Mueller’s done. What now?

Attorney General William Barr answered one of the most burning questions in American politics on Friday: When will Robert Mueller’s Russia probe end?

But there is much more still to learn.

The special counsel just spent the last 675 days investigating Donald Trump and a long cast of the president’s aides, allies and associates — digging deep on questions that could determine the fate of Trump’s White House and his political future. Much of what he found remains a mystery.

Here’s POLITICO’s guide on what to expect in the days and weeks ahead:

Alright, so what did we learn on Friday?

Foremost, that Mueller’s work is done after nearly two years. And we learned that Mueller will not recommend any new indictments regarding the matters he was assigned to investigate — namely, whether the Trump 2016 campaign tried to work with Russia to subvert the last presidential election, and whether Trump obstructed investigators along the way.

But we didn’t learn anything new about what Mueller has found. That information is contained in a report he submitted to Barr, the new Trump-appointed attorney general who was already busy Friday evening reading through the document that his spokeswoman described as “comprehensive.”

Barr this weekend is expected to begin briefing lawmakers about Mueller’s “principal conclusions,” which will quickly find their way to the public, too.

The attorney general also confirmed that Mueller had free reign to investigate everything he wanted. There were no instances, he said, in which his direct DOJ supervisors — a list that included himself, former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — refused requests to take major actions.

So, when will I get to see the report?

The whole thing? Well, sorry, but probably never.

The best you can expect is a summary document that strips out any of the classified and grand jury information Mueller gave to Barr, as well as anything dealing with people whom the special counsel chose not to prosecute. That’s because DOJ policy is not to air people’s dirty laundry if it doesn’t lead to a criminal indictment.

It’s possible the Democratic-controlled House will subpoena the unedited report, something committee leaders have pledged to do. That could lead to further disclosures but also the possibility of a court battle that could drag out for years.

Why was this announced on a Friday evening?

Big news often finds its way out at the end of a work week. It’s a practice entrenched in D.C. folklore. The West Wing even dedicated a whole episode to the practice.

It’s hard to bury something like the Mueller report, though. The special counsel’s team has been showing signs of wrapping up for weeks: shedding prosecutors and FBI agents, shifting work onto federal prosecutors and even closing down its big cases.

When will the White House see the report?

Trump’s deputy White House counsel, Emmet Flood, got the heads up from DOJ that Mueller was finished just after 4:30 p.m. on Friday. But the report itself didn’t get transmitted to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Going forward, White House officials are likely to get a chance to review whatever Barr sends to Congress. That’s the point when the White House could make a play to clamp down on information they believe falls under executive privilege criteria, a vague right presidents have long used to withhold certain details from the public.

Rudy Giuliani, a member of the president’s personal legal team, told POLITICO on Thursday that he doesn’t expect to get a chance to review the summary report before its release to Congress.

“We’re outside lawyers,” he said. “The only ones would be government objections, not personal ones.”

Are there more indictments coming?

A senior DOJ official confirmed that no more new charges would be filed tied to the special counsel’s investigation.

But the department wouldn’t address questions about whether any Mueller-obtained sealed indictments might be released at some point down the line.

Dozens of sealed indictments remain filed in D.C. federal court spanning the nearly two years Mueller’s been on the job. But there’s an important caveat to that: All those could be unrelated to the Russia investigation. For now, though, the possibility remains that a wide range of people who’ve been ensnared in the probe still have no final resolution on their legal fate.

DOJ officials also haven’t provided any kind of comprehensive list of matters Mueller referred to other prosecutors. Mueller has used that tactic on several cases. For instance, evidence that he kicked to the Southern District of New York led to the indictment of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer.

Does that mean Donald Trump Jr. and the rest of Trump’s family members in the clear?

Hard to say, but it seems unlikely that Mueller would leave such a high-profile, polarizing prosecution for ordinary Justice Department prosecutors to handle.

The president’s oldest son, who attended a Trump Tower meeting during the 2016 campaign with Russians promising “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, can breathe easy so long as he’s not mentioned in a sealed indictment. But by all accounts, the SDNY probes, which include a look at the president’s inaugural committee fundraising and campaign finance spending, are still ongoing.

What, exactly, did Mueller accomplish then?

Well, we’re still waiting to see the special counsel’s final judgement on topics like whether Trump and his campaign conspired with the Kremlin to win the White House and if the president obstructed justice through actions like firing FBI Director James Comey.

Frustratingly, though, that judgement may not be a “yes” or “no” conclusion.

If Mueller uncovered salacious evidence, but not enough to bring an indictment, he may omit any mention of those actions, since DOJ rarely publishes findings that don’t rise to the level of a criminal indictment. Comey did notably break that tradition with his press conference at the conclusion of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, a choice that has reverberated across the political landscape since.

For now, what we do know is that Mueller has brought charges against at least 34 people and three companies. That includes guilty pleas from Trump’s former national security adviser, his ex-personal lawyer, and the one-time campaign chairman and deputy chairman. Those pleas have resulted so far in more than 10 years of combined prison sentences.

Mueller has also already detailed the astonishing scope of Moscow’s election meddling. His charges against 12 Russian intelligence officials explained the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign, the pilfering of internal emails and the release of those messages through WikiLeaks and the online persona “Guccifer 2.0.” Additionally, the special counsel lifted the curtain on the alleged “troll farm” housed in Russia’s Internet Research Agency, which filled social media platforms with posts slamming Clinton and backing Trump.

What does Mueller and the rest of his team do now?

Sleep.

Seriously, though, the plans for several members of the special counsel team have already been confirmed. Andrew Weissmann, who led the prosecution of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, is returning to New York University School of Law for a teaching gig. Brandon Van Grack, a national security division specialist, got an assignment to lead a new DOJ unit pursuing the same kind of foreign lobbying disclosure violations he worked on in the Manafort case. The lead FBI agent assigned to Mueller’s team, David Archey, now runs the Richmond, Va., field office.

Several members of the Mueller team who previously worked in private practice are likely to have an easy time finding jobs, or perhaps return to their previous firms — maybe with a raise awaiting them.

As for Mueller, spokesman Peter Carr on Friday confirmed the special counsel would be concluding his service in the “coming days” while a few support staff remain on board to close down the office. Several people who know the 74-year old former FBI director have told POLITICO they expect Mueller will forgo lucrative job offers, media interviews and book deals.

“Mueller is a Marine. He’ll go back to whatever private life he’s got left in him,” said a former senior government official who worked closely with Mueller at the Justice Department. “He doesn’t have that ambition to be heard.”

Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine

Source: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/22/mueller-report-analysis-1233091
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The Article Was Written/Published By: jgerstein@politico.com (Josh Gerstein)

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