Donald Trump, Leaker-in-Chief
Several major stories in the last few weeks have attributed information to “one person familiar” with the situation. One was the story by NBC News about the four areas of obstruction that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was investigating. The second was more recent, the 49 questions that Mueller had “provided President Trump’s lawyers” as reported by The New York Times. The Times wrote that it had obtained a copy. Both stories ended up having to be corrected in terms of the discrepancies in them.
One suspects that the “person” or “source” could be none other than Donald J. Trump himself, as part of the effort to narrow the Mueller probe and have a basis to point to when the Mueller team (and other prosecutorial teams such as in the Southern District of New York) inevitably has a broader palette of findings and potential indictments in the future, when the investigation is completed.
As an article in Washington Monthly outlined, the NBC News reporting stated that the familiar person had noted four areas of obstruction for which Mueller had collected findings:
1. His intent to fire former FBI Director James Comey;
2. His role in the crafting of a misleading public statement regarding a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with the Russians;
3. Trump’s dangling of pardons before grand jury witnesses; and
4. Pressuring Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself.
That report concluded that Mueller was now likely to proceed without an interview. The story was backtracked some after it originally aired.
The 49 questions were listed in The New York Times on April 30, with the opener that Mueller “recently provided President Trump’s lawyers a list of questions he wants answered.” A day later, The Washington Post corrected that story. The source who provided the questions to the Times is not identified, but the articles the paper wrote discuss Trump’s outrage that such a list would be public and that none were about collusion. It turns out the list was not provided by Mueller, but rather appears to be what Trump’s legal team, including Jay Sekulow, wrote down.
A third recent incident of this “source” not being accurate was the NBC News scoop that a wiretap had been used on Cohen’s phones – it turned out it was a less intrusive and valuable pen register. The scoop was from “two separate sources with knowledge of the legal proceedings involving Cohen.” Many questioned why NBC did not “out” these bad sources. The “spin machine” immediately clung to each instance to cite “fake news” and to shape public opinion about how the Mueller investigation’s scope should be limited and giving fodder to the “fake news” cries. Beware the “familiar” sources as they try to shape the outcome of what increasingly appears to be a bad situation.
Daniel is a lawyer writing and teaching about SCOTUS, and is the author of the book “The Chief Justices” about the SCOTUS as seen through the center seat.