our colleagues mean from mueller s final report? it s interesting because short of a successful subpoena battle, it means it s possible that the final report is issued without the special counsel having the opportunity to, in effect, cross-examine the president, and that sets up the possibility that the president s response to this report will be, as it s been to this point, largely in the public s sphere, in his comments from the bully pulpit of the white house, twitter, et cetera, where he can say whatever he wants to about the investigation, circumstances of meetings, the facts of the case, et cetera, without legal consequence. he can continue to do as he s done on so many threads of this investigation to mislead the american public, to state flat-out falsehoods, but without legal consequences. now, robert mueller has been a busy man. he has certainly talked to other witnesses who have accounts and i m sure found ways to corroborate accounts that conflict with the president.
battle, it means it s possible that the final report is issued without the special counsel having the opportunity to, in effect, cross-examine the president, and that sets up the possibility that the president s response to this report will be, as it s been to this point, largely in the public s sphere, in his comments from the bully pulpit of the white house, twitter, et cetera, where he can say whatever he wants to about the investigation, circumstances of meetings, the facts of the cate case, et cetera, without legal consequence. he can continue to do as he s done on so many threads of this investigation to mislead the american public, to state flat-out falsehoods, but without legal consequences. now, robert mueller has been a busy man. he has certainly talked to other witnesses who have accounts and i m sure found ways to corroborate accounts that conflict with the president. but in the final analysis, again, short of a successful subpoena battle, this will ultimately be, i suppose
will be when he says not only did i do this, but, yes, trump knew. yes, trump knew that. yes, i checked in with the president there. yes, it was all orchestrated by him. it s the except to which trump was really on top of it and did it for the reason of trying to safeguard the election. one quick point, cohen is appearing voluntarily and that makes a big difference in a number of ways. if wiseleburg or pecker or others are in a subpoena battle, it might be a long time until you actually see them follow up. but cohen himself will give enough to really bring home trump s specific role. carol, i want to read you just a couple of things to bring everybody back to what was in the sentencing memo from the southern district of new york. cohen said trump directed campaign finance relations, quote, in particular and as cohen himself has now admitted with respect to both payments he acted in coordination with and
the supreme court is grabbing hold of a possible muller-related issue, it may not have a significance, presidential implications. it is on a narrow issue of a subpoena battle. i don t know that at the end of the day if they accepted or decided, it is going to tell us very much about the mueller investigation. kim, how much of the mueller investigation is being waged booi behind closed doors that we don t know much, how significance of the fight or the investigation is taking place away or out of the view of the public? that s a great question because we hear every few weeks of speculations as to when the mueller investigation will wrap up and the mueller s team themselves are tight lift on that. this is a grand jury investigation and under federal law it has to be concept secret. i worked on the white water investigation and that was before the age of tweets and internet and even in that
to seal them. they sealed off the whole floor of the courthouse which is quite unusual. what is really unusual here the company itself is fighting so hard to keep their identity secret. let s remember this is not the only grand jury subpoena battle that we know about with the mueller investigation. assume, of course, this is involving the mueller investigation. we know that andrew miller also fought his subpoena attempts and that his identity was revealed. in this case the company is going to tremendous lengths to not only fight hard against this subpoena taking it all the way to the supreme court, which is quite unusual, but also keeping their identity secret. now great speculation has been out about who could this company be. we only know that it s state owned company and that it had