PG RELATED BECAUSE THE MORE SEALED INDICTMENTS THERE ARE, THE MORE LIKELY THEY ARE BRINGING DOWN A LARGE SCALE ORGANIZED CRIME UNIT. THE LARGER THE ORGANIZED CRIME UNIT, THE MORE LIKELY IT IS RELATED TO HUMAN TRAFFICKING.
I know people have been saying "WHOA, bro, this is a ton of indictments." But a "ton" to one is not a "ton" to another.
So, here is my attempt to give you context to the sealed indictments...
What is a sealed indictment? Criminal charges that are brought by the grand jury where the charges and Defendant are kept secret.
Why do they seal indictments? Usually in large, organized crime cases, the prosecutors want to keep the defendants secret, so as not to tip them off that they are still collecting more evidence, or that maybe a co-defendant is cooperating.
What is the normal frequency of sealed indictments? The only official numbers I could find are from 2006, completed by the Federal Courts. In 2006, there were 284 sealed indictments across the entire year, for ALL districts, combined. https://www.fjc.gov/sites/default/files/2012/SealCaFC.pdf
How do I (a normal citizen, not employed by the Federal Courts) find out how many sealed indictments there are? Dockets (a court's calendar) are public information. So, the sealed cases appear on the dockets, but as "Sealed v. Sealed," or "Defendant: Sealed." Any person can go on a federal court's website and count the sealed cases. OR, you can order a PACER Report. PACER will do all the work for you for a price. They aggregate all of the public information into one document.
What is the frequency this year? According to a PACER REPORT ordered by @damartin32 on Twitter, 832 sealed indcitments were filed across the country between 10/30 and 11/14 of this year. So, in just two weeks we have over 800 sealed indictments filed across the US. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ybqDYsLxNnkKNEypjHfuzZuXEo1WbIKd/view
800+ in two weeks vs 200+ all year
Assuming that the 832 number is correct and assuming that the number of sealed indictments has not DRASTICALLY changed in the last decade, then Yes, this is abnormal.
Of course it is POSSIBLE that none of these are related. But it is not likely. There becomes a point where there are so many coicidences that it stops being coincidental.
I hope this post gives you context.
FINAL QUESTIONS: Is this related to Trump/Russia collusion? Well if this were related to Trump/Russia collusion, would it be THIS extensive? If it were related to Trump/Russia collusion, why are so many of the indictments (by far) out of California Central District (which just happens to contain Hollywood)?
EDIT1: Even though the indictment numbers are abnormal to me, they sounded TOO abnormal, so I did my own sampling using the SAME database and SAME terms, just different dates... I did filing periods of 10/30 - 11/15 over 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. Not enough time/energy to do ALL districts, but here is Arkansas:
2013: 3 cases filed, 1 sealed
2014: 4 cases filed, 1 sealed
2015: 6 cases filed, 1 sealed
2016: 11 cases filed, 6 sealed
2017: 21 cases filed, 6 sealed
That sounds more reasonable... AND it makes sense that increased SEALINGS extend back at least a year because organized crime is very complex litigation. They often spin those defendants and turn them on the bigger fish.
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well_actually ago
This isn't correct. If you read the preamble of the PDF analyzing the 2006 sealed dockets, you'll note that they completed their search in 2008. On page 3 they point out explicitly: “The research, therefore, reflects cases sealed approximately two years after filing.”
It is routine for courts to issue dockets which are sealed until the defendant is served or enters court. Those dockets then become unsealed. So you'll see a lot of sealed dockets if you look at filings from the last two weeks. If you examine these again in a month or two, most of them will be unsealed. In 2019 you may only find a few hundred sealed criminal indictments in the whole country for 2017. Ken White explains how normal this is in the tweets quoted here:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/28/16564100/mueller-investigation-sealed-indictments-explained
lawyer4justice ago
You made my point for my updated thread. (Currently stickied)