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Many people have been asking me why there have been so few booms lately. I have a few thoughts on that. They are admittedly speculative. /1/
Booms require energetic journalism. They also require informed sources willing to cooperate. So let's think about source bases, their... /2/
knowledge and its freshness, and their accessibility at the present time. The exercise gives a sense of the reason for the current lull. /3/
In the early Trump period a lot of information came from former Obama administration officials. Some was on the record. Some was leaked. /4/
Some reflected information obtained during service into the Trump administration. Some was information from service in the prior /5/
administration. But the point is that these people's information was perishable, because they were not still in government. /6/
It has dried up at this point. /7/
The second set of sources appear to have been IC leaks. This was always a very small (and very upsetting) set, so it's not surprising /8/
that they remain very rare and are not accounting for sustained press breakthroughs on L'Affaire Russe. As they involve serious... /9/
breaches both of national security and civil liberties, we should all be grateful for that. /10/
A third set of sources is congressional investigators. A lot of material comes out as congressional committees learn things and receive /11/
document production. A whole bunch of things came out over the summer as witnesses interfaced with committees. That has slowed down. /12/
The result of all this is a decided shift from the intelligence/counter-intelligence side to the legal side. This is a very important /13/
dynamic that changes the modality of sourcing a lot. Instead of key disclosures coming from government/intel, they are now coming /14/
from two places mainly: a snake pit of a political level, mostly in the White House, and lawyers for witnesses and subjects. /14/
This means that the rhythm of disclosure is highly conditioned by (a) investigative activity and (b) the desire of lawyers to discuss /15/
the activity they are seeing. Because Mueller's shop is not leaking but is driving the train, disclosures reflect the pace at which /16/
(1) things happen that are detectable to anyone outside Mueller's shop and (2) the outside person talks about it. To put it simply, /17/
the reason stories have slowed down is that Mueller's not taking many outward facing steps yet and nobody has insight into his thinking /18/
When will it change? It will change when Mueller starts interviewing witnesses and their lawyers start whispering in the ears of /19/
reporters what they said. We are not far from that now. Priebus's lawyer announced his client spent a day with Mueller's people. /20/
You can bet your left arm that there is feverish journalistic attention going on right now to finding out what he said. That's going /21/
to replay with every other major witness--and many minor witnesses--and if Priebus manages to keep his own counsel, others will not. /22/
This iterative process of the press tracking Mueller's investigation by following his witnesses and their lawyers is where the next /23/
major set of booms is coming from. And it hasn't really heated up--yet. So stay tuned. The clock is ticking and the fuse is burning. /24/
That's all I got. /25/
So #BabyCannons relaxin' and chillin' for now but always ready to snap to attention when needed. 
