Congressional Republicans to Robert Mueller: Thanks for Coming to Testify Before Us. We've Got a Few Questions of Our Own!

Everyone is anticipating the stir that will be created if Robert Mueller ever comes to testify before Congressional Democrats. Think of all the bad press for Donald Trump as they dredge up every one of the ten or eleven potential obstruction of justice charges alluded to in the Mueller Report. Quite a gold mine right? But isn't that old news by now? What about the opportunity Mueller's testimony will provide to Congressional Republicans? That's where the real bonanza is.  

I hope the president is smart enough to allow Mueller to testify despite the potential for a bad news cycle.  I think he's got a lot more to gain than to lose.  I wonder if he knows that and is perhaps goading Democrats into demanding Mueller appear.  I've made a list of some of the questions I'd like the Republicans in Congress to ask Robert Mueller. 

Are you aware of an FBI investigation code named "special?"

If yes, can you tell us the subject of that investigation?

When was that investigation initiated?

Was it a criminal investigation or a counter intelligence investigation?

Was Peter Strzok associated with that investigation?

Director Mueller, your mandate was to investigate Russian influence in our 2016 presidential election. Is that correct?

When in your investigation did you determine that there was no coordination or conspiracy on the part of Donald Trump or any members of his Campaign to assist the Russians in that effort?

You had no problem releasing other partial results of your investigation.  I'm referring to the plea agreements of George Papadopoulos and General Flynn.  Why was there no preliminary report to disclose the absence of any findings of so called "collusion?"

While you were investigating Russian influence in the 2016 election, did the possibility ever occur to you that the Russians might have fed misinformation about candidate Trump to the FBI and the Intelligence Community via another candidate's opposition research efforts?

If that had happened, would that constitute a form of Russian interference?

If that had occurred, would it have been included in your mandate to investigate Russian election interference?

Did you in fact investigate that possibility?

If not, why not?

If so, where is that portion of your report?

How about if instead of being duped by the Russians into pursuing such an investigation, certain elements in the upper leadership of the DOJ, the FBI, and the Intelligence Community actually promoted such an investigation themselves?  If they knew the story to lack merit, would that be a reasonable thing for you to have investigated?

Did you investigate that possibility?

If not, why not?

If so, where is that portion of your report?

In your report you stated that from the beginning you determined not to recommend an indictment of the president since the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) ruling wouldn't allow prosecution of a sitting president.   You said that to recommend indictment without the possibility of a trial would rob the president of his due process rights. If that is the case, why did you lay out all the potential evidence of obstruction of justice? Aren't you guilty of doing what James Comey was accused of doing; besmirching a person's reputation, but then not indicting?

If not for the OLC guidance, do you think there is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the president committed obstruction of justice?

Is the evidence such that you think the government would prevail if it went to court?

If no, shouldn't you have said as much in your report?

If you do think the government would prevail in court, do you believe your difference of opinion with Attorney General Barr on this matter is due to an honest disagreement on the law, or is Bill Barr acting as the president's lawyer instead of the people's lawyer?

If you do think the government would prevail in court, why not a sealed indictment to be unsealed after the president leaves office. By failing to do that, aren't you contradicting the premise that the government has a winnable case?

Director Mueller, do you recognize the name Joseph Mifsud?

Olga Polanskaya?

Is the last name Obaid familiar at all?

Do you recognize the name Stefan Halper?

Asra Turk?

Arvinder Sambei

Svetlana Lokhova?

Henry Oknyansky?

Alexei Rasin?

Do you recognize the last name Claggett?  Someone who may have been implicated in offering information to Trump Campaign official Michael Caputo about missing Hillary Clinton emails?



On the subject of Mike Flynn:

It has been reported in the media that there were concerns about certain contacts General Flynn had had with Russians as early as February 2014.  Are you familiar with those media reports?

Prior to the FBI investigation into General Flynn's conversation with Russian Ambassador Kislyak, was General Flynn under investigation by any agencies of the Federal Government based on the concerns described by those media reports?

I asked earlier about Stefan Halper and Svetlana Lokhova. Ms Lokhova is a Russian born British citizen who is a historian in Cambridge with a research interest in Soviet era espionage.  She claims that in February 2014, she was invited by Stefan Halper to a dinner sponsored by the Cambridge Security Initiative where General Flynn was a guest.  She believes the purpose of her being invited was so that her host Stefan Halper could later start and spread a rumor that General Flynn had had an illicit and unreported contact with a woman of Russian origin.  Based on your investigation into General Flynn's having lied to the FBI regarding his discussions with Ambassador Kislyak, were you aware of these other allegations?

If so, do you believe there is any truth to those other allegations against General Flynn?

General Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about a conversation he had with Russian Ambassador Kislyak. How did the FBI become aware of the true nature of General Flynn's conversation?

Did that information flow directly to the FBI through authorized channels?

Was there any point in the flow of that information from its source to the FBI that the information could be said to have been leaked in an unauthorized fashion?

If yes, is that leak being investigated?

At any point in the discovery of the true nature of this conversation was an unmasking request made to formally identify General Flynn, and if so, by whom?

It's been reported in the media that the FBI agent who interviewed General Flynn came away with the impression that General Flynn had been truthful in his interview, yet you had him plead guilty to making false statements. Can you clear up that discrepancy?



Returning to the subject of Stefan Halper:

 I searched the Report for the name of Stefan Halper, but it wasn't there.  Quite a few people whose names do appear in your report have met Stefan Halper.  Stefan Halper met with Carter Page at a symposium in Cambridge July 11-12, and several other times later in Halper's home in Virginia.  Stefan Halper met with Sam Clovis, then National Co-chairman of the Trump Campaign, and offered to help him with the Campaign.  Stefan Halper flew George Papadopoulos to London, put him up in a hotel, and paid him $3000 to write a research paper.  Oh, and he introduced him to his research assistant, Asra Turk, who the press seems to think may not be who she claims to be.  Is there a reason why someone who has had contacts with so many people of interest in your report didn't themselves warrant a mention in the report?

Is it possible that the name Stefan Halper may come up in Michael Horowitz pending IG Report, or is this a sources and methods issue?

The FBI claims that Crossfire Hurricane, the investigation into Russian interference into the 2016 election, and possible involvement by members of the Trump campaign, began on July 31, 2016.  Is it possible that Stefan Halper was working for somebody other than the FBI when he started contacting members of the Trump campaign in the middle of July?  Perhaps one of the intelligence services, either ours or the Brits?

Alternatively, is it possible that the FBI was being less than forthcoming when they stated their investigation didn't begin until the end of July?

We know that you were aware of the potential conflict of interest present when the Peter Strzok and Lisa Page text messages were discovered.  You dismissed them from your team.  One of those texts from Strzok to Page from Dec 28, 2015 states "You get all our oconus lures approved?"  Do you have any idea what that text might have referred to?

Could Stefan Halper, Asra Turk, Olga Polanskaya, and perhaps Joseph Mifsud be among the lures he was referring to?

How about Alexander Downer or Arvinder Sambei?


On the subject of Henry Oknyansky aka Henry Greenberg aka Gennadiy Vasilievich Vostretsov:

 On page 69 of the Mueller Report you describe the efforts of a man named Henry Oknyansky who contacted Michael Caputo from the Trump campaign in late May, to provide him with derogatory information about Hillary Clinton. You describe a meeting which took place in which Oknyansky and a Ukrainian man named Alexei Rasin met with Roger Stone. Your report suggests Oknyansky says Caputo was present at the meeting, but Caputo says he was not.  Caputo claims he sent Stone.  Caputo says you should know Caputo was not present as you apparently have text messages and emails from Caputo to support his version of events. Yet, you leave the narrative in your report to suggest that it is an unresolved he said he said situation. Do you have evidence to dispute Caputo's claim that he was not present at the meeting?

Caputo has expressed the opinion that Oknyansky was likely an FBI asset directed at Caputo in an attempt to link Caputo and the Trump campaign with efforts to gather derogatory information about Hillary Clinton from Russian sources. Caputo states he has evidence of a 2015 court filing (Pg 19 Greenberg Dossier) where Oknyansky claims to have worked on behalf of the FBI for the past 17 years.  Caputo also claims to have evidence of multiple FBI related visa waivers for Osnyansky despite a lengthy violent criminal background in both the U.S. and  his native Russia.

Was Henry Oknyansky working for the FBI?

Was Rasin?

Do you have any information suggesting Oknyansky or Rasin were FBI or other government assets directed at Caputo and the Trump campaign?


Speaking of Michael Caputo:

Caputo also claims that on May 9, 2016 he was approached through an intermediary by a man named Claggett claiming he was a former NSA contractor with knowledge that the NSA had missing Hillary Clinton emails. Caputo now believes this was also an attempt to entrap him into accepting stolen documents on behalf of the Trump campaign, some of which might contain classified material. Do you know of any such operation by any agency of the US government to contact Mr. Caputo or any other official or former official of the Trump campaign?


On the subject of George Papadopoulos:

The “overseas professor” referred to on Page 2 of the 5 October 2017 Statement of the Offense against George Papadopoulos was subsequently identified in the press and more recently in the Mueller Report as Joseph Mifsud. You refer to this professor as someone whom Mr. Papadopoulos

 “understood to have substantial connections to Russian government officials.” 

I'm impressed by your turn of phrase here. He understood it to be the case. That's interesting. Some in the press have implied that Joseph Mifsud is an agent of the Russian government.  Were you implying that Professor Mifsud actually was a Russian agent?

Do you believe Professor Mifsud is or was an agent for the Russian government?

Professor Mifsud has been labeled by other members of the press as an intelligence asset of a Western government. Do you believe Professor Mifsud is or was an intelligence agent or asset of a Western government?

Also on Page 2 of the charging document, you refer to a “Female Russian National” whom Mr Papadopoulos met on or about 24 March, 2016. In your Report, you identify her as Olga Polanskaya, whom Mifsud introduced as a former student of his who had connections to Vladimir Putin.  Papadopoulos told the FBI, he had been led to believe she was in fact Putin's niece.  Do you believe Olga Polanskaya is her real name?

Do you believe Olga Polanskaya is an agent or asset of the Russian government either by that name or any other name?

Do you believe Olga Polanskaya is an agent or asset of  Western intelligence or law enforcement, either by that name or any other name?

Two of the three lies Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to related to whether he met Mifsud and the  “Female Russian National” before or after he joined the Trump campaign. Papadopoulos agreed to join the campaign in early March 2016, but the announcement wasn't made until March 21, 2016. Papadopoulos met Mifsud on March 14, 2016; after accepting the position with the Campaign, but before it was publicly announced.   He met Polanskaya, the Female Russian National on March 24, 2016; three days after the announcement.  Contrary to what Papadopoulos told FBI investigators, both meetings were after he had accepted the position. One meeting took place before the announcement and the other after the announcement. Is that correct?

The date of the interview when Papadopoulos told these lies was January 27, 2017, roughly 10 months later, is that correct?

Did it occur to your investigators that after 10 months had passed, Papadopoulos might have simply misremembered the exact dates when he met Mifsud and Polanskaya relative to the date he accepted a position on the campaign, these dates all being clustered in March of 2016?

The third and final lie that Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to was that he claimed that Professor Mifsud was “a nothing” and “just a guy talk[ing] up connections or something” when in fact Papadopoulos “understood that the professor had substantial connections to Russian government officials”. There's that very carefully worded phrase again, “understood that the professor had substantial connections to Russian government officials.” Papadopoulos may have understood that in March of 2016 when he first met Mifsud, but did Papadopoulos still understand that to be the case ten months later in January 2017, when his FBI questioning took place?  By then, as your charging document makes clear, no arrangements had been made for any meetings between Trump and the Russian government. Your charging document makes clear that was why Papadopoulos was pursuing the connections to Mifsud and Polanskaya. By January 2017, it would have been obvious to Mr. Papadopoulos that he'd been scammed by these two. They never could deliver a meeting as they'd promised. Furthermore, Papadopoulos had by then discovered that Putin didn't have a niece.  Might George Ppapdopoulos have been telling the truth when he referred to Mifsud as “a nothing” and “just a guy talk[ing] up connections or something?”

On Page 201 of the Mueller Report, you state that Joseph Mifsud was questioned on February 10, 2017 in the lobby of a Washington, DC hotel. Unlike many of the other interviews mentioned in your report, there is no footnoted 302 reference for that interview.  Why was that?

Is it customary practice for an interview of this sort to be conducted in a hotel lobby?

Who actually conducted this interview?  Was it members of the FBI, members of your staff?  Who?

In your Report, you state,

“During that interview, Mifsud admitted to knowing Papadopoulos and to having introduced him to Polonskaya and Timofeev [an official from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs]. But Mifsud denied that he had advance knowledge that Russia was in possession of emails damaging to candidate Clinton, stating that he and Papadopoulos had discussed cybersecurity and hacking as a larger issue and that Papadopoulos must have misunderstood their conversation.  Mifsud also falsely stated that he had not seen Papadopoulos since the meeting at which Mifsud introduced him to Polonskaya, even though emails, text messages, and other information show that Mifsud met with Papadopoulos on at least two other occasions - April 12 and April 26, 2016.  In addition, Mifsud omitted that he had drafted (or edited) the follow-up message that Polonskaya sent to Papadopoulos following the initial meeting and that, as reflected in the language of that email chain ("Baby, thank you!"), Mifsud may have been involved in a personal relationship with Polonskaya at the time. The false information and omissions in Papadopoulos's January 2017 interview undermined investigators' ability to challenge Mifsud when he made these inaccurate statements."   

Papadopoulos told the FBI that Mifsud told him about the Russians having "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Mifsud claims otherwise. Papadopoulos says it happened.  Mifsud says it didn't.  Somebody must be lying.   In charging Papadopoulos, you say it did happen, and in fact, the FBI is claiming that Papadopoulos's informing a representative of a foreign government of this fact formed the basis of the entire Russia investigation. Is it reasonable, therefore, to presume that Joseph Mifsud lied to investigators in that DC hotel lobby?  And not just about emails, but about further meetings with Papadopoulos and his relationship with Polanskaya?

If Joseph Mifsud lied to investigators, why have we not heard of an indictment against Joseph Mifsud?

Is there a sealed indictment somewhere with his name on it?

Back to the hotel lobby for a moment.  This interview took place on February 10, 2017.  Do you know why Joseph Mifsud was in Washington, DC on the 10th of February?

Mifsud was in Washington to speak at the large annual conference for Global Ties U.S., an organization that has been a partner of the U.S. State Department for over 50 years. Several State Department officials also spoke at the conference.  Mifsud sure has a lot of western affiliations for somebody who some in the press are portraying as a Russian spy.  Does that concern you?

In the Statement of the Offense, page one is an introduction of sorts.  Page two describes the actual offense, lying to the FBI.  Then pages 3-9 list a timeline of extraneous information about Mr. Papadopoulos's contacts with Mifsud, Polanskaya, and one Ivan Timofeev an official with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  The timeline includes details of Papadopoulos's efforts on behalf of the campaign, all quite legal, to arrange a meeting between Candidate Trump and the Russian government.  One page for the offense.  Seven pages for the extraneous and quite legal actions of Mr. Papadopoulos.  Is it possible that Page 2 was for the court, and pages 3-9 were for the press?

On page 97 of the Mueller report, we learn about the meeting where Professor Mifsud tells George Papadopoulos about the damaging information the Russians have about Hillary Clinton. I'm curious about the phrasing of the narrative.

“During that meeting, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that he had met with high-level Russian government officials during his recent trip to Moscow. Mifsud also said that, on the trip, he learned that the Russians had obtained "dirt" on candidate Hillary Clinton.”

I noticed that you never say here that Mifsud says they have emails. Just “dirt”, and you put that in quotes. You never claim in your narrative that Mifsud actually said anything about emails.  Is it your position that Mifsud mentioned emails, or just dirt?

Then you go on to say,

“As Papadopoulos later stated to the FBI, Mifsud said that the "dirt" was in the form of "emails of Clinton," and that they "have thousands of emails."

So Papadopoulos told the FBI that the dirt was in the form of emails.  But as far as I can tell, nobody else ever mentions emails.  Not Mifsud, and not the representative of a foreign government to whom Papadopoulos later spoke.

For instance, later:

“On May 6, 2016, 10 days after that meeting with Mifsud, Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton”

Once again, there is no mention of emails.  This informant, this "representative of a former government", doesn't appear to have mentioned emails either.  Is it your position that the representative of the foreign government who later reported his conversation with Papadopoulos to the FBI said they discussed emails or only an anonymous release of information that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton?

We now know that this representative of a foreign government was Alexander Downer, an Australian diplomat.  He has stated publicly that no mention was made in their conversation of emails.

So we are informed that Papadopoulos told the FBI that Mifsud said the Russians had emails, but we're told the representative of a foreign government only represented the conversation as "an anonymous release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton."

Nowhere in your narrative do you claim that anybody but Papadopoulos in his January 2017 interview says anything about emails.

So my question is this: Without all the deceptive shrouding of the facts, can you tell me if it is your position that Professor Mifsud ever mentioned anything about emails, or did he only say “dirt”?

And furthermore, is it your position that the representative of the foreign government claims to have been told about emails, or only that the Campaign “had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton?”

Director Mueller, we are told that the FBI initiated this investigation on 31 July, 2016 following a communication from Alexander Downer who, after learning of hacked DNC emails, informed the FBI that Trump campaign staffer George Papadopoulos had told him about an April 2016 discussion about stolen emails.  And the way the narrative in your report reads, it sounds like the report supports that position.  But once you parse out what was really testified to, another picture emerges.  It looks to me as if your narrative was constructed in such a way as to imply that it corroborates the FBI's position, but in fact it does not.  I believe your report was written in such a way as to deliberately mislead the public on this critical point.  We now know that Mifsud never mentioned emails, and Downer never claimed Papadopoulos told him anything about emails.  I'm confused, and I'm inclined to doubt the story put out by the FBI and deceptively supported by the narrative in your report that Papadopoulos was the reason we got the Russia investigation?  Can you resolve this for me please?  Can you clear up my confusion?  Can you dispel my doubts?

Director Mueller, can you understand why many of us don't believe the FBI's story about how and particularly when this investigation began and on what it was predicated?  On the one hand, there is evidence of Confidential Human Sources (Mifsud and Polanskaya) already probing the Trump campaign as early as the middle of March 2016.  Then there were several other suspicious contacts in May and early July (Oknyanksy, Rasin, Halper, and Turk.)  Furthermore, based on what we actually know about various conversations with George Papadopoulos, it seems implausible that he was really the spark that lit that fire.  In fact, what emerges is a scenario where it seems much more likely that an intentional distortion of the facts surrounding George Papadopoulos was used as an excuse after the fact to falsely claim a justification for the Obama Justice Department, the FBI, and the Intelligence Community to start an investigation into a rival political campaign; an investigation that may have started as early as December 2015.


A note on the FBI's tactics here, if in fact it was the FBI orchestrating all of this:

It's worth pointing out that there has been a remarkable amount of consistency here in the tactics used to try and entrap the various members of the Trump Campaign.  In April of 2016, we have Mifsud dangling the so called "dirt" on Hillary Clinton.  In early May, it's the NSA contractor Claggett dangling the elusive promise of Clinton emails to Michael Caputo.  In late May it's Henry Oknyansky dangling derogatory Clinton information to Michael Caputo and Roger Stone.  And of course, we all know about the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower where the Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya was dangling derogatory Clinton information about the unsavory sources of one of Hillary's campaign contributors.  Everybody has been obsessing about how the folks in that meeting in Trump Tower would have been willing to accept derogatory information if only it had proven more useful.  I'm not shocked or surprised that Don Jr took the meeting.  I'll be honest with you.  I'm surprised more of the parties being coaxed with this information did not take the bait.  The offers were coming in fast and furious in the first half of 2016.  Now one might argue that the Trump Tower lawyer was a Russian.  Nothing to do with the FBI.  True, but this Russian lawyer was also working with Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS.  And do we know how the details and purpose of that meeting were first revealed to the public?  We first became aware of this meeting more than a year after it took place.  On 8 July, 2017, the New York Times published the story that revealed this meeting.  Here is the first paragraph of the story:

"Two weeks after Donald J. Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination last year, his eldest son arranged a meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan with a Russian lawyer who has connections to the Kremlin, according to confidential government records described to The New York Times."

"According to confidential government records described to The New York Times."  Well isn't that special.  I wonder how that information came into the possession of the New York Times.  Good journalism?  Or maybe somebody in a position of power with an agenda to execute?  We don't have time in this hearing to even begin delving into what sorts of convoluted relationships are implied by the connections between the Deep State, Fusion GPS, and the Russian lawyer, but someday soon, somebody should probably look into that.  By the way Director Mueller, did you ever interview Ms Veselnitskaya or Glenn Simpson?


Back to Joseph Mifsud and the Link Campus in Rome: 

Footnote 454 on Pg 96 of the Mueller Report refers to an email from Mifsud to Papadopoulos and Obaid.  A quick Google search and I come up with a Saudi family named Obaid who are affiliated with the Link Campus in Rome.   I'll come back to the Link Campus in a moment, but first:

Apparently, there is a Saudi charity called the Essam & Dalal Obaid Foundation (EDOF), and it is run by four members of the Obaid family.  Tarek Obaid, the founder; Dalal Obaid, the Chairwoman; Dr. Nawaf Obaid, the CEO; and Karim Obaid, the Executive Vice President.   This charity joined forces in May of 2017 with the Link Campus in Rome to form  The Centre for War and Peace Studies.  The first Director of this Centre was, coincidentally, the mysterious Joseph Mifsud.  I'm not quite sure what if anything all this means, but if for no other reason than that there appears to be an intersection here between Joseph Mifsud, the Link Campus, the Obaids, and George Papadopoulos, I thought it might be worthwhile to ask, which Obaid was referred to in the Mifsud email to Papadopoulos?

Why was this Obaid person included in the discussion.  Would this committee find anything of interest in that email beyond what we already know about Professor Mifsud and George Papadopoulos?

The Link Campus is a private (for-profit) university with accreditation from Italy's education ministry. There are six Italian politicians on its governing body – two of them former foreign ministers – and it is also reputed to have links with Italian intelligence services. One of the university's courses is an MA degree in Intelligence and Security.  It was on a trip to the Link Campus on the insistance of London Centre for International Law Practice colleague Arvinder Sambei, that George Papadopoulos first met fellow LCILP colleague Joseph Mifsud.  Oddly, the LCILP urged Papadopoulos to make this trip after he announced that he was leaving to join the Trump Campaign.  The Link Campus has been discussed in the press quite a bit of late.  It is comprised of quite a prominent faculty of diplomats, politicians, intelligence personnel and law enforcement officials.  Many of the references I've read portray the place as some sort of an international spy school. If all this is true, shouldn't we be worried that the nefarious Joseph Mifsud has so many connections to this place?  As Lee Smith wrote in a May 30, 2018 story for Real Clear Investigations:

"If Mifsud truly is a Russian agent – which is key to the collusion narrative – he could prove to be one of the most promiscuous spies in modern history. Western intelligence agencies and European politicians would have to spend the next few decades repairing the damage he did to global security by infiltrating key institutions and personnel. As of yet, however, there is no indication that any intelligence service has begun the embarrassing, but highly important, assessment of how it was penetrated and how it can re-fortify the vulnerabilities that Mifsud may have exposed. There has been no public effort to arrest him." 

Director Mueller, you are in a position to know whether Joseph Mifsud poses a risk to Western Intelligence.  Is he a Russian spy, or is he one of us?  Should we be concerned?

If we should be concerned, have you informed the relevant agencies of the nature of the threat?

If he is a spy, don't many western intelligence agencies have a lot to answer for?

If not, then should we be skeptical of the FBI's claim to have initiated the Trump/Russia collusion investigation on the basis of Mifsud's conversation with George Popadopoulos?  Isn't it more likely that Mifsud was really a Confidential Human Source directed at the Trump Campaign by the FBI or one of the western Intelligence agencies, either ours or one of our allies?

One final series of questions Director Mueller.  Once more for the record, just so I am clear on your position here.  You've spent 22 months on this investigation,  at an estimated cost of somewhere between $25 million and $35 million, depending on who you believe. According to Attorney General William Barr's letter to Congress dated 24 March, 2019, you employed 19 lawyers who were assisted by a team of approximately 40 FBI agents, intelligence forensic accountants, and other professional staff. You issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records, issued almost 50 orders authorizing use of pen registers, made 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence, and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses.  Is that more or less accurate?

Did your investigation establish that the Russians interfered with the 2016 presidential election?

Did your investigation establish that the Russian interference changed the results of that election?

Did your investigation establish that any Americans, including any members of the Trump Campaign,  knowingly participated, coordinated, or conspired in those Russian efforts to influence the election?

Keeping in mind that your task was never to exonerate, but only to recommend or decline to recommend indictments, did your investigation establish that the President obstructed justice?

Did your investigation establish that Joseph Mifsud was an agent of the Russian government, an agent of a friendly government, or would you rather not say?

Did your investigation establish that Olga Polanskaya was an agent of the Russian government, an agent of a friendly government, or would you rather not say?

Did your investigation establish that Henry Greenberg, either by that name or any of his aliases, was an agent of the Russian government, an agent of a friendly government, or would you rather not say?

Did your investigation establish that Alexei Rasin was an agent of the Russian government, an agent of a friendly government, or would you rather not say?

Did your investigation establish that Svetlana Lokhova was an agent of the Russian government, an innocent bystander, or would you rather not say?

Based on the results of your investigation, is there anything you can tell us about the actions of  Stephan Halper, Asra Turk, and a certain Mr. Claggett who approached Michael Caputo, or would you rather not say?

In the instances above where you would rather not say, would that be due to concerns about disclosing sources and methods, or would you rather not say?

Thank you Director Mueller.  I have no further questions at this time.

Trump Should Insulate Himself from Accusations of Hypocrisy in 2020 by Admitting the Russians Were Trying to Help Him in 2016

Still reading the Mueller Report. Now on Volume II. Mueller repeatedly documents, by means of testimony from multiple Trump aides, that Trump was unwilling to acknowledge that the actions of the Russians had a goal of favoring Trump. He saw it as a means of his opposition trying to delegitimize his win. For what it's worth, the DNC hack and the release of those emails was to help Bernie against Hillary. Nothing to do with Trump.

I think Trump's narcissism will come back to bite him in 2020. As Marco Rubio predicted, the next time the Russians interfere, it might not be to favor a candidate you like.

In 2016, the Russians preferred a Russia friendly Trump compared to a hard line Hillary. What if in 2020, the Russians have grown tired of Trump as he has followed a fairly hardline toward Russia and their interests despite his rhetoric against NATO and our own Intel Community. What if the Russians now prefer a Russia friendly Tulsi Gabbard or any of the uber progressive Democrats who can be counted on to favor domestic spending at the expense of defense spending? Who do you think the Russians will be rooting for then?

Trump and Trump supporters would be well advised to acknowledge that the Russians had a favorite in 2016 even if it hurts Trumps pride to say so. It might insulate Trump from some calls of hypocrisy in 2020 when he has to call out Russian support for his Democratic opponent.

WaPo Offers an Olive Branch in One Hand and a Big FU in the Other

So a friend of mine emailed me a link to a Washington Post editorial by Karen Tumulty.  The Post is suggesting that in lieu of the Congress undertaking an impeachment proceeding against President Trump, they should move to censure him instead, and then move on, and let the voters decide his fate in 2020. 

That's not a bad idea as far as it goes.  Perhaps a way to end this mini civil war that's gone on in our country for the past three years, and allow for some measure of healing. But the WaPo editorial started off with a line that was so off putting to me that I could barely bring myself to read the rest of their opinion.  Here's how I responded to my friend's email:

I agree with its basic sentiment.  But it's a good thing the headline hinted at the subject matter of the oped, or I would have stopped reading at this:

" More than two years of admirably accurate investigative reporting on the part of the media — the same accounts that the president so often labeled “fake news” — gave the country a basic outline of how this presidency operates."

What a disgustingly self serving and deceitful statement.  It totally memory holes the fact that the majority of that reporting centered on collusion, coordination, and conspiracy.  Their reporting promised us with absolute certainty, that the president was a knowing agent of the Russians.  It smeared the reputations of, and then bankrupted total innocents like Carter Page, near total innocents like George Papadopoulos, and national heroes like Mike Flynn.  

Only after two years of effort, as it was becoming clear that the story was false, did the MSM pivot with an obvious moving of the goal posts from collusion to obstruction.  From the very start, this story was a total fabrication based on the most successful and nefarious "political dirty trick" ever perpetrated on the voting public.   The Clinton Campaign with the willing assistance of the MSM, elements of the FBI, and the Intelligence Community, both foreign and domestic, took a fabricated story about pee tapes, legitimate business trips to Moscow, and clandestine meetings in Prague that never happened, and spun it into a three year obsession for the Media Industrial Complex in this country to feed off of.  The entire business models of CNN and MSNBC have relied on this hoax to keep those networks from having to resort to screening infomercials to pay the bills.  

Oh, and the Russians.  I forgot the Russians.  They participated in this dirty trick as well.  There actually WAS a political candidate who conspired with the Russians in 2016 to try and influence the course of the election.  It was Hillary Clinton.  And that's not a rhetorical statement.  I'm serious.  Is there ANY part of the Dossier you're still willing to defend after reading the Mueller Report?  Any part that matters?  This three year nightmare was all based on a lie. 

And the only real beneficiaries are the Russians.  And maybe the Democrats.  We'll see.  If they prevail in 2020, then I guess we'll have to admit that they played the long game and won.  But at what cost?   What was/is the Democratic Party willing to put this country through to get some sort of sick revenge against Donald Trump because he defeated the anointed one Ms. Hillary Rodham Clinton?  Trump may go down in history as the worst president the nation has ever had, but he denied the presidency to Hillary.  And for that service to his country, I will be forever grateful! 

Now that the president's poor behavior in response to the lie has apparently been exposed, as I gather is well documented in Volume II of the Mueller Report, the left is quite happy to shift gears, dwell on that response and ignore their complicity in the fabricated story without which the response would never have happened.  It's like you spent three years kicking Trump in the balls, and then you criticize him because now he walks funny!  Well Trump may be a flawed man and an imperfect president, and I'll be the first one to admit that.  But as it stands today, you can count me among his defenders. 

Thanks to the Mueller report, we now know what Trump did, and some of it apparently borders on obstruction of justice.  It's time now to lay out the story of what his opponents did.  To me, the fact that Mueller spent over four hundred pages and never mentioned the name Glenn Simpson, or Perkins Coie, or Stephan Halper, and never addressed the real conspiracy with the Russians, is all the evidence I need that the fix was in. Mueller threw everything he had into proving collusion and utterly failed. Democrats are salivating over the fact that Mueller gave them a roadmap to pursue obstruction accusations, but I'd counter with this:  Can the president be held liable for attempting to obstruct an investigation into a crime that he knew he didn't commit?  A crime which a subsequent investigation has failed to show ever even took place?  And this despite all the time and resources that even a true obsessive could have ever considered necessary for the task?  Democrats think he can be held liable.  I think, good luck selling that one to the American people.  I think this Mark Levin take will sell a lot better.

Having gotten that out of my system, the idea of a censure in lieu of impeachment has appeal to me as well.  It may well be a way for bitter Democrats to express their rage at the president without making the rest of the country suffer any further simply in order to appease their spitefulness.  A consideration they should have afforded the rest of us over the past 2-1/2 years, but oh well...Better late than never.

Jess

Deep State to Trump: Take the Win and Move On

Trump says people need to be held accountable for the collusion hoax.  Some are worried that he means it.  I'm worried that he doesn't.

President Trump has people of all stripes telling him to take the win on the Mueller investigation and just move on.  Focus on the people's business.  Pivot to infrastructure.  Everybody agrees on infrastructure.  All of this while the worst perpetrators of the hoax are still promoting the lie despite Mueller's report.  But President Trump has made some noises recently on Twitter and at his recent rally in Michigan implying he is not ready to move on just yet.  He says we need a fuller accounting of how this miscarriage of justice came about in the first place.  I hope he means that.  I'm afraid he might not. 

There are both Republicans and Democrats urging the president not to be vindictive; not to seek revenge for the three year long investigation mounted against him based on a hoax that started with some opposition research promoted by Hillary Clinton.  Just forget about it, and open a new chapter of your presidency.  All of this while the efforts of notorious liars like Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler and Eric Swalwell to hamstring his administration continue unabated.  The folks who maneuvered behind the scenes to create the hoax, to promote the hoax, and finally to investigate the president based on the hoax have failed in their efforts to overturn the results of a valid election.  And now, as they recognize the danger they face in the exposure of their scheme, some of them are promoting a "let bygones be bygones" approach to the issue.  Others, like the aforementioned Congress critters have chosen to double down hoping to bluff their way out of the discovery of their subterfuge.  Their political futures are on the line.  For others, their freedom may be at stake.  I understand what motivates them; both the ones who are begging the president to move on and the ones who have chosen to double down.  This is it in a nutshell:  "We tried to frame you for treason, but we failed.  Oh well.  No hard feelings."  Are they serious?  Who would fall for that? 

But plenty will fall for it.  Some who have no idea what happened, and many who know exactly what happened but don't want their partisan champions exposed.  The question is has the president fallen for it.  I am not convinced he really intends to pursue the issue further.  I'm worried he is just trying to mollify members of his base and people like me who may not care for Trump all that much, but have a problem with the way they tried to oust him.

Maybe Trump really does think it's time to move on.  Or maybe it's a quid pro quo of some sort.  Maybe Trump refrains from pursuing the treasonous cabal who tried to nullify the results of his election, and in return, they decline to vigorously investigate the stuff he may really be guilty of like the tax issues, the shady past business practices, the campaign finance minutia or the alleged emoluments infractions.  There are reasons to wonder.  For months, Trump urged the Justice Department to release documents to Devin Nunes' House Intel Committee.  He urged them to remove the redactions that presumably concealed important information.  He urged these actions, but he never compelled them.  He promised to declassify and release documents relating to Nunes' investigation including the disputed FISA applications, then failed to do so after appeals from foreign governments.  How much will we never learn in the name of preserving relationships with foreign governments that may have been as complicit in this attempt at a soft coup as were elements of our own government?  How committed is Trump to exposing this entire sordid business.  There are reasons to question his sincerity.  I hope I'm wrong.  I hope the fix isn't in.  But I'm cynical enough to wonder.

So what purpose would be served by a thorough investigation?  I believe that upper leadership in the Justice Department, State Department, FBI and Intelligence Community conspired to, at best entrap, and at worst to frame the president for actions that never occurred.  I believe some foreign governments were complicit.  I would not be surprised to learn that Hillary Clinton and maybe even Barack Obama knew about all of it.  I can't prove all of this, but I think there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that this is what happened.  I believe that the evidence is compelling enough that the American people have a right to demand both a thorough investigation and full disclosure of what transpired

Some of the actors may have acted in good faith when the investigation of Trump was first initiated.  They may very well have had some justification for their suspicions.  But some knew, or should have known from the very beginning that the allegations were false.  Many of those whose initial efforts were based on a sincere belief that the facts merited further investigation,  nevertheless went on to break the law in pursuit of their suspicions.  They did so because of political bias.  Some of these people probably should go to jail.  Some others, maybe not.  But what they did needs to be uncovered, and everyone who participated in it needs to be exposed for whatever part they played in the whole affair.

For those of you who think we should just move on, and especially for those of you who urge that course of action out of partisan fear that your political allies will be exposed and your political interests harmed, consider this.  The man that you so despise; the man in whom you invested months and months of investigations in order to undermine and resist; the man whom you consider to be the ultimate danger to both our own country and indeed the entire free world; that man is now in charge of the exact same apparatus that your political heroes used in their almost successful attempt to illegally overturn an election.  Nothing short of a full and complete accounting of this conspiracy can inoculate us from the possibility that some future administration, who knows, maybe even the administration of that very same Donald J. Trump, might attempt a similar soft coup against the next administration.  Are you comfortable with the fact that Donald Trump now has the capacity to do to you exactly what your would be allies tried to do to him?

I'm quite exhausted from listening to those who express concern over the so called reputations of the FBI and the Justice Department.  I know that most of the folks in those agencies perform their jobs with integrity.  But some were corrupt.  I trust the worst elements have now been purged.  The more exposure we give to the corruption that existed, the longer we can expect to go before the next episode of corruption occurs.  Let's not give anybody the false sense of security that they can get away with something like this again by relying on a reputation that only exists because we were too afraid to look very hard for the truth. 

Call it a conspiracy theory if you like, but this is what I suspect.  A not insignificant number of partisan government personnel attempted to overthrow, albeit in a non violent way, the elected government of the United States.  If keeping the deeds of this cabal a secret is your primary concern, then by all means press to abandon any further investigation, and just move on.  If you're as concerned as I am that this should never be allowed to happen again, then I hope you will join me in urging the president to resist whatever self serving inclination he may have to broker a deal that offers sanctuary to the plotters.  Even if that means rejecting some sort of promise of diminished scrutiny of his other alleged indiscretions.  This has to be about America, not about Donald Trump.  The preservation of our Constitutional form of elected government is dependent on the president stepping up now and being presidential.

Trump Going Back to Healthcare

Republicans fear a strategic mistake.  Democrats are licking their lips.  Maybe they're both wrong.

This is not as complicated as some recent articles have made it sound.  A Federal District Court in Texas has ruled that the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is unconstitutional.  Not just pieces of it, but the whole damn thing.  If you're like me, you're thinking, great!  It's about time.  But in what I would have thought were counterintuitive expectations, many thought the Trump administration would join in an appeal of that ruling to the Federal Appeals Court for the Fifth District.  That's because the District Court ruling was thought to be overly broad and decided on what some consider to be shaky grounds.  Also because the total destruction of the ACA would jettison the mandates for coverage of pre existing conditions and allowing children up to age twenty six to remain on their parents' insurance.  While decidedly anti free market measures, they have proved to be very popular, especially with the beneficiaries of those provisions.  Big surprise.  People like free stuff.

Anyway, the political consensus is that the GOP lost their multiyear long campaign to kill Obamacare completely, and the parts that remained were politically popular.  No one had much of an appetite to stir up a hornets nest on an issue that was credited, at least in part, for having led to the loss of the House in 2018.

Enter The Donald, and his uniquely Trumpian reasoning.  To the chagrin of a lot of Republican pols, Trump appears to want to put the final nail in the coffin of Obamacare.  Maybe as an expression of his animus towards Obama.  Maybe as an expression of his animus towards John McCain whose critical thumbs down led to the failure of the GOP to kill the ACA legislatively.  Or here's a weird thought.  Maybe he just wants to fulfill a campaign promise.

So what the hell is Trump thinking?  I can think of two possibilities.  Maybe he's been advised that the questionable nature of the District Court's decision makes it unlikely that the Appeals Court or even the Supreme Court will uphold it.  If true, Trump can claim to have gone the extra mile to kill Obamacare only to have been stymied once again by the courts.  Republicans won't have to answer for depriving some constituents of their goodies, but Trump can tell his base he did everything possible.

Or maybe Trump really wants to fulfill this particular promise, for all the reasons mentioned previously.  If that's true then I've got some words of caution for both Democrats and Republicans.  First of all:  Don't underestimate Trump.  The terminally smug political pundits on the left wing Sunday shows this morning were drooling over the prospect of the huge political blunder Trump is about to make.  "Trump has no idea what he's setting himself up for"  they say.  And we should believe them because they have proven so omniscient in the past on the prospects of Donald Trump's unconventional thinking.  They're the ones who told us that Trump's populist message had no appeal to average Americans.  Then he won the election.   What do the pundits understand about average Americans?  They don't know any average Americans.  Is it possible that there is a substantial constituency that would still love to see a clearing away of the wreckage of that Rube Goldberg monstrosity that is Obamacare.  Wouldn't millions of Americans love to see the ACA finally, thoroughly, and totally terminated with extreme prejudice?  I know I would.

But what about the backlash?  Trump says he wants to replace it with something better.  He wants the Republican Party to become known as the Party of Healthcare.  Democrats scoff.  Republicans, many of them at least, wink.  But what if Trump's serious?  I can easily see Trump abandoning the remnants of Obamacare and pressing for something better.  Something politically palatable to both his base, and a large number of independents and even some Democrats.  Something that perhaps some old school Republicans might choke on, but hey, Trump is a disrupter.  Is it really so difficult to believe that Donald Trump could come up with a plan?  Is it really so difficult to think that Donald Trump could come up with a new coalition for healthcare reform that skewers the sacred cows of both sides and their existing special interest constituencies?  Most, if not all of the governments in the developed world provide some form of universal coverage for their citizens.  Is it really so hard to believe that it could happen in the United States?  The cynical politicos on the right don't want it.  The smug pundits on the left think the answer is Medicare For All.  If there is a middle ground solution, it will take a guy who is a genuine disruptor to find it.  Corporate owned Republicans and mainstream media Democrats guffaw at the prospect that Trump is that guy.  Are they right to chortle so smugly?  We've seen this movie before, and it had a surprise ending early one Wednesday morning in November of 2016.  Careful what you wish for Democrats (and Republicans).  You just might get it.