Mueller and Associates Still no collusion evidence, but investigation without limit. James Freeman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/mueller-and-associates-1500668345
President Donald Trump has himself to blame for the appointment of Robert Mueller. But that doesn’t mean Mr. Trump or the republic deserves the damage Mr. Mueller seems willing to do to the body politic. Just like former FBI Director James Comey and too many other Washington officials, the special counsel’s office appears to be leaking everything except evidence of collusion.
If Mr. Mueller somehow manages to demonstrate that the 2016 Trump campaign really did cooperate with Russia to rig the election then of course it will all be worth it. But news of his expanding investigation suggests that Mr. Mueller doesn’t think he can—and has instead focused on simply searching for anything detrimental to Mr. Trump.
It’s possible Mr. Mueller is running a tight ship and that various accounts of his expanding investigation are either false or based on sources who are actually not that familiar with his investigation. But let’s assume for the moment that, for example, Bloomberg’s story, “Mueller Expands Probe to Trump Business Transactions,” is accurate. The news service reports:
The 2013 Miss Universe pageant is of interest because a prominent Moscow developer, Aras Agalarov, paid $20 million to bring the beauty spectacle there. About a third of that sum went to Trump in the form of a licensing fee, according to Forbes magazine. At the event, Trump met Herman Gref, chief executive of Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank PJSC. Agalarov’s son, Emin, helped broker a meeting last year between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer who was said to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton and her campaign.
Another significant financial transaction involved a Palm Beach, Florida, estate Trump purchased in 2004 for $41 million, after its previous owner lost it in bankruptcy. In March of 2008, after the real-estate bubble had begun losing air, Russian fertilizer magnate Dmitry Rybolovlev bought the property for $95 million.
As part of their investigation, Mueller’s team has issued subpoenas to banks and filed requests for bank records to foreign lenders under mutual legal-assistance treaties, according to two of the people familiar with the matter.
Why would a counterintelligence investigation focused on potential foreign influence on last year’s election be examining the details of a 2008 real estate transaction? One reasonable conclusion is that Mr. Mueller’s team has quickly decided that they don’t have a lot of hot leads from 2016. Also, if Mr. Mueller and his associates actually did discover proof that Team Trump colluded with the Russians to rig the 2016 election, would any further evidence be required?
Focusing on some of the particulars, it seems that if one wanted a well-known beauty pageant to be staged in the exotic locale of Moscow and to feature one’s Russian pop-star son as it was broadcast on a large American television network, one probably would expect to write a fairly large check.
As for the real-estate transaction, there may be important facts that haven’t been made public, but selling to a Russian oligarch didn’t make Mr. Trump unique in his industry. In fact, it might have been more odd if Donald Trump had been an American developer of luxury real estate who did not do business with Russians.
A Journal story in 2008 noted that the Trump sale to Mr. Rybolovlev was part of a larger trend:
As many of America’s wealthy are roiled by the credit crisis and general financial gloom, a growing number of rich Russians are house-shopping — and buying — in costly U.S. enclaves…
Several years ago, the weakening dollar began to draw more overseas buyers but Russians were scarce. Now, Russia’s economy is booming amid soaring energy prices. Moscow real estate is among the world’s costliest, making property elsewhere a relative bargain.
In New York City, foreign buyers now make up about 15% of the market, with Russians the largest contingent, says Hall Willkie, president of real-estate firm Brown Harris Stevens. “A few years ago we didn’t see any Russians,” Mr. Willkie says. “But now, especially at the high end of the market they are buying big apartments…so they are a significant factor.”
What should happen now? In June, National Review’s incomparable Andrew McCarthy offered some good advice for the Deputy Attorney General:
Rosenstein should issue a directive superseding his original appointment of Mueller in order to more tightly and appropriately define Mueller’s jurisdiction. The new directive should describe, in writing, the potential crimes that have been uncovered in the Russia investigation.
There is no need to name names of suspects — the Justice Department should always resist that, even if the names would be obvious to people who’ve been following the public reporting. But it should be made clear that the special-counsel appointment is not a fishing expedition on the pretext of a sprawling counterintelligence probe. If criminal conduct has been discovered, it should be spelled out. “Trump campaign collusion with Russia,” aside from being unsupported by any public evidence, is not a crime. If there is to be a special counsel, the public, the Congress, the president, the Justice Department, and the special counsel himself must all know what crimes are being investigated.
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