As the Congresional testimony of former Special Counsel Robert Meuller looms in the next two days Democrats who support a full impeachment inquiry into the action of White House resident Donald Trump are faced with a “do or die” scenario. Either they illicit the answers that will get more than just 21% of the American public to support an Impeachment inquiry or they might never gain the support they would need not only to get a super-majority in the Senate for removal, they won’t get enough energy going to get any new Impeachment articles even onto the House floor.
Can they get the answer from Mueller that they would need to sway the public when he has essentially sworn not to repeat the mistake made by former FBI Director James Comey of publicaly trashing the reputation of someone that the DOJ is not going to indict and prosecute for a crime?
Former FBI Director James Comey has outlined the questions he would ask Meuller.
- “Did you find substantial evidence that the president had committed obstruction of justice crimes? [Probably yes.]
- “Did you reach a judgment as to whether the president had committed obstruction of justice crimes?” [He’s already said “No” to that.]
- “Did you find that the White House counsel decided he would rather resign than carry out that order?” [Yes.]
- “Did you find that the president wanted the White House counsel to write a false memo saying he had not been ordered to have the special counsel removed?” [Yes.]
These are fine questions, but they’re just repeating things that are obvious in the Mueller report. The first and most important answer needed from Mueller is whether or not Trump is a criminal. Many of feel from having read the Mueller report that the obvious answer is “Yes”, but also that is probably the last thing the Robert Meuller will say before the congress or under oath. In his report he has stated that he was not allowed to even consider the idea of indicting or prosecuting Trump while he is the sitting White House resident due to established OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) rules. Additionally charges weren’t considered in detail the report states it would be unfair to make an allegation that the accused wouldn’t be able to defend against in court because the OLC doesn’t allow the case to be taken to court. On the other hand the report states that other arenas — such as Congress — may be able to address the conduct of Trump, but how exactly are they to do that if they don’t have the same underlying information that Mueller had in making his determination?
Congress will of course ask all these questions, but they will probably not get a satisfactory answer as Meuller, based on his history and many statements by those who haved worked closely with him such as Phil Mudd, won’t engage in “hypotheticals”. If they ask him “Would you have indicted Trump if not for the OLC rules?” He will probably refuse to answer or state his officer never considered the question, which will be nothing but frustrating.
Therefore, Congress will have to come at this issue a different way.
Question #1) How many of the ten instances of obstruction by Donald Trump that you indicate in your report meet all three needed requirements to file a criminal indictment?
Question #2) Which of those instances of obstruction which in your opinion meet all three neccesary requirements for an indictment reach the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard?
Question #3) DId you intend, by your statement that Congress should consider remedies suggested by your report, that Congress should investigate and take action on particularly eggregious conduct that you described by Trump and others?
Question #4) Which of these instances of obstruction and other actions would you recommend that Congress further investigate for potential future actions?
These questions essentially answer the core issue facing Democrats, did Trump commit the crime of obstruction and should Congress take up action because of those crimes because the OLC does not allow the DOJ to take action? They can be asked a variety of ways, but directly asking Meuller to speculate on the hypothetical of what he would have done without the OLC rules standing in his way is likely to lead nowhere and waste time. Establish that Meuller agrees that all the elements for a valid case are present, then move on.
The next thing they need to do is establish that Russia did attack our elections which is why he issued two seperate indictments against both members of the GRU and Internet Research Agency for their actions, and that Trump and his staff were open to accepting as much help from the Russians as they could get much of which we can see in the Roger Stone and Paul Manafort indictments.
Question #5) Was the Trump campaign aware of the Russian efforts to help them in the election and that such help could have been considered an illegal campaign finance violation?
Question #6) Did the Trump campaign repeatedly reach out the Russians in knowing potential violation of Campaign Finance and the Logan Act which prohibits political negotiations by civilians and also in violation of U.S. Sanction on Russia which would prohibit business deals — LIke Trump Tower Moscow project — using Russian banks and government resources? [One member of the Campaign Rear Adm. Kubic specifically warned them about these legal liabilities while Papadopoulos was reaching out the Mifsud and Timofeev, Carter Page visited Russia, Michael Cohen was in contact with Dmitri Peskov's assistant for meeting with Putin or Medvedev about the Moscow Tower, Stone was in contact with Guccifer 2.0,m and Wikileaks. Manafort was in contact with Kilimnick, Don Jr. talked to Veselnitskaya, Alexander Torshin and Wikileaks and yet, they presisted.]
Question #7) Did the Trump campaign at any time reject help and aid that the Russians were trying to provide them and did they promise anything in return? (Don Jr. agreed to look into modifying tbe Magnitsky Act "if we come to power", but Veselnitskaya couldn't deliver the dirt.)
Question #8) Did the Trump campaign request outside individuals — such as Roger Stone — to reach out to foreign sources such as Julian Assange and Wikileaks for advance information about the hacked information that had been supplied to them by Russian Intelligence in order to help their campaign?
Question #9) Did the Trump campaign also request specific help from Wikileaks — using outside resources like Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi and Ted Malloch — to help provide cover for negative press accounts about their campaign from the release of the Access Hollywood tape by having them immediately dump hacked emails from john podesta that same day?
Question #10) Although “Collusion” is not a criminal standard, would such coordination with Wikileaks and also contacts with Guccifer 2.0 regarding the hacked information from the DCCC, meeting with a former Russian Government Lawyer promising “Dirt” on Hillary, meeting with an NRA linked Russian who happened to be the handler for a woman who is now a convicted Russian spy, trying to share internal polling data with a Russian Oligarch — meet the colloqial public definition of “collusion”?
Question #11) DId the Trump campaign at any time report any of the inappropriate contacts they had made with Russian individuals to the FBI — which would have been potentially Misprison of Felony (Which is a law that requires witnesses of a felony to report them to the authorities)?
Question #12) Did the lies, destruction of evidence, obstruction and witness tampering noted in your report by multiple Trump associates including Papadopoulos, Flynn, Cohen, Roger Stone and Paul Manafort impede your ability to establish that there was proof beyond a reasonable doubt of an active conspiracy among the Trump campaign to try to coordinate with the Russian efforts to impact the election? Or was the plan to hold back on conspiracy charges for Manafort and Stone in order to get them to flip and become witnesses against Trump and the rest of his campaign for those charges?
Depending on how Mueller answers these questions, you will have at this point established that there was Criminal Obstruction by Trump, that there was a plot to impact the election by Russia, that the Trump campaign accepted that help without complaint or resistance and likely conspired to cover-up their acceptance of that help by not reporting it to the FBI and then repeatedly lying about their dozens of contacts with Russian nationals during the election. That’s Collusion and futher obstruction which may have prevented a conspiracy case from being established.
The next section is that the counter narrative by the Right-wing needs to be addressed. Republicans have attacked the Meuller investigation on many various grounds, but it would be wise and adventageous for the Democrats to spend some time debunking and countering these conspiracy theories as well.
Question #13) Since the Inspector General found no official misconduct or partisan bias on behalf of FBI Agent Peter Strozk and Lisa Page in relation to the Clinton email case — do you remain confident that there was no partisan bias on behalf of them or any other members of your staff in the Russia/Trump investigation?
Question #14) The Inspector General has also recently found that testimony from former British Spy Christopher Steele to be “credible” — do you similarly find that the vast majority of the information provided by Steele concerning Russia’s activities were also credible and accurate?
Question #15) Do you support the survellance of former Trump staffer Carter Page and feel that it was well founded considering the fact that Page had previously been targeted for cultivation by the Russia’s SVR Intelligence unit?
Question #16) Can you confirm that the Russia investigation began as a result of George Papadopoulos’ interactions with Joseph Mifsud and Russian government representative Ivan Timofeev over a week before Christopher Steele wrote his first memo?
Question #17) It was recently reported that Russia’s SVR Intelligence unit was responsible for planting the conspiracy theory that former DNC staffer Seth Rich was the source for the hacked DNC emails, as part of your indictment of the GRU did you find any evidence of the involvement of Rich or any other DNC staffers?
And then there are a few things that we need to know simply because they help close some of the still open loops.
Question #18) You determined not to prosecute Donald Trump Jr. for campaign finance violations for his attempt to “accept Dirt on Hillary” because you decided he was likely not familiar enough with campaign finance laws to have knowing and willfully violated them — but did you consider that Paul Manafort who also attended that meeting should have been aware of these laws, and could have faced similar charges?
Question #19) In your report Ted Malloch claimed that his attempt to reach out to Wikileaks — based on the request relayed to him by Roger Stone via Jerome Corsi— on the day that the Access Hollywood Tape was released was unsuccessul. Were you aware the Malloch said in an later interview that although the details had “slipped his mind” he did reach Wikileaks and passed on Stone’s message to immediately release the Podesta emails? [This is again evidence of collusion because Malloch’s contact with Wikileaks was a Russian reporter with RT]
Question #20) You sent two letters to Attorney General Barr complaining that his 4 page summary of your report was inadequate, in what ways did his summary mis-state or leave out critical details of your report which may have misled the public about it’s contents?
Of course there’s a lot more in the report that could be asked and illuminated, it’s likely some of the questions I list in section 3 (#13-17) will probably be asked by Republicans. I suspect that those questions and answers will be more contentious and firey, those might make for some good television — but they won’t be that illuminating concerning Trump’s and his compaigns malign conduct during the entire election.
They knew months ahead of time that Russia had hacked Democratic emails — through Michael Flynn they tried to have people hire their own hackers to try and get copies of Hillary’s emails — all the way through the process they openly accepted help which came from foreign sources, mostly Russia but WIkileaks aren’t exactly Americans either. They lied about that help, they promoted Russian generated conspiracy theories to help the cover up. They never once even apologized for simply making a mistake of trying to accept foreign help in their election. They tried multiple times, including Trump personally, to obstruction justice.
It doesn’t matter whether they succeeded or not. It doesn’t matter whether Russian changed the outcome of the election (which I think they probably did). What matters is did they repeatedly attempt to break the law?
I think the answer is clearly yes, and if the DOJ can’t hold them accountable the Congress is going to have to make the case that they have to do it.
Hopefully they will.