“My wildarse guess is that campaign finance expert Don McGahn did not sufficiently firewall Stone off from the campaign.” https://t.co/PowGQfRS2X
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) August 19, 2018
There’s always a cynic. Here’s Emptywheel — “Why Would Don McGahn (and His Lawyer) Cooperate in a Piece Claiming He Cooperated with Mueller (on Obstruction)?”:
… While he has bolloxed most of the things White House Counsels are supposed to do (like keeping the White House out of legal and ethical trouble), he has had unsurpassed success at stacking the courts. I doubt there’s an ideological Republican in the country who isn’t thrilled with McGahn’s success at stacking the courts. Indeed (this becomes important in just a bit), McGahn’s success at stacking the courts is one of the biggest reasons why Republicans in Congress put up with the rest of Trump’s shit. Being President, for many Republicans, isn’t about governing; it’s about stacking the courts.
It turns out, though, that McGahn had another job before he became an expert court-stacker. For decades, Don McGahn has been one of the Republican party’s key campaign finance lawyers…
Don McGahn had come to prominence in the party at the NRCC and was rewarded for it with a seat on the FEC, where he made campaign finance more slushy.
But probably not slushy enough…
…[A]t least three of the areas where Mueller’s team might find a conspiracy with Russia (or other foreigners) to win the election involve campaign finance issues — Don McGahn’s expertise. Those are:
– Whether knowingly employing British Cambridge Analytica employees without getting them proper visas constitutes illegal foreign influence?
– Whether accepting a Trump Tower meeting with Russians offering dirt on Hillary Clinton constitutes accepting a thing of value?
– Whether the campaign was sufficiently firewalled from the dodgy shit Roger Stone was doing (which has been a focus of the last six months of Mueller’s time)?…
More interesting speculation at the link.
Russiagate Open Thread: Poor Little Confuzzled Don McGahnPost + Comments (93)