RUSSIA INVESTIGATION/SUPREME COURT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “President Donald Trump’s new Supreme Court pick, Brett Kavanaugh, could soon be in a position to address several big legal questions at the center of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. The list includes the question of whether Trump can be subpoenaed to testify in a criminal case; the legal basis for Mueller’s probe; Trump’s power to fire Mueller; and whether the president can escape criminal liability by pardoning himself. And then there is the contentious question of whether a sitting president can be criminally prosecuted. Kavanaugh — who investigated President Bill Clinton as a federal prosecutor in the 1990s — has warned in writing against such a scenario. All are unsettled constitutional questions that have bubbled below the surface of Mueller’s investigation, mainly debated by legal scholars. None are yet the subject of court battles, meaning that Kavanaugh, if confirmed, would likely be seated by the time any reach the Supreme Court, which begins its next session in October. But at least some already seem to have attracted the attention of Senate Democrats gearing up to oppose the conservative federal appeals court judge.”
–Darren Samuelsohn, “What Trump’s Supreme Court pick means for the Russia probe,” Politico, July 9, 2018 10:48 pm