Yesterday, news stories appeared from "sources" that said that a grand jury has voted for the first indictments to stem from the Mueller investigations. The stories say that the indictments are sealed under order of a federal judge. There was no indication of who was indicted or for what alleged crime. Think about that for a minute. Who is the source of the story? It can't be the person indicted or his or her legal team; they don't know yet of the indictment. It's unlikely that it's a member of the grand jury; they are sworn to secrecy and a grand juror breaking that secrecy would put the whole matter at risk. Individual citizens on grand juries do not typically break the order of a judge who directs them to stay silent on pain of punishment. No, the likely source for this story (assuming, as I do, that it is not fake news) is the Mueller team. These are the lawyers who asked in the first place for the indictment to be sealed. So why are they leaking this to the media?
The answer to this question is pretty obvious. In the last week, Mueller has taken quite a beating in the press. First we learned that as head of the FBI, Mueller investigated the Russian bribery, extortion and coercion surrounding the Uranium One purchase. Mueller, however, did not inform the people making the decision on approval of that deal (supposedly) about the investigation and what it found. He could have told those people making the decision and they likely would have then turned down the Russians' criminal enterprise designed to win them 20% of the uranium production in the USA. Of course, then there's also testimony coming (or so we are told) that a confidential informant who embedded himself in the Russians' illegal activities at the behest of the FBI was told that president Obama was being kept abreast of the Russians' activities in his daily intelligence briefing. That would mean that Mueller participated in a scheme in which Obama kept news of the Russian criminal activity (including giving over a hundred million dollars to the Clintons and other major Democrats) under wraps. This mess ought to be enough to have Mueller recuse himself. Second we learned that the Trump dossier was actually false information paid for by the DNC and the Clinton campaign. Then the FBI used the bogus info to get a FISA warrant that allowed it to spy on the Trump campaign. We also learned that the lawyer who lured Donald Trump jr. into a meeting supposedly to discuss info harmful to Hillary in the possession of the Russians but which turned out to be about adoption law actually worked with Fusion GPS (the group hired by the Clintons to create the dossier with the phony stories about Trump. In other words, we learned that the main basis for the entire Mueller investigation is flawed at best and completely phony at worst. Mueller's investigation was on life support. In this kind of an atmosphere, Mueller's team wants to change the narrative. What better way to do that than to leak a story of a supposed indictment.
Many times in investigations sealed indictments are never unsealed. The person who is being indicted makes some sort of a deal to help the investigation and the indictment is dropped. Indeed, since it is sealed, the defense of those eventually indicted may never even know of the sealed indictment. If anyone asks about the indictment, the response is that it cannot be discussed because it is sealed. What better story to leak than one about which no follow up questions can be asked.
With that in mind, it is interesting to see the coverage of this news. It isn't making that big a splash except inside the Democrat/media bubble. Last night after the story broke, CNN had a panel discussing whether or not the President could pardon himself in view of the indictment. For CNN, a first indictment from Mueller means that Trump is in big trouble. That is just their wishful thinking, but it is indicative of the sort of coverage they provide. I don't get why anyone ever watches that network.
The answer to this question is pretty obvious. In the last week, Mueller has taken quite a beating in the press. First we learned that as head of the FBI, Mueller investigated the Russian bribery, extortion and coercion surrounding the Uranium One purchase. Mueller, however, did not inform the people making the decision on approval of that deal (supposedly) about the investigation and what it found. He could have told those people making the decision and they likely would have then turned down the Russians' criminal enterprise designed to win them 20% of the uranium production in the USA. Of course, then there's also testimony coming (or so we are told) that a confidential informant who embedded himself in the Russians' illegal activities at the behest of the FBI was told that president Obama was being kept abreast of the Russians' activities in his daily intelligence briefing. That would mean that Mueller participated in a scheme in which Obama kept news of the Russian criminal activity (including giving over a hundred million dollars to the Clintons and other major Democrats) under wraps. This mess ought to be enough to have Mueller recuse himself. Second we learned that the Trump dossier was actually false information paid for by the DNC and the Clinton campaign. Then the FBI used the bogus info to get a FISA warrant that allowed it to spy on the Trump campaign. We also learned that the lawyer who lured Donald Trump jr. into a meeting supposedly to discuss info harmful to Hillary in the possession of the Russians but which turned out to be about adoption law actually worked with Fusion GPS (the group hired by the Clintons to create the dossier with the phony stories about Trump. In other words, we learned that the main basis for the entire Mueller investigation is flawed at best and completely phony at worst. Mueller's investigation was on life support. In this kind of an atmosphere, Mueller's team wants to change the narrative. What better way to do that than to leak a story of a supposed indictment.
Many times in investigations sealed indictments are never unsealed. The person who is being indicted makes some sort of a deal to help the investigation and the indictment is dropped. Indeed, since it is sealed, the defense of those eventually indicted may never even know of the sealed indictment. If anyone asks about the indictment, the response is that it cannot be discussed because it is sealed. What better story to leak than one about which no follow up questions can be asked.
With that in mind, it is interesting to see the coverage of this news. It isn't making that big a splash except inside the Democrat/media bubble. Last night after the story broke, CNN had a panel discussing whether or not the President could pardon himself in view of the indictment. For CNN, a first indictment from Mueller means that Trump is in big trouble. That is just their wishful thinking, but it is indicative of the sort of coverage they provide. I don't get why anyone ever watches that network.
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