Mueller and Russiagate

[basilio]

Ah yes, the recurring wet dream of you brownshirts, arrest all dissenters and have them shot.

I can't wait till you people actually try that, that's when things will get interesting.

Just so some proper researchon the Clinton foundation and other activities.... with the blinkers off

So interesting isn't it ? You can't defend the indefensible so you paint yourself as patriots

And then you make up scuttlebutt about other politicians .

 

[wayneL]

That's actually vey funny bas. That you weren't trying to be funny made it even more so.

JSMDH

 

[Ann]

Did the Russians Really Interfere in Our Elections?


The Mueller Report is now public, and our Mainstream Media have filled the airways with all sorts of commentaries and interpretations. We know that—despite the very best efforts of the dedicated Leftist attorneys on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s staff—there was absolutely no coordination between members of the Trump campaign, or any of his staffers, with Russians. No additional charges have come as a result, other than accusations made earlier of “process crimes” (e.g. failure to report earnings on tax forms, failure to report lobbying work, or not telling investigators what they demanded to hear—“crimes” that practically every politician in Washington has been guilty of at one time or another and would normally not cause much of a stir). None of these involved Russia.


Of course, that finding has not satisfied many Democrats or the unhinged Leftist crazies in the media, who continue to have visions of “collusion”—a kind of communications Alzheimers that has poisoned our media now for years. Thus, Representative Eric Swalwell (who is one of nearly two dozen Democrats running for president) continues to assert that there was “collusion,” as does the irrepressible (and irresponsible) Adam Schiff: “it’s there in plain sight,” they insist, “if you just look hard enough, and maybe squint just a bit—or maybe have those specialized 3-D Russia glasses!” More....much more!

 

[moXJO]

 

[kahuna1]

As mentioned ...

two issues ... Not Mueller or Russia ... tax fraud ... insurance fraud and so on ... New York state now has the banks records and tax records and is in the process of getting the insurance claims.

Second ... Impeachment. No Collusion with Russia ... never was going to occur. Trump did not arrange the Russian stuff ... he however was lying about his business dealings.

Obstruction ... and deliberate obstruction by Trump was in 10 cases in the report very clear.

Here is an impartial look at Trump V Nixon ....


So do they impeach ? For obstruction and other crimes ? Possibly even knowing one house needs a 66% margin to IMPEACH and its unlikely. A president running for 2020 that HAS been impeached ... and say Clinton was found guilty of it in ONE house of the USA govt ... but the other did NOT pass the full impeachment ... it still sent a message.

Clinton at the time was serving his last .. second term and USA Presidents only allowed two terms. So the action against Clinton who was NOT able to run in the 2000 elections was an aside. In this case however, even knowing likely the Republicans will NOT roll over on trump even in the face of evidence he deliberately obstructed justice, the lower house MAY still decide to impeach.

IT IS NOT OVER >...

The TAX and Insurance fraud cases at a state level in NY are crimes presidents cannot gove pardons for. Trump junior, Kushner and all his children and Trump himself likely to be charged.

Third.
There are now 21 states REFUSING to put a Presidential candidate on the ballot ... for 2020 and poised to pass into law, that a presidential candidate CANNOT appear on the ballot for a Federal election unless they have released TAX returns.

Fourth
It has emerged the extent of Trump directing his cabinet and heads of departments to NOT produce or co-operate at all with any and all investigations. On the tax issue the House, with the power to request anyone's tax returns ... ANYONE ... Treasury secretary Munchin, ex Goldman Sachs, a disgrace his post GS actions and a bank that foreclosed on someone ... taking their house .... owing 27 cents was just one stunt, Munchkin ... refuses to produce as instructed by the HOUSE the tax return of Donald Trump.

I suspect, they may actually go so far as to jail him if it continues.

I look for at times a catalyst for change, a catalyst for what drives markets and big directional moves. I have never seen stuff like this and was too young to follow Nixon on his antics back then.

Political hate, polarization of the USA is so extreme its absurd. With a white house person actually accusing a Muslin new representative of having something to do with a shooting at a Synagogue was another of the racist rants that come out of this place. I might add, the shooter, as with all mass hate killings in USA in 2018 and now 2019, was white, Nazi following, white supremacist idiot. Suggesting he was inspired by a Muslim when his dialogue included hating all people from both Jewish and Islamic faiths, is yet another example of Trump. He even went and mentioned another new fresh politician in the USA AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Hispanic and called her out for not expressing regrets over the attacks in Sira Lanka when they occurred. Turned out she was in Puerto Rico, visiting her grandmother and internet services STILL have not been repaired there 12 months after a Hurricane.

It is unlikely all of this, will be avoided by Trump. It is impossible for it to occur and whilst the Russian collusion was always unlikely, the obstruction that occurred and corruption in other activities uncovered remains OPEN and unlikely to get better as 2019 and 2020 elections occur.

This is just starting, the fun and games.

 

[basilio]

Mueller did not accept that William Barr made a fair summary of his report - and sent a letter explaining his concern. Be interesting to hear their testimony in Congress.

Mueller criticized attorney general's memo on Russia findings

In letter to Barr, special counsel said attorney general ‘did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance’ of investigation

.... Mueller wrote that Barr “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the special counsel’s findings, according to an excerpt of the letter published by the Post.

“There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation,” Mueller added. “This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...r-trump-russia-investigation-attorney-general

 

[kahuna1]

Todays trick,

On the Federal side, the house is having to resort to jailing an ex White house employee regarding security clearances who refuses to appear.

Its called OBSTRUCTION. Crime or no crime, is irrelevant. If you block a cop chasing a suspect, whether the suspect is guilty or not, it is obstruction. Not according to Trump.

As another day passes we have ANOTHER deliberate obstruction via Trumps kids and himself. HE and his kids, all of them, are trying to block Deutsche bank releasing bank records on a Federal Level to the committee. They have the RIGHT to request anyone's, including the president.

They are suing the Committee ... they have NOT a snowballs hope in hell of being successful. It will delay things, but not stop them. This is the FEDERAL side of the issue.

State wise, New York State already has the papers and records along with copies of his state tax returns and local and city tax returns and claims.

Tick tick tick .... will be a while but this bomb for Trump's kids is in fact over, along eventually for Trump.

His best and only real option is to do a deal ... to avoid jail and 10 years in court, and jail for even his little Ivanka !!

 

[Ann]

Mueller did not accept that William Barr made a fair summary of his report - and sent a letter explaining his concern. Be interesting to hear their testimony in Congress.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...r-trump-russia-investigation-attorney-general

....and here is another take on the same subject which was not written by the Guardian, and has quite a different bias. It is interesting to read both articles.

About That Letter That Mueller Wrote To Barr...

Another deep state "leak" has hit the tape, and as usual it has gone to the WaPo and NYT almost at the exact same time... but this it's even more laughable than usual.

In what the WaPo breathlessly reports late on Tuesday was a rebuke and "complaint" to Attorney General William Barr, special counsel Robert Mueller sent a letter to the AG in late March, just days after Barr sent out his summary to Congress, in which Mueller stated that Barr's 4-page summary to Congress on the sweeping Russia investigation failed to "fully capture the context, nature, and substance" of Mueller’s work and conclusions, citing a copy of the letter it had obtained using its trusted deep intel sources.

This is what Mueller said to Barr, according to the leaked NSA intercept:

"There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations."

And if one reads just that, it certainly does not look good for Attorney General Barr, especially just one day before his first official Congressional hearing on the topic of the Mueller report: so bad that even the absolute lunatic fringe of conspiracygate - which had mercifully shut up for the past month with its daily predictions that this member of the Trump clan is going to jail, or that website will be shut down - has roared back into life with the sage assessment that "this is bad."

Pouring more fuel on the fire, the always pithy Axios adds that "this revelation about Mueller's dissatisfaction with the characterization of his report will likely escalate the growing rift over Barr's handling of the special counsel's investigation. House Democrats, who have expressed distrust in the attorney general, are set to vote on Wednesday to allow House Judiciary Committee lawyers to question Barr at Thursday's hearing."

Or maybe not, and perhaps the WaPo/NYT report is not "so bad" if one actually reads it, because once the breathless WaPo finally does come up for air, we get to paragraph 13 - a point by which most readers have turned out - to read the following real punchline in the WaPo report: More...

 

[basilio]

We'll see what happens in Congress.

Just becasue Barr may have said something accurate in his summary does not mean in any way shape or form that he has captured "the context, nature and substance " of the whole report.

For anyone who cares to read beyond Trumps and William Barrs victory calls there are many troubling reports of criminal behaviour that will be noted in Congress.

Five Things I Learned From the Mueller Report
A careful reading of the dense document delivers some urgent insights.


I spent the week after the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report going through it section by section and writing a kind of diary of the endeavor. My goal was less to summarize the report than to force myself to think about each factual, legal, and analytical portion of Mueller’s discussion, which covers a huge amount of ground.

Here are five conclusions I drew from the exercise:

The president committed crimes.

There is no way around it. Attorney General William Barr’s efforts to clear President Donald Trump, both in his original letter and in his press conference the morning of the report’s release, are wholly unconvincing when you actually spend time with the document itself.

Mueller does not accuse the president of crimes. He doesn’t have to. But the facts he recounts describe criminal behavior. They describe criminal behavior even if we allow the president’s—and the attorney general’s—argument that facially valid exercises of presidential authority cannot be obstructions of justice. They do this because they describe obstructive activity that does not involve facially valid exercises of presidential power at all.

Consider only two examples. The first is the particularly ugly section concerning Trump’s efforts to get then–Attorney General Jeff Sessions to “unrecuse.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/ben-wittes-five-conclusions-mueller-report/588259/

 

[wayneL]

Don't know why, I keep thinking of this:

 

[Joules MM1]

....Barr may have said something accurate in his summary does not mean in any way shape or form that he has captured "the context, nature and substance " of the whole report.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III wrote a letter in late March complaining to
Attorney General William P. Barr that a four-page memo to Congress describing the principal
conclusions of the investigation into President Trump “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance”
of Mueller’s work, according to a copy of the letter reviewed Tuesday by The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...82d3f3d96d5_story.html?utm_term=.351fd9527c69

 

[Ann]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...82d3f3d96d5_story.html?utm_term=.351fd9527c69

Darn, I can never get access to articles from the WaPo but I am told they have a solid anti-trump bias so I can guess at the content.
However, this article is accessible and gives a bit more depth to the machinations of the US political system.

No Holds Barred: 2020 Candidates Demand Resignation As Dems Spew Fire And Brimstone During Dramatic Hearing

Update 16: And here are the key takeaways from Wednesday's hearing, courtesy of Bloomberg.

• Here are the KEY TAKEAWAYS from today's Senate Judiciary hearing with Attorney General William Barr testifying about Robert Mueller's report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump.
• The Democrats on the committee were harsh, calling Barr a liar and Senator Mazie Hirono told him he should resign. Other senators, like Warren and Van Hollen, as well as several House members, including Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, also called for Barr to step down.
• The Republicans were ready to defend the attorney general. Chairman Lindsey Graham said Barr was slandered from top to bottom, while Ted Cruz praised Barr for his transparency.
• Barr, meanwhile, was firm in his defense of the president. ``Evidence is now that the president has been falsely accused'' of colluding with Russians and even of treason, Barr told the panel.
• Much of the focus of the hearing was a letter Special Counsel Robert Mueller wrote in March, complaining that Barr's summary of his report was misleading and urging him to release more information immediately. Barr called the letter ``a bit snitty,'' in his testimony.
• Barr is scheduled to appear before the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow, but whether he does remains up in the air.The attorney general has objected to Democratic plans to have staff lawyers question him. No one on the Senate panel asked Barr if he would appear before the House. Much more...

 

[Ann]

...and a bit more...

AG Barr Refuses To Appear Before House Panel Tomorrow, Nadler Threatens Subpoena

Update: That did not take long - House Judiciary Cmte Chairman Nadler says he hopes Barr reconsiders, may issue a subpoena to force Barr to testify with the next step being a citation if no accommodation is reached.


"Compliance with congressional subpoenas is not optional."


Nadler added that Barr has had "lack of candor," has signaled he will not comply with subpoena for full Mueller report, and "has the nerve to dictate our procedures" as part of the administration's "complete stonewalling of Congress.


"Congress cannot permit the executive branch, we cannot permit the administration to dictate to Congress how we operate." More...


Nellie Ohr Criminal Referral Being 'Finalized' According To Jim Jordan

Congressional Republicans are "working to finalize" a criminal referral of Russiagate lynchpin Nellie Ohr, the wife of the Justice Department's former #4 official Bruce Ohr.

(Getty Images; AP; The Epoch Times; Photo illustration by The Epoch Times
Nellie was hired by opposition research firm Fusion GPS, where she conducted extensive opposition research on Trump family members and campaign aides, which she passed along to Bruce on a memory stick. More..

 

[basilio]

How dishonest has the Attorney General William Barr been in his representation of the the Mueller report?
This analysis from someone who previously wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt is devastating.

Certainly makes the upcoming testimony of Robert Mueller more interesting when he is asked to explain exactly what he meant in his report as distinct from the creative antics of his long time friend William Barr (Yep this pair go back a long way).

The Catastrophic Performance of Bill Barr
The attorney general misled the public in seven key ways.

Benjamin Wittes
Editor in chief of Lawfare and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution

I was willing to give Bill Barr a chance. Consider me burned.

When Barr was nominated, I wrote a cautious piece for this magazine declining to give him “a character reference” and acknowledging “legitimate reasons to be concerned about [his] nomination,” but nonetheless concluding that “I suspect that he is likely as good as we’re going to get. And he might well be good enough. Because most of all, what the department needs right now is honest leadership that will insulate it from the predations of the president.”

When he wrote his first letter to Congress announcing the principal conclusions of the Mueller report, I wrote another piece saying, “For the next two weeks, let’s give Attorney General William Barr the benefit of the doubt” on the question of releasing the report in a timely and not-too-redacted fashion.

I took a lot of criticism for these pieces—particularly the second one, in which I specifically said we should evaluate Barr’s actual performance in regard to releasing the Mueller report, and thus wait for him to act, rather than denouncing him preemptively.

Barr has now acted, and we can now evaluate his actual, rather than his hypothesized, performance.

It has been catastrophic. Not in my memory has a sitting attorney general more diminished the credibility of his department on any subject. It is a kind of trope of political opposition in every administration that the attorney general—whoever he or she is—is politicizing the Justice Department and acting as a defense lawyer for the president. In this case it is true.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/bill-barrs-performance-was-catastrophic/588574/

 

[Ann]

(Bold type from article)
Ukraine Confirms DNC/Clinton Operative Sought 'Dirt' On Trump During 2016 Election

A former DNC operative steeped in Trump-Russia research approached the Ukrainian government looking for 'dirt' on then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 US election, according to The Hill's John Solomon - citing written answers to questions submitted to Ambassador Valeriy Chaly's office.

Chaly confirmed that DNC contractor of Ukrainian heritage, Alexandra Chalupa, approached Ukraine seeking information on Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's dealings inside the country, in the hopes of exposing them to Congress.

Chaly says that, at the time of the contacts in 2016, the embassy knew Chalupa primarily as a Ukrainian-American activist and learned only later of her ties to the DNC. He says the embassy considered her requests an inappropriate solicitation of interference in the U.S. election.

“The Embassy got to know Ms. Chalupa because of her engagement with Ukrainian and other diasporas in Washington D.C., and not in her DNC capacity. We’ve learned about her DNC involvement later,” Chaly said in a statement issued by his embassy. “We were surprised to see Alexandra’s interest in Mr. Paul Manafort’s case. It was her own cause. The Embassy representatives unambiguously refused to get involved in any way, as we were convinced that this is a strictly U.S. domestic matter.

“All ideas floated by Alexandra were related to approaching a Member of Congress with a purpose to initiate hearings on Paul Manafort or letting an investigative journalist ask President Poroshenko a question about Mr. Manafort during his public talk in Washington, D.C.,” the ambassador explained. -The Hill

Chalupa, who told Politico in 2017 that she had "developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives," said she "occasionally shared her findings with officials from the DNC and Clinton's campaign." More..

 

[Ann]

House Judiciary Committee Votes To Hold Barr In Contempt Over Unredacted Mueller Report

In a move that came as no surprise, the Democratic controlled House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voted to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt for his refusal to hand over an unredacted copy of the Mueller report.

In a vote that followed party lines, the panel chaired by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) made a formal recommendation to the lower chamber which would hold Barr in contempt for failing to comply with the committee's congressional subpoena.


The committee's 24-16 vote on contempt for Barr was along party lines and came after hours of debate. House leaders will now decide whether to take up the contempt citation on the House floor for a final vote. If approved, the measure would be referred to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia -- who could choose not to act. House Democrats could also pursue a lawsuit.


“We did not relish doing this, but we have no choice,” Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said after the vote, adding, "We’ve talked for a long time about approaching a constitutional crisis. We are now in it." -Fox News


In order to prevent the unredacted version of the Mueller report to fall into the hands of a very leaky Congress, President Trump asserted executive privilege over the entire report and its underlying evidence on Wednesday, after Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd recommended the action Thursday night. More...

 

[Ann]

FBI's Steele Story Unravels - Claims Debunked, Leaks Suspected Before FISA Application

According to newly unearthed memos which were retroactively classified by the DOJ, a high-ranking government official who met with Christopher Steele in October 2016 determined that information in the Trump-Russia dossier was inaccurate, and likely leaked to the media, according to The Hill's John Solomon.

Ten days before the FBI used the now-discredited dossier to apply for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, Steele met with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec, who took handwritten notes of the encounter.


Steele told Kavalec that Russia had a "technical/human operation run out of Moscow targeting the election," which recruited US emigres to "do hacking and recruiting. Steele added that "Payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian consulate in Miami."


Except that's a lie - as Kavalec debunked the assertion in a bracketed comment: "It is important to note that there is no Russian consulate in Miami."


Kavalec, two days later and well before the FISA warrant was issued, forwarded her typed summary to other government officials. The State Department has redacted the names and agencies of everyone she alerted.


But it is almost certain the FBI knew of Steele's contact with State and his partisan motive. That's because former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland says she instructed her staff to send the information they got from Steele to the bureau immediately and to cease contact with the informer because "this is about U.S. politics, and not the work of — not the business of the State Department, and certainly not the business of a career employee who is subject to the Hatch Act." -The Hill More...

 

[basilio]

Ann, the trouble with reporting the work of serial misinformers is that you end up spreading their BS.
Lets get a couple of things clear.
1) The Steele Dossier was simply raw intelligence. It always needed to be checked against other sources. That is what Mueller did and found many elements proven

2) I believe your reference is attempting to smear the Steele document and therefore undermine the basis upon which the FBI inquiry was started. The facts were that the FBI became involved way before the Steele dossier surfaced.

The FBI’s investigation originated with George Papadopoulos, not Christopher Steele.

During a night of heavy drinking in London, Papadopoulos bragged to the Australian ambassador( Alexander Downer) about his knowledge that Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton, apparently stolen in an effort to try to damage her campaign. This went to the FBI who started digging.

Check out a more honest source of information

Fox News has normalized a lie about the origins of the Russia investigation
They want you to believe it began with the Steele dossier. It didn’t.

https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/18277089/fox-news-steele-dossier-lie-trump-witch-hunt

 

[bellenuit]

The FBI’s investigation originated with George Papadopoulos, not Christopher Steele.

Yes, that has been established long ago. The claims that it originated because of the Steele dossier were just a diversion to try and discredit the investigation.

More telling about the veracity of Mueller's report are the antics of Trump and the AG over the last few days and not to forget the Republican Party. They are willing to throw the Constitution to the wind in order to protect Trump.

 

[wayneL]

Ann, the trouble with reporting the work of serial misinformers is that you end up spreading their BS.

Comedy gold.