Posted on 04/26/2019 9:54:52 AM PDT by onyx
Certain aspects of the process whereby Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel challenge the legitimacy of the entire undertaking. To understand them, we must dip into the legalese surrounding the appointment process, but at least that weighty language is mercifully short.
Please read Rod Rosenstein's letter appointing Robert Mueller as special counsel.
The first thing to notice is that Rosenstein's letter explicitly directs Mueller to investigate Trump-Russia collusion and only incidentally extends his investigatory purview to other matters. In short, it does not say Mueller should investigate general Russian government efforts to meddle in our election process. Mueller was free to investigate Russian meddling, but his only true directive was to investigate the Trump campaign.
Recent babble about how the Mueller report did wonderful things to expose Russian misdeeds that did not involve the Trump campaign is misdirectional nonsense. Mueller was never directed to look into Russian meddling in our election. He wasn't disposed to do such a thing seriously. It's true he indicted several Russians for their social media shenanigans, but that was a superficial effort.
The second thing to notice in Rosenstein's letter is that it explicitly defines the special counsel's work as a continuation of Crossfire Hurricane — the FBI counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign. Everyday now, new releases of previously hidden information are exposing that investigation as an effort to frame the Trump campaign using a fabricated predicate that had no concrete basis. Crossfire Hurricane is proving to be a central element in the bloodless coup that conservatives believe was launched to topple Trump, so it follows that the Mueller investigation is complicit. Most conservatives already think this is the case, but Rosenstein's letter perhaps makes it possible to hold Mueller and his partisan investigators legally responsible to some degree.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
By virtue of the authority vested in me as acting Attorney General . . . , I hereby order as follows:
(a) Robert S. Mueller is appointed to serve as Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice.
(b) The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James Comey in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on intelligence on March 20, 2017, including:
(i) Any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and
(ii) Any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and
(iii) Any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).
(c) ...
(d) § 600.4 through 600.10 of title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations are applicable to the Special Counsel.
Mueller is circling the drain?
Flush again.
Keep flushing.
Get a stick and push him to the bottom.
Dems are circling the drain with Biden as tidy bowl man.
Lol!!
Trey Gowdy needs to re-read Rosenstein’s appointment memo. For some reason, Gowdy keeps repeating that Mueller was charged with investigating Russian interference into the 2016 election generally.
This flawed position has allowed him to condone unwarranted spying on the Trump campaign.
Nonsensical article. The law provides great leeway and it’s all beside the point because nothing will change as a result of this mambling.
Wasn’t there a second letter expanding his area of investigation?
And the drain is starting to get clogged up.
You won’t read this in the WP next week.....
Also, all the stuff Mueller “exposed” about the Russian facebook ads and such was openly written about in a magazine article. Mueller didn’t investigate and discover any of it, he just read about it, then put together some indictments based on the reporter’s info.
Obama circles the drain every day in my toilet, which I named “Romney”.
I still want to know where Mueller got his info about the DNC/Hillary server hack when it is my understanding that the FBI never had access to the servers. Was he using CrowdStrike's analysis?...A source bought and paid for by the DNC/Hillary campaign...hmmmm that sounds familiar.
https://amgreatness.com/2019/04/24/25-questions-for-robert-mueller/
25 Questions for Robert Mueller
By Julie Kelly and Liz Sheld | April 24th, 2019
1) In the second paragraph of your report, you state that “the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. Evidence of Russian government operations began to surface in mid-2016.” The report traced this interference back to 2014. Who was the president of the United States when Russia’s attack on our election was unfolding?
2) Since Donald Trump was not president when Russia attacked our electoral process and since you specifically were tasked with conducting “a full and thorough investigation of the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” did you investigate why the Obama Administration, including CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, let this happen?
3) Did you look into any connections between the Hillary Clinton campaign and Russian interests since you also specifically were tasked with investigating “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation” and it’s widely known that the Clinton campaign was digging up political dirt on Donald Trump from Russian sources before the election?
4) President Trump interviewed you on May 16, 2017 for the job of FBI director. The next day, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed you as special counsel. Had you already discussed with Rosenstein the possibility of serving as the special counsel before you interviewed for the FBI director’s job?
5) The report claimed the FBI opened up the counterintelligence probe into the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016 based on an “encounter” between George Papadopoulos, a low-level campaign advisor, and a representative of a foreign government about alleged dirt on Hillary Clinton. But the probe included three other campaign associates, all of whom were cited in the Steele dossier; the public has been assured that the dossier had nothing to do with the investigation. Can you confirm under oath that the dossier was not part of the FBI’s body of evidence to justify launching Crossfire Hurricane?
6) James Comey and several other Justice Department officials used the Steele dossier as its primary source of evidence to obtain a FISA warrant to wiretap Carter Page. They signed the application under penalty of perjury. Would you have signed off on that application?
7) Are you aware of any other FISA warrants on anyone who was associated with the campaign?
8) The report acknowledges that Joseph Mifsud, the so-called professor at the center of the Papadopoulos probe, made false statements to the FBI in early 2017. Did your investigators locate Mifsud to interview him and why has he not been charged him with a crime?
9) Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, is barely mentioned in your report, although he is a central figure in the Russian collusion probe. According to an April 20, 2019 article in the New York Times, your team “debriefed Mr. Steele himself in London for two days in September 2017.” Why did you debrief as opposed to interview Steele as a witness or subject in this investigation?
10) In Volume II, page 103, in reference to the participants in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, you refer to “the firm that produced the Steele reporting.” Why did you intentionally omit citing the name Fusion GPS or its owner, Glenn Simpson, throughout the 448-page report?
11) Did you know that at the same time Fusion GPS was working to collect opposition research on Donald Trump for the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee it also was representing Prevezon, a Russian-based company sanctioned by the U.S. government?
12) Why did you omit the fact that Glenn Simpson was working with Natalia Veselnitskya, the so-called Russian lawyer, on the Prevezon project and that Simpson met with her before the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting that she attended with Trump campaign associates including Donald Trump, Jr.?
13) Why did you also omit the fact the Glenn Simpson was working with Rinat Akhmetshin—another attendee of the Trump Tower meeting—on the Prevezon project and that Simpson met with both Veselnitskya and Akhmetshin the day after the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting?
14) Your office scrubbed the iPhone devices used by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page after they were dismissed from the team. Is that obstruction of justice since both are subjects of ongoing congressional investigations?
15) The report confirmed that on March 9, 2017, Corney briefed congressional leaders about the “FBI’s investigation of Russian interference.” He then testified before the House Intelligence Committee on March 20, 2017, where he publicly revealed for the first time that the FBI had been investigating the Trump campaign (and admitted he withheld that information from Congress for eight months in violation of protocol.) Was this the first time Comey acknowledged to anyone—including Donald Trump—that the campaign had been under investigation since July 2016?
16) At what point did Comey inform Trump that the campaign was under investigation since there is no indication in Comey’s own memos that he disclosed that information to the president at any time prior to March 2017?
17) On page 47 of Volume II, the report states “evidence does establish that the President connected the Flynn investigation to the FBI’s broader Russia investigation and that he believed . . . that terminating Flynn would end ‘the whole Russia thing.’” This appears to conflate two different matters: First, when Trump allegedly made the comment about “letting the Flynn thing go” in February 2017, did he know that his campaign was under investigation for “collusion”?
18) When President Trump allegedly referred to the “whole Russia thing,” do you know if he was referring to the ongoing interference investigations at the FBI and on Capitol Hill or to the collusion investigation?
19) It appears as though Trump’s comment about letting the Flynn matter “go” was in reference to the bogus Logan Act violation being pursued by former acting Attorney General Sally Yates. If Trump did not know in February 2017 that Flynn had been under investigation since July 2016 for “colluding” with the Russians to influence the election, how can his alleged comment to let the Flynn matter “go” be considered an attempt to obstruct the Russia investigation?
20) Aside from Comey’s own memos, do you have additional evidence to support the allegation that the president asked Comey to drop any inquiries related to Michael Flynn?
21) Since you established that former Attorney General Jeff Sessions did not discuss the election during his brief encounters with Russian officials in 2016, do you think it’s appropriate that he nonetheless recused himself?
22) The report cites numerous news articles, including a few that contain classified information sourced by anonymous government officials. As you know, it is a felony to disclose classified information, such as intercepted phone calls with foreign ambassadors under surveillance and the existence of a FISA warrant. Did you identify any of the government officials who were illegally leaking classified information to the news media?
23) Is it illegal for the president of the United States to fire the FBI director, with or without cause?
24) Is it illegal for the president of the United State to consider firing, or to fire, a special counsel?
25) Is it illegal for the president or his advisors to give misleading information to the media?
And here’s a bonus question for closing: At what point in your investigation did you realize that there was no collusion, or, as your report clarifies, “coordination” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government?
Well, we know he didn’t do his own investigation of it, so wherever he got his information, it was secondhand.
p
Others have been tasked with investigation those in the 0bola administration and beyond for their crimes. Such as Horowitz the IG, and Huber, and other federal attorneys and investigators.
If Mueller had been tasked with an open ended investigation it would be ongoing for years. Plus, Special Counsels are not a very effective or timely method of going after wrongdoers.
IOW, Mueller’s limits were not bad, but good.
You push down on the handle which you call Trump to flush the romney.
Use a plunger on the entire bunch.
I rename it periodically as the name sake expires. It was originally named Zarkawi, then bin Laden, then McCain and now it is called Romney.
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