quote:

Originally posted by Il Cattivo:

quote:

Rosenstein has lost me on this one. I simply can’t imagine what justifies this obstinate refusal to disclose the document Congress apears to be entitled to see.

He's so obsessed with institutional privilege that he's lost sight of the purposes the institution is supposed to serve.

He doesn't serve "an institution" - he serves the people.

His oath was to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same.

If he can't do it, he should resign. Or be impeached and removed.

Each of the redactions mentioned in Sen. Johnson’s letter appeared to be more dealing with persec, or embarrassment.

A coiple of weeks ago, Congressman Issa made the point that the only classification higher than “Top Secret” is “Embarrassing.” Very droll, but perhaps actually true.

There is no discernible national security concerns, sources and methords, in those, are there?

National Review
Andrew McCarthy

He clings to his role in the process despite being a central witness in Comey’s dismissal.
The House Intelligence Committee is investigating whether the government has used the Justice Department’s awesome investigative authorities as a weapon against political adversaries. We learned yesterday that, in response to this very investigation, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein . . . threatened to use the Justice Department’s awesome investigative authorities as a weapon against political adversaries.

That Rosenstein threatened to subpoena the committee’s records does not seem to be in serious dispute. There are differing accounts about why. House investigators say that Rosenstein was trying to bully his way out of compliance with oversight demands; the Justice Department offers the lawyerly counter that Rosenstein was merely foreshadowing his litigating position if the House were to try to hold him in contempt for obstructing its investigations. Either way, the best explanation for the outburst is that Rosenstein is beset by profound conflicts of interest, and he’s acting like it.

The first thing to bear in mind about the news reported Tuesday by Fox News’s Catherine Herridge is that the dispute in question — which is just one of many during a year of Justice Department stonewalling — happened five months ago, on January 10.

So, what was going on back then?

Among other things, the House Intelligence Committee and senior Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee were pressing for disclosure of the applications the Justice Department submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (“FISA court”) for warrants to eavesdrop on Carter Page, a former Trump-campaign adviser. (The Nunes memo is dated just eight days after Rosenstein’s reported subpoena threat; the Grassley-Graham memo is dated just four days before; both prompted bitter disclosure fights.)

Back then, we were being told that the FBI and Justice Department would never provide the FISA court with unverified allegations from third- and fourth-hand anonymous foreign sources, purveyed by a foreign former spy whose partisan work — including the planting of media stories at the height of the election race — had been paid for by the Democratic presidential candidate. We were being told that if the sources of information presented to the FISA court had any potential biases, those would be candidly disclosed to the FISA court. And we were being told that information in FISA applications is so highly classified that disclosing it would reveal methods and sources of information, almost certainly putting lives and national security in jeopardy.

What, then, did we learn when Congress, after knock-down-drag-out fights like the one in January, finally managed to force some public disclosure?

We learned that the Justice Department and FBI had, in fact, submitted to the FISA court the Steele dossier’s allegations from Russian sources, on the untenable theory that the foreign purveyor of these claims, Christopher Steele, was trustworthy — notwithstanding that he was not making the allegations himself, but instead was only relaying the claims of others.

We learned that the FBI had not been able to verify the dossier’s claims (and that even Steele does not stand behind them), but that the Justice Department presented them to the court anyway.

We learned that the Justice Department failed to tell the FISA court that Steele’s reports were an anti-Trump opposition-research project paid for by the Clinton campaign — i.e., paid for by the political candidate endorsed by the president, paid for by the party of the incumbent administration that had applied for the FISA warrant against its political opponent.

We learned that the Justice Department failed to tell the FISA court that Steele — on whose credibility it was relying — had been discontinued by the FBI as a source because he had lied about his contacts with the media.

We learned that one of those contacts with the media (specifically, with Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News) had generated a news story that the Justice Department actually offered as corroboration for Steele — on the false theory that someone other than Steele was the source for the story.

We learned that the revelation of these facts posed no danger to national security or to methods and sources of intelligence-gathering. Instead, the Justice Department and FBI had fought tooth-and-nail against disclosure because these facts are embarrassing and indicative of an abuse of power.

And we learned that, after the initial 90-day FISA warrant was authorized in October 2016 (about three weeks before the election), it was reauthorized three times — well into the first year of the Trump administration. Meaning: The last FISA-warrant application was approved at the Justice Department by none other than Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Note that the required sign-off by the Justice Department’s top official (which was Rosenstein because Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself) is a key element of FISA’s elaborate statutory process. The process is in place because, unlike criminal-law wiretaps, which are disclosed to the defense and fully litigated prior to trial, national-security wiretaps under FISA are classified and are never disclosed to the targets. Because Congress was concerned that this could lead to abuse, it mandated that warrant applications be approved at the highest levels of the FBI and Justice Department before submission to the FISA court. This is supposed to give the court confidence that the application has been carefully reviewed and that the surveillance sought is a high national-security priority.

To recap: In January 2018, Congress was investigating whether the Justice Department had abused the FISA process. The top Justice Department official for purposes of responding to this congressional investigation was resisting it; this included fighting the disclosure of the last warrant relevant to that investigation, which he had personally approved — a warrant that relied on the unverified Steele dossier (flouting FBI guidelines holding that unverified information is not to be presented to the FISA court), and that failed to disclose both that the dossier was a Clinton-campaign product and that Steele had been booted from the investigation for lying.

Meanwhile, on May 17, 2017, Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to take over the so-called Russia investigation. The incident that proximately triggered this appointment was President Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey. From the start of his tenure, Special Counsel Mueller has been investigating the Comey dismissal as a potential criminal offense — specifically, obstruction of justice. Mueller has done this with Rosenstein’s apparent approval, even though there are significant legal questions about whether a president may properly be accused of obstruction based on an act that is both lawful and a constitutional prerogative of the chief executive.

Even more significantly for present purposes, Rosenstein has clung to his role as Mueller’s ostensible supervisor in the investigation notwithstanding that he is a central witness in Comey’s dismissal. He authored a memorandum that, ironically, posits that a troubled official’s removal was necessary “to restore public confidence” in a vital institution. The Trump administration used Rosenstein’s memo to justify Comey’s firing even though there are salient questions about whether it states the true rationale for the firing — precisely the questions Mueller is investigating.

Conflicts of interests can be tough to analyze because some are contingent and hypothetical. Others, however, are obvious and straightforward. In the latter category are “actor on the stage” conflicts: If a lawyer is an important participant in the facts that form the subject matter of a controversy, he is a witness (at the very least) whose actions and motives are at issue. Therefore, he is too conflicted to act as an attorney representing an interested party in the controversy.

To point this out is not to attack Mr. Rosenstein’s integrity. I do not know the deputy attorney general personally, but people I do know and trust regard him as a scrupulous person and professional. That’s good enough for me. And indeed, while I disagree with his appointment of Mueller (because it was outside DOJ regulations), his impulse to appoint a special counsel suggests that he perceived an ethical problem in directing an investigation that would have to scrutinize his own conduct. That is to his credit.

Nevertheless, it is not to his credit to threaten members of Congress with Justice Department subpoenas for their emails and phone records. It suggests that the conflicts under which he labors are distorting his judgment. And in any event, to point out that a lawyer has a conflict is not to assert that he is acting unethically. A conflicted lawyer recuses himself not because he is incapable of performing competently but because his participation undermines the appearance of impartiality and integrity. In legal proceedings, the appearance that things are on the up and up is nearly as important as the reality that they are.

This is not a symmetrical conflict in which one side’s investigative demands can properly be reciprocated by the other — “if you subpoena me, I’ll subpoena you,” etc. The Justice Department is a creature of statute. While part of the executive branch, it has no independent constitutional standing; it exists because it was established by Congress (as, by the way, was Rosenstein’s office). If the House Intelligence Committee were to issue a subpoena demanding, say, President Obama’s communications with members of his White House staff, that would be objectionable. By contrast, Congress has not only the authority but the responsibility to conduct oversight of the operations of executive departments it has established and funds, and whose operations it defines and restricts by statute.

The Justice Department is not the sovereign in this equation. If it has legal or policy reservations about a disclosure demand from the people’s representatives, it should respectfully raise them; but it is ultimately up to Congress to decide what the people have a right to inquire into. The Justice Department has no business impeding that inquiry. And while people can lose their temper in the heat of the moment (like most of us, I am no stranger to that phenomenon), it is outrageous for a Justice Department official to threaten Congress with subpoenas. If the deputy attorney general did that in a fit of pique, I hope he has apologized.

The Justice Department’s spin on this is ill-conceived. Apparently, the idea is that if the House tried to hold Rosenstein in contempt for defying its subpoenas, he would be permitted to mount a defense and could issue his own subpoenas in that vein. Maybe so (at least, if there were a court prosecution); but he wouldn’t be able to subpoena anything he pleased. Congress has the power and duty to conduct oversight of the Justice Department; it does not need a reason, and its reasons are permitted to be (and no doubt frequently are) political. It would violate separation-of-powers principles for an executive official to attempt to use law-enforcement powers to infringe on the constitutionally protected power of lawmakers to consult and deliberate over legislative activity.

In any event, I assume this is all water under the bridge. It happened five months ago (which is eons ago in the Age of Trump). What matters is the disclosure dispute as it stands in the here and now: On what basis is the Justice Department still withholding some documents and massively redacting others; and when will President Trump, instead of blowing off Twitter steam, finally order his subordinates to comply with lawful congressional demands for information? If there were credible allegations that a Republican administration had spied on a Democratic campaign, we would not be hearing precious concerns about the viability of the Justice Department and FBI as critical American institutions; in unison, the media and the political class would be demanding transparency.

Finally, note that Attorney General Sessions was counseled by Justice Department officials (none of them Trump appointees) to recuse himself under circumstances in which (a) there was no criminal investigation (which the regulations call for in recusal situations); (b) his contacts with Russian officials were not improper; (c) there was scant evidence of criminally actionable collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia; and (d) Sessions apparently had no involvement in approving FISA surveillance of Trump officials, and had less involvement than Rosenstein did in Comey’s firing.

On what planet is it necessary for Jeff Sessions to recuse himself but perfectly appropriate for Rod Rosenstein to continue as acting attorney general for purposes of both the Mueller investigation and Congress’s probe of Justice Department investigative irregularities?

Link

https://www.washingtontimes.co...ttorneys-seek-muzzl/

James Wolfe, the former security director for the Senate Intelligence Committee, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to federal charges that he lied to FBI agents about his contacts with reporters in an investigation into the leak of classified information to the press.

Mr. Wolfe’s legal team said after the hearing, they would seek a gag order barring government employees, including President Trump, from speaking about the case. He called Mr. Trump’s comments, “improper and prejudicial.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

leaker's lawyer calls for a gag order. How do they say this stuff w a straight face ?

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
https://www.washingtontimes.co...ttorneys-seek-muzzl/

James Wolfe, the former security director for the Senate Intelligence Committee, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to federal charges that he lied to FBI agents about his contacts with reporters in an investigation into the leak of classified information to the press.

Mr. Wolfe’s legal team said after the hearing, they would seek a gag order barring government employees, including President Trump, from speaking about the case. He called Mr. Trump’s comments, “improper and prejudicial.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

leaker's lawyer calls for a gag order. How do they say this stuff w a straight face ?

He is accused of lying about leaking, not leaking about lying.

good one.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

So Rosenstein traveled to Canada and couldn't meet w our congressional reps on Tuesday.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr...nforcement-officials

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Meets with Canadian Law Enforcement Officials

"Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein held productive meetings with Canadian law enforcement officials in Montreal and Ottawa. He met with Deputy Minister of Public Safety Malcolm Brown and Canadian Department of Justice Associate Deputy Minister Francois Daigle and their respective teams, as well as officials from the Quebec Provincial Prosecutor’s Office and the Public Prosecution Service of Canada.

“The Deputy Attorney General also met with U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft, with officials of the U.S. Consulate in Montreal and the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, and with Canada-based representatives of U.S. law enforcement agencies, including ATF, DEA, FBI, IRS, ICE-HSI, and Customs & Border Protection. Finally, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein visited the Canadian Parliament, where he had the pleasure of meeting the Senate Speaker, several Senators, and their staffs, and attending sessions of the Canadian Senate and House. He also spoke at the International Economic Forum in Montreal. He appreciated the hospitality extended in Montreal and Ottawa

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Rosenstein can't meet w U.S. congress on a critical matter, but he can visit the hell out of Canada

^^^^^^^

Ha, Rosenstein was actually meeting with Canadian Officials about applying for asylum.

"Today is the day, Judah!"

"Yes, today is the day, Messala."

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
"Today is the day, Judah!"

"Yes, today is the day, Messala."

It is released! https://www.justice.gov/file/1071991/download

From Undercover Huber,


James Clapper wrote a book. From that book:

"Because we had not corroborated any of the sources used to generate the dossier, we had not included it as part of our IC assessment."

The IC assessment was briefed (separately) to Obama and Donald Trump in January 2017.

But the FBI used the dossier in the Carter Page FISA warrant in October 2016. So this is one more clue that the FBI/DoJ got the FISA warrant with unverified information.

The exact, and complete, information used to get the Carter Page warrant is one of the things that Devin Nunes is trying to get out of the FBI/DoJ. They have been obstructing Nunes on this for a long time.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

DoJ IG Horowitz is working on an IG report titled:

"Examination of the Department's and the FBI's Compliance with Legal Requirements and Policies in Applications Filed with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Relating to a certain U.S. person"

The "certain person" is believed to be Carter Page

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
From Undercover Huber,


James Clapper wrote a book. From that book:

"Because we had not corroborated any of the sources used to generate the dossier, we had not included it as part of our IC assessment."

But he did use it as his ticket to a job at CNN after leaking it to them, a dossier he knew to be as fake as it is salacious.



.

couple items

1. Christopher Steele is scheduled to give a deposition tomorrow in London. This is in regards to a defamation lawsuit against Buzzfeed over the release of the dossier in January 2017.

2. It has been reported that the way the FBI first heard of the dossier was when Christopher Steele contacted an FBI agent he knew and asked the agent to come to London.

The agent requested permission from the State Dept to go to London for the 5 July 2016 meeting.

Victoria Nuland was the State Dept person who granted the permission.

Victoria Nuland will testify before the Senate Intelligence Comm next week.

https://www.washingtontimes.co...ump-dossier-testify/

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
Not clear exactly when things started.

Steele briefed the first report to the FBI on 5 July 2016.

Then Wikileaks dumped the DNC emails starting 22 July 2016.


The Australian diplomat told the FBI about Papadopoulos' comments about emails sometime in July 2016.

I think July 2016 was when the FBI started an investigation into the Trump campaign colluding w the Russians.

Now the FBI was worried about Russia hacking the DNC much much earlier. Back in 2014 or 2015. But the collusion part came later

*July
*August
*September
*November
*December
*January
*February
*March
*April
*May
*June
*July
*August
*September
*November
*December
*January
*February
*March

Man that's a lot of months, you'd think they'd find some of all this collusion going on by now, wouldn't you?

Does October count?

I hope someday we hear what Steele said today.

http://www.foxnews.com/politic...ition-in-london.html

Former British spy Christopher Steele, author of the Trump dossier, concluded a four-hour videotaped deposition in London Monday

Steele's long-delayed, court-ordered deposition was for the ongoing multi-million dollar civil lawsuit on both sides of the Atlantic, filed by Russian tech guru Aleksej Gubarev against Buzzfeed and Steele.

Gubarev is suing because he claims his companies, Webzilla and XBT Holdings, were defamed by Steele after the unverified dossier was published by Buzzfeed on January 10th 2017.

Val Gurvits, one of the U.S. attorneys representing Gubarev, told Fox News that Steele's deposition was attended by 17 people including "a legal representative from the Crown to make sure no state secrets were disclosed." Gurvits described Steele as congenial and professional.”

Prior to the Monday morning deposition, Gurvits told Fox News in an email that "We expect Mr. Steele to confirm that he did not lift a finger to verify the false allegations against our clients and that he has absolutely no reason to believe any of these allegations to be true."

After the deposition was concluded, Gurvits told Fox News that " We are satisfied with the results of Mr. Steele's testimony."

Steele's videotaped deposition was designated confidential and is under seal. Similarly, the videotaped testimony of David J. Kramer, a former representative for Senator John McCain, who handed off the dossier to him, is also under seal

it has been reported, but never confirmed, that Kramer was the one who gave the dossier to Buzzfeed. Did McCain give a copy to Comey, and did he have Kramer give another copy to Buzzfeed ?

Kramer pled the Fifth before the House Intelligence Committee.

http://dailycaller.com/2018/06...er-state-department/

Former British spy Christopher Steele visited the State Department in October 2016 and briefed officials there about his work on the infamous anti-Trump dossier, it was revealed on Wednesday.

“Based upon our review of the visitor logs at the State Department, Mr. Steele visited the State Department, briefing officials on the dossier in October 2016,” Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr said during a hearing held to review the U.S. government’s response to Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Steele’s visit to Foggy Bottom in Washington, D.C., prior to the election has not been previously reported.

Nuland was the State Department official who in late-June 2016 signed off on a meeting between Steele and the FBI’s legal attaché in Rome. Nuland was familiar with Steele’s previous work on Russia- and Ukraine-related issues.

A former MI6 officer with experience in Moscow, Steele wrote 17 separate reports for the 35-page dossier. The first report was filed on June 20, 2016. The last one is dated Dec. 13, 2016.

Nuland said Wednesday that she first saw memos from Steele’s dossier in mid-July 2016.

“I was first shown excerpts from the dossier, I believe in mid-July of 2016. It wasn’t the complete thing, which I didn’t see until it was published in the U.S. press,” she told Burr.

Nuland has said in previous interviews that she and other State Department officials referred the dossier to the FBI

“This needs to go to the FBI, if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian federation. That’s something for the FBI to investigate,” Nuland said of the State Department’s response to the dossier in a Feb. 4 interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Nuland said Wednesday that she “actively chose not to be a part” of the October 2016 briefing. She also claimed that she “was not aware of [the briefing] until afterwards.”

From Sarah Carter:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions confirmed Thursday that embattled anti-Trump FBI official, Peter Strzok, no longer has his security clearance.

This news comes just days after Strzok’s attorney confirmed that the agent was escorted out of FBI headquarters following the bombshell Inspector General’s report on the bureau’s mishandling of the Clinton email investigation.

In an interview with radio host, Howie Carr, Sessions said, “Mr. Strzok, as I understand, has lost his security clearance.” Despite losing his clearance, the Attorney General said it was his “understanding” that Strzok remained on the FBI’s payroll, but that he wasn’t sure.

Last summer, Strzok was removed from Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation into the Trump campaign after the Inspector General found numerous concerning text messages between the agent and his paramour, FBI attorney, Lisa Page. Last week’s IG report uncovered even more damning messages between the two, including one in which Strzok said “we’ll stop” Trump from becoming president.

When asked whether or not FBI agents would be prosecuted or disciplined for accepting gifts from journalists, Sessions told Carr, “I’ll let FBI Director Wray respond to those individual matters. I would just say this. We’ve got a new FBI director. I recommended Mr. Comey be terminated and the president terminated him. I fired the deputy director, Mr. McCabe. They now have a new deputy director, a new chief of staff, a new legal counsel, a new communications director and I think we’re on path to get some new blood at the top of the FBI.”

Link

Victoria Nuland Can’t Keep Her Steele Story Straight

Weekly Standard
Eric Felten

Former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland made a bombshell admission Wednesday at an otherwise quiet hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. She admitted that during the waning days of the 2016 election, the Obama State Department hosted ex-British-spy Christopher Steele to give a secret briefing to select staff on his anti-Trump dossier.

This was not information that had been offered up voluntarily by any of Steele’s friends at the State Department. For example, it seems likely that then-special envoy Jonathan Winer knew about the Steele briefing that has now been revealed. And yet when he penned a self-justificatory op-ed in the Washington Post about his Steele ties, any mention of the briefing is strangely missing. Winer admitted to meeting one-on-one with Steele to see the dossier; he admitted to writing up a two-page condensed version of Steele’s opus and giving it to Nuland; he admitted to meeting his old friend (and Clinton crony) Sidney Blumenthal who showed him dossier-like materials from notorious Clinton crank Cody Shearer. And yet, though he was the man in the middle of dossier activities at State, Winer never mentioned that his pal Steele made it to Foggy Bottom—in person—to tell his dossier tales.

The revelation that there was a dossier briefing comes thanks to serious investigative work by chairman Richard Burr’s committee staff and thanks, as well, to smart questioning by the senator. “Based upon our review of the visitor logs at the State Department, Mr. Steele visited the State Department, briefing officials on the dossier in October of 2016,” Burr said. Then he asked Nuland: “Did you have any role in that briefing?” (Note that Burr did not ask whether there was a briefing, he built the existence of the briefing into the structure of the question, leaving Nuland no room to deny it.)

What she did deny was participating in the briefing—but she had trouble keeping her story straight. Asked if she had any role, Nuland told the committee “I did not. I actively chose not to be part of that briefing.”

“But you were aware of the briefing,” Burr pressed.

“I was not aware of it until afterwards,” Nuland claimed.

So, let’s see if we can sort this out: Nuland claims she actively chose not to be part of a briefing that she was not aware of until after it had happened. How is that possible?

Her answers may not be logically consistent, but she is consistent about one thing about—an ongoing effort to put as much distance as she can between herself and the dossier.

Winer placed her right in the thick of things: Having written his two-page summary of Steele’s dossier, Winer wrote he “shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material.”


That isn’t how Nuland recounted her conversation with Winer when interviewed by Politico’s Susan Glasser in February. She said that, having heard about the dossier sometime late in July, “What I did was say that this is about U.S. politics, and not the work of—not the business of the State Department, and certainly not the business of a career employee who is subject to the Hatch Act, which requires that you stay out of politics. So, my advice to those who were interfacing with him was that he should get this information to the FBI, and that they could evaluate whether they thought it was credible.”

Very upright indeed. Except if she thought dabbling in Steele’s information was a violation of the Hatch Act, what could she possibly have thought of Steele himself presenting that information to State Department officials in State Department offices on State Department time? Wouldn’t that amount to a large-scale violation of the Hatch Act? And knowing that, wouldn’t she be obliged to do more than merely choose “not to be part of that briefing.”

Oh, I’m sorry, that’s right: Nuland “was not aware of it until afterwards.”

We know now that State Department officials took a briefing from Christopher Steele in October 2016. The next thing to find out is exactly who attended that briefing, and what they did with the fanciful stories they were being told.

Link

The significance is not clear, but regarding the Mueller case against the Russians:

4 new people have been identified as counsel for the govt

Heather Alpino
Deborah Curtis
Jonathan Kravis
Kathryn Rakoczy

This is the case against Concord Management and Internet Research Agency

Heather Alpino is from DoJ National Security Division Counterintelligence and Export Control Section

Deborah Curtis is currently the Deputy Chief of Export Control for the Counter Espionage Section within the National Security Division of the Department of Justice.

Jonathan Kravis is from U.S. Attorney office DC, Fraud And Public Corruption

Kathryn Rakoczy is from Assistant U.S. Attorney from U.S. Attorney office DC

this article is about Mueller's persecution of Paul Manafort

Manafort is being held in solitary confinement (to protect him from other prisoners)
His bail was revoked by U.S District Judge Amy Berman Jackson.

Amy Jackson was nominated to her position by Obama in 2010.

https://www.politico.com/story...rump-campaign-665898

Mueller‘s prosecutors and Manafort‘s defense team filed separate motions with a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Friday asking to block lawyers at an upcoming trial for the longtime lobbyist and political consultant from mentioning his stint at the helm of the Trump campaign in 2016.

The requests came in court filings spurred by Manafort‘s looming trial next month on charges of tax evasion, bank fraud and failing to report overseas bank accounts.

Mueller’s team went first, asking U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis to prevent Manafort‘s defense from arguing to jurors that he was targeted for prosecution because of his role in Donald Trump’s presidential bid.

“Manafort should … be precluded from arguing that he has been singled out for prosecution because of his position in the campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump, or otherwise asserting that he has been selectively prosecuted by the Special Counsel’s Office,” Mueller’s team wrote

Prosecutors noted that Manafort never filed a legal motion asking for the case to be dismissed on selective-prosecution grounds.

“Courts have consistently held that claims of selective (or vindictive) prosecution must be presented to the court before trial and cannot be argued to the jury,” the government filing said.

Manafort‘s defense followed up a short time later with an even broader motion asking to bar any discussion at all of the defendant‘s role in the Trump campaign, as well as all mention of Mueller‘s mandate to investigate potential collaboration between Trump‘s team and Russia.

“Evidence or argument relating to Mr. Manafort‘s work for then-candidate Trump’s campaign in 2016 or the Special Counsel’s investigation of the campaign’s alleged collusion with the Russian government is wholly irrelevant to whether Mr. Manafort’s personal income tax returns were false, whether he willfully failed to file reports of foreign accounts, and whether he conspired to commit, or committed, bank fraud,“ Manafort‘s attorneys wrote.

The defense lawyers’ motion also evinced concern that their client could become the victim of anti-Trump bias among potential jurors.

Mueller’s team is also looking to sideline several arguments that Manafort’s defense has leveled in pretrial litigation, including claims that Mueller has exceeded the scope of his mandate as special counsel and that his office has filed charges that ordinary Justice Department prosecutors passed up prosecuting years ago.

“Any such argument would be misleading to the extent it suggests that the Department ceased investigating Manafort before the appointment of the Special Counsel and had decided not to bring charges against him,” the prosecution wrote. “It would also not make a fact more or less true. Instead, it would again invite jurors to consider impermissible factors.”

FBI letter of 22 Jun 2018 to Devin Nunes









from:

https://twitter.com/Techno_Fog.../1010639047469993984


?? FBI needs to go to DNI for transcripts between confidential human source(s) and Trump campaign officials. Good thing they weren't spies.