The Justice League

ROBERT MUELLER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE

When Robert Mueller was appointed the Special Counselor for the Russia Investigation by the Deputy Attorney General back in May 2017, one of the first things that he did was assemble a team to help him with the day to day activities.  Not only would these team members do the heavy lifting in the courtroom, but their expertise would shape the investigation.  These hires also tell us who and what they know.

What do we know about this team?

They are some of the best prosecutors in the world, specializing in everything from white-collar crimes to cybersecurity to terrorism.  Many of them gave up 6, 7, possibly 8 figure salaries and partnerships to work on the Russian Investigation at base government pay.

What does this mean?

This means that there is more than enough evidence to convince some of the greatest lawyers on Earth to leave their private practices representing the wealthiest clients in the world to take part in the largest case in history.  At the least, they will take part in the prosecution of the President of the United States.  At the most, their roles will be pivotal in securing the fate of Democracy as we know it.

Who’s on the team, and what do they do?

Robert Mueller, Special Counselor

Former FBI Director, Mueller took over the position one week before the 9/11 terror attacks.  He became the longest serving FBI Director since J. Edgar Hoover.  After his time there, he became a partner at WilmerHale law firm in Washington, D.C.

James Quarles, member of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force

James Quarles was a young man in the 1970’s, but already a skilled lawyer.  He served as an Assistant Special Prosecutor in the Watergate scandal.

Andrew Weissmann, Fraud and Corruption

Weissmann headed up the Enron Task Force between 2002 and 2005.  Before that he was a federal prosecutor in New York.  He took down Enron Chariman Kenneth Lay, CEO Jeffery Skilling, and members and bosses in the Genovese, Colombo, and Gambino crime families.

Greg Andres, White-Collar Crimes

Andres brings foreign bribery experience to the team.  He took down an $8 Billion Ponzi scheme in Texas.

Andrew D. Goldstein, Assistant US Attorney from Southern District New York

Goldstein worked for Preet Bharara in SDNY where he led the public corruption unit.  He has experience in money laundering, fraud, and corruption cases.  Before his boss was fired by Donald Trump, Goldstein and Preet were supposedly working on a RICO case against the Trump Organization.  Rumor has it that he took the evidence against Trump with him down to Washington.

Elizabeth Prelogar, The Russian Expert

Prelogar is fluent in Russian, and clerked for Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.

Rush Atkinson, Criminal Fraud

Atkinson is a prosecutor in the Criminal Division Securities & Financial Fraud Unit.  He took down a mother and son team that orchestrated a $16 million medicare fraud scheme.

Aaron Zebley, former Chief of Staff to FBI Director Mueller

Zebley has expertise in Counterterrorism and National Security cases.  He was prosecuting Al Qaeda before prosecuting Al Qaeda was cool.  In recent years at WilmerHale, he focused on Cybersecurity cases.

Michael Dreeben, Supreme Court Expert

Less than 10 attorneys in history have argued more than 100 cases before the United States Supreme Court.  Michael Dreeben is one of them.

Adam Jed, Civil Appeals Expert

Jed is an appellate lawyer in the civil division, not the criminal division.  This implies that they’re preparing for civil cases, and expecting them them to challenged on appeal.  His most famous case is United States v. Windsor, where he helped overturn the Defense of Marriage Act and brought about the legalization of gay marriage across the land.

Aaron Zelinsky, U.S. Attorney from Maryland

Zelinsky has worked for Rod Rosenstein, and was a hostage negotiator in the State Department under President Obama.

Kyle Freeny, Money Laundering and Asset Recovery

Freeny just wrapped up work on the “Wolf of Wall Street” money laundering case when she got the call to join the Mueller team.

Zainab Ahmad, Counterterrorism and Witness Flipping

Ahmad has singlehandedly crippled Al Qaeda in the United States.  She has more convictions against terrorists in the United States than anyone else.  How?  She’s THE expert in flipping witnesses. If she can flip hardened terrorists against each other, what chance does a member of the Trump Family have against her?

Jeanie Rhee, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General

Rhee has two years of DOJ experience, and worked with Robert teller at WilmerHale.  She represented the Clinton Foundation in a racketeering lawsuit in 2015.

Brandon Van Grack, National Security Division Prosecutor

Van Grack is an expert in espionage, national security, and International Crime cases.

Ryan Dickey, Cybercrime Expert  

Ryan K. Dickey is a United States Attorney who specializes in cyber crimes. He was the prosecutor who convicted the original Guccifer, and is the man behind the shutdown of MegaUpload. He is one of the best attorneys in the world for prosecuting computer crimes.

Scott Meisler, Appellate Lawyer

Scott has represented the government in appeals involving search warrants, seizures, motions to suppress wiretap evidence, mail fraud, wire fraud, as well as structuring financial transactions and money laundering.  In other words, he knows how to “defend the technicalities.”

Brian Richardson, The New Guy

Richardson clerked for Supreme Court Justice Steven Breyer in October 2016 before joining the Mueller team in July 2017.  He’s also worked in multiple district courts.

Heather Alpino, Counterintelligence and Export Control

Alpino is a Harvard Law graduate who has worked on cases against Iranian hackers, a British National and American who tried to get chemical weapons equipment into Syria, and prosecuted Hamza Kolsuz for trying to illegally export guns to Turkey.

Jonathan Kravis, Corruption

Kravis has experience in prosecuting public corruption cases.  He helped take down former Congressman Chaka Fattah and DEA Agent Artemis Papadakis.

Uzo Asonye, Fraud and Financial Crimes

Asonye is the Deputy Chief of the Financial Crimes and Public Corruption Unit in Eastern District Virginia.

Kathryn Rakoczy, Street Crime

Rakoczy has spent most of the last decade specializing in misdemeanors and violent crime in Washington, D.C.

Deborah Curtis, Counterespionage

Curtis has worked on many cases of espionage, including busting Chinese companies trying to get around North Korean sanctions, nailing an American scientist spying for the Israelis, prosecuting former State Department contractor Stephen Jin-Woo Kim for leaking classified intelligence to an Fox News reporter, and Chelsea Manning.

 

What can we infer?

We have multiple experts in money laundering, fraud, bribery, mafia crimes, cyber crimes, espionage, counterterrorism, asset recovery, witness flipping, international crimes, and Russian culture.  By the way, they also have one of the few people alive that prosecuted a White House for criminal charges.

Mueller is not fucking around.

So far, we’ve got two arrests on white-collar crimes, and two convictions on plea deals for lying to the FBI regarding contacts with Russians.  Plus, there’s a ton of stuff still under seal.

Without hyperbole, this is one of the greatest collection of lawyers ever pulled together.  They’ve been working on this case since May 2017, and the investigation began a year before that.  Any one of these prosecutors coming after a person would cause sleepless nights and panic inducing anxiety.  All of them coming after a person would cause them to seriously contemplate suicide.

They are not fucking around.  People are going to jail, or worse.

Thanks to Reddit user PoppinKREAM and this post for making this post a lot easier to put together.

 

UPDATED FEBRUARY 25, 2018:  From some new information from CNN, I made a few changes:

Kyle Freeney is a she, not a he.  I also added Brian Richardson and Scott Meisler.

UPDATED APRIL 6, 2018:  Corrected spelling of Elena Kagan.

UPDATED JULY 20, 2018:  Based on this article from The Daily Beast, I added the following people:

• Heather Alpino
• Jonathan Kravis
• Uzo Asonye
• Kathryn Rakoczy
• Deborah Curtis

UPDATED SEPTEMBER 3, 2018: According to reporting from  this article from CNN, the following lawyers have left Mueller’s team.

• Ryan Dickey
• Brian Richardson

UPDATED OCTOBER 3, 2018: According to reporting from Politico, the following lawyers have left Mueller’s team.

• Kyle Freeny
• Brandon Van Grack