Thanks
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Yes!
Plus, I think he would handle something like that internally.
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That’s the way I read the BF article, too - source NOT w/Mueller’s operation.
Trumpsters can go apes-- on this, but the fact remains Mueller said not “accurate.” Doesn’t mean not true.
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My guess: The Buzzfeed article was essentially a smoking gun, exposing a clearly impeachable offense. Mueller wanted to head off any “rogue” move toward impeachment until he releases the true and unassailable facts.
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I agree with you. Was thinking the same thing. I am worried, though, that we will never see the report.
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Well fret not. The Democrats have already said that they would call Mueller to testify publicly.
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You don’t think the Trump Campaign’s Chairman being found guilty and in prison for Russian shenanigans and tax evasion, with Trump’s National Security Advisor also awaiting sentencing and the next ring of over a dozen campaign staffers and family members lying about Russian associations, as well as Trump himself ALL having lied about significant, secret, years-long Russian communications and interests lasting until after the election aren’t “bombshells”? Wow.
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Well, Rosenstein is for the moment still in charge. I’ve imagined Whitaker’s first day, getting read in by Rosenstein. As minor a player as Whitaker is, Mueller has a file on everything’s he’s been up to for the last 40 years. Whitaker recognizes that discretion is the better part of valor. OH! Sorry, I was dreaming.
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It’ll be interesting to see how it all shakes out. I hope we get to see a decently juicy report or court filing.
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Heh, as old as I am I tend to fret nearly daily. I wanna be here for the denoument d’trump. Full of tears, denials, firings and finger pointings. And then packing his things and leaving for his gaudy space in NYC. Nixon walked thru the White House talking to paintings… what will trump do?
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And totally ot… i just got done watching True Grit for the umteenth time. Watched it with my dad years ago and it brings memories of him. At the end John Wayne jumps a fence on horseback after saying “Woll, come see a fat old man sometime!!” Every. damned. time. I laugh and cry at the same time. Probably his best role.
It seems to me that if the Special Counsel had solid evidence that the president had instructed a witness (or witnesses) to lie to Congress, then it would be incumbent on the Justice Department to inform the relevant congressional committees right away. This would be a serious separation of powers issue, since the President would be interfering with the legitimate oversight duties of the Legislative branch. If the Justice Department remained silent and allowed this to continue, the constitutional issue would only become more serious, since Justice could be viewed as being complicit in misleading Congress. I can only assume that Mueller’s team does not have the evidence described in the BuzzFeed story, or else they would not have issued the denial. I suppose it’s possible that SDNY or EDVA investigators might have passed along this information to BuzzFeed, based on their own inquiries. That seems unlikely, but who knows?
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I put together a longer piece in TPM Forums.
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Hell, they didn’t even go that far; they only said that certain “descriptions” of “statements” and “characterizations of documents and testimony” weren’t accurate.
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That “denial” is probably a red herring to throw someone off the trail, or draw someone out. Great obfuscation tactics. I think they’re trying to prevent something being looked at too closely, at least for now.
It was very specifically non-specific. Caused a dustup, confusion, misdirection, uncertainty… mission accomplished.
Which could mean Mueller is at a critical juncture, about to spring a very intricate trap…
Or…?
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FWIW, this is (part of) Marcy Wheeler’s take.
Cohen is not a cooperating witness for SDNY. While they continue to investigate Trump and Trump Organization for campaign finance violations, they’re not relying on Cohen to make that case. They’re relying on immunized testimony from Allen Weisselberg and David Pecker. So SDNY (whether people in the office or FBI Agents assigned to the case) has no incentive to be exacting in their description of the evidence on the Trump Tower deal. They can go big, just like they did in the hush payment allocution.
Cohen is, however, a cooperating witness for Mueller. If and when they make a case that the Trump Tower deal was part of a larger election year conspiracy, they will likely need to be able to call Cohen to the stand and describe the truth of how he kept Trump and Don Jr in the loop on the deal, most notably to explain how it factored into Don Jr’s mindset when he accepted a meeting offering dirt in exchange for sanctions relief. They need Cohen to explain that Don Jr would have understood there was $300 million riding on that meeting.
Everything about how Mueller’s team has handled Cohen attests to that possibility. They didn’t need to charge him with false statements and the charge did not add any prison time to his sentence. They didn’t need to make him publicly explain, under oath, why he lied. But by doing that, they began to rehabilitate Cohen publicly. In spite of Cohen’s significant cooperation, they didn’t offer him a 5K letter at sentencing, meaning he’s still on the hook for cooperation; unlike Mike Flynn, for example, he’s not getting a sentence reduction before he takes the stand. But because of the way they handled it, they can mandate his silence about what he told Mueller, demand that Congress limit the scope of his testimony next month, and dictate any response Cohen made yesterday to the story.
The possibility they’ll put Cohen on the stand is likely one reason why Cohen’s allocution about the Trump Tower lies is so much more modest than the SDNY allocution: Mueller will need to be able to corroborate, with other documentary evidence, everything that Cohen will ultimately testify to. And so while they may have reason to believe Trump approved of the lies being told on his behalf — maybe even ordered people at Trump Organization or his spawn to do what they needed to sustain the lies (which might look to SDNY law enforcement as clear evidence that he was directing the lies) — Mueller is not going to set the bar for proof of Cohen’s statement anywhere further than they need for a possible larger conspiracy case. And they don’t need to prove that Trump had a role in Cohen’s lies. Rather, they need to be able to prove that Cohen kept Trump and Don Jr in the loop on the deal itself.
If all this is right, it — and not the magnitude of any errors in the Buzzfeed story (because there have been a number of other big stories where the errors were clearly just as significant) — explains why Carr issued a statement yesterday. First, to make it very clear that in Mueller’s mind, Cohen’s allocution was honest, that he wasn’t (for example) protecting Trump in taking responsibility for the initial lie. But also, to make sure the bar they very deliberately set for Cohen’s testimony remained precisely where they put it in his plea allocution. The last thing Mueller needs is a juror who thinks that unless they show an email with Trump ordering Cohen to lie, then Cohen’s testimony is false. And by making this unprecedented statement, Mueller will make it harder for any defense attorney to raise the bar on what Mueller needs to prove in this case.
More at the link - it’s a long post – including shots across the bow to SDNY, which may have been the source of Buzzfeed’s leaks, Mueller’s trial strategies depending on whom he charges and whom he doesn’t, etc.
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Everyone with some version of this question should read this, because facts, also relevant statutes, also experienced prosecutor’s perspective:
ETA: this is also important–maybe even more critical.
Congress has a means of pursuing this question that should not harm Mueller’s investigation: Subpoena the information that Cohen, Felix Sater, the Trump Organization, and the campaign withheld from the House Intelligence Committee so as to sustain Cohen’s false testimony through March 22, 2018.
The House Intelligence Committee Can and Should Subpoena the 18-Minute Gap on the Trump Tower Deal - emptywheel