Tag: Mueller investigation

Why the collusion matters: Here’s what almost everyone misses about the origins of Robert Mueller’s investigation

Special Counsel Robert Mueller may soon be wrapping up his Russia investigation, according to multiple reports. Or, he may not be. No one really knows, and conflicting reports all appear to be coming from sources outside of Mueller’s tight-lipped team, giving independent commentators little hope of discerning their accuracy.

But as many have begun to expect the end of the investigation, observers have are starting to reflect on what we have learned so far. And opinions vary wildly.

Some are convinced Mueller has already come up empty. Some believe he may be on the cusp of something big, but he may struggle to prove it. Others are sure that new, devastating revelations are just around the corner. Some think that the special counsel had shown serious problems around the Trump campaign but nothing that could possibly warrant impeachment of the president. Many of Trump’s conservative defenders think Mueller has gotten desperate and is only charging people with “process crimes” because he couldn’t find anything more serious. And yet another group says that while worse may be coming, what we already know amounts to a damning imputation of Trump and his allies.

View the complete February 24 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Demands grow for a public Mueller report

Demands are growing for special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report to be made public, with lawmakers and legal experts raising concerns about how and when that could happen.

On Sunday, Democrats including one 2020 presidential candidate framed the conclusion of Mueller’s nearly two-year investigation as a crucial moment for transparency. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee pledged to subpoena the report on Russia’s election interference if necessary in order to make it public, while at least one legal expert suggested the path to making the report available to the public might be “circuitous.”

“This is an extraordinary moment in terms of the need that the special counsel has to investigate the conduct of the president of the United States’s campaign and issues surrounding it,” Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said on CNN’s “Inside Politics.”

View the complete February 24 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Rosenstein plans to leave Justice Department next month

Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein plans to leave the Justice Department in mid-March, an official familiar with the matter said Monday night, and an announcement on his successor is expected imminently.

Rosenstein, the No. 2 Justice Department official who has spent nearly two years in the hot seat since appointing Robert S. Mueller III to lead an investigation into whether President Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election, had made it known in recent weeks that he planned to leave if and when a new attorney general was confirmed by the Senate.

With William P. Barr’s swearing in to that post last week, Rosenstein has set a more precise timeline for departure — though the official stressed his plan could shift if needed to ensure a smooth transition.

View the February 18 article by Matt Zapotosky on The Washington Post website here.

On Russia, Trump Is Still In Deep Trouble

Trump Tower Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

If Donald Trump believes his own tweets, then he must be feeling a huge sense of relief. According to the besieged president, he has been exonerated; the hoax has been disproved; and the witch hunt has been canceled.

“The Senate Intelligence Committee: THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA!” he exclaimed in the predawn hours on Feb. 13, a theme he and his minions repeated throughout the day.

Sadly for Trump, he knows that that statement — like thousands of others littering his Twitter feed — is fakery. The Senate Intelligence Committee, composed of Democrats as well as Republicans, has made no such finding and cannot credibly offer any conclusion because its investigation is not complete. And the Democrats, led by ranking member Mark Warner, D-Va., are waiting until they hear again from such key witnesses as former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who lied to the committee when he first testified.

View the complete February 14 article by Joe Conason on the Creators website here.

How Manafort’s 2016 meeting with a Russian employee at New York cigar club goes to ‘the heart’ of Mueller’s probe

Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had a meeting with Russian political operative Konstantin Kilimnik, just blocks away from Trump Tower on Aug. 2, 2016. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

The 2016 nominating conventions had recently concluded and the presidential race was hitting a new level of intensity when Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, ducked into an unusual dinner meeting at a private cigar room a few blocks away from the campaign’s Trump Tower headquarters in Manhattan.

Court records show that Manafort was joined at some point by his campaign deputy, Rick Gates, at the session at the Grand Havana Room, a mahogany-paneled space with floor-to-ceiling windows offering panoramic views of the city.

The two Americans met with an overseas guest, a longtime employee of their international consulting business who had flown to the United States for the gathering: a Russian political operative named Konstantin Kilimnik.

View the complete February 12 article by Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger on The Washington Post website here.

Americans view Mueller as more credible than Trump, but views of his probe are scattered

As the special counsel investigation seems to be nearing its final stage, Americans view Robert S. Mueller III as far more credible than President Trump, but the public has scattered and partisan perceptions of Mueller’s motives and what he has found so far, according to a new Washington Post-Schar School poll.

Fifty-six percent to 33 percent, more say they trust Mueller’s version of the facts than Trump’s. And by nearly as wide a margin, more believe Mueller is mainly interested in “finding out the truth” than trying to “hurt Trump politically.”

Nearly two years into his investigation, Mueller has charged 34 people and secured guilty pleas from some of Trump’s closest advisers, including his former campaign chairman, deputy campaign chairman, national security adviser and personal lawyer. The special counsel has alleged 25 Russians, including 12 military officers, conspired to hack Democrats’ emails and wage a social media influence campaign to sway the outcome of the 2016 election, and described in astonishing detail how they did so.

View the complete February 12 article by Scott Clement and Matt Zapotosky on The Washington Post website here.

Barr Thinks DOJ Practice Allows Him to Bury Mueller’s Report: He’s Wrong.

William Barr filed his written answers to senators’ questions this week shortly before the Senate Judiciary Committee postponed until February 7 the vote on his confirmation as attorney general. The answers did nothing to soften his harsh views on criminal justice, civil rights, and reproductive choice. Nor do they allay concerns about his handling of the Mueller investigation. Rather, his answers suggest that we will never know whether career ethics officials advise him to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation. Further, while promising transparency, Barr’s answers clear a path for burying Mueller’s final product.

At his hearing, Barr stated that he would consult career ethics officials regarding recusal from oversight of the Mueller investigation, but refused to commit to following their advice, as previous nominees, including Jeff Sessions, had done. He insisted that he would make his own determination, regardless what ethics officials said. In his written answers, he refused to budge and added that he would not commit to making officials’ advice public. The public, therefore, likely will never know whether ethics officials told him to recuse himself, though the public likely will hear if officials do not urge recusal. In any event, Barr appears firmly committed to supervising Mueller.

Regarding release of any Mueller report, Barr repeated his statement that his “goal will be to provide as much transparency as I can consistent with the law, including the regulations discussed above, and the Department’s longstanding practices and policies.” In context, this reasonable-sounding language provides the rationale for a spare notification to Congress that the special counsel investigation is complete and little more.

View the complete January 31 article by Bill Yeoman on the Alliance for Justice website here.

 

Court filing indicates Russian troll farm targeted Mueller himself in 2018

In February 2018, special  ounsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals connected to the Internet Research Agency—a Russian troll farm Mueller suspected of posing as Americans and spreading false information in order to influence the United States’ 2016 presidential election. And a new court filingsubmitted on Wednesday, January 30 alleges that the Internet Research Agency launched a disinformation campaign against Mueller himself in 2018.

Mueller is accusing Concord Management and Consulting, a Russian company, of funding the Internet Research Agency, and the special counsel’s office is alleging that the 2018 disinformation campaign was designed to convince Americans that Mueller’s evidence against the Internet Research Agency was weak and lacked credibility.

After Mueller indicted Concord Management and Consulting and 13 Russian nationals in February 2018, the company hired Reed Smith, an American law firm, for representation in its battle against Mueller’s team. Concord alleged that Mueller was illegally appointed, hoping the case would be thrown out. But Judge Dabney Friedrich, much to the disappointment of Mueller’s critics, has refused to dismiss the case.

View the complete February 3 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Mueller role confirmed in subpoena battle with mystery firm

Credit: Saul Loeb, AFP, Getty Images

Attorneys from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office are the prosecutors locked in a mysterious grand jury subpoena fight that a state-owned foreign company has taken all the way to the Supreme Court, court records now confirm.

A docket unsealed by the U.S. District Court in Washington shows two prosecutors from Mueller’s office, Scott Meisler and Zainab Ahmad, are handling the dispute on behalf of the special counsel.

The country and the company resisting Mueller’s demand for information have still not been publicly identified, but the district court and a federal appeals court confirmed this week that Atlanta-based Alston and Bird is representing the firm at the center of the fight.

View the complete February 1 article by Josh Gerstein on the Politico website here.

Here’s how Russia apparently tried to join Trump’s attacks against Robert Mueller

Credit: FBI

When filing documents in a federal case, special counsel Robert Mueller revealed new information about the election 2016 hackers. According to Bloomberg News, more than 1,000 of the confidential files Mueller obtained prove a friend of Vladimir Putin footed the bill.

The information came from a filing involving Concord Management and Consulting LLC, which is controlled by so-called Putin chef Yevgeny Prigozhin.

“In the filing, Mueller’s team said ‘non-sensitive’ evidence that had been shared exclusively with Concord’s U.S. law firm, Reed Smith, had wound up being disseminated, purportedly as a result of a hacking operation targeting the law firm,” Bloomberg reported.

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said that he expects the investigation to be wrapped up soon, but judging from FBI Director Christopher Wray’s face, that might not actually be the case.

View the complete January 30 article by Sarah K. Burris of Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.