Mueller found no evidence of Manafort connection to Russian interference in US election

One shot for every . . .

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Some people on Twitter today aren't really tuned in to the fact of the heavily redacted nature of the Mueller report

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I liked starting my day with Drudge's "It's Mueller Time", reminded me of the good old days when I poured beer on my cereal to stop that "Snap, Crackle, Pop" sound

No shit Sherlock, you're just a tabloid, a shameless repeater of bias, baseless speculation, snarky innuendo and smears

CNN President Jeff Zucker Defends Network’s Coverage of Mueller Probe: ‘We Are Not Investigators’

 

Mueller inertia carries into CNN's bad Monday

Remember when Robert Mueller and Donald Trump were working together to expose the coup-plotters and pedophiles in government?

Good times there are not forgotten.

Matt Taibbi: The press has now handed Trump the mother of campaign issues heading into 2020

It's official: Russiagate is this generation's WMD:

Nothing Trump is accused of from now on by the press will be believed by huge chunks of the population, a group that (perhaps thanks to this story) is now larger than his original base. As [Peter] Baker notes [in the New York Times], a full 50.3% of respondents in a poll conducted this month said they agree with Trump the Mueller probe is a “witch hunt.” ...

The biggest thing this affair has uncovered so far is Donald Trump paying off a porn star. That’s a hell of a long way from what this business was supposedly about at the beginning, and shame on any reporter who tries to pretend this isn’t so. ...

CNN told us Trump officials had been in “constant contact” with “Russians known to U.S. intelligence,” and the former director of the CIA ["former" communist John Brennan], who’d helped kick-start the investigation that led to Mueller’s probe, said the President was guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” committing acts “nothing short of treasonous.” ...

[N]ews outlets once again swallowed a massive disinformation campaign, only this error is many orders of magnitude more stupid than any in the recent past, WMD included. Honest reporters like ABC’s Terry Moran understand: Mueller coming back empty-handed on collusion means a “reckoning for the media.” Of course, there won’t be such a reckoning. (There never is). But there should be. We broke every written and unwritten rule in pursuit of this story, starting with the prohibition on reporting things we can’t confirm. ...

The Russiagate era has so degraded journalism that even once “reputable” outlets are now only about as right as politicians, which is to say barely ever, and then only by accident. Early on, I was so amazed by the sheer quantity of Russia “bombshells” being walked back, I started to keep a list. It’s well above 50 stories now. As has been noted by Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept and others, if the mistakes were random, you’d expect them in both directions, but Russiagate errors uniformly go the same way. ...

We’ve become sides-choosers, obliterating the concept of the press as an independent institution whose primary role is sorting fact and fiction.

You know it's a great Sunday in America when the left has to wake up and take their vodka with Kremlinade

Coulter thinks talk of a Cohen motive is idiotic, believes prosecutors suborned perjury by Cohen in previous and today's testimony

Pretty wild thing to say about Robert Mueller? Well, he did knowingly prosecute the wrong guy in the anthrax case. Cohen could've been put away for a loooooooooooooong time. When the elites discard the moral absolutes taught by Christian civilization #democracydiesindarkness.

Corrupt FBI and Special Counsel Robert Mueller tip off CNN to film Roger Stone arrest

These bastards must be stopped.

Sidney Powell: Special Counsel Robert Mueller committed crimes by wiping Peter Strzok's and Lisa Page's cell phones

Comey and the FBI committed similar crimes in the Hillary investigation to protect her and her associates.

POWELL: NEW FACTS INDICATE MUELLER DESTROYED EVIDENCE, OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE:

The Inspector General of the Department of Justice reported late last week that Mueller wiped Peter Strzok’s cell phone of all messages during the crucial time he was working for special counsel. The IG was unable to recover any text messages from it.

This was after the inspector general informed Mueller of the extreme bias of Strzok and Page evidenced by thousands of text messages on their phones. These messages were so egregious they required their termination from Mueller’s squad. Not only did Mueller hide this development from Congress, but he destroyed evidence on Strzok’s phone and allowed DOJ to do the same for Page’s phone. That’s a crime. Mueller put Paul Manafort in solitary confinement for simply trying to contact a witness.

Any ethical law Department of Justice official would have taken custody of all electronic devices of Strzok and Page immediately upon discovery of their extreme bias and blatant misconduct — or certainly upon their termination — and preserved all the evidence. For Mueller to destroy this evidence is blatant obstruction of justice that warrants his immediate termination. The same is true for Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein who was “overseeing” it at the time.

Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferer ignores the violence done to the attorney-client relationship by Robert Mueller

The rule of law is dead if your lawyer can't and won't keep a confidence, if we let an unelected appointee of an unelected appointee usurp the powers reserved to duly elected constitutional officers go on a fishing expedition and illegally search and seize the confidential papers of citizens supposedly protected under the Fourth Amendment.

Minor details to this wizard of smart.

FBI and Mueller framed Flynn, 302 evidence against Flynn is seven months old, isn't contemporaneous with the January 2017 informal interview

Missing Flynn document in Mueller file could rile judge at sentencing hearing :

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan had ordered the special counsel to turn over all government documents and “memoranda” related to the questioning of Flynn, after his attorneys claimed the FBI had discouraged him from bringing a lawyer to his fateful Jan. 24, 2017 interview with agents at the White House. ...

Mueller met Sullivan’s Friday afternoon deadline and provided documents, some of which were heavily redacted.

Apart from a new memo from Mueller's team defending the FBI's handling of the interview -- and saying nothing about the way it was conducted “caused the defendant to make false statements to the FBI” -- the filing included a January 2017 memo on Flynn from then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and a "302" (a document memorializing interviews) detailing a July 19, 2017 interview with then-FBI agent Peter Strzok. Strzok, one of two agents who interviewed Flynn, described that meeting in the document, filed Aug. 22 of that year.

But not included in the filing was an original 302 from the period of the January 2017 Flynn interview.

It's unclear whether the document exists. However, the Strzok interview file appeared to repeatedly refer to a 302 drafted after the Flynn interview. "Strzok conducted the interview and [REDACTED] was primarily responsible for taking notes and writing the FD-302," one section said. Another said that throughout the interview, Flynn did not give any indication of deception and only hedged once, "which they documented in the 302."

James Trusty, a former senior Justice Department official who now works as a criminal defense attorney at Ifrah Law, predicted Sullivan would notice that the 302 submitted Friday is dated seven months after the Flynn interview took place.

“Judge Sullivan has a well-established history of taking on discovery issues head-on,” Trusty said. “So providing a seven-month-old FBI 302 is absolutely going to be a red flag for the judge, and I can’t imagine there are not going to be questions tomorrow about whether there are contemporaneous notes, or a contemporaneous report, that is in the FBI’s possession.” ...

Strzok was removed from the Russia probe in late July 2017 -- just days after he apparently gave the interview that formed the basis for the 302 in Mueller's filing -- for his apparent anti-Trump bias. No audio recording or other documentation of Flynn's comments to the FBI have been produced. ...

Last week, Comey was asked how the FBI agents ended up at the White House to interview Flynn in the first place. Comey’s response provided new details about the circumstances that fueled criticism of the bureau’s conduct:

“I sent them,” Comey said in a panel discussion with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, and added that it was “something I probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with in a more…organized administration.”

The interview was arranged directly with Flynn, he explained, acknowledging this was not standard procedure.

Dear Jeff Flake: PISS OFF!

Sen. Jeff Flake draws the line: Protect Mueller probe or no new federal judges

How to lose in 2020: Trump reportedly trying to please Turkey by pushing Fethullah Gulen out of the US

Trump doesn't give a damn about the criminality of Turkey's Erdogan. Trump should be pushing Turkey out of NATO, not Gulen out of the US. Instead it's all about a peace deal with the Joos. I smell Javanka. I smell a one term president.

To ease Turkish pressure on Saudis over killing, White House weighs expelling Erdogan foe:

The requests on Gulen in mid-October mark at least the second time the Trump administration has re-examined Turkey's extradition request since taking office. In the weeks after Trump's inauguration, the White House asked the Justice Department to review Gulen's case, NBC has reported.

Some officials have described the first request as a routine part of a new administration reviewing its relationship with a key ally. The request, however, took place under Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, whose ties to Turkey came under scrutiny in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling. Flynn, who resigned in February 2017, entered into a plea agreement with Mueller last December and has been cooperating with the investigation.

The DOJ goes nuclear on Trump in the delay game on FISA warrants to cover up FBI wrongdoing, hoping Democrats win the US House in November

From the story here:

In court filings last week the Department of Justice deployed what could be the nuclear option in its latest effort to prevent President Trump from declassifying information regarding FISA warrants used to spy on his campaign aide Carter Page: It is claiming that such a move would interfere with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. 

This is the first time the DOJ has explicitly made this argument implying personal peril for the president, since interference could open Trump to charges of obstruction of justice. Until now, the department has argued that declassifying the documents threatened national security.

In the 178-page court document, DOJ officials said they had “determined that disclosure of redacted information in the Carter Page FISA documents could reasonably be expected to interfere with the pending investigation into Russian election interference."

That rationale has heightened suspicions among congressional investigators that the special counsel is being used to prevent the disclosure of possible FBI abuses and crimes committed during the Russia probe. ...

[S]ources told [Real Clear Investigations] that the president and the DOJ are at a standoff. “Trump knows that what’s in those documents clears him of all the collusion stuff,” said a third congressional source, “and it shows the FBI was doing some very bad things.” 

 

But what’s now keeping Trump from pulling the curtain back on the Russia investigation is the probe itself. “That’s the leverage the DOJ has on Trump,” explained this source. “Nothing on Russia or collusion or anything like that — it’s the actual investigation. If he’s seen to be interfering, they move to obstruction.”

Gullible Gregg Jarrett of FOX News takes the NYT's bait

Gregg Jarrett: Rod Rosenstein's coup attempt to depose Trump should not go unpunished:

Rosenstein should be fired immediately. Proposing to secretly record the president is, at the very least, a violation of regulations that govern a security clearance. 

Oh yeah, that'll be helpful on November 6th. Let's fire the guy that fired Comey and make ourselves look completely insane.

There's plenty of time to fire Rod Rosenstein starting on November 7th.

Jarrett should listen to Mark Levin's argument. It was Comey ally Andrew McCabe who pressured Rosenstein to appoint the special counsel in the wake of the firing of James Comey. Rosenstein placated him by appointing Comey ally Robert Mueller. The Comey allies are behind this leak, seeking to weaken Trump.

Rosenstein is the monkey in the middle. The leak against him in the Times is a sign that he is no longer useful to the Trump opposition. It's also a sign that the Trump opposition is getting very desperate in the wake of Trump's declassification order, the results of which are going to take at least another week.

Perhaps Rosenstein will look better now to his future in the Trump administration. He was once useful to Trump by firing crooked Comey. He could be helpful again now that he's been chastised by his former "colleagues".

McCabe memos appear to have been leaked to NYT saying Rosenstein wanted to entrap Trump by wearing a wire

From the story Rosenstein Suggested He Secretly Record Trump and Discussed 25th Amendment:

Mr. McCabe, who was later fired from the F.B.I., declined to comment. His memos have been turned over to the special counsel investigating whether Trump associates conspired with Russia’s election interference, Robert S. Mueller III, according to a lawyer for Mr. McCabe. “A set of those memos remained at the F.B.I. at the time of his departure in late January 2018,” the lawyer, Michael R. Bromwich, said of his client. “He has no knowledge of how any member of the media obtained those memos.” ...

One week after the firing [of Comey], Mr. Rosenstein met with Mr. McCabe and at least four other senior Justice Department officials, in part to explain his role in the situation.

During their discussion, Mr. Rosenstein expressed frustration at how Mr. Trump had conducted the search for a new F.B.I. director, saying the president was failing to take the candidate interviews seriously. A handful of politicians and law enforcement officials, including Mr. McCabe, were under consideration.

To Mr. Rosenstein, the hiring process was emblematic of broader dysfunction stemming from the White House. He said both the process and the administration itself were in disarray, according to two people familiar with the discussion.

Mr. Rosenstein then raised the idea of wearing a recording device or “wire,” as he put it, to secretly tape the president when he visited the White House. One participant asked whether Mr. Rosenstein was serious, and he replied animatedly that he was.

If not him, then Mr. McCabe or other F.B.I. officials interviewing with Mr. Trump for the job could perhaps wear a wire or otherwise record the president, Mr. Rosenstein offered. White House officials never checked his phone when he arrived for meetings there, Mr. Rosenstein added, implying it would be easy to secretly record Mr. Trump.

The suggestion itself was remarkable. While informants or undercover agents regularly use concealed listening devices to surreptitiously gather evidence for federal investigators, they are typically targeting drug kingpins and Mafia bosses in criminal investigations, not a president viewed as ineffectively conducting his duties.

In the end, the idea went nowhere, the officials said. But they called Mr. Rosenstein’s comments an example of how erratically he was behaving while he was taking part in the interviews for a replacement F.B.I. director, considering the appointment of a special counsel and otherwise running the day-to-day operations of the more than 100,000 people at the Justice Department.

Mr. Rosenstein’s suggestion about the 25th Amendment was similarly a sensitive topic. The amendment allows for the vice president and majority of cabinet officials to declare the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

Merely conducting a straw poll, even if Mr. Kelly and Mr. Sessions were on board, would be risky if another administration official were to tell the president, who could fire everyone involved to end the effort.

Bradley Smith, former head of the Federal Election Commission, doesn't think Trump's payments were campaign expenditures

Here in WaPo, amusingly turning the matter back on Mueller at the end:

However, regardless of what Cohen agreed to in a plea bargain, hush-money payments to mistresses are not really campaign expenditures. It is true that “contribution” and “expenditure” are defined in the Federal Election Campaign Act as anything “for the purpose of influencing any election,” and it may have been intended and hoped that paying hush money would serve that end. The problem is that almost anything a candidate does can be interpreted as intended to “influence an election,” from buying a good watch to make sure he gets to places on time, to getting a massage so that he feels fit for the campaign trail, to buying a new suit so that he looks good on a debate stage. Yet having campaign donors pay for personal luxuries — such as expensive watches, massages and Brooks Brothers suits — seems more like bribery than funding campaign speech.

That’s why another part of the statute defines “personal use” as any expenditure “used to fulfill any commitment, obligation, or expense of a person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign.” These may not be paid with campaign funds, even though the candidate might benefit from the expenditure. Not every expense that might benefit a candidate is an obligation that exists solely because the person is a candidate. ...

Cohen is not the normal defendant, and prosecutors almost certainly squeezed him to plead guilty on these charges, in part, for the purpose of building a case for possible criminal or impeachment charges against the president, or even, daresay, “influencing the reelection” of Trump.