Trump Russia | Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion - Part 19
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Trump Russia Tag

Monday, Donald Trump Jr. published a series of tweets which included screen shots of Twitter private messages between himself and Wikileaks. According to a report in The Atlantic, the messages, along with thousands of documents were turned over by Trump Jr.'s lawyers to the congressional committee investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is currently facing the House Judiciary Committee over the DOJ's decision to review the Uranium One deal and the Clinton Foundation. Of course, the subject has strayed and others have asked about special counsel on FBI's handling of failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's email investigation. One of the biggest revelations so far is that Sessions now remembers a meeting he had with an advisor on President Donald Trump's campaign about Russian contacts. Sessions previously testified "he knew of no such contacts with the campaign."

A judge has issued a gag order in the case of former President Donald Trump chairman Paul Manafort and his protege Rick Gates. From Politico:
U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson's directive Wednesday doesn't ban such statements outright, but prohibits any remarks that "pose a substantial likelihood of material prejudice to this case."

Remember the meeting Donald Trump, Jr. had with the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya? The meeting that Veselnitskaya arranged on the promise of dirt on Hillary Clinton, but which appears to have been just a means of lobbying Trump on the Magnitsky Act. The leak about the meeting set off several news cycles of speculation. It turned out she had a connection to the firm, Fusion GPS, doing oppo research for the Clinton campaign. That put the meeting in an odd light, but it wasn't clear whether this was a Fusion GPS operation. When I covered it on July 13, 2017, I cautioned:

Earlier this week, Professor Jacobson noted that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation is focused on process crimes and other things unrelated to the purpose of the Trump campaign-Russia collusion investigation. He wrote:
So I’ve had to watch several news cycles without being able to jump in. One of those cycles was the indictment of Paul Manafort and the guilty plea disclosure for George Papadopoulos. Certainly this is not the end of the Mueller investigation story, but so far, it’s proceeding as predicted: Rounding up the usual suspects close to Trump and process crimes.

Sorry I've been mostly absent the past week. The Vassar meltdown threw me for a loop. I devoted much more time getting ready for the lecture due to the campus hysteria, and have had to devote more time than expected after the event starting the process of addressing the malicious lies spread about me by people who seem to care little for the truth.

The Special Council investigation led by James Comey friend and ally and former FBI head Robert Mueller has been in search of a crime since its questionable inception.  In fact, so intent is he on digging up some kind of crime, any kind, that he's amassed a legal team that rivals in size the entire U. S. Attorneys Office for the state of Rhode Island.  Courtesy of your tax dollars. Reports suggest that he's bagging his first head on Monday.  Reports do not, however, state who will be arrested or on what charges.

Former President Jimmy Carter sat down for an interview with Maureen Dowd for the New York Times and dropped some pretty interesting bombs.  Dowd focused her write-up on his answer to her question about acting as a go-between for the Trump White House and North Korea.  He said that he would go if asked, and that's certainly both important and within his wheelhouse.  In the interview, however, Carter also defends President Trump and offers surprising assessments of former-president Obama, failed presidential candidate Hillary, and the media. His comments in defense of Trump might be seen as an attempt to ingratiate himself in order to be called upon to assist with North Korea.  Maybe.  But that doesn't explain his apparent candor in unflattering critiques of Obama, Hillary, and the media.

Be careful for what you wish for because it may go your way, but it may also come back to bite you. The left has pressured for an investigation to find collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia, but now that investigation has brought in one of their own. Mueller's investigation now includes the Podesta Group, headed by Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta...the brother of John Podesta, failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman. The inclusion came after Mueller looked into former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort's finances.

It has been relatively quiet lately on the Russian-collusion Democrat-Media leak and rumor mill. "Relatively" is the key word. What once was a sustained campaign of leaks timed to hit every 2-3 days to create a permanent Russia-collusion news cycle, now barely makes a sound. Of course, some Russian collusion is more newsworthy to the media than others, with the Uranium One scandal receiving a tiny fraction of the coverage as completely speculative Trump campaign rumors did.

Roger Stone, an ally of and unofficial campaign adviser of President Trump, testified Tuesday in a closed hearing of the House Intelligence Committee.  Though Stone requested an open hearing, it was at the Committee's insistence that the interview be closed. This is the latest in the efforts of Congress to root out alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign and/or Trump associates. Stone was called to testify because he had a private Twitter conversation with infamous hacker Guccifer 2.0.

WiretapGate keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. A couple of days ago there were reports that Team Mueller told Paul Manafort he likely would be indicted, and that Manafort was wiretapped before and after the 2016 election. Today brings a report from CBS News that those wiretaps took place during the campaign. The media reaction focuses heavily on Manafort having spoken with Russians, but there is no indication about what. What is lost in translation in the headlines is that, according to CBS, conversations between Manafort and Trump may have been scooped up in the surveillance: