Story highlights
- Trump's tried and tested political defense mechanism is to whip up chaos
- It's clear Mueller is just getting started
Washington (CNN)Donald Trump can't tweet his way out of this one.
The
President's tried and tested political defense mechanism is to whip up
chaos to tip his enemies off balance and launch a fierce counter attack.
He'll also take cover with his ultra-loyal political base, rely on
Republicans who are too cowed to repudiate him and fog an issue with
alternative facts.
But Robert Mueller's first big splash Monday
suggested that Trump's methodology -- which has helped him defy all the
normal rules of electoral politics and the presidency -- will face its
sternest test yet with the relentless special counsel.
As
the events of a dramatic day unfolded, there was a sense that the White
House was being forced to engage on Mueller's home turf rather than in
the wild and whirling political environment where Trump feels most at
home.
Mueller's first indictments of former Trump campaign aides,
the unveiling of a surprise guilty plea by a former campaign foreign
policy adviser and the manner in which he set out his case suggest his
probe is sweeping, strategic and steeped in detail. And it's clear he's
just getting started.
"The
criminal justice interest being vindicated here is there's a
large-scale ongoing investigation of which this case is a small part,"
said Aaron Zelinsky of the special counsel's office in a plea hearing
for former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos that was
unsealed on Monday.
In fact,
Mueller's methodical performance suggests that Trump's orbit has much to
fear from Mueller, a foe who is far more consequential than his folding
GOP primary rivals, a tainted Hillary Clinton or the "fake" media --
all of which have struggled to find answers to his unorthodox approach.
First salvo
Mueller's
command of the Washington game and mechanics of the law, on show in his
first salvo against the Trump team, also represent a test for Trump's
instinctive mastery of disruption and diversion.
"This
was an impressive strategy that played out," Frank Figliuzzi, former
assistant director of the FBI's counter intelligence division, told CNN.
Figliuzzi
said Mueller, by unveiling a sealed plea deal with Papadopoulos, was
sending a message to other potential targets in the case that if they
wanted to play hardball, he had people cooperating with him.
Of
course, if Trump has nothing to hide, then he has nothing to fear from
Mueller, who has still yet to prove any clear evidence of collusion
between the Trump campaign and Russia -- the most explosive allegation
facing those around the President.
But
faced with his resourceful new adversary, Trump's go-to mode of defense
-- a tweet in capital letters -- seemed hardly adequate.
"There is NO COLLUSION!" the President wrote on Twitter.
As it sought to find its
balance, the White House was quick to seek out vulnerabilities in
Mueller's initial gambit. But it was also immediately clear that its
efforts, while serviceable in a political context, were much less suited
to the constraining legal reality that is now facing Trump.
"Today's
announcement has nothing to do with the President, has nothing to do
with the President's campaign or campaign activity," White House press
secretary Sarah Sanders said.
People
close to the White House, meanwhile, set about undermining the
credibility of cooperating witness Papadopoulos, describing him as an
overzealous low-level adviser who was a "zero" in terms of campaign
seniority.
One White House official
told CNN the President was bewildered by Papadopoulos being swept up in
the case, apparently seeking to further diminish his role as a linchpin
in Mueller's presentation.
"The President is going, 'Really, this is the guy?'" the official said.
But
CNN legal analyst Laura Coates said that while such arguments may make
sense politically, they are irrelevant to Mueller's mandate -- to probe
whether there was collusion between any Trump associate and Russia.
"The
directive was not a certain level official, a certain level of campaign
person," said Coates. "To try to parse it in this way belies all logic
to me legally."
Even if the
timeline of the charges against Manafort and Gates, related to their
work for a formerly pro-Russian government in Ukraine, covers a period
before they worked for Trump, the pair might pose a threat to the White
House in other ways -- a possibility that Sanders did not address.
Given
the gravity of the charges against them which carry long potential
prison terms, and their treatment -- both are now under house arrest --
each man has a strong incentive to cooperate with Mueller's
investigation.
"If I was
representing Paul Manafort, unless I was sure my client was getting a
pardon, I would be talking to him about potentially cooperating with Mr.
Mueller," said former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti on CNN.
Political spin
In
her briefing, Sanders also renewed the political charge that Clinton's
campaign -- and not Trump -- was guilty of colluding with Russia, citing
the infamous Fusion GPS dossier on the President's alleged past ties
with Russia.
But if the events and
documentation made public Monday prove anything, it is that the
political spin on which the White House has relied to dismiss the
building storm over the Russia drama may not be enough to help Trump
aides, and even the President himself, this time.
From
court filings and other documents, it is also clear that Mueller is
operating on a broad canvas. Despite Trump's insistence last week that
it is now "commonly accepted" that there is no collusion involved,
Monday's developments show that is a line that is being seriously
pursued.
By indicting Manafort and
Gates on charges of tax evasion and money laundering, he is sending a
signal he is willing to target wrongdoing in diverse forms. That may
chill those around a President who has warned that he would see any
attempt by Mueller to probe his family finances as an overreach.
It
was also another poor day Monday for Trump's increasingly thin claim
that the Russia matter is nothing more than a "hoax" perpetrated by
Democrats still sore about Clinton's 2016 election debacle.
In
documents outlining Papadopoulos' guilty plea, Mueller laid out what
appear to be clear attempts by Russian intelligence to court the former
foreign policy advisor, through someone identified as a "professor," a
Russian foreign ministry official -- likely a cover for an intelligence
officer, and a woman he believed to be President Vladimir Putin's niece.
He
also delivers a hint that he may not be done with Manafort -- including
evidence showing that Papadopoulos emailed the campaign manager with
the news that Russia wanted to meet with Trump.
He
bolstered the case for collusion -- in contradiction of the White House
claim that there is nothing to answer for -- by including an FBI
statement saying that, as late as August 2016, a campaign superior told
Papadopoulos to go ahead with a trip to Russia to meet officials.
But
the most daunting disclosure for the Trump camp may be the comment by
attorney Aaron Zelinsky on Mueller's team that the Papadopoulos question
was part of a "road map" of a much larger case.
Faced with such challenges Trump has few options.
Were
he to try to dismiss Mueller, in a similar manner to the way he
dispensed with FBI chief James Comey, he could incite a constitutional
crisis. Trump's reflex to lash out in fact in the Comey case is the
reason he is facing a special counsel probe in the first place.
Should
Trump pardon Manafort and Gates, he could close down the case but
ignite a political firestorm. So he may have little option to sit and
wait, and watch the special counsel weave his web.
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