Displaying items by tag: obstruction of justice

(Washington)

While it never really seemed to be in doubt, it is all but certain now that Democrats are going to bring articles of impeachment against President Trump. The party is likely to bring two separate articles against Trump by today, with an additional one possible. One will be focused on abuse of power, and the other one or two on obstructing Congress and obstruction of justice. In response to Republican criticism that the Democrats are rushing the impeachment process, Jerrold Nadler said “I want to be absolutely clear: the integrity of our next election is at stake. Nothing could be more urgent”.

FINSUM: No surprises here, but this will likely all be for nothing because of the Senate.

(Washington)

Investors need to be aware that big political news may be released any minute. That may not sound like much of a statement these days, but Bloomberg is reporting that Robert Mueller may release the findings from his investigations very soon. Bloomberg says Mueller is under immense pressure to release the findings of his probe or cease his investigation. He is especially under pressure to release whether he has found evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia and whether the president did anything to obstruct justice.

FINSUM: It seems likely that these findings won’t be released until after the midterms, but you never know if a politically-motivated early release right before the election might occur.

(Washington)

After a long and quite public back and forth about the potential for an interview, are President Trump and Robert Mueller close to meeting? Trump’s team has apparently responded to Mueller’s request for interview with a counteroffer on the terms. The two parties have been in discussions since at least January. The basic core of the counteroffer is that Trump is happy to talk about collusion with Russia, but not about obstruction of justice. Though Rudy Giuliani, who is on Trump’s legal team, said they did leave the door open to possible questions on obstruction.

FINSUM: This seems like a positive development. It appears like it would be good for all sides to have this investigation finished once and for all, and a sit down with Trump could potentially resolve things.

(Washington)

Donald Trump’s lawyer, none other than former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani, said on the record very recently that Trump has the power to pardon himself. Despite that power, though, Giuliani says Trump likely won’t do so as it would probably lead to immediate impeachment. The statement falls in line with Trump’s argument that he cannot be charged with obstruction of justice because “he could, if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon if he so desired” (quote form Trump’s legal team) based on the far-reaching pardoning powers of the US presidency.

FINSUM: From a legal perspective this is a quite an interesting question. But given the obvious political perils involved in exercising this theoretical power, we suspect this might be a moot point (but maybe not).

(Washington)

The word is that Robert Mueller’s probe into a possible obstruction of justice charge against President Trump is almost concluded, but that he is thinking to delay filing to charge to allow him to wrap up other facets of the investigation. The reason why is that the Mueller team reportedly thinks filing the charges would make it harder to finish the rest of the investigation because of an increasing lack of cooperativeness on the part of witnesses, in addition to Trump likely moving to shut the investigation down.

FINSUM: If Mueller actually filed charges against Trump it would be a monumental political bombshell. Mueller is sharp enough to not try to do that half-cocked.