Here’s when you can expect Robert Mueller to indict the Mercers
Special Counsel Robert Mueller knows timing is everything when it comes to issuing indictments and striking plea agreements in his investigation. For those waiting breathlessly for Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and Donald Trump Jr., you are likely to pass out before a resolution occurs. Those legal maneuvers will have to wait until after the mid-term elections in November because it might prompt Donald Trump to create a constitutional crisis by issuing pardons.
His reluctance to use this presidential prerogative on fellow criminal-conspirators like Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn is wise. After all, if the possibility of the courts rendering the pardons invalid exists, why waste this “in-case-of-emergency-break-glass” on people who are not family?
Mueller knows there is another set of indictments that might force the notoriously-selfish Trump to act. Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer are central to the Trump’s rise and the ongoing actions of his Administration. Mueller understands that moving on these billionaires would send Trump, Republican politicians, and the conservative media bubble into sheer panic.
Whether it is their affiliation with Cambridge Analytica, the National Rifle Association, Breitbart News, helping to set the policy agenda or the staffing of the Trump campaign, transition and Administration, the Mercers have more current influence than the extraordinarily powerful Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson. The Mercers are at the epicenter of the Trump takeover of the Republican Party. They know too much about what has happened behind the scenes.
Therefore, it is safe to assume if any indictments are issued, presidential pardons will be forthcoming. Mueller knows this, which is why the Mercers are likely near the top of the indictment-food chain. Less significant figures will be targeted by Mueller before taking this dramatic action, which is likely to happen after the mid-term elections.
J.H. Norton is a communications professional, life-long Democrat, and married father of two boys living in Washington, D.C.