Tag: Trump campaign

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.

Rep. Schiff warns of subpoenas, lawsuit over Mueller report

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — A top House Democrat threatened on Sunday to call special counsel Robert Mueller to Capitol Hill, subpoena documents and sue the Trump administration if the full report on Mueller’s Russia investigation is not made public.

Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said his committee will keep close watch on new Attorney General William Barr to see if he were “to try to bury any part of this report.” Schiff, D-Calif., also pledged to “take it to court if necessary.”

He said anything less than complete disclosure would leave Barr, who now oversees the investigation, with “a tarnished legacy.”

View the complete February 24 article by Mary Clare Jalonick and Hope Yen of the Associated Press on The Washington Post website here.

Roger Stone’s Proud Boys “Volunteers” Have Been Defending Him Online After The Judge Entered A Gag Order

WASHINGTON — Questioned in court last week about his recent Instagram post featuring a photo of the judge presiding over his case with what resembled a crosshairs symbol, Roger Stone said under oath that a “volunteer” found the image. He insisted he couldn’t recall who exactly, though, and struggled to identify the five or six people he said were serving as his volunteers at the time.

The names he offered after being pressed by the prosecutor underscored Stone’s ties to the Proud Boys, a far-right, men-only extremist group that describes its members as “Western chauvinist.” The four men identified by Stone are all active on social media, and several continued to post about Stone’s case after US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson imposed a strict gag order Thursday — an order that limits not only what Stone can say in public and online, but what his surrogates and volunteers can say on his behalf.

Stone identified Enrique Tarrio, Tyler Whyte, Jacob Engels, and Rey Perez as his volunteers. Tarrio is chair of the Proud Boys and last week sat behind President Donald Trump during a speech in Miami wearing a T-shirt that said “Roger Stone Did Nothing Wrong!” Whyte leads a Proud Boys chapter in Florida. Engels has been involved in Proud Boys activities, but says he’s a journalist embedded with the group, not a member. Perez identified himself on Facebook as a member of the Proud Boys and was at Stone’s house in Florida to tape a podcast over cigars and baked ziti just before before the Instagram post imbroglio.

View the complete February 24 article by Zoe Tillman on the Buzzfeed website here.

Manafort doesn’t deserve leniency, Mueller filing argues

Special counsel Robert Mueller says in a new filing that he’s not taking a position on how much time Paul Manafort should spend in prison for charges in Washington, D.C., but told the judge presiding over his case that he doesn’t deserve leniency.

“Nothing about Manafort’s upbringing, schooling, legal education, or family and financial circumstances mitigates his criminality,” Mueller said in a heavily redacted sentencing memo released Saturday, which details Manafort’s crimes.

In the document, originally filed under seal on Friday night, Mueller said that the onetime Trump campaign chairman agreed in his plea deal that anything less than the government’s 17.5 to 22-year estimated sentence is not warranted.

View the complete February 23 article by Lydia Wheeler, John Bowden and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Judge imposes full gag order on Roger Stone

During a heated hearing on Thursday, the federal judge presiding over Roger Stone’s criminal case banned the longtime Trump associate from saying anything publicly about his case.

The ruling, harsher than the limited gag order U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued last week, comes after Stone posted an inflammatory photo of the judge on his Instagram account over the weekend.

Before Jackson ruled from the bench, Stone took the stand to beg for forgiveness.

View the complete February article by Lydia Wheeler on The Hill website here.

Michael Cohen to testify before House panel on Feb. 27

Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney, will testify before the House Oversight Committee next week, the panel announced Wednesday night.

Cohen will testify at 10 a.m. on Feb. 27, the committee’s chairman, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), said in a statement.

“I am pleased to announce that Michael Cohen’s public testimony before the Oversight Committee is back on, despite efforts by some to intimidate his family members and prevent him from appearing,” Cummings said. “Congress has an obligation under the Constitution to conduct independent and robust oversight of the Executive Branch, and this hearing is one step in that process.”

View the complete February 20 article by Felicia Sonmez on The Washington Post website here.

Roger Stone Used Mob Threats Because Trump Is Basically a Crime Boss

Credit: Mandel Ngan, AFP, Getty Images

The FBI indictment of former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone contains the unsurprising revelation that Stone threatened an associate, and his pet dog, to prevent him from cooperating with authorities. He expressed his threat using the familiar trope of the Mafia movie. “On multiple occasions,” the special counsel reports, Stone told his associate (reportedly Randy Credico) to “do a ‘Frank Pentangeli,’” a reference to a Godfather: Part II capo who was prepared to inform on the boss before Congress, before recanting his testimony (and ultimately committing suicide to protect his family from reprisal.)

The Russia scandal has provided us with relatively few Russia cultural references, but a proliferation of mafia references. The fact that Stone expressed himself this way is not mere color, nor is organized crime even a metaphor for the mindset and Trump and his inner circle. It is actually a reasonably literal description of the Trump organization.

In the fall of 2017, a source close to the administration warned, “this investigation is a classic Gambino-style roll-up. You have to anticipate this roll-up will reach everyone in this administration.” This turned out to be one of the most prescient descriptions of what was to come. A roll-up of an organized crime family generally starts at the bottom, and uses evidence against lower-ranking figures to compel testimony against their superiors, until it ultimately reaches the top of the organization. Mueller has followed this pattern, beginning with indictments against low-level characters like George Papadopoulos and Russian hackers, and working its way up to the inner circle of the campaign and, quite likely, the boss himself.

View the complete January 25 article by Jonathan Chait on The New York Magazine website here.

Judge in Roger Stone case orders hearing after he appeared to threaten her on Instagram

A federal judge has demanded that Roger Stone explain why the conditions of his release and freedom to talk about the charges against him should not be changed after he posted an Instagram photo of that judge that included her name, a close-up of her face and what appeared to be the crosshairs of a gun sight near her head.

Stone deleted the initial picture soon afterward, then reposted it without the crosshairs before deleting that post, as well.

He later said he did not mean to threaten the judge overseeing his criminal case. In a letter to Judge Amy Berman Jackson, he apologized and called the picture “improper.”

View the complete February 19 article by Reis Thebault, Manuel Roig-Franzia and Rachel Weiner on The Washington Post here.

Roger Stone Posts Threatening Image Of Judge In His Case

Roger Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump who has been charged as a part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, posted a threatening Instagram picture Monday depicting the judge overseeing his case next to an image of crosshairs.

“Through legal trickery Deep State hitman Robert Mueller has guaranteed that my upcoming show trial is before Judge Amy Berman Jackson , an Obama appointed Judge who dismissed the Benghazi charges again Hillary Clinton and incarcerated Paul Manafort prior to his conviction for any crime,” Stone said in text next to the image. “Help mef ight for my life,” he added.

The post was removed about an hour after it went up. A few minutes later, Stone posted the image again, but he cropped the crosshairs out.

View the complete February 18 article by Cody Fenwick on the National Memo website here.

Mueller subpoenas director of controversial data firm Cambridge Analytica in Russia probe

Brittany Kaiser, a director of data company Cambridge Analytica, has been subpoenaed as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible ties between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, the Guardian reports.

A spokesman for Kaiser confirmed she is fully cooperating with Mueller, according to the Guardian, and that she is working with separate “US congressional and legal investigations into the company’s activities.”

Kaiser is the second person from Cambridge Analytica who has been subpoenaed by Mueller. As the Guardian notes:

View the complete February 17 article by Elizabeth Preza on the AlterNet website here.