Robert Mueller revs up his bulldozer again
Special Counsel Robert Mueller took a bulldozer to Donald Trump’s presidency on Friday when he indicted thirteen Russians who were conspiring to rig the election in Trump’s favor. He managed to expose Trump as both an illegitimate president and a Russian puppet. This puts Mueller in a strong position for when he soon makes his big moves against Trump on obstruction of justice charges. Today, Mueller revved up his bulldozer again and aimed it at Trump from a different angle.
Mueller already has everything he needs to nail Trump for obstruction, or he wouldn’t be asking him for an interview; that always comes at the very end of the investigation. But Mueller has also been pursuing a parallel Trump-Russia investigation into Trump’s financial connections to Russia. It’s why he arrested Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, two Kremlin financial puppets who ran the Trump campaign, last fall. The plan was to get Gates, who is broke, to flip on Manafort, who has been relying on high priced attorneys to try to get him out of the mess. Gates revealed today that he’s pleading guilty this week and serving up Manafort on a silver platter.
If Manafort is thinking clearly, he’ll cut a deal of his own against Trump the minute the ink is dry on the Gates deal. Manafort has essentially no chance in court with Gates testifying against him, no matter how good Manafort’s lawyers might be. Maybe Manafort will spend a minute in denial, but he’ll figure it out soon enough. Manafort’s now-inevitable testimony and evidence will certainly nail Trump on money laundering, and likely on Russian money laundering.
So even as Robert Mueller puts the finishing touches on his obstruction of justice case against Donald Trump, and even as he’s gut punching Trump with the Russia indictments to soften him up before moving on him, Mueller also just got a lot closer with the money laundering case against Trump. Mueller’s bulldozers are now coming at Trump from every direction at once.
