Mueller’s indictment could be the tip of the iceberg

Robert Mueller’s 37-page indictment of Russians involved in undermining the 2016 election, while it’s not the smoking gun many were expecting, is most likely an indicator of where, and how quickly, the Special Counsel’s investigation is moving.

Unlike Kenneth Starr’s slow-as-molasses probe into the affairs – both literally and figuratively – of Bill Clinton, insiders believe this one could be the tip of the iceberg. Mueller was appointed to the task just nine months ago.

Since the indictment was handed down Feb. 16, the media has focused on Russia’s so-called “troll factory,” Internet Research Agency LLC. Based in St. Petersburg, Russia, the  organization ran a network of phony social media accounts, and supplied paid political advertisements designed to undermine Hillary Clinton and build up Donald Trump.

Under Count One of Mueller’s indictment:

The ORGANIZATION was headed by a management group and organized into departments, including: a graphics department; a data analysis department; a search-engine optimization (“SEO”) department; an information-technology (“IT”) department to maintain the digital infrastructure used in the ORGANIZATION’s operations; and a finance department to budget and allocate funding.

According to online columnist Mike Allen, Mueller is showing he means business.

“The indictment-announcement presser by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who supervises the investigation, was meant to signal that Mueller intends to be efficient and transparent,” Allen writes. “With the quick revelations about Russia and the election, Mueller was signaling this isn’t a fishing expedition. And he made it harder for Trump to fire him.”

MSNBC contributor Matt Miller, who was once a spokesman for the Justice Department, told the columnist that the indictment “established the legal architecture for possible future charges. Once you’ve established there was a conspiracy, you can charge anyone who was aware of the conspiracy and took an overt action to further it.”

On Monday, a spokesman for Russian president Vladimir Putin said the indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three entities provided “no evidence that the Russian state could have been involved and there can’t be any.”

President Donald Trump took to Twitter once again to defend his campaign team. “I never said Russia did not meddle in the election, I said ‘it may be Russia, or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400 pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer,’” he wrote. “The Russian ‘hoax’ was that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia – it never did!”