The Walls Close In..

[toucana]

When Trump foreign policy advisor George Papadopolous was exposed in documents unsealed on Monday as having already confessed to colluding with Russian intelligence contacts during the 2016 campaign, he effectively implicated two other campaign officals who were line-managing him and signing off on his activities at the time.

The two line-managers were not identified by name in the indictments, but the most likely candidates appear to be Sam Clovis and Carter Page respectively.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/white-house-unaware-top-adviser-testified-grand-jury/story?id=50895265

Sam Clovis who is Trump’s undersecretary at Department of Agriculture has apparently been acting as a cooperating witness with Mueller’s enquiries for several months. The Trump adminstration were unaware of this and have now hurriedly withdrawn his nomination as Chief Scientist at Department of Agriculture ahead of Senate confirmations hearings that were due next week in a move that is probably too late. Sam Clovis has most likely already cut a deal with investigators to hand them information about his own immediate supervisor, Attorney general Jeff Sessions.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/02/politics/sam-clovis-department-of-agriculture/index.html

Carter Page appeared today before the House Intelligence Committe in closed session and did so without a lawyer. Word has already leaked out that he answered some questions at length but chose to plead the 5th amendment when asked about any Trump/Russia documents in his possession.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/1712057

This is a potentially catastrophic path to follow without a lawyer on hand to guide him. The 5th amendment may prevent a suspect from delivering self-incriminating testimony, but does not automatically protect a witness from having to hand over documents relevant to a subpoena. He could be arrested taken in front of a judge and found to be in contempt of Congress.

Meanwhile, billionaire Robert Mercer who has been the principal financial backer of Donald Trump’s foray into American politics has suddenly announced his resignation as CEO of a major hedge-fund, and is busy selling his controlling share of the extreme right-wing Breitbart news organization, and has also put out a statement distancing himself from Breitbart personalities and trolls-in-chief Steve Bannon and Milo Yiannopolous.

http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/pan ... rcer/5856/

Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah own the holding company SCL of Cambridge Analytica, a data-mining firm that has been under intense scrutiny over its possible role during the 2016 election. The head of Cambridge Analytica Alexander Nix recently admitted in an uncovered email thread to having sought to conspire with Julius Assange’s Wikileaks to obtain 33,000 hacked Clinton emails from Russian sources and implicated backer Rebekah Mercer in the process by CCing her into the emails.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-data-guru-i-tried-to-team-up-with-julian-assange

Closer to home, Donald Trump is reported to have turned on his own son-in-law Jared Kushner and blamed him for offering bad political advice over the firings of Michael Flynn and FBI director James Comey.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-jared-jushner-russia-investigation-meeting-us-president-robert-mueller-a8033181.html

Jared Kushner in turn is reported to be cooperating with the Mueller team, and is supplying documents to them about the Comey firing in particular.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/02/politics/jared-kushner-robert-mueller-documents-russia-investigation/index.html

[zetreque]

And if you haven't seen already, here is a nifty graphic to follow along.

Here’s what we know so far about Team Trump’s ties to Russian interests
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/trump-russia/
Published March 31, 2017.
Updated Oct. 30, 2017

[toucana]

Right on cue for Thanksgiving, Michael Flynn’s lawyers have withdrawn from sharing any more information with Donald Trump’s legal team.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/us/politics/flynn-mueller-russia-trump.html?_r=0

This comes only a day after Rachel Maddow disclosed on her Wednesday night MSNBC show that Trump’s advisors had preemptively announced that former NSA Michael Flynn would not receive any money from a new legal defence fund for staffers that was being rolled out in Trump’s name.

It also comes just a week after the curious disappearance of Reza Zarrab who failed to appear in a Miami courtroom for his own trial on money laundering charges.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/who-is-reza-zarrab-turkish-iranian-gold-trader-may-be-working-with-mueller-investigation-of-michael-flynn-1.4409930

Reza Zarrab is a gold trader and financier of dual Turkish/Iranian citizenship who is thought to be co-operating with Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller as a key witness against Michael Flynn.

Prosecutors already had testimony from former CIA director James Woolsey who says he attended a meeting with Flynn and representatives of the Turkish government to discuss the kidnapping and illegal rendition of exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen who was living in Pennsylvania USA. It now appears that Reza Zarrab can testify that Michael Flynn accepted a $15 million bribe to expedite this plot.

Commentators believe that Michael Flynn has cut a plea-deal with the Special Prosecutor that will incriminate either Jared Kushner or Donald Trump - (or both).

A separate report in Vanity Fair suggests Robert Mueller is also investigating the extraordinary closed-door meeting between Donald Trump and the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov at the White House on 10 May 2017 when Trump boasted about having just fired FBI Director James Comey, then inexplicably disclosed highly sensitive details of a top secret Israeli intelligence operation against ISIS that had been given to US intelligence officials on an ‘eyes only’ basis.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/trump-intel-slip

This could be legally construed as something very close to treason in the minds of some prosecutors.

[Mossling]

[TheVat]

President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the F.B.I. about conversations with the Russian ambassador last December during the presidential transition, bringing the special counsel’s investigation into the president’s inner circle.

Mr. Flynn, who appeared in federal court in Washington, acknowledged that he was cooperating with the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russian interference in the 2016 election. His plea agreement suggests that Mr. Flynn provided information to prosecutors, which may help advance the inquiry...

-- NYT, Dec. 1, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/us/politics/michael-flynn-guilty-russia-investigation.html

Zippadee-doo-dah!

[toucana]

Special prosecutor Robert Mueller has subpoenaed financial records on transactions and accounts involving Donald Trump and members of his family from the German Deutsche Bank according to reports by Reuters and the German newspaper Handelsblatt.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-deutsche-bank/deutsche-bank-gets-subpoena-from-mueller-on-trump-accounts-source-idUSKBN1DZ0XN

Sources say that the subpeonas were issued several weeks ago. The Deutsche Bank had previously refused to pass such information to Democrat members of Congressional committees who had asked for it in June.

The Deutsche Bank had previously been almost unique in continuing to extend loans to Donald Trump’s business empire in the early 2000s at a time when most other major American and European banks had refused to do so because they considered Trump to be a bad credit risk.

A U.S. official with knowledge of Mueller’s probe said one reason for the subpoenas was to find out whether Deutsche Bank may have sold some of Trump’s mortgage or other loans to Russian state development bank VEB or other Russian banks that now are under U.S. and European Union sanctions.

Holding such debt, particularly if some of it was or is coming due, could potentially give Russian banks some leverage over Trump, especially if they are state-owned, said a second U.S. official familiar with Russian intelligence methods.

One obvious question is why Trump and those around him expressed interest in improving relations with Russia as a top foreign policy priority, and whether or not any personal considerations played any part in that,” the second official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Financial disclosure forms released in June by the US Office of Government Ethics show that Trump had liabilities of at least $130 million to Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, a unit of the German bank.

The Deutsche debts include a loan exceeding $50 million for the Old Post Office, a historic property he redeveloped in downtown Washington, mortgages worth more than $55 million on a golf course in Florida, and a $25 million-plus loan on a Trump hotel and condominium in Chicago, the disclosure shows.

All of those loans were taken out in 2012 and will mature in 2023 and 2024, according to the disclosure.

In January, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $630 million in fines for organizing $10 billion in sham trades that could have been used to launder money out of Russia.

Anton Zurcher the BBC News North America reporter says that the subpoenas could provoke a high stakes showdown between the Special Prosecutor and Donald Trump.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42240588

The President had previously indicated in a July 9 interview that he would regard any move to investigate his own private financial affairs or tax records as the crossing of a red line.

[toucana]

Rather bizarrely, Reuters now report that one of Donald Trump's lawyers Jay Sekulow has directly denied to them that any subpoena has been served on Deutsche Bank to obtain his client's financial records, and that he is calling the story 'fake news'

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKBN1DZ2WT

Given that the same story has been independently reported by Reuters, BBC and the well respected German business newspaper Handelsblatt based in Düsseldorf, this is getting rather surreal.

https://global.handelsblatt.com/finance/muellers-trump-russia-investigation-engulfs-deutsche-bank-861185

[toucana]

The New York based Bloomberg news agency have the same story as well.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2017-12-06/mueller-said-to-subpoena-deutsche-bank-video

[Mossling]

[zetreque]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/03/opinion/billy-bush-trump-access-hollywood-tape.html

In the days, weeks and months to follow, I was highly critical of the idea of a Trump presidency. The man who once told me — ironically, in another off-camera conversation — after I called him out for inflating his ratings: “People will just believe you. You just tell them and they believe you,” was, I thought, not a good choice to lead our country.

And if you get the time you should look up the full colbert billy bush interview on youtube.

[someguy1]

You guys are funny. This Peter Strzok story is exposing the FBI as the corrupt, partisan organization it is. Strzok interviewed Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, who lied to him about knowing about Hillary's email server. The FBI didn't prosecute them for lying to the FBI. Strzok is the same person who interviewed Flynn, and the FBI did prosecute Flynn for lying.

Strzok is the person who changed the wording of Hillary's misdeeds from "grossly negligent," which is a crime, to "extremely careless," which isn't.

Strzok is a Hillary partisan who exchanged anti-Trump email messages with his FBI lawyer girlfriend. Mueller demoted Strzok and sent him off to the FBI human resources department, then failed to disclose that information to the House intelligence committee. Committee chair Devin Nunes is about to hold the DOJ in contempt for its stonewalling of his investigation of the uranium matter.

When push comes to shove in any move against Trump, the hard righties and the hard lefties will already have their minds made up. But the vast majority of Americans are fairminded people who will judge any charges and impeachment attempts on whether they believe there has been a fair and impartial investigation.

Mueller's got nothing and he's clearly running a highly politicized investigation. Nobody will stand for that.

[zetreque]

Oh geeze, here we go with Hillary again instead of focusing on the current nightmare into a future dystopia made reality.

[someguy1]

ps -- I forgot to mention that Strzok was the guy who recommended the investigation of Trump based on the fraudulent pee dossier which we now know was paid for by Hillary. This guy is a one man wrecking crew who made a fool out of Mueller. And this info is being reported in the NY Times and WaPo, not exactly Trump fans.

[zetreque]

Maybe the biggest crime Hillary ever committed was giving people an excuse to deny the current problems this country has.

[someguy1]

Maybe the biggest crime Hillary ever committed was giving people an excuse to deny the current problems this country has.

She did (and still does) represent the corruption of the system. Trump's election is a symptom of that. Perhaps you've inadvertently stumbled on the truth. Remember, Trump could not have been elected solely by the deplorables, who represent at best 30% of the electorate. Trump was elected by millions of independent-minded centrists who have simply had enough of the corruption.

[TheVat]

ps -- I forgot to mention that Strzok was the guy who recommended the investigation of Trump based on the fraudulent pee dossier which we now know was paid for by Hillary. This guy is a one man wrecking crew who made a fool out of Mueller. And this info is being reported in the NY Times and WaPo, not exactly Trump fans.

I'm having trouble, as one of those Independent Americans, understanding what difference it makes who funded the Steele dossier. The GOP initiated the research, as public records show, and then handed it over to the DNC. Wow, campaigns run oppo research - what a shocker! We've had this chat before.

The key question, for me, is of the veracity of Steele's findings. As various lines of investigation appear to find unsavory Russian connections, I would say the dossier appears to be have more validity than it did, not less. I couldn't care less who peed on who, but I think Russians holding Deutschebank bank debts of Trump's, or dealing between Kushner, Flynn, Page, Manafort, et al. with the Russian government before Trump took office....yeah, might be worth looking into. Mueller is doing his job, as an independent counsel. Comparing Flynn's crimes to Huma Abedin might be a false equivalency. Treasonous actions with a hostile foreign power seem worth taking seriously. Putin is not our nation's friend. And isn't it better to have Mueller, a man at the end of his career and thus less liable to respond to threats and pressure, looking into this, rather than another Trump shill? The whole point of a special ounsel (SEE Nixon Administration) is someone who is not friends with the party or parties being investigated.

[someguy1]

The key question, for me, is of the veracity of Steele's findings.

They're false. No evidence has been put forward to prove them.

[TheVat]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/06/us/politics/michael-flynn-russia-sanctions-ripped-up-whistleblower.html

Offered for your consideration.

[someguy1]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/06/us/politics/michael-flynn-russia-sanctions-ripped-up-whistleblower.html

Offered for your consideration.

Wasn't Flynn speaking on behalf of the president elect?

I didn't read the article but can you explain what the criminal act is? Mueller got Flynn to plead guilty to lying to the FBI, the same crime they got Martha Stewart on. What is the primary crime the NYT claims Flynn committed?

[TheVat]

I didn't read the article...

I mean no disrespect, but I simply cannot discuss this report with you unless you read it. I know you are someone who takes some pains to keep yourself informed, so I would not feel it's a good idea for me to do a bunch of copy/paste for you.

It seems apparent that Flynn had an economic stake in some nuclear power plant projects that would be advanced by the lifting of sanctions against Russia. I think the potential here is obvious, and given Flynn's being part of Trump's inner circle, it also affirms the importance of looking at all members of the team including Mr. I. O. Deutschebank Zillions himself.

If there is a paywall problem (I think NYT provides 10 free articles a month), I think it's likely this story will be picked up elsewhere fairly soon.

[TheVat]

CNN updated this about 10 minutes ago.....

Washington (CNN)

As President Donald Trump delivered his inaugural address, incoming-national security adviser Michael Flynn texted his former business colleague about a plan to join Russia and build nuclear reactors in the Middle East: The project was "good to go," he told them, according to a summary of a whistleblower's account provided by a lawmaker.

The business colleague who texted with Flynn later recounted that he also suggested sanctions against Russia would be "ripped up" as one of the administration's first acts, according to the whistleblower.

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, on Wednesday released his summary of the whistleblower's account detailing Flynn's conversations with colleagues as the Trump administration took power. The account provides the strongest claim yet that the administration was focused on unraveling the sanctions that President Barack Obama had just put in place and that Flynn had a personal motivation for doing so.

Flynn attempted to "manipulate the course of international nuclear policy for the financial gain of his business partners," and assured a business partner the US would relax sanctions once he worked in Trump's White House, Cummings wrote to House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-South Carolina....

But, hey, I trust Donald and he says Flynn's a nice guy.

[someguy1]

I mean no disrespect, but I simply cannot discuss this report with you unless you read it.

That's ok. Throw Flynn to the wolves, I don't care. When he was a FOX commentator I always thought he was a jerk. I'm not here to defend the guy. I just noted for the record that Mueller's investigation has been seriously compromised by obvious politicization. I'm aware there are dissenting points of view. I'm happy to leave it at that. I will check out the article when I get a chance, but my sense is that if Mueller had something substantive he wouldn't have charged Flynn with lying to the FBI, which is what the FBI does when they DON'T have a substantive case. Martha Stewart being the famous example.

ps. Ok I clicked on the NYT link and read as far as this: "... suggests that Mr. Flynn had a possible economic incentive for the United States to forge a closer relationship with Russia."

Ok Flynn had a financial incentive. Flynn. Not Trump. Flynn. I don't see that you've made your point. Did I miss something? If Trump told Flynn to protect Trump's financial interests that would be in the first paragraph, yes? Did they stick that way at the bottom? The video of Trump's hookers peeing on the bed? You really believe that happened? And that it was legitimate oppo research? That is something on which you and I will definitely need to agree to disagree.

pps -- I read the complete article. It totally falis to support your point. It's about Flynn, not Trump. And we already know that Trump intended to ease relations with Russia. He campaigned on that promise.

[someguy1]

Also from a legal standpoint the Strzok revelations may give Flynn a basis to withdraw his guilty plea. Mueller dismissed Strzok for exhibiting partisanship in the emails he sent to his girlfriend the FBI lawyer, who was also dismissed from the investigation. [Strzok's a married guy, and although it's irrelevant to the legal case, it doesn't help his reputation in the court of public opinion, where the fate of Trump will ultimately be litigated].

This could be construed in a court of law as exculpatory inforation, which the prosecution is required by law to turn over to the defense.

Instead, Meuller reassigned Strzok in August and the dismissal was not publicly known till the NYT and WaPo published the story just recently.

In addition, the House intelligence committee has had the DOJ and the FBI under subpoena for three months for information that would include Strzok's dismissal. The DOJ and FBI have been stonewalling the investigation for all this time.

Devin Nunes, chairman of the committee, is threatening to hold the FBI and the DOJ in contempt of Congress.

Under these circumstances, Flynn could argue that Mueller and the FBI and the DOJ have withheld exculpatory information. In a court of law, that's sufficient to throw out any conviction.

I love the tv show Law and Order. If this were a case on that show, Mueller's failure to disclose Strzok's dismissal for political bias would definitely be a plot point.

I have been clicking around and I see that the liberal outlets are already claiming that this is all just the right wing's attempt to "smear" Strzok. Personally I think Strzok's smeared himself. He didn't need right wing help to come off as a sleazy corrupt prosecutor. But I'll stipulate that the left are already pushing that talking point, and some of them might even believe it.

ps -- Oh this is good. Mueller has a history of withholding exculpatory evidence

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/20 ... sing-ethi/

As I was saying earlier, my larger point is that Trump's fate will ultimately be decided in the court of public opinion and not in a court of law. Mueller can indict him, but it's the public who will decide whether that indictment is legitimate. Appearances matter.

[toucana]

someguy1 wrote:

my sense is that if Mueller had something substantive he wouldn't have charged Flynn with lying to the FBI, which is what the FBI does when they DON'T have a substantive case.

Charging Flynn with lying to the FBI is rather like charging a bank robber with having a broken tail-light on his get-away car. It's a technical legal device to establish that a plea-deal is in place, one that leaves plenty of room for 'superseding indictments' in respect of other evidence that hasn't yet been presented - (If you are unsure what a 'superseding indictment' is then you might want to look it up. It's one of those slightly obscure legal terms like 'misprision of a felony' that is about to get a lot more exposure in coming weeks).

Mueller isn't primarily interested in convicting Flynn right now for the full repertoire of all the offences he might possibly have been able to indict him for. The Special Counsel's office are a lot more interested in using the testimony of Flynn as a cooperating witness to gain information about possible criminal behaviour of other persons slightly higher up this particular criminal food-chain.

If you are a fan of Law & Order, then you ought to know that this is how prosecutors normally bring down mobsters, pimps and racketeers. You start with the low-hanging fruit, pick them off one-by-one and then offer them plea-deals to lesser charges than the ones they are actually guilty of in order to gain their cooperation in bringing criminal charges against their top echelon criminal superiors.

In case you didn't read that far down the recent press articles, *four* people have been indicted so far by Robert Mueller, and two of them have already pleaded guilty. Yet another (Paul Manafort) has also been caught red-handed violating his bail conditions by conspiring with a Russian proxy to plant an op-ed newspaper article that was intended to taint the jury pool in his forthcoming trial.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/prosecutors-manafort-wrote-op-ed-with-colleague-in-russia/2017/12/04/e8deec4e-d93f-11e7-a241-0848315642d0_story.html?utm_term=.22ad03eaff3e

By some accounts there are as many as seventeen sealed indictments waiting in the court calendars of the legal districts where Mueller's Grand jurys have been operating. There is plenty more news on this to come.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-y7R63vrNR82QONXB8KodSHSXg_IvveR/view

[TheVat]

Readers should be aware that the piece posted by SG, from the right-wing Washington Times, is an opinion article, not a news report, and the opinion belongs to an arch-Conservative who was recently president of the NRA (2011-2013).

As for the breaking news on Flynn, how many scams does Mueller need to dig up before the moderates wake up and smell the corruption?

10 minutes into the Trump presidency Flynn was ready to lift Russian sanctions and broker a nuclear energy deal with the Russians. What seems improbable to me is that Gameshow McPussygrabber would NOT be involved. Especially when he has hundreds of millions in debt. Sure, let's wait and see, due process and all that. But given the dozens of shady deals in Trump's career that are now public record (see Trump U., e.g.), it certainly seems worthwhile to keep digging.

[someguy1]

Readers should be aware that the piece posted by SG, from the right-wing Washington Times, is an opinion article, not a news report, and the opinion belongs to an arch-Conservative who was recently president of the NRA (2011-2013).

That was the ps to my post. I acknowledge that it was from the Washington Times, a second-tier source.

No comment on the rest of it, straight from the NYT and WaPo?

If you are a fan of Law & Order, then you ought to know that this is how prosecutors normally bring down mobsters, pimps and racketeers. You start with the low-hanging fruit, pick them off one-by-one and then offer them plea-deals to lesser charges than the ones they are actually guilty of in order to gain their cooperation in bringing criminal charges against their top echelon criminal superiors.

What you DON'T do is get the underlings to plead guilty to lying. Because when they eventually get on the witness stand, the defense counsel simply asks them, "Were you lying then? Or are you lying now? Or are you not in fact a chronic and habitual LIAR!" [Charles Laughton in Witness for the prosecution]

Imagine General Flynn getting this treatment in open court:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4NJ8zJUlWU

Alan Dershowitz made this same point. He noted that the last thing a prosecutor wants is for his star witness to be a convicted liar.

[toucana]

Try this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-the-mueller-probe-isnt-politically-motivated/2017/12/01/10d2a0c4-d611-11e7-b62d-d9345ced896d_story.html?utm_term=.d444e23f584f

Dershowitz does not have access to the FBI files that led that agency to conclude a criminal investigation was warranted. He does not have access to the confidential grand jury materials and testimony being assembled by Mueller and his team. Yet he feels confident proclaiming that there is no basis for a prosecution and that Mueller’s investigation represents the criminalization of politics. We don’t know where Mueller’s investigation will ultimately lead. But given his lack of access to investigative information, it’s hard to see Dershowitz’s claim as anything more than a version of the reflexive tactic defense attorneys use in every public corruption case.

Given that Dershowitz has previously assured viewers of Fox News on equally non-existent grounds that Steve Bannon is not a racist nor anti-semitic, that a president cannot possibly do anything illegal in the discharge of his duties, and that Trump is entirely right to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel - I really don't feel under any obligation to pay attention to a word he says. He's a paid right-wing shill.

[TheVat]

Readers should be aware that the piece posted by SG, from the right-wing Washington Times, is an opinion article, not a news report, and the opinion belongs to an arch-Conservative who was recently president of the NRA (2011-2013).

That was the ps to my post. I acknowledge that it was from the Washington Times, a second-tier source.

No comment on the rest of it, straight from the NYT and WaPo?

There's been enough posting that I am not sure what you mean by "the rest of it." Sorry, I've been busy elsewhere. Is there specific evidence in those papers that Mueller is barking up the wrong tree, or that he is ignoring exculpatory evidence?

You can take my position as a simple one: when so many in Trump's circle have unsavory connections to the Kremlin and/or Russian businesses, is it really plausible that Trump is just an innocent bystander to all this, and not himself involved? I could be misreading you here, but it seems to me that if Hillary was surrounded by this much malfeasance, you would be heating up a big pot of tar and holding a bag of feathers.