The longer I look at the Mueller indictment of the 13 Russians, the more questions that come to mind. For starters, the indictment describes a multi-year disinformation campaign involving over 100 foreign agents operating in and outside the United States who used social media and internet communications to carry out their plot. So, where were our vaunted intelligence agencies while this was going on?

Where was the National Security Agency which has the resources to suck up every electron moving in cyberspace? Same for the FBI which has primary responsibility for domestic counterintelligence. Were they aware of this Russian plot? If so, what did they know about it and what steps did they take to shut it down? And to whom did they report and what were their marching orders?

My educated guess is that the FBI knew but didn’t deem the plot worthy of serious investigative effort since to do so might get in the way of their plans to take down Trump. This is speculation on my part. But after what we have learned about the FBI’s shameful game playing with the FISA warrant applications and the unmitigated anti-Trump animus of its counterintelligence hierarchy, such speculation is not out of the question. After all, why chase some doomed-to-failure Russian mischief, which had no chance of materially affecting the election, when to do so might complicate the exciting prospect of using the fake Steele dossier to destroy Trump?

Speaking of Christopher Steele and his fabulous (as in having no basis in fact) dossier, the Mueller indictment raises this question: were the Russians who fed him disinformation about Trump related in any way to the disinformation campaign described in the indictment? In other words, could Steele be a co-conspirator of the 13 Russian defendants?

Steele has been referred by the Senate Judiciary Committee to the Justice Department for potential violation of the statute which prohibits lying to the FBI. In the referral, the committee cites Steele’s sworn admissions before a British court that, in the late summer/autumn of 2016, he “gave off the record briefings to a small number of journalists” about the dossier’s claims about Trump.

In another sworn filing in that same British litigation, Steele stated that, in September 2016, he briefed journalists from “the New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo News, the New Yorker and CNN” about the dossier’s contents at the direction of Fusion GPS, the opposition research agency working on behalf of the Clinton campaign. Similarly, yet another filing in that case states that Steele “subsequently participated in further meetings at Fusion’s instruction with Fusion and the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Yahoo News, which took place mid-October 2016.” According to all of these court filings, “[t]he briefings involved the disclosure of limited intelligence regarding indications of Russian interference in the US election process and the possible co-ordination of members of Trump’s team and Russian officials.”

In his testimony before the Senate, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS confirmed these accounts by Steele in the British court filings.

So, was Steele an unwitting dupe of crafty Russians? Or was he knowingly spreading disinformation to the media? Either way, he needs to be thoroughly investigated.

Which raises the final series of questions. Who in federal law enforcement will investigate Steele and his discredited dossier? The semi-comatose Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from all things Russian. So, will Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has his own set of FISA warrant-related problems, authorize the investigation? Or will Team Mueller do it? Given its obvious conflicts of interest due to Mueller’s relationship with the fired Comey and the blatant pro-Clinton bias of his subordinates, is Team Mueller in a position to conduct a conflict of interest free investigation of Steele?

Put another way, would Mueller and his posse of Hillary Clinton supporters do an honest investigation of Steele and his dossier at the risk of blowing up the entire Trump-Russia narrative and along with it the very reason for having a special counsel?

Or will Team Mueller look the other way and continue its blind pursuit of the President?