Trump speaking in mafia movie tropes after recent developments in Mueller investigation

President Donald Trump appears to be increasingly worried about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

Though the president has previously hinted at pardoning Paul Manafort and other former employees who have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with Mueller’s probe, Trump used Twitter on Monday to offer his thoughts on an ex-colleague who has flipped on him — his one-time personal attorney and self-styled “fixer” Michael Cohen.

Then, in one of those examples that makes you wonder if any of Trump’s lawyers have offered to explain what “obstruction of justice” is, the president of the United States praised another former employee from his 2016 presidential campaign for reportedly not flipping on him…yet.

Trump closed out his latest round “modern day presidential” performance art tweets by hinting he might have damaging information about Mueller, the former FBI director under Republican and Democratic presidents who was awarded a Purple Heart for his service with the U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam.

Renato Mariotti, a former U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecutor who mounted an unsuccessful Democratic bid for Illinois’ attorney general earlier this year, noted the president’s Monday Twitter activity “sounds like something the criminals I used to prosecute would say.”

He wasn’t alone in this assessment.

There is, perhaps, good reason for Trump to ramp up such talk on Twitter. All signs point in the direction of Mueller’s probe nearing a conclusion after an 18-month investigation that has racked up over 100 criminal charges against dozens of people, including guilty pleas from Trump’s former national security adviser, former campaign chair, former attorney, and multiple former campaign advisers.

Cohen’s guilty plea and revelations that accompanied it last Thursday — that the president and his family pursued a Trump Tower real estate deal in Russia through the summer of the 2016 presidential race — was referred to as the potential “beginning of the end of the Trump presidency” by Neal Katyal, President Barack Obama’s former acting Solicitor General.

Cohen’s guilty plea could be the ‘beginning of the end of the Trump presidency’

In addition to signing a secret waiver that would prevent Solicitor General Noel Francisco from having to recuse himself from oversight of the Russia investigation if Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is fired, the president fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions on the day after Democrats’ sweeping victories in last month’s midterm elections in what was widely viewed as an attempt to further insulate himself from Mueller’s investigation.

Session’s replacement, acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker, has been a frequent critic of Mueller’s probe.

Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest and largest son who likely lied to Congress per Cohen’s latest plea deal, is reportedly telling friends he is very worried about being indicted.

Mueller has cited tweets in court filings, prompting speculation that the special counsel has been keeping a close eye on Trump’s Twitter account.


Source: thinkprogress