As a Special Prosecutor, Robert Mueller investigation has power to investigate and charge crimes.  The majority of Americans don’t think he’s found any crimes.  Instead, they are looking for big crimes, like illegal collusion with Russians to tip the last presidential election.

What’s really going on in the Robert Mueller investigation?

As a former prosecutor, I can give you an idea of what happens.  Of course, the prosecutors look for evidence of crimes such as tampering with the election.  But these kinds of crimes are difficult to prove.  They must have enough evidence to prove the crime beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury—a tough job.

To build their cases, the Robert Mueller investigation relies on documents, emails, investigator’s reports, and the testimony of witnesses.  They also have the subpoena power.  Which means they can force witnesses to reveal evidence or testify before the investigators under oath.

What often happens is the prosecutors become convinced of a suspect’s guilt.  But they can’t prove it with the evidence they have.  At this point, what can the Robert Mueller investigation do?

They can charge the suspects with another type of crime.  Here are two examples from history.

—Martha Stewart.  A brilliant person who built a huge retail business in many products.  Stewart became famous on TV and rich.  She also sold stock using “insider information,” to get an advantage and make a profit.  “Insider information” means you can’t sell stock based on secret information unknown to the public.

Prosecutors knew she was guilty but couldn’t prove it.  Instead, they charged her with lying to investigators while under oath.  She was convicted of that and went to prison—but not for her stock trades.

—Al Capone.  A mobster who openly murdered people, assaulted others, sold alcohol against the law (during Prohibition), stole property, and was probably mean to kids also!  In spite of all his crimes, prosecutors couldn’t get enough evidence to prove any of them.  Instead, they convicted him of failure to pay income taxes on his vast income from selling booze.

So far, the Robert Mueller investigation has uncovered many crimes (5 guilty pleas and 17 other criminal indictments).  They got guilty pleas for—guess what—giving false statements.  Watch what comes next and I predict you will see many more of these charges about giving false statements—lying to the prosecutors while under oath.

Here’s a short article about the details of the Robert Mueller investigation and what they’ve accomplished in criminal charges.   https://www.vox.com/2018/5/23/17384096/mueller-investigation-poll