It’s well enough known that Special Counselor Robert Mueller is anxious to interrogate President Donald Trump as part of Mueller’s “investigation” of Russian interference in our 2016 election and of the Trump campaign’s alleged role in colluding with the Russians in that interference. Trump’s counselor, Rudy Giuliani, says that Trump should not agree to the interrogation unless and until Mueller details the degree of DoJ spying on the Trump campaign, including what the FBI’s planted “informant,” Cambridge Professor Stefan Halper (who may be only one of two or three such plants), was doing and what he passed on to his FBI handlers.
Giuliani is right about that. Trump can take a number of direct actions on the matter himself, though, that would speed things along. After much stonewalling by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a Federal judge presiding over a related-only-by-Mueller-claim case got fed up with Mueller’s own stonewalling in that case and ordered Mueller to deliver up the DoJ letter and amendment specifying the scope of Mueller’s investigation. On DoJ’s claim that the documents are classified, they were delivered under seal to the judge.
House and Senate committees that also have requested those documents have been refused: Rosenstein objects to petty Congressmen overseeing his august activities. Trump should order Rosenstein to deliver the documents to the House and Senate committees under a short deadline, say by noon Eastern Time this Friday. If Rosenstein really is concerned about classification, they can be delivered to the subset of committee members who have the requisite clearance—and, yes, the committees have members of both parties with the clearances (their need to know already is plain). If those documents are not delivered on time, Trump should, at 1201 Eastern, declassify the documents (Presidents are the ultimate arbiters of what’s classified and not classified) and order them hand-carried to the committees by COB Friday.
Trump should handle documentation related to the FBI’s spy(s) in his campaign similarly. He should order Rosenstein to deliver all documentation, including correspondence with and about Halper (et al.), related to the plants and what they passed back to their handlers, delivered to those same committees and to the White House (perhaps to Giuliani in particular). In view of the probable extensive amount of such documentation, Rosenstein should be given until, say, noon on Monday to produce. If that deadline goes unmet, Trump should, at 1201 on Monday, declassify those documents and order their hand-carried delivery to the committees and the White House by COB Monday.
It’s time to put an end to the stonewalling and get things moving again. Then a Mueller interrogation can have a chance to be an honest one.
