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(THREAD) BREAKING: Special Counsel and Former FBI Director Bob Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in the Russia probe. Here's what it means.
Seth AbramsonVerified account @SethAbramson 25m
(1) First, here's the Breaking News from CNBC on the announcement of a new grand jury in the Russia investigation:
(2) I say "new," not "first." Mueller took over a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia that is looking at Mike Flynn's activities.
(3) So we can now accurately say there are multiple federal grand juries investigating possible crimes by President Trump and his aides.
(4) A grand jury is comprised of average citizens who are specially selected to serve on this deliberative body for a set period of time.
(5) An investigative grand jury might be active for many months, whereas a (state-level) conventional grand jury usually sits for a month.
(6) At the state level, a grand jury spends all day every day, for a month, listening to prosecutors present cases for immediate indictment.
(7) At the state level, criminal investigation is usually nearly completed by the time a grand jury hears a case, so indictments come fast.
(8) An indictment is a document basically saying a grand jury has determined there's sufficient evidence to charge a person with a felony.
(9) Indictments aren't proof of anything. They just mean a bare-minimum threshold of evidence has been reached, so a charge can be brought.
(10) At the federal level, as I've long noted here, criminal investigations take much longer, so grand jury duties are a bit different.
(11) A federal grand jury is more commonly an investigate body whose existence helps prosecutors get documents and witnesses for their case.
(12) Federal grand juries issue indictments too. But the small number of fed cases and their length/complexity means it's not a daily event.
(13) The impaneling of a grand jury in the Russia probe was inevitable given that (as I/others have said) it's clear crimes were committed.
(14) Mueller only would've forsworn a grand jury if he'd taken over the case and immediately found no even potential evidence of a crime.
(15) If anything, Mueller taking this long to impanel a grand jury means that he's being incredibly deliberative about this investigation.
(16) If 12 of 16-23 fed grand jurors listen to the evidence and think charges should be brought, an indictment ("true bill") is returned.
(17) It's very easy to get an indictment, as only the prosecutor is in the room (no defense) and grand jurors can ask their own questions.
(18) Grand jury proceedings are secret, but basically it's an opportunity for a federal prosecutor to ask for and get anything s/he wants.
(19) So a prosecutor can use grand jury proceedings to subpoena documents that aren't being given voluntarily or force witnesses to testify.
(20) It's possible Mueller was trying to get docs/testimony voluntarily before impaneling a GJ and reached the limit of what he could get.