Speaker 1: There's been so much speculation about when Special Counsel Robert
Speaker 1: Mueller's Russia investigation will be completed. Well, yesterday Acting Attorney
Speaker 1: General Matthew Whittaker said that should be soon right now,
Speaker 1: you know? On the investigation is uh? I think uh
Speaker 1: close to being completed, and I hope that we can
Speaker 1: get the report from Director Muller as soon as we
Speaker 1: as possible. Whittaker's answers about the Muller investigation raised more
Speaker 1: questions than answers, and led some Democrats to express concern.
Speaker 1: Joining me as Repert Mints, a partner at McCarter in English, Bob,
Speaker 1: if you listen to Whittaker's entire answer was very halting
Speaker 1: and disconnected. So what does I think the investigation is
Speaker 1: close to being completed mean? In a lot of the
Speaker 1: fact that Roger Stone has just been indicted in FBI
Speaker 1: agencies a lot of material from his home, Well, those
Speaker 1: do seem to be conflicting messages, and it was really
Speaker 1: unclear whether the Acting Attorney General was speaking off the
Speaker 1: cuff or whether this had been some kind of prepared statement. Typically,
Speaker 1: prosecutors will not discuss the status of an investigation. They
Speaker 1: shy away from discussing the progress of where they aren't
Speaker 1: an investigation because they don't really want to tip off
Speaker 1: people who may be the subject of the investigation as
Speaker 1: to when this may be over. So it's quite unusual
Speaker 1: and does seem to be in conflict with the recent
Speaker 1: indictment of Roger Stone. Whitaker also upsets some Democrats when
Speaker 1: he said decisions made by Muller's office are going to
Speaker 1: be reviewed by the Department of Justice, and there was
Speaker 1: some clarification by a Justice Department official after that. Where
Speaker 1: does the report on Mueller's stand as you understand it
Speaker 1: right now, Well, it's interesting because there are some technical
Speaker 1: regulations which govern how that report will be handled. Under
Speaker 1: Department of Justice regulations, Mr Mueller is required to give
Speaker 1: the Attorney General a confidential report which explains his prosecutorial
Speaker 1: decisions and the results of his investigation, and then the
Speaker 1: Attorney General in this case, the acting Attorney General Matt Whittaker,
Speaker 1: must send report to Congress explaining why the work has concluded.
Speaker 1: And the real question is how much of Mueller's report
Speaker 1: will Whittaker be sharing with Congress? Will it be the
Speaker 1: full report except to the extent that it has to
Speaker 1: redact information that may be confidential, or will he try
Speaker 1: to simply provide some type of summary to Congress? That
Speaker 1: is really what has some people on Capitol Hill concerned.
Speaker 1: Is there anything that Mueller can do to make sure
Speaker 1: that the report, except the redacted portions, is seen by
Speaker 1: the public. Can you do something with the grand jury
Speaker 1: for example? Well, he can certainly release information as he
Speaker 1: has been doing throughout the investigation, through what are called
Speaker 1: speaking indictments. So, for example, in the Stone indictment, there
Speaker 1: was information that went beyond so will be the charges
Speaker 1: and included text messages and included emails, and so Mueller
Speaker 1: can release information through indictments. But really the heart of
Speaker 1: his investigation is going to be found in that report.
Speaker 1: And I think there will be tremendous pressure on the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice to pass along the bulk of Mueller's
Speaker 1: findings to Congress and ultimately to the public. And you
Speaker 1: mentioned Roger Stone. This morning, Roger Stone, longtime friend and
Speaker 1: confidante of President Trump, pleaded not guilty to charges of
Speaker 1: witness tampering, lying to Congress, and obstructing its investigation into
Speaker 1: Russian interference with the election. And he said nothing this
Speaker 1: time outside the courthouse. What do you make of his
Speaker 1: sort of it seems conflicting statements about whether he'll testify
Speaker 1: and whether he whether he'll tell the truth, and whether
Speaker 1: he won't testify. Well, he has been, as you as
Speaker 1: you know to June, all over the lot on this. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's someone who has historically enjoyed the limeline. He's been
Speaker 1: speaking a lot to the press about this, which is
Speaker 1: something that you don't see defendants in his situation typically doing.
Speaker 1: What he essentually said is I'm happy to cooperate, but
Speaker 1: I'm not going to implicate the president. Prosecutors would say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're going to cooperate, you just have
Speaker 1: to tell the truth. You can't put any kind of
Speaker 1: limitations on that. And so at this point it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like he's interested in cooperating, but that may change
Speaker 1: looking at potential jail time, particularly someone of his age,
Speaker 1: has a way of sometimes changing people's minds, And we'll
Speaker 1: just have to see how this plays out. Would Mueller
Speaker 1: even want his cooperation or testimony because of his past,
Speaker 1: because of the fact that he is happy to call
Speaker 1: himself and a person who exaggerates the truth and and
Speaker 1: brings press upon himself. Does he want that kind of
Speaker 1: a witness, Well, he does have a tremendous amount of baggage.
Speaker 1: He has made so many public statements about what he
Speaker 1: knows and what steps he may have taken in connection
Speaker 1: with the campaign and reaching out to wiki leagues, and
Speaker 1: then he retracted those statements, and then he has obviously
Speaker 1: given statements in the form of emails and text messages
Speaker 1: which contradicts public statements. So he is somebody who who,
Speaker 1: if he does decide to cooperate, would have to have
Speaker 1: corroboration of what information he's providing, and he may be
Speaker 1: able to lead Mueller's investigation to other witnesses. So there
Speaker 1: is some potential value there, But I agree that it
Speaker 1: would be difficult to use his testimony on his own
Speaker 1: because he has taken so many contradictory positions in the past.
Speaker 1: There is a lot of information, as you mentioned in
Speaker 1: this talking indictment about emails and text messages. Do you
Speaker 1: see a defense for Stone when you read that indictment, Well,
Speaker 1: it does seem to be a pretty strong indictment because
Speaker 1: the most powerful evidence against Roger Stone are Roger Stone's
Speaker 1: own texts and emails, and it's very hard to sort
Speaker 1: of walk away from those. Typically the defendant will say
Speaker 1: they were taken out of context, and there's certain things
Speaker 1: that the jury needs to know in order to fully
Speaker 1: appreciate what he was trying to say there. But those
Speaker 1: text messages seem to be pretty damning and they certainly
Speaker 1: do not paint Roger Stone in a particularly flattering light.
Speaker 1: We have about a minute here. We know that Manaforts
Speaker 1: sentencing was put off and Flinn sentencing was put off.
Speaker 1: We know why that happened. But what about Rick Gates?
Speaker 1: Is Mueller probably still getting information from him? I think
Speaker 1: we can safely assume him that he is. I mean,
Speaker 1: Rick Gates is somebody who played guilty a long time ago,
Speaker 1: and if he had no further benefit to Robert Mueller,
Speaker 1: he would have been sentenced by this point. Yet that
Speaker 1: hasn't happened, so I think it safe to assume that
Speaker 1: he's continuing to provide useful information to Robert Mueller. And
Speaker 1: it's typical the prosecutors will not sentence a cooperating witness
Speaker 1: until they have extracted all the useful information that they
Speaker 1: can from them. So we must be continuing to help
Speaker 1: the Muller investigation. All right, thanks so much, Bob. That's
Speaker 1: Rerobert Min's a partner. McCarter in English.