When will the media accept that Trump is not a criminal target?
By Jonathan Turley, opinion contributor — 04/04/18 11:15 AM EDT
In terminal medical cases, doctors often deal with patients who move through “stages†that begin with denial. These so-called Kübler-Ross stages can be a long road toward acceptance. A weird form of Kübler-Ross seems to have taken hold of the media. Rather than refusing to accept indicators of impending death, many journalists and analysts seem incapable of accepting signs that the Trump presidency could survive.
That painful process was more evident Tuesday night when the Washington Post reported that special counsel Robert Mueller told the White House last month that Trump was not considered a “target†but only a “subject†of the investigation. After a year of being assured that “bombshell†developments and “smoking gun†evidence was sealing the criminal case against Trump, the dissonance was too great for many who refuse to accept the obvious meaning of this disclosure.
The U.S. Attorney’s manual defines a “subject†as a “person whose conduct is within the scope of the grand jury's investigation.†It is a designation that can change but it is also a meaningful description of the current status of an individual. Mueller at this time apparently does not believe Trump meets the definition of a target or a “person as to whom the prosecutor or the grand jury has substantial evidence linking him or her to the commission of a crime and who, in the judgment of the prosecutor, is a putative defendant.†That would have been less notable when Mueller was appointed in 2017 than it is now, after more than a year, dozens of criminal counts, hundreds of thousands of documents, and a bevy of cooperating witnesses.
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http://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/381593-when-will-the-media-accept-that-trump-is-not-a-criminal-target
