Exclusive | Mueller probe cut corners, broke rules to 'get Trump,' whistleblower claims
Category: News & Politics
Via: vic-eldred • 8 months ago • 12 commentsBy: Miranda Devine Published (New York Post)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
An FBI agent assigned to then-special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Donald Trump's 2016 campaign has made bombshell allegations charging that misconduct, political bias, and "overzealous thoughts" permeated the team — to the point of festooning the walls of their office with anti-Trump cartoons and drinking alcohol while on the job.
A "Let's get him" attitude colored the two-year investigation into false claims that Trump and his advisers colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election, the unidentified agent said.
The allegations were first made in December 2020, when the agent was interviewed as part of an internal FBI probe into alleged misconduct by then-supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten — a central figure in both the Russia collusion hoax and the Hunter Biden laptop cover-up.
The Mueller investigation consumed more than half of Trump's first term as president. AFP via Getty Images Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation found no evidence of collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. AP
In a Sunday night letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) detailed the most troubling aspects of the agent's account, saying it "confirms long-standing concerns that political bias rotted the decision-making process within the Mueller team … The American public deserve answers."
Among the most damning allegations:
- There was "no authority" for the Special Counsel's Office to open a case on Tom Barrack, a billionaire friend of Trump's and chairman of his 2017 inaugural committee, over false claims that he was an unregistered agent of the United Arab Emirates. The FBI's Washington Field Office already had declined to open an investigation into the now-78-year-old but the Mueller team nevertheless arrested Barrack, held him in jail, and charged him with being an agent of a foreign government. After a lengthy and expensive legal battle, Barrack was acquitted by a jury in 2022. He now serves as US ambassador to Turkey.
- The Mueller team chronically abused federal surveillance, or FISA, warrants that govern secret monitoring of suspected foreign agents to target Trump campaign advisers, even renewing them over the objections of FBI agents. In one case, the agent claimed, "the target of the investigation [was] cooperating and the [surveillance warrant] would not give us anything more and there was nothing in the past FISA that aided the investigation other than to prove the Target was being honest with the investigators … there were no corroborating facts that tied [the target] to certain facts that we thought were originally true." When investigators decided to apply for a fourth warrant against the aide, the agent pointed out a series of needed corrections. In response to the proposed revisions, FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith told him: "We can't send this." The DOJ subsequently decided the corrections weren't needed. Clinesmith later pleaded guilty to doctoring an email that underpinned a FISA warrant application for another blameless Trump adviser, Carter Page. He was sentenced to 12 months' probation and kept his law license after a short suspension.
- Mueller prosecutor Zainad Ahmad, a protege of former Barack Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch, repeatedly violated security protocols: "For example, she brought classified documents to a meeting at WFO [Washington Field Office] without adherence to FBI security policy by bringing her classified notebook to the meeting without a proper carrying bag. What was worse, she came to WFO from her residence, meaning she kept her notebook at the residence."
- Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe "referred to President Trump in a derogatory manner" in an official interview record — and DOJ prosecutors later tried to pressure FBI agent Michelle Taylor to "change the tone of the [document] to reflect that McCabe spoke about [Trump] without the negative connotation." Taylor refused and left the FBI shortly after her secondment to the Mueller team ended, the agent said.
- A "general atmosphere … of bias [in the office was] led by one young prosecutor, Aaron Zelinsky … There were caricatures and cartoons that were anti-Trump." Zelinsky, who handled the zealous investigations into Trump advisers Roger Stone, George Papadopoulos and Michael Caputo, resigned from the DOJ in January 2025.
Mueller's investigation ran until March 2019, at a cost to taxpayers of more than $30 million, but found no evidence of Russia collusion.
In May 2023, another special counsel, John Durham, released a report describing the Trump-Russia probe as "seriously flawed" and finding that the FBI "discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia."
Grassley has asked Bondi and Patel to produce all emails, files and personnel records relevant to the agent's allegations by March 29.
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Is anyone surprised?
Will anyone be held accountable?
Neither Bondi nor Patel are up to the task.
Ah but people on the left said the same about Barr. When you have a nonpartisan AG who stands up to the President you don't appreciate it so why bother.
The left is still the problem. I'm for dealing with that.
Surprised by more moronic unsupported unproven claims by the NY Post? Nope, not in the slightest.
It is really hilarious that so many with their heads up Trumps ass get all excited by more unproven "allegations" and accusations like the FBI director "referred to President Trump in a derogatory manner". Oh No! That has to be some of the funniest shit watching you all smashturbate to this nothingburger. Fucking idiots.
Everything. Even his legal appointment to be Special Prosecutor was brought into question by Judge Cannon which, funny enough, pretty much brought everything to a halt.
All of this has been suspected or known for a very long time. And the Mueller debacle would have had more political value if Trump hadn't pissed all over everything before entering the remaining 2 lame duck years of his 2nd term.
Trump's self imposed errors since Mueller has spent all the pity points and now there's none left. Trump's tough but ineffective response to the BLM riots won't get a mention. Trump's border wall hobby that he has now discarded like an unwanted toy certainly won't be celebrated. Trump's macho man denial of COVID was overshadowed by being airlifted for extraordinary treatment unavailable to any but himself is something best left buried in the closet. Trump's petulant childish response to the J6 riots wasn't the epitome of strength, intellect, or wisdom.. Now Trump's grand destruction of national monuments, parodying of the quarter millennia of the American experiment, and generally odious exploitation of office really can't be overcome by rehashing the Mueller debacle.
Beating this dead horse with a bigger whip won't accomplish anything. Mueller is not a big enough issue to distract from the economic wreckage of Trump's fickle and feckless style of governing.
There are times when a dead horse needs to be beaten, lest the likes of GPT fact check rates what happened as "complicated."
Maybe. But this ain't one of those times. Bringing up Mueller likely won't coax a yeah-buttal out of anyone. The whiners have to argue with themselves and begin to look out of touch.
How the J6 rioters were treated would be better red meat. But Trump has even screwed up that.
Right wing "zealots" regularly respond to stories like this with great enthusiasm, to little or no end.
All the investigations of Trump have been legitimate.
No. The investigations were illegitimate attempts to undermine the will of the American people.
The only reason that Mueller was even appointed was because they needed somebody with an R next to his name to make it look credible. When we finally heard Mueller speak we all realized how senile he had become. He was as bad as Biden.
Will any of them ever be held accountable for what amounted to an attempted coups?
Trump lied when he said in 2016 that he had no business dealings with Russia. That is one of but many reasons why he was investigated by the FBI. The FBI Inspector General said that the investigation had a legitimate predicate.
What does that have to do with the accusation of collusion?
Neither the FBI nor the Intelligence Community possessed any actual evidence of collusion at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and the same goes for the Mueller investigation. Those investigations never had a pretext to begin an investigation of Trump.