If it seemed to you like the Mueller investigation was moving at a snail’s pace until recently, it’s probably because of how effective the former FBI Director is at keeping his activities under wraps: It does a prosecutor well to keep their evidence close at hand, so as to draw out any further confessions people want to give up before the good guys show their cards.
It appears that’s exactly what Mueller has been doing, and as a result, the last few weeks — after public activity resumed following the midterms — have been a maelstrom of court filings, new guilty pleas, and tweetstorms from the President every time something new happens in the case.
As the days stretch on and we learn that Mike Flynn has been giving “substantial” cooperation to the feds — so much so that Mueller recommended the lightest sentence possible to the judge handling Flynn’s case — and Michael Cohen has been making the most of his own cooperation agreement, to the tune of throwing even the President’s kids under the bus, the only concern left for those of us who have been following and documenting the case since the beginning is the tiny matter of the absolutely corrupt Mike Pence.
How do I say corrupt so casually? The fact is, Pence hired a personal lawyer so early in the process that everyone almost forgot how early he hired a lawyer. In fact, go ahead and click that link — it’ll open in a new tab and you won’t lose your place here. I can wait.
Now did you read the part where it said Pence had been interviewing lawyers for weeks? That means Mike Pence was lawyering up in May 2017, when, according to information we have now, Team Trump was still in the thick of trying to negotiate an end to sanctions on Russia in exchange for building a Trump Tower in Moscow. And who provided the special counsel with the information that led to Michael Cohen finally admitting he lied about that timetable?
I don’t want to be too speculative here, but we’re guessing his name rhymes with “Bike Schwinn.”
This should serve as your periodic reminder that Pence is probably going down with the rest of the team, and it’s because he’s right in the middle of everything: He was hand-picked by Manafort, who is now going to prison. He was Mike Flynn’s direct supervisor during the transition; Flynn’s now about to be sentenced. There is no aspect of the Russia probe that Mike Pence isn’t equally in the center of, only for different reasons than Trump.
Trump may have wanted some prime real estate. Pence had designs on a different property — one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Featured image via screen capture
