In any investigation, one is going to find what prosecutors (and anyone else, really) would consider “dirt” on the defendant. Most of us live lives with a few blemishes that we’d probably prefer to keep private. Law enforcement investigating a major crime finds a lot of this dirt.

But law enforcement and prosecutors can only “use” the type of dirt aka “evidence,” that would be admitted in court, and that type is limited solely to the crimes charged and the rules of evidence (which prohibits hearsay and prior bad acts that may not relate to the current charge).

Thus it is that in any investigation, there will be the “evidence” submitted, and the “evidence” held back. Evidently, the Mueller investigation kept an “Alternative report” the report that contained everything. 

According to Politico, that alternative report may be released in the next few months:

A top deputy to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, revealed in a book he published last year that the team he headed prepared a summary of all its work — apparently including details not contained in the final report made public in 2019.

“At least for posterity, I had all the [team] members … write up an internal report memorializing everything we found, our conclusions, and the limitations on the investigation, and provided it to the other team leaders as well as had it maintained in our files,” wrote Weissmann in “Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation.”

We cannot be sure, but the “limitations on the investigation” almost surely means the relevance of the evidence to the actual assignment, whether Trump colluded with Russia with admissible evidence. Thus, there could be a lot of stuff that doesn’t fall within the two neat categories. One immediately thinks of financial evidence and conflicts that – while critical, also fall outside the bounds of what Barr’s DOJ would find relevant.

The New York Times sued to obtain the report under FOIA:

“Since Plaintiff filed its complaint, Defendant has located and begun processing this record and intends to release all non-exempt portions to Plaintiff once processing is complete,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Jude wrote. “Defendant estimates that primary processing of the record will be complete by the end of January 2022 at which time Defendant expects to send the record to several other DOJ components for consultation.”

The report promises to give the judge an update in February, which would be the soonest that they can report; “We have it ready for release.”

Many want it released, including some that might know of things in it:

Release it. https://t.co/V98JeFrvB6

— Frank Figliuzzi (@FrankFigliuzzi1) December 5, 2021

All of it.

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[email protected] and on Substack: Much Ado About Everything

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