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

[HMS_Irruncible]

@superdude

you brilliant, magnificent bastard. I’m stealing this

I feel a Jack Nicholson moment in the works… “YOU’RE GODDAMN RIGHT I ORDERED THE [del]CODE RED[/del] COLLUSION.”

[asahi]

It would look bad coming from Bob Mueller, but James Comey and Preet Bharara have twitter accounts now. Maybe they could fire off a few tweets to that effect.

[Happy_Lendervedder]

@Sage_Rat

I’m hardly an expert (I’m just a guy that watched Homicide: Life on the Streets), but I would think that they would either go top-down or bottoms-up, and bottoms-up makes more sense. I would also think that, if you’re going bottoms-up, then you’re not really interviewing Trump to get information out of him - you already know everything that everyone did at Trump’s order - you’re really, purely looking for him to lie. And so you’re not going to interview him until they know enough that they can catch him in a lie, meaning that you really do do him last.

But that just ends the “interview” stage of the investigation. There could be any amount of further investigation of records, financial auditing, serving warrants, etc. that could follow for just as long as the interview stage. And probably you would re-interview at least a few people.

After that, you still have to write everything up, issue indictments, and take everything to court.

I’d also note that, as I said in a previous post, I don’t think that Mueller’s investigation is the investigation of a single crime. There is a wide variety of acts that Trump and those who were affiliated with the campaign may have committed either as part of the campaign (espionage, foreign donations, etc.), in their previous lives (money laundering, tax evasion, etc.), or as they dealt with the investigation and the investigators (e.g., obstruction of justice). Each of these could and probably will have different schedules. They’re probably being worked on by different sub-teams within Mueller’s camp, semi-independently of one another. I guesstimated the next stage of the Manafort case, for example, as probably coming in mid-February.

There’s no way that Camp Mueller folds up and goes home anytime in 2018.

The only potential is that Mueller issues a statement that they can find no criminal wrongdoing on the part of the President, and Mueller spends the rest of the year focused on Manafort, Papadopoulos, Gates, and Flynn. While this would not, technically, mean that the investigation was over, it would end it so far as most of us are concerned.

An unfortunate thing with Mueller is that he’s probably going to have a pretty hard line on his work. It’s up the Congressional committees to decide whether we need laws on the books for things like encouraging a foreign government to practice espionage and interfere with the elections. But it will probably take a Democratic Congress to start the ball rolling on that.

So far as Mueller is concerned, if there’s no law broken and he didn’t find any secondary issues (money laundering, etc.) with Trump, then he’ll just say, “All clear!”, even if he thinks that Trump’s behavior on the campaign trail was completely treasonous and unpatriotic. He was hired to find and convict crimes, not to write a report on what happened.

The law that Trump is, possibly, the most likely to get in trouble for is one that was written as a result of President Clinton accept foreign contributions. You’ll note that, that law came into life with a whimper not a bang. Preventative legal measures might be all we get and, if we do, they’ll definitely be less than emotionally satisfying.

I’m hardly an expert either (just a guy who’s seen every single episode of The Wire, and quite a few early episodes of NCIS, plus all of the episodes of Arrested Development at least three times), but I can’t imagine Robert Mueller ever making an announcement about Trump (or anybody else, for that matter) being all clear. I feel like that would essentially shut down any potential trails of investigation in the future. Now, he may end a particular trail himself (with no public announcement), but to just make a blanket statement that someone is in the clear? Don’t see that happening.

[Defensive_Indifference]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/fusion-gps-transcript-released

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) released the transcript of the closed-door interview that Glenn Simpson, the founder of the private intelligence firm that assembled the so-called Trump-Russia dossier, gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee in August.

It’s over 300 pages long. Enjoy.

[wonky]

@Bayard

READ: Transcript Of Dossier Firm’s Senate Judiciary Interview Released By Feinstein - TPM – Talking Points Memo
It’s over 300 pages long. Enjoy.

Can someone give me the short version of what the kerfuffle is over this transcript? I have not been focused on this whole story.

[CurtC]

wonky, as I understand it, the head of the firm that commissioned the dossier testified to the Senate committee, and the testimony does not support the current Republican idea that it was the initial source of the Russian collusion allegations, and does not support the current Republican idea that it’s fake. Therefore Senate Republicans wanted to keep it secret, and now Feinstein has released it herself.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

The Fusion people say the Republicans are selectively leaking portions of the testimony and they want the entire testimony released. The Republicans say the Fusion people were offered the chance to testify in public and refused. They claim to have concerns that future witnesses will be tainted by exposure to this transcript.

Based on Feinstein’s statement, it appears that everyone agreed to release the testimony at this time.

[jsc1953]

The Republicans on the committee also decided to refer Fusion to the DoJ for prosecution, shooting the messenger. Sounds like this is DiFi’s response.

[Happy_Lendervedder]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

The Fusion people say the Republicans are selectively leaking portions of the testimony and they want the entire testimony released. The Republicans say the Fusion people were offered the chance to testify in public and refused. They claim to have concerns that future witnesses will be tainted by exposure to this transcript.

Based on Feinstein’s statement, it appears that everyone agreed to release the testimony at this time.

Based on Grassley’s statement, it appears she did it with no agreement from Republicans. Democrats on the committee, however, agreed it was time to make this public.

[wonky]

Thanks, all!

[Randolph]

It’s y’all.

[Defensive_Indifference]

Here’s a good take from NPR (Fusion GPS Founder Glenn Simpson's Senate Judiciary Testimony Released : NPR). It includes this fun bit:

@NPR

Steele later told to Simpson that he believed the FBI would consider his information credible because the Bureau had corroborating intelligence, including from a human source within the Trump organization.

My bold.

So that’s interesting.

[Rick_Kitchen]

@CurtC

wonky, as I understand it, the head of the firm that commissioned the dossier testified to the Senate committee, and the testimony does not support the current Republican idea that it was the initial source of the Russian collusion allegations, and does not support the current Republican idea that it’s fake. Therefore Senate Republicans wanted to keep it secret, and now Feinstein has released it herself.

Lindsey Graham yesterday was saying that the head of Fusion contributed to the Clinton campaign, so he’s biased.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@Happy_Lendervedder

Based on Grassley’s statement, it appears she did it with no agreement from Republicans.

I agree.

@Bayard

Here’s a good take from NPR (Fusion GPS Founder Glenn Simpson's Senate Judiciary Testimony Released : NPR). It includes this fun bit:

My bold.

So that’s interesting.

Maybe yes, maybe no.

This item has been reported previously, and it’s been alleged that it actually refers to Papadopoulos’ cooperating with the FBI regarding his own contacts, as opposed to any mole. Though I saw some reporting today which suggested otherwise.

[Fubaya]

@Bayard

Here’s a good take from NPR (Fusion GPS Founder Glenn Simpson's Senate Judiciary Testimony Released : NPR). It includes this fun bit:

My bold.

So that’s interesting.

Tiffany. Gotta be Tiffany.

[Fubaya]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

I agree.Maybe yes, maybe no.

This item has been reported previously, and it’s been alleged that it actually refers to Papadopoulos’ cooperating with the FBI regarding his own contacts, as opposed to any mole. Though I saw some reporting today which suggested otherwise.

Seems unlikely, as Steele met with the FBI nearly a year before Papadopoulos was arrested.

[Sherrerd]

@Rick_Kitchen

Lindsey Graham yesterday was saying that the head of Fusion contributed to the Clinton campaign, so he’s biased.

One wonders if at some point, the kompromat on ol’ Lindsey will become public. Whatever it is, it has him dancing faster than a flea on a hot griddle.

[Fiveyearlurker]

@Sherrerd

One wonders if at some point, the kompromat on ol’ Lindsey will become public. Whatever it is, it has him dancing faster than a flea on a hot griddle.

This will be the least surprising kompromat in the history of kompromat.

[Sherrerd]

@Fiveyearlurker

This will be the least surprising kompromat in the history of kompromat.

Yeah, but if there are pictures, that would be awkward for the GOP leadership. Their voters tend to have a problem with that sort of thing, or at least with public acknowledgement that it exists–and on their own side!

[eulalia]

@Fubaya

Seems unlikely, as Steele met with the FBI nearly a year before Papadopoulos was arrested.

The story was that Papadopoulos got drunk and spilled the beans much earlier to an Australian diplomat, who passed it on to the Americans. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/us/politics/how-fbi-russia-investigation-began-george-papadopoulos.html?_r=0