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Here They Are: These Are The 40+ Questions Robert Mueller Wants To Ask Trump
On Friday evening, Donald Trump reminded the world that although Rod Rosenstein recently informed him he's not the target of the Mueller probe (or maybe it was actually that he's not the target of the Cohen investigation), he's still no fan of the special counsel investigation.
Or, wait, that's actually not right. What he actually said was that he's no fan of the "Special Councel" probe, where "Councel" was the President's latest attempt to figure out how to spell the one word he should probab
Having just finished “A Higher Loyalty”, I couldn’t help but think of a lizard’s blank stare and jutting forked tongue when Comey described interrupting a Trump rant to say, “yes on part a, but WRONG on part b”. The lizard brain paused, its eyes blank, then ended the “meeting”.
Imagine interviewing a Komodo Dragon, as it stares, and slips its tongue in and out, not understanding a thing you say, thinking of nothing but its next meal. Cheeseburger. Fries. Cheeseburger.
No questions about personal profiteering from the presidency, ties to the mafia and money laundering?
Most of these are not questions. Most are generalized subjects or categories that Mueller seeks to address Trump about with question marks (?) at the end of the sentence. The sentence structure of many looks to be, as reported, the notes of someone taking down what another is loosely describing the area of questions will cover. A good example is this one:
“What was your reaction to news reports on Jan. 12, 2017, and Feb. 8-9, 2017?”
This single question with followup could easily take 30-45 minutes with follow-ups if
a through examination take place.
So, the above question as is must be broken down to these:
“What was your reaction to news reports on Jan. 12, 2017?”
“What was your reaction to news reports on Feb. 8, 2017?”
“What was your reaction to news reports on Feb. 9, 2017?”
With each of these three questions comes this:
Q “What was your reaction to news reports on Jan. 12, 2017?”
Objection, what news report?
Q Do you recall ______________?
A Yes, I recall something about it but not specifics.
Q “What was your reaction to news reports of ____________ on Jan. 12, 2017?”
Objection, please inform him of which particular news report you refer to?
Q “What was your reaction to any news report of ____________ on Jan. 12, 2017?”
A I don’t recall a specific new report on Jan. 12, 2017?”
Please present the witness with a particular news report.
Q I’m showing the witness this Fox News article of Jan. 12, 2017, do you recall that?
A No, I don’t.
If this line of question is to go anywhere, the questioner will be spending lots of time
showing Trump news reports.
Of course, Mueller has many witnesses to whatever events occurred on
the three dates and/or witnesses who observed Trump’s reaction to the news
reports. Which means follow-up questions will be loaded with finer
details/facts to be used to corner Trump with any lies he might tell or with
the truth known to the questioner. This pattern is a typical pattern used in criminal
and civil examination of central witnesses in a case when the interrogator knows
most of the facts towards the end of the investigative stage of a case.
Finally, what is not readily apparent, are the relationship – not readily apparent –
between some of the expected answers to the questions and questions and issues
not set forth above. In this way, Trump’s mind is not prepared for that area of
inquiry and so is less capable of fabricating false answers that may fit the lie.