Former career federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner detailed why he believes that President Donald Trump committed the federal crime of "accessory after the fact" in his public statements defending Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin.
Kirschner appeared on MSNBC's "Up with David Gura" to discuss whether Trump and Putin might meet in Paris this weekend.
Gura played Trump's defense of the Russian leader when the two met in Helsinki.
"What I saw when he stood up and said, 'Putin strongly denies interfering in the U.S. elections, I don't see why it would be Russia' -- I pulled out my federal code book," Kirschner noted. "I checked the elements of a crime called accessory after the fact."
"Mind you, the intelligence community, we learned, had long before that meeting briefed the president on the fact that Russia tried to interfere and now 12 military operatives have been indicted from Russia for interfering," he continued. "Then the president stands up and says that."
Kirschner read through the federal law, noting Trump had committed all of the necessary elements of the crime.
"We saw the crime of accessory after the fact be committed when he made those announcements in Helsinki," he concluded.
"Again, this is prosecution 101, I didn't need my 30 years of experience to reach that conclusion," he added.
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