Donald Trump hits the panic button
For the third time in less than a week, Donald Trump has taken yet another position on whether or not he’s willing to be interviewed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller about his role in the Russia scandal. As Palmer Report pointed out after Trump took two opposing positions on the matter in rapid succession, it’s a sign that he knows that neither of his two options are viable. Now that he’s on his third position, it’s a sign that he’s outright panicking.
Trump began it all by recently telling a group of reporters that he was willing to meet with Mueller because he’s innocent. Of course that became a problem when it turned out Mueller wants to meet with him just a few weeks from now, meaning Trump is running out of time. So the next time he was in front of the cameras, he said that he probably wouldn’t be willing to meet with Mueller because he’s innocent. Now Trump and his team are trying to walk that back as well.
Trump’s lawyers told Jim Acosta of CNN today that Trump “got a little ahead of himself” when he said he probably wouldn’t meet with Mueller, adding “We haven’t closed any doors.” (link). This kind of rapid flip flopping in public is embarrassing and self defeating, even if Trump is too delusional to know that. It’s also an admission that Trump is screwed either way.
If Donald Trump agrees to be interviewed by Robert Mueller, he’ll either have to confess to obstruction of justice, or get nailed for the crime of lying to avoid admitting obstruction of justice. If Trump refuses to be interviewed by Mueller, he’ll have to invoke the Fifth Amendment to do it, and that would make him so political nonviable that even his Republican allies in Congress could no longer get away with trying to prop him up.
