Posted on 04/30/2019 12:38:48 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Let the games begin! House Intelligence chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) told the Washington Post’s Robert Costa that he will make a criminal referral to the Department of Justice against Erik Prince for perjury. At issue is Prince’s testimony to his committee that a meeting in the Seychelles with a Russian financier was unplanned, while Prince’s testimony to special-counsel investigators suggest it was planned:
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that his panel would make a criminal referral to the Justice Department regarding potential false testimony by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of the private military contractor Blackwater and an ally of President Trump.
“The evidence is so weighty that the Justice Department needs to consider this,” Schiff said during a Washington Post Live event. …
“We know from the Mueller report that that was not a chance meeting,” Schiff told Post reporter Robert Costa during an interview at the event. “We know there were communications after he returned.”
“In very materials ways I think the evidence strongly suggests that he willingly mislead our committee and the Justice Department needs to consider whether there’s a prosecutable case,” Schiff added.
The collapse of the Russia-collusion hypothesis doesn’t necessarily mean the end of legal liability for some of the peripheral players in the conspiracy theories. Now that House Democrats have read Robert Mueller’s report, they have the opportunity to see where witness testimony contradicts that give to committees paralleling the special counsel investigation. Based on the report, Prince might end up being low-hanging fruit, at least theoretically. The Seychelles meeting not only doesn’t appear unplanned but looks carefully coordinated for Prince — planned specifically for Prince by UAE adviser George Nader:
Dmitriev undertook efforts to meet members of the incoming Trump Administration in the months after the election. Dmitriev asked a close business associate who worked for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) royal court, George Nader, to introduce him to Trump transition officials, and Nader eventually arranged a meeting in the Seychelles between Dmitriev and Erik Prince, a Trump Campaign supporter and an associate of Steve Bannon. …
Nader traveled to New York in early January 2017 and had lunchtime and dinner meetings with Erik Prince on January 3, 2017. Nader and Prince discussed Dmitriev. Nader informed Prince that the Russians were looking to build a link with the incoming Trump Administration. [redacted] he told Prince that Dmitriev had been pushing Nader to introduce him to someone from the incoming Administration [redacted]. Nader suggested, in light of Prince’s relationship with Transition Team officials, that Prince and Dmitriev meet to discuss issues of mutual concern. [redacted] Prince told Nader that he needed to think further about it and to check with Transition Team officials.
After his dinner with Prince, Nader sent Prince a link to a Wikipedia entry about Dmitriev, and sent Dmitriev a message stating that he had just met “with some key people within the family and inner circle”- a reference to Prince-and that he had spoken at length and positively about Dmitriev. Nader told Dmitriev that the people he met had asked for Dmitriev’s bio, and Dmitriev replied that he would update and send it. Nader later received from Dmitriev two files concerning Dmitriev: one was a two-page biography, and the other was a list of Dmitriev’s positive quotes about Donald Trump.
The next morning, Nader forwarded the message and attachments Dmitriev had sent him to Prince. Nader wrote to Prince that these documents were the versions “to be used with some additional details for them” (with “them” referring to members of the incoming Administration). Prince opened the attachments at Trump Tower within an hour of receiving them. Prince stated that, while he was at Trump Tower that day, he spoke with Kellyanne Conway, Wilbur Ross, Steve Mnuchin, and others while waiting to see Bannon. Cell-site location data for Prince’s mobile phone indicates that Prince remained at Trump Tower for approximately three hours. Prince said that he could not recall whether, during those three hours, he met with Bannon and discussed Dmitriev with him. [redacted]
Prince booked a ticket to the Seychelles on January 7, 2017. The following day, Nader wrote to Dmitriev that he had a “pleasant surprise” for him, namely that he had arranged for Dmitriev to meet “a Special Guest” from “the New Team,” referring to Prince. Nader asked Dmitriev if he could come to the Seychelles for the meeting on January 12, 2017, and Dmitriev agreed.
If all that is true, and if Prince denied it in his testimony to Congress, he’s going to be in big trouble. However, there’s one other caveat to this. Prince talked to the special counsel investigators after his testimony to Congress. Did he get a grant of immunity or other conditions in his proffer that makes this testimony inadmissible in court? Schiff recognized the possibility:
Schiff noted Tuesday that if Prince gave the special counsel’s team information “under the condition it not be used against him, then being able to prove” that he lied to lawmakers “might be problematic.”
“In very materials ways I think the evidence strongly suggests that he willingly mislead our committee and the Justice Department needs to consider whether there’s a prosecutable case.”
If Schiff’s correct about Prince’s congressional testimony, then Prince would have to be an idiot not to cut such a deal before talking. Prince is anything but an idiot, so it seems unlikely that this material will be able to be used against him.
There’s another point to consider, too, which is a lack of action by Mueller against Prince. Mueller was not shy about prosecuting people for lying to Congress in this investigation, as Michael Cohen can testify chapter and verse. If this information didn’t come to Mueller through Prince and it contradicted Prince’s congressional testimony, why wouldn’t Mueller have charged Prince himself with perjury like he did with Cohen? Either it doesn’t actually contradict Prince’s testimony, or Mueller got it from Prince under some sort of proffer agreement. Either way, the DoJ won’t have a case to prosecute.
One final point: even if Prince lied, the actual meeting itself turned out to be a nothingburger for the Russia-collusion theory. Why Prince lied about this nothingburger is another matter, but the fact of the meeting itself didn’t amount to evidence of wrongdoing, which Mueller tacitly states in his overall conclusion. Schiff’s scoring points on Prince, perhaps justly if he lied in his testimony, but it’s a distraction to the overall point that this meeting didn’t matter anyway.
Legends are born and make everything around them seem ‘more than real’...
Damn straight.
I thought they gave Reagan a tough time.
Nah, #4. He’s useless and softer...
if that’s all he has against the man, he’s on very weak ground trying to get him prosecuted
one sentence could easily obviate any basis for perjury
(I knew the meeting was scheduled but I personally did not intend to discuss X or Y just Z and the weather report, so I did not plan to meet to deal with X)
or some such
easy as pie to finesse out of any perjury charge if that’s all the congress critter has....
any defense counsel could get the charge dismissed IF IT WERE EVER TO BE FILED, which I doubt (as only an incompetent or political hack type of prosecutor would even consider wasting time trying it)
“Adam is likely to wake up with a Columbian pencil necktie!”
Aw,,,,,give AFRICA some business...Import a MANDELA NECKLACE ?
With the cover of mass media and press, the DNC is now formally using the House and Trump investigation as pretext to persecute all political enemies of global socialist/marxism, and US dissolution.
We would be fortunate to survive this with just a civil war.
The American middle class is so wrapped up trying to work and survive financially, it may just continue to devolve toward genocide of Christians and liberty loving Americans.
They attack the DOJ and then want their help ,LOL , good luck
When does this house of cards fall?? when!
Hmmm... So now the mere suggestion of something is actionable... I assume that hitlary & friends are in deep do do... /s
George Nader is the one who should be investigated here.
Roger that.
You’re making an assumption not backed up with facts. Taking the story at face value, my first question would be: what was the reason for the trip on the 7th, (or later)? Is it possible that Prince had a business meeting scheduled for that time period that had nothing to do with Russia, Russia? The story says that Nader was attempting to put together a meeting on the 12th, but Prince had already booked a flight so it is reasonable to think that Prince was going there for another reason and that Nader was attempting to add the Russia meeting to Prince’s already scheduled meetings. Thus, if that was his testimony to the House, he did not lie. Mueller’s team knew what was testified to the House, (at least through the leaks that were legend after his testimony), so, the fact that he was not charged for false statements says a lot about the validity of the referral.
Schiff has a reading comprehension problem. And he also has a perjury to the American People problem. He made various public testifications (yes, I just made that word up) that he (and Swallwell) had irrefutable hard evidence of conspiracy. He hasn’t produced a single shred to the American People. He lied. And needs to be held accountable.
How about Bill Clinton and what’s her face?
A set up. Nadler thought he was as good as the FBI/CIA in doing a set up. Not.
Erik is providing another layer of security for Trump. Necessary. That is why the attack.
What's the "B" for? BeadyEyes?
BULL
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