DOUBLE WHAMMY: Mueller’s Grand Jury Coincides With Senate Requests for Info

The Special Counsel’s grand jury matches the timing of requests from two Senate committees, making this a double whammy for the beleaguered Trump administration.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller convened a grand jury in Washington D.C. recently. The Wall Street Journal broke the revelation on 3 August, quickly followed with more details from the NY Times and  The Washington Post. The actual date of the grand jury is not specific other than a reference to “a few weeks ago.”

Lost in the newest headlines is a similar probe by two US Senate committees sent on 19 July, which would coincide with the time frame of Robert Mueller’s grand jury.

The Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees requested detailed material from Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner in pursuit of their investigation into alleged Russian interference and possible collusion by the Trump campaign. The correspondence to the trio asks for “all communications to, from or copied” from dozens of names.

Judging from the listed names, many Russian, the Senate investigation is focused on the June 2016 meeting with the Trump trio, a Russian lawyer and at least four others.

The Times noted that Mueller was “investigating a June 9, 2016, meeting set up by Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, based on the expectation of getting damaging information about Hillary Clinton from a Russian lawyer.”

The timing of the Senate’s requests and Mueller’s grand jury appear to be reinforcing measures. The grand jury has issued subpoenas, which are legally binding requests for information. The Senate’s parallel actions are “requests” and are not binding. However, according to all reports, the substance of both inquiries at the very least includes the 16 June meeting.

The Trump team now faces a two-pronged assault from two different sources: the US Senate and the Special Counsel.

You can almost hear the screws tightening.

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