No.
That interview will never happen. Brace yourselves for a major thump distraction.
Can Trump simply refuse to be interviewed? I have to imagine that there is some way for Mueller to compel testimony?
I wouldn’t think so.
And the thing is that even if he’s prepped in advance, and even if he has a lawyer sitting in during the interview (I don’t know how this would work) it’s not likely to help all that much because Trump is smarter than any of these people and he knows better, and he’s likely to disregard any advice and say whatever he’s in the mood of saying at that exact second (then blame other people when it backfires).
As I see it, this is the one part of the investigation that really poses a genuine danger to Trump.
Trumpy has never turned down an interview ever.
Based on Trump deposition that I have read, he is smart enough to say, “I don’t remember.” Granted, I assume that he came about this talent after several decades of demolishing himself in his legal suits, but it does seem to have taken at some point.
Mueller can subpoena him, but that’s not something you do lightly with the President.
Meanwhile, though, Trump can keep babbling until the clock runs out.
If he feels like saying that, yes. But his emotions have taken hold of him WRT to this issue, and he’s just as likely to assert all sorts of imaginary facts that he feels support his innocence and/or prove his greatness. So it’s a huge risk.
If I were Mueller, I’d tell Trump: “I’d like to interview you, in a really opulent setting. I’m thinking multiple cameras catching a lot of glinting off gold accoutrements. You would be lounging on a gold and chintz Louis XIV setee, with servants (ooh, maybe we get Christie for this role) bringing you french fries in golden baskets. And a separate basket for the cheetahs, did I mention the cheetahs?
Now, we of course would have a glittering Trump logo in shot at all times, so I’m wondering if you’d like to do this live on prime time…”
So, you are saying that this has the possibility to be a very consensual interview?
I see what you did there …
Seth Abramson has a pretty interesting breakdown of the options and what Trump/Trump’s Legal Beagles may do:
<chortle!>
I feel like Legal Smeagols would be a better nickname.
The much discussed book Fire and Fury makes the claim ( via Bannon ) that Kushner money is really “greasy”. That might just be Bannon, but Mueller has some high powered money-laundering experts on his team. And that’s fact, not fiction. And even if it’s not collusion, they can end up getting them for other stuff. Remember, Ken Starr’s original mission was investigation of an allegedly corrupt real estate deal and they ended up nailing him for lying no about canoodling with an intern.
I keep hoping that Mueller’s office serves (served) Chinese food when they interview Rob Goldstone. The musical comedy will write itself.
But Trumps staff has a brilliant compromise as usual. Instead of testifying or answering questions, the President will sign an affidavit proclaiming his innocence of collusion and obstruction.
He might even agree to have it notarized.
Case closed, it’s iver, we can all go home. Tell the mods to close the thread. F-P was right, no collusion.
In Trumps mobbed up real estate tycoon bubble, he could get away with stuff like this. And he still doesn’t get that this is different. That’s why he’s fucked, and getting more fucked every day.
F-P was right?? Forthingray Pip Pip, What what? Hey hey. Pish tosh?
Look at page one of this thread. This investigation won’t go past Kushner, and that’s a tough one to believe that it would impeach Trumpy Wumpy back in February 2017. Analysis be gone. Even if it does undoubtedly prove Donny Two-Scoops had meetings in his NY Plaza with Putin, hackers and tea w/ vodka, complete with tapes saying, “I want Putin to make me president” would only promote USSR flag sales to the Bible Belt. This investigation could prove the Howling Yam only has $250 in his checking account and MAGA hat sales would skyrocket.
Is there collusion? Of course. Can it be proved? Yes. Will it happen? Not a chance. Ollie North’s grandkids would accept the blame for this before an indictment comes near this poor excuse for an poorly-tanned date.
I can only see this investigation going state after Mueller is fired, well into the next election, only listed as a news blurb in “Other US News” on any news-- or “fake news” - site, proving this is insurmountable against the GOP. An election giving the Dems control of the Senate won’t make this go faster. It will only delay it, long enough to put it out of memory.
An Al Capone-type tax evasion investigation is about the only thing I see working towards getting Burnt Sienna Crayon Man to flap his lips in a court that matters, but it’s way too late for that. Second best chance is unfit/25th amendment toward an impeachment or more likely a step-down. This will include a nation-wide speech featuring crying bible-thumping dumbasses and a President Pence who won’t stop praising the elected fraud.
Mueller should just publicly state that he doesn’t think Trump is smart enough to have colluded with Russia. There’ll be a full confession on Twitter in no time.
Okay, that’s brilliant.
Question: is the fact that Mueller is going to question thump a signal that the investigation is nearing the end? That Mueller started at the outside and is moving through interviewees in decreasing concentric circles with thump at the hub?
You, sir, are a stable genius.
You brilliant, magnificent bastard. I’m stealing this
I’m hardly an expert (I’m just a guy that watched Homicide: Life on the Streets), but I would think that they would either go top-down or bottoms-up, and bottoms-up makes more sense. I would also think that, if you’re going bottoms-up, then you’re not really interviewing Trump to get information out of him - you already know everything that everyone did at Trump’s order - you’re really, purely looking for him to lie. And so you’re not going to interview him until they know enough that they can catch him in a lie, meaning that you really do do him last.
But that just ends the “interview” stage of the investigation. There could be any amount of further investigation of records, financial auditing, serving warrants, etc. that could follow for just as long as the interview stage. And probably you would re-interview at least a few people.
After that, you still have to write everything up, issue indictments, and take everything to court.
I’d also note that, as I said in a previous post, I don’t think that Mueller’s investigation is the investigation of a single crime. There is a wide variety of acts that Trump and those who were affiliated with the campaign may have committed either as part of the campaign (espionage, foreign donations, etc.), in their previous lives (money laundering, tax evasion, etc.), or as they dealt with the investigation and the investigators (e.g., obstruction of justice). Each of these could and probably will have different schedules. They’re probably being worked on by different sub-teams within Mueller’s camp, semi-independently of one another. I guesstimated the next stage of the Manafort case, for example, as probably coming in mid-February.
There’s no way that Camp Mueller folds up and goes home anytime in 2018.
The only potential is that Mueller issues a statement that they can find no criminal wrongdoing on the part of the President, and Mueller spends the rest of the year focused on Manafort, Papadopoulos, Gates, and Flynn. While this would not, technically, mean that the investigation was over, it would end it so far as most of us are concerned.
An unfortunate thing with Mueller is that he’s probably going to have a pretty hard line on his work. It’s up the Congressional committees to decide whether we need laws on the books for things like encouraging a foreign government to practice espionage and interfere with the elections. But it will probably take a Democratic Congress to start the ball rolling on that.
So far as Mueller is concerned, if there’s no law broken and he didn’t find any secondary issues (money laundering, etc.) with Trump, then he’ll just say, “All clear!”, even if he thinks that Trump’s behavior on the campaign trail was completely treasonous and unpatriotic. He was hired to find and convict crimes, not to write a report on what happened.
The law that Trump is, possibly, the most likely to get in trouble for is one that was written as a result of President Clinton accept foreign contributions. You’ll note that, that law came into life with a whimper not a bang. Preventative legal measures might be all we get and, if we do, they’ll definitely be less than emotionally satisfying.