Federal judge makes remarkable declaration about Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation
Michael Cohen’s testimony yesterday was equally notable for what it was, and for what it wasn’t. Cohen was always Donald Trump’s domestic henchman, and sure enough, Cohen’s testimony was largely about Trump’s domestic crimes, which are being prosecuted by the SDNY. Cohen had little to say about Trump-Russia election collusion, because he wasn’t in on those crimes. But now a judge is confirming that Robert Mueller’s investigation is all about Trump-Russia election collusion.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is still working his way through a court fight to get his hands on evidence in the Trump-Russia scandal that’s still in the hands of a mystery foreign-government-owned corporation. Mueller won the legal battle weeks ago, but the company is still refusing to comply, and so today the judge in the case significantly ramped up the financial penalties against the company.
The big upshot here may be not so much what the judge did, but what she said. In explaining why she considers Robert Mueller’s overall investigation to be so crucial, she stated that Mueller is “investigating foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election and potential collusion in those efforts by American citizens.” She’s not necessarily talking about this particular mystery company, but she is talking about the Mueller investigation overall.
So now we have a federal judge publicly stating that Robert Mueller is investigating American citizens for allegedly colluding with foreign enemies to alter the outcome of the 2016 election. So much for Donald Trump’s claim that collusion isn’t even on the table. It couldn’t be more clear that this is all about election collusion. Oh, and “collusion” isn’t a legal term. The judge wouldn’t care about “collusion” at all unless it was of the criminal conspiracy type. So we’re talking about the criminal kind of collusion here – and it’s specifically about rigging the election.
