Donald Trump Impeachment: Pals Push Trump To Attack Robert Mueller All-Out To Avoid Impeachment, Report Says
Though in public, Donald Trump has recently taken a low-key approach to the investigation into his Russia ties by Special Counsel Robert Mueller — with his legal team even floating the idea that Trump would voluntarily invite Mueller to interview him — behind the scenes Trump’s closest friends and longtime allies fear that the Mueller investigation could culminate in Trump’s impeachment, according to an Associated Press report this week.
In interviews with 15 longtime Trump allies and confidants, the AP found that those closest to Trump have become deeply worried that his legal team is “naive” regarding what they see as an “existential threat” posed by Mueller, and are pushing Trump to battle against the special counsel, and to attack the respected former FBI director “with abandon.”
Read the entire AP report on the friends of Trump who are urging him to go mano-a-mano with Mueller by accessing this link.
Mueller was appointed special counsel in charge of the investigation into the Trump-Russia scandal on May 17 by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, eight days after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey who until that point had been leading the Russia probe which began in July of last year.
Trump admitted in a nationally televised interview that he had “the Russia thing” in mind when he fired Comey.
The 72-year-old Mueller’s appointment was widely lauded by both Democrats and Republicans, due to Mueller’s lengthy and distinguished career at the forefront of United States law enforcement, including a 12-year-term of service as FBI director — the longest of any FBI director since the Bureau’s first director, J. Edgar Hoover, served for 48 years, from 1924 to 1972.
But though Mueller is charged with finding out if the 2016 Trump presidential campaign in any way helped with or knew about Russia’s interference in last year’s election, Rosenstein has said that Mueller is also free to investigate any other crimes or impeachable offenses that may be revealed in the course of the Russia investigation — an investigation that Trump himself has written off as a “hoax” and a “total fabrication.”
Trump’s lawyers, however, have adopted a softer tone toward Mueller, saying that Trump “respects what Bob Mueller is doing and has fully cooperated and asked everyone around him to fully cooperate with Bob,” according to what Trump attorney John Dowd told the AP.
Dowd characterized the relationship between Trump and Mueller’s investigative team as “very productive, (and) professional.”
But the close friends of Trump who spoke anonymously to the AP say the lawyers fail to understand that the confrontation between Trump and Mueller is in reality “a political brawl,” and not simply a legal dispute over facts and documents.
Their fears about what Mueller could find and the possibility that his investigation could lead to Trump’s impeachment appear to contradict their own belief, stated to the AP, that the allegations of Trump’s collusion with Russia are a “nothing burger.”
While Mueller has not made even one public comment about the investigation since being named special counsel, and what he may have already uncovered — or will uncover — remains unknown outside of his tightly guarded team of lawyers and investigators, experts have already identified potential causes of Trump’s possible impeachment.
On October 10, the respected Washington, D.C., think tank The Brookings Institute issued a 108-page report detailing the basis for an “obstruction of justice” charge against Trump. Both Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton faced impeachment over obstruction of justice charges. Nixon resigned rather than endure an impeachment ordeal, while Clinton was, in fact, impeached on the obstruction charge — but the Senate failed to convict him, and Clinton served his second term in full.
According to the Brookings report, “the public record contains substantial evidence” that Trump attempted to obstruct justice by firing Comey, as well as trying to interfere with investigations into his former national security advisor Michael Flynn. Read the entire Brookings Institute report by visiting this link.
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