Donald Trump’s confidential memo to Robert Mueller reveals Trump is very stupid and very guilty
Today we learned that roughly five months ago, Donald Trump and his legal team sent a twenty page confidential memo to Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The memo was intended as a legal tour de force, spelling out the legal rights that Trump believed he had, as well as the legal moves that he was prepared to take in order to protect himself. Instead, the memo has turned out to be more of a tour de farce.
The first half of Trump’s problem is that in his letter, he’s admitting his guilt. He’s acknowledging that he dictated the misleading response to the New York Times story about Donald Trump Jr’s meeting with the Russian government at Trump Tower. Of course we already knew this, but Trump and his lawyer had previously denied it. Now we have a flat out confession from Trump that he committed obstruction of justice, even as he and his lawyers argue that it’s legal for the president to commit obstruction.
The second half of Trump’s problem here is that from a legal perspective, the letter is quite stupid. Congressman Ted Lieu, who has a law degree and a background as a prosecutor, opined on Twitter that the letter was “ludicrous” and suggested that Trump’s lawyers “aren’t very good lawyers.” Former prosecutor Renato Mariotti called the legal views expressed in the letter “extreme” and added “It is hard for me to believe that courts will conclude that presidents are above the law.”
So basically, Donald Trump and his legal team used the confidential memo to confess to yet another felony, and for no gain. It’s also worth noting that in the five months since Trump’s legal team sent this memo, two of his lawyers – John Dowd and Ty Cobb – have since resigned. It’s as if they knew this was their best swing, and after it predictably missed, they headed for the exits.
