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Open in TheBrain

Mueller, Robert

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SEE TWO

see collusion

11 24 bondi vow to investigate the investigators? after specl cncl fail?

neglected till witchhut const crisis:

rod r dep aG running interference?

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MUELLER WENT AFTER OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, TOLD FBI DOING CTR-INTELL BUT NO ONE DID?!

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an 1 24

An analyst who once served as an advisor to former President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign is now in the crosshairs of the FBI, and he's since taken to Russian state media to rail against President Joe Biden and the Department of Justice.

Citing the Rappahannock News, the Guardian reported that the FBI recently conducted a raid on the Huntly, Virginia home of Dmitri Simes, who was named more than 100 times in DOJ special counsel Robert Mueller's 2018 report. While it remains unknown what the FBI was seeking in its raid, the Rappahannock News confirmed with the agency that it was indeed "conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity" on the 132-acre property that Simes bought in 2021 for $1.63 million. Real estate site Zillow now estimates the five-bedroom, seven-bathroom, 8,577 square-foot house to be worth more than $2.2 million.

In an interview with Russian state-run media outlet Sputnik News, Simes son, Dmitri Jr. said is father has not been in the U.S. since 2022. He also suggested the raid was politically motivated.

READ MORE:(Opinion) Trump hides the worst scandal in America history in plain sight

"The Biden regime is terrified of being called out over Ukraine and Israel," Simes Jr. tweeted. "Elements of [the] Biden regime are trying to disrupt any possibility for deescalation with Russia and plunge America into World War III."

The elder Simes — who hosts a talk show on Russian state-run media outlet Channel One — told Sputnik that the raid was "clearly is an attempt to intimidate, not only somebody from Russia, but just anyone who goes against official policies and particularly against the deep state."

"My suspicion is that instead of trying to get me to come to the United States and to interrogate me or even to arrest me, their real purpose is to make sure that I would not come back," he added.

Simes is reportedly close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, with Russian media outlet Tass reporting that he attended a closed-door meeting with Putin in June. The Russian pundit also moderated a conversation with Putin at an economic forum in St. Petersburg last year. Previously, the Senate Finance Committee investigated Simes over his purported connections to Russian spy Maria Butina, who infiltrated MAGA circles during Trump's administration in efforts to set up a communications backchannel between Trump and Moscow.

READ MORE:Even Trump allies worried after Russia's foreign minister 'praised' JD Vance: reports

According to the Guardian, Simes — who emigrated to the U.S. from Moscow in 1973 — served as an informal policy advisor to Trump's 2016 campaign after a meeting earlier that year with Jared Kushner (Trump's son-in-law). He reportedly advised the ex-president on a speech he wrote emphasizing greater cooperation between Washington and Moscow.

Prior to his work with Trump, Simes was an informal foreign policy advisor to former President Richard M. Nixon. He went on to lead the public policy think tank, the Center for the National Interest, which Nixon launched in 1994. Simes retired from the think tank in 2022.

Russian state media has leaned in on its support of Trump, even after he was convicted on 34 felony charges earlier this year. Russian pundit Dmitry Kulikov, who hosts "Solovyov Live," complained, "They wronged our Donald Trump" after the verdict. He and other Russian propagandists were openly hoping for a hung jury.

Click here to read the Guardian's report in full.

READ MORE:'Working hard for Russia': MTG mocked over proposing US reps backing Ukraine aid fight in the war

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/dc-wise-man-had-early-access-to-trumps-pro-russia-speech

dC. Wise Man Had Early Access to Trump’s Pro-Russia Speech

Photos obtained by The Daily Beast show that controversial think tank chief Dimitri Simes was closer than previously known to the speech’s drafting.

Betsy Swan

Political Reporter

Updated 09.06.18 9:49PM ET / Published 09.06.18 4:54AM ET

In the morning of April 21, 2016, a staffer at the Center for the National Interest, a Washington D.C., think tank, wandered into the office of Dimitri Simes, the group’s president.

The staffer saw a pile of papers on the desk titled “FOREIGN POLICY AND DEFENSE OUTLINE.” The staffer realized the papers were the detailed outline, in bullet-pointed paragraphs, of a major foreign-policy address that then-candidate Donald Trump was set to deliver six days later as a guest of the center. The staffer used a cellphone to snap pictures of all five pages of the document.

More than two years later, Maria Butina, who once wrote for the center’s magazine and occasionally emailed with Simes, was arrested as an accused Kremlin agent. Subsequently, the person provided the photos to The Daily Beast. The photos’ metadata confirm they were taken on a cellphone on the morning of April 21, 2016. A second former staffer told The Daily Beast that he saw the same documents on Simes’ desk.

The pictures provide new insight into the creation of Trump’s historic foreign-policy speech. They also indicate that Simes was closer than previously known to the drafting of that speech. (Jacob Heilbrunn, the editor of the center’s magazine, wrote for Politico shortly after the speech that he didn’t know what was going to be in it. “I was curious as anyone to see what Trump would actually say,” he wrote.)  

“The Committee has reason to believe that Mr. Simes played a central role in drafting portions of the speech related to Russia.”

— House Intelligence Committee Democrats

It isn’t unusual for a think tank chiefs to preview drafts of a speeches presented at their invitation. But Simes’ proximity to the speech shows that he had an early view into the crafting of a speech that would have historic significance for American foreign policy.Democrats on the House intelligence committee tried to investigate Simes’ relationship to Trump’s campaign, but Republican committee Chairman Devin Nunes blocked their efforts.

Presented with this account and with the pictures of the document, the center’s executive director, Paul Saunders, declined to comment. Heilbrunn emailed that he did not receive any preview of the speech. Simes did not respond to a request for comment but wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Sept. 5, 2018, that his think tank’s interaction with the Trump campaign had a “small scope.” Michael Glassner, the chief operating officer at Donald J. Trump for President, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. J.D. Gordon, a foreign-policy adviser to Trump on the 2016 campaign, told The Daily Beast he was not familiar with the document.

The pictures demonstrate that significant changes were made from the speech’s detailed outline to its final version—including the removal of lines condemning bigotry, praising legal immigration, and disparaging Russia.

The speech Trump ultimately delivered—a transcript is available here—had some notable differences from the lengthy outline that found its way to Simes’ desk. The document on Simes’ desk listed four main weaknesses in American foreign policy: overstretched resources, an unclear understanding of foreign-policy goals, allies afraid they cannot trust the U.S., and the disrespect of rivals.

The speech Trump delivered a week later, on April 27, included one more bullet-pointed weakness: “Our allies are not paying their fair share,” Trump proclaimed. The same concern is detailed in the document from Simes’ desk, but with less prominent billing. It’s a talking point Trump has been hammering for nearly two decades and continues to use in meetings with America’s NATO allies.

The outline also criticized American intervention in the Balkans under the Clinton administration—a move also criticized by the Kremlin. “Look what happened in the 1990s,” the outline said. “Even after the attacks on the USS Cole and our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, we continued to pursue nation-building in the Balkans. Then we got hit on 9/11, because our leaders were not sufficiently focused on the security of the American people.”

When Trump delivered his speech a week later, he didn’t mention the Balkans.

The outline also included a line speaking out against prejudice. “I reject bigotry of all kinds,” the document from Simes’ desk reads. “And I reject Senator Cruz’s proposal to patrol Muslim neighborhoods in our country. That is wrong.” In his final speech, Trump didn’t speak about bigotry in general or Cruz’s proposal to patrol Muslim neighborhoods in particular.

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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/republican-think-tank-asked-accused-russian-spy-help-advance-donors-financial

Center for the National Interest is one of the most pro-Russia conservative think tanks in Washington. They hosted President Donald Trump's foreign policy speech praising Russia in 2016, when he was still a candidate.

But it turns out their closeness to Russia is greater than previously thought. A new investigation by The Daily Beast found disturbing interactions between the group's president, Dimitri Simes, and accused Russian spy Maria Butina:

[P]reviously unreported emails and direct messages between Butina and officials at the Center show her relationship with the think tank’s president—former Richard Nixon adviser Dimitri Simes—was closer than previously understood. The two didn’t just make plans to have dinner together. According to emails and Twitter DMs reviewed by The Daily Beast, Simes looked to use his connections with Butina and her associate, Russian Central Bank official Alexandr Torshin, to advance the business interests of one of the Center’s most generous donors.

The donor, former AIG CEO and New York Federal Reserve chairman Hank Greenberg,denies doing anything improper, and there is no evidence he even knew the Center was trying to negotiate on his behalf.

Nonetheless, the new report contradicts the claims of the group's executive director, Paul J. Saunders, who wrote earlier this month that the Center had had "very limited" interactions with Butina.

Butina, who was charged in July with working as an unregistered foreign agent in the United States, is believed to be a key actor in Russian influence on conservative political groups, at one point even allegedly offering sex in exchange for a position within a special interest organization. In particular, she is thought to have played an important role in ties between the U.S. gun rights groups and wealthy Russian officials.

Torshin, her associate, is a Vladimir Putin-allied Russian oligarch and deputy governor of the Russian Central Bank, who allegedly funneled millions to the NRA. He has been accused of money laundering by the Spanish government and is currently listed for sanctions by the Treasury Department.

The prosecution of Butina is a separate case from the investigation of the Trump campaign's ties to Russia being conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/former-fbi-agent-on-the-mueller-team-says-trump-was-badly-compromised-in-2016/

peter strock

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/hhs-official-who-manipulated-cdc-reports-on-19-has-deep-russian-ties-report/

no lnx twt

On September 11, Politico reported that Michael Caputo, assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, interfered in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s reports on COVID-19 in order to make them conform to President Donald Trump’s claims about the pandemic. And Caputo, journalist Mary Papenfuss reports in HuffPost, is drawing scrutiny for another reason as well: his ties to the Kremlin.

Caputo, Papenfuss notes, lived in Russia for six years and served as an adviser to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin from 1995-1999 before Vladimir Putin became Russia’s president. The HHS assistant secretary was an adviser to a subsidiary of Gazprom, an energy company owned by the Russian government — and Papenfuss points out thatCaputo “reportedly helped shore up Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reputation.”

“Caputo’s Kremlin ties were so concerning that he became a target of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election,” Papenfuss explains. “He was questioned but was not charged with any offenses. He also testified before the House Intelligence Committee that he had no contact with Russians while serving on the Trump campaign.”

Caputo, a long-time ally of veteran GOP operative Roger Stone, has promoted the debunked conspiracy theory that it was the Ukrainian government, not the Kremlin, that interfered in the 2016 presidential election — and that the interference was in support of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, not Trump.Papenfuss notes that Caputo “has spread baseless accusations concerning activities in Ukraine by Joe and Hunter Biden. A key source of that Ukrainian smear, Andrii Derkach, turned out to be a Russian spy attempting to interfere in the current U.S. election, the Treasury Department revealed last week.”

During Trump’s impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate, Trump denounced the impeachment as “phony” — and he was also highly critical of the Russia investigation.

The Mueller report says of Caputo, “In the spring of 2016, Trump campaign advisor Michael Caputo learned through a Florida-based Russian business partner that another Florida-based Russian, Henry Oknyansky — who also went by the name Henry Greenberg — claimed to have information pertaining to Hilary Clinton. Caputo notified Roger Stone and brokered communication between Stone and Oknyansky. Oknyansky and Stone set up a May 2016 in-person meeting.”

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1219 note: mueller investigation was circumscribed (how/why) and went by doj memo that sitting prez could not be indicted [djt will later claim cannot be invesigated?]; mueller carefully laid out obstruction of justice then expected house to do its const duty to investigate/impeach; and actually mueller report is being revisited as impeach docs prepared?

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mma 5/18

Conservatives often bemoan liberal dominance of Hollywood. But since Donald Trump’s election, Fox News’ Sean Hannity has built the closest thing the right wing has to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the wildly successful superhero franchise. Where Marvel’s superheroes fight alien invaders, the stars of the Sean Hannity Extended Universe (SHEU) position themselves as the last bulwark against special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. But while the superheroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe fight villains like Thanos on their own, Hannity and his compatriots want to go a step further and enlist their audience to support a frightening and anti-democratic response by Trump.

Hannity has cast himself as his series’ Iron Man, the only visionary clear-sighted enough to identify an existential threat. The sprawling team assembled around him includes bankable leads, aging stars seeking new relevance, promising new faces, and ensemble players, all crossing over into each other’s storylines to build common narratives. Their overarching tale is that Mueller’s Russia probe is a “witch hunt,” the result of the fabrications of a shadowy cabal of journalists, Democrats, and “deep state” operatives. The happy ending they seek is the president saving himself by curtailing Mueller’s probe and instead ordering investigations into his political enemies.

For more about Hannity's conspiratorial narrative and the authoritarian endgame he's pushing, see our study reviewing his coverage of the first year of the Mueller probe.

President Trump is simultaneously the audience for this story, the victim who needs to be saved, and, in Hannity’s telling, the potential hero. The SHEU’s proposed solution to the Mueller investigation is in line with the authoritarian model for law enforcement Trump prefers, casting the Justice Department’s function as protecting the president and punishing his enemies. Unlike Marvel fans, Trump is able not merely to watch members of the SHEU on Fox broadcasts, but to break the fourth wall and go on their shows for fawning interviews, highlight particular segments for his Twitter followers, promote their programs and books, and even call on a select few for advice.

That might be a fanboy’s fantasy. But it has real and frightening consequences. The SHEU is reaching out from the Fox News screen and encouraging the president to act on his authoritarian impulses. Hannity and his teammates are preparing their viewers to support Trump no matter what norms he shatters. They have great power, and if Trump takes their advice, they will bear great responsibility.

[vid]

Anti-Mueller conspiracy theories have permeated nearly every corner of Fox. But only the true stalwarts merit inclusion in the Sean Hannity Extended Universe:

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Rep. Devin Nunes tells *Fox & Friends* that the Mueller report should be burned

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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/how-62-year-old-unsolved-mystery-could-stifle-robert-muellers-russia-investigation

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flip --> jiu jitsu cascade effect

2. David Pecker

American Media publishes the National Enquirer, which has been a bastion of trash “journalism” since 1926. Back in the 1930s, the Enquirer published pro-fascist anti-Semitic propaganda and vilified Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency—although in the 1970s and 1980s, it was better known for goofy accounts of Americans encountering zombies or being kidnapped by flying saucers. Pecker was a major supporter of Trump’s 2016 campaign, publishing a series of over-the-top anti-Hillary Clinton articles—and in the 1990s, he had promoted Trump’s business interests by published the quarterly magazine Trump Style. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that in 2015 and 2016, Pecker and American Media had a “catch and kill” agreement with Cohen, meaning that the Enquirer would purchase exclusive rights to negative stories about Trump but wouldn’t publish them. According to federal prosecutors, Pecker offered, in August 2015, to help Cohen find negative stories about Trump’s relationships with women and kill the stories.

3. Dylan Howard

Federal prosecutors allege that in June 2016, Pecker and Howard contacted Cohen to inform him that McDougal was trying to sell them a story about her alleged affair with Trump in 2006/2007—and Cohen asked them to purchase the story and agreed to reimburse American Media. In August 2016, American Media agreed to pay McDougal $150,000 for the story, and Cohen created a dummy corporation called Resolution Consultants in order to purchase the story from American Media for $125,000. Now, with Howard agreeing to cooperate with federal prosecutors in exchange for immunity, it’s in his best interests to be as forthcoming as possible about his dealings with Cohen during the Trump campaign. 

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/us/politics/mueller-indictment-russian-intelligence-hacking.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/rod-rosenstein-expected-to-announce-new-indictment-by-mueller/2018/07/13/bc565582-86a9-11e8-8553-a3ce89036c78_story.html

no lnx

A dozen Russian military intelligence officers were indicted Friday on charges they hacked Democrats’ computers, stole their data and published those files to disrupt the 2016 election— the clearest connection to the Kremlin established so far by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of interference in the presidential campaign.

The indictment against members of the Russian military agency known as the GRUmarks the first time Mueller has taken direct aim at the Russian government, accusing specific military units and their named officers of a sophisticated, sustained effort to hack the computer networks of Democratic organizations and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein announced the charges at a midday news conference. Mueller, as has been his practice, did not attend the announcement. Court records show that a grand jury that Mueller has been using returned an indictment Friday morning.

The suspects “covertly monitored the computers, implanted hundreds of files containing malicious computer code, and stole emails and other documents,” Rosenstein said. “The goal of the conspirators was to have an impact on the election. What impact they may have had .?.?. is a matter of speculation; that’s not our responsibility.”

The indictment comes days before President Trump is due to meet with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin in Finland. Rosenstein said he briefed Trump earlier this week on the charges.

Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani said on Twitter that the indictments “are good news for all Americans. The Russians are nailed. No Americans are involved.” He then called on Mueller “to end this pursuit of the president and say President Trump is completely innocent.”

Who has been charged in Russia probe and why VIEW GRAPHIC

The 11-count, 29-page indictment describes in granular detail a carefully planned and executed attack on the information security of Democrats, as Russian government hackers implanted hundreds of malware files on Democrats’ computer systems to steal information. The hackers then laundered the pilfered material through fake personas calledDC Leaks and Guccifer 2.0,as well as others, to try to influence voters.

One of their conduits, identified in the indictment only as “Organization 1,” was WikiLeaks, the global anti-secrecy group led by Julian Assange, according to people familiar with the case. The indictment describes WikiLeaks communicating with Guccifer 2.0 to obtain material.

On July 6, 2016, according to the indictment, WikiLeaks wrote, “if you have anything Hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the DNC [Democratic National Convention] is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters behind her after,” referring to Clinton’s rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). WikiLeaks explained, “we think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary .?.?. so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting.”

WikiLeaks released nearly 20,000 Democratic National Committee emails on the eve of the convention later that month, providing an embarrassing look at party operations and attitudes toward the Sanders campaign.

[Read the indictment of 12 Russians charged with hacking Democrats]

2:43

Rod Rosenstein announces indictment of 12 Russian agents

The deputy attorney general announces the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence agents in connection with hacking during the 2016 election. (The Washington Post)

A former Justice Department official who was previously involved in the Russia probe said the charges should serve as a warning for the United States to buttress its election security as Americans prepare to vote in congressional elections in November.

“The detailed charges in this indictment make it unmistakably clear that the United States faces an aggressive, sophisticated adversary bent on using cyber means to subvert our democratic processes and institutions,” said David Laufman, a former chief of the Justice Department’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. “Now is the time for unequivocal recognition of this threat by both the executive branch and Congress, and for a unified and well coordinated commitment to confront it.”

The indictment offers troubling new accusations about the extent of Russian hacking efforts and interactions with Americans.

“On or about August 15, 2016, the conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, received a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress,” the indictment states. “The conspirators responded using the Guccifer 2.0 persona and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate’s opponent.” The indictment does not identify the candidate.

The indictment also describes an online conversation between the GRU, posing as Guccifer 2.0, and a “person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.”

People familiar with the case said that person is longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone. In August 2016, the hacker persona wrote: “please tell me if i can help u anyhow .?.?. it would be a great pleasure to me.”

Stone’s lawyer Grant Smith said, “It is clear from the indictment issued today that our client, Roger Stone, was not in any way involved with any of the alleged hacking of the 2016 election. As he testified before the House Intelligence Committee under oath, his 24-word exchange with someone on Twitter claiming to be Guccifer 2.0 is benign, based on its content, context and timing.”

U.S. officials identified one of the GRU sections that carried out the operations as Unit 26165, which worked out of a building about four miles from the Kremlin. It was responsible for hacking the DNC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, according to the indictment, which accuses Viktor Netyksho of being the military officer in command of Unit 26165 at the time.

Although the DNC was able to partially kick the Russian hackers out of its system in June 2016, the indictment says three months later, the GRU “successfully gained access to DNC computers hosted on a third-party cloud-computing service” which held “test applications related to the DNC’s analytics,” according to the indictment. The hacker stole that data from the DNC, the indictment said.

Another group of Russian military officers, Unit 74455, working out of a building that GRU officers referred to as the “Tower,” used fake online personas to spread stolen files, officials charged. The indictment identifies Col. Aleksandr Osadchuk as the commanding officer of that unit.

The indictment also notes an interesting development on July 27, 2016 — the day then-candidate Trump gave a press conference declaring his hope that missing Clinton emails would be found and made public, saying: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”

The indictment says “on or about” that same day, “the conspirators attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third-party provider and used by Clinton’s personal office. At or around the same time, they also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton campaign.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry rejected the indictment’s allegations as lacking evidence and described the charges as a clear effort to derail the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki.

“It is unfortunate that distributing false information has become the norm in Washington, and that criminal cases are being initiated based on clearly political motives,” the ministry said. Referring to the Mueller investigation, the statement went on: “The question remains how long this shameful comedy that is embarrassing the United States will go on.”

Rosenstein said the hackers interacted with some Americans in the course of their efforts but noted that those people had not been charged with a crime.

“When we confront foreign interference in American elections, it is important for us to avoid thinking politically as Republicans or Democrats and instead to think patriotically as Americans. Our response must not depend on who was victimized,” he said. “There will always be adversaries who work to exacerbate domestic differences and try to confuse, divide and conquer us. So long as we are united in our commitment to the values enshrined in the Constitution, they will not succeed.”

Mueller and a team of prosecutors have been working since May 2017 to determine whether any Trump associates conspired with Russia to interfere in the election. With the new indictment, his office has filed charges against 32 people on crimes including hacking, money laundering and lying to the FBI. Twenty-six of those charged are Russians who are unlikely to ever be put on trial in the United States.

In February, Mueller indicted a group of Russian Internet trolls who worked out of theInternet Research Agency, a company based in St. Petersburg and owned by a wealthy associate of Putin.

[Russian troll farm, 13 suspects indicted in 2016 election interference]

Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, is in jail in Alexandria, Va., awaiting trial this month on financial fraud charges brought by Mueller but stemming from activities that predated the Trump campaign.

Mueller’s probe has come under sustained attack from Trump and at a press conference in England on Friday before Rosenstein spoke, the president again labeled the investigation a “witch hunt.”

“I think that we’re being hurt very badly by the — I would call it the witch hunt,” said Trump as he stood beside British Prime Minister Theresa May. “It really hurts our relationship with Russia.”

Rosenstein said of his decision to brief Trump, “It was important for the president to know what information we’ve uncovered because he’s got to make very important decisions for the country. He needs to understand what evidence we have of foreign election interference.”

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On 16 February 2018, 13 individuals were indicted by the Washington, D.C. grand jury for alleged illegal interference in the 2016 presidential elections, during which they strongly supported the candidacy of Donald Trump, according to special counsel Robert Mueller's office. IRA, Concord Management and Concord Catering were also indicted. It was allegedly that IRA was controlled by Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin, a wealthy associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin.[79][80]

The indicted individuals are Mikhail Ivanovich Bystrov, Mikhail Leonidovich Burchik, Aleksandra Yuryevna Krylova, Anna Vladislavovna Bogacheva, Sergey Pavlovich Polozov, Maria Anatolyevna Bovda, Robert Sergeyevich Bovda, Dzheykhun Nasimi Ogly Aslanov, Vadim Vladimirovich Podkopaev, Gleb Igorevitch Vasilchenko, Irina Viktorovna Kaverzina, Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin and Vladimir Venkov.[80] None of the defendants is in custody.[81]

On March 15, President Trump imposed financial sanctions under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act on the 13 Russian and organizations indicted by Mueller,[82] preventing them from entering the United States to answer the charges should they wish to.

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Stefan Halper was identified this week as the alleged “informant” who Donald Trump accused of spying on his 2016 presidential campaign and kicking off an FBI investigation into possible collusion with Russia.

But several weeks ago, a news outlet with deep ties to Trump himself had already identified Halper as the likely information. The Daily Caller, a right-leaning news outlet founded by Trump supporter and Fox News host Tucker Carlson, had actually reported back on March 25 that Halper had reached out to members of Trump’s campaign in an effort to learn about their communications with Russia.

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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/house-republicans-want-straight-break-actual-system-law-itself

House Republicans are attacking the Department of Justice and by extension the special counsel's Russia probe on so many fronts it's impossible to keep track. Freedom Caucus chair Mark Meadows's new tact is to push for a federal audit of Robert Mueller under the guise of oversight in order to get an unredacted copy of the "scope memo," which lays out the boundaries of his Russia investigation. The Washington Post writes:

Meadows, speaking Thursday during a taping of C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” that is to air Sunday, said he believed the audit is required under federal law and could not be completed without an unredacted copy of the memo written in August 2017 by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein. [...]

Meadows and fellow Freedom Caucus member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)has pushed for weeks to get unfettered access to the memo, but the Justice Department has so far refused them access. Only a heavily redacted version has been publicly shared as part of the prosecution of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort because, according to people familiar with the Justice Department’s thinking, prosecutors think its full disclosure could compromise Mueller’s probe

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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/mueller-wikileaks-foundation-russia-case

Robert Mueller’s emerging focus on Donald Trump’s knowledge of hacked Democratic National Committee emails shows he’s “laid the foundation” for a collusion case against Donald Trump, a former White House lawyer said.

Wednesday, NBC News reported Mueller’s team is probing how much Trump knew about the stolen DNC emails and whether he was aware the radical transparency organization WikiLeaks planned to publish those exchanges.

Andrew Wright, who served for two years as Barack Obama’s associate counsel, told Business Insider that line of questioning is a bad sign for the president.

“The one specious thing about Trump’s lawyers’ strategy is that they’re saying there’s no substantive focus on Trump when it comes to the collusion inquiry, that this is all about obstruction of justice, and that Mueller already has everything he needs from other witnesses and documents for the obstruction case,” Wright said, referring to reported attempts by Trump’s attorneys to shield their client from sitting for an interview with the special counsel.

“Setting the obstruction case aside, what has happened over the last couple of weeks is that Mueller laid the foundation [for a collusion case] by showing the crimes of the Russians, in at least some form,” Wright continued. “And now we’re seeing his focus on Trump about the hacked emails. At this point, it’s a matter of proving whether Americans were participants in this conspiracy to commit these crimes, and whether they aided or abetted these acts.”

WikiLeaks—which the U.S. intelligence community considers an arm of the Russia government—played a pivotal role in the 2016 presidential election, releasing troves of DNC emails during times of peak tumult for then-candidate Trump. As the Atlantic reports, the organization was in touch with Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., from September 2016 to at least July 2017.

According to leaked private Twitter messages, longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone also corresponded with WikiLeaks—despite assertions from both parties they’d never communicated during the campaign. Mueller has asked witnesses about Trump’s interactions with Stone throughout the campaign, Business Insider reports.

Trump, meanwhile, publicly touted the emails leaked by WikiLeaks, using them as proof of his claim former rival Hillary Clinton was “corrupt.”

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said during a July 27, 2016, press conference.

Last month, Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals and three corporations on conspiracy charges for their role in interfering in the 2016 presidential election. Robert Deitz, former general counsel at the National Security Agency, told Business Insider the charges could be a stepping stone in Mueller’s quest to find whether any Americans aided Russia’s effort.

“In these kinds of investigations, prosecutors typically move up the food chain,” Deitz said.”I suspect that Mueller, through earlier interviews or documents, finally has sufficient evidence to begin putting a story together that involves Trump.”

Deitz told Business Insider Mueller “will continue to fill in the dots until he has enough to seek an interview with [or indictment or] Trump.”

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1.18

Republican House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes is actively blocking his own committee’s investigation, refusing to subpoena Trump’s financial records or compel new testimony from key witnesses like Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump Jr, despite new information emerging.

Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham are doing the White House’s bidding by calling for a criminal investigation -- not against those who worked with the Russians to interfere in the 2016 election, but against a whistleblower who compiled a research document exposing that interference.

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Investigative reporter Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News dropped a small bombshell this quiet holiday week that hasn't really exploded yet but might just explain the GOP's recent full-court press to discredit the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller's team. Rep. Francis Rooney, a Florida Republican, explained:

I would like to see the directors of those agencies [the DOJ and FBI] purge it and say, "Look, we’ve got a lot of great agents, a lot of great lawyers here." Those are the people to see and know the good work’s being done, not these people who are kind of the deep state.

On Wednesday, Rep. Ron DeSantis, another Florida Republican, went on "Fox & Friends" and backed up his colleague's sentiments, saying,"You look at a guy like Peter Strzok [the FBI agent demoted for sending derogatory texts about many politicians including Trump]. If he’s gonna say that it’s his job as an FBI to prevent a certain candidate from getting elected. ... Anyone who turns up in that situation, I think they should get another line of work.”

For what it's worth, Strzok is a counterintelligence agent who appeared concerned that the "certain candidate" might be acting as an agent of a foreign adversary, which was important information the nation didn't have before the election. In any case, from what we can gather, these Republican congressmen identify nefarious "deep state" actors as those who cannot swear that they are not now and have never been a... Democrat.

As one can imagine, the use of the word "purge" brought forth some rather unfortunate historical images. We haven't seen evidence that they plan the usual accompanying show trials, but give them time. Republicans in Congress are working feverishly to prepare hearings on the Hillary Clinton "Russian uranium email treason" hearings so there's a chance we'll see some kind of facsimile before 2018.

The hysteria that's now raging seems a bit of an outsized reaction for this particular phase of the scandal, especially considering that Mueller actually did remove the offending "deep-staters." Isikoff may have come across a different motivation than simple loyalty to President Trump. He wrote:

In just the last few weeks, his prosecutors have begun questioning Republican National Committee staffers about the party digital operation that worked with the Trump campaign to target voters in key swing states. They are seeking to determine if the joint effort was related to the activities of Russian trolls and bots aimed at influencing the American electorate, according to two of the sources.

It would not be surprising if certain Republicans were to become a bit nervous when the investigation into Russian interference turned in that particular direction. It's flown under the radar since the election, but the fact is that it wasn't only the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta's email accounts that were hacked. The intelligence community identified the same group of Russian-affiliated hackers as behind the hacking of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

I've been intrigued by this aspectof the Russian hacking story since the New York Times published an early report about it back in November of 2016. Recall that at first the hacker known as Guccifer 2.0 released personal information that was used to intimidate Democratic candidates, but then he/she/they suddenly became more sophisticated and targeted, dumping valuable tactical information:

The seats that Guccifer 2.0 targeted in the document dumps were hardly random: They were some of the most competitive House races in the country.

People have wondered ever since if the hacker(s) might have gotten some expert assistance.

Perhaps it's a coincidence that so much of the information in question was republished on a website called HelloFLA by a Florida Republican and former congressional staffer named Aaron Nevins, who was connected to Trump associate and longtime political operative Roger Stone. It could be completely random that among the core group of Mueller antagonists, those calling the probe a "coup d'état" and demanding purges of members of the "deep state" are Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who proposed that Mueller's funding be cut off, and the aforementioned Rep. Francis Rooney, who's been all over TV talking about purging the FBI.

Indeed, as journalist Marcy Wheeler pointed out a while back, one of the ringleaders of the movement to discredit the Department of Justice and Robert Mueller, Rep. DeSantis, directly benefited from Guccifer 2.0’s leak to Nevins after the latter published five documents regarding the DCCC’s recruitment of DeSantis’ Democratic opponent, George Pappas. According to The Wall Street Journal, Guccifer 2.0 even sent a link with a HelloFLA article directly to Roger Stone, who told reporters he didn’t forward the hacked material to anyone -- the answer to a question nobody asked,

Donald Trump may think their vociferous attacks on Mueller are all about loyalty to him personally. After all, this group all flew down to Florida together on Air Force One earlier this month. But these guys have skin in the game now and may very well be caught up in the maw of the Russia investigation themselves.If Mueller's team is looking into the digital operation and Roger Stone's interactions with Guccifer 2.0, as one would expect them to do, then these shenanigans in Florida are also coming into view. That may explain why this little circle of Sunshine State GOP congressmen are so anxious to shut him down.

They might not be the only ones. According to The New York Times, material from the DCCC hack was first used by Miami-area Democrat Joe Garcia, a former congressman, to win a tight primary race. Then "the National Republican Campaign Committee and a second Republican group with ties to the House speaker, Paul Ryan, turned to the hacked material" to undermine Garcia and re-elect Rep. Carlos Curbelo,the Republican incumbent.

It should be noted that there were some candidates who refused to use the hacked material against their opponents. This gang of Florida Republicans who are now so loudly attacking the FBI for its supposedly unethical behavior were not among them. As we all know, neither was Donald "I love WikiLeaks" Trump.

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https://www.alternet.org/behind-right-wing-plot-against-mueller

Washington, the anti-Trump resistance talks about a "constitutional crisis" while the president and his allies decry a "rigged system." They’re using different vocabulary to describe the same thing: the coming death match fight for control of the U.S. legal system.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder and others are waking up to the reality expressed by Josh Marshall: "The Plot Is Afoot" to dump special prosecutor Robert Mueller and there is no longer any institutional force or political will sufficient to prevent Trump from carrying it out. It’s just a matter of time.

The Republicans who once praised Mueller or warned against his firing have announced retirement, fallen silent or turned into Trump toadies. Of the six phases in the campaign to get rid of Mueller, I wrote last week, four have already been completed.

As Holder tweeted on Sunday:

ABSOLUTE RED LINE: the firing of Bob Mueller or crippling the special counsel’s office. If removed or meaningfully tampered with, there must be mass, popular, peaceful support of both. The American people must be seen and heard - they will ultimately be determinative.

— Eric Holder (@EricHolder) December 17, 2017

Holder’s intervention, while welcome, has dismal implications. According to the man who was once the nation’s top law enforcement officer, the weakness and impending failure of Washington institutions is practically certain. That protest in support of Mueller, an uncharismatic former FBI man, will be massive, popular and peaceful is far from certain.

The truth is that the “red line” of Washington consensus that protects the special prosecutor process has been eroded by the anti-Mueller campaign, which cultivates fear and anger to depict the mechanism of accountability as a threat, not just to Trump, but to America itself.

The demonization campaign is multipronged. Justice Department officials leakedthe private texts of FBI agent Peter Strzok, since removed from the investigation, who opposed Trump’s election. Breitbart and Fox News supply the analysis.

Congressmen are deployed as conspiracy theorists disguised as whistleblowers. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) says, “Everything points to the fact that there was an orchestrated plan to try to prevent Donald Trump from becoming the president of the United States.”

The rhetoric of rage, disgust and control add emotional force to the pro-Trump narrative. “Will you rein in the FBI,” cries a conservative reporter. People are "very, very angry about the FBI," Trump responded, adding, “we have a lot of sickness in some of our institutions.”

And the president’s son has provided the marketing slogan: “My father talked about a rigged system throughout the campaign, and people went, ‘Oh, what are you talking about?’ But it is,” Donald Trump Jr. said. “There are people at the highest levels of government that don’t want to let America be America."

“Let America be America” is the full flowering of the anti-Mueller narrative. This isn't about Russia, the argument goes, this is about America. Since Steve Bannon returned to Breitbart News, the right-wing media have layered on other Washington storylines, which have little or no substantive connection to the Russia investigation....

...The first was Uranium One, the story that claimed Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, "gave away" 20 percent of America’s uranium by approving the sale of a Canadian mining company to Russia’s atomic energy commission in return for donations to the Clinton Foundation.

The story, as framed, is essentially misleading, if not false, as Politifact patiently notes. The vast majority of the Clinton Foundation contributions preceded the sale, so they could not have been a reward for it. Clinton was not involved in the multi-agency approval process, and besides, no American uranium wound up in Russia.

Nonetheless, the story can be used to impugn James Comey, the FBI director fired by Trump, who did participate in the inter-agency review of the Uranium One deal. It gives Trump a talking point to deflect questions about his indicted aides. Last month Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked Justice Department prosecutors to look into the allegations and see whether a special counsel was necessary.

Now comes the Republican campaign to justify the killing of net neutralityby the FCC. Rep. Marsh Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has introduced legislation that allegedly “aims to ultimately end the heated debate around so-called 'net neutrality' regulations.”

As Breitbart News explained in its “exclusive interview” with Blackburn:

The FCC’s Obama-era net neutrality regulations controlled the Internet as a public monopoly, which conservatives argued diminished the freedom of the Internet and led to rampant censorship of conservative and alternative voices by content providers such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter.

The notion of “net neutrality” as a thwarted liberal conspiracy doesn’t have anything to do with Mueller and bears little relation to reality. But it nicely corroborates the master narrative that Trump is protecting the country from demonic liberals, from Silicon Valley to Washington, who won’t let America be America.

So we can expect the firing of Mueller to be portrayed, not as a defense of Trump’s Russia-related actions, but as an attack on a "rigged system," a defense of free speech and a purging of corruption. And if we don’t see massive popular protest to protect the special prosecutor, the plot against Mueller may well succeed in killing the rule of law in America.

Jefferson Morley is AlterNet's Washington correspondent.

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JAKE TAPPER (HOST): Now, the White House might say this is just a display of focus, and loyalty, and positivity, but critics suggested that the fealty display today was sycophantic and not-a-little disturbing. Either way, the backdrop of the Russia investigation made the scene all the more stark and surreal while other supporters of the president in the world of conservative punditry were busy out there trying to undercut a man today with an impeccable reputation for integrity, Robert Mueller -- a decorated Marine who served in Vietnam, former U.S. attourney, longserving FBI director, currently the special council heading up the Russia investigation -- with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tweeting, quote, "Republicans are delusional if they think the special counsel is going to be fair. Look who he's hiring. Check FEC reports. Time to rethink."

What a difference a month makes. Back then, Gingrich said, quote, "Robert Mueller is superb choice to be special counsel. His reputation is impeccable for honesty and integrity. Media should now calm down." Fellow conservatives Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and others also beginning to question Mueller and his investigation and his integrity for any number of reasons, perhaps belying the positive vibes that we saw in the cabinet room earlier today.

Previously:

Right-wing media attack FBI Russia probe special counsel Robert Mueller

On CNN, Angelo Carusone explains the three ways conservatives reacted to Comey´s testimony

Here Are The Excuses Right-Wing Media Are Using To Defend Trump Asking Comey To Drop Investigation Into Flynn

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