WHITAKER WHITEWASH

Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, after rejecting his own Department's Ethics advice to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation, stunned a press conference audience yesterday by announcing that i) he has been "fully briefed" on the investigation, ii) the final Mueller "report" will be reviewed by him, and iii) the investigation is "close to being completed."

The air in St. Barths has a magical quality. From my front porch, I can see the Dutch island of Saba which is more than 15 miles away.  And, remarkably, I can detect bullshit on the horizon, even on rainy days.

Several readers have expressed some alarm at the Whitaker statement, and asked what I could discern from my foreign-shore perch.

So here is the answer to your questions:

First, did Whitaker intentionally mislead when he referred to the Mueller "report" and thereby implied that what was coming was just a report and not one or more indictments? Of course he did.

Second, did Whitaker say that Mueller's investigation was "close to completion" in an effort gin up the Trumpers in Congress to pressure Mueller to end his inquiry? Of course he did.

Third, will this Whitaker/White House bullshit gambit work? Of course it won't.

My bullshit meter does not allow me to change history. So while I cannot undo Whitaker's past errant public statements or inappropriate revelations to the White House, that still leaves me with the ability to see how his bullshit is focused on altering future events.

I can see, on the horizon, the following:

First, Mueller will not be rushed, and he will pursue the investigation until Mueller, not Whitaker, is satisfied that it is complete. Whitaker, who soon is likely to be replaced by Barr anyway, cannot effectively bully or pressure Mueller into shortcutting the inquiry. Mueller has too much integrity and too much support in both houses of Congress.

Second, has Mueller really resigned himself to simply issuing a report? No indictments?  More bullshit.

Some facts:

1. Mueller is no dummy. He wakes up each morning wondering whether he will be fired by a tweet on his way to work. Interesting fact: There are almost three dozen sealed files that were added to the D.C. District Court docket in the last year. That means the docket contains no information about the nature of matter or the parties. Experts say this is an unusually large number of sealed filings, and the prevalent opinion is that some of these are Mueller indictments, already approved by Rosenstein. They are beyond Whitaker's (or Barr's) ability to quash without court approval.

2. Neither Jared nor Junior were questioned by the FBI or have been called to testify before the grand jury. Any criminal lawyer will tell you that is a strong suggestion they are targets. Both made statements to Congress. Did they lie? Does a bear .... ? Are there sealed indictments bearing their names?

3. While Roger Stone was being arrested earlier this week, teams of FBI agents executed search warrants at his homes and his office. Agents were seen carting off computers and electronic devices. It will take a long time to look at that stuff. The first chore will be to have a "clean" team of agents examine it and segregate out any attorney/client or other privileged material. We know from the Cohen searches, that even if that process is accomplished with great efficiency, it could take months to complete. And even when the prosecutors get the non-privileged material, it could take months to read it, digest it, determine if and to what extent if offers up incriminating evidence against Stone and others, or provides investigative leads, etc.

4. If there are pending sealed indictments, or if new indictments are forthcoming, one or more of those defendants may decide to cooperate. That starts the process of new leads, more investigation, perhaps even leading to more indictments.

5. Ahh, then we come to swamp rat Paulie Manafort, formerly business partner to Roger Stone and formerly campaign chairman for Donald Trump. Mueller has charged Paulieboy with abrogating his cooperation agreement by lying to Mueller's team, and Mueller has therefore withdrawn his undertaking to recommend sentencing clemency. Manafort's lawyer told the court his client did not "lie," he just "forgot" lots of things -- y'know inconsequential stuff like giving private Trump polling data to the Russians. He forgot things because, inter alia, he has gout. (Too much red meat in his isolation cell in the D.C. jail?) The judge has scheduled a sealed hearing on Feb 4. There is no telling what will come out of that.

Will the judge write an opinion? Will it persuade Manafort to really spill all this time around? (Unlikely, I think, because Paulieboy is looking for a pardon anyway. But if the judge publishes harsh findings that suggest Manafort cooperated with the Russians during the campaign, does that make a pardon less likely and therefore change the cooperation equation?)

Conclusion:

To this American-in-France, this does not look like an investigation that is either "close to being completed," or likely to conclude solely with a "report."

Then again, as you may have noticed, while so far I have consistently been correct in these matters, I am not exactly what you might call an "objective" observer.

A bientot.