As Jack Smith, a special counsel for the Justice Department, closes in on the end of an investigation into former President Donald Trump’s possession of hundreds of classified documents, his team has made use of the work of another special counsel who previously investigated Trump’s ties to Russia, according to a person familiar with the investigation. A lengthy section of the Mueller Report, which examined ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, has been instructive to the current inquiry’s prosecutors, who are viewing Trump’s actions around federal requests to return the classified documents as part of a broader pattern, the person said. Robert Mueller, a former director of the FBI, released his highly anticipated report in April 2019, shortly after then-Attorney General William Barr released a short summary of the report that was viewed by many in hindsight as downplaying the report’s findings.
Prosecutors have looked closely at Section II of the Mueller report, titled “Factual Results of the Obstruction Investigation.” That 142-page section goes into vivid detail, with extensive footnotes and copies of emails and text messages, about Trump taking steps to thwart the work of federal prosecutors investigating Russia’s effort to influence the 2016 election.
It is unclear if the special counsel’s office has decided to use any material from Mueller’s investigation in building their case. There are limits to how prosecutors can use evidence from prior investigations. Called 404(b) evidence, information from a previous criminal investigation can be used to show a target’s motive, intent or that an action wasn’t a mistake or accident. But, under the Federal Rules of Evidence, prosecutors cannot submit evidence from previous bad actions in order to show that a person acted consistent with certain character traits.
The Mueller investigation would be helpful for prosecutors in learning how to deal with Trump, said a former federal prosecutor who worked on a similar case, and requested anonymity to speak more freely. But using evidence from the Mueller investigation or pointing out sections of the Mueller Report to grand jurors could be an unnecessary tangent, given how heated the political debate around Mueller’s investigation became. “Any association with Mueller is not going to be helpful for Jack Smith,” the former prosecutor said.
https://time.com/6285723/trump-classifi ... er-report/"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Loving this. Indictment #2 with numerous counts; expect more to come over next few weeks. I'm giddy in a really good way !! 
