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How the Mueller Investigation Could Play Out for Trump

Cardinal

Cardinal

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This article provides a useful flow chart of how the Mueller investigation could end. The only obviously dubious claim is that Mueller said he would abide by DOJ tradition and not indict the President. Maybe he said it; maybe he didn't. But the source for that claim is...get ready for it...Rudy Giuliani. So take that claim with a boulder-sized grain of salt.

The basic outcomes are...

1)Mueller determines no crimes were committed. No other significant outcome follows aside from the expectation that Rosenstein will present a report explaining the decision to end the investigaiton.

2)Mueller determines crimes were committed. Mueller's options:
a)Less aggressive: Leave the decision up to Congress, which has the power to impeach. Common wisdom says this will be the option he'll go with, though it should be remembered that nobody here has a straight line to Mueller's thinking.
b)The "Nixon Option": Ask a grand jury to deem Mr. Trump a co-conspirator and send a report to Congress. This would create increased political pressure and the expectation that Congress would act (though at this point it's perfectly reasonable to assume Congress wouldn't act anyway).
c)Most Aggressive: Indict the president. This does not involve the President literally getting arrested while he's having breakfast in the White House. This decision would immediately lead to chaos in the forms of trump firing everybody within a 500 mile radius, an attempt to pardon himself, and the indictment almost certainly being fought in the courts. If nothing else, the indictment prevents Trump from running out the statute of limitations so that when he finally leaves office he could be charged and tried in criminal court.

To clarify, the Constitution does not specifically prohibit a sitting President from being indicted. The rule against doing so is a legal tradition only, and there are competing legal opinions about whether one could in fact do so. It remains to this day an untested theory.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/23/us/politics/trump-mueller-russia.html

The article assumes that the Mueller investigation is not terminated early or derailed by a replacement Deputy Attorney General. The flow chart is a lot more detailed and specific than what I provided here, and reflects everything I've learned thus far about the mechanics of how the investigation would conclude.
 
HowardBThiname said:
Mueller is really leaving no stone unturned -- now, he's going after the Jews. LOL

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...lows-of-money-to-israeli-social-media-company
Click to expand...

When ones survival depends on the support of others one gets very good at propaganda.

There's a reason the American perception of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is VERY different from the actual Israeli one. Much more nuanced over there.

Do some reading of Israeli publications, if you haven't already (there are different ones ideologically, so try to get at least two viewpoints). Its eye opening.

Why is their's so different from ours?
 
However the Mueller investigation falls, the country is already the loser.
 
Cardinal said:
This article provides a useful flow chart of how the Mueller investigation could end. The only obviously dubious claim is that Mueller said he would abide by DOJ tradition and not indict the President. Maybe he said it; maybe he didn't. But the source for that claim is...get ready for it...Rudy Giuliani. So take that claim with a boulder-sized grain of salt.

The basic outcomes are...

1)Mueller determines no crimes were committed. No other significant outcome follows aside from the expectation that Rosenstein will present a report explaining the decision to end the investigaiton.

2)Mueller determines crimes were committed. Mueller's options:
a)Less aggressive: Leave the decision up to Congress, which has the power to impeach. Common wisdom says this will be the option he'll go with, though it should be remembered that nobody here has a straight line to Mueller's thinking.
b)The "Nixon Option": Ask a grand jury to deem Mr. Trump a co-conspirator and send a report to Congress. This would create increased political pressure and the expectation that Congress would act (though at this point it's perfectly reasonable to assume Congress wouldn't act anyway).
c)Most Aggressive: Indict the president. This does not involve the President literally getting arrested while he's having breakfast in the White House. This decision would immediately lead to chaos in the forms of trump firing everybody within a 500 mile radius, an attempt to pardon himself, and the indictment almost certainly being fought in the courts. If nothing else, the indictment prevents Trump from running out the statute of limitations so that when he finally leaves office he could be charged and tried in criminal court.

To clarify, the Constitution does not specifically prohibit a sitting President from being indicted. The rule against doing so is a legal tradition only, and there are competing legal opinions about whether one could in fact do so. It remains to this day an untested theory.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/23/us/politics/trump-mueller-russia.html

The article assumes that the Mueller investigation is not terminated early or derailed by a replacement Deputy Attorney General. The flow chart is a lot more detailed and specific than what I provided here, and reflects everything I've learned thus far about the mechanics of how the investigation would conclude.
Click to expand...

Interesting read. But Mueller could find out that Trump impregnated Devin Nunes's wife and forced her to have an abortion and the Republicans would still ignore it.
 
tres borrachos said:
Interesting read. But Mueller could find out that Trump impregnated Devin Nunes's wife and forced her to have an abortion and the Republicans would still ignore it.
Click to expand...

Which is why the "less aggressive" approach is essentially useless, with "The Nixon" being only marginally better since it still leaves it up to Congress to do anything. In addition, Trump has so thoroughly maligned the FBI that half the country is devoted to the belief that Mueller isn't to be trusted.

The interesting thing here is that Trump boxed Mueller into a corner by eliminating the effectiveness of the first two options. A special counsel investigation was intended to bring the truth to light so the public could judge for itself how the country should move forward. But with his credibility effectively neutralized by trump, indictment is now Mueller's only option if there's to be an outcome with real consequences.

If Mueller actually indicts him, it will be because trump quite literally left him no other choice. If trump had shut up and let the investigation play out unimpeded, Mueller could have easily gone with the first option and that would have been that.
 
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Cardinal said:
Which is why the "less aggressive" approach is essentially useless, with "The Nixon" being only marginally better since it still leaves it up to Congress to do anything. In addition, Trump has so thoroughly maligned the FBI that half the country is devoted to the belief that Mueller is not to be trusted.

The interesting thing here is that Trump boxed Mueller into a corner by eliminating the effectiveness of the first two options. A special counsel investigation was intended to bring the truth to light so the public could judge for itself how the country should move forward. But with his credibility effectively neutralized by trump, indictment is now Mueller's only option if there's to be an outcome with actual consequences.

If Mueller actually indicts him, it will be because trump quite literally left him no other choice. If trump had shut up and let the investigation play out unimpeded, Mueller could have easily gone with the first option and that would have been that.
Click to expand...

Interesting read. How likely you think each option may be?
 
Hypothetical said:
Interesting read. How likely you think each option may be?
Click to expand...

All of this comes down entirely to Mueller's mind, which he has hidden from us with extraordinary success. He's an investigator, so you have to ask if his driving motivation is truth or justice (which is certainly not to imply that the two are in any way mutually exclusive).

If his driving motivation is truth, then he will consider it a job well done if he simply compiles a report of trump's crimes and brings them to Congress (via Rosenstein) to deal with.

But if his driving motivation is justice, then he'll know that Congress will quite literally do nothing with the report, half the American public won't care and justice will go unserved. The best case scenario is Democrats take over the House, vote to impeach Trump only for articles of impeachment to die in the Senate. At that point, if you're Mueller, option 3 is the only choice makes any sense.
 
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