Prosecution tactics

Over the years the FBI and the Justice Department developed tactics to bring down organized crime figures and later used against terrorist. They would find a low level member of the group and charge him with a crime whether or not he committed such and then offer him immunity if he would rat out the guy above him. They would then proceed up the ladder to finally get the top dog. People inside the government knew of these activities but since they were used against the bad guys things were overlooked. In more recent years this same approach has been used against white collar criminals. The most recent case involved Scooter Libby who was an assistant to VP Chaney. Libby was accused of outing a CIA agent and Patrick Fitzgerald charged him with the crime. The next day Richard Armitage confessed to the crime but was told to keep quiet. The case proceeded and Libby was convicted of lying on an unrelated issue. When Special Prosecutor Ken Starr was asked in investigate Bill Clinton's involvement in the Whitewater real estate deal he found nothing wrong but ended up convicting Clinton of lying under oath about a completely unrelated affair with Monica Lewinsky. In both of these instances a case can be made that the purpose of the investigation was to find something wrong. We now have Robert Mueller going after Trump with the goal of finding something. As the case against collusion and then obstruction weakens the emphasis shifts to a payoff to avoid a sexual scandal. The reason Clinton got in trouble was that he lied under oath and was caught by the famous blue dress. Recently a federal judge came out and publicly condemned this kind of prosecution but will that be enough to make changes in the way the government operates. Now much can be done with the current case against Trump but perhaps future cases will be handled differently.