Mueller’s fate rests on midterms
FUTURE OF COUNSEL’S RUSSIAN PROBE HINGES ON WHETHER DEMOCRATS CAN WIN BACK THE HOUSE
As a former colleague puts it, Robert Mueller works behind “thick windows.” Washington’s lantern-jawed special counsel can see the political turmoil swirling around his investigation — not to mention a bizarre plot recently to tar his reputation — but pays it little heed, say those who know him.
“His head is down in the work,” says lawyer Ron Hosko, an ex-subordinate of Mueller’s at the FBI. “He will be undeterred, unless or until he is told to stop.”
Whether the special counsel can maintain that single-minded focus much longer may well depend on what happens Tuesday.
The U.S. midterm elections could prove crucial to the outcome of his probe into Russian interference in America’s 2016 election, as speculation mounts that the former FBI director is about to make another major move — or be the target of one.
If the Republicans hold control of both houses of Congress, it could spell the beginning of the end of what President Donald Trump calls Mueller’s “witch hunt.”
If the Democrats win a majority in the House of Representatives, as polls suggest is likely, they could buttress the former FBI director from White House attacks, open their own, more public investigation into alleged Trump-campaign collusion with Russia — and potentially start impeachment proceedings.
Either way, the States’ evolving political landscape seems tightly intertwined with Mueller’s criminal investigation.
“A lot hinges on Nov. 6, for sure,” says legal commentator Glenn Kirschner, who worked under Mueller as a federal homicide prosecutor in Washington, D.C.
“If the Democrats take the House, it’s going to be a whole different ball game, and we’re going to see investigations like crazy.”
For now, the focus of the frenetic, can’t-lookaway U.S. political world is the midterms themselves, where all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of 100 in the Senate are up for re-election.
The Democrats need a net gain of 23 seats to take majority control of the House, and prognosticators like the FiveThirtyEight website say the odds of that are high.
The Senate is a different story, with fewer seats up for grab, and a disproportionate number of them now held by Democrats in red — traditionally Republican — states. The GOP is expected to hold onto its slim majority in the chamber.
As government rules require, Mueller has avoided any kind of public action in the lead-up to the midterms. But he was busy before going silent a couple months ago.
His team has prosecuted 32 people and companies, with several pleading guilty and co-operating with the special counsel. They include four former Trump aides, a Russian internet “troll farm” and a dozen Russian spies who allegedly hacked and leaked Democratic emails.
To date, though, no indictments have emerged related to the investigation’s two central issues: whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians to tilt the election toward him — which the president vigorously denies — and whether he committed obstruction of justice by impeding the review.
By all accounts, Trump remains infuriated with a sprawling inquiry he believes has unfairly obscured his accomplishments, and would love to see it shuttered. He once reportedly tried to fire Mueller himself, and has been critical of Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general overseeing the review.
But speculation is rife that it is Attorney General Jeff Sessions who will get the axe following the midterms, having triggered Trump’s ire by recusing himself from the Russia investigation. Under that scenario, a replacement could rein in or even call a halt to the Mueller investigation.
Leading Republicans have suggested they would not tolerate some version of 1973’s “Saturday Night Massacre,” when Richard Nixon fired the special prosecutor investigating Watergate.
But the GOP has often been reluctant to oppose Trump and may be no more eager to curb him if the party retains control of Congress.
“If the Republicans keep the House and Senate — and I’m being a little bit facetious here — he could have Mueller shot in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue and nothing really would happen,” said Steve Cash, a former prosecutor and Democratic congressional staffer who has known Mueller for years. “All bets are off.”
Former colleagues and acquaintances say Mueller is himself largely apolitical — despite being a registered Republican.
But he will have considered how all the potential political scenarios on Tuesday and beyond could affect his team and crafted contingency plans accordingly, said Kirschner.
In fact, assuming he believes the evidence supports more charges against people around the president, Mueller likely has drafted an indictment, ready to present to a grand jury at the first sign his probe is in peril, Kirschner said.
“Within a few minutes, the grand jury has returned an indictment, and then it’s on,” said the retired prosecutor. “There is nothing Congress or the Department of Justice can do at that moment to derail that.”
Meanwhile, it would seem to be a mug’s game trying to predict what the prosecutor might do next.
Quoting unnamed officials, Bloomberg reported last month that within days of the midterms Mueller would release his conclusions on those key questions of collusion and obstruction.
But former prosecutor Cash said he’s skeptical of such media reports, given the team has stuck “vigorously” to a no-leaks policy.
More indictments are possible, say analysts, noting that Mueller has yet to address such issues as the famous Trump Tower meeting with a Moscow-linked lawyer, and the firing of exFBI chief James Comey.
If the Democrats seize the House, they could shield the investigation from Trump, though more by turning up the political heat on him than anything concrete, analysts say. With the Republicans still controlling the Senate, legislation barring Mueller’s firing, for instance, would likely not even make it to the president’s desk.
The Democrats have vowed to have committees investigate a slew of administration controversies if they win the House. But one expert suggests Russia hearings may have to wait until the special counsel finishes his work.
“I would expect that a Democratic house would have little interest in taking any action that could interfere with or in any way undermine the work of the Mueller probe,” said Justin Rood, a former Republican Senate staffer now at the non-partisan Project on Government Oversight.
Of course, the House wields the most feared weapon for any president: the ability to launch impeachment proceedings. With a few exceptions, Democrats have said they’re not anxious to take that step, unless Mueller suggests Trump committed an impeachable offence: treason, bribery or other “high crimes and misdemeanours.”
Even Need to Impeach, the organization billionaire Tom Steyer founded to lobby for Trump’s turfing, foresees a measured approach.
“We just have to play it in real time rather than speculate,” said Kevin Mack, the group’s chief strategist. “One thing I can tell you after running this thing for a year is it’s very hard to guess what comes next.”
TRUMP REMAINS INFURIATED WITH THE SPRAWLING INQUIRY.