Russian interference with the 2016 election

[Mountain Man]

Fusion GPS essentially admits that there is no "there" there, says people should stop focusing on "Russian collusion".

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journal...sia-collusion/

[Mountain Man]

A new batch of text messages from lovers Lisa Page and Peter Strzok have been released. The most interesting part, I think, is that the "small group" inside the FBI who had been discussing an "insurance policy" (that is the "Russian collusion" hoax) in the event that Trump won the election, were in contact with Robert Mueller's law firm before he had been appointed as special counsel! Notably, Page and Strzok were discussing who would be the most ideologically compatible person to serve as special counsel. This supports the hypothesis that Mueller didn't pick his team but that his team picked him as a cover for the anti-Trump scheme that was already in operation.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...-pdf-included/

This story just keeps getting more and more interesting, doesn't it?

[Zymologist]

This story just keeping more and more interesting, doesn't it?

For sure--Trump will get impeached any day now, just you wait!

[Mountain Man]

Hmmmm!

First, NBC News accidentally spilled the beans on the extent of Mueller's overreach, reporting that he has essentially been wiretapping the Trump administration from day one. We know this was a slip-up on NBC's part because they almost immediately tried to walk it back.

Which leads us to...

Source: Federal Judge Catches Robert Mueller Using Preexisting FISA Title-1 Warrant Against Paul Manafort Instead of Title 3 Authority…

Today U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III appears to have caught on to an explosive issue CTH noted yesterday. In building the case against Paul Manafort, special counsel Robert Mueller’s team used the pre-existing FISA Title-1 warrant that was originally applied to U.S. person Carter Page and the Trump campaign.

Under normal criminal investigation any search warrant or surveillance warrant would normally proceed through U.S. courts, under Title-3, [where] the Mueller team would need to show probable cause for a warrant. However, by using the Title-1 warrant from the FBI counterintelligence operation, as extended by AAG Rod Rosenstein, Robert Mueller was able to use far more intrusive and unchecked searches and seizures for his criminal probe.

The media, and broad media-consumption public, are currently unaware the Mueller probe was simply a continuance of the 2016 FBI counterintelligence operation. Most people think the special counsel investigation is a separate issue. It’s not.

However, in addition to a scathing rebuke of the underlying prosecutorial premise, ie. Mueller trying to keep the originating structure hidden, Judge Ellis demanded today that Mueller unredact the August 2, 2017, instructions from AAG Rosenstein. That removal will expose the use of the FISA Title-1 warrant use that drove the investigative origin.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...e-3-authority/

© Copyright Original Source

[Mountain Man]

Source: Judge in Manafort case says Mueller's aim is to hurt Trump

"You don't really care about Mr. Manafort's bank fraud," [District Judge T.S. Ellis] said to prosecutor Michael Dreeben, at times losing his temper. Ellis said prosecutors were interested in Manafort because of his potential to provide material that would lead to Trump's "prosecution or impeachment," Ellis said.

"That's what you're really interested in," said Ellis, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan.

Ellis repeated his suspicion several times in the hour-long court hearing. He said he'll make a decision at a later date about whether Manafort's case can go forward.

"We don't want anyone in this country with unfettered power. It's unlikely you're going to persuade me the special prosecutor has power to do anything he or she wants," Ellis told Dreeben. "The American people feel pretty strongly that no one has unfettered power."

When Dreeben answered Ellis' question about how the investigation and its charges date back to before the Trump campaign formed, the judge shot back, "None of that information has to do with information related to Russian government coordination and the campaign of Donald Trump."

At one point, Ellis posed a hypothetical question, speaking as if he were the prosecutor, about why Mueller's office referred a criminal investigation about Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen to New York authorities and kept the Manafort case in Virginia.

They weren't interested in it because it didn't "further our core effort to get Trump," Ellis said, mimicking a prosecutor in the case.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/04/polit...ing/index.html

© Copyright Original Source

[Juvenal]

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...-pdf-included/

This story just keeps getting more and more interesting, doesn't it?

TCT's abundant creativity aside, e.g., speculation on the odd chance that a passage in which we can be nearly certain the name FLYNN was redacted actually covered POTUS, it's quite the stretch to suggest Strzok, who was taken off the team by Mueller, was actually in charge of staffing it.

Hmmmm!

First, [URL="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/feds-tapped-trump-lawyer-michael-cohen-s-phones-n871011"]

[...]

Which leads us to...

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...e-3-authority/[/cite]

[...]

Even before the leak of Mueller's suggestive question for Trump, it was assumed Manafort was acting as a Russian agent. That is, after all, why he was dumped from the Trump campaign, and how he became a target of the FBI. I'm not seeing any further reason to question the use of a FISA warrant in investigating Manafort.

I do see further reason to disregard TCT.

The media, and broad media-consumption public, are currently unaware the Mueller probe was simply a continuance of the 2016 FBI counterintelligence operation.

While I question how much attention the media consuming public is following the investigation, I can't imagine anyone is unaware that Mueller took over a pre-existing investigation, in particular an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, which remains the focus of this thread.

For sure--Trump will get impeached any day now, just you wait!

Trump's impeachment, and especially, less serious discussion of Trump's impeachment, is the topic for some other thread. Neither are welcome here.

[Mountain Man]

Yep, keep pretending that all of this is a big nothing-burger.

[Mountain Man]

I can't imagine anyone is unaware that Mueller took over a pre-existing investigation, in particular an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, which remains the focus of this thread.

Sorry, but that's low-info talk. Mueller's investigation was pitched and promoted as something new sparked by Trump's justified firing of incompetent James Comey. We were never told that it was simply a continuation of an effort to depose Trump that started back during the 2016 presidential campaign (the infamous "insurance policy" discussed by Page and Stzork). The fact that Mueller has been conducting a Title 3 criminal investigation using a much broader Title 1 counter-intelligence warrant is a big, big deal!

Source: Special Counsel Tells Federal Court Rosenstein Investigative Scope Was Detailed in Super-Secret Verbal Instructions…

Asst. AG Rod Rosenstein gave the special counsel the counterintelligence investigation and also gave them FISA Title-1 surveillance warrant authority; which allowed Robert Mueller to retrieve all communications (e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g) belonging to any person, entity or group, within two-hops of former unofficial campaign aide Carter Page. By extension this covered almost all the campaign officials, and also most of the Trump administration.

This is a critical point often misunderstood. When Mueller was appointed in May 2017, they began a criminal investigation (Title 3) by taking over the FBI counterintelligence investigation (Title 1). By design the counter-intel structure meant the special counsel had access to the entire gamut of active surveillance on almost every official in the Trump Administration; and every official in congress – without having to get a search warrant.

Ordinarily, under U.S. Title-3 criminal statute the investigative body, U.S. Attorney or Special Counsel, would need to go before a judge to swear out the reasoning for a search warrant and prove probable cause. Because the special counsel took Title-1 investigative authority (counterintelligence operation), they subverted domestic search and seizure protections applicable toward U.S. persons having nothing to do with foreign intelligence.

This melding of Title-1 and Title-3 legal authority is essentially what underpins Judge Ellis’s questioning. Judge Ellis began asking, and proving, that a 2005 and 2007 tax and banking case against Paul Manafort had nothing to do with a 2017 counterintelligence investigation about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Digging into this odd framework results in the judge demanding the U.S. Attorney to reconcile/explain the origination of the special counsel investigation (2017); and the instructions therein; against the background of the case before him (Manafort), which has nothing to do with the originating mandate of the special counsel (2016 election matters).

The entire back-and-forth is well worth a read. It’s quite interesting, because there’s likely to be precedent established here.

[...]

Without the July 18th 2017 FISA extension (provided by AAG Rod Rosenstein), Robert Mueller would not have predicate investigative authority to reach into the accounts of his targets and extract their personal communication. Mueller would have needed to go to court for a search warrant; he is conducting a criminal investigation; he would have needed probable cause. However, by applying the 2016 extended FISA Title-1 warrant, the Mueller special counsel used the previously granted legal authority from the FISA Court to extract all the information they wanted to review.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...-instructions/

© Copyright Original Source

Very simply, Mueller is in very real danger of seeing his entire investigation tossed out. That's yuge.

[Mountain Man]

Source: Manafort Lawyers Claim Leaky Mueller Probe Has Provided No Evidence Of Contacts With Russian Officials

In a new filing demanding a full hearing on what Paul Manafort’s lawyers say is a series of illegal governmental leaks about his case, his legal team also reveals the government has provided no evidence of any contact between Manafort and Russian officials.

The special counsel’s office says it has no evidence in its possession responsive to Manafort’s request for transcripts, notes, or tapes of any and all conversation or contacts between Russian intelligence or government officials and Manafort, according to the filing.

This revelation, and the series of potentially false and illegal leaks from myriad government officials claiming they had such evidence, call into question the legal basis of Mueller’s probe of Manafort, which was ostensibly launched to ferret out illegal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and foreign officials, Manafort’s attorneys say.

Despite multiple requests to provide any evidence detailing contacts between Russian officials and Manafort, “the Special Counsel has not produced any materials to the defense — no tapes, notes, transcripts or any other material evidencing surveillance or intercepts of communications between Mr. Manafort and Russian intelligence officials, Russian government officials (or any other foreign officials),” the filing in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District Virginia says. “The Office of Special Counsel has advised that there are no materials responsive to Mr. Manafort’s requests.”

“Accordingly, if the representations of the Special Counsel are accurate, and there is not, in fact, any evidence of communications between Mr. Manafort and foreign officials, then the perpetrators of this elaborate hoax must be identified and punished and the substantial unfair prejudice to Mr. Manafort must be remedied,” the filing continued.

The alleged lack of evidence would be in sharp contrast to the repeated leaks from anonymous but highly placed government officials claiming Manafort was in contact with Russian government officials and that these contacts were picked up by federal surveillance efforts. The Manafort filing includes a selected list of some of the many high-level leaks from government officials about his case.

[...]

The leaks from government sources claimed evidence of Manafort’s involvement with Russians, including intercepted phone calls. Yet the special counsel has told Manafort’s attorneys that there are no such intercepts, they say in the court filing.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/05/03/...ian-officials/

© Copyright Original Source

[Mountain Man]

Looks like Mueller is having a bad time this weekend; seems the wheels are coming off his plan to give the Democrats an assist in the mid-terms by coasting this sham of an investigation through November.

Source: Judge rejects Mueller's request for delay in Russian troll farm case

A federal judge has rejected special counsel Robert Mueller’s request to delay the first court hearing in a criminal case charging three Russian companies and 13 Russian citizens with using social media and other means to foment strife among Americans in advance of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In a brief order Saturday evening, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich offered no explanation for her decision to deny a request prosecutors made Friday to put off the scheduled Wednesday arraignment for Concord Management and Consulting, one of the three firms charged in the case.

The 13 people charged in the high-profile indictment in February are considered unlikely to ever appear in a U.S. court. The three businesses accused of facilitating the alleged Russian troll farm operation — the Internet Research Agency, Concord Management, and Concord Catering — were also expected to simply ignore the American criminal proceedings.

Last month, however, a pair of Washington-area lawyers suddenly surfaced in the case, notifying the court that they represent Concord Management. POLITICO reported at the time that the move appeared to be a bid to force Mueller’s team to turn over relevant evidence to the Russian firm and perhaps even to bait prosecutors into an embarrassing dismissal in order to avoid disclosing sensitive information.

On Friday, Mueller’s prosecutors disclosed that Concord’s attorneys, Eric Dubelier and Kate Seikaly, had made a slew of discovery requests demanding nonpublic details about the case and the investigation. Prosecutors also asked a judge to postpone the formal arraignment of Concord Management set for next week.

The prosecution team sought the delay on the grounds that it’s unclear whether Concord Management formally accepted the court summons related to the case. Mueller’s prosecutors also revealed that they tried to deliver the summonses for Concord and IRA through the Russian government, without success.

“The [U.S.] government has attempted service of the summonses by delivering copies of them to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia, to be delivered to the defendants,” prosecutors wrote. “That office, however, declined to accept the summonses. The government has submitted service requests to the Russian government pursuant to a mutual legal assistance treaty. To the government’s knowledge, no further steps have been taken within Russia to effectuate service.”

Mueller’s team sent a copy of the formal summons to Dubelier and Seikaly and asked them to accept it on behalf of Concord Management, but Dubelier wrote back on Monday saying that the government’s attempt to serve the summons was defective under court rules. He did not elaborate.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...e-delay-570627

© Copyright Original Source

So we look at the Manafort case where prosecutors were forced to admit that they didn't have the evidence they were claiming to have. Mueller's case against Flynn could be in peril because of his failure to alert the courts to exculpatory evidence in Flynn's favor. And now Mueller looks to have botched his indictment against the 13 Russian ham sandwiches for similar reasons.

So what's the deal with Mueller? Is he incompetent? Is he deliberately throwing these cases? Is this the first time the light is being shone on his corrupt tactics?

[Tassman]

Very simply, Mueller is in very real danger of seeing his entire investigation tossed out. That's yuge.

Sure! A "yuge" amount of wishful thinking on the part of unenlightened individuals that support Trump. Dream on!

[Mountain Man]

Laughing in the face of facts just makes you look ignorant. The fact that Mueller has been conducting a criminal investigation using the wrong warrant, and that he has been called out by a federal judge for it, is not something that can be simply brushed aside with an idle wave of the have.

[Juvenal]

Sure! A "yuge" amount of wishful thinking on the part of unenlightened individuals that support Trump. Dream on!

The "Dream on!' is clearly directed toward MM, making the "unenlightened individuals" a personal attack.

Not in this thread, please.


I'll note again that while much of MM's interpretation is arguably hyperbolic, he's adding real content to the thread. Detractors should take note, and respond accordingly.

[Juvenal]

The fact that Mueller has been conducting a criminal investigation using the wrong warrant, and that he has been called out by a federal judge for it, is not something that can be simply brushed aside with an idle wave of the have.

TCT's analysis of the warrants takes no account of the fact the Manafort investigation began in 2014 as a counter-intelligence investigation in which FISA warrants are entirely appropriate.

I agree with the judge that the prosecution of Manafort is directed toward flipping him. As is clear from public reporting, including the primer provided by the Federalist upthread, there's a great deal of compromising information on Manafort, e.g., an emailed offer two weeks after taking over the Trump campaign to provide private briefings to the Russian mobster and oligarch, Deripaska, in an attempt to "get whole."

Did Manafort Use Trump to Curry Favor With a Putin Ally?

On the evening of April 11, 2016, two weeks after Donald Trump hired the political consultant Paul Manafort to lead his campaign’s efforts to wrangle Republican delegates, Manafort emailed his old lieutenant Konstantin Kilimnik, who had worked for him for a decade in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.

“I assume you have shown our friends my media coverage, right?” Manafort wrote.

“Absolutely,” Kilimnik responded a few hours later from Kiev. “Every article.”

“How do we use to get whole,” Manafort asks. “Has OVD operation seen?”

OVD is Deripaska.

Deripaska has since sued Manafort for $25 million.

The fraud charges in front of Ellis "manifestly don’t have anything to do with the campaign or with Russian collusion." But note his addition, “I’m not saying it’s illegitimate.” Given the public information available, it's natural to ask why Mueller is not going after Manafort for his Russian outreach while serving as Trump's campaign manager. The same question arises about Flynn, Gates, and the rest of the non-Russian entities indicted or plea bargained so far.

All of these point to Mueller carefully shielding his hand.

I'm taking a real liking to Ellis. He's a "senior" judge, meaning he's semi-retired, giving him a smallish docket and the position to say pretty much anything he damn well pleases, and this time, he's pleased to say the obvious.

The case in front of him isn't about bank fraud, and everyone knows it.

Come on, man!

At the same time, it actually is about bank fraud, and that was planned in order to leave Mueller's team free to tell Manafort's team to go pound dirt. No, they can't ask what Mueller knows about Manafort's Russian engagements. Of course, you can't say that in court, so you have to improvise. Mueller has no material responsive to their requests.

Now there's a real angle here. I've transcribed the relevant non-redacted portion of the scope memo in its entirety.

Allegations that Paul Manafort:

Committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government's efforts to interfere with the 2016 election for President of the IUnited States, in violation of United States Law,

Committed a crime or crimes arising out of payments he received from the Ukrainian government before and during the tenure of President Viktor Yanukovych:

Manafort's in court before Ellis, and in DC as well, because Mueller was given the latter scope, but everyone knows the latter was included to provide leverage on the former. We shouldn't forget Mueller tried to combine the cases in DC, but Manafort's team objected, likely because they liked what they saw in Ellis, too.

Manafort's team is thinking Mueller doesn't need both cases, so they're angling for a dismissal before Ellis. I don't believe that's going to work.

My feeling is that Ellis is a bit peeved finding himself playing fulcrum to a lever without getting to see what he's lifting, and so he's pushing for a peek up top. Good for him. I hope he gets it.

Then there's others, of less repute. The Freedom Caucus has been whinging loudly about releasing the rest of that scope memo, going so far as to leak a draft impeachment order on Rosenstein, which caught its own mocking reply.

"They can't even resist leaking their own drafts," Rosenstein quipped during a moderated discussion at the Newseum to commemorate Law Day.

That kind of self-restraint is needed before asking to see classified information.

The investigation will proceed at its own pace, which can only grow slower under political interference. Manafort's team is already milking the billable hours. Add in a contested subpoena in front of the Supreme Court and whatever may turn up from a flipped Cohen, and Mueller could have work for Trump's entire term.

[Mountain Man]

I agree with the judge that the prosecution of Manafort is directed toward flipping him.

Yes, but if they used the wrong warrant, which it appears they did, then all the evidence gets tossed, and Mueller has zero leverage. And evidence suggests that Mueller's overreach wasn't a one-time thing with NBC's slip revealing that Mueller has been wiretapping everybody in the Trump administration using a Title 1 warrant while conducting Title 3 criminal investigations!

trump-mueller-1.jpg

"There has been a crusade in this country led by a group that wishes to overturn the election and impeach President Trump. Robert Mueller leads a special council of at least 17 partisan Democrat attorneys who have yet to find a single piece of evidence against the President, yet they ignore the mounting verifiable evidence against Russian collusion with the DNC and the Clinton Foundation. The political bias and negligence of those who have lead the Department of Justice and the FBI is forthcoming. There comes a time when you have to take a stand the Expose the Truth!"
http://jonmcnaughton.com/expose-the-...-open-edition/