Suddenly relevant excerpt from a Washington Post article way back in the olden times of 2006.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

(Perhaps this ought to be read in the tinny voice of a 1930s radio narrator with old-timey music in the background)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/23/AR2006092301048.html

An Investigative Target? A Subject? A Fine Line.

By Blaine Harden and Anushka Asthana
Sunday, September 24, 2006


The hotly contested U.S. Senate race in Montana devolved last week into a confusedly legalistic, ferociously partisan game of "target" shooting.

Is Sen. Conrad Burns (R) a "target" of a federal investigation into the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal? Is he a "subject" of the investigation? Or is he utterly in the clear?

****
Iverson announced that the senator's criminal lawyer had confirmed with the Justice Department that "Burns is in fact not the target" of its investigation.

But what exactly does that mean?

Not much, said Stanley M. Brand, a lawyer in Washington with decades of experience in defending prominent officials charged with corruption. He represented former White House aide George Stephanopoulos in the Whitewater investigation and former representative Dan Rostenkowski, the Illinois Democrat who pleaded guilty to mail fraud in 1996.

Brand said that distinctions in a federal criminal manual between a "target," someone the Justice Department has decided to seek charges against, and a "subject," someone under investigation who could be upgraded to a target, are largely meaningless in a practical sense.

"You can't take these distinctions to the bank, because the Justice Department can change your status whenever it wants to," Brand said. "To me, it is academic. Burns is under investigation."

[blake2012]

1. Yep

[Wwcd]

2. Thanks for the bright ray of hope. However Trump plays it to his looney base, my faith

..rests with Robert Mueller.
There is none better.

[dalton99a]

3. Kick

[Ligyron]

4. At least being relegated to the "subject" status seems to have calmed Dump down.

Hopefully, he won't try and fire Mueller now. Yeah sure, that would add to the case for obstruction but he doesn't need that headache. We don't need Dump being labeled "Target" until right before they slap the cuffs on him provided they have enough evidence.

[herding cats]

5. Very true.

A subject can easily become a target once things become clear in an investigation.

[grantcart]

6. So Stupid reads this and thinks, "well that's Montana for you". lol