Current State of Mueller
Amidst all the grassroots campaigns to undermine Trump’s presidency, the American people have largely avoided talking about the Mueller investigation into Russian efforts to infiltrate the 2016 Presidential elections. Robert Mueller runs a tight ship, which in many ways is the opposite of the current White House–on task, on target and leak-free. As a matter of fact, there is very little known in terms of where the Mueller investigation might be heading or if it has been making headway at all. If you look closely at what has been made public, however, you can try to guess.
One important facet of the investigation is the possible fate of Michael Flynn, the disgraced National Security Advisor for all of 24 days.
One important facet of the investigation is the possible fate of Michael Flynn, the disgraced National Security Advisor for all of 24 days. Flynn agreed to cooperate with the special counsel on Dec. 1, 2017. Since then, his sentencing has been consistently pushed back—the most recent deferral began on the 18th of December. In fact, the Mueller investigation recommended that he be given a lesser sentence because he cooperated extensively with the special counsel. The public also knows little about Michael Cohen, who, according to Mueller, made “significant efforts” to help the investigation. However, Cohen was sentenced to 3 years in prison.
There are a couple of reasons why Flynn has not been sentenced yet and Cohen has. One, Cohen apparently didn’t tell everything to the prosecutors in his case. “Significant efforts” does not necessarily indicate that he was of much help to the special counsel either. Second, Flynn isn’t of interest to Mueller because he was involved with Trump. Flynn had dealings with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States. Cohen went to jail because he was Trump’s fixer—someone who did a lot of Trump’s dirty deeds.
The special counsel is supposed to inquire into whether or not Trump worked with Russia—and Russian officials—to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. It has nothing to do with whether or not Trump paid a couple of pornstars hush money. Simply put, what Cohen did was wrong.Since he has no connection with Russia or the special counsel’s agenda, he is ultimately of no use to Mueller. These reasons are actually quite important when we look at what Mueller has uncovered so far.
The public has little idea in terms of what direction the investigation is heading in. However, we know that Mueller started with Trump’s associates, and, more recently, his business practices. Flynn was indicted on charges of lying to the FBI about his relationship with Russian officials. There have been other people who have pled guilty, and even a few that have been sentenced. Besides Cohen, George Papadopoulos, Trump’s former campaign advisor, served a 14 day sentence and Alex van Der Zwaan, a Dutch lawyer, served a 30 day sentence last May. Both of these individuals were connected in some way to Russia. Papadopoulos served for lying about making contact with Russian officials in order to get dirt on Hillary Clinton and trying to set up a meeting with Putin and Trump. However, both deals fell through. Van Der Zwaan was jailed because he lied about a report his law firm, Skadden Alps, put out in 2012 regarding the former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Recently, Chief Justice John Roberts stopped a contempt order of a mystery company on order of the Mueller investigation. The corporation is apparently attempting to stop a subpoena for certain information by the Washington D.C. District Court, by saying that they do not have to give up the information because of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. In addition, the company is saying that to give up this information violates the laws of the country in which the company is located. Basically, this mystery company from another country has dealings with the Mueller investigation, which is ultimately supposed to investigate Russian interference and has now been prevented from being forced to release information regarding criminal activity the company might have engaged in.
Up until now, Mueller has been picking off individuals and these individuals have been telling him all he needs to know about the companies they interacted with. We’ll probably be hearing a lot more of this type of interference as Mueller begins to widen his scope and look at the bigger picture. We cannot know for sure where he is going to go. He’s too careful to let anyone know that. Yet, based off of the little we do know, we can attempt to guess that he’ll continue his work by investigating the companies that people like Papadopoulos and Flynn are connected to, so we'll be seeing a lot more companies like the mystery Company A. This investigation is very methodical, and there’s still going to be time before Mueller finally decides to move. But until then, we can at least try to follow his careful footsteps, even if they are barely visible.