Jack - Can Mueller Indict Trump?

Episode Date: May 22, 2018

MINI - In our first free minisode in a while, we discuss whether or not Mueller can indict Trump. Enjoy!

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Like all members of the oldest profession I'm a capitalist. Hello, welcome to Muller She Wrote. I am your anonymous host, A.G. With me, as always, is Julie Sir Johnson. Hey guys. And Jordan Coburn. Hello. I have to keep my identity secret because of the hatch act.

I haven't said this in a while. This is our first free mini-sode. In a while, we've only done one other free one. We wanted to give you another taste. So that's why we're here today. But I have to keep my identity secret because I work high up in Trump's executive branch. And I can't associate my name with

any quote unquote political campaigns or my title. So that's why I'm AG. So hello. Today, we want to discuss whether or not Mueller can indict Trump. Basically, that's what it boils down to. We've discussed this on some shows in the past and have always felt that Mueller can in Dite Trump. But we wonder whether or not he will, right? Right. Well, this week the guy who wrote the Department of Justice policy that says a

sitting president cannot be indicted weighed in on Twitter. And I thought it was important enough to share as it corroborates our past conjecture here at MSW. First of all, the author of the policy about indicting the potas within the Department of Justice, his name is Neil Cateal. He took to Twitter Wednesday after Giuliani went on television, asserting that Mueller cannot indict Trump, you remember?

Oh yeah. Good old Giuliani. He also said in an interview that Trump can't be subpoenaed. Jordan, do you remember that? Yes, for sure. I think you have some information on that. Yeah, I had not been able to be subpoenaed. Yes, I had so much fun covering Giuliani's mouth down on the air.

He went full number. He did. Yeah, yeah. So this is, this is great. So basically Giuliani gets confronted with these statements of his past and it's related to a president. And this happened in, I think, was it 2000, 1998? 98.

98, okay, so. 1998, so it's about Bill Clinton, right? And it's, that was in the Navy. Yeah, and it's about, it's on the topic of getting subpoenaed and needing to come and testify. And Giuliani is super hard-blind saying, no, yes, a fucking president absolutely has to come and respond to a subpoena when it's issued to them.

No questions asked. Yep, the president is not above the law. If he is subpoenaed, he must appear. Yes, yes. And so then he gets confronted on this interview, that he was just referencing and has to answer for his previous words. Right, because he shows up on CNN and he's like, oh, they can't subpoena Trump.

He doesn't have to answer to a subpoena. Yeah, so funny. And then the anchor's like, well, but you said this and they played the tape. And then as they're playing it, you hear Giuliani talking over it, saying, that's not fair. This is not fair. I was talking about responding to a subpoena of documents documents not responding to a subpoena of a testimony in person Talking as a compliment. He was crying. He was like that's not fair You can't use my own words again. What do you think about that technicality of word choice to you?

Well, if you listen to the recording that's being played I think any rational thinking person would think he's not referring to a subpoena for documents Giuliani's referring to a subpoena for person Exactly Well because Clinton wasn't responding to a subpoena for documents He was responding to a subpoena for documents Yes, he was trying to pivot though He all looked so great

In the context Yeah, absolutely He just broke down He had a little tantrum. Complete hypocrite. He is for sure referencing getting subpoenaed for an in-person testimony and saying you have to show up And when he's confronted with it now, he's saying no, I was talking about just document That's not fair. That's not fair. Trump's gonna yell at him. You know it. It was so mad. Fucking idiot. Well, you know what? Trump did his research. If he vetted anyone, he might have seen that interview.

Right. I don't know. He's got the best people, so he'll be fine. Oh, yeah. The PPO is on top of it. I sang everyone over there. So Neil Cattial opens his Twitter thread by saying it's important to note, first of all,

how incredible it is that we are having a conversation about the inditability of the president of the United States. That is crazy. Quote, that's astounding. Unquote, he says. Can we just get that out of the whistle? Yes, moment of silence for the workers. That we're arguing about the indiability of,

an indiability is a word. And when this whole thing first started, I remember people saying that, Maxine was saying that, we were talking about indictments too soon. And now we're here. There's a whole discussion. It's not even a matter of like, oh, don't say the word.

Oh, anti-maxine. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. Maxine, well, I think we're talking about impeachment. Oh, impeachment. There we go. Yeah. So in this case, it's almost like they would go hand in hand, I think. Well, how do you get indicted, but not get down? One's called all ones congressional, but sure. Yeah. Yeah. You do. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, he just wanted to open up and say, hey, I just want to remind everyone knock knock on your face.

We're talking about inditing the president. Right. This is our argument today. He then continues on reminding us to consider the source of the ass of the assertion and that Giuliani being the source might not be the most trustworthy person as a source. He's not quite a stickler for details. And he goes on to talk about the context in which Mueller may have said he didn't intend to indict Trump.

So he wants to know, did Mueller say that? Because Trump's lawyer said he would take the fifth amendment, prompting Mueller to say there can be no incrimination. Let me explain this because if that's the case, the policy against inditing a sitting president could hurt Trump. Basically, and follow me on this, you guys, because this is a little cloudy. It's a little weird. But if Mueller interviews Trump and everyone agrees that Mueller cannot indict Trump,

Trump might not be able to take the fifth against self incrimination because without the ability of indictment, there is no threat of self incriminations. Oh, snap. Does that make sense? It corners him. So you only get the protection of the fifth amendment if what you say gets you in trouble. But if you can't get in trouble, you don't get the protection of the fifth amendment. That's a very big concept.

And one, I'm not sure Giuliani or Trump has thought through because they're acting like they don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Yeah, we talk about a lot of things that they don't even bring up. Then Kotl drops another bomb saying, quote, the special counsel regulations, which I drafted, do not say the Department of Justice policy

must always be followed. They say that a special counsel can ask the attorney general or acting attorney general in this case, Rod Rosenstein, for permission to depart from the Department of Justice rules and policies. Oh, basically, if Mueller has a case, a bulletproof case, he can go to Rosenstein and ask to indict Trump to go around this memo.

And if Rosenstein says no, it will automatically trigger a report to Congress, both majority and minority. So we'll know either way. Without the denial to indict by Rosenstein, there is not necessarily such a report, according to him, according to Katia, the guy who wrote these rules, the final report requirement died with the expiration of the Special Counsel Act. So reports are permissible, but not Mando, mandatory. Oh my God.

So Trump can be indicted. Basically. It's possible Mueller could ask for the indictment knowing Rosenstein would deny, and that would force a full report from him, which he would then have to write for Congress, which he might want to do in the first place. So knowing that permission to override that the Department of Justice, to basically knowing that the permission to override Department of Justice rules is feasible, that puts an indictment

right back into contention. And that is the assessment of the guy who wrote the rules about inditing a sitting president. It's like, how much more close to the source can you get? That's nuts. So it's bound for Trump in any scenario. Because if you can't indict a president, if Mueller goes to Rosenstein, asks for permission to indict and Rosenstein said,

no, that forcefully triggers a report to Congress, like Congress, not a little private final report. Exactly. The final report requirement ended with a special counsel act when that expired. Wow. Yeah. Okay.

So you either get an indictment or if the indictment is refused, you get a full report to Congress, which will once neither leak to the public. Yeah. Okay. We'll either be pissed that nothing was done, but we know or we'll be happy that something was done and but we know, or we'll be happy that something was done, and we'll know. And if you can't indict a president, you can't plead the fifth. That's crazy.

That's the biggest part to me. Because the fifth amendment only protects you from self-incrimination, and if you are unable to incriminate yourself because you were protected, you guys talk, by zero indictments, you have to testify. How? So I love the law when it works out. So Trump is...

But... But... Fucked. Nice. That was probably one of our better ones. Yeah, that was good. We hope that you guys have enjoyed our little bonus episode. We encourage you to head to mullershearout.com and become a patron.

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