Yet more seriously damaging leaking

I keep thinking people are overreacting when they say something has to be done to protect Mueller immediately. But I can see now that they have reason to be worried. Trump is not just a mob boss wannabe, he's so toxic, the rats would be well advised to abandon ship. It's leaking like a sieve, and in dangerous waters.

President Donald Trump pressed senior aides last June to devise and carry out a campaign to discredit senior FBI officials after learning that those specific employees were likely to be witnesses against him as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, according to two people directly familiar with the matter.

[...]

Not long after Comey’s Senate testimony, Trump hired John Dowd, a veteran criminal defense attorney, to represent him in matters related to Mueller’s investigation. Dowd warned Trump that the potential corroborative testimony of the senior FBI officials in Comey’s account would likely play a central role in the special counsel’s final conclusion. [...] In discussions with at least two senior White House officials, Trump repeated what Dowd had told him to emphasize why he and his supporters had to “fight back harder,” in the words of one of these officials.

  Foreign Policy

If he instructed anybody to lie to the FBI, and it's highly likely he did, and they rat on him, his goose is well and truly cooked.

In a brief conversation Friday afternoon, Dowd denied the accounts of administration officials contained in this story as “flat-out wrong,” but he also refused to discuss what details were incorrect.

Dowd's goose is cooked anyway. He's already lied for Trump, whether Trump instructed him to or not won't matter. He's an attorney. He knows the score.

“You don’t know me,” Dowd added. “You don’t how I lawyer, and you don’t know what I communicated to the president and what I did not.”

Oh, we know you.

A person with direct knowledge of the matter said although Dowd explained the risks of senior FBI officials joining Comey in testifying against Trump, that information was part of a broader presentation to the president about Mueller’s investigation. It is not improper, but in fact is a duty, for an attorney to explain to a client how they are at risk, the source said. What may have been improper, however, were actions Trump took upon learning that information.

Since Dowd gave him that information, Trump — as well as his aides, surrogates, and some Republican members of Congress — has engaged in an unprecedented campaign to discredit specific senior bureau officials and the FBI as an institution.

And, why should we think Dowd was trying to warn him away from illegal actions rather than advising him to do it as a plan of action?

The FBI officials Trump has targeted are Andrew McCabe, the current deputy FBI director and who was briefly acting FBI director after Comey’s firing; Jim Rybicki, Comey’s chief of staff and senior counselor; and James Baker, formerly the FBI’s general counsel. Those same three officials were first identified as possible corroborating witnesses for Comey in a June 7 article in Vox. Comey confirmed in congressional testimony the following day that he confided in the three men.

[...]

.That Trump may have been motivated to attack specific FBI officials because they were potential witnesses against him could demonstrate potential intent that would bolster an obstruction of justice case.

Yeah, I think that case is pretty well packaged up with a bow.

The fact that Trump himself pressed aides to try to discredit the FBI agents who might witness against him calls into question whether he has been the author of the recent GOP full-court press against Mueller's investigation as well.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.