Trump legal team in full freakout, revealing a big lie as Mueller Time looms
Celebrity real estate mogul Donald Trump and his minions are not having a good time. Politico summarizes their chaotic moves as Special Counsel Robert Mueller looms over the presidency of the most corrupt POTUS in history:
A series of developments over the weekend demonstrated the Trump team’s deepening resolve to maintain control over — if not block altogether — the president’s meeting with the prosecutor looking into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
On Sunday, top Trump allies publicly warned Mueller against a subpoena and indicated that Trump would tolerate only a tightly choreographed interview.
That came a day after a months-old letter from Trump’s legal team was published in The New York Times stating the team’s view that Trump cannot be compelled to testify and that, as president, he could not have committed obstruction of justice. A source familiar with the letter confirmed its authenticity to POLITICO.
Trump’s lawyers have for months been in quiet negotiations with Mueller, who is investigating whether any campaign aides helped Russia meddle in the election and whether the president sought to obstruct the probe by, among other things, firing FBI Director James Comey in 2017.
We assume someone close to Team Trump panicked in the face of what Mueller has in store for ol’ Uncle Dotard and leaked the memo (perhaps Jay Sekulow or Rudy Giuliani). It’s a warmed-over “unitary executive” theory that has already been largely shot down by the Supreme Court.
And we would bet that Mueller not only has assumed that Trump will do anything to avoid an interview all along but is letting the entire matter play out with the intent of garnering more evidence that Trump and his allies are obstructing justice. Bigly.
For his part, Trump continues to mislead his MAGA minions via Twitter:
Trump has continued to launch assaults on Mueller’s team, claiming its members are Democrats who are biased against him. On Sunday, he tweeted a quote from a political strategist who noted that one of Mueller’s prosecutors, Jeannie Rhee, once represented the Clinton Foundation. Trump called it a “disgrace,” though Rhee’s partner at the foundation in 2015 was a Washington attorney who was later hired by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
In the reality-based world, however, journos examined the entire 20-page memo (which reads more like a screed than a motion that would be filed in court) and discovered — what a shock — that Donald Trump and his team have been lying all along!
When The New York Times first revealed the bombshell 20-page memo President Donald Trump’s legal team sent to Special Counsel Robert Mueller earlier this year, attention immediately focused on the broad assertions of presidential power. In the letter, the lawyers essentially argued that the president can’t by definition obstruct justice, a novel and broad interpretation of presidential powers. A closer reading of the memo though also revealed that the president’s attorneys admit that Trump “dictated” the first misleading statement about the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russians. That comes after repeated denials that Trump was involved in crafting the statement, including in congressional testimony by Donald Trump Jr.
Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani said something really, really stupid to HuffPo on Sunday:
“In no case can he be subpoenaed or indicted,” Rudy Giuliani told HuffPost Sunday, claiming a president’s constitutional powers are that broad. “I don’t know how you can indict while he’s in office. No matter what it is.”
Giuliani said impeachment was the initial remedy for a president’s illegal behavior ― even in the extreme hypothetical case of Trump having shot former FBI Director James Comey to end the Russia investigation rather than just firing him.
“If he shot James Comey, he’d be impeached the next day,” Giuliani said. “Impeach him, and then you can do whatever you want to do to him.”
Norm Eisen, the White House ethics lawyer under President Barack Obama and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the silliness of Giuliani’s claim illustrates how mistaken Trump’s lawyers are about presidential power.
“A president could not be prosecuted for murder? Really?” he said. “It is one of many absurd positions that follow from their argument. It is self-evidently wrong.”
Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, and Mike Barnicle are not happy about these claims of unfettered power.
Add Steve Schmidt to the roster:
And isn’t it interesting that Rudy cited former FBI director James Comey as a “hypothetical”? It would be irresponsible not to speculate as to whether or not this is a signal to Trump’s more militant fans. Heck, the lucky shooter might even get a pardon from the Sh!thole Messiah himself!
It’s all symptomatic of a full-fledged freakout. Trump is cornered. The Trump Tower meeting has been revealed as pivotal. And Mueller looms.
