Mueller’s Final Report Must Be Made Public
Over the past week, news ran wild with reports that the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller III would be ending within a few days — speculation which has not yet proven true.
No one knows for certain when Mueller will issue his final report on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and potential collusion between the Trump orbit and the Kremlin. What is clear, however, is that the special counsel’s work must reach its natural conclusion, unimpeded by political machinations from the White House, and that when it does end, the final report must become available to Congress and the American people. President Trump’s longtime hostility towards the special counsel, coupled with a new attorney general who avoided making any promises to publicly release Mueller’s findings, make those necessary outcomes seem increasingly uncertain.
For one, President Trump discussed at least twice — once in June 2017 and another in December 2017 — behind closed doors about firing Mueller, while repeatedly launching more public attacks on the special counsel on Twitter. Just this month, he wrote, “The Mueller investigation is totally conflicted, illegal and rigged! Should never have been allowed to begin, except for the Collusion and many crimes committed by the Democrats. Witch Hunt!” Such recent criticisms keep very real the possibility that President Trump might end the special counsel’s work prematurely. Unfortunately, even if Mueller does complete his work, there is every reason to believe that Attorney General William Barr will not permit the release of the special counsel’s final report to Congress or the public. After all, Barr sent an unsolicited memo to the Justice Department in June 2018 that harshly criticized the special counsel and then refused to either recuse himself from overseeing Mueller even if ethics officials recommend it or promise to make Mueller’s final report public.
As such threats hang over the special counsel and his office’s work, Congress — as well as all Americans who believe that only we, not foreign entities, should elect our leaders — must stand ready to denounce any attempt by the president to end Mueller’s work or hide, with the help of the attorney general, his findings from the public. With 7 guilty pleas, 5 people headed to jail, and nearly 200 total criminal charges, Special Counsel Robert Mueller III has undeniably conducted a real, revelatory investigation — and the American people deserve to see it through and hear its ultimate findings.
SPECIAL COUNSEL ROBERT MUELLER III
In May 2017, the Department of Justice announced the appointment of former FBI Director Robert Mueller III as special counsel to “ensure a full and thorough investigation of the Russian government’s effort to interfere in the 2016 election” and “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.”
In the time since, the special counsel has made nearly 200 criminal charges. Seven people pleaded guilty, including major players in the Trump orbit such as former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen, and former Trump campaign official Rick Gates. Four people — Cohen, former Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos, Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan, and computer whiz Richard Pinedo — have been sentenced to prison already. In August 2018, Manafort faced trial for a set of crimes in Alexandria, Virginia, and the jury convicted him on 8 charges of tax fraud, bank fraud, and failure to disclose a foreign bank account. Manafort also faced trial in Washington, DC, on charges of tax evasion, bank fraud, as well as, again, failure to disclose a foreign bank account. He ended up striking a plea deal agreement with the special counsel regarding those latter charges in September; yet, just this month, the judge ruled that Manafort broke the agreement and stated that he will be sentenced on 13 March, after his sentencing in Virginia on 08 March. While not directly connected to the Trump campaign, these charges nonetheless demonstrate Manafort’s clear wrongdoing and put certain other reports — such as the one stating that he shared 2016 presidential campaign polling data with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with strong ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin — in a new, important light.
Manafort and Gates were the objects of Mueller’s first indictments in October 2017, though by the following February, Mueller also indicted 13 Russian nationals for their work on a wide-ranging influence campaign to divide the American public during the 2016 presidential election. This work included stealing identities, manipulating activists, and working with “unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign” to support candidate Trump and oppose Secretary Hillary Clinton. In July 2018, DAG Rosenstein announced that the special counsel had indicted an additional 12 Russian nationals, all members of the Russian intelligence agency GRU, for their role in hacking and releasing stolen information from the DNC during the 2016 election. And finally, most recently, the special counsel has secured a second guilty plea from Cohen regarding possible campaign finance violations and indicted former Trump advisor and longtime ally Roger Stone, who was subsequently arrested at his Florida home in January 2019.
Stone’s case holds particular importance, as it is the clearest sign yet that the president was potentially involved in obtaining information from Russia for the purpose of strengthening his presidential campaign. In January, the special counsel charged Stone with obstruction of an official proceeding, false statements, and witness tampering and stated that unnamed senior officials on the Trump campaign were aware of his efforts to secure emails stolen by Russian hackers and given to Wikileaks; court filings have since emerged stating that Mueller has evidence of communications in order to back those charges up. Meanwhile, just last week in a hearing with the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cohen testified that President Trump knew of Stone’s activities, as he had overheard a call then-candidate Trump had with Stone in July 2016. For his part, President Trump has denied in writing to the special counsel that he knew of anything regarding Wikileaks. While not necessarily implicating the president, Stone’s indictment — taken in conjunction with Cohen’s testimony — shows that senior Trump campaign officials were aware of and in fact cheering on his collusion with Wikileaks until at least October 2016 and that the president may very well have been cheering right along with them.
Without question, the special counsel has upheld its mission from the Justice Department, bringing to light extensive criminal behavior by persons deep within the Trump orbit. As mentioned with regard to Manafort, though many of these charges have no direct connection to the White House, they do raise a range of serious questions and outright prove false the claim that no one involved with the Trump campaign had communications with Russia. Given the secretive nature of the special counsel, a more comprehensive picture will likely stay vague until Mueller completes his work and issues his final report — which emphasizes the need for Congress and the public to see that report so as to understand the extent of Russian interference in our democracy and to take steps to guard against it happening again.
WHITE HOUSE HOSTILITY
Despite — or perhaps because of — such clear evidence of the importance and effectiveness of the special counsel, the White House has repeatedly attacked Mueller and his team’s work.
Even before the appointment of Mueller, the president demonstrated clear hostility towards the Justice Department regarding any investigation into ties between the Trump orbit and Russia. For instance, in February 2017, then Chief of Staff Reince Priebus asked then FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to “knock down” stories about the FBI investigating members of the administration for communications with Russians known to the U.S. intelligence community. Following the May 2017 appointment of Mueller, the hostility only intensified; behind closed doors, President Trump discussed at least twice, in June 2017 and again in December 2017, firing Mueller. The president also criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a call for “refus[ing] to protect him from investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 election,” as well as former Attorney General Jeff Sessions for not taking “control” of the Justice Department.
Throughout 2018, such attacks have only escalated. Over the summer of 2018, Vice President Mike Pence started to weigh in, saying that it was time for Mueller to “wrap up” his investigation. President Trump, meanwhile, started to become bolder in his statements, going so far as to threaten to “get involved” if the Justice Department does not start “doing their job and doing it right.” He also claimed, in September 2018, that exposing the special counsel’s investigation as a “hoax” will be a “crowning achievement” of his presidency and called the FBI “a cancer in our country.”
To this day, President Trump stands firm in that it is time to “get rid” of the special counsel — which makes sense given how a number of his former advisors and his personal fixer have chosen to cooperate with Mueller. After all, the special counsel has run a very effective investigation, and any person who may find themselves involved with the probe should be worried.
BARR’S DECISION
Though the special counsel’s work has fortunately continued moving forward, the question of who will oversee the investigation has been embroiled in controversy since the outset. Initially, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions oversaw the special counsel before recusing himself in March 2017, leaving it in the hands of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Sessions recused himself because he failed to disclose multiple instances of his own personal contact with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, during the campaign — even though he was asked about such contacts under oath in his confirmation hearing. President Trump’s anger over Sessions’ decision was no secret; on one occasion, he said, “Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else.” The president’s anger never diminished, which undoubtedly contributed to his demand for Sessions’ resignation in November 2018.
After Sessions’ departure, Matthew Whitaker became Acting Attorney General and, as a result, began to oversee Mueller’s work in place of Rosenstein. However, in addition to the fact that his very appointment stood on shaky constitutional grounds, Whitaker presented his own problems: He was severely unqualified, had previous involvement in shady business dealings, and had expressed overt hostility towards both Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation and the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia interfered in our 2016 election. Nevertheless, Whitaker remained in that role until William Barr’s confirmation as U.S. Attorney General in February 2019.
Attorney General Barr should never have been confirmed. After all, he sent an unsolicited memo to the Justice Department in June 2018 that criticized the special counsel — an investigation the he now oversees as attorney general. In the memo, Barr wrote that the special counsel appeared to have based its investigation on a “fatally misconceived” theory; at the time, Barr did not have access to the actual facts of the case and, during his confirmation hearing, said he “could not recall” if he received any nonpublic information about the Mueller investigation. Evidently, his memo was based on wildly sweeping assumptions, clearly demonstrating a bias that has no place with the top lawyer of our government. Plus, Barr refused to either recuse himself from overseeing Mueller even if ethics officials recommend it, and would not promise to make Mueller’s final report public as bipartisan groups of members of Congress has urged.
With his well-documented hostility towards Mueller, Barr represents a clear threat towards the special counsel. Any new attorney general should have committed to Watergate-style protections for Mueller. Instead, Barr would likely neither stand in the way of the president should the White House aim to prematurely shutter the very investigation he so fiercely criticized last year, nor release the special counsel’s report if he deems the action inconsistent with the law, which, as his previous stint at attorney general shows, is flexible in his world.
CONGRESS MUST PUSH BACK
Just this week, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), HPSCI chairman, stated that, should the special counsel’s final report is not made public, House Democrats would take the issue to court and subpoena Mueller to testify. “In the end, I think the department understands they’re going to have to make this public,” Congressman Schiff said.
Considering President Trump’s blatant hatred of the special counsel’s work and his sympathetic attorney general, Congress needs to be prepared to take action the likes of that proposed by Congressman Schiff. The American people deserve to know fully what happened in 2016 so that we can understand to what extent a foreign foe interfered in our democracy in order to, as the January 2017 report by the intelligence community stated, “help President-elect Trump’s election chances.” Plus, we need to have this information so as to build up our defense from this ever happening again; after all, the 2018 midterms demonstrated that Russia will continue its malicious efforts, and we need to move now as 2020 is just around the corner.
Shannon Bugos is the Communications and Writing Manager at Truman National Security Project and the editor-in-chief of the Doctrine Blog. Views expressed here are her own.
