# A Thread for the Mueller Investigation Results and Outcomes (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 28, 2017, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093 "2017-10-28T20:14:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 52
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1021 "2017-12-03T23:55:49Z")
This is a lawyer doing his job. It’s really bad when that’s the best they can come up with “I tweeted it, not him.” A lawyer would make sure to use language that didn’t appear to incriminate. That’s their job. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1022 "2017-12-03T23:56:17Z")
> [@Aspenglow](#): > > The COVFEFE Act was introduced in the House to make his tweets official communications, but nothing happened after that. Not aware of any other legislation that would make them official. Still, if Sean said it in his official capacity as White House spokesman… [CNN June 6, 2017](http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/trump-tweets-official-statements/index.html) > [@](#): > > White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday President Donald Trump’s tweets are indeed official statements. > “The President is the President of the United States, so they’re considered official statements by the President of the United States,” Spicer said, when asked during his daily briefing how they should be characterized. Spicer did not indicate whether that included both of the President’s Twitter handles: @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1023 "2017-12-04T00:04:30Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > This is a lawyer doing his job. It’s really bad when that’s the best they can come up with “I tweeted it, not him.” > > A lawyer would make sure to use language that didn’t appear to incriminate. That’s their job. This is nothing more than the tangerine turd scurrying around for an Ollie North. He knows the hounds are getting closer, he can hear them barking. They are apparently all the way to his SIL already. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1024 "2017-12-04T00:32:54Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Aaaaaaand (literally) almost unbelievable. But if so, I guess even #realDonaldTrump isn’t always _real_ Donald Trump? I’ve no doubt that his lawyer penned that particular tweet; he must have been out of breath when he read the previous twee about firing Flynn for lying to VP Pence…and the FBI. D’OH!!! ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1025 "2017-12-04T00:34:25Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Unsubstantiated WH gossip says that Trump’s reaction to hearing the Flynn news was to throw a coffeepot down a West Wing hallway and to refuse to take any calls for the rest of the day. I have no idea how one would substantiate this outside of speaking to the cleaners responsible for cleaning coffee off the walls, but it amuses me to believe it true. The more unhinged Trump is, the more mistakes he makes regarding the investigation. The more mistakes he makes, the more Mueller benefits. And still, it will take an impeachment to remove him from office before 2020. I think liberals are getting their hopes up over this. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1026 "2017-12-04T00:36:36Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > I’ve no doubt that his lawyer penned that particular tweet; he must have been out of breath when he read the previous twee about firing Flynn for lying to VP Pence…and the FBI. D’OH!!! It doesn’t matter who crafted the language, Trump or his agent Tump posted it, and therefor adopted it as his own. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1027 "2017-12-04T03:16:55Z")
It does matter for criminal liability. If Trump were to deny any knowledge of Flynn lying to the FBI, and say that the tweet did not represent his views, I doubt that the tweet would be seen as incriminating him. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1028 "2017-12-04T03:18:17Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > It doesn’t matter who crafted the language, Trump or his agent Tump posted it, and therefor adopted it as his own. Understood. But he needs to be impeached before he can be tried. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1029 "2017-12-04T03:20:18Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > I have seen more than one person pointing out that if a lawyer had written the controversial tweet, he would have known that it’s, “pleaded”, not “pled”. Is it that cut and dried in US lawyer-speak? In Canada, we use “pleaded” and “pled” interchangeably. Out of curiousity, I once did a word search on the Supreme Court of Canada database of judgments, and it came up about 50/50 for the Court using “pleaded” and “pled”. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1030 "2017-12-04T03:41:28Z")
Kurt Eichenwald: “White House blaming John Dowd for @Potus’s “I confess” tweet. I call BS. I know Dowd. Smart as a whip lawyer. He wouldn’t give a damn what twitter world thinks of Flynn charges. Thats pure Trump. WH blaming Dowd is transparent attempt 2 hide lie with attorney/client privilege.” > ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1031 "2017-12-04T04:12:54Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Understood. > > But he needs to be impeached before he can be tried. Understood too, the thing that is missed is that then it follows that the **actual** next step is indeed to throw all the congress Republican rascals out. The ones that will continue [the 3 monkey’s act](https://goo.gl/images/hdn2ro). Because now it will be clear who is responsible for not impeaching the peach. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1032 "2017-12-04T04:20:48Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Is it that cut and dried in US lawyer-speak? > > In Canada, we use “pleaded” and “pled” interchangeably. Out of curiousity, I once did a word search on the Supreme Court of Canada database of judgments, and it came up about 50/50 for the Court using “pleaded” and “pled”. Interchangeably used from all I’ve heard and read in my American legal experience over the past quarter-century, too. “Pled” has the obvious virtue of being shorter. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1033 "2017-12-04T16:28:18Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > he needs to be impeached before he can be tried. As a practical matter, I’m sure that’s how it’ll play out. But is that a settled legal question? My understanding is that Jaworski didn’t indict Nixon because he didn’t want to deal with that (ETA: unresolved) question. (I’m sure it helped that there was a reasonable chance that the House would impeach, and the Senate would convict, if the evidence that he’d obstructed justice was handed over to the House Judiciary Committee. That’s obviously not the case for the House before January 2019, nor for the Senate before January 2021, when Trump will hopefully be exiting anyway.) ---
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1034 "2017-12-04T16:34:30Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > [ABC News tweet](https://twitter.com/ABC/status/936628560374071296): > The ABC announcer in a video at the link adds that Flynn “has promised full cooperation to the Mueller team. He is prepared to testify, we are told by a confidant, **against President Trump, against members of the Trump family and others in the White House.** He is prepared to testify that President Trump, **as a candidate** , Donald Trump, ordered him and directed him to make contacts with the Russians, which contradicts all that Donald Trump has said at this point.” > > ETA: Bolding (mine). Fake News. ABC has suspended Brian Ross over this: > **[ABC Suspends Reporter Brian Ross Over Erroneous Report About Trump (Published...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/us/brian-ross-suspended-abc.html)** > > In a statement, the network said the reporting “had not been fully vetted through our editorial standards process” and apologized for the “serious error.” ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1035 "2017-12-04T16:35:33Z")
> [@Fiveyearlurker](#): > > My genuine silver lining hope here is that when we get to the bottom of this there is such obvious money laundering into campaigns that the US government is forced to do serious campaign finance reform. That seems like a very off-the-subject thing to hope for. Especially since Trump didn’t need lots of campaign spending to win - the news networks gave him free publicity every day. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1036 "2017-12-04T17:49:29Z")
[From National Review commentor and former Assistant US Attorney Andrew McCarthey](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/454311/mueller-strategy-obstruction-justice-investigation-leading-impeachment): > [@Andrew McCarthey](#): > > As I’ve tried to explain a few times now (see here and here), if a prosecutor has an accomplice cooperator who gives the government incriminating information about the major scheme under investigation, he pressures the accomplice to plead guilty to the major scheme, not to an ancillary process crime — and particularly not to false-statements charges. > > […] > > Justice Department policy calls for prosecutors to indict a defendant on the most serious readily provable charge, not to plead out a case on minor charges to obtain cooperation. The federal sentencing guidelines also encourage this. They allow a judge to sentence the defendant below the often harsh guidelines calculation. This can mean a cooperator gets as little as zero jail time or time-served, no matter how serious the charges. This sentencing leniency happens only if the defendant pleads guilty and provides substantial assistance to the government’s investigation. That is what enables the prosecutor to entice an accomplice to cooperate; the prosecutor does not need to entice cooperation by pleading the case out for a song. > > […] > > Bottom line: If the FBI had a collusion case of some kind, after well over a year of intensive investigation, Flynn and Papadopoulos would have been pressured to plead guilty to very serious charges — and those serious offenses would be reflected in the charges lodged against Manafort. Obviously, the pleas and the indictment have nothing to do with collusion because Mueller has no collusion case. Anyone with an informed opinion wants to comment? ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1037 "2017-12-04T18:11:13Z")
I look forward to Preet Bharara’s take on this in his Stay Tuned podcast. He will post a Flynn episode sometime today. [Stay tuned](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/stay-tuned-with-preet/id1265845136?mt=2). ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1038 "2017-12-04T18:12:48Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > [From National Review commentor and former Assistant US Attorney Andrew McCarthey](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/454311/mueller-strategy-obstruction-justice-investigation-leading-impeachment): Anyone with an informed opinion wants to comment? Just glancing at the bits you quoted - I can give you my informed opinion, as a person with a calendar, that Mueller has not been openly investigating collusion for over a year. Yes, there were previous FBI investigations, but we can’t assume that they are the same investigation. I can also give you my informed opinion, as a person who spends a lot of time arguing on the internet, that Andrew McCarthy would have a hard time providing actual evidence for his assertion that pleading to a lesser charge just never happens in federal cases, because of some sentencing guidelines, and also for his conclusion that Flynn’s being charged with bullshit means that Mueller can’t _possibly_ have anything else up his sleeve (including, for example, possible charges against Flynn Jr). ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1039 "2017-12-04T18:28:36Z")
White House was [told in January](http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/04/politics/wh-lawyer-told-trump-flynn-misled-fbi-pence/index.html?sr=twCNNp120417wh-lawyer-told-trump-flynn-misled-fbi-pence1242PMVODtop&CNNPolitics=Tw)that Flynn lied to FBI and should be fired. Wasn’t fired until weeks later and only after journalists found out. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093/1040 "2017-12-04T18:31:11Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > I can give you my informed opinion, as a person with a calendar, that Mueller has not been openly investigating collusion for over a year. Yes, there were previous FBI investigations, but we can’t assume that they are the same investigation. McCarthy doesn’t say that they were the same investigation. But I think it’s safe to assume that Mueller didn’t start from scratch here, and he undoubtedly accessed whatever the FBI had on hand from their investigations. > [@](#): > > I can also give you my informed opinion, as a person who spends a lot of time arguing on the internet, that Andrew McCarthy would have a hard time providing actual evidence for his assertion that pleading to a lesser charge just never happens in federal cases, because of some sentencing guidelines, and also for his conclusion that Flynn’s being charged with bullshit means that Mueller can’t _possibly_ have anything else up his sleeve (including, for example, possible charges against Flynn Jr). I don’t know that McCarthy has any “actual evidence” of the sort you seem to be suggesting. But as noted, he is himself a former Assistant US Attorney, so he can be assumed to have some knowledge of these matters. Which is not to say he must be right, and it’s common for different knowledgeable people to disagree about things. But I was wondering whether and to what extent that is the case here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093.md?page=51) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thread-for-the-mueller-investigation-results-and-outcomes-part-1/800093.md?page=53)