Polling guru Nate Silver cast doubt on Trump lawyer Rudy Giualini’s confidence about there being a way to avoid an impact on the 2018 midterms if special counsel Robert Mueller reaches his goal of wrapping up his probe into whether President Trump obstructed the Russia investigation by Sept. 1.
“Leaving aside that most things Rudy Giuliani says don’t really qualify as ‘breaking news’, his claim that Sept. 1 timing would avoid influencing the midterm elections is laughable,” Silver said in a tweet Sunday evening. “The debate over Mueller’s findings would dominate the political landscape through November.”
In interviews conducted with multiple news outlet Sunday, Giuliani said Mueller is eyeing the Sept. 1 date, but only if Trump grants him an interview.
“You don’t want another repeat of the 2016 election where you get contrary reports at the end and you don’t know how it affected the election,” Giuliani told the New York Times, referring to former FBI Director James Comey’s handling of the bureau’s probe of Hillary Clinton during her presidential campaign. That quote, which appeared in the original version of the Times report, appears to have been removed.
To this day, Clinton says she can’t get over how the election turned out, and she and some of her allies still list the FBI’s investigation into her unauthorized email server during her time as secretary of state as a leading reason for her defeat to Trump. Comey reopened the investigation less than two weeks before the 2016 election and it was closed again days before the contest, with no change to its prior determination that the FBI would not recommend charges against Clinton.
Silver, whose polling analysis website FiveThirtyEight gave Clinton a 71.4 percent change of winning on the eve of the election, said Sunday that chances are slim that Mueller’s conclusion won’t trigger at least a few months of reactions.
“Almost no matter what, Mueller’s conclusions on obstruction will trigger a few months’ worth of reactions and counterreactions from Congress and the White House. If he wrapped his report *today*, then *maybe* the story would be stale by the election. But not if he does it on 9/1,” Silver said.
While the New York Times article signals Mueller may be wrapping up his examination of potential obstruction of justice claims, his investigation into Russia interference in the 2016 election would continue, leading to another report to the Justice Department with recommendations and referrals.
