It’s kind of like you have a malignant tumor in your brain, one of those ones with tendrils embedded everywhere, not looking like a pebble. Sure, you want to get rid of it, but you don’t want the surgeon to pop the top of your skull off and start laying about with a hatchet, either.
Latest news from the Spectator, based on reports from people who talked to “people in the room” is that Mueller is recommending indictments for Eric, Don Jr, Ivanka, and Jared for financial crimes, and Trump himself for obstruction of justice. Barr supposedly has agreed to indicting the kids but is balking at the president. This disagreement was the reason the report wasn’t released Friday.
Take it for what it’s worth, third-hand news but from a usually reputable source.
I can’t open that link. Can you cut and paste relevant parts of the article? If true, obviously this would be about as bad as possible for Trump and co.
I can open the link.
Thanks!
I’m skeptical, Mueller would know it’s not his job to argue for indicting anyone in particular. He presents the evidence to the AG and the AG makes the decision.
Also, I think that anyone who claims to know what Mueller is going to do… well… doesn’t know. Mueller doesn’t leak. Although I love thinking about all those indictments. 
Shouldn’t there be some punitive damages in there? I mean, this is like “yeah, you embezzled a bunch of money - just pay it back and we’ll call it quits” 
But, if he is actually in conversations with DOJ and the AG, then it is no longer just Mueller not leaking - and we know this White House makes a sieve look like the Grand Coulee dam.
Although its a usually reputable source that spends half the article explaining how speculative all this is. Having had so many false alarms I’m going to not going to give anything a whole lot of credence unless it comes from Mr. Mueller himself.
Not too surprising. It was always going to be difficult to prove, even if true. And, despite CNN and Trump’s own statements, it was always a lower priority than determining whether he was compromised in some way - and that’s even harder to prove.
But, if Trump and his family are indicted for financial crimes, it’s a lot more reasonable to believe that Trump was/is compromised in some way - though whether that came into play before or after the election would still be a bit of a mystery.
It’s worth remembering, though, that Mueller likely still has a second investigation going on Trump, Saudi Arabia, and Israel and their interactions before the election.
Publicly, yes. In practical terms, though, lobbying your boss for a particular outcome (in private) isn’t a completely unthinkable thing and pretty well falls under the heading of “delivering his report”.
An exquisite analogy. It does make sense that you don’t want to kill off the whole body as you excise the tumor. I suppose it is going to be all but impossible to scalpel out all the embedded tendrils. One thing at a time. I expect the country will live with the repercussions of this “surgery” long past my lifetime.
I believe it would be his job to argue for an exception to the DOJ policy that prohibits indictment of a sitting president in the face of overwhelming evidence of criminal wrong-doing.
The important part of the article was the fact that the NY AG had identified potential criminal behavior and had referred the matters to other agencies to pursue. They will also themselves pursue any criminal activities they uncover, beyond just fines. The civil lawsuit they filed against the Trump Foundation was just for openers, I think.
Wouldn’t it be within his purview to make a recommendation to the AG?
This is what I thought. Any evidence found against Trumpy Wumpy Family would still be within grounds to file indictments. No?
Assuming this is true, one wonders to what extent the “financial crimes” have state-level crimes attached to them, in the event Daddy hands out pardons for Christmas/Hanukkah.
Thank you for the complement. A couple days ago David Pakman was trying to estimate how long before the US got its reputation back after Trump left office and came up with two to five years. I found this laughably short and figure ten years minimum, and more likely not until all the world leaders and diplomats who are laughing at Trump now are not only retired, but dead.
And that was just considering our reputation, not other long term damage such as climate change and judge appointments – not only SCOTUS but also all those other ones you never hear about.
Yeah, but there’s something in the language of the what TroutMan posted that doesn’t sound like a career FBI man. “The two men met on Friday but apparently could not agree and this was the reason for the delay in any announcement from the DoJ.” Why would they need to agree? Mueller can want what he wants but at the end of the day he knows that it’s not his job to question his boss.
I dunno, as always, we’ll see.
I’m a US citizen. The way I’ll start respecting this country again is if Trump is held accountable for his crimes.
Yes, I believe so. And could even seek indictments on his own, I thought, although given the stakes I’m sure he’d rather have the AG on board.
Cockburn is poorly-sourced (if it’s sourced at all) nonsense/gossip. I would like to see this from a reputable source, but AFAICT none have it.