What alleged illegality is Mueller investigating? Trump exercising lawful presidential authority?

Dana Mathewson

This is an excellent article from Fox News, by the excellent Victoria Toensing. She's a lawyer, in case you didn't know. She begins:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller wants to interview President Trump. We know that is true because the areas of inquiry that Mueller is interested in have been leaked. But the questions Mueller is looking at are not about the issue the special counsel was supposed to examine: collusion with Russians to fix the 2016 presidential election.

Rather, the Washington Post reports that Mueller "is seeking to question President Trump in the coming weeks about his decisions to oust national security adviser Michael Flynn and FBI Director James B. Comey, according to two people familiar with his plans.”

The two acts, according to the Post, are related to "efforts by the president or others to hamper the special counsel’s probe.”

How can that be? Flynn had nothing to do with the special counsel’s probe. And firing the head of the FBI does not thwart what all the people under him are doing. So what is the alleged illegality here that could possibly "hamper” or obstruct the investigation?

It is beside the point at this time that there is no such crime as colluding [emphasis added]. It is beside the point at this time that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was so negligent in his drafting the appointment of Mueller that he did not limit the investigation in either scope or time.

[...]

Two men have already fallen into Mueller’s trap. Retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to making statements inconsistent with tapped and taped conversations with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.

But Flynn’s entire conversation was legal, or his statements would have been part of the charges against him. One might ask why the FBI, having the entire transcript of a conversation that contained nothing illegal, even questioned Flynn at all.

This was the legal equivalent of the FBI showing up to ask you what you had for breakfast – there’s nothing illegal about eating breakfast. If you do not want to admit you had a glazed donut and reply "yogurt,” the prosecutor can charge you with making a false statement to the FBI.

She continues with the idea, not exactly so stated, that Mr. Trump really, really ought NOT to sit down with Mr. Mueller at all. I am in full agreement with this.

Please read the entire article, which is found here: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/01/27/what-alleged-illegality-is-mueller-investigating-trump-exercising-lawful-presidential-authority.html

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