If Vegas were to give odds, bookmakers would have to do a lot of homework on Special Investigator Robert Mueller and try to connect several dots in order to determine to what, and to whom Mueller is most likely to be loyal.
In logic and science, the key to every proposition is a unified theory, i.e., all the pieces have to fit.
These days, Las Vegas math geniuses (yes, odds-making has a lot to do with math and they hire a lot of geniuses) are about the only place we can find clear logic, and a willingness to put money where the mouth is.
Today, there are three schools about Mueller’s intentions, one based on the mathematical equation of what he is likely to do based on what he has done in the past (the Logic School), another based on what he is most likely to do simply because he has been given the power to do it (the Conspiracy School) and third, based on what is wished he would do, because of the power he has been given, the Dreamer School. (This last school is made up of both Democrats and die-hard Never-Trumpers and won’t be analyzed here, except to say they will be found at the betting windows more often.
Based on these two remaining lines of analysis, Vegas could create a betting line as to whether Mueller’s investigation is likely to lead to 1) criminal charges against any member of the Trump team, 2) criminal charges against any other political organization; i.e., Democrats, the deep state, the Media, or 3) simply fold up its tents and call it a day.
I think Vegas’ longest odds right now would be whether #3, above, would ever occur, simply on the basis that it never has in the past. Simply by naming a special counsel, the assumption is he will come away with charges against someone. The betting windows would now be full of people assuming that those charges would be against Trump or a member(s) of his team. Vegas would establish the odds as to whether that is so.
So keep reading.
Mueller’s charges, by Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, and explained more fully by J Marsolo of American Thinker on July 22 reads:
(b) The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James B. Comey in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017, including: (i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and (ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and (iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).
Worth a read, since it’s a worthy site to read, Mr Marsolo argues that under this language Mr Mueller can expand the scope of the investigations to just about any corner of the world where the Trump team resides. Many conservative anti-Mueller commenters have argued the same.
But how would Vegas lay the odds that he would actually do this? For instance, it has been “leaked” that Mueller plans to expand his investigation into Trump business ties with Russia(ns) going back many years. “Fair enough”, Trump says, also leaked. But going into Trump general business transactions, not fair, (also leaked).
There are eight (8) principal characters Vegas researchers would consider to come up a logical set of betting models. 1) Robert Mueller himself, 2) his Team, 3) Donald Trump as the President, with all the powers of the executive at his disposal, 4) Jeff Sessions, as the Attorney General, with all the powers of the AG at his disposal, 5) Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy AG, with all the powers of his office, including the power to hire and fire the Special Counsel, and establish (and presumably re-define) the scope of Mr Mueller’s investigation. (6) The relationship between Robert Mueller and James Comey, who had been colleagues in the FBI and AG’s office for several years. (7) The Media, who perhaps may not know that they have forged a legal relationship with Robert Muellar as well, and 8) History
1) Robert Mueller – The most prominent word I’ve found in describing Robert Mueller’s public service has been “integrity”. Not a term to be trifled with, Vegas will have paid close attention to both evidence and gossip that might contradict this. So far, I’ve seen none, although Carl Cannon of Real Clear Politics seems to have wanted to find a chink in Mueller his May 2017 story dealing with a 2004 mismanaged investigation of the anthrax deaths caused by false leads from drug-sniffing canines, also involving James Comey.
But was unable to.
Mueller served as the FBI Director from 2001-2013 under GW Bush’s full terms and five additional years under Barack Obama. His Attorney General bosses were, in order, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzalez, and Michael Mukasy (all under Bush II) and Eric Holder.
His place in History is secured by having been the principal architect, after the 9/11 attacks (he took the FBI job a week before the event) of turning the agency into an expert counterintelligence, counterterrorism and cyber security agancy. He fathered all that. Read this.
More important for Vegas researchers would be in 2004 (also cited in Cameron’s article) when Mueller and James Comey (then Acting Attorney General during AG John Ashcroft’s hospitalization) refused to certify that some domestic surveillance changes at NSA, about to be enacted, were legal. Both threatened to resign and Pres GW Bush consented to some suggested changes.
Our Vegas investigators would go to the most primary evidence they could find to determine just what this moral, legal and ethical hill they were willing to defend with their careers actually was. It clearly was more than political. And, since “domestic surveillance” was very much a part of the leaked events that led to opening of the Russia investigation in the first place (remember Mike Flynn, 2016?) the Vegas handicappers would be very interested in determining if there were 2004 and 2016 similarities in the way each of the two men approached the issues. Vegas snoops would delve into just what Mueller (more than Comey, who has exposed other sides of his character in recent months) felt about national security, and protecting citizens’ privacy.
You see, Vegas would want to know, at the very core, what differences existed between Robert Mueller and James Comey, that would not necessarily emerge until such a time those differences were tested. Their working relationship closed when Comey entered the private sector in 2005, although I suspect Mueller was consulted about the Comey choice to succeed him as FBI director in 2013. But just 13 months ago everyone would have used “integrity” to define James Comey, much like Mueller, before his wheels began to come off. This is always the “X” factor in every Vegas handicap.
Whereas Comey had the courage in 2004, put his career on the line in fact, to march up to the President of the United States and threaten to resign if he signed an order he considered to be illegal, History as well as Comey himself, have stated that he no longer had that kind of courage as FBI director by 2016 in the Clinton investigation. Who knows what kind of thumbs. or whose, were applied to his ribs?
Our Vegas snoops want to know if Robert Mueller is made of the same buttermilk.
Robert Mueller was a Vietnam War hero, a decorated Marine platoon leader to be precise. I was at the University of Virginia Law School as an Army JAG officer while Robert Mueller was there as a regular law student. After five years of active duty, including the Far East, I never knew any uniformed service finer than the Marine Corps. The journey for Robert Mueller to travel to become like James Comey would be by a totally different path, one which other Marines would tell you would be inconceivable.
So what Vegas would be looking for today is what Mueller would think about the James Comey he watched on television those several times since July, 2016, and then give odds whether his opinion and friendship for Comey has strengthened, stayed the same, or diminished.
Place your bets.
2) The Mueller Team I think his legal team stands at 13, with associated staff. Only five are named, two of which came over with him from his law firm, WilmerHale, in Washington. Election records show, since 1988 their combined political donations were $53,000, all to Democrats, or around $1800/year, or $350 per person. Hardly a rousing endorsement of Democrat Party objectives, still, nothing for Republicans during the Bush years. Kenneth Starr ranks these people as the best of the best.
There is also a communications office, I think the guy’s name is Carr. Why I mention this is Mueller’s office does communicate with the public and the media, but that the leaks that are beginning to come out about the Team expanding its scope, and offering deals to Paul Manafort to flip against Trump, do not appear to be coming from an official source inside the Mueller team.
You’ll have to scroll down to my paragraphs on 8) the Media, to see why this matters, but Vegas handicappers will be interested in knowing the sort of internal cohesion that exists among the people Mueller has hired. While not viewing themselves exactly as Eliot Ness’ Untouchables, I assume the previous station of these men (and women?) almost guarantees they do not need the money, nor the limelight. But, do they have an ax to grind with the poor kid from Queens who went to the “other Ivy”, Penn, and built things for a living instead of practicing law, then went on to become president? That is a common penis-envy with lawyers, I’ve learned over 45 years, but is it identified in Robert Mueller?
If any evidence of this nature can be found, then, as they say in Vegas, all bets are off.
But without that, the Vegas view is that the Mueller staff is airtight, and all those “sources close to the investigation” aren’t, (i.e., fake news, but also of possible criminal consequences, “the taking of the Special Prosecutor’s name in vain”) or worse, for the media, that those leaks are being planted to elicit a certain outcome from the media.
3) Donald Trump 4) Jeff Sessions and 5) Rod Rosenstein Each of these have some control of the parameters of this investigation. Legally, only Rosenstein can fire Robert Mueller, but he can be ordered to by the President, and be fired if he refuses. We’ve all been through this before, with Nixon, Archibald Cox, Elliot Richardson and William Ruckleshaus. Nixon wanted Cox fired because he was getting too close, both Richardson (AG) and Ruckleshaur (Dep AG) refused and resigned, so Nixon then order Robert Bork, Solicitor General, to fire Cox, and was thus sworn in as Acting Attorney General.
Now remember, since 1973, the media has largely written the history of these events, and periodically edited them to fit some new exigency, but the reality is that it is not settled law that the firing of Cox was illegal. In the end Richard Nixon resigned because he was guilty of crimes, and he knew it, and because of his guilt might possibly not have been able to sustain impeachment votes, or even a subsequent indictment. The people of the United States would not have taken to the streets to defend Nixon. However much he hated the media, and however much that may have been warranted, Richard Nixon knew he had given his enemies great power over him by agreeing to be the “getaway driver” in a two-dollar break-in.
By comparison, to date, there is no evidence of any crime the President or his team may haven been involved in within the scope of the appointment given to Robert Mueller. This changes the Nixon picture irreversibly. Vegas know Trump’s enemies and the Media are no closer today than they were in October 2016 of pining a crime on the Trump team.
And where Robert Mueller is involved, evidentiary markers are important.
To the extent that Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein are in contact with Mr Mueller and each other, Vegas snoops would ask the logical question; why their offices are not sounding greater alarms about the reported abuses, real and potential, of the Mueller Team. Most of the panic about the potential of this Mueller investigation is coming from the Conspiracy School (above) from whom, Vegas knows, if they just hung around in saloons and covered their bets, they could clean up, even without giving odds.
6) James Comey I’ve already discussed James Comey in my Robert Mueller segment above, for his role going forward is not what is known in the record but rather what Robert Mueller thinks of his record of achievement after succeeding Mueller as FBI director. At this point, if they sit on the sofa, eat Papa John’s and watch NFL football together, that will be a greater indictment of Robert Mueller than James Comey.
7) The Media I’ve also mentioned the Media, but I’m not sure, in reading current news about leaks from the Mueller office, if the Washington Post are reading the tea leaves correctly. If you will recall, the first “Russia story” to break was about a discussion had by Mike Flynn and a Russian diplomat about which he had failed to report. Flynn was subsequently fired on Feb 14, 2017, just three week after the inauguration. But it turned out that the media who reported that meeting obtained it via a protected intelligence intercept, naming American citizens that should have been masked. I.e., illegal. It was a crime to release his name, and supposedly came from the “deep state” (a name given tom holdover leftists, Democrats and anti-Trump types who still inhabit the bowels of the intelligence bureaucracy).
Now in reading the Special Counsel’s authorization, since this is the Russian-connection raison d’etre for the investigation in the first place, if he wants to expand his scope here, he can, and yes, it could supersede all the silliness coming out of the Senate and House Intelligence/Foreign Relations committees, for the simple reason Mr Mueller carries a blam stick. He can indict, try and convict.
Suddenly, instead of reporters with very good contacts, the media, many of them, can be viewed as facilitators, even co-conspirators of crimes against national security. Moreover, just to determine whether any of these deep state leakers were actually being paid by WAPO, New York Times, AO, CNN etc, etc, the Special Prosecutor can even invade the corporate offices, especially Payroll, to see who they’re cutting checks for.
This should at least give WAPO some pause about claiming insider leaks to the Mueller Team, since such leaks, if true, are criminal, and if false, damnable in the most public sort of way. Or, even worse, those leaks are intentional.
8) History – History may well be the biggest player in this analysis of the “Duty, Honor, Country” aspects of Robert Mueller’s ambitions with regard to this investigation. Sounds corny, I know, but Mueller is 72, my age, and such tritisms were more prominent in our time. In fact, they weren’t trite at all. Our generation may have been the last to hold onto them, and slowest to become cynical about the “American condition” as it has evolved backward since the those days in the ’60s.
Assessing how Mueller will respond to this new endeavor to inject him into History once again, Vegas will simply say “it’s a crap shoot”, then lay odds that, unless there is some deeply hidden resentment abiding in him for Donald Trump, his wealth and how he gained it, his class, or lack thereof, or some blackmailable personal secret, Robert Mueller will not risk his current place in History to achieve political or financial goals for others in order to bring down the Trump administration.
Like me, he was around to watch Richard Nixon go down in flames, and he knew why and how that occurred. He knows that this case against the Trumps is not the same. (So far.) He will require real evidence of real crimes with a high degree of probability for a real conviction before going forward. Duty, Honor, Country may have nothing to do with it, but his place in History most certainly is not for sale. The global cartel cannot buy for him the entire state of Bahia in Brazil in exchange for that place. The American Left cannot offer him his portrait on a postage stamp of the People’s Republic of Amerika. He already fought against those bastards once before.
Robert Mueller already has a place in History. A high place, in fact.This is my estimation of the man, not Vegas’, but I suspect their researchers also know he is not so gullible and stage struck, as apparently James Comey was, to risk his already venerable place there to help throw down a popular president.
More mathematically, Vegas would assume that Robert Mueller, by his very nature, would only consider that there are places he will not go to secure a conviction.
My bottom is that if Vegas were giving odds they would give high odds that Mueller is legit then refuse to put out a line. But on each of the steps in getting to that conclusion, just discussed, there are a myriad of bets I believe they might open a betting window for. Just too many suckers out there.
**************************************************************************************************************
VASSAR BUSHMILLS
Contact: vbushmills@yahoo.com
Twitter: @Bushmillsvassar
Publications: Famous Common People I Have Known and Other Essays
Donald Trump, the Common Man and the American Theology of Liberty
(Both books in Kindle format only, Publishers and agents welcome, as both need to revised)
Support: Yes, I’ve never been paid a nickel to write.
Donations can be made to vbushmills@thesandsinstitute.org via Paypal
