Carl Bernstein: FBI raid was about 'scaring the hell out of the president'

washingtonexaminer.com

Veteran journalist Carl Bernstein said Trump is a “lawless president” determined to avoid accountability by trying to shut down special counsel investigation.

Veteran journalist Carl Bernstein said on Tuesday that President Trump “knows he’s trapped,” reacting to how the commander in chief is lashing out after the FBI raided the office, home, and hotel room of his personal attorney, Michael Cohen.

Furthermore, Bernstein said the raid was about “scaring the hell out of the president,” because Trump “knows better than anyone what he and his lawyer have discussed, communicated about it.”

“This investigation is closing in on him and the prosecutors in New York now have his lawyer’s computers and what is on them. That is a big fact here,” Bernstein said Tuesday on CNN.

FBI agents reportedly sought information related to an investigation into possible bank fraud, campaign finance violations, and wire fraud. Among the documents taken were those related to the Stormy Daniels case. The adult film star claims to have had an extra-marital affair with Trump more than a decade ago, and she had signed a nondisclosure agreement with Cohen, who also paid her $130,000.

Trump publicly decried the raid, which reportedly was authorized by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, as “an attack on our country.” Among Trump’s defenders, famed laywer Alan Dershowitz decried the raid, saying Monday was a “very dangerous day for lawyer-client relations.”

Bernstein dismissed the civil liberty defense, and explained that should evidence of “suggested criminality” and “conspiracy between the president and his laywer” related to Russia, then that evidence goes straight to the special counsel. Bernstein called that a “huge factor.”

A new CNN report Tuesday evening indicated that he is considering firing Rosenstein and he also chastised Attorney General Jeff Sessions again for recusing himself from overseeing the federal Russian investigation that Rosenstein is now charged with overseeing.

In light of the CNN report about Rosenstein, Bernstein said Trump is a “lawless president” determined to avoid accountability by trying to shut down special counsel investigation.

“We have a president of the United States willing to risk a constitutional crisis for this nation so he can avoid legitimate investigation and letting the facts roll out the way they ought to,” Bernstein said.

Bernstein, best known for his investigative reporting that shed light on the Watergate scandal leading to President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974, has previously condemned Trump’s attacks on the press and said last December that the Trump presidency has been “tainted by the president’s lies.”