Seth AbramsonVerified account

NOTE/ I divided these 100 questions into 5 categories of 20 questions, emphasizing the Mueller Report's too-little-discussed Vol. 1. As to Vol. 2, Dems can—and should—just ask Mueller to take them through the volume. We shouldn't expect fireworks or miracles from those questions.

FIRST CATEGORY/ ADMINISTRATIVE QUESTIONS:

1/ You limited your [Vol. 1] probe to consideration of whether Trump or any of his associates participated in a before-the-fact conspiracy with the IRA or GRU. On what basis did you decide to make this narrow band of collusive activity your sole (non-obstruction) area of inquiry?

2/ Did you have reports from law enforcement, media, or other sources at the outset of your probe that caused you to believe—at a level of reasonable suspicion, the standard for initiating an investigation—that it was these criminal acts, not others, that warranted investigation?

3/ Your team decided not to use the lay term “collusion” in your report—which is understandable. However, in determining that it wasn't relevant or helpful to your work, you had to first generate a definition for it. What is the definition of "collusion" that your team developed?

4/ Under the definition of "collusion" that you and your team derived, adopted, or acknowledged, are there any "collusive" acts—again, per the lay definition you’ve provided here before Congress—that accurately describe *any* act in a fact-pattern establishing a criminal offense?

5/ For instance, is the federal crime of bribery undergirded by (or does it itself constitute) a "collusive" act, under the definition you’ve provided? Is aiding and abetting? Receiving illegal foreign campaign donations? Obstructing justice to hide the crimes of another person?

6/ Were you at any point instructed or advised, in writing or otherwise, by any person or entity within DOJ or outside it, not to consider aiding and abetting, money laundering, bribery, RICO, wire/bank fraud, or illegal (non-Russian) foreign donations to the 2016 Trump campaign?

7/ When did you discover—during your probe—media or other reports establishing facts that would be relevant to a bribery probe of Trump and his campaign? When did you decide not to pursue such facts, which were far more common in media than before-the-fact conspiracy allegations?

8/ When did you discover—during your probe—media or other reports establishing facts that would be relevant to a money laundering probe of Trump and his campaign? When did you decide not to pursue such reports, which were *far* more common than before-the-fact conspiracy reports?

9/ When did your team discover media—or other—reports establishing facts relevant to possible aiding and abetting or wire/bank fraud crimes by Trump and/or his campaign? Why did you decide not to pursue such reports—which were far more common than the reports you chose to pursue?

10/ Do you concede that a federal subject can conspire to commit bribery, conspire to commit wire/bank fraud, or conspire to launder money—and that your probe of a before-the-fact Trump-IRA/GRU conspiracy doesn't preclude other Trump-Russia or Trump-foreign national conspiracies?

11/ Having decided not to (yourself) investigate the bribery, money laundering, or aiding/abetting allegations prevalent in reporting when you were appointed, when did you decide to exclude even passing reference to such charges—or your decision not to pursue them—in your report?

12/ When you found probative evidence relevant to building federal bribery, aiding/abetting, RICO, money laundering, wire/bank fraud, or non-Russian illegal solicitation/acceptance of foreign campaign donations cases, what did you do with it? How are you monitoring any referrals?

13/ Given that Acting Attorney General (as to the Trump-Russia investigation) Rod Rosenstein wasn't just a foreseeable but a *known* witness in one of the possible criminal acts you were investigating (obstruction), did you ever ask him to recuse himself from being your overseer?

14/ Did you at any point receive any pressure from Acting Attorney General Rosenstein—or anyone at DOJ, including Attorneys General Matthew Whitaker or William Barr—to conclude the investigation early? Did you ever receive any such pressure from outside the Department of Justice?

15/ Given that your office was *bringing in more money than it was spending*—and that political considerations are wholly out-of-bounds—why did you shut down your office while prosecutions that relied on your evidence, your investigators and your prosecutors were *still ongoing*?

16/ Is your sworn testimony before Congress that there was *no chance* that future developments in ongoing cases spurred by your investigation—for instance a Stone conviction or Manafort flip based on new charges or circumstances—could have led to evidence relevant to your probe?

17/ At the time you shut down your office—with open referred cases, open witness subpoenas, an open grand jury and open document requests—was there *any information whatsoever* you were in the process of seeking and hadn't yet received that could have impacted your investigation?

18/ Is there any DOJ mechanism for you to file an addendum to your report based on new information that may emerge in the coming months or next year? Have you considered—or would you consider—spearheading such an addendum if developments in the 14 cases you referred warranted it?

19/ If you’re not willing to take on the task of pursuing investigative leads relevant to your DOJ appointment that arise subsequent to you closing a DOJ office with open evidentiary requests and referred cases, how do you expect (or would you expect, or advise) DOJ to handle it?

20/ Given the foregoing, would you agree that your report isn't a "final" report as to the facts you investigated? Also—as the report references non-DOJ remedies for responding to possible offenses you declined to prosecute—what remedies were you referring to? Is impeachment one?

NOTE/ I'm going to pause for a bit. The next category is INVESTIGATIVE QUESTIONS.

SECOND CATEGORY/ INVESTIGATIVE QUESTIONS

1/ On pg. 10 of Vol. 1 of your Report, you make it *crystal* clear that individuals connected to Trump lied to you and your investigators. Why did your report not clearly—in a dedicated fashion—list the Trump-connected witnesses who lied to you, given that such lying was a crime?

2/ You ultimately charged a few Trump-connected individuals with lying to your office—but have never provided an exhaustive list of all persons in this category, nor has any action been taken on multiple Congressional criminal referrals of Trump-connected witnesses who lied. Why?

3/ Did you lack the investigative, administrative, or financial resources to resolve instances in which someone connected to Trump lied to you? How or why did you lack those critical resources, and who denied them to you when you asked for them? When were those resources denied?

4/ Please offer Congress a *list* of the Trump-related witnesses who lied to you and made it impossible for your to ascertain certain facts in your report—and please list the facts you were unable to ascertain. How would knowing these facts have been relevant to your conclusions?

5/ Did you opt *not* to charge with lying to you any person you *could* have so charged? If so, why? What other means did you have at your disposal to avoid writing a report in which you say witnesses lying to you kept you from getting to the truth in a key federal criminal case?

6/ Your report says you found the best evidence you could given *many* constraints. Was time a constraint? Political considerations? Oversight? Money? In how many past cases did you face such constraints? Would you characterize your probe as obstructed? A failure? Why or why not?