I never completely read the Mueller report. I got thru a little over 80% of it.

The report is absurd. Mueller is a disgrace.

It is depressing to read page after page where it is so obvious the report was written not to establish the truth, but rather to paint the worse possible picture for Donald Trump.

The smallest of events were blown up as major issues and analyzed exhaustively while amplifying anything even remotely incriminating, but ignoring completely anything that showed the President in a good light.

John Solomon has a new report out:

https://thehill.com/opinion/wh....XQpHrxhuK4U.twitter

When the final chapter of the Russia collusion caper is written, it is likely two seminal documents the FBI used to justify investigating Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign will turn out to be bunk.

And the behavior of FBI agents and federal prosecutors who promoted that faulty evidence may disturb us more than we now know.

The first, the Christopher Steele dossier, has received enormous attention. And the more scrutiny it receives, the more its truthfulness wanes. Its credibility has declined so much that many now openly question how the FBI used it to support a surveillance warrant against the Trump campaign in October 2016.

At its best, the Steele dossier is an “unverified and salacious” political research memo funded by Trump’s Democratic rivals. At worst, it may be Russian disinformation worthy of the “garbage” label given it by esteemed reporter Bob Woodward.

The second document, known as the “black cash ledger,” remarkably has escaped the same scrutiny, even though its emergence in Ukraine in the summer of 2016 forced Paul Manafort to resign as Trump campaign chairman and eventually face U.S. indictment.

In search warrant affidavits, the FBI portrayed the ledger as one reason it resurrected a criminal case against Manafort that was dropped in 2014 and needed search warrants in 2017 for bank records to prove he worked for the Russian-backed Party of Regions in Ukraine.

There’s just one problem: The FBI’s public reliance on the ledger came months after the feds were warned repeatedly that the document couldn’t be trusted and likely was a fake, according to documents and more than a dozen interviews with knowledgeable sources.

For example, Ukraine’s top anti-corruption prosecutor, Nazar Kholodnytskyy, told me he warned the U.S. State Department’s law enforcement liaison and multiple FBI agents in late summer 2016 that Ukrainian authorities who recovered the ledger believed it likely was a fraud.

“It was not to be considered a document of Manafort. It was not authenticated. And at that time it should not be used in any way to bring accusations against anybody,” Kholodnytskyy said, recalling what he told FBI agents.

Likewise, Manafort’s Ukrainian business partner Konstantin Kilimnik, a regular informer for the State Department, told the U.S. government almost immediately after the New York Times wrote about the ledger in August 2016 that the document probably was fake.

Manafort “could not have taken large amounts of cash across three borders. It was always a different arrangement — payments were in wire transfers to his companies, which is not a violation,” Kilimnik wrote in an email to a senior U.S. official on Aug. 22, 2016.

He added: “I have some questions about this black cash stuff because those published records do not make sense. The timeframe doesn’t match anything related to payments made to Manafort. … It does not match my records. All fees Manafort got were wires, not cash.”

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team and the FBI were given copies of Kilimnik’s warning, according to three sources familiar with the documents.

Submitting knowingly false or suspect evidence — whether historical or to support probable cause — in a federal court proceeding violates FBI rules and can be a crime under certain circumstances. “To establish probable cause the affiant must demonstrate a basis for knowledge and belief that the facts are true,” the FBI operating manual states.

But with Manafort, the FBI and Mueller’s office did not cite the actual ledger — which would require agents to discuss their assessment of the evidence — and instead cited media reports about it. The feds assisted on one of those stories as sources.

For example, agents mentioned the ledger in an affidavit supporting a July 2017 search warrant for Manafort’s house, citing it as one of the reasons the FBI resurrected the criminal case against Manafort.

“On Aug. 19, 2016, after public reports regarding connections between Manafort, Ukraine and Russia — including an alleged ‘black ledger’ of off-the-book payments from the Party of Regions to Manafort — Manafort left his post as chairman of the Trump campaign,” the July 25, 2017, FBI agent’s affidavit stated.

Three months later, the FBI went further in arguing probable cause for a search warrant for Manafort’s bank records, citing a specific article about the ledger as evidence Manafort was paid to perform U.S. lobbying work for the Ukrainians.

“The April 12, 2017, Associated Press article reported that DMI (Manafort’s company) records showed at least two payments were made to DMI that correspond to payments in the black ledger,” an FBI agent wrote in a footnote to the affidavit.

There are two glaring problems with that assertion.

First, the agent failed to disclose that both FBI officials and Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who later became Mueller’s deputy, met with those AP reporters one day before the story was published and assisted their reporting.

An FBI record of the April 11, 2017, meeting declared that the AP reporters "were advised that they appeared to have a good understanding of Manafort’s business dealings" in Ukraine.

So, essentially, the FBI cited a leak that the government had facilitated and then used it to support the black ledger evidence , even though it had been clearly warned about the document.

Secondly, the FBI was told the ledger claimed to show cash payments to Manafort when, in fact, agents had been told since 2014 that Manafort received money only by bank wires, mostly routed through the island of Cyprus, memos show.

During the 2014 investigation, Manafort and his partner Rick Gates voluntarily identified for FBI agents tens of millions of dollars they received from Ukrainian and Russian sources and the shell companies and banks that wired the money. “Gates stated that the amounts they received would match the amounts they invoiced for services. Gates added they were always paid late, and in tranches,” FBI memos I obtained show.

Liberal law professor Alan Dershowitz said FBI affidavits almost never cite news articles as evidence. “They are supposed to cite the primary evidence and not secondary evidence,” he said.

“It sounds to me like a fraud on the court, possibly a willful and deliberate fraud that should have consequences for both the court and the attorneys’ bar,” he added.

Former FBI intelligence chief Kevin Brock was less critical. He said mentioning the ledger in an affidavit for its historical relationship to Manafort’s firing and the start of the investigation might be defensible, but any effort to use the ledger to support probable cause would be “puzzling” since it clearly was not needed to strengthen either affidavit and only risked tainting the warrant. He said it could raise questions about why the special counsel believed it necessary to refer to the ledger in the probable cause narrative.

In the end, the best proof that the FBI knew the black ledger was a sham is that prosecutors never introduced it to jurors in Manafort’s trial.

The question of whether the Mueller team should have used the ledger in search warrant affidavits before that is for the courts to decide.

But the public has a substantial interest in questioning whether, more broadly, the FBI should have sustained a Trump-Russia collusion investigation for more than two years based on the suspect Steele dossier and black ledger.

Understandably, there isn’t much public sympathy for foreign lobbyists such as Manafort. But the FBI and prosecutors should be required to play by the rules and use solid evidence when making its cases.

It does not appear to have been the prevailing practice in the Russia collusion investigation. And that should trouble us all.

Thanks for posting sdy.

I seriously doubt this type of behavior is limited to these cases. I bet it’s top to bottom, all the time.

It’s time for more serious accountability and open kimono.

quote:

The report is absurd. Mueller is a disgrace.

It is depressing to read page after page where it is so obvious the report was written not to establish the truth, but rather to paint the worse possible picture for Donald Trump.

Yep.
Accountability?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...smann-book-deal.html

Andrew Weissmann, one of the top prosecutors for Robert S. Mueller III on the Russia investigation, is writing a book that will explore his work on the special counsel’s inquiry, according to a publishing executive with knowledge of the deal.

Mr. Weissmann appears to be the first prosecutor on the special counsel’s team to make a deal with a publisher, which makes the prospect of an insider account from him especially intriguing. His book was acquired by Random House, according to the publishing executive.

...

Peter Strzok, a former F.B.I. agent who worked on the Russia investigation and the inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, is also working on a book about his experiences in the bureau, according to a person in the publishing industry with knowledge of his deal

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


The DoJ is making a terrible mistake by not beginning to release declassified documents. Without some hard proof of massive Russia investigation corruption in the FBI/DoJ/CIA, they are leaving an open field for all the guilty parties to write stories, books, do news interviews etc. All of their lies go virtually unchallenged.

Like a football game where only one side shows up.

quote:

All of their lies go virtually unchallenged.

And this is exactly why McCabe should have been indicted right away. Letting him rome free, wrote a book, and do endless interviews reinforces the lefts story of "nothing to see here". After all, if what the republicans are saying was true wouldn't people be charged?

I have ZERO faith Barr will actually hold anyone accountable. Look at his interview on CBS. He "loves the department and the FBI" and I bet he will not want to "damage" them. He'll investigate, write a report, tell them never to do it again, and that will be the end of it.

quote:

I have ZERO faith Barr will actually hold anyone accountable. Look at his interview on CBS. He "loves the department and the FBI" and I bet he will not want to "damage" them. He'll investigate, write a report, tell them never to do it again, and that will be the end of it.

You're super positive about this stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:

Andrew Weissmann, one of the top prosecutors for Robert S. Mueller III on the Russia investigation, is writing a book that will explore his work on the special counsel’s inquiry, according to a publishing executive with knowledge of the deal.

...

Peter Strzok, a former F.B.I. agent who worked on the Russia investigation and the inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, is also working on a book about his experiences in the bureau, according to a person in the publishing industry with knowledge of his deal

Here a book...there a book...everywhere a book book...makes me think of a very wise King of Israel that once gave this good advice..."And further, from these, my son, be warned; the making of many books hath no end, and much study [is] a weariness of the flesh"

John Durham hasn’t d done much yet, but the libs are very unhappy that he’s on the case.

“Justice Dept review of intel in Russia probe fuels fears of politicization

A mix of concern, confusion and defiance has spread through elements of the intelligence community as a murky picture emerges of Attorney General William Barr's review of its investigative and analytical work on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

In particular, current and former intelligence officials are questioning the purpose and propriety of the attorney general's intention, first reported by The New York Times, to enlist John Durham, the U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, in scrutinizing the analytical judgments that led a group of agencies to conclude that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign to boost then-candidate Trump's electability…”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/w...s-of-politicization/

How crazy and upside down are these days? Traitors go to the gallows. Except these traitors. They go on book tours.

Nunes is a good guy.

“Rep. Devin Nunes threatened to send a ninth criminal referral regarding the Trump-Russia investigation to the Justice Department if he does not receive information he requested about British ex-spy Christopher Steele, and accused those who still push the Russian collusion conspiracy of being "possessed."

The California Republican sent letters Friday to FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is conducting a review of the origins of the Russia inquiry. He asked about records the Bureau received in October 2016 that show a top official at the State Department undermining Steele's credibility. Steele authored a dossier, filled with salacious and unverified claims about President Trump's ties to Russia, that was used by the FBI to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA warrants to wiretap onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
……
"So they have until Friday to get it to us, and if they don't, we will make our ninth criminal referral," Nunes told host Maria Bartiromo on "Sunday Morning Futures." "Basically, we won't know exactly who at the FBI obstructed justice, but — Durham or the Department of Justice should be able to figure it out because there's e-mails that went around, and somebody decided not to give it to the Congress." …”

https://www.washingtonexaminer...ddlers-are-possessed

June 24, 2019
Clapper Hears Barr's 'Chilling' Footsteps
By Daniel John Sobieski

American Thinker > https://www.americanthinker.co...lling_footsteps.html

"They really counted on Hillary winning, didn't they? Former director of National Intelligence James Clapper is in panic mode, realizing that the so-called "intelligence community" he supervised under President Obama is about to be revealed by Atty. Gen. William Barr and U.S. atty. John Durham as a weaponized arm of the Clinton campaign, with indictments to follow."
.........
.........
....." Durham and Barr are getting closer to putting the leaders of the Deep State coup in jail for years for their crimes against their country. And James Clapper is beginning to feel the chill."

June 26, 2019
Dossier 2.0 -- Mueller's 'Black Cash' Ledger
By Daniel John Sobieski

American Thinker > https://www.americanthinker.co...ack_cash_ledger.html

"We are familiar with the pattern. Leak details about fake documents like the Steele dossier to the media, then use the media reports as a second source “corroborating” the unverified report when using it to justify your illegal actions.

More evidence of the deceitful and arguably illegal actions by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller has popped up, this time regarding Paul Manafort’s “black cash ledger” allegedly documenting criminal financial moves on his part and it parallels the criminality of the use of the Steele Dossier by the FBI to lie to the FISA court to authorize the surveillance of Team Trump and help launch Mueller’s failed Russia collusion probe.

Robert Mueller has not been honest with the American people either about the alleged Manafort ledger, mentioned in his final report, and used to justify military-style pre-dawn raid on Manafort’s home and offices with more force than was used at Benghazi. The Hill’s John Solomon reports that Mueller knew the ledger was a fake yet after its existence was leaked to the media used those media reports to justify his actions".............

John Solomon wrote an article a year ago that was pretty wild and hard to believe. The article was about Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska.

This post is about a new report (2 July 2019) that backs up the older article.

Some summary items:

- Deripaska is a Russian billionaire who is close to Putin

- Deripaska paid Christopher Steele to do some legal research (not related to dossier)

- Deripaska was interviewed by the FBI in Sep 2016. He was asked for information about Paul Manafort working with the Russian govt to influence the 2016 election. Deripaska told the FBI he strongly doubted the FBI theory about Manafort colluding with Moscow to hijack the election.

- Why did the FBI trust any info from a Russian tycoon ? Iran captured a CIA operative (Robert Levinson) in 2007. At the request of the FBI, Deripaska spent $20 million to find out where Levinson was and how he might get released. He said the deal for a release was almost done, but Hillary Clinton's State Dept scuttled the deal.

- In 2007, Robert Mueller was FBI Director, and Andrew McCabe was one of those who asked for help.

- Deripaska was shocked that Steele worked for the FBI and the Clinton campaign to spread lies about "collusion"

https://thehill.com/opinion/wh...ble-for-team-mueller

In a wide-ranging interview with me, Deripaska confirmed a story told to me more than a year ago by law enforcement sources: He was indeed interviewed by FBI agents in September 2016 during the early Russia probe, and he told them he strongly doubted the bureau’s theory that the Trump campaign, through Manafort, was colluding with Moscow to hijack the 2016 election.

Deripaska’s interview with the FBI reportedly was never provided by Team Mueller to Manafort’s lawyers, even though it was potential proof of innocence, according to Manafort defense lawyer Kevin Downing. Manafort, initially investigated for collusion, was convicted on tax and lobbying violations unrelated to the Russia case.

That omission opens a possible door for appeal for what is known as a Brady violation, for hiding exculpatory information from a defendant.

“The failure to disclose this information to Manafort, the courts, or the public reaffirms that the OSC did not have a legitimate basis to investigate Manafort, and may prove that the OSC had no legitimate basis to investigate potential collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government.”

more at link

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:


“The failure to disclose this information to Manafort, the courts, or the public reaffirms that the OSC did not have a legitimate basis to investigate Manafort, and may prove that the OSC had no legitimate basis to investigate potential collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government.”

more at link

I hope something comes of this, positively.

That early morning SWAT assault/phot-op is bizarrely rankling.

They're allowed to write a book. I'm allowed to not buy or read it.

flashguy

Here's a twist on Deripaska via RT but it covers some of the article.

quote:

Collusion proof? Russian businessman Deripaska says he spent $20 million on FBI op under Mueller

https://www.rt.com/news/463316...ler-fbi-cooperation/

DoJ prosecutors try to screw Michael Flynn. Again.

Flynn is scheduled to testify in a case against his former business partner Bijan Rafiekian. The charges came out of the Mueller persecution of all things Trump related.

Rafiekian is charged w violating the FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) and being an agent of Turkey.

Previously DoJ prosecutors told the court that Flynn was not part of the conspiracy in the Rafiekian case.

Now, just days before the Rafiekian trial is to begin, prosecutors have reversed and declared that Michael Flynn is a coconspirator in the case.

It appears the prosecutors are demanding that Flynn testify to something that Flynn says is not true. (Classic Mueller team outrageous tactics that make them more thug like criminals than representatives of justice)

more info at:

https://saraacarter.com/michae...prosecutors-tactics/

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

another report

https://thehill.com/policy/nat...usiness-partner-will

President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn will not be called by the government to testify at the upcoming trial of his former business partner Bijan Kian and is being listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case, according to a court order issued Tuesday.

The order from U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga in the Eastern District of Virginia cites a July 3 notice filed under seal by the government “stating that the government will not be calling Michael T. Flynn as a witness in its case-in-chief.”

A separate court filing made by Kian’s attorneys that was unsealed Tuesday indicates that the government is no longer entirely confident in Flynn as a witness.

...

I hope John Durham’s investigators come to a different conclusion. I think that there are many Deep State types in the I.G.’s office.

“Christopher Steele, the author of the 'dirty dossier' on Donald Trump, was interviewed by Justice Department officials for 16 hours and found to be credible as part of the agency's examination of the origins of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.
…
Three attorneys from the Inspector General's office of the U.S. Department of Justice met in person in early June with Steele in Britain, said two sources with direct knowledge of the lawyers' travels.

The interview lasted 16 hours, sources told Politico…”

https://mol.im/a/7227945

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Pipe Smoker,

At least, Durham needs to do something.

“Rep. Devin Nunes said U.S. Attorney John Durham needs to convene a grand jury in his review of the origins of the Russia investigation to determine the full extent of the role played by the Steele dossier in the FBI's work.

"The U.S. attorney in Connecticut needs to get all this information quickly as possible and then interview all these people under oath in front of a grand jury," the California Republican said Wednesday evening on Fox News.

Durham was tasked by Attorney General William Barr earlier this year to examine the early stages of the counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign, which the FBI says began in July 2016. He has the ability to convene a grand jury and subpoena people outside of the government…”

www.washingtonexaminer.com/new...-about-trump-dossier