Dowd Calls for Ending Mueller Investigation

Dowd Calls for Ending Mueller Investigation March 17, 2018

President Donald Trump’s White House chief lawyer John Dowd today called for ending the Department of Justice’s Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian meddling in our presidential election in 2016 and possible Trump campaign collusion with Russian operatives in trying to get Trump elected. I believe this is part of Trump’s strategy to demean Mueller’s probe and either end it or fire him.

President Trump’s lawyer Ty Cobb began the first phase of this Trump strategy months ago, in December, 2017, by telling the media that he was informing the president that Robert Mueller would end his investigation soon, that is, within weeks.

This was total nonsense. How did Mr. Cobb or the president himself know anything about Mr. Mueller’s intentions and plans regarding his investigation? Mueller has been very quiet, just as one would expect him to be, in conducting his work as chief of 16 government lawyers pursuing this investigation. Cobb didn’t know diddly squat about how long Mueller would conduct his investigation. Therefore, that Cobb announcement has to be regarded as a purposeful deception as best or a complete lie at the worst.

I laid out this strategy soon after Mr. Cobb began saying this last year, that is, saying Mr. Mueller’s investigation would end soon. (See my post “Trump’s Strategies to Avoid Impeachment.”).

I believe Cobb and others did that purposely to get the American people to expect that the Mueller investigation would end soon, and when it didn’t, then Americans would grow more impatient with Mueller’s investigation continuing and thereby become primed for Trump to call for Mueller’s investigation to end. Then, if Mr. Mueller didn’t end it, Trump would fire him in an effort to end the investigation.

Why is President Trump so hell-bent on ending Mueller’s investigation? There can be only one answer–Trump has something very serious to hide that he desperately does not want the American people to know, because if they knew it they would call for his impeachment. I have thought it must be that Trump colluded with Russian government operatives in order to win the election. However, I now think that even though it looks like Russian President Vladimir Putin must have something on Trump, it may not be collusion but rather substantial money laundering with Russians or something like it.

That leads us to President Trump’s announcement last year, saying that if the Mueller investigation involves Trump’s finances or that of any of the members of his family, that would be a “red line” Mr. Mueller must not cross. President Trump has no authority to say anything about what Mr. Mueller and his staff may investigate or not investigate. The Special Counsel’s mandate is under the complete jurisdiction of the Department of Justice. This ultimatum by the president does not respect the separation of powers of our governmental system: executive, legislative, and judicial.

Yesterday, President Trump had his Attorney General Jeff Sessions fire Deputy Director of the FBI Andy McCabe only 26 hours before he was to retire officially and begin receiving his pension. Then Trump tweeted today, celebrating McCabe’s firing. That’s just more evidence of Trump being a jerk. And in Trump’s tweets today, he again blasted James Comey, the FBI director he fired last year, calling him “sanctimonious.” Comey is a strong Christian who used to teach Sunday school.

Today, Comey broke silence by responding to the president’s Twitter remark against him by saying, “Mr. President, the American people will hear my story very soon. And they can judge for themselves who is honorable and who is not.” Comey is finishing a book about his interactions with the president. The book is expected to be released next month. Comey is gearing up for a book tour.

It was Dowd, yesterday, who was sanctimonious in his announcement of calling for ending Mueller’s investigation. He began it by saying, “I pray that Acting Attorney General Rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous example of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and bring an end to alleged Russia collusion investigation manufactured by McCabe’s boss James Comey based upon a fraudulent and corrupt dossier.” The issue of the dossier will come out in Mueller’s investigation.

The president mostly, but also his lawyers and other Trump people, continue to undermine the president’s own Justice Department, calling it “deep state.” Trump does the same with his intelligence community. Former CIA Director John Brennan, whom I much respect, tweeted a comment today, addressing President Trump, “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America…. America will triumph over you.”


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