Free Republic

President Donald Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, may have been convinced by the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to plead guilty to a supposed violation of campaign finance law, but that doesn’t mean that what happened is actually a federal crime. In fact, neither the Federal Election Commission—which is the independent agency tasked with enforcing the Federal Election Campaign Act—nor its former commissioners would likely agree with the overaggressive view that the Southern District is taking. Indeed, the Southern District’s aggressive stance on this issue might have violated the Justice Department’s own policy....

“I probably wouldn’t have … gotten away with it.” Those words this week from former FBI Director James Comey could well be chiseled in marble as his epitaph. Comey was explaining yet another violation of bureau policy during his tenure as director. What was shocking was not that Comey violated protocols or policies again but the reaction of the audience to his admission. In describing how he set up a critical meeting with President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, the audience was audibly thrilled by his cleverness in keeping Flynn unrepresented by legal counsel and unaware of the...

As TGP previously reported in February, according to Mike Cernovich, McCabe altered far left FBI investigator Peter Strzok’s 302 notes on his interview with General Michael Flynn. And then McCabe destroyed the evidence. In early May Senator Grassley demanded the FBI and DOJ produce the transcript of Flynn’s intercepted calls with Russian Ambassador Kislyak and the 302’s by May 25th. The DOJ and FBI ignored him. Grassley then concluded his letter by reiterating his request to schedule an interview with the second special agent who was present at Flynn’s interrogation, Joe Pientka, after push back from the DOJ.

More questions were raised than answered Friday in the Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigation. Most reporting has it wrong. Judge Emmett Sullivan had ordered Mueller to file FBI interview notes in the prosecution of Michael Flynn. Sullivan is scheduled to decide on a sentence for Flynn’s guilty plea on December 18 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Mueller’s office filed a “Government’s Reply To Defendant’s Memorandum In Aid Of Sentencing” on December 14, 2018. That covering transmittal is pure rhetoric. As a criminal defense attorney, let me explain that those statements by Mueller attorneys Brandon Van...

The Mueller investigation/coup reminds me of the Japanese tactics in WW2. Throw everything you have. Go all in. Don't bother with a backup plan. Just count on overrunning the enemy. It looks good until you start hitting snags. And the Mueller campaign to turn a Clinton campaign conspiracy theory into a series of convictions is hitting snags, even as it's managed to browbeat a bunch of shady characters to the point of being willing to say anything that Trump's Democrat opponents want them to. Mueller's team is known for aggressive tactics that backfire on closer scrutiny. And as Sara Carter...

Special Counsel, Robert Mueller's team wiped the iPhone belonging to disgraced former FBI agent Peter Strzok before it was handed over to investigators, the inspector general's bombshell new report has revealed. Mueller's team scrubbed anti-Trump Agent Strzok's phone of all data and settings after determining "it contained no substantive text messages."

It seems to me that Trump has enormous leverage over these negotiations if he so chooses to use it. There is one decision that is completely within his control that Democrats are desperate but powerless to stop: the continued employment status of one Robert S. Mueller III. IMHO, late next week he should offer Democrats a promise that he will terminate Mueller effective midnight Friday night if a budget without $5B in border wall funding is not on his desk. He should also stipulate that if the government closes, the cost of re-opening it will increase $1B per day for...

Special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday rebuked former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn for suggesting that FBI agents had duped him into lying about his contacts with the Russian ambassador. “Nothing about the way the interview was arranged or conducted caused the defendant to make false statements to the FBI on January 24,” Mueller wrote in a filing Friday afternoon, asking a federal judge to reject Flynn’s attempt to “minimize the seriousness of those false statements to the FBI.” “The defendant chose to make false statements about his communications with the Russian ambassador weeks before the FBI interview, when he...

Former FBI Director James Comey, speaking to an appreciative audience in New York on Sunday, told NBC's Nicole Wallace that he sent two FBI agents to visit then-National Security Adviser Mike Flynn at the White House on January 24, 2017, because he figured he could get away with it. Wallace asked Comey: "You look at this White House now, and it's hard to imagine two FBI agents ending up in the State room. How did that happen?" "I sent them," Comey replied. The audience laughed, and Comey continued: Something we've -- I probably wouldn't have done or maybe gotten away...

Fridays at the DC federal courthouse are typically days of high alert for the press corps trying to discern what special counsel Robert Mueller's next legal action will be. But this Friday, court officials went to extreme measures to ensure it was as difficult as possible to figure out what Mueller's team was doing as the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held a secret and mysterious argument about a grand jury subpoena challenge. An entire floor of the courthouse was closed to the public and press for more than an hour. During that time, attorneys...

The Department of Justice wiped text messages between former FBI employees Lisa Page and Peter Strozk from their cell phones before the Office of the Inspector General could review them, a new report from the DOJ watchdog reveals. Page and Strozk’s involvement with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has been heavily scrutinized after it was revealed they had sent numerous anti-Trump text messages back and forth to one another. Mueller has been tasked with looking into whether or not Donald Trump and his campaign associates coordinated with Russian officials to steal the 2016 election away from Hillary Clinton. The 11-page...

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said Thursday that the Senate Intelligence Committee has made "quite a few referrals" to special counsel Robert Mueller of cases where witnesses questioned in the panel’s Russia probe were suspected of lying, adding he expects there will be more. “We’ve made quite a few referrals,” Burr, who chairs the Senate panel, told The Hill on Thursday afternoon. “I won’t get into the numbers, but where we have found criminality, we have made those referrals and I’m sure that they’re not the last." The Senate GOP chairman first revealed in November that the committee had referred cases...

President Donald Trump-haters salivated over special counsel Robert Mueller's recent filings on ex-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and Trump former lawyer/"fixer" Michael Cohen. In both cases, Mueller recommends lengthy sentences, having accused them of committing crimes, including, in the case of Cohen, that Trump directed him to violate campaign finance laws in paying off porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal. If true, is it an impeachable offense? In 2013, the Federal Election Commission leveled a $375,000 fine against President Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign for failing to properly report almost $2 million in 2008 campaign contributions, along...

If we didn’t need a free and independent media, it would be comical how they all yap this same talking point in perfect harmony. Remember the scene in “Star Wars, A New Hope,” when the heroes find themselves in a giant trash compactor? They seem to escape danger until the walls start to close in on them, creating suspense and danger for the audience. It’s a classic metaphor, now being beaten to death by the media in reference to the so-called Russia investigation. On Dec. 3, for example, Jill Abramson wrote an article for The Guardian titled, “The Mueller investigation...

"In view of the content of many of the text messages between Strzok and Page, the OIG also asked the Special Counsel's Office to provide the OIG the DOJ issues iPhones that had been assigned to Strzok and Page during their respective assignments to the SCO." After a number of steps by the OIG, "was the recovery of thousands of text messages within the period of the missing text messages, December 15, 2016 through May 17, 2017, as well as hundreds of other text messages outside the gap period that had not been produced by the FBI due to technical...

Fired former FBI Director James Comey is at it again. Last week, Comey testified before members of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. In a single appearance, Comey, on 245 separate occasions, while under oath, stonewalled questions with "I don't know," "I don't remember" or "I don't recall," according to a congressional interrogator, Rep. Jim Jordan. (R-Ohio). If any private citizen tried Comey's gambit with federal IRS auditors or FBI investigators, he would likely be indicted for perjury or obstruction. Why did Comey, the nation's former top-ranking federal investigator, avoid telling "the whole truth...

BARACK OBAMA–THE CON MAN WHO WON’T GO AWAYNote: I originally posted this on September 7th of this year, but then made it “Private.” I knew that the cultists wouldn’t listen to me and wondered what good posting this would do. I revisited the article today, and see that everything in it still applies. Most important, I realize that this person is not going away, is extremely dangerous to the future of our Republic, and will (unless his hidden deeds come to light) attempt to influence President Trump’s re-election. For this reason, I’m “re-posting” the article. Perhaps someone out there will...

Now that the Mueller and related New York State sentencing memos are in for Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort — and with rumors increasingly circulating that the Mueller Investigation that was supposed to look into collusion between the 2016 Trump Presidential Campaign and “The Russians” may be over as soon as six years, one month, and two weeks from now — I have begun drafting my proposed speech for President Trump to use on the occasion of his pardoning all convicted and imprisoned Mueller victims except Michael “Cash Cab” Cohen. It necessarily includes a bit of rambling to allow the...

Last week, prosecutors for the Southern District of New York and Special Counsel Robert Mueller delivered their sentencing recommendations regarding former counsel for President Donald Trump, Michael Cohen. As previously reported by The Federalist Pages, their memos provided no significant evidence against the President. Just lots of political fodder. And now newly elected New York Attorney General Letitia James says she will being using the power of law enforcement to target President Trump, his family and his associates. “We will use every area of the law to investigate President Trump and his business transactions and that of his family as...

Excuse this Vanity post, but can't find the Fitton testimony being covered anywhere ...