Three ways we know more indictments in Robert Mueller’s investigation are still coming from other prosecutors
Yesterday afternoon I was rather hard on MSNBC for its initial coverage of the news that the Robert Mueller report had been submitted, particularly when Senator Richard Blumenthal tried to explain on-air that more indictments were likely coming from the likes of SNDY, and he was cut off mid sentence, because it didn’t fit the host’s narrative. As the evening went on, other MSNBC hosts did a much better job of acknowledging that more Mueller-spawned indictments could be on the way. Still, little was laid out about how we know more indictments are coming. We can count at least three different ways.
1) Redactions: Nearly all of Robert Mueller’s lengthy court filing three months ago about Michael Flynn’s cooperation was blacked out, which means that it involved ongoing criminal cases. Flynn got a free pass despite committing serious crimes. That means he sold out people who are bigger fish than he is, and he gave up solid enough evidence to lead to indictments. None of that information has since been released, meaning investigations are still ongoing into those big fish.
2) Grand juries: Yesterday, Roger Stone associate Andrew Miller informed the Atlantic that Mueller’s office still wants him to testify about Stone before a grand jury. Grand juries only have one purpose, which is to deliver indictments. So if Mueller is done, this means some U.S. Attorney’s office is taking over the Stone case, and will be looking to bring more indictments against Stone. Do you think this is really the only instance of this?
3) New hires: The SDNY, which would be in jurisdictional position to bring many of the additional Trump-related federal indictments, just hired a heavy hitter yesterday to serve as its new number two. Thanks to Geoffrey Berman’s longtime recusal, the new number two would be handling any Trump-related indictments. You don’t hire heavy hitters for nothing.
