CNN's Carl Bernstein tells Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter that people close to Trump are saying he's determined to shut down the Mueller investigation.
BERNSTEIN: He's said that all along and he's determined to shut it down. Those who are closest to him will tell you it's very hard to stop his rages, especially in the last couple of weeks about Mueller, and as they say to me and others that he is determined to shut this investigation down.
He hasn't quite figured out how to do it, but he's determined to do it. And the real question here is whether the rule of law and the avoidance of a Constitutional, a real Constitutional crisis which we're really approaching here, because he is saying essentially he is not going to be held accountable for the law, that the law does not apply to him, that this investigation is in itself illegal.
And he believes, as Jeff Greenfield just said, that he can convince his base, and a lot of the Republican party, that he doesn't have to be held accountable, because they will be convinced as well that this is a witch hunt, and in fact it's anything but.
And one of the reasons we're seeing what we are right now is, the president, according to those around him, has expressed the belief, or certainly the attitude, that he thinks this investigation is closing in on him, on his family and on his businesses, and there's real evidence, circumstantial that this is the case, and certainly lawyers involved in this, other defendants believe that is the case, and also there is a set of indictments is just over the horizon.
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It is over the horizon, yes. I think that certainly other lawyers involved in this belief that a new set of indictments is if not imminent, very close, but we don't know for sure that's going to happen, and you have to wait until something is filed with the court, but certainly the belief around the president in the White House, those who talk to him, is that he is expressing the attitude that he needs to shut this thing down, he hasn't quite figured out the way to do it yet, except to appeal to this base, because we are in this country as Jeff's comments indicated, in the midst of a cold civil war, a cultural cold civil war, and it predates donald trump, but he has exploited it brilliantly and takes advantage of it, and the other thing that's involved here, and I'll let you ask another question and stop talking here in a second.
This is very much about lying that one of the things we have seen even with the prime minister of Canada in the last week is the compulsive or endemic lying by the president of the United States, and he tells us there is no collusion. There's nothing here.
As Bernstein went onto note, Trump lies about everything, so there's no reason to believe him before the evidence, and the witnesses, and the journalists who have been reporting on Russiagate so far. Bernstein also asked if Republicans are going to have some spine and put a check on Trump as Lindsey Graham vowed to do earlier the same morning, during a segment on Jake Tapper's.
Let's just say Bernstein has a lot more faith than I do that any of them will do the right thing if Trump does try to fire Mueller, or once he finally finishes his investigation. He's right about his strategy of delegitimizing the entire investigation, and he's aided and abetted in doing that day after day, every hour on Fox "news" and on right-wing hate talk radio.
