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It all started with a chilly autumn morning in 2017, watching the sun rise over southwest Washington. After a day taking care of what we thought was Mueller's base of operations, a man with a red backpack crossed the street. Peter Carr was known as Mueller's spokesperson and he unintentionally drove us to the paydirt: a set of glass doors leading to a simple office building – a classic example of the shape of a part of the city that was once an industrial center but is now full of concrete and glass office buildings.
Over the next year, we stuck to the different entrances to try to take a look at the comings and goings of the main minor actors involved in the investigation. Eventually, we discovered that when Mueller had started working with his Subaru silver signature, and had identified his team of prosecutors, FBI agents and support staff who were driving or were also heading to the office of the 39, special advocate.
There were garages, loading docks, front doors – all this was part of the office complex. But we could not be in the garage and at the door at the same time to catch everything. It was often a gamble to know where to look and risk missing something important.
It was difficult to spot Mueller beyond his daily entrance and get out in his car. And then, about a year after CNN began locating Mueller's office regularly, out of the corner of our eyes, through the entrance hall window, a tall, silver-haired man was coming out of a hallway . Two seconds later, he disappeared into another lane.
We ran to the side of the garage to see if we could catch the man leaving.
Success. He was there, the elusive Robert Mueller, glimpsed not only coming and going out through the garage but into the lobby.
So, coffee has become "our place".
Not only to see Mueller. If we were perched at the right seat, we could partially see in the lobby of the building and see people coming and going. Not to mention the team of special advocates who come in and out of the cafe themselves because of its proximity and convenience.
It was a key moment for us – four different pairs of CNN journalists over the 22 months of the investigation – who did not work every day in the daily routine of standing in front of the garage and offices. and sit in the cafe. , watching the movements of various prosecutors and FBI staff, marking the time and sending dispatches to the CNN office in Washington to help inform and, in some cases, advance the wider story.
At one point, a passer-by jokingly nicknamed CNN's "TMZ" team, according to the website that uses the paparazzi extensively. But the goal was not to ambush people by taking pictures. The goal was to help the public know what his government was doing.
The work was sometimes exciting, often monotonous and always going on, no matter the rain, sleet or snow. We spent countless hours watching and, by extension, listening to music, podcasts, radio in Russian for a reporter or the daily radio show of Trump's personal attorney, Jay Sekulow, hoping to hear something related to Mueller: pass the time.
Even though the stakes were exhausting, there were times when the full weight of responsibility struck us. We were often the only journalist's eyes and ears at Mueller's office – not just for CNN, but for the world. It was history.
The daily plan
Our mornings followed a fairly usual routine: one of us was arriving around 6:50, getting our camera near the garage and asking Mueller and his team to arrive. Often, at least one prosecutor or FBI agent beat Mueller in the office. Most came by car, but some came from a nearby subway station. A motorized scooter was frequently mounted.
In the middle of the morning, we went to the main entrance of the building, where a courtyard separated us from the visitors, the defense lawyer and potential witnesses. We took hundreds of photographs of foreigners who, in our opinion, appeared to be "lawyers" coming in and out of the scene, and we were always looking for clues.
At lunch, we waited for prosecutors and FBI staff to emerge for a Korean barbecue or Mexican food in nearby food trucks and coffee sandwiches. Lunchtime was an opportunity for us to identify the people we had missed that morning and to make a last count of people who came to work or not.
Afternoons were generally slower – but not always. Finally, at 5 pm, we swept the area, check all departure and departure.
Of course, we were not invisible – it was not the goal. And while the team of special advisers was famous, they sometimes asked questions.
On a federal day off, Attorney Aaron Zebley, of the Special Council Office, stopped to ask if Mueller had not arrived yet, knowing that we probably had the answer. (We did – Mueller had not arrived yet.)
But the team was monitored, respecting the "no leak" policy of their boss. The questions on the survey were off topic. The polite good words and "how are you" were the only things exchanged. (The special attorney's office is aware of this story.)
Sometimes journalists from other organizations were present, often not. And we were in the middle even though we were right on the sidewalk.
Paul Manafort and the ice cream
Mueller's office was punctuated – changes from the ordinary helped us decipher what was happening. As on September 13, 2018, when there was free ice on the place.
The Mueller team was about to enter into an agreement with former Trump campaign president Paul Manafort, but you'd never have known since the ice cream event on the tiki theme that the building management organized in the courtyard. The court outside Mueller's office was full of people – including members of the team of special advisers like Carr, Attorney Michael Dreeben and several FBI agents – who all went free for free . Carr even came back a few seconds.
Then, a big clue. At 2:40 pm, when a paralegal whom we knew was part of the Manafort defense team entered the nearby cafe and came out with a pizza, four sandwiches and four sodas – we Just assumed that for himself and the three men of Paul Manafort lawyers. At the end of the day, a black Dodge Durango left the loading dock at Mueller's office half an hour after he left. (The Durango was one of the many regular vehicles used by the special council office to transport witnesses and team members.)
About a week later, the introductory sessions began in earnest. While the rest of the country was preparing for the mid-term exams, Manafort and his team of lawyers visited the special council almost every week, for a total of nine sessions. It was during many sessions that we later learned that Manafort was accused of lying to prosecutors. Every morning we were on the lookout for what would happen first: a black government car with tinted windows, which we assumed would transport Manafort from jail to jetty, or Manafort's lawyers. who walked in – often headed by a main defense Lawyer Kevin Downing ready with a joke.
How are negotiations held with the Mueller team? "I just had lunch, tacos around the corner," he said, holding the bag open to see before continuing.
Why were they there after Manafort agreed to give up the presence of a lawyer as part of his plea agreement? He waved across the square: "There are good sandwiches there."
The mystery case
Over time, we trained to recognize not only Mueller from where we were sitting in the cafe, but also all the people we know who worked at the special council office, that they walk to us or away from us, or with a crowd of people. . (The closure of the government, which has significantly reduced pedestrian traffic in the square, has also confirmed this.) At the same time, any deviation has caused CNN's consternation. One day in December 2018, Mueller was not seen arriving and an email was sent back to mid-joking with: "SO MUELLER LACKED ?!"
The FBI's unofficial uniform of a bright white shirt – Mueller does not like his team wearing patterned shirts – and a dark suit also helped to spot people from far away. We realized that when a group of people – prosecutors, FBI agents, DOJ paralegals, or administrative staff – were walking to the garage, we could catch them off guard and send a message to our colleagues at the garage. the US District Court, about five minutes away. We could also run to the garage to see what tinted car they left and in which direction they were heading.
We also did reverse engineering; if we saw a car enter the special board office, we could run to the front to see who was climbing from the garage and into the lobby lobby elevators.
On December 14, 2018, a hearing before the Washington Court of Appeals about a mysterious summons to appear before the grand jury was to take place. The case, long suspected of being linked to Mueller's investigation, was sealed and secretive – the court had taken every precaution to keep the identity of defense lawyers and prosecutors clear of any journalist on the fifth floor.
Spotlights with spoons
Of course, Manafort was not the only leading witness to be discreetly introduced into the special advocate's office earlier that year for interview hours.
In January 2018, we saw a man with a dark coat and brown suitcase come out of Mueller's office, flanked by two people who appeared to be legal assistants. The trio hurried out of the main entrance and climbed into a dark car, but we were able to take a quick picture of our post on the sidewalk.
We later identified the old man as a well-known white-collar lawyer, Tom Green.
One night in early February 2018, a person we had not seen before went out of the building.
The intuition that allowed CNN to get Roger Stone arrested in front of the camera
Slight deviations from the routine of anyone reporting something important, we have come to believe.
Attorney Aaron Zelinsky, for example, would frequently go to work on a motorized scooter before walking in front of us and looking at his phone. But on a memorable Thursday in January, something was different. Zelinsky came to work with a small suitcase, a plastic bag and his usual black messenger bag. His charcoal helmet, which he usually wore while trotting along or going to the office by bike, was obviously missing.
We knew that Zelinsky was one of Mueller's attorneys working on issues relating to Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi and WikiLeaks. The son-in-law of Corsi was to testify that day before the grand jury, and we knew that for months, it was speculated that Stone could be indicted.
About half an hour later, we saw Zelinsky and an FBI agent leaving the special council office in a tinted car that we had previously identified as a car used by the Mueller team. Zelinsky and Andrew Goldstein were later spotted at court for what our stenographer thought was a Mueller grand jury meeting. Was an indictment going to happen?
In fact, Sam and Em were both present at the guard post this afternoon because one of us (we will not say who was chosen) locked the watch car key , as well as their jacket and their bag, in the car. As it was cold, as we waited for help, we settled in the café to stay warm – we then saw Zelinsky leave the office in casual attire with his suitcase and briefcase. He then walked down the street to a nearby hotel, where he hailed a taxi.
Earlier in the day, we thought the suitcase may have contained materials or documents, but Zelinsky's early departure in casual dress made no sense. Back at CNN's office, reporters covering the investigation put this clue together with the grand jury session on a Thursday, rather than the usual Friday, and assumed that Stone might have been indicted.
The end of the investigation
At the end of Mueller's investigation last month, we had a lot of people outside the building.
The ranks of Mueller prosecutors, FBI agents, and support staff were straying from routine to avoid the ants of cameras at the front of the building and other media in general.
"Oh, here we go again," laughed a passerby as she passed the ant hill of cameras and one of the neighboring buildings.
Of course, the assembled journalists knew that Mueller was not about to come out with the report in hand and to give a press conference. But the press was ready to do something.
Things were already a little weird.
A memorable afternoon of February 2019, about a month before the report was submitted, we noticed a commotion in the lobby of the Mueller office building. A few minutes later, someone in a bird costume "flew" to the lobby entrance. Anyone then danced, flapped their wings and "thrown" the body of the press gathered outside. They then flipped their arms and "flew" to the elevators of the steel and glass building.
On the day of filing the report, on March 22, it was probably delivered to the Ministry of Justice between 11:45 am and 1:10 pm, during which we saw Mueller's security officer coming out of the building in SCO vehicles with tinted windows. .
At 4 pm, every prosecutor we saw entering the office that morning was gone for the day.
Scott Meisler came out with a backpack and a suitcase, turned the tables and stopped briefly to take a picture of the camera group on the outside. Rush Atkinson, Dreeben, James Quarles, Goldstein, Prelogar, Zebley and Adam Jed had all been driven out of the building. Aaron Zelinsky, the last man standing, left at 3:38 pm.
Where was Mueller? A minute later, the special advocate 's security officer stepped out of the garage and headed north into the Subaru' s money without anyone else in the interior.
The press in front of the garage rang for the first time of the day. About 10 minutes later, a woman in a compact car left the special council office by car saying, "It happens, it happens." Then, Ford's silver expedition exited the building.
Mueller was inside? We can not say for sure. But everything suggests that this was the case because this car – a vehicle that the CNN surveillance team had previously seen used to transport witnesses and people of interest – had probably been used to drive him to work early in the morning.
Work done, but still going to happen
When Attorney General William Barr finally released the work of the special advocate on Thursday, April 18, a small team of staff members working in the office came forward. Although things have clearly subsided since the end of March, the special advocate and members of his staff have continued to work – likely to help draft the public report and carry out the 14 investigations arising of his investigation.
At lunch time, Attorney Aaron Zebley said that they were always there to "clean up". His colleague James Quarles, with a broad smile, added what had become a familiar joke to everyone: "And the food is so good!"
"It may be the last day you see us," Zebley scoffed away.
On Friday morning, Robert Mueller was back at work at 7:45.
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