Yeah, so Robert Mueller. And David Dennison.
One of those people is a legendary lawman, respected by pretty much everyone outside of circles Alex Jones runs in and the other one is a fictional character concocted by a failed businessman who wanted to cover up an affair with a porn star when the Alex Jones crowd got him elected President.
Mr. Dennison is no fan of Mr. Mueller as he not-so-patiently explained for the thousandth time on Wednesday morning via the following nearly incomprehensible tweet-ramble:
There was no Collusion (it is a Hoax) and there is no Obstruction of Justice (that is a setup & trap). What there is is Negotiations going on with North Korea over Nuclear War, Negotiations going on with China over Trade Deficits, Negotiations on NAFTA, and much more. Witch Hunt!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2018
“The questions are an intrusion into the President’s Article 2 powers under the Constitution to fire any Executive Branch Employee…what the President was thinking is an outrageous…..as to the President’s unfettered power to fire anyone…” Joe Digenova, former US Attorney
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2018
As you’re probably aware, the questions Mueller wants to ask Trump were “leaked” this week and as it turns out, that list was compiled by Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow after a meeting with Mueller’s team on March 5.
We detailed the circumstances behind that meeting and elaborated on the 49 questions in “Here They Are: These Are The 40+ Questions Robert Mueller Wants To Ask Trump.” Suffice to say the meeting with Mueller precipitated the resignation of John Dowd, whose differences with the President with regard to the wisdom of sitting for an interview with Mueller were well documented prior to Dowd’s exit. Here are a couple of excerpts from our post on the questions:
Lost in the Michael Cohen drama was John Dowd, who resigned last month just a week after saying he’s “praying” that Rosenstein shuts down the Mueller probe. That would be the same John Dowd who was forced to figuratively fall on his sword after Trump effectively tweeted out an admission to obstructing justice in December. And the same John Dowd who subsequently said this:
The President cannot obstruct justice.
At the time of his resignation, reports indicated Dowd was increasingly frustrated with Trump’s blatant disregard for advice on whether to sit with Mueller for an interview, something multiple people (including Roger Stone) have suggested is a horrible idea because, just to be brutally honest, Trump is a moron, prone to hyperbole, exaggeration, and in some cases, outright lying.
That sets up the potential for him to accidentally commit a crime during the interview in addition to the crimes he’s being interviewed about, a comically ridiculous situation befitting of a comically ridiculous president.
Well now, according to the Washington Post, Mueller threatened Dowd, saying he might subpoena the president to appear before a grand jury if Trump refused an interview. To wit, from the Washington Post:
In a tense meeting in early March with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, President Trump’s lawyers insisted he had no obligation to talk with federal investigators probing Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.
But Mueller responded that he had another option if Trump declined: He could issue a subpoena for the president to appear before a grand jury, according to four people familiar with the encounter.
Mueller’s warning – the first time he is known to have mentioned a possible subpoena to Trump’s legal team – spurred a sharp retort from John Dowd, then the president’s lead lawyer.
“This isn’t some game,” Dowd said, according to two people with knowledge of his comments. “You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States.”
The irony in Dowd’s panicked “retort” is that that’s just the kind of thing one would say when one realizes that the other guy (in this case Robert Mueller) is in fact not playing any games. In other words, Mueller could have just as easily turned the tables on Dowd, and said “This isn’t some game. You are screwing with the work of a federal investigation into collusion with a hostile foreign power.”
That tense pow wow between Mueller and Trump’s legal team prompted Sekulow to make the list that was revealed by the Times on Monday evening. Here’s the Post again, detailing what comes next:
Now Trump’s newly reconfigured legal team is pondering how to address the special counsel’s queries, all while assessing the potential evidence of obstruction that Mueller might present and contending with a client who has grown increasingly opposed to sitting down with the special counsel. Without a resolution on the interview, the standoff could turn into a historic confrontation before the Supreme Court over a presidential subpoena.
[…]
Trump’s remade legal team is now led by former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who told The Washington Post on Tuesday that he views Mueller as the utmost professional, but is still reviewing documents and considering conditions he might set before deciding whether to recommend that Trump agree to an interview.
“Hopefully we’re getting near the end. We all on both sides have some important decisions to make,” Giuliani said.
Yes, “hopefully we’re getting near the end,” although “hope” is something different from “reality” and while the President may be “hope”lessly detached from the latter, his lawyers need to remain firmly tethered to it, lest Trump should end up getting served.
And you know it’s funny: how many legal experts (let alone Right wing commentators) have you heard suggest that Mueller wouldn’t go this route or would ultimately stop short of getting too aggressive in his pursuit of this? A lot.
It looks like the only people who really know what’s going on here are Mueller and his team, which, by the way, is exactly how it should be.
The fabricated WH message regarding a conversation about a Mueller subpoena “threat,” or “warning,” to give the impression that Mueller is being the oppressor and Trump the victim of a heavy-hand is funny.
Picture this: Dowd and Mueller are negotiating as to whether Trump will voluntarily appear for an interview. At the same time, Mueller is engaged in the unprecedented act of providing narrowly described areas of questioning that Trump will be subjected to.
While in the midst of negotiating, Dowd obviously states that even with the heads up on the areas of questioning, Trump may nevertheless refuse to appear.
What’s Mueller supposed to say? “Okay, Mr. Dowd, you have me there. Checkmate. It’s really up to the President if he wants to be questioned. Nothing else I can do.”
Or, Mueller can say, “Well, Mr. Dowd, as you know this case concerns the nation’s national security, the sanctity of its electoral process and the need to learn your client’s state of mind during critical moments so that we may complete our report, and so the next step would be to subpoena your client as we would any other witness similarly situated.” So form of the foregoing paragraph would be said, but I would not be surprised if went like this: “Then we’ll have to subpoena your client as we would any other witness.”
I have heard some legal experts on all sides opine that Mueller wouldn’t go the compulsory process route and would basically role over if Trump refused to give a voluntary statement. My reaction has been laughter.
For it’s hilarious to think that Mueller, in the most important investigation of this kind in American history, would not to use a Grand Jury subpoena to test the resolve of a non-cooperating Donald Trump, who had fired the FBI Director, Acting AG, turned the DOJ and FBI on its head, took a myriad of other well documented public actions to interfere with the Mueller and FBI investigations, and who prima facie took steps and had others take steps as part of a course of action to aid, assist, conspire, support and join with Russian agents, actors, cut-outs and their contractors to illegally impact the outcome of the 2016 election in his favor.