Russian Connection 4: Do Not Congratulate

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Because of course they did 

 

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Too long didn't watch: they're talking about conspiracy charges and how they can be brought against people who agree to commit a crime together and then say that Mueller has referred some new cases to the SDNY. About some lobbyists who didn't register properly I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-gnanwpG-0

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The interesting bit in this video is that apparently Don McGahn wrote a memo detailing that Trump had just been told that Flynn was under investigation when he told Comey to let him go, and subsequently the White House lied that he didn't know.

I know you're shocked that they lied.

They say Priebus and McGahn confirmed this to Mueller.

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About the Magnitsky act

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-01/putin-can-t-get-bill-browder-and-magnitsky-act-out-of-his-head

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Narrator: No one knows if Mueller can even speak.

 

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Aha, so that’s why the presidunce was imploring the evil keebler elf to shut down the investigation!

 

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Follow the dead Russians 

 

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5 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Follow the dead Russians 

 

This is precisely why Pavel will never flip.

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Da that will happen for sure

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Because of course there was a spy

 

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Uh and Dan Coats still doesn't know what all happened in the Putin summit

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"What the Trump-Mueller interview negotiations probably mean"

Spoiler

The Post reports:

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III indicated this week that he is willing to reduce the number of questions his investigators would pose to President Trump in an interview, renewing negotiations with Trump’s lawyers about a presidential sit-down after an extended standoff, according to two people briefed on the negotiations. . . .

For months, Mueller has been seeking to question the president as part of his investigation into Russia interference in the 2016 campaign, which is also examining whether Trump has sought to block that probe.

In a letter sent Monday, Mueller’s team suggested that investigators would reduce by nearly half the number of questions they would ask about potential obstruction of justice, the two people said. It’s unclear which topic or topics would be left out.

It is unsurprising that discussions have continued. “Both sides have an incentive to avoid litigation,” explains Susan Hennessey of the Brookings Institution and the Lawfare blog. “Even if Mueller thinks he will ultimately prevail, it would cost a lot in time and resources. So he would be willing to compromise — to a degree — in order to get Trump to voluntarily sit for an interview.” She adds: “Likewise, Trump doesn’t want to go through litigation, especially since he might lose and end up hauled in front of a grand jury. So it’s better for him to reach a compromise as well.”

Laurence H. Tribe, a constitutional scholar and Supreme Court litigator, points out that a favorable outcome for Mueller is no slam dunk at the Supreme Court. Therefore, Tribe reasons, “he might want at least to try reaching a resolution, even if suboptimal, that doesn’t require going all the way to the Supreme Court, where he might not find five justices prepared to follow U.S. v Nixon, at least in the context of subpoenaing more than documents.” (A unanimous court in U.S. v. Nixon held that President Richard M. Nixon could not shield audio tapes of Oval Office conversations from a subpoena on the grounds of executive privilege, but instead had to comply with a subpoena like any other American.

Former White House ethics counsel Norman Eisen, who has litigated both with and against Mueller, provides some additional reasons. “In this case, he recognizes that for both legal and political reasons he must build a record that he tried everything possible in order to get Trump to testify,” Eisen tells me. “He surely knows that Trump will likely reject any live questioning, no matter how limited.” He continues: “As soon as he opens his mouth, he is going to either implicate himself in obstruction if he tells the truth or commit perjury if he sidesteps. He may do both within the space of the first 10 minutes!”

“Trump will reject all reasonable offers,” Eisen reasons. “Why not propose some limitations? Then when Mueller either seeks a subpoena or simply decides to press ahead and issue a report without one, he can say he did his best. ”

We should be wary of jumping to conclusions as to a grand strategy behind which questions Mueller might eliminate. Simply because some questions aren’t asked doesn’t mean they aren’t critical. Mueller may have all the evidence he needs on certain points. Mueller has gathered written evidence and testimony from corroborating witnesses; Trump’s testimony may be superfluous on certain matters. Hennessey points out that caution is warranted since “all of our information about possible compromise agreements are coming from Trump’s legal team and they are not especially reliable narrators.”

What would seem to be most valuable for Mueller to ask? Intent is always the sticky issue in an obstruction charge. Former prosecutor Harry Litman advises that the most important objective for Mueller is “to resolve state of mind question for obstruction charge, and to give Trump the chance to dissuade him of corrupt purpose.”

In any event, it is very likely Trump’s lawyers won’t allow him to sit for any questioning. The problem is not the scope of the inquiry but the pathological dishonesty of their client.

 

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Rand Paul going to get his instructions 

 Also why does everyone learn this sort of thing from the Russian news?

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5 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 Also why does everyone learn this sort of thing from the Russian news?

It makes you wonder about all the meetings the Russian news doesn't report about. 

[GreyhoundFan]

An interesting analysis: "An important clue from Mueller in the Russia collusion probe?"

Spoiler

The news earlier this week wasn't greeted with much fanfare: Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III had referred the cases of potential foreign lobbying violations by Tony Podesta, Vin Weber and Gregory Craig to the Southern District of New York. Despite these cases arising out of his Russia investigation — which makes them fair game for Mueller — he decided not to deal with them personally. And that made sense, given that they don't appear to have much to do with Russian interference in the 2016 election.

But that also may be the very important point — especially with regard to the just-begun Paul Manafort trial.

Critics of Mueller's investigation, including President Trump, have seized upon the Manafort trial as an example of what Mueller hasn't produced — specifically, anything proving collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Manafort is charged with financial and other crimes that predate the 2016 election.

“These old charges have nothing to do with Collusion,” Trump said Wednesday in a tweet, again calling the investigation “a Hoax!”

But experts say the fact that Mueller is farming out things like the Podesta, Weber and Craig cases — and even the Michael Cohen case, which also went to SDNY — reinforces the idea that Manafort is still seen as a potentially key figure in the Russia collusion case. And that goes for basically anything else Mueller has apparently kept under his purview, up to and including the Seychelles meeting, Erik Prince, George Nader and Roger Stone. Mueller has now shown he'll hand off multiple things that don't further that specific aim, and everything that hasn't been handed off would logically still seem potentially pertinent to the collusion probe.

“My best guess is that the most obvious answer is the correct one: He took on Manafort himself, because Manafort is obviously a key witness to many of the events most central to his investigation and wanted to retain the capacity to plea-bargain with him,” said David A. Super, a law professor at Georgetown University. “If he does not think Craig, Weber and Podesta know anything central to his work, it makes sense to refer them out, both to conserve his limited staff resources and to avoid concerns that his inquiry is spreading more than is necessary.”

But — and this is a key point — that doesn't exactly explain why Mueller is prosecuting Manafort but farmed out the Cohen case. Cohen, like Manafort, is widely viewed as someone who could flip on Trump and who is under investigation for things apparently unrelated to the campaign. So why would Mueller refer the Cohen case (along with Podesta-Weber-Craig) to SDNY but not the Manafort one?

The one obvious difference would seem to be that Manafort was a key figure in the Trump campaign and had existing ties to Russian interests that could conceivably be involved in the case's future. While Cohen may know derogatory things about Trump — and reportedly is even telling people Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting — Manafort may still be viewed as more of a potential collusion witness.

“They’re the same in that, ultimately, Muller wants to use both to flip on the president," said former federal prosecutor David F. Axelrod. "The difference, it seems to me, is that Manafort was at the Trump Tower meeting and was part of the Trump campaign. … Cohen is more incidental.”

Super noted that we may only know a portion of the evidence Mueller has on Manafort -- and that Mueller could be keeping evidence related to other alleged crimes secret for now.

“Mueller may be seeing a more coherent and comprehensive picture,” Super said. “If so, it would be quite natural for him to try to prove it a piece at a time. That is what prosecutors often do.”

Added Patrick J. Cotter, a former federal prosecutor who is now with the Greensfelder law firm: “Compare Manafort, who if a [foreign lobbying]/tax/fraud prosecution or two can persuade him to cooperate, could definitely shed light on those central questions.”

The referral in the Cohen case could perhaps be understood as Mueller wanting New York to handle a case in which the alleged crimes took place in New York. But the Podesta, Weber and Craig cases don't really seem to have much to do with New York. Instead, it seems Mueller is keeping his focus narrowly on Russian interference and not broadening it out into the wide-ranging “witch hunt” of which he's been accused.

That means we can assume, more than we could a few days ago, that the things Mueller has kept under his purview are in service of that more narrow focus — rather than him simply trying to prosecute every potential crime that arises from his investigation.

 

[Cartmann99]

 

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