Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said there is “absolutely evidence to begin a case” for obstruction of justice against President Donald Trump and his firing of ex-FBI Director James Comey.
Bharara, who was fired from his post as a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in March during a large-scale firing of 45 other Obama-era prosecutors, said there was a lot to be “frightened” and “outraged” about in an interview Sunday with George Stephanopoulos at ABC’s “This Week,” following Comey’s sworn testimony on Thursday.
Trump fired Comey on May 9, and the White House gave conflicting reasons for the decision. Comey’s firing appeared to coincide with the intensifying of the Department of Justice investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, leaving rumors that Trump fired the FBI director to influence the investigation.
Stephanopoulos asked Bharara whether, as a former prosecutor, he thought there was enough evidence for a case as to whether Trump tried to obstruct the FBI investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
“I think there’s absolutely evidence to begin a case – I think it’s very important for all sorts of armchair speculators in the law, to be clear, that no one knows right now whether there is a provable case of obstruction,” Bharara said. “It’s also true … that there’s no basis to say there was no obstruction.”
