Mueller is casting a wide net. We now know the target is Trump.

[DonViejo]

By Greg Sargent March 5 at 9:56 AM

THE MORNING PLUM:


-snip-

In a certain sense, it isn’t that surprising to learn that Mueller is focused on what Trump knew about Russia’s hacking of emails and interference in the election, and any potential conspiracy with them. Mueller is charged with investigating “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated” with Trump’s campaign, as well as any other matters that arise from that line of inquiry. This was inevitably going to include what Trump himself knew and when.

But the subpoena’s search for documents dating all the way back to November 2015 and its demand for documents relating to so many of Trump’s top associates “indicates just how wide a net Mueller is casting,” Paul Rosenzweig, who was a senior counsel for Kenneth W. Starr’s investigation into President Bill Clinton, told me today.

Bob Bauer, the former White House counsel under President Barack Obama, added in an interview with me that the subpoena may serve as a reminder of Trump’s centrality to the collusion tale.

Indeed, as Bauer noted, the publicly known facts already point to Trump’s centrality. Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. eagerly held a meeting in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer fully expecting that he’d be getting dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russian government. It has not been established whether Donald Trump knew about that meeting. But recall that Trump himself helped draft the initial statement misleading the nation about the real purpose of that meeting.

Also recall that former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon told author Michael Wolff that, in his view, the “chance that Don Jr. did not walk” the Russians “up to his father’s office on the twenty-sixth floor is zero.” (Bannon is one of the advisers whom the subpoena seeks documents about.)

-snip-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/03/05/mueller-is-casting-a-wide-net-we-now-know-the-target-is-trump/?utm_term=.fadad4f7dae9

[smirkymonkey]

1. K&R

[cilla4progress]

2. Imagine the steel it takes (referring to Mueller)

To be the one who is managing a truth that could cause a second American revolution.

[H2O Man]

3. Recommended.

Mr. Mueller has already gotten Trump. He is just preparing the case.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. I'm purring that silent "hmmmhmmm" laugh with delight

because you speak the truth on that! It is as bright as day.

[ffr]

5. Dump, Pence, Ryan, McConnell, Nunes, Sessions

I think they all have much to fear here. Conspiracy against the United States will not be taken lightly.

[Upthevibe]

6. I'm just trying to figure out

an end-game. From a Constitutional perspective, where does this leave us in terms of leadership? Pence, Ryan - I think they're complicit. The Chain of Command then goes to Hatch (and I think he's a jerk)....