Typically, however, these investigations never see the inside of a courtroom. That’s because it’s generally better for the FBI to keep its adversaries from knowing they are monitoring their activities: This allows the FBI to keep its methods and sources secret and quietly “neutralize,” or render ineffective, the foreign intelligence service’s operations.
In making the details of Russia’s social media and propaganda operation public, Mueller accomplished two goals. First, he made it crystal clear to Russia that pursuing a criminal case against individuals and entities who have interfered in our democracy is a priority and worth the tradeoffs that come with exposing the FBI’s secrets. And second — and perhaps more importantly — because Russia’s social media and propaganda campaign is only effective as long as it remains in the shadows, the best way to neutralize it is to make it public. Mueller’s indictment reveals exactly how Americans may have been duped by false and misleading information pushed out by Russia.
2. A public ‘report’
One of the limitations of the special counsel regulation is that it focuses on a criminal investigation, not a counterintelligence one. This means that beyond charging specific violations of the federal criminal code, Mueller does not have an option to provide a public report laying out the bigger picture, in the same way that former independent counsels, like Kenneth Starr, had the power to do. (Starr, referred to as independent counsel — not special counsel — had more latitude, but after his investigation concluded, new Department of Justice regulations were written to reel in the excesses of his investigation.) Without a report coming from the lead investigator, the American public would have to rely on Congress to investigate the matter thoroughly.
It’s fair to say that neither the House Intelligence Committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee nor the Senate Judiciary Committee — all of which are ostensibly investigating alleged Russian interference — have helped the American public make sense of what happened in 2016. Mueller’s indictment now fills this void. The indictment identifies the federal crimes Russian individuals and companies may have violated, including conspiracy to violate federal election laws, wire fraud, bank fraud and identity theft.
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