Posted on 11/03/2017 5:31:19 PM PDT by markomalley
This morning’s Minneapolis Star Tribune reported, in a story that doesn’t seem to have gotten a lot of national attention, that William Mueller’s ever-widening investigation has ensnared Vin Weber, a former Minnesota Congressman and long-time Washington lobbyist:
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s grand jury is investigating a prominent Democratic lobbyist and a former Minnesota GOP congressman for their involvement in an influence campaign on behalf of Ukrainian interests tied to Paul Manafort, according to a person with direct knowledge of the investigation.
Mueller’s operation is leaking on a more or less daily basis. Isn’t that illegal? Aren’t grand jury proceedings supposed to be secret? Maybe the Attorney General should appoint a special counsel to look into possible crimes associated with leaks by Mueller’s staff.
With the emphasis on the Ukrainian lobbying efforts, Mueller’s criminal probe is moving beyond investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia and is aggressively pursuing people who worked as foreign agents without registering with the Justice Department.
But wait! Mueller’s investigation isn’t supposed to “move beyond investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.” The Order appointing Mueller empowers him to investigate “any links an or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and…any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.” It seems that the current focus of Mueller’s efforts is lobbying that was carried out on behalf of one of Ukraine’s political factions, or, more broadly, failure to register as a foreign agent with the Justice Department by anyone, at any time. This is not what Mueller was appointed to do.
FBI agents working for Mueller are asking witnesses about meetings between Gates, Podesta and Weber to discuss the lobbying work in detail and any communication with representatives of a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party, according to two people familiar with the interviews who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.
“There were questions about how much Podesta and Vin Weber were involved. There was a lot of interest there,” one of them said.
FBI agents also expressed interest in the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, which produced a 2012 report used to justify the jailing of an opposition politician in Ukraine.
Skadden Arps is one of America’s most prominent law firms. What does any of this have to do with purported collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, years later?
Both people said that investigators on Mueller’s team have asked about what the lobbyists knew about the source of the funding and who was directing the work in 2012 — long before Manafort became Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016.
I repeat: what does any of this have to do with the ostensible purpose of Mueller’s investigation?
According to Manafort’s indictment, he and Gates “engaged in weekly and at times daily calls and emails with (company 1 and company 2) to provide them directions as to specific lobbying steps that should be taken and to receive reports back as to the results of such lobbying.” The two firms were the Podesta Group and Mercury.
In addition, Manafort’s and Gates’ 2017 disclosure forms “misrepresented the relationship among (the Targets), the Ukrainian government, the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine (ECFMU), and two U.S. lobbying firms,” the government said.
This is interesting, more or less, but it is not what Mueller was directed to investigate.
Skadden’s involvement with Manafort stems from its production of a 2012 report downplaying the political motivations of the Ukrainian government in jailing an opposition leader, Yulia Tymoshenko.
The report, written by former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig, found that Tymoshenko’s trial was procedurally flawed but not marked by political persecution. The Ukrainian justice ministry officials who supposedly commissioned the report trumpeted it as proof that Tymoshenko was not a political prisoner.
And the 2012 report on “the political motivations of the Ukrainian government” relates to the Trump campaign’s alleged cooperation with Russian elements in the 2016 election…how?
The special counsel statute is a very poor idea, and Mueller’s implementation of it illustrates why. The job of a special counsel (or special prosecutor, as he was formerly called) is to hang scalps on the wall. Whose scalps, or why they were taken, is incidental at best. President Trump would be fully justified in firing Bill Mueller, but a better idea, in my opinion would be to appoint several more special counsel to look into various Democratic misdeeds. That would bring this whole farce to a screeching halt.
jaywalking, truancy, failure to vaccinate, just about anything he wants to and nothing that he does not want to see.
Weasel Mueller is investigating how exactly to GET TRUMP! .
this is such a farce and why it was allowed to begin let alone continue must point to the immense deep state power....
you guys are gonna be eatin’ so much crow, it’s gonna be like Crow-fil-A around here!
That is exactly how he is getting away with it. That one line more or less gave him free reign to look into anything and claim it came about as a result of the Trump/Russia investigation.
My understanding is that Mueller can request a broadening of his mandate by making the case to the Deputy AG (Rosenstein), and that the public would not necessarily be informed if this occurred. I am not saying this did happen, but that we might not know if it happened.
.. show me the man andI’ll find the crime.... so appropriate for the circumstances.
Digging for Dirt Hillary can use in the next Election
The "Mulehead" supporters on here are clearly the ones far out on a shaky limb, not the other way around.
President Trump would be fully justified in firing Bill Mueller, but a better idea, in my opinion would be to appoint several more special counsel to look into various Democratic misdeeds. That would bring this whole farce to a screeching halt.
That won’t be happening because Sessions has recused himself from all things “political” and the Democrats making that decision will never do it.
you guys are gonna be eatin’ so much crow, it’s gonna be like Crow-fil-A around here!
You’ll be hiding out when Mueller busts somebody close to Trump on a process “crime”. Guaranteed.
The 'Trump-Russia collusion' narrative is the fake store front for the Deep State closely monitoring our duly elected government until such time they CAN REGAIN FORMAL CONTROL OF IT.
Trump represents FORMAL CONTROL of our government.
The Deep State represents INFORMAL CONTROL of our government.
As we learned today via the Bergdahl case, the Deep State still controls segments of our military.
Oh yeah and, "FISH OR CUT BAIT, SESSIONS."
How about covering up dirt on Hillary and Obama?
Hey Big Bob, do you have a timeline in mind?
I’d like to get ahead of the dinner rush and make my reservation as early as possible :) Also... will dessert be on the menu?
Hiding out won't be good enough, they'll have to delete their user names for all the aid and comfort they've been providing the enemy. I'd love to be wrong of course, but they have been so arrogant in trying to ram their theory down our throats, it actually looks like a coordinated psyop at this point.
Did Weasel Mueller train Weasel Comey or not?
+1
He’s investigating anything and anyone opposed to Her Heinous, the foul-mouthed drunken lesbian.
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