An old Christian superstition has it that graveyards are
dangerous places because the damned souls of the departed linger there. It was thought that angels shunned such
places for this reason. In early eighteenth
century London, St. Paul’s Churchyard, which is to say its burial ground, was the center of the book trade. In
his great poetic work, An Essay on
Criticism, Alexander Pope attacks the literary critics of his day, for
whom he had a bottomless contempt. At
one point, alluding to their involvement in the book trade, he writes of them
that Fools rush in where angels fear to
tread.
And so, despite Pope’s warning, I rush in to offer predictions. I shall spare you the disclaimers, which
would be otiose.
Mueller’s grand jury meets on Fridays. There has been no news that the grand jury
has been dismissed. The role of grand
juries is to hand up indictments. I
infer that there are more indictments to come.
It is the practice of the Justice Department not to call before a grand
jury someone who is a target of an investigation, which is to say someone who
is in jeopardy of being indicted [because such a person would simply invoke the right not to incriminate himself or herself.]
Donald Trump Jr. has not been called before the grand jury, despite
having participated in the much discussed Trump Tower meeting. I infer that Donald Trump Jr. will be
indicted. It is possible, perhaps even
likely, that Mueller will ask the grand jury to hand up a RICO-style set of
indictments of Americans engaged in a conspiracy with Russians already indicted
to defraud the United States of America by illegally interfering with the 2016
election. If such a blanket indictment
were to be handed up, it would probably be the final legal act by the Mueller
team before the submission to the Attorney General of the report required by
the terms of Mueller’s appointment.
Therefore, keep an eye out for news that the Mueller grand
jury has been dismissed.
12 comments:
Professor Wolff,
From your perspective, what do you make of recent news that the Trump White House team sees the Mueller report as a potential good talking point, and Trump himself saying it should be made public (in some of his moods at least?
Would they be going down that route if they had any fear of a Trump/Trump family indictment?
Ignore Trump's expansive statement that everyone should see the report IF AG BARR AGREES. he also said he was eager to sit down and answer Mueller's questions IF HIS LAWYERS AGREED and of course he never did. As for the recent news, I think it means nothing, one way or the other. I suspect they haven't a clue.
Professor Wolff I'm very confused on this point:
"...Donald Trump Jr. will be indicted. It is possible, perhaps even likely, that Mueller will ask the grand jury to hand up a RICO-style set of indictments of Americans engaged in a conspiracy with Russians already indicted to defraud the United States of America by illegally interfering with the 2016 election. "
I have not followed the Mueller investigation in any 24 hours news cycle sense. I just passingly pick up bits here and there. But so far as I can tell, everyone presently indicted, interviewed, sentenced, etc., has been targeted for financial/corruption machinations unrelated to Russian influence in the election. Why would you think a Russian-Conspiracy indictment is in the works, instead of either the investigation ending, or more indictments related to non-Russian influence crimes?
Because the first and by far the most numerous indictments brought by Mueller have been the indictments of large numbers of Russian agents [twenty? more?] for a conspiracy to interfere in the US election. The obvious unanswered question is whether Americans were part of that conspiracy. There is a good deal of public evidence to suggest that the answer is yes, but at this point we do not know.
I hope you are right.
My fear is that if no American is indicted and convicted of conspiracy, Trump will effectively weaponize the probe during the 2020 campaign. My fear is based on the rather flimsy, if not spurious, public evidence to suggest "the answer is yes," smoke-screen indictments of large numbers of Russian "agents" not withstanding.
Hopefully exposure of the financial crimes will save us in any case.
Right now, given my limited reading of the matter, I have to side with Jerry, both in his fears and in his skepticism about what constitutes clear evidence...
I am rather optimistic and it is based on the the fact that Trump and Trump Enterprises have been operated as criminal family enterprises for decades. Just as Trump is constitutionally incapable of telling the truth, and apparently so are his family, he is incapable of conducting business or politics in a non criminal manner.
The connection to Russian interference is most likely going to come from Gates' testimony about the transfer of polling data to Kalimnick, testimony re: the Trump tower meeting, and other evidence, likely from Flynn or Butina. We know from court papers that Flynn is cooperating in the matters of links and coordination between the Russian Government and the Trump campaign. Redactions are frequent and long in court documents related to this issue indicating they are substantive issues that can't be identified publicly as of the date of the sentencing memos.
Butina was indicted for a range of activities that included establishing back channel communications between republican and Russian officials. She could be another source of evidence regarding attempting to switch republican platform positions on Russia from negative to positive in order to weaken sanctions and to infiltrate the U.S.national security apparatus.
Mueller has impressed me with the amount of evidence behind all of the indictments and there is a lot of material we don't know about because of redactions or no indictment has been filed. If George Conway thinks trump is decompensating now, I bet the time for the 25th amendment may came soon after Trump sees Mueller's report.
An aside: the Butina case is very revealing of the NRA and Republican politicians willingness to buy into a Russian agent's wildly implausible cover story that there was a gun rights movement in Russia. One an only marvel at the depths of idiocy and gullibility possessed by the paranoid right.
I appreciate the phrase, "constitutionally incapable of telling the truth," as applied to our current POTUS. In my opinion, that characteristic is virtually a requirement of the job.
A few tidbits the MSNBC and CNN telenovela Russiagate leave out based: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
statement on "Mueller’s Forensics-Free Findings"
https://bit.ly/2CwTScu
Also, did you know that one enterprising researcher, not employed by corporate media,
asked the government, via FOIA, what it had on Seth Rich's relation to Wikileaks. Turns out the gov
has 32 pages on the subject, but sorry, we can't see them because they are classified Top Secret.
https://bit.ly/2UNZEhl
BTW: Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee was on the tube the other day still claiming that "17 intelligence agencies"
bla bla bla. Don't these people have staff? Add Bill Maher into that mix. Propaganda works.
Jerry,
I gave up on Maher years ago. Insufferable program. He's literally the embodiment of liberal elite that makes even me want to vote for Trump.
That Seth Rich stuff is interesting... That's one of those scenarios where I'm weary to embrace conspiracy theory, but it's hard not to! Just like the death of Michael Hastings.
Chris, It is interesting how anyone who explores conspiracies that are filtered out by the establishment is a "conspiracy theorist" - but the those who endorse conspiracies that the establishment favors and which, therefore, do not need evidence, like the collusion conspiracy are not conspiracy theorists but "adults in the room."
As you know, if we bring up the name of Seth Rich we are nut cases. Given that the establishment doesn't want us to look there, I think it would be fruitful to do so. The one aspect of this whole saga that does not add up and which has no forensic evidence to support it (the contrary being true) is the initial "hack" of the DNC. There is Craig Murray, former British ambassador, who claims to have handed over a thumb drive, with the leaks, to Assange, but Muller hasn't interviewed him, nor have any of the talking heads on MSNBC. So Seth Rich might have been a disgruntled DNC worker. Now we know he was in communication with Assange. How? Because FOIA docs say so but we can't see them because they are Top Secret. Why?
But we can't go there. And I agree the death of Hastings was quite odd. But hey, the FBI and CIA don't murder political enemies, right?
I often recall Ralph Nader's story about when he was a child coming home from grade school and his father asked him, "Ralph, did you learn to think today or did you learn to believe?"
Good luck in your job search.
Jerry,
My general take on both incidents is yes it could be state machinations, or it could be exactly what the state says. I'm just in a position of ignorance. Both seem so plausible I'm hesitant to weigh in.
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