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Robert Mueller Tag

Special Counsel Robert Mueller claims that Paul Manafort, the former chairman for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, lied to the FBI and investigators "on a variety of subject matters," which means he broke his plea agreement. NBC News continued:
Manafort, 69, was convicted of eight counts of tax evasion and bank fraud in August. In September, he agreed to cooperate with Mueller's investigation when he pleaded guilty to two new counts and admitted his guilt to 10 counts outstanding from the earlier trial in Virginia.

As the #NeverTrump right joins forces with the progressive left to call on acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to recuse himself from the Mueller probe, President Trump appeared on Fox News Sunday and voiced his support for Whitaker's decisions regarding the investigation. Asked if he would be "okay" with any attempt by Whitaker to "limit or curtail" the Mueller investigation, Trump responded, "Look, it's gonna be up to him."

This is not exactly shocking, but at least there is proof of it. The Daily Caller received emails and text messages from the special counsel's office that show Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team has a pretty close relationship with the press. The Daily Caller reported:
The documents, released in September, span months of communication and include messages from reporters ranging from a variety of outlets, including TheDCNF, The Washington Post and BuzzFeed.

Buried amid all the anti-Trump "Russia, Russia, Russia" derangement are a couple of potentially explosive revelations. Lisa Page, former FBI lawyer and mistress of former FBI agent Peter Strzok, admitted that the FBI couldn't prove collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia at the time Robert Mueller took over the investigation, and Bob Woodward admits that after searching "hard" for two years, he found no evidence of collusion, either.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort faced a second trial this month on seven counts of foreign lobbying violations and witness tampering. Reports have surfaced this morning that Manafort will plead guilty to two criminal charges. Special counsel Robert Mueller has filed superseding criminal information, which "typically precedes a guilty plea, and a plea hearing for Manafort has been scheduled for 11 a.m. in federal court in Washington, D.C."

I find it fascinating that almost two years into the Trump presidency, and #TheResistance is still dreaming of impeaching our duly-elected president and over-turning a free and fair election simply because they don't like the results. In the latest sad twist on this theme, the "Impeach Trump" media has latched onto what is ultimately a pretty innocuous statement by former Obama Secretary of Defense and former CIA chief, Leon Panetta.

The New York Times released a report on September 1 about how the DOJ and FBI tried to flip Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to retrieve information regarding collusion between Russia and then-candidate Donald Trump's campaign. Deripaska's name has come up during Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, but it looks like the ties between the two men run deep and may present a conflict of interest.

Last Thursday, Lanny Davis, the lawyer for President Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that Cohen was present at a meeting where Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. discussed the Trump Tower meeting. A few hours later, Davis contradicted himself while talking to Anderson Cooper and insisted that Cohen doesn't have information that Trump knew about the meeting before or after it happened. Davis now finds himself in another contradictory situation. He told reporters last week that Cohen's “knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on.” Davis once again has changed his story.

Federal Judge T.S. Ellis denied a mainstream media coalition request to release the names and home addresses of the jurors in the Paul Manafort trial in the Eastern District of Virginia. The request by the media was made, to much fanfare and publicity, on the first day of jury deliberations.

The NY Times has a story today that is making waves, concerning the cooperation of White House counsel Donald McGahn with Robert Mueller and his team, with the permission of Trump. If true, it reflects an incredible naïveté on the part of Trump, and incompetence on the part of his first set of lawyers, as to how to deal with the Mueller investigation.

The jury in the Paul Manafort trial has ended deliberations for the day without a verdict. This comes after jury questions yesterday, including asking the judge to clarify the meaning of "reasonable doubt." As mentioned in yesterday's post, Paul Manafort is being prosecuted because of who he knows. I hope he walks, the judge's guidance probably didn't clarify anything:

The jury ended its first day of deliberations in the prosecution of Paul Manafort in the Eastern District of Virginia. When this trial is over, Manafort faces a second trial on other charges in federal court in D.C. The jury asked the judge for help understanding "reasonable doubt." As is usual in these situations, the judge didn't give much help, explaining that reasonable doubt was "doubt based on reason" but did not require "guilt beyond all possible doubt."