INTERVIEW – BYRON YORK – chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner – discussed the possibility of President Trump deciding to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, the future of the Mueller Investigation, the hiring of Joe diGenova to the Trump legal team, and the upcoming release of former FBI director James Comey’s book
- Byron York: If Mueller didn’t charge Flynn and Manafort with collusion, then who was colluding? (Washington Examiner) — Trump-Russia special counsel Robert Mueller is authorized to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.” The popular word for that is collusion, and it remains at the heart of both the Mueller and the Senate Intelligence Committee investigations. (Majority Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee recently announced they were unable to find evidence proving collusion.) While much about the Mueller investigation remains unknown, we do know the indictments he has filed and the pleas he has reached with various figures in the case. There are some, including charges against Russia’s Internet Research Agency, several individual Russians, and two minor figures, that target either people on the Russian side of the equation or those for whom there are no suspicions of collusion. But Mueller has charged three people who were in the Trump campaign inner circle — former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and former deputy campaign chairman Richard Gates, all with ties to Russia and all of whom might be expected to be part of a collusion scheme, had one existed. Mueller has also charged one peripheral hanger-on, George Papadopoulos, who might conceivably have been part of a collusion scenario.
- Byron York: Comey book rollout coincides with IG report, new questions about his actions (Washington Examiner) — Fired FBI Director James Comey’s new book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” will hit stores on April 17. Comey and his publishers have a big rollout planned, beginning with a sit-down, prime-time exclusive interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on April 15. Comey will also appear with Stephen Colbert on CBS’s “The Late Show,” join “The View,” and record an hour-long interview with New Yorker editor David Remnick before a live audience on April 18 (ticket prices $57 to $97.) On Friday, Axios reported that Comey plans to “come out hot” on his book tour. “He has heard a lot of lies and misstatements about the FBI that he intends to correct,” Axios’ Mike Allen wrote. (Allen will interview Comey at the Washington, D.C., stop on Comey’s tour; ticket price not yet announced.) But while Comey might indeed “come out hot” on the tour, it is also possible that things might get hot for him on Capitol Hill with the expected release, in roughly mid-April, of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. At various times in the Clinton affair, Comey’s judgment angered Republicans, Democrats, and people generally concerned about upholding standards of law enforcement. Some Republicans expect the Horowitz report to be damaging to the Justice Department, the FBI, and to Comey himself.
