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Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat
3. Under the Constitution, the President has the unrestricted power to hire and fire prosecutors, so he had the legal power to order the firing Mueller at any time. Exercising your legal powers under the Constitution is not obstruction of justice, unless you can show corrupt intent, but there is the "catch 22" since:
--3.1- there was no underlying crime so no one can point to a "corrupt intent" and
--3.2 - Mueller was not fired in any event.
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There is a whole section (Vol.2,Section III) in the report that examines the letter sent by Trump's lawyer (from where what you write originates from). It is about 30 pages of boring text, but it sums that yes, the President can obstruct and can be investigated for obstruction.
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In sum, contrary to the position taken by the President ' s counsel, we concluded that, in
light of the Supreme Court precedent governing separation-of-powers issues , we had a valid basis
for investigating the conduct at issue in this report. In our view, the application of the obstruction
statutes would not impermissibly burden the President's performance of his Article II function to
supervise prosecutorial conduct or to remove inferior law-enforcement officers. And the
protection of the criminal justice system from corrupt acts by any person-including
the President-accords the the fundamental principle of our government that
"[n]o [person] in this country is so high that he is above the law."
United States v. Lee, I 06 U.S. 196, 220 (1882); see also Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. at 697 ; United States v. Nixon , supra.
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3.1) Obstruction doesn't require one. The President was a subject of investigation, that was enough.
3.2) Obstruction doesn't need to succeed for it to be obstruction.