Thread by @SethAbramson

In response to my thread disassembling his claim that "Mueller crimes fit into 3 categories: process crimes that occurred after he was appointed; financial crimes unrelated to the Russia investigation; and crimes by non-Americans," @AlanDersh has changed his argument. Do I reply?

https://twitter.com/AlanDersh/status/1091501180851757057

2/ For instance, his claim that Bob Mueller's authorizing document indicates that he should acknowledge "core," "secondary," and "not directly related" categories of crimes is *false*. In fact, Mueller's authorization implicitly demands the *opposite*: that all crimes be pursued.

3/ @AlanDersh also falsely says that Mueller's only purpose in conclusively establishing Manafort's and Gates' motives to collude by showing their financial status when they decided to work for Trump for "free" was in fact to "pressure them to provide information against Trump."

4/ Oddest of all, Alan crows about how the Russians Mueller charged "will never be brought to trial" and how Mueller has *thus far* not charged an American with conspiring with those Russians... *even though the evidence he's collected shows that an American did*. Patience, Alan!

5/ Alan *also* says that (what he calls) Mueller's "secondary role"—to prosecute any crimes he finds—"has produced many more indictments that the primary one" (to prosecute people for collusion). That's, uh... wildly false? There are *many* more indictments in the latter basket.

6/ Alan's tripartite argument:

(1) Forget the indictments for collusion!
(2) See! There are no indictments for collusion!
(3) Also, any indictment Mueller hasn't brought in 18 months will probably never happen!*

*Ken Starr took nine years to investigate President Bill Clinton.

7/ What I can't get over is, what type of argument holds it significant that "nearly all" indictments in a short period—just 20 months, a *blink of an eye* for an investigation like this one—fit into "one of three categories"? Why doesn't Alan tell us more about the *exceptions*?

8/ Alan tells us to a) ignore the *majority* of Mueller's indictments, which involve Russian interference—crimes even Alan calls part of Mueller's core mandate—and then b) *admits* that *some percentage* of the other indictments *don't* fall into the two baskets he's angry about.

9/ What Alan is really saying: "The majority of Mueller's indictments are exactly what I think he should be doing—but unfortunately, by no fault of Mueller's, those defendants won't show up to trial. Some of his other indictments are also OK by me. A *few* I have a problem with."

10/ But what I've shown is that *every* indictment Alan has a problem with is *essential* to what Alan himself has called Mueller's "core" mandate. In fact, we can't find *any* offense Mueller *didn't* hand off to someone that *doesn't* aid him in his (per Alan) "core" mandate.

11/ Indeed, I'll go in the *other* direction and say Mueller must be *criticized* for *not* keeping the Butina case under his control and supervision, as it's *very much* about Russia-US collusion during the election. Mueller handing it off allowed demagogues like Alan to thrive.

12/ Just so, I *also* criticize Mueller for handing off the *Cohen* case, as Cohen's behavior managing Trump's illicit funding and campaign schemes before and after the election—including Russian collusion before and after the election—was of a piece, and Mueller should say that.

13/ It's no coincidence that Cohen was shaking down women with threats, NDAs, and secret deals with their lawyers *before* the election and then shaking down foreigners for money *after* the election—in both cases as Trump's fixer and bagman. This was Cohen's *role* with Trump.

14/ But I'll say this: Alan got one thing right. He says that I was presumptuous to presume that he gave me an A+ in Criminal Law at Harvard Law School in the late 1990s because I "thought like him." I should have said that I earned that grade by thinking for myself—as I am here.

15/ Alan and I have both been in the trenches of our criminal justice system—we know how it works. And we both know that the way he describes how the system should work for a man in his social milieu—Trump—is not how it works for the rest of us. And that's his gravest error. /end