If Donald Trump was thinking about firing Jeff Sessions and replacing “Mr. Magoo” with someone who’s a little more gung-ho when it comes to obstructing justice by the pussy, now might be a good time to go ahead and speed the process up.
Because according to the New York Times, Mueller has subpoenaed the Trump Organization “to turn over documents, including some related to Russia,” marking what the Times notes is “the first known time that the special counsel demanded documents directly related to President Trump’s businesses.”
Obviously, that means Mueller is slowly tightening the proverbial noose around a President who is, by all accounts, growing increasingly frustrated with the scope and the persistence of the special counsel probe.
Earlier today, Politico reported that Trump’s legal team is drawing up plans for a possible interview between the President and Mueller. That story comes on the heels of reports out last week that the President’s attorneys are considering a gambit that involves effectively trading an interview with the President for the promise that the probe will be wound down expeditiously. I don’t think I need to tell you why that won’t work, but just in case you can read all about it here.
The Times goes on to note the following in the piece linked above:
The breadth of the subpoena was not clear, nor was it clear why Mr. Mueller issued it instead of simply asking for the documents from the company, an umbrella organization that oversees Mr. Trump’s business ventures. In the subpoena, delivered in recent weeks, Mr. Mueller ordered the Trump Organization to hand over all documents related to Russia and other topics he is investigating, the people said.
[…]
Mr. Mueller could run afoul of a line the president has warned him not to cross. Though it is not clear how much of the subpoena is related to Mr. Trump’s business beyond ties to Russia, Mr. Trump said in an interview with The New York Times in July that the special counsel would be crossing a “red line” if he looked into his family’s finances beyond any relationship with Russia. The president declined to say how he would respond if he concluded that the special counsel had crossed that line.
Spoiler alert: he’ll try to respond by firing Mueller or by otherwise crippling the probe, but it’s too late. Attempting to interfere with the special counsel investigation would have sparked a Constitutional crisis even before the world learned that Trump tried to fire Mueller last summer. Now that the President is known to have attempted to oust Mueller, any move against him will be even more controversial than it already would have been.
It’s starting to feel like Trump will need to do something sooner rather than later. You’ll recall that earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Mueller may be slow playing Trump on the obstruction charge in an effort to ensure that he can continue to pursue other lines of inquiry including collusion and possible financial crimes.
Of course that presents Trump with a rather vexing quandary. If he tries to move on Mueller (“like a bitch“), he risks accelerating any obstruction case that, for all Trump knows, may already be a “dead to rights” situation. If, on the other hand, he waits, Mueller will continue to build other cases, potentially ensnaring still more people including Trump’s family.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: go down with this ship if you like but don’t delude yourself into thinking the ship isn’t sinking.
********
Fyi, Trump can’t fire Mueller – he would have to direct Rosenstein to do it and Rosenstein would refuse. It would set up a Saturday Massacre situation and there’s your impeachment. I’ve been kind of skeptical about this Russian collusion stuff, but if Mueller starts looking into Trump’s business practices, they’ll find something. One of Mueller’s lead prosecutors, Andrew Weismann, is well-know for “pushing the envelope.” He convicted Arthur Anderson on a rather novel legal theory that was later unanimously overturned by the Supremes, though a little late for the more than 20K employees who lost their jobs.
Rumor going around: Trump will fire Sessions and replace him with Scott Pruitt, who won’t need Senate confirmation (you know, where they ask you under oath, Will you fire the Special Counsel?) because he already got it when he was made head of the EPA. Then Pruitt fires Mueller. And then???
I think Pruitt would still need to be confirmed by the Senate. Under normal circumstances the fact that he has already been confirmed for a cabinet position would make a subsequent confirmation process easier. It wouldn’t in this case.
If Trump wants to fire Mueller directly, he can. If Trump wants to fire Sessions directly, he can. If Trump wants to fire Rosenstein directly, he can. No matter what the DOJ regulations and rules “seem” to state otherwise, absent a Federal statute that expressly circumscribes those firings, he can fire any one of those officials willy inly. Attempting to forecast congressional reaction to any of those firings is a fool’s mission.
Until he takes such action, with the service of the subpoena duces tecum upon the Trump Organization, it is clear that Mueller has gathered a ton of Trump Organization documents form sources outside of the Trump Organization, to include its tax returns, bank records, business transactions, real estate holdings, etc., from within and without the United States. All of it has been installed in software programs. He now invites a cover-up and looks to see if the documents produced match up to the tax returns filed in various jurisdictions. Recall evidence of Trump keeping two sets of books.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/danielwagner/trump-showed-investors-rosier-numbers-for-his-dc-hotel-testi?utm_term=.bpWDm6Q5Z9#.ebexPRjX27
Trump’s questionable bookkeeping practice appears to be habitual.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-a-donald-trump-audit-missing-books-and-unusual-accounting/
So, why does Trump draw red lines about his tax returns and finances?
Here’s a further taste.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/art-of-the-steal-this-is-how-trump-lost-dollar916m-and-avoided-tax
The subpoena served upon the Trump Organization could be either a subpoena duces tecum, which is a writ ordering a person to attend to a court and bring relevant documents. Or, it can be a subpoena duces tecum ad testificandum, which is a writ ordering a person to attend to a court to bring relevant documents and to testify about those documents. It’ll be interesting to learn if it’s the later and if so does the subpoena identify the witness or describe the witness as “records custodian,” which is typically how a documents/record subpoena is directed.
The Bloomberg article that alluded to slow playing is just shy of amateur hour stuff. There’s no way Mueller is indicting Trump in seriatim. To the extent that Mueller indicts Trump, it will be all at once. To the extent Mueller indicts Trump, Jr. Ivanka, Kushner or Hicks, you would expect that the will be indicted on the same day as Trump.
Notice that Mueller has yet to interview or subpoena Trump Jr., Ivanka or Kushner before a grand jury. It makes sense they will be interviewed or subpoenaed last in line and after Muller has subpoenaed and reviewed Kushner’s corporate and personal documents, reviewed the Trump Organization’s documents recently subpoenaed, and perhaps Trump Jr. and Ivan’s own corporate and personal documents.
The documents that Mueller has subpoenaed form the Trump Organization and any that are obtained or compelled by subpoena from Kushner. the Trump Organization, Trump Jr., or Ivanka will be shared with New York Attorney General Eric Schneider man and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance.
======
As an aside, one of the dumbest legal moves of 2018, was when Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen sued Buzzfeed for defamation in January claiming that BuzzFeed’s publishing of an intelligence “dossier” that purported to detail how Russia assisted the Trump campaign and which, on pages 30-35 of the dossier focuses on Cohen, ad alleges that Mr. Cohen was a key player in what it called a “conspiracy.” Well, this claim, of course, opens up full discovery of the claim of whether Russia assisted the Trump campaign, and whether there was a conspiracy on which Trump and Cohen participated. So, guess who is exposed to giving depositions in the case?
Well, all the members in the conspiracy, of course. Discovery rules permit taking depositions of all persons that have knowledge of any related information in order to afford Buzzfeed full disclosure of all matters material and necessary in the defense of the defamation action. https://law.justia.com/codes/new-york/2012/cvp/article-31/3101/
So, line up Cohen, Mr. Destructo, Kushner, Trump, Jr., Ivanka, Bannon, and the rest of clowns for the three ring circus that Clarence Cohen Darrow, Esq. has brought America and the World.
Start a pool. How many days until Cohen voluntarily dismisses the law suit?