450

First of all, the question begs-who leaked it and why? Nobody thinks it was the Mueller team-not even Trump’s leading counsel, Ty Cobb-or he was leading until yesterday afternoon. Just yesterday Cobb had stated that it was surely not Mueller who leaked. As to why Cobb said he’d ‘rather not speculate.’

It’s clear that Cobb believes it was someone in TrumpWorld itself-trying to convince Trump he does not want to interview with Mueller as the questions are too tough.

And indeed, there are lots of tough-and very interesting questions-which no doubt, answering would raise only more questions.

“Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russia’s election interference, has at least four dozen questions on an exhaustive array of subjects he wants to ask President Trump to learn more about his ties to Russia and determine whether he obstructed the inquiry itself, according to a list of the questions obtained by The New York Times.”

In the immediate aftermath of the release, the strategy of Trump and friends was pretty clear: dismiss it as ‘only about obstruction’ with nothing on the initial crime being investigated-collusion-which somehow makes it ‘a total witch hunt.’

This is a strange definition of a ‘witch hunt;’-Trump and his loyalists are arguing that by definition anytime you seek obstruction charges it means it’s in some sense a ‘witch hunt’-after all, it’s not what the initial investigation was about. To be sure, witnesses are found guilty of obstruction of justice every day-and it by no means has to wait until they are found guilty of the underlying charges. After all, obstructing an investigation makes it less likely to be able to establish the underlying crime.

If that were the case, there wouldn’t be any separate charge called obstruction of justice-by definition it would be merely an add on to the initial charge-and so why even bother with it?

Of course, the question begs-why commit obstruction if there’s nothing to the initial charge? Why fire Comey if the investigation was a ‘total witch hunt?’

And in fact, many of the questions were about collusion:

“But they also touch on the president’s businesses; any discussions with his longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, about a Moscow real estate deal; whether the president knew of any attempt by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to set up a back channel to Russia during the transition; any contacts he had with Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime adviser who claimed to have inside information about Democratic email hackings; and what happened during Mr. Trump’s 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant.

Certainly the questions about both Kushner’s attempt at a back channel to Russia and Stone’s conversations with Wikileaks and Guccifer 2.0 are about collusion.

A few questions reveal that Mr. Mueller is still investigating possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. In one of the more tantalizing inquiries, Mr. Mueller asks what Mr. Trump knew about campaign aides, including the former chairman Paul Manafort, seeking assistance from Moscow: “What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?” No such outreach has been revealed publicly.

Although we do have the conversations between Manafort and his longtime associate, Konstantin Kilimnik-who’s formerly from Soviet intelligence-some argue you’re never a former Russian intel agent.

“The questions serve as a reminder of the chaotic first 15 months of the Trump presidency and the transition and campaign before that. Mr. Mueller wanted to inquire about public threats the president made, conflicting statements from Mr. Trump and White House aides, the president’s private admissions to Russian officials, a secret meeting at an island resort, WikiLeaks, salacious accusations and dramatic congressional testimony.”

“The special counsel also sought information from the president about his relationship with Russia. Mr. Mueller would like to ask Mr. Trump whether he had any discussions during the campaign about any meetings with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and whether he spoke to others about either American sanctions against Russia or meeting with Mr. Putin.”

“Many of the questions surround Mr. Trump’s relationship with Mr. Sessions, including the attorney general’s decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation and whether Mr. Trump told Mr. Sessions he needed him in place for protection.”

And, yes, Mueller is also investigating reports that Trump-on multiple occasions, talked about firing Mueller himself.

FN: The Mueller Report has 11 cases of potential obstruction-a list that is itself not exhaustive–featuring Trump’s multiple attempts to fire Mueller himself via Don McGahn and Corey Lewandowski. Many have argued that Trump should thank McGahn for ‘saving him from committing obstruction’ but just like you don’t need to prove the underlying crime to prove obstruction you don’t need obstruction to be successful for it to be obstruction.

“Mr. Mueller appears to be investigating how Mr. Trump took steps last year to fire Mr. Mueller himself. The president relented after the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, threatened to resign, an episode that the special counsel wants to ask about.”

“What consideration and discussions did you have regarding terminating the special counsel in June of 2017?” Mr. Mueller planned to ask, according to the list of questions. “What did you think and do in reaction to Jan. 25, 2018, story about the termination of the special counsel and Don McGahn backing you off the termination?” he planned to ask, referring to the Times article that broke the news of the confrontation.

“Mr. Mueller has sought for months to question the president, who has in turn expressed a desire, at times, to be interviewed, viewing it as an avenue to end the inquiry more quickly. His lawyers have been negotiating terms of an interview out of concern that their client — whose exaggerations, half-truths and outright falsehoods are well documented — could provide false statements or easily become distracted. Four people, including Mr. Flynn, have pleaded guilty to lying to investigators in the Russia inquiry.”

“It seems at the moment less likely that Trump will testify before Mueller. He had publicly said he wanted to against the advice of most his own lawyers-with the notable exception of Ty Cobb. But the raid of Michael Cohen’s offices changed Trump’s mind.”

And Cobb is now one and as we noted above, there’s reason to suspect Trump’s lawyers were behind the leaking of the questions so as to dissuade Herr Trump from sitting down to an interview.

UPDATE: Of course, unlike both Bill and Hillary Clinton, Trump wouldn’t be interviewed. With all the hew and cry about Clinton’s lawyers being present for her interview, etc, Trump never even had one. As discussed in Chapter A this is a major point the Democrats need to question Mueller on.

According to John Dowd he basically stared down Mueller who meekly backed off of an interview in March, 2018.

Find links, quotes, Mike.