Robert Mueller comes at Donald Trump on the treason stuff
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is running multiple parallel investigations into Donald Trump on matters ranging from obstruction of justice, to financial crimes, to an election conspiracy against the United States. But it’s long been widely reported that Mueller is only seeking to interview Trump – for now at least – about obstruction. It turns out to be a whole different story, and Mueller is much further ahead of the game than any of us thought.
Donald Trump’s legal team told Robert Mueller that Trump might be more amenable to sitting down for an interview if Mueller was willing to provide the questions in advance. Mueller responded by sending over a list of questions, which has now been leaked to the New York Times. There are a total of at least forty-eight questions in all. Sure enough, some of them are about Trump’s acts of obstruction of justice. But a whole lot of them are about what we can only refer to as the “treason stuff.”
Mueller wants Trump to explain what he knew about Paul Manafort’s attempts to conspire with the Russian government on behalf of the campaign. Mueller wants Trump to explain what he knew about Jared Kushner’s transition period conspiracy with the Russian Ambassador. The list goes on. These are all instances of Trump’s advisers conspiring with Russia against the U.S., and Mueller is trying to tie Trump to all of them. We can debate whether the charges would be treason, or conspiracy against the United States, but it’s clear that Mueller is going there.
Robert Mueller also wants answers about Michael Cohen’s attempt at building a Trump Tower in Moscow during the election, a reminder that Donald Trump and his representatives were conspiring against the United States during the election in financial ways as well. Pretty much everything you’ve spent the past year and a half hoping Mueller would target Trump for, well, let’s just say it’s all happening.
