,
23 tweets,
6 min read
Read on Twitter
(THREAD) Here are 20 indications that Mueller has *months* of work left to do. I write this thread in the shadow of a vague, hesitant, afterthought-like remark that AG Whitaker made today. I hope you'll read on and retweet; this may be the most important issue before the country. 
1/ A note: please do *not* read this thread without watching the below (very short) YouTube video *first*. You cannot understand why Whitaker's comment is unusual, possibly *not* news, and likely inaccurate until you see the context in which it was made.
2/ You also need to know that Whitaker is getting his Mueller info secondhand, via briefings by Rosenstein—who, contrary to erroneous early November 2018 reports, *is* still overseeing the Mueller probe until he leaves DOJ. Meanwhile, Whitaker will be *out* as soon as Barr is in.
3/ And everything from Whitaker *must* come with a mountain of salt: he was, pre-AG, a Trump plant at DOJ briefing Trump about the Russia probe behind Sessions' back, and pre-AG he said, in effect, that the probe was legitimate. DOJ ethics gurus suggested he recuse and he didn't.
4/ Whitaker is therefore repeating the Trump *party line*—Mueller is almost done—which has been reported *seven times before* over a period of a *year* and has been *wrong every time*. Whitaker, who's been investigated for fraud, is as not-credible as any AG America has ever had.
5/ POLITICO today called Mueller's "ever-expanding"—and indeed even if we take Whitaker's words at face value, in the context of a federal probe that's *two and a half years old*, even being *six months* from completion would be *close*. So for all we know, Whitaker meant *that*.
6/ And that's the final point I'll make before I get to the twenty indicators that Mueller has months of work to do: that we actually have no idea what "close" would mean in this context, so all the journalists out there assuming it means "weeks" are just jumping to a conclusion.
7/ Indicators 1, 2, and 3:
8/ Indicators 4, 5, and 6 (all text written by me):
9/ Indicators 7, 8, and 9:
10/ Indicators 10, 11, and 12:
11/ Indicators 13, 14, and 15:
12/ Indicators 16 and 17 (note that "2018" in the last sentence here should be "2019"):
13/ Indicators 18 and 19 (apologies for the reference to Dershowitz but I think a lot of people reading this feed wouldn't believe that there's *any* attorney in America claiming that "all Mueller has" is so-called "process crimes" if I didn't name at least one person saying so):
14/ Indicator 20 (and truly, this one indicator includes so many different lines of inquiry that have shown up on the national radar screen in just the last 60 days that I could only scratch the surface here—and didn't even reference the new "process crimes" Trump commits daily):
15/ What Whitaker said: "I'm, uh, you know, comfortable that, uh, the decisions that were made are going to be, ah, reviewed, uh, yeah, either through the various means we have, but right now the investigation is, uh, I think, uh, close to {pause} being completed, and I hope...
16/ ...that we can get the report from Director Mueller as soon as we—as soon as possible." That's what Whitaker said, with all words/pauses included. It reads entirely differently than how it was presented by the AP and others—as a clear, confident declamation on Mueller's work.
17/ Because all I care about is facts—on an emotional level (which I try to ignore) my interest would be in having this whole thing be over so I can get back to my life—I'll note the implication of the alternative proposition, that the AG meant "weeks" and is right about Mueller.
18/ If Mueller *were* weeks from being done, it'd necessarily mean that there was no criminal conspiracy—and that the hundreds of data points catalogued by legal experts, all the months and years of lying and secret meetups and clandestine deals, actually meant *nothing*. At all.
19/ As a lawyer, I *have* to admit the possibility—the 1 in 1000 odds—that the federal case with the most inculpatory evidence any American has seen in their lifetime is in fact *hundreds* of completely disconnected data-points that point to criminality but somehow fall just shy.
20/ And I will say again that *if that turns out to be the case* it will be a *great day for America* because it will mean that no American on or connected to the Trump campaign did anything wrong during the election besides lying about every single event that occurred during it.
CONCLUSION/ Any lawyer or investigator who's ever worked a case can see that Trump's a career criminal who committed crimes here with the help of 12-15 Americans over a two-year period. We can briefly muse on the 1-in-1000 chance it isn't so, but to do more is irresponsible. /end
UPDATE/ I didn't know about this when I wrote this thread, but it certainly seems to lend credence to everything the thread says.
