Appearing Friday on the Fox News Channel’s The Ingraham Angle, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo said President Donald Trump “freed” the Department of Justice (DOJ) by firing then-FBI Director James Comey.
A partial transcript is as follows:
LAURA INGRAHAM: I want to begin with this from CNN’s legal analyst Elie Honig.
ELIE HONIG: What I think we should not lose sight of is none of [the DOJ’s inspector general report] is any sort of vindication for Donald Trump. It doesn’t change anything about what Comey was writing about in those memos, which was Donald Trump demanding loyalty of him and Donald Trump trying to get him to shut down the Flynn investigation. Those, I believe, are obstructive acts and today’s findings on Comey have nothing to do with clearing Trump of that.
INGRAHAM: John, how did he turn the IG report, which slammed Comey, short of charging him or recommend charging him. and turn it into, “well, Trump’s not vindicated?”
JOHN YOO: I’m sad to say that after reading the IG report, Trump didn’t obstruct justice, he freed it. Trump freed the Justice Department of a man, a self-righteous crusader, who rejected the results of our constitutional system and democracy — that was President Trump won the 2016 election – and then he decided the basic rules of the Justice Department didn’t apply to him in his crusade to stop President Trump.
We don’t as Justice Department prosecutors or FBI agents willingly share the results of confidential investigations to the New York Times or the press to attack people we don’t like. We keep those things confidential in order to pursue successful investigations.
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