Is it the beginning of the end, the end of the beginning, or the reveal of a big ol' Nothingburger? The DC parlor game of speculating about the Mueller investigation has ramped up into smokin' overdrive. Deputy Attorney General and Special Counsel Office DOJ supervisor Rod Rosenstein has announced he will leave office in mid-March. The Department of Justice has a new Senate-confirmed Attorney General, William Barr. Credible sources indicate that the DOJ expects Robert Mueller to submit his final report to Barr as early as next week. And no one knows what is going to happen.
Careful readers of The Daily Kibitz know this: I fully expect Trump, most of his family and his business organization to spectacularly crash into smithereens. I strongly suspect that a significant portion of the Republican party organization will be tarred (and some Democrats). There will be other businesses adversely affected, including financial institutions, media outfits and software companies. When it's all over, US citizens will look back and disbelieve that things could have ever gone so wrong.
The main questions are how, and when? How will the enormous scope of investigations that are underway be completed if Mueller is wrapping it up? And when will justice be served?
First, let's step back a bit. The Mueller Investigation is just that. It is an investigation; it was never designed to be a endgame prosecutorial entity, although it has racked up a number of successful court wins. It is my sense that Mueller's Special Counsel team has reached an inflection point. Mueller & Co. are the best in the business. They know what happened. They have plenty of evidence on lots of things. They know they need more evidence to convict some cases (Paul Manafort and Roger Stone's obstructing lies and refusal to turn state's evidence is crucial here).
A good DA knows that you don't go to court unless you have an 80/85% chance of conviction. And Mueller is politically and legally astute enough to know what he can charge successfully, right now. If he waits much longer to get more evidence, he runs the risk of becoming ensnared in the 2020 political calendar - any and all evidentiary submissions by him after June will be increasingly read with ever-partisan perspectives.
Plus, much of what is being investigated is not necessarily criminal in nature, but is Counter Intelligence-based. Criminal charges may eventually result with CI investigations, but they are tricky.
So, I'm guessing Mueller is going with what he has got right now. But that doesn't mean this is the end of what he's been investigating...
No, sir. Mueller is submitting his report and it will be All Business, reasonably short and to the point (as opposed to that nearly 500 page Starr Report against Bill Clinton's lie about the blowjobs). He will indicate who should be charged and why. He will also indicate why others won't be charged -- and he won't be compelled to offer their names.
But what he has been arranging over the past few months will reveal most of what's left undone. Mueller has been handing off cases left and right to other prosecutorial offices. Anything that isn't Trump Campaign Conspiracy with Russia and Obstruction of Justice to conceal it is in the hands of separate FBI investigations, Eastern District and Southern District New York Federal Prosecutors, Eastern District of Virginia Federal Prosecutors, the District of Columbia Federal Prosecutors, the U.S. Solicitor General, and the New York State Attorney's Office (and prolly other states, too).
Everything that is not closely connected to his original mandate, but has been uncovered in his investigation, has been/will be farmed out. The Mystery Appellant foreign bank which holds Jared Kushner's fate. The various Middle East states that have their sticks in this mud. The array of Quid Pro Quo/Pay to Play agreements to assist and enrich The Trump Organization, Jared Kushner's 666 5th Avenue property, the Trump Inaugural and more. The role of interactions with Bank of Cyprus, Deutsch Bank, Alfa Bank, Rosneft and other financial organizations with Russian Mob (and non-Russian mob) ties. Exposing Russia as the crime state that it is (see Bill Browder and the Magnitsky Act). Demonstrating the staggering amount of international money-laundering (apart from the Trump Organization's complicity) and how it affects the world economy and governance. And much much more.
In essence, Mueller is outsourcing his investigation to plenty of new investigator/prosecutors who do not have the same political lightning rod problem that he has. He will explode his own atom bomb of a report, and it in turn will create the detonation process required of a judiciary hydrogen bomb, fused by these other entities.
But all this will take time. "More?!!" you say? Yes, more. I'm guessing all this will string out over the next 3 - 4 years or so before the last sentence is handed down. Yep, that long. Maybe even longer for some cases, because of the high roller obfuscation methods and high stakes involved.
But this is the most important investigation in the history of our country. So many loose threads extend beyond its core that demand closure. One guy who understands this is Robert Mueller. Take a couple of minutes to read his famous "Iron Triangle" speech from 2011, given to the Citizens Crime Commission of New York. He was FBI Director at the time:
https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/speeches/the-evolving-organized-crime-threat
Yes. This is a guy who fully comprehends the significance of International Organized Crime, and how it manifests in the worlds of Finance and Nation-State Governance. He sees it as an existential threat to our country. And what he has been uncovering with this whole Trump/Russia fiasco leads directly to the very things he loathes the most.
Mueller may submit a report that does not satisfy everyone's quest for justice. But do not think that Mueller's own quest is done. I think we are at the end of Act 2.
Finally, let's all have a rich and well-deserved laugh at the end of rough week. Here is the hilarious Bad Lip Reading rendition of the latest State of the Union address. I think it's the best one yet (the rendition, not the actual SOTU). Watch and prepare for hilarity:
