Anger, Concern, Discontent, Thoughtfulness,
Uncertainty, Worry
Don't Blame Me If This Train Goes Off the Rails
(I Know Nuthin' — Blame the DEMS or Mueller)
Some of President
Trump’s lawyers are exploring ways to limit or undercut special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation building a case against what they allege
are his conflicts of interest and discussing the president’s authority to grant
pardons. Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family
members and even himself in connection with the probe, according to one of
those people. A second person said Trump’s lawyers have been discussing the
president’s pardoning powers among themselves.
One adviser said
the president has simply expressed a curiosity in understanding the reach of
his pardoning authority, as well as the limits of Mueller’s investigation.
“This is not in
the context of, ‘I can’t wait to pardon myself,’ ” a close adviser said.
With the Russia investigation continuing to widen,
Trump’s lawyers are working to corral the probe and question the propriety of
the special counsel’s work. They are actively compiling a list of *Mueller’s alleged potential conflicts of
interest, which they say could serve as a way to stymie his work, according to
several of Trump’s legal advisers.*
A conflict of interest is one of the possible grounds
that can be cited by an attorney general to remove a special counsel from
office under Justice Department regulations that set rules for the job.
* RELATED: TRUMP’S OWN CONFLICTS OF
INTERESTS SEEN IN THIS SHORT VIDEO CLIP:
Responding to this
story on Friday after it was published late Thursday, one of Trump’s attorneys,
John Dowd, said it was “not true”
and “nonsense. The President’s lawyers are cooperating with special counsel Robert
Mueller on behalf of the President.”
Other advisers said the president is also irritated by
the notion that Mueller’s probe could reach into his and his family’s finances.
Trump has been fuming about the probe in recent weeks as he has been informed
about the legal questions that he and his family could face.
Trump’s primary frustration centers on why allegations
that his campaign coordinated with Russia should spread into scrutinizing many
years of Trump deal making. He has told aides he was especially disturbed after
learning Mueller would be able to access several years of his tax returns. “If you’re looking at Russian collusion, the
president’s tax returns would be outside that investigation,” said a close
adviser to the president.
Further adding to the challenges facing Trump’s
outside lawyers, the team’s spokesman, Mark
Corallo, resigned on Thursday. Corallo confirmed Friday that he has
resigned but declined to comment further.
Related: Marc Kasowitz, President Trump’s
personal lawyer, is no longer head of the legal team responding to the Russia
investigations.
Ty
Cobb
will now fill that role, with Kasowitz taking up a lower position –
That shakeup on
the legal team comes one day after Mark Corallo, the spokesman for Trump’s
legal team, resigned. Corallo had reportedly never met Trump or Kasowitz before
taking the spokesman post, and had been critical of the administration in the
past.
The Washington Post reported some
lawyers representing the president are looking at ways to undermine special
counsel Robert Mueller, who is spearheading the Russian probe.
Corallo had only been on the job for two months.
According to Politico he “had grown
frustrated with the operation and the warring factions and lawyers” and was
increasingly concerned about whether he was being told the truth about certain
matters.
Corallo had told an associate that the dynamics in the White House were
untenable and that there was “too much fighting all the time,” in the words of one person who spoke to him
and said he no longer needs the money and had complained about the fighting
among the lawyers, this person said. Corallo worked in the George W. Bush administration under former AG John Ashcroft.
Meanwhile, veteran Washington lawyer John Dowd, hired last month, will take
the lead in responding to the Special Counsel and Congressional inquiries. Jay Sekulow, a lawyer who has been a
familiar face in conservative media in recent years, will serve as the group’s
public face, appearing frequently on television.
Sekulow
said in a recent interview: “…that the president and his legal team are intent on making sure Mueller
stays within the boundaries of his assignment as special counsel and he will
complain directly to Mueller if necessary…”
Sekulow
continued: “The fact is that the president is concerned about
conflicts that exist within the special counsel’s office and any changes in the
scope of the investigation. The scope is going to have to stay within his
mandate. If there’s drifting, we’re going to object.” Sekulow then cited
Bloomberg News reports that Mueller is scrutinizing some of Trump’s business
dealings, including with a Russian oligarch who purchased a Palm Beach mansion
from Trump for $95 million in 2008 and
he concluded: “They’re talking about
real estate transactions in Palm Beach several years ago. In our view, this is
far outside the scope of a legitimate investigation.”
The president has
long called the FBI investigation into his campaign’s possible coordination
with the Russians a “witch hunt.” But now, Trump is coming face-to-face with a
powerful investigative team that is able to study evidence of any crime it
encounters in the probe — including tax fraud, lying to federal agents, and
interference in the investigation.
“This is Ken
Starr times 1,000” said one lawyer involved in the case, referring to the
independent counsel who oversaw an investigation that eventually led to House
impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton adding: “Of course, it’s going to go into his
finances.”
Following Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director Comey — in part because of his
displeasure with the FBI’s Russia investigation — Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel in a
written order. That order gave Mueller broad authority to investigate links
between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, as well as “any matters that arose or may arise directly
from the investigation” and any crimes committed in response to the
investigation, such as perjury or obstruction of justice.
Mueller’s probe has already expanded to include an
examination of whether Trump obstructed justice in his dealings with Comey, as
well as the business activities of Jared Kushner.
Trump’s team could potentially challenge whether a
broad probe of Trump’s finances prior to his candidacy could be considered a
matter that arose “directly” from an inquiry into possible collusion with a
foreign government.
The president’s
legal representatives have also identified what they allege are several
conflicts of interest facing Mueller, such as donations to Democrats by some of
his prosecutors. Another potential conflict claim is an allegation that Mueller
and Trump National Golf Club in Northern Virginia had a dispute over membership
fees when Mueller resigned as a member in 2011, two White House advisers said.
A spokesman for Mueller said there was no dispute when Mueller, who was FBI director
at the time, left the club.
Trump also took public aim on Wednesday at AG Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein, whose
actions led to Mueller’s appointment. In an interview with the New York Times
Wednesday, the president said he never would have nominated Sessions if he knew
he was going to recuse himself from the case.
Some Republicans in frequent touch with the White
House said they viewed the president’s decision to publicly air his
disappointment with Sessions as a warning sign that the attorney general’s days
were numbered. Several senior aides were described as “stunned” when Sessions
announced Thursday morning he would stay on at the Justice Department.
Another
Republican in touch with the administration described the
public steps as part of a broader effort aimed at “laying the groundwork to
fire” Mueller adding: “Who attacks their
entire Justice Department? It’s insane.”
Law enforcement officials described Sessions as
increasingly distant from the White House and the FBI because of the strains of
the Russia investigation.
Traditionally, Justice Department leaders have sought
to maintain a certain degree of autonomy from the White House as a means of
ensuring prosecutorial independence.
But Sessions’s situation is more unusual, law
enforcement officials said, because he has angered the president for apparently
being too independent while also angering many at the FBI for his role in the
president’s firing of Comey.
As a result, there is far less communication among
those three key parts of the government than in years past, several officials
said.
Currently, the discussions of pardoning authority by
Trump’s legal team are purely theoretical, according to two people familiar
with the ongoing conversations. But if Trump pardoned himself in the face
of the ongoing Mueller investigation, it would set off a legal and political
firestorm, first around the question of whether a president can use the constitutional
pardon power in that way.
“This is a fiercely debated but unresolved legal
question,” said Brian C. Kalt, a
constitutional law expert at Michigan State University who has written
extensively on the question.
The
power to pardon is granted to the president in Article II, Section 2, of the
Constitution, which gives the commander in chief the
power to “grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States,
except in Cases of Impeachment.” That
means pardon authority extends to federal criminal prosecution but not to state
level or impeachment inquiries. No president has sought to pardon himself, so no courts
have reviewed it. Although Kalt
says the weight of the law argues against a president pardoning himself, he
says the question is open and predicts such an action would move through the
courts all the way to the Supreme Court.
“There is no
predicting what would happen,” said Kalt, author of the book, “Constitutional
Cliffhangers: A Legal Guide for Presidents and Their Enemies.” It includes
chapters on the ongoing debate over whether presidents can be prosecuted while
in office and on whether a president can issue a pardon to himself.
Other White House advisers have tried to temper Trump,
urging him to simply cooperate with the probe and stay silent on his feelings
about the investigation.
On Monday, lawyer Ty Cobb, newly brought into the
White House to handle responses to the Russian probe, convened a meeting with
the president and his team of lawyers, according to two people briefed on the
meeting. Cobb, who is not yet on the White House payroll, was described as
attempting to instill some discipline in how the White House handles queries
about the case.
But Trump surprised many of his aides by speaking at
length about the probe to the New York Times (July 20, 2017). Cobb, who officially joins the
White House team at the end of the month, declined to comment for this article.
Some note that the Constitution does not explicitly
prohibit a president from pardoning himself. On the other side, experts say
that by definition a pardon is something you can only give to someone else.
There is also a common-law canon that prohibits individuals from serving as a
judge in their own case. “For example, we would not allow a judge to preside
over his or her own trial,” Kalt said.
A president can pardon an individual at any point,
including before the person is charged with a crime, and the scope of a
presidential pardon can be very broad. President Gerald Ford pardoned former
president Richard M. Nixon preemptively for offenses he “committed or may have
committed” while in office.
Devlin Barrett and Sari Horwitz also contributed to this
report.
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