this witch-hunt that he has slammed for months now and perhaps there s a thought process going on in rosenstein s mind of maybe i need to do something to get a little bit of job security and certainly putting out this the statement might help allay some fears that the white house on the part of the president that rosenstein is a political figure championing this witch-hunt against him. very interesting. you know, rebecca, the former speaker of the house, newt gingrich, he s been outspoken in his defense of the president throughout all of this period. i want you to listen to what he said this morning. the president of the united states cannot obstruct justice. the.of the united states is the chief executive officer of the united states. if he wants to fire the nbc director, all he s got to do is spitfire him. he was the speaker of the house when bill clinton was president of the united states, and he was accused of obstructing justice, and he was eventually impeached by the house
the reason we are here and talking about this is because he made comments to lester holt in that interview. his tweets in which he said that he fired comey because of the russia investigation. if he hadn t said that, by the way, we wouldn t likely be here by the way. some supporters like newt gingrich, former speaker of the house, they are supporting the president, defending the president and making very, very strong statements. listen to this. president of the united states cannot obstruct justice. president of the united states is the chief executive officer of the united states. if he wants to fire the fbi director, all he has to do is fire him. as i remember because i was white house correspondent for cnn. when bill clinton was president of the united states, he was accused of obstruction of justice. speaker of the house was newt gingrich leading the chart. exactly. this is not what he heed? 1998. i think we saw from newt that he will defend anything donald trump does or sa
technically, president of the united states cannot obstruct justice. the president of the united states is the chief executive officer of the united states. if he wants to fire the fbi director, all he has to do is fire him. you might not like it, but does newt have a point? first of all, let me be clear, investigations determine whether there has been an obstruction of justice. i gave the definition of it and it can be quite simple. i disagree with the speaker. i served when speaker gingrich was in, and he can express his views, but the issue as it was in the nixon watergate proceedings was not the breakin. it was the coverup. it is not the question of whether the president can or did fire one of his employees. it is the engagement to stop an investigation or to impede it and that is asking director comey as he s evidenced under oath which of course further investigation will be illuminate to, can you lay off of this
i don t want to try to be a newt translator here. it might have been he was talking about criminal obstruction of justice versus impeachment which is a political process and it s very hard to charge the president with a crime. if muler were to find anything troubling about the president himself, it might be he takes that to the houpgs, to tse of representatives, to the senate, and do with this as you want. that s way too fair to newt. is newt gingrich right when he says the president of the united states cannot obstruct justice, that the president of the united states is the chief executive officer of the united states and if he wants to fire the fbi director all he s got to do is fire him. the latter part is absolutely true. he can fire the fbi director for no reason at all, but the part where he says the president cannot obstruct justice. is that true? that s incorrect, especially based on that logic. yes, it s lawful.
technically the president of the united states cannot obstruct justice. but then there s this. 1998 when then speaker gingrich voted to impeach bill clinton, the articles of impeachment president clinton had prevented, obstructed and impeded the investigation. here is republican bob english speaking in 1998. he wrote the articles of impeachment against president clinton. perjury is a felony. that s what he s accused of. it undermines the whole basis of our legal system. obstruction of justice is what he s accused of. now, if the man had discretion, he would resign. if he had a shred of dignity or honor, he would resign today. with me former republican congressman bob english and the headline of his op-ed in the washington post, i helped draft clinton impeachment articles against trump are far more