ally newt gingrich defending the president friday, saying the mere fact that he is president means that he cannot obstruct justice. this is different than saying he can t be indicted. let s see what he says, how he says it. technically, the president of the united states cannot obstruct justice. the president of the united states is the chief executive officer of the united states. he wants to fire the fbi director. all he s got to do is fire him. well, back in 1998, when newt gingrich voted to impeach president bill clinton, partly on charges of obstruction of justice, he had a very different take on the issue. let s watch. what you have lived through for 2 1/2 long years is the most systemic, deliberate obstruction of justice cover-up and effort to avoid the truth we have ever seen in american history. and the time has come to say to the democrats and to say to the president, quit undermining the law in the united states. y
gingrich who is a close trump ally, spoke on friday at the national press club. let s run a clip of what he said. the president of the united states cannot obstruct justice. the president of the united states is the chief executive office of the united states. if he wants to fire the fbi director all he has to do is fire him. we re going to ignore for the sake of our conversation that when gingrich was speaker of the house he voted to impeach president clinton for obstruction of justice. let s move on to today, is it the position of the trump legal team that the president of the united states cannot obstruct justice because he s the executive, he can fire anyone in the executive branch under the executive branch? look, you re talking about what s called the constitutional threshold question, and that is, can a president who has a constitutional authority take a certain action, then be prosecuted for taking the action, and in this particular case you had a scenario where the presi
i ve heard from a lot of legal minds saying the president cannot obstruct justice. he could fire whoever he wants to fire because he is the executive of the executive branch. so, what do you make of that? i mean, this idea of the investigation expanding into obstruction of justice, why would it go there if obstruction of justice really can t be found for the president? yeah, i think that s part of one of the lines of defense that the president s boosters are trying to put out there in the press. i think it s simply unfounded. the fact that the president has the power under his constitutional authority to fire an executive branch official doesn t mean that he could fire the official without regard to the other requirements of law, including criminal law. the most obvious example would be if the president had been bribed to fire the fbi director. there s really no doubt that he would be subject to criminal
people. that statement again was in response to the washington post. so let me be clear. the washington post story was based on five anonymous sources, doesn t even identify the agency. so that s it. simple explanation. okay, i mean, i don t think it s simple but i don t think we re getting anywhere. let me move on. former house speaker newt gingrich a close trump ally spoke on friday at the national press club. let s run a clip of what he said. the president of the united states cannot obstruct justice. the president of the united states is the chief executive office of the you stunited stat. if he wants to fire the fbi director all he has to do is fire him. we ll ignore when gingrich was spooerker of the house he voteded to impeach president clinton for obstruction of justice. let s move on to today, is it the position of the trump legal team that the president of the united states cannot obstruct justice because he s the executive, he can fire anyone in the executive branc
that we ve never been through before. partly because it s not just about the legal ramifications or even the constitutional ones. it s also about the comportment, emotional stability of the president of the united states which many people in congress are talking about in very, very upset ways. they ve never seen a president who behaves like this. and they question his emotional stability and his temperament and whether he s really suited or fit for the presidency. and that s an underlying element of what we re going through as we approach what may well be a constitutional crisis. i ve been wanting to get your comment on this. newt gingrich saying technically the president of the united states cannot obstruct justice. what do you think? that s it s nonsense because the president of the united states in the case of richard nixon was there were articles of impeachment passed by the house judiciary committee accusing him of just that,