I thought this was a fascinating podcast episode: @benjaminwittes interviews his friend Mike Doran, who thinks the Mueller investigation is an absolute outrage, to try to get down to the basis of their differences. A few thoughts (thread). lawfareblog.com/lawfare-podcas…
Some of the differences between the two boiled down to how to deal with uncertainty in an ongoing case. It seemed that Doran consistently sees foul play in the unknown. He seems pretty convinced of it. It leads him to very different conclusions than Wittes.
As a 4th Am nerd, I was puzzled by Doran's efforts to base his views on 4A concepts. If I hear him correctly, he thought it outrageous to open an investigation w/o a public statement of probable cause, and also to rely on plain view evidence -- going where the evidence takes you.
But that's not the 4th Amendment; it's pretty much the opposite. Often, the point of opening an investigation is to see if the investigation will reveal a basis for probable cause to do searches or to make arrests.
And it's standard stuff to rely on plain view -- if a search of a suspect for one reason reveals evidence of a different crime, pretty standard to allow the investigation to turn to that crime.
I was also puzzled by Doran's view that the special counsel is useless if (hypothetically) it only reveals collusion between Putin & members of Trump's campaign, and not w/Trump personally in an intentional way. Should be an issue of remedy, not whether investigation worthwhile.
But more broadly, I thought this was a great discussion. Two friends, both smart people, disagreeing strongly over a drink but really trying to get to the bottom of why they look at things so closely. We need more of that.
