What Has Mueller Really Done? Think.

Special counsel Robert Mueller has a lot to show for his two-year investigation. He's indicted some 37 individuals. Of those within his reach, most charged have pleaded guilty. Others have been convicted at trial. The remainder await trial.

The local gang have mainly been indicted for lying to investigators. Manafort added witness tampering to his caseload. There have also been indictments for tax evasion and other commercial crimes that surfaced through the investigations.

Two issues are conspicuous by their absence - obstruction of justice and Russian interference with the 2016 elections. There are a number of obvious offences there but they've never resulted in charges, at least not that we know.

Why has Mueller indicted no one for either of those issues? Not even one indictment. Why?

Part of the art of criminal law is identifying what's missing. For example the Crown may develop a theory of the crime and then it's up to defence counsel to scour all the discovery evidence and look not just at what has been produced but what has not, stuff that should be evident if the Crown's theory was valid. Prosecutors do the very same thing when it comes to dismantling alibis or other exculpatory evidence. In this way each side seeks to cast doubt on the other's case and, with the Crown bearing the onus of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that's a powerful weapon.

What's missing in Mueller's case, the part that has already been aired in public? Pretty much everything dealing with obstruction or Russian interference in the 2016 election. Do you think he overlooked that, the very essence of his appointment?  The absence of that is hardly proof of its absence. That would be preposterous especially given Mueller and his team's stature. These are the 'Pros from Dover.'

Mueller spent two years doing more than sleuthing out amateurs like Papadopoulos, and middle-grade scoundrels such as Cohen, Manafort and Flynn. Most of those who pleaded guilty sang like canaries. Others, who escaped indictment, like David Pecker and Allen Weisselberg, also sang like canaries. Lesser characters who were grilled emerged saying that Team Mueller knew more about them than they did themselves.

So think. Think like a lawyer. Put this all together and what do you come up with?

Mueller was commissioned to investigate and report. He was not ordered to indict and prosecute.  When he did indict what was his purpose? That's obvious. He was doing what American prosecutors do in RICO cases. He was using the prospect of jail time, years in the Greybar Hotel, to loosen tongues. He wanted evidence going to the two foundational issues of his investigation, Russian meddling in the election and obstruction of justice.

Now, once again, think like a lawyer. Why do you think we've heard nothing about either of those matters?

I Hope Bob Mueller Has a Sense of Humour

There are some things that just get better with age. That includes scandals. They need time to soak and simmer. Yesterday it was Manafort (plus one) and Papadopoulos.

Trump began yesterday running for cover, focused on distancing himself from Paul Manafort. His former campaign manager's foibles had nothing to do with Trump or his presidential campaign. Besides it all was old news by the time Trump decided to run. It was unconvincing but probably was just what Trump's base wanted to hear.

The George Papadopoulos guilty plea, well that caught Trump off guard. He had to hold fire until he could work out what to say. Today the Mango Mussolini lashed back, calling Papadopoulos a "liar." Hard to argue that one. The guy did plead guilty to lying to FBI investigators. He's a confessed liar. Only Trump needs to maintain that everything Papadopoulos told the FBI after he was caught lying, that's the real lie. Talk about reed thin.

Curiously enough the Russians got into it too. A Russian government spokesperson is arguing that Mueller's case is "cooked up."   Really, how so?


...the spokeswoman for Russia's foreign ministry, Maria Zakharova, pointed out that the 31-page indictment wrongly describes Yulia Tymoshenko as a former president of Ukraine.

In fact, Tymoshenko twice served as the country's prime minister, before being jailed in 2011 on embezzlement charges that the U.S. and others said were politically motivated.

"I liked a lot the bit that, it turns out, according to the recent findings of American enforcers, the Ukrainian president before [Viktor] Yanukovych was Yulia Tymoshenko," Zakharova told the state-owned Russia 1 television station Monday. "We did not know that, but there you go."

She suggested that the mistake undermined the rest of the indictment.

"This is a very important moment showing the way how, once again, this document had been made, cooked up," Zakharova added. "You understand when you talk about serious investigation one cannot allow things like that."

Why am I suddenly thinking Rocky and Bullwinkle, Boris and Natasha? Why did Team Putin even decide to air such a stupid argument?

If this is what we're getting on Day 2 you can only imagine what awaits in the coming weeks as more information comes out of the investigation. It does sound as though Mueller has Putin as rattled as Trump.

There's plenty of new speculation that Papadopoulos, described by the FBI as a "proactive cooperator" probably spent a good bit of time since July meeting with Trump's people while wearing a wire.

Harry Litman, a former US attorney and deputy assistant attorney general, wrote in the New York Times that Papadopoulos' guilty plea is far more immediately ominous to the president and his inner circle than the charges against Manafort and Gates.

A paragraph in the plea agreement indicates that Papadopoulos pleaded guilty on October 5 to lying to the FBI about his contact with the professor and the plea was sealed so that he could act as a "proactive cooperator".

"The meaning of that phrase is unclear," Litman wrote. "But one nerve-racking possible implication is that Mr Papadopoulos has recently worn a wire in conversations with other former campaign officials. This will surely have members of Mr Trump's inner circle agonising about the possibility and wondering who else might have been similarly cooperating with the investigation."

Former public defender and professor Seth Abramson explained on Twitter why the term "proactive cooperator" is probably bad news for others in Trump's orbit.

"Prosecutors often require a defendant to perform cooperative services for the government well in advance of his or her formal plea," he tweeted.

Former US attorney Preet Bharara, who Trump fired earlier this year, told Politico Magazine: "Hard to tell, but the George Papadopoulos guilty plea tells us (a) Mueller is moving fast (b) the Mueller team keeps secrets well (c) more charges should be expected and (d) this team takes obstruction and lying very, very seriously. That should be of concern to some people."

There's a powerful psychological game in play here and, providing you're the one asking rather than answering the questions, it can be immensely fun to play.

And the Hits Just Keep on Coming - Papadopoulis Rolls Over

It's raining Trump conspirators. Just after word got out that Paul Manafort (plus one) has been indicted for tax evasion and money laundering, it's being reported that another Trump aide, George Papadopoulos, has pleaded guilty to lying to Mueller's investigators.  Papadopoulos was a senior foreign policy adviser to Trump during the campaign. It's a safe bet George has decided to play "Let's Make a Deal."

This could be juicy, the break that goes beyond tawdry money laundering.

Paul Manafort is reported to have turned himself in to the FBI. I wonder who'll be posting his bail.

UPDATE

The New Republic seems to agree that the Papadopoulos  plea is possibly a much bigger deal than the indictment of Paul Manafort (plus one) for money laundering and tax evasion.


The Papadopoulos plea is even more important than the Manafort indictment on a number of counts. First, because it is a plea, it suggests that Papadopoulos has flipped and is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The Manafort indictment, by contrast, suggests that Manafort is not yet cooperating, since one major reason for bringing an indictment could be to put pressure on Manafort.

Second, the Papadopoulos plea directly links a Trump campaign official with attempts to make a deal with the Russian government. Papadopoulos had emailed a high-ranking campaign official with a subject heading “New message from Russia.” In it, he proposed to make an “off the record” trip to Russia to meet with Russian foreign ministry officials “in the interest of Mr. Trump and the campaign.”

...

In sum, a member of Trump’s campaign has pled guilty and provided evidence that the campaign did collude or attempt to collude with Russia. That cuts to the heart of the Mueller investigation—and it means that the president should be in very deep trouble.

While the spotlight will remain on Paul Manafort, his indictment does not directly affect Trump - unless and until Manafort decides to cut his losses and roll over on the Mango Mussolini.  Papadopoulos, that's a different matter altogether.

Even most journalists have little grasp of how an investigation of this order works. Those who have been through this before can read a lot into developments, especially the announcement of Papadopoulos' guilty plea atop the Manafort (plus one) charges.  From The Atlantic. 

The Papadopoulos revelations came as a complete surprise and undermined conservative talking points.

“Not only does this suggest that Mueller is taking into account the optics and the politics of the moment, but that he’s actually trying to take advantage of them to maximize the clout of the investigation and to control the narrative,” Vladeck said.

Other filings released Monday revealed Papadopoulos was actively cooperating with Mueller’s investigation as part of his plea deal. “One assumes that the plea deal was in exchange for something” on Papadopoulos’s part, Vladeck said. “And the ‘something’ is clearly not related to the Manafort indictment. So the real question is, what exactly did Papadopoulos give up?”

Papadopoulos’s plea agreement was initially sealed. According to a motion filed in July, were its particulars publicly known at the time, they would have hampered his ability to work on behalf of investigators as a “proactive cooperator.” According to Barrett, that phrase could refer to Papadopoulos “having law enforcement-monitored meetings,” including wearing a wire or arranging “calls or emails with other subjects of the investigation who are unaware that he is cooperating with the government.”

If the Papadopoulos plea was indeed a surprise, it will have Team Trump scrambling especially given that it seems the Trump adviser had been working for Team Mueller for nearly four months. He might have been wired in meetings or telephone calls with top Trump officials. Loose lips sink ships and people who have reason to fear that worry.