Posted on 01/26/2018 3:56:23 AM PST by Kaslin
Asked if he would agree to be interviewed by Robert Mueller's team, President Donald Trump told the White House press corps, "I would love to do it ... as soon as possible. ... under oath, absolutely."
On hearing this, the special counsel's office must have looked like the Eagles' locker room after the 38-7 rout of the Vikings put them in the Super Bowl.
If the president's legal team lets Trump sit for hours answering Mueller's agents, they should be disbarred for malpractice.
For what Mueller is running here is not, as Trump suggests, a "witch hunt." It is a Trump hunt.
After 18 months investigating Trumpian "collusion" with Putin's Russia in hacking the DNC's and John Podesta's emails, the FBI has hit a stone wall. Failing to get Trump for collusion, the fallback position is to charge him with obstruction of justice. As a good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, the tactic is understandable.
Mueller's problem: He has no perjury charge to go with it. And the heart of his obstruction case, Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, is starting to look like something Trump should have done sooner.
Consider what is now known of how Comey and the FBI set about ensuring Hillary Clinton would not be indicted for using a private email server to transmit national security secrets.
The first draft of Comey's statement calling for no indictment was prepared before 17 witnesses, and Hillary, were even interviewed.
Comey's initial draft charged Clinton with "gross negligence," the requirement for indictment. But his team softened that charge in subsequent drafts to read, "extreme carelessness."
Attorney General Loretta Lynch, among others, appears to have known in advance an exoneration of Clinton was baked in the cake. Yet Comey testified otherwise.
Also edited out of Comey's statement was that Hillary, while abroad, communicated with then-President Obama, who had to see that her message came through a private server. Yet Obama told the nation he only learned Hillary had been using a private server at the same time the public did.
A trial of Hillary would have meant Obama in the witness chair being asked, "What did you know, sir, and when did you know it?"
More information has also been unearthed about FBI collusion with British spy Christopher Steele, who worked up -- for Fusion GPS, the dirt-divers of the Clinton campaign -- the Steele dossier detailing Trump's ties to Russia and alleged frolics with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel.
While the Steele dossier was shopped around town to the media, which, unable to substantiate its lurid and sensational charges, declined to publish them, Comey's FBI went all in.
Not only did the Steele dossier apparently trigger a wider FBI investigation of the Trump campaign, it served as the basis of FBI requests for FISA court warrants to put on Trump the kind of full-court press J. Edgar Hoover put on Dr. King for the Kennedys and LBJ.
Amazing. Oppo-research dirt, unsourced and unsubstantiated, dredged up by a foreign spy with Kremlin contacts, is utilized by our FBI to potentially propel an investigation to destroy a major U.S. presidential candidate. And the Beltway media regard it as a distraction.
An aggressive Republican Party on the Hill, however, has forced the FBI to cough up documents that are casting the work of Comey's cohorts in an ever more partisan and sinister light.
This cabal appears to have set goals of protecting Obama, clearing Hillary, defeating Trump, and bringing down the new president the people had elected, before he had even taken his oath.
Not exactly normal business for our legendary FBI.
What have these people done to the reputation of their agency when congressmen not given to intemperate speech are using words like "criminal," "conspiracy," "corruption" and "coup" to describe what they are discovering went on in the FBI executive chambers?
Bob Mueller, who inherited this investigation, is sitting on an IED because of what went on before he got there. Mueller needs to file his charges before his own investigation becomes the subject of a Justice Department investigation by a special counsel.
As for Trump, he should not sit for any extended interview by FBI agents whose questions will be crafted by prosecutors to steer our disputatious president into challenging or contradicting the sworn testimony of other witnesses.
This a perjury trap.
Let the special counsel submit his questions in writing, and let Trump submit his answers in writing.
At bottom, this is a political issue, an issue of power, an issue of whether the Trump revolution will be dethroned by the deep state it was sent to this capital to corral and contain.
If Trump is guilty of attempted obstruction, it appears to be not of justice, but obstruction of an injustice being perpetrated against him.
Trump should be in no hurry to respond to Mueller, for time no longer appears to be on Mueller's side.
Trump’s belief that he can talk himself through anything is going to gift Mueller with whatever he needs to indict a ham sandwich and then we are going to get lurid, large font, headlines from the enemy MSM that will be used to endless beat down the Administration regardless of whether or not he is then indicted. Mueller and company should have long ago been dealt with. Now, blood will flow.
Trump has beaten the MSM. They can’t touch him now.
Trump should ignore Mueller. Guaranteed Mueller has the perjury trap set. Trump is a complete fool if he does this.
Trump can say anything he wants to the press.
Yep - so many are so worried about Trump even though every time it seemed to them he stepped on his own junk, it was the Dems and MSM rubbing their crotches...
Exactly.
Is there anything Mueller can come up with to make Trump haters make them hate him more than they already do?
Is there anything Mueller can do that will make Trump supporters abandon him?
No to both.
This is and has always been a POLITICAL battle.
The Constitution specifies how the President is charged and convicted. It is very specific.
Mueller can not draw up charges against the President. Only the House of Representatives of the US Congress can. It’s called Impeachment.
You do not indict a president; you impeach him.
The trial is held in the Senate. 67 US Senators are needed to vote him guilty.
I’m here to say that is NEVER going to happen due to some process crime or perjury trap against Donald J. Trump. The charges have to be real and substantial.
The democrats simply don’t have the votes.
Even if they win the House, the fight is still political, and Trump supporters can defend him, and he will surely defend himself. This would be a VERY perilous position for the democrats.
Last week, the democrats thought they could shut down the government over the Dreamers. How did that work out? Rush Limbaugh’s analysis of this was spot on. He said the immediate aftermath of the Schumer Shutdown was a precipitant drop of the generic democrat versus Republican ballot.
In other words, the fight over nothing—people saw the democrats were going to get what they wanted but chose to still shut down government over it was just political theater aimed at hurting them. Subsequently, the idea that Nancy Peelosi is going to waltz right into the Speaker’s chair isn’t so absolute.
There are no additional Trump hater votes to garner or create. The only thing that will grow over the next few months will be Trump’s popularity.
Drudge is reporting this morning that the President is at a 45% approval. Best rating in a long time.
Because this is a POLITCAL battle that Trump has already won, it will do him no harm to talk to Mueller, and probably add to his approval by the undecided.
I’m beginning to believe that Trump has no intention of sitting down for Mueller’s kangaroo proceedings. He and his legal team are much too savvy to allow this. Trump has agreed to testify in public prior to the release of the memo. Once the memo is released and the whole sordid FBI, DOJ, Mueller process is exposed he can legitimately make the case that this entire investigation is the fruit of a poison tree. It would then be entirely reasonable to refuse further cooperation with this corrupt and illegal abuse of deep state power. The one thing Trump needs to do to protect himself is to fire Sessions.
Most of us have, but most of the squishy middle have not. The mass media has enormous power to shape any event or generate "outrage." Look at how the RINOs scurry from media outrage or curry favor by denouncing Trump.
Maybe Trump should do the interview, but require it to be televised.
That means a usual prosecutor's tricks are blunted - no badgering, proper foundation for questions,no ganging up. etc.
Everyone think's Mueller is jumping for joy at the chance - but this gets Mueller on the record, just as much as it gets Trump on the record.
It’s under oath. That means there is a Court recorder to record and transcribe the session. It’s even better.
For months, Mueller’s corrupt “investigators” have been trying to provoke Trump into firing Mueller. It’s the only card they have left. Make Mueller a martyr and then the press can scream for his impeachment. But every attempt to bait Trump into firing Mueller is backfiring on Mueller.
Mueller asked for the interview hoping Trump would refuse. Instead he enthusiastically agrees. Again, the MSM has nothing to latch onto to demand impeachment.
So what’s the latest attempt by the DNC/MSM/FBI? They trot out an unsourced story claiming Trump was going to fire Mueller, but his lawyer threatened to resign. Is it true? Who cares. The important thing is it allows the MSM to scream about Trump wanting to fire Mueller, which is what they want. So basically, if Trump won’t follow the Deep State’s game plan to destroy him, they’ll go ahead and pretend he’s following their plan anyway.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the FBI is again and again being exposed as riddled with massive corruption; spying on opposition candidates, paying for political oppo research, determining guilt or innocence based on party affiliation and fitting the “evidence” to the predetermined decision, holding secret meetings to eliminate a sitting president. It’s a corruption so massive it is impossible to hide; requiring coverup on top of coverup, such as the absurd missing text fiasco. With each misstep, the corrupt FBI digs a deeper hole for itself.
The other problem here is the dangerous precedent being set by Trump's legal team, treating their client as though he was just a Joe Schmo with some money in the bank.
He's not.
As president, he is vested with enormous powers at least equivalent to those vested in the other two branches of government. Under the Constitution, all three branches are CO-EQUAL for a reason. Checks and balances. Yet you'd never know it, listening to all of these treacherous Democrat lawyers.
Yet Trump's legal team (to the delight of the Mueller cabal) seems oblivious to the constitutional consequences of an attempted coup against the executive branch being treated as though it was a law suit in one of Trump's real estate deals. This is NOT Mueller & Company, Inc. v Trump Holdings LLC.
The disregard for executive branch authority here (allowing rogue elements of the DOJ and FBI to try to dictate to and "perp walk" a duly elected president) sets a dangerous precedent which can upset the balance of power between the three branches of government and potentially turn the executive branch into a permanent paper tiger.
This would infuse an un-elected and therefor "unanswerable to the people" judiciary with unwarranted power to act as a ruling elite with literally no checks and balances upon it. We have already seen a weakening of legislative authority in the congress. Where the latest strategy in both houses has been to refer all "difficult" legislative questions to the SCOTUS.
Trump needs new lawyers who have an understanding of the intended breadth and power of the presidency and understand the need to keep that power intact. And to employ it to defend the office whenever its constitutional authority is challenged by a rogue "shadow" government, as is happening before our very eyes.
You cannot perjure yourself by telling the truth.
Why can’t people see this? If you aren’t lying, there’s no story to keep straight.
The only thing I disagree with you on is Clinton was not impeached for a process crime or a perjury trap, but actually did LIE knowingly, and more over—admitted to it. And he did tell government employees to lie for him and paid off Andrew Young to get Monica out of town.
I am only objecting to the fact that people are worried—from Pat Buchanan to Rush Limbaugh to people all the way down—that Mueller will/can set a perjury trap on the President.
That won’t happen, because there’s nothing SUBSTANTIAL THERE to set the trap. Clinton’s undoing was he DID get blow jobs from Monica in the Oval Office study and did lie about it in a lawsuit about sex, since laws where passed that allow accusers to pry into the defendant’s sex life—that he signed into law!!!
So if Mueller submits a perjury trap indictment it better be good. People know Donald Trump and how he talks. Some such thing as he said he had pizza 9 months and 8 days go when Mueller had a receipt showing he had tacos isn’t—is not—going to cut it.
The fact of the matter is Trump’s statement that he’d be happy to sit down and be interviewed by Mueller—even under oath—is good optics politically. It REALLY caught the whole MSM and the democrats off guard and substantially blows a hole in their entire narrative.
EVERYONE seems to be missing this and are going beyond and worrying about the outcome of such a thing whereas Trump’s statement ITSELF threw the MSM opposition in a tizzy—and THAT was his objective!
THAT is the genius that is Donald Trump!
Everything else you wrote was spot on.
Well said.
For the public optics — it’s very clear that the Democrats are consumed with lies and cover-ups (that much is already clear) and of course corruption (not yet crystal clear to the public) but on Trump’s side there is none of that. The guy is not a liar. He’s blunt and he’s open and he’s clearly not corrupt.
People know that the government is broken and in something like a state of crisis. And Trump is definitely not part of that picture.
They aren’t setting a perjury trap for Trump. They are setting an MSM trap for Trump. The “why did you fire Comey?” question is a throwaway. It will be the “take the 5th” that will resonate with the nation as to what Trump might be hiding.
What Trump says may also be a trap. There are a LOT of things he says that make his enemies salivate. But they don’t have him, do they? He’s got some good smarts and strategies, and the enemies are cocky. Just remembering above that Obama actually did do a clintonesque “I didn’t know about Hillary’s Server until I read it in the papers lie you’ lie. He should be more worried about a perjury trap since he actually was lying.
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