CNN has filed a story saying that special counsel Robert Mueller has received approval from a federal grand jury of the first charges in his investigation of Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election. No word yet on what the charges are or who they’re levied against. Also no identification of the source or sources for the story or independent corroboration from other sources or outlets.
Trump should follow Erdogan’s excellent example and mount a counter coup. He should arrest and disappear Mueller and his staff, Comey, the entire Obama administration including Obama, most of the Congress and Judiciary and a great deal of the Civil Service.
Don’t tell me that would be unconstitutional. The Constitution has been a dead letter ever since the Civil War or maybe even the Louisiana Purchase.
As tempting and giggle inducing as Bobs suggestion is, the timing is obvious. Hard to fire or suggest recusal of a guy who just indicted someone. I wonder who placed the call given this weeks events: “indict someone dammit.”
From everything I’ve read the FBI has awfully dirty hands here. The informant’s testimony should be very interesting.
I was recently asked if I thought that Trump should fire Mueller. I don’t believe he will or should.
The reason he won’t is that politicians, generally, but presidents in particular almost never think they’ve done anything really wrong. I believe that Trump is convinced of his innocence. If he has nothing to fear, what’s to be gained from firing Mueller?
That he shouldn’t is more complicated. Here’s what I would do if I were Trump. I would appoint some jurist of impeccable credentials, preferably a liberal, to offer an opinion on whether a lawyer in the situation that Mr. Mueller faces, given the facts that have become publicly available, has an ethical obligation to recuse himself.
As I see it there are three likely courses of action.
1) Mueller will resign immediately.
2) The jurist will offer the opinion that a lawyer in that position should resign thereby tainting the entire proceedings.
3) The jurist will offer the opinion that a lawyer in that position is not ethically obligated to withdraw (IMO falling on his sword). We’d be right where we are now.
Pretty good odds, if you ask me.
Whatever he’s got had better be damn good because he’s no longer perceived as an “Independent prosecutor”, but a dog on a leash for the DNC.
When I heard about these sealed indictments(s), my first reaction was that Mueller had to put a “rush” on his deteriating investigation, before the call to resign, became too overpowering. Hence he was forced to produce results from his long march to indict someone, anyone.
Now the media’s shallow attention span has shifted from looking at Clinton’s self-serving uranium deal, the under cover agent’s testimony who has been recently relieved of his NDA, and the twisted disclosures of who was really behind the fraudulent dossier, a scandal which prompted the investigation Mueller is presiding over in the first place.
At first blush I’d guess they are getting someone for perjury
My first impression is that this is why all of the questionable stories about Mueller were appearing. I suspect it will be perjury or they have Manafort doing some money laundering.
Steve
And my bet is this leads to nothing, or at least to nothing very large, They’ll tag Manafort or other minor player with not reporting all his Russian contacts or similar offenses, and he’ll get a fine and short suspended sentence. I don’t think there’s a chance in Hades that you can get a randomly selected American jury that going to convict Donald Trump or his family or White House associates of any major crime. I think it’s going to look very silly pretending otherwise.
Like others I suspect it will be Manafort or at least someone in his orbit. What will be interesting is whether the Podestas will be charged.
I think Dave’s suggestion for Trump handling the Mueller situation is good advice, but it depends on being able to find that “jurist of impeccable credentials.” Sounds a bit lie a magical unicorn at this point.
I’d suggest David Souter. There are plenty of other possibilities.
I rather doubt you can find a living “jurist of impeccable credentials” whose judgement would be accepted by both liberals and conservatives. The likely upshot would be to further muddy the waters, with some liberals accepting a dismissal of Mueller and many more who wanted, some conservatives thinking the investigation ought to continue and many many more arguing the thing should be immediately ended. I.e, we’d have FOUR batches of angry shouting people rather than TWO. This would not improve matters.
Agree with mike. There’s simply no consensus left and no trust that anyone can act impartially.
I almost think Trump, whether he’s doing this purposefully or not, might be smart to wait this out while other people start noting the impropriety of Mueller leading the investigation which has to involve exploring the FBI itself under himself and his friend Comey. As more people in the media and government are forced to publicly acknowledge this, the pressure may build and either Mueller resigns or at least Trump has backing for firing him.