It is an interesting legal debate.
I'm not a lawyer, but three things jump out at me.
(1) Where is the “criminal intent?” If Trump has committed obstruction, so has every other innocent person who pleads “Not Guilty” and vigorously defends himself.
(2) The two main charges against Trump appear to be firing Comey and trying to fire Mueller. Problem is - Trump is the Chief Executive Officer of the Department of Justice according to Article II of the Constitution. He can nominate or fire anybody he wants to at DOJ.
(3) As to alleged favoritism and misconduct by Trump's A.G. William Barr, John Kennedy appointed his own brother as Attorney General!
(2) The two main charges against Trump appear to be firing Comey and trying to fire Mueller. Problem is - Trump is the Chief Executive Officer of the Department of Justice according to Article II of the Constitution. He can nominate or fire anybody he wants to at DOJ. There are serious problems with the assertion that President Trump attempted to fire Mueller.
- First of all, Mueller wasnt fired when President Trump had the power as Chief Executive to fire Mueller.
- Secondly, they are claiming that his confidential discussions of that power to fire Mueller with his White House Counsel, a perfectly discussion with the White House lawyer whose job it is to advise the president about the law and his options, about a perfectly legal act under his constitutional powers, somehow constitutes obstruction of justice, even though it went unexercised and had no effect on the continued exercise of justice.
- And finally, they claim that President Trump ordered that White House Counsel to actually fire Special Counsel Mueller, ignoring the absolute fact that the White House Counsel has no power to actually fire the Special Counsel. The White House Counsel is not in the chain of command to do any such thing as fire the Special Counsel.
The only people who are in the chain of command and have such direct power to fire the Special Counsel are the President, the Attorney General, and the Deputy Attorney General who is operating as the Acting Attorney General. Those people would be President Trump, Attorney General Sessions and later Attorney General Barr, or (Acting) Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
White House Counsel Don McGahn was not in that chain of command, nor even in the DOJ Chart showing any authority over the Special Counsel. He could NOT have ordered the Special Counsel to do anything, much less fired him. The best he could have done was write a letter for President Trump to sign firing Mueller.
But, none of that happened.