Mueller Time - First Quarter 2019

On 05/17/2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert S. Mueller III as Special Council. Mueller was to investigate any possible collusion between the Trump presidential campaign or other Americans and the Russian government regarding the 2016 elections. The investigation was not limited to that issue and any crimes discovered while investigating were also subject to prosecution and/or being turned over to the Justice Department or state prosecutors.

A partial list of first quarter 2019 news about the investigation. The Mueller team remained remarkably tight-lipped about their activities. Most information comes from public court filings and hearings.  

• 01/08 - Court filings allege that Paul Manafort shared 2016 presidential campaign polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik who has been tied to Russian intelligence.
• 01/08 - Supreme Court rules against mystery corporation from ‘Country A’ fighting subpoena in Mueller investigation. The corporation is a foreign financial institution. 
• 01/17 - In court filings, Mueller indicates that Manafort in February 2018 — four months after Manafort was first charged with crimes related to his work as a political consultant in Ukraine — still appears to have been working on a peace initiative for Ukraine, a topic of intense interest to Russia. 
• 01/25 - Trump cronie and self-admitted dirty trickster, Roger Stone, is indicted on seven counts, including witness tampering, by Mueller. 
• 02/13 - A federal judge has found that Paul Manafort lied to prosecutors on Mueller's team after he had made a plea deal and agreed to cooperate. 
• 03/07 - Manafort is sentenced to 47 months in prison in the financial fraud case in Virginia. An extremely light sentence based on a 19-year minimum guideline.
• 03/13 - Manafort is sentenced to 73 months in prison in his Washington DC case. Although the judge ruled that 30 of those months will be concurrent with the 47 month Virginia sentence, the other 43 months will be tacked on. That gives Manafort a total sentence of 7½ years. 
• 03/13 - Manafort is indicted on 16 felony counts in the state of New York. Charges include mortgage fraud and falsifying business records. Trump can not pardon people guilty of state charges. 
• 03/22 - Robert Mueller submits his final report to AG William Barr.
• 03/23 - William Barr states that there will be no additional indictments by the Mueller team.
• 03/24 - AG William Barr submits a four-page summary of the Mueller report to Congress. It states there was no provable collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. It also states that the report does not exonerate or accuse Trump of obstruction of justice.

Mueller's job is essentially completed with the submission of his report to AG Barr. There are still some prosecutorial issues to wrap up such as the Roger Stone case. There may be some Congressional hearings that request or demand Mueller's testimony. I'm sure this issue will continue to be debated and written about for years to come. 

The next steps, for the most part, will be up to Congress, some US Attorneys, and several state and local attorneys general and prosecutors. One thing for sure, this ain't over yet.

I'll do at least one more Mueller Time post on this blog to go into the meat of the report. Stay tuned. 

wjh