Thread by @Rightwingmadman

To restate what - by now - is patently obvious (except to the media), the Mueller Group's mission was always one of building leverage against the on-going OIG probe at DOJ.

The execution of the "insurance policy" in the event Trump won the presidency. The misdeeds and abuses of power to obstruct the Trump candidacy by Obama's weaponized DOJ-FBI and co-conspirators were as legion as they were brazen.

The anti-Trump Sabotage Team knew the jig was up. The launch of the IG probe, led by the dogged and fearless Michael Horowitz, would ultimately uncover all their dirt.

Crimes that dwarf Watergate by comparison were systemic on Obama's watch. And with Horowitz in hot pursuit, it was a question of when not if all would be revealed. That's the core mission of the OIG. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

Enter Robert Mueller. The rationale behind the Mueller appointment is that, by building criminal cases against TrumpWorld, it would give Deep State leverage against the Horowitz probe.

Not that there was any expectation that the Mueller Group would be able to stop the OIG investigation. That was never in the cards.

Instead, the expectation was that the Mueller Group could leverage criminal charges against TrumpWorld players in exchange for leniency for Deep State actors.

For Mueller and his profoundly compromised Deep State clients, the best case scenario would obviously be discovering the "smoking gun" - nay, the smoking cannon - to take down the whole Trump presidency.

Short of that, the Mueller operation - it was believed - would gain just enough leverage to position implicated clients in a favorable bargaining situation.

Problem. That hadn't happened. The Mueller Group had been unable to build anywhere near the amount of leverage necessary to execute its core mission successfully. Let alone building an impeachment case.

With the Horowitz steamroller gathering momentum, buttressed by the appointment last summer of outside prosecutor, John W. Huber, the situation for the Mueller Group and its clients became perilous.

Enter the Papadoplous Hail Mary pass. Hat tip: @TheLastRefuge2

The Mueller Group bet everything on George Papadoplous. They bet the whole ball of wax. They arrested him last July. They covered up his arrest. As alluded to earlier, they had bigger fish to fry.

The criminal case against Papadoplous (lying to the FBI) was used to recruit him as part of a failed two-month sting operation. The target of this sting was TrumpWorld. Ultimately, if they got lucky, Trump himself would go down. Short of that, build leverage.

Up until then (and currently), not a shred of evidence was uncovered implicating Trump nor the Trump campaign in aiding and abetting an alleged Russian cyber espionage op (never proven) against the DNC.

But, when you can't nail your target on the evidence, you go for the process crime. Prosecutors' MO. To nail Trump or anyone in TrumpWorld, the Mueller Group recruited Papadoplous as a so-called "proactive cooperator."

In his role as proactive cooperator, in exchange for leniency, Papadoplous would help the Mueller Group build a 'conspiracy-to-obstruct' case. And, with it, lots of leverage.

Papadoplous basically became the functional equivalent of an agent provocateur for the Mueller Group. The same role played by Stefan Halper against the Trump campaign.

Again, the best case scenario for Mueller and his clients would be to gather up enough evidence to name Trump an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal case. The political effect would be the same as an indictment.

Problem. Again. The lack of evidence. It keeps getting in Mueller's way. In those more than two months using Papadoplous as a "proactive cooperator," the Mueller Group was unable to gather the slightest shred of evidence.

No evidence, no leverage. No leverage puts Mueller's Deep State clients in deep doo-doo.

IG Michael Horowitz is set to testify on the evidence he and prosecutor Huber have assembled against top Obama political appointees regarding their roles in the fake HRC email probe. Leverage.

The Mueller Group has nothing to mitigate against this. Nothing to offer up as leverage to shield its clients or to bargain for leniency.

Indeed, during the course of their investigation, the Horowitz-Huber tag team was able to get key people to flip and fully cooperate in their wide-ranging probe.

This was never suppose to happen.

With Title-1 surveillance authority and a no-holds-barred license to explore Trump's entire life to see if he or anyone in his orbit had ever done anything illegal, the expectation was Mueller would have leverage.

Tons of leverage. Instead, it's the opposite. All the leverage is on the other side. Team Trump has nothing but leverage. The Mueller Group is essentially an unarmed opponent.

Not a good place for Obama's anti-Trump Saboteur Team to be in. Just days before the next OIG shoe to drop. To be followed by yet more shoes dropping. Including Grand Jury indictments. Leading up to the midterms. Never mess with the #StableGenius. #MAGA, baby. #KAG2020