Trump's subpoena gamble: fighting it could open door to indictment.

[pnwmom]

https://www.justsecurity.org/56654/trumps-subpoena-gamble-fighting-open-door-indictment/

Special Counsel Robert Mueller may have concluded that he cannot indict a sitting president, but that could all change if federal judges are given a chance to say what they think about the matter. A critical misstep by Trump’s lawyers could give the courts the opportunity to do just that. What’s the misstep? Litigating the question whether Mueller has the power to subpoena the president to testify before a grand jury.

As things currently stand, Mueller’s hands may be bureaucratically tied. “Justice Department memos going back to before Nixon say that you cannot indict a sitting president,” said Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani last week, adding that the Special Counsel’s office “acknowledged to us orally that they understand that they can’t violate the Justice Department rules.” Regardless of whether Giuliani is to be believed about what Mueller’s team said, his description of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinions—one written during the Nixon administration and the other during the Clinton era—is accurate. Simply put, those opinions conclude that a president is categorically immune from indictment while in office. What’s more, many legal experts, though notall, also think that Mueller is effectively bound by those opinions.

But the status of the opinions inside the Justice Department may not hold. It depends on how the fight over a subpoena plays out.

A problem for the President’s lawyers is that Mueller reportedly believes he has the power to subpoena the president to testify. There’s an untold threat to Trump’s presidency if his lawyers fight Mueller on that issue and lose in court. The end result could not only culminate in federal judges’ upholding the power of the special counsel to subpoena the president—it could also throw open the door to the idea that a sitting president is also subject to indictment and prosecution.

SNIP

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Well as things are happening,

best guess is Grand Jury time will happen. Team Mueller has this,they are also trying to preserve the rule of law.

Remember this,each and every time Nixon mean mouthed the FBI,things were ramped up against him.