Judge Andrew Napolitano: Why I don't believe that Mueller is on a fishing expedition (or is about to go home)

He (Mueller) keeps acquiring new evidence. Last week, when Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to lying to Congress about Trump's negotiations with Russian authorities during the 2016 presidential campaign to build Trump Tower Moscow, Cohen claimed he lied so as to further Trump's political message, which has been one of zero relationships with Russian officials during the campaign. Yet the most important words Cohen uttered were not those stated during his 10-minute guilty plea but those stated to Mueller's FBI agents and prosecutors during the 70 hours that they interrogated him. 

Whatever he told them and they were able to corroborate, they caused his prison exposure to be reduced from somewhere between 15 and 60 years to six months. Such a reduction requires a substantial quid pro quo. What was it? 

The third reason for rejecting the belief that Mueller will soon shut down is Mueller's declaration to a federal judge in Washington last week that Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager during the time the Trump campaign had 87 communications with Russians, lied to FBI agents in defiance of his commitment to be truthful to them made during his guilty plea in federal court in September. 

Mueller will no doubt seek to indict Manafort for each of those lies and then try him -- a trial that could not occur until mid-2019. 

As if all that were not enough to dispel the Giuliani-fueled myth that Mueller will soon end his work, recall that Mueller has repeatedly expressed a desire to interrogate the president in a one-on-one interview or before one of his grand juries. Neither has occurred. 

Mueller has a toolbox of techniques to bring either of these about, and he has yet to employ the most potent contents.

GO READ THE WHOLE THING.