The walls have been closing in on Donald Trump for some time. For instance, two weeks ago a federal judge ordered one of Trump’s lawyers, Evan Corcoran, to testify before the grand jury investigating Trump making off with a trove of classified documents. Special counsel Jack Smith convinced that judge that when Corcoran falsely certified that all classified documents had been cleared out of Mar-a-Lago, Trump was using him to commit a crime. To my mind, there’s no way Smith would take the extreme step of piercing attorney-client privilege unless he was using Corcoran’s testimony to build a case against Trump himself.
Well, on Sunday we learned that the chances of an indictment from the other investigation Smith is overseeing have also zoomed exponentially. According to CBS News election correspondent Robert Costa, Smith is looking into whether Trump tried to use the pretext of national security to keep from handing the White House to Joe Biden.
Costa dropped this piece of journalistic dynamite on Sunday’s edition of “Face the Nation.” Watch here.
Costa told host Margaret Brennan that Smith has forced a number of Trump’s top aides to testify about private discussions they had with Trump. That’s seismic in and of itself, since as Costa noted, “there’s no privilege, no executive privilege they can cite” to slither out from under having to testify under oath about what happened during those discussions.
But it’s the nature of those discussions that should really have Trump and Trumpworld running scared.
"We know the special counsel is looking into a possible conspiracy case against Trump and people around him about trying to block the congressional proceedings on January 6," Costa continued. "We're going to potentially hear now from Mark Meadows. Robert O'Brien, the former national security adviser, John Ratcliffe, the former director of national intelligence."
Costa went on to say that witnesses brought to the grand jury are being asked about the kind of "national security levers Trump was asking about in those final days."
Specifically, Raw Story notes, a number of militia members who were part of the horde that swarmed into the Capitol said they hoped it would give Trump a pretext to deploy the military and/or National Guard, impound voting machines and presumably allow him to stay in office past Jan. 20.
If Smith is going in this direction, the only question is when or if someone starts singing. After all, if Smith is trying to wangle testimony from people as high up in the food chain as Meadows, O’Brien, and Ratcliffe, then their only way out is to give up Trump.
Later, Costa took to Twitter to reveal just how Smith and his grand jury are delving into Trump’s inner circle.
If Smith is asking these kinds of questions, then once again we have to start wondering when and if people will start flipping. This is looking like a classic mob roll-up—get the capos to give up the boss.
Remember, ladies and gentlemen, a good federal criminal investigation is supposed to look like a slow-motion strangulation. That is, build up enough evidence against a defendant until he has literally no room to maneuver. And this is being seen by a man who has spent the better part of a quarter-century overseeing such slow-motion strangulations. They better hide the ketchup.