Arguing with Donald Trump’s TV attorney, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, is akin to dancing with a cobra. A person must watch him carefully and jump when he strikes with one of his poisonous charges. In his interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Giuliani used toxic keywords the president will use as talking points, such as “hit man.” The interview was a fast-paced attempt to discredit the special counsel’s report, but the Democrats have a special secret weapon.
There is only one place in the House of Representatives that can generate impeachment proceedings. That is the Judiciary Committee, which Representative Jerry Nadler (D-NY), the Democrats’ secret weapon, chairs. The representative said in an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd on his show Meet The Press:
‘Some of this (Mueller report accusations) would be impeachable. Obstruction of justice, if proven, would be impeachable.’
Mueller’s report was an in-depth analysis of Moscow’s attack on the U.S. 2016 presidential election. The report also looked at whether the president or members of his campaign attempted to obstruct the special counsel’s investigation. However, Mueller did not directly recommend Trump should be indicted on the charge of obstruction of justice.
‘The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.’
Nadler said Mueller did not charge Donald Trump with obstruction, but only because he could not prove willful intent. The president refused to testify before Mueller, and he “forgot” the answers to 37 of the questions in Mueller’s written interview. Add in all the lies, and Mueller had no vehicle for proving Trump’s intent. Nadler continued:
‘He said that he didn’t charge them because you couldn’t prove that they willfully intended to commit a crime. All you have to prove for conspiracy is that they entered into a meeting of the minds to do something wrong and had one overt act. They entered into a meeting of the minds to attend a meeting to get stolen material on Hillary. They went to the meeting, that’s conspiracy.”
The House needed to see the full unredacted report before its members could make a decision about Trump’s guilt. Nadler indicated that he would “see where the facts lead us.”
The president’s Roy Cohenesque Attorney General William Barr had redacted somewhere between seven and 15 percent of Mueller’s report. Several House committees have been demanding the unredacted version. In addition, Nadler said that the committee needed to hear the testimony of both Special Counsel Robert Mueller and AG Barr before the members could make a final decision.
Donald Trump Jr.’s attorney Alan Futerfas released a statement claiming that the report proved his client not guilty:
‘The Report confirms that the June 9, 2016 meeting was just what Don said it was, and nothing more, and that there was nothing improper about potentially listening to information.’
Mueller wrote in his report the reasoning behind his decision to not charge Trump Sr. with obstruction:
‘(W)hile this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. (A) criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President’s capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct.’
Giuliani said that Mueller’s report was “sloppy” and biased against Trump. He also said the report proved the president was “innocent.” Giuliani also said that POTUS had every right to fire the special counsel. Nadler said not so fast.
