Mueller Ain’t Going Away
When Rudy Giuliani joined Donald Trump’s team of lawyers in April of last year, he said that he wanted to help “negotiate an end” to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump-Russia treason. Giuliani publicly stated that he thought he could end the probe within weeks. Fast-forward ten months and we are still hearing, from multiple sources and news agencies, that Mueller could be issuing his final report at any time.
In a recent article in The Atlantic, Benjamin Wittes, editor in chief of Lawfare and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Mikhaila Fogel, an associate editor at Lawfare, make the case as to why such claims are not only misleading but also do a disservice to those closely following the investigation: “It seems a bit weird to speculate breathlessly that we are careening toward some kind of finality without actually knowing either whether the endpoint is near or what we mean when we say that we are reaching it.”
The fact that Mueller, last month, made the move to extend his grand jury for six more months, is a good clue that this is not ending anytime soon. Wittes and Fogel add that this is in addition to the fact that “the prosecutors are dealing with pending litigation, most notably the Andrew Miller and the mysterious Sealed v. Sealed grand-jury cases, not to mention ongoing prosecutions such as the newly filed Roger Stone case.”
While Trump’s lawyers, and those at conservative media such as Fox News, enjoy making the false claim that Robert Mueller is wrapping up in the near future, the facts simply do not agree. The main takeaway is twofold: Mueller’s team members are the only ones who know when the investigation is ending; and those who participated in treason are likely hoping this drags on so their freedom remains intact a bit longer.
I’m a ceramic engineer living in Central New York, avid sports fan but find myself more interested in politics lately.