Mueller has powerful new House allies as he bears down on Trump

[DonViejo]

Democrats are primed to help the special counsel shed light on any illicit behavior by the president and his allies.

By DARREN SAMUELSOHN 11/07/2018 09:15 AM EST

Special counsel Robert Mueller is set to emerge from his midterm campaign hibernation period with a powerful new ally as House Democrats surged back to the majority in Tuesday’s elections.

The lead Russia investigator, who in the days and weeks ahead has a series of important court hearings and key sentencing deadlines for cooperating witnesses, will soon have a friendly audience of Democratic chairmen on one end of Capitol Hill who are primed with subpoena power to fight the White House if it tries to block the public release of his final report examining any potential connections between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and Kremlin-sponsored hackers.

House Democrats say they’re also ready to act as a backstop if Trump follows through on more than 18 months of pent-up angst and fires Mueller or tries to meddle with the special counsel’s work through a major shakeup atop the Justice Department.

Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has already pledged to make sure Mueller’s “documentation is preserved” and the likely next House speaker also holds in her back pocket the threat of launching impeachment hearings against Trump if the president tries to oust Mueller or if the special counsel’s investigators ultimately uncover a smoking gun involving criminal behavior.

Democrats are even prepping a break-glass scenario in case there’s a Nixon-era Saturday Night Massacre where Trump fires his current DOJ leadership and tries to shutter the Mueller probe in the process. If that happens, senior Democratic officials say Mueller would likely get an immediate summons to Capitol Hill for nationally-televised testimony about his findings.

more
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/07/mueller-house-democratic-majority-970325

[C_U_L8R]

1. January seems a long way away.

And Trump is bound to try some nefarious hankypanky in the meantime.

[manor321]

2. Some caution

- We don't take the House until January 3rd, 2019. Trump can act before then.

- Impeachment? That's not going anywhere in the Senate. They won't even take it up to discuss it. I'm in favor of following through with impeachment in the House if the evidence warrants it, but this is not a threat to the president.

- With Senate control, Trump can replace Sessions, get someone confirmed, and have that person stop the investigation. All we can do is publicize, but then it just goes to the voters in 2020 while Trump remains.

These elections really do matter.

[BSdetect]

3. What you describe is a complete indictment of the entire political system.

[manor321]

4. The rules were known before last night

If we want to wield impeachment as a threat, we'd need to (at a minimum) take the House and Senate. We didn't do that.

The impeachment rules have been in place for 200+ years. Every single voter should have known this before voting. This is what elections are for.

[2naSalit]

7. Oh, there are worse things

they can do to him than impeachment, that's going to seem like a slap on the wrist when he gets done answering under oath.

[Blue_true]

5. He needs to wait for a couple of weeks until after Dems take control, then swarm Trump with

indictments.

Trump is in a trap, if he fires Mueller before Dems take control, he brings down an avalanche on himself and pretty much ends his presidency. If he waits until after Dems take control, Mueller can indict him back to the stoneage. Trump is in a no win trap and anyone around him with half a brain should realize that.

[libdem4life]

6. "no win trap"...music to my ears. Will help take some of the sting from last night. n/t