The real reason Robert Mueller hasn’t made his big move against Donald Trump (yet)
Palmer Report reader John Nesbit asked the question so many of us have on our minds: “If the evidence and proof of Trump’s crimes is so large and vast (and I’m sure that it is), why is he still allowed to get away with placing our country and the lives of so many innocent people in such grave peril? Isn’t there anything that has been perpetrated or committed (so far), to warrant his immediate removal from such a position of destructive power? How long does the process of protecting the country from this monstrosity take?”
This is the same question I’ve asked a dozen times. After all, we know proof exists of Kushner, Flynn and Trump considering plans to help Saudi Arabia obtain nuclear energy, which would benefit the same entity that bailed out the Kushner family. We know Trump committed campaign finance violations, lied about them, and did this specifically to alter the outcome of the election. We strongly suspect Trump was directly involved in conspiring with Russia to help him win the 2016 election, and we suspect he would not have won without Russia’s help. We know he fired Jim Comey in order to ease the pressure he felt about the Trump/Russia investigation, then he invited Russians into the White House and bragged about the firing, and assured the Russians that the pressure was off. So, back to the question: why is he still in office? Can’t anyone get this guy out?
The pessimistic, and perhaps realistic answer is that it is really hard to remove a sitting President. The bar is high and the options only include impeachment, and Article 25. Impeachment is the only realistic option and in order for that effort to be successful in the current political environment, the evidence has to be so overwhelming, even portions of Trump’s base begin to give up on him, causing Republican Senators to turn on him. Even with all his known crimes, we are sadly not there yet.
But, there is another side of the story. It is still based on evidence, but it involves connecting the known dots into a story. The story is that Donald Trump is not the legitimate President. He would not have won the election without the coordinated help of a Russian machine investing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of illegal Russian manpower, and help. Furthermore, as Palmer has been documenting since late 2016, county-level election results in key swing states strongly appear to have been altered. In this evidence-based scenario, Trump and Kushner were in deep financial trouble before Trump announced his Presidential bid, and they both immediately looked for ways to use the Presidency to enrich themselves.
We have some signs that Robert Mueller is in possession of evidence that would confirm all of the above about Trump. Mueller gave full immunity to Trump’s CFO. He would not have done that unless he got actionable information in exchange. Similarly, Mueller gave immunity to convicted felon George Nader. Again he must have received actionable information in exchange. The list of similar evidentiary morsels we know about is long – the raid of Deutsche Bank, the server that sent signals between Trump Tower, the DeVos connected company, and Russia. We know Mueller is sitting on a mountain of information.
There is one piece of information though that I think is very important for our ability to connect the dots. Remember that Michael Flynn began cooperating many, many months before anyone knew he was cooperating? Do you also remember that his cooperation agreement specifically included his agreement to wear a wire? At the time it was made public it seemed crazy to include that, as now that he was cooperating, presumably no target would reveal important information to him. However, once we realized he had already been cooperating before his deal, it made sense to conclude that he had already been wearing a wire, and the cooperation agreement simply documented what had already taken place.
It is information like that, as well as learning more about FBI investigative methods, that gives me reason to engage in optimistic speculation. If Flynn wore a wire and continued to have conversations with Trump and his associates, if Mueller does have acess to the kind of communications and information from our international allies that we think he does, if Trump and Kushner had meetings and conversations with officials from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, North Korea and Russia, and if Mueller can access the content of most of those communications – then, just imagine the intelligence the FBI has been gathering over the last two years.
The FBI could be learning about Saudi Arabia nuclear plans, and American government officials who are sympathetic to or compromised by Russia. Donald Trump has managed to infiltrate the inner circle of strongmen and despots like no other person could. At my most optimistic I think maybe, just maybe the FBI has it all under control and they will step in if truly necessary, but until then they will work diligently to finish their investigation while they monitor and learn a treasure trove of new intelligence.
Cheryl Kelley lives in the DC area with her husband and young son. She is active in government and politics.