Marking Out the trump Criminal Scorecard

So what exactly should we expect from Mueller's investigation into trump's ties with Russia and how that might have affected the 2016 elections?

Obstruction

This is the one where Mueller has trump dead to rights.

This one is so obvious that ongoing revelations of how trump is handling the FBI (then Mueller) investigation into his ties to Russia - he wants to keep firing everybody - that by now even amateur prosecutors - even sideline pundits! - can argue a strong case he broke this law.

To quote William Saletan over at Slate discussing what trump tried to do in June 2017 in trying (and failing) to fire Mueller:

Look back over the Russia investigation, and you’ll see this pattern: Trump constantly sought control. In January 2017, he told Comey that he expected loyalty. A month later, Trump tried to stop Attorney General Jeff Sessions from recusing himself. Later, Trump fired Comey and rebuked Sessions for failing to protect Trump from the investigation. In July, Trump drew a red line around his personal finances and signaled to Mueller that he had better not cross that line. And in August, Trump called up members of Congress to derail legislation that would impede him from firing Mueller.

...the Times report shows that when Trump tried to fire Mueller, he did so despite warnings that this might be criminal. By May 22, it was widely reported that Mueller was obliged to investigate—and was, in fact, investigating—whether Trump had obstructed justice by firing Comey. When Trump moved in June to oust Mueller, he was essentially ignoring those reports...

To impeach and remove a president for obstructing justice, you need to show that his intent in targeting investigators was corrupt. The easy way is to find tapes in which he talks explicitly about orchestrating false testimony. The harder way is to show that he has repeatedly lied about his motives and has maneuvered to control the investigation, despite warnings to back off. Trump’s assault on Mueller, coupled with his previous assaults on Comey, Sessions, Rosenstein, and McCabe, solidifies that case. He obstructed justice...

Or referring to Adam Serwer over at The Atlantic:

Obstruction of justice is a crime that depends on a person’s state of mind, and so is difficult for prosecutors to prove. The law on whether a sitting president can be prosecuted, as opposed to impeached and removed from office by Congress, is unsettled. But legal experts say that Trump’s pattern of behavior has made the case against him much stronger, because that pattern shows Trump repeatedly attempting to undercut the investigations into Russian interference and obstruction, and then in some cases misleading the public about it. That Trump was unsuccessful in firing Mueller is irrelevant—obstruction is a crime whether or not the attempt succeeds.

“At some point, a pattern of the same conduct indicates willfulness and intentionality,” said John Q. Barrett, a law professor at St. John’s University and former associate special counsel in the Iran-Contra affair.

This one is so blatant and obvious that when - not if - Mueller presents his Obstruction charges to the court that handles this case - I think it's the DC district - the judge will insist trump's lawyers work out a plea deal because they ain't winning this one. You gotta grade this one a 100 percent lock.

Money Laundering / Financial crimes

The starting point here is Paul Manafort and his circle of questionable financial practices (and foreign government ties) as part of the trump/Kushner financial "empire".

There's a reason Mueller brought onto his team people experienced in pursuing Racketeering and Money Laundering cases. With trump's history of bad business, bankruptcies, fraud trials, and other financial misdeeds, "Follow the Money" is the best way to find out what trump really did and which laws he broke along the way.

Given how Mueller's already brought charges on Manafort, there's a good likelihood any business deals involving trump or Kushner (Son-in-Law) will lead to similar charges on them. Until Mueller reveals exactly what numbers he has, and which laws apply to trump's fraudulent behaviors, none of us should really say for sure. If anything, Mueller better reveal trump's tax returns just so Americans can find out how much trump's been lying about his net worth... Give this one about 90 percent certainty.

Voter Fraud / Campaign Finance Fraud / Electoral Interference

This is the meat of the matter, and one that needs confirmation of what happened. These are the tidbits that have been floating on the edges of the story, clues here and rumors there, about how Russian hackers played a major role in the 2016 elections. With so many public statements from trump and his Republican allies that exposed those stories as more than rumors.

Where Obstruction and Money Laundering may be the easiest things Mueller can prove, these charges are equally hardest to prove.

Part of what Mueller has to prove is how Russia could have used any voter data information from trump's people (and Republican pollsters) to craft a psych-ops program of manipulating voter turnout via social media. This requires understanding how polling works, and how it crafts campaigns (and their third-party SuperPAC supporters). This is where they can lose jurors who might not comprehend how groupthink / "mob mentality" works (and where the law may be incapable of viewing as criminal).

There are reports of voter suppression in the key states - Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania - where results eked out in favor of trump. While the DHS retracted an early report and claimed in that linked report I added that there was no evidence of hacking, it does leave open the possibility that something happened that Homeland Security can't yet confirm. One possible way of confirming that hackers affected the electronic balloting (or vote counting) would be finding out what trump or his people knew about those hacking efforts, of which trump eagerly egged the Russians on.

There's also ongoing reports from the foreign intelligence agencies - wait, the Dutch have a spy agency??? - that have tracked the Russian hacking teams (Cozy Bear?? Who named these guys?) that our intel agencies believe were the major offenders (Cozy Bear has been identified being behind the DNC email hacks during the election).

If trump and/or the Russians have done any due diligence in clearing out/hiding their paper trail on this, Mueller won't have much to go on. And as I've mentioned, Mueller is likely going to focus on what he can prove - and win - in court. So get this around 40 percent likely.

However. If any one of these cyber attacks by Russian hackers can be proved to have affected our elections, that's a serious crime. If Mueller can prove trump or any of his people had knowledge before or after, there better be charges filed against them. If trump and his people had any active role in these attacks...

Treason

This is, in truth, the hardest argument to prove. Not so much because we can't tell if trump betrayed his nation - his eagerness to embrace and trust Russia and Putin over fellow Americans is obvious, not necessarily criminal - but because the Founders intentionally made Treason one of the hardest crimes to prove. (They would know, because they themselves were traitors to the British Crown: they knew what it was like to live on that razor's edge)

There's such a high bar of legality to cross - two or more witnesses, clear actions that go against the national security or well-being of the citizenry - that bringing this to trial requires some serious fucking shit Mueller and his team uncovered (maybe a verifiable handwritten letter from trump to Putin saying "thanks for rigging the election, here's me ending the sanctions and letting you pummel NATO into dust"). It's unlikely Mueller would find something that incriminating, and more likely that Mueller will focus on stuff that will stand up in court (and mollify Congressional Republicans into staying out of the way).

This is up here, because let's be honest a lot of trump-haters - myself included - take one look at trump's eagerness to hand everything to Putin on a silver platter and we recoil with the belief that trump IS betraying us to a foreign power.

This would be pretty to think so, but we should not get our hopes up. I'm not grading this as a possibility of happening, okay maybe 5 percent. Again, Mueller has got to find a planet-busting cobalt bomb of doom in the evidence pile for this to happen.

Mueller's next step is interviewing trump (or else trump's lawyers arguing against it). That's gotta be the last step in this investigation.

We should know soon what Mueller knows.

Gods help us.