Mueller’s Probe
Many of us were aware that the Barack Obama attorney general selections were not independent heads of the Attorney General’s office. They were pawns of President Obama that did whatever they were told to do. They were very political and favored the party of the president. Most of us did not suspect the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI) of being corrupt. We think of J. Edgar Hoover when we consider the FBI and we think that the FBI is always for law and justice.
During most of President Obama’s terms of office, Robert Mueller was Director of the FBI. The head of the FBI has a consecutive service limitation of ten years. Mueller’s term had run out two years before President Obama’s term ended and James Comey was appointed as Director of the FBI. The evidence of corruption in the FBI came out in the handling of Candidate Hillary Clinton’s email investigation. When FBI Director Comey went on national television and told all of the evidence that they had in the Hillary investigation and then announced that there was not enough evidence to charge her with a crime, the corruption was evident and the FBI was involved. We were not aware of what was going on in the Justice Department and the FBI during the election, but the news media and the pollsters were convinced that Hillary Clinton was going to be president. Just in case the election did not go their way, they prepared another plan to prevent President Trump from being able to serve and to get him impeached.
President Trump appointed Senator Jeff Sessions as the new Attorney General. Senator Sessions had served as the Attorney General of Alabama and was not a complete novice. It appears that as soon as Attorney General Sessions had set up his office, he was advised that the FBI and the AG’s office was beginning an investigation of the Trump administration’s contacts with officials of Russia. Assuming that he might be the Attorney General, Senator Sessions had conversations with some Russian officials before the election. It appears that Comey and Assistant Attorney General Rosenstein told him about the investigation and suggested that he would be better off not to be involved. AG Sessions turned this investigation over to Comey and Rosenstein by recusing himself.
President Trump had hundreds of appointments to make and he left James Comey in his position at the FBI for four months. Rosenstein, Comey and Mueller needed an event to justify setting up a special prosecutor to investigate the Russian involvement in the 2016 election. They realized that Comey would not be able to hold his job when President Trump reviewed the situation again. Comey fed restricted information to the New York Times and it created the right situation. Rosenstein sent a memo to the President stating that Comey had done this and he should be fired. President Trump fired him on Rosenstein’s recommendation. The following day, Mueller met the President and asked for Comey’s job. The President turned him down. The next day, Rosenstein announced that he was appointing Mueller as a special prosecutor for the Russian investigation.
The focus of this investigation was to be the connection between the Russians and the Trump campaign. These FBI and AG employees could not believe that Donald Trump could defeat Hillary Clinton without some outside help. They assumed that the outside help came from Russia.
One of the first things that the investigators will do is interview the subjects of the people that may have information about the campaign. They try to find a weak subject that can be charged with a crime and give them immunity for information on bigger subjects. It is kind of like using a live minnow to lure a bigger fish into the trap. Be sure that the questioner knows the answer to the questions that they are asking. They caught General Flynn in a lie to the FBI and charged him. Either he did not have any derogatory information about President Trump or he would not give it up. Take note that it may not be a good idea to pick a fight with Donald Trump. Seven top level FBI officials have resigned or been fired since this fight began.
Special Investigator Mueller set up a staff of people that had the same view as his view. A number of them were from his former staff as Director of the FBI. All of them were supporters of Hillary Clinton for president. They have been unable to find any evidence against President Trump. During the same period, the House of Representatives and the Senate began to do a review of the FBI and the Attorney General’s office. The efforts that the AG and FBI made on behalf of Hillary Clinton become evident.
After more than a year of investigation, Special Investigator Mueller has stated that he now wishes to interview the President before he completes his report to Congress. This interview would have to be under the rules of a deposition. The rules say the subject to be deposed can volunteer but if he does not volunteer it could be accomplished by a legal subpoena. In order to use a legal subpoena, the subject must have witnessed a crime or have knowledge of a crime or be a suspect in a crime.
President Trump does not qualify for a subpoena for a deposition since nether of the conditions apply to him. Technically, Mueller is working under the Attorney General’s office which is a part of the Executive Branch. The President is the head of the Executive Branch of the government. He has the authority to fire any subject under his employ. He has not used this authority to fire either Rosenstein or Mueller because he has been advised that this would make him look guilty. It is very unusual for an employee like Mueller to be able to challenge his superior that is three steps up the corporate ladder, but this is the plan from Rosenstein and Mueller. The President wishes to have the interview so that this “witch hunt,” as he calls it, can be over. His attorneys recognize that Mueller would only ask questions that he already knows the answer in order to cause President Trump to give a different answer so that they can charge him with perjury. The Democrats want to bring impeachment charges against the President and they hope to regain a majority in the House of Representative to do this. If they were successful, then the case would move to the Senate for the punishment. If the Senate was controlled by Democrats he could be removed from office.
It is very important that the Republicans maintain control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives in the 2018 elections.