On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” DNC Chair Tom Perez stated that the day was “a sad day for the institution of the presidency, a sad day for the institution of the Department of Justice,” and that “the notion that there’s no obstruction is just hogwash.”

Perez said, “I think it was a sad day for the institution of the presidency, a sad day for the institution of the Department of Justice, and there’s more work to be done. … This is what they said, Mueller, ‘if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.’ So the notion that there’s no obstruction is just hogwash. And as you correctly point out, there are a list of really, really very serious things. He tried to fire Mueller, and the only reason he didn’t succeed is because people that he directed to do it wouldn’t carry out those orders. If you try to rob a bank and you don’t succeed, that doesn’t mean you haven’t committed wrongdoing. He tried to get Jeff Sessions to unrecuse himself. That is a problem. He tried to get Jim Comey to lay off of Michael Flynn, even though he knew that Michael Flynn had potentially committed a crime.”

Perez later stated, on the question of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, “I think the question you have to ask here, and it’s a different question from the question that Robert Mueller is asking. The question presented here is, is there a pattern of corrupt behavior by this president? Is there a pattern of behavior where the president is putting his own interests ahead of the American people’s interests? When you get a call from a foreign actor, a foreign adversary, that says, hey, I’ve got dirt on your opponent, and I want to help you win. What you should do, first and foremost, is say no, and then call the federal authorities. What we know from the investigation is that’s not what they did. They welcomed it.”

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