From: januarybaybee@gmail.com   
      
   SEPT. 18, 2017 NY Times    
      
      
      
   With a Picked Lock and a Threatened Indictment, Mueller’s Inquiry Sets a   
   Tone    
      
      
   WASHINGTON — Paul J. Manafort was in bed early one morning in July when   
   federal agents bearing a search warrant picked the lock on his front door and   
   raided his Virginia home.   They took binders stuffed with documents and   
   copied his computer files,    
   looking for evidence that Mr. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign   
   chairman, set up secret offshore bank accounts. They even photographed the   
   expensive suits in his closet.    
      
   The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, then followed the house search   
   with a warning: His prosecutors told Mr. Manafort they planned to indict him,   
   said two people close to the investigation.    
      
   The moves against Mr. Manafort are just a glimpse of the aggressive tactics   
   used by Mr. Mueller and his team of prosecutors in the four months since   
   taking over the Justice Department’s investigation into Russia’s attempts   
   to disrupt last year’s    
   election, according to lawyers, witnesses and American officials who have   
   described the approach.   Dispensing with the plodding pace typical of many   
   white-collar investigations, Mr. Mueller’s team has used what some describe   
   as shock-and-awe tactics    
   to intimidate witnesses and potential targets of the inquiry.    
      
   Mr. Mueller has obtained a flurry of subpoenas to compel witnesses to testify   
   before a grand jury, lawyers and witnesses say, sometimes before his   
   prosecutors have taken the customary first step of interviewing them.   One   
   witness was called before the    
   grand jury less than a month after his name surfaced in news accounts.   The   
   special counsel even took the unusual step of obtaining a subpoena for one of   
   Mr. Manafort’s former lawyers, claiming an exception to the rule that   
   shields attorney-client    
   discussions from scrutiny.    
      
   “They are setting a tone. It’s important early on to strike terror in the   
   hearts of people in Washington, or else you will be rolled,” said Solomon L.   
   Wisenberg, who was deputy independent counsel in the investigation that led to   
   the impeachment    
   trial of President Bill Clinton in 1999.   “You want people saying to   
   themselves, ‘Man, I had better tell these guys the truth.’”    
      
   Few people can upend Washington like a federal prosecutor rooting around a   
   presidential administration, and Mr. Mueller, a former F.B.I. director, is   
   known to dislike meandering investigations that languish for years.    
      
   At the same time, he appears to be taking a broad view of his mandate:   
   examining not just the Russian disruption campaign and whether any of Mr.   
   Trump’s associates assisted in the effort, but also any financial   
   entanglements with Russians going back    
   several years.   He is also investigating whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct   
   justice when he fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director.    
      
   Mr. Manafort is under investigation for possible violations of tax laws,   
   money-laundering prohibitions and requirements to disclose foreign lobbying.      
        
   Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, is being scrutinized   
   for foreign lobbying work as well as for conversations he had last year with   
   Russia’s ambassador to the United States.  On Monday, Mr. Flynn’s siblings   
   announced the    
   creation of a legal-defense fund to help cover their brother’s   
   “enormous” legal fees.    
      
   The wide-ranging nature of Mr. Mueller’s investigation could put him on a   
   collision course with Mr. Trump, who has said publicly that Mr. Mueller should   
   keep his investigation narrowly focused on last year’s presidential   
   campaign. In an interview    
   with The New York Times, Mr. Trump said Mr. Mueller would be overstepping his   
   boundaries if he investigated his family’s finances unrelated to Russia.    
      
   {snip}    
   “They seem to be pursuing this more aggressively, taking a much harder line,   
   than you’d expect to see in a typical white-collar case,” said Jimmy   
   Gurulé, a Notre Dame law professor and former federal prosecutor. “This is   
   more consistent with how    
   you’d go after an organized crime syndicate.”    
      
   The tactics reflect some of the hard-charging — and polarizing —   
   personalities of Mr. Mueller’s team, seasoned prosecutors with experience   
   investigating financial fraud, money laundering and organized crime.    
      
   More:    
      
   https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/mueller-russia-in   
   estigation.html?mcubz=0    
      
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