Free Republic

snip Mr. Mueller’s investigation has crossed a constitutional line, for reasons the U.S. Supreme Court made clear in the 1988 case Morrison v. Olson. That case is best known for Justice Antonin Scalia’s powerful lone dissent arguing that the post-Watergate independent counsel statute was unconstitutional. But Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s opinion for the court, while upholding the statute, set forth limits that the Mueller investigation has exceeded. At issue is the Constitution’s Appointments Clause, which provides that “principal officers” must be appointed by the president with the Senate’s consent. Rehnquist wrote that independent counsel Alexia Morrison qualified as an “inferior...

An attorney for Trump, Jay Sekulow celebrated another victory against the Deep State in federal court. After twice-denying their existence, the Deep State admitted to Sekulow in court it has magically found more Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting docs and will be forced to turn them over to the ACLJ by the end of this month. These Clinton-Lynch tarmac documents were located after a THIRD ‘search’.

The Department of Justice lost its latest battle... when it allowed House Intelligence Committee members to view classified documents about a top-secret intelligence source that was part of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign. Even without official confirmation of that source’s name, the news so far holds some stunning implications... Among them is that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation outright hid critical information from a congressional investigation... The bureau already has some explaining to do. Thanks to the... leakers, we know Mr. Nunes’s request deals with a “top secret intelligence source”... who is a U.S. citizen...

A government watchdog group revealed Thursday that former FBI Director James Comey was advised by senior FBI officials to seek Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s advice prior to testifying before “any congressional committee” about President Donald Trump’s campaign and its alleged collusion with Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election, according to new emails obtained by Judicial Watch. Comey was also advised to seek Mueller’s counsel on the circumstances surrounding his firing by Trump before providing testimony to Congress, the Department of Justice emails obtained by Judicial Watch reveal. It is the first time evidence reveals there was coordination between the...

A federal judge on Saturday handed special counsel Robert Mueller his first courtroom defeat since being appointed to investigate Russian interference and the Trump campaign last year. The defeat, while only small, may have huge implications in the future. What happened? Federal District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich rejected Mueller’s motion to delay the first hearing of a criminal case charging that three Russian companies and 13 Russians interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Mueller indicted the companies and persons in February, in what is now known as the Russian “troll farm” case. The judge offered no explanation as to why...

It was revealed Friday the federal judge presiding over special counsel Robert Mueller’s fraud case against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort believes the case is not really about the charges Mueller has brought against Manafort. Instead, the judge alleged Mueller is using Manafort as a pawn to achieve his ultimate goal: “prosecution or impeachment” of President Donald Trump. CNN broke the story, but now the official court transcripts have been leaked. What they reveal is an epic showdown between Mueller attorney Michael Dreeben and U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis. What do the transcripts show? The transcripts show Ellis...

Former Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo said Thursday special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has all the text messages from Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, as well as all the campaign's documents. “They have all the documents that were produced,” Caputo told Fox News Thursday. “They’ve got further documentation from people who worked outside the campaign — their emails, their texts. They have the entire campaign’s texts.”

One of the Russian companies indicted by Robert Mueller has called the special counsel’s bluff and is challenging Mueller’s accusations in an attempt to force the release of not-yet-public information. Now, it appears Concord Management is forcefully pushing back. Bloomberg News described the firm’s tactics as “hardball” due to the thorough and pointed nature of their questions. Politico even suggested that Concord Management’s aggressive lawyering could result in an “embarrassing dismissal.” On Friday, Mueller’s team revealed that attorneys for the company had made numerous discovery requests. Those requests were aimed at nonpublic details about the government’s case and underlying investigation....

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday sharply criticized Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s criminal case in Virginia against President Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and openly questioned whether Mueller exceeded his prosecutorial powers by bringing it. “I don’t see what relationship this indictment has with anything the special counsel is authorized to investigate,” U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis in the Eastern District of Virginia said. At tense hearing at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, the judge said Mueller should not have “unfettered power” in his Russia probe and that the charges against Manafort did not arise...

A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, expressed deep skepticism Friday about the validity of one of the indictments against Paul Manafort, the former chairman of President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. Manafort is the subject of two indictments from the special counsel Robert Mueller's office. The first, brought in Washington, DC, accuses Manafort of money laundering, failure to register as a foreign agent, and making false statements to investigators. The other, brought in Virginia, charges him with tax fraud, bank fraud, and failing to report foreign bank accounts. Most of the charges against Manafort relate to his lobbying work for the...

“This isn’t some game. You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States.” John Dowd, March 2018. With North Korea, China, the Middle East and so much more, there is not much time to be thinking about this, especially since there was no Russian “Collusion.” and A Rigged System - They don’t want to turn over Documents to Congress. What are they afraid of? Why so much redacting? Why such unequal “justice?” At some point I will have no choice but to use the powers granted to the Presidency and get involved!

Caputo called for an “investigation of the investigators” and said he wanted to know who was “coordinating this attack on President Donald Trump.” “Forget about all the death threats against my family. I want to know who cost us so much money, who crushed our kids, who forced us out of our home, all because you lost an election,” Caputo said. “I want to know because God damn you to hell."

WASHINGTON — Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russia’s election interference, has at least four dozen questions on an exhaustive array of subjects he wants to ask President Trump to learn more about his ties to Russia and determine whether he obstructed the inquiry itself, according to a list of the questions obtained by The New York Times. [Read the questions here.] The open-ended queries appear to be an attempt to penetrate the president’s thinking, to get at the motivation behind some of his most combative Twitter posts and to examine his relationships with his family and his...

Former FBI Director James Comey said on Sunday that he did not believe President Trump was aware of the explosive allegations made against him in the "Steele dossier." Comey briefed Trump on the unverified document, compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, last year. "When you told him the contents of the Steele dossier, did you get the impression it was the first time he'd ever heard those allegations?" NBC's Chuck Todd asked Comey on "Meet the Press." "Yes," Comey said, "And I didn't give him the briefing on the whole Steele dossier. My assignment was to brief him...

Deep State Update: An Unparalleled Scandal Judicial Watch Files Major Lawsuits on FBI/State Department Corruption Clinton Emails Reveal Classified Docs, Clinton Foundation Connections How Did Obama State Department Help the Russian Ambassador Attend the Republican Convention? Deep State Update: An Unparalleled Scandal We were the beneficiaries of excellent insight on the Deep State this week in a special Judicial Watch panel presentation. Joining me were Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who serves on the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform; Vince Coglianese, host of “Mornings on the Mall” at WMAL Radio and editorial director...

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted to congressional investigators that he spoke with CNN about the Trump dossier close to the time the outlet published a scoop, according to a House Intelligence Committee report released Friday. The report revealed that Clapper, during an interview with House Intelligence Committee investigators on July 17, 2017, first “flatly denied” that he had discussed with journalists the dossier or any other intelligence related to the 2016 election. But during that same interview, he later admitted discussing the dossier with CNN’s Jake Tapper and possibly other journalists. “Clapper’s discussion with Tapper took place...

snip The first is an abrupt overhaul of the president’s legal team and strategy. Mr. Trump has talented lawyers, but not ones skilled at confronting the threat at hand. They continue to fret over his personal liability, when the real threat is to the Constitution—to this presidency and every future one. snip

Former CIA Director-turned-Twitter troll, John Brennan issued President Trump a warning Friday morning after the House Intel Panel released their much-anticipated Russia report, officially clearing Trump. There was no Trump-Russia collusion. End the witch hunt now and start prosecuting all involved in the attempted coup. Not only did the House Intel report clear Trump of any ‘collusion’ with Russia, it revealed a group of wealthy donors spent $50 million to fund the Trump-Russia investigation. A group of about 7-10 wealthy donors from California (Silicon Valley) and New York spent $50 million to fund a Trump-Russia investigation conducted by none other...

Credit to Sean Davis at the Federalist for catching this today. The newly declassified report on Russia from the House Intel Committee states that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was the person who leaked word of the dossier being briefed to Trump last January. When initially asked about leaks related to the ICA in July 2017, former DNI Clapper flatly denied “discussing the dossier [compiled by Steele] or any other intelligence related to Russia hacking of the 2016 election with journalists.” Clapper subsequently acknowledged discussing the “dossier with CNN journalist Jake Tapper,” and admitted that he might have spoken...

Buried within a newly declassified congressional report on Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections is a shocking revelation: former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper not only leaked information about the infamous Steele dossier and high-level government briefings about it to CNN, he also may have lied to Congress about the matter. In one of the findings within the 253-page report, the House intelligence committee wrote that Clapper leaked details of a dossier briefing given to then-President-elect Donald Trump to CNN’s Jake Tapper, lied to Congress about the leak, and was rewarded with a CNN contract a few...