A few days ago, FBI agents received a warrant to raid the office, home and hotel of Michael Cohen. Cohen is the personal attorney of President Trump and has been so for years. The raid was referred by Special Counsel Robert Mueller but it is unclear as to which investigation this is a part of as Mueller is overseeing the Russia probe.
This announcement threw both sides of the political spectrum into chaos as those on the left cheered in hopes that Mueller finally got Trump while the right was taken back by this unprecedented move by the FBI. According to the New York Times, the FBI seized recordings, documents and emails including the payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
The question on everyone's minds right now is why? Why did this raid occur? The Chicago Tribune states that the warrant that was granted for this raid was linked to the "Access Hollywood" tapes in which President Trump discusses grabbing women by their genitals. The main reason why many including the President are angered by this raid is that it is outside the scope of the Mueller investigation.
This claim is true that the reason for the raid was outside the scope of the investigation....but that doesn't mean that it was an overreach. The tip to move on the raid was given by Robert Mueller, but the warrant was received and acted on by the Southern District of New York. Many on the right would still disagree saying Mueller shouldn't have been involved at all and that it still constitutes an overreach. Again, I'm going to have to disagree. It would have been an overreach if Mueller was directly leading the raid or if Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had not given the go-ahead to Mueller or the Southern District of New York. Unfortunately for President Trump, Rosenstein did give his permission to proceed with the raid on Cohen's office.
Business Insider states that, "Mueller was also given the power by Rosenstein to investigate other charges such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses. The FBI's raid on Cohen may end up having no connection to the special counsel's investigation into Russia, but it has exemplified the reach that Mueller's probe can have."
Most of this article has been me quashing the hopes of conservatives that the Mueller team was outside it's purview, but not all hope is lost. The two main reasons for the raid i.e. the Stormy Daniels payments and the "Access Hollywood" tapes are things the American people already know about and most frankly do not care. So if those two things are the only "bombshells" coming out of this raid then I don't foresee this having much of an impact on President Trump.
However, the president still isn't out of hot water just yet. The main investigation into Michael Cohen is to see whether or not he is responsible for campaign finance violations during the 2016 election cycle. This is mainly with regards to the payment to Stormy Daniels days before the election to keep her from disclosing her affair with the president in 2006.
The problem for those looking to get Trump impeached is that the president has already came out saying he was unaware of the payment. So unless the FBI find records, recordings, etc. linking Trump directly with the payment, then the culpability falls only on Cohen. Even if Trump was involved and is culpable, it is very unlikely it will lead to his impeachment.
Campaign finance violations are not a very strong foundation for impeachment although there is very little doubt in my mind that Democrats in the House will attempt it. This attempt will most likely come after the midterm elections where Democrats are set to take back the House. This will result in the impeachment making it through the House but falling flat in the Senate in similar fashion to Bill Clinton.
In my opinion, this raid was a last ditch effort to get President Trump to further justify the impeachment attempt. It would seem that this is to make up for the severe lack of evidence regarding Trump-Russia collusion. It has been almost a year since the Mueller probe began its investigation into possible collusion between the Trump team and Russia during the 2016 election and we have yet to see any substantial evidence linking the president or anyone close to him.
To me, it seems highly unlikely that collusion ever occurred. Since 2016, President Trump has been the most scrutinized person in America (possibly the world) and what have we learned? Well, we learned that he is a scummy adulterer, but we pretty much already knew that going in. I find it hard to believe that we have found all this dirt on the president having numerous character/moral shortcomings and not finding any real connection to Russian interference when there is a special counsel who's sole purpose has been to find the connections.
