Turley on Comey Firing: ‘It Seems to Be a Cover-Up in Search of a Crime’

Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley discussed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s role in appointing a special prosecutor to investigate alleged ties between the Trump 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian government.

According to Turley, the underlying crime isn’t clear given the lack of evidence with the exception of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s indiscretions, which he argued would not warrant special counsel.

Turley described it as a “cover-up in search of a crime.”

“For weeks I’ve questioned the need for special counsel because honestly I still don’t see the underlying crime here,” Turley said. “You know, when we talk about the Russian influence and collusion, there’s not any evidence I’ve seen of collusion but more importantly, no one has articulated a major crime, as opposed to the reporting and registration violations of people like Flynn, which usually wouldn’t warrant a special counsel. But that’s the great mystery here.”

“You know, with Watergate that people have been talking about, there was a serious crime that began that led to the cover-up,” he continued. “Here you seem to have a cover-up without a crime. That’s what’s so bizarre about the conduct of the White House. It seems to be a cover-up in search of a crime. The problem with the special counsel is what will the special counsel investigate? But having said that, after they fired Comey, my view is that it’s changed, that we do need an independent investigation simply because the White House has created a credibility problem. And lots of Americans believe that there is an effort here to obstruct the investigation.

(h/t RCP Video)

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor