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🔍 All things Mueller - What we know he has on Trump 'n Co

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#198

The Manafort Sentencing Memo was more than likely filed. The wait to see it is over the redactions, as a few had suggested.

From what I am hearing - Mueller’s group proposes redactions, they need to be approved by Defense and the Judge has the final say. Because some of the redactions from Manafort’s group got botched (inadvertently revealed), it is probable that this part of the making the Sentencing Memo public is being very carefully scrutinized.

The public will have to wait a little longer to read Paul Manafort’s sentencing memo from special counsel Robert Mueller.

The critical filing had a midnight Friday deadline set by the federal court, but the report was not publicly released.

It is possible prosecutors have sent the document to Judge Amy Berman Jackson under seal with proposed redactions. It is up to Jackson to determine what happens next.

The memorandum is the last major requisite court filing in Mueller’s longest running case, a sprawling prosecution of the former Trump campaign manager that led investigators to gather exhaustive information about his hidden Cypriot bank accounts, Ukrainian political efforts in Europe and the US and into Manafort’s time on the 2016 presidential campaign.

A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment about the situation Friday, and a spokesperson for the court could not be reached.

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#199

Manafort Docs are up on Lawfare. :point_down:

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#200

Here’s a mention of Mueller moving over some prosecutors to handle his cases, perhaps Rosenstein needed to approve this. It does look like it is the Stone and AMI cases, with the group from SDNY.

Mueller has brought on federal prosecutors from other districts to assist in some cases, including the prosecution of Trump ally Roger Stone, a sign he may ultimately look to hand off some cases.

Press reports have identified prosecutors leaving Mueller’s office to return to their other jobs. And Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who first appointed Mueller and had been overseeing the investigation for more than a year, is expected to leave the Justice Department in coming weeks.

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#201

Meet Mar-A-Lago member Franklin Haney, a millionaire investor, and read how T peddled some Qatar guests through his club house to see how they might invest in some nuclear/power plants. Michael Cohen acted like a middle-man.

We know that QIA (Qatar Investment Authority) is on Mueller’s radar which some are suggesting is Company A, because it is state-owned and involved with all sorts of money laundering, quid pro quo activity.

Haney had hired Michael Cohen to act as a liaison between his interests and finding money from the Qatari’s.

Days after Haney hired Cohen to pursue possible Qatari investment for Bellefonte, federal agents raided the lawyer’s office. Haney’s relationship with Cohen was exposed in national media reports in May, yet the businessman has previously refused to talk to reporters.

“We decided, what the heck. Let’s see what he (Cohen) brings,’’ Haney told the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis. “Of course, he didn’t bring anything. Because it was just all lies.’’



Haney told the Institute he signed a three-month contract with Cohen and paid him about $200,000 before severing the arrangement after the lawyer’s dealings became public in April.

Haney says he forgot the name of the Qatari official with Trump. But a person who had business dealings with the QIA around that time said it was likely Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani, Qatar’s minister of economy and commerce and deputy chair of the QIA. Although Haney was vague on when this introduction happened, his description suggests it would have occurred on one of the last two weekends of March 2018, when Trump’s public schedule shows the president was at Mar-a-Lago.

Haney says that after this brief meeting with Trump and the Qatari, he traveled from Palm Beach, the home of Trump’s club, to Miami Beach in his 167-foot yacht, the Emelina . MarineTraffic.com, which tracks the location of ships, shows that the Emelina was docked in Miami from April 2 through April 7. That week, Qatar hosted the first “Qatar-US Economic Forum” in Miami Beach, taking pitches from Americans seeking capital from the QIA.

It was during Haney’s stay in Miami that Cohen inserted himself into the nuclear project.

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#202

This line is so funny to me. Of course it’s just a pay-to-play scheme! :joy:

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#203

:grinning: Now we have two powerful Democtratic committee chairpersons promising they will subpoena Muller’s report if it is not made public. In addition to Adam Schiff, head of the House Intelligence Committee, whose announcement is reported below, we also have Jerry Nadler, head of the House Judiciary Committee. He made the same declaration last week (Day 762).

Go Schiff! Go Nadler! :muscle:

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff says he’s got a plan ready if special counsel Robert Mueller’s full report isn’t made public.

And it includes bringing Mueller himself before his committee.

On Sunday, Schiff, a California Democrat, was asked on ABC’s “This Week” about what Democrats will do should Attorney General William Barr decide to keep the highly anticipated report mostly under wraps.

"Well we will obviously subpoena the report, we will bring Bob Mueller in to testify before Congress, we will take it to court if necessary," Schiff said. “And in the end, I think the department understands they’re going to have to make this public. I think Barr will ultimately understand that as well.”

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#204

The House Judiciary Committee believes it has evidence that President Trump asked Matthew Whitaker, at the time the acting attorney general, whether Manhattan U.S. attorney Geoffrey Berman could regain control of his office’s investigation into Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and his real-estate business, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Berman, a former law partner of Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani who in 2016 donated to the Trump campaign and whom the president personally interviewed for the U.S. attorney job, last year had recused himself from involvement in the matter. He didn’t give a reason, but legal experts said his interim status at the time the probe began would have made his involvement appear improper. The investigation began as a probe of the business dealings of Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, and has broadened to examine the Trump Organization.

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#205

Manafort files his sentencing request papers - asks for leniency.

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#206

Watch this
tonight’s Maddow show verifies that Manafort gave Kilimnik polling data in the spring of 2016, just after T won the Republican nomination.

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#207

From the lack of obvious revelations on the Manafort Sentencing Memo, it takes some super sleuthing to discover what bits of information might be buried in the exhibits. And
this number - 75 pages (really 76) is being talked about tonight, on Chris Hayes All In, when Marcy Wheeler (EmptyWheel.net) came on the show to discuss it.

People are speculating that while it seems like a huge number and more than just a few bits of information, it is significant in that well, it’s polling data. It is being given to Kilimnik to have it parsed by his Russian intel contacts/hackers. This is one of most obvious collusion(ary) and conspiratorial aspects to the evidence we know about.

Manafort lied about Kilimnik, so therefore see: what it was they were doing and exchanging.

Voila! A big piece of evidence.

I want to return again to the question of what Paul Manafort ordered Rick Gates to print out on August 2, 2016, so he could share it with Konstantin Kilimnik at a clandestine meeting that night. While Manafort seems to have told the government or grand jury that the data “just was public information,” the comments of his own lawyer, Richard Westling, make it clear that it was something else entirely.

In the February 4 breach hearing, Westling actually argues that “if the goal [of sharing the data with Kilimnik] were to help Mr. Manafort’s fortunes, that some other kind of [redacted] something more public, more [redacted] might help.” He says that after describing the polling data as “gibberish” because he can’t, himself, understand the data, while describing it as, “very detailed [redacted] on a level that is very focused.” In an effort to sustain a claim that Manafort ordered Gates to print it out for use at a campaign meeting that day, Westling also says, “it was the most recent, from what we can tell, the most recent [redacted] but I’m not sure. That would have been relevant to a meeting they were having within the campaign.”

Westling also suggests that Amy Berman Jackson should go check it out herself: “there’s copies of it in the exhibits.”

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#208

Andrew Miller who was challenging his subpoena in court by claiming Robert Mueller’s appoinment was unlawful has lost his appeal.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected former Roger Stone associate Andrew Miller’s challenge to a grand jury subpoena issued in the course of the the special counsel’s investigation. Miller had argued that the subpoena was invalid because Robert Mueller’s appointment as special counsel was unlawful. The three-judge panel of Judges Judith Rogers, Sri Srinivasan and Karen Henderson unanimously affirmed a district court ruling that held Miller in civil contempt after he refused to comply with the subpoena. The full opinion, written by Judge Rogers, is available below.

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#209

More from WaPo on if this appeal will go before a higher court.

It was not immediately clear whether the ruling from a three-judge panel would prompt Miller to agree to testify. Miller’s attorney, Paul Kamenar, said Tuesday he is disappointed with the decision and considering whether to ask the full D.C. Circuit to rehear the case or go directly to the Supreme Court.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/special-counsel-robert-muellers-appointment-is-valid-federal-appeals-court-rules/2019/02/26/5c28505c-fd5a-11e8-862a-b6a6f3ce8199_story.html?utm_term=.f93aac7cc493

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#210

S P E C U L A T I O N
(from a Right leaning RealClear Politics- but coming from former head of CIA Brennan)

Brennan Predicts Mueller Report, More Indictments On Friday: "I Don’t Have Inside Knowledge"

Posted By Ian Schwartz
On Date March 5, 2019

Former CIA Director John Brennan said that, “not knowing,” he would not be surprised if indictments produced by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation were delivered this Friday. In an interview Tuesday night with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, Brennan said if a Trump family member is indicted that would signal the end of Mueller’s investigation because Trump would probably fire him.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if for example this week on Friday, not knowing anything about it, but Friday is the day the grand jury indictments come down and also this Friday is better than next Friday because next Friday is the 15th of March, which is the Ides of March," Brennan said. "And I don’t think Robert Mueller will want to have that dramatic flair of the Ides of March when he is going to be delivering what I think are going to be are his indictments, the final indictments as well the report.”

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL, MSNBC HOST ‘LAST WORD’: Are you one who’s willing to, at this stage of the game, venture a guess about where Robert Mueller is and isn’t in this process and how close he is to filing a report? And beyond that, what would you would expect from such a report?

JOHN BRENNAN, FMR. CIA DIRECTOR: I think Robert Mueller wants to be able to conclude his work and turn over the investigative threads to the Southern District of New York, the Eastern District of Virginia, and other jurisdictions as appropriate as we’re coming up to two years. So I think he does want to conclude that.

I wouldn’t be surprised if for example this week on Friday, not knowing anything about it, but Friday is the day the grand jury indictments come down and also this Friday is better than next Friday because next Friday is the 15th of March, which is the Ides of March. And I don’t think Robert Mueller will want to have that dramatic flair of the Ides of March when he is going to be delivering what I think are going to be are his indictments, the final indictments as well the report he gives to the Attorney General.

O’DONNELL: What makes you believe that he has more indictments?

BRENNAN: Because he hasn’t addressed the issues related to criminal conspiracy as well as individuals –

O’DONNELL: A criminal conspiracy involving the Russians?

BRENNAN: Yes. I think it was very –

O’DONNELL: That’s an area you know something about. That was developing while you were still on the job.

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#211

MANAFORT GETS 47 Months (just short of 4 years)

Very short
compared to 19 - 24 yrs

Eastern District VA court

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#212

Manafort will receive a second sentence next week from a different federal judge for the two crimes he pleaded guilty to last year, witness tampering and conspiracy related to his illegal Ukrainian lobbying and money laundering. Prosecutors have looked to that second sentencing as a backstop to keep Manafort in prison, in case they feel Ellis was extremely lenient.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/03/07/politics/paul-manafort-sentencing-virginia-case-russia-investigation/index.html

More to come


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#213

Blameless
gosh, let us count the ways.

“He has lived an otherwise blameless life,” said Judge T.S. Ellis, as he sentenced Paul Manafort to just 47 months in prison on Thursday.

In an otherwise blameless life, Paul Manafort lobbied on behalf of the tobacco industry and wangled millions in tax breaks for corporations.

In an otherwise blameless life, he helped the Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos bolster his image in Washington after he assassinated his primary political opponent.

In an otherwise blameless life, he worked to keep arms flowing to the Angolan generalissimo Jonas Savimbi, a monstrous leader bankrolled by the apartheid government in South Africa. While Manafort helped portray his client as an anti-communist “freedom fighter,” Savimbi’s army planted millions of landmines in peasant fields, resulting in 15,000 amputees.

In an otherwise blameless life, Manafort was kicked out of the lobbying firm he co-founded, accused of inflating his expenses and cutting his partners out of deals.

In an otherwise blameless life, he spent a decade as the chief political adviser to a clique of former gangsters in Ukraine. This clique hoped to capture control of the state, so that it could enrich itself with government contracts and privatization agreements. This was a group closely allied with the Kremlin, and Manafort masterminded its rise to power—thereby enabling Ukraine’s slide into Vladimir Putin’s orbit.

In otherwise blameless life, Manafort came to adopt the lifestyle and corrupt practices of his Ukrainian clients as his own.

In otherwise blameless life, he produced a public-relations campaign to convince Washington that Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was acting within his democratic rights and duties when he imprisoned his most compelling rival for power.

In an otherwise blameless life, he stood mute as Yanukovych’s police killed 130 protesters in the Maidan.

In an otherwise blameless life, he found himself nearly $20 million in debt to a Russian oligarch, Instead of honestly accounting for the money, he simply stopped responding to the oligarch messages.

In an otherwise blameless life, he tried to use his perch atop the Trump campaign to help salvage his sorry financial situation. He installed one of his proteges as the head of the pro-Trump super-PAC, Rebuilding America. His friend allegedly funnelled $125,000 from the super-PAC to pay off one of Manafort’s nagging debts.

In an otherwise blameless life, Manafort was found guilty of tax evasion on an industrial scale. Rather than paying his fair share to help fund national defense and public health, he kept his cash in Cyprus and wired it home to buy over $1 million in bespoke clothing.

In an otherwise blameless life, he disguised his income as loans, so that he could bamboozle banks into lending him money.

In an otherwise blameless life, he attempted to phone a potential witness in his trial, so that they could align their stories.

In an otherwise blameless life, he systematically lied to Robert Mueller’s prosecutors, after he promised them his full cooperation.

In an otherwise blameless life, he acted with impunity, as if the laws never applied to him. When presented with a chance to show remorse to the court, he couldn’t find that sentiment within his being. And with Ellis’s featherweight punishment, which deviated sharply downward from the sentencing guidelines, Manafort managed to bring his life’s project to a strange completion. He had devoted his career to normalizing corruption in Washington. By the time he was caught, his extraordinary avarice had become so commonplace, that not even a federal judge could blame him for it.

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#214

More 69 years of “undetected crime”.

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#215

Just as we head into the Ides of March


Buckle up: The next five days could reveal how the Mueller probe will play out.

Paul Manafort will know how long he’ll be serving in prison, closing the book on special counsel Robert Mueller’s most visible legal fight. Roger Stone will know his trial date, putting a timeline on when the public will get more details about his alleged contacts with WikiLeaks. And status reports are due for two of Mueller’s biggest cooperators — Michael Flynn and Rick Gates — that will signal whether the special counsel has tapped them for all the information investigators need.

Read more below :point_down:

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#216

It’s all one big counterintelligence investigation so the gang of eight will be informed regardless of the criminal report that goes to AG Barr. The daily beast explains below. :point_down:

The most public and familiar one is as a criminal investigator under the special counsel regulations. But Mueller has also carried a second charge, as a counterintelligence expert, with a much broader charge to determine and report the scope of any interference and any links to the Trump campaign—what Trump himself might refer to as “collusion.”

In March 2017, then-FBI Director James Comey testified that the Russia investigation was commenced “as part of our counterintelligence mission . . . also includ[ing] an assessment of whether any crimes were committed.” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s May 17, 2017 order appointing Mueller special counsel specifically and carefully incorporated this announced scope and mission.

From the start, then, Mueller has been conducting a counterintelligence investigation, while “also” assessing whether any crimes were committed. Not the other way around.

Comey and Rosenstein knew what they were doing. It is the mission of a criminal investigation to produce indictments and trials, which tell stories and render conclusions only imperfectly. Thanks to the special counsel regulations, there is also “a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions.” But what will go into this report and what the Congress and public may ultimately see is highly proscribed.

It is the central mission of a counterintelligence investigation, however, to produce . . . well, a report. These findings and conclusions are shared with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and relevant agencies of the 17-member intelligence community (CIA, NSA, DIA, etc.). The report may be honed into a formal IC “assessment” reflecting the consensus view of the 17 agencies. It was just such a report, “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections,” that on Jan. 7, 2017 was shared with incoming President Trump. Its disclosure brought into public view the Intelligence Community’s bombshell conclusion that Vladimir Putin had personally ordered an effort to discredit Hillary Clinton and to “help President-elect Trump’s election chances.”

Significantly, unlike a final criminal report, a Mueller counterintelligence report cannot be bottled up. By statute it must be shared with Congress. The House and Senate intelligence committees are legally entitled to be given reports, in writing, of significant intelligence and counterintelligence activities or failures. Mueller’s findings will certainly qualify.

Where matters are too delicate to share with all the members of the intelligence committees, statute and established practice provide that disclosure may be made to a smaller circle known as the “Gang of Eight:” the chair and ranking member of each intelligence committee, and the Democratic and Republican leaders of each chamber.

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#217

Commentary

@Matt had commented in yesterday’s newsfeed (day 781) -

Is it just me or has the news cycle been a little off lately? I feel like there hasn’t been a lot “hard news” (i.e. things signed; actions taken), but rather a lot of news that is on the soft side

To me it feels like we are in a waiting room, off to the side, awaiting to hear about the patient, and let’s call it Patient X. When the Mueller Report drops, when the indictments fall, when more is presented as knowable truths of the corruption from the T administration (or not) we will have a much clearer state of the union.

There have been so many shoes dropped, awaiting the ‘drop,’ etc. We get all sorts of indications that many people have been doing some really unsavory/illegal/immoral AND corrupt things. We’re waiting for an update from the authorities “doctors” as to what bits are true, what kinds of evidence there is, and who’s going down.

Suffice it to say the 37 indictments feel like there some THERE THERE.

We have THIS WEEK the hugely significant sentencing/reprimands/trials/status reports of Manafort,Stone, Gates/Flynn
Day 781

That said, while we wait, here’s a diversion
On the Mueller She Wrote (https://www.muellershewrote.com/) do a bit of speculating what may be up in terms of indictments on their podcast
and it is called the Fantasy Indictment League.

I am posting what their three leads are proposing may be in store next. It is not a real bet
just an educated guess, and @Keaton_James and others may be interested to see what/who they believe is going down next. (no money on this, just conjecture)

Here’s the rules and their best bets

This is the official #MSWFIL post where you post your FIVE picks for the this week. Each week I will make a post for you to reply to with your five picks, and if during that week, anyone of your picks gets indicted (whether they’re cooperating or not), you get points.

POINT STRUCTURE

20 points for a member of Trumps family or a Trump family business
10 points for congress members, SCOTUS NOMINEES, and current or former cabinet members
5 points for high level White House staff and inner circle staff, and businesses and entities
2 points for outer ring Americans
1 point for randos (random people we’ve likely never heard of) and Russians.
New plea deals also count, as do criminal charges, indictments, and any of those that were referred to outside orgs by Mueller.
1 additional point for a plea agreement modifier

This is not gambling. No gambling.

A G - I’ll go first: my five for this week are Assange, Wikileaks, Kushner, AMI, and Dylan Howard.

Jordan’s are Prince, DTJ, Sater, superseding Stone, and Bannon plea deal.

Jaleesa’s are Weisselberg, Corsi plea deal, Kaiser, Trump Inaugural, and Trump Org.

So if you have any thoughts who may be going down SOON, let’s hear it.

I have not a clue, but I have a WISH list, which includes all of the above. :grin:

Ok until then we wait (some more.)

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