Law professor Jonathan Turley, who expressed skepticism of a crime committed by President Trump earlier this week, said on Morning Joe Friday morning that the kerfuffle surrounding the president's firing of FBI Director James Comey is a "cover-up in search of a crime."



"No one has yet to explain to me what the core crime that would be investigated with regards to Russian influence," Turley said Wednesday evening. "I don't see the crime, so I don't see how it's closing in on Trump."



"For weeks I've questioned the need for special counsel because honestly I still don't see the underlying crime here. You know, when we talk about the Russian influence and collusion, there's not any evidence I've seen of collusion," Turley said on Morning Joe today.



"Watergate that people have been talking about, there was a serious crime that began that led to the cover-up. Here you seem to have a cover-up without a crime. That's what's so bizarre about the conduct of the White House. It seems to be a cover-up in search of a crime," he said.



From Friday's Morning Joe:





TURLEY: [Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein]'s integrity has taken a major hit by being thrust into this role. One thing that he will have to decide is whether he believes a special counsel should be appointed since Attorney General Sessions recused himself, it will fall to him to decide whether a special counsel is warranted.



For weeks I've questioned the need for special counsel because honestly I still don't see the underlying crime here. You know, when we talk about the Russian influence and collusion, there's not any evidence I've seen of collusion but more importantly, no one has articulated a major crime, as opposed to the reporting and registration violations of people like Flynn, which usually wouldn't warrant a special counsel. But that's the great mystery here.



You know, with Watergate that people have been talking about, there was a serious crime that began that led to the cover-up. Here you seem to have a cover-up without a crime. That's what's so bizarre about the conduct of the White House. It seems to be a cover-up in search of a crime. The problem with the special counsel is what will the special counsel investigate? But having said that, after they fired Comey, my view is that it's changed, that we do need an independent investigation simply because the White House has created a credibility problem. And lots of Americans believe that there is an effort here to obstruct the investigation.