Thread: Mueller's Russian Interference investigation

I am ready for the real show, as 35 indictments is quite a warm-up! Nice summary here for where things are at......

"In 2018, special counsel Robert Mueller indicted Donald Trump’s campaign chair, his deputy campaign chair, his national security adviser, his personal attorney, and an adviser to his campaign. Additionally, Mueller indicted a Dutch lawyer who worked with Trump’s campaign chair, a Russian businessman who tampered with witnesses, a dozen Russian intelligence officers, 13 more Russian nationals, and three companies who were involved in setting up Russian propaganda efforts in the U.S., along with a California man who admitted to assisting the Russians.

And these are just the indictments we know about. It’s highly likely that there are several more names already attached to paperwork that remains under seal.

Thirty-five indictments sounds like quite a lot. Because it is. If Robert Mueller were to sit back at this point and simply prosecute the charges that have already been levied, it would make for quite a narrative: A story of how Russia spent years preparing to sabotage American democracy, selected Donald Trump as their instrument, and provided him with assistance in the form of Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, and a literal army of special intelligence operatives using propaganda and cyber warfare to directly target the most vulnerable points of America’s electoral system.

With all that already done, what’s left for Robert Mueller to do? In a word: Everything. Because, as jaw-dropping as the list of 2018 indictments may seem, every indication—every indication—is that every indictment seen so far is just the warm-up for what’s to come. Because the one common factor for all the non-Russian indictments that came in 2018 was that those indictments came as part of a deal. George Papadopoulos got a deal. Rick Gates got a deal. Michael Flynn got a deal. Michael Cohen got a deal. Even Paul Manafort got a deal, before he proved “too smart” to be truthful with the special counsel.

Some of them didn’t just get deals, they got spectacular deals. That includes Flynn, who traded his testimony for walking away from actions that genuinely open debate on the proper definition of treason. The measure of just how much Flynn is being allowed to put in the rear view can be seen in the reaction of a federal judge when Flynn had the audacity to grumble.

Considering all those charges, and all those deals, what could possibly be on Robert Mueller’s schedule for 2019? Plenty—including Roger Stone, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Donald Trump.

2018 bowed out on fresh news that Michael Cohen may have visited Prague to meet with Russian operatives, as previously reported in the memos compiled by British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. 2019 is starting with fresh information that Paul Manafort took his position on the Trump campaign under pressure to pay back millions he owed to his Russian masters. And all of that follows news that Trump’s efforts to pin his name on a Russian skyscraper did not end in 2015, as he had always insisted, but continued throughout the campaign, at least until Trump secured the nomination and possibly right up until the election.

As the new year begins, what we know about Robert Mueller’s investigation includes:

The “Moscow Project” was an ongoing effort by Trump to make a real estate deal in Russia. It was being negotiated by Trump, Cohen, and Felix Sater, and it directly involved Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump. All of them have made false statements about the deal in public, and it seems all but certain that several, including Trump Jr., lied about the project in testimony before either the FBI or Congress.
Trump’s corruption doesn’t stop at the borders of the former Soviet Union, and it doesn’t seem that Mueller’s investigation is limited to those lines, either. Trump’s inaugural fund was a dumping ground for bribes that came not just from Russia, but from also Saudi Arabia and other nations with connections to both the Trump Organization and Jared Kushner. Mueller is on the trail of all of these, and of the Cohen-created companies used to launder funds.
The use of WikiLeaks to distribute Russian propaganda and stolen documents is a continuing focus of the special counsel, one that already involves Roger Stone, Donald Trump Jr., and Paul Manafort … at a minimum.
The Trump Tower meeting between Manafort, Kushner, and Donald Trump Jr. and a bevy of Russian operatives remains a focus of Mueller’s investigation. Despite a year of lying about the purpose of the meeting, actions during the meeting, and actions after the meeting, it seems more and more certain that this brief gathering was a pivotal moment in planning how the Trump campaign and Russia would cooperate. And how Trump has handled news around this meeting is the clearest indicator that Mueller continues to lay the groundwork on obstruction.
Perhaps the biggest buried part of the investigation is the remainder of Trump’s long business association with Moscow. Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg was granted limited immunity back in August, but so far nothing has emerged from his testimony. There will be testimony. More and more publications are coming forward with details on the story of how Trump was saved from bankruptcy by the Russian mob, which is a story we’ve been telling for some time.

Paul Manafort, who faced a much longer list of charges than Michael Flynn, was foolish enough to throw away a reduced sentence on the gamble that Donald Trump would reward him for passing along Mueller’s “secrets.” That deal seems intensely boneheaded based on the nature of Manafort’s charges, which included confessions to state-level crimes that should earn him a lifetime ticket to a public facility in whichever state manages to get its paperwork done first. But then, perhaps Manafort is banking on Trump not just handing him a pardon, but dismissing that pesky justice system altogether.

And frankly, that’s what it would take for Trump to make it through 2019 without having far more reason to scream about Robert Mueller than he has over the last year. So far, the special counsel’s office has notched up an incredible record of indictments and convictions on serious charges. And every last one of them has been a prelude to the real show." -Daily KOS

...^^quite a breathless summary...the new Attorney General was appointed to squelch the final report to protect his benefactor...and pardons all around for those involved...unless impeachment occurs before tRump has the opportunity...and where will Senate Republicans be when the tweets hit the fan? Mitt Romney may have given us a clue...

Originally Posted by raycarey

if he isn't and hasn't, why didn't he just say, "no"?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.a5f4786b3467

Exactly.

In May 2017, the FBI opened an inquiry into whether Donald Trump was working on behalf of Russia, the New York Times has reported.
Citing unnamed former law enforcement officials, the paper reported on Friday that in the days after the president fired FBI director James Comey, law enforcement officials were so worried about his behavior that they began investigating whether the president was working against US interests and on behalf of Moscow.
Counterintelligence investigators were reportedly considering whether Trump’s actions constituted a national security threat, an extraordinary line of inquiry against a sitting president. They also sought to determine whether the president was knowingly working for Russia, the report said.
Trump responded on Saturday morning with a volley of tweets which did not question the Times’ reporting but lambasted “the corrupt former leaders of the FBI” for opening an investigation “for no reason & with no proof”.
“Funny thing about James Comey,” Trump said. “Everybody wanted him fired, Republican and Democrat alike. My firing of James Comey was a great day for America. He was a Crooked Cop.”
Of the leaders who opened the investigation, Trump claimed without offering evidence that “almost all [were] fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons”.
He then accused special counsel Robert Mueller of protecting Comey and made familiar attacks on Mueller’s ongoing investigation for failing to go after “the Real Collusion (and much more)” of Democrats with Russia in the 2016 election.


The Times report quoted private House testimony from Lisa Page, a former FBI lawyer who worked for Mueller and who with fired FBI agent Peter Strzok has been a target of Republican ire.
Comey, who last year published a bestselling memoir and has become a strident critic of Trump, responded on Twitter on Saturday.
“I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made,” he wrote, slightly misquoting Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who actually said “My friends, judge me by the enemies I have made” in a speech in Portland, Oregon in September 1932.
FDR's words are familiar in political circles. Six years ago, when he was still a property mogul and reality TV star, Trump tweeted them himself
On Friday, responding to the Times story, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement: “James Comey was fired because he’s a disgraced partisan hack, and his Deputy Andrew McCabe, who was in charge at the time, is a known liar fired by the FBI.
Advertisement
McCabe, who was fired just short of retirement in March last year, will publish his own book next month. Trump mentioned all four of his FBI bêtes noires in another Saturday tweet.

Sanders continued: “Unlike President Obama, who let Russia and other foreign adversaries push America around, President Trump has actually been tough on Russia.” Trump echoed those sentiments on Saturday.
Rudolph Giuliani, one of Trump’s attorneys, also sought to downplay the significance of the FBI investigation, telling the Times: “The fact that it goes back a year and a half and nothing came of it that showed a breach of national security means they found nothing.”
In an interview with CBS Face the Nation due to be broadcast on Sunday, secretary of state Mike Pompeo, director of the CIA at the time of the Comey firing, said the Times report was “silly on its face and not worthy of a response”.

The remarkable report is sure to ramp up the pressure for a White House already feeling the heat from months of investigations. In August, Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted of financial charges and later pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the US and conspiring to obstruct justice. Trump’s longtime lawyer and aide Michael Cohen is set to begin a three-year prison sentence in March after pleading guilty to fraud, campaign finance violations and lying under oath.
Manafort was charged as part of the investigation by the special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, appointed Mueller shortly after Comey’s firing in May 2017 to lead the investigation into Russianmeddling and ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. Mueller is reportedly also investigating whether the president tried to impede the investigation into Russia’s role in the election.
It was reported this week that Rosenstein will soon step down. Trump’s acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker remains in place despite controversy over his view of the Russia investigation and qualifications for the role. The nominee to become attorney general, William Barr, is also the subject of debate about his fitness to oversee Mueller’s work.
Mueller took over the FBI counterintelligence investigation, the Times reported, just days after it was first opened. FBI spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The report may also raise new questions for congressional investigators looking into Russian meddling. Newly in control of the House of Representatives, Democrats have vowed to further scrutinize Trump’s Russia ties.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-russia-report