Tag: Mueller investigation

Trump slams Sessions as “scared stiff”

The following article was posted on the Axios.com website August 11, 2018:

President Trump on Saturday blasted Attorney General Jeff Sessions for being “scared stiff and Missing in Action” in a tweet series questioning if there will be an Inspector General report about the Steele dossier, Steele’s meetings with former Deputy Attorney General, Bruce Ohr and Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr.

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

….Do you believe Nelly worked for Fusion and her husband STILL WORKS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF “JUSTICE.” I have never seen anything so Rigged in my life. Our A.G. is scared stiff and Missing in Action. It is all starting to be revealed – not pretty. IG Report soon? Witch Hunt!

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Behind the scenes: Sessions doesn’t use Twitter and has no TV in his office. Sources who work for him tell Axios’ Jonathan Swan he tries as best he can to tune out Trump’s attacks. They seemed to genuinely bother him at first but over time aides said it appeared he’d grown desensitized to them. If Sessions has thought again about resigning — early on he wrote a resignation letter for Trump and it was rejected — he’s kept very close-lipped about it.

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Judge holds Roger Stone associate in contempt for refusing to testify in Russia investigation

The following article by Spencer S. Hsu and Bevlin Barrett was posted on the Washington Post website August 10, 2018:

Roger Stone and Andrew Miller Credit: Facebook

A federal judge has found a witness in contempt for refusing to testify before the grand jury hearing evidence in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

U.S. District Chief Judge Beryl Howell made the ruling Friday after a sealed hearing to discuss Andrew Miller’s refusal to appear before the grand jury. Miller is a former aide to longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone.

Miller’s lawyer Paul Kamenar said after the hearing that Miller was “held in contempt, which we asked him to be in order for us to appeal the judge’s decision to the court of appeals.”

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Want to Know More About … the Mueller Investigation

John Berman: “This May Be The Last Best Chance For President Trump To Get Face To Face With Robert Muller, At Least According To Rudy Giuliani.”

JOHN BERMAN: “This may be the last best chance for President Trump to get face to face with Robert Muller, at least according to Rudy Giuliani. The Trump legal team has submitted this new offer of terms to the special counsel on just how the president would be willing to answer questions in the Russian investigation. “ [New Day, CNN, 8/9/18;Video]

John Berman: “For A Man That Is No Stranger To High Profile Interviews, This Really Could Be The Highest Stakes Yet For The President If It Ever Happens Which Is Honestly A Major Doubt. What His Team Is Mostly Concerned About Is The President Could Get Caught Lying.”

JOHN BERMAN: “For a man that is no stranger to high profile interviews, this really could be the highest stakes yet for the president if it ever happens which is honestly a major doubt. What his team is mostly concerned about is the president could get caught lying. They want to limit the scope of questions as much as humanly possible to avoid what they call a perjury trap. Giuliani says the investigation he wants it to end in the next three weeks, that Mueller has all the information he needs but if the probe drags on till November, Giuliani they says that Republicans will be the ones to benefit politically that’s his claim.” [New Day, CNN, 8/9/18; Video] Continue reading “Want to Know More About … the Mueller Investigation”

Trump hits Russia probe, Amazon in tweet barrage

The following article by Max Greenwood was posted on the Hill website July 23, 2018:

Credit: Getty Images / Diana Ofosu

President Trump launched a barrage of tweets on Monday morning, taking aim at a series of familiar targets ranging from the news media to Amazon to the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

In the string of tweets, Trump first targeted special counsel Robert Mueller‘s probe into Russia’s election meddling, claiming that recently released documents related to a surveillance warrant on Carter Page, a former campaign adviser to Trump, proved that FBI officials acted improperly during the 2016 presidential race.

He called Mueller’s investigation “totally conflicted and discredited” and demanded the probe be brought to an end immediately.

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In one tweet, Trump reveals nearly everything he gets wrong about the Mueller investigation

The following article by Philip Bump was posted on the Washington Post website July 23, 2018:

President Trump claimed his campaign was “illegally spied on,” after the release of redacted surveillance documents for former campaign adviser Carter Page. (Reuters)

President Trump attacked two of his most hated enemies on Twitter in the past 12 hours: Iran and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

In tweets on Monday morning, Trump encouraged his followers to join him in watching “Fox & Friends” on Fox News and then quoted at length comments made on the show about the FBI’s push in October 2016 to obtain a warrant to track Carter Page, a onetime adviser to the Trump campaign.

Over the weekend, the government released a redacted version of the application for that warrant. Some of what was contained was already well-known, thanks to dueling memos from Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and House Democrats earlier this year debating the validity of the document. Releasing the document didn’t change the contours of that debate significantly, except to further undercut Nunes’s assertions about its significance.

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Newly released documents prove GOP lied about FBI’s Russia probe

The following article by Emily Crockett was posted on the ShareBlue.com website July 23, 2018:

We now know that Trump and Republicans shamelessly lied to the American people about why the FBI decided to investigate the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.

The Trump administration released a pile of documents on Saturday that proves what most sensible observers already knew: Trump and Republicans shamelessly lied to the American people about why the FBI decided to investigate the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.

These documents — the FBI’s original requests for surveillance on Trump campaign aide Carter Page — come to us thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request from multiple news outlets.

The documents were heavily redacted, but they still told us a lot — most importantly that House Republicans lied, and probably knew they were lying, with their “release the memo” debacle earlier this year.

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Mueller seeking to question ‘Manhattan madam,’ a friend of Roger Stone, in Russia probe, she says

The following article by Manuel Roig-Franzia was posted on the Washington Post website July 20, 2018:

Roger Stone and Kristin Davis leave court in New York on March 30, 2017. Credit: Seth Wenig, AP

Investigators in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s office have notified an attorney for Kristin Davis, who gained notoriety in the 2000s for running a high-end prostitution ring, that they intend to question her as part of their probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Davis said Friday.

Davis, who is known as the “Manhattan Madam,” said she expects to be asked about her close friend, Roger Stone, a political operative and longtime confidant of President Trump. It comes one week after prosecutors unveiled an indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers who allegedly conspired to hack Democrats during the campaign.

Stone was not named in the indictment, but messages cited by prosecutors match communications that he says he had with the Twitter persona Guccifer 2.0, who had claimed online to be a Romanian hacker.

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Russian firm indicted in special counsel probe cites Kavanaugh decision to argue that charge should be dismissed

The following article by Robert Barnes was posted on the Washington Post website July 20, 2018:

The Post’s Robert Barnes explains some of the factors that could influence whether Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh is confirmed. (Video: Monica Akhtar/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

A Russian company accused by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III of being part of an online operation to disrupt the 2016 presidential campaign is leaning in part on a decision by Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh to argue that the charge against it should be thrown out.

The 2011 decision by Kavanaugh, writing for a three-judge panel, concerned the role that foreign nationals may play in U.S. elections. It upheld a federal law that said foreigners temporarily in the country may not donate money to candidates, contribute to political parties and groups, or spend money advocating for or against candidates. But it did not rule out letting foreigners spend money on independent advocacy campaigns.

Kavanaugh “went out of his way to limit the decision,” said Daniel A. Petalas, a Washington lawyer and former interim general counsel for the Federal Election Commission.

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For the cost of Trump’s military parade, we could get eight months of Mueller’s probe

The following article by Philip Bump was posted on the Washington Post website July 19, 2018:

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend the Bastille Day military parade in Paris last year. Credit: Chesnot, Getty Images

Reporting from CNN finally puts a price tag on President Trump’s long-sought “military parade” emulating the one he enjoyed in France last July. But before we get to that number, let’s contextualize it with some other costs largely unique to Trump’s administration.

We will start with a vacation in Scotland.

For you or me, a trip to Scotland would cost a few thousand dollars, maybe, depending on how fancy we got. When the president of the United States goes on a trip, though, he brings a substantially larger entourage than you do. His trip to Scotland last week, therefore, cost almost $70,000, money paid to the lucky proprietor of the hotel where he stayed. (It was a Trump Organization property; the proprietor was, indirectly, Trump.)

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Roger Stone has lied or contradicted himself regarding Russia probe matters on countless occasions

The following article by Eric Hananoki was posted on the Media Matters website July 18, 2018:

Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, has repeatedly lied or contradicted himself on numerous issues related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

Stone is a vicious racist, misogynist, liar, and conspiracy theorist who describes himself as “a 40-year friend and advisor of Donald Trump.” He worked as a paid consultant to Trump’s campaign for part of 2015 and has since advised him in an unofficial capacity.

He was banned from CNN, MSNBC, and even Fox News in 2016 because of his vitriolic rhetoric. However, all three networks have since welcomed him back as a guest. Stone also writes commentaries online and works for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars network.

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