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THREAD. I see a lot of people commenting on the SSCI report, and claiming that Mueller dropped the ball in his investigation. Not true. I think Mueller did drop the ball on some aspects -- like not subpoenaing Trump -- but overall, he fulfilled his mandate. Why is this different?
2. The Special Counsel regulations were written, and designed for, a criminal investigation. They simply did not contemplate a counterintelligence probe. This creates major loopholes, as I explained here in 2017 https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/352289-mueller-isnt-all-powerful-we-need-a-bipartisan-election-interference
3. Criminal investigations are designed to uncover *violations of federal criminal law*. That means that they must 1) identify a specific statute which has been violated; and 2) determine if the evidence will support a conviction, beyond a reasonable doubt, on that crime
4. Counterintelligence probes are not about finding violations of criminal law. They seek to identify what activities a foreign government, usually through its foreign intelligence service, is engaging in on U.S. soil, and to "neutralize" -- i.e., render it ineffective
5. Foreign govs are typically quite savvy. They understand our laws, and know how to toe the line. They also recruit domestic sources -- "agents" -- to help them in specific aspects, and those *specific activities* may also not violate our laws. They are still a threat.
6. Information warfare, in particular, is a very hard foreign op for the U.S. government to stop. We are (fortunately) an open society. Information warfare exploits and weaponizes this aspect of democracy against us, as I explained here https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/08/how-facebook-changed-the-spy-game-215587
7. Even when we uncover activity which *may* be subject to prosecution, the nature of counterintelligence is such that the criminal avenue is not ideal. In particular, it forces the U.S. to reveal what it knows and how, which benefits our adversaries https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/07/why-doesn-t-the-fbi-prosecute-more-spies.html
8. So when you look at a *criminal* report, like the Mueller Report, it's as if you if are shown a movie, but only allowed to watch selected scenes -- those that met the threshold of criminal activity. And then being asked to describe the "plot" of the whole movie.
9. The *counterintelligence* report is the WHOLE MOVIE. It is filling in all of the "scenes" you missed, even if it's something that either didn't meet the criminal threshold, or was not something that was in the nat sec interest of the U.S. to pursue
10. Basically, the SSCI report is the scene in the Sixth Sense when you discover that the Bruce Willis character is ACTUALLY DEAD (sorry for the spoiler) -- so you then have to go back and watch the whole movie knowing this
11. So, rather than looking at the SSCI report as a reflection of Mueller's failures, look at it as uncovering what Mueller was -legally prevented- from pursuing, disclosing, and explaining. You have the whole picture. And it is VERY damning for the Trump campaign. END
P.S. It is ESPECIALLY difficult (read: impossible) to neutralize a counterintelligence threat when it is coming from INSIDE THE (WHITE) HOUSE https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/13/fbi-cant-neutralize-security-threat-if-president-is-threat/
