- Special counsel Robert Mueller has requested documents from the DOJ related to the firing of former FBI Director James Comey and the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
- The documents could help Mueller determine whether President Donald Trump tried to obstruct justice when he fired Comey in May.
- Comey was leading the FBI's investigation into Russia's election interference and whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow during the election.
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Mueller just requested new documents from the DOJ that could spell trouble for Trump and Sessions
Robert Mueller has requested documents from the DOJ related to the firing of former FBI Director James Comey and the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
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Special counsel Robert Mueller has asked the Justice Department to hand over thousands of documents related to the firing of FBI Director James Comey, including any communications between the White House and the DOJ around the time that Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the probe into Russia's election interference.
ABC News reported late Sunday that the document request came amid Mueller's continuing examination of whether Trump sought to obstruct justice when he fired Comey, who was leading the FBI investigation into potential collusion between Trump's campaign team and Russia.
The request for emails between the White House and the DOJ related to Sessions' recusal could help Mueller determine why Trump has projected anger that Sessions relinquished control over the campaign-related investigations to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in March. The recusal came after it was
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Those comments — combined with a one-on-one meeting in February in which, Comey testified, Trump sought to have the FBI consider dropping its investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn — have led lawmakers, legal experts, and now Mueller to examinewhether Trump sought to obstruct justice, a criminal and impeachable offense.
Also of interest to Mueller, according to The Washington Post, are requests Trump made to Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and National Security Agency chief Mike Rogers in late March. Trump reportedly asked Coats on March 22, with CIA Director Mike Pompeo still in the room, whether there was a way to get Comey to back off the FBI's Flynn investigation.
Soon afterward, The Post said, Trump called Rogers and Coats asking whether they could make public statements denying that the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia during the campaign. Mueller interviewed Coats and Rogers about those interactions in mid-June.
Comey testified in June that back in February, a day after former national security adviser Michael Flynn resigned for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of his communications with Russia's ambassador to the US, Trump asked everyone to leave the room before he expressed "hope" that the FBI could see a way clear to "letting Flynn go."
Comey said he found Trump's emptying of the room before he made the request "significant" and took the comment itself as a "direction."
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Obstruction of justice isbroadly defined: It involves any conduct in which a person willfully interferes with the administration of justice. To charge someone with obstructing justice, however, prosecutors have to prove that "the defendant corruptly endeavored to influence, obstruct, or impede" an investigation, according to legal and national security experts at the website Lawfare. That element, they said, "is the hardest to prove, because it depends on showing an improper motive."
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