Robert Mueller just signaled he’s going to indict Donald Trump’s family
It was once famously said that Robert Mueller loves surprises. That’s been proven over the past several days when he indicted the Russians for conspiring to rig the election in Donald Trump’s favor, and then indicted an attorney who has connections to the Trump-Russia scandal. Even as the surprises keep coming, the more moves Mueller makes, the easier it is to spot patterns in his moves. One of those patterns is bad news for Trump’s family.
Mueller’s new plea deal with attorney Alex van der Zwaan is notable in that he’s the son-in-law of the head of a Russian bank that has connections to the Trump-Russia scandal, and he’s also a colleague of Paul Manafort’s daughter. We don’t know which of those two connections is the relevant one here, but we do know that Van der Zwaan would not have been given a plea deal unless he agreed to flip on someone more central to the Trump-Russia scandal. Either way, it’s now clear that Mueller is targeting families in order to pressure people into confessing.
We saw Mueller push Michael Flynn into confessing to his crimes and cutting a plea deal by threatening to bring charges against Michael Flynn’s son, who had done some of the grunt work in the Trump-Russia plot. Now we’re seeing Mueller once again targeting more family members. This is nothing new. Mueller did the same thing years ago when he was leading the Enron investigation.
This means that Robert Mueller will absolutely go after Donald Trump’s family in order to back him into a corner. Of course Mueller can only go after family members if they’ve committed crimes. But Donald Trump Jr has already admitted in an email that he illegally conspired with the Russians to rig the election. Ivanka Trump has business connections to convicted Russian mafia money launderer Felix Sater. Eric Trump has legal problems with his charity. Mueller will indict them all if he can, and he’ll try to use the carnage to force Donald Trump to cut bait.
