Ex-FBI Director Mueller appointed DOJ Special Counsel

[astralis]

joe,

I won't hold my breath though. This is not a rational human being we're talking about.

no, DJT is perfectly rational...in that he's perfectly (as in 100%) self-centered. your first statement-- "it's that Donald Trump will act in whatever is his own best personal interests or whatever whim strikes him at that particular second in time. " is -completely- correct.

this is a man who was raw-dogging a stripper a week after his wife gave birth, throws his own loyal friends under the bus at the first sign of trouble-- if he can't even keep faith with those closest to him over relatively small issues, God help the rest of us when "crunch time" comes.

[Ironduke]

I don't know how I didn't see this when it was reported last October:

Paul Manafort, accused of being an unregistered foreign agent, used 'bond007' as his password, experts say
[...]
Their interest was piqued in February, after Manafort confirmed to Politico that hackers broke into Manafort's daughter's iPhone. As Business Insider previously reported, hackers then published roughly 300,000 of what they said were her text messages — about four years' worth — to the "dark web." The dark web is a secret version of the internet often used for criminal activity accessible only via a special browser.

Those messages apparently contained Manafort's former email address, uncovered by a security researcher who goes by the online name Krypt3ia. Another researcher discovered that accounts that used this same email address were compromised in two big security hacks: the 2013 Adobe hack, and the 2012 Dropbox hack.

The password hints for the Adobe account were things like "secret agent" and "James Bond." Those hints basically allowed the researchers to correctly guess that the password itself was "bond007." The same Bond-inspired password worked for both the Adobe and Dropbox accounts.

http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-...ts-say-2017-10

[tbm3fan]

A NYT opinion piece by a person who is normally a steady even keeled writer who isn't into flair that much.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/o...sia-putin.html

Our democracy is in serious danger.

President Trump is either totally compromised by the Russians or is a towering fool, or both, but either way he has shown himself unwilling or unable to defend America against a Russian campaign to divide and undermine our democracy.

That is, either Trump’s real estate empire has taken large amounts of money from shady oligarchs linked to the Kremlin — so much that they literally own him; or rumors are true that he engaged in sexual misbehavior while he was in Moscow running the Miss Universe contest, which Russian intelligence has on tape and he doesn’t want released; or Trump actually believes Russian President Vladimir Putin when he says he is innocent of intervening in our elections — over the explicit findings of Trump’s own C.I.A., N.S.A. and F.B.I. chiefs.

In sum, Trump is either hiding something so threatening to himself, or he’s criminally incompetent to be commander in chief. It is impossible yet to say which explanation for his behavior is true, but it seems highly likely that one of these scenarios explains Trump’s refusal to respond to Russia’s direct attack on our system — a quiescence that is simply unprecedented for any U.S. president in history. Russia is not our friend. It has acted in a hostile manner. And Trump keeps ignoring it all.

Up to now, Trump has been flouting the norms of the presidency. Now Trump’s behavior amounts to a refusal to carry out his oath of office — to protect and defend the Constitution. Here’s an imperfect but close analogy: It’s as if George W. Bush had said after 9/11: “No big deal. I am going golfing over the weekend in Florida and blogging about how it’s all the Democrats’ fault — no need to hold a National Security Council meeting.”

At a time when the special prosecutor Robert Mueller — leveraging several years of intelligence gathering by the F.B.I., C.I.A. and N.S.A. — has brought indictments against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian groups — all linked in some way to the Kremlin — for interfering with the 2016 U.S. elections, America needs a president who will lead our nation’s defense against this attack on the integrity of our electoral democracy.

What would that look like? He would educate the public on the scale of the problem; he would bring together all the stakeholders — state and local election authorities, the federal government, both parties and all the owners of social networks that the Russians used to carry out their interference — to mount an effective defense; and he would bring together our intelligence and military experts to mount an effective offense against Putin — the best defense of all.

What we have instead is a president vulgarly tweeting that the Russians are “laughing their asses off in Moscow” for how we’ve been investigating their interventions — and exploiting the terrible school shooting in Florida — and the failure of the F.B.I. to properly forward to its Miami field office a tip on the killer — to throw the entire F.B.I. under the bus and create a new excuse to shut down the Mueller investigation.

Think for a moment how demented was Trump’s Saturday night tweet: “Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign — there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!”

To the contrary. Our F.B.I., C.I.A. and N.S.A., working with the special counsel, have done us amazingly proud. They’ve uncovered a Russian program to divide Americans and tilt our last election toward Trump — i.e., to undermine the very core of our democracy — and Trump is telling them to get back to important things like tracking would-be school shooters. Yes, the F.B.I. made a mistake in Florida. But it acted heroically on Russia. What is more basic than protecting American democracy?

It is so obvious what Trump is up to: Again, he is either a total sucker for Putin or, more likely, he is hiding something that he knows the Russians have on him, and he knows that the longer Mueller’s investigation goes on, the more likely he will be to find and expose it.

Donald, if you are so innocent, why do you go to such extraordinary lengths to try to shut Mueller down? And if you are really the president — not still head of the Trump Organization, who moonlights as president, which is how you so often behave — why don’t you actually lead — lead not only a proper cyberdefense of our elections, but also an offense against Putin.

Putin used cyberwarfare to poison American politics, to spread fake news, to help elect a chaos candidate, all in order to weaken our democracy. We should be using our cyber-capabilities to spread the truth about Putin — just how much money he has stolen, just how many lies he has spread, just how many rivals he has jailed or made disappear — all to weaken his autocracy. That is what a real president would be doing right now.

My guess is what Trump is hiding has to do with money. It’s something about his financial ties to business elites tied to the Kremlin. They may own a big stake in him. Who can forget that quote from his son Donald Trump Jr. from back in 2008: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets.” They may own our president.

But whatever it is, Trump is either trying so hard to hide it or is so naïve about Russia that he is ready to not only resist mounting a proper defense of our democracy, he’s actually ready to undermine some of our most important institutions, the F.B.I. and Justice Department, to keep his compromised status hidden.

That must not be tolerated. This is code red. The biggest threat to the integrity of our democracy today is in the Oval Office.

[zraver]

Flynn has withdrawn his guilty plea and Judge Sullivan has ordered the government to turn over all exculpatory material (implying they withheld some). If the government has exculpatory evidence they do not think is material they still have to give it to the judge for an in camera review. Seems my prediction of conictions being over turned due to fruit of the poisonous tree is happening.

[DOR]

Flynn has withdrawn his guilty plea and Judge Sullivan has ordered the government to turn over all exculpatory material (implying they withheld some). If the government has exculpatory evidence they do not think is material they still have to give it to the judge for an in camera review. Seems my prediction of conictions being over turned due to fruit of the poisonous tree is happening.

Is the same order, routinely given in December?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN1E62YJ

[snapper]

"Person A" in the Van Der Zwann documents is apparently a 'Ukraine-based Manafort associate'... Who might that be? Most likely is Brother Konstantin Kilimnik, who 'advises' the Opposition Bloc (members of Yanukovychs now defunct Party of Regions) in the Rada/Parliament. He traveled to the US for the Trump nomination in 2016 and claimed to have been party to the changes in the GOP Platform relating to supplying Ukraine with "lethal defensive weapons". In November and December of 2013 Manafort's company (Global Endeavour), then employed by Yanukovych, payed Kilimnik $53,000 (to a Cyprus based account). In 2014 Kilimnik was investigated in Ukraine for his role in getting Yanukovych's dirty money out of Ukraine as in January/February 2014 Global Endeavour sent $750,000 out of Ukraine itself - none of which Manafort declared etc... but this is just a fraction of Manaforts movement of more than $3m going back to 2012. In July 2016 Manafort again contacted Kilimnik proposing that through him Manafort could give Oleg Deripaska, whom Manafort allegedly owed money too, "private briefings" on the Trump campaign (and presumably his useful work in it). So yea it wouldn't be a bad bet that this 'Person A' is Kilimnik, a graduate of Moscow's Military Institute of the Ministry for Defense, which is basically a GRU training school.

[zraver]

Is the same order, routinely given in December?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN1E62YJ

No its not the same order, slightly changed from the December order and 2 days after the Mueller team submitted an agreed to protective order. This points to something very exculpatory existing and the Mueller team not wanting it too get out. Also if it was standard process, why didn't the previous judge issue a brady order? Judge Sullivan also entered the order after an agreed to plea deal and that is highly unusual.

[Ironduke]

Flynn has withdrawn his guilty plea

No, he hasn't.

[Ironduke]

Might have something to do with the sealed charges against Manafort that were filed yesterday.

Mueller asking if Manafort promised banker White House job in return for loans

Federal investigators are probing whether former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort promised a Chicago banker a job in the Trump White House in return for $16 million in home loans, two people with direct knowledge of the matter told NBC News.

Manafort received three separate loans in December 2016 and January 2017 from Federal Savings Bank for homes in New York City, Virginia and the Hamptons.

The banker, Stephen Calk, president of the Federal Savings Bank, was announced as a member of candidate Trump's Council of Economic Advisers in August 2016.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's team is now investigating whether there was a quid pro quo agreement between Manafort and Calk. Manafort left the Trump campaign in August 2016 after the millions he had earned working for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine drew media scrutiny. Calk did not receive a job in President Donald Trump's cabinet.

The sources say the three loans were questioned by other officials at the bank, and one source said that at least one of the bank employees who felt pressured into approving the deals is cooperating with investigators.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...return-n849916

[Ironduke]

Mueller files new charges against Manafort and Gates

(CNN)Special counsel Robert Mueller has filed new charges against former Donald Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates.

The 32-count indictment, filed in Alexandria, Virginia, includes tax and bank fraud charges.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/22/polit...tes/index.html

New indictment: https://www.justice.gov/file/1038391/download

[snapper]

No its not the same order, slightly changed from the December order and 2 days after the Mueller team submitted an agreed to protective order. This points to something very exculpatory existing and the Mueller team not wanting it too get out. Also if it was standard process, why didn't the previous judge issue a brady order? Judge Sullivan also entered the order after an agreed to plea deal and that is highly unusual.

Sorry but could you explain what a "brady order" is? I find myself lost in this Yank terminology sometimes.

[Ironduke]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_disclosure

[snapper]

Much obliged for the Brady thing - full disclosure it sounds like. This Gates fellow has apparently today entered a guilty pleas for "conspiracy against the US". Next question is does Manafort 'flip' as well? If he does I think Trump is over.

[Ironduke]

Former Trump campaign official Rick Gates pleads guilty to 2 charges

Rick Gates, a former top official in President Trump’s campaign, pleaded guilty Friday afternoon to conspiracy and lying to the FBI, striking a deal to cooperate and provide information to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s ongoing investigation.

The plea caps a tumultuous 24 hours for Gates in which he was hit with fresh charges, changed lawyers and admitted crimes.

The guilty plea also marks a busy period for Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and related issues. He charged 13 Russians this month with participating in a criminal scheme to disrupt the election and a London-based lawyer pleaded guilty Tuesday to lying to FBI agents on the case.

According to a criminal information — a document filed earlier Friday with the permission of the defendant — Gates conspired to defraud the United States regarding the money he and his business partner Paul Manafort earned while working for a political party in Ukraine, and lied to the FBI in a Feb. 1, 2018 interview about a 2013 meeting between Manafort, a lobbyist, and a congressman.

That FBI interview came as Gates was trying to negotiate a plea deal. In the interview, Gates claimed there had been no discussion of Ukraine at the 2013 meeting, when in fact, Gates and Manafort prepared a report detailing the Ukrainian discussions, according to the criminal information.

Gates’s plea raises the pressure on Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman. Both men were hit with a 32-count indictment in Virginia on Thursday, following an earlier 12-count indictment of the pair in the District back in October.

Manafort issued a statement Friday expressing surprise but still vowing to beat the charges.

“Notwithstanding that Rick Gates pled today, I continue to maintain my innocence,” Manafort said. “I had hoped and expected my business colleague would have had the strength to continue the battle to prove our innocence. For reasons yet to surface he chose to do otherwise. This does not alter my commitment to defend myself against the untrue piled up charges contained in the indictments against me.”

In exchange for Gates’ plea the government agreed to dismiss all other charges filed against him in both Washington and Virginia.

While the two charges together carry a possible prison sentence of up to ten years, Gates and prosecutors agreed that he would face a recommended sentence of 57 to 71 months in prison. The final sentence will be made by a judge, after hearing from prosecutors about the crimes at issue and how useful his cooperation was to prosecutors. As part of the deal, prosecutors also dropped a forfeiture demand that could have made Gates liable for up to $18 million dollars in payments if convicted.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.4200196ceb42

[Ironduke]

This Gates fellow has apparently today entered a guilty pleas for "conspiracy against the US".

'Conspiracy against the United States' is a very dramatic sounding charge, but it is actually rather mundane.

In the sense that it was used, it means "knowingly and intentionally conspiring to defraud the United States by impeding, impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful governmental functions of a government agency".