Former White House Correspondent Lou Cannon weighs in on Comey hearings

The country is abuzz over Thursday’s Senate hearing.

Americans coast to coast are pondering the repercussions of loyalty and researching the definition of obstruction of justice.

NewsChannel 3 talked to former White House Correspondent and local resident Lou Cannon for his perspective.

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful to the president but because he knows so little about what he’s talking about and particularly about obstruction of justice, I think you could probably argue that he didn’t mean to be obstructing justice if he was,” Cannon said. “I think it would be a difficult case.”

Cannon said the president’s political turmoil is clearly not going away and he believes the next legal layer will depend on what former FBI Director Robert Mueller finds in files handed over by fired FBI Director James Comey.

“Whether or not it amounts to a legal case of obstruction of justice, it’s clearly an ethical violation,” Cannon said. “It’s simply not ethical to get the FBI director into your office or have a dinner with him and suggest he should stop any criminal investigation.”

The man who worked at the Washington Post during the Ronald Reagan administration and became the 40th president’s personal biographer said most presidents endured firestorms, but arguably none like President Donald Trump.

“It seems to me that all of these troubles are of his own making. He didn’t have to fire Comey. He didn’t have to ask him to stop an investigation,” Cannon said.

Aside from investigations and hearings, Cannon sees another major problem facing the president: distraction.

“Each day that he’s not focused on the work of the presidencey but on defending himself makes it harder for him to recover. He needs a period of time when he’s not under attack and not under investigation and I don’t see when that time is going to be.”

Cannon said he sees these hearings bringing about more investigations, not less.