I’m not a former DOJ prosecutor. I’m not even a lawyer. Or a journalist. Just a guy who, like you, has been following the Mueller investigation. I have a few thoughts and questions in light of the news that Mueller has concluded his investigation and no further indictments from Mueller (that’s an important detail) are expected.
It seems to me that people are making too much about the lack of additional indictments. Yes, maybe some of this is wishful thinking because I wanted to see Bobby Three Sticks really take it to Trump. However, I do think there is cause to be hopeful additional indictments will surface.
The assumption among many appears to be that means Mueller found no proof beyond a reasonable doubt that additional Russia-related crimes were committed. Part of their reasoning is an assumption that Mueller would have brought those indictments himself.
I see three primary reasons to cast doubt on those assumptions.
- The argument that resonates the most with me has to do with everything we’ve heard about how important the Department of Justice’s reputation is to Robert Mueller. For months Trump has worked to paint Mueller and his prosecutorial team as either biased or illegitimate. In the last few days he’s been pushing that hard. If Mueller indicted members of his inner circle or released a damning report, Trump wanted the reaction from his base to be, “So what? Mueller was biased against Trump from day one.” So if you were Robert Mueller and you want to protect the reputation of the DOJ and remove even the appearance of bias, no matter how unwarranted, wouldn’t it make a lot of sense to hand off your evidence and let the indictments come from the offices of U.S. Attorneys appointed by none other than Donald J. Trump?
- Did Mueller see his role as primarily prosecutorial or primarily investigative? I’ve read conflicting accounts. If the latter, it wouldn’t be surprising if he decided to leave the prosecution to somebody else. After all, there are many members of his prosecution team still working at the DOJ, and DOJ could always bring Mueller himself back to work on the prosecution. But he’s already prosecuted cases, you argue? True, but those prosecutions were, at least in part, designed to flip witnesses and generate new evidence. That approach certainly appears to have worked with Michael Flynn and Rick Gates, not to mention others we haven’t heard so much about like George Nader. Isn’t it at least possible, perhaps even likely, Mueller decided to not jeopardize his investigation by indicting the likes of Donald Trump Jr and Jared Kushner becuase it more than likely would have led to the immediate dismissal of both Rosenstein and Mueller?
- Speaking of Flynn and Gates, and to a lesser extent people like Nader, and given all we’ve heard about their cooperation, including the multiple sentencing delays due to ongoing investigations, is it really plausible there’s nothing more to come? Yes, Gates helped in the Manafort prosecution and may be useful in investigations of the Trump inauguration and transition. And yes Flynn is expected to testify against Bijian Kian. But is that really all prosecutors got out of them? Seems doubtful. (I’ll also point you to this Seth Abramson thread with some additional reasons to be doubtful.)
You can follow me on twitter @bradams.