Day 225: Mueller’s Noose Draws Tighter
Five juicy tidbits emerged yesterday, many with dire consequences for Trump and his team.
With all quiet on the Special Counsel Robert Mueller front for the last couple weeks, suddenly, multiple big pieces of news broke yesterday.
First, The Wall Street Journal published a story that Donald Trump’s legal team has already started the defense of their client.
Lawyers for Donald Trump have met several times with special counsel Robert Mueller in recent months and submitted memos arguing that the president didn’t obstruct justice by firing former FBI chief James Comey and calling into question Mr. Comey’s reliability as a potential witness, people familiar with the matter said.
One memo submitted to Mr. Mueller by the president’s legal team in June laid out the case that Mr. Trump has the inherent authority under the constitution to hire and fire as he sees fit and therefore didn’t obstruct justice when he fired Mr. Comey as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in May, these people said.
Another memo submitted the same month outlined why Mr. Comey would make an unsuitable witness, calling him prone to exaggeration, unreliable in congressional testimony and the source of leaks to the news media, these people said.
This is yet more proof that Mueller’s investigation is quite broad and deals not only directly with Russian interference, but also indirectly, in the form of the issues related to Trump’s firing of Comey.
The WSJ also broke a long-rumored, compelling tidbit at the end of their piece.
And, since earlier this summer, Mr. Mueller’s team has been in communication with prosecutors at the office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, which for months has been investigating the real-estate dealings of and possible money laundering by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
Then, The Daily Beast reported that Mueller is teaming up with the IRS’ Criminal Investigations unit.
This unit — known as CI — is one of the federal government’s most tight-knit, specialized, and secretive investigative entities. Its 2,500 agents focus exclusively on financial crime, including tax evasion and money laundering. A former colleague of Mueller’s said he always liked working with IRS’ special agents, especially when he was a U.S. Attorney.
Ironically, Trump is lacking the political cover at the IRS largely due to his own laziness: there’s no Senate-confirmed Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division because Trump hasn’t bothered to nominate anyone.
“The fact that there is not a senate-confirmed Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division, and that the Trump people have disregarded it despite warnings as far back as December that they needed to fill the AAG’s spot… shows what a self-created mess the Trump administration has found itself in,” said the former prosecutor, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “They have no one to keep Mueller and his Brooklyn team honest. They should be concerned about that.”
Almost buried by the avalanche of other stories was NBC News’ story documenting new information related to the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting organized by Donald Trump, Jr. and attended by Manafort, Jared Kushner and various Russian stooges.
Paul Manafort’s notes from a controversial Trump Tower meeting with Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign included a mention of political contributions near a reference to the Republican National Committee, two sources briefed on the evidence told NBC News.
The contents of the note, which have not been previously disclosed, elevated the significance of the June 2016 meeting for congressional investigators, who are focused on determining whether it included any discussion of donations from Russian sources to either the Trump campaign or the Republican Party.
Election-based contributions from foreigners are illegal.
This story could be absolutely nothing or it could mean a conspiracy far bigger than most people could’ve imagined even a few weeks ago. At the very least, Manafort’s name continues to pop up in virtually every piece of news related to the investigation. That, coupled with his shady history in Eastern Europe, means he may be the single most important person to watch moving forward.
In sum, yesterday the press initially reported or confirmed:
- Trump is under investigation for obstruction of justice related to the firing of James Comey.
- The New York Attorney General is coordinating at least part of the investigation with Mueller.
- If he doesn’t have them already, Mueller will have Trump’s tax returns and a team of the best financial crimes investigators at his disposal.
- Trump was so concerned about protecting himself from Comey and so inexperienced about the reaches of a special counsel that he failed to realize he left his flank exposed with regard to key, open positions.
- The Trump Tower meeting dealt with a lot more than adoptions, as Trump, Jr. claimed.
The Schneiderman tidbit is especially interesting because Trump has no ability to pardon anyone for state crimes. What could be a commingling of manpower and resources by Mueller and Schneiderman could also be insurance to protect against Trump pardoning everyone.
Trump didn’t take all of the news well.
Wow, looks like Donald Trump is pretending he missed some of the news from yesterday…and so much more.
225 days in, 1237 to go
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