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Stefan Halper's story of Flynn trip with Russian woman deemed 'not plausible … not accurate.' Five days before the FBI formally opened the Michael Flynn probe in summer 2016, a confidential informant alleged to agents that Donald Trump's national security adviser had left a 2014 foreign meeting alone with a Russian woman. Agents ultimately deemed the account "not plausible" and "not accurate" but proceeded to investigate Flynn anyway, newly declassified documents show. FBI confidential human source (CHS) reports show Stefan Halper, an academic who long worked for the bureau as a trusted informant, was the original source of a story...

Okay, here is the latest in the Hoaxmas saga. TruthOut followed up their first Partial Birth Apology with a SECOND Partial Birth Apology in which they AGAIN said nothing except they were sticking by their Hoaxmas story through Hell or High Water. As for Pied Piper Pitt. He is still MIA and is suspected of hiding out in the Furorbunker in the desperate hope that he can beat back the Hoaxmas backlash. Rumor has it that he is deluding himself with fantasy scenarios in which Hoaxmax may still turn out to be true. And he might be getting some...

Robert Luskin, Karl Rove's lawyer, says he spent most of the day on May 12 taking his cat to the veterinarian and having a technician fix his computer at home. He was stunned, therefore, when journalists started calling to ask about an online report that he had spent half the day at his law office, negotiating with Patrick Fitzgerald -- and that the special prosecutor had secretly obtained an indictment of Rove. The cat's medical tests, Luskin says, found that "the stools were free of harmful parasites, which is more than I can say for this case." The claim that...

Clinton-era White House staffer calls it perfect pairing Washington -- Karl Rove's greatest defender in Washington these days is a Democratic lawyer and onetime newspaper reporter named Robert Luskin. He is Rove's attorney in the high-stakes CIA leak case, and is widely credited with sparing his client from indictment so far. But perhaps more intriguing is Luskin's other role. He plays the Anti-Rove. Just look at the guy: Luskin, 55, wears a gold hoop earring and Euro-hip eyeglasses. He's buff and bald. (But bald in a good way.) He rides a black Ducati Monster motorcycle, which its maker touts as...

<p>Q: You’ve said Rove is not a target of the investigation. Is he a subject of the investigation?</p> <p>Q: Since Time delivered its e-mails to the prosecutor on Friday, have you asked the prosecutor whether Rove’s status has changed? From witness to subject? Or subject to target?</p>

Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, had his holiday weekend ruined on Friday when I broke the story that the e-mails that Time delivered to the special prosecutor that afternoon reveal that Karl Rove is the source Matt Cooper has been protecting for two years. The next day, Luskin was forced to open the first hole in the Rove two-year wall of silence about the case. In a huge admission to Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times, Luskin confessed that, well, yes, Rove did talk to Cooper. It is a huge admission in a case where Rove and Luskin have never,...

Lawrence O'Donnell: Update on Rove Lawrence O'Donnell 2 hours, 22 minutes ago On Friday, I broke the story that the e-mails that Time turned over to the prosecutor that day reveal that Karl Rove is the source Matt Cooper is protecting. That provoked Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, to interrupt his holiday weekend to do a little defense work with Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times. On Saturday, Luskin decided to reveal that Rove did have at least one conversation with Cooper, but Luskin told the Times he would not “characterize the substance of the conversation.” Luskin claimed that the prosecutor...

...Rove is identified in Cooper's notes from that time period, which Time turned over Friday to special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald -- under court order. Fitzgerald is investigating whether senior administration officials leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to reporters in July 2003 as retaliation after her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to justify a war with Iraq... Plame's name first appeared in Robert D. Novak's syndicated column in July 2003, eight days after Wilson's opinion piece critical of the Bush administration appeared in the Times. Wilson was sent by...

NEW YORK An attorney for Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, confirmed to the Washington Post on Saturday that his client did speak with Time magazine's Matthew Cooper in July 2003. But the lawyer said Rove never identified Valerie Plame as a CIA operative to Cooper in those conversations. The attorney, Robert Luskin said that Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the Plame case, assured him in October and again last week that Rove is not a target of his investigation. "Karl did nothing wrong. Karl didn't disclose Valerie Plame's identity to Mr. Cooper or anybody else," Luskin told...