Donald Trump’s attorneys make desperate moves as Special Counsel Robert Mueller closes in
Here’s how you know Donald Trump and his attorneys are getting truly nervous about the progress being made by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. It’s not just that Mueller is squeezing Manafort like a grape, or cutting off Trump’s ability to pardon his associates by hitting them with state level crimes. It’s that Trump’s attorneys are now pushing back with a series of rather desperate memos they’ve filed directly with Mueller’s office.
Trump’s lawyers have sent a memo to the Special Counsel’s office which makes the legal argument that Donald Trump didn’t actually obstruct justice when he fired FBI Director James Comey, and they’ve also sent another memo asserting that Comey is an unreliable witness against Trump, according to the Wall Street Journal (link). If you think it sounds odd that Trump’s legal team is already resorting to essentially begging Mueller not to pursue avenues that he’s obviously going to pursue anyway, you’re not the only one.
MSNBC legal analyst Matthew Miller stated his view that the move is a “Little unusual at this stage. These are the kind of memos people desperately trying to stave off indictment send to DOJ” (link). This suggests that Donald Trump’s attorneys believe Mueller is quite far along in his probe, and that the case against Trump is overwhelming enough that they have little choice but to essentially beg for scraps – knowing they won’t receive those scraps anyway.
Nor are Donald Trump’s lawyers likely to get particularly far by arguing that James Comey is an unreliable witness, “prone to exaggeration” as they claim. Comey’s reputation has long been built on being honest to a fault, as demonstrated by his repeated testimony before Congress in th Trump-Russia scandal. But it appears Trump and his team have concluded they have no avenue to pursue beyond the low-percentage play of attacking Comey’s credibility.
