Busts expected Monday
SOON, DIRT ON DOSSIER
nances and business dealings and his advocating for the firing of James Comey.
Kushner also had private conversations with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador whose meetings and conversations with the likes of Flynn and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have caused headaches for the Trump administration.
The young real estate baron reportedly asked Kislyak about establishing back-channel communications between the White House and the Kremlin and he met with Russian banker, Sergey Gorkov, in December.
The President’s eldest son has been under scrutiny for a controversial 2016 meeting with Kushner, Manafort and a Russian lawyer who promised dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Trump Jr. initially lied about the meeting and Mueller is looking at a statement the President may have helped his son craft that disguised the true nature of the sitdown.
The Kremlin-connected lawyer reportedly shared her talking points with a top official in Moscow months earlier, The New York Times reported Friday.
Mueller is investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice for firing FBI Director James Comey.
Trump initially said he fired Comey due to his inadequate leadership, but days later admitted to NBC News that “this Russia thing” was his reason. Comey also told a Senate committee in June that Trump asked him to drop the probe into Flynn.
Investigators have also sought to interview White House staffers who were present when the President dictated Donald Trump Jr.’s initial misleading statement about his Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer. THE LONG-RUNNING mystery over who financed the salacious dossier alleging links between President Trump and the Russians will soon come to an end. The House Intelligence Committee said Saturday that Fusion GPS, the firm behind the anti-Trump files, has agreed to reveal its financial records. The origins of the dossier, compiled by a former British spy during the 2016 presidential election campaign, have roiled Washington since BuzzFeed News published it in January. The President has repeatedly dismissed the memo as bogus.
THE NEWS broke on Friday night with suitable fanfare that the special counsel has brought the first charges, in the form of a sealed indictment, in connection with his investigation of Russian interference in our democracy and all things associated with it.
I hope it didn’t come as a surprise.
While we still don’t know exactly who has been indicted, or on what kinds of charges, the reporting, if true, should put to rest, with right-thinking folks (no pun intended) in this country, the notion that the special counsel’s investigation is a hoax, or a witch hunt or fake news.
Regardless of how the fringe media, or the White House, or some Republicans on Capitol Hill may squeal about how unfair it is to treat the president and his minions this way when it is the Clintons who are dirty as sin; or, conversely, try to argue, using their best alternative facts, that the charges are proof the President didn’t conspire with Russians to undermine the election; or that he didn’t obstruct justice when he fired James Comey because the former FBI Director wouldn’t end the investigation; or he didn’t abuse the power of his office by inappropriately trying to influence its outcome; the fact of the matter is someone who was, or is, associated with him is facing real legal jeopardy for something they allegedly did relative to the special counsel’s investigative mandate.
They will be arrested, tried, and if convicted, can receive a penalty up to, and including, jail time.
Certainly, the President could pardon the offender, or offenders, and for good measure, even fire the special counsel for having the gall to bring the charges in the first place. That’s a President’s prerogative, even when he exercises it unrighteously or in a manner that would be illegal for the rest of us.
But such executive action, if it comes to that, will not erase the fact that a highly regarded Federal lawman, prosecutor, public servant of the highest integrity, while conducting an investigation of the highest office in the land and those associated with it, developed the probable cause to bring charges.
And while that doesn’t mean whoever has been charged is guilty, in a case like this, the American public should know the special counsel’s prosecutors would not have sought a true bill of indictment from a federal grand jury if they did not think themselves highly confident in their ability to prove the charges before a judge and jury. Despite what some commentators have suggested, this isn’t a bluff.
But it is a reasonable question to ask what happens next.
I’d suggest water-cooler talk, diner discussions, and even the pundits across the entire spectrum keep this in mind: The special counsel’s actions have not been, are not nor ever will be driven by political considerations. White noise and distractions of the kind we’ve seen this past week in regard to Russian purchase of Uranium One, the Mikerin bribery case, the Dossier, charges of conflict of interests from political hack in Congress, or self-defeating Trump tweets about the special counsel’s investigation itself (doesn’t he realize all that is potential evidence against himself?) do not influence either the direction of the investigation (save perhaps to generate more leads) or the decisions made about whom to prosecute and when.
Sure, the special counsel knows all about the games con men play, the uninformed and artificially heated rhetoric they spew when their backs are against the wall, and the fear that underlies it all, but that awareness doesn’t mean he’s the kind to play with pigs in their sty.
And, if you think otherwise, then you don’t know Bob Mueller.