Considered opinionSome real “bombshell news” in the Mueller investigation

By Jim Geraghty

Published 1 February 2018

Former Trump team legal spokesperson Mark Corallo, in the summer of 2016, had concerns that White House communications director Hope Hicks may be considering obstructing justice after a comment she made in a conference call about emails between Donald Trump Jr. and Russians with ties to the Kremlin. “Mark Corallo is a pro’s pro who went to work for the Trump legal team completely on board and who wanted to help the president … well, make America great again. When he left after two months with some reports that he was troubled by what he was seeing … that was a deeply ominous sign,” Jim Geraghty writes in National Review. “If Corallo ends up offering sort of critical testimony, this is not because he’s a Judas or because he’s part of the establishment or some sort of ‘Deep State’ sellout. It’s because he saw stuff that genuinely struck him as either illegal or unethical or both and he’s not the kind of person who’s willing to lie under oath about it.”

Former Trump team legal spokesperson Mark Corallo, in the summer of 2016, had concerns that White House communications director Hope Hicks may be considering obstructing justice after a comment she made in a conference call about emails between Donald Trump Jr. and Russians with ties to the Kremlin. The Russians said they had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, and that they wanted to share it with the Trump campaign because Vladimir Putin wanted to help Donald Trump win the November 2016 election.

According to a New York Times story Wednesday night, Hicks reportedly told President Donald Trump on a conference call that the Trump Jr. emails “will never get out.”

Corallo plans to share the conversation with special counsel Robert Mueller, the Times reported.

Jim Geraghty writes in the conservative National Review that “Now the Mueller investigation is really getting dangerous for the Trump administration, and perhaps key adviser Hope Hicks in particular.”

He adds:

I’ve chatted with Corallo on and off since the days of the Fred Thompson campaign in 2008. He’s a straight shooter, an indisputable conservative, and it’s worth noting that throughout 2016, as I was looking at the Trump campaign and seeing a circus that couldn’t organize a two-car motorcade, Corallo was sending me good-natured notes saying, “Yes, but you know Trump’s going to win, right?”

In other words, Mark Corallo is a pro’s pro who went to work for the Trump legal team completely on board and who wanted to help the president … well, make America great again. When he left after two months with some reports that he was troubled by what he was seeing … that was a deeply ominous sign.

If Corallo ends up offering sort of critical testimony, this is not because he’s a Judas or because he’s part of the establishment or some sort of “Deep State” sellout. It’s because he saw stuff that genuinely struck him as either illegal or unethical or both and he’s not the kind of person who’s willing to lie under oath about it.

Read the article: Jim Geraghty, “Some real ‘bombshell news’ in the Mueller investigation,” National Review (1 February 2018)