Last night’s breaking news, and a summary thread from former U.S. attorney Renato Mariotti:
1/ Today @nytimes reported that last June, a month after Comey was fired and Mueller was appointed Special Counsel, Trump ordered Mueller fired. https://t.co/aOw4PRlYPA
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) January 26, 2018
2/ According to @nytimes, Trump argued Mueller had three conflicts of interest that disqualified him from overseeing the investigation: pic.twitter.com/9xgjWqS1A3
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) January 26, 2018
3/ None of the three represent actual conflicts of interest for Mueller. First, Trump argued that Mueller had resigned from a Trump golf club years earlier due to a fees dispute. It’s hard to see that preventing Mueller from being fair.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) January 26, 2018
4/ Second, Trump argued that Mueller had a conflict because he previously worked at the law firm that represented his son-in-law Jared Kushner. If anything, that would suggest that Mueller would be favorable to Trump.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) January 26, 2018
5/ Trump also argued Mueller had a conflict because Trump interviewed him to be FBI Director shortly before his appointment. That’s an odd argument to make—Trump thought he was impartial enough to oversee the entire FBI, but not impartial enough to oversee this investigation?
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) January 26, 2018
6/ These appear to be thinly veiled excuses to fire Mueller, and they came after Trump already asked Comey to drop the Flynn investigation and fired Comey. Trump offered a false public explanation for the Comey firing as well.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) January 26, 2018
7/ This new data point is really important, because Mueller has to prove that Trump was acting with “corrupt” intent. In other words, that his intent when he fired Comey was to impede the FBI investigation to help himself or his associates.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) January 26, 2018
8/ Trump’s defense would likely be that he had a genuine belief that there was nothing to the Russia investigation and that it was a waste of time. He also could argue that he was ignorant of the gravity of his actions and thought firing Comey wouldn’t impede the investigation.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) January 26, 2018
I find it amusing that McGahn, who one would assume knows Fergus’ MO as well as anyone, said after he threatened to quit that Fergus wouldn’t go through with it on his own.