Tag Archives: mueller

Dropping Shoe Watch: "Every Day He Looks More and More Like a Complete Moron"

by bibw6a Posted on May 20, 2017

Mother Jones

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The Daily Beast has talked to a bunch of folks close to Donald Trump, and as usual they can’t help themselves:

“Okay, he fired Comey,” the official conceded. “With a semi-competent comms operation, that would blow over in 24 hours. And that’s the worst part: he has a competent comms staff. But they can’t do their jobs because he keeps running his mouth.”

….Trump’s repeated media missteps have frustrated even longtime supporters. “Every day he looks more and more like a complete moron,” said one senior administration official who also worked on Trump’s campaign. “I can’t see Trump resigning or even being impeached, but at this point I wish he’d grow a brain and be the man that he sold himself as on the campaign.”

Asked whether an administration staff change-up would ameliorate this latest crisis, a Republican source formerly involved with a pro-Trump political group told The Daily Beast, “yes, if it comes with a frontal lobotomy for Trump.”

Remember, these are people who are on Team Trump. Elsewhere, Reuters reports that Trump is already working on ways to sabotage its own special counsel:

The Trump administration is exploring whether it can use an obscure ethics rule to undermine the special counsel investigation into ties between President Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russia, two people familiar with White House thinking said on Friday.

….Within hours of Mueller’s appointment on Wednesday, the White House began reviewing the Code of Federal Regulations, which restricts newly hired government lawyers from investigating their prior law firm’s clients for one year after their hiring, the sources said….Mueller’s former law firm, WilmerHale, represents Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who met with a Russian bank executive in December, and the president’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who is a subject of a federal investigation.

Hmmm. Preventing the special counsel from investigating Manafort hardly seems worth the trouble. He’s not close enough to the White House to cause too many problems even if he does turn out to be involved in something fishy. So that leaves Kushner. Is he the guy the Trumpies are trying to protect?

On the bright side of all this, if you have some embarrassing news you’ve been waiting to release, now would be a good time. It’s almost sure to be forgotten as soon as the next Trump shoe drops, which will probably take no more than a few hours.

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Dropping Shoe Watch: "Every Day He Looks More and More Like a Complete Moron"

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The White House Is Weighing A Plan To Weaken The Special Prosecutor’s Investigation Into Trump’s Russia Scandal

by hu7vfd0 Posted on May 19, 2017

Mother Jones

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By Julia Edwards Ainsley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration is exploring whether it can use an obscure ethics rule to undermine the special counsel investigation into ties between President Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russia, two people familiar with White House thinking said on Friday.

Trump has said that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s hiring of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to lead the investigation “hurts our country terribly.”

Within hours of Mueller’s appointment on Wednesday, the White House began reviewing the Code of Federal Regulations, which restricts newly hired government lawyers from investigating their prior law firm’s clients for one year after their hiring, the sources said.

An executive order signed by Trump in January extended that period to two years.

Mueller’s former law firm, WilmerHale, represents Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who met with a Russian bank executive in December, and the president’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who is a subject of a federal investigation.

Legal experts said the ethics rule can be waived by the Justice Department, which appointed Mueller. He did not represent Kushner or Manafort directly at his former law firm.

If the department did not grant a waiver, Mueller would be barred from investigating Kushner or Manafort, and this could greatly diminish the scope of the probe, experts said.

The Justice Department is already reviewing Mueller’s background as well as any potential conflicts of interest, said department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores.

Even if the Justice Department granted a waiver, the White House would consider using the ethics rule to create doubt about Mueller’s ability to do his job fairly, the sources said. Administration legal advisers have been asked to determine if there is a basis for this.

Under this strategy, the sources said the administration would raise the issue in press conferences and public statements.

Moreover, the White House has not ruled out the possibility of using the rule to challenge Mueller’s findings in court, should the investigation lead to prosecution.

FOCUS ON CASTING A CLOUD OVER MUELLER

But the administration is now mainly focused on placing a cloud over his reputation for independence, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Kathleen Clark, a professor of legal ethics at Washington University School of Law, said the Justice Department can grant a waiver if concerns about bias are minimal.

She said subjects of the investigation could later argue that its results cannot be trusted, but she believes the argument would not stand up in court.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether it is reviewing the ethics rule in order to undermine Mueller’s credibility.

Mueller’s former colleagues at WilmerHale, James Quarles and Aaron Zebley, are expected to join his investigation, according to a spokeswoman for the law firm. Neither Quarles nor Zebley represented Kushner or Manafort.

Mueller will now lead the ongoing Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into Trump’s associates and senior Russian officials.

Unlike Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel appointed by a three-judge panel to investigate Bill and Hillary Clinton’s real estate holdings in the 1990s, Mueller depends on the Justice Department for funding and he reports to Rosenstein, who was appointed by Trump.

When he announced Mueller’s appointment this week, Rosenstein said Mueller will have “all appropriate resources to conduct a thorough and complete investigation.”

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley, additional reporting by Gina Chon in Washington and Jan Wolfe in New York; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Cynthia Osterman)

Credit:

The White House Is Weighing A Plan To Weaken The Special Prosecutor’s Investigation Into Trump’s Russia Scandal

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An Open Note to Robert Mueller

by LatashiMaskell Posted on May 17, 2017

Mother Jones

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The Justice Department finally caved in and appointed a special counsel to investigate the Flynn/Manafort/Trump/Comey/Russia/etc. affair. Their choice is Robert Mueller, the FBI director before James Comey. Mueller, like Comey, is one of the heroes of the great Ashcroft hospital bed confrontation, so he’s widely viewed as an upright guy. Before he gets too deep into the weeds, however, I’d like to lay out one piece of the case:

February: President Trump meets with James Comey about his future. In notes written right after the meeting, Comey says that Trump explicitly asked him to please drop the whole Russia investigation.

March: Comey declines to drop the investigation. In fact, he makes it clear to Congress and the public that the investigation exists and is serious.

April: Trump admits on national TV that his growing frustration with the Russia investigation led to his decision to fire Comey.

This is what happened. It’s pretty simple. Trump asked the FBI director to kill an investigation into his friends, and then fired him when he refused. All the added detail in the world will never change this.

POSTSCRIPT: Just as an aside, one of the bizarre aspects of this case is that I suspect Trump never really thought he was doing anything wrong. Comey worked for him and he was making trouble for his friends, so of course he had to go. What’s wrong with that? Trump probably doesn’t even know what obstruction of justice is, and if he does he probably figures it doesn’t apply to the president.

Original article – 

An Open Note to Robert Mueller

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