Replies to post #302035 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

This is the heart of the matter. Trump is a dead man walking.

But now the investigation resembles the architecture of the internet, with many different nodes, and some of those nodes possess potentially unlimited jurisdiction. Their powers and scope go well beyond Mr. Mueller’s circumscribed mandate; they go to Mr. Trump’s judgment and whether he lied to the American people.

They also include law enforcement investigations having nothing to do with Russia, such as whether the president directed the commission of serious campaign finance crimes, as federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have already stated in filings. These are all critical matters, each with serious factual predicates already uncovered by prosecutors.

Had Mr. Trump and his coterie done nothing wrong, they would have had little to fear from the special counsel, and a report from Mr. Mueller that cleared him would be the gold seal of approval.

But Mr. Trump’s behavior, including his dangling of pardons to witnesses in the investigation, makes total exoneration unlikely, even though it is enormously difficult to prosecute crimes with international dimensions and assertions of privilege.

The investigation has been further clouded by the fact that people in Mr. Trump’s inner circle lied repeatedly when it came to Russia (that long list includes Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone).