Tag: Mueller Report

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Crime Donald Trump Justice Department Mueller Report Russia Investigation

AG Merrick Garland Is Being Urged To Charge Trump And Barr With Crimes Detailed In The Mueller Report

While he’s been unfairly blamed by some progressives for not going after failed, one-term former President Donald Trump as his first order of business since being sworn in as attorney general, rest assured that Merrick Garland and prosecutors with the Justice Department are indeed taking a close look at possible federal crimes Trump can be charged with.

And now we have a former top DOJ official laying out a roadmap for Garland the Department of Justice to follow as it relates to the Mueller investigation and possible crimes detailed within the Mueller report.

Noah Bookbinder is a former prosecutor in the Department Of Justice’s Public Integrity Division. He currently works as executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW). And he has written a brilliant column published in USA Today that makes clear there’s plenty of fire where we see smoke as it relates to the Russia investigation.

In his op-ed, Bookbinder urges AG Garland to take another look at the Mueller investigation:

“Many of us have long suspected that Barr deliberately set out to spin the contents of the Mueller report and manufacture bogus legal analysis in order to protect Trump from facing consequences for the crimes laid out in the report. We now have proof that Barr did exactly that.”

Bookbinder also quotes a letter signed by 1,000 former federal prosecutors which reads in part:

“The conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting president, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.”

But the most powerful portion of Bookbinder’s piece is saved for the conclusion. He writes:

“There is vast evidence that Donald Trump committed crimes. Time, and litigation, have removed both the legal protection he had as president and the illusory claims of exoneration spun by Barr. Now is the moment for America to see equal justice in action. It’s time to finish what Mueller started.”

Those among you who may have given up on Merrick Garland need to cut him some slack. He’s a good man who believes in the rule of law. And that alone is very bad news for lifetime crooks like Donald Trump and his handpicked puppet, Bill Barr.

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Crime Donald Trump Mueller Report Russia Investigation

Ex-White House Counsel: Trump ‘Screamed Like A Third-Grade Girl’ When Mueller Was Appointed

Perhaps you’ve wondered from time to time how failed, one-term former President Donald Trump handles pressure. He loves to brag that he’s a great deal maker (he isn’t) and that he’s a shrewd businessman (he never has been and never will be), and he also likes to put on a tough facade to suggest that he can handle any situation, no matter how daunting or terrifying.

However, as with everything involving Donald Trump, the truth is dramatically different than the “image” he’s created around himself over the decades.

For example, we know that Trump often had childish meltdowns in private and in public, berating White House staffers and all but bursting into tears when the chips were down. He also behaved like a spoiled toddler when he faced President Joe Biden in a debate.

So it should come as no surprise to learn that the ex-president reacted like a whiny little girl when he was informed that former FBI Director Robert Mueller had been appointed as special counsel for the Russia investigation.

According to transcripts of testimony former White House Counsel Don McGahn before the House Judiciary Committee, Trump did not take news of Mueller’s appointment like a man:

We also know that Trump made other remarks when news of a special counsel being appointed reached the Oval Office:

“The President sunk back in his chair and said, ‘Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.”

For all of his braggadocio and claims of being the ultimate macho guy, Donald Trump is nothing but a wimp. He’s a gutless, overgrown baby who belongs behind bars.

 

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Corruption Crime Justice Department The Trump Adminstration WTF?!

Federal Judge Indicates Rod Rosenstein Is Going To Need A Good Criminal Attorney

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson recently issued a scathing ruling in which she ordered the Justice Department to release a memo from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel which helped support former Attorney General William Barr’s decision not to prosecute failed, one-term former President Donald Trump on charges of obstruction of justice, making it clear that she believed Barr had lied to maintain a narrative that the Mueller report cleared Trump, which it most certainly didn’t.

Judge Jackson wrote:

“The review of the document reveals that the Attorney General was not then engaged in making a decision about whether the President should be charged with obstruction of justice; the fact that he would not be prosecuted was a given.”

Barr had made up his mind prior to receiving the report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller: He would declare that Trump had been cleared by Mueller and urge the country to move on.

But it turns out Barr didn’t pull off his deception alone. Instead, he had lots of help from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Remember Rod Rosenstein? He’s the one who appointed Mueller after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself because he had a conflict of interest. Rosenstein was seen as a steady, reliable man who would do what was right, not what was politically expedient.

However, as attorney Dirk Schwenk points out in a fascinating Twitter thread, Judge Jackson also exposed Rosenstein as a co-conspirator who had better hope he has a good criminal attorney on retainer:

Be sure and read the above tweet very carefully. Rosenstein and Barr had the OLC memo drafted to help cover up a decision the AG made regarding the Mueller investigation: No matter what Mueller found, Trump would be protected at all costs. That was the prime objective.

Barr, Rosenstein, and the Office of Legal Counsel were all in on the fix from the beginning. They would declare Trump exonerated even if Mueller said otherwise. Mueller was used as a pawn in a larger criminal scheme to assure that Trump wasn’t found guilty.

Rosenstein set the cover-up in place; Barr took the ball and carried it over the goal line. The upper echelons of the DOJ were used to protect Trump instead of protecting the Constitution those same Justice Department officials had sworn to uphold.

Rod Rosenstein is a criminal. So is Barr. So are others at the DOJ who were part of the conspiracy. It’s time to charge them and try them in a court of law.

 

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Corruption Justice Department Mueller Report The Trump Adminstration

Judge Orders Release Of DOJ Memo Showing William Barr Lied About The Mueller Report

On Tuesday, a federal judge made it clear that she’s sick and tired of the Department of Justice (DOJ) dragging its feet on the release of a memo from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel which supported the decision by former Attorney General William Barr to not prosecute former President Donald Trump for obstruction of justice for incidents laid out in the final report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Politico reports that not only did U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson issue the ruling, she also accused Barr of being “disingenuous” when he described Mueller’s findings to the American people and Congress.

Specifically, Jackson wrote that the Justice Department’s memorandum to Barr was little more than a document created to justify a decision the former attorney general had already made:

“The review of the document reveals that the Attorney General was not then engaged in making a decision about whether the President should be charged with obstruction of justice; the fact that he would not be prosecuted was a given.”

Jackson also noted that the DOJ’s refusal to hand over the memo in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, was little more than an attempt to mislead the court:

“Not only was the Attorney General being disingenuous then, but DOJ has been disingenuous to this Court with respect to the existence of a decision-making process that should be shielded by the deliberative process privilege. The agency’s redactions and incomplete explanations obfuscate the true purpose of the memorandum, and the excised portions belie the notion that it fell to the Attorney General to make a prosecution decision or that any such decision was on the table at any time.”

As we’ve long suspected, William Barr declared Trump innocent of all crimes before the Mueller report was ever made public, and he also withheld (via redactions) large sections of the final document in order to create a false narrative that Trump hadn’t engaged in any illegal conduct, even though Mueller’s team found otherwise. That alone proves that Barr is guilty of crimes against the United States.

Judge Jackson should be hailed for her ruling, and even though it can be appealed, it seems unlikely any appellate court will keep the memo or the full Mueller report from being made available to the American public which, after all, paid for the the Russia investigation and the salaries of both Barr and Trump.

 

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Crime Donald Trump

Mueller Probe Prosecutor: Escalating Financial Crime Case Against Trump Should Have Him Very Worried

On Tuesday, we learned that the office of Manhattan District Attorney had hired a forensic accounting firm to help with the growing financial fraud investigation being conducted into Donald Trump, members of his family, and the Trump Organization.

The purpose of hiring FTI Consulting, according to the Washington Post was “to look for anomalies among a variety of property deals, and to advise the district attorney on whether the president’s company manipulated the value of certain assets to obtain favorable interest rates and tax breaks.”

And that, Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, signals that Trump has every reason to be worried.

Appearing on MSNBC Wednesday evening, Weissmann was asked by host Mehdi Hasan:

“What do you make about the news of Cyrus Vance hiring FTI Consulting? How big a deal is it? Should Trump be worried?”

Weissmann responded:

We don’t know yet whether in terms of the Manhattan district attorney’s office will make its case, but if there is something there, if there is a there there, then yes, you would be worried if you were Donald Trump, his family, and his companies. The forensic accountants that are reported to have been hired are true experts … in fact, I know them pretty well because not only do they have former FBI agents and analysts there, they have one of the lead forensic accountants that worked for the special counsel investigation is actually at FTI.”

Weismann then explained exactly what FTI would be looking for as they dig through Trump’s financial documents:

“They are really good at detecting fraud and following and tracing money, and particularly good at attribution. What I mean by that is if somebody sets up sort of offshore accounts, uses fake or sham names, they’re really good at tracing money flows so that they can attribute that money to a particular person. And the reason that’s important is if you’re not paying taxes on it and you can show that that’s income, then you can make a criminal case. And that’s exactly, for instance, what we did in the Paul Manafort case, which was we traced all of his bonds across the globe with the help of spectacular forensic accountant. So I suspect that’s exactly what Manhattan is going to try to do here.”

As Weissmann pointed out, the case against Paul Manafort was made with a deep dive into his finances, which showed offshore accounts and the money flowing into them, most of it from overseas accounts. Manafort was convicted of tax fraud, failing to disclose his foreign bank accounts, and two counts of bank fraud. Nearly the all of the evidence that helped convict him came from the same sort of documents Manhattan prosecutors are combing over in Trump’s case.

The walls are closing in on Donald Trump. And as of noon on January 20, he no longer has the presidency to protect him from being put and trial and convicted. That’s why he’s trying so desperately to have his Congressional allies overturn the 2020 election. But they will fail, and Trump will then be at the mercy of the courts. That’s not a good position to be in when you break the law as often as Trump allegedly has.

Here’s the video of Weissmann’s appearance on MSNBC: