Mueller Steps Towards Red Line with New Subpoenas

subpoena of the Trump Organization. The New York Times is reporting that Mueller subpoena the Trump Organization for documents in the first known instance of the Special Council demanding records directly related to President Trump's businesses. Joining me as William Banks, professor at Syracuse University Law School, Bill, how does the subpoena fit in with the news that Mueller began examining a broad range of transactions involving Trump's businesses as well

as those of his associates back in July. Well, I think that you know, this is is an expansion of the investigation, but it really shouldn't be regarded as a

as a surprise. I think because the the extent to which the financial world from the Russian side has influenced the activities of those who are trying to affect the election has long been a subject of Mueller's staff's concerns, and now going after these records will provide more details about the relationship of any Russian financial interest in any Trump business ties. Mueller's mandate is pretty broad as the Russia question in any matters that arose or may arise

directly from the investigation. Isn't that pretty broad? It's incredibly broad, and I think, you know, there was written that way on purpose. You can't tell that the outset where an investigation like this may lead. This is not unusual, I think.

And now we're seeing that financial crimes could potentially be beyond you know, in addition to those that we've already been focusing on, obstruction, uh aligned to members of the of the prosecutorial team, failure to comply with the requirements of foreign agent registration, and like this is just another chapter.

Could it also be possible charge of conspiracy now that there is the indictment of the Russians and there's evidence of a push in to build a Trump tower in Moscow, Trump's involvement in controversial SOHO develop in New York with Russian associates and more. What are the possibilities of conspiracy charges? Yeah, the conspiracy is is a better legal descriptor of what

we've euphemistically referred to as collusion. And the conspiracy laws are complex and they're not all the same aim, but in general, there has to be some sort of an overt agreement understanding on the part of the conspiring officials that they were up to something, that it was in

violation of the law. Some mere tolerance or awareness that, say, a Russian was going to use their financial resources to try to affect the election outcome may not be sufficient, but you know, awareness of it, and then sort of a tacit agreement or steering of those activities, as may have been the case with with Donald Trump Jr. At that July sixteen meeting that we've talked about so many times, the Trump organization says it's been cooperating with Mueller's investigation,

and it's unclear what prompted Muller to actually issue with subpoena. Are there reasons he might do that besides the Trump organization refusing to cooperate, I mean, might he want to sure that he has everything. Yes, I mean it's that's a good point. And indeed, up till now anyway, that Trump organization has been very cooperative and responsive by all accounts in producing records that are sought for. But the subpoena does, as you say, provide some insurance that that

everything is coming as forthcoming. That might be relevant to the question that's asked in the subpoena. Obviously, as subpoena is enforceable, and if for some reason things are not fully uh sought are not fully provided, then the then the prosecutors can try to enforce it. Bill. Let's let's talk about Trump and the possibility of his trying to

fire Muller. He's never said explicitly that he would fire Mueller if the prosecutor went after his finances, but he did suggest to The New York Times last July that his finances would be a red line where Mueller's investigation shouldn't go beyond um. Trump is in the middle of this high level staff shake up, which could include a G. Jeff Sessions. What would happen if Trump tried to have

Moller fired. Well, we you know, we've talked about this before, and it's hard to know for sure, But if he did replace Sessions, uh say, with Mike Pompeo or someone who's closely uh aligned with Trump and Trump's use, we could have to revisit the firing questions all over again. Certainly, the Attorney General could do it on the on the order of the president, but in then indeed we have

I think a lot of fuel for the fire. That Congress would need to restart an investigation on its own, appoint an independent council of its own, or even begin impeachment proceedings. If Nolan gets so far as to indicting members of the Trump family and would begin to see pardons, I think we'll have a similar kind of impasse. It could get very ugly, even uglier than we've been witnessed too. So far. The Republican Congress has so far seemed unwilling

to make any moves in that area. In fact, we know that the House committee investigating the Russia connection came out with the Republicans on it, came out with a whitewash without finishing really the investigation, without having you know, subpoenaed a lot of people that they that are that Mueller is is subpoena ng or getting a lot of documents.

So I mean, is there any indication that that if the House remains and Republicans hands that that it would actually go towards hiring a special counsel and impeachment well these you know, it would take the developments that we just speculated about, I think, attempting either to fire Mueller or the President beginning to issue pardons that would push

us in that way. I think by now the Republican committee that released that white as you call it, a whitewash, should be embarrassed by what they've released, imply on the basis of the Mueller revelations in the last couple of weeks or so far from there being nothing to uh to complain about in terms of Russian interference and Trump associates involvement, the Mueller team has already issued of what nineteen indictments all count in, and there's no indication that

the end is anywhere near. I called it a whitewash. I should have said that it was more like an incomplete investigation and in uh seemingly incomplete conclusion, at least according to the Democrats on that committee, where there was certainly no cooperation towards the end between the Democrats and the Republicans on that House committee. Well, Bill, well, we'll keep talking about this, and because the same question seemed

to keep coming up over and over again. Though obviously President Trump knows that Mueller has been investigating his finances because he knows the Trump organization has been cooperating with him. So we'll see what happens, Bill, and we will call on you again. Thank you so much for being with us here. That's William Banks. He's a professor at Syracuse University Law School. Buyer's plan to win anti trust approval for its takeover of Monsanto has hit some serious bumps.

The company has not satisfied US officials, who are worried this sixty six billion dollar merger could heart competition. According to two people familiar with the matter, joining me as Jennifer Reese and your litigation and Liss for Bloomberg Intelligence, Jen, this is part of a wave of consolidation of seed and crop chemical firms, and Buyer did win anti trust approval for two prior deals. What are anti trust officials

concerned about with this deal? Well, it's apparent that they have what we call both horizontal concerns and vertical concerns. So they have concerns about areas seeds, for instance, and pesticides where the companies directly compete selling the same product to buyers, and they're also concerned with where they operate in two different levels of a chain of distribution, like maybe they have I P or technology that they licensed

to a competitor. Um. We think here, given the news that the dj might not be happy with what's been offered so far, that the issues that they're concerned about might be vertical. And the reason is because Buyer has already committed to selling almost all their seeds as well as that overlap with Monsanto, as well as a pesticide that competes with them mon Santo Pesticide, And it seems like most of the horizontal overlaps are sort of taken

care of by what they've offered. But what we understand from Bloomberg News is that they've had talks with the Department of Justice who have said we need more. So it seems like perhaps with the Department of Justice is worried about are are these vertical overlaps, What kind of companies or what kind of assets are we talking about? Buyer having to divest. Well, it's really hard to say because these these industries are so complex, and I think

a lot of people are a little bit baffled. But you know, I've talked a lot to the v I industry analysts in this area, Chris Perella specifically about what could be going on here and what else it could be. And so one suggestion he made is that it could be now this would be a horizontal overlap, but it could be an overlap in research and development that they're both doing to get into digital farming. So we're providing collections of data tailored to farmers to give them information

that would help them with their farming. That would be horizontal, and perhaps it might take divestiture of R and D. Another option is that it is about one of these situations where there's I p that their concern might be withheld from competitors, and in that case, it might be that they have to provide a license outlicensed the product so that there's another competitor that that is able to market that product. Jury selection starts on Monday in the Justice Department suit to stop the A T and T

time Warner merger, which we've talked about many times. Do you see similarities in the remedies the antitrust of arment wants there and in the buyer Monsanto merger. You know, it's it's possible in a broad sense. And now, first I should say there's no jury selection because that's just a judge trial. So that's all right, How could I forget that? But has a lot of personality. Yes, right,

they are starting on Monday. Um, I think opening arguments aren't til Wednesday, but they'll they'll start with some preliminary matters on Monday. The what I see here as similar is that in the past, the Department of Justice has been willing to accept conduct commitments from companies to fix vertical problems, and we'll promise to license our technology, will promise not to discriminate post merger things like that. That's been pretty typical for a lot of vertical deals that

raise issues. But in a T and T, which is purely a vertical deal, the Department of Justice said, no, we don't like that kind of a commitment. We need structural, we need assets divested. We have a number of reasons

we don't like a behavioral commitment. And it could be that the same thing is happening with Buyer, that they had vertical issues they thought they could resolve with the behavioral commitment, and the Department of Justice is saying, no, we needed a Let's just talk for just a little bit about why the antitrust chief doesn't like the behavioral commitments, why he doesn't like having to have someone monitor what's going on. I think he has a couple of reasons.

That's one of them. He thinks the Department of Justice then has to have oversight for many years over this merged company, and that that isn't their role, that they're not, that it doesn't work, that they aren't it's not their role, and it's not the right thing for them to be doing, and they shouldn't be regulating companies. So I think that's one thing he sees there an enforcer rather than a regulator.

And I think the other thing he has said, although I'm not sure if if the evidence bears this out, is that they don't work that in the past, if you look at behavioral commitments that have been made, that they have hampered competition in some of these markets. Now the deal has been the Now let's go back to BUYERMN Santo merger has been before regulators for eighteen months. How far is it from closing or is there a possibility the Justice Department may file lawsuit to block this deal?

They certainly could, you know, if the companies cannot agree to commitments, if what's being demanded is just too much for them, it kills the economics of the deal, or just unacceptable, then certainly they could abandon or they could face the suit if they want to pursue it. Um. It seems to me there still is a place for an agreement to be reached, because the DJ is asking for more and buyer has said it's willing to divest more.

So I feel like they may still be able to reach an agreement here and it won't come to that. They do have an end date in their agreement of June four, and it looks like they're going to push right up against that. But however, it's an agreement, so the parties can agree to extend that if they need to. If they're having constructive talks with the d o J, they think they're going to resolve this, but it's gonna

go a little bit past that. I think they probably extend it does the fact that buyer is based in Germany, have any impact on this at this stage, I would say not. Now. They did have to get through um uh investigation by Syphius, the Committee for Foreign Investment in the US that we've heard quite a lot of lately

in context of broad coming qualcom um. They also were investigated by Syphia's actually for quite a long time, that might have even been over a year, and I think there was some pressure from some senators for Sifias to put the you put some mitigation measures or stop this deal. But they did clear Syphias, so the fact that it's a foreign buyer doesn't plan anymore. Whoever thought we would all know what Ciffius stands for about a minute here? How long do you expect the time Warner trial to

go on? You know, it's funny because the judge had anticipated three weeks, but he's now saying six to eight weeks. And I'm not really sure what happened to double his prediction on timing, But I think there are a lot of witnesses and a lot of exhibits that are expected, and it's complex, and there are a lot of star lawyers on that case. So well, we'll look forward to hearing more about that case, because it certainly is going

to be probably a standard for things to come. We'll get an inkling of what the Antitrust Department is really looking into, as you always help us to jin. That's Jennifer Reachey's senior litigation analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, and for more of her analysis, you can go to be I go on the Bloomberg Terminal. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com

slash podcast. I'm June Brasso. This is Bloomberg