Bob Cesca: The Trump Cover-Up Of The Mueller Report Is Underway
Until we see the report and until our suspicions are either confirmed or debunked, we need to assume that Trump is busily covering up his mess while deceiving the world.
by Bob Cesca
Whenever I talk about the White House staff, I always reference back to Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, along with the staff of characters who populated the poorly lit cubicles surrounding the Oval Office. For my money, one of the most fascinating leads in the series was Toby Ziegler, played to perfection by the great and understated character actor Richard Schiff. As the White House Communications Director, Toby was among President Barlet’s senior staffers, holding a position at a similar rank and importance to Josh Lymon’s deputy chief of staff role.
When we learned that Hope Hicks, a former staffer with Ivanka Trump’s fashion brand, was appointed to be Trump’s Communications Director -- Toby’s old job -- I was genuinely shocked, especially after Hicks confessed she knows very little about politics.
Still reeling from this bizarre choice, I remember thinking Trump’s White House counsel might end up being Meat Loaf. While she was significantly out of her depth in every way, there was comfort in her incompetence. How much damage could she really do? At worst, she could make Trump look like an idiot in the press. In that regard, he was doing fine all by himself. If Hicks sabotaged her own boss, I was fine with that.
I had no idea that she’d involve herself in a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice.
On Wednesday, we learned of further confirmation that Hicks apparently aided in the president’s obstruction of justice in the wake of the bombshell story detailing how Don Junior, Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner met with a fleet of Russians at Trump Tower to receive stolen documents, hacked by the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency.
Trump’s former White House lawyer, Mark Corallo, appeared on ABC News’s The Investigation podcast and detailed how Hicks, with the president in the room, appeared to orchestrate a cover-up of what really happened at Trump Tower in June, 2016. If you recall, Trump himself allegedly dictated a White House statement falsely claiming the meeting was about re-opening Russia for adoptions. This is a big chunk of text, but I urge you to read every word:
CORALLO: I just pointed out that the statement that they put out on Air Force One or from Air Force One was inaccurate. That this was not going to go away. And because it was inaccurate, an inaccurate statement - it was only going to inflame the story over the next few days and eventually the New York Times and every other, you know, media outlet was going to get the truth and then they were going to look, well, the way they did. Like they were trying to hide something. [...]
Yeah and so I pointed out that the statement was inaccurate and that there were documents, that I understood there were documents that would prove that. Hope Hicks replied to me when I, when I said look there are you know there are documents. She said, well nobody's ever going to see those documents. Which you know made my throat dry up immediately. And I just - at that point I just said, Mr. President we can't talk about this anymore. You got to talk to your lawyers. And for me, it was just the fact that she was even A. that you would say something like that in the presence of the president the United States. That you would not be aware that that could be construed as obstruction. Right? The threat to withhold documents? Like what does that mean that no one's ever going to see them? What are you gonna destroy them? She showed a complete lack of understanding of the situation and was completely in over her head.
Corallo went on to say that while there apparently wasn’t criminal intent, this could become an issue in terms of an impeachable offense.
He also recounted an exchange while being interviewed by Mueller’s people in which prosecutors told him Hicks denied she said any such thing: “They wanted to know, and they asked me, and they said well you know Miss Hicks says that that didn't happen. And they asked me how sure I was, and I said 100 percent. You know, I mean look - this was, you know, again I've used the word reckless over and over again. It was reckless.”
So, within earshot of the president Hicks seemed to suggest the documentation linked to the Trump Tower meeting would be concealed from investigators and therefore the American people. If that wasn’t awful enough, Corallo suggests Hicks lied to the special counsel, which is a felony.
Corallo concluded by insisting that the president should immediately declassify the Mueller Report and order its release as-is. But as we all know, that’s not going to happen. In fact, the exact opposite is happening. In addition to attorney general Bill Barr’s hastily written four page summary of a report estimated to be in the hundreds if not thousands of pages, a summary written in a single Saturday, no less, we learned on Wednesday that not only will Barr hand over the report to the White House so Trump can remove anything he’d like to remove, claiming executive privilege, but Barr will present to Congress another summary rather than the actual report.
This is confoundingly outrageous. Given the behavior of the White House and its Justice Department this week in addition to the nearly 10,000 lies by the president since taking office, and on top of a decades-long record of Trump corruption, the only conclusion we can draw by this activity is that a cover-up is underway.
Indeed, this is a back-door firing of Robert Mueller demanding an overwhelming response from American voters -- a “take to the streets” moment in which we occupy the grounds around the Justice Department until we get the unedited report.
I mean, is there any question that a cover-up is taking place? Hell, from the word go, it was obvious. For instance, Trump immediately lied about the Barr memo as soon as it dropped, saying into TV cameras that the report (what report?) is a “total EXONERATION” (his use of all-caps, not mine). The Barr memo quoted Mueller who wrote exactly the opposite in his report, that the investigation “does not exonerate” the president.
And everything disintegrated from there to a point at which it seems like we’re more likely to see Trump’s mysterious Comey tapes before we ever see the Mueller Report.
Likewise, Barr’s decision to unilaterally rule that the evidence of obstruction in the report doesn’t rise to a criminal offense seems suspicious, given Barr’s justification that there was no underlying crime to cover-up -- that there wasn’t a conspiracy to work with the Russian government as it attacked the election. But anyone with even a vague sense of logic knows there are myriad reasons for criminals to obstruct justice. Trump could’ve been motivated by politics. He could’ve be motivated by loyalty to Mike Flynn. He could’ve been motivated by a hatred of federal law enforcement.
Strange, too, that Barr insisted that Mueller didn’t draw any conclusions, yet Mueller concluded there was apparently no conspiracy about the election attack. Strange that Barr didn’t mention a word about the counterintelligence side of the Mueller probe involving Trump’s business relationships with Russia and whether he’s compromised. Strange that Barr was only the AG for 36 days before Mueller was suddenly -- poof! -- finished.
Meanwhile, as your read this, it’s possible Trump has a copy of the Mueller Report and is frantically redacting entire sections that make him look like the Russian stooge he is. Until we see the report and until our suspicions are either confirmed or debunked, we need to assume that Trump is being Trump -- that Trump is busily covering up his mess while deceiving the world.
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>> “that Trump is busily covering up his mess
>> while deceiving the world.”
Not the whole world. In fact, I’m sure there are many (yourself obviously, for one) who aren’t don’t believe and aren’t deceived by Trump for a moment. I’d actudlly say that’s also true for many of his supporters/enablers in Congress.
Unfortunately, as we’re seeing too often, despite much of the world recognizing Trump for what he actually is and not being deceived, enough are fooled or benefit from his crimes (again: Republicans in Congress) that he’ll only be held accountable if enough people stand firm against him.
A poor thing to have to pin out hopes on.