WHOLE LOTTA SHAKIN' GOIN' ON
Batten down the hatches, friends. Something big is about to happen. You can tell it’s big because Donald Trump is absolutely terrified. He’s screaming “fake news” and demanding that the investigation focus on Hillary Clinton, not him. He’s pleading with his followers to “DO SOMETHING!”
This morning, he renewed his insistence that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is on a witch hunt. Well, guess what? It looks like Mueller has found a witch or two. And just in time for Halloween.
One of Mueller’s grand juries has filed its first charges in the investigation. As of Sunday noon, MST, the identity of the individual or individuals, as well as the nature of the charges, remain sealed by order of a federal judge in Washington, D.C. News reports indicate that those charged could be taken into custody as early as Monday.
But there are indeed fake news stories in circulation. They’re aimed at Hillary Clinton and they’re coming from Trump and his pals Sean Hannity and Roger Stone (whose Twitter account has been suspended because he threatened some CNN people). OMG! The Steele Dossier! The uranium!
Here are the facts about those two issues, as best I understand them. It turns out that the Steele Dossier originated with the Washington Free Beacon, which belongs to right wing Republican billionaire Paul Singer. In 2015, the Free Beacon hired Fusion GPS to do opposition research on behalf of Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign. Then Rubio’s campaign went belly up, and Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination. At that point, the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign needed opposition research on Donald Trump. They hired Fusion GPS to do the job, and Fusion built upon the work that they’d already done for Republicans.
The moral of the story? Both parties do opposition research. It’s part of 21st century campaigning. It’s an unlovely process, but in and of itself, it’s neither unusual nor illegal. It would only be illegal if someone acting on behalf of a foreign government – say, Russia, just to pick a random example – contributed money, time, and/or labor to someone’s campaign. Which is what they did – for Donald Trump, not for Hillary Clinton.
Here’s how Crooked Media’s Jon Favreau summarized the argument that Trump and his sock puppets are making. Hillary’s evil plan had three parts. Part one was to fund the Steele Dossier. Part two was that, once Clinton had information about the Pee Tape allegations and other evidence of collusion with Russia, she kept it secret. Part three was to lose the election. By Jove, it was a fiendishly clever strategy.
Perhaps you’ve noticed a tiny little flaw in that in that theory. But a logical theory isn’t the point. The point is to give the press something besides Trump-Russia to talk about. Which the press has dutifully done.
OK, but what about all that uranium that Hillary Clinton gave to the Russians? Twenty percent of our total supply, in exchange for a $145 million donation to the Clinton Foundation? That would have been really bad, if it happened, which it didn’t. As Snopes.com notes, the deal wasn’t Clinton’s to approve or disapprove. The issue is complicated, which makes it easy to lie about, especially to Trump’s base and Clinton haters in the press who are predisposed to believe the worst. Snopes explains it better than I can here; check out the link below if it’s important to you.
The bottom line is that claims about Clinton’s connections to the Steele Dossier and the uranium sale are part of Trump’s disinformation campaign designed to distract attention from the Mueller investigation. Outside of the Trump Bubble, such distractions will only work until real indictments come down, and that day of reckoning is coming.
It will be interesting to see who has the honor of being the first recipient of Mueller’s indictment(s), since he’s working in a target rich environment. As I write this, no one seems to know. It’s customary when prosecuting white collar crimes to give a heads up to the attorney of the accused, a courtesy call saying “you and your client need to be at the courthouse at 9:00 a.m. sharp on Monday,” or something like that. Apparently, no one in Trump’s orbit has received such a call.
Perhaps Mueller thinks there’s a risk that the accused will leave the country. Or if the charges involve someone in the Trump family (looking at you, Jared Kushner), Mueller may have wanted to avoid a pre-emptive pardon. Or maybe he just wants to make all the bad guys sweat a little.
Informed speculation has settled on four names. Paul Manafort and Mike Flynn are two obvious targets. Jared Kushner is a third. And the fourth is Mike Flynn, Jr., if Mueller suspects that Moscow Mike himself is withholding information, and that an indictment of his son will convince him to do the right thing.
The good news is that we’ll find out soon enough. No matter who has the honor of going first, the initial indictments won’t be the last.
The bad news is that Donald Trump will not go gentle into that good night. He seems intent on interfering with Mueller’s investigation. His Sunday morning tweets suggest that he hopes congressional Republicans will do his dirty work for him. He may have some success in the House of Representatives, but I doubt that the Senate goes along. But the truth is that the congressional investigations aren’t where Trump’s problems lie.
His real problem is Robert Mueller. My gut feeling is that sooner or later, Trump will take matters into his own hands and fire Mueller while issuing blanket pardons to everyone involved, including himself. Then we’ll have a full blown constitutional crisis on our hands, and Republicans will face a classic party vs. principles decision. It’s a sad commentary on the Republican Party that the question even needs to be asked, much less that the answer is in doubt.