It’s Mueller Time. Here’s what happens now.
It’s Mueller Time, according to Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner, who is advising us all to “buckle up” because we’re getting into the part where Special Counsel Robert Mueller ramps things up significantly. But what’s he specifically referring to? What comes next? How soon does it happen? What does the endgame look like? Let’s talk about what happens now.
It’s important to note that Warner said “It’s going to be a wild couple of months.” As Palmer Report has been stressing all along, Robert Mueller doesn’t have a magic wand that he can use to open a trap door under Donald Trump’s desk. Nothing works like that. Instead we’re looking at the complex culmination of the sophisticated and multifaceted gameplan that Mueller has been building up for the past year. Mueller’s biggest gambits have all seemed to be lining up to hit critical mass at once, and now we know why.
Take, for instance, the confluence of these events. We’re now roughly a month away from the start of the first of multiple criminal trials against Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort. As we’ve previously explained, the charges against Manafort are so similar to those that will end up being brought against Trump, Mueller is probably going to use the Manafort trial as a way of putting Trump on trial by default. Just as the Manafort trial is about to begin, Mueller is finishing up his grand jury proceedings against Roger Stone and Julian Assange, as well as some other big players.
So it looks like Robert Mueller’s plan is to indict and arrest a whole lot of Trump-Russia players just as the Paul Manafort trial is kicking off. Mueller keeps requesting blank subpoenas by the bushel for the Manafort trial, making clear that he’s going to haul everyone in to testify, even as he’s indicting them. This should set off a flurry of plea deals from big and medium sized Trump-Russia players. He can then use their testimony against Manafort at trial, and by default, against Trump.
In so doing, Robert Mueller can use the Paul Manafort trial to prove to the American public that Donald Trump is guilty of serious crimes. That should create massive public demand for Trump’s ouster. If Trump fails to resign, then Mueller will have a few options. If the Democrats win the November elections, they’ll start the impeachment process immediately, and Mueller can use that framework to oust Trump. Mueller can also try indicting and trying Trump while he’s still in office, though the Supreme Court would have to rule whether that’s constitutional. The bottom line is that we only think this is Mueller’s gameplan; he’s made a point of playing his cards close to the vest. But whatever he has up his sleeve, it’s Mueller Time.
