Shock and awe is what Mueller needed. Mueller had to give “the deplorables”—Bannon had adopted Hillary Clinton’s disparaging term as his affirmative and affectionate label—a compelling reason to reevaluate Trump. That is, he had to produce a smoking gun far worse than anything anyone thought Trump might have done, and that was a high hurdle. It was not going to get the special counsel anywhere merely to confirm what people already knew Trump to be. Tell me something I don’t know!
