Mueller’s Report will be the Next Big Fight

FRED WERTHEIMER’S WEEKLY NOTE | January 31, 2019

“Ensuring that the American people get access to a full report from Special Counsel Mueller, detailing just what happened in the 2016 presidential election and beyond, is likely to be the next big public fight in this unprecedented saga.”

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said earlier this week that the Mueller “investigation is, I think, close to being completed.”

We have no way of knowing if that is true, as the Mueller team has conducted perhaps the most leak-proof investigation in modern history.

What we do know, however, is that there are a number of investigatory matters that do not yet appear to have been resolved.

For example, we do not appear to know the results of the more than 60 hours of testimony that convicted former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn gave to the Mueller investigation.

There have been various reports that Donald Trump Jr. expects to be indicted, and that matter appears to be unresolved to date.

A number of Russians have been indicted for conspiring to interfere with the 2016 presidential election and a number of Trump campaign officials have been convicted of various crimes.

But we have no information about whether Special Counsel Mueller has concluded that a criminal conspiracy took place involving Trump campaign officials and foreign agents to interfere with the 2016 election. These and possibly other outstanding questions need to be resolved before the investigation is concluded.

All of this greatly increases the need for the American people to have a full report from Special Counsel Mueller on what happened in the 2016 presidential election and the period that followed.

While President Trump has claimed he will not interfere with the Justice Department report — though who knows how long that “commitment” will last — Attorney General nominee William Barr has left vague just how much of Mueller’s report to him will be made available to Congress and the public.

Ensuring that the American people get access to a full report from Special Counsel Mueller, detailing just what happened in the 2016 presidential election and beyond, is likely to be the next big public fight in this unprecedented saga.

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Fred Wertheimer is the Founder and President of Democracy 21, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to strengthen our democracy and ensure the integrity and fairness of government decisions and elections. See previous Notes from Fred here.