Trump’s biggest nightmare isn’t Mueller

As accomplished and respected as Mueller is, the SDNY has important structural advantages. While Mueller is limited by his appointment to investigating coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign (and matters that “arise directly” from such coordination), the SDNY has no substantive constraints and can go wherever the evidence leads.
.. Mueller faces political pressure from Trump and the Department of Justice to finish his investigation; the SDNY isn’t going anywhere and can take whatever time it needs. The SDNY is also not subject to the special counsel regulations, which require attorney general approval for major prosecutorial decisions and through which Mueller ultimately must filter his findings.
And, unlike Mueller, the SDNY cannot be fired or defunded; sure, Trump could fire the US attorney for the SDNY, but there will still be 150-plus apolitical career prosecutors ready to carry on.

Quora: Is there anyone who is still waiting with bated breath for Mueller to indict President Trump for Russia collusion and if so what are the reasons?

As has been discussed ad nauseum, even if Mueller identifies criminal activity on the part of Donald Trump, Mueller will not indict a sitting president.

The real questions that should be asked are:

  1. Will Mueller identify coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign? This is Mueller’s original mandate.
  2. Will Mueller indict anyone from the Trump campaign with criminal conspiracy for this coordination? This follows from Mueller’s mandate.
  3. Will Mueller show that Trump was aware of the coordination and criminal conspiracy?

We already know the answer to the first question. The Trump campaign coordinated with the Russians directly and indirectly during the 2016 campaign. Here are 5 salient examples.

  • Graf 44 of the July 2018 GRU indictment states that an American in contact with the Trump campaign was in touch with the Russian hackers in August 2016 discussing material stolen from the Clinton campaign. Roger Stone has admitted to being this American.
  • Graf 11 of the January 2018 Roger Stone indictment states that in June 2016 Roger Stone was aware of stolen DNCC material before the DNCC publicly announced the hack.
  • Graf 12 of the January 2018 Roger Stone indictment states that in July 2016 senior campaign officials were directed to contact Roger Stone about the stolen DNCC material.
  • Court proceedings from the February 2018 Manafort hearing state that on August 2, 2016 Paul Manafort, while head of Trump’s presidential campaign, provided proprietary polling data to a Russian associated with the GRU.
  • Court proceedings from the February 2016 Manafort hearing state that during the same August 2, 2016 meeting, the Russian associated with the GRU discussed sanction relief with Manafort.

Clearly the Trump campaign was interacting with the Russians. Mueller has already publicly identified some of this coordination. As well, paging through the Stone indictment and especially the Manafort proceedings, there are numerous redaction throughout. Mueller is aware of quite a few more interactions than he has made public. It is only a question of how deep this coordination ran.

Regarding the second question. It has been a source of puzzlement among people closely following Mueller’s progress why no Americans have been charged with activities related to the 2016 election. The charges to date have related to financial crimes before the election or false statements after the election.

Some have claimed that Mueller has not filed any indictments because there was no criminal activity during the election. This position is, at best, misguided, as criminality is apparent in the publicly released information.

Roger Stone’s activities, particularly his interaction with the Russian hackers, were criminal. Before Mueller is done, Stone will be indicted, at a minimum for conspiracy to hack the Clinton campaign, but also likely for Conspiracy to Defraud the United States in relation to his efforts with Russia to influence the election.

Paul Manafort’s activities, in particular his supplying of polling data to the Russians, appear criminal. Either Manafort stole the data from the Trump campaign, or Manafort acting as chairman of the campaign, was enlisting the aid of Russians to influence the election. Manafort will almost assuredly be indicted for Conspiracy to Defraud the United States.

Given that we know Mueller can charge at least two individuals who were part of, or associated with, the 2016 Trump campaign, why hasn’t Mueller filed any indictments? It goes to reason that Mueller is waiting to file multiple indictments at a later date, and not just for the above activity.

One might ask who else might be indicted? Mueller has yet to interview either Donald Trump Jr. or Jared Kushner about the 2016 campaign. Given that Mueller has interviewed pretty well everyone else associated with the campaign, and give that both of these individuals were at the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with the Russians during the campaign, it is telling that neither has been interviewed. An obvious conclusion from this is that both are targets of the investigation and likely will be indicted before Mueller is finished.

All evidence points to Mueller filing multiple indictments for conspiracy to defraud the United States. It is a foregone conclusion that Stone and Manafort will be charged. It is quite possible that Don Jr. and Kushner will be charged as well.

About the third question, will Mueller show that Trump was aware of the conspiracy?

This is the million dollar question. Has Mueller found a smoking gun linking Trump to a criminal conspiracy with the Russians?

Clearly Trump is involved with, nay in bed with, Russia. One would have to be willfully ignorant to not notice how Trump has consistently thwarted efforts to sanction Russia, and how Trump has gone out of his way to have private conversations with Putin. But that is not the question. The question is whether Mueller can prove that Trump agreed to conspire with the Russians.

Mueller has hinted that he has some evidence of Trump’s direct involvement. As noted above, the Stone indictment indicates someone directed senior campaign officials to reach out to Stone. Exactly who could direct senior campaign officials? Was that Trump?

We do not know, although Mueller undoubtedly does.

With that:

  • Mueller has already shown that member of the, or people associated with the Trump campaign coordinated with the Russians during the 2016 election.
  • Information Mueller has released strongly suggests that individuals associated with the Trump campaign will be charged with criminal conspiracy.
  • Mueller has yet to provide evidence that Trump was aware of, or involved in, this criminal activity.

So yes, I am still waiting with baited breath for Mueller to complete his investigation, and to see whether he implicates Trump in Russia’s efforts to influence the election.

Documents on Indicted Russian Company Were Leaked Online, Mueller’s Office Says

Purported hackers obtained and leaked confidential information about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as part of a pro-Russian disinformation campaign that appeared to be aimed at discrediting the inquiry, Mr. Mueller’s office disclosed Wednesday.

Mr. Mueller’s office had turned over the documents to a Russian firm fighting federal charges, Concord Management & Consulting LLC, as part of the disclosure process ahead of a trial.

.. This month, Concord’s attorneys criticized the judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, in an unusual filing saying she had created an appearance of bias in favor of the government. That came after Judge Friedrich, appointed to the bench by Mr. Trump, told Concord lawyer Eric Dubelier that he was engaging in unprofessional behavior in his attacks on Mr. Mueller’s team and told him to “knock it off.”

.. The Wednesday filing came in response to request by Concord to share documents with colleagues in Russia, including one of the indicted defendants, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and known as the Kremlin’s favorite restaurateur.

Time for G.O.P. to Threaten to Fire Trump

Republican leaders need to mount an intervention.

Up to now I have not favored removing President Trump from office. I felt strongly that it would be best for the country that he leave the way he came in, through the ballot box. But last week was a watershed moment for me, and I think for many Americans, including some Republicans.

It was the moment when you had to ask whether we really can survive two more years of Trump as president, whether this man and his demented behavior — which will get only worse as the Mueller investigation concludes — are going to destabilize our country, our markets, our key institutions and, by extension, the world. And therefore his removal from office now has to be on the table.

I believe that the only responsible choice for the Republican Party today is an intervention with the president that makes clear that if there is not a radical change in how he conducts himself — and I think that is unlikely — the party’s leadership will have no choice but to press for his resignation or join calls for his impeachment.

It has to start with Republicans, given both the numbers needed in the Senate and political reality. Removing this president has to be an act of national unity as much as possibleotherwise it will tear the country apart even more. I know that such an action is very difficult for today’s G.O.P., but the time is long past for it to rise to confront this crisis of American leadership.

Trump’s behavior has become so erratic, his lying so persistent, his willingness to fulfill the basic functions of the presidency — like

  • reading briefing books,
  • consulting government experts before making major changes and
  • appointing a competent staff — so absent,

his readiness to accommodate Russia and spurn allies so disturbing and his obsession with himself and his ego over all other considerations so consistent, two more years of him in office could pose a real threat to our nation. Vice President Mike Pence could not possibly be worse.

The damage an out-of-control Trump can do goes well beyond our borders. America is the keystone of global stability. Our world is the way it is today — a place that, despite all its problems, still enjoys more peace and prosperity than at any time in history — because America is the way it is (or at least was). And that is a nation that at its best has always stood up for the universal values of freedom and human rights, has always paid extra to stabilize the global system from which we were the biggest beneficiary and has always nurtured and protected alliances with like-minded nations.

Donald Trump has proved time and again that he knows nothing of the history or importance of this America. That was made starkly clear in Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’s resignation letter.

Trump is in the grip of a mad notion that the entire web of global institutions and alliances built after World War II — which, with all their imperfections, have provided the connective tissues that have created this unprecedented era of peace and prosperity — threatens American sovereignty and prosperity and that we are better off without them.

So Trump gloats at the troubles facing the European Union, urges Britain to exit and leaks that he’d consider quitting NATO. These are institutions that all need to be improved, but not scrapped. If America becomes a predator on all the treaties, multilateral institutions and alliances holding the world together; if America goes from being the world’s anchor of stability to an engine of instability; if America goes from a democracy built on the twin pillars of truth and trust to a country where it is acceptable for the president to attack truth and trust on a daily basis, watch out: Your kids won’t just grow up in a different America. They will grow up in a different world.

The last time America disengaged from the world remotely in this manner was in the 1930s, and you remember what followed: World War II.

You have no idea how quickly institutions like NATO and the E.U. and the World Trade Organization and just basic global norms — like thou shalt not kill and dismember a journalist in your own consulate — can unravel when America goes AWOL or haywire under a shameless isolated president.

But this is not just about the world, it’s about the minimum decorum and stability we expect from our president. If the C.E.O. of any public company in America behaved like Trump has over the past two years —

  • constantly lying,
  • tossing out aides like they were Kleenex,
  • tweeting endlessly like a teenager,
  • ignoring the advice of experts —

he or she would have been fired by the board of directors long ago. Should we expect less for our president?

That’s what the financial markets are now asking. For the first two years of the Trump presidency the markets treated his dishonesty and craziness as background noise to all the soaring corporate profits and stocks. But that is no longer the case. Trump has markets worried.

.. The instability Trump is generating — including his attacks on the chairman of the Federal Reserve — is causing investors to wonder where the economic and geopolitical management will come from as the economy slows down.

  • What if we’re plunged into an economic crisis and we have a president whose first instinct is always to blame others and
  • who’s already purged from his side the most sober adults willing to tell him that his vaunted “gut instincts” have no grounding in economics or in law or in common sense. Mattis was the last one.

We are now left with the B team — all the people who were ready to take the jobs that Trump’s first team either resigned from — because they could not countenance his lying, chaos and ignorance — or were fired from for the same reasons.

I seriously doubt that any of these B-players would have been hired by any other administration. Not only do they not inspire confidence in a crisis, but they are all walking around knowing that Trump would stab every one of them in the back with his Twitter knife, at any moment, if it served him. This makes them even less effective.

Indeed, Trump’s biggest disruption has been to undermine the norms and values we associate with a U.S. president and U.S. leadership. And now that Trump has freed himself of all restraints from within his White House staff, his cabinet and his party — so that “Trump can be Trump,” we are told — he is freer than ever to remake America in his image.

And what is that image? According to The Washington Post’s latest tally, Trump has made 7,546 false or misleading claims, an average of five a day, through Dec. 20, the 700th day of his term in office. And all that was supposedly before “we let Trump be Trump.”

If America starts to behave as a selfish, shameless, lying grifter like Trump, you simply cannot imagine how unstable — how disruptive —world markets and geopolitics may become.

We cannot afford to find out.