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5 Times The Anti-Trump FBI’s ‘Trust Us’ Promise Fell Apart

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | SEPTEMBER 02, 2022

Author Margot Cleveland profile

MARGOT CLEVELAND

The Biden administration and the corporate media continue to assure Americans that the FBI’s raid on former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home was both legally justified and of the utmost necessity. But the deep-state cabal and the leftist media cartel provided similar assurances about Crossfire Hurricane and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s targeting of Trump, with the assurances later proving worthless.

Here are five times SpyGate taught Americans to distrust and disprove accusations leveled at Donald Trump.

1. Devin Nunes’ Memo Exposing FISA Abuse

On February 2, 2018, the House Intelligence Committee, then-chaired by Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, released a four-page memo detailing abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the FBI.

Before the memo’s release, the FBI publicly opposed the move, claiming in a public statement that the bureau had “grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.” Justice Department officials likewise opposed releasing the memo, warning that “doing so would be ‘extraordinarily reckless.’”

The then-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, also sought to scuttle the release of the memo — or at least preempt the detailed revelations of FISA abuse — by calling the memo a “conspiracy theory” in an op-ed for The Washington Post. In it, Schiff condemned the release, saying the memo was “designed to suggest that ‘a cabal of senior officials within the FBI and the Justice Department were so tainted by bias against President Trump that they irredeemably poisoned the investigation.’”

Nancy Pelosi, who is now speaker of the House, likewise attacked Nunes, demanding in a letter to then-House Speaker Paul Ryan that Nunes be removed as Intelligence Committee chairman. Nunes “disgraced” the committee with his “dishonest” handling of the committee’s review of the Russia collusion problem, Pelosi wrote. Nunes’ committee, Pelosi claimed, had become a “charade” and a “coverup campaign … to hide the truth about the Trump-Russia scandal.”

In response to the Nunes memo, former FBI Director James Comey told the country the memo was “dishonest and misleading.” Comey further claimed it “wrecked the House intel committee, destroyed trust with Intelligence Community, damaged relationship with FISA court, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen.”

Former CIA Director John Brennan also attacked Nunes, calling his exposure of the FISA abuse “appalling” and an abuse of his chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee.

Of course, years later, Nunes was proven correct, as the inspector general’s report confirmed, establishing that the Republican House Intelligence chair had, if anything, understated the FISA abuse.

For all the assurances the DOJ, FBI, their former leaders, and top politicians provided the American public, they were either lying or wrong — or both because there was “a cabal of senior officials within the FBI and the Justice Department … so tainted by bias against President Trump that they irredeemably poisoned the investigation.”

2. Surveillance Warrants Are Hard to Get

In addition to wrongly condemning Nunes’ memo, government officials attempted to calm concerns over the FISA surveillance by assuring the public that the process of obtaining a surveillance warrant was “rigorous” and that to obtain surveillance of American citizens, a court must find “probable cause” that warrants the wiretap.

Adm. Michael Rogers, then a commander of United States Cyber Command, testified about the FISA process during a March 2017 congressional hearing. In response to a question posed to eliminate “confusion in the public” about the collection of personal data, Rogers confirmed that the National Security Agency “would need a court order based on probable cause to conduct electronic surveillance on a U.S. person inside the United States.”

During the same hearing, the then-recently fired former FBI Director Comey expanded on the surveillance process. “There is a statutory framework in the United States under which courts grant permission for electronic surveillance either in a criminal case or the national security case based on the showing of probable cause,” Comey testified before Congress. “It is a rigorous, rigorous process, involving all three branches of government,” the former FBI director stressed, noting it must go through an application process and then to a judge who must approve the order.

The IG report on FISA abuse proved the promised rigor didn’t exist. And the later conviction of Kevin Clinesmith for “falsifying a document that was the basis for a surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign official Carter Page,” punctuated that reality. The facts revealed in the IG report further established that Americans’ faith in the FISA Court to serve as a check on the government was misplaced, with the judges serving as but a rubberstamp of the DOJ’s surveillance applications. So much for those assurances.

3. Don’t Worry, ’Merica, No Spying on Trump Took Place

A third assurance Americans received from the powers-that-be was that no spying on the Trump campaign occurred. The inspector general’s report on FISA abuse disproved those reassurances as well, revealing that the “Obama Administration Spied on the Trump Campaign Big Time.”

This reality pushed Russia-collusion hoaxers into esoteric discussions on the true meaning of “spying.” Even the United States Senate played the “it depends what the meaning of spying is” game, with New Hampshire Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen quizzing FBI Director Christopher Wray on whether he would agree with then-Attorney General William Barr’s use of the word “spying.”

“I was very concerned by his use of the word spying, which I think is a loaded word,” Shaheen bemoaned. “When FBI agents conduct investigations against alleged mobsters, suspected terrorists, other criminals, do you believe they’re engaging in spying when they’re following FBI investigative policies and procedures?” the senator asked Wray.

“That’s not the term I would use,” Wray replied, before noting that different people use different colloquialisms.

The discussion did not end there, however, with Shaheen pushing Wray on whether he had seen “any evidence that any illegal surveillance into the campaigns or the individuals associated with the campaigns by the FBI occurred.”

“I don’t think I personally have any evidence of that sort,” Wray replied.

But even sidestepping the silly debate over what “spying” means, the guarantee Shaheen provided the American public — that no illegal surveillance into the Trump campaign or individuals associated with the Trump campaign had occurred — proved worthless.

The Department of Justice has since admitted that it illegally surveilled former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and that such surveillance reached Trump campaign documents. So, yes, our federal government illegally surveilled the campaign of a presidential candidate.

4. Redactions Are Necessary to Protect Sources and Methods

A fourth key commitment conveyed to Americans throughout the multi-year unraveling of the Russia collusion hoax concerned the need to redact details in the publicly released documents. Such redactions were necessary to protect sources and methods, our overlords assured us.

For instance, in a December 9, 2019 press release Wray issued in conjunction with the DOJ’s inspector general’s report on FISA abuse, Wray “emphasized that the FBI’s participation in this process was undertaken with my express direction to be as transparent as possible, while honoring our duty to protect sources and methods that, if disclosed, might make Americans less safe.” Wray further promised that the FISA abuse report presented all material facts, “with redactions carefully limited and narrowly tailored to specific national security and operational concerns.”

Republican Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley challenged that portrayal of the redactions, suggesting in a letter to then-Attorney General William Barr that several footnotes “were classified in the IG report only because they contradict certain claims made in the public version of the inspector general’s report on FISA warrants documenting misconduct in the FBI’s spying operation of the Trump campaign.”

“We are concerned that certain sections of the public version of the report are misleading because they are contradicted by relevant and probative classified information redacted in four footnotes,” Grassley and Johnson wrote. “This classified information is significant not only because it contradicts key statements in a section of the report, but also because it provides insight essential for an accurate evaluation of the entire investigation.”

The Republican senators then asked for the four footnotes to be declassified, stressing that “the American people have a right to know what is contained within these four footnotes and, without that knowledge, they will not have a full picture as to what happened during the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”

In April of 2020, Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell declassified the footnotes. And, as Grassley and Johnson had represented, the redactions weren’t necessary to protect “sources and methods.” Rather, the blacked-out lines were essential to distorting portions of the FISA report and to keeping the public in the dark about the full scope of the Spygate scandal.

Another document declassified by Grenell exposed that Mueller’s team falsely represented to a federal judge (and the American public) the substance of Michael Flynn’s December 2016 telephone conversation with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

As I reported following Grenell’s declassification of the transcript of the call between Flynn, Trump’s then-incoming national security adviser, and Kislyak, Mueller’s office deceived the country and a federal court when prosecutors claimed Flynn had discussed U.S. sanctions with his Russian counterpart. The transcripts established that, contrary to court filings, Flynn never raised the issue of sanctions with the Russian ambassador.

The release of the Flynn transcript did reveal, however, the FBI’s secret “sources and methods” — but the sources and methods were those of deep-state actors seeking to rid themselves of the president’s chosen national security adviser by launching a perjury trap and then lying about what Flynn said.

5. Crossfire Hurricane Was Properly Predicated

To this day, both DOJ’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz and Wray maintain that the FBI’s launch of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was properly predicated. Publicly released FBI documents say otherwise.

Former FBI agent Peter Strzok explained the supposed predicate for launching Crossfire Hurricane on July 31, 2016, in the opening “Electronic Communication” that he both prepared and approved. According to Strzok, the FBI opened the umbrella investigation into the Trump campaign after the government had “received information” “related to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s website/server.”

But Strzok’s summary of the information received made no mention of any intel obtained by the FBI related to the DNC hacking. Rather, the supposed intel “consisted of information received from an unnamed representative, now publicly known to be Alexander Downer, a then-Australian diplomat” stationed in London. The opening memorandum explained that Downer had relayed “statements Mr. [George] Papadopoulos made about suggestions from the Russians that they (the Russians) could assist the Trump campaign with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton.”

The opening document then asserted that Papadopoulos “also suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs. Clinton (and President Obama.).” The electronic communication added a caveat, though, noting that it was unclear whether Papadopoulos “or the Russians were referring to material acquired publicly of [sic] through other means. It was also unclear how Mr. Trump’s team reacted to the offer.”

Thus, while Strzok framed the information received by the FBI as evidence “related to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s website/server,” the remainder of the Electronic Communication contradicted that claim and in fact acknowledged that the material might refer to “publicly acquired” information.

What the FBI did — or rather didn’t do — after the launch of Crossfire Hurricane further confirms the sham predicate set forth by Strzok in the Electronic Communication.

While Papadopoulos’s statements to Downer supposedly prompted the FBI to open the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, agents failed to question Papadopoulos for six months. The FBI also put little (or no) effort into determining who purportedly told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on Hillary. The supposed source of that statement, Joseph Mifsud, could have been easily located soon after the launch of Crossfire Hurricane if the FBI genuinely believed Russia had conspired with the Trump campaign to hack and release the DNC emails.

Agents pursuing a legitimate investigation “would have immediately scoured Papadopoulos’s London-based connections and discovered he was associated with the London Centre of International Law Practice around the time he met with Downer. From there, the FBI could have easily fingered Mifsud as a possible source for the information, since he was listed as a board advisor and public source searches would show Mifsud had connections to Russia. (The intelligence community would have also hit on Mifsud’s many connections to Western intelligence agencies.)”

But the FBI did none of this, waiting instead until late January 2017 to quiz Papadopoulos on the source of the supposed inside information coming from Russia. Yet, Wray and the DOJ’s inspector general want Americans to trust them when they say that agents launched Crossfire Hurricane based on Papadopoulos’s London chat with Downer over drinks.

Special Counsel John Durham, however, says otherwise, having released a statement following the DOJ’s report on FISA abuse that informed the public that, “based on the evidence collected to date,” his team had “advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”

The special counsel’s public statements prove significant for two reasons. First, Durham’s comments refute the inspector general’s conclusions regarding the predication of Crossfire Hurricane. But beyond that, the fact that Durham needed to correct the record shows the lack of trust due the DOJ and even the inspector general’s office — something further confirmed during the special counsel’s prosecution of former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann.

Each of these five falsehoods peddled by the government to the public during the Russia collusion hoax has a clear corollary in the current scandal involving the FBI’s raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. And after the lies, pretext, and political warfare exposed during the unraveling of SpyGate, the DOJ and FBI’s current entreat to an angry public to “trust them” will be ignored — as it should.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Randy DeSoto Op-ed: Adam Schiff Gets Verbally KO-ed on Air When Fed-Up Interviewer Finally Nails Him

Commentary By Randy DeSoto | November 9, 2021

Former Trump administration State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus clearly made House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff uncomfortable when she pressed him on Tuesday about his promotion of the debunked Steele dossier.

Last week, special counsel John Durham charged Igor Danchenko with five counts of lying to the FBI. Danchenko is a Russian national who worked at the liberal Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and is believed to be a primary source of information contained in the infamous anti-Trump dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. That document was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee and was used to help launch the Russia probe in search of ties between the 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign and Russia.

Ortagus, who was a guest-hosting ABC’s “The View” on Tuesday, questioned Schiff about his promotion of the Steele dossier and the false narrative underlying it.

“You’ve been really prolific over the past few years being the head of the Intel Committee. You defended, promoted, you even read into the Congressional Record the Steele dossier,” Ortagus said.
“And we know last week the main source of the dossier was indicted by the FBI for lying about most of the key claims in that dossier. Do you have any reflections on your role in promoting this to the American people?” she asked.

Schiff first responded in a reasonable fashion, saying any who lied to the FBI should be prosecuted.

He then defended his conduct.

“We couldn’t have known, for example, people were lying to Christopher Steele. So it was proper to investigate them,” Schiff said.

The congressman added that one benefit of the investigation was learning that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had given polling data to Russian intelligence. Schiff was playing pretty fast and loose with the facts. According to The Associated Press, Manafort gave polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian and Ukrainian political consultant, who allegedly passed it along to Russian intelligence.

“But Mueller’s team said it couldn’t ‘reliably determine’ Manafort’s purpose in sharing it, nor assess what Kilimnik may have done with it,” the AP reported.

That sort of exaggeration by Schiff was typical throughout the Russia probe.

Ortagus reminded Schiff that Manafort was removed from the campaign in the summer of 2016 when questions arose regarding his past lobbying work for pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs. Further, it should be noted that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, though filled with Democratic investigators, “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated” with Russia, according to the Justice Department’s Mueller report.

Ortagus then brought the conversation back to Schiff’s role in promoting the whole collusion false narrative and the dossier.

“You may have helped spread Russian disinformation yourself for years by promoting this. I think that’s what Republicans and what people who entrusted you as the Intel Committee chair are so confused about your culpability in all of this,” Ortagus said.

“Well, I completely disagree with your premise,” Schiff responded. “It’s one thing to say allegations should be investigated, and they were. It’s another to say that we should have foreseen in advance that some people were lying to Christopher Steele, which is impossible of course to do.”

The Californian sells himself short. He was constantly out in front of the cameras claiming he was privy to intelligence that he could not share with the public validating the collusion charge. For example in March 2017, NBC “Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd asked Schiff if there was anything beyond circumstantial evidence suggesting the Trump campaign’s connection to Russia.

“I can tell you that the case is more than that and I can’t go into the particulars, but there is more than circumstantial evidence now,” Schiff said.
Further questioned whether he had seen direct evidence, the representative responded, “I don’t want to get into specifics but I will say that there is evidence that is not circumstantial and is very much worthy of an investigation.”

.@RepAdamSchiff on Trump/Russia connection: "There is more than circumstantial evidence now…and is very much worthy of investigation." pic.twitter.com/qvw7drsqQX
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) March 22, 2017

Despite making claims like that for many months, Schiff never came forward with such evidence, even after Mueller issued his report.

On Tuesday’s showing of “The View,” the Democrat pivoted away from discussing the dossier to raising the issue of the 2019 House Democratic impeachment of Trump and the Capitol incursion to prove investigating him was justified.

You’ll recall it was during the impeachment hearing that Schiff famously made up his own fanciful version of Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to build his case that the American leader conducted a shakedown to secure an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden’s shady dealings in Ukraine. This performance was even after Zelensky himself said he felt no pressure from Trump’s call and his country launched no investigation into the Bidens.

Schiff told Ortagus, “None of that is undercut. None of that serious misconduct is in any way diminished by the fact that people lied to Christopher Steele.”

“No. I think just your credibility is,” Ortagus shot back.

Schiff then opted for the verbal attack of a schoolboy, saying, “I think the credibility of your question is in doubt.”

Having boasted about so much with so little pushback from the media, it was refreshing to see his feet actually held to the fire for once.

Randy DeSoto, Senior Staff Writer

Randy DeSoto has written more than 2,000 articles for The Western Journal since he joined the company in 2015. He is a graduate of West Point and Regent University School of Law. He is the author of the book “We Hold These Truths” and screenwriter of the political documentary “I Want Your Money.”@RandyDeSoto

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Court Docs: Democrats Still Hope to Impeach Trump over Russia

Filed by Joel B. Pollak | 23 Dec 2019

URL of the original posting site: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/23/court-docs-democrats-still-hope-to-impeach-trump-over-russia/

Komrade Trumpov impeachment rally balloon (Joel Pollak / Breitbart News /

The House Judiciary Committee reportedly told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Monday that it still wanted former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify even though Trump has already been impeached, because his impeachment could reveal that Trump obstructed justice in the Russia investigation.

Democrats voted last Wednesday to impeach the president for “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress,” in claims related to his dealings with Ukraine. But the text of the articles of impeachment cited Trump’s alleged “previous invitations of foreign interference,” referring to debunked allegations that he sought to collude with Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Democrats pursued McGahn’s testimony at the time the Mueller Report was released because they were determined to find any evidence that Trump obstructed justice, even though he had made every witness and document available to investigators and declined to exercise executive privilege. Mueller did not refer Trump for prosecution, nor did he “exonerate” the president, but both Attorney General William Barr and then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said that there was insufficient evidence to bring charges.

Nevertheless, Democrats continued to look for evidence of obstruction, even trying to obtain the grand jury materials that Mueller had used, which Barr was prohibited, by law, from providing to Congress (which found him in contempt anyway).

The White House, which had previously cooperated with Mueller, balked at allowing the president’s counsel to testify before Congress after the Mueller inquiry ended, citing legal privileges and constitutional boundaries.

But Democrats persisted.

In the Judiciary Committee’s report accompanying the articles of impeachment, which it cited in its court filing Monday, Democrats hinted that they included Trump’s so-called “obstruction of justice” in the Russia investigation in their “obstruction of Congress” article of impeachment, though they did not specifically charge him with obstructing justice (footnotes removed):

The Second Article of Impeachment impeaches President Trump for obstructing Congress with respect to the House impeachment inquiry relating to Ukraine. Yet, as noted in that Article, President Trump’s obstruction of that investigation is “consistent with [his] previous efforts to undermine United States Government investigations into foreign interference in United States elections.” An understanding of those previous efforts, and the pattern of misconduct they represent, sheds light on the particular conduct set forth in that Article as sufficient grounds for the impeachment of President Trump.

These previous efforts include, but are not limited to, President Trump’s endeavor to impede the Special Counsel’s investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 United States Presidential election, as well as President Trump’s sustained efforts to obstruct the Special Counsel after learning that he was under investigation for obstruction of justice.

However, a footnote at the end of the first paragraph above suggested that the committee would seek to interview McGahn to obtain evidence for use in a Senate trial on existing articles of impeachment, not new ones:

This Committee has undertaken an investigation relating to the Special Counsel’s report. That includes inquiring into President Trump’s obstruction of the Special Counsel, as well as a review of other aspects of the Special Counsel’s underlying work that the President obstructed. As part of this investigation, the Committee has sought to compel testimony by former White House Counsel Donald F. McGahn II, and to review certain grand jury materials relating to the Special Counsel’s report. Should the Committee obtain the information, it would be utilized, among other purposes, in a Senate trial on these articles of impeachment, if any. The Committee, moreover, has continued and will continue those investigations consistent with its own prior statements respecting their importance and purposes.

The DC Circuit is scheduled to hear the case on January 3. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has refused to turn over the articles of impeachment to the Senate because she says she is awaiting a guarantee of a “fair trial” — though the Constitution suggests that the Senate could hold a trial anyway.

She may, however, also be awaiting the D.C. Circuit’s ruling on the McGahn case, which would almost certainly be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court by either side.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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Foreign Policy, Political

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Lawsuit: Dirty Cop Robert Mueller Helped Saudi Arabia Cover Up 9/11 Involvement

Posted by Steven Ahle | September 9, 2019

URL of the original posting site: https://steadfastandloyal.com/politics/lawsuit-dirty-cop-robert-mueller-helped-saudi-arabia-cover-up-9-11-involvement/

9/11 survivor Sharon Premoli was pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center and is suing Saudi Arabia.

Why Saudi Arabia?

Because evidence has emerged that they provided material support to the Saudi hijackers. This has been brought to the forefront by acclaimed investigative reporter, Paul Sperry of the New York Post and Real Clear Investigations.

But, what is really a bombshell is the extreme lengths them FBI director Robert Mueller went to cover up for the Saudi government. It’s practically breathtaking and Sperry has listed all the interventions Mueller went to in protecting them. The Deep State has fought tooth and nail to keep the 28 pages on Saud involvement hidden from the public and this must be why.

Investigative reporter Paul Sperry via the New York Post:

Time and again, agents were called off from pursuing leads back to the kingdom’s embassy in Washington, as well as its consulate in Los Angeles, where former FBI Agent Stephen Moore headed a 9/11 task force looking into local contacts made by two of the 15 Saudi hijackers, Moore testified in an affidavit for the 9/11 lawsuit. He concluded that “diplomatic and intelligence personnel of Saudi Arabia knowingly provided material support to the two hijackers and facilitated the 9/11 plot.” Yet he and his team were not allowed to interview them, according to the suit.

In Washington, former FBI Agent John Guandolo, who worked terror cases out of the bureau’s DC office, said then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar “should have been treated as a terrorist suspect” for giving money to a woman who funded two of the 9/11 hijackers. But he was never questioned either, Guandolo said.

Instead, Mueller obliged what Guandolo called an “outrageous request” from Bandar within days of the attacks to help evacuate from the country dozens of Saudi officials, including at least one Osama bin Laden relative on the terror watch list. Mueller assured their safe passage to planes, using agents as personal escorts, according to FBI documents obtained by Judicial Watch. Agents who should have been interrogating the Saudis instead acted as their bodyguards.

In 2002, Mueller prevented agents from arresting the Saudi-sponsored al Qaeda cleric who privately counseled the Saudi hijackers, said Raymond Fournier, an agent with the Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Diego at the time. “He was responsible for vacating the arrest warrant for Anwar al-Awlaki for passport fraud,” Fournier said. He even ordered agents who detained the fiend at JFK to release him into the custody of a “Saudi representative,” Fournier said. The FBI closed their investigation of Awlaki, who was allowed to leave the US on a Saudi plane. “Shortly thereafter, the Fort Hood shooting occurred and Awlaki’s fingerprints were all over that incident,” said former FBI Agent Michael Biasello, who helped work the Texas terror case.

At the same time, Mueller removed a veteran agent from investigating a tip that an adviser to the Saudi royal family had met with some of the Saudi hijackers at his home in Sarasota, Fla., effectively killing the case, according to the lawsuit. The home was suddenly abandoned two weeks before 9/11.

Mueller even tried to shut down a congressional investigation into the Saudi hijackers and their contacts in LA and San Diego, said Bob Graham, who led the joint inquiry as Senate Intelligence Committee chair. “The strongest objections” to his staff investigators visiting FBI offices there came from the FBI director himself, said Graham, in a 2017 interview with Harper’s magazine. Among other things, Mueller refused their demands to question a paid FBI informant who roomed with the hijackers and even moved him to a safe house where they couldn’t find him, Graham said. Mueller, with the White House, redacted 28 pages detailing Saudi-9/11 ties from the congressional report.

He also gave testimony to Congress that was, at the very least, misleading. In an October 2002 closed-door hearing, Mueller claimed he found out about Saudi-9/11 connections only as a result of the joint inquiry’s investigative work: “[S]ome facts came to light here and to me, frankly, that had not come to light before.” Only, Moore said he gave Mueller “daily” briefings on such connections in 2001. Mueller also testified the hijackers “contacted no known terrorist sympathizers in the United States,” even though the FBI’s own case files showed they had contact with at least 14 terrorist suspects and sympathizers in the US prior to 9/11, including some working for the Saudi government. (In later testimony, he tried to walk this back, insisting he “had no intent to mislead.”)

“He’s a villain, and an arrogant one to boot,” former FBI Agent Mark Wauck told Paul Sperry of Robert Mueller, adding that his former boss has a long history of acting as a “servant of the deep state,” or the permanent DC ruling class.

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Dems want climate change, tax hikes in infrastructure deal

Reported By Scott Wong – 04/29/19 12:49 PM EDT

The top two Democratic leaders on Monday told President Trump that any bipartisan infrastructure package needs to take into consideration climate change and include “substantial, new and real revenue” — a preview of the coming fight over tax hikes.

Trump will host Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) at the White House on Tuesday for discussions on a major infrastructure bill, one of the few policy areas that could see action amid divided government and as the 2020 race heats up.

Democrats want the measure for roads, bridges, waterways and other projects to be paid for with tax increases, and with a final price tag of at least $1 trillion over 10 years. Trump’s fiscal 2020 budget calls for $200 billion in federal spending on infrastructure, which White House officials say will leverage an additional $800 billion in investment through public-private partnerships over the next decade.

“America’s unmet infrastructure needs are massive, and a bipartisan infrastructure package must meet those needs with substantial, new and real revenue,” Pelosi and Schumer wrote in a letter to Trump on Monday. “We look forward to hearing your ideas on how to pay for this package to ensure that it is big and bold enough to meet our country’s needs.”

The leaders laid out other Democratic priorities: Any deal must extend beyond traditional infrastructure projects, take into account climate change, include “Buy America” provisions and provide jobs for a broad swath of workers.

“A big and bold infrastructure package must be comprehensive and include clean energy and resiliency priorities,” Pelosi and Schumer wrote. “To truly be a gamechanger for the American people, we should go beyond transportation and into broadband, water, energy, schools, housing and other initiatives. We must also invest in resiliency and risk mitigation of our current infrastructure to deal with climate change.”

“A big and bold infrastructure plan must have strong Buy America, labor, and women, veteran and minority-owned business protections in any package,” they added. “This bill can and should be a major jobs and ownership boost for the American people – manufacturers, labor contractors, and women, veteran and minority-owned businesses.”

Pelosi told reporters earlier this month that an infrastructure package “has to be at least $1 trillion. I’d like it to be closer to $2 trillion.”

Trump last year reportedly told lawmakers and senior White House officials that he was in favor of a 25-cent gas tax hike to help pay for an infrastructure overhaul. The gas tax, which supports the Highway Trust Fund and pays for road projects, has not been raised in more than two decades. But on Monday, a source familiar with Schumer’s thinking said the senator would not entertain any gas-tax proposal unless Trump also rolled back some tax cuts from his 2017 landmark tax law.

“Unless President Trump considers undoing some of the 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy, Schumer won’t even consider a proposal from the president to raise the gas tax, of which the poor and working people would bear the brunt,” the Democratic source said.

Tuesday’s gathering marks the first meeting between Trump and the top Democratic leaders since the report from special counsel Robert Mueller was made public. It comes as multiple Democratic-led committees in the House have launched investigations into Trump, his administration, his business dealings and whether he obstructed justice.

A handful of other House Democrats will be attending Tuesday’s meeting: Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.), Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (S.C.), Assistant Speaker Ben Ray Luján (N.M.), Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (Mass.) and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio (Ore.).

On the Senate side, Democratic attendees will include Minority Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), Assistant Democratic Leader Patty Murray (Wash.), Democratic Policy Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), and Sens. Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Tom Carper (Del.), the ranking members of the Finance and Environment and Public Works committees, respectively.

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Time for Comey To Sweat: Rep. Nunes Confirms Multiple Criminal Referrals on Witch Hunt Going to DOJ

Reported By C. Douglas Golden | Published April 8, 2019 at 6:17am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/time-comey-sweat-rep-nunes-confirms-multiple-criminal-referrals-witch-hunt-going-doj/

Ever since the release of Attorney General William Barr’s synopsis of the Mueller report, Rep. Devin Nunes — the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee — has been talking about criminal referrals for acts committed during the 2016 presidential campaign and its aftermath.

Now, the California congressman is making it clear just how many people he’s going after — and former FBI Director James Comey is just one of those who has a reason to sweat.

In an appearance on Fox News on Sunday, Nunes said he’d sent eight criminal referrals to Barr, the latest sign that high-level Republicans were going on the offensive in the wake of the Mueller report. Nunes told Fox News he’d been working on the referrals for over two years. However, he had delayed sending them over until Barr’s confirmation. (The Mueller report, one imagines, didn’t hurt his case either.)

“We’re prepared this week to notify the attorney general that we’re prepared to send those referrals over,” Nunes told host Maria Bartiromo. “First of all, all of these are classified or sensitive. … Five of them are what I would call straight up referrals — so, just referrals that name someone and name the specific crimes.

“Those crimes are lying to Congress, misleading Congress, leaking classified information. So five of them are those types.”

“There are three (referrals) that I think are more complicated,” he added.

They involve material investigators presented to the special court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

“So, on the first one, is FISA abuse and other matters. We believe there was a conspiracy to lie to the FISA court, mislead the FISA court by numerous individuals that all need to be investigated and looked at that, and we believe the (relevant) statute is the conspiracy statute,” he said.

That likely referred to the use of the “Trump dossier” — assembled as opposition research funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee — to obtain a warrant in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court against a Trump campaign official.

Nunes later said that “we’ve had a lot of concerns with the way intelligence was used” in the probe into the Trump campaign and possible collusion with the Russians.

“The second conspiracy one is involving manipulation of intelligence that also could ensnarl many Americans,” he continued.

“The third is what I would call a global leak referral,” Nunes said. “So, there are about a dozen highly sensitive classified information leaks that were given to only a few reporters over the last two-and-a-half-plus years. So, you know, we don’t know if there’s actually been any leak investigations that have been opened, but we do believe that we’ve got pretty good information and a pretty good idea of who could be behind these leaks.”

The “horrific” leaks Nunes referred to involved Trump’s conversations with major world leaders as well as the transcripts of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s phone calls.

“I think it’s impossible to ignore,” Nunes said. “If the Mueller team was busting people for lying to the FBI — there are some pretty simple times when people lied to Congress for the sole purpose of obstructing our investigation.”

The criminal referrals also might involve more than one person. In fact, Nunes said that a conspiracy referral could ensnare “a dozen, two dozen people.”

There are a few individuals we can possibly guess will be among those referred. Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen is being investigated for lying to Congress by both sides after inconsistencies in his testimony last month arose. And then there’s House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, who was suspected by Donald Trump Jr. when it came to leaking his closed-door testimony before the committee.

Fox News reported that in January, Trump Jr. said “there’s a 99.9 percent chance (House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff is) the guy” who leaked the 2017 testimony, adding that he “came out of testimony 8 at night and CNN is running quotes from noon on about my testimony, you know, in the House Intelligence Committee.”

“I mean, that has to say something about what is going on and who they are. Since (Schiff has) never met a camera he didn’t love, I would bet a lot of money that it was him.”

The FISA warrant, however, might be of more concern to Democrats, particularly when it comes to Comey. Even if the criminal referrals don’t include him, they’re bound to include those close to him — and that’s something that’s probably going to make him sweat. Others who have reason to sweat? Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. They all signed FISA warrant applications.

The Republicans have increasingly gone on the offensive since the release of the Mueller report. Nunes’ criminal referrals aren’t even the most aggressive move — that award, thus far, has to go to Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who’s proposed a special counsel to look into all matter of Obama-era shenanigans in regard to the 2016 election — but it’s in the same vein.

The message is clear:

Now it’s the Republicans’ turn. And unlike the chimerical Russiagate accusations — what President Donald Trump repeatedly called a “witch hunt” — this is actually real. The idea that a dossier consisting of dodgy opposition research paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats was used to get a FISA warrant against a Trump campaign employee — that’s real.

Lives being destroyed to promote a narrative? That’s real, too.

Peter Strzok’s text messages and conflicts of interest in several investigations? Again, real.

This is about justice. Now that the phony “collusion” narrative is out of the way, we can finally seek it.

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Beto O’Rourke Wastes No Time Making Disastrous Trump Claim After Mueller Nothingburger

Reported By C. Douglas Golden | Published March 24, 2019 at 10:14am | Modified March 25, 2019 at 5:17am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/beto-orourke-wastes-no-time-making-disastrous-trump-claim-mueller-nothingburger/

President Trump gave two thumbs up as he left Air Force One in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Friday. And really, he had every reason to do so. The Mueller report — that Key to All Mythologies that liberals kept on believing would put Trump and his retinue behind bars for good — has been turned over to Attorney General William Barr. We don’t know the details of it and probably won’t for a while, but what we can glean thus far looks good for the president.

The biggest news is that there aren’t going to be any more indictments from the special counsel. That likely means that the report won’t contain solid proof of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Without any solid proof, the Russian collusion theory collapses into the dustbin of conspiracy theory.

But Beto O’Rourke isn’t above pronouncing Trump in cahoots with the Kremlin, even if Congress hasn’t been briefed on the Mueller report and he won’t be anyhow.

“You have a president, who, in my opinion, beyond the shadow of a doubt, sought to — however ham-handedly — collude with the Russian government — a foreign power — to undermine and influence our elections,” O’Rourke said at a town hall in South Carolina, according to CNN.

“If you are wondering about collusion then when you saw the President of the United States standing next to the leader of Russia on that stage in Helsinki, Finland, defending him and taking his word for it against our own intelligence community in our country, in (conservative columnist) George Will’s words, not mine, that is collusion in action,” O’Rourke said.

“Ultimately, I believe this will be decided at the ballot box in 2020 by you, by me, by all of us in this country.”

Just another day in Beto-land. It almost makes you forget about all that weird hacking stuff and concomitant lewd cow poetry.

So, all right, let’s unpack all of that. First, O’Rourke is straightforward in what he’s telling the crowd: He thinks Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia — a country he had to remind his audience is “a foreign power” because apparently he doesn’t think highly of their intelligence — “to undermine and influence our elections.” (I neither know nor care how he did this “ham-handedly” or how this apparent patina of plausible deniability covers O’Rourke when the Mueller report eventually provides a cosmic thwack to this sort of rhetoric.)

His evidence of this is somehow the Helsinki summit, which may not have been Trump’s finest hour but certainly wasn’t the heart-clutching death-of-our-democracy moment the left maintains it was.

His attempt at making this sound bipartisan is bringing pundit George Will into it. This doesn’t work for two reasons.

First, Will is one of those conservatives who immediately checked into the Bill Kristol Psychiatric Center for the Trumpically Deranged the moment that he realized Trump’s candidacy wasn’t being treated by voters as the farce he thought it was. I have no small regard for Mr. Will’s oeuvre, but take this morsel of his fulmination from this past January and try to attribute it to someone who is either conservative or on an even keel: “Dislike of (Donald Trump) should be tempered by this consideration: He is an almost inexpressibly sad specimen. It must be misery to awaken to another day of being Donald Trump. He seems to have as many friends as his pluperfect self-centeredness allows, and as he has earned in an entirely transactional life. His historical ignorance deprives him of the satisfaction of working in a house where much magnificent history has been made. His childlike ignorance — preserved by a lifetime of single-minded self-promotion — concerning governance and economics guarantees that whenever he must interact with experienced and accomplished people, he is as bewildered as a kindergartener at a seminar on string theory.”

And second, what Will said about Helsinki actually proves O’Rourke wrong. Here is the passage to which the 2020 Democratic hopeful assumedly refers: “Like the purloined letter in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story with that title, collusion with Russia is hiding in plain sight,” Will wrote in July of last year.

“We shall learn from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation whether in 2016 there was collusion with Russia by members of the Trump campaign. (Emphasis mine.) The world, however, saw in Helsinki something more grave — ongoing collusion between Trump, now in power, and Russia. The collusion is in what Trump says (refusing to back the United States’ intelligence agencies) and in what evidently went unsaid (such as: You ought to stop disrupting Ukraine, downing civilian airliners, attempting to assassinate people abroad using poisons, and so on, and on).”

By “collusion,” what Will meant was that Trump was paying fealty to the Russians. When it came to collusion by the Trump campaign, however, Will saw fit to leave that matter in the hands of Robert Mueller.

When O’Rourke took the stage during his Saturday whistle-stop and invoked Will, he’d almost certainly been disabused of the notion that Mueller’s investigation was going to provide any definitive link to show that Trump or members of his campaign colluded with the Kremlin “to undermine and influence our elections.”

But then, symbolic “collusion” between Trump and Putin on stage at Helsinki doesn’t get crowds in early primary states whipped up the same way that collusion to undermine our elections does, and it’s not as if many people in attendance are George Will readers anyway. (Crowds that need to be reminded Russia is “a foreign power” probably aren’t too keen on obscure polysyllabic words.)

But that’s the point about conspiracy theories: They don’t require evidence to keep on going. You can explain to your chemtrail-believing neighbor how condensation works when hot air comes out of jet engines at high altitudes, and he’s still going to think that the CIA is spraying mind-altering chemicals on all of us in the most inefficient way possible.

Kennedy assassination theories are marginally more plausible, but you’re still dealing with individuals who will never believe that a violent, pathetic specimen like Lee Harvey Oswald could alter history so easily even with the evidence right in front of them.

In the same way, the Democrats still can’t believe that — if indications are correct — the Mueller report will be two years of nothing. It’s a nothingburger of finely aged beef. It may provide intimations or innuendoes — though one would hope Mueller wouldn’t be that irresponsible — but no one will have been indicted by the special counsel for conspiracy with the Russians.

And yet, O’Rourke counts himself as a perfervid believer in the idea that there was collusion between Trump and the Russians to influence our elections. Or, at the very least, he thinks that his audiences believe there was — and that’s all that really matters, right?

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between America and Southeast Asia and believes in free speech and the Second Amendment.

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Limbaugh: Mueller Investigation a ‘Cover-Up,’ Meant To ‘Distract Everybody’s Attention’

Reported By Randy DeSoto | Published February 18, 2019 at 11:17am | Modified February 18, 2019 at 11:20am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/limbaugh-mueller-investigation-cover-meant-distract-everybodys-attention/

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said he believes special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation was launched to “cover-up” the misdeeds within the Justice Department, including the FBI’s attempted “coup” against President Donald Trump.

During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Limbaugh was asked to respond to former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s account that he was involved with a discussion with Justice Department Deputy Director Rod Rosenstein in May 2017 regarding invoking the 25th Amendment to have Trump removed from office.

Fox News host Chris Wallace asked the commentator why he described this revelation as evidence of a “silent coup.”

“Because these people are unelected,” Limbaugh answered. “They took it upon themselves to overthrow the election results of 2016, ignoring the potential real collusion and conspiracy between Democrats and Russians to undermine the Trump candidacy and the Trump presidency.”

“We’re losing sight of what happened here,” he continued. “People unelected simply because they don’t like the guy’s hairstyle or where he came from decided the American people’s decision was invalid and began a systematic process to get him thrown out of office. This is a silent coup.”

Limbaugh contended that those involved in these discussions are the ones who ought to be under investigation and going to jail.

“The Mueller investigation, I believe, is a cover-up of all of that. It’s to distract everybody’s attention,” he said. “This is one of the greatest political hoaxes that has ever be perpetrated on the people of this country.”

The conservative icon said the prosecution of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and others affiliated with the campaign for process crimes is all “designed to make it look like there was some kind of collusion between Trump and Russia.”

Limbaugh noted that no one has been prosecuted to date for the stated purpose of Mueller’s probe, which was to examine Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election, including whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow. Many political observers, including Fox News host Sean Hannity, have pointed to the special counsel’s apparent lack of interest in investigating the origin and use of the so-called Trump Russia dossier as proof that Mueller is overseeing a one-side, agenda-driven probe.

The dossier, which was funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign, was reportedly used to help obtain FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.

Limbaugh said that a primary goal of Mueller’s investigation was to be the vehicle used to justify impeaching Trump, but now it is aimed toward the 2020 election and driving down the president’s approval numbers.

Trump tweeted on Monday, “Wow, so many lies by now disgraced acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He was fired for lying, and now his story gets even more deranged. He and Rod Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught.”

He added in a second tweet, “There is a lot of explaining to do to the millions of people who had just elected a president who they really like and who has done a great job for them with the Military, Vets, Economy and so much more. This was the illegal and treasonous ‘insurance policy’ in full action!”

The Department of Justice’s inspector general released a report last April concluding that McCabe “lacked candor, including under oath, on multiple occasions in connection with describing his role in connection with a disclosure to the (Wall Street Journal)” in violation of FBI policy, and that his “disclosure of the existence of an ongoing investigation in the manner described in this report violated the FBI’s and the Department’s media policy and constituted misconduct.”

The OIG made a criminal referral to the DOJ regarding McCabe’s alleged lies to federal investigators.

In March 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe based on the OIG’s findings two days before he was slated to retire.

McCabe came under increased scrutiny following the release of text messages by the inspector general in December 2017 between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

In the texts, Strzok described Trump during the 2016 campaign as a “loathsome human” and an “idiot,” and found the prospect of him being president “terrifying.”

Page, who was having an affair with Strzok, texted him, “There is no way (Trump) gets elected.”

Strzok then replied, “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office … that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk.

“It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”

“Andy” apparently referred to McCabe.

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Bombshell: Exonerating Trump Evidence Uncovered in Cohen Docs, Mueller Kept It from Court: Investigative Report

Reported By Cillian Zeal | December 4, 2018 at 6:28am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/bombshell-exonerating-trump-evidence-uncovered-cohen-docs-mueller-kept-court-investigative-report/

The decision by President Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen to plead guilty to making false statements to the Senate Intelligence Committee has been described as nothing short of a “bombshell” capable of taking down the Trump administration. This impression has only been bolstered by Trump tweeting about it, essentially calling Cohen a Judas and saying he “lied for this outcome and should, in my opinion, serve a full and complete sentence.”

The political discernment behind those tweets will be debated for some time to come, or at least until the next news cycle starts in about three hours. Regardless, they did make the president sound like a man who had something to be afraid of. And therein lies the great problem with the tweets: At least from what we know so far from court documents, fear is probably not the correct reaction.

Author and commentator Paul Sperry, best known of late for his work with the New York Post, analyzed what we know so far about the indictments in an article published Monday by RealClearInvestigations.

Contrary to the en vogue media theory that Cohen’s guilty plea is — at long last — the falling domino that will topple the entire Trump administration, Sperry wrote that what we know thus far from the Cohen filings is actually exculpatory for the president even as Cohen is admitting he lied about how long he was involved in proposed Trump real estate project in Moscow.

“The nine-page charging document filed with the plea deal suggests that the special counsel is using the Moscow tower talks to connect Trump to Russia,” Sperry wrote.

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“But congressional investigators with House and Senate committees leading inquiries on the Russia question told RealClearInvestigations that it looks like Mueller withheld from the court details that would exonerate the president. They made this assessment in light of the charging document, known as a statement of ‘criminal information’ (filed in lieu of an indictment when a defendant agrees to plead guilty); a fuller accounting of Cohen’s emails and text messages that Capitol Hill sources have seen; and the still-secret transcripts of closed-door testimony provided by a business associate of Cohen.”

And this includes the putative link to Russian leader Vladimir Putin in the indictment everyone seemed to be mesmerized over.

“On page 7 of the statement of criminal information filed against Cohen, which is separate from but related to the plea agreement, Mueller mentions that Cohen tried to email Russian President Vladimir Putin’s office on Jan. 14, 2016, and again on Jan. 16, 2016,” Sperry wrote.

“But Mueller, who personally signed the document, omitted the fact that Cohen did not have any direct points of contact at the Kremlin, and had resorted to sending the emails to a general press mailbox. Sources who have seen these additional emails point out that this omitted information undercuts the idea of a ‘back channel’ and thus the special counsel’s collusion case.”

“Page 2 of the same criminal information document holds additional exculpatory evidence for Trump, sources say. It quotes an August 2017 letter from Cohen to the Senate intelligence committee in which he states that Trump ‘was never in contact with anyone about this (Moscow Project) proposal other than me,’” he continues.

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“This section of Cohen’s written testimony, unlike other parts, is not disputed as false by Mueller, which sources say means prosecutors have tested its veracity through corroborating sources and found it to be accurate.”

Mueller also doesn’t take issue with Cohen’s statement that he “ultimately determined that the proposal was not feasible and never agreed to make a trip to Russia.” Other sources seemed to indicate that there was less than there might appear in the Cohen plea.

“Though Cohen may have lied to Congress about the dates,” a Capitol Hill investigator told Sperry, “it’s clear from personal messages he sent in 2015 and 2016 that the Trump Organization did not have formal lines of communication set up with Putin’s office or the Kremlin during the campaign. There was no secret ‘back channel.’”

“So as far as collusion goes,” he continued, “the project is actually more exculpatory than incriminating for Trump and his campaign.”

Whether or not that’s true remains to be seen. The Mueller investigation can be a very tight ship when it wants to be and we don’t know everything the special counsel has. We likely won’t know everything until we see Mueller’s final report. However, what Sperry seems to have collected is a whole lot of evidence that, to quote the inimitable Peter Strzok, “there is no big there there.”

While Cohen was involved with a go-between named Felix Sater who claimed he had some connections with the Russian leader, “the project never went anywhere because Sater didn’t have the pull with Putin he claimed to have. Emails and texts indicate that Sater could only offer Cohen access to one of his acquaintances, who was an acquaintance of someone else who was partners in a real estate development with a friend of Putin’s.”

The Kremlin was never involved with the project in any manner, according to Sperry’s sources, and no one traveled to Russia to try and make the deal happen. In other words, Sater was less connected than that dodgy lawyer who took part in the infamous Trump Tower meeting involving Donald Trump Jr. Both seem to have gone nowhere.

But tell that to the media.

“The actual texts of the plea deal and related materials filed last week in federal court do not jibe with reports and commentary given on several cable news outlets and comments of Democrat leaders,” Sperry wrote.

“CNN said the charging documents, which reference the president as ‘Individual 1,’ suggest Trump had a working relationship with Russia’s president and that ‘Putin had leverage over Trump’ because of the project.

“’Well into the 2016 campaign, one of the president’s closest associates was in touch with the Kremlin on this project, as we now know, and Michael Cohen says he was lying about it to protect the president,’ said CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer.

“’Cohen was communicating directly with the Kremlin,’ Blitzer added.”

Really, now.

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Writing under a pseudonym, Cillian Zeal is a conservative writer who is currently living abroad in a country that doesn’t value free speech. Exercising it there under his given name could put him in danger.

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Jerome Corsi Files Criminal Complaint Against Mueller Team

Reported By Randy DeSoto | December 3, 2018 at 12:00pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/jerome-corsi-files-criminal-complaint-mueller-team/ Jerome Corsi

In this Oct. 7, 2008, file photo, Jerome Corsi, right, arrives at the immigration department in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP Photo)

Conservative author Jerome Corsi filed a “criminal and ethics” complaint against special counsel Robert Mueller on Monday, alleging his team threatened prosecution if Corsi refused to provide false testimony against Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Fox News reported the 78-page complaint, filed with the Department of Justice and the DOJ’s inspector general, stated “Dr. Corsi has been criminally threatened and coerced to tell a lie and call it the truth.”

The filing also calls for the removal of Mueller and his prosecutors for their misconduct.

“Special Counsel Mueller and his prosecutorial staff should respectfully be removed from his office and their practice of the law and a new Special Counsel appointed who respects and will obey common and accepted norms of professional ethics and the law and who will promptly conclude the so-called Russian collusion investigation which had been illegally and criminally spinning out of control,” the document reads.

According to his complaint, Mueller’s team wanted Corsi to testify to acting as a liaison between Trump campaign associate Roger Stone and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange regarding the release of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee. The filing reads that Mueller’s office “knowingly and deceitfully threatening to charge Dr. Corsi with an alleged false statement,” unless he gives them “false testimony” against Trump and others.

Corsi announced last week on multiple media outlets that he would not sign Mueller’s agreement calling for him to plead guilty to one count of perjury.

“They can put me in prison the rest of my life. I am not going to sign a lie,” the 72-year-old told CNN.

According to a court filing by Mueller’s team, Corsi wrote in a short email to Stone in July 2016, “Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps. One shortly after I’m back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging.”

“Time to let more than (Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta) to be exposed as in bed w enemy if they are not ready to drop HRC (Hillary Rodham Clinton),” “The Obama Nation” author added. “That appears to be the game hackers are now about.”

Corsi explained to Fox News host Tucker Carlson last week that he had fully cooperated with Mueller’s investigators, turning over his computer and cellphone, but he initially forgot about the email, until it was brought to his attention. He amended his statement to Mueller’s team in September, which they accepted without complaint, but prosecutors changed their tune after they determined, he “could not give them what they wanted,” according to Corsi.

“They do this what I call a perjury trap,” Corsi told Carlson. “They ask you a question. They have material they won’t show you. You’ve forgotten about. They say, ‘You’ve just lied,’ because this email you’ve forgotten about 2016 proves your current memory is wrong. It’s a memory test.”

In a statement on Monday, his attorney Larry Klayman charged Mueller with “effectively seeking to overthrow a duly elected president” through coercing false testimony.

“This rogue government tyranny perpetrated by a Special Counsel and his prosecutorial staff, which is designed to effectively overthrow a duly elected president by coercing and extorting false testimony from Dr. Corsi and others, cannot be permitted in a civilized society,” he said.

Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz argued last week that Mueller’s probe is creating crimes rather than uncovering past ones, and that the “devastating” report against Trump he will write will be based on people “who have lied.”

“Virtually all of his indictments and pleas come from people who he got to lie in front of investigators by setting perjury traps for them,” Dershowitz told Fox News host Sean Hannity. He added, “(A)nd the other ones have to do with financial dealings unrelated to the president. Where’s the beef? Where’s the crime?”

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FBI Raids Home of Clinton Foundation, Uranium One Whistleblower

Reported By Richard Pollock | November 29, 2018 at 8:22pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/fbi-raids-home-whistleblower-clinton-foundation-uranium-one-lawyer-says-2/

Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. (Brad Barket / Getty Images)

FBI agents raided the home of a recognized Department of Justice whistleblower who privately delivered documents pertaining to the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One to a government watchdog, according to the whistleblower’s attorney.

The Justice Department’s inspector general was informed that the documents show that federal officials failed to investigate potential criminal activity regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and Rosatom, the Russian company that purchased Uranium One, a document reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation alleges.

The delivered documents also show that then-FBI Director Robert Mueller failed to enforce criminal laws pertaining to Rosatom and to other Russian government entities attached to Uranium One, the document reviewed by TheDCNF alleges.

Mueller is now the special counsel investigating whether Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.

“The bureau raided my client to seize what he legally gave Congress about the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One,” the whistleblower’s lawyer, Michael Socarras, told TheDCNF, noting that he considered the FBI’s raid to be an “outrageous disregard” of whistleblower protections.

Sixteen agents arrived at the home of Dennis Nathan Cain, a former FBI contractor, on the morning of Nov. 19 and raided his Union Bridge, Maryland, home, Socarras told TheDCNF. The raid was permitted by a court order signed on Nov. 15 by Magistrate Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher in the U.S. District Court for Baltimore and obtained by TheDCNF.

A special agent from the FBI’s Baltimore division, who led the raid, charged that Cain possessed stolen federal property and demanded entry to his private residence, Socarras told TheDCNF.

“On Nov. 19, the FBI conducted court authorized law enforcement activity in the Union Bridge, Maryland area,” bureau spokesman Dave Fitz told TheDCNF. “At this time, we have no further comment.”

Cain informed the agent while he was still at the door that he was a recognized protected whistleblower under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act and that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz recognized his whistleblower status, according to Socarras. Cain further told the FBI agent the potentially damaging classified information had been properly transmitted to the Senate and House Intelligence committees as permitted under the act, Socarras said. The agent immediately directed his agents to begin a sweep of the suburban home anyway.

Frightened and intimidated, Cain promptly handed over the documents, Socarras told TheDCNF. Yet even after surrendering the information to the FBI, the agents continued to rummage through the home for six hours.

“After asking and getting my approval to do so, DOJ IG Michael Horowitz had a member of his staff physically take Mr. Cain’s classified document disclosure to the House and Senate Intelligence committees,” Socarras told TheDCNF.

“For the bureau to show up at Mr. Cain’s home suggesting that those same documents are stolen federal property, and then proceed to seize copies of the same documents after being told at the house door that he is a legally protected whistleblower who gave them to Congress, is an outrageous disregard of the law,” he continued.

Cain came across the potentially explosive information while working for an FBI contractor, Socarras told TheDCNF. Cain met with a senior member of Horowitz’s office at a church close to the White House to deliver the documents to the IG, according to Socarras. He sat in a pew with a hoodie and sunglasses, Socarras said. Cain held a double-sealed envelope containing a flash drive with the documents. The IG official met him and, without saying a word, took the pouch over Cain’s shoulder and left.

If the complaint is found credible, the law protecting whistleblowers, which covers employees of government contractors, requires the IG to share such information with the attorney general — who at the time was Jeff Sessions. The two law enforcement officials directed the documents be sent to the Senate and House Intelligence committees for their examination, according to Socarras, who said that a high-level IG official hand-delivered the documents to the two intelligence committees.

“I cannot believe the bureau informed the federal magistrate who approved the search warrant that they wanted to search the home of an FBI whistleblower to seize the information that he confidentially disclosed to the IG and Congress,” Socarras told TheDCNF.

The whistleblower act is intended to protect whistleblowers within the intelligence community, which includes the FBI.

“The (intelligence community) is committed to providing its personnel the means to report violations of law,” according to a 2016 intelligence community directive.

“The (whistleblower act) authorizes employees of contractors to take government property and give it to the two intelligence committees confidentially,” Socarras told TheDCNF.

The FBI has yet to talk to Cain’s attorney despite the raid, according to Socarras.

“After the raid, and having received my name and phone number from Mr. Cain as his lawyer, an FBI agent actually called my client directly to discuss his seized electronics,” Socarras told TheDCNF. “Knowingly bypassing the lawyer of a represented client is serious misconduct.”

A spokesman for the IG declined to comment.

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Founded by Tucker Carlson, a 25-year veteran of print and broadcast media, and Neil Patel, former chief policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, The Daily Caller News Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit providing original investigative reporting from a team of professional reporters that operates for the public benefit.

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Attorney John Dowd: ‘I Saw a Stall Going On’ With Mueller Probe

URL of the original posting site: https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/attorney-john-dowd-i-saw-stall-going-mueller-probe

Former Trump attorney John Dowd told Fox News he regrets relying on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s word that Mueller would move quickly on the Trump-Russia investigation. (Photo: Screen capture/Fox News)

(CNSNews.com) – The Trump administration has given Special Counsel Robert Mueller all the witnesses and documents he requested; Mueller understands that the investigation is a “great burden on the president”; and Mueller has even told President Trump’s legal team that Trump is not a target of the investigation, Trump’s former attorney John Dowd said Wednesday night.

Yet Mueller has not kept his word about wrapping up the Trump-Russia investigation, as he should have done by now, Dowd said.

https://www.mrctv.org/embed/532792

“That’s when I saw a stall going on, and I just lost complete faith in him because we had shaken hands,” Dowd told Fox News’s Sean Hannity. He said he now regrets taking Mueller at his word.

Dowd, who resigned from Trump’s legal team in March, said it was Mueller’s suggestion that his team “engage” and “work together” with the White House — “and we said fine.”

You ask for the document list, ask for your witnesses. And Ty Cobb and Jay (Sekulow) and I provided them. And he said he wouldn’t let any grass grow. And every meeting and communication we had, we stressed how important it was and how his inquiry was a great burden on the president, and interfered with the president’s ability to lead this country, particularly in foreign affairs.

And he said he took that very seriously. And on and on, he gave me his word he would do it. And we got to late last year and he had completed the 37 witnesses. And I asked him, did you have any problem with those witnesses? They were all well-represented, all well-prepared, and he said no. Did anyone lie to you? No.

Documents. We gave you 1.4 million but more importantly, we gave you the most intimate notes of the communications and deliberations by the president. No president in history has ever done anything like that. Are we missing anything, are there any missing documents? No. Are you satisfied with everything you’ve got? Yes.

I said, well, what’s the president’s exposure? Well, The president’s exposure, he’s a witness slash/subject. I said, so he’s not a target, correct? Correct. That means he had no exposure. And at that point we said well, why don’t you just decline?

He said well, we’d like to get back to you on that but we think we need to talk to the president…And we said, what do you not know that we have not given you — that only the president knows? And he could never answer that question, Sean. And that’s when I saw a stall going on, and I just lost complete faith in him because we had shaken hands.

He’s the one who said, John, we’ll engage. We said, we are not going to raise conflicts, we are not going to raise the legality of the order, we are not going to fool with all this nonsense, let’s get the job done. This president wants the job done. And by the way the president gets the credit. He’s the one that said, give it to him.

Do you now regret believing Mueller? Hannity asked.

“I regret relying on him because he didn’t keep his word,” Dowd replied. “And I believed he would keep his word.

“But more importantly the way we did it completely protected the president. We’ve not waived executive privilege. We’ve not had four years of litigation. We’ve not had motions to quash grand jury subpoenas. We’ve not had anyone go in the grand jury, Sean.

“There is no case there, and that’s what Bob Mueller ought to face up and do. So yeah, it’s a very sad thing to see and then, you see the other cases — I mean, you see the Flynn case and the other case and it’s just — it’s more (of) this sorry abusive practice in the prosecutive ranks.

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Libs Use Cohen to Push Guilt by Association, But Forget 5 Obama Pals Who Were 10x Worse

Reported By Lisa Payne-Naeger | August 22, 2018 at

2:37pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/guilt-association-obama-guys-worse/

It didn’t take long for liberal spin to conjure up the specter of guilt by association as the media tried to build a case for impeachment of President Donald Trump due to the latest developments in the Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort cases.

On Tuesday Michael Cohen, the president’s former attorney, pleaded guilty to eight charges of felony fraud and campaign finance law violations. In doing so, he also implicated the president, who he claims directed him to pay off porn star Stormy Daniels as well as a former Playboy model to buy their silence for alleged sexual encounters.

That alone would have made liberals happy. But the anti-Trump crowd was also crowing that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was convicted on the same day of eight charges of tax and bank fraud brought by special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his investigation of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

A lot of nonsense takes place on social media, but sometimes bits of wisdom shine through. These particular comments put the spotlight on liberal hypocrisy that has no problem with smearing Trump with guilt by association, but was mysteriously blind when it came to former President Barack Obama.

Liberal memories are short when it comes to liberal sins, but author and conservative Twitter user Thomas Wictor reminds us all that guilt by association was — or should have been — a much bigger issue in the Obama administration.

He listed at least five egregious instances where guilt by association could be argued in relation to Barack Obama, and he starts with Obama associate Tony Rezko.

“(3) Obama fundraiser and member of his U.S. Senate campaign finance committee Tony Rezko. Sentenced to over ten years for public and private corruption. Served four.”

“(4) Obama fundraiser Courtney Dupree. Convicted of bank fraud.”

“(5) Obama bundler Willie Shepherd. Pleaded guilty to third-degree assault on his wife in exchange for dropping negligent child-abuse charges.”

“(6) Rod Blagojevich, Illinois governor. Doing 14 years in the federal pen for trying to sell Obama’s vacated seat.”

And he caps it off with this closing tweet.

To be fair, longtime Barack Obama buddy Bill Ayers was never implicated in murder during his spree as a bomber for the domestic terrorist group the Weather Underground.

It’s also worth pointing out that Ayers’ girlfriend at the time, Diana Oughton, died in 1970 when a nail bomb she was helping to build exploded in a house in Grennwich Village. A Vanity Fair article from 2015 claims Ayers and his Weather Underground terrorists never intended to hurt people, but it’s safe to wonder if they were worried about who would be on the receiving end of those nails flying through the air with deadly, explosive force.

The Daily Caller points out some clarifying factors on the the guilt-by-association accusations against Trump.

In the Manafort case, even though Manafort spent a short time with the Trump campaign to work specifically on the Republican National Convention, the media will fail to mention he was “fired over questions of his work as a lobbyist for foreign governments years earlier,” and all charges were related to actions of Manafort long before he ever joined Trump’s presidential run.

As The Daily Caller put it: “It’s guilt by association coupled with omission of relevant facts to paint the president as somehow associated with a guilty person’s actions.”

As far as Cohen is concerned, and as conservative radio host Mark Levin has pointed out, the charges of payoffs to two women for alleged sexual encounters are still not proven to be illegal. It is not not illegal for to pay for non-disclosure agreements in politics or any other sphere of the law.

Liberals have once again cast stones from their own glass houses. They should really think twice before they invent false scenarios.

Some sharp-minded Twitter members might just throw a litany of facts on their feed that blow their latest spin out of the water.

Lisa Payne-Naeger

Contributor, Commentary

Summary

An enthusiastic grassroots Tea Party activist, Lisa Payne-Naeger has spent the better part of the last decade lobbying for educational and family issues in her state legislature, and as a keyboard warrior hoping to help along the revolution that empowers the people to retake control of their, out-of-control, government.

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Report: Mueller Referred Tony Podesta Case To New York Prosecutors

Reported by Chuck Ross | Reporter | 12:05 AM

08/01/2018

URL of the original posting site: https://dailycaller.com/2018/07/31/mueller-referral-tony-podesta/

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Special Counsel Robert Mueller has referred cases on a group of prominent American lobbyists, including Democrat-connected superlobbyist Tony Podesta, to federal prosecutors in New York as part of an inquiry into whether the operatives worked as unregistered foreign agents.

Mueller also referred former Obama White House General Counsel Greg Craig and former Minnesota Republican Rep. Vin Weber to the New York office as part of the inquiry, according to CNN.

All three of the lobbyists worked with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on a campaign to help former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Mueller has indicted Manafort in two federal jurisdictions on a slew of charges related to his work for Yanukovcyh, including tax evasion and acting as an unregistered foreign agent. Manafort went on trial in Virginia on Tuesday. (RELATED: Ex-Obama Lawyer Who Worked With Manafort On Ukraine Project Abruptly Leaves Law Firm)

Manafort, a longtime Republican political consultant, worked for a political party connected to Yanukovych from 2005 to 2014, two years before he joined the Trump campaign.

Podesta’s firm, the Podesta Group, and Weber’s firm, Mercury Public Affairs, worked on behalf of the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, a think tank linked to Yanukovych.

Craig’s former law firm, Skadden Arps, worked with Manafort in 2012 to produce a report aimed at justifying the imprisonment of Yulia Tymoshenko, a Ukrainian politician who opposed Yanukovych, a close ally of Vladimir Putin’s.

Podesta, Weber and Craig have not been charged with any crimes or accused of any wrongdoing. It is unclear whether the Mueller referrals indicate that they are being investigated for a crime. (RELATED: Manafort Goes To Trial, But Don’t Expect To Hear About Collusion)

Another former former Skadden Arps lawyer, Alex van der Zwaan, has pleaded guilty to Mueller’s prosecutors for lying to the FBI about his work with Manafort. Van der Zwaan worked closely with Craig on the Ukraine project.

According to CNN, Mueller referred information about Podesta to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) shortly before a raid against former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. Mueller also referred the Cohen case to SDNY prosecutors.

Podesta, the brother of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, closed the Podesta Group late last year. Craig left Skadden Arps in April, shortly after van der Zwaan was sentenced to 30 days in jail.

Mercury Public Affairs has fared somewhat better. The GOP-linked firm has thrived under the Trump administration.

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Why didn’t FBI tell court about Christopher Steele bias?

Reported by Byron York | July 26, 2018 09:49 PM

URL of the original posting site: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/why-didnt-fbi-tell-court-about-christopher-steele-bias?platform=hootsuite

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., set off the argument last February, with the release of the so-called Nunes memo. In the memo, Nunes wrote, “Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts.”

In another passage, Isikoff and Corn wrote: “As FBI officials saw it, Steele seemed more interested in getting the story out rather than quietly working with them on the investigation. ‘There was clearly an agenda on his part,’ one senior FBI official later said.”

So to conclude: The FBI based a substantial part of its warrant application on Steele’s work. Steele had a strong and clear anti-Trump bias. The FBI knew about it. The bureau should have informed the court. And it did not.

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Dam’s Breaking: FBI Agent With Inside Knowledge Flips on Comey, Wants to Testify

Reported By Benjamin Arie | May 24, 2018 at 3:11pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/fbi-agent-flips-on-comey/

The scandal that has been dubbed “Spygate” is currently making headlines, and former FBI Director James Comey is right in the middle of it.

As Spygate — the allegation that the FBI placed “moles” in the Trump campaign to undermine him — unravels, one incident involving Comey has largely faded from memory. That investigation focused on retired Gen. Mike Flynn, and it’s coming back to haunt anti-Trump elitists.

Flynn was an early target of Robert Mueller’s special investigation into alleged wrongdoing by Trump team members. In early 2017, he resigned as national security adviser after facing criticism for improperly communicating with a Russian ambassador during the presidential transition period.

Remember, Flynn’s role as national security adviser made talking with Russian diplomats part of his position, and his resignation and subsequent charge had less to do with job-related phone calls and more to do with alleged dishonesty about what was discussed.

As part of a plea deal with Mueller, the previously respected military leader and intelligence expert pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the FBI.

That was seen as proof positive that the probe into the Trump camp was on the right track, but the investigation soon fizzled after few serious indictments were brought forward. Now, more than a year after Mueller’s probe began, it looks more like an unfocused witch hunt than a serious investigation.

Fast forward to this month. From an unredacted portion of the House intelligence committee report of James Comey’s testimony, eagle-eyed reporters noticed something odd: It appears that despite having almost no evidence against Flynn during the presidential transition, the Obama-era FBI ran an intelligence operation against him anyway, and used an unofficial and likely illegal media “leak” of Flynn’s call with the Russian ambassador to justify digging deeper. This is a bit like the police pulling over a vehicle but finding no reasonable suspicion to carry out a search, only to ransack the car anyway because a passerby repeated a rumor about the driver.

In other words, it has the hallmarks of a setup or a witch hunt.

It doesn’t look much like the proper and lawful investigation of a suspected crime.

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To add to the growing scandal, Jack Posobiec of One America News reported Wednesday that one of the FBI agents who was in the room when Flynn was interrogated by the bureau believes the disgraced national security adviser was unfairly railroaded — and Comey was behind it.

“FBI Agent Joe Pientka who interviewed General Flynn plans to testify against Comey and McCabe, adds ‘It was all Comey,‘” Posobiec posted on Twitter.

flynn02

Posobiec also hinted that the FBI special agent who is ready to flip on Comey was an eyewitness to the actual interview of Flynn, which may have varied drastically from what went into the bureau’s official reports.

There is also evidence that agents, including Pientka, believed Flynn was being entirely honest with them during the investigation, and that he did not try to deceive them at all.

“Pientka knows what was said in the room, before the 302 reports were written by Strzok,” the journalist explained. The “302 reports” refer to summaries of suspect interviews conducted by agents, while Strzok is the agent who held obvious anti-Trump bias, as revealed in countless text messages.

If correct, the fact that an FBI agent who has firsthand knowledge of Flynn’s interview is disgusted by the bureau’s actions and ready to testify against Comey speaks volumes.

That is the same modus operandi now being used by Mueller against Trump and his team: Dig into the lives of political opponents, pushing the boundaries of what is legal and disregarding just cause, in order to overturn every rock and search every closet for skeletons.

This isn’t the way an investigation is supposed to happen, yet elitists within the DOJ don’t seem to care. The American people, however, do — and Mueller, Comey, and their cronies may be in for a surprise as this scandal continues to be exposed.

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Mueller may have a conflict — and it leads directly to a Russian oligarch

Reported By John Solomon | opinion contributor | 05/14/18 03:30 PM EDT

URL of the original posting site: http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/387625-mueller-may-have-a-conflict-and-it-leads-directly-to-a-russian-oligarch#.WvntCkGnDZE.twitter

Special counsel Robert Mueller has withstood relentless political attacks, many distorting his record of distinguished government service. But there’s one episode even Mueller’s former law enforcement comrades — and independent ethicists — acknowledge raises legitimate legal issues and a possible conflict of interest in his overseeing the Russia election probe.

In 2009, when Mueller ran the FBI, the bureau asked Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to spend millions of his own dollars funding an FBI-supervised operation to rescue a retired FBI agent, Robert Levinson, captured in Iran while working for the CIA in 2007.

Yes, that’s the same Deripaska who has surfaced in Mueller’s current investigation and who was recently sanctioned by the Trump administration.

The Levinson mission is confirmed by more than a dozen participants inside and outside the FBI, including Deripaska, his lawyer, the Levinson family and a retired agent who supervised the case. Mueller was kept apprised of the operation, officials told me.

Some aspects of Deripaska’s help were chronicled in a 2016 book by reporter Barry Meier, but sources provide extensive new information about his role. They said FBI agents courted Deripaska in 2009 in a series of secret hotel meetings in Paris; Vienna; Budapest, Hungary, and Washington. Agents persuaded the aluminum industry magnate to underwrite the mission. The Russian billionaire insisted the operation neither involve nor harm his homeland.

“We knew he was paying for his team helping us, and that probably ran into the millions,” a U.S. official involved in the operation confirmed.

One agent who helped court Deripaska was Andrew McCabe, the recently fired FBI deputy director who played a seminal role starting the Trump-Russia case, multiple sources confirmed.

Deripaska’s lawyer said the Russian ultimately spent $25 million assembling a private search and rescue team that worked with Iranian contacts under the FBI’s watchful eye. Photos and videos indicating Levinson was alive were uncovered.

Then in fall 2010, the operation secured an offer to free Levinson. The deal was scuttled, however, when the State Department become uncomfortable with Iran’s terms, according to Deripaska’s lawyer and the Levinson family.

FBI officials confirmed State hampered their efforts.

“We tried to turn over every stone we could to rescue Bob, but every time we started to get close, the State Department seemed to always get in the way,” said Robyn Gritz, the retired agent who supervised the Levinson case in 2009, when Deripaska first cooperated, but who left for another position in 2010 before the Iranian offer arrived. “I kept Director Mueller and Deputy Director [John] Pistole informed of the various efforts and operations, and they offered to intervene with State, if necessary.”

FBI officials ended the operation in 2011, concerned that Deripaska’s Iranian contacts couldn’t deliver with all the U.S. infighting. Levinson was never found; his whereabouts remain a mystery, 11 years after he disappeared.

“Deripaska’s efforts came very close to success,” said David McGee, a former federal prosecutor who represents Levinson’s family. “We were told at one point that the terms of Levinson’s release had been agreed to by Iran and the U.S. and included a statement by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointing a finger away from Iran. At the last minute, Secretary Clinton decided not to make the agreed-on statement.”

The State Department declined comment, and a spokesman for Clinton did not offer comment. Mueller’s spokesman, Peter Carr, declined to answer questions. As did McCabe.

The FBI had three reasons for choosing Deripaska for a mission worthy of a spy novel.

First, his aluminum empire had business in Iran.
Second, the FBI wanted a foreigner to fund the operation because spending money in Iran might violate U.S. sanctions and other laws.
Third, agents knew Deripaska had been banished since 2006 from the United States by State over reports he had ties to organized crime and other nefarious activities. He denies the allegations, and nothing was ever proven in court.

The FBI rewarded Deripaska for his help. In fall 2009, according to U.S. entry records, Deripaska visited Washington on a rare law enforcement parole visa. And since 2011, he has been granted entry at least eight times on a diplomatic passport, even though he doesn’t work for the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Former FBI officials confirm they arranged the access.

Deripaska said in a statement through Adam Waldman, his American lawyer, that FBI agents told him State’s reasons for blocking his U.S. visa were “merely a pretext.”

“The FBI said they had undertaken a careful background check, and if there was any validity to the State Department smears, they would not have reached out to me for assistance,” the Russian said.

Then, over the past two years, evidence emerged tying him to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, the first defendant charged by Mueller’s Russia probe with money laundering and illegal lobbying. Deripaska once hired Manafort as a political adviser and invested money with him in a business venture that went bad. Deripaska sued Manafort, alleging he stole money.

Mueller’s indictment of Manafort makes no mention of Deripaska, even though prosecutors have evidence that Manafort contemplated inviting his old Russian client for a 2016 Trump campaign briefing. Deripaska said he never got the invite and investigators have found no evidence it occurred. There’s no public evidence Deripaska had anything to do with election meddling.

Deripaska also appears to be one of the first Russians the FBI asked for help when it began investigating the now-infamous Fusion GPS “Steele Dossier.” Waldman, his American lawyer until the sanctions hit, gave me a detailed account, some of which U.S. officials confirm separately.

Two months before Trump was elected president, Deripaska was in New York as part of Russia’s United Nations delegation when three FBI agents awakened him in his home; at least one agent had worked with Deripaska on the aborted effort to rescue Levinson. During an hour-long visit, the agents posited a theory that Trump’s campaign was secretly colluding with Russia to hijack the U.S. election.

“Deripaska laughed but realized, despite the joviality, that they were serious,” the lawyer said. “So he told them in his informed opinion the idea they were proposing was false. ‘You are trying to create something out of nothing,’ he told them.” The agents left though the FBI sought more information in 2017 from the Russian, sources tell me. Waldman declined to say if Deripaska has been in contact with the FBI since Sept, 2016.

So why care about some banished Russian oligarch’s account now?

Two reasons.

First, as the FBI prepared to get authority to surveil figures on Trump’s campaign team, did it disclose to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that one of its past Russian sources waived them off the notion of Trump-Russia collusion?
Second, the U.S. government in April imposed sanctions on Deripaska, one of several prominent Russians targeted to punish Vladimir Putin — using the same sort of allegations that State used from 2006 to 2009. Yet, between those two episodes, Deripaska seemed good enough for the FBI to ask him to fund that multimillion-dollar rescue mission. And to seek his help on a sensitive political investigation. And to allow him into the country eight times.

I was alerted to Deripaska’s past FBI relationship by U.S. officials who wondered whether the Russian’s conspicuous absence from Mueller’s indictments might be related to his FBI work.

They aren’t the only ones.

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz told me he believes Mueller has a conflict of interest because his FBI previously accepted financial help from a Russian that is, at the very least, a witness in the current probe.

“The real question becomes whether it was proper to leave [Deripaska] out of the Manafort indictment, and whether that omission was to avoid the kind of transparency that is really required by the law,” Dershowitz said.

Melanie Sloan, a former Clinton Justice Department lawyer and longtime ethics watchdog, told me a “far more significant issue” is whether the earlier FBI operation was even legal: “It’s possible the bureau’s arrangement with Mr. Deripaska violated the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits the government from accepting voluntary services.”

George Washington University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley agreed: “If the operation with Deripaska contravened federal law, this figure could be viewed as a potential embarrassment for Mueller. The question is whether he could implicate Mueller in an impropriety.”

Now that sources have unmasked the Deripaska story, time will tell whether the courts, Justice, Congress or a defendant formally questions if Mueller is conflicted. In the meantime, the episode highlights an oft-forgotten truism: The cat-and-mouse maneuvers between Moscow and Washington are often portrayed in black-and-white terms. But the truth is, the relationship is enveloped in many shades of gray.

John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He is The Hill’s executive vice president for video.

[Editor’s note: This post was updated at 8:10 p.m. on May 14, 2018.]

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Federal Judge Could Be A Nightmare For Special Counsel Mueller

Reported by Richard Pollock | Reporter | 11:59 PM 05/06/2018

URL of the original posting site: http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/06/federal-judge-ellis-iii-robert-mueller-legal-case-paul-manafort/

FILE PHOTO: FBI Director Robert Mueller testifies before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Federal Bureau of Investigation oversight on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, U.S., June 13, 2013. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo | Judge Ellis III VS Robert Mueller

Federal Judge T.S. Ellis III, a Reagan appointee, could be the ultimate nightmare for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who may lose his legal case against Paul Manafort, according to an extraordinary May 4 exchange in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia. A dismissal could be a major wrecking ball to Mueller’s overall case in his Russian collusion case against President Donald Trump.

Amid Friday’s legal event, Ellis was best known for invoking an NFL term to dismiss Mueller’s legal posture, saying “C’mon man!” as he challenged the special counsel’s attempt to drag an unrelated bank fraud case back in 2005 to indict Manafort. Those charges are well beyond Mueller’s original mandate to investigate alleged collusion with Russia in 2016 and had to be dismissed, the judge said, according to the hearing transcript.

“If I look at the indictment, none of that information has anything to do with links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of Donald Trump,” he lectured Michael Dreebeen, Mueller’s lawyer in the court room. “So I don’t see what relation this indictment has with anything the special prosecutor is authorized to investigate.”

The federal judge also was enraged that Mueller redacted 75 percent of an August 2017 order from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, which further outlined the special counsel’s mandate, according to the transcript. Ellis has handled numerous espionage cases and enjoys among the highest level government clearances, the judge reminded the government’s lawyer.

The judge slammed the special counsel, saying he understood his real intention was “to exert leverage on a defendant so that the defendant will turn and provide information on what is really the focus of the special prosecutor,” namely President Trump.

Dreeben replied, their “investigatory scope” permitted them to include wrongs committed a decade before Trump declared his candidacy for president.

Ellis shot back: “My question to you was, how does bank fraud and these other things that go back to 2005, 2007, how does that have anything to do with links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of Trump?”

The original May 2017 order setting up the special counsel’s office by Rosenstein permitted them to go after crimes beyond Russian collusion, Dreeben replied. “We are not limited in our prosecution authority to crimes that would fit within the precise description that was issued in this public order,” he told Ellis.

Ellis cut to the chase and told the special counsel their intention was really to get Manafort to “sing” to get Trump. “I’ve been here a long time. The vernacular is to sing,” he said.

Ellis admonished the special counsel, saying he was seeking “unfettered power” — something the founding fathers fought against. “What we don’t want in this country is we don’t want anyone with unfettered power,” Ellis stated. “So it’s unlikely you’re going to persuade me that the special prosecutor has unlimited powers to do anything he or she wants,” the judge said.

Dreeben said Mueller is following both the May and August 2017 orders from Rosenstein, who oversees Mueller. But Ellis shot back that the order he was given had 75 percent of the August memo was redacted.

“I have that right here, and I’m glad you raised it because 75 percent of it is blocked out, redacted. Why don’t I have a full copy it,” Ellis asked.

“The only paragraphs that are to Mr. Manafort are the ones that are pertinent are the ones contained in this record,” Dreeben replied.

“Well, let me use a phrase that I’m fond of that I used to use with my children,” the judge said, dripping with sarcasm. “I can’t use it with my wife, but I’ll be the judge of whether it relates to the others.”

Dreeben would consult with the intelligence community to see if the rest of the classified memo could be shared with the judge, he said.

“Yes, of course, you may do that,” Judge Ellis replied. “If any part of it is classified, it won’t surprise you to know that a district judge is fully cleared. In fact, I have several espionage trials underway,” he told the Mueller attorney.

Following that exchange, Ellis didn’t mince words with Dreeben as he laid into Mueller’s attorney. “You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud,” he said. “You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment or whatever. That’s what you’re really interested in.”

In the end, Ellis asked Dreeben if he had anything to add.

“No thank you, Your Honor,” he said.

“Good choice on your part,” an angry Ellis replied. “Thank you for your arguments,” he told Dreeben. “They were entertaining.”

The court resumes in two weeks.

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Roundup of This Weeks Politically INCORRECT Cartoons

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Mueller’s Never-Ending Search for Anything to Bring Down Trump

Authored by Tami Jackson | on May 2, 2018 at 3:47 pm

URL of the original posting site: https://comicallyincorrect.com/muellers-never-ending-search-for-anything-to-bring-down-trump/

Time flies when you’re having fun. Everyone knows and learns that at an early age. Conversely, if you’re not having fun, let’s say you’re stuck in a remote outpost with ungodly hot and humid weather making every day pure hell…well then, time creeps along at the proverbial tortoise pace.

Or, for example, a certain former FBI Director Robert Swan Mueller III was appointed as Special Counsel to investigate alleged foreign government collusion with Team Trump to interfere in United States’ elections, with no credible evidence to substantiate said investigation. Well then, time would slow almost to the point of reversal.

Every day the American people wake up to hear new supposed allegations.

That whole “Trump colluded with Russia” thingy didn’t pan out. Even worse, turns out Hill the Pill Clinton foot the bill for the dossier used to prompt the investigation.

How does that work exactly?

HRC, of the ~~Clinton Crime Syndicate~~…er…the Clinton Foundation, paid for a dossier compiled by a foreign operative to find dirt on candidate Trump. But that same “lady” sold 20% of our U.S. strategic uranium to her pals the Russkies.

In spite of all the nefarious activities and ties of Bubba and Hill, Bobby Mueller was appointed as Special Counsel for, as Andrew McCarthy points out, two reasons:

(1) ostensibly to take over a counterintelligence probe;

(2) in reality, as a cave-in to (mostly) Democratic caviling over Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey — which was lawful but incompetently executed.

But in this Groundhog Day-like investigation, we wake up every morning and the never-ending probe continues with yet different goal posts.

And time drags on.

The “collusion” accusation was a bust. So the second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse, is an ever-changing raison d-être for the Mueller probe.

McCarthy notes:

The Democrats did not want a special counsel in order to investigate a crime; they wanted a special counsel (a) to promote a political narrative that Hillary Clinton lost because of something other than her lack of appeal and (b) to frustrate Trump’s ability to govern — to mollify their “Resist!” base, to stop Trump from implementing policies they oppose, and to enhance their electoral hopes in the 2018 and 2020 cycles.

The latest refrain in the “Mueller’s Gonna Get Trump” ballad is obstruction. But here the investigation grows even swampier.

Read what McCarthy (and other knowledgeable Con Law attorneys) has to say:

A president should not be subjected to prosecutorial scrutiny over poor judgment, venality, bad taste, or policy disputes. Absent concrete evidence that the president has committed a serious crime, the checks on the president should be Congress and the ballot box…Otherwise, a special-counsel investigation — especially one staffed by the president’s political opponents — is apt to become a thinly veiled political scheme, enabling the losers to relitigate the election and obstruct the president from pursuing the agenda on which he ran.

. . .

A president, of course, may not subvert an investigation by unlawful actions — e.g., by conspiring to suborn perjury or bribe witnesses (cf. Clinton, Nixon). Illegal acts could amount to actionable obstruction. But the president’s dismissal of subordinate executive officials (such as the FBI director), and his exercise of prosecutorial discretion (by merely weighing in on whether a person — here, Flynn — deserves to be investigated), are constitutional acts that are not judicially reviewable. Executive prerogatives that are not subject to judicial review may not be subjected to judicial review by indirection, under the guise of a prosecution.

You see, the highest executive officer in the most powerful nation in the world was never meant to be tied up in political investigations barring REAL crimes committed. Thus my pal Bob Mack nails it with this cartoon.

Robert Mueller relentlessly pursues Trump like a blood hound tailing a no-good scoundrel.

Problem is, Trump may not be a highfalutin, smooth-talking, ever-sensitive Commander in Chief, but he’s no criminal, no scoundrel. In fact, most of us voted for Trump because he espoused our values — life, national security and sovereignty, legal immigration, less government regulation on individuals and businesses — and we happen to like that he’s a rugged straight shooter.

When I vote for a man for president, I want a real man. I don’t want some touchy-feely effete male. Give me a man’s man every time.

Eventually, maybe, this Mueller investigation will grind to a halt and time will pick up the pace and allow Trump to actually govern. Until that time, you can bet your bottom dollar that Mainstream Media (I won’t even pretend to call them journalists) and the rest of the #Resist nincompoops will maintain the pouting and heckling, like a pack of rabid, ankle-biting little dogs.

And time drags on.

#PleaseGodLetItEnd #SayByeByeMueller

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Mueller Investigating $150k Trump Donation from Ukrainian Who Gave Hillary $13 Million

Reported By Chuck Ross | April 10, 2018 at 11:34am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/mueller-investigating-150k-trump-donation-from-ukranian-who-gave-hillary-13-million/

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s office is investigating a $150,000 donation a Ukrainian businessman made to President Donald Trump’s charity in 2015, according to a new report. The donation, from steel magnate Victor Pinchuk, pales in comparison to contributions he gave to the charity established by Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The billionaire has contributed $13 million to the Clinton Foundation since 2006 and had access to Hillary Clinton while she served as secretary of state. But Mueller is not investigating the Clintons. Instead, he is conducting a broad investigation of Trump, including the flow of foreign money into various Trump-controlled entities.

Mueller began investigating the Pinchuk donation after receiving documents in response to a subpoena issued to the Trump Organization — the real estate company Trump ran before entering politics.

In September 2015, Trump appeared via video link at a conference Pinchuk hosted in Kiev. Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, negotiated details of the event with Douglas Schoen, a former consultant for Bill Clinton, according to The New York Times.

Trump did not initially request payment for the appearance, but Cohen contacted Schoen at one point to request a $150,000 honorarium, The Times reported.

In a seemingly unrelated matter, the FBI raided Cohen’s Manhattan office and residence on Monday. The search was reportedly conducted for records related to Cohen’s payments to Stormy Daniels, a porn star claiming to have had an affair with Trump in 2006.

The Victor Pinchuk Foundation issued a statement to The Times, downplaying the donation to Trump. The charity reached out to Trump and other world leaders in order to “promote strengthened and enduring ties between Ukraine and the West,” it said.

Contact with Trump was made at a time when “it was by no means assured that Mr. Trump would be the Republican nominee in 2016,” the foundation pointed out.

Pinchuk appears to have had a much closer relationship to the Clintons.

In June 2012, the billionaire attended a dinner at the Clintons’ residence. And through Schoen, Pinchuk lobbied the State Department in 2011 and 2013. Documents filed with the Justice Department show Schoen and Pinchuk met on several occasions in 2012 with Melanne Verveer, a close Clinton associate who then served as an ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues.

Bill Clinton attended Pinchuk’s annual Yalta conference, The New York Times reported on Feb. 13, 2014. Pinchuk also attended the former president’s 65th birthday party in Los Angeles.

The FBI reportedly investigated the Clinton Foundation over its foreign donations. The status of that investigation is unclear.

This story originally appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.

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Former AG Eric Holder: Just When You Thought He Was Gone, He’s Back

Authored by Tami Jackson | on April 11, 2018 at 5:53 pm

URL of the original posting site: https://comicallyincorrect.com/former-ag-eric-holder-just-thought-gone-hes-back/

Eric Holder Radical toon

Oh my goodness. Obama has been spouting off, talking about the lack of scandals during his administration.

Huh?

Perhaps Barry has a case of early onset dementia?

Columnist Jeff Jacoby at The Boston Globe clears up that whopper:

Barack Obama’s super-secret speech at MIT last month — the one that was so far off the record that no one was permitted to stream it, or talk about it to the press, or comment about it on social media — contained nothing that remotely justified such hugger-mugger.

With hundreds in the audience, of course the speech was surreptitiously recorded and leaked.

. . .

And he declared that his administration had been scandal-free.

“We didn’t have a scandal that embarrassed us,” Obama said. Sure, there were occasional mistakes and screw-ups, “but there wasn’t anything venal in eight years.”

Obama, his former aides, and his media devotees have been making this claim for years. With so much repetition, it has become a popular urban legend. But popularity isn’t truth.

Jacoby goes on to list the Obama era scandals, and first on the list is — ta duh! — “Operation Fast and Furious”!

In a botched “gunwalking” sting, the Justice Department allowed thousands of guns to be sold to suspected smugglers, in the hope of tracing them to Mexican drug cartels. But the Obama administration lost track of the weapons, many of which later turned up at crime scenes in which scores of people were murdered. Among the dead: US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, killed by drug gangsters in 2010. Compounding the scandal was Attorney General Eric Holder’s refusal to turn over documents relating to the operation, a refusal for which he was held in contempt of Congress.

Yep. That scandal with Eric Holder right in the middle of it.

And we should all remember the DOJ case against the New Black Panther party, accused of thuggery and voter intimidation. Holder went easy on them and refused to prosecute, accusing Republicans of racism.

Blah blah blah.

If all else fails and you have no substantive argument, what’s the solution? Yell “RACISM!!!!”

And who can forget Holder began his tenure with the ever-popular “Nation of Cowards” speech?

AG Holder told the throng gathered at the justice Department concerning race and Black History Month:

Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.

Just swell. Start a job as our nation’s top cop by calling America a “nation of cowards.”

But what would you expect from a former college radical? Obama was a member of the pot-smoking “Choom gang” — which might explain why he has no memory of any scandals during his tenure — and his buddy Eric H participated in his own anti-establishment, anarchist revelry.

As a freshman at Columbia University in 1970, future Attorney General Eric Holder participated in a five-day occupation of an abandoned Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) headquarters with a group of black students later described by the university’s Black Students’ Organization as “armed.”

Holder was then among the leaders of the Student Afro-American Society (SAAS), which demanded that the former ROTC office be renamed the “Malcolm X Lounge.” The change, the group insisted, was to be made “in honor of a man who recognized the importance of territory as a basis for nationhood.”

Black radicals from the same group also occupied the office of Dean of Freshman Henry Coleman until their demands were met. Holder has publicly acknowledged being a part of that action.

Holder has bragged about his involvement in the “rise of black consciousness” protests at Columbia.

And this is the guy BHO chose to be the United States Attorney General? Sheesh.

Even now Holder refuses to just go away and has been piping up and tweeting that Trump better not fire Mueller!

Our friend Bob Mack, Vietnam Vet and cartoonist, gives us a ‘toon as a reminder of Holder’s history:

Mack writes:

Well, to ensure a fair and accurate accounting, it should be noted that, unlike Elvis, most of Obama’s boys (and girls) never left the building. Eric (the Red) Holder, of course, relocated to the People’s Republic of California, the only state in the U.S. that recognizes no extradition treaty with the federal government. But even the California Assembly, otherwise known as the Golden State Politburo, eventually gave Holder the boot, although the Senate retained his so-called “valuable services” apparently for the sole purpose of ramrodding Cali’s ongoing legal subversion against the Trump administration.

I, for one, wish that Obama and gang would leave “the building” and stay gone. Maybe they could all accompany Rep. Hank Johnson to Guam?

If it tips over Barry’s Water Dogs will have the time of their lives!

A Holder-less, Obama-less America would be a big win.

#ByeByeHolder #DontLetTheDoorHitYouOnTheWayOut

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Bombshell: Memo Okaying Mueller’s Raid on Manafort Written 7 Days After Raid Happened

Reported By Chris Agee | April 4, 2018 at 10:43am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/bombshell-memo-okaying-muellers-raid-on-manafort-written-7-days-after-raid-happened/

Department of Justice special counsel Robert Mueller’s justification for indicting Robert Manafort hit an apparent snag this week with news that a secret memo authorizing the investigation was written days after the former Trump campaign chairman’s home was raided.

As Law & Crime reported, Manafort’s attorneys are arguing the special counsel was not granted the authority to indict their client since his alleged crimes were not directly connected to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

In a statement this week, Mueller insisted that the move fell squarely within the scope of his investigation, providing both documentation from his initial appointment and a subsequent memo by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as evidence.

The second document sought to clarify that Mueller did meet the requirement that he “will be provided with a specific factual statement of the matter to be investigated.” Closer inspection of that memo, however, led to accusations that its date did not seem to line up with the trajectory of Mueller’s investigation.

Rosenstein’s memo was dated August 2, but Manafort’s home was raided seven days prior on July 26 (Law & Crime reported a difference of six days, but The Western Journal believes seven to be more accurate). This has led some analysts to accuse the Justice Department of attempting to justify the investigation after the fact.

In a Fox News Channel interview on Tuesday, one prominent attorney who has frequently criticized Mueller’s investigation said the latest development is disconcerting.

“There is something very wrong about that,” said Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz. “This special prosecutor is looking at everything. Where does it stop?”

Though Dershowitz argued for stricter parameters on the range of Mueller’s investigation, other experts predict the facts of the case will prove Manafort’s indictment was valid.

According to former federal prosecutor Daniel Goldman, Mueller “persuasively” made his case that his probe into Manafort’s actions was proper given his mandate to investigate Russia’s meddling in the U.S. presidential election.

“Regardless, given that Manafort was the campaign manager from May 2016 to August 2016 — during the time of the Trump Tower meeting, which he attended, the Republican National Convention, for which the Russia platform was changed, and the leaked hacked DNC emails — we know of ample evidence related to collusion and Manafort to support this search warrant,” he said.

As for the memo released after Manafort’s home was raided, Goldman described it as a legally unnecessary effort on Rosenstein’s part to provide “more explicit detail” regarding the Mueller probe. The document referenced specific claims included in the indictment for an array of financial crimes. Rosenstein wrote that Manafort could be investigated for “crimes arising out of payments he received from the Ukrainian government before and after the tenure of President Viktor Yanukovych.”

The memo further indicated that the “allegations were within the scope of the investigation” as defined upon Mueller’s appointment and are “within the scope of the order.”

As CNBC reported, Manafort’s legal team will be arguing in court this week that his indictment should be dismissed.

Wednesday’s court appearance came just over three months after Manafort sued Mueller and Rosenstein in an attempt to define the extent of the special counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling.

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Today’s Ann Coulter Letter: “Anatomy of a Coup”

Commentary by Ann Coulter | Thursday Feb 15, 2018 11:07 AM

URL of the original posting site: http://humanevents.com/2018/02/15/anatomy-of-a-coup/

Every place you look in Robert Mueller’s investigation, the same names keep popping up: FBI agent Peter Strzok and sleazy, foreign private eye — or “British intelligence agent” — Christopher Steele.

So it’s rather important that they both are Trump-hating fanatics, and one was being paid by Trump’s political opponent in a presidential campaign.

Steele is the author of the preposterous dossier that sparked the special counsel investigation, and Strzok is the FBI agent involved at every crucial turn of both the Trump and Hillary investigations.

As we found out from the House Intelligence memo, Steele told Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr that he “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.” (Ohr’s wife worked for Fusion GPS, and, like Steele, was being paid by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.)

In the hands of Trump-obsessive Peter Strzok — he of the estrogen-dripping texts to his Trump-hating FBI lawyer mistress — the dossier was used to obtain a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act against Trump’s alleged “foreign policy adviser,” Carter Page. The FISA warrant against Page constitutes the last crumbling piece of the “Russia collusion” story.

Strzok was the person who instigated the Russia investigation against Trump back in July 2016. He was the lead agent on the investigation into whether Hillary, as secretary of state, sent classified information on her private email account. (Conclusion: She had — but it wasn’t any of the FBI’s business!) He volunteered for the Mueller investigation and remained there, right up until his Trump-hating texts were discovered by the inspector general of the FBI. (He was also, one surmises, the authority for many of the media’s lurid, anonymously sourced claims about how the investigation was proceeding.)

Most strangely, Strzok was the FBI agent who asked Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, about his phone call with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.

There was nothing wrong with Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak, but Flynn later pleaded guilty to lying to an FBI agent about it, based on a secretly recorded intercept of the phone call. The question remains: Why was any FBI agent even asking about a perfectly legitimate conversation? No one seems to know. But we do know the name of the FBI agent who asked: Peter Strzok.

Aside from Strzok’s girl-power text to his mistress upon Hillary becoming the first female presidential nominee — “About damn time!” — his most embarrassing message to her was about the Russia investigation:

“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office (FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe) — that there’s no way (Trump) gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40 …”

The media have tied themselves in knots trying to explain this text as meaning anything other than its obvious, natural meaning. To wit: “Although the worst is unlikely (Trump wins/you die before age 40), you still prepare by taking out ‘insurance’ (we take Trump down with the Russia investigation/your family gets a payout).”

I keep looking for a plausible alternative interpretation, but they’re all absurd; e.g., The Washington Post points out that even with an insurance policy, YOU STILL DIE! (Yes, and even with the Russian investigation, TRUMP IS STILL PRESIDENT.) Everyone except American journalists understands that Strzok’s “insurance” was their plan to tie Trump up with an endless investigation. Which, coincidentally, is exactly what they’ve done.

Contrary to every single person talking on MSNBC, the issue is not whether FBI agents are allowed to have political opinions. In a probe of the president, FBI agents shouldn’t be dying to take him down for political reasons.

You want drug enforcement agents to be hungry to shut down drug cartels. You want organized crime prosecutors to be hungry to dismantle the mob. You want your maid to be hungry to clean your house. But the staff on a special counsel’s open-ended investigation of the president aren’t supposed to be hungry. They’re supposed to be fair.

This is an investigation with no evidence of a crime, apart from politically motivated, anti-Trump investigators relying on a Hillary-funded dossier.

Also contrary to every single person talking on MSNBC, Steele’s dossier is not like a neighbor who hates you telling the police you’re cooking meth in your basement. The police still have to investigate, don’t they?

First of all, if after 18 months of police work, the only evidence that you’re cooking meth in your basement is STILL your neighbor’s bald accusation, reasonable people will conclude that your neighbor is a liar. That’s what the Steele dossier is. It was the only evidence of Trump’s collusion with Russia 18 months ago, and it’s the only evidence of Trump’s collusion with Russia today.

Moreover, it’s not just the informant who hates the target. The investigators do, too. This is more like a police officer calling the police on his wife, sending himself on the call, shooting her, then writing up the police report concluding it was a justified shooting.

When your entire investigation turns on a handful of people with corrupt motives, maybe it’s time to call off the investigation.

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While Mueller Pursues Investigation, Trump Drops A Bombshell Question Of His Own

Reported By Jason Hopkins | January 1, 2018 at 9:57am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournalism.com/mueller-pursues-russia-investigation-trump-question/

As special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian collusion of the 2016 election continues on, President Donald Trump has one big question on his mind.

“Whatever happened to Podesta?” “They closed their firm, they left in disgrace, the whole thing, and now you never heard of anything,” the president said during a wide-ranging New York Times interview.

Trump was referring to Tony Podesta, the founder of The Podesta Group and brother of former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Like members of Trump’s presidential campaign, Podesta has also found himself at the center of Mueller’s growing FBI inquiry.

During The Times interview, the president said he believed Muller would treat him fairly, but he also expressed frustration that Podesta has seemingly escaped scrutiny since stepping down from the firm he founded in October.

The long-time Democrat is under investigation for activities similar to those of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Manafort, having a long history of lobbying for foreign entities, led a public relations campaign for a nonprofit called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine. Podesta Group also took part in promoting Ukraine in the United States, being one of several firms that were paid to do public relations work, according to Politico.

His group filed paperwork with the Justice Department indicating that it had worked on behalf of the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, benefiting the same Ukrainian political party that Manafort advised. In late October, Manafort was indicted on an array of charges that included money laundering, failing to disclose overseas bank accounts, operating as an agent of the Ukrainian government and making false statements to federal authorities.

Trump severed ties with Manafort during the election as it became apparent law enforcement was looking into him. The president has since tried to put distance between himself and the beleaguered lobbyist.

“Paul only worked for me for a few months,” he explained.

“Paul worked for Ronald Reagan. His firm worked for John McCain, worked for Bob Dole, worked for many Republicans for far longer than he worked for me. And you’re talking about what Paul was many years ago before I ever heard of him. He worked for me for — what was it, three and a half months?”

Podesta, for his part, has not endured much public scrutiny since stepping down from his firm a couple months ago and it’s not exactly known what action federal authorities will take regarding his investigation. Along with believing that more attention should be placed on Podesta’s past lobbying activities, the Republican president spoke at length about the FBI investigation that has haunted his first year in the White House.

Pushing back against their allegations, the president said that Democrats concocted claims of Russian collusion “as a hoax, as a ruse, as an excuse for losing an election.” Trump also asserted that “everybody knows” his 2016 campaign staff did not collude with any Russian officials and even reversed the accusations by suggesting Democrats were the ones who worked with Russians during the presidential election.

Around seven months have passed since Muller was appointed to lead an investigation, but no charges have yet been brought forward against the president.

“There’s been no collusion. But I think he’s going to be fair,” Trump said of Mueller.

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Today’s POlitically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

Scrooged

Robert Mueller may need some extra help in finding out who’s naughty or nice this Christmas.

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This One INSANE Text Message May Have Just Fatally Wounded The Mueller Investigation

Reported By Ben Shapiro | December 13, 2017

URL of the original posting site: https://www.dailywire.com/news/24643/one-insane-text-message-may-have-just-fatally-ben-shapiro

On Wednesday, CNN published text messages between the former second-in-command in FBI counterintelligence, Peter Strzok, and his mistress and co-worker Lisa Page. Strzok was involved in the Hillary Clinton email investigation, instrumental in helping to launch the investigation into supposed collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, and staffed on the Trump-Russia investigation itself. He was fired by special investigator Robert Mueller after these texts were uncovered.

Now, one of those texts may wound the special investigation beyond repair.

That text is dated August 15, 2016. Strzok texted Page, “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in [deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe’s] office that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40…”

This looks an awful lot like motivation for launching an investigation into Trump in order to sink Trump as a hedge against Trump’s victory. The FBI’s investigation into Russian governmental interference in the election began in July 2016, just weeks before Strzok’s text message. And that means that there is now more of a smoking gun of FBI corruption against Trump than there is of Trump colluding with Russia.

How can Mueller come back from that? He’s fired Strzok and Page, but if the investigation was initially a political hit job, how can it now turn into something good and decent, particularly in the absence of a smoking gun regarding collusion? It’s not just that this is fruit of the poisonous tree — there’s no fruit to show, just the poisonous tree. And as Victor Davis Hanson has written, the Mueller team is filled top-to-bottom with political activists who have a specific anti-Trump agenda.

All of which means that President Trump isn’t wrong to suspect that Mueller wants to aim for a political skull-blow against him. Trump could theoretically use these texts as a reason for firing Mueller altogether — and that wouldn’t be completely unjustified. It would be politically unwise. At this point, Trump’s best tactic is to sit tight — now, no matter what, half the country is going to believe that Mueller’s investigation was never motivated by truth. That’s a win for Trump, and an automatic loss for Mueller.

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FBI Agent Praised Hillary Clinton While He Was Leading Email Investigation

Reported by Chuck Ross | Reporter | 10:54 PM 12/12/2017

URL of the original posting site: http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/12/fbi-agent-praised-hillary-clinton-while-he-was-leading-email-investigation/

FBI agent Peter Strzok praisedHillary Clinton and said he would vote for her for president while also leading the investigation into her possible mishandling of classified information. In March 2016, Strzok sent his mistress Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, text messages saying that “Hillary should win 100,000,000 – 0.”

And asked who he would vote for in the election, Strzok told Page: “I suppose Hillary.” Strzok also referred to himself as a “conservative Dem” in one exchange.

The text messages are included in a trove of messages released on Tuesday night, ahead of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. (RELATED: Strzok Called Trump An ‘Idiot’ In Texts To FBI Lawyer)

Strzok was removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation over the summer after the Justice Department’s inspector general discovered the text messages. Republicans have called foul over the communications because of Strzok’s central role in both the Clinton email probe but also the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.

Strzok and Page also sent messages disparaging Trump, calling him an “idiot.”

A month before Strzok sent his pro-Clinton texts, he conducted an interview with Jake Sullivan, a former State Department official and Clinton aide who sent many of the classified emails that ended up on Clinton’s private email server. FBI records show that Strzok interviewed Sullivan on Feb. 27, 2016.

Strzok, who at the time served as the FBI’s No. 2 counterintelligence official, would go on to interview several Clinton and several of her aides over the next few months.

He interviewed Huma Abedin on April 5, 2016 and Cheryl Mills on April 9 and May 28, 2016. An interview with Clinton attorney Heather Samuelson was conducted on May 24, 2016, according to FBI records. Finally, Strzok and Justice Department lawyer David Laufman interviewed Clinton on July 2, 2016.

Three days later, then-FBI Director James Comey announced that he would not be recommending charges against Clinton for mishandling classified information.

Strzok and Page’s politically-charged texts continued as he transitioned from the Clinton investigation to the Russia probe.

On July 27, 2016, Page wrote of Clinton, “She just has to to win now.”

“I’m not going to lie, I got a flash of nervousness yesterday about Trump,” she said.

According to various news reports, Strzok was picked to lead the Russia investigation at around the time that message was sent. Strzok’s exchanges with Page have raised questions about his investigative activities on the Clinton and Trump investigations. It was revealed earlier this month that Strzok is the FBI official who watered down the language in a statement prepared for Comey. Instead of using the legal term “grossly negligent” to describe Clinton’s email activities, Strzok inserted the phrase “extremely careless.”

Strzok also appears to have gone much easier on Clinton aides that he interviewed in the email probe than he did on Trump associates he met with during the Russia investigation. (RELATED: Top Clinton Aides Faced No Charges For Giving Misleading Statements In Interview With Strzok)

Abedin and Mills, the two Clinton aides, appear to have given misleading statements in their interviews about what they knew about Clinton’s use of a private email server. But neither faced charges for the false statements.

In contrast, former national security adviser Michael Flynn was charged for lying to the FBI during an interview in January. Strzok was one of the agents who conducted the interview.

Follow Chuck on Twitter

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

Grilled Turkey

Nothing is off limits to Mueller in the Russia collusion investigation, not even a pardoned turkey.

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Posts tagged ‘robert mueller’

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | SEPTEMBER 02, 2022

1. Devin Nunes’ Memo Exposing FISA Abuse

2. Surveillance Warrants Are Hard to Get

3. Don’t Worry, ’Merica, No Spying on Trump Took Place

4. Redactions Are Necessary to Protect Sources and Methods

5. Crossfire Hurricane Was Properly Predicated

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Commentary By Randy DeSoto | November 9, 2021

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At the same time, Mueller removed a veteran agent from investigating a tip that an adviser to the Saudi royal family had met with some of the Saudi hijackers at his home in Sarasota, Fla., effectively killing the case, according to the lawsuit. The home was suddenly abandoned two weeks before 9/11.

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Reported By Scott Wong – 04/29/19 12:49 PM EDT

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Reported By C. Douglas Golden | Published April 8, 2019 at 6:17am

“So, on the first one, is FISA abuse and other matters. We believe there was a conspiracy to lie to the FISA court, mislead the FISA court by numerous individuals that all need to be investigated and looked at that, and we believe the (relevant) statute is the conspiracy statute,” he said.

That likely referred to the use of the “Trump dossier” — assembled as opposition research funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee — to obtain a warrant in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court against a Trump campaign official.

“I think it’s impossible to ignore,” Nunes said. “If the Mueller team was busting people for lying to the FBI — there are some pretty simple times when people lied to Congress for the sole purpose of obstructing our investigation.”

Lives being destroyed to promote a narrative? That’s real, too.

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Reported By C. Douglas Golden | Published March 24, 2019 at 10:14am | Modified March 25, 2019 at 5:17am

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Reported By Randy DeSoto | Published February 18, 2019 at 11:17am | Modified February 18, 2019 at 11:20am

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Reported By Cillian Zeal | December 4, 2018 at 6:28am

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Reported By Susan Jones | September 6, 2018 | 5:29

AM EDT

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Reported By Lisa Payne-Naeger | August 22, 2018 at

2:37pm

“(3) Obama fundraiser and member of his U.S. Senate campaign finance committee Tony Rezko. Sentenced to over ten years for public and private corruption. Served four.”

“(4) Obama fundraiser Courtney Dupree. Convicted of bank fraud.”

“(5) Obama bundler Willie Shepherd. Pleaded guilty to third-degree assault on his wife in exchange for dropping negligent child-abuse charges.”

“(6) Rod Blagojevich, Illinois governor. Doing 14 years in the federal pen for trying to sell Obama’s vacated seat.”

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Reported by Chuck Ross | Reporter | 12:05 AM

08/01/2018

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Reported by Byron York | July 26, 2018 09:49 PM

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Reported By Benjamin Arie | May 24, 2018 at 3:11pm

In other words, it has the hallmarks of a setup or a witch hunt.

That is the same modus operandi now being used by Mueller against Trump and his team: Dig into the lives of political opponents, pushing the boundaries of what is legal and disregarding just cause, in order to overturn every rock and search every closet for skeletons.

This isn’t the way an investigation is supposed to happen, yet elitists within the DOJ don’t seem to care. The American people, however, do — and Mueller, Comey, and their cronies may be in for a surprise as this scandal continues to be exposed.

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Reported By John Solomon | opinion contributor | 05/14/18 03:30 PM EDT

Yes, that’s the same Deripaska who has surfaced in Mueller’s current investigation and who was recently sanctioned by the Trump administration.

“We knew he was paying for his team helping us, and that probably ran into the millions,” a U.S. official involved in the operation confirmed.

FBI officials confirmed State hampered their efforts.

Former FBI officials confirm they arranged the access.

“The FBI said they had undertaken a careful background check, and if there was any validity to the State Department smears, they would not have reached out to me for assistance,” the Russian said.

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Reported by Richard Pollock | Reporter | 11:59 PM 05/06/2018

Ellis shot back: “My question to you was, how does bank fraud and these other things that go back to 2005, 2007, how does that have anything to do with links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of Trump?”

“I have that right here, and I’m glad you raised it because 75 percent of it is blocked out, redacted. Why don’t I have a full copy it,” Ellis asked.

“The only paragraphs that are to Mr. Manafort are the ones that are pertinent are the ones contained in this record,” Dreeben replied.

“Well, let me use a phrase that I’m fond of that I used to use with my children,” the judge said, dripping with sarcasm. “I can’t use it with my wife, but I’ll be the judge of whether it relates to the others.”

“Yes, of course, you may do that,” Judge Ellis replied. “If any part of it is classified, it won’t surprise you to know that a district judge is fully cleared. In fact, I have several espionage trials underway,” he told the Mueller attorney.