An incredibly clear distillation of the Mueller investigation: which is both bigger, and further along, than you probably think. https://t.co/z6pL87Cxsy
— Nicholas Thompson (@nxthompson) February 6, 2018
I sincerely hope Garrett M. Graff is correct:
… Last summer, I wrote an analysis exploring the “known unknowns” of the Russia investigation—unanswered but knowable questions regarding Mueller’s probe. Today, given a week that saw immense sturm und drang over Devin Nunes’ memo—a document that seems purposefully designed to obfuscate and muddy the waters around Mueller’s investigation—it seems worth asking the opposite question: What are the known knowns of the Mueller investigation, and where might it be heading?
The first thing we know is that we know it is large.
We speak about the “Mueller probe” as a single entity, but it’s important to understand that there are no fewer than five (known) separate investigations under the broad umbrella of the special counsel’s office—some threads of these investigations may overlap or intersect, some may be completely free-standing, and some potential targets may be part of multiple threads. But it’s important to understand the different “buckets” of Mueller’s probe…
1. Preexisting Business Deals and Money Laundering. Business dealings and money laundering related to Trump campaign staff, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former campaign aide Rick Gates, are a major target of the inquiry. While this phase of the investigation has already led to the indictment of Gates and Manafort, it almost certainly will continue to bear further fruit…
2. Russian Information Operations. When we speak in shorthand about the “hacking of the election,” we are actually talking about unique and distinct efforts, with varying degrees of coordination, by different entities associated with the Russian government…
3. Active Cyber Intrusions. Separate from the trolls and bots on social media were a series of active operations and cyber intrusions carried out by Russian intelligence officers at the GRU and the FSB against political targets like John Podesta and the DNC…4. Russian Campaign Contacts. This corner of the investigation remains perhaps the most mysterious aspect of Mueller’s probe, as questions continue to swirl about the links and contacts among Russian nationals and officials and Trump campaign staff…
5. Obstruction of Justice. This is the big kahuna—the question of whether President Trump obstructed justice by pressuring FBI director James Comey to “look past” the FBI’s investigation of Michael Flynn and whether his firing in May was in any way tied to Comey’s refusal to stop the investigation. This thread, as far as we know from public reporting, remains the only part of the investigation that stretches directly into the Oval Office….
There’s fresh reason to believe that this is an active criminal investigation; lost amid the news of the Nunes memo on Friday was a court ruling in a lawsuit where I and a handful of other reporters from outlets like CNN and Daily Caller are suing the Justice Department to release the “Comey memos”: The ruling held that, based on the FBI’s private testimony to the court—including evidence from Michael Dreeben, one of the leaders of the special counsel’s office—releasing the memos would compromise the investigation. “Having heard this, the Court is now fully convinced that disclosure ‘could reasonably be expected to interfere’ with that ongoing investigation,” the judge wrote in our case…
I randomly think of this story every so often. For all the moments in Trump's first year, this one somehow sticks out to me more than others. https://t.co/o5srYf0gwL
— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) February 5, 2018
What's the real story about Russia? @juliaioffe gives her take https://t.co/9FhtUw8wMN
— Reliable Sources (@ReliableSources) February 4, 2018
Trentrunner
Evergreen:
Bob Mueller will not save us.
We will have to save ourselves.
Organize, run, and vote in 2018.
MisterForkbeard
@Trentrunner: Evergreen: Mueller is helpful, and we’re all focused on 2018 and 2020 regardless if what Mueller is doing.
Duane
When this investigation is over and Trumpov is a safe distance from the White House, there should be statues in honor of Christopher Steele, hero and friend to the United States.
Major Major Major Major
@MisterForkbeard: evergreen: ignore the commenter so sad(!) that he started using a series of sock puppets when people kept pieing him.
Lapassionara
Just saw on Twitter that a MO dem won one of the special elections today. I think unexpected, so good news.
Corner Stone
I would say at this point that whatever Mueller does is irrelevant. This last functionary outside the system has failed as badly as all our institutions.
Only overwhelming people power in the enactment of certified votes are left.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@MisterForkbeard:
Exactly. Ignore Bentrunner’s ramblings.
JPL
This is an interesting read.. The timeline fits Ryan, but I can’t figure out why.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/961063241890828288
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hero-or-hired-gun-how-a-british-former-spy-became-a-flash-point-in-the-russia-investigation/2018/02/06/94ea5158-0795-11e8-8777-2a059f168dd2_story.html?utm_term=.3d02865935d6
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Lapassionara: Here you go.
Montysano
Whoever left Trump unsupervised with Sergei Lavrov is guilty of a major national security breach.
Feebog
I still believe Mueller is going to find evidence of direct collusion between the Trump campaign (Cambridge Analylitica) and Russian intelligence.
B.B.A.
Yes, yes, but when is he gonna indict Bernie?
Lapassionara
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Thanks. I don’t know how to link, etc. But good news is good to share.
Marcopolo
We have a flipped district in MO tonight! Lost another 2 but the last is still neck & neck. All heavily R areas. All vote margins moved dramatically towards the Ds from 2016.
Major Major Major Major
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Bernie woulda swung it 32 points.
Bobby Thomson
@B.B.A.: depends on how deep and quick the Russian money laundering investigation is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Feebog: My hunch is that someone in the Kushner circle is the key to all this. Jarvanka were advocates for (IIRC) Manafort and Flynn, pushed the Beast to get rid of Comey, egged on (again IIRC something I read last month) by Papa Kushner. Layers of useful idiots. The Kushners may be clumsy and gross and dumb, but they’re like the Rothschilds or Rockefellers compared to the in-laws.
Lapassionara
@Marcopolo: Yes!
Marcopolo
@Lapassionara: Hey, go ahead and sign up with the Indivisible St Louis group for starters: https://m.facebook.com/IndivisibleSt.Louis/
or here
http://indivisiblestlouis.com/
The three women running it are doing a great job at giving folks productive work to do to elect Ds in MO.
Marcopolo
@Lapassionara: Was great to see Rachel Maddow announce it at the end of her show. Lawrence O’Donnell also said he’d be covering it later (in a few minutes).
WaterGirl
Thank you for this, Anne Laurie. I am feeling sick and horrified after reading about the parade. I am hoping this thread and the article you linked to will help. I find that the parade thing has put me over the edge – I am feeling some of the shock of election night, holding my breath, tears in my eyes, silently horrified. Silently panicking as I sit here.
Splitting Image
It’s really difficult to believe that 1 and 4 don’t also stretch into the White House. If the Russians were actively making contacts in the Trump campaign, it makes sense for them to be in contact with people they have already dealt with. This includes Gates, but it also includes Trump. Given that Trump was and is too stupid to realize that in politics there are times when it is important to not be in the room when a deal goes down, it’s difficult to believe that Trump wasn’t in the room while any collusion was going on, pretending to be at the centre of it.
While the conclusion of 1, 4, and 5 will determine what happens to Trump, I’d say that 2 and 3 are the parts that are most important going forward. It’s no accident that the actions of social media bots and cyber attacks were to the benefit of white supremacists in America, and even if Trump goes down, the fact that American Nazis are aware that they have allies in Russia is going to embolden them going forward.
But her emails!!
@Marcopolo: Anyone know about Mo district 144? It’s curious that it still as 14 our of 44 precincts outstanding, but over 4,100 votes counted where the other precincts are fully reported and only had 3000-3500 total votes cast.
mike in dc
When you look at who Mueller has indicted so far, and who he’s flipped and wants to flip, you can see which of the 5 investigations he likely wants each for:
Papadopoulos: mostly 4, I think.
Flynn: 4, 5, maybe 2
Gates/Manafort: 1 through 4, considering their positions with the campaign.
I expect at least one indictment this year to pertain directly to the question of collusion, or essentially 1 through 4 or some portion thereof. Once that happens, it changes things from “was there collusion” to “how much collusion was there, who was involved, and how was Trump involved”.
Marcopolo
@But her emails!!: Assume I am probably like you spam refreshing the election result website. Dem has a very slim lead. It would be fairly amaze balls to win 2 of the 4 seats. Btw the last 60 GOTV postcards I wrote were for Jim Scaggs in that race. Former small business owner, long serving school board member, Iron County Presiding Commissioner. It’s burned into my brain :).
WaterGirl
@Feebog: You will get no argument from me on that.
Lapassionara
@Marcopolo: I did sign up, the last time you posted the links. I have heard nothing. Not sure what happened, so I think I will give BC permission to give you my email address, if you decide to ask for it. Problem is that I have not yet found a way from my iPad to email her, so it may take a few days. Very excited about today’s results. Yea Dems!
But her emails!!
@Marcopolo:
A bit. I’m just trying to figure out why it’s taking those precincts are taking so long to report and what’s the deal with the high vote total. I’d assume that Missouri districts are roughly the same size population wise, so what’s with the significantly higher turnout despite precincts still outstanding?
Also, good job. I hope he pulls it out. Looks like solid turnout for a special election.
Gretchen
Democrat won a Missouri state legislature seat special election today in a district that Trump won by 29 points. Another district that Trump won by 60 something was only won by the Rep by 30 something
efgoldman
@Bobby Thomson:
Fish rots from the head down. Anybody who thinks that Ferrethead himself wasn’t toupee-deep in money laundering and other financial crimes raise your hand and stand on your head.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: No it doesn’t. Dearlove was Chief of Station in DC from 1991 to 1993.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3121085.stm
So we’re looking at either VP Quayle or one of the Democrats in the running to be President Clinton’s VP including VP Gore. I highly doubt it was Gore.
Marcopolo
@Lapassionara: That’s odd. I get fairly frequent emails from them—but I joined them pre-website. I will send my contact info to BC.
Gretchen
@JPL: Ryan is acting like he’s compromised, so I believe it. Nicole Wallace just smoked him today for being a worthless toady. And this is the gal who tried to get Sara Palin elected, so she knows worthless sellout toadies.
Adam L Silverman
@Montysano: It is even worse than it was originally reported:
https://www.npr.org/2018/01/31/582099085/journalist-details-israels-secret-history-of-targeted-assassinations
Jeffro
@MisterForkbeard: amen! we are not trumpistas – we can walk and chew gum at the same time
Duane
@Lapassionara: At this point, winning a house seat in Missouri is like winning one in Alabama. Missouri voted for Trump and Greitens for governor, both now under investigation.
Marcopolo
@But her emails!!: Everything you’re saying makes perfect rational sense. Nothing I can add atm.
Chet Murthy
@Duane: And the Dutch cyber-intelligence hackers. And the Australian diplomat. A lotta folks came to our aid, a lotta lotta folks. It chokes me up a little as I write this, thinking about all our allies and friends who care about us, even if we’re not always the best America we can be.
Gretchen
@Splitting Image: Lawyer Veselnitskaya, who organized the Trump tower meeting, has said she’s happy to talk to Mueller. Trump was two floors up during that meeting, and speculation is that Trump wouldn’t leave it to Junior to seal the deal without checking it out himself. So was Veselnitskaya taken upstairs to meet Trump after the meeting? She’ll be happy to fill Mueller in.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: I can’t remember how widespread it was, but there was a Republican effort to make people think Clinton had been turned when he went to Moscow during his Rhodes scholar years. I do believe that was the origin of the Dolphin Lady’s infamous “Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.”, the idea that Young Bubba had been caught in a honey trap in the sixties.
I could easily imagine Dan Quayle, Boy Detective, getting it (put) in his empty noggin that he should do some sleuthin’
Patricia Kayden
@Trentrunner: Bob Mueller’s investigation is what keeps me sane. We still have to vote out as many Republicans as possible but we also need all the info we can get to impeach Trump if we can flip Congress.
Patricia Kayden
@Gretchen: Great news.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t think Donny Jr picks his ties in the morning without at least thinking about what Daddy prefer. There was a story a couple of weeks ago that The Beast sent Ivanka out to meet them at the elevators, which (if true) suggests to me he was curious but wanted to keep his fingerprints off the meeting. What’s the phrase: “Consciousness of guilt” ?
Millard Filmore
@Montysano:
What did Trump give him, and who made up the list of goodies? Was Flynn still in the mis at the time?
Adam L Silverman
@WaterGirl: My professional guess is the parade gets slow rolled in planning. The reason for this is that while it is a lawful order, it is also a stupid order. Which is why this leaked. So that pushback can publicly build. But the reason that this will get slow rolled so that it doesn’t happen, or if it does it isn’t anywhere close to what the President wants, is that it will utterly destroy the DOD and the Services budget.
1) We just don’t have that much spare equipment lying around. It is either in maintenance, it is being used for training, or it is forward deployed for operational purposes – where it may also be used for training. When the Navy ran that three carrier group show of force of the coast of Korea in December, they completely destroyed the Naval aviation training, maintenance, and deployment budgets and cycles for the rest of the Fiscal Year. People’s careers are now negatively effected because they couldn’t get their scheduled training at the required time to progress to their next assignments, promotions, and/or both.
2) We just don’t have the funding for this. Every one of these CRs wreaks havoc on the DOD’s and the Services’ budgets. Right now we can’t plan, let alone execute, training more than 30 days out because the CRs don’t last that long. Unless there is going to be a supplemental appropriation to cover this cost, it will come out of hide. And there’s little of that left.
3) We don’t actually have the personnel to do this. The vast majority of the military in the continental US isn’t combat arms. They’re combat support. Or they’re in the schoolhouses.
We are fighting somewhere between five and seven wars right now, depending on how one does the counting, that leaves pressure little left over to do something like this.
Adam L Silverman
@Gretchen: It wasn’t Ryan. As I indicated in comment 31, Dearlove was MI 6 Chief of Station in DC from 91-93. Ryan didn’t graduate from college until late 91/early 92. He then went to work in 92 as a legislative aide in Senator Kasten’s (R-WI) office until Feingold defeated Kasten. Ryan then went to work in 93 for Koch funded Empower America, now doing business as FreedomWorks.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: Buuhleeve Me!
Adam L Silverman
@Chet Murthy:
That would be Canada.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: So – assign the 0-7 version of the “shitty little jobs officer” to come up with a plan and then wait? Finally, he comes back with something patently unworkable and T’s attention has moved on?
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Unless or until Dearlove clarifies, who knows.
Adam L Silverman
@Millard Filmore: Flynn was long gone when this meeting happened.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: Well in that time frame, Yeltsin was the leader. hmm
Gretchen
@Adam L Silverman: I believe you that this particular story isn’t about Ryan, but he and Graham and McConnell are all behaving as if somebody has something on them. We still don’t know what the Russians got out of the hack of the RNC, or other hacks they may have done. As Nicole Wallace said today, Trump may not know how FISA warrants and all that works, but Ryan does. So why is he going along with Nunes?
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I think so. I can’t imagine that any of the Service chiefs are amused. Nor are the Geographic Combatant Commanders and the Service Component Commanders. Every time the President redirects something as a show of force and/or resolve it just royally screws up ongoing operations. Between the sequester and the CR after CR, the DOD’s and the Services’ budgets are a complete mess.
I think part of the discussion about setting it for Veterans Day is that it puts it moves it past the midterms.
PJ
@JPL: But the KGB was still active, and, as we know, there has been strong continuity in that organization and its successors from pre-break-up days until now.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It seems that La Nooner’s speculation comment is from the same column as the dolphin line. O! How Clio must’ve been pouring the gin with a generous hand that morning!
chris
@Adam L Silverman: Standing right here!
But her emails!!
Sad. Looks like Scaggs didn’t pull it off. Still, a pretty close race in a red district and looks like solid turnout on both sides.
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
The British had the right idea in WW2: Cardboard tanks and troops – going around the block and coming back, so it looks to Clamato like the whole fucking Chinese Army.
Adam L Silverman
@Gretchen: As I wrote in December 2016, as the news was breaking, one of my biggest fears was that both sides had been hacked, but the GOP stuff was being held back as, at least, an implicit threat.
As to Ryan’s actual behavior, I have no idea why he does anything other than he really isn’t particularly bright, nor a particularly effective leader or legislator.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Could work.
Marcopolo
@But her emails!!: Final 14 precincts in in Mo-144. R over D 52-47. So farking close. Trump beat Clinton 78-19 in 2016!
Jay Noble
@Adam L Silverman: So maybe all that made it into Trumps brain and the simple solution came to him – we increase the defense budget to get him his parade.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: He is the same privileged, blinkered, entitled adolescent the first time he read Ayn Rand in a leafy neighborhood of an overwhelmingly white small town.
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
Speaking of which (sort of) who is paying for the Oak Island exploration, and how. It costs a few simoleons more for all that equipment, people, and time. A little bit more than six undergraduates with shovels, sifting screens, and brushes.
B.B.A.
@Jay Noble: And the lack of troops? Well, we can always reinstate the draft… /s
JPL
@Gretchen: Steele worked for M16 until 2009 I think, and was often a source for the FBI, He started his own firm with Burrows after that.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay Noble: Doubtful.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: My understanding is that some of it is from the Laginis. The younger one has a successful business. Some of it was probably raised from outside investors. Some of it likely comes from the revenue from the advertisements on the show.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: There are small cities in WI that have some cultural claims. My hometown had moneyed lumber barons who invested in cultural things. Others have state or private colleges. Janesville had the GM plant. The plant is gone.
Gretchen
@Marcopolo: That’s hopeful for the Senate race next year. One of the contenders for the Republican slot demands that his fiancée has a cooked dinner on the table for him every day at 6pm, because feminists have nasty, snake-filled heads. The other thinks that sex trafficking started in the 60’s because of the sexual revolution. With numbers like today’s we should be able to get past either of them. Bonus, Governor Bondage and Blackmail stumps for them.
burnspbesq
@Corner Stone:
And I would say at this point that if you are saying that sincerely and unironically, you’re deeply confused.
burnspbesq
@B.B.A.:
(1) Outside Mueller’s remit. (2) There is already a Federal grand jury in Vermont looking into the Burlington College shenanigans.
Have patience and trust the process.
Adam L Silverman
Matt McIrvin
@Chet Murthy: At one point Noel Maurer mentioned that, in his travels, talking about US politics with people overseas feels different than it did during the GW Bush years: back then, people usually blamed Americans for Bush and assumed they supported him; now, with Trump, they don’t. They actually know he’s not that popular and that any given American they meet may well not be a supporter.
I don’t know–it’s hard for me to gauge, because the only time I traveled internationally during the Bush administration was in his second term when he’d already shit the bed bad, and people seemed to understand then.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: What would be really awesome is that statue blew up and revealed red, white and blue fireworks.
NotMax
“Whoops. Cross my heart, we were sure those weren’t live rounds in the tanks for the firing demonstration performed during the glorious, best military parade ever while facing Mr. Mueller’s offices. Our thoughts and prayers….”
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: Reasonable people are starting to distrust process. I don’t agree with them, but I can’t in good faith talk them off the ledge anymore.
No Drought No More
I take real comfort in knowing that Mueller Inc. and, I believe, the lion’s share of congressional democrats all realize their names will be writ large in American history.
mainmata
This is very useful because it breaks down what Trump and his cronies were directly involved in hacking the election vs. the larger political threats from Russia and its Wikileaks lackeys. I view Trump’s money laundering as directly enabling the Trump campaign’s wholesale Russian hacking of the election even though the campaign itself was a bunch of fools. Russia did the hacking by itself and that’s a real long-term problem.
The President’s obstruction of justice is the most important but least interesting part of the investigation because it’s just Trump being stupid so it was inevitable because he is really stupid.
Russian interference long-term in our political system and a lot of the GOP being complicit in this is the real threat to the country .in my opinion.
clay
@Adam L Silverman:
We could use a man like this these days:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mOEr7kiysrE
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: He should have to run the Army 10 miler to get his parade.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Adam L Silverman:
You know who else liked military parades?
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: That would be good also.
Adam L Silverman
JR
@Adam L Silverman: Artists rendering.
debbie
@efgoldman:
Take old films, photoshop American uniforms onto the soldiers, and hack into Fox. He’ll never know.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
They’ll report that he ran it in 2:39.
;)
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
mrs efg thinks with her kishkes first, maybe engages the brain later. Maybe.
I just went in and told her about MO. She doesn’t want to know trends or political reality, she just said “we lost three. Doesn’t mean anything. And there won’t be any elections anyway.”
Aaauuugh!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Bingo. We only do these on one occasion.
Adam L Silverman
@West of the Rockies (been a while): No, who?
NotMax
@debbie
“While there may or may not be coincidentally superficial similarities, those are not doctored scenes from Triumph of the Will. Believe me.”
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: My person is appalled by the deal that did not include Dreamers. She is an immigrant and Latina. She sees abandonment. The fact that she is Jewish may color her view as well.
MomSense
@JPL:
Actually the timeline fits Stockdale which is interesting.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Adam L Silverman:
I was going Godwin. Someone had to do it.
Adam L Silverman
@West of the Rockies (been a while): I figured, but I wasn’t sure you weren’t making a joke and I didn’t want to ruin the punchline.
Manyakitty
@Chet Murthy: Well said. Hopefully, we will deserve them again soon.
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: I doubt it was Stockdale.
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
I remember Perot was going to replace him before the disastrous debate. Perot called him “provisional” It seemed weird to me then that he would pick a VP and then later announce he had been a temporary pick until he found someone else.
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: Perot never really struck me as a deep or a strategic thinker.
Gozer
@Adam L Silverman:
Or the Nasty Nick.
Adam L Silverman
@Gozer: I’d pay money to see that.
Corner Stone
@burnspbesq: Now let him enforce it.
danielx
@Adam L Silverman:
For the love of jeebus, let us hope he doesn’t see that. He does not need ideas of that nature.
Amaranthine RBG
@Omnes Omnibus:
MMMMMM … spicy.
Jager
@Adam L Silverman: Good, I hate the parade thing. However, part of me would like to see one but only if trump dresses in a Hermann Goring style uniform, preferably white or sky blue, lots of sashes, piping, medals, gold brand and high peaked cap. He and the Reichsmarshall are about the same size, (Goring weighed north of 260) and trump should carry one of those batons like Goring did. I think trump would love it and he’d look great and oh so powerful and leader like to his cultists.
Sm*t Cl*de
@Adam L Silverman:
Izzat the Volkshalle in the background?
CaseyL
@Adam L Silverman: I value your insight and comments, but I’m not sure you’re right about this. The military leadership, which we had been counting on to restrain Dolt45’s worse impulses, has instead embraced them – starting, most infamously, with COS Kelley’s response to Fredrica Wilson over the La David Johnson issue. Kelly traduced Wilson in order to defend Trump.
As for money… the Pentagon ran nearly the whole Iraq War under Bush II using money that was “off the books” (so it wouldn’t show up in the budget) – they’ll probably do the same thing for the goddamn parade.
Bruce K
@Jager: The only part of Goering’s life I’d like Trump to emulate is the last week, except without the cyanide pill the night before the gallows.
oldgold
Seventy-six Abrams led the big parade
With a hundred and ten drones flying close behind
They were followed by rows and rows of the finest torpedoes
Cadet Bone Spurs was clapping out of his mind
debit
@Trentrunner: Just in case you think I’ve forgotten about your utterly vile behavior about Al Franken: Die in a fire, you miserable little shit stain.
tarragon
@Adam L Silverman:
Whoa. Really? I’m curious about this list.