During a hearing in district court on Wednesday, assistant U.S. attorney David Goodhand responded to a question from the presiding judge about the status of special counsel Robert Mueller’s grand jury by saying that “It is continuing. It’s continuing robustly.”
Mueller’s conclusions have been handed over to Attorney General William Barr. Barr has handed over his four-page fluff of Donald Trump. And officials at the Department of Justice have made it clear that there are no more indictments. Not future indictments. Not sealed indictments. No more indictments. So a report from Politico that the grand jury charged with investigating Russian collusion into the 2016 presidential election is “continuing robustly’” seems to make about as much sense as saying that the wait staff on the Titanic is still doing a very fine job.
Earlier, Mueller had requested the maximum extension for the term of the grand jury, a request that could keep it seated until June. However, that extension seems rather pointless if there are to be no indictments. No matter what else the special counsel’s office might be doing in winding up its accounts, there’s no need for a grand jury, much less a “robust” grand jury, unless someone, somewhere in that office is trying to issue an indictment. There is literally nothing else that grand juries do. They’re not making calls, reading files, or doing the accounting. They listen to testimony and statements from the prosecutors, and they determine whether that information warrants an indictment for a felony crime. End of story.
The statement about the jury came during the latest hearing concerning the so-called mystery company, the foreign firm that’s been seeking to avoid testifying to the special counsel or appearing before the grand jury. The firm has been held in contempt for refusing to obey a subpoena from the special counsel’s office, and that charge has now been upheld all the way to the Supreme Court. By disobeying the subpoena, the company is piling up $50,000 a day in fines, with a total now in excess of $3 million.
And … what the [fill in word here] does this mean?
We know it’s a foreign company. But … that’s about all we know.
What that mystery company knows that remains of interest to the special counsel’s office is still unknown. It’s wholly owned by a foreign country, but has a U.S. office. It’s been identified as a witness to a potential crime, not a suspect. It really doesn’t want to testify. That’s about everything that is known.
That the question about the grand jury was asked and answered in connection with the mystery company may mean that the jury’s activity is centered around crimes connected to what the company has to say. However, for a jury to be “continuing robustly” on this topic when the company itself has yet to give testimony certainly implies that there’s more going on than just the testimony of this one mystery witness.
If the grand jury is still sitting, that has to mean that there are still at least possible indictments in the future. Which means that the “Justice Department officials” proclaiming no more indictments are just blowing smoke. Which means … has Mueller actually finished? Did he ever really turn anything over to Barr? Can we just rewind the whole last week?
It’s a mystery.
