Mueller’s Dead Man’s Switch: a Theory

From Politico.

The writing is on the wall: Mueller’s time as special counsel is running out.

Trump obviously thinks that firing Mueller will make the entire Russia probe go away. What he doesn’t understand is that Mueller is playing 3D Chess while Trump & Co. are playing tic-tac-toe. Poorly. Still, the Tangerine Drama Queen is going to poke until the balloon pops.

What happens when Trump finally manages to fire Mueller? Congress has made it abundantly clear that they will do nothing to protect Mueller before he’s fired or reinstall him if he is. America will have a pesky little constitutional crisis on its hands.

My theory is that Bobby Three Strikes and his team have a contingency plan for if and when Trump finally finds a stooge in the Justice Department desperate enough to fire him. Something will happen once Trump sends out the tweet in all caps heralding the end of Mueller’s reign of terror. But what?

The dead man’s switch

A dead man’s switch is a switch that is automatically triggered if the human operator becomes incapacitated, such as through death, loss of consciousness, or being bodily removed from control. Basically, the bomb explodes if the guy holding the detonator takes his finger off the trigger.

What is the bomb in this situation?

Indictments.

It is speculated that Mueller has filed numerous more indictments with the Justice Department. These could be for Russians, Roger Stone, Jared Kushner, or all of the above. For those indicted, it’s too late to run.

“When an indictment is issued on someone, it means he will definitely be arrested and charged with the crime. A sealed indictment is simply an indictment that is kept secret from the public.”

If the grand jury issued an indictment for, let’s say, Donald Jr., that was later sealed, then just because Mueller is fired does not mean that Don Jr. has not still been charged with a crime. The wheels of the Justice Department are already rolling toward an arrest and a trial.

Mueller’s dead man’s switch may be these sealed indictments.

In one plausible scenario, the second that Mueller is fired, Mueller moves to unseal these indictments and Trump & Co. have a shit storm of felony accusations against them. In another, Mueller is fired and months later the feds show up at Don Jr.’s doorstep with a warrant and handcuffs. Indictments and arrests could be peppered throughout the spring, summer, and fall like timed releases of Bruno Mars singles.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller III thinking about the Netflix original series they’re going to make about him after all this is over. Washington Post.

Mueller’s constitutional prowess is far more formidable than Trump’s feeble attempt at treason. He’s got a literal juggernaut of legal expertise on his team. He’s been shoring up his ground game since the start of this probe: hiring state prosecutors to nail conspirators with unpardonable state crimes, preventing leaks from his investigation, etc. It’s entirely possible that Mueller already has a plan for when the hammer finally falls on him and his investigation.

The hope is that Trump’s fate is already sealed in the form of a sealed indictment. Trump might be able to keep Mueller’s investigation from moving forward, but he cannot erase the evidence that Mueller’s team has already uncovered. With any luck, these indictments will bite Trump in the ass from now until November, like the ghost of a murder victim that comes back from beyond the grave to haunt his killer.