Despite Jeff Sessions miserably opining, “This thing has to conclude,” during a House budget hearing, the FBI Trump Russia investigation is not going to be finished any time soon. Robert Mueller may have to take a hiatus of sorts and resume his investigation after the November 2018 election. Wall Street Journal:
Though Mr. Mueller doesn’t face any specific legal deadline, the fall midterms amount to a political one, according to experts and prosecutors. He will reach a point this summer when Justice Department habits dictate that he will have to either finish his inquiries or go dark and stretch out his work until past November so he doesn’t appear to be trying to sway voters’ decisions, which would be at odds with Justice Department guidelines for prosecutors. […]
According to the handbook for federal prosecutors, the U.S. Attorneys’ Manual, Justice Department employees are barred from using their official authority “to interfere with or affect the result of an election.”
The rules aren’t explicit, but a March 2012 memo from then-Attorney General Eric Holder also instructed Justice Department employees to be “particularly sensitive to safeguarding the Department’s reputation for fairness, neutrality, and nonpartisanship.” Specifically, he told law-enforcement officers and prosecutors to never time investigative steps or criminal charges “for the purpose of affecting any election” or to give “an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.”
Recently Mueller referred the Michael Cohen investigation to another U.S. attorneys office suggesting that the special counsel’s office is trying to avoid taking on new matters that could prolong the primary investigation.
Paul Manafort is scheduled for trial on bank and tax fraud charges plus 13 Russians have been charged with election interference. There’s plenty of work to be done and most likely the investigation will go dark for a time before the midterms and then resume.
Too bad James Comey didn’t read the DoJ handbook . .
Maybe this comes under the heading of, “this time we’re going to do it by the book.”