Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fear and negativity are contagious, but so is courage!

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

“woke” is the new caravan.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

“But what about the lurkers?”

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

You are here: Home / Politics / Mueller Report / The Mueller Report Book Club – The Special Counsel’s Investigation

The Mueller Report Book Club – The Special Counsel’s Investigation

by | 20 Comments

This post is in: ,

(pp 11-13)

This section lays the basis for and scope of the investigation. It first cites Rod Rosenstein’s Appointment Order. (The report uses more capitalization than I usually do. It is helpful in pointing to specific documents.) The subjects of investigation are:

(i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and

(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and

(iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).

The last covers “federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, the Special Counsel’s investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses.” It also covers similar crimes committed during the FBI’s investigation that was wrapped into the Special Counsel’s investigation.

Later memos confirmed that the investigation includes

  • allegations that three Trump campaign officials – Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and George Papadopoulos – “committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election”
  • Manafort’s crime arising from payments he received from the Ukrainian government
  • Manafort’s crimes arising from his receipt of loans from a bank whose CEO was then seeking a position in the Trump Administration
  • allegations that Papadopoulos committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government
  • four sets of allegations involving Michael Flynn, the former National Security Advisor to President Trump
  • the “pertinent activities” of Michael Cohen, Richard Gates, Roger Stone, and two names redacted for personal privacy (PP) reasons
  • leads related to Cohen’ s establishment and use of Essential Consultants LLC to, among other things, receive funds from Russian-backed entities
  • individuals who might be working with people being investigated
  • allegations that then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions made false statements to the United States Senate.

That’s a big investigation. Mueller inherited parts of this from the ongoing FBI investigation. It speaks to Mueller’s care that he confirmed with the Acting Attorney General that the bulleted points were indeed to be investigated. Two district court cases have confirmed the office’s authority to investigate these matters.

The Special Counsel’s office operated like a US Attorney’s office. The Office made its own judgements about what to investigate within the stated parameters and, for example, didn’t chase down every news item about a Russian contact with the campaign.

“Certain proceedings associated with the Office’s work” continue and have been transferred to the Department of Justice and the FBI.

The Special Counsel’s team at its max:

  • 19 attorneys – five of whom joined the Office from private practice and 14 on detail or assigned from other Department of Justice components
  • a filter team of Department lawyers and FBI personnel who screened materials for privileged information before turning those materials over to investigators
  • three paralegals on detail from the Department’s Antitrust Division
  • an administrative staff of nine responsible for budget, finance, purchasing, human resources, records, facilities, security, information technology, and administrative support.

They worked alongside approximately 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants, a paralegal, and professional staff assigned by the FBI to assist the Special Counsel’s investigation.

The Office

  • issued more than 2,800 grand jury subpoenas
  • executed nearly 500 search-and-seizure warrants
  • obtained more than 230 orders for communications records
  • obtained almost 50 orders authorizing use of pen registers
  • made 13 requests to foreign governments
  • and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses, including almost 80 before a grand jury.

The FBI also embedded personnel at the Office who did not work on the Special Counsel’s investigation, but rather reviewed the results of the investigation and sent written summaries of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information to FBIHQ and FBI Field Offices. Not all of that information is included in this report.

This ends the preliminary materials in the report. They are important because they tell us some things about what Mueller thinks is important (that Russia interfered in the 2016 election) and how he went about the investigation.

Articles of interest:

Just Security: Unfinished Business: What Mueller Didn’t Cover, But Congress Can

Washington Post: Was Mueller’s dodge on obstruction a blunder — or brilliant?

 

Reader Interactions

20Comments

  2. 2.

    JPL

    In a perfect world the media would be doing this, but instead they let the orange one repeat ad nauseam no collusion. Collusion is the easiest to prove but unfortunately it’s not a crime.

    Thank you for the posts.

  3. 3.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @JPL: I’ve been thinking lately that The Orange One is correct when he says “NO COLLUSION!’ Conspiracy and coordination, perhaps, but right up front Mueller says “No collusion.” Not that that exonerates anyone.

  4. 4.

    JPL

    @Cheryl Rofer: Coordination is probably the correct term. I find it so frustrating to read the material and realize that he not only continues to grift while in the job, but he could win again.

  5. 5.

    zhena gogolia

    Okay, it gets juicy when you start to read about the details of how the GRU stole the e-mails and got them to Wikileaks. Some of the quotes from Assange are unbelievable. So stay tuned, kids!

  6. 6.

    BR

    I just saw this link about the motivation for the Star Wars prequels:

    The larger story of the prequels — Palpatine’s ascension to Emperor — is grounded in history.

    George Lucas: The inspiration for Star Wars, one of the very first ideas, was when Richard Nixon tried to change the Constitution so that he could run for a third term. We all knew he was a crook, he was a bad guy, he did terrible things and we sort of chugged along with it. It wasn’t until the impeachment, and really even later than that, that we understood how completely corrupt he was.

    But that was the idea, which was, “How does a democracy crumble? How does it die?” When it doesn’t die with a revolution — it does in some cases — but not in the world of the ideal democracy, which we thought we had at that time, how does that happen? Would the people vote for it? And yes, they do vote for it, that’s the whole point. There’s an outside threat, and that threat allows the tyrant to take over. And the populace gives up the democratic powers and this guy is suddenly running the show. You end up with the Empire.

    That’s what happened with Palpatine, ultimately. Everybody thought he was a nice guy. But he wasn’t. He was a politician and he was ambitious, and he was a Sith Lord, but he didn’t talk about it. And he was plotting to take over the Republic. He wasn’t just a bad guy that ran around killing people.

    Somebody should do a high profile interview with Lucas about it.

  8. 8.

    Bill Arnold

    @BR:

    That’s what happened with Palpatine, ultimately. Everybody thought he was a nice guy. But he wasn’t. He was a politician and he was ambitious, and he was a Sith Lord, but he didn’t talk about it.

    You all know about the Darth Jar Jar theory?
    This Fan Theory About Jar Jar Binks Will Blow Your Mind (November 3, 2015, Isaac Fitzgerald, Tanner Greenring)
    Jar Jar Binks was a trained Force user, knowing Sith collaborator,…[2]
    I think he (the reddit guy(Lumpawarroo)) is wrong, and that Jar Jar had a non-evil utility function and was an independent adept, perhaps an audodidact, and that he simply fucked up (or got scared) and didn’t prevent Palpatine from taking control. [1]
    This is not a mistake that we (the Resistance :-) will repeat with D.J. Trump and the Dark Forces backing him. :-)

    [1] Also, he’s sorta wrong about mind control. :-)
    [2] For further reading, Darth Jar Jar: a Model for Infosec Innovation, wherein I learned the name for YOLO (you only live once) style infosec defenses including more advanced YOLO-as-a-mask defenses (e.g. honeypots).

  10. 10.

    Bill Arnold

    It is sad that the Mueller investigation was forced to be so narrow. Reading that list again was annoying, again.

    Missed this fairly recent bit about Roger Stone. (Been tracking him, reasons.)
    Google Just Got Roped Into U.S. Government’s Case Against Roger Stone (Thomas Brewster, Jun 10, 2019)

    The government, in its application for the Google order, doesn’t specify why it’s seeking upload dates rather than simply relying on the dates the videos were made available to the public. The DOJ declined to comment beyond what was in court documents.

    Mr. RS’s talents for staying out of prison are considerable.

  11. 11.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Bill Arnold:

    It is sad that the Mueller investigation was forced to be so narrow.

    I dunno. In some ways, it includes quite a bit. And there is the FBI counterintelligence investigation that was wrapped into this and still continues. We have heard nothing about that, unless it’s just the Russian IRA operations and the hacking of the Democratic Party. I find that hard to believe. We will also see some considerable redaction in that area, starting with the next post.

    There is a lot, really a lot, that we still don’t know.

  12. 12.

    J R in WV

    I don’t think Drumpf is how out democracy crumbles… but men like Tom Cotton and Mitch McConnell may be. They know how it’s supposed to work, and they don’t care that it isn’t working right.

    If they were country low life rats, that wouldn’t matter, but they aren’t — they’re Washington DC rats.

    Thanks, Cheryl.

  14. 14.

    Scotian

    Thank you for these Cheryl, I don’t have the mental focus anymore to do the report itself, as I used to be able to, so your work is helping me get what I can out of it in my last days. The distraction it provides is no small help right now, especially given how intently I followed this in 2016.

    So just wanted you to know how much this means to me to have, and how much I appreciate your taking the time to do it.

  15. 15.

    Bill Arnold

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    I find that hard to believe. We will also see some considerable redaction in that area, starting with the next post.
    There is a lot, really a lot, that we still don’t know.

    Agreed. And CI investigations (as Adam keeps pointing out) have different rules and methods about evidence. E.g. there could well be lots of metadata (with no or little content intercepts for much of it) about communications between the Trump campaign/presidency (and maybe other Rs and maybe even Ds) and Russians and other non-US entities. I would be surprised if this was not the case. Also other national intelligence agencies may have supplied such information.

    Saw a link to this, what say you?
    Evidence of microalgal isotopic fractionation through enrichment of depleted uranium (13 February 2019)

  17. 17.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Bill Arnold: Yes, and CI people are also much more secretive, often far too much, IMO.

    I saw that algal enrichment paper on Twitter. Have only skimmed it, but I’m well aware of how biologic isotope enrichments work. It’s a very tiny bit at a time in a system that requires quite a bit to recover the uranium. Algae are finicky about growing, not at all like gases being put through pipes or centrifuges.

    People write papers like this just for the fun of showing they can do or find something. I’ve done it myself. It adds to the resume and gives you a bit of fun, maybe publicity. But I am not worried it will be a mechanism for proliferation.

  18. 18.

    J R in WV

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Can’t possible read that.

    Hate Drumpf, don’t much care for George. Turncoat, both-sides out of both sides of his mouth. Poor journalist, lets Rs get away with anything, won’t honestly discuss anything with liberals.

  20. 20.

    CCL

    Thank you, Cheryl. Invaluable. I am slogging through the report because your bookclub brought home to me the importance of citizens having actually read the report, especially as it is highly unlikely than many of the Congress critters have or will.

Comments are closed.