Someone, tough to tell who, got some inside information from Trump’s legal team, surely a significant amount from Rudy, regarding team Trump’s response. Regarding Mueller’s investigation on both obstruction and conspiracy, they will not – or cannot – submit Trump to any kind of interview. They are well aware of the fact that Mueller can subpoena Trump, forcing the ultimate showdown, but are simply gambling that Mueller will not push it that far. The other shocking revelation from the Axios story here, one that simply leaves a person shaking their head? That the only “strategy” the Trump team has is to simply kneecap Mueller, discredit him as much as possible with the general public.
In other words, he’s guilty as hell, they know it, Trump may know it but it doesn’t matter what he thinks. Most important, Mueller definitely knows it.
If Trump agrees to an interview with the special counsel, questions about obstruction of justice are a “no-go,” Rudy Giuliani tells AP’s Jonathan Lemire.
In a high-stakes move designed to force Robert Mueller’s hand, Giuliani said Trump won’t answer the feds’ questions — in writing or in person — about whether he tried to block the probe into Russian election interference.
Yeah, okay, that’s what guilty people do every day across the entire country, keep their mouths shut and pray that they can ride out the storm.
Not a good plan.
I do not have the link to the study I read recently, but I hope I’ve built your trust here over time, someone gathered all the statistics from federal prosecutions, and the shocking truth is that if you’re indicted by the U.S. Justice Department, they are pretty damn good about winning their case. The study found that 97% of all people indicted end up with a conviction, and a shockingly high number simply cop a plea and hope for the best at sentencing.
The reason? Federal sentencing laws are vicious. You are in a world of hurt if you’re charged in federal court versus state court. The mandatory sentencing guidelines are far more rigid and far more difficult to avoid than state laws. Defendants fear risking a trial and finding themselves much worse off at sentencing, because they dared to invoke their constitutional rights.
But enough about the general stuff, Trump’s problem is that Mueller is a jedi when it comes to prosecutions, the best of the best, and he wouldn’t push it to this stage, where he isn’t all that concerned with speaking to Trump, without evidence so devastating there’s no way for Trump to talk around anything. His legal team is well aware of that, too. It is why their only strategy, which isn’t a legal strategy at all, is simply beat up and pound Mueller in public. That devastating evidence will meet denials that it’s simply made up, “fake,” by a team of Hillary supporters, “how can it possibly be true?”
If a defendant has absolutely nothing, I suppose that can be seen as a strategy, though it is no legal strategy. From the Axios story:
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Trump’s lawyers are betting that Mueller won’t have the heart for the multi-month court fight that would result from trying to compel the president to be interviewed.
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The White House bet: Mueller will blink and ultimately issue an incomplete report, avoiding the stakes of a court battle.
Hmmm. “Avoiding the stakes of a court battle.” Not sure that avoiding a court battle is any safer than trying to ride out the revelations.
The only reason that Trump and his team find themselves using such a strategy flows from the fact that Trump can rely on his Republican congress to do absolutely nothing about him or to him, no matter how devastating the facts. So, the single biggest gamble is the prayer that the Democrats do not take the House or the Senate this November.
If the Democrats do what’s expected, take the House, if only by one or two votes (and they may well get much more than that) changes everything. The Democrats can grab control of the committees and launch investigations that make Benghazi look like a book club in disagreement.
But, it is even worse than that. The revelations coming out just this week, the Op-Ed and Woodword’s book, are sucking the life out of the White House and will drive down support for Trump further, making his supporter’s in Congress rather uncomfortable and shifting in their seats. They will be forced to hear devastating stuff, guaranteed to drive Trump support down to the hard line of people that won’t hear or care; “Rather be Russian than a Democrat.” Says a lot. But, we have yet to find that bottom line. Seems like we will get that chance.
The source close to the president’s team explained: “Mueller backed off from a demand for a face-to-face, to get to a compromise of written Q-and-A on Russia. And Rudy still says no. What is Mueller to do now?”
Ahem, let me clear my throat …the answer is; “Present evidence so damn devastating that Mueller doesn’t need to hear a word from the guilty as hell man. It will be true, and everyone will know it.”
That is the gamble. It is borne of desperation by a man who abso-f’ing-lutely knows he committed those crimes, but believes he is invincible, which is not a strategy at all.
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