A Thread for the Mueller Investigation Results and Outcomes (Part 1)

Popehat’s “Lawsplainer” regarding invoking the Fifth around document production.

In short, you may have Fifth Amendment protections when subpoenaed for document production, depending on the nature of the subpoena and the documents requested.

Meanwhile, in Fox News Build-Your-Own-Reality Adventureland, the Flynn sentencing memo is yet more proof that Trump did absolutely nothing wrong, that Mueller is obsessed with “nailing Trump” in any way possible, that the entire Mueller investigation is an illegitimate nothingburger, and that Rudy Giuliani was right about something. Ignorance is strength, Oceanians!

It worked well enough with Al Capone.

That works for me as well, even better in fact. It sends a clear message that we don’t like anyone using the office of the President to line his pocket.

Drain the swamp, my ass.

They aren’t redactions. Robert Mueller just has a real bad potty mouth.

Federal court subpoenas are executed by The U.S. Marshals Service, IIRC, with its 5000+ employees, all reporting to Trump crony Matt Whitaker.

The House of Representatives? I guess they appoint one Bailiff. Does he even have deputies? They pass a subpoena over to Trump’s DoJ and get laughed at — what happens next?

T-shirts, anyone?: https://www.northernsun.com/It's-Mueller-Time-TShirt-(8579).html

“Subpoenas ‘may il Duce be with you’” I suspect is not a correct translation. Mind explaining for the legally mainly-illiterate? (I know, I could google, but if I do I’ll probably find word walls of legalese)

I haven’t seen much evidence that the DOJ is bending to Whitaker’s will. Have you? In fact, I think they are pretty angry at the extent to which their institution has been politicized by Trump.

As for the actual arrest of Stone, I expect they will simply refer it to the DOJ. Whitaker may have some control over what happens to Mueller’s investigation – although we’ve seen no evidence of that at this point and I keep hearing that Rod Rosenstein remains in charge. But he (Whitaker) has no jurisdiction to prevent the DOJ from carrying out the will of a house of Congress. I mean, unless he wants to go full-on coup and risk jail time himself.

It’s simply a subpoena for documents and/or other items such as tapes, emails, records, etc. These items don’t enjoy Fifth Amendment protections, and even if Stone attempts to destroy this evidence, Congress can issue subpoenas to other places that would have copies, such as his phone company, internet service provider, etc. Stone is powerless to prevent these companies from complying with such a subpoena.

Hope this clarifies. May il Duce be with you. :slight_smile:

Here is a pretty good summary of what Mueller has done thus far and what we might expect in the near future. From FiveThirtyEight.

Slate has a worthwhile piece pointing out that Whitaker might be holding back to avoid being like Nixon’s lawyers/DOJ. Let’s hope that is true.

According to PopeHat on Twitter - there are some protections for documents under the Fifth.

The wiki article is pretty accessible. The phrase is translated there as “under [threat of] penalty, you will bring [it] with you.”

Essentially, a court order to a witness, directing them not only to come testify, but to bring relevant documents in their possession, potentially to be admitted into evidence.

An imaginary DOJ employee was quoted saying, “Whitaker’s a lame duck. Screw him.”

Whitaker has no legal authority anyway.

I do get the sense that, at least so far as Mueller is concerned, he was essentially told by the Senate or FBI or someone that they’d go to town on him if he tried to do anything but be Mueller’s yes-boy. Potentially, Mueller has more freedom now than he did under Rosenstein, since Rosenstein was probably trusted to say “no”.

On the other hand, I’d still say that there’s a decent likelihood that Whitaker is going to fire everyone in the DOJ, before he can be replaced, so that he can hire back in Trump loyalists and crooks.

Mass firings by Whitaker would have to pass the usual tests of firings “for cause.” “Because this will help the President escape accountability for his crimes” will not be seen as an acceptable rationale.

As has been intimated by several, Whitaker will have been fully informed of his own legal vulnerability to charges of obstruction of justice. And dude is no mastermind. He’s not going to find any loopholes that would let him derail Mueller while keeping out of trouble himself.

So far as I know, there’s no one in the DOJ between Whitaker and Mueller. He can’t fire Mueller, but everyone in the DOJ is unrelated to the Mueller investigation. Even Rosenstein is no longer relevant to the Russia case.

Now, that said, the Russia investigation is almost certainly not the only potentially damaging case for the President and his allies. But Trump has never spoken of them and so long as he leaves no paper trail and talks to Whitaker directly, there’s nothing to stop him from clearing the DOJ in the hope of throwing a wrench into everything else against him. All he has to do is bring up the “anonymous” article about how there is a resistance in the Executive Branch, and he needs to clean house to ensure that his employees are actually working for him.

**Trump Weighs Bringing Back William Barr as Attorney General **

Whatever.

Maybe Trump thinks he’s related to Roseanne?

Nice.

Stealing.

“Of course he’s a good choice! They named that lawyer test after him!”