Was just coming here to post about Ross' article (had to revise as GCP12 posted it while I was writing) .

This revelation is rather important. Remember, that Isikoff article was cited extensively in Carter Page's FISA application. We knew that Simpson & Steele had provided info to Isikoff for his September 2016 article on Carter Page. Isikoff later revealed that Winer had vouched for the accuracy of the information. Steele had met separately with his friend Winer in September 2016 as well, showing him parts of the dossier, & Winer wrote a summary of what Steele revealed to him & gave it to Nuland/Kerry. However, how did Isikoff know to contact Winer about the info Steele & Simpson had given him? Now we find out that Simpson contacted Winer within a day or two of Isikoff's article. I believe this is another example of circular verification...also used in Page's FISA application...everything originated with Steele.

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...everything originated with Steele.

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No. Everything originated with Perkins, Coie. Do a search for my thread, "Let's talk about Perkins, Coie."


Google, Obama, Hillary campaign, DNC, CrowdStrike, Fusion, GPS. All inextricably entangled.

The gag order violation was not over a tweet saying he was innocent.

It was an op-ed that he ghost authored.

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The evidence Mueller revealed in a filing, which is a fraction of what he said earlier on Friday he has collected, is the first clear indication of the depth of his investigation and the nature of what his investigators have found.

In the 41-page filing, prosecutors in Mueller's office produced emails, drafts with tracked edits and records showing that a computer user named "paul manafort" created a version of the op-ed and made numerous changes on November 29 "between 8:41 p.m. and 9:11 p.m.", and "last saved at 9:12 p.m.".

They also produced records indicating that the op-ed, published on Thursday in the English-language Kyiv Post over Mueller's objections, tracked talking points Manafort and his business associate Richard Gates wrote in August 2016. That was after Manafort was forced to resign from Trump's campaign because of political work he had done for pro-Russian figures including former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Mueller also claimed in the filing that Manafort collaborated on the piece with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian to whom Mueller alluded in a filing earlier this week as having ties to Russian intelligence.

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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-manafort/special-counsel-mueller-filing-shows-manafort-drafted-ukraine-op-ed-despite-gag-order-idUSKBN1E22P2

http://thefederalist.com/2019/03/05/explosive-new-documents-reveal-andrew-weissmanns-misconduct-enron-case/

More previously sealed documents released on Weissmann's misconduct during the Enron trials...and more to come. Sounds like a real SOB.

Take your trolling elsewhere, Manny.

Wrong thread

I find the notion that paying-off a side piece to keep quiet constitutes a campaign expense to be hilarious.

I guess when they were all out of RUSSIA, it's all that is left.

Wildcat said:

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I find the notion that paying-off a side piece to keep quiet constitutes a campaign expense to be hilarious.

I guess when they were all out of RUSSIA, it's all that is left.

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Not to mention that Cohen himself said it was to protect Melania, which makes it an expense that would have occurred with or without a campaign going on. That takes it outside of being a campaign finance violation.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-white-house-lawyer-calls-mueller-american-hero/story?id=61455661

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Former Trump White House lawyer calls Mueller 'American hero,' says probe is no witch hunt
On Congressional investigations into the White House: "It's never gonna be over"

Ty Cobb, the veteran Washington attorney who represented the White House as special counsel Robert Mueller ramped up his investigation into Russian meddling, said he considers the man leading the probe "an American hero" and does not share President Donald Trump's view that the Russia inquiry is a politically motivated hoax.

"I don't feel the same way about Mueller," Cobb said in an extensive interview for the latest episode of ABC News' podcast The Investigation. "I don't feel the investigation is a witch hunt."

But as Mueller prepares to convey his findings to the U.S. Attorney General, Cobb maintains a belief that his report will spare the president from any serious political harm. Cobb said he believes Mueller has already revealed the bulk of the findings that the investigation will produce through the sentencing memos and "speaking indictments" issued against a group of 34 defendants that include Russian hackers and the former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. A so-called speaking indictment sets forth more contextual details on a case than is required by law.

The indictment against the Russian hackers was "highly detailed," he said. "And there's no link to Trump or the campaign. The same thing with Manafort -- they just filed an 800-page sentencing memorandum, and in 800 pages there's no reference to collusion," Cobb said, referring to Manafort, who was convicted last year of tax and bank fraud charges and pleaded guilty in a separate case to conspiracy charges brought by Mueller as part of his probe.

<snip>

Unlike some of the other attorneys hired to grapple with the Mueller probe, Cobb's client was not the president, but "the presidency," which he considered a subtle but important distinction.

"My legal obligations were to the institution," he said.

In that role, he said he often endorsed a different strategy than more combative lawyers in Trump's corner. And over time, he said his view of the probe has diverged from some of his former colleagues on the case. John Dowd, another veteran defense attorney on Trump's team, told "The Investigation" podcast recently that he considered the special counsel probe "one of the greatest frauds this country's ever seen."

"Yeah. I don't share that view," Cobb said.

"I think Bob Mueller's an American hero even though he came from an, arguably, privileged background, he has a backbone of steel. He walked into a firefight in Vietnam to pull out one of his injured colleagues and was appropriately honored for that. I've known him for 30 years as a prosecutor and a friend. And I think the world of Bob Mueller. He is a very deliberate guy. But he's also a class act. And a very justice-oriented person."

Cobb said his experienced matched with the description offered by many of the people who have interacted with Mueller's team. "I can't be critical," he said. "I never had a bad interaction with Mueller or his staff."

<snip>

Cobb said Trump's approach shifted in part because he was growing increasingly frustrated by the way the investigation was eating into his presidency, particularly as he sought to pursue a foreign policy agenda. For a time, the instinct of the president's lawyers was to try and persuade him that the investigations would soon be over, Cobb said.

"But it's never going to be over," Cobb said. "I mean, this is going to go through 2020. And if the president is reelected, it'll go beyond that."

Cobb had a first-hand view at some of the most contentious aspects of the Trump White House. Within minutes of his swearing in, he said, the president dismissed his chief of staff and fired his communications director. "So I was a footnote on day one," he laughed.

Cobb said he is not certain that Trump has been well served by the chaos around him.

"It would be disingenuous to suggest that the president doesn't need a better [human resources] team and that some of the people that have been chosen and [been] put in significant roles have not performed as he may have hoped -- or as voters may have hoped," he said.

He believes Trump will need to brace himself as the chaotic turbulence of investigations spirals towards Capitol Hill.

"All these people are hell bent on issuing a lot of subpoenas to get to the administration and perpetuate this investigation," he said.

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Article is not very clear on who Cobb was, if he was a political appointee or career staff, etc. could use better background detail.

blindey said:

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Article is not very clear on who Cobb was, if he was a political appointee or career staff, etc. could use better background detail.

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He was brought in by Trump to specifically deal with Russia Russia Russia

https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/15/politics/ty-cobb-wh-legal-team/index.html

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The White House announced Saturday that President Donald Trump has appointed former federal prosecutor Ty Cobb as White House special counsel.

He is expected to oversee the legal and media response to the investigation into Russian meddling in last year's election and alleged collusion by the Trump campaign, a White House official told CNN on Friday.

Cobb is a partner in the investigations practice of the law firm Hogan Lovells in Washington, D.C., and a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the White House statement said. He earned a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and attended Harvard University as an undergraduate, according to the statement.

<snip>

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My understanding is that he was counsel to "The Office of the President" and not necessarily representing Trump personally. Appointed in July 2017

Still trying to make sense of a conversation I had over the weekend with a former FBI agent that worked with Russian foreign intelligence and actually swore to the FISA court numerous times. I don't know who his boss was (he wouldn't tell me even if I asked him), but he was in the same circles as all of these guys.

He still maintains that there was nothing illegal at all about the FISA warrant and that this is 100% political. He said that the FBI had the investigation going long before any dossier and that the claims in the dossier should have been investigated. Despite testimony to the contrary, he doesn't think the dossier played a part in the FISA application. ("it just doesn't work that way") He said that Struzk should probably do time for what he did, but that McCabe and Rosenstein were probably completely innocent. He was visibly ticked off too just talking about the whole thing.

I think there are good guys up there that will circle the wagons to protect their own because they just won't believe that anything illegal could have possibly taken place. I also wonder how much more we believe on the right that might not be anything more than politics.

FriscoKid said:

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Still trying to make sense of a conversation I had over the weekend with a former FBI agent that worked with Russian foreign intelligence and actually swore to the FISA court numerous times. I don't know who his boss was (he wouldn't tell me even if I asked him), but he was in the same circles as all of these guys.

He still maintains that there was nothing illegal at all about the FISA warrant and that this is 100% political. He said that the FBI had the investigation going long before any dossier and that the claims in the dossier should have been investigated. Despite testimony to the contrary, he doesn't think the dossier played a part in the FISA application. ("it just doesn't work that way") He said that Struzk should probably do time for what he did, but that McCabe and Rosenstein were probably completely innocent. He was visibly ticked off too just talking about the whole thing.

I think there are good guys up there that will circle the wagons to protect their own because they just won't believe that anything illegal could have possibly taken place. I also wonder how much more we believe on the right that might not be anything more than politics.

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I don't see how one could read the FISA application and say the dossier didn't play a part in it.

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He still maintains that there was nothing illegal at all about the FISA warrant and that this is 100% political. He said that the FBI had the investigation going long before any dossier and that the claims in the dossier should have been investigated. Despite testimony to the contrary, he doesn't think the dossier played a part in the FISA application. ("it just doesn't work that way") He said that Struzk should probably do time for what he did, but that McCabe and Rosenstein were probably completely innocent. He was visibly ticked off too just talking about the whole thing.

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As in, it was legal for the FBI to allege an American citizen is an agent of a foreign power not based on evidence but for political reasons? Surely not.

As for McCabe and Rosenstein, by the time those apps cross their desks, they are supposed to have been fully vetted during the Woods Procedure. A procedure that falls under Strzok's level of purview, as he would be kept informed of the status of such a review. (According to the texts between him and Page when they were discussing his friendship with Judge Contreras when said judge was appointed to the FISA court. As I recall, Page asked Strzok if Judge Contreras knew that Strzok dealt with FISA apps.)

As for his being pissed off, that is the bureaucracy first mindset which is quite endemic to the FBI.

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He still maintains that there was nothing illegal at all about the FISA warrant and that this is 100% political.

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If this is true, the FISA process needs to be completely revamped or destroyed

He's one of those guys that I would really love to just talk to for a hour on this subject. But, it's not really the time or place to do it. And, he wouldn't ever go into any kind of detail on anything anyways. But, yes, he thought the FISA warrant was completely justified and legal and should have been issued. He wasn't a fan a Page at all and thought the FBI should have been spying on him.

captkirk said:

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He still maintains that there was nothing illegal at all about the FISA warrant and that this is 100% political.

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If this is true, the FISA process needs to be completely revamped or destroyed

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The ironic thing is that there was widespread FISA abuse when Mueller was Director of the FBI and he was tasked with creating the Woods Procedure to stop the abuse.

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Other sources who worked for Mueller at the time told me the court's concerns arose in 2002 and 2003 shortly after America was stunned by the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks when the FISC learned the FBI had omitted material facts from FISA warrant applications in more than 75 terrorism cases that dated back to the late 1990s.

Most of the omissions occurred in FBI work that pre-dated Mueller's arrival, the sources said. But the court wanted assurances the new sheriff in town was going to stop such widespread abuses.

Mueller told the court the FBI had created a new system called the Woods Procedures named for the FBI lawyer who drafted them to ensure FISA warrant applications were accurate and did not omit material information, according to Anderson's congressional interview.

"My understanding is he committed to the court to address the problem and then that the series of reforms that we implemented, including the use of the Woods form, were the direct result of his engagement before the FISA court," Anderson told Congress.

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LINK

captkirk said:

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He still maintains that there was nothing illegal at all about the FISA warrant and that this is 100% political.

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If this is true, the FISA process needs to be completely revamped or destroyed

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Incredible the cost in time, money, reputation, and division that this has sowed. A complete abomination of what it means to be free in this country. They need to blow the entire thing up, declassify the malfeasance, and send people straight to trial or tribunal.

Something tells me the trail of skeleton bones goes way back into the depths of the darkened closet.

FriscoKid said:

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He's one of those guys that I would really love to just talk to for a hour on this subject. But, it's not really the time or place to do it. And, he wouldn't ever go into any kind of detail on anything anyways. But, yes, he thought the FISA warrant was completely justified and legal and should have been issued. He wasn't a fan a Page at all and thought the FBI should have been spying on him.

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He didn't like Carter Page because he was a cooperating witness in the Buryakov casein 2015?

LINK

aggiehawg said:

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FriscoKid said:

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He's one of those guys that I would really love to just talk to for a hour on this subject. But, it's not really the time or place to do it. And, he wouldn't ever go into any kind of detail on anything anyways. But, yes, he thought the FISA warrant was completely justified and legal and should have been issued. He wasn't a fan a Page at all and thought the FBI should have been spying on him.

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He didn't like Carter Page because he was a cooperating witness in the Buryakov casein 2015?

LINK

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Yeah, maybe. I'm sure he knew who Page was long before we did. Sounds like the FBI didn't like the dude one bit. Why? IDK.

Page is in the energy sector. When the Soviet Union broke up, a lot of Americans saw economic opportunities in Russia in the aftermath. I assume your friend is an older guy? Makes sense that Cold War counterterrorism workers would still be suspicious of any American making overtures to our former foes.

Just a WAG.

aggiehawg said:

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Page is in the energy sector. When the Soviet Union broke up, a lot of Americans saw economic opportunities in Russia in the aftermath. I assume your friend is an older guy? Makes sense that Cold War counterterrorism workers would still be suspicious of any American making overtures to our former foes.

Just a WAG.

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Yes, retired.

Well to me, the proof is in the pudding. Carter Page hasn't been charged with anything after four 90 day periods of being subject to the highest surveillance our country can do.

Your friend may not like Page but he cannot deny the guy is clean enough to have avoided any charges.

Order on Stone gag order out. Judge not happy:

Hhmmm. Saw where Whittaker is staying in DC for other opportunities, according to NBC News.

Now this:

She's the current US Attorney for DC. Opening a slot if she gets confirmed to go to Main Justice.

Sorry for not being up to date on this thread, but has Rosenstein been ran off or fired yet? That swamp creature needs to be sent packing ...

He's scheduled to leave March 15th or so, last I saw.

BMX Bandit said:

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Order on Stone gag order out. Judge not happy:

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aggiehawg said:

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He's scheduled to leave March 15th or so, last I saw.

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Thanks

Not exactly Mueller related but notable.

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The U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami has recused itself from renewed litigation against financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused by more than 30 girls of sexual abuse, the Miami Herald reported Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors notified the victims of their recusal in a letter Monday, and the Justice Department has reassigned the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Atlanta, according to the Herald.

<snip>

A U.S. district judge in Palm Beach County, Florida, last month reportedly ruled that Miami prosecutors, under former U.S. attorney and current Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, illegally hid Epstein's plea agreement from his victims. The judge, Kenneth A. Marra, did not void the agreement.

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LINK

That doesn't happen without AG Barr's input. There's not one attorney out of the 220 attorneys in the US Attorneys office in Miami that could do this? Sad but encouraged that Barr would make that move to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. That's how far respect for DOJ as a whole has fallen.

Andy McCarthy's latest. LINK

Forget collusion, Mueller's report will likely be the start of the obstruction inquiries in Congress, abuse of power, yada, yada, leading to articles of impeachment.

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Mr. Trump has always said this, even as evidence of non-criminal but indecorous Trump-Russia contacts mounted (the Trump Tower New York meeting with Kremlin-operative Natalia Veselnitiskaya, the Trump Tower Moscow project, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's ties to Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs). Plainly, though, "no collusion" has become a mantra now because the president expects that special counsel Robert Mueller's reputedly imminent report will conclude that there was no criminal collusion no Trump-Russia espionage conspiracy to steal the 2016 election.
The White House is attempting to shape expectations: Even if the special counsel's report catalogues unsavory conduct and connections, it will be portrayed as exoneration if there was no "collusion" in the sense of criminal collaboration.

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Not so fast.
I believe the so-called Russia-gate probe ultimately will be shown to have begun early in 2016. It may not have been formally opened on paper as "Crossfire Hurricane" until months later until late July or early August. The murkiness is intentional. There is queasiness on the part of intelligence agencies, both because they were scrutinizing the incumbent administration's political opponents in the midst of a contentious presidential campaign, and because they were aided and abetted by at least one foreign intelligence service something that should not have happened; something the revelation of which could damage an information-sharing arrangement critical to national security.

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But for however long investigators have been at it, and certainly since Mueller's investigation came into full swing after May 2017, it has been obvious that there was no criminal conspiracy.
Yet, bear in mind: It was not collusion that triggered Mueller's appointment. While collusion was the rationale for the overarching Russia investigation, we got a special counsel because of obstruction allegations. Mueller was brought on board eight days after the president fired FBI Director James Comey. In the interim, Comey leaked a memo claiming Trump had leaned on the bureau to drop any investigation of Michael Flynn, the president's fired national security adviser.

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I

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I do not expect collusion to be the highlight of Mueller's report. Collusion was just the rationale for conducting an investigation for which there was no criminal predicate. I expect Mueller to file a report that highlights obstructive conduct, though probably not one that calls for an obstruction indictment.

That, as I said back in December 2017, would throw the ball into Congress's court for consideration of impeachment.

And now, lo and behold, with Mueller apparently about to issue his report, the Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee suddenly has issued a flurry of subpoenas and document demands. Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) says his committee is launching an investigation of obstruction, with an eye toward using the special counsel's handiwork as the foundation for an impeachment inquiry.

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I fear he is correct.

As do I, although I this is what I expected.

When Jowels Nadler was screeching about "obstruction", but without the evidence, you know every other Dem in DC and Texags will be tagging the walls with impeachment until the vote.

Of course, with the evidence currently available, and likely to be found, it will be perfect Lavretiy Beria material for "Find me the man, and I'll find the crime".

Since the Republicans are giant vaginas, with no spine, I'm pretty sure 10 to 15 POS Reps will vote for it, and maybe even 3-4 in the Senate.