Many Americans have either forgotten or simply lost interest in Robert Mueller’s Trump/Russia collusion investigation. It was not raised as an issue during the midterms. A CNN exit poll found that “54% of respondents think the Russia probe is “politically motivated”; a 46% plurality disapprove of Mr. Mueller’s handling of it.”
It’s anyone’s guess whether the probe, which began 18 months ago, will wind down soon or continue.
Ever since Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions and named Matthew Whitaker as Acting Attorney General, however, the probe has regained the spotlight. Whitaker has publicly criticized the investigation in the past and Democrats argue that, due to his bias, his appointment is unconstitutional and are calling for him to recuse himself from the case. Both Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi have called for the inclusion of a “protect Mueller” bill inside of a “must-pass” spending bill. And retiring Republican traitor Sen. Jeff Flake did not disappoint. He has vowed to block the confirmation of a group of judicial nominees if the Senate does not pass the Mueller protection bill. So what. The Senate will confirm them in January.
It’s highly doubtful that Trump would take steps to fire Mueller now. He’s well aware of how steep the political cost of such a move would be. Although Trump has criticized the probe endlessly, he has never tried to shut it down and I doubt he would do so now.
Many Washington insiders believe the investigation is winding down and that shortly after Mueller receives Trump’s written answers to his questions, which Trump says are now completed, he will prepare the final report. Members of the Mueller team have never been shy about leaking damaging or embarrassing information. And we have to wonder why, if Mueller had uncovered evidence of Russian collusion, it was not leaked prior to the election when it would have proven so helpful to Democrats.
Others say not so fast. In fact, there has been speculation over the last week that Trump allies Jerome Corsi and Roger Stone might be the next to be caught in Mueller’s snare. Jerome Corsi, the former Washington Bureau Chief of Infowars, said earlier this week in a livestream that he expects to be indicted by Robert Mueller for perjury any day now. He said that on August 28th, two FBI agents arrived at his home with a subpoena. Below are the highlights:
Corsi said that his ongoing negotiations with Mueller and his team have “just blown up” in the two months since, even though he said he “did everything” he could to cooperate and thought he was “doing a pretty good job” of it, including turning over two Apple computers to investigators and giving the FBI permission to review all of his email accounts and tweets.
“I fully anticipate that in the next few days I will be indicted by Mueller for some form or other of giving false information to the special counsel or to one of the other grand juries — or however they want to do the indictment. But I’m going to be criminally charged,” he said.
He added: “This has been one of the most frightening experiences of my life. At the end of the two months, my mind was mush.”
Corsi, who wrote the anti-President Obama book “The Obama Nation,” said he is being targeted for political reasons.
“Criminals are running the Department of Justice. My crime was that I dared to support Donald Trump,” Corsi said in the livestream. “And that supporting President Trump, and since 2004 having written 20 books — I guess those were my crimes. I guess I’m going to prison for the rest of my life because I dared to oppose the deep state.”
He then lamented that he’ll “die in prison” because of a “perjury trap,” in which he said he was interrogated by authorities with a massive binder full of information and was “quizzed” about various highly specific topics several times for months.
Corsi told his viewers that he expects his problems are just starting up. He announced that he has set up a Paypal to help him defray legal expenses, and said he expects to lose his home.
Political operative Roger Stone, a close associate of Corsi’s and a Trump ally, believes Mueller is coming after him next. Mueller is probing “whether I somehow directed or urged Wikileaks to release the allegedly hacked e-mails from the DNC in the wake of the Billy Bush accusations against Trump on Oct. 7.”
The Mueller team has been trying to prove that Stone received Clinton confidante John Podesta’s “allegedly hacked e-mails from the Russians or Wikileaks and passed them on to Donald Trump” in October of 2016.
Appearing before the House Intelligence Committee in 2017, Stone told lawmakers he had “learned about WikiLeaks’ plans to release the Clinton-related emails” from his one-time friend, Radio Show Host Randy Credico.
Credico has categorically denied that he was Stone’s source. In September, he appeared before Mueller’s grand jury. Afterward, he told CNN that his testimony was “consistent with his public denials about being the source.”
The latest development in the saga came on Wednesday when Stone’s attorneys announced they had extracted text messages from his old cell phone, which prove that Credico was indeed Stone’s source.
Here is the text exchange between Credico and Stone. It was provided to the Daily Caller by Roger Stone, the website’s men’s fashion editor.
August 27, 2016:
Credico: Julian Assange has kryptonite on Hillary. Trump is the silky Sullivan of this race.
September 18, 2016:
Credico: You are not going to drag my name into this are you [sic]
Stone: No.
Credico: Leave my name out Im [sic] going to be all screwed up today
October 1, 2016:
Credico: [B]ig news Wednesday. [N]ow pretend u don’t know me.
Stone: U died 5 years ago.
Credico: [G]reat. Hillary’s campaign will die this week.
October 3, 2016:
Credico: I think its [sic] on for tomorrow.
It’s not illegal to have heard something. Stone has admitted under oath that he knew in advance WikiLeaks had these emails and planned to release them. Stone did not pay for the information. He did not arrange for their release. He spoke truthfully before Mueller’s grand jury over a year ago. Mueller did not believe him because Credico had vehemently denied he was Stone’s source. The big story this week was the release, by Stone and his lawyers, of these text messages.
What do they believe Stone should have done? Did they expect him to go to the Clinton campaign or to law enforcement? He had no obligation to do either. Regardless of what Stone had done, WikiLeaks still would have released the emails.
As you might expect, the mainstream media misrepresented the story to the public. Especially egregious was a piece by ThinkProgress writer Frank Dale. Instead of reporting that Stone and his lawyers had extracted (and provided to the media) text messages from an old cell phone which prove Stone had told the truth, Dale twists the story. He says that NBC News “obtained” the message exchanges, as if one of their clever investigative reporters secretly uncovered information Stone had tried to hide.
Dale’s sarcastic opening (below) leads readers to believe that rather than proving Stone’s innocence, the texts prove his guilt.
Remember the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election?
You know, the probe of possible collusion with a foreign adversary and obstruction of justice by the current president that has already resulted in more than 100 criminal charges against dozens of people, including guilty pleas from President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, former campaign manager, and multiple former advisers?
It’s easy to forget since special counsel Robert Mueller’s team remained even quieter than usual during the weeks before the midterm elections, per longstanding Justice Department policy (memo to former FBI director James Comey), but things are starting to heat up again on the Russia front now that the campaign season has passed.
NBC News reportedly obtained text messages in which Roger Stone, Trump’s former campaign adviser, was informed of WikiLeaks’ plans to release stolen information from Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign days before the group starting doing so.
This is one of the most dishonest articles I’ve ever read. Pieces like this demonstrate how the left is able to shape public opinion.
Dale refers to “more than 100 criminal charges against dozens of people.” The truth is that most of those charges have been filed against Russians who will never see the inside of a courtroom.
As for the “guilty pleas from President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, former campaign manager, and multiple former advisers,” we all know those charges are unrelated to any collusion between the Trump Administration and the Russians. Paul Manafort’s crimes took place in the mid-2000s, long before his association with Trump. The charges against General Flynn for lying to the FBI have nothing to do with collusion, everything to do with politics, and are questionable at best. The agents who questioned Flynn, one of whom was the FBI’s disgraced former Chief of Counterespionage Peter Strzok, both said Flynn appeared to be truthful. There was no reason to question him further. George Papadopoulos, who was also charged with lying to investigators, was a young, eager and naive 25 year old whom the FBI tried to “set up” as part of the larger conspiracy to destroy Trump.
In other related news, Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen, who may be cooperating with the Mueller team, was spotted in Washington this week which led to speculation that he may have been there to meet with them. And General Flynn, “who gave a memorable speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention calling for the jailing of Democrat Hillary Clinton, has been a key cooperator in the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and coordination with Trump associates,” is scheduled to be sentenced on December 18.
Although it appears that Mueller may be close to ending this investigation, nobody really knows for sure. It’s possible that new Acting Attorney General Whitaker can persuade Mueller to focus on the investigation’s original mission, which was to determine if Trump conspired with the Russians to win the 2016 presidential election. I know that Mueller will ultimately do whatever he wants to do, but to the extent that he has overstepped his boundaries, Whitaker may be able to push him back a bit.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member