Special Counsel Robert Mueller has released the sentencing memo for Paul Manafort (full pdf below). Opposition to President Trump had hoped the memo would outline nuggets of investigative material that would indicate risk to President Trump. However, the Manafort sentencing memo provides no additional insight beyond what was already known.
WASHINGTON – As part of his plea deal in September, Manafort, 69, acknowledged he was guilty of everything he was accused of both in Washington and Virginia: making millions as an unregistered lobbyist for Ukrainian politicians, hiding that money to avoid paying taxes, defrauding banks to pay his debts when his oligarch patrons fell out of power, and lying to cover up his crimes while trying to persuade witnesses to do the same. (link)
Under his prior plea agreement in Washington, prosecutors had agreed to ask Judge Amy Berman Jackson to give Manafort credit at sentencing for cooperation. But because she found he lied to investigators and breached that agreement, the prosecution is no longer bound by the plea.
The most likely sequencing of the Democrat scheme has always looked to be: (1) Michael Cohen testimony; then (2) The Mueller report.
Cohen is scheduled to testify to Elijah Cummings House oversight committee Wednesday February 27th (10:00am) next week. Today, predictably, the DOJ announces the Robert Mueller report will be *after* that testimony:
WASHINGTON DC – Special counsel Robert Mueller will not deliver his report to the Justice Department on Friday or next week, a Justice Department official told The Hill.
The news comes amid broad speculation that Mueller’s probe into Russia’s electoral interference is wrapping up, with several news outlets reporting Wednesday that newly confirmed Attorney General William Barr was preparing to receive Mueller’s final report as soon as next week. (read more)
Meanwhile, also anticipated, with Attorney General William Barr in place to receive and statutorily summarize the report from Robert Mueller, House democrats start posturing to impede AG Barr’s influence within the final report construct.
HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff writes a letter to AG Barr establishing a set of congressional demands to exploit innuendo and inference for their impeachment objectives.
It is obvious how Pelosi’s primary team (Schiff, Nadler and Cummings) plan to exploit the Robert Mueller report for maximum political value, ie. impeachment goals.
[…] We also expect that the Department will provide to our Committees, upon request and consistent with applicable law, other information and material obtained or produced by the Special Counsel regarding certain foreign actors and other individuals who may have been the subject of a criminal or counterintelligence investigation.
[…] If the Special Counsel has reason to believe that the President has engaged in criminal or other serious misconduct, then the President must be subject to accountability either in a court or to the Congress.
Pelosi, Schumer and the House committee democrats do not want William Barr to be able to write a summary, a public statement, based on the report delivered to him by Robert Mueller.
Instead, the Democrats want the report from Mueller, including all the investigative trails that were exhausted, so they can exploit aspects of the inquiry that were not able to be proven, and weaponize “innuendo” and “possibility” for political benefit.
The process they are following is by design:
Sen Dianne Feinstein
✔@SenFeinstein
Regulations governing Mueller’s investigation do not prohibit AG Barr from disclosing the final report to Congress, & I repeat my call for Barr to provide the report unedited once he has received it. A summary written by Barr instead of the Mueller report will not be acceptable.
Here’s our simple message to Attorney General Barr:
When Special Counsel Robert Mueller completes the investigation, make his report public. And turn the evidence over to Congress. Without delay and to the maximum extent permitted by law.
There is a unified plan amid the resistance movement to use the impeachment process for political gain. Part of that plan includes the exploitation of testimony from Michael Cohen to facilitate their designed sequencing of events. Robert Mueller is scheduled to deliver his final report on the Trump-Russia probe sometime in the next week. And now:
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen was granted a few more weeks of freedom Wednesday after his lawyers said he’s still recovering from surgery and hasn’t had time to get his affairs in order because he’s preparing to testify before Congress.
U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III approved delaying the start of Cohen’s three-year sentence until May 6. Cohen’s lawyer said he was undergoing intensive post-surgery physical therapy and spending substantial time getting ready for testimony his attorneys say he will deliver to three congressional committees this month.
Prosecutors did not object to a “one-time” 60-day delay from Cohen’s original March 6 surrender date, Cohen’s lawyers said. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office said Wednesday that prosecutors declined to comment. (read more)
Don’t overlook that current DOJ officials had to agree to this postponement. These are current officials inside the machinery of the DOJ who are aligned with the purposes and intents of the resistance movement. Current, Trump-era, DOJ officials.
Again, there is very little doubt the approach has already been mapped out in post-election meetings between: Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, the Democrat committee heads, allies in the lawfare community, political allies inside the executive branch (IC, DOJ, FBI etc.), along with feedback from political networks, DNC (Perez) and major resistance donors.
The baseline here is that everything the institutional-left does, is sequential and planned. This is what they do. This is all they do. None of the characters within the institutions of professional leftism create anything; build anything; have a life purpose for anything, other than organizing their efforts to exploit control of others via politics. This is all they know how to do. When you develop your skills to see their patterns you can then see the predictability behind it.
When we approach the term “impeachment” we are not discussing it as the technical and legal approach for removal of a President; but rather the political use of the process to damage President Donald Trump. The House Democrats and their allies writ large will use this process to try and stop President Trump’s reelection.
Professional political Democrats would not be using “impeachment” in the constitutional sense of the process; but rather weaponizing the process –as a tool itself– to: •target the executive office; •diminish the presidency (“isolate”/”marginalize”, Alinsky rules); •and position themselves for 2020.
Optics and innuendo are key elements, tools per se’, in the Alinsky narrative engineering process. That’s why Pelosi, Schumer and the democrat machine are going bananas about getting a raw Mueller report and not a version from AG Barr {explained here}.
The Mueller report, written in full alignment with the resistance movement, will be structured to be as damaging to the president as possible. There is no actual Trump-Russia collusion; but the report will indicate a ‘willingness’ of the targets to participate in a collusionesque process. Don’t discount Mueller’s ability to fabricate appearances and have half the country believe it.
Speaker Pelosi, Adam Schiff (HPSCI), Elijah Cummings (House Oversight), and Jerry Nadler (House Judiciary) are working with Robert Mueller (team) and current DOJ officials on a very carefully constructed plan toward the goal of an impeachment vote against the sitting President.
The first phase events includes testimony by Michael Cohen and the public release of the Mueller report. There will be a press spectacle designed for maximum exposure. The tail end of that phase will lead to more hearings throughout March perhaps into early April with subpoenas based on the report framework. Check the Dates:
Timed to diminish President Trump summit with Kim Jong-un
Mueller, the political team not the individual, are providing their political allies with the ammunition toward their goal. Mueller is both the shield and sword in the arsenal. Team Mueller are hiding, controlling and then shaping released aspects of their investigative probe that provide maximum political value. Don’t discount the damaging effect they will deliver with a toxic narrative written within their summary findings.
While these events are happening the HPSCI will be demanding discovery from the White House and intelligence apparatus that will be spurred by Cohen and Mueller. The DOJ and FBI will find a new interest in congressional compliance especially given the House General Counsel, Douglas Letter, is one of their allied Resistance members.
Mueller (the team, not the individual) will be handing the Resistance baton to their allies in congress; and the team will then set off for a well indulged, stunningly compensated, media tour which will likely include numerous advanced offers from Hollywood types for movie rights. Most of them will enjoy job offers from major networks and political allies.
There is no-one, except President Trump and his supporters, opposing the Witchhunt crowd…. But don’t be alarmed, that’s ok. It is this level of severe resistance that could finally empower calls for President Trump to demand the release of the declassified documents everyone wants to see.
As former Trump lawyer John Dowd pointed out last week, Team Mueller was never authorized, instructed or empowered to look at any DOJ and FBI wrongdoing. There is no-one looking at the “spygate” gross malfeasance and corruption within the DOJ and FBI. There is no countervailing prosecutorial authority investigating the FBI with an intent to deliver accountability. No-one except President Trump.
U.S. Attorney John Huber may be investigating the Clinton foundation; but there’s no indication he’s doing anything else. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz is reviewing possible DOJ and FBI abuse of the FISA process, but that’s internal. The biggest falsehood pushed by TTP crowd is that some unknown entity exists, somewhere, who is investigating corrupt officials within the DOJ and FBI ‘spygate crew’, with the intent to hold them accountable. If true, CTH has yet to see any evidence.
Hopefully the conclusion of the Mueller report will afford President Trump the opportunity to have his declassification request fulfilled. For that declassification to become reality, Attorney General William Barr will have to agree to the release.
Post Election – […] “If they go down the presidential harassment track, if they want go and harass the president and the administration, I think that would be the best thing that would happen to me. I’m a counter-puncher and I will hit them so hard they’d never been hit like that,” he said during a 36-minute Oval Office sitdown.
The commander-in-chief said he could declassify FISA warrant applications and other documents from Robert Mueller’s probe — and predicted the disclosure would expose the FBI, the Justice Department and the Clinton campaign as being in cahoots to set him up.
“I think that would help my campaign. If they want to play tough, I will do it. They will see how devastating those pages are.”
But Trump told The Post he wanted to save the documents until they were needed.
“It’s much more powerful if I do it then,” Trump said, “because if we had done it already, it would already be yesterday’s news.”
Trump revealed his playbook just as Democrats are set to take over House committees in January where they are poised to investigate his potential business conflicts of interests, tax returns, Russia dealings and more.
With the GOP losing power in January, its congressional investigations into alleged Department of Justice misconduct in launching the Russia probe is expected to fizzle out.
In September, a group of Trump allies in the House – led by Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York – called on Trump to declassify scores of Justice Department documents they believe undercut the start of the Russia investigation and show bias against Trump.
The documents include Justice officials’ request to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and memos on DOJ official Bruce Ohr’s interactions with Christopher Steele, the author of a controversial dossier that alleged Trump ties with Russia.
Trump initially agreed to declassify the documents, including text messages sent by former FBI officials James Comey, Andrew G. McCabe as well as Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Ohr. Trump allies believe the revelations will show favoritism toward Hillary Clinton and a plot to take down Trump.
Trump then reversed course, citing the need for further review and concern of US allies.
Trump added Wednesday that his lawyer Emmet Flood thought it would be better politically to wait.
“He didn’t want me to do it yet, because I can save it,” Trump said. (read more)
Multiple media outlets are reporting that Robert Mueller’s probe has concluded and his report to DOJ is anticipated next week. While the media reports are just that: reports based on sources, the timing does make sense.
For two years CTH has drawn attention to a very specific pattern; the large ‘Sypgate-centric’ releases are always when President Trump is outside Washington DC. Next week President Trump is traveling to Vietnam for a second summit with North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un, so the timing fits the historic pattern.
Today President Trump was asked about the possibility of a Muller report release and he stated: “that will entirely be up to the Attorney General”, William Barr. The new AG told congress it would be his statutory role to provide a summary report of the Mueller conclusions with his intent to provide as much substance as possible.
ABC News
✔@ABC
Asked if the Mueller report should be released while he is abroad next week, Pres. Trump says, “That will be totally up to the new attorney general.” http://abcn.ws/2J0gebC
Additionally, the timing of a report next week would fit a need for Speaker Pelosi, Adam Schiff (HPSCI), Elijah Cummings (WH oversight), and more importantly, Jerry Nadler (House Judiciary). Nadler would be the lead House committee chairman to exploit the anticipated impeachment angle.
Congress was openly hoping to use the testimony of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen as the seed for the impeachment process. However, Cohen has cancelled appearances three times and is scheduled to report to federal prison on March 6th – time is running out for Pelosi’s preferred sequence. [Note: Pelosi has given Adam Schiff until April 15th to deliver his summer schedule for investigations, subpoenas and general resistance efforts.]
The process of Attorney General William Barr delivering a summary document about the completed Mueller investigation is an aspect we have previously discussed.
The best way to think about the Mueller report is to think about the local police department (detective or DA) doing an investigation on a subject and completing that task.
At the conclusion of the inquiry, if there is no determination of criminal wrongdoing, the investigator does not outline the investigation in a report to the general public.
The basic premise behind this standard process is simple, it’s the same tenet behind the grand jury process: everyone is innocent unless they can be proven to be guilty.
If everyone who was ever investigated had the internal investigative material made public it would be profoundly unfair to the target. It would be even more unfair if the investigator was allowed to frame a public report, with their own internal biases and innuendo, in lieu of their ability to find criminal wrongdoing.
Now amplify that simple fairness issue x 1,000 and consider how severely political federal investigators might produce such a document against their opposition. It is easy to see how such a report can be weaponized for political benefit. The weaponization and benefit is the goal of the current Democrat leadership.
However, specifically to address these issues, and in an attempt to remove the political weaponization possible within the special counsel statute, the DOJ framed the ending of a special counsel investigation such that a summary of investigative finding is delivered to the U.S. Attorney General, who then puts out a public statement (of sorts) describing the conclusion (the finding).
Pelosi, Schumer and the Democrats do not want William Barr to be able to write a summary, a public statement, based on the report delivered to him by Robert Mueller.
Instead, the Democrats want the report from Mueller, including all the investigative trails that were exhausted, so they can exploit aspects of the inquiry that were not able to be proven, and weaponize “innuendo” and “possibility” for political benefit.
There will likely be a massive and coordinated push by the allied elements within media and resistance institutions to demand full access to the Mueller report. It should be quite a fight…. this is the holy grail for the resistance effort.
If the Mueller report is a nothingburger the media melt-down will be off-the-charts.
Robert Mueller and Senate probes find no collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia, so House Democrats launch at least three new investigations of their own. Will this spell #winning for Democrats in the 2020 elections. Bill Whittle Now is a production of the Members at https://BillWhittle.com
January 5th, 2017, an Oval Office meeting with President Obama, VP Joe Biden, James Comey (FBI), Michael Rogers (NSA), John Brennan (CIA), James Clapper (ODNI), Sally Yates (DOJ) and Susan Rice. At the conclusion of the briefing, President Obama asks Sally Yates and James Comey to remain. Together with Susan Rice, this is where the “by the book” comment comes into play. As recounted by Rice:
“President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.”
Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe is now highlighting how the FBI conducted a criminal and counterintelligence operation under the auspices that President Trump was possibly an agent of a foreign government. Let’s look at the big picture…
FBI Director James Comey told congress (March 20th, 2017) the reason the intelligence community did not disclose their counterintelligence operation against candidate, president-elect and President Trump was “because of the sensitivity of the matter.” As such the required congressional oversight notifications were bypassed.
We learn in hindsight the Trump Transition team was under electronic surveillance. This surveillance also included the capture of all of their transition email accounts, the content was later given -without prior approval- to Robert Mueller by the GAO. This is not disputed.
Remember, as an outcome of the concern and in combination with the counterintelligence operation, the incoming National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn, was designated as a national security risk by the intelligence apparatus that he would be part of. Flynn was under electronic surveillance as part of the Obama authorized operation.
On January 27th, 2017, FBI Director James Comey attended a Green Room dinnerwith President Trump just about a week after the inauguration. This is the meeting where, according to Comey, President Trump asked for “loyalty”. [This is also the date when Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates confronted White House counsel Don McGahn about Flynn’s interview with the FBI a few days earlier on Jan 24th.]
It would only be a few weeks later [Follow Link] when President Trump remodeled the “Green Room” (presidential dining room) adding a flat screen TV and a chandelier he paid for personally. During the remodel the dining room was “taken down to the studs”, and according to a quote later delivered by Time Magazine:
TIME – […] But few rooms have changed so much so fast as his dining room, where he often eats his lunch amid stacks of newspapers and briefing sheets. A few weeks back, the President ordered a gutting of the room. “We found gold behind the walls, which I always knew. Renovations are grand,” he says, boasting that contractors from the General Services Administration resurfaced the walls and redid the moldings in two days. “Remember how hard they worked? They wanted to make me happy.”
On February 14th, 2017 President Trump and James Comey were again alone was in the Oval Office. February 14th was also the day when the head of the Secret Service, Joseph Clancy, announced his resignation. Clancy’s resignation was effective March 4th, 2017.
After he was fired James Comey testified to congress on June 8th, 2017, saying he delivered his memos of the meetings with President Trump to his friend at Columbia University, Professor Daniel Richman, on/after May 15th. He said the intent was to initiate a “special prosecutor”:
“I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night, ‘cause it didn’t dawn on me originally that there might be corroboration for our conversation; there might be a tape.” [Referring to Monday May 15] “And my judgment was I needed to get that out in the public square so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. I Didn’t do it myself for a variety of reasons but I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. So I asked a close friend of mine to do it.”
Quite simply James Comey lied to congress about when and why he initiated leaking the memos to his friends in the media. Comey claimed a tweet from President Trump spurred him to share his memo.
The tweet from President Trump (May 12th) was in response to the New York Times article (May 11th) which was quoting from the Comey memo. So Comey was lying when he said he gave the memo to the New York Times (Via Daniel Richman) on Monday May 15th.
This false motive, claimed by Comey, was highlighted by President Trump’s attorney at the time:
I bring up this example because of the Trump tweet that surrounds it.
President Trump tweeted about a “recording” after reading the New York Times article that was written from the memo account of James Comey; however, the tweet was also made after the Green Room was “taken down to the studs” and remodeled.
Everyone assumed President Trump was talking about a recording that he might have made of the Comey conversation; however, in hindsight given the nature of what is described above – wouldn’t it be more likely the recording was external to the White House; as a part of the surveillance.
“By the book”.
If they truly believed a foreign adversary was in control of the Trump administration; a claim they already made to the FISA court; why wouldn’t the Obama intelligence apparatus be wiretapping the White House? Remember: “by the book.”
In hindsight we already know the Trump campaign, Trump transition team and Trump administration were under surveillance.
♦On May 8th, 2017, President Trump invited three journalists to tour the White House and discuss his first few months in office. [Link] This is where he initially showed part of the redecoration that included the dining room where he and James Comey had discussions.
♦On May 9th, 2017, President Trump fired James Comey. That evening Andrew McCabe became Acting FBI Director and visited President Trump at the Oval Office.
♦On May 10th, 2017, President Trump invited Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Kislyak into the oval office. [We now know that simultaneous to this meeting back at the FBI McCabe had launched a criminal and counterintelligence investigation against President Trump.] Later that same day, May 10th, after the Lavrov and Kislyak meeting, Trump invited McCabe to come back to the White House.
♦On May 11th, 2017, the New York Times using Comey’s leaked information wrote about the “loyalty meeting”. This same day McCabe is testifying to congress and informing them President Trump’s firing of Comey: “there has been no effort to impede our investigation to date.” {Go Deep}
Stand back and think about the sequence above carefully.
I’ll bet you a donut President Trump was aware of the White House being bugged. That’s why he invited Lavrov and Kislyak to the Oval Office, and then later called McCabe. President Trump was proving to the listening ears there was no Trump-Russia collusion.
The FBI bugs were known, and allowed to remain in place all the way up to August 2nd, 2017.
(Via Politico) […] building-wide renovation blitz scheduled for the next two weeks, while President Donald Trump heads to his golf club in Bedminster, N.J
The air-conditioning project is bigger project that will shutter the West Wing during Trump’s absence.
“The maintenance people work hard, but when you’ve got a place that runs 24-7, it’s hard to keep it all in decent shape,” said a White House official.
The main situation room was recently closed for two weeks so that the iconic main table could be refurbished, according to a former official.
[…] “It’s the only ‘leaks’ they can fix,” quipped the former official. (link)
While the renovations may have been planned for months, the timing is extremely interesting, especially when you consider that General Kelly was recently named the new chief of staff. One has to wonder whether or not the renovations are a cover for what would be a massive undertaking to essentially debug the entire White House which may have surveillance equipment held over from the previous administration. (link)
Here’s what CTH wants to know. How long will it be, if ever, before we officially hear that the FBI had planted listening devices inside the White House?
In hindsight, the Kislyak and Lavrov invitation on May 10th is the big “tell”:
WHITE HOUSE – President Donald J. Trump met today with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia, following on the visit of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Moscow last month.
President Trump emphasized the need to work together to end the conflict in Syria, in particular, underscoring the need for Russia to rein in the Assad regime, Iran, and Iranian proxies.
The President raised Ukraine, and expressed his Administration’s commitment to remain engaged in resolving the conflict and stressed Russia’s responsibility to fully implement the Minsk agreements. He also raised the possibility of broader cooperation on resolving conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The President further emphasized his desire to build a better relationship between the United States and Russia. (WH link)
Plowing the field. The Bern crowd has no idea how the DNC machine is setting them up. Senator Bernie Sanders announces his decision to run again for the presidency in 2020.
.
Two points: First, Bernie’s primary value is his voter list; he has leveraged this multiple times for indulgences from within the party apparatus. Second, Bernie is the perfect plough (a delegate splitter) to carve up and re-assemble constituent parts.
The unofficial ‘chosen one’, the intended party donor candidate, will not surface until April or May 2019. The DNC is predictable. It’s still too early for the anointed candidate to surface. Bernie holds an identical 2020 responsibility to Marco Rubio in 2016. The apparatus has undeployed dirt on Bernie; they didn’t need to use it in 2016 because the outcome was predetermined. Bernie was not previously vetted.
Knowing it’s likely the ♦UniParty DNC is following a similar ♦UniParty RNC strategy, we can start to put the personal characteristics and political traits together and contrast them against 2016. Here’s the way it looks so far:
Senator Ted Cruz was to 2016…. as Senator Elizabeth Warren is to 2020
♦Governor Jeb Bush was to 2016 as….
Senator Marco Rubio was to 2016… as Senator Bernie Sanders is to 2020
Governor John Kasich was to 2016… as Senator Cory Booker is to 2020
Senator Lindsey Graham was to 2016 as….
Governor Mike Huckabee was to 2016 as….
Senator Rand Paul was to 2016…. as Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is to 2020
Dr. Ben Carson was to 2016 as…
Governor Chris Christie was to 2016 as…
Governor Scott Walker was to 2016 as…
Senator Rick Santorum was to 2016…. as Senator Sherrod Brown is to 2020
Governor George Pataki was to 2016 as….
Governor Rick Perry was to 2016…. as Senator Kamala Harris is to 2020
Governor Bobby Jindal was to 2016…. as Julian Castro is to 2020
Carly Fiorina was to 2016 as…. Senator Amy Klobuchar is to 2020
Governor Jim Gilmore was to 2016… as Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is to 2020
Reminder, anyone who is announcing their presidential bid ahead of Pelosi delivering the impeachment narrative is not part of the DNC plan. The “Chosen One” will surface during the April/May to June/July period when the legislative crew, the DNC crew and the media crew execute the impeachment plan.
Once we get a few more names on the DNC side, we can start to have fun with the celebrity squares graphics.
Fox News is reporting that Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein is anticipated to resign mid-March and be replaced by a hand-picked deputy by AG William Barr. Initial reporting is that Jeffrey Rosen will be the replacement.
FOX – Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave his role at the Justice Department by mid-March, a senior DOJ official told Fox News on Monday. (read more)
This timeframe would align with prior reporting that Rosenstein would exit mid-March simultaneous to the completion of the Robert Mueller investigation.
NBC REPORT WASHINGTON — Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who had been overseeing the special counsel investigation, plans to step down after Robert Mueller submits his report, according to administration officials familiar with his thinking.
A source close to Rosenstein said he intends to stay on until Mueller submits a report to the Justice Department on the Russian meddling investigation. The source said that would mean Rosenstein would remain until early March. (link)
Jake Gibson
✔@JakeBGibson
DAG Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave by mid-March, according to a Senior DOJ Official. Rosenstein’s replacement announcement could come as early as this week. A Trump Administration Official says Attorney General Bill Barr has picked Jeffrey Rosen as his DAG.
If accurate, Jeffrey Rosen, Barr’s choice as deputy to replace Rod Rosenstein, was an attorney at Kirkland & Ellis, Barr’s former law firm, and is currently deputy transportation secretary. Interestingly that is a connection to Mitch McConnell via Mitch’s wife Elaine Chao who is the current Transporation Secretary.
Previously Mr. Rosen served General Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor for the White House Office of Management and Budget during the George W. Bush administration. Before that, he was also with the Department of Transportation, serving as General Counsel.
Rosen has a B.A. in economics and a J.D. from Harvard.
President Donald Trump tweets a reaction to the 60 minutes interview by former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe; where McCabe outlined a concerted effort by the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to participate in a seditious ‘soft coup’ scheme against the president:
One of the points of disagreement amid those who research the deep weeds on ‘spygate’ has always been the oval office meeting between President Trump, DAG Rosenstein and Robert Mueller on the day before Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel.
For over a year the TTP group has highlighted this meeting as Rosetta-Stone evidence that Mueller, Rosenstein and Trump were working together to deconstruct deep state usurpers. However, that perspective always seemed to be a rather absurd stretch.
Given the latest series of points highlighted by the public admission of the soft-coup plotters, a more Occam’s razor likelihood is that DAG Rosenstein didn’t actually wear an electronic wire to record the president, but rather chose instead to carry a human recorder to accomplish the same objective. Robert Mueller was likely that human recording device.
AG Bill Barr has a mess on his hands.
Remember, back when this entire nonsense began, President Trump strongly said he had nothing to do with any coordination with Russia; nothing to do with collusion with Russia; and also stated he was okay with the investigation as it looked into the propriety of people within the 2016 campaign. However, these statements were also with the assumption, held by himself as a result of -perhaps false- confirmations from James Comey, that he himself was not a target.
A few weeks ago HPSCI member Devin Nunes was speculating that President Trump was the actual target all along. The latest admissions by former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe specifically outlined how he opened two additional investigations of President Trump as a result of the Comey firing. One investigation was criminal (obstruction of justice), and a second was counterintelligence (was the obstruction due to Trump being a Russian asset.
If the reporting (based on leaks) that has surfaced in the two-plus years of the investigation is accurate; and if Andrew McCabe did open two additional FBI investigations of President Trump on May 10th, 2017; then it is likely the clarification memo that Mueller requested from Rosenstein was about that issue.
If the mandate given to Robert Mueller was to specifically investigate the sitting president of the United States as an active participant, and subsequent target, for a counterintelligence operation, then DAG Rod Rosenstein -and Mueller- would have to hide that mandate from everyone and anyone. Thus Mueller and Rosenstein would keep the August 2017 Scope Memo hidden from review…. which is exactly what they did.
President Trump would be the target and none of the principles would be able to discuss the key elements specifically because of this extra-constitutional issue.
All of President Trump’s prior commentary would be based on a (2017/2018) assumption that he was not the target of the FBI probe that was eventually turned over to Mueller by Rosenstein. If the origination instruction from Rosenstein to Mueller includes the specific charge to investigate the President; then all prior assumptions -including those held by President Trump- are invalid.
Examples:
Rosenstein (or any DOJ/FBI official) would always be engaging with POTUS as a target. All conversation would be clouded by that aspect. As a result, Rosenstein could never be fully honest with President Trump; or answer any question therein.
Any action taken by President Trump (emphasis on “any”) would therefore potentially be direct influence by the President toward an investigation that held him as a target. He could never be permitted to approach the investigation…. yet he would never find anyone with an honest answer as to why he cannot approach the investigation.
We previously pondered this aspect when we outlined “the declassification conundrum“. However, at the time we did not evaluate the classifications issue from a targetperspective; we were evaluating the issue as if President Trump was the victim of the illegal targeting.
If you flip the paradigm and now look at what actions President Trump could take, while reconsidering that he is the principle target, well, two years of contradictory things start to make more sense.
The conversation, and inability of Rosenstein to be honest with POTUS, changes the dynamic of this tweet:
POTUS writing: “may have a perceived negative impact on the Russia probe” takes on a whole new meaning when you consider a conversation where Rosenstein cannot be honest with the target of the “Russia probe”…. and the target has essentially no idea.
Remember, throughout 2017 and 2018, the basic assumption -due to visible and public declarations by the DOJ- was that Mueller was conducting an investigation into Russian interference with the election; and/or other matters that may surface as an outcome of that investigation. However, we never knew (still don’t) the actual content of the August 2017 clarification mandate that Rosenstein gave to Mueller (see below):
If accurate, we can imagine a conversation where Mueller approaches Rosenstein in July and August 2017:
Mueller: “Rod, if you want me to consider President Trump a specific target of the investigation, you’re going to have to give some specific expansion of the investigation, in writing, to look into all the stuff inside this dossier.”
Rosenstein: “OK Bob, I’ll put it in writing, but we’ve got to keep this part away from view or the targets will know we’re using an unvetted dossier, which could be portrayed as political opposition research funded by Clinton, as evidence against them…. fair enough?”
Accepting Devin Nunes prior speculation as accurate (after much more thought, it likely is); and accepting Andrew McCabe is accurate in his admission of opening two investigations of Trump after the Comey firing; the redacted portion of the published mandate would be the part where President Trump is outlined as a target.
A direct target, or an indirect target, matters not. What matters is that President Trump is A TARGET. That would explain why Mueller requested that Rosenstein write down a much more expanded explanation for the mandate that no-one, [NO-ONE other than Judge Ellis (Manafort case)], has ever seen.
Knowing he would be entering into this foray where President Trump is the target, you can easily see why Mueller would want to meet with President Trump ahead of accepting the job. The entire enterprise would be fraught with tenuous extra-constitutional issues. Mueller’s target is the most powerful person in the world; and the ramifications are rather stunning.
Any action taken by President Trump to declassify documents, that would show the dubious structure of the originating FBI investigation, would now be considered as: the target of the investigation undermining the investigation into himself.
Under this principle, congress requesting President Trump to declassify documents showing the unlawful nature of the investigative origination is an exercise in futility.
Congress is asking the target of the unlawful investigation to declassify evidence that was assembled against him. The target then turns to the people who are investigating him and says please declassify….. however, the receiver (DOJ) is getting a request from their target.
Getting a declassification request from Congress is one thing; but getting a declassification request from the target of their investigation is a request they can neither fulfill nor explain their lack of fulfillment.
From the position of the DOJ:
As a counterintelligence target President Trump cannot declassify evidence, nor can he direct anyone to declassifying any evidence on his behalf.
FUBAR
Ultimately the only person who can correct this issue appears to be the same person who started this entire mess, Rod Rosenstein. Which likely explains why he said he will leave the DOJ when Mueller is finished.
WASHINGTON — Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who had been overseeing the special counsel investigation, plans to step down after Robert Mueller submits his report, according to administration officials familiar with his thinking.
A source close to Rosenstein said he intends to stay on until Mueller submits a report to the Justice Department on the Russian meddling investigation. The source said that would mean Rosenstein would remain until early March. (link)
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein initiated the continued investigation into President Trump by authorizing, and later clarifying, that Mueller is to proceed with the special counsel mandate that includes President Trump as a target.
….And knowing that dynamic completely changes the background review about how corrupt Andrew McCabe’s allies in the FBI and media started leveraging against Rod Rosenstein for their own benefit.
Representative John Ratcliffe appears with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the DOJ and FBI ‘soft coup’ attempt headed by Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
Ratcliffe also discusses the outlook with newly confirmed Attorney General William Barr and what actions he hopes AG Barr will take in the wake of mounting evidence that Andrew McCabe, James Baker, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and former Acting AG Sally Yates were coordinating an effort to remove President Donald Trump.
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This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
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