Special Counsel Robert Mueller now has President Donald Trump’s written answers to his questions on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Two very different things could happen next.
According to a Tuesday Politico report, Mueller still wants information on Trump’s actions post-inauguration as part of a greater investigation into possible obstruction of justice.
The taciturn special counsel could a) pull out the big subpoena guns and force a legal battle over the very power of the presidency or b) not do that, and use the information he already has to circumvent talking to Trump altogether.
Should Mueller choose option A, many factors will come into play, including acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker and his expressed disapproval of the probe, Brett Kavanaugh and an increasingly Trump-friendly Supreme Court and legal precedent dating back to Richard Nixon and Watergate.
For now, Mueller will comb through Trump’s responses, a format with downsides to both parties. While it helps Trump avoid the pressures and quick thinking in-person follow-ups demand, it also binds him to testimony just as legally binding as if he gave it to Mueller directly.
Dear Mr. Mueller,
I realize we’ve asked much of you already, that you’ve endured endless harassment from that pig-eyed sack of shit squatting in 1600 but, if you would like to give us something extra special to be thankful for this year, an indictment or 20 wouldn’t go unnoticed today.
Warm regards,
Millions of Americans
Looking forward to seeing Redacted Crayon
The Republican president’s answers will be incomplete, irrelevant, vague in the extreme and willfully obtuse, in effect non-answers, forcing Mueller to choose between a further delay and going ahead with what little he’s got. The Republican lawyers will always play for more time, the overall strategy being to drag this out as long as possible in order make the survival of the Republican president a matter of electoral politics, not the law. The Republican party will try to make 2020 a referendum on the ‘witch-hunt’ and hope that a hyper-partisan election will keep their leader in the White House, restore the House to GOP control. That’s pretty much their only play here, and it’s why Democrats needs to move right away with investigations, etc.
Note: edited to remove all references to Trump as such. I’m trying to teach myself to describe him as accurately as possible, namely as the Republican leader chosen and supported by his party for party advantage. Trump isn’t the cancer. The GOP is.
Lock him up!
Lock him up!
Lock him up!
Lock him up!
(Ooh, that does feel good. Even though I am ending a sentence with a preposition.)
Presuming Trump replied with some degree of untruth in every answer to every incisive question from the special counsel, I imagine Trump’s Thanksgiving holiday will be less pleasing, and more sleepless for him than usual.