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Revealed memos suggest Mueller probe failed America.

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  john-russell  •  5 years ago  •  7 comments

Revealed memos suggest Mueller probe failed America.
Turns out Trump instructed his staff, "Get the emails." Which is the same as telling staff, "Go collude." Which is very different than "NO COLLUSION." Also: why was this fact omitted or redacted from the Mueller report?

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T


This is a relatively long article. I'm just going to highlight parts of it for this seed. I recommend reading the entire thing.   jr




Elie Honig

@eliehonig








Turns out Trump instructed his staff, "Get the emails."

Which is the same as telling staff, "Go collude."

Which is very different than "NO COLLUSION."

Also: why was this fact omitted or redacted from the Mueller report? https://www. cnn.com/2019/11/02/pol itics/mueller-investigation-notes-trump-stolen-emails/index.html 







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Mueller interview notes obtained by CNN show Trump's push for stolen emails


President Donald Trump and other top 2016 Trump campaign officials repeatedly privately discussed how the campaign could get access to stolen Democratic emails WikiLeaks had in 2016, according to...

cnn.com











===========






Rick Gates, the veteran high-level political operative who served as Donald Trump’s deputy campaign manager in 2016, told investigators  he remembers  exactly where he was — aboard Trump’s campaign jet — when he heard the candidate’s desires and frustrations over a scheme to defeat Hillary Clinton with hacked, stolen emails boil over. And he also remembered the future president’s exact words that day in summer 2016.





Get the emails ."



In one sense, Gates’ confirmation of Trump’s obsession with a conspiracy theory — that 33,000 of his Democratic rival’s emails had been stolen and could reveal damning information — isn’t a total shock. After all, the 2016 candidate famously blurted the quiet part out loud during a public appearance that July, when he famously said “Russia, if you’re listening …”





But in another sense, Saturday’s disclosure — part of 500 pages of previously secret documents from special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of the Trump-Russia scandal, revealed because of a dogged Freedom of Information push — was a bit shocking.









Gates’ disclosure to investigators was a key insight into the state of mind of a campaign that was willing and eager to work with electronic thieves — even with powerful foreign adversaries like Russia, if need be — to win a presidential election. Yet that critical information wasn’t revealed in Mueller’s 440-page report that was supposed to tell the American public everything we needed to know about what the president knew and when he knew it, regarding Russia’s election hacking.








Indeed, the 500 pages — including agents’ interviews with key players like Gates, Trump’s now-disgraced former lawyer Michael Cohen, and former top aide Steve Bannon — could be well described as the Mueller probe like you’ve never seen it before.





Among the revelations are that Gates said that a lot of the pressure to find the purloined emails fell on retired general Michael Flynn — soon to be Trump’s short-lived national security adviser — because Flynn “had the most Russia contacts of anyone on the campaign.” The No. 2 man on Trump’s 2016 campaign also gave agents some interesting leads on the wooing of WikiLeaks — the intermediary that did release some stolen Democratic emails and documents — and his belief that the Republican National Committee had advance knowledge of WikiLeaks dumps.









Other revelations from the 500 pages of source material are  confirmation  that Paul Manafort — now in prison for tax evasion and other crimes — continued to advise the Trump campaign long after his official ouster as campaign chief that summer, in a move tied to revelations of his close links to pro-Russian Ukrainians. More importantly, the papers show that Manafort was also working as far back as 2016 to plant the seeds in the collective minds of Team Trump that perhaps Ukrainians — and thus not Russia — were behind all the hacking.

-





 ....here’s a more discouraging takeaway — the powerful suggestion that the Mueller investigation that dominated the news for the better part of two years was never what the millions of Americans who believed in the battle-tested former FBI chief, a functioning justice system, and the truth actually thought it was. Saturday’s revealing memos were just the latest and strongest hint that an investigation upon which too many pinned too much hope — from “Mueller Time” T-shirts to that “Hon, Mueller’s got this. Come to bed” cartoon in the New Yorker — was in fact the gaslighting of America on a massive scale, even for the Trump era.





Sorry, hon — Mueller didn’t get this.

It’s hard to know how much of this is the fault of Mueller, the taciturn Vietnam War hero who may not have temperamentally been up to the job of grasping such a vast threat to American democracy under the best of circumstances. And these clearly were not the best of circumstances. When Mueller finally testified in public before Congress and  appeared hesitant and hazy  about his own investigation, it seemed clear that a probe conducted strictly behind closed doors for two years may not have been what people thought it was.

There were, in hindsight, early clues. Why were Trump figures — including Gates, Flynn and others — given relatively sweet deals to plead guilty and provide information, when that information didn’t bring consequences for the president and other higher-ups around him? A warning flag was Team Mueller’s surprisingly public denial of a BuzzFeed article about Trump pressure on Cohen to mislead Congress, when Saturday’s memos suggest there was Trump pressure on Cohen to mislead Congress? Why was Mueller so willing to punt the substantial evidence on obstruction of justice to Congress, ducking any forceful recommendation on what to do with it?

.....there is no doubt that the knobs of gaslighting were switched to “high” when new Attorney General William Barr — also known as Trump’s Roy Cohn — arrived at the Justice Department in February. Under Barr’s thumb, Mueller appeared newly pressed to quickly wrap things up. The end of his investigation came with a weeks-long delay before his actual report — a vacuum that was filled with Barr’s Trump-serving four-page memo with his own conclusions that there was no obstruction of justice and no collusion with Russia. Barr even staged a press conference hours ahead of the actual report with misleading spin on what was in it.



In the end — as the memos dropped on Saturday reveal — the Mueller report was not the definitive word on what happened with Trump, Russia and the tainted 2016 election. Rather, it was a series of not-always-great prosecutorial decisions about what to leave in and what to leave out, and what conclusions to make of it all — reached by an iconic-but-fading prosecutor no longer on top of his game, under relentless pressure from a justice apparatus that has been politicized and warped by the president and his Cohn-like hatchet man.



....every day that Donald Trump remains in the Oval Office is a danger to America and the world. But it’s increasingly clear that the speediest narrow impeachment — one confined solely to his Ukraine dealings while ignoring the naked corruption of obstructing the Mueller probe and his efforts to become president through lawbreaking, either through stolen emails or hush money, and then use his office to line his own pockets — would be a terrible mistake.



That’s because — as noted earlier — the real scandal of Trump’s presidency is his amoral and narcissistic willingness to do any and all things that are terrible for the country but are good for his own personal power and ambition. The symptoms of that corrupt disease played out on a global canvas from Kyiv to Trump’s golf resort in Scotland to the corridors of the Justice Department. If we don’t make it clear that no president is above the law — all of the laws, including obstruction of justice and the Emoluments Clause — then we will only be setting the stage for a future president who will be even more dangerous than Donald Trump.

















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JohnRussell
Professor Principal
1  seeder  JohnRussell    5 years ago

The revelations in this article fairly lead one to question why the Mueller investigation of the Trump campaign went so easy on them. 

Gates’ disclosure to investigators was a key insight into the state of mind of a campaign that was willing and eager to work with electronic thieves — even with powerful foreign adversaries like Russia, if need be — to win a presidential election. Yet that critical information wasn’t revealed in Mueller’s 440-page report that was supposed to tell the American public everything we needed to know about what the president knew and when he knew it, regarding Russia’s election hacking.
 
 
 
Dulay
Professor Expert
2  Dulay    5 years ago

There is a TON of evidence of collusion in the Mueller report. Yet the fact is that collusion is not a crime. Mueller couldn't support a charge of conspiracy against Trump. 

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
2.1  seeder  JohnRussell  replied to  Dulay @2    5 years ago

Trump publicly asked Russia to find Clinton's emails.  At that time he may have believed that Russia already had them. He was asking Russia to collude with him. 

I tend to agree with the writer of this article. I think America put too much faith in Mueller. In reality he was a relatively old man who may not have been up to it the way the job required. 

 
 
 
Dulay
Professor Expert
2.1.1  Dulay  replied to  JohnRussell @2.1    5 years ago
He was asking Russia to collude with him. 

Trump did that and more but collusion still isn't illegal and Mueller couldn't prove conspiracy. 

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
2.1.2  seeder  JohnRussell  replied to  Dulay @2.1.1    5 years ago

And? 

If it is shown that Trump colluded it will hurt his chance of re-election.  The release of Mueller's interviews with Trump aides can damage Trump down the line. 

 
 
 
Dulay
Professor Expert
2.1.3  Dulay  replied to  JohnRussell @2.1.2    5 years ago

I wish I could believe that to be the case but I don't. I think it's been proven that facts in the Mueller report are baked in now. Most haven't bothered to read it any many that did either don't believe it or don't understand it. After I read it I thought for sure that Trump was done. But the polls proved that it barely made a dent in Trump's support. Trump's 'base' is dug in, just look at the idiots who insist that 'he did nothing wrong' with Ukraine. I doubt that transcripts of FBI interviews will phase them. 

 
 
 
Ronin2
Professor Quiet
3  Ronin2    5 years ago

So now the left is jumping on the Mueller is incompetent boat?

CNN. Certainly Not News speaks and the left slobbers.

It’s hard to know how much of this is the fault of Mueller, the taciturn Vietnam War hero who may not have temperamentally been up to the job of grasping such a vast threat to American democracy under the best of circumstances. And these clearly were not the best of circumstances. When Mueller finally testified in public before Congress and  https://www .washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-was-right-testifying-was-a-disaster-for-robert-mueller/2019/07/24/7d3af2a4-ae58-11e9-8e77-03b30bc29f64_story.html" target="_blank"> appeared hesitant and hazy  about his own investigation, it seemed clear that a probe conducted strictly behind closed doors for two years may not have been what people thought it was. There were, in hindsight, early clues. Why were Trump figures — including Gates, Flynn and others — given relatively sweet deals to plead guilty and provide information, when that information didn’t bring consequences for the president and other higher-ups around him? A warning flag was Team Mueller’s surprisingly public denial of a BuzzFeed article about Trump pressure on Cohen to mislead Congress, when Saturday’s memos suggest there was Trump pressure on Cohen to mislead Congress? Why was Mueller so willing to punt the substantial evidence on obstruction of justice to Congress, ducking any forceful recommendation on what to do with it?

So a team full of Hillary and Obama sycophants; with a pro Hillary FBI contingent to back it was incapable of manufacturing enough manure to bring down Trump? 

They sent Trump campaign officials and staff members to prison for everything but collusion. Of course those "sweat heart deals" (they should have held out for the same deals Comey gave Clinton aides); didn't compare to a very large Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta received. Guilty of doing the exact same damn thing as Manafort, was offered immunity to testify.

T ony Podesta, founder of the now-shuttered Podesta Group and brother to former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, has been offered immunity by special counsel Robert Mueller to testify against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, according to a report.

Fox News' Tucker Carlson announced on his show Thursday evening that two separate sources confirmed the offer.

"In other words, for a near identical crime, Bill and Hillary's friend could escape and emerge completely unscathed while Paul Manafort may rot in jail. Only one of them made the mistake of chairing Donald Trump's presidential campaign," Carlson said.

Mueller had offered immunity to five potential witnesses in the upcoming trial of Manafort. Mueller's team asked for "use immunity," which is a limited type of immunity, according to court documents filed Tuesday with the Eastern District of Virginia. While they were not immediately identified, nearly a week later a judge granted immunity to the witnesses, identified as James Brennan, Donna Duggan, Conor O'Brien, Cindy Laporta, and Dennis Raico, to testify.

Podesta resigned from his lobbying company in October in response to an investigation of the firm by Mueller. The firm was closed by the end of 2017.

At the time of Podesta's resignation, a Podesta Group spokesman said the firm was "cooperating fully with the special counsel's office and has taken every possible step to provide documentation that confirms timely compliance. In all of our client engagements, the Podesta Group conducts due diligence and consults with appropriate legal experts to ensure compliance with disclosure regulations at all times — and we did so in this case."

Manafort and Podesta's firms worked together in a public relations campaign for the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine nonprofit, which was believed to be backed by the pro-Russian and oligarch-funded Ukrainian political group Party of Regions. Sources who spoke with NBC News in October said the Podesta Group became of significant interest because it may have violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act. FARA states Americans who lobby for foreign governments, leaders, or political parties must disclose their activities with the Justice Department.

Manafort faces charges of bank, and tax fraud in the Eastern District of Virginia stemming from his work for a Ukrainian political figure, and the trial is slated to begin July 31 after it was postponed by a week. Manafort is currently jailed at the Alexandria Detention Center in Virginia, which is a few blocks away from the federal courthouse he will be tried. He was sent behind bars by a federal judge in Washington, where he also faces charges related to his work in Ukraine stemming from Mueller’s Russia investigation.

Manafort has pleaded not guilty in both cases.

No bias going on here. Move along now.

But Trruuummmmppppp!!!!!!

 
 

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