Although the precise timing remains in question, it’s essentially no secret at this point that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is nearing its conclusion. That point will definitely not be the end for the story and scandal overall, however. Matt Miller, who served in the Justice Department under President Barack Obama, told Axios in recent days that there’s little reason not to believe that the vast majority of the evidence Mueller’s team has collected will eventually make it to Congress, where Democrats will be waiting to use the information to fuel their own lines of inquiry.
He explained:
‘FBI set a precedent in the Clinton case by turning over nearly the entire case file to Congress within three months of the investigation closing… Now that that precedent has been set, [there’s] no good argument for not doing so here… All the FBI 302s [interview records]… Just imagine how many news cycles are in there.’
The information will first be delivered to newly confirmed Attorney General William Barr, who explained recently to Congress that he’d prepare his own summary for Congress and the public that shared as much information as was legally allowed. A full half a dozen Democratic House chairs recently urged Barr, in writing, to “release to the public the report that Special Counsel Mueller submits to you — without delay and to the maximum extent permitted by law.”
CNN reported in recent days that the report would be submitted to the Justice Department as early as next week, but the Justice Department shared its arrival would actually be at least a little farther in the future than that.
After that update, Trump — whose team has long been roped into the Russia investigation alongside the original Kremlin meddlers themselves — told reporters that he “looks forward” to reading it whenever it does arrive, adding:
‘There was no collusion. There was no obstruction… No phone calls… If it’s an honest report, it will say that. If it’s not, it won’t.’
Trump loves to peddle his line that there was no collusion, but reality tells a different story. Associates of his at the very least tried to collude over and over. His own son jumped at the opportunity to meet with Kremlin lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who he’d been promised would bring him dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russian government. His longtime friend/associate Roger Stone covertly sought emails from Wikileaks that they’d been preparing to distribute after their theft by Russian government hackers.
There was even a “phone call,” since during the effort to put up a Trump Tower in Moscow — which coincided with Trump’s presidential bid — his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen spoke with someone from the Russian government’s press secretary’s office for some 20 minutes.
In other words, yet again, Trump is lying.
He has good reason to be worried. Any questions left unanswered by the Mueller report will no doubt quickly be taken up by House Democrats, who are newly in the majority — and some Democratic leaders have even suggested they’d revisit the question of impeachment after the report’s emergence.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
