Rudy unleashed: Trump interview with Mueller off the table, and maybe we’ll pardon everyone
Preparing the battlespace of public opinion.
Rudy Giuliani’s role in the Trump defense against the Mueller onslaught is part lawyer, and a bigger part public perception shaping.
About a month ago I wondered what Rudy was thinking when he suggested Trump should have a sit-down interview with Mueller, Rudy’s terrible, horrible, no good idea about Trump sitting for a Mueller interview to speed things up:
In my January 24, 2018 post I explained why, Trump should not voluntarily submit to an interview with Mueller ….
This is such a no-brainer, I’m really worried Rudy Giuliani, who is Trump’s new key legal advisor, will screw it up. At least as reported, it appears that Rudy is doing just that, and has suggested to Mueller that any interview would be contingent on an end date to the investigation.
This is a horrible idea on so many levels. It will not even wrap up the Russia investigation. It will end nothing.
If Mueller wants Trump to sit across the table from him and answer questions, he should have to fight for it, and Trump should fight back. To the Supremes if need be. This is about the survival of Trump’s presidency which is being pursued by Mueller’s posse of hired guns.
This also will not help Republicans in the midterms. You want to get Trump voters to the voting booth? Appeasing Mueller so he can drop his bombs by September 1 is not the way. If Mueller will not back off the interview setup, then precipitate a court battle over whether the presidency can be stolen. If you want voters to fight for you, then fight for yourself as an example.
In news of other horrible ideas, I plan on a Legal Insurrection “Swimming with the Sharks” trip just before which I will throw some blood in the water to see which way the current is moving.
Since then, Rudy has been more and more on the attack against Mueller and the origins and focus of the investigation.
This undoubtedly is preparing the battlespace for the coming fight, which likely will be a Mueller report that provides the purported grounds for impeachment. Since impeachment is a political not a judicial remedy, public opinion will matter and the attacks on Mueller appear to be working. An increasing percentage of people view the investigation as politically motivated.
Rudy also has hardened his position on an interview:
President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Friday that a special counsel interview of the president is “off the table” — at least for himself.
Giuliani said during an interview on The Hill’s show “Rising” that Trump himself has not ruled out an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, because “he wants to explain himself.”
But Giuliani also said that “as his lawyer” he does not believe Trump should sit down with investigators.
“It’s never off the table for the president, because he feels he’s done nothing wrong, which he hasn’t, and he wants to explain himself,” Giuliani said on “Rising.” “For me as his lawyer it’s off the table until they can show me what happened.”
The DOJ Inspector General’s report supports the view that the origins of the alleged Russia collusion investigation were political. Rudy is making that point big league:
Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, said Friday that Donald Trump should not be subjected to an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller because a watchdog review of the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation exposed the special counsel’s separate probe as a “corrupt investigation.”
“There should not be an investigation,” the former New York mayor, in an interview with the hosts of “Fox and Friends,” said of Mueller’s probe into coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election. “Mueller should now make a report, everything he has got. No interview of the president. He shouldn’t be bothered with it. Why would he get interviewed in a corrupt investigation?” …
Giuliani previously called on Mueller to put his investigation on hold on Thursday, hours after the IG report’s release.
“Tomorrow, Mueller should be suspended and honest people should be brought in, impartial people to investigate these people like Strzok,” he told Fox New host Sean Hannity. “Strzok should be in jail by the end of next week.”
Rudy also threw a hand grenade, suggesting that in light of Paul Manafort being sent to jail, Trump might use his pardon power to undermine Mueller:
In one of his most forceful attacks on the special counsel yet, Giuliani on Friday said the Russia investigation could get “cleaned up” with pardons from President Trump in light of Paul Manafort being sent to jail.
“When the whole thing is over, things might get cleaned up with some presidential pardons,” the former New York mayor told the Daily News.
It looks like Rudy has been unleashed.
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Comments
Guilani will be the next attorney general.
I look at it as he will be Attorney General, because Sessions certainly isn’t, beyond having the title.
The only way that will happen is if more conservative Senators are voted in to office in November. Otherwise we are stuck with Snooze!
Aren’t they still in session? Do they have the votes if they do it before the election?
I can’t help but think that Trump allowed the corrupt players to remain in place and gave them plenty of rope to hang themselves.
The heck with pardons, he should get PDJT to start releasing incriminating memos and top secret stuff done only to protect the politicians.
I read that PDJT can authorize the declassification of most anything he wants declassified.
So start doing some PDJT.
This Manafort thing stinks to high heaven. Mueller needs to be slapped up longside the head.
Mueller needed an ego boost after the Russians called his bluff, showed up for trial and want to see his nonexistent evidence
The biggest question to me is not whether the post election November means a GOP maintained House. It’s whether there are enough never-Trumpers left who feel like they now have nothing to lose. And they join in with Dems to impeach. Some are already losing primaries in either house. But how many will be left that decide 2 years is enough time to recover their public standing or just don’t care and will move on?
a great way to start a civil war is to deliberately overturn the will of the people with legislative chicanery…
on the upside, i foresee @POTUS Awesome campaigning across the land, rallying the troops, and sweeping the #NeverTrump ash n’ trash into the dung heap of history, where they belong.
#RedWave2018 #MAGA!
A civil war is exactly the thing that I foresee (and truly fear). What the OIG’s report and the DOJ/FBI/NSA’s thus-far-successful obstruction of Constitutionally-authorized congressional oversight has shown isn’t that there’s criminality within those parts of the government, but that criminals have taken over those parts of the government.
The media, whose reporters might be expected to be running over each other to cover this story in hopes of winning a Pulitzer, are instead helping to cover this story up.
And the Judiciary? What a joke.
I despise Trump personally, and I’m no conservative, but I’m afraid that drastic actions on Trump’s part are the only alternative to surrendering control of the government to an international mafia of ultrawealthy thugs. The legal and constitutional remedies have been either exhausted or left untried by a Congress full of paid-off cowards and traitors.
We are in the midst of a cold civil war right now and Donald Trump is most keenly aware of it. The choice is, do we allow law enforcement agencies within government to manage election outcomes or do we allow voters to determine? Choose a side. One political party has no problem allowing AND covering up the evidence of intervention. The other political party can’t make up its mind which they prefer so they attack each other and President Trump. Our MSM has already taken a side.
This is the seed of real civil war. The media may think it will cover the open strife in our towns and streets, but they are largely mistaken. They will only be targets of opportunity.
So True.
I’m looking at the picture. Who put the carpet racks on Giulianni’s chair?
Well, I don’t know…
But, it is beginning to appear Rudy is playing them like a fish.
Trump was never going to give the criminal Mueller an interview. Everything said has been about the politics required to defeat the justice department criminals.
Ace of Spades
Nunes: Withholding the “We’ll stop him” text from me is obstruction of a Congressional inquiry.
House Intel Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was flabbergasted to find that the Strzok-Page text messages released with the IG report were redacted. He called it a “classic case of obstruction” from Congress.
So, what’s he gonna do about it, besides whimper like a school girl?
House Intel Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was flabbergasted to find that the Strzok-Page text messages released with the IG report were redacted. He called it a “classic case of obstruction” from Congress.
It is important to note that text message in question was NOT redacted, it was omitted completely. That is, there wasn’t a blank/blackened box to mark the message’s position in the sequence, instead, there was no indication that the message had ever even existed.
“When the whole thing is over, things might get cleaned up with some presidential pardons,” the former New York mayor told the Daily News.
There’s no need to wait until anything is actually over. Pardons, à la Nixon/Ford, can be used at any time to short-circuit anything annoying. Not necessarily a great idea, but certainly possible.
The problems is, would that actually put an end to Muellers attempt at locking people up though? I think that guy is so out of control with a brief so open, it could be considered a European border, that Mueller would just keep going regardless of whether someone has been pardoned. Does presidential pardoning even work that way (can someone be pardoned before being found guilty of something??).
Sessions is the rat in all this.
He’s as currupt as clinton and mcconnell.
We need to take back our nation from the gangster running it.
Meuller is no different than any Soviet thug ever was.
……. beginning to think Sessions is being blackmailed by the FIB.
If Trump, the Trump family, indicted Trump team members and their personal lawyers are guilty of illegal activity – including working with the Russians to influence our elections and now the serious misuse of charitable funds- why wouldn’t everyone want to know? The Mueller investigation, the IRS investigation just requested by the State of NY and the Southern District of New York lawsuit need to be completed to determine if indictments are appropriate. Blaming investigators to take the heat away from the guilty is a common tactic by criminals.
Trump’s daily crisis tactic will continue to be harder and harder to pull off since little Donnie will only be able to violate the First Rule of Holes until he is over his head.
Save that there was no evidence of a crime by trump or his campaign regarding the election the day the investigation started and there still isn’t now. The investigation is 100% political.
“…why wouldn’t everyone want to know?”
“Everyone wants to know” is a sufficient reason for a journalist to begin investigating someone, but not for the criminal justice system to do so. As rdm indicated, in America, we investigate crimes, not people.
We investigate crimes when there is probable cause, politically motivated fishing in the absence of clear probable cause should be treated as criminal activity.
JusticeDelivered: We investigate crimes when there is probable cause, politically motivated fishing in the absence of clear probable cause should be treated as criminal activity.
Probable cause is required for warrants, but many investigations can proceed based on reasonable suspicion, and some police activities require even less formal basis.
Not a special counsel. The law requires that a specific crime be investigated, which is not the case with Mueller. This whole “investigation” is tainted, and I’m pretty sure you know it.
txvet2: Not a special counsel. The law requires that a specific crime be investigated, which is not the case with Mueller.
The naming of a special counsel is due to conflicts of interest.
Investigations are based on reasonable suspicion. The law does not require investigators have probable cause to initiate an investigation. Investigators may develop probable cause from their initial investigations.
You investigate a crime not a person looking for a crime. All the crimes we have seen so far are directly connected to the democrats.
Zachriel is correct. That’s how it’s done in a communist country, which is what it wishes for the USA.
forksdad: You investigate a crime not a person looking for a crime.
What is required for an investigation is reasonable suspicion of a crime. In this case, the Russians made attempts to interfere with the U.S. election, including a felonious hack of the DNC.
Then the democrats in general and Clinton in particular should be the focus of the investigation. They have numerous contacts with, demonstrable collusion with, and clear violations of the law.
Blaming investigators to take the heat away from the guilty is a common tactic by criminals.
It’s an even more common tactic of the totally innocent.
“presumed innocent until……..”
What really is frightening is Rosenstein redacted Strzok’s statement about stopping the Presidency of Trump. This was Mueller’s lead investigator. When people say Mueller fired him they neglect to mention the IG told him to fire him. Mueller was fine with Strzok until Horowitz interceded.
In Strzok’s defense, he may have gotten Trump elected. It appears that it was his decision to prioritize the Trump/Russia investigation over the Clintons email investigation (MYE), that he was both running, when the Weiner laptop was found with Clinton emails on it. As a result, the MYE team sat on the knowledge of the laptop sitting there in NYC throughout most of October, until, apparently the DoJ and FBI there questioned why nothing was being done. This was starting to leak out. With this prodding, Comey rediscovered (I actually believe him here – that McCabe had snuck this factum into one of his daily reports in mid Sept, then studiously ignored it after that) the laptop, and, figuring that Crooked Hillary would be elected, in order that her election not be tainted by FBI malfeasance, notified Congress that he had ordered the MYE investigation reopened in order to review the Clinton related emails on Weiner’s (and Abdelin’s) laptop. And that this reopening of the investigation was what put Trump over the top. The suggestion, then is that maybe, if Strzok had not been so nakedly partisan and politically biased, he would have gotten the warrant for the laptop in Sept, and the investigation could have been completed before the end of October, Comey wouldn’t have felt compelled to tell Congress about the laptop at the last minute, and Clinton would be President.
Interesting side note that some, having read the entire OIG report note that there is no note, or even suggestion, that the Weiner laptop was ever even looked at by the MYE investigation team. Comey testified that his technical wizards had somehow cleared some 3/4 million emails in a period of several days. My guess is that whatever McCabe and Strzok told him was technical mumble jumble to him. If they had had the electronic versions of the (remaining) emails on the Clinton server, they could have done a quick electronic match, to eliminate those emails from consideration. But they couldn’t, because Clinton’s people printed out the emails for the FBI, effectively hiding the metadata in the emails they provided. Which is to say, it is unlikely that any significant portion of those emails could have been adequately reviewed in the couple days that they claimed it was done in. One of the Representatives (e.g. Rep Jim Jordan) on the committee interviewing the IG this coming week is being requested to ask exactly that question – does the OIG have any real evidence that the MYE team had actually searched the Weiner/Abedelin laptop for Clinton related emails.
In Strzok’s defense, he may have gotten Trump elected. It appears that it was his decision to prioritize the Trump/Russia investigation over the Clintons email investigation (MYE), that he was both running, when the Weiner laptop was found with Clinton emails on it. As a result, the MYE team sat on the knowledge of the laptop sitting there in NYC throughout most of October, until, apparently the DoJ and FBI there questioned why nothing was being done. This was starting to leak out. With this prodding, Comey rediscovered (I actually believe him here – that McCabe had snuck this factum into one of his daily reports in mid Sept, then studiously ignored it after that) the laptop, and, figuring that Crooked Hillary would be elected, in order that her election not be tainted by FBI malfeasance, notified Congress that he had ordered the MYE investigation reopened in order to review the Clinton related emails on Weiner’s (and Abdelin’s) laptop. And that this reopening of the investigation was what put Trump over the top. The suggestion, then is that maybe, if Strzok had not been so nakedly partisan and politically biased, he would have gotten the warrant for the laptop in Sept, and the investigation could have been completed before the end of October, Comey wouldn’t have felt compelled to tell Congress about the laptop at the last minute, and Clinton would be President.
Interesting side note that some, having read the entire OIG report note that there is no note, or even suggestion, that the Weiner laptop was ever even looked at by the MYE investigation team. Comey testified that his technical wizards had somehow cleared some 3/4 million emails in a period of several days. My guess is that whatever McCabe and Strzok told him was technical mumble jumble to him. If they had had the electronic versions of the (remaining) emails on the Clinton server, they could have done a quick electronic match, to eliminate those emails from consideration. But they couldn’t, because Clinton’s people printed out the emails for the FBI, effectively hiding the metadata in the emails they provided. Which is to say, it is unlikely that any significant portion of those emails could have been adequately reviewed in the couple days that they claimed it was done in. One of the Representatives (e.g. Rep Jim Jordan) on the committee interviewing the IG this coming week is being requested to ask exactly that question – does the OIG have any real evidence that the MYE team had actually searched the Weiner/Abedelin laptop for Clinton related emails.
A point brought up by someone on another forum:
How did so many of Mueller’s staff know that is was safe to text these inflammatory messages to other members, unless they were all chosen specifically because they have the same mindset?
The Mueller investigation is irretrievably tainted bias. That’s why they started the side investigation in SDNY against Cohen, to get at Trump that way. It’s backup Plan B. It’s outrageous.
Mueller and everything connected to him is dirtier than Hillary’s used Depends.
Many years ago I knew a Chicago police detective. Good guy. He quoted a hoary police aphorism that has stuck with me over the years:
“If all the criminals were smart, the prisons would be empty.”
I think about this with regard to Paul Manafort — I don’t know if he’s guilty, I don’t know if he tampered with witnesses, and I don’t have access to all the facts. But the judge did have access to the facts, and the judge just parked Mr. Manafort in the cooler over a concern about witness tampering.
My point is this: you have to be pretty stupid, given that you’re under the public and prosecutorial microscope the way Mr. Manafort has been, to think that you can get away with witness tampering.
In the end, one of the truest things we’re going to see from this whole tale is that a lot of supposedly smart people really aren’t.
The assumption that there was any witness tampering is likely false. Think about how this works, the charge someone, and all of a sudden all their business associates, friends and family are potential witnesses. So,the person charged is suddenly cut off from all who may be sympathetic. Now they totally isolated.
Many do not realize that being unjustly charged is a huge punishment, economically, professionally, and personally.
Prosecutors who bring politically motivated charges should be held accountable, they should be subject to being charged, ruined economically, followed by incarceration.
When we catch crooked cops, we hammer them, prosecutors abusing the system should receive the same treatment.
My understanding is that the prosecutors refused to tell Manafort who their potential witnesses are, and, thus, had no real way of determining whether any specific person,neither whom he spoke, was a potential witness or not. If this is true, then the prosecutors would likely have an extremely low chance of winning on that charge in court, because they would have a low probability of proving the required intent in a witness tampering case. No doubt, they would drag that witness into court to prove the witness tampering, but I would expect the defendant to put the prosecution to the test of whether the witness had real evidence against Manafort, or was there in court testifying primarily, or even exclusively, because Manafort had talked to them about his case.
Of course, the only reason that this charge was likely brought was to put Manafort in jail until trial, that may be months, if not years, away. These are known to be hardball prosecutors, specifically picked because of their aggressive prosecutions, that have often crossed the line into bad faith and unethical behavior in the past. This is a novel legal theory, and a novel legal remedy. Of course, after Manafort gets tired of being in jail, away from his family, and cops a plea, that tars President Trump, all will be forgiven, and they will never have to defend this in court.
At some point, as I understand it, the prosecutors have to disclose witnesses and evidence to the defense. I’m not a lawyer and don’t know all the in’s and out’s of this, but I do know it has to happen. Perhaps they weren’t obligated just yet? Or they did and Manafort crossed a line? There’s little true facts being released; a lot of the ‘news’ is just spin. So I don’t know.
But Manafort is a smart guy and he has a good legal team. How hard was it for the latter to tell the former, “for your own good between now and the time of the trial, keep your lip zipped!”?
The witness list has not been released. Manafort has no idea who is restricted from talking to.
The judge in this case is as crooked as Hillary, Mueller, the FBI, and the DOJ.
A judge also approved the FISA warrant based off of Democrat opposition research, without ever being the wiser.
Judges are only as good as the information they have.
We investigate crimes when there is probable cause
I didn’t think it would be necessary to point that out, but thanks.
It appears that Guilani may well have similar traits to Trump, he has been toying with Mueller. I live near a rather nasty city, I have three rottweilers to toy with any of the city lowlife which might try to shop at my expense. Is it ok if I imagine those rotts playing with Mueller? Will Guilani be as effective as rotts? Mueller needs his fangs pulled and to be declawed, then he needs to be on the receiving end of his tactics. Maybe then, we could see if he whines as much as Comey or Hillary?
One could wish that the IG investigation into Mueller’s team will do just that, but I’m not holding my breath.
“Rudy also threw a hand grenade, suggesting that in light of Paul Manafort being sent to jail, Trump might use his pardon power to undermine Mueller”
I suspect that the path won’t be clear until after the midterm elections. Not only because of the question of if Democrats will gain control of the House (which I doubt), but equally as important is the question of whether the GOPe will exhibit greater or less power.
It won’t do any good to have the Republicans retain control if the leadership is composed of 100% RINOs. More forceful support for Trump coming from Congress will strengthen his hand in all matters.
Sad that we have become such a banana republic.
The process is going along the way I guessed.
Phase One, declare that Trump is more than happy to sit down with the prosecutor, provided he really needs to, you know, just to clear up any last bits near the end of the investigation.
Phase Two, watch the general chaos as every lawyer proclaims “That’s a bad idea” across the news and the media reluctantly echoes them.
Phase Three (bonus) See the IG report show just how biased the investigation team is.
Phase Four (present): Declare that the prosecution is hopelessly corrupt and the offered interview is in danger of being withdrawn. (Jump for it! Beg!)
what is phase five?