Wild card? I think Rosenstein is a Joker.
He was involved in the process to obtain the FISA warrant to spy on Trump, and he also hired Mueller.
He's a dirty deep stater.
If/as there is a sting and you want the likes of Page and Strzoh to be texting away under the watchful eyes of Rogers & IG, then you keep the charade going. See Trump’s speech in Ohio where he went off script and said ‘we got em’, ‘the great sleuth’, etc. ... Remember Flynn was head of DIA, he’s a master spook with counter Intel. It’s possible that Mule op is/was a honeypot ... TBD of course! ;)