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Trump Russia Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 20, 2018 32 Comments
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has charged lawyer Alex Van Der Zwaan for making "materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements and representations" to his office and the FBI. Van Der Zwaan will appear in a federal court in Washington this afternoon. He is expected to enter in a guilty plea since he was charged with a criminal information. Mueller claims Van Der Zwaan lied about his communications with former Trump campaign adviser Rick Gates and with someone else only identified as Person A and deleted emails that his office requested concerning a report from 2012 with Ukraine's Ministry of Justice.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 19, 2018 21 Comments
"Liddle' Adam Schiff, the leakin' monster of no control" might be Trump's best nickname yet. But nicknames aside, Trump gave Rep. Adam Schiff, his Russia/collusion arch nemesis a backhanded compliment Sunday. Friday, the Department of Justice indicted 13 Russian nationals and 3 Russian entities. The DOJ also concluded that there was no willing or knowing collusion between an American citizen and Russian operatives nor did Russia's feeble efforts to disrupt the 2016 election move the dial in any meaningful way.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 13, 2018 34 Comments
President Donald Trump's former national security advisor Michael Flynn has come back into the news after The Washington Examiner's Byron York reported that former FBI Director James Comey told Congress the department doesn't think Flynn lied to them. Remember the fiasco is over him allegedly speaking to to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition period in December 2016:
On Jan. 24, 2017, two of Comey's FBI agents went to the White House to question Flynn, and there was a lot of speculation later that Flynn lied in that interview, which would be a serious crime.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 09, 2018 27 Comments
On Thursday, Ed Henry at Fox News dropped a story about how Sen. Mark Warner (D-NV), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, exchanged texts with a Russian oligarch regarding a meeting with dossier author Christopher Steele. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) dismissed the report because he claimed that Warner made the texts known to the committee. So is this a big deal? Maybe, maybe not. It does raise a few questions like, as Kimberley Strassel points out, why did he want to avoid a paper trail? Why did Steele need to use this oligarch to reach Congress?

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 09, 2018 37 Comments
Earlier this week we wrote about the possible involvement of Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal in feeding information to Christoper Steele, author of the infamous Clinton/DNC funded dossier. That dossier formed a key part of the FBI's presentation to the FISA court to obtain a warrant to surveil Carter Page. One of the key links in the Blumenthal-Steele stories was former State Department employee Jonathan Winer:

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 07, 2018 29 Comments
On Monday, I blogged about how Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) asked the FBI to declassify the criminal referral he and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) sent to the DOJ over dossier author Christopher Steele. The FBI approved a less-redacted version and Grassley released it on Tuesday, including some parts of the documents that detail why the two senators believe Steele misled the FBI. However, the portion about Steele's second dossier that had information from an associate of the Clintons and member of the State Department remains the same. In other parts, it supports claims that the FBI used Steele's dossier to receive a surveillance warrant on carter Page.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 06, 2018 31 Comments
Just when you thought it wasn't possible, the Trump/Russia collusion story reached an entirely new level of ridiculous. The Democrats leading Trump/Russia/Collusion attack dog, Rep. Adam Schiff, was exposed as having taken well-known Russian pranksters, Vocan and Lexus, seriously. Vocan and Lexus, "offered to give him 'compromising' dirt on Donald Trump – including nude photos of the president and a Russian reality show star," reports the Daily Mail.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 05, 2018 91 Comments
On January 24, 2018, as Robert Mueller appeared near the end of his plowing through interviews with White House staffers past and present, and other Trump associates, it appeared that Trump himself would be next on Mueller's list. At an impromptu press session, Trump said he looked forward to meeting with Mueller, and might do so under oath, "subject to my lawyers."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 03, 2018 91 Comments
I was traveling Friday when the memo about the FISA application to surveil Carter Page, supported by the Fusion GPS-produced Clinton-funded Steele Dossier, was released. It was one of those days when being mostly off the grid was a good thing. I was only able to follow the Twitter reaction, and take a quick glimpse on my phone at the memo itself. So I mostly sat back and watched the fireworks.

Posted by Mary Chastain on January 31, 2018 66 Comments
President Donald Trump's Chief of Staff John Kelly said on Fox News Radio that the president will release House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes' memo soon. From Fox News:
In a radio exclusive, White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly, joined Brian Kilmeade at the White House to talk about President Trump's first State of the Union address. Kelly discussed President Trump taking the handcuffs off of the military in Afghanistan, working on a bipartisan solution on DACA, why his heart breaks over identity politics in America and President Trump releasing the Nunes memo "pretty quick and the whole world can see it."

Posted by Mary Chastain on January 30, 2018 39 Comments
The Guardian has reported that the FBI has a second President Donald Trump-Russia dossier that allegedly corroborates some information in the Christopher Steele dossier. One caveat: Cody Shearer, an activist close to failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's camp, authored this one.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 29, 2018 108 Comments
In a few days we may get a look at the much ballyhooed memo written by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, led by Devin Nunes, regarding alleged FISA abuse leading to spying on the Trump campaign and the role of the Steele Dossier in justifying that spying on a presidential candidate. Very soon we may also see a report by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz into the DOJ/FBI handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. What I expect those reports to show is a deep politicization of the highest levels of both DOJ and FBI.
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