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Trump Russia Tag

And here it is. The New York Times confirms Trump's claims, which have been frequently dismissed by major media outlets as kooky and conspiratorial, true. Under the Obama administration, the intelligence community DOJ officials spied on Trump's campaign. Operation "Crossfire Hurricane" is what they called it. It was a super double secret operation that only a handful of agents and DOJ officials were aware of.

The Senate Judiciary Committee released 2,500 pages of transcripts and documents about a June 19, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer. Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort attended in hopes of leaving with dirt on failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Turns out they didn't get what they wanted. The left has also received nothing since they hoped this would help prove collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia.

In The Wall Street Journal, Kimberley Strassel penned an op-ed that suggests the FBI may have placed a mole within then-GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign since the department will not reveal its top-secret source. And when did the FBI become so secretive? A former FBI agent wrote in the WSJ that in his time, Congress wouldn't ever need to request a subpoena to retrieve information from the bureau.

We reported on Friday about the hearing in federal court in Virginia regarding Paul Manafort's request to have his criminal indictment and case dismissed because it was beyond the jurisdiction of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to prosecute. Statements made by the judge during the hearing generated a lot of news, Manafort Judge: Mueller only really cares about the “prosecution or impeachment” of Trump. See that post for the details on the news reports of the hearing, plus my explanation of why Mueller is exceeding his authority.

Almost since the day Robert Mueller was appointed, I have been pointing out that Mueller has gone rogue and is employing a scorched earth strategy to get Trump, on anything. The Paul Manafort prosecution on things having nothing to do with the reason Mueller was appointed, alleged Russia collusion, is a good example, as was the prosecution of Michael Flynn. There will be bodies left on Mueller's battlefield from those unfortunate enough to have associated with Trump or the campaign.

There was an interesting filing recently by Paul Manafort in the prosecution by Robert Mueller's team against him in the Eastern District of Virginia. The filing concerned leaks reported in the media that were attributed by the media to government sources. Some of those media reports alleged Manafort contact with Russians. Manafort file a Motion (pdf.)(full embed at bottom) seeking a court hearing to get to the bottom of the leaks.

Former Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo did not mince words during a hearing with Senate Intelligence Committee who is still pursuing an investigation into alleged Trump campaign/Russia collusion. Caputo claims the investigation has forced his family out of their home and racked up a whopping $125,000 in legal fees to date.

Last Friday, the GOP on the House Intelligence Committee released a report that found no collusion between Russia and President Donald Trump's campaign. That same report found that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper leaked information about the dossier authored by Christopher Steele, which is also the force behind the Russian investigation, CNN and may have lied to Congress about it. Clapper told CNN last month he didn't leak information about the dossier to the media. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said this is not true and Clapper lied to Congress.

Judge Kimba Wood has resolved the issue of how files seized from Michael Cohen, which included at least some files related to his (limited) law practice, would be handled. Those records were seized by the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York as part of a criminal investigation of Cohen resulting from a referral from Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The background on the seizure and legal wrangling are set forth in these prior posts:

What is known about the Fusion GPS role in stoking and implementing an attempted takedown of candidate and ultimately president Trump is one of the greatest political scandals in memory. But it's a story that only partially has been told. We now know that Russian-Collusion-mania had as its source-fuel Fusion GPS opposition research funded by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee. The culmination of that effort was the so-called Steele dossier, which was used to obtain FISA court warrants to surveil Carter Page, and by extension, likely other members of the Trump campaign and transition team both in real time and historically.

Iran has stirred the pot even more with Israel by threatening the Jewish state after an airstrike on Monday killed several Iranian military personnel at an air base near Homs, Syria. Reuters reported that Israel faces even more security concerns over the possibility of US airstrikes in Syria after President Donald Trump threatened Russia over its support of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Monday, the FBI raided Michael Cohen's office. Cohen is Trump's personal attorney. Now, Geoffrey Berman, the Trump-appointed Interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, is recused from the Cohen investigation. Berman's status as a Trump temporary appointee was used to claim that the warrant was not politically motivated. But now it turns out that Berman had recused himself and had nothing to do with the warrant against Cohen.

The FBI raid on the home and office of Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen reportedly took place after a referral from Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The search warrant apparently was obtained by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York.