"Trump's frightening and tightening legal noose"

Andrew Napolitano is a former judge, book author, legal analyst for Fox Niews, and a syndicated columnist for conservative publications.   The headline above is the title of his recent article on FoxNews, which begins with this:

"The Donald Trump I know is a smart guy who often thinks a few steps ahead of those whose will he is trying to bend. But I lately wonder whether he grasps the gravity of the legal peril that is beginning to show up around him. In the past week, we learned of an unfiltered public confession of frustration and weakness among his lawyers and we learned that his former chief confidant and campaign manager is about to be indicted. This is very bad news for President Trump."

Napolitano then describes the disagreement between his criminal defense lawyers, who think Trump is completely innocent of any wrongdoing and therefore want to simply turn over any document Special Counselor Mueller requests, so as to demonstrate cooperation with nothing to hide -- and Don McGahan, the White House legal counsel, whose job it is to be the lawyer for the president in his legal role as president.

McGahan is more cautious, then, because he is concerned about two things:   (1)  that they might turn over something that they later decide should be protected by executive privilege;  and (2) he does not want to set a precedent for future administrations.

On the other hand, the criminal defense lawyers have a different take, one of them having told Trump that Mueller would be "off your back by Thanksgiving."   How do we know all this, Napolitano asks, rhetorically?

Because, astonishingly, those two criminal defense lawyers were openly discussing it over lunch at a popular spot and were overheard by a New York Times reporter sitting at a table nearby.  So now the world knows, and Mueller knows, that the Trump defense team is not much a team and seems to lack a coordinated legal strategy.

Napolitano then discusses other signs of a tightening noose.

"Also during this past week, we learned that Paul Manafort . . . was the subject of FBI surveillance for a two-year period starting prior to the campaign [when Manafort had a condo in Trump Tower] and continuing into the transition period after Trump’s election.

"With whom was Manafort communicating on a daily basis in the time period of the Trump Tower surveillance? And who complained forcefully that he had been surveilled in Trump Tower? And who was mocked mercilessly for those complaints?   Donald Trump."

Pointing out that the both the Department of Justice and former FBI Director James Comey had denied having any evidence from electronic surveillance of anyone in Trump Tower;   but there has been no denial of this recent revelation of Manafort/Trump Tower surveillance.   Why the sudden switch to silence?

Napolitano then distinguishes between surveillance pursuant to a search warrant issued by the FISA Court having to do with counterintelligence and could not be used in a criminal case.   However, a warrant issued from an ordinary federal judge in a suspected criminal case, would be admissible in court. 

Because Mueller has said he expects to indict Manafort, Napolitano suggests:

"If the warrant was issued pursuant to the Fourth Amendment [rather than by FISA], that means the FBI demonstrated under oath to a federal judge that Manafort was more likely than not involved in and communicating about crimes while working in Trump Tower, and the fruits of that surveillance could be used against him in a criminal prosecution, as well as against anyone else involved.

"An indictment of Manafort, which Mueller says is coming soon, will be used as an instrument to flip him into spilling whatever beans he has on his former boss. And we can expect indictments of others presently or formerly near the president as part of the prosecutorial process."

And Napolitano -- a conservative lawyer, judge, and political analyst -- concludes:

"Where does this leave Trump? In the hands of incompetent lawyers, under the crosshairs of a team of very aggressive federal prosecutors and publicly indifferent to the tightening and frightening legal noose around him."

Wow !!    I thought Napolitano's title was a bit ahead of itself . . . but maybe not.  And, on top of this, there is the apparently pretty solid case for obstruction of justice against the president.

Ralph