4 Things To Look For In Robert Mueller’s Russian Collusion Report
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Washington DC is atwitter with the news that Special Counsel Robert Mueller III has submitted his report to Attorney General William Barr. If the report does anything short of fully exonerating the president of colluding with the Russians, Americans will have every reason to be outraged at the abuse of the office of special counsel for corrupt and political ends.
The damage has been incalculable. Let’s walk through a few grievances that Americans have with Mueller.
1. Inability to Recover from a Terrible Start
Was the Mueller probe about investigating a crime or a means of exacting political revenge? One clue is that the regulations guarding against the former were not observed.
28 CFR § 600.1 provides the grounds for appointing a special counsel. The original purpose is supposed to be a “criminal investigation” that presents a “conflict of interest for the Department.” Former attorney general Jeff Sessions, a Donald Trump nominee, was pushed aside on a spurious conflict-of-interest theory in favor of the even more-conflicted Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Rosenstein granted the special counsel sweeping authority to pursue any “links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.” If that wasn’t broad enough, Rosenstein added jurisdiction over “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.”
Thus, the initial appointment memo gave the special counsel license to investigate anyone connected to the Trump campaign over anything that “may arise” from the investigation. In other words, “here’s a list of people involved in the Trump campaign—go find something on them.”
This is also a violation of 28 CFR § 600.4 , which provides that the special counsel is supposed to be appointed with a “specific factual statement of the matter to be investigated.” The “other matters that may arise” jurisdiction is not supposed to be granted in advance. Under 28 CFR § 600.4(b), the special counsel is supposed to consult with the attorney general, who will determine whether to include the additional matters or refer them to the regular prosecutors with jurisdiction.
Thus, for example, the Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn prosecutions should not have been included in the original mandate and should have required a determination that a local U.S. attorney would be conflicted from accepting or declining those cases. In reality, the special counsel used those prosecutions in an unsuccessful bid to coerce witnesses to turn on the president.
Under 28 CFR § 600.3 , Rosenstein was supposed to name “a lawyer with a reputation for integrity and impartial decisionmaking…selected from outside the United States Government.” Mueller was, at the time of his appointment, technically outside the federal government only just barely. Trump had just rejected Mueller to fill the very same vacancy created by Trump firing former FBI director James Comey.
Mueller also had a prior relationship with both Rosenstein and later Mueller probe lawyer Andrew Weissmann. Weissmann had already been involved in the investigation so long that he received some of the very first briefings from Bruce Ohr with the early drafts of Christopher Steele’s dossier.
Weissmann’s prominent role in the investigation before and after the appointment of Mueller is definitely a violation of the spirit of the regulation and has destroyed any sense that the real investigators were “impartial.” There are many reasons to question the impartiality of the Mueller team, as I show here .
2. Key Items that Should Be Inside the Report
According to Barr’s letter to Congress, the report is a “confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions [Mueller] has reached.” Thus, the report should only be expected to identify the cases accepted and declined. The report should only contain a response to the original mandate—whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Russian government.
Since the Mueller investigation l eaked so much , we can say with some confidence that the answer to that question is “no.” The prosecutions of the Russian hacking cases have been referred to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania (for some reason), and the Mueller report should not comment upon that prosecution beyond the public indictment.
The cases involving Manafort, George Papadopolous, Flynn, and Richard Gates have all resulted in convictions with statements of offenses that should speak for themselves. None of those cases prove or disprove the original mandate. Arguably, the special counsel should have given all of those cases to the main Department of Justice to accept or decline instead of making more “get Trump” notches on their gun belt.
The report should say little of those cases. And the report should not contain damning innuendo against targets who were not charged.
3. Explanation about Why the Report Took so Long
In the recent third season of “Billions,” the story depicts a U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York opening a bogus investigation into his boss in order to entice interference and obstruction. The plan almost works, until the boss figures it out and fires the U.S. attorney. This seems uncannily like what could have happened in real life with the Russia hoax.
Remember, we’re supposed to believe that our president was a puppet of the president of Russia. If so, why did it take Mueller two years to report back to the American people on that? Shouldn’t this have been a national emergency ?
Author Lee Smith quoted one congressional source who said, “It’s not an investigation, it’s leverage,” referring to the Washington DC trick of protecting one’s job by investigating one’s boss. The simple answer is that Mueller has never really believed the dossier but that the entire special counsel was a trap to entice the president into over-reacting.
The report had better have a good explanation for dragging America through two years of investigation. If it is an exoneration, I’ll look carefully for a valid explanation for Mueller waiting this long to admit to as much.
4. What About Fusion GPS?
Although not in his direct mandate, one cannot escape the fact that this entire special counsel effort began with a dossier procured by Hillary Clinton to defeat and (later) inflict revenge on Trump. It is very bad thing for a democratic republic that a candidate can lose an election but then hamstring her opponent’s ability to govern with some political opposition research.
This is the first election in American history in which we very nearly did not have a peaceful transfer of power. This cannot happen again, and if it does, it will be worse next time.
While I applaud the termination of the special counsel political revenge squad , this will not be the end of this issue. The Department of Justice needs some serious reform or it will simply become more emboldened and more out-of-control in future elections.
The irony out of all of this is that Vladimir Putin got his start taking over Russia using some of the same techniques used against Trump.
By Adam Mill
MARCH 23, 2019
Article is LOCKED by author/seeder
This one's for the group
Former attorney general Jeff Sessions, a Donald Trump nominee, was pushed aside on a spurious conflict-of-interest theory
Ummm, excuse me - but Trump hired his biggest cheerleader to protect him from the landslide of shit he created, and that cheerleader recused himself.
Funny how this article is focused on “political revenge”, when nearly every significant player involved was a Republican. Republicans are a hot mess.
And what would you call Obama hires Lynch and Holder?
Obama had to grant Holder (and Holder's wife no less) Executive Privilege to protect himself against the Fast & Furious investigation. Lynch not only met Bill Clinton on a runway for a private meeting; but effectively told Comey's investigators that no charges would be brought against Hillary- not that Comey wasn't doing a fantastic job of insuring that himself.
Funny how all of the information granted for the FISA warrants to wire tap Trump Towers came from the Steele dossier that was leaked to the FBI, the press, and McCain through Hillary campaign surrogates. Comey then used the press and McCain as collaboration to what the Steele Dossier said- with no new evidence to back it up. Look no further than Carter Page- the man cited by the Dossier as being a Russian spy, and his association with the Trump campaign the main red flag. Where are the charges against Carter Page? He should have been the very first person indicted by Mueller; but he has been swept aside- not that the damage to his career and personal life hasn't already been done.
As for significant players- look no further than Mueller's hand picked Obama and Clinton cronies for the investigation. Also allowing Strzok and Page to continue working on the case- until their emails were outed. Neither he, nor Comey, had any idea that the two were such ardent Clinton supporters- and hated Trump so much. Of course it is easy to look the other way to achieve a desired outcome.
And the Dems are even hotter, messier, and denser. Since Mueller struck out the Dems will take over launching countless Congressional investigations into nothing. I hope that Trump has honed his Obama and Clinton obstruction skills. The Dems are owed nothing less than the exact same thing Republicans faced in investigating Obama and Clinton administration abuses.
The FBI, the intelligence community, the special counsel and various state attorney general's offices investigated the president* because he had people in his campaign who contacted Russians during the campaign BEGINNING with George Papadopolous meeting with someone who offered him access to emails and other documents that would damage the Trump campaigns political opponent. Also, a little later Trump himself asked the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton. Andrew McCabe has specifically said that Trump's asking the Russians to "find" Clinton's missing emails set off alarms and compelled the FBI to investigate the Trump campaign. Also, Trump's bizarre affection for Putin set off red flags. If Trump wanted to avoid investigation he should have kept his mouth shut.
The idea that Trump was inappropriately investigated is bizarre. This belief has been almost entirely instigated by right wing media, There is no one that I have ever seen in so called mainstream media that has said it was inappropriate to investigate the Trump campaign.
The fact is that the Russians offered to interfere in the election, and the Trump campaign accepted the help. If Mueller says it was not criminal activity, fine, I couldn't care less if Trump goes to jail. But the FACT is Trump and his associates , including his son and son in law were and are completely corrupt, and do not belong in government.
Vic seeds articles that are at best diversionary material to try and diminish the facts of Trump's guilt in what happened in the campaign.
John demonstrates the flimsiness of the whole collusion conspiracy by the slenderness of the reeds he's forced to hang his hat on at this point. Putting aside the incongruity of a supporter of the candidate who actually paid a foreign agent to obtain false propaganda about her opponent from Russian officials having the gumption to even feign anger at collusion for a moment, it's been obvious from the beginning this was a nothingburger. In the very first days of the Trump administration, as the Obamaites Red Scare was ramping up, the Washington Post breathlessly led with its scoop that Kushner wanted to set up a "back channel" to Russia AFTER the election. In their fevered state, the mere linking of a Trump official and Russia was enough to stir all sorts of insanity without any liberal giving a second thought to what it meant that a channel still had to be set up AFTER the election. So much for collusion. Or, in a sane world, it would have been.
Compelled by their paranoia and disbelief that a heretic had succeeded to the divine Obama's throne, the faithful clung to a conspiracy that lacked any factual basis, seeming to believe their thoughts could will it into reality. So John finds all sort of evil implications in a meeting set up by an FBI informant and a low level Trump functionary which led to absolutely nothing happening (except Papadapouls getting drunk and relaying to the Australian ambassador the FBI informant's claim that Russia had Clinton's emails). And then, even more silly at campaign rally, Trump jokingly asks Russia to find the 30,000 emails Clinton deleted after being subpoenaed that the FBI was looking for.)
That's it.
Trump's "crime" such that it is, is not being as hard on Russia as the left thinks necessary. Again, think about that. After 8 years of Obama kow towing to Putin and Clinton taking millions from his cronies, it's suddenly a crime to be softer on Russia than Curtis Lemay. The same people who mocked Romney for claiming Russia was a threat now call Trump a traitor for being tougher on Russia than Obama. You'd think that would cause a fatal case of cognitive dissonance, but many on the left appear immune.
I would like an even more aggressive stance towards Russia, but the President is not a "traitor" because he doesn't follow my preferred policies.
Presumably Hillary Clinton had the dossier information prior to the election. She never used it against Trump. For contrast , Trump was going out every night bragging about illicitly gathered material about Clinton and leading his morons in chants of "lock her up".
The idea that the FBI as an organization wanted Trump to lose is ridiculous on it's face. What actually happened , as opposed to what Trump apologists wish had happened, is that the FBI and the DOJ violated it's own guidelines in putting forward negative information about a U.S. citizen who had not been indicted, namely Hillary Clinton.
It's really sad to watch people feel the need to defend the most unqualified candidate for president in history, and to continue to defend him as he makes a mockery of the institution of the presidency.
What? Did you not pay attention to the last few months of the election when Trump and Russia were a constant theme of Clinton? It would have been crazy for her to come out and directly publish the dossier herself. How would it have looked if she came out and said "here's some unverified rumors about Trump I got from Putin's officials." Instead they shopped the dossier to media, hoping they would run it. But since they couldn't verify anything, they didn't. So they just pushed the theme of the dossier without citing the actual source.
But here's an example of the dossier being used to generate anti-Trump news stories prior to the election.
that the FBI as an organization wanted Trump to lose is ridiculous on it's face
Have you read the texts the leadership was sharing? Do you wonder why basically the entire leadership was fired or resigned in disgrace?
Coming from you this is a real joke.
Any all Trump conspiracy theories are posted repeatedly. No matter how little evidence is provided.
Here is the only fact you need. Mueller struck out. He is Ahab and Trump is the White Whale. Unfortunately Mueller and his hand picked Obama and Clinton cronies will not face the same fate as Ahab and his crew. The Establishment will quickly sweep their investigation under the rug- and hope to recycle the investigators back into future administrations as a reward for wasting tax payer money.
As for corruption, after Clinton and Obama the left have nothing to talk about. The Establishment protected their own with them. With Trump they took their best shot- and still fucked it up. Don't worry the Dems in congress will launch their thousand investigations- and Trump, if he is smart, will follow Obama and Clinton dogma and obstruct the living hell out of them.
Yes Trump is corrupt. He was corrupt before he became a politician; and he is just as corrupt as every politician serving in Washington past, present, and future. If Trump doesn't become one of the richest men in the world after his stay in the White House (again following Clinton and Obama leads); he will be the biggest fool on the planet.
This sort of thinking is delusional.
contacted Russians during the campaign BEGINNING with George Papadopolous meeting with someone who offered him access to emails and other documents that would damage the Trump campaigns political opponent.
Who in the FBI ordered this someone to meet with Papadopolous, that’s the question. The “meeting” you are so concerned about was initiated by the FBI source.
And what law did Papadopoulos break?
Sounds like a good question for QAnon.
now You think the New York Times makes things up to protect trump....
sad.
Perhaps you should link that bizzarro comment.