I was a guest on the Mark Levin Show on Wednesday evening, April 4, 2018.
The topic was my post, Rosenstein Memo confirming Mueller could investigate Manafort came a week after raid on Manafort’s home. We also covered related topics such as Manafort’s attempt to get the case against him thrown out, and whether Donald Trump should agree to an in-person interview with Mueller.
Mark was kind enough to hold me over to a second segment, so the audio is almost 20 minutes long.
Here are some excerpts. If you want the full treatment, you’ll have to listen below.
“The whole thing, I think, paints a very troubling picture. And the troubling picture is that Robert Mueller has decided to go after somebody, an American citizen who’s entitled to whatever rights he’s entitled to, under essentially pretenses of authority that are highly questionable…. This paints a picture that’s very troubling of a special [counsel] who has decided that he is going to go after crimes that have nothing to do with the reason why he was appointed….”
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“If you read this Rosenstein memo, … he acts like this was part of the original authority. Why would you have to go to him to create this paper justification if it was already part of your authority? … That makes no sense. If Mueller thought he had the authority to do these things, he wouldn’t after the fact have to go to Rosenstein and essentially say, create a piece of paper which justifies what I’ve already done. It’s like that thing where people say it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission.”
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“I think the important things is this issue of Rosenstein essentially retroactively giving Mueller authority to go after Manafort, should be very frightening to people. Because in our system of justice, you find a crime first, and then you try to prove that someone was responsible for it. Mueller has it completely backwards. He was appointed without a finding that there was a crime, which is probably improper to begin with, and he’s got targets, whether he calls them legal targets or not, he’s got people he’s focusing on, namely Donald Trump and the people around him. And he’s going out trying to find crimes. That’s not the way it’s supposed to happen….”
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“Manafort is being prosecuted for things that have nothing to do with the so-called supposed Russian collusion or campaign interference. These are subject areas that straight career prosecutors at DOJ, in whatever the appropriate division is, could have prosecuted. I mean it’s money laundering, it’s tax violations, it’s reporting violations, there is no reason that Robert Mueller needs to be doing this, other than the fact that Paul Manafort had the misfortune of associating himself for a very short period of time with Donald Trump in 2016. If Paul Manafort had not done that, he would not be prosecuted right now by Robert Mueller. Who knows if he’d be prosecuted at all.
People may like Paul Manafort or they may not like him as a character, but he is entitled to be treated fairly. And having a special [counsel] put on him to go through his life to try to find crimes that he’s done, that have nothing to do with why the special [counsel] was appointed, is very frightening, it’s not supposed to be happening. And I agree with you, that on issues unrelated to the purpose for which Robert Mueller was appointed, Jeff Sessions should take this away from him, because there’s no reason Paul Manafort should be prosecuted, for several-year-old money laundering alleged violations, by Robert Mueller.”
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“… Donald Trump could go into an interview with Robert Mueller, and tell the truth to the best of his recollection, but if he forgets something, if he gets something wrong, if he misremembers, if he forgets to add information, he’ll find himself like Scooter Libby did, charged with a so-called process crime. There’s no information that Robert Mueller needs that is uniquely within the possession of Donald Trump.
Robert Mueller has interviewed dozens and dozens of people throughout the White House, I think practically the entire White House staff and campaign has been interviewed, they’ve had their records subpoenaed, their emails are probably in Mueller’s possession, their text messages, everything.
There is nothing, zero, that Donald Trump can tell Robert Mueller that Robert Mueller does not have another source for. And if there were such a pearl of information, it could be done by written questions. It does not need to be face-to-face. Because let’s face it, Donald Trump is somebody who shoots from the hip, he’s not going to worry very much about precise wording, so you can get yourself in trouble criminally with an overzealous prosecutor even if you want to tell the truth but if you do something which they will call obstruction of justice.
It would be insane for Donald Trump voluntarily to sit down and have a verbal interview with Robert Mueller’s team. Robert Mueller has put together a team of 13-14-15, however many lawyers, they are not there to walk away from this with some petty convictions of Paul Manafort and a couple of other people, and Michael Flynn. If that’s all they get from this, then Mueller will be considered a failure from the people who want Trump prosecuted. He is there for one reason and one reason only, to catch Donald Trump in something. Trump would be crazy if he goes in to a verbal back and forth with Mueller, where the slightest slip of a tongue could be used to claim obstruction of justice, or some other process crime.”
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“There is no reason for him to be sitting down [with Mueller]. If I were his counsel, I would tell him do not do that.
If Robert Mueller thinks he has the legal authority to force Donald Trump to sit down with him and answer questions verbally, then let him go to court and get a court ruling to that effect. And appeal it, and take it up to the Supreme Court if need be. So if you’re forced to do it, of course you comply with what ultimately the Supreme Court says you have to do. But do not do it voluntarily.
I really hope Donald Trump not think he can talk his way out of this…. You will never convince a prosecutor who’s out to get you that you’re innocent just by going in and thinking you can talk your way out of it, and they’ll be nice to you. There’s no reason to expect that this will happen. Look what they did to Paul Manafort. There was no reason for them to have raided his home in the early hours of the morning like that. There are people on Mueller’s staff who are known for being extraordinarily aggressive in their prosecutions, and they have had cases thrown out when that came out. So Donald Trump has to understand that whatever verbiage Mueller’s office wants to use, whether it’s subject or target, he is the target. He is the person that Robert Mueller wants to get….
If Robert Mueller from all his wiretaps and his intercepts and his subpoenas and raids, if he’s got the information on Trump, he doesn’t need Trump’s interview for it. And if he doesn’t have the information, the only reason he wants Trump to sit down and verbally spar with him is to catch Trump in something and create a crime.”
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“Again, there is nothing that Robert Mueller needs from Donald Trump, other than, in a sense, use that interview to create a crime. To create a crime where someone forgets something, or they misstate something, we’re all human, it happens.”
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