Papadopoulos被判刑（获特朗普总统特赦）, Cohen入狱三年, Manafort获刑7.5年、Gates, Flynn, Patten认罪， Roger Stone获刑40个月；Flynn、Manafort、Stone获特朗普总统特赦; Steve Bannon、纳瓦罗被判四个月监禁
- 主题发起人 ccc
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George Papadopoulos, third from left, sits at a table with then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and others at a meeting in Washington, in a photo that was posted on Trump's Twitter account on March 31, 2016. (Twitter/Associated Press)
A Special Day
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班农真是狗头军师啊!
Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump has decided -- for now -- to stick with his strategy of cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller, a day after the Russia investigation ensnared three of his campaign aides. That's despite being urged to take a harder line by his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon.
Bannon spoke with Trump following Monday's announcements from the special counsel, and advocated taking a harsher approach to Mueller, a person familiar with their conversation said. While Trump encouraged Bannon to lead the public charge against Mueller, the President made clear to aides Tuesday that he's not adopting Bannon's advice.
As the President stews about the recent developments in the Russia investigation, he's receiving conflicting arguments about how to proceed. His current legal team and strategy has the support of White House chief of staff John Kelly and -- perhaps most importantly -- members of the President's family, according to a source familiar with the dynamic.
In the wake of Bannon's criticism, White House lawyer Ty Cobb said again Tuesday the President had no plans of changing his tack with Mueller.
"I have a high degree of confidence that the facts in this case dictate the course that we're on," Cobb told CNN, "and have contributed to the special counsel's ability to move expeditiously -- and, ideally, to be in a position to reach a prompt resolution and conclusion."
Even as Trump maintains his current approach, however, people close to him acknowledge he could reverse himself at some point and determine the advice from his legal team isn't working. Trump is expecting further indictments of his campaign associates, his confidants say, but unexpected moves by Mueller could spur him to adopt a tougher strategy.
A person close to the President said that more donors and outside friends are starting to wonder if Bannon is right, saying: "The thinking is 'you will take the same abuse whether you go after (Mueller) or you don't.' "
Bannon's calls to take a harder line against Mueller -- including pushing to cut his funding and insisting he limit the scope of his investigation -- were seen by some inside the White House as at odds with the strategy of representing a client who has nothing to hide. The administration has already been cooperating, including turning over troves of email, in a decision that cannot suddenly be undone.
"This is Bannon's wishful thinking," a person close to the President said. "It's never going to happen. It's just not going to happen."
But the very public suggestions from Bannon do allow the President to have an outside-inside strategy: cooperating with the investigation internally in hopes of reaching a faster conclusion, even while supporting those who loudly criticize it from the outside.
The latest example of White House cooperation came late Tuesday, as an administration official confirmed that communications director Hope Hicks, one of the President's closest aides, agreed to be interviewed by Mueller's team in November. Several other aides are also set to be interviewed by the special counsel's office in the coming weeks, while others already have been.
The conversations about a legal strategy took center stage on Tuesday at the White House, where press secretary Sarah Sanders said the President did not support Bannon's call to squeeze funding for the special counsel's office or to push back harder on Mueller.
"No," Sanders said. "I'm not sure what we'd push back against. All they've done is come up with ways and shown more and more that there was no connection between the Trump campaign and collusion with Russia."
Asked directly whether the President was pleased with his current legal team, Sanders said: "I'm not sure how he couldn't."
"All of the revelations that have taken place over the last several days and hours have nothing to do with the President and have nothing to do with the campaign," Sanders said. "I think the further we get into it, the more and more we see that happen."
A day after two of Trump's campaign aides were indicted and a third was revealed to have pleaded guilty for lying to the FBI -- with whom he's now cooperating -- Trump made repeated attempts to return to his governing agenda, which he's urgently working to revive.
A pall over the West Wing
Manafort attorney: No Russia collusion
But even as Trump looks ahead to a tax reform fight and a lengthy trip to Asia, there remained a pall over the West Wing as aides and associates continued to grapple with the contents of Monday's legal announcements.
While most of Trump's staff -- and the President himself -- had long expected former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates to be indicted by the special counsel, the guilty plea by George Papadopoulos, a campaign foreign policy adviser, came seemingly from nowhere.
Aides who worked on the campaign struggled to remember the man who court documents revealed sought to arrange meetings between members of the Trump campaign and top ranking Kremlin officials.
The notion that such an unassuming figure could be caught in Mueller's net had some Trump aides on edge. The suggestion in the documents that he is cooperating with the FBI investigation -- including the possibility that he's worn a wire to collect information from other campaign associates -- has prompted a degree of consternation among Trump associates, who now wonder who else might be working with Mueller's team.
Members of Trump's staff are "freaked out," one person close to the White House said, with some aides wondering "who has been trying to bait me?"
The President himself is similarly concerned there could be other unforeseen indictments coming down that neither he nor his legal team have anticipated.
"He's insane about it because he's wondering how many of these things are there out there that I don't know about?" the person close to the President said.
Trump remains focused elsewhere
White House answers Manafort questions (full briefing)
The White House insists that Trump's focus is elsewhere -- namely, his upcoming push on tax reform and the 12-day slog through Asia which commences on Friday.
During a series of meetings meant to bolster his push for tax reform, Trump ignored questions about Monday's dramatic series of events. He also ignored questions about whether he would work to short-circuit the Russia investigation, either by moving to dismiss Mueller or by pardoning his associates caught up in Mueller's probe.
"Thank you, all. Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you," Trump said after a reporter asked him in the Roosevelt Room if he was considering a pardon for Manafort, the onetime chairman of his presidential campaign who on Monday surrendered himself to law enforcement. The media was soon gone from the room.
He remained similarly mum on questions about Papadopoulos, who was arrested over the summer by the FBI and has been cooperating with the investigation since.
Outwardly, Trump was attempting to remain focused on the tax reform push, which will reach a head on Wednesday when congressional Republicans unveil specifics of their plan. Trump has asked key members of his administration -- including daughter Ivanka Trump and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin -- to forgo tagging along on his upcoming trip to Asia to instead remain in Washington to lobby for the plan.
Trump arrived to the West Wing just before noon on Tuesday for talks with business leaders about the tax reform plan. He has spent the bulk of the past two mornings inside his private White House residence, including in talks with his legal team about the Russia proceedings.
His time in his top floor residence has also been spent on the phone with certain longtime friends and advisers, each of whom has offered varied advice on handling the Russia probe.
Some have recommended he fire Mueller, a move the President has considered in the past. But for now he's rejected those suggestions at the advice of his legal team and top White House aides.
On Capitol Hill, Republicans downplayed the prospects that Trump could fire Mueller, noting that step would require sign-off by Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who oversees the Russia probe.
"The efforts that are out there are to circumvent the President firing the special counsel -- he can't do that," said Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence committee who is leading his own investigation into Russian election interference.
But asked whether he could ensure Trump and his allies would not apply pressure on Rosenstein to dismiss Mueller, Burr was noncommittal.
"I can't be confident on anything," he said.
CNN's Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.
Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump has decided -- for now -- to stick with his strategy of cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller, a day after the Russia investigation ensnared three of his campaign aides. That's despite being urged to take a harder line by his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon.
Bannon spoke with Trump following Monday's announcements from the special counsel, and advocated taking a harsher approach to Mueller, a person familiar with their conversation said. While Trump encouraged Bannon to lead the public charge against Mueller, the President made clear to aides Tuesday that he's not adopting Bannon's advice.
As the President stews about the recent developments in the Russia investigation, he's receiving conflicting arguments about how to proceed. His current legal team and strategy has the support of White House chief of staff John Kelly and -- perhaps most importantly -- members of the President's family, according to a source familiar with the dynamic.
In the wake of Bannon's criticism, White House lawyer Ty Cobb said again Tuesday the President had no plans of changing his tack with Mueller.
"I have a high degree of confidence that the facts in this case dictate the course that we're on," Cobb told CNN, "and have contributed to the special counsel's ability to move expeditiously -- and, ideally, to be in a position to reach a prompt resolution and conclusion."
Even as Trump maintains his current approach, however, people close to him acknowledge he could reverse himself at some point and determine the advice from his legal team isn't working. Trump is expecting further indictments of his campaign associates, his confidants say, but unexpected moves by Mueller could spur him to adopt a tougher strategy.
A person close to the President said that more donors and outside friends are starting to wonder if Bannon is right, saying: "The thinking is 'you will take the same abuse whether you go after (Mueller) or you don't.' "
Bannon's calls to take a harder line against Mueller -- including pushing to cut his funding and insisting he limit the scope of his investigation -- were seen by some inside the White House as at odds with the strategy of representing a client who has nothing to hide. The administration has already been cooperating, including turning over troves of email, in a decision that cannot suddenly be undone.
"This is Bannon's wishful thinking," a person close to the President said. "It's never going to happen. It's just not going to happen."
But the very public suggestions from Bannon do allow the President to have an outside-inside strategy: cooperating with the investigation internally in hopes of reaching a faster conclusion, even while supporting those who loudly criticize it from the outside.
The latest example of White House cooperation came late Tuesday, as an administration official confirmed that communications director Hope Hicks, one of the President's closest aides, agreed to be interviewed by Mueller's team in November. Several other aides are also set to be interviewed by the special counsel's office in the coming weeks, while others already have been.
The conversations about a legal strategy took center stage on Tuesday at the White House, where press secretary Sarah Sanders said the President did not support Bannon's call to squeeze funding for the special counsel's office or to push back harder on Mueller.
"No," Sanders said. "I'm not sure what we'd push back against. All they've done is come up with ways and shown more and more that there was no connection between the Trump campaign and collusion with Russia."
Asked directly whether the President was pleased with his current legal team, Sanders said: "I'm not sure how he couldn't."
"All of the revelations that have taken place over the last several days and hours have nothing to do with the President and have nothing to do with the campaign," Sanders said. "I think the further we get into it, the more and more we see that happen."
A day after two of Trump's campaign aides were indicted and a third was revealed to have pleaded guilty for lying to the FBI -- with whom he's now cooperating -- Trump made repeated attempts to return to his governing agenda, which he's urgently working to revive.
A pall over the West Wing
Manafort attorney: No Russia collusion
But even as Trump looks ahead to a tax reform fight and a lengthy trip to Asia, there remained a pall over the West Wing as aides and associates continued to grapple with the contents of Monday's legal announcements.
While most of Trump's staff -- and the President himself -- had long expected former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates to be indicted by the special counsel, the guilty plea by George Papadopoulos, a campaign foreign policy adviser, came seemingly from nowhere.
Aides who worked on the campaign struggled to remember the man who court documents revealed sought to arrange meetings between members of the Trump campaign and top ranking Kremlin officials.
The notion that such an unassuming figure could be caught in Mueller's net had some Trump aides on edge. The suggestion in the documents that he is cooperating with the FBI investigation -- including the possibility that he's worn a wire to collect information from other campaign associates -- has prompted a degree of consternation among Trump associates, who now wonder who else might be working with Mueller's team.
Members of Trump's staff are "freaked out," one person close to the White House said, with some aides wondering "who has been trying to bait me?"
The President himself is similarly concerned there could be other unforeseen indictments coming down that neither he nor his legal team have anticipated.
"He's insane about it because he's wondering how many of these things are there out there that I don't know about?" the person close to the President said.
Trump remains focused elsewhere
White House answers Manafort questions (full briefing)
The White House insists that Trump's focus is elsewhere -- namely, his upcoming push on tax reform and the 12-day slog through Asia which commences on Friday.
During a series of meetings meant to bolster his push for tax reform, Trump ignored questions about Monday's dramatic series of events. He also ignored questions about whether he would work to short-circuit the Russia investigation, either by moving to dismiss Mueller or by pardoning his associates caught up in Mueller's probe.
"Thank you, all. Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you," Trump said after a reporter asked him in the Roosevelt Room if he was considering a pardon for Manafort, the onetime chairman of his presidential campaign who on Monday surrendered himself to law enforcement. The media was soon gone from the room.
He remained similarly mum on questions about Papadopoulos, who was arrested over the summer by the FBI and has been cooperating with the investigation since.
Outwardly, Trump was attempting to remain focused on the tax reform push, which will reach a head on Wednesday when congressional Republicans unveil specifics of their plan. Trump has asked key members of his administration -- including daughter Ivanka Trump and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin -- to forgo tagging along on his upcoming trip to Asia to instead remain in Washington to lobby for the plan.
Trump arrived to the West Wing just before noon on Tuesday for talks with business leaders about the tax reform plan. He has spent the bulk of the past two mornings inside his private White House residence, including in talks with his legal team about the Russia proceedings.
His time in his top floor residence has also been spent on the phone with certain longtime friends and advisers, each of whom has offered varied advice on handling the Russia probe.
Some have recommended he fire Mueller, a move the President has considered in the past. But for now he's rejected those suggestions at the advice of his legal team and top White House aides.
On Capitol Hill, Republicans downplayed the prospects that Trump could fire Mueller, noting that step would require sign-off by Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who oversees the Russia probe.
"The efforts that are out there are to circumvent the President firing the special counsel -- he can't do that," said Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence committee who is leading his own investigation into Russian election interference.
But asked whether he could ensure Trump and his allies would not apply pressure on Rosenstein to dismiss Mueller, Burr was noncommittal.
"I can't be confident on anything," he said.
CNN's Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.
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https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/31/mueller-russia-investigation-hope-hicks-interview-244382
Mueller schedules interview with Hope Hicks
The White House communications director is due to speak with prosecutors in the Russia probe after Trump returns from his Asia trip.
By ANNIE KARNI and JOSH DAWSEY
10/31/2017 04:54
Hope Hicks, 28, is one of only a small group of aides who has been at Donald Trump’s side and in the room since before he launched his presidential campaign. | Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo
President Donald Trump’s longtime aide and current communications director, Hope Hicks, is scheduled to speak with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team in mid-November, following the president’s trip to Asia, multiple people familiar with the schedule told POLITICO.
Mueller’s team is also expected to interview three or four other current White House officials as early as this week, according to an administration official.
Mueller’s team already has interviewed former aides, including Trump’s first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and former press secretary Sean Spicer. But the latest round of interviews appears to mark a new phase of the investigation — hauling in current administration officials for daylong depositions.
“Nothing about recent events alters the White House’s commitment to fully cooperate with the office of the special counsel,” White House lawyer Ty Cobb said Tuesday in an interview.
The White House expects Mueller to wrap up his interviews by Thanksgiving.
Mueller schedules interview with Hope Hicks
The White House communications director is due to speak with prosecutors in the Russia probe after Trump returns from his Asia trip.
By ANNIE KARNI and JOSH DAWSEY
10/31/2017 04:54
Hope Hicks, 28, is one of only a small group of aides who has been at Donald Trump’s side and in the room since before he launched his presidential campaign. | Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo
President Donald Trump’s longtime aide and current communications director, Hope Hicks, is scheduled to speak with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team in mid-November, following the president’s trip to Asia, multiple people familiar with the schedule told POLITICO.
Mueller’s team is also expected to interview three or four other current White House officials as early as this week, according to an administration official.
Mueller’s team already has interviewed former aides, including Trump’s first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and former press secretary Sean Spicer. But the latest round of interviews appears to mark a new phase of the investigation — hauling in current administration officials for daylong depositions.
“Nothing about recent events alters the White House’s commitment to fully cooperate with the office of the special counsel,” White House lawyer Ty Cobb said Tuesday in an interview.
The White House expects Mueller to wrap up his interviews by Thanksgiving.
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Any hopes that Trump might have had of the special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe wrapping up quickly, and amounting to nothing, have been shattered. Photograph by Thomas Dworzak / Magnum
The past couple of days have proved that Steve Bannon was right when he said that Donald Trump’s decision to fire James Comey was the biggest mistake in “modern political history.” Speaking to “60 Minutes” in September, shortly after he left the White House, Bannon explained, “I don’t think there's any doubt that, if James Comey had not been fired, we would not have a special counsel.”
To be sure, the federal investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election represented a potential danger, and a great source of irritation, to Trump even when Comey was leading it. But the appointment of the special counsel Robert Mueller elevated the threat level to existential. If there were any lingering doubt of this, it has been dispelled by the indictment of Paul Manafort, a former chairman of the Trump campaign, and Rick Gates, Manafort’s longtime associate, and by the plea deal that Mueller’s team reached with George Papadopoulos, a foreign-policy adviser to the campaign.
These developments suggested that, as Mueller tries to build criminal cases against others in the Trump world—including, quite possibly, the President himself—he will employ the kinds of aggressive tactics that the F.B.I. uses when it goes after drug dealers and mobsters: staging dawn raids; offering plea deals to peripheral figures and sending them out to gather more information; and investigating the personal finances, including tax affairs, of uncoöperative witnesses. To be sure, Mueller hasn’t, so far, revealed positive evidence of collusion between senior figures in the Trump campaign and Russia. (Although the contents of the plea agreement with Papadopoulos are certainly suggestive.) But any hopes that Trump might have had of Mueller’s probe wrapping up quickly, and amounting to nothing, have been shattered.
If Mueller does uncover concrete evidence of collusion, he could well recommend impeachment, which would obviously be disastrous for Trump. But, even if Mueller fails to substantiate the collusion accusation, Trump won’t necessarily be in the clear. He could still be vulnerable to obstruction-of-justice charges stemming from what he said to Comey about false statements made by Michael Flynn, his former national-security adviser—“I hope you can let this go”—and, indeed, from his firing of Comey. The President is facing a lengthy war of attrition that is likely to be marked by more indictments of people who worked for him, and in which a favorable outcome is far from guaranteed.
Given this grim prospect, it is no surprise that there are already signs of dissension in the Trump ranks about how he should proceed. Some of Trump’s advisers advocate sticking with the White House’s current strategy of coöperating with Mueller, avoiding any overt criticisms of him, and hoping he exonerates the President. “I think the reaction of the Administration is let the legal justice system work, everyone’s innocent until—presumed innocent—and we’ll see where it goes,” John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham on Monday night. Kelly’s words echoed a statement that Ty Cobb, one of Trump’s lawyers, made on Sunday, in which he said, “There are no discussions and there is no consideration being given to terminating Mueller."
Bannon evidently holds a different view. He doesn’t appear to be encouraging Trump to order the Justice Department to fire Mueller. If Trump took this step, it would likely backfire in much the same way that Comey’s firing did. (Congress might well use its authority to replace Mueller with another independent prosecutor.) But, according to several different reports, Bannon isn’t willing to sit back, either. “I’m told Bannon pushing trump to be more aggressive against Mueller: urge gop to cut funding, withhold document production and more.” CNN’s Dana Bash tweeted. The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng reported that Bannon had spoken with Trump by phone on Monday and urged him to hire some new lawyers. One source told Markay and Suebsaeng that Bannon believes Cobb and John Dowd, Trump’s current lawyers, are “asleep at the wheel.”
Even if firing Mueller isn’t currently an option, one longtime Trump confidant, the Republican political consultant Roger Stone, thinks there is a more indirect, and less risky, way for the President to get rid of him: by appointing a special prosecutor to investigate a Russian firm’s purchase, in 2013, of Uranium One, a Canadian energy company that controlled about twenty per cent of America’s uranium supply. During the 2016 election, Trump and other Republicans claimed that Hillary Clinton’s State Department approved the Uranium One deal in return for donations to the Clinton Foundation. In fact, nine government departments signed off on the transaction, and the State Department officials involved have said that Clinton played no role.
A couple of weeks ago, the conservative media returned, en masse, to the Uranium One story after The Hill, a news organization that covers Capitol Hill, reported that the F.B.I., in 2009, “gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States.” In Stone’s mind, a new Trump-appointed special prosecutor would investigate everybody connected to Uranium One, including Mueller, who was the director of the F.B.I. from 2001 to 2013. And that would make Mueller’s position untenable. “Mueller can’t be a special prosecutor when he himself is under investigation,” Stone told the Daily Caller, a conservative Web site. “Mueller is guilty of obstruction and cover up in Uranium One.”
Now, Stone is a dedicated troublemaker and controversialist. Over the weekend, Twitter suspended him after he attacked some media figures in a series of expletive-laden tweets. But while it is perhaps tempting to dismiss his proposal as half-baked fantasizing, he isn’t the only person in Trump’s orbit calling for an independent probe of the Uranium One deal. Indeed, the idea now has Kelly’s support. When Ingraham asked him if he supported the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate both Uranium One and the infamous opposition-research dossier that a former British spy, Christopher Steele, produced about Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, Kelly replied, “I guess so . . . I think, probably, as a layman looking at this type of thing, we need to find someone who is very, very objective, who can get to the bottom of these accusations.”
If we take Kelly’s words seriously (and there doesn’t seem any reason not to), Trump may be about to adopt a dual strategy. Officially, he would continue to coöperate with Mueller’s investigation, avoiding any overtly critical comments about it. At the same time, though, he would look to create a huge distraction in the form of a new probe targeting Democrats—one that could even raise questions about Mueller’s continued role. This wacky scheme would represent a Hail Mary pass rather than a fully thought-out strategy, but desperate times call for desperate measures. In his comments to the Daily Caller, Stone said that his plan represents Trump’s “only chance for survival.”
For Stone’s plan to go into effect, the Justice Department and Congress would have to go along with it. Since Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from matters relating to Russia, the onus would fall on Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who appointed Mueller. In a properly functioning democracy, the leaders of the legislature would come out and provide some political cover for Rosenstein, making it clear that they wouldn’t countenance such a blatantly political exploitation of the special-counsel statute. But when was the last time that anyone in the Republican leadership stood up to Trump?
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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...-clovis-spoke-mueller-team-grand-jury-n816106
Top Trump Campaign Aide Clovis Spoke to Mueller Team, Grand Jury
by Ken Dilanian and Mike Memoli
WASHINGTON — Sam Clovis, the former top Trump campaign official who supervised a man now cooperating with the FBI's Russia investigation, was questioned last week by special counsel Robert Mueller's team and testified before the investigating grand jury, a person with first-hand knowledge of the matter told NBC News.
Clovis, who is President Donald Trump's pick to be the Department of Agriculture's chief scientist, could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, Victoria Toensing, would neither confirm nor deny his interactions with the Mueller team.
"I'm not going to get into that," she said in an interview.
Clovis, spotted by NBC News in the Hart Senate Office Building, declined to answer questions.
George Papadopoulos was arrested in July and began cooperating with agents, records show — disclosing his interactions with a professor and other Russians whom the FBI suggested in court documents may have been working for Russian intelligence agencies. He pleaded guilty to making false statements on Oct. 5.
Sam Clovis speaks during a news conference with Donald Trump ahead of a rally in Dubuque, Iowa, on Aug. 25, 2015. Daniel Acker / Bloomberg via Getty Images
The court documents unsealed Monday describe emails between Papadopoulos and an unnamed "campaign supervisor." The supervisor responded "Great work" after Papadopoulos discussed his interactions with Russians who wanted to arrange a meeting with Trump and Russian leaders.
Toensing confirmed that Clovis was the campaign supervisor in the emails. Clovis, a former Air Force officer and Pentagon official who unsuccessfully ran for Iowa State Treasurer in 2014, was the Trump campaign's chief policy adviser and national co-chairman.
He is currently serving as an unpaid White House adviser to the Agriculture Department, awaiting Senate confirmation before the Agriculture Committee for the scientist job. He is not a scientist.
In a statement, Toensing's office said Clovis set up a national security committee in the Trump campaign that included Papadopoulos, "who attended one meeting and was never otherwise approached by the campaign for consultation."
She disputed a suggestion in the Papadopoulos documents that he was told by Clovis that a top campaign priority was improving relations with Russia.
In August 2016, according to court documents, Papadopoulos told Clovis about his efforts to organize an "off the record" meeting with Russian officials.
"I would encourage you" and another foreign policy adviser to the campaign to "make the trip, if it is feasible," Clovis responded.
In the statement, Toensing said the Trump campaign had a strict rule prohibiting travel abroad on behalf of the campaign, but said that Clovis would have had no authority to stop Papadopoulos from traveling in his personal capacity.
Sam Clovis speaks in Johnston, Iowa on April 24, 2014. Charlie Neibergall / AP file
"Dr. Clovis has not communicated with Mr. Papadopoulos since prior to the 2016 election," the statement says.
Democrats have already targeted Clovis' nomination to what is often referred to as the department's chief scientist because he has previously stated doubts about climate change.
In a 2014 interview when he was a candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa, Clovis described himself as "extremely skeptical" of the overwhelming assessment of climate scientists that human behavior is responsible for warming trends. "A lot of the science is junk science," he said then.
In his role in the Trump campaign Clovis, a 25-year Air Force veteran, helped assemble Trump's National Security Advisory Committee, chaired by then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), which was publicly announced in March 2016.
We can expect more indictments, says senator
A public Senate confirmation hearing would give Democrats on the committee an opportunity to question Clovis about his interactions with Papadopoulos and the campaign's deliberation about meetings with Russian officials.
"I’m not aware that any change would be necessary at this time," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters at the daily press briefing when asked about the status of Clovis’ nomination.
The Agriculture Committee is chaired by Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, a former chairman of the Intelligence Committee. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which is conducting its own Russia-related probe, is also a member of the Agriculture Committee, as are Democrats Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.
George Papadopoulos Uncredited
"A hearing later this week is to be determined," said Roberts. "We'll make that determination after we check with all members of the ag committee. I know the Democrats have marching orders to oppose him and so we usually operate in a bipartisan manner. We'll see."
Clovis was also interviewed recently by the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to a source with direct knowledge. Roberts told Politico Tuesday that Clovis was "a fully cooperative witness."
Clovis has continued to work at the Agriculture Department even as his nomination is pending. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has referred to Clovis as a "trusted adviser and steady hand" in his work for USDA in his current role, noting when his nomination was announced that he "was one of the first people through the door."
Top Trump Campaign Aide Clovis Spoke to Mueller Team, Grand Jury
by Ken Dilanian and Mike Memoli
WASHINGTON — Sam Clovis, the former top Trump campaign official who supervised a man now cooperating with the FBI's Russia investigation, was questioned last week by special counsel Robert Mueller's team and testified before the investigating grand jury, a person with first-hand knowledge of the matter told NBC News.
Clovis, who is President Donald Trump's pick to be the Department of Agriculture's chief scientist, could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, Victoria Toensing, would neither confirm nor deny his interactions with the Mueller team.
"I'm not going to get into that," she said in an interview.
Clovis, spotted by NBC News in the Hart Senate Office Building, declined to answer questions.
George Papadopoulos was arrested in July and began cooperating with agents, records show — disclosing his interactions with a professor and other Russians whom the FBI suggested in court documents may have been working for Russian intelligence agencies. He pleaded guilty to making false statements on Oct. 5.
Sam Clovis speaks during a news conference with Donald Trump ahead of a rally in Dubuque, Iowa, on Aug. 25, 2015. Daniel Acker / Bloomberg via Getty Images
The court documents unsealed Monday describe emails between Papadopoulos and an unnamed "campaign supervisor." The supervisor responded "Great work" after Papadopoulos discussed his interactions with Russians who wanted to arrange a meeting with Trump and Russian leaders.
Toensing confirmed that Clovis was the campaign supervisor in the emails. Clovis, a former Air Force officer and Pentagon official who unsuccessfully ran for Iowa State Treasurer in 2014, was the Trump campaign's chief policy adviser and national co-chairman.
He is currently serving as an unpaid White House adviser to the Agriculture Department, awaiting Senate confirmation before the Agriculture Committee for the scientist job. He is not a scientist.
In a statement, Toensing's office said Clovis set up a national security committee in the Trump campaign that included Papadopoulos, "who attended one meeting and was never otherwise approached by the campaign for consultation."
She disputed a suggestion in the Papadopoulos documents that he was told by Clovis that a top campaign priority was improving relations with Russia.
In August 2016, according to court documents, Papadopoulos told Clovis about his efforts to organize an "off the record" meeting with Russian officials.
"I would encourage you" and another foreign policy adviser to the campaign to "make the trip, if it is feasible," Clovis responded.
In the statement, Toensing said the Trump campaign had a strict rule prohibiting travel abroad on behalf of the campaign, but said that Clovis would have had no authority to stop Papadopoulos from traveling in his personal capacity.
Sam Clovis speaks in Johnston, Iowa on April 24, 2014. Charlie Neibergall / AP file
"Dr. Clovis has not communicated with Mr. Papadopoulos since prior to the 2016 election," the statement says.
Democrats have already targeted Clovis' nomination to what is often referred to as the department's chief scientist because he has previously stated doubts about climate change.
In a 2014 interview when he was a candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa, Clovis described himself as "extremely skeptical" of the overwhelming assessment of climate scientists that human behavior is responsible for warming trends. "A lot of the science is junk science," he said then.
In his role in the Trump campaign Clovis, a 25-year Air Force veteran, helped assemble Trump's National Security Advisory Committee, chaired by then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), which was publicly announced in March 2016.
We can expect more indictments, says senator
A public Senate confirmation hearing would give Democrats on the committee an opportunity to question Clovis about his interactions with Papadopoulos and the campaign's deliberation about meetings with Russian officials.
"I’m not aware that any change would be necessary at this time," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters at the daily press briefing when asked about the status of Clovis’ nomination.
The Agriculture Committee is chaired by Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, a former chairman of the Intelligence Committee. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which is conducting its own Russia-related probe, is also a member of the Agriculture Committee, as are Democrats Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.
George Papadopoulos Uncredited
"A hearing later this week is to be determined," said Roberts. "We'll make that determination after we check with all members of the ag committee. I know the Democrats have marching orders to oppose him and so we usually operate in a bipartisan manner. We'll see."
Clovis was also interviewed recently by the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to a source with direct knowledge. Roberts told Politico Tuesday that Clovis was "a fully cooperative witness."
Clovis has continued to work at the Agriculture Department even as his nomination is pending. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has referred to Clovis as a "trusted adviser and steady hand" in his work for USDA in his current role, noting when his nomination was announced that he "was one of the first people through the door."
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White House signals Trump will stay out of Mueller's way
The president and his advisers are realizing there isn’t much he can do to derail the Russia probe.
By DARREN SAMUELSOHN and KYLE CHENEY
11/01/2017 05:15 AM EDT
White House attorney Ty Cobb, personal attorneys John Dowd and Jay Sekulow, and White House chief of staff John Kelly have coached the president to pull back from making explicit, direct attacks against Mueller. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s options are limited for ending the Russia probe he so wants to see over.
Firing special counsel Robert Mueller? That might open up the president to an obstruction of justice charge.
Defunding the Russia investigation? Influential Republicans are warning the White House to avoid such a direct attack.
Setting up a dueling probe to dig into Democratic scandals? That might distract attention, but it won’t stop Mueller’s wide-ranging probe, which took its first major public step on Monday with criminal charges against three former Trump campaign aides.
“The legal process is working. Just let it work,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters on Tuesday. “Let Mueller do his job. If he gets off in a ditch and he does something he shouldn’t be doing, then we’ll all comment on it when that happens.”
Despite Trump’s desire to cut the Russia investigations short — and pressure from some allies to do so — the president and his advisers are quickly coming to the realization there isn’t much he can do to derail it. And on Tuesday, several of the president’s top aides did their best to signal that Trump would be staying out of Mueller’s way.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave reporters a flat “no” during her daily briefing when asked whether the president would take aim at Mueller’s budget, as former White House strategist Steve Bannon has suggested.
Trump earlier this year fumed over the Mueller appointment and, citing concerns over potential conflicts of interest for both the special counsel and the attorneys he hired, the president even flirted with the idea of firing him.
coached the president to pull back from making explicit, direct attacks against Mueller.
“There’s been no White House involvement in any activity to take any actions at all adverse to the special counsel,” Cobb said in an interview Tuesday.
“I don’t support any kind of retaliatory action,” Sekulow said. “That’s not the position we’re advocating. We’re cooperating with the special counsel.”
Now back at his perch running Breitbart, Bannon, according to a person familiar with his thinking, has complained to Trump about that cooperative approach.
Describing the White House as being caught by surprise by Monday’s indictments, Bannon has suggested it may be time to replace Cobb and Dowd or add another layer of lawyers on top of them.
Cobb dismissed those suggestions as “just silly talk.”
“The die has been set,” he said. “I think our approach has clearly been of assistance and moving us along quickly to free the country from this investigation as expeditiously as possible.”
Bannon isn’t backing down. His next move, according to the person familiar with his thinking, is to try to build support for a proposal from Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) that would end funding for Mueller’s office within six months of the bill being signed into law.
The DeSantis measure was set to be offered as an amendment this summer during debate on the House budget resolution, but it puttered out on a procedural technicality. Bannon wants to give it new life — and nudge House GOP leaders to get behind it — by making it a prime topic of discussion on conservative airwaves, including with Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.
For now, Mueller’s spending appears to be safe. His funds are drawn from a permanent Treasury Department account that isn’t subject to the annual appropriations process. It’s also controlled through an internal Justice Department audit, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has final authority to approve the special counsel’s spending plans.
On Capitol Hill, key Republican lawmakers said they trust Mueller — a former George W. Bush-appointed FBI director — to run a budget-savvy operation.
“I’m not concerned about it,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of both Senate leadership and the powerful Appropriations Committee, told reporters when asked about the Bannon-led calls to defund Mueller. “I’m also not for it.”
Some conservatives, meantime, are urging Trump to consider another option that wouldn’t strike directly at the Mueller investigation — but might downplay the drumbeat of Russia news enough that the White House could return its focus to policy priorities.
The idea: Setting up a competing special counsel probe that would examine an Obama-era deal that allowed a Russian-owned company to assume control of a slice of U.S. uranium extraction capacity.
Longtime GOP operative and Trump confidant Roger Stone told the Daily Caller on Monday that the president’s “only chance for survival” was to get the Justice Department to investigate the uranium deal, which several congressional committees are already probing. They are scrutinizing Democrat Hillary Clinton’s involvement because the State Department signed off on the uranium deal when she was secretary, although there is no evidence she was personally involved.
Conservative attorney Larry Klayman has been circulating a petition promoting himself to be appointed as that special counsel.
While many Republicans in Congress say they back Mueller, they are open to the special counsel having some company. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) posted on Twitter last week that “whoever in DOJ is capable” of appointing a special counsel on the uranium deal should do it.
Across the Capitol, Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee have been making their own pitch since July, when they wrote to top DOJ officials urging them to get a special counsel on the clock to examine everything from the FBI’s handling of last year’s probe into Clinton’s personal email server, which she used while she was secretary of state, to several actions related to former Obama-era Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Multiple special counsels working at the same time isn’t out of the norm. In fact, seven different special counsel investigations — operating under a law that has since lapsed — at various points examined President Bill Clinton’s administration, including the probe into his Whitewater land deals that morphed multiple times before ending in impeachment proceedings tied to his sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
President Ronald Reagan during his two terms dealt with eight different independent counsel investigations, including the Iran-Contra affair that examined the actions of then-Lt. Col. Oliver North and other senior administration officials who were accused of selling arms to Iran and diverting profits to right-wing rebel Contras in Nicaragua.
The Justice Department, which has the final say in determining whether it needs to convene another special counsel, declined to comment on the calls for a probe into the uranium deal or other Obama-era moves.
Even if DOJ did open more special counsel probes, Democrats said they wouldn’t deflect from the work Mueller has already started.
“This idea they’re going to be able to throw a bunch of mud against the wall and hope that someone doesn’t notice that someone was just indicted that was the chairman of the Trump campaign I don’t think makes sense,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).
Eliana Johnson contributed to this report.
The president and his advisers are realizing there isn’t much he can do to derail the Russia probe.
By DARREN SAMUELSOHN and KYLE CHENEY
11/01/2017 05:15 AM EDT
White House attorney Ty Cobb, personal attorneys John Dowd and Jay Sekulow, and White House chief of staff John Kelly have coached the president to pull back from making explicit, direct attacks against Mueller. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s options are limited for ending the Russia probe he so wants to see over.
Firing special counsel Robert Mueller? That might open up the president to an obstruction of justice charge.
Defunding the Russia investigation? Influential Republicans are warning the White House to avoid such a direct attack.
Setting up a dueling probe to dig into Democratic scandals? That might distract attention, but it won’t stop Mueller’s wide-ranging probe, which took its first major public step on Monday with criminal charges against three former Trump campaign aides.
“The legal process is working. Just let it work,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters on Tuesday. “Let Mueller do his job. If he gets off in a ditch and he does something he shouldn’t be doing, then we’ll all comment on it when that happens.”
Despite Trump’s desire to cut the Russia investigations short — and pressure from some allies to do so — the president and his advisers are quickly coming to the realization there isn’t much he can do to derail it. And on Tuesday, several of the president’s top aides did their best to signal that Trump would be staying out of Mueller’s way.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave reporters a flat “no” during her daily briefing when asked whether the president would take aim at Mueller’s budget, as former White House strategist Steve Bannon has suggested.
Trump earlier this year fumed over the Mueller appointment and, citing concerns over potential conflicts of interest for both the special counsel and the attorneys he hired, the president even flirted with the idea of firing him.
coached the president to pull back from making explicit, direct attacks against Mueller.
“There’s been no White House involvement in any activity to take any actions at all adverse to the special counsel,” Cobb said in an interview Tuesday.
“I don’t support any kind of retaliatory action,” Sekulow said. “That’s not the position we’re advocating. We’re cooperating with the special counsel.”
Now back at his perch running Breitbart, Bannon, according to a person familiar with his thinking, has complained to Trump about that cooperative approach.
Describing the White House as being caught by surprise by Monday’s indictments, Bannon has suggested it may be time to replace Cobb and Dowd or add another layer of lawyers on top of them.
Cobb dismissed those suggestions as “just silly talk.”
“The die has been set,” he said. “I think our approach has clearly been of assistance and moving us along quickly to free the country from this investigation as expeditiously as possible.”
Bannon isn’t backing down. His next move, according to the person familiar with his thinking, is to try to build support for a proposal from Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) that would end funding for Mueller’s office within six months of the bill being signed into law.
The DeSantis measure was set to be offered as an amendment this summer during debate on the House budget resolution, but it puttered out on a procedural technicality. Bannon wants to give it new life — and nudge House GOP leaders to get behind it — by making it a prime topic of discussion on conservative airwaves, including with Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.
For now, Mueller’s spending appears to be safe. His funds are drawn from a permanent Treasury Department account that isn’t subject to the annual appropriations process. It’s also controlled through an internal Justice Department audit, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has final authority to approve the special counsel’s spending plans.
On Capitol Hill, key Republican lawmakers said they trust Mueller — a former George W. Bush-appointed FBI director — to run a budget-savvy operation.
“I’m not concerned about it,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of both Senate leadership and the powerful Appropriations Committee, told reporters when asked about the Bannon-led calls to defund Mueller. “I’m also not for it.”
Some conservatives, meantime, are urging Trump to consider another option that wouldn’t strike directly at the Mueller investigation — but might downplay the drumbeat of Russia news enough that the White House could return its focus to policy priorities.
The idea: Setting up a competing special counsel probe that would examine an Obama-era deal that allowed a Russian-owned company to assume control of a slice of U.S. uranium extraction capacity.
Longtime GOP operative and Trump confidant Roger Stone told the Daily Caller on Monday that the president’s “only chance for survival” was to get the Justice Department to investigate the uranium deal, which several congressional committees are already probing. They are scrutinizing Democrat Hillary Clinton’s involvement because the State Department signed off on the uranium deal when she was secretary, although there is no evidence she was personally involved.
Conservative attorney Larry Klayman has been circulating a petition promoting himself to be appointed as that special counsel.
While many Republicans in Congress say they back Mueller, they are open to the special counsel having some company. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) posted on Twitter last week that “whoever in DOJ is capable” of appointing a special counsel on the uranium deal should do it.
Across the Capitol, Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee have been making their own pitch since July, when they wrote to top DOJ officials urging them to get a special counsel on the clock to examine everything from the FBI’s handling of last year’s probe into Clinton’s personal email server, which she used while she was secretary of state, to several actions related to former Obama-era Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Multiple special counsels working at the same time isn’t out of the norm. In fact, seven different special counsel investigations — operating under a law that has since lapsed — at various points examined President Bill Clinton’s administration, including the probe into his Whitewater land deals that morphed multiple times before ending in impeachment proceedings tied to his sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
President Ronald Reagan during his two terms dealt with eight different independent counsel investigations, including the Iran-Contra affair that examined the actions of then-Lt. Col. Oliver North and other senior administration officials who were accused of selling arms to Iran and diverting profits to right-wing rebel Contras in Nicaragua.
The Justice Department, which has the final say in determining whether it needs to convene another special counsel, declined to comment on the calls for a probe into the uranium deal or other Obama-era moves.
Even if DOJ did open more special counsel probes, Democrats said they wouldn’t deflect from the work Mueller has already started.
“This idea they’re going to be able to throw a bunch of mud against the wall and hope that someone doesn’t notice that someone was just indicted that was the chairman of the Trump campaign I don’t think makes sense,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).
Eliana Johnson contributed to this report.
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- 1,393
真有不怕乱子大的啊！
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/the-west-wing-trump-is-apoplectic-as-allies-fear-impeachment
US President Donald Trump speaks alongside his daughter, Ivanka Trump (L) and her husband, Senior White House Adviser Jared Kushner (R) during a Cabinet Meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, DC, October 16, 2017.
By SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images.
Until now, Robert Mueller has haunted Donald Trump’s White House as a hovering, mostly unseen menace. But by securing indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and a surprise guilty plea from foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, Mueller announced loudly that the Russia investigation poses an existential threat to the president. “Here’s what Manafort’s indictment tells me: Mueller is going to go over every financial dealing of Jared Kushner and the Trump Organization,” said former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg. “Trump is at 33 percent in Gallup. You can’t go any lower. He’s fucked.”
The first charges in the Mueller probe have kindled talk of what the endgame for Trump looks like, according to conversations with a half-dozen advisers and friends of the president. For the first time since the investigation began, the prospect of impeachment is being considered as a realistic outcome and not just a liberal fever dream. According to a source, advisers in the West Wing are on edge and doing whatever they can not to be ensnared. One person close to Dina Powell and Gary Cohn said they’re making sure to leave rooms if the subject of Russia comes up.
The consensus among the advisers I spoke to is that Trump faces few good options to thwart Mueller. For one, firing Mueller would cross a red line, analogous to Nixon’s firing of Archibald Cox during Watergate, pushing establishment Republicans to entertain the possibility of impeachment. “His options are limited, and his instinct is to come out swinging, which won’t help things,” said a prominent Republican close to the White House.
Trump, meanwhile, has reacted to the deteriorating situation by lashing out on Twitter and venting in private to friends. He’s frustrated that the investigation seems to have no end in sight. “Trump wants to be critical of Mueller,” one person who’s been briefed on Trump’s thinking says. “He thinks it’s unfair criticism. Clinton hasn’t gotten anything like this. And what about Tony Podesta? Trump is like, When is that going to end?” According to two sources, Trump has complained to advisers about his legal team for letting the Mueller probe progress this far. Speaking to Steve Bannon on Tuesday, Trump blamed Jared Kushner for his role in decisions, specifically the firings of Mike Flynn and James Comey, that led to Mueller’s appointment, according to a source briefed on the call. When Roger Stone recently told Trump that Kushner was giving him bad political advice, Trump agreed, according to someone familiar with the conversation. “Jared is the worst political adviser in the White House in modern history,” Nunberg said. “I’m only saying publicly what everyone says behind the scenes at Fox News, in conservative media, and the Senate and Congress.” (The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment by deadline.)
As Mueller moves to interview West Wing aides in the coming days, advisers are lobbying for Trump to consider a range of stratagems to neutralize Mueller, from conciliation to a declaration of all-out war. One Republican explained Trump’s best chance for survival is to get his poll numbers up. Trump’s lawyer Ty Cobb has been advocating the view that playing ball will lead to a quick resolution (Cobb did not respond to a request for comment). But these soft-power approaches are being criticized by Trump allies including Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, who both believe establishment Republicans are waiting for a chance to impeach Trump. “The establishment has proven time and time again they will fuck Trump over,” a Bannon ally told me.
In a series of phone calls with Trump on Monday and Tuesday, Bannon told the president to shake up the legal team by installing an aggressive lawyer above Cobb, according to two sources briefed on the call. Bannon has also discussed ways to pressure Congress to defund Mueller’s investigation or limit its scope. “Mueller shouldn’t be allowed to be a clean shot on goal,” a Bannon confidant told me. “He must be contested and checked. Right now he has unchecked power.”
Bannon’s sense of urgency is being fueled by his belief that Trump’s hold on power is slipping. The collapse of Obamacare repeal, and the dimming chances that tax reform will pass soon—many Trump allies are deeply pessimistic about its prospects—have created the political climate for establishment Republicans to turn on Trump. Two weeks ago, according to a source, Bannon did a spitball analysis of the Cabinet to see which members would remain loyal to Trump in the event the 25th Amendment were invoked, thereby triggering a vote to remove the president from office. Bannon recently told people he’s not sure if Trump would survive such a vote. “One thing Steve wants Trump to do is take this more seriously,” the Bannon confidant told me. “Stop joking around. Stop tweeting.”
Roger Stone believes defunding Mueller isn’t enough. Instead, Stone wants Trump to call for a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton’s role in approving the controversial Uranium One deal that’s been a locus of rightwing hysteria (the transaction involved a Russian state-owned energy firm acquiring a Canadian mining company that controlled a large subset of the uranium in the United States). It’s a bit of a bank shot, but as Stone described it, a special prosecutor looking into Uranium One would also have to investigate the F.B.I.’s role in approving the deal, thereby making Mueller—who was in charge of the bureau at the time—a target. Stone’s choice for a special prosecutor: Rudy Giuliani law colleague Marc Mukasey or Fox News pundit Andrew Napolitano. “You would immediately have to inform Mueller, Comey, and [Deputy Attorney General] Rod Rosenstein that they are under federal investigation,” Stone said. “Trump can’t afford to fire Mueller politically. But this pushes him aside.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/the-west-wing-trump-is-apoplectic-as-allies-fear-impeachment
US President Donald Trump speaks alongside his daughter, Ivanka Trump (L) and her husband, Senior White House Adviser Jared Kushner (R) during a Cabinet Meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, DC, October 16, 2017.
By SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images.
Until now, Robert Mueller has haunted Donald Trump’s White House as a hovering, mostly unseen menace. But by securing indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and a surprise guilty plea from foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, Mueller announced loudly that the Russia investigation poses an existential threat to the president. “Here’s what Manafort’s indictment tells me: Mueller is going to go over every financial dealing of Jared Kushner and the Trump Organization,” said former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg. “Trump is at 33 percent in Gallup. You can’t go any lower. He’s fucked.”
The first charges in the Mueller probe have kindled talk of what the endgame for Trump looks like, according to conversations with a half-dozen advisers and friends of the president. For the first time since the investigation began, the prospect of impeachment is being considered as a realistic outcome and not just a liberal fever dream. According to a source, advisers in the West Wing are on edge and doing whatever they can not to be ensnared. One person close to Dina Powell and Gary Cohn said they’re making sure to leave rooms if the subject of Russia comes up.
The consensus among the advisers I spoke to is that Trump faces few good options to thwart Mueller. For one, firing Mueller would cross a red line, analogous to Nixon’s firing of Archibald Cox during Watergate, pushing establishment Republicans to entertain the possibility of impeachment. “His options are limited, and his instinct is to come out swinging, which won’t help things,” said a prominent Republican close to the White House.
Trump, meanwhile, has reacted to the deteriorating situation by lashing out on Twitter and venting in private to friends. He’s frustrated that the investigation seems to have no end in sight. “Trump wants to be critical of Mueller,” one person who’s been briefed on Trump’s thinking says. “He thinks it’s unfair criticism. Clinton hasn’t gotten anything like this. And what about Tony Podesta? Trump is like, When is that going to end?” According to two sources, Trump has complained to advisers about his legal team for letting the Mueller probe progress this far. Speaking to Steve Bannon on Tuesday, Trump blamed Jared Kushner for his role in decisions, specifically the firings of Mike Flynn and James Comey, that led to Mueller’s appointment, according to a source briefed on the call. When Roger Stone recently told Trump that Kushner was giving him bad political advice, Trump agreed, according to someone familiar with the conversation. “Jared is the worst political adviser in the White House in modern history,” Nunberg said. “I’m only saying publicly what everyone says behind the scenes at Fox News, in conservative media, and the Senate and Congress.” (The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment by deadline.)
As Mueller moves to interview West Wing aides in the coming days, advisers are lobbying for Trump to consider a range of stratagems to neutralize Mueller, from conciliation to a declaration of all-out war. One Republican explained Trump’s best chance for survival is to get his poll numbers up. Trump’s lawyer Ty Cobb has been advocating the view that playing ball will lead to a quick resolution (Cobb did not respond to a request for comment). But these soft-power approaches are being criticized by Trump allies including Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, who both believe establishment Republicans are waiting for a chance to impeach Trump. “The establishment has proven time and time again they will fuck Trump over,” a Bannon ally told me.
In a series of phone calls with Trump on Monday and Tuesday, Bannon told the president to shake up the legal team by installing an aggressive lawyer above Cobb, according to two sources briefed on the call. Bannon has also discussed ways to pressure Congress to defund Mueller’s investigation or limit its scope. “Mueller shouldn’t be allowed to be a clean shot on goal,” a Bannon confidant told me. “He must be contested and checked. Right now he has unchecked power.”
Bannon’s sense of urgency is being fueled by his belief that Trump’s hold on power is slipping. The collapse of Obamacare repeal, and the dimming chances that tax reform will pass soon—many Trump allies are deeply pessimistic about its prospects—have created the political climate for establishment Republicans to turn on Trump. Two weeks ago, according to a source, Bannon did a spitball analysis of the Cabinet to see which members would remain loyal to Trump in the event the 25th Amendment were invoked, thereby triggering a vote to remove the president from office. Bannon recently told people he’s not sure if Trump would survive such a vote. “One thing Steve wants Trump to do is take this more seriously,” the Bannon confidant told me. “Stop joking around. Stop tweeting.”
Roger Stone believes defunding Mueller isn’t enough. Instead, Stone wants Trump to call for a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton’s role in approving the controversial Uranium One deal that’s been a locus of rightwing hysteria (the transaction involved a Russian state-owned energy firm acquiring a Canadian mining company that controlled a large subset of the uranium in the United States). It’s a bit of a bank shot, but as Stone described it, a special prosecutor looking into Uranium One would also have to investigate the F.B.I.’s role in approving the deal, thereby making Mueller—who was in charge of the bureau at the time—a target. Stone’s choice for a special prosecutor: Rudy Giuliani law colleague Marc Mukasey or Fox News pundit Andrew Napolitano. “You would immediately have to inform Mueller, Comey, and [Deputy Attorney General] Rod Rosenstein that they are under federal investigation,” Stone said. “Trump can’t afford to fire Mueller politically. But this pushes him aside.”
