Donald Trump Jr. has told friends he may be indicted by special counsel Bob Mueller, Politico reports.
Mueller went quiet ahead of the midterms but is expected to restart his steady stream of indictments now that the voting is over. According to Politico, the president's eldest son “has told friends in recent weeks that he believes he could be indicted” in the coming months.
Vanity Fair also reported that a former Trump White House aide who testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee told the magazine's Gabe Sherman, “I'm very worried about Don. Jr.”
“The possible exposure would be that Mueller would demonstrate that Don Jr. perjured himself to investigators when he said he didn’t tell his father beforehand about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting to gather 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton,” Sherman reported.
Don Jr. testified to the Senate panel that he never told his father about the meeting with a Kremlin-linked Russia attorney.
Trump circle mixed on Mueller fallout: Politico reports that White House chief of staff John Kelly and former White House counsel Don McGahn urged Trump to let Mueller submit his final report, which they assured him would be a “nothing burger.” But Politico adds that “others in the president’s legal orbit, meanwhile, have warned it’s unlikely the Mueller team would toil for so long without issuing a damaging report.”
Journalists question why Don Jr. lied: “If Trump Jr. did lie under oath, the obvious question is why,” wrote New York Magazine's Jonathan Chait. “He had a lawyer, who presumably informed him of the dangers of perjury. Why take the risk of perjury to deny having informed his father about a meeting with Russian officials if the contacts produced absolutely nothing?”
Mueller expected to deliver report this month: “Sources say Trump advisers are girding themselves for Mueller to deliver the results of his investigation to the Justice Department as early as Wednesday, although it’s more likely he’ll wait till later this month,” Gabe Sherman reported. “Sources say besides the president, the ones with the most exposure are Roger Stone and Donald Trump Jr.”
