Special counsel Robert Mueller was caught by surprise.
Donald Trump made the announcement Mueller fears the most.
President Trump revealed the deadline that will shut Mueller down for good.
Trump made journalists in the fake news media heads spin when the administration announced the President had instructed National Security Adviser John Bolton to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to the White House in the fall for a second summit.
Anti-Trump reporters thought they had beaten Trump into retreat with a solid week of fake outrage and manufactured crisis surrounding Trump’s answers in a press conference with Putin.
Trump smartly realized anti-Trump reporters were trying to trick him into saying the 2016 election was illegitimate and that Hillary Clinton was the rightful winner and dodged their gotcha questions about alleged Russian “meddling” in the election.
The media uses the word meddling so news consumers who have not been following every detail of the story think Russia altered the vote totals and that the outcome is suspect.
Journalists immediately launched into an uproar over a second Trump-Putin summit.
But the White House had a surprise up their sleeves.
The administration released a statement saying the summit with Putin had been postponed until 2019 because that is when the Mueller probe will be over.
Bolton’s statement read “The President believes that the next bilateral meeting with President Putin should take place after the Russia witch hunt is over, so we’ve agreed that it will be after the first of the year.”
This statement came on the heels of Russian officials wanting more time for the summit.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov declared “there are other options [to meet] which our leaders can look at.”
“After the [Helsinki] summit you know what kind of atmosphere there is around its outcome,” Ushakov continued, “I think it would be wise to let the dust settle and then we can discuss all these questions in a business-like way. But not now.”
The two leaders are both set to attend the G20 summit in Argentina this November.
But what most intrigued political observers was the suggestion that the Mueller probe will wrap up by the end of the year.
There is increasing pressure on Mueller to wind down his investigation and produce his findings.
With the midterm elections rapidly approaching, Justice Department guidelines are going to require Mueller to go dark.
And Mueller has already issued indictments against 25 Russian nationals and 3 internet marketing companies for alleged election meddling and hacking email accounts belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and the Democratic National Committee.
Both of those indictments stated there were no Americans who committed criminal acts to aid or abet the Russians.
Mueller’s grand jury is still active as evidenced by the special counsel subpoenaing Kristin Davis – the Madame who ran an escort service and who also worked for Trump aide Roger Stone after she failed gubernatorial bid.
But observers believe the end is in sight for the Mueller probe.
We will keep you up to date on any new developments in the Mueller probe.
