ClydeR
01-01-2018, 07:13 PM
Bob Woodward and Leonard Bernstein appeared on CNN's Sunday morning program, State of the Union, on New Year's Eve. Bernstein took the opportunity to defend Trump from critics who claim that Trump is breaking the law. Setting the record straight, Bernstein explained that it is not a crime to lie to the press.
BASH: They assure that the president won't go that far, that he won't fire Bob Mueller. Do you believe it?
BERNSTEIN: There's no reason to believe almost anything Donald Trump says, because what we know is that the president of the United States and his presidency is characterized, above all else, by the lying of the president of the United States. That doesn't mean that lying by the president is a crime. It does mean that we see him covering up events, but not necessarily criminally covering up events.
And where this is going definitively, we don't know. But there are -- many times, he has expressed, I'm told by people in the White House, the desire to fire Mueller, the desire to pardon people under investigation, including his family.
And one of the things that is going on now is that his lawyers are telling him what he wants to hear.
BASH: Yes.
BERNSTEIN: And that is what I'm told by lawyers in the White House.
They are telling him what he wants to hear to keep him...
BASH: To keep him calm.
BERNSTEIN: ... from acting precipitously and to go off and fire Mueller in a rage or fire Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general in a rage.
They have an out-of-control client. The president of the United States, in their view, is out of control a good deal of the time, especially when it comes to this investigation.
More... (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1712/31/sotu.01.html)
BASH: They assure that the president won't go that far, that he won't fire Bob Mueller. Do you believe it?
BERNSTEIN: There's no reason to believe almost anything Donald Trump says, because what we know is that the president of the United States and his presidency is characterized, above all else, by the lying of the president of the United States. That doesn't mean that lying by the president is a crime. It does mean that we see him covering up events, but not necessarily criminally covering up events.
And where this is going definitively, we don't know. But there are -- many times, he has expressed, I'm told by people in the White House, the desire to fire Mueller, the desire to pardon people under investigation, including his family.
And one of the things that is going on now is that his lawyers are telling him what he wants to hear.
BASH: Yes.
BERNSTEIN: And that is what I'm told by lawyers in the White House.
They are telling him what he wants to hear to keep him...
BASH: To keep him calm.
BERNSTEIN: ... from acting precipitously and to go off and fire Mueller in a rage or fire Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general in a rage.
They have an out-of-control client. The president of the United States, in their view, is out of control a good deal of the time, especially when it comes to this investigation.
More... (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1712/31/sotu.01.html)