Opinion: How Trump’s tweeting on Flynn makes Mueller’s job a lot easier

To the editor: John Dowd, President Trump’s lawyer, is taking responsibility for sending a tweet that said Trump fired his former national security advisor Michael Flynn because he lied to the FBI. (“Trump says there was ‘no collusion’ with Russia — and cites a new reason for why he fired Flynn,” Dec. 2)

If Trump wrote that tweet, it would show that he knew in February that Flynn had committed a felony and that he did nothing about it.

Ordinarily, the attorney-client privilege would protect inquiries into communications between a client (Trump) and his lawyer (Dowd). But now Dowd says he sent the tweet on his own, without communicating with Trump.

That constitutes a waiver of the attorney-client privilege under settled law. It would allow special counsel Robert Mueller to question both Dowd and Trump on their communications about the tweet.

David M. Dorsen, Washington

The writer was the assistant chief counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee.

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To the editor: What will it take for Congress to come to the conclusion that Trump is a crook? He now includes Flynn’s lying to the FBI as a reason he fired him, yet he fired James Comey when the then-FBI director refused the president’s alleged request to [leave] Flynn [alone].

Can any right-thinking American deny that this is an attempt to obstruct justice? And can anyone believe Trump when he says it is a shame that Flynn lied because he had nothing to hide?

As a retired 36-year criminal defense attorney, I can say with confidence that nobody lies unless he has something to hide. Some very bad people throughout history have amassed power by convincing people that their illegal acts are legal and their detractors are liars.

Alan Abajian, Alta Loma

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To the editor: Reading your reports about the content of Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States, I can’t help but think this looks like much ado about nothing.

Yes, lying to FBI agents about whether the conversation took place was wrong. But what was wrong about the subject of the conversations? I don’t see any harm to our country in Flynn having had discussions with the Russian ambassador.

The dislike of the present administration should not interfere with a fair investigation.

Vladimir Bogorad, Chatsworth

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