Everyone is just waiting for this game of political Jenga to come to an end, and even Trump seems to be preparing for that one, load-bearing block to be knocked out of place.
It has been already been a very interesting week in the life of President Trump, what with his responding in the most immensely Trump-ian manner to his record low approval ratings, or his press secretary suddenly resigning without much in the way of a heads up.
Every day seems to be bring a new story, almost entirely unrelated in tone or subject to the last, and with that in mind, now here’s another…
With the impending investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia by former FBI director Robert Mueller, multiple new reports have arrived, both speaking volumes of just hard Trump’s back seems to be against the wall.
Firstly, The New York Times is reporting that Trump has set up special team specifically to narrow Mueller’s investigation, as well as create a potential smear campaign against Mueller himself.
Trump has claimed that there is a conflict of interest with Mueller heading the investigation, as apparently there was a sit-down interview between the two, with Mueller in-line to replace James Comey when he had been fired as the FBI director, although Trump does not reveal just how this creates that conflict of interest.
As per the NYT:
The search for potential conflicts is wide-ranging. It includes scrutinising donations to Democratic candidates, investigators’ past clients and Mueller’s relationship with James Comey, whose firing as FBI director is part of the special counsel’s investigation.
The effort to investigate the investigators is another sign of a looming showdown between Trump and Mueller, who has assembled a team of high-powered prosecutors and agents to examine whether any of Trump’s advisers aided Russia’s campaign to disrupt last year’s presidential election.
Secondly, according to The Washington Post, there is concern that something damaging could be revealed by Mueller’s investigation, and they are preparing to get their bases covered in advance of that happening.
As per the WP:
Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe, according to one of those people. A second person said Trump’s lawyers have been discussing the president’s pardoning powers among themselves.
As with a lot of these pre-official investigation stories, everything is arriving for “sources”, so how much of it can be trusted, believed or proved is anyone’s guess, but with Mueller’s probe now reportedly expanding into Trump’s business dealings and not just political dealings (according to Bloomberg), expect more and more information to arrive over the coming days and weeks.
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