Sneaky quiet Robert Mueller
Shh, did you hear that? That’s the sound of silence coming, for the moment, from Robert Mueller. He didn’t make any publicly visible moves yesterday because it was a Saturday, and he probably won’t make any visible moves today either. Court is back in session on Monday, but even then, there’s no guarantee Mueller will reveal anything on Monday either. And that’s a good thing. You know why?
Take a look back at the last time Mueller went quiet. He struck a plea deal with Michael Flynn, a crucial player, in early December. Then we didn’t hear a peep out of him for awhile. That was a frustratingly long period of silence, and based on the speed at which he’s now moving, it’s unlikely we’ll see anything like that again. But we now understand that he spent that silent period working on all of the indictments, charges, deals, and maneuverings that we’re now seeing so feverishly on display. Mueller wasn’t sitting with his feet up; he was whipping up a tornado so he could unleash it.
The thing about Mueller is that he only lets us know things when he wants us (and his targets) to know them. Why did he wait four months to publicly reveal that he had arrested George Papadopoulos? We still don’t know for sure. Presumably, the silence was working in his favor while he used the information he got from Papadopoulos, and then things shifted and he decided that putting it out there publicly would work in his favor.
Considering that Robert Mueller has gotten this far this quickly, with nineteen indictments and five plea deals, three of them from Trump’s former key people, and building the mother of all criminal cases against Trump himself while still somehow managing to avoid getting fired, it’s safe to conclude that Mueller’s strategy is working. My gut feeling is that come Monday, he’ll be throwing even more punches. But if he does go quiet for a few days, don’t mistake that for a lack of continued aggressive progress.
