Robert Mueller sure knows how to steal the show. Just as President Trump was deciding how to respond to the horrific chemical attack in Syria and is confronting both Russia and China at the same time, the special counsel pulled off his most surprising attack yet.
The extremely aggressive decision to raid the offices and homes of Michael Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer, was shocking. All the more so because Cohen has been cooperating with Mueller.
Yet Mueller referred a tip or evidence to federal prosecutors in New York, and with the approval of Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who appointed Mueller, the raids were carried out. Leaks — what else? — say the aim was to find documents on payments Cohen made to two women to keep them quiet about affairs with Trump.
Sexual hush money is a sordid business, but in light of what Trump is up against on the world stage, the raids are the tail wagging the dog. I’m starting to believe Mueller likes it that way.
The mismatch with reality illustrates the absurdity of his zealous focus on the president. Tasked 11 months ago with discovering whether there was any collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign, Mueller apparently intends to keep digging until he hits pay dirt. If he can’t find collusion, he’ll find something else.
Don’t be fooled by the role of New York prosecutors and suggestions the raid is not about Trump. If they find any evidence Trump engaged in wrongdoing, it will go back to Mueller.
Cohen is small fish and doesn’t matter. Trump’s the white whale Mueller wants.
To try to get him, Cohen will be squeezed like ripe fruit, just as Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and others in a bid to bring down the president.
Recall that Manafort also was cooperating when his house was raided in the predawn hours, and that agents seized, among other things, testimony he had prepared for Congress. No doubt a smoking gun.
I wrote Sunday that Mueller owes the public an accounting of what he is up to and where he is going, and that debt is now doubled. Keeping the presidency under an endless cloud weakens the nation and gives Democrats an unfair advantage in midterm elections. Pulling off headline-grabbing raids cements the impression that the president was engaged in serious crimes.
If so, where’s the beef?
Many Americans already are convinced the Obama White House used the Justice Department to try to flip the election to Hillary Clinton. Yet Mueller and Rosenstein are approaching Trump in isolation, as if they have all the time in the world.
They may not realize it, but they are racing against fading public trust.
For his part, the president was furious about the raids, but it was a contained fury because what he didn’t say was more important than the things he did say.
Trump did not fire Mueller.
It’s obvious he would like to, saying in response to a question that “we’ll see what may happen” and adding that “many people have said, ‘You should fire him.’”
Instead, he repeated his favorite line, that the investigation is a “witch hunt,” and said the raid on Cohen took the probe to “a whole new level of unfairness.”
When he said that, I feared the next sentence would be, “And so, I have ordered . . .” — but those words never came.
Thankfully, a day later, the restraint holds.
Firing Mueller would be the nuclear option, and would not be easy. Trump would need to find someone in the Justice Department willing to do it — Rosenstein would refuse and have to be fired — but the mere effort would set off a firestorm.
Democrats and key Republicans have warned him that it would be the beginning of the end of his presidency.
We must take them at their word, and Trump should, too.
So what can he do? The simple answer is, not much — and accepting that might be his biggest challenge. Trump loves to counterpunch, but he can’t risk a mistake that will give Mueller the rope with which to hang him.
Trump’s legal room to maneuver is small and the only outstanding question is whether he will agree to a Mueller interview. Even that might be beyond his control if Mueller decides to use the grand jury to issue a subpoena.
Trump could test whether he would have to comply, but the public would probably see that as proof he’s hiding something.
Given his showboating aggressiveness, I’m sure Mueller would love that clash.
In short, the president has a target on his back and a prosecutor with an unlimited budget, time and ammunition.
Still, it would be a mistake to count Trump out. He is president because he was willing to challenge seemingly insurmountable odds. On many policy fronts, he is succeeding.
Against Mueller, the measure of success is simple: survival. Unless he screws up or is clearly guilty of something serious against the national interest, Trump will meet that test.
That’s not ideal, but far better than the alternative. For him and for America.
Justice vs. de Blasio is skewy
This is a New York story: Mayor Bill de Blasio solicits money from lobbyists for his slush fund — and the lobbyists are fined by ethics officials and the mayor gets off scot-free.
The rulings by the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics (an oxymoron) meant a fine of $10,000 for a group pushing to get rid of horse carriages, and a $40,000 fine for lobbyist James Capalino. Each ran afoul of laws in their giving to de Blasio’s political slush fund, the panel declared.
Yet after more than two years, the state agency still has not come to any conclusion on whether the slush fund — The Campaign for One New York — was itself a violation of the law.
And the mayor already has been given a free pass by federal and state prosecutors, despite raising and spending millions, mostly from firms and individuals who got government favors.
Meanwhile, a restaurateur who claims he bribed de Blasio is likely headed for jail. That means three people who gave de Blasio large sums of money were punished, but the mayor who took the money wasn’t.
Something’s rotten.
GadZucks! What a savvy witness
Much of the pregame chatter about Mark Zuckerberg’s congressional testimony was about how he would be out of his hoodie element. But the Facebook billionaire pulled a power play worthy of a Washington veteran, saying that company officials talked to Robert Mueller but he couldn’t say more in public.
“I want to be careful here,” Zuckerberg told senators. “Because our work with the special counsel is confidential and I want to make sure in an open session I’m not revealing something that’s confidential.”