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At this point we very well may be approaching zero hour-a full blown constitutional crisis. As the desperation of Trump’s situation dawns on him there is a real danger he could fire either Mueller-or at least Rod Rosenstein-very soon.
UPDATE: I along with many in the #Resistance have been setting my hair on fire about a constitutional crisis pretty much since Trump’s ‘win’ November 9, 2016. Finally this month-May 2019-you’ve started hearing Democrats use those words-including Nadler and Pelosi herself-though she’s still claiming to believe the pretty dubious idea that ‘Trump wants to be impeached.’
End of UPDATE
For much of last year Trump’s lawyers were able to prevent him from firing Mueller by assuring him that the investigation will be over soon so long as he cooperates. It’s now pretty clear to Trump that this is not the case.
With the raid of Michael Cohen’s office-as well as his home and hotel room-we are now quite possibly approaching the danger zone as Ben Wittes documents:
“The country is entering a dangerous moment—the moment of actual confrontation between the president of the United States and those who would investigate him.”
“This moment has been deferred for months through a combination of strategies. The president’s lawyers convinced their client for a spell that the investigation would wrap up and clear him if he just cooperated. Investigators refrained from antagonizing the president; they did not leak disparaging material about him or those close to him. They framed their indictments narrowly so as not to suggest more than they were immediately prepared to allege. Even as they moved forward, investigators left room for the president and his defenders to put off any showdown.”
“The result was that, for months, a confrontation has loomed over American political culture, but has ripened slowly and, while in plain view, in a fashion that has permitted people to avert their gaze. Those who wanted to deny that the confrontation was coming at all could convince themselves that perhaps Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation would peter out; perhaps it would reveal only misconduct by expendable hangers-on in the president’s entourage; perhaps it would reveal only politically embarrassing conduct rather than conduct that required elements within the executive branch to lock horns over whether the special counsel would be meaningfully permitted to accuse the president.”
On Monday, however, the space for such denial began to shrink markedly—and the time span for deferral of the confrontation has shrunk as well.
“What the FBI raid of Michael Cohen’s offices proves is that he-and Trump-are in great jeopardy. The action taken-a search warrant against the attorney of the (so-called) POTUS was so audacious, that there simply has to be overwhelming evidence. After all, law enforcement agents on this level tend to be very cautions-and this was not a cautious action.”
Parentheses mine naturally.
“I will put this as bluntly as I know how: There is no way that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York would have sought or executed a search warrant against the president’s lawyer without overpowering evidence to support the action. The legal standard for such a search requires only probable cause that criminal activity is taking place. Under normal circumstances, which these are not, the prudential and policy factors counseling against such an action would be powerful.”
For starters, the Justice Department is institutionally cautious about searches involving attorneys acting in their role as attorneys. As Paul Rosenzweig noted, “the U.S. Attorney’s Manual has an entire section that limits how and when the offices of an attorney may be searched. Realizing full well that such searches are in derogation of the value of the [attorney-client] privilege, the manual requires high-level approvals, the exhaustion of other investigative avenues, and specifies procedures that are to be followed to limit the intrusion on privileged documents.” Moreover, the Justice Department would have been additionally cautious about seeking any warrant against this particular lawyer—precisely because doing so makes clear that a ring is closing around the president. Going after a prominent person’s lawyer for matters related to his representation of the client is, after all, an aggressive act toward the client, not just toward the lawyer. And Trump is, as he puts it, a counterpuncher.”
“This is the kind of step that would predictably elicit a reaction. The Justice Department simply would not take such an action lightly or without evidence that emphatically supports it. Add these prudential, legal and policy factors together and they cumulatively suggest that the evidence supporting the warrant application likely exceeds—probably by far—what is legally required.”
Yes-we are already seeing a reaction-from Trump’s tweets and Sarah Huckabee stating to the press yesterday that they believe he has a right to fire Mueller-to talk last night from Trump’s hacks in the GOP House talking about going after McCabe and Rosenstein.
House Intel Chair Devin Nunes privately told several colleagues today that it's time for House GOP to hold Rosenstein and Wray in contempt of Congress, should they refuse to hand over requested docs, according to two people familiar with the discussions…
— Robert Costa (@costareports) April 10, 2018
Back to Wittes:
“Put another way, Cohen’s situation, and thus Trump’s situation, is grave.”
It is grave-and the investigation is spreading, as the raid of Cohen’s home was directly related not to Russia-though it will bear on it-but on the Stormy Daniels story. FBI agents were searching for information regarding Cohen’s $130 grand payment to Daniels and the $150 grand paid to Karen McDougal as well as the attempt by Trump’s allies at the National Enquirer to intimidate McDougal.
Indeed-we now know that Trump wanted to fire Mueller in December, 2017 as well as was only talked out of it by his lawyers’ assurance that Mueller was not really looking into his business dealings with Deutsche Bank.
“In early December, President Trump, furious over news reports about a new round of subpoenas from the office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, told advisers in no uncertain terms that Mr. Mueller’s investigation had to be shut down.
“The president’s anger was fueled by reports that the subpoenas were for obtaining information about his business dealings with Deutsche Bank, according to interviews with eight White House officials, people close to the president and others familiar with the episode. To Mr. Trump, the subpoenas suggested that Mr. Mueller had expanded the investigation in a way that crossed the “red line” he had set last year in an interview with The New York Times.”
“In the hours that followed Mr. Trump’s initial anger over the Deutsche Bank reports, his lawyers and advisers worked quickly to learn about the subpoenas, and ultimately were told by Mr. Mueller’s office that the reports were not accurate, leading the president to back down.”
It seems to me that the big takeaway here is that his lawyers were only able to talk him out of it this time after being assured that the story was not true. So if the story was true he would have fired Mueller that time?
Again, until now his lawyers have kept him at bay by assuring him that it will be over soon and that he’s not in much legal jeopardy. But it’s no longer possible to plausibly argue that case anymore. He and Cohen are clearly in great jeopardy now.
As to what happens next-how much faith do you want to place in his GOP friends in Congress? Some GOP Senators were saying the right things yesterday-Lindsay Graham, Chuck Grassley, John Neely Kennedy.
Still while they warned against doing this, they also insisted that they somehow know he won’t-not clear where they get this confidence! Many other GOPers took the usual position that they can’t comment on Herr Trump’s every crazy tweet every single day-ignoring that this is a about a lot more than just tweets-it’s about an FBI search warrant
Most of this came from the Senate-in the House Nunes and company were blatantly talking about investigating the investigators as noted above.
The strength and resilience of our constitutional system may be about to get a new, strenuous test.
UPDATE: Today is May 26, 2019. In the 13+ months since the search of Cohen’s home obviously a tremendous amount has happened-a tremendous amount happens every day of this illegitimate ‘President.’
As noted in Chapter A Trump never did ultimately fire Mueller though this was thanks to Don McGahn who is featured prominently in the obstruction part of the Mueller Report. Currently McGahn is ignoring a House subpoena to testify before the Judiciary and Nadler and friends intend to hold him in contempt.
Trump never did fire Mueller but he found other ways to attack the Mueller investigation including post Mueller submitting his report-first Coverup AG Barr gave his highly misleading four page memo now Trump just gave AG cum Roy Cohn the power to cherrypick through the Trump-Russia investigation and leak anything he thinks is politically advantageous for Herr Trump.
The Cohen raid did indeed lead to momentous things-Cohen got three years in prison with three of the charges being illegal acts Trump paid him to undertake-perjury before Congress and the two hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal-ie, Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator.
It’s interesting that Trump was only dissuaded from firing Mueller after the SC’s office assured him they weren’t looking into Deutsche. Was this another way Rod Rosenstein made sure Trump was treated fairly?
Only now with a Dem Congress are Trump’s finances being looked at-Trump just lost multiple lawsuits to prevent Congress from getting his financial records.
While Fuhrer Trump appeals the rulings Wells Fargo and TD Bank have already turned over his bank records to the House.