Walter Dellinger on Trump: We Are Seeing ‘A Criminal Enterprise Unfolding Before Our Very Eyes, Live and in Color on Television’

RUSH EXCERPT:

DELLINGER: “I think that’s exactly right. As all three of our guests this morning have said, Friday was a very sad day for the administration of justice, but Paul butler’s spent his career talking about the problems of mass incarceration. We really run the risk of people losing Faye in our system of criminal justice when we have an event like this that takes place by a judge that has no business being on the federal bench. On the question of the president’s pardon, joy, you’re exactly right. What we are seeing is basically a criminal enterprise unfolding before our very eyes, live and in color on television. We see the president engaged in what are continuing pieces of what happens to be an ongoing criminal operation, starting with his interference to try to get this investigation stopped from the begin ginning. I think — the interference with Comey to get him to stop Flynn investigation, his interference with two intelligence chiefs to get them to intervene, the continuing and utterly inappropriate dangling of pardons, which if done by a president corruptly, would be a crime. Under existing department of justice policy, a president cannot be indicted while in office. I think that’s wrong, but you need to be able to indict a president to stop the statute of limitations from running. I noted more than a year ago, that one of the problems with the department of justice pal about indicting a president, is it would give a president who might want to retire and go back to south Florida and play gov, incentive to run for the second term just to use a White House as the sanctuary for justice so he could not be indicted. The statute of limitations for most federal crimes is five years. That’s just got to be wrong.”