TPM - Marshall "Today's Mueller Revelations Were The Biggest in Months"

[NRaleighLiberal]

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/todays-mueller-revelations-were-the-biggest-in-months

by Josh Marshall

Over the course of today there was a rush of nugget-sized revelations about the Trump/Russia investigation. Overnight there was news that FBI Director Christopher Wray had threatened to resign. Then we learned that Jeff Sessions had sat for an extended interview with Robert Mueller’s investigators. A bit later we learned that James Comey was interviewed last year. None of these revelations was that big in itself. But there were enough of them (including others not mentioned here) that we put together a round up of these little pops of information just to help keep track. By the end of the day though the different nuggets began to fit together, not as a scattershot of discrete revelations but several parts of a unified whole.

We thought that Robert Mueller had one channel of his probe investigating collusion and another focusing on obstruction of justice. The latter channel appeared to focus on two incidents involving James Comey in February (the request for Michael Flynn) and May (Comey’s firing). Now that channel seems much broader, both in scope and chronology. An afternoon article in The Washington Post suggested that one focus of the interview with Jeff Sessions turned on the President’s pressure on Sessions to resign, which took place after Comey’s dismissal. Mueller was examining this episode as part of a potential pattern of conduct tied to the two aforementioned incidents. This is unquestionably an expansive interpretation of Mueller’s brief. There is also little question that bullying Sessions is part of a broader pattern of the President either obstructing specific investigations or harnessing the machinery of law enforcement to protect himself personally.

There are a few points to note in this context. First, the news that Christopher Wray threatened to resign over pressure to purge the FBI of perceived Comey allies came after a report in the same publication – Axios – that suggested that Sessions had urged Wray to fire Comey-era FBI leadership. The first report suggested that Wray was pliant. The second sent a very different signal. Perhaps these are successive revelations from one source. But I doubt it. It sounds more like different sources of information jousting to establish a set of facts on their terms. I would be very cautious about assuming that we know the full story about Trump’s and Sessions’ pressure on Wray to ‘clean house at the FBI’ and how Wray responded.

This raises another point. The two instances of possible obstruction that we’ve known about for months are Trump’s request to Comey to let Flynn off the hook and Trump’s subsequent firing of Comey. We only know about these two events because they were done in public. Comey’s firing was obviously public and the Flynn revelation came out of the congressional testimony that Comey’s firing spurred. To be clear, we don’t know about these incidents because they’re the worst examples. We know about them because specific events forced their disclosure. We’ve had lots of hints of other shenanigans but it’s all been hazy and uncertain, likely because the parties have little reason to go public. There’s probably quite a lot on this front we do not know but which Mueller’s investigators do know. It is all but certain.

snip - much more at the link.

[babylonsister]

1. Thank you-great news!! nt

[dchill]

2. I'll buy it, but I'd like a line of credit.

[BobTheSubgenius]

3. Tidings of comfort and joy.

Is it just me, or does the whole investigation seem to have been flat-shifted into another gear this week?

And it's only Tuesday.

[NBachers]

4. And once again, it ends in a slippery, indeterminate grey area. These crimes may not be prosecutable

"These are not statutory crimes. They political crimes, subversion of the political order and the rule of law that ordinary statutes are not designed to grapple with. Where this will lead is not at all clear."

[green917]

5. there's plenty there that is prosecutable

Most notably, obstruction of justice on the part of ag sessions, general flynn, and probably others. In my not so humble opinion though, the entire thing hinges on various financial crimes, especially money laundering. Trump developed a reputation for not paying his creditors so the American banks stopped extending him credit. The Russian government had friends in the banking industry lend Trump a shit ton of money for various projects in exchange for him laundering money for the Russian oligarchs and mobsters (basically the same people) through various deals (selling a $500,000 property that was basically condemned for $900,000 less than a year after buying and having done zero work to bring it to code for instance). Trump's ascension to the presidency was all about getting the Obama administration's sanctions on the Russian banking sector overturned so the river of dirty money that had been flowing west through firms like duetsche bank could be reestablished. It's going to be an interesting year because given recent (to the public) revelations (ie- VP Biden's claim the other day senator McConnell actually asked that President Obama not speak out about the speculation, at that time,that Russia was meddling in the election.), they're all up to their necks in it, including the Republican congressional leadership.

[JDC]

6. Interesting. Lots of "probably's" and "likely's" though