Free Republic

Just how rough special counsel Robert Mueller is playing with Paul Manafort goes back before this week’s indictment — to the FBI’s no-knock raid in July. It has been reported that the agents checked Mr. Manafort and wife Kathleen for guns as they broke into the Alexandria condo pre-dawn by picking the lock. A source familiar with the case told The Washington Times the search was even more intrusive: An agent patted down Mrs. Manafort before she was allowed to get out of bed. “Agents felt up Mrs. Manafort lying in bed to see if she had guns,” the source...

Fox News host Sean Hannity isn’t letting Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort distract from the real scandal– The Clinton-Uranium One deal. Hannity teased he would expose Mueller in tonight’s monologue. “I have a powerful monologue that you don’t want to miss… We will expose Robert Mueller’s corrupt special counsel next.” According to Hannity, Fox News Legal Contributor Gregg Jarrett discovered both Deputy Attorney General Ron Rosenstein and Mueller’s right hand man, Andrew Weissmann, former head of the fraud unit at Obama/Holder’s Justice Department, signed the plea agreement of the Russian businessman embroiled in...

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray was an assistant attorney general in 2004 when he heaped praise on an ambitious Mafia-tested prosecutor... to the top...Justice Department’s high-profile Enron... How Mr. Weissmann operated over a decade ago offers possible glimpses at how he carries out orders today from his longtime mentor, Mr. Mueller. He rode into Texas from New York City in 2002 fresh from putting a number of Mafiosos in prison. ... If I’m Donald Trump and I know the backstory of Andrew Weissmann, it’s going to concern me. There is no question about it.” The backstory: Defense attorneys say Mr....

Washington (CNN) — A federal grand jury in Washington, DC, on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter. The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge. Plans were prepared Friday for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as Monday, the sources said. It is unclear what the charges are. A spokesman for the special counsel's office declined to comment. Mueller was appointed in May to lead the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Under the regulations governing special...

Facing indictment and millions of dollars in legal debts, President Trump’s onetime campaign manager maintains his innocence and has nothing incriminating to offer Special Counsel Robert Mueller, associates say. But Paul Manafort, who once advised Ronald Reagan and went on to build a lucrative political consulting business overseas, knows he is up against one of the Justice Department’s most relentless prosecutors. Andrew Weissmann, who led Justice’s fraud division before being reunited with Mr. Mueller, his former FBI boss, has an operational history of going after the relatively small to snare the big. “I would bet the indictment will be right...