The curious case of Stephen Miller’s Trump-Russia vanishing act

| 9:01 pm EDT March 11, 2018
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I keep getting asked the question, and it’s an entirely fair one to ask: what happened to Stephen Miller when it comes to the Trump-Russia scandal and investigation? Miller reportedly played a key role in Donald Trump’s obstruction of justice efforts. Miller was the first member of Trump’s White House inner circle sought out by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. So why is his name not anywhere on the indictments and subpoenas that are now surfacing in the Trump-Russia criminal probe?

It was Stephen Miller who helped Donald Trump craft a letter explaining the firing of FBI Director James Comey. That letter proved to be such a legal liability, essentially confessing to felony obstruction of justice, that the White House Counsel vetoed it; the New York Times reported late last year that Mueller has obtained the letter anyway (link). Two months later, when Mueller had his pick of which White House senior adviser he wanted to speak to first, CNN reported (link) that Mueller chose Miller.

That’s where the trail largely went cold. Stephen Miller is one of the few members of Donald Trump’s White House inner circle who hasn’t either resigned or been fired, or been reported to be on the verge of being forced out. At the same time he’s seemingly been trying to avoid any publicly visible role. When former Trump adviser Sam Nunberg revealed this week that he had been subpoenaed to turn over his communications with ten current and former Trump advisers, Miller’s name wasn’t on that last. So what’s going on here?

If the reporting is correct, then Stephen Miller committed felony conspiracy to obstruct justice. Based on Robert Mueller’s pattern of nailing people for these kinds of crimes against the investigation, it seems a given that Miller will be indicted. Yet we’ve seen nothing in that regard. One possibility is that Miller secretly cut a plea deal during his interview. Another possibility is that Mueller is indeed targeting Miller, but in a different grand jury than the one that Nunberg just exposed. Miller can lay low all he wants. If he’s guilty, Mueller will nail him in the end.