Trump, Mueller approach epic political showdown
Special counsel’s report could be completed by summer’s end
“It’ll be a moment that polarizes the country, exposing just how divided the country is about this investigation and who’s on the other side.’’
Washington — President Donald Trump’s lawyers and special counsel Robert Mueller are hurtling toward a showdown over a yearlong investigation into the president’s conduct, with Mueller pushing to write up his findings by summer’s end and Trump’s lawyers strategizing how to rebut a report that could prompt impeachment hearings.
The confrontation is coming to a head as Trump and his allies ratchet up their attacks on the special counsel probe, seizing on a report released Thursday by the Justice Department’s inspector general that castigated FBI officials for their conduct during the 2016 Hillary Clinton email investigation.
Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, said that he planned to use the inspector general’s conclusions to undermine Mueller, suggesting he may ask Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a second special counsel to examine the current probe.
“We want to see if we can have the investigation and special counsel declared illegal and unauthorized,” Giuliani said in an interview Friday.
Will he or won’t he?
In the meantime, Trump must decide whether to do a face-to-face interview with Mueller’s team — an answer the president’s legal team expects to have in the next two weeks.
If the president agreed to a sitdown, the special counsel has told Trump’s lawyers that he could finish within roughly 90 days a report on whether Trump sought to obstruct a probe into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, according to two people familiar with the discussions. A separate report outlining Mueller’s broader findings on Russian attempts
NEWT GINGRICH TRUMP ALLY AND FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE
to bolster Trump’s candidacy is expected to take longer.
The confidential obstruction report, which would be delivered to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, is expected to contain the prosecutors’ conclusions about whether Trump engaged in any criminal wrongdoing by trying to derail the investigation into his campaign’s contact with Russians, according to the people.
Timing could impact midterms
The filing of the report could trigger a political firestorm over whether to make the special counsel’s findings public — just as this fall’s midterm campaign season kicks off.
“It’ll be a moment that polarizes the country, exposing just how divided the country is about this investigation and who’s on the other side,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who added that he and other Trump allies are “prepared for war.”
Among those suited up for battle: the president’s attorneys, who are readying to write a rebuttal disputing any conclusions that the president’s actions were improper or illegal.
At the center of that standoff would be Rosenstein, who oversees the Mueller probe. Friends and foes predict he would face intense pushback over every aspect of the report — when to release the information to Congress, whether to refer the report to Congress to consider impeachment and whether to make any aspect of the report public.
“He’s the final decision-maker,” said Giuliani, adding: “There will be pressure from all ways.”
Rosenstein, who has repeatedly sought to defuse attacks on the Justice Department by the president and
his congressional allies, has indicated he will only bend so far. Last month, after House Republicans threatened to impeach him for withholding investigative documents, he warned that “the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted.”
A spokesman for Rosenstein declined to comment.
That round of political and legal drama could be delayed until after the November elections if Mueller decides to hold back the report to avoid releasing it too close to Election Day, or if Trump refuses an interview and the special counsel tries to issue a subpoena, kicking off a lengthy court struggle.
In the meantime, anticipation for Mueller’s report has put Washington on a kind of emergency storm watch.
“What we’re going through now is a walk in the park compared to what’s coming when the report [on Trump’s conduct] comes out,” said Peter Wehner, a Trump critic who has advised several past Republican presidents. “Even if the report is a devastating indictment of Trump, the political tribalism in the country is so deep and won’t suddenly go away.”
For months, Trump has been setting the stage by repeatedly attacking the Justice Department and the FBI and accusing Mueller of waging a “witch hunt” against him — language echoed by White House officials and Giuliani.
After the Justice Department’s inspector general released his findings Thursday, Giuliani said he and fellow Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow conferred about legal options they could take to stymie Mueller — including possibly sending a letter to the Justice Department raising questions about the credibility of the special counsel investigation.