Three ways Robert Mueller’s big “deadline day” can play out tomorrow
Special Counsel Robert Mueller told the judge in the Paul Manafort case that he would need another ten days before filing a status update about Manafort’s cooperation, because a major Trump-Russia shoe was about to drop. That was nine and a half days ago. That leaves Mueller with only tomorrow to work with, and there are three ways it could go.
Fire and fury: Paul Manafort has surely already told Robert Mueller all about what happened in the meeting he attended with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Russian government representatives at Trump Tower during the election. So in the most aggressive scenario, Mueller is gearing up to arrest the biggest of fish in Donald Trump’s Russia scandal. In so doing, Mueller would be taking a blowtorch to Trump, and counting on Trump to screw up his countermove.
Medium fish: Manafort has also surely told Mueller all about the things that he and Roger Stone have conspired on, both during the election, and during their years-ago shady political consulting partnership. So yeah, we could simply be looking at Roger Stone getting arrested tomorrow, which would be all about trying to push Stone into flipping Trump.
Paperwork: Because Robert Mueller gave himself the ten day deadline, if he’s not ready yet, he can simply make a new filing tomorrow asking the judge for a bit more time. In such a scenario, the obvious question would be why Mueller bothered to only ask for ten days, if he thought there was any chance he might need twelve or fourteen days instead. The sudden Jerome Corsi plea deal negotiations could explain such an unexpected delay.
