Day 493: The Robert Mueller Question That Destroys Donald Trump’s Disingenuous ‘Conflicts of Interest’ Position

Donald Trump continues to try and paint the Robert Mueller investigation regarding foreign interference into the 2016 election as a partisan witch hunt.

Trump is talking about the same Robert Mueller who led the FBI as its director after he was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. The same Robert Mueller who was granted — by a 100–0 vote of the Senate — an additional two-year term as director as his statutory maximum 10-year term came to a close. The same Robert Mueller who is a registered Republican and served as FBI director under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

After Mueller’s term as director ended, James Comey was tapped to lead the FBI. After the 2016 election, as the director, Comey continued an on-going investigation into Russian interference and influence in the election. However, after Trump suddenly fired Comey in May 2017, the FBI — and the Russia investigation — was without a leader.

Since Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from all things Russia due to shaky — at best — testimony under oath regarding his contacts with Russians while working on Trump’s campaign, his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, was in charge of what to do next. Rosenstein tapped Mueller to be the special counsel leading the investigation, essentially removing it from the purview of the FBI.

As special counsel, Mueller’s scope is narrower than that of Comey. For instance, ancillary findings — such as potential bank fraud charges for Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen — are passed to other law enforcement divisions rather than investigated by Mueller’s team. Had these been found by Comey’s team when he was leading the probe, they would have been unlikely to pass off further investigation and handled it themselves.

With all that as background, there’s one huge question looming over Trump’s many attacks on Mueller: If Mueller is so conflicted to lead the investigation, then why did Trump interview him as a potential replacement for Comey before he was tapped to be special counsel?

If Mueller was tapped to re-lead the FBI, he would have overseen the entire Russia investigation. Trump had no idea when he interviewed Mueller that a special counsel was being considered at all, so as far as Trump was concerned, whoever he picked to lead the FBI would be in charge of the Russia probe. Mueller was tapped by Rosenstein days after his interview with Trump.

So, again, if Mueller is conflicted to lead the current probe that he leads, why would Trump have ever considered him a year ago to do the same job with a far larger scope?

493 days in, 969 to go

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