Imtweetment: New York Times Reports Mueller Investigating Trump Tweets for Obstruction of Justice

July 27th, 2018 10:09 AM

When the emails of Hillary Clinton are under subpoena yet they end up deleted along with the computers destroyed that is somehow not obstruction of justice. In stark contrast when President Donald Trump tweets that does constitute obstruction of justice for a crime that has not even been charged. 

Such is the absurd extent Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team of intrepid investigators, who have been unable to find any actual crime to charge the President with, have descended. The result is the high comedy of trying to mind massage Trump's very public tweets into somehow representing obstruction of justice leading to the liberal dream of impeachment, or, more accurately in this case, imtweetment. 

Perhaps the funniest aspect of this latter day Keystone Kops episode of using tweets to prove obstruction of justice for a non-crime, is the utter seriousness with which the New York Times tries to rationalize it. The attempt was made on July 26 by Times reporters Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman in "Mueller Examining Trump’s Tweets in Wide-Ranging Obstruction Inquiry."

For years, President Trump has used Twitter as his go-to public relations weapon, mounting a barrage of attacks on celebrities and then political rivals even after advisers warned he could be creating legal problems for himself.

Those concerns now turn out to be well founded. The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, is scrutinizing tweets and negative statements from the president about Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, according to three people briefed on the matter.

Does anybody really believe that if Mueller had evidence of a real crime committed by Trump that he would even bother with this silly tweet-tweet nonsense? Oh, and newsflash, the President has the constitutional right to fire any of the people mentioned. So somehow we are to believe that the Founding Fathers forbid tweeting about them?

Mr. Mueller wants to question the president about the tweets. His interest in them is the latest addition to a range of presidential actions he is investigating as a possible obstruction case: private interactions with Mr. Comey, Mr. Sessions and other senior administration officials about the Russia inquiry; misleading White House statements; public attacks; and possible pardon offers to potential witnesses.

Have you now or have you ever tweeted with the intent to obstruct justice for a crime we have been unable to find?

The special counsel’s investigators have told Mr. Trump’s lawyers they are examining the tweets under a wide-ranging obstruction-of-justice law beefed up after the Enron accounting scandal, according to the three people. The investigators did not explicitly say they were examining possible witness tampering, but the nature of the questions they want to ask the president, and the fact that they are scrutinizing his actions under a section of the United States Code titled “Tampering With a Witness, Victim, or an Informant,” raised concerns for his lawyers about Mr. Trump’s exposure in the investigation.

Yes, special snowflake victims who are intimidated by...tweets?

If Mr. Mueller opts to tailor a narrative that the president tried to obstruct the Russia investigation, he would have to clear several hurdles to make a strong case.

One big hurdle would be the risk of having his charge of obstruction of justice via tweets for a crime that did not happen being laughed out of Congress.

It is not clear what Mr. Mueller will do if he concludes he has enough evidence to prove that Mr. Trump committed a crime. He has told the president’s lawyers that he will follow Nixon- and Clinton-era Justice Department memos that concluded that a sitting president cannot be indicted, Mr. Giuliani has said. If Mr. Mueller does not plan to make a case in court, a report of his findings could be sent to Congress, leaving it to lawmakers to decide whether to begin impeachment proceedings.

So far he has presented no evidence Trump has committed an actual crime which is why the desperation has led Team Mueller to trying to build a case of obstruction by tweet according to this Times report.

Investigators want to ask Mr. Trump about the tweets he wrote about Mr. Sessions and Mr. Comey and why he has continued to publicly criticize Mr. Comey and the former deputy F.B.I. director Andrew G. McCabe, another witness against the president. They also want to know about a January episode in the Oval Office in which Mr. Trump asked the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, about reports that Mr. McGahn told investigators about the president’s efforts to fire Mr. Mueller himself last year.

GASP! He criticized by tweet Comey and McCabe? Crime of the century! Oh, and we should also charge DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz with obstruction of justice for criticizing those two men as well in his report.

It appears that Orwell's Thought Police have evolved into the Tweet Police. The only ones not laughing are liberals (including Times reporters) who don't realize how ridiculous this attempt at imtweetment makes them look.