The White House has no plan for how to respond when – not if – FBI special counsel Robert Mueller issues his final report on his investigation into possible collusion with Russia before and during the 2016 election, the Atlantic is reporting. That’s because, as anonymous White House staffers say, Trump is so unpredictable that no one is particularly clear on what’s going to go down on that day.
Already the Mueller probe has resulted in dozens of indictments and a handful of guilty pleas, and indeed, some people are already serving prison sentences based on indictments handed down from the Mueller probe. Meanwhile, the investigation continues with no end in sight, although as Yahoo News reported earlier this week, Mueller has said that he’s “tying up loose ends” and that a final report will likely be issued “soon,” although what “soon” means is, at this point, anyone’s guess.
When the report finally drops, it will almost certainly include bad news for Donald Trump, although what that could be is also anyone’s guess. It could be anything from a criminal indictment on one or more federal charges, whether for Trump himself or members of his family, or it could amount to much ado about not a lot.
. @VDHanson provides a breakdown of where Robert Mueller’s investigation stands, and why it is a threat to the notion of blind justice. https://t.co/Kdhj6i0CXj pic.twitter.com/BijMuvBsjb
— National Review (@NRO) December 4, 2018
When the report does drop, the White House’s response will be one of playing it by ear, say staffers speaking on condition of anonymity.
For now, the Atlantic writer Elaina Plott says staffers are telling her that, at the very least, Americans can expect a tweetstorm. Trump’s former Press Secretary Sean Spicer even posted, then quickly deleted, a tweet in which he suggested he’d take bets on how many times the president tweets the word “Mueller” before the end of the investigation.
Another former White House official says that Trump is unwilling to discuss it at all because that would mean “an honest conversation about what might be coming,” and that is something Trump is unwilling to do.
And another White House staffer compared the mood in the West Wing to that of a country music song.
“It’s like, ‘Jesus, take the wheel,’ but scarier.”
Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, for his part, is also admitting that his client is a bit unpredictable.
“The more controlled a person is, the more intelligent they are, the more they can make the decision. But he’s just like every other client. He’s not more … you know, controlled than any other client. In fact, he’s a little less.”
It remains unclear, as of this writing, when the Mueller report will finally be released to the public.
