Checking Robert Mueller
KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL DECEMBER 13, 2018
Robert Mueller has operated for 19 months as a law unto himself, reminding us of the awesome and destructive powers of special counsels. About the only possible check on Mr. Mueller is a judge who is wise to the tricks of prosecutors and investigators. Good news: That’s what we got this week.
Former national security adviser Mike Flynn a year ago pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Mr. Flynn’s defense team this week filed a sentencing memo to Judge Emmet Sullivan that contained explosive new information about the Flynn-FBI meeting in January 2017.
It was arranged by then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who personally called Mr. Flynn on other business, then suggested he sit down with two agents to clear up the Russia question. Mr. McCabe urged Mr. Flynn to conduct the interview with no lawyer present—to make things easier.
The agents (including the infamous Peter Strzok) showed up within two hours. They had already decided not to inform Mr. Flynn that they had transcripts of his conversations or give him the standard warning against lying to the FBI. They wanted him “relaxed” and “unguarded.” Former Director James Comey this weekend bragged on MSNBC that he would never have “gotten away” with such a move in a more “organized” administration.
The whole thing stinks of entrapment, though the curious question was how the Flynn defense team got the details. The court filing refers to a McCabe memo written the day of the 2017 meeting, as well as an FBI summary—known as a 302—of the Flynn interview. These are among documents congressional Republicans have been fighting to obtain for more than a year, only to be stonewalled by the Justice Department. Now we know why the department didn’t want them public.
They have come to light thanks to a man who knows well how men like Messrs. Mueller and Comey operate: Judge Sullivan. He sits on the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, and as he wrote for the Journal last year, he got a “wake-up call” in 2008 while overseeing the trial of then-Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska. Judge Sullivan ultimately assigned a lawyer to investigate Justice Department misconduct.
The investigator’s report found prosecutors had engaged in deliberate and repeated ethical violations, withholding key evidence from the defense. It also excoriated the FBI for failing to write up 302s and for omitting key facts from those it did write. The head of the FBI was Mr. Mueller.
Judge Sullivan has since made it his practice to begin every case with a Brady order, which reminds prosecutors of their constitutional obligation to provide the defense with any exculpatory evidence. On Dec. 12, 2017, days after being assigned the Flynn case, Judge Sullivan issued such an order, instructing Mr. Mueller’s team to turn over “any evidence in its possession that is favorable to defendant and material either to defendant’s guilt or punishment.” Had any other judge drawn the case, we likely would never have seen these details of the FBI’s behavior.
It’s clear that something has concerned the judge—who likely sees obvious parallels to the Stevens case. The media was predicting a quick ruling in the Flynn case. Instead, Judge Sullivan issued new orders Wednesday, demanding to see for himself the McCabe memo and the Flynn 302. He also ordered the special counsel to hand over by Friday any other documents relevant to the Flynn-FBI meeting.
Given his history with the FBI, the judge may also have some questions about the curious date on the Flynn 302—Aug. 22, 2017, seven months after the interview. Texts from Mr. Strzok and testimony from Mr. Comey both suggest the 302 was written long before then. Was the 302 edited in the interim? If so, by whom, and at whose direction? FBI officials initially testified to Congress that the agents did not think Mr. Flynn had lied.
Judges have the ability to reject plea deals and require a prosecutor to make a case at trial. The criminal-justice system isn’t only about holding defendants accountable; trials also provide oversight of investigators and their tactics. And judges are not obliged to follow prosecutors’ sentencing recommendations.
No one knows how Judge Sullivan will rule. His reputation is for being no-nonsense, a straight shooter, an advocate of government transparency. Whatever the outcome, he has done the nation a favor by using his Brady order to hold prosecutors to some account and allow the country a glimpse at how federal law enforcement operates. Which is the very least the country can expect.
Outline - Read & annotate without distractions
It is hard not to come to the conclusion that two different forms of justice exist in this country, one for democrats and another for their adversaries. Specifically anyone with ties to Trump.
Oh, and did you know that the iphones issued to Strozk and Page by the SCO were determined BY SOMEONE IN THE SPECIAL COUNSEL'S OFFICE to contain ‘No substantive texts, notes or reminders', so the phones were wiped clean and restored to factory settings, meaning anything on them was gone. That was done after both of them were removed from the SCO investigation back in the summer of 2017, but given that many within Mueller's organization were friends/supporters/associates/donors to the Clintons, how much credence should we give to those determinations?
We don't know what information was summarily destroyed, but the whole process stinks to high heaven. Maybe it's all coincidental and innocent of wrong-doing, no proof that it wasn't because once again any possible incrimination evidence has been deleted. You know, after awhile a patttern kind of emerges.
The OIG was able to recover more than 19,000 texts between Strozk and Page on their old government-issued Samsung Galaxy S5 devices that had been lost due to the agency’s “collection tool failure.” The OIG did not include the content of these texts in the report. I suspect at some point maybe we'll find out more about what really happened.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/12/13/doj-destroyed-missing-strzok-page-text-messages-before-ig-reviewed-them/
https://outline.com/GL9ZLM
@whodey saidNo.
Checking Robert Mueller
KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL DECEMBER 13, 2018
Robert Mueller has operated for 19 months as a law unto himself, reminding us of the awesome and destructive powers of special counsels. About the only possible check on Mr. Mueller is a judge who is wise to the tricks of prosecutors and investigators. Good news: That’s what we got this week.
Former nati ...[text shortened]... j-destroyed-missing-strzok-page-text-messages-before-ig-reviewed-them/
https://outline.com/GL9ZLM
Next.
@whodey saidGiven your posting history, there's literally no way to know how much of this is fact and how much is merely hysterical hyperbole.
Checking Robert Mueller
KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL DECEMBER 13, 2018
Robert Mueller has operated for 19 months as a law unto himself, reminding us of the awesome and destructive powers of special counsels. About the only possible check on Mr. Mueller is a judge who is wise to the tricks of prosecutors and investigators. Good news: That’s what we got this week.
Former nati ...[text shortened]... j-destroyed-missing-strzok-page-text-messages-before-ig-reviewed-them/
https://outline.com/GL9ZLM
@kazetnagorra saidIt's a rabid right winger with no relevant training trying to play lawyer on the internet.
I'd say that given whodey's posting history, we can be fairly confident it's mostly the latter sprinkled with some lies and misinformation.
Much of it is simple propaganda but some is just ludicrous errors; for example, a request for Brady materials is about the first sentence in a boilerplate pretrial motion by a defense attorney in a criminal case and is virtually always ordered. The author here thinks it is some unique innovation by Flynn's trial judge who is crusading against the FBI's misconduct- a bizarre and ignorant fantasy at best.
@whodey saidReally?
It is hard not to come to the conclusion that two different forms of justice exist in this country, one for democrats and another for their adversaries. Specifically anyone with ties to Trump.
Hahaha. A five year old with access to Twitter can figure out Trump is crooked.
This has all been quite the affair.
People were talking about how Pres. Trump wouldn't even see the end of his first year in the Presidency, and as this thing has dragged on, while it has negatively impacted the Presidency, it has only begun to lose ground in recent days.
Hardly the heroic frontal assault the Left thought it'd be.
Now they are spendign their time defending dodgy legal moves instead of celebrating an impeachment. Bit of a bummer.
@philokalia saidGuess we'll have to settle for the 7 Republicans who were jailed or currently waiting to be sentenced.
This has all been quite the affair.
People were talking about how Pres. Trump wouldn't even see the end of his first year in the Presidency, and as this thing has dragged on, while it has negatively impacted the Presidency, it has only begun to lose ground in recent days.
Hardly the heroic frontal assault the Left thought it'd be.
Now they are spendign their time defending dodgy legal moves instead of celebrating an impeachment. Bit of a bummer.
@vivify saidThat's right.
Guess we'll have to settle for the 7 Republicans who were jailed or currently waiting to be sentenced.
Your amazing FBI probe that gave you total free reign caught evil folks like Flynn in process violations and some overzealous intern and.. who else?
What are some of the other glorious bagged & tagged folks from your grand march of justice, viv?
@philokalia saidRight wingers keep thinking it's over when it's just getting started. Nixon and his boys were probably thinking the same thing right before the deluge.
That's right.
Your amazing FBI probe that gave you total free reign caught evil folks like Flynn in process violations and some overzealous intern and.. who else?
What are some of the other glorious bagged & tagged folks from your grand march of justice, viv?
@philokalia said"Process violations"? You mean like bank fraud, tax fraud, campaign finance violations and lying to the FBI?
That's right.
Your amazing FBI probe that gave you total free reign caught evil folks like Flynn in process violations
Interesting way to downplay committing a felony.
@no1marauder saidWhat's funny about the Nixon thing is that experts on the topic talk about how the Joint Chiefs of Staff literally were doing internal spying on Pres. Nixon with the express goal of ending his whole administration because he was anti-establishment and actually represented foreign affairs ideals that would be far more popular with the left now...
Right wingers keep thinking it's over when it's just getting started. Nixon and his boys were probably thinking the same thing right before the deluge.
In a very real sense, anyone with a studied understanding of the affair understands that this was not a single, corrupt, dangerous figure being taken down to protect the nation, but rather it was the usual dirt accumulating and being leveraged against the President.
I've meant to read about this more extensively but it's a monster of a topic and I've just never got the material together.
@vivify saidIn some cases, it is true that this "fraud" goes along with it.
"Process violations"? You mean like bank fraud, tax fraud, campaign finance violations and lying to the FBI?
Interesting way to downplay committing a felony.
But as they say, there are prosecutors out there who could indict a ham sandwich.
It makes me think back on my Army days -- the amount of time that we spent actually doing things by the book was almost zilch. To get things done, rules were broken, regulations were routinely overlooked, and everything was thrown together to meet a real set of practical regulations that we all kept in our head.
There were basically two laws... The things that we did and were aceptable in practice, and the things that were by the book.
As I understand it, it is not uncommon for a guy to get called down saying he doesn't have the right paperwork for X, Y, or Z and told to fill out the form and nothing negative results in the end. Just as such, the Obama administration paid loads of fines after the election concerning random campaign violations, none of these things actually taking center stage.
But when the media are the cheerleaders & the blowhards are all out there yelling, you can make it really sound liek these guys are threats to our country, can't you?
It's all garbage.