A federal grand jury in Washington on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter.
The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge. Plans were prepared Friday for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as Monday, the sources said. It is unclear what the charges are.
As Sarah Kendzior tweeted:
The thing bothering me is "Why let your suspects know the arrests are coming on a Friday before arresting them on Monday? You're giving them ample opportunity to skip..."
Anywho. Back to Balloon Juice and the ever-informed Adam Silverman:
...Mueller inherited the joint counterintelligence investigation that had begun during the summer of 2016 into Russian active measures and interference in the 2016 election. This means that Mueller and his team in the Special Prosecutor’s office have access to the full range of US, allied, and partner intelligence and counterintelligence related to the issues he’s investigating. It is this material that forms the bases of FISA warrant requests, not political oppo research like Fusion GPS’s Steele dossier. (Personal note: The Steele dossier still has value as it corroborated a lot of stuff the Intel agencies were finding)
In seeking to bring charges, which are not always the focus or outcome of a counterintelligence investigation, Mueller has to navigate from the world of intelligence and counterintelligence, from the classified world of need to know and special access programs to information that can be brought before a grand jury. This means that while Mueller, his team in the Special Prosecutor’s office, and those on the joint counterintelligence task force he inherited know the full depth, breadth, and scope of what happened, how it happened, why it happened, where it happened, and who it happened to it doesn’t mean he can just curate that into a compelling narrative and bring it to the grand jury. Like everyone else with a clearance and access he has to protect not just the information, but the sources and methods that were utilized to get the information. This means that whatever information he brings to the grand juries he has access to, and whatever charges he brings, are going to have to fit within the body of Federal criminal law.
As a result there is a lot of speculation that what he’s doing looks like a white collar investigation and prosecution or one of organized crime... But it is true in that he and his team have to find evidence that can be presented to the grand jury and then utilized in a trial to prosecute those who are the target of his inquiries and the joint counterintelligence task force. We may never see a charge of espionage, because while it certainly happened with the hacking of Podesta’s emails, the DNC, the DSCC, and the DCCC, as well as similar hacking of GOP organizations and officials, Mueller may not be able to make that case without divulging sources and methods. Instead he’s got to find another way to get at those who engaged in these activities through more mundane charges. Hence all the speculation about leveraging Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN), as well as other investigations into financial and business irregularities into Manafort, Flynn, etc...
By the sound of it, Mueller isn't charging everybody tied to the Russia-trump Connection: You get one shot in these investigations, and if you don't have enough solid evidence to charge someone you shouldn't risk the attempt. He's getting the ones he knows committed acts so obvious that they can't weasel their way out of the charges. Those are the ones he can flip to testify on the others in the inner circle of this scandal.
That said: Far be it for me to speculate...
As Silverman noted, the obvious suspects are going to be Paul Manafort and Mike Flynn.
Manafort in particular has got so many questionable business ties to Putin's Russia and to a corrupt pro-Russia Ukrainian regime that it's surprising he hadn't been arrested ages ago. Flynn is an interesting player in this scandal given the close ties he has to trump and trump's relatives, as well as ties to the Russian players suspected of the illegal hacking of everyone's (including the GOP's) emails. Flynn had been the subject of trump's attempts to stymie and obstruct the investigations - in particular Acting DoJ head Sally Yates and FBI Director Comey - which hints at how valuable Flynn was to him (trump does not show this kind of interest in someone outside of his own family).
But part of me thinks that Mueller has enough information on other parts of the scandal - in particular donald trump junior's meeting with Russians claiming to have dirt on Hillary - that the recent leaks about that meeting detailing how the Kremlin had beforehand knowledge of the meeting may indicate Mueller has enough on trump's scheming kids to file charges on them.
It would be interesting at the least to see trump's reaction to seeing on news channels other than Fox Not-News his own kin getting dragged off in handcuffs for their perp walks.
One can hope...
Update: Crooks & Liars offered a link to another blogger at Cannonfire who is also guessing on the amount of celebratory drinking he'll be doing Monday afternoon.
Addendum to the Update: So who DO I have getting the indictments? If you follow the charts at the Politico website, you might see who the likely suspects are...
Flynn: 80 percent
Manafort: 75 percent
Kushner: 75 percent
trump junior: 50 percent
Carter Page: 40 percent
Roger Stone: 25 percent
Jeff Sessions: 15 percent
Felix Sater: 10 percent
1 comment:
If they have to indict the whole, sick, lot of them one at a time, and it takes a few excruciating (for them) years to complete, I'm OK with that. Even if they can't get them all, at this point what I really want to see is the process of justice function.
That is, I want to be shown that they didn't break that too.
So I'll take it, flaws, shortcomings, and all.
-Doug in Oakland
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