Tapper: If Obama Made Comments Like Trump’s During Benghazi Investigation, There Would’ve Been Calls for Impeachment
A CNN panel discussion today on the latest developments in the Russia investigation touched on President Donald Trump‘s very public statements about Robert Mueller and the people at the center of the probe.
Just yesterday the President bashed Michael Cohen for turning on him and praised Roger Stone for, well, not doing that:
“Michael Cohen asks judge for no Prison Time.” You mean he can do all of the TERRIBLE, unrelated to Trump, things having to do with fraud, big loans, Taxis, etc., and not serve a long prison term? He makes up stories to get a GREAT & ALREADY reduced deal for himself, and get…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2018
….his wife and father-in-law (who has the money?) off Scott Free. He lied for this outcome and should, in my opinion, serve a full and complete sentence.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2018
“I will never testify against Trump.” This statement was recently made by Roger Stone, essentially stating that he will not be forced by a rogue and out of control prosecutor to make up lies and stories about “President Trump.” Nice to know that some people still have “guts!”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2018
Jake Tapper brought up those tweets this afternoon and picked up on him praising Stone’s “guts” in particular. He noted comments from former acting solicitor general Neil Katyal about how this was a message to Stone for him not to cooperate.
John Avlon noted how Trump sounds like a “mob boss,” while Margaret Hoover said this whole thing is “utterly inappropriate.”
“It is pretty incredible just on its face,” Tapper said. “And once again you have to play the ‘what if Obama did it,’ ‘what if Bill Clinton did it,’ ‘what if George W. Bush did it,’ and the reaction would be explosive, because it’s Donald Trump and we’re so numb to it.”
New York Times reporter Astead Herndon noted how this would certainly be explosive if the same exact messages were found to have been sent privately, but because Trump tweets it people just shrug it off.
Tapper continued down the “what if Obama did it” route:
“President Obama had plenty of scandals, but didn’t have any quite like the Russia investigation. But let’s say in Benghazi, he had said something on Twitter, social media, or a private e-mail that got leaked, to somebody who was going to testify, you know, along the lines of that tweet, it would––there would be calls for his impeachment immediately.”
Washington Post correspondent Philip Bump agreed, but noted that such comments would’ve been “outside the norm” for Obama––not so much for Trump.
Watch above, via CNN.
[image via screengrab]
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