MSNBC’s Joy Reid invited a panel of like-minded guests on her weekend news and politics show to discuss the latest developments in Special Counsel Robert M. Mueller’s Russia investigation. The panel’s not-so-surprising conclusion: President Donald Trump is going down.
Appearing on “AM Joy,” former Department of Justice corruption prosecutor Paul Butler predicted that Donald Trump Jr. will be the next chip to fall in the collusion investigation, and he believes Mueller will use Trump Jr. to take down the president.
The Mueller symphony
“Does Mueller have to indict Trump in order to put the proper coda at the end of the long symphony?” Reid asked the former prosecutor.
Butler, a professor of law at Georgetown University who refers to himself as a “[r]enegade prosecutor,” provided his theory for how the special counsel will proceed:
Mueller is not going to indict Trump, because he’s going to follow the DOJ employee handbook, but he has leverage over the president in terms of Donald Trump, Jr. We’ve seen Mueller use people’s kids to get to folks in the past. He could do this with Donald Trump, Jr.
Butler was referring to rumors that Gen. Mike Flynn, the former head of Trump’s National Security Council, pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators to protect his son, who was also reportedly a “subject” of the special counsel investigation. Mike Flynn Jr. worked as the chief of staff at his father’s consulting and lobbying firm, and his relationship with Turkish and Russian government sources had allegedly captured the attention of prosecutors.
To indict, or not to indict?
Mueller may choose to pursue charges against Trump Jr., as Butler suggested, because DOJ policy prevents a sitting president from being indicted. A DOJ Memorandum Opinion published in 2000 states: “The indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”
Other members of Reid’s anti-Trump panel disagreed that DOJ policy protects President Trump from indictment. Court TV anchor Seema Iyer believes that Trump is subject to different legal standards than past presidents.
“Everyone is talking about the DOJ guidelines,” Iyer said. “The guidelines from the Nixon period and reaffirmed during Clinton. But those guidelines were specific to those presidents’ actions during their presidency,” she argued, pushing for a two-tiered system of justice.
Just one problem …
Reid’s guests were so consumed with talking themselves into a Trump indictment that they failed to bring up a huge blow to Butler’s theory which occurred earlier this week. Like many Democrats, Butler believes that Trump Jr. lied to Congress when he said that his father had no knowledge of a 2016 Trump Tower meeting where a Russian attorney was supposed to supply “dirt” on the Hillary Clinton campaign.
The president’s critics point to Trump’s announcement from just before that fateful meeting that he would soon give a “major speech” discussing “all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons.” The meeting ended up being a bust, and Trump never held his promised press conference.
However, Democrats were all but certain that private phone calls logged by Trump Jr.’s phone would prove that his father had inside knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting. This, in turn, would prove that Trump Jr. lied to Congress when he said that his father was kept out of the loop regarding the brief conference.
Unfortunately for Democrats, their “hot cellphone lead” didn’t pan out. A Senate investigation determined that the blocked telephone numbers belonged to close family friends who regularly interfaced with the campaign.
Despite the evidence, Democrats are going to talk themselves into an impeachment, come hell or high water. Butler’s MSNBC appearance only confirms this.
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