Neal Katyal
And that’s going to, I think, actually become even more worrisome for Trump than the current kind of single focus that we’ve had for many of the last months.
Michael Barbaro
So the less information that’s in it, the more likely these other investigations just multiply and intensify.
Neal Katyal
Right. Donald Trump has to be worried about winning the battle and losing the war — that is, getting a short report that maybe sides with him, and maybe sides with him in a brief way.
Because that, more than anything, is going to raise the suspicions of Congress, of federal prosecutors in other offices and state attorneys general, and, ultimately, the suspicions of the American public.
Michael Barbaro
So counterintuitively, I mean very counterintuitively, the best thing for President Trump might be for Congress to receive not a short, nothing-much-there-to-report Mueller report, but a fairly comprehensive, somewhat damning, but not overwhelmingly so report.
Neal Katyal
That’s a beautiful summary. And I know it sounds counterintuitive, but in some ways, when you have that kind of very serious watchdog, it keeps you on your toes to be absolutely honest, but also really reassures the American public that there isn’t some shenanigan going on. And so sometimes the best protection you can have is actually to have a vigorous investigator. Obviously, Donald Trump has been afraid of that from the start. And the lingering question I think all Americans have is why.
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Michael Barbaro
Neal, I think listeners might hear that and think, oh, great. This has been a long, exhausting process, waiting for Mueller to finish this report. And it sounds like you’re saying, actually, this could really just be the very beginning.
Neal Katyal
I know everyone in America wants a quick resolution to this. I’m tired, everyone’s tired. But these are really hard investigations. I mean, independent counsel investigations go on year after year under the old regime. I remember when I came in in 1998, we had an independent counsel from the Reagan administration that was still acting.
So this investigation in particular, because it involves counterintelligence and sources and methods and involves Russian documents and all sorts of people, it’s amazing to think, actually, that in 19 months, there have been 37 indictments and 199 counts. So I know that time delays are frustrating for everyone, but viewed in context, this has been one of the fastest investigations, not one of the slowest.