Listen, even if Donald Trump was guilty of colluding with a hostile foreign power and even if he obstructed some justice by the pussy, there’s no chance anyone is going to be able to prove it.
I mean think about it, he’s deadpan, not animated, not easily rattled, not impulsive, and not prone to flying off the handle. In short, he’s the furthest thing from volatile. His poker face is legendary. One might even call him “stable.”
On top of that, he’s always thinking five steps ahead of the next guy, he’s incredibly quick on his feet, he has an IQ that’s so high it can’t be measured, and he has never – ever – been called “a moron” by anyone close to him. In short, you might say he’s “a genius.”
So putting all of that together, what you come away with is the impression that the President of the United States is a “stable genius“.
Being the “stable genius” that he is, there’s no way he should crack under pressure if say, Robert Mueller wanted to interview him, right? Right. And that’s a good fucking thing because Robert Mueller wants to interview him.
“Anticipating that Special Counsel Robert Mueller will ask to interview President Donald Trump, the president’s legal team is discussing a range of potential options for the format, including written responses to questions in lieu of a formal sit-down,” NBC reports on Monday morning, citing three people familiar with the matter.
Yes, “in lieu of a formal sit-down.” In other words, no one wants to risk a situation in which Donald Trump has to match wits with Robert Mueller because that would be a fucking disaster and everyone knows it.
To be fair, it’s not just that Trump is an idiot. “I would never let the prosecution interview my client,” Alan Dershowitz told NBC, before explaining that the reason this is an issue here is because “presidents don’t want to plead the Fifth. So this route makes sense.”
In other words, Trump’s lawyers need to figure out a way to avoid this interview without actually avoiding it, because just stonewalling Mueller looks, I don’t know, kinda guilty?
“With the possibility now looming that the president himself could be subject to an interview by the FBI or Mueller’s investigators, Trump’s legal team has been debating whether it would be possible to simply avoid it,” NBC goes on to say, adding that “in addition to the possibility of suggesting the president submit written responses in place of an interview, a second person familiar with the president’s legal strategy said another possibility being contemplated was an affidavit signed by the president affirming he was innocent of any wrongdoing and denying any collusion.”
What isn’t clear is whether they would be willing to submit such an affidavit with regard to obstruction of justice in the James Comey fiasco.
Several former Justice Department officials say it’s unlikely Mueller would be satisfied with anything other than an interview.
“Prosecutors want to see and hear folks in person,” said Chuck Rosenberg, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and chief of staff to FBI Director Comey. “They want to probe and follow up. Body language and tone are important,” he added. “And they want answers directly from witnesses, not from their lawyers. The odds of prosecutors agreeing to written responses are somewhere between infinitesimally small and zero.”
Yes, the odds of Mueller letting Trump off the hook when it comes to an in-person interview are “somewhere between infinitesimally small and zero.”
Which is convenient because those are also the odds that Trump is innocent.
“How about if we give you Manafort…? Jared…? Junior…? All three?”
By hiding behind twitter, and avoiding a face to face meeting with Mueller, Trump will start to lose some of his base that thinks of him as an heroic and righteous figure. Considering his base is already a minority, he is toast.
I predict that Trump will have to share the “Person of the Year” title with Mueller in 2018.