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The Political Scene | The New Yorker
What is Robert Mueller’s Endgame Against Donald Trump?
00:17:43
What is Robert Mueller’s Endgame Against Donald Trump?
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- [00:00]
A
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- [01:17]
B
This is the Political Scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and editors about Politics. It's Thursday, December 6th. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of the New Yorker. There is no evidence yet that President Trump himself is a target of the Mueller investigation. But recent developments provide some answers to the two key questions. Did Trump or anyone in his inner circle conspire with Russia to interfere with the 2016 presidential elections? And did President Trump obstruct justice by trying to shut down the Mueller inquiry? Last Thursday, Trump argued that his business dealings with Russia are irrelevant to the investigation.
- [01:57]
C
Very simple. We had a position to possibly do a deal to build a building of some kind in Moscow. I decided not to do it. The primary reason? There could have been other reasons, but the primary reason it was very simple. I was focused on running for president. There would be nothing wrong if I did do it. I was running my business while I was campaigning. There was a good chance that I wouldn't have won, in which case I would have gone back into the business and why should I lose? Lots of opportunities.
- [02:31]
B
Adam Davidson joins me to discuss what the news of the past few weeks tells us about possible collusion and obstruction of justice charges against Trump and where the investigations by Mueller and in the House of Representatives are headed. Welcome back, Adam.
- [02:47]
D
Hi, Dorothy. Great to be here.
- [02:49]
B
We always look to you for clarity on these matters, so we will plunge right in. In the past few weeks, we've learned a lot about what most interests Mueller as he gets closer to wrapping up this probe. Michael Cohen, the president's former lawyer and longtime fixer, is cooperating fully with investigators, as is Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser. Let's start with Cohen. He'd already pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and various financial crimes. What did we learn last week when he made that dramatic surprise appearance in federal court in New York?
- [03:27]
D
What we learned this last week, or what was confirmed this last week, is a really fleshed out picture of what was going on inside the 26th floor of Trump Tower, which was simultaneously the heart of the Trump Organization as a business and the heart of the Trump campaign. And what we now know is that from December 2015, right on through at least June 2016, that one of the major goals of the Trump Organization, their hot big business opportunity, was building a Trump Tower Moscow, and that very central to their planning was getting Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, to support their effort. To me, and I would think to a lot of people, this is case closed. We don't need a lot more information.
- [04:24]
B
Case closed on what front?
- [04:27]
D
Case closed that President Trump was acting in a way contrary to the interests of the United States, that his campaign was openly trading access to Donald Trump, the president, so that, or the potential president, so that Donald Trump, the businessman, could get a favorable deal in Moscow. They were enthusiastically doing that, but trying.
- [04:51]
B
To imagine how he perceives all this. And we just heard him a moment ago. He was a private citizen at the time. What law was he violating?
- [04:59]
D
Yeah, it's an interesting problem. I was talking to a former Department of Justice prosecutor who said he's not aware of any case law that addresses this. What are the constraints on someone running for higher office? So clearly, a government official cannot reach out to the head of a foreign state and say, hey, I'd like to do a bunch of favors for you. Can you do a favor for me?
- [05:25]
B
And that's according to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
- [05:28]
D
That's Foreign Corrupt Practices act if you're the president. It also is a clear violation of the emoluments clause, almost certainly. And a host of other. I mean, this is, you know, this is certainly in the neighborhood of treason. If it's not explicitly treason, you don't use your American political office to trade favors with the leaders of foreign, often hostile governments. But when does that responsibility attach? I am not a lawyer, but from what I understand and from the conversations I've had, it's not crystal clear when that attaches. Is it the day you're elected? Is it the day you are sworn into office? Or is it the day you decide to run for office? Is it the day you become the Republican nominee and therefore a very serious potential candidate for office? But we are not trying. Donald Trump will never be tried in a typical court of law. So when I say case closed, I simply mean that it is hard for me to imagine an objective observer, given those facts, would not conclude that person is. It is inappropriate for that person to hold higher office. Now, obviously, we know that the Republican Party is not likely to impeach, to remove him from office, even if the House impeaches him. But I think if you gave these abstract facts to Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham or the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate, you know, five years ago, and said, hey, do you think we should remove from office a president who did X, Y, and Z? I think they all would have said yes.
- [07:00]
B
So let's talk specifically about Flynn. He, I believe, is the only one of Trump's associates who is both cooperating with the special counsel and worked both for the campaign and in the White House as National Security adviser. He was indicted last year for lying to the FBI, ties to foreign governments. Tell us now what we have learned from that heavily redacted sentencing memo that was released on Tuesday.
- [07:26]
D
Yeah, I could say maddeningly redacted. I mean, I.
- [07:30]
B
Yes.
- [07:30]
D
So Michael Flynn is such an important figure in all of this because, as you said, he spent a lot of time on the 26th floor of Trump Tower. He was a key intermediary between the President and. And Russia. He had his own independent relationships with Russia. You know, he famously took $40,000 or whatever it was to go to a Russia Today propaganda party in the Kremlin, sitting at the same table with Vladimir Putin and Jill Stein. Weirdly enough, what Mike Flynn, I think, brings to the table is, first of all, a bird's eye view into the conversations at the highest level. How were financial arrangements and political policy promises being made? Maybe they weren't being made at all. Maybe they were being made in. That'll truly shock even the most skeptical. Also, there's a fair bit of suggestion and reporting that Mike Flynn himself was really using the Trump campaign as an opportunity to get rich, that he had this Middle east nuclear power plant business he was promoting that would be funded in part by Russia. He had a variety of lucrative business arrangements with Turkey. He was fairly nakedly trading on his access to Trump to do these deals. It helps really paint a picture of not just a candidate for president who's acting inappropriately, but an entire campaign that is sort of a platform for people to get rich by trading access. That is an area we have a lot more to learn than we already know. And those are the things that I'm assuming we would have learned if that memo wasn't so heavily redacted.
- [09:16]
B
And it is fascinating. It's clear that Flynn provided so much assistance to this criminal investigation. He met with Mueller 19 times, and Mueller has recommended no jail time. That seems fairly significant.
- [09:31]
D
Yes. You know, especially in light of Mueller yanking the agreement from Manafort. There is a clear message here that you can side with Trump and hope for a pardon. He's been more stingy with those pardons than people had expected. Or you can side with Mueller and get off, to, quote a term, scot free.
- [09:55]
B
And Mueller has thus far been so politically adept in the way he's handled all of this. And it seems clear that he is releasing some of these memos now to create this paper trail in the event that the ultimate happens and the investigation is shut down.
- [10:12]
D
Yes, I have found Mueller's releasing information in the way he does to be just masterful. I mean, it's the Cohen information that we learned last year really filled in a whole bunch of space, because that took us from December 2015 to June 2016, when that famous Trump Tower meeting happened.
- [10:35]
B
Okay, I'm gonna stop you right there, because many of our listeners don't follow quite as closely as you do. So take us back to that June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower. Who was there, whom they were meeting with, and what we now know about it.
- [10:52]
D
Sure. So December, January. So back when Michael Cohen and Felix Sater, who is this fascinating character who had many years before gone to jail and then became a real estate developer, worked closely with Trump. He was born in the Soviet Union, had close relations, Russia ties. They brought to Trump this idea of a Trump Tower Moscow. What seems clear from the emails, the text messages, the legal documents we have is that at least as of January 2016, they don't have. At least Michael Cohen doesn't have close ties to the Kremlin. Then what we see, February, March, April, May, is sort of two things happening simultaneously. So Michael Cohen had previously said that all Trump Tower Moscow business ended in January. We now know it continued through June, that he did communicate with the Kremlin, that he did openly discuss bringing Donald Trump to Moscow to meet with Putin as a presidential candidate to discuss this Trump Tower Moscow. So at the same time, we have all of this Reaching out, these 94 independent contacts between Russia and Trump campaign officials, all of which were lied about at some point. Then there's this Trump Tower meeting in June, the famous meeting with Don Jr. Manafort Kushner, the Russian lobbyist lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and then a bunch of other people from the former Soviet Union. Then right around then, Cohen and Sater are sort of told, go packing. We don't need you anymore. And By June of 2016, Donald Trump knows full well, unquestionably, that Russia wants him to be president, and he knows that the Russians want to work with him on that. The thing we don't know now, or I don't know now is, okay, so what did happen? We don't have that sort of smoking gun that people keep talking about. Now, again, my view is we do have the smoking gun. We have the case.
- [13:09]
B
And one of the interesting things here is that so much of this is the truth is just hiding in plain sight because Trump himself has laid it out for us.
- [13:16]
D
Exactly. He's at every turn, what would be wrong with me being friends with Putin? What would be wrong with me making some money while running for president that makes me smart? What would be wrong with me trying to get a project built in Moscow that requires the favor? I think pretty much the bulk of the case can be made just by tweets and public statements by the President, although we now have additional information.
- [13:47]
E
I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's Global Editorial director.
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D
I'm Michael Coloury, Wired's Director of Consumer Tech and Culture.
- [13:53]
B
And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show, Uncanny Valley, is all about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley.
- [14:03]
E
At Wired, we're constantly reporting on how to. Technology is changing every aspect of our lives. So each week on the show, we get together to talk about one of the biggest stories in tech.
- [14:12]
D
Right? So whether we're talking about privacy, AI, social media, or a major tech figure, we will always explain the Silicon Valley forces behind these stories and how they affect you.
- [14:23]
E
Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.
- [14:33]
B
So that is the collusion part of the investigation. What about obstruction of justice?
- [14:39]
D
Well, there's this strange thing that they have lied. You know, I know we journalists, do we say lied? Do we say said an untruth? I think we can say lied when we know they knew the opposite of what they were saying was true. And you just see how the story changes. We never once had contact with Russia. Not at all. It's crazy. Mike Pence, we only talk to Americans then. Yeah, well, sure, we talked to Russia. What's wrong with that? We want to talk to Russia. Shouldn't they be our friends? But we never ever colluded. And then, well, no, collusion is not a crime. There's nothing wrong with colluding. We just wanted information, we wanted dirt. We wanted opposition research from Russia. You can look at the specific instances. Firing Comey almost certainly either he or his lawyers instructing Cohen to lie or encouraging Cohen to lie. And Maybe also Don Jr and others. I feel confident there's a whole wide range of efforts to stifle the investigation using pressure, maybe poorly applied, but still within the Department of Justice, the frequent and insane tweeting go and should go to jail forever. Roger Stone refusing to testify shows he's a hero. And it's the work of a mob boss, not the work of the President of the United States. So, I mean, I personally don't, you know, it's not that I'm sympathetic when Rudy Giuliani, he likes to say this is a process crime people are going to jail for lying. Obstruction of justice isn't about the crime. It's not fair to get him on that. But why do you lie all the time? Why do you stop people from talking about something all the time? Why do you fire people who will tell certain things? I mean, I think what's helpful about the obstruction justice case is that there's so much evidence. We saw it happen in real time. It involves so many people. But once again, my view is we have the crime and we have the COVID up. You know, both are there and both are fairly blatant and naked.
- [16:53]
B
However, I do want to end with a question about, you know, the political climate on Capitol Hill is now completely different than it was before the election. The Democrats now will be taking over the House in January. What are they most interested in pursuing? What are you looking for there?
- [17:11]
D
Sure. And they pretty much spelled it out. I mean, we have, you know, Adam Schiff has spelled out exactly what he wants to know. Jerry Nadler, who will head Judiciary, has spelled out what he wants to know. It's a lot of what we've talked about, it's also a host of business irregularities that money laundering and foreign oligarchs about tax evasion, the illegal use of his foundation, and on and on and on. I mean, from when I talk to Democratic Party staffers, their biggest worry now is just doing too much because there's a real fear, and this is an open discussion, that Trump's best shot at getting fired through this as president and even potentially winning a second term is that there's so much that it just does start to look like, oh, people are just piling up on this poor guy. It's not fair. I'm skeptical of that. I mean, I can understand you don't want to pour out 5 million things at once. It's a little overwhelming, it's a little confusing. People tune it out. But even his supporters, they like the idea in principle is my sense that he's a tough businessman, he doesn't play by the rules. Sure, yeah. All business people are messing around with Russia. I think when you get into the details, the gritty details and the sort of pathetic details, a man of Donald Trump's self perceived greatness should not be grubbing around trying to get one tower built in Moscow. There's a smallness to the Trump operation that I don't think has been, has fully come out. And I've actually long suspected that might in the end be the thing that really gets at least some percentage of his followers to turn on him. It's not that he's a crook, it's that he's a lousy crook.
- [19:01]
B
Thanks so much, Adam.
- [19:03]
D
Thank you, Dorothy. Always fun.
- [19:06]
B
Adam Davidson is a staff writer and the author of the weekly Swamp Chronicles column on new yorker.com this has been the political scene from the New Yorker. You can subscribe to this and other New Yorker podcasts by searching for the New Yorker in your podcast app. And find more political analysis and commentary on new yorker.com Feel free to rate and review the political scene on Apple Podcasts. Our theme music is by Russell Gillespie. This program is produced by Alex Barron and Hannah Wahlentz. For newyorker.com I'm Dorothy Wickenden.
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F
Right now we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known. I'm David Remnick and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Waltz, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert F. Kennedy jr. Charlemagne, the God, and so many more. That's all in the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts.
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