Сделаем Америку снова великой! Trump - Russia megathread

[Skjellyfetti]

A court filing from special counsel Robert Mueller signals that Rick Gates may be assisting the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election beyond the case against Paul Manafort.

In a filing Thursday, Mueller's team said it wanted to keep a discussion between trial attorneys and Judge T.S. Ellis regarding a question to Gates secret because the transcript of the conversation would "reveal details of the ongoing investigation."

When Gates pleaded guilty and flipped on Manafort in February, he also agreed to help the special counsel with its investigation into Russian election interference as he was needed. It's unclear how he has aided the special counsel's probe beyond the Manafort case, but Gates was a deputy to Manafort on the Trump campaign and worked on the transition and presidential inauguration.

The still-secret conversation occurred Tuesday afternoon in the middle of Gates' testimony against Manafort, who served as Trump's campaign chairman in 2016.

During the discussion -- one of many during a trial, often called a "sidebar conference" in court lingo -- the prosecutors now say they discussed "new" details about their "ongoing criminal investigation" into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign.

"Disclosing the identified transcript portions would reveal substantive evidence pertaining to an ongoing investigation ... In addition, sealing will minimize any risk of prejudice from the disclosure of new information relating to that ongoing investigation," the special counsel's team wrote in a court filing Thursday. "The government's concerns would continue until the relevant aspect of the investigation is revealed publicly, if that were to occur."

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/09/politics ... eedfetcher

Special counsel Robert Mueller will reportedly soon issue a subpoena targeting Randy Credico, the associate of informal Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone who was his alleged connection to Wikileaks during the 2016 election, to force an interview with his office.

MSNBC's Ari Melber reported Thursday afternoon on his show, "The Beat with Ari Melber," that Mueller's office had "indicated" it planned to subpoena Credico and force an interview. The special counsel investigation continues to target associates of Stone, a longtime adviser and friend of President Trump.

Melber reported that "a direct source with knowledge of the special counsel's outreach" had confirmed the move, which is expected to occur in the coming days.

The move comes a day after Credico told Melber on his program that Mueller had previously requested a voluntary interview, which Credico said he declined.

"They didn’t call me in, they showed up and they asked me to come in and do an in-person voluntary interview," Credico told MSNBC on Wednesday. "They asked me if I would like to do — we set up a conversation with somebody from the Mueller team and they asked my lawyer if I would like to sit down and do a voluntary interview."

"And I said no," he said, adding that the interaction took place “five or six weeks ago."

Stone allegedly asked Credico to connect him with Wikileaks's founder Julian Assange in September 2016 hoping to gain dirt on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Attorneys with Mueller's office have also sought, in recent weeks, to question Kristin Davis, a former New York City prostitution mogul and a former employee of Stone, according to news reports.

Stone has claimed that the special counsel's office has not reached out to him directly, but contend that it is "possible" he will be indicted by Mueller's office for alleged crimes.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-secu ... ate-report

[Skjellyfetti]

Miller held in contempt.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/ ... k5&ampcf=1

[HI54UNI]

Did the judge make the prosecutor cry?

Judge T.S. Ellis’ campaign of critical and sassy comments directed toward the federal prosecutors in Paul Manafort’s tax and bank fraud case escalated to possibly making one of them cry.

“I understand how frustrated you are,” Ellis told Greg Andres, a member of the prosecutorial team. “In fact, there’s tears in your eyes right now,’’ Bloomberg reported, citing a trial transcript. Andres said he wasn’t crying, to which Ellis responded: “Well, they’re watery.”

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/201 ... rying.html

[GannonFan]

Did the judge make the prosecutor cry?

Judge T.S. Ellis’ campaign of critical and sassy comments directed toward the federal prosecutors in Paul Manafort’s tax and bank fraud case escalated to possibly making one of them cry.

“I understand how frustrated you are,” Ellis told Greg Andres, a member of the prosecutorial team. “In fact, there’s tears in your eyes right now,’’ Bloomberg reported, citing a trial transcript. Andres said he wasn’t crying, to which Ellis responded: “Well, they’re watery.”

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/201 ... rying.html

Although the judge in this case is a bit of a loon, this has been a messy first big trial for the Mueller team, on something that should've been a slam dunk. Gates looks like damaged goods, and it's hard to believe they'll get anything out of Manafort after this. If this is a sign of how they'll perform going forward it doesn't bode well for them being able to reel in any big fish.

[Skjellyfetti]

A cooperating witness is almost by definition damaged goods.

[GannonFan]

A cooperating witness is almost by definition damaged goods.

Puts a damper on all the potential witness flipping you've been touting then, eh?

[93henfan]

Did the judge make the prosecutor cry?

Judge T.S. Ellis’ campaign of critical and sassy comments directed toward the federal prosecutors in Paul Manafort’s tax and bank fraud case escalated to possibly making one of them cry.

“I understand how frustrated you are,” Ellis told Greg Andres, a member of the prosecutorial team. “In fact, there’s tears in your eyes right now,’’ Bloomberg reported, citing a trial transcript. Andres said he wasn’t crying, to which Ellis responded: “Well, they’re watery.”

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/201 ... rying.html

Although the judge in this case is a bit of a loon, this has been a messy first big trial for the Mueller team, on something that should've been a slam dunk. Gates looks like damaged goods, and it's hard to believe they'll get anything out of Manafort after this. If this is a sign of how they'll perform going forward it doesn't bode well for them being able to reel in any big fish.

No worries. Mueller's got this.

[Skjellyfetti]

No. Not really.

Huge swaths of federal cases have cooperating witnesses that had to plead guilty to crimes. The best defense against their testimony is attacking their credibility - which, their guilty pleas to federal crimes lends itself to. It's rarely successful. See Enron as a high profile example.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/sto ... Id=5253407


It's not going to work in this case either. Manafort is cooked.

In a week or two you'll be back here saying it was always obvious and you never doubted it.

[GannonFan]

No. Not really.

Huge swaths of federal cases have cooperating witnesses that had to plead guilty to crimes. The best defense against their testimony is attacking their credibility - which, their guilty pleas to federal crimes lends itself to. It's rarely successful. See Enron as a high profile example.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/sto ... Id=5253407


It's not going to work in this case either. Manafort is cooked.

In a week or two you'll be back here saying it was always obvious and you never doubted it.

Manafort has been cooked for awhile now. Once all that Ukraine stuff from years ago came out it was a sure thing. In the bigger picture, though, there's still nothing that reels in the bigger fish, and certainly nothing that gets close to or including Trump. If Manafort (along with Gates and Flynn) are the big prizes from all of this, and with almost all of the naughty stuff they did related to things that happened long before the 2016 election (Flynn was certainly more recent) then the Mueller investigation will certainly go down in history as, at a minimum, a waste, and at worst a precedent setting partisan hack job. Trump's a buffoon, but we're setting ourselves up for continual investigations of future administrations, from the start of those administrations, if we're not careful, as some type of partisan tit-for-tat. If Mueller goes as long as he seems he'll go and never gets much further than this then that's a bad thing.

[93henfan]

And all the small fish will be promptly pardoned if they were loyal to POTUS.

[SDHornet]

So Steele is tied in with some Russians now...interesting...


Side note and not related to this thread, but York was investigated by Twitter for a violation of "abusive speech code" after posting the link to the article in the Tweet above...hmmmm...

[SDHornet]

And from earlier in the week:

Would be interesting to see if Assange actually lives long enough to testify in front of Congress if he plans to do so...

[Skjellyfetti]

A GOP operative who told reporters that he sought personally to obtain Hillary Clinton's personal emails deleted from her private email server made several cash withdrawals around the time of those efforts deemed "suspicious" by his bank.

BuzzFeed News reports that Northern Trust received a subpoena from the FBI on behalf of Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation to look into the transactions made by Peter Smith, a Republican activist who told The Wall Street Journal last year that he had independently sought Clinton's emails. Smith committed suicide shortly after the claim.

The bank investigated nine accounts controlled by Smith and reported 88 suspicious withdrawals of cash totaling about $140,000 that occurred between January 2016 and April 2017.
One of those suspicious transactions, according to BuzzFeed, was a $3,000 cash withdrawal days after the election. The bank deemed the withdrawals suspicious because it could not ascertain their purposes and because they occurred during the time of his supposedly independent efforts to obtain Clinton's emails.

Smith told the Journal last year that his operation was in contact with several hacker groups, including two that he personally suspected of being tied to the Russian government.

The bank has submitted the report of Smith's transactions to Mueller's investigation, as well as the Treasury Department's financial crimes unit and the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is conducting an ongoing investigation into Russian election interference.

Several sources added to BuzzFeed that Mueller's team is investigating whether Smith was in contact with former national security adviser and Trump campaign official Michael Flynn, who left the White House last year and plead guilty to lying to investigators about his foreign contacts.

Smith's financial transactions, the sources said, are key to determining whether Flynn assisted Smith in his operation to obtain the stolen emails.

Mueller's campaign has indicted dozens of Russian nationals for an alleged effort to spread stolen emails and spread disinformation during the 2016 campaign, but has not yet charged any Americans with aiding their effort.

Several former members of the Trump campaign have also been indicted for a slew of charges unrelated to 2016 election interference, including former campaign chair Paul Manafort, who faces trial this week.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-secu ... empting-to

[HI54UNI]

A GOP operative who told reporters that he sought personally to obtain Hillary Clinton's personal emails deleted from her private email server made several cash withdrawals around the time of those efforts deemed "suspicious" by his bank.

BuzzFeed News reports that Northern Trust received a subpoena from the FBI on behalf of Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation to look into the transactions made by Peter Smith, a Republican activist who told The Wall Street Journal last year that he had independently sought Clinton's emails. Smith committed suicide shortly after the claim.

The bank investigated nine accounts controlled by Smith and reported 88 suspicious withdrawals of cash totaling about $140,000 that occurred between January 2016 and April 2017.
One of those suspicious transactions, according to BuzzFeed, was a $3,000 cash withdrawal days after the election. The bank deemed the withdrawals suspicious because it could not ascertain their purposes and because they occurred during the time of his supposedly independent efforts to obtain Clinton's emails.

Smith told the Journal last year that his operation was in contact with several hacker groups, including two that he personally suspected of being tied to the Russian government.

The bank has submitted the report of Smith's transactions to Mueller's investigation, as well as the Treasury Department's financial crimes unit and the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is conducting an ongoing investigation into Russian election interference.

Several sources added to BuzzFeed that Mueller's team is investigating whether Smith was in contact with former national security adviser and Trump campaign official Michael Flynn, who left the White House last year and plead guilty to lying to investigators about his foreign contacts.

Smith's financial transactions, the sources said, are key to determining whether Flynn assisted Smith in his operation to obtain the stolen emails.

Mueller's campaign has indicted dozens of Russian nationals for an alleged effort to spread stolen emails and spread disinformation during the 2016 campaign, but has not yet charged any Americans with aiding their effort.

Several former members of the Trump campaign have also been indicted for a slew of charges unrelated to 2016 election interference, including former campaign chair Paul Manafort, who faces trial this week.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-secu ... empting-to

A now dead guy took cash out of his bank account. That convinced me! Time to impeach!

[houndawg]

No. Not really.

Huge swaths of federal cases have cooperating witnesses that had to plead guilty to crimes. The best defense against their testimony is attacking their credibility - which, their guilty pleas to federal crimes lends itself to. It's rarely successful. See Enron as a high profile example.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/sto ... Id=5253407


It's not going to work in this case either. Manafort is cooked.

In a week or two you'll be back here saying it was always obvious and you never doubted it.

Manafort has been cooked for awhile now. Once all that Ukraine stuff from years ago came out it was a sure thing. In the bigger picture, though, there's still nothing that reels in the bigger fish, and certainly nothing that gets close to or including Trump. If Manafort (along with Gates and Flynn) are the big prizes from all of this, and with almost all of the naughty stuff they did related to things that happened long before the 2016 election (Flynn was certainly more recent) then the Mueller investigation will certainly go down in history as, at a minimum, a waste, and at worst a precedent setting partisan hack job. Trump's a buffoon, but we're setting ourselves up for continual investigations of future administrations, from the start of those administrations, if we're not careful, as some type of partisan tit-for-tat. If Mueller goes as long as he seems he'll go and never gets much further than this then that's a bad thing.

Partisan tit for tat you say?

Did Mueller or Rosenstein switch parties? Help me out here I guess I haven't been keeping up...

[Skjellyfetti]

A now dead guy took cash out of his bank account. That convinced me! Time to impeach!

A guy that offed himself after his story was published in the WSJ.





Imagine an alternate universe where... in 2010... Susan Rice had already plead guilty to lying to federal agents, David Plouffe plead guilty and was a cooperating witness in a trial against David Axelrod that could see Axelrod spending the rest of his life in prison.

[Ibanez]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/08 ... ealed.html

FBI official Peter Strzok, who played a lead role in both the Russian meddling and Hillary Clinton email probes but became a political lightning rod after the revelation of anti-Trump text messages, has been fired.

Strzok attorney Aitan Goelman said in a statement Monday that his client, a 21-year FBI veteran, was fired Friday afternoon, claiming this was a departure from standard practice and politically motivated. Goelman said bureau Deputy Director David Bowdich “overruled” the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility to remove him.

[SeattleGriz]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/08 ... ealed.html

FBI official Peter Strzok, who played a lead role in both the Russian meddling and Hillary Clinton email probes but became a political lightning rod after the revelation of anti-Trump text messages, has been fired.

Strzok attorney Aitan Goelman said in a statement Monday that his client, a 21-year FBI veteran, was fired Friday afternoon, claiming this was a departure from standard practice and politically motivated. Goelman said bureau Deputy Director David Bowdich “overruled” the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility to remove him.

Politically motivated, puhleaze. No bias here, just like Strzok's actions.

[kalm]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/08 ... ealed.html

Politically motivated, puhleaze. No bias here, just like Strzok's actions.

There are plenty of conservatives who feel exactly the same way about Trump.

[CID1990]

I worked with more than a few preening cvnts in law enforcement just like Strzwczock

He's not fooling anybody inside the building

his new gofundme will work out well for him, though




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JohnStOnge]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/08 ... ealed.html

Politically motivated, puhleaze. No bias here, just like Strzok's actions.

I think that Strzok's dismissal was indeed politically motivated. I think I understand why the FBI had to do it. But I think the political atmosphere precipitated the action to override the decision of the internal body.

And as far as actions go: One of the findings of the IG's report was that there was no indication in what Strzok actually DID that bias impacted what he did professionally. In this case the FBI actually DID something to suggest there were political considerations.

I'm not saying political considerations weren't reasonable in this case. But it'd be hard to argue that there weren't political considerations.

[CID1990]

Politically motivated, puhleaze. No bias here, just like Strzok's actions.

I think that Strzok's dismissal was indeed politically motivated. I think I understand why the FBI had to do it. But I think the political atmosphere precipitated the action to override the decision of the internal body.

And as far as actions go: One of the findings of the IG's report was that there was no indication in what Strzok actually DID that bias impacted what he did professionally. In this case the FBI actually DID something to suggest there were political considerations.

I'm not saying political considerations weren't reasonable in this case. But it'd be hard to argue that there weren't political considerations.

Since you don't understand the workings of LE agencies, I'll clue you in

Any time you put something out there that impugns the integrity of the organization - even in perception - you open yourself to discipline, period.

If Stzrzcwcx's texts had been about a RICO case involving some gangster, he'd have been on the hook for two things - 1) the defense attorney would be able to impeach any criminal case, and b) his security clearance would be jeopardized by his affair with the "dont go loaded for bear" lawyer gal.

The FBI bureaucracy would have fired him much more quickly than it actually happened here... precisely because of the perception of political motivation that exists in this case

Dont weep for him, JSO- he has his retirement, bennies, GoFundMe, and inevitable victim's tell all book on the horizon


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JohnStOnge]

I think that Strzok's dismissal was indeed politically motivated. I think I understand why the FBI had to do it. But I think the political atmosphere precipitated the action to override the decision of the internal body.

And as far as actions go: One of the findings of the IG's report was that there was no indication in what Strzok actually DID that bias impacted what he did professionally. In this case the FBI actually DID something to suggest there were political considerations.

I'm not saying political considerations weren't reasonable in this case. But it'd be hard to argue that there weren't political considerations.

Since you don't understand the workings of LE agencies, I'll clue you in

Any time you put something out there that impugns the integrity of the organization - even in perception - you open yourself to discipline, period.

If Stzrzcwcx's texts had been about a RICO case involving some gangster, he'd have been on the hook for two things - 1) the defense attorney would be able to impeach any criminal case, and b) his security clearance would be jeopardized by his affair with the "dont go loaded for bear" lawyer gal.

The FBI bureaucracy would have fired him much more quickly than it actually happened here... precisely because of the perception of political motivation that exists in this case

Dont weep for him, JSO- he has his retirement, bennies, GoFundMe, and inevitable victim's tell all book on the horizon


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm not weeping for him. For one thing he is very well aware of the Hatch Act. I said I think I understand why the FBI had to do this. I'm just saying I think political considerations were involved here. It's not a question of whether or not there would be discipline. The internal entity did recommend discipline. But the FBI went beyond the discipline recommended by the internal entity.

Do you not think political/public perception considerations were involved?

[SeattleGriz]

Since you don't understand the workings of LE agencies, I'll clue you in

Any time you put something out there that impugns the integrity of the organization - even in perception - you open yourself to discipline, period.

If Stzrzcwcx's texts had been about a RICO case involving some gangster, he'd have been on the hook for two things - 1) the defense attorney would be able to impeach any criminal case, and b) his security clearance would be jeopardized by his affair with the "dont go loaded for bear" lawyer gal.

The FBI bureaucracy would have fired him much more quickly than it actually happened here... precisely because of the perception of political motivation that exists in this case

Dont weep for him, JSO- he has his retirement, bennies, GoFundMe, and inevitable victim's tell all book on the horizon


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm not weeping for him. For one thing he is very well aware of the Hatch Act. I said I think I understand why the FBI had to do this. I'm just saying I think political considerations were involved here. It's not a question of whether or not there would be discipline. The internal entity did recommend discipline. But the FBI went beyond the discipline recommended by the internal entity.

Do you not think political/public perception considerations were involved?

Yes. Fucking guy was a stain on the FBI.

Happy?

[CID1990]

Yes, I said as much -

his firing took much longer than it would have under normal circumstances - because of political/public perception considerations


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