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While the Congress was involved in heated debate over the removal of President Donald Trump, Robert Mueller's brief and dramatic press conference was a powerful reminder that indictment was not the only option for remedy the alleged misdeeds of the president.
The broad outlines of a possible civil suit against former President Trump are already emerging. Although there are reports of tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions and inappropriate foreign contributions to its inaugural committee, among other things, inquiries into these applications are ongoing. There is, however, an overwhelming case of obstruction of justice: his efforts to prevent the Special Council office from probing the links of his campaign with Russia.
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In the second volume of its 448 pages report, Mueller exposes evidence of obstruction of justice that any competent federal prosecutor could use to draft an indictment. And Mueller himself explained that his detailed report was intended, in part, to "preserve the evidence" because "a president does not enjoy immunity after leaving office".
Although it is impossible to know exactly what a lawsuit against the Trump citizen would be or would lead to, it is already possible to predict some of the ways that a probable prosecution might take. In the eyes of a former senior federal prosecutor who only looks at the evidence we have so far, here are the possible avenues – and what Trump needs to worry about next.
The three strongest cases
Mueller's team has looked at 10 different Trump behaviors that may be a hindrance to justice, but it is not clear that there is enough evidence to prove them beyond a reasonable doubt. Three of the potential charges, however, are so strong that it is virtually certain that they will be included in any Trump indictment. (They are strong enough that more than 1,000 former federal prosecutors have signed a letter stating that Trump would be indicted if he was not a president.)
The most important would be his attempt to fire Mueller, the man responsible for investigating the Russian government's interference in the 2016 election and the possibility that the Trump campaign is conspiring with it. Quite simply, the obstruction of justice occurs when someone acts to undermine an investigation with the intention of doing so, and there is no doubt that the dismissal of Mueller would have ended l & # 39; investigation. By the time Trump tried to fire Mueller, he knew that the special council was also investigating him for obstructing justice. Trump tweeted about how he was under investigation one day before trying to fire Mueller, and White House lawyer Don McGahn warned Trump of his "striping" for obstructing justice.
On June 17, 2017, Trump ordered McGahn to ask Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to fire Mueller, telling him "you have to do it." When McGahn did not follow, Trump told him that "you must do it." called a second time the next day, after which McGahn decided to resign. In the end, he did not resign but did not follow Trump's order either.
A few weeks earlier, McGahn had advised Trump to avoid "trying to interfere in the investigation" and saying that "knocking out Mueller" would be "another fact used to invoke the obstruction of justice." When your lawyer tells you that doing something could be a crime and you do it anyway, it's an extremely strong proof of your criminal intent – a "substantial" evidence, in Mueller's own words.
This episode would be the most important leader in a Trump indictment, but at least two others would almost certainly also be indicted. The first took place two days later, on June 19, 2017, when Trump summoned former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski (then cable news commentator) to the Oval Office. During a private meeting, Trump dictated a private message and asked Lewandowski to hand him personally to the then Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, who had challenged him after the incident. investigation of Russia. This is remarkable because McGahn had already made it clear to Trump that he could not contact the DOJ or the FBI about the investigation. Going to a private citizen allowed Trump to circumvent McGahn's directive.
During the meeting, Trump asked Lewandowski to tell Sessions that he should deliver a speech in which he stated, among other things, that he would meet with Mueller and limit his investigation to "investigate the matter." 39 Electoral Interference for Future Elections ", as opposed to the 2016 presidential election. A month later, Trump contacted Lewandowski and asked him if he had spoken to Sessions. Lewandowski told Trump that the message would be delivered soon, and Trump told him that if the sessions did not meet him, Lewandowski would have to inform the sessions that he had been fired. Lewandowski sent the message to an assistant who knew Sessions better than Lewandowski. But this assistant never conveyed the message because it made him "uncomfortable". He lied and told Lewandowski that he had delivered the message, which he had then eliminated.
There is ample evidence that Trump knew that his conduct was unlawful, since his attempt to bypass McGahn when addressing a cable news commentator, to the earlier view that McGahn had already given Trump the about efforts to reduce the investigation.
The third leader who would almost certainly be on any Trump indictment was his efforts to pressure McGahn to create a false registration to hide the fact that Trump had ordered him to fire Mueller. Trump's lawyer initially asked McGahn's lawyer to refuse a New York Times article reporting that Trump had ordered him to return Mueller. When McGahn refused to retract, Trump got angry. He told one of his associates that McGahn was a "liar bastard" and added that if McGahn did not write a letter Time'Count, Trump would fire him.
Later, after McGahn refused to respond to Trump's request, he called him to discuss the matter. Trump told McGahn that he had not said what McGahn had remembered from him: he had not used the word "fire", he said. Trump asked why McGahn had informed Mueller's team of his directive to McGahn. McGahn told Trump that he had to do it – their conversations were not protected by the privilege of professional secrecy – and further, he had taken note of it. (Trump told McGahn that he "had never had a lawyer taking notes." McGahn responded in a memorable fashion that he is a "real advocate.")
Although asking someone to write a letter is generally not a crime, in this case, McGahn was an important witness against Trump. If McGahn wrote a letter about what Trump had done and said, it would completely undermine his value as a witness against Trump.
The evidence in support of these three counts tells a very close story of Trump's efforts to sack and prevent Mueller and Trump's attempts to conceal the fact that he did.
Second level charges
Some prosecutors would limit the indictment for obstruction, but others could include Trump's efforts to dissuade his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, from cooperating, which Mueller seems to believe is supported by substantial evidence.
One of the reasons he is weaker is that, unlike the previous three charges, Trump would have a viable defense against a charge that he tried to push Manafort out of cooperation: It is almost entirely based on public comments. While it is true that public statements can hinder justice, Trump is the president of the United States and commented on issues of intense public interest. While this does not excuse Trump's comments criticizing the idea of ​​cooperation with law enforcement, he could argue that his goal was to improve his political status and not to prevent the investigation. It's not an excellent defense, but it's viable.
A strong argument could also be made to include Trump's directive to former FBI director James Comey of [former national security adviser Michael] Flynn go "and potentially his subsequent decision to fire Comey. Although Mueller does not believe that the evidence in support of this conduct is as strong as the evidence in support of the potential charges outlined above, it does show habitual behavior – Trump attempted to control the scope of the charge. investigation of himself and his collaborators and was willing to dismiss them. who supervised the investigation because it endangered him.
Trump's main defense against this charge is a legal assertion that the president can not interfere with justice by exercising his power as president. This argument, which was presented in particular by William Barr when he was a private citizen, would also be used by Trump's team of lawyers to defend himself from his orders to fire Mueller and put an end to it. Investigation conducted against him. Mueller considered this legal point of view and rejected it convincingly, as most lawyers did, but no court ruled on the issue as no chairman has never been charged with driving in the performance of his duties. (It should be noted that Barr recently admitted that he did not agree with Mueller's legal analysis and that his own original view informed his "exoneration" of Trump.)
Other legal danger
The situation could get worse for Trump by January 2021.
Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York told a federal judge that Trump had made payments (to women with whom he had problems) that were campaign financing crimes for which his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty. This is done do not necessarily means that there is sufficient evidence to indict Trump – the statement of prosecutors is subject to a less stringent standard of proof and that they would need to prove the intent and the Trump's knowledge – but it still represents a significant danger for Trump, as their investigation is ongoing. Numerous other federal and national investigations of Trump and his associates are under way, ranging from an investigation of his inaugural committee's finances to a survey of the Trump organization.
State-level charges pose additional risk because Trump can not be pardoned by a president. It is entirely possible for Trump, recently defeated, to step down and allow another president – potentially Vice President Mike Pence – to forgive him even before the opening of a federal case. (It would not be unprecedented.) Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon about a month after becoming president.
It is also feared that Trump will become more engaged before the next elections, especially if the House of Representatives opens a dismissal investigation. This could give Trump an incentive to pressure or influence potential witnesses against him, like McGahn. Most clients in legal danger should not make matters worse, but Trump has demonstrated that he is not always following his lawyers' advice.
So for Trump, more than staying in power, will depend on the next election. The federal five-year limitation period applies to obstruction of justice. Hinder a federal inquiry is not a state crime, which means that a re-elected president, Mr. Trump, could not be sued for obstructing him in 2017 until the end of the year. termination in January 2025. is more than two years after the limitation period. Some have discussed that the limitation period would be fixed (essentially, put on hold) as long as Trump was in office, but no court reached this conclusion and we never know. For this reason, winning the election could be Trump's best way to avoid being accused of a crime.
The stakes of 2020 could not be higher for him.
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