Mueller is skipping lunch and dressing down — and the reporters staking out his office are pumped

Special Counsel Robert Mueller could wrap up his report any day now. Just ask a group of reporters who've been sitting outside his office for months.

As an investigation into possible connections between President Trump's campaign and Russian election interference waged on, journalists — namely the so-called #CNNStakeout team — have kept an eye on the secretive man at its helm. While they haven't reported any collusion conclusions, they've practically mapped out Mueller's daily schedule — and in the last few days, it's seemingly been out of whack.

Things started looking fishy last week when Andrew Weissmann, a top member of the Mueller squad, was reported to be headed to a new job. Weissmann even showed up wearing a tan suit, of all things, on Tuesday, while Mueller himself seemed to be dressing more casually, CNN's Evan Pérez said. The obsessive coverage ratcheted up even further on Thursday, when CNN brought an extra-large media crew to Mueller's door, per CNN's Shimon Prokupecz, and caught something big: Mueller didn't leave his office for lunch, as he usually does.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

While reporters continued to gasp over those implications, CNN's Katelyn Polatz had a few more conclusive signs that something was afoot.

Even bigger news came on Friday: Mueller didn't seem to be in the office at all. Stay tuned to the stakeout feed to see if that means everything — or nothing at all. Kathryn Krawczyk