December 4, 2018
BUILD THE WALL!!!!:
Mueller Is Laying Siege to the Trump Presidency (Mikhaila Fogel & Benjamin Wittes, 12/0/18, The Atlantic)
No, Mueller and his forces are not a Mongol horde, but the Trump White House is very much under siege.Mueller's army isn't the only force encircling Trump's fortress, but it is the largest and most active force, and it actually has several distinct encampments. One contingent of Mueller's forces is charged with investigating efforts by the Russian government to interfere with the 2016 election. In this capacity, the special counsel's office has indicted individuals associated with the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm that has spread disinformation and propaganda on social media. His office also indicted 13 members of the Russian military intelligence organization, the GRU, in connection with deliberately hacking into the Democratic National Committee server and passing the fruits of that hack to WikiLeaks "to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election."The immediate threat this particular force poses to the castle right now involves its evident interest in Roger Stone and the group of people around him. The GRU indictment does not name Stone, but he has publicly admitted that he is the person referred to in the indictment "who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump" and who corresponded with a fake hacktivist persona used by the Russians.This front of the siege has become hot in recent months and will likely remain an area of intense activity over the coming weeks. Recently, Jerome Corsi publicly shared a draft statement of offense in connection with a plea agreement offered him by the special counsel's office. The document details contact between Corsi and an individual reported to be Stone regarding WikiLeaks' planned release of the hacked material. Moreover, in the coming weeks, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is expected to rule on whether Andrew Miller, another Stone associate, is obligated to testify before Mueller's grand jury. Miller had appealed a contempt citation, contending that Mueller's appointment was unconstitutional. Stone and Corsi both seem to expect indictments.This front is likely to remain active and to generate big news events. But note as well if and when either man or both face charges, that will not be the sky falling for Trump any more than last week's Cohen plea was. It will be just another set of stones blasted out of the city walls.Last week's events revealed another force surrounding the castle, also under Mueller's command: the investigation of Trump's efforts to do financial business in Russia. The president, while insisting there was "NO Collusion with Russia," admitted that he "lightly looked" into building a tower in Moscow months into the 2016 campaign. Trebuchets from the Cohen front sounded into Friday evening, when Cohen's lawyers filed a sentencing memorandum as a follow-up to the guilty plea. In the memo, Cohen's legal team said that Cohen "remained in close and regular contact with White House-based staff and legal counsel to Client-1," another euphemism for Trump. It's unclear to what extent this investigation is one and the same with the main Mueller collusion force, but it is evidently an active matter, too.Mueller's forces also include a major encampment focused on obstruction of justice. This force has so far not done anything the public can see, but it may be getting ready to launch some kind of report against the castle. And this report, whenever it materializes, may prove devastating. But note that the day such a report is completed will also not be the "big one"--the cataclysmic event that causes the house of cards to collapse. After all, any report would likely have to undergo a lengthy approval process, either from within the Justice Department or by the courts, or both. It might have to be approved by Matthew Whitaker, the acting attorney general, before being released. It may have significant classified components. Even if the findings in this report are of bombshell proportions, given that it is unlikely Mueller will reject Office of Legal Counsel guidelines against the indictment of a sitting president, the damage that bombshell will inflict will ultimately be determined by Congress, and its detonation would likely be substantially delayed.
Posted by Orrin Judd at December 4, 2018 5:09 PM