"Guilty As Sin" by Ed Klein talks about that. I have it on audio book so it's kind of difficult to go back and find the exact mention. But he said something along the lines of there being an email to the effect that HRC wasnt going to be indicted, and Comey took it to Lynch and she told him to leave her office. Or something like that.

The replies to Brennan are comical. So many blind sheep

RoscoePColtrane said:

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Something tells me this communist is hold up in some Islamic opium den frying what's left of his brain just waiting on the knock on the door, when they come to haul him away.

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This guy is a nut. TDS to the extreme

bmks270 said:

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This Tom Arnold thing is a fraud by the media. Passing straight total lies off as some kind of truth. It's false advertising and should be subject to civil lawsuit by the accused and by the viewers. The lies are so egregious it really feels like it ought to be criminal.

Can media be sued for false advertising, for advertising lies as truth? They are running stuff that is now just totally made up fiction. Lies of this magnitude are just evil. No other word for it. I don't know who is pulling the strings or how these reporters feel about the lies they are telling on air, but there is some serious malevolence afoot. This has gone way beyond mental disorders and confirmation biases.

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I think you mean true lies.

benchmark said:

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Quote:

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It is reasonable to ask whether President Trump is more interested in the political advantage of posing as a victim of Justice Department/FBI abuse than in exercising his legal authority to expose and address any abuse. And if the Republican Congress continues to portray the controversy as a battle only against truculent executive officials as if these officials do not have a boss it is fair to ask whether this dispute is about accountability or theater.

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Agree. Congressional oversight committees are basically paper tigers with TV cameras as their only weapon. Trump could easily force the issue but hasn't. POTUS obstruction argument doesn't hold water either ...Trump could easily pick a single low-risk DOJ doc-release battle worth fighting for. Trump's failure to intercede doesn't pass the smell test.

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Trump is a people reader, knows people, a con-man, not in the negative sense of the word, but in the sense he knows how to win people to his side. When it comes to messaging and media, he is the smartest person in DC. I trust he is playing this to win the long game and win elections. He could fire all these swamp serpents, but despite how justified it may be, winning elections, hearts and minds, and inspiring patriotism is a greater victory.

pedro_martinez said:

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For optics, I believe its better for Congress to force the issue as opposed to Trump intervening. Trump can't sneeze without the MSM having a panic attack and reeeeeeeee....

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We're beyond that now IMO. I'm starting to believe it's now only about mid-term optics/theater/politics ... preferable to tweet about obstruction than to actually do something about it.

pedro_martinez said:

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For optics, I believe its better for Congress to force the issue as opposed to Trump intervening. Trump can't sneeze without the MSM having a panic attack and reeeeeeeee....

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Although patience is not Trump's strong suit he is waiting for the Mueller investigation to implode upon itself, courtesy of IG Horowitz. He stated this week his investigation of FISA Gate and the origins of the Russia probe is in the final stages.

Go back to the beginning, fall 2015 when the uptick in 702 "about" queries started during the run up to the GOP primaries. If, as widely believed, Fusion, GPS was one of those outside contractors with NSA access, it becomes clear where at least some of the Steele dossier material came from. How they got the wrong Michael Cohen in Prague story.

If Bruce Orr was illegally accessing material and giving it to his wife after Rodgers shut down the contractor access, then that material would be inadmissible in a court of law. Mueller would be hard-pressed to show parallel construction. Which is precisely why he has not brought any case directly related to the Steele dossier nor Trump campaign/Russia contacts.

That filing by Team Mueller this past week begging the court to preclude the Manafort defense from presenting evidence arguing nullification or vindictive prosecution is quite telling. It shows Team Mueller knows there is evidence on that issue. Multiple bad acts by the prosecutors not only in the Manafort case but in Flynn's too. That is what Mueller is trying to hide, the altered 302s that cast doubt on the very foundation of the existence of the Mueller investigation.

I will add that as a legal question, Team Mueller is essentially correct on the law that the court can preclude the defense from "trying the prosecutor," but this is before Judge Ellis. He's already acutely attuned to the game Mueller is playing in his court and none too pleased about it. Judge Ellis can ask the Manafort defense what evidence they could produce on the subject (under seal so Team Mueller doesn't see it) and rule on what can and cannot be introduced.

Something like Weissman's misconduct in the EnRon case might be too far removed to be admissible for instance but not acts related to the Flynn case, Papadop or the Carter Page FISA warrant. At this point, Peter Strzok could be a witness for the defense. LOL.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1010512755550539777.html

RoscoePColtrane said:

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https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1010512755550539777.html

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Yes, this is fascinating. Hadn't posted it yet because I've been thinking about it.

Below is a letter (link) Carter Page wrote to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe on October 28, 2016:

https://www.scribd.com/document/371381223/Carter-Page-October-2016-letter#fullscreen&from_embed

Quote:

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...As a further related form of their retaliation, I have learned from a reliable source that a law firm close to the Clinton campaign has hired a London-based private investigator to investigate my trip to Russia....

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Page knew that Perkins Coie/HRC was funding Steele in late October, 2016, the time frame when the FISA warrant was obtained on him. This was a closely guarded secret at the time...few people knew this. Page obtained this info from a 'reliable source'. The threadreader makes a good speculation: that 'reliable source' was likely Bill Priestap, the FBI counterintel expert who ran the Russian spy sting operation in NY when Page was an informant.

This entire plot is so complicated.

As to the casino affiliated person involved in the Russian sting, instead of Trump how about Michael Cohen and that Felix Sater guy?

Or Cohen was being duped by Sater and Sater was the FBI asset?

Hhmm.

drcrinum said:

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Let's revisit this for a moment. If Mueller needed more bodies to handle the vast amount of discovery it claims to have in this case, he could just ask Rosey for more money and for his approval for the hires.

But he didn't. He convinced Jessie Liu to assign some of her staff attorneys to it. And from the National Security Division of DOJ no less. But they could have worked on the case without actually entering a formal appearance.

This isn't a formal substitution of counsel but it does raise the question--Why? An attempt to do parallel construction for tainted evidence? Or has Mueller really stepped into it using classified sources and methods that are discoverable and he now needs the full force of the US government to protect them? And how would he even really know which docs needed to be withheld for truly national security reasons?

Has Jessie Liu been recruited to save his ass? If not an outright dismissal try to negotiate some watered down consent decree to go forth and sin no more?

Or is he doing this to buy a little more time, claiming these new bodies need to get up to speed?

Any delays is more time inside for Manafort

aggiehawg said:

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Although patience is not Trump's strong suit he is waiting for the Mueller investigation to implode upon itself, courtesy of IG Horowitz. He stated this week his investigation of FISA Gate and the origins of the Russia probe is in the final stages.

Go back to the beginning, fall 2015 when the uptick in 702 "about" queries started during the run up to the GOP primaries. If, as widely believed, Fusion, GPS was one of those outside contractors with NSA access, it becomes clear where at least some of the Steele dossier material came from. How they got the wrong Michael Cohen in Prague story.

If Bruce Orr was illegally accessing material and giving it to his wife after Rodgers shut down the contractor access, then that material would be inadmissible in a court of law. Mueller would be hard-pressed to show parallel construction. Which is precisely why he has not brought any case directly related to the Steele dossier nor Trump campaign/Russia contacts.

That filing by Team Mueller this past week begging the court to preclude the Manafort defense from presenting evidence arguing nullification or vindictive prosecution is quite telling. It shows Team Mueller knows there is evidence on that issue. Multiple bad acts by the prosecutors not only in the Manafort case but in Flynn's too. That is what Mueller is trying to hide, the altered 302s that cast doubt on the very foundation of the existence of the Mueller investigation.

I will add that as a legal question, Team Mueller is essentially correct on the law that the court can preclude the defense from "trying the prosecutor," but this is before Judge Ellis. He's already acutely attuned to the game Mueller is playing in his court and none too pleased about it. Judge Ellis can ask the Manafort defense what evidence they could produce on the subject (under seal so Team Mueller doesn't see it) and rule on what can and cannot be introduced.

Something like Weissman's misconduct in the EnRon case might be too far removed to be admissible for instance but not acts related to the Flynn case, Papadop or the Carter Page FISA warrant. At this point, Peter Strzok could be a witness for the defense. LOL.

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Sorry, I don't have that much faith in Horowitz - the process not the person. Significant parts of his last report are too fresh on my mind - notably, finding no documentary evidence of political bias. Never mind that if there was documentary evidence, DOJ likely sandbagged it. It's incredulous (to me) that DOJ withheld the infamous Stzok "we'll stop it" text until just a month ago. Who knows what else was hidden.

RoscoePColtrane said:

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Or is he doing this to buy a little more time, claiming these new bodies need to get up to speed?

Any delays is more time inside for Manafort

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Wrong case. The new attorneys are on the Russian bot case.

Quote:

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It's incredulous (to me) that DOJ withheld the infamous Stzok "we'll stop it" text until just a month ago. Who knows what else was hidden.

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How about the whole enchilada of all of Hillary's email, including the Blackberry ones being on the Weiner lap top?

Horowitz revealed that in his report.

Quote:

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Comey, McCabe, Strzok, and others gave various reasons for sitting on the "entire file" of Clinton's emails for a month. The inspector general examines and resoundingly rejected each of them.

For one, they all asserted that they expected and hoped that the emails were simply duplicates of ones they had already reviewed. This is clearly impossible.

First, just do the math. There were 675,000 of themat least 350,000 of which they knew from the video call of September 28. Clinton produced approximately 30,000 emails claiming that included all her work-related emails. Supposedly, her staff culled 33,000 emails that were purely personal.

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Quote:

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Combined, that is more than 600,000 emails short of this colossal find, which is ten timesthe total number of emails Clinton and company claimed existed.

Second, the agents and Comey all knew they had no BlackBerry messages from Mrs. Clinton's production. But from Weiner's laptop, they knew from the headers and dates, they had all of those the first two months of her tenure as secretary of state.

This was the motherlode of Clinton culpability the answers to everything they did not want anyone to know.

And there's more.

As early as October 3, the Weiner case agent was "agitated" over the sound of "crickets" from headquarters and the "inaccurate" statements of Director Comey regarding the number of emails they possessed. He felt compelled to push the issue in New York, all the way up to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.

The case agent himself recognized that the FBI had 10 times the number of Clinton emails that the director had reported on the record, and they had the significant BlackBerry messages as well. He could not believe someone in New York had not called him to get the hard drive.

Extremely concerned, the case agent went to the U.S. attorneys for the Southern District of New York. An assistant United States attorney told the inspector general the agent believed "somebody was not acting appropriately, somebody was trying to bury this." The attorneys were concerned the agent might "act out."

"Act out" means blow the whistle.

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LINK

aggiehawg said:

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Quote:

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It's incredulous (to me) that DOJ withheld the infamous Stzok "we'll stop it" text until just a month ago. Who knows what else was hidden.

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How about the whole enchilada of all of Hillary's email, including the Blackberry ones being on the Weiner lap top?

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Exactly. Horowitz can only investigate documents and evidence that is surrendered ... which is why I remain skeptical that Horowitz's ongoing investigations will eventually tank Mueller. Hence my frustration with Trump sitting in the peanut gallery tweeting cat calls when he could be more helpful ordering the release (starting with WH review) of key docs and redactions.

benchmark said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Quote:

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It's incredulous (to me) that DOJ withheld the infamous Stzok "we'll stop it" text until just a month ago. Who knows what else was hidden.

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How about the whole enchilada of all of Hillary's email, including the Blackberry ones being on the Weiner lap top?

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Exactly. Horowitz can only investigate documents and evidence that is surrendered ... which is why I remain skeptical that Horowitz's ongoing investigations will eventually tank Mueller. Hence my frustration with Trump sitting in the peanut gallery tweeting cat calls when he could be more helpful ordering the release (starting with WH review) of key docs and redactions.

---

I'm at that point as well. If he's taking a back seat because he wants to appear impartial, forget it. They will crucify him regardless of how the facts finally come out so he might as well push it.

And when Rudy Giuliani and Erik Prince got wind of the laptop and contents, their hand was forced as Baker told the IG, they had no choice, and then they went into cleaner mode to try and put a lid on things two weeks before the election. When rudy told to Martha McCallum he "knew" there was an October surprise coming and it was big. They went into mass panic. There is no way in hell they went threw 600K plus of emails in 6 days. Have never believed it for a minute.

RoscoePColtrane said:

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And when Rudy Giuliani and Erik Prince got wind of the laptop and contents, their hand was forced as Baker told the IG, they had no choice, and then they went into cleaner mode to try and put a lid on things two weeks before the election. When rudy told to Martha McCallum he "knew" there was an October surprise coming and it was big. They went into mass panic. There is no way in hell they went threw 600K plus of emails in 6 days. Have never believed it for a minute.

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There is a ten year Statute of Limitations for espionage. Still time.

But now we know why Preet Bharara was torqued that Trump fired him. In Preet's view, he did Trump a solid in forcing the issue.

Hey, lawyer folks, why wouldn't Mueller just put up a BS charge? I know he can't indict a President, well, according to the DOJ, but from a political stand point, it would stretch out this process, and it could be politicted to death by the left.

It would, of course, fail in the Senate, but even if Mueller brought a charge of any kind, 50% of the Dems would vote for it in the legislature. I don't know how long it would take to be acted on in the legislature, but it would likely achieve the ends all Dems want.

Since it's nearly 100% that 2-3 of the 9-10 confirmed Dems on Mueller's team are zealots, why wouldn't they risk having their license revoked? First of all, it would only be temporary 2-5 years, and secondly, you know Mueller, Weissman, et al, have lots of weekly whispers in their ears (cell phones) telling them the "absolute necessity of damaging Trump. I can't imagine any legal ethics board yanking their license, since the board is probably 90% Democratic, and professional ethics to them seem to be a fast moving target.

Just an observation. I don't know if "politicted" is a word, but it fits nicely in my sentence!

aggiehawg said:

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.......
How about the whole enchilada of all of Hillary's email, including the Blackberry ones being on the Weiner lap top?
......

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Does this laptop still exist or has it been lost, destroyed or compromised?

Wouldn't OIG have complete access to the laptop's contents?

At this point I have no faith that the laptop and all the emails have been preserved for any legal proceedings.

aggiehawg said:

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RoscoePColtrane said:

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And when Rudy Giuliani and Erik Prince got wind of the laptop and contents, their hand was forced as Baker told the IG, they had no choice, and then they went into cleaner mode to try and put a lid on things two weeks before the election. When rudy told to Martha McCallum he "knew" there was an October surprise coming and it was big. They went into mass panic. There is no way in hell they went threw 600K plus of emails in 6 days. Have never believed it for a minute.

---

There is a ten year Statute of Limitations for espionage. Still time.

But now we know why Preet Bharara was torqued that Trump fired him. In Preet's view, he did Trump a solid in forcing the issue.

---

Or did he. On Oct 26 Rudy throws out the tease on the big surprise. According to Baker they knew Rudy knew, on Oct 28 Comey writes the letter to congress about the existence of the laptop. Not so sure Preet was pushing hard enough.

Hawg, you mentioned that it's believed Fusion GPS was one of the contractors to have access to the NSA in 2015.

How would they have that with Rodgers in charge? I suspect they had some sort of questionable reputation before this whole story broke, but wouldn't Rodgers be the last word on NSA access to ANYONE?

RoscoePColtrane said:

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And when Rudy Giuliani and Erik Prince got wind of the laptop and contents, their hand was forced as Baker told the IG, they had no choice, and then they went into cleaner mode to try and put a lid on things two weeks before the election. When rudy told to Martha McCallum he "knew" there was an October surprise coming and it was big. They went into mass panic. There is no way in hell they went threw 600K plus of emails in 6 days. Have never believed it for a minute.

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Humorous. Giuliani/McCallum was Oct 26 ... and Comey reopened the investigation 2 days later. Funny because Giuliani claims he didn't know ... but that interview convinced Comey he knew.

fasthorses05 said:

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Hawg, you mentioned that it's believed Fusion GPS was one of the contractors to have access to the NSA in 2015.

How would they have that with Rodgers in charge? I suspect they had some sort of questionable reputation before this whole story broke, but wouldn't Rodgers be the last word on NSA access to ANYONE?

---

Back in fall 2015, internal auditors at the NSA began noticing an uptick in 702 "about" queries. They kept an eye on it and as they increased over the next few months, alerted Rogers and he ordered an investigation into what was going on. That's when the contractor program (remember Snowden worked for several of the contractors like Booz Hamilton) was shown to have expanded their original scope. Mission creep, if you will.

By April 2016, Rogers was putting an end to much of that program, redefining the actual needs of the NSA to use outside contractors.

You also have to understand that these contractors were not restricted to being only NSA authorized. So say the national security division at the FBI can access NSA material and the FBI hired the outside contractor. From the NSA's initial POV those requests were coming from Nat Sec at the FBI. It wasn't until they really drilled down that they discovered how much had been outsourced.

fasthorses05 said:

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Hawg, you mentioned that it's believed Fusion GPS was one of the contractors to have access to the NSA in 2015.

How would they have that with Rodgers in charge? I suspect they had some sort of questionable reputation before this whole story broke, but wouldn't Rodgers be the last word on NSA access to ANYONE?

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In 2014 Obama loosed the accessibility to the 702 data mining ops. You are talking about a feeding frenzy going on a lot of the time. It was only when the crazy ramping up of domestic unmaskings that drew a flag by the monitors. And the fact that the biggest cache of unmasking was taking place by Samantha Power. Highly unusual for the UN Ambassador to be requesting that many unmaskings.

That flagging drew closer scrutiny, and then they saw the amount the contractors were mining. Rogers called for an audit to get the facts, and took it to the FISC and shut the access down, in April of 2016, next month they start trying to get FISA warrants only to be turned down three times. In comes the dossier, FISA warrant granted, now their tracks are covered for all the nefarious spying they had already been doing and they could two hop back ten years if they wanted. Typical bootstrapping.

But I suspect and I'll bet Dixie does as well, that there were other FISA warrants that we have yet to hear about. I think they had one on Manafort as well. Perhaps more.

benchmark said:

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RoscoePColtrane said:

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And when Rudy Giuliani and Erik Prince got wind of the laptop and contents, their hand was forced as Baker told the IG, they had no choice, and then they went into cleaner mode to try and put a lid on things two weeks before the election. When rudy told to Martha McCallum he "knew" there was an October surprise coming and it was big. They went into mass panic. There is no way in hell they went threw 600K plus of emails in 6 days. Have never believed it for a minute.

---

Humorous. Giuliani/McCallum was Oct 26 ... and Comey reopened the investigation 2 days later. Funny because Giuliani claims he didn't know ... but that interview convinced Comey he knew.

---

Oh they knew

richardag said:

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aggiehawg said:

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.......
How about the whole enchilada of all of Hillary's email, including the Blackberry ones being on the Weiner lap top?
......

---

Does this laptop still exist or has it been lost, destroyed or compromised? Don't know.

Wouldn't OIG have complete access to the laptop's contents? Would need a search warrant and that requires DOJ to act.

At this point I have no faith that the laptop and all the emails have been preserved for any legal proceedings. Never know. Could be sitting in an evidence warehouse somewhere.

---

Quote:

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Mueller may be preparing to hand off prosecution as part of winding down his investigation: report

Robert Mueller may be preparing to wind down the special counsel investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia and hand off at least one prosecution following the probe's conclusion.

The Washington Post reports that Mueller has added several prosecutors to his team, specifically assigned to the case against several Russian nationals charged in the alleged effort to spread disinformation using stolen identities during the 2016 election.

Mueller's new additions will likely take over that case, which is expected to last longer than the probe into Russian collusion in the election. The Post reports the new hires are first indication of Mueller preparing for the end of his investigation.

Mueller's indictment of 13 Russian nationals and organizations earlier this year is one of several that have been spawned by the ongoing special counsel investigation, including indictments of former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort for bank fraud and lobbying violations as well as several other former Trump associates.

---

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/393788-mueller-may-be-preparing-to-hand-off-prosecution-as-part-of-winding

I seriously doubt Mueller will stop unless he is shutdown by DOJ. His final report will probably come out after the midterms, and will recommend impeachment if the Democrats win, and just bash Trump if the Republicans do.

He'll recommend impeachment regardless...that way if the Dems still don't have power they can howl about gestapo tactics and suppression of evidence and how Mueller is a Republican so obviously his word is good.

Seems like they're using a ton of cutouts

Prosperdick said:

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He'll recommend impeachment regardless...that way if the Dems still don't have power they can howl about gestapo tactics and suppression of evidence and how Mueller is a Republican so obviously his word is good.

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Speaking of howling, did the DNC put a sock in Auntie Maxines mouth? Maybe she's escorting Comey around Europe. We haven't heard from her extra large mouth recently.

Lots of swamp creatures have been unusually quiet lately.

They skeerd...