Then again, the indicments may remain sealed for a period of time while Mueller and his team use them as leverage to flip suspects, who will then cooperate in the investigation. Hence, we don't know if something is coming today, but we do know that charges are coming.
Because charges came faster than most people expected, legal experts suspect this means Mueller is using a "rolling investigation" strategy, meaning a group of suspects will be charged, followed by periods of silence for weeks or months, then a new batch of suspects face charges, and so on.
As a former Justice Department official described it (link here), "rather than conduct his entire investigation and then wrap things up with indictments and possibly a report at the end, he is doing it in stages, the way the Justice Department might attack a drug cartel or a mafia family."
Trump waited until Sunday to respond indirectly to the Mueller news with a spate of desperate-sounding tweets with him trying to fabricate a new scandal involving not him, but instead, the Democrats and Hillary Clinton (details here). The only thing he managed to do with this nonsense was to look panicked.
John Cassidy wrote an excellent analysis of the indictment news for The New Yorker over the weekend
(link here). He writes: "five months into his investigation, Mueller has brought a first set of criminal charges. By the standards of recent special prosecutors, that is fast work, and it confirms Mueller’s reputation as someone who doesn’t like to dally. Now that he has started arresting people, there is no reason to suppose he will stop. And that is precisely the message he wants to send."
Stay tuned. This could be a very exciting week. Or possibly we will remain in "wait and see" mode.
Another guy I need to see more of.
ReplyDelete