↓
 
Home » Mueller’s targets speak

Mueller’s targets speak

The New Neo Posted on by

RealClearInvestigations interviewed 10 targets of the Mueller probe who are now out of danger of prosecution (for now, anyway) and have decided to speak up:

They include several people who became household names during the two-year probe – including George Papadopoulos, Carter Page and Roger Stone – as well as lesser-known figures whose lives were also upended and finances imperiled when they came into Mueller’s crosshairs. Only three of the 10, Papadopoulos, Stone and a political consultant named Sam Patten, were charged with a crime. Patten received three years probation but no jail time for failing to register as a foreign agent; Papadopoulos served 12 days for lying to federal agents; and Stone awaits trial on false statements, witness-tampering and obstruction charges…

Although they interacted with Mueller’s team at different times and in different places, the witnesses and targets often echoed each other. Almost all decried what they called Mueller’s “scorched earth” methods that affected their physical, mental and financial health. Most said they were forced to retain high-priced Washington lawyers to protect them from falling into “perjury traps” for alleged lying, which became the special counsel’s charge of last resort. In the end, Mueller convicted four Trump associates for this so-called process crime, and investigated an additional five individuals for allegedly making false statements – including former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Some subjects of investigation said Mueller’s agents and prosecutors tried to pressure them into admitting things to give the appearance of collusion. They demanded to know if they had spoken to anyone with a “Russian accent.” They threatened to jail them “for life” and to drag their wives or girlfriends into the investigation.

Former special prosecutors say the tactics used by Mueller’s team appear excessive.

No surprise there, although it’s outrageous.

Some have formally complained to the Justice Department that their privacy was violated. Others have filed legal complaints, maintaining the Special Counsel’s Office abused its authority. Corsi, for one, is suing Mueller personally for millions of dollars for unconstitutionally spying on him and harassing him and his family, as well as allegedly leaking secret grand jury information about him to the press in violation of his privacy rights. Still others want to see Mueller’s office criminally investigated for prosecutorial misconduct.

“Leaking grand jury hearing information to the press is a crime,” said former Independent Counsel Sol Wisenberg. “It can never be justified.”

But they will try to justify it.

These 10 witnesses find it beyond ironic that some partisans are now faulting Mueller for not doing enough to find incriminating evidence against Trump and his associates – “He blew it!” liberal HBO political talk show host Bill Maher said. They find it chilling that, equally unsatisfied, congressional Democrats seek to re-interview Mueller’s witnesses. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., has sent letters to some of the peripheral witnesses interviewed for this story, demanding they produce more documents and testify before his panel, forcing them to relive their nightmare.

These witnesses complain that Democrats are simply retreading old ground. They note that Mueller sent agents hopscotching across the country as well as overseas to look for evidence that Donald Trump and his men were tools of the Kremlin.

His witness list, which grew to more than 500, targeted conservative journalists and authors, conservative think tank analysts and Republican congressional staffers. Witnesses were compelled to comply with more than 2,800 grand jury subpoenas and nearly 500 search-and-seizure warrants. Casting an even wider net, Mueller also issued 230 orders for communications records and almost 50 orders authorizing use of “pen registers” – devices that record dialed numbers — to collect phone records on individuals, most of whom turned out to be innocent.

Please read the whole thing.

The question is the same one I’ve asked over and over: will there ever be payback?

Comments

Mueller’s targets speak — 26 Comments

  2. …the philosophy behind the modus vivendi being: “How can we break these people? How can we utterly destroy them?”

    Terrorists.

    Operating with the support of wide swatches of the Liberal Left.

    The worst part of it all is that after adulating Obama and his administration of schemers and criminals, one is no longer surprised by anything that emanates from that particular direction.

    (To be sure, there was always Orwell—a huge advantage—yet for the most part, Orwell was grimly “theoretical” for those of in the West who did not actually “live” the nightmare—unlike those living behind the Iron Curtain and what they were forced to endure.)

    File under: Thank the powers that be for Dershowitz and other stalwarts like him.

  3. Will there be payback? As many others have said here, it’s hard not to be cynical about this. However, note how Trump immediately punches back to those who attack him. This was the ultimate attack. I can’t see him letting this go.

  4. Mueller is one of the guys on my payback list. He was not just a partisan hack running a witch-hunt. He behaved like the secret police. Those pre-dawn SWAT raids against old guys in their pajamas with CNN vans parked nearby was entirely out-of-bounds.

    Interesting news that Christopher Steele has changed his tune and is now going to cooperate with American authorities over RussiaGate or whatever one calls it.

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/06/looks_like_christopher_steele_has_cut_a_deal_and_will_turn_states_evidence_on_russia_hoax_prosecutions_.html

    The article’s author suspects RussiaGate was part of Trump’s mission while in the UK. As I recall, one of our commenters (Ann? Kate?) made that suggestion a week or so ago.

  5. I can’t wait for the US Attorney from Connecticut starts indicting Comey et al.

  7. Mueller withheld exculpatory evidence in the false murder convictions in the Whitey Bulger case and Weissman did the same in the Arthur Anderson case. Why they weren’t disbarred is a mystery to me. They’re both gangsters with law degrees and badges.

  8. Payback?
    We’ll have to wait and see what Mr Barr has in process…but I think we aren’t far from some localized violent response if the Ds keep up the “I want to see him in prison” chorus. Someone’s going to have had enough…and then it’ll be too much.

  9. Not expecting Obama, Power, Brennan, Clapper, Holder, Lynch, Comey, McCabe, Sztrok, Page, the Ohrs, Mueller, Yates, Weissmann, or Rosenstein will ever suffer injury from these capers they were engaged in, any more than did HRC or Lois Lerner. Our legal institutions are lawfare weapons.

  10. The process is the punishment. Huge legal fees, damage to their reputations, anonymous death threats, harassment of their families, perjury traps, offers of leniency if they will “compose,” early AM SWAT team arrests in front of CNN cameras, and more are in their bag of tricks. Not quite as bad as the rack, but punishing none the less. The message is: “Don’t work with Trump. Don’t support Trump. If you do, we will ruin you.”

    The criminalization of politics is what the left is doing. How is that different than the Fascism of Nazi Germany or the Communist USSR?

    The only way to put a stop to it is to expose the wrong doing and punish the perpetrators. Not through the process but through the criminal justice system. I believe it can be done, but it will be a vicious struggle. Is the DOJ with Bill Barr at its head callable of doing it? We must believe it is and encourage such. Otherwise, we have no equal justice under the law in this country.

  11. Thanks very much for the link to that Brian Cates twitter post on the carefully choreographed Mike Flynn setup.

    There’s enough malpractice and criminality in there for an army (with the all-important willing connivance of the MSM).

    They really have to squeeze those goons until they’re red in the face…and then lock them up—at Rikers with Manafort, perhaps???

    (Or at least put them in “the stocks” on the Washington Mall…over the winter?)

    Oh, and the humorous tidbit of the day is:
    https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/new-york-times-not-anti-trump

    (Yes, it seems that fake news has morphed into meta-fake news….)

  13. “Leaking grand jury hearing information to the press is a crime,” said former Independent Counsel Sol Wisenberg. “It can never be justified.”

    But they will try to justify it.

    How do you even know its true that grand jury information was leaked, let alone leaked by Mueller’s team?

  14. Where is the investigation over the witch hunt (investigation? no-witch hunt).

    I’m waiting for indictments, glad there is building pressure to indict.

    The gov’t can’t indict, or even do anything, since “the government” doesn’t really exist. Only bureaucrats really exist. Barr & Mueller & judges & DOJ lawyers. So Barr needs DOJ prosecutors who will actually investigate and indict. Live people with such power.

    Seems that the vast majority of such bureaucrats are more like Comey & Brennan and other boot-licking pro-organization folk. Barr alone can’t do it.

    Personnel is policy. For decades the institutions have been filled with org-guys, rather than with mission oriented folk.

    Waiting for indictments.

  15. The idea of sending Manafort to Rikers (A genuine hell-hole) and to “solitary” no less – more evidence of what a vicious and disgraceful political and cultural war is taking place in the USA.

    Mueller and his thugs, the SDNY – This is the contemporary Gestapo (the foregoing is not hyperbole).

    Barr and Durham – speak softly and carry a big subpoena.

  16. “…vicious and disgraceful…”

    And criminal. And disgusting.

    They are not even pretending anymore.

    And they believe that they themselves are beyond justice.

  17. “…even know…”

    One might wish to read the article in the link. The whole stinking article.

    And then continue, if one can, to give Mueller et al. the benefit of the doubt.

    It is all rather touching—giving Mueller the benefit of the doubt, but the victims that he and his thugs terrorized…um, er, well, not so much.

    Touching…and perfectly predictable.

  18. The idea of sending Manafort to Rikers (A genuine hell-hole) and to “solitary” no less – more evidence of what a vicious and disgraceful political and cultural war is taking place in the USA.

    If he’s in solitary, he’s protected from the rest of the inmates.

    The odious Letitia James, Attorney-General of New York, is attempting to concoct state charges against him. No clue why he would be turned over the the NYC Department of Corrections if he’s doing federal time. This is something Barr can fix.

  20. Count me in as also believing that Manafort–whatever his sins–is being treated very harshly and unjustly, in no way commensurate with his age, with his likelihood of violence or fleeing, or with the nature of the relatively minor white collar crimes he is accused of committing.

    I saw absolutely no justification for the FBI’s early morning, Gestapo-like, armed and overwhelming force raid on his home— which all who participated in should be ashamed of.

    An early morning raid that CNN was tipped off about, so that their news van was reportedly on the scene quite some time before the armed and armored to the teeth FBI Gestapo contingent arrived.

    Hell, the FBI even had a boat standing by in the water next to Manafort’s house, which illuminated the back of his house with it’s powerful floodlights. Perhaps they thought that an armed and westsuited Manafort was going to slip out the back of his house, and make an escape by water on some hidden jet ski, just like a James Bond villain.

    Does FBI leadership think that this kind of raid endears them to the U.S. public, burnishes their reputation for citizens?

    Or does it make citizens fearful of, and more and more wary of the FBI, increasingly viewing it as an overbearing, oppressive force–their enemy, not their champion?

    Is there no internal oversight at the FBI? Will there be no punishment for they way this raid was carried out?

    Moreover, I see no justification for jailing this 70 year old guy—at worst a non-violent, white collar criminal—prior to his trial, and, even less justification for repeatedly throwing him in solitary for long stretches of time.

    Again, is there no oversight of what is reported to be an Obama appointed judge, who keeps imposing these unusually harsh conditions on this elderly man?

    If this isn’t deliberate, unjust, and harsh oppression, I don’t know what is.

    And, as people keep pointing out, if they can do it to Manafort after charging him with a relatively minor crime, they can do it to any one of us, because a la ”Three Felonies A Day,” during the course of our daily activities we have all likely unwittingly violated more than one Federal law or regulation.

  21. I have to affirm Snow on Pine’s 11:02 comment.

    The treatment of Manafort is itself criminal.

    I’m a lifelong New Yorker. Cuomo, DeBlasio, James, Nadler – all vicious. What a reversal from a city and state that was once represented by genuinely honorable men such as Koch and Monyihan.

    Mueller, Weissmann and their thug buddies have unleashed fascism in the USA.
    Sulzberger and Bezos cheer them on.

  22. My favorite line in The Hill article linked by Barry:

    https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/446549-in-its-russia-investigation-the-government-behaved-like-a-bully

    The report raised concerns about possible obstruction of the FBI and special counsel’s efforts by the president. Mueller offered an ultra-lawyerly explanation of his non-action — but the bottom line, familiar to all federal investigators, was that the prosecutor declined to prosecute on obstruction of justice.

    Had the report stopped upon that conclusion, all would be fine. Instead, it enumerated words and actions by the president or his surrogates that the special counsel’s office thought were suspicious. But if the special counsel was unwilling to “determine whether the President did commit a crime,” and charge him, then silence is in order. Proceeding to publicly identify the uncharged activities is little more than gossip. We do not have a Department of Gossip in the U.S. government.

  23. Barry: Oh, and the humorous tidbit of the day is:
    https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/new-york-times-not-anti-trump
    * * *
    Funnier still are the articles directly linked in the Fox post:
    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/new-york-times-draft-trump-impeachment

    Nancy Pelosi might not be ready to impeach President Trump, but the New York Times is ready with a road map just in case.

    The Times, a frequent target of the president’s ire, published a piece Wednesday titled, “The Articles of Impeachment Against Donald J. Trump: A Draft.”

    The piece, written by a member of the newspaper’s opinion department, was put together by analyzing the articles of impeachment drawn up against former Presidents Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon.

    https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/new-york-times-vanity-fair-msnbc-cnn

    The New York Times is reportedly blocking its reporters from appearing on liberal cable news programs such as MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” and “CNN Tonight” with Don Lemon because they’re “too partisan,” but critics think the Gray Lady needs to look in the mirror.

    And, knowing how link leads on to link:

    https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/new-york-times-exec-admits-media-didnt-understand-the-trump-phenomenon
    (the comments are more fun than the posts)

    “the media did not quite understand the Trump phenomenon during the 2016 election.”
    That’s because the media does not understand Patriotism, yet completely understood the Obama Rock Star phenomenon.

    NYT must look to the real America. To the great country that believes in the Constitution and the core values of decency and hard working.

    They’re still fake news

    His letter had some good sentiments…but also a slightly unnerving admission – NOBODY around him could believe Donald Trump could win the election, none of them noticed or believed how badly the Obama economy and decisions were impacting most of America.
    They should have handled this by finding some employees who weren’t so blind; but they seem to have stuck with the same people, same attitudes, same ignorance…and surprise, surprise, the intervening years have been filled with yet more “failure to understand.”

    Correction, media STILL doesn’t understand why people are tuning them out.

    This headline really says it all. They didn’t understand. Past tense. But not to worry, they surely get it now.

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hannity-new-york-times-scared-conspiracy-mob
    (no quotes; it’s standard Hannity)

    https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/unmasked-book-ranks-the-media-members-who-hate-president-trump-from-jim-acosta-to-mika-brzezinski

    “Jim Acosta is our winner. We suspect he would protest if he wasn’t,” Bozell and Graham wrote. “He would proudly wear the moniker of the face of the Resistance if it was bestowed on him by us, but we won’t do that. No man in the world of journalism has made a mockery of his profession quite like this man.”
    …
    MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” duo Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski share the second spot on the list of media members who clearly loathe the president.

    “Today they are the perfect launch pad for MSNBC’s daily left-wing character assassination campaign against the President, smug in their hypocrisy,” Bozell and Graham wrote.
    …
    ABC’s George Stephanopoulos comes in at No. 3, while “every late-night talk show host” is tied for the fourth spot. The complete list includes a variety of media members who have criticized the president:

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mark-levin-mainstream-media-destroying-free-press-democrats
    Not in the short transcript: Levin relates some of the history of bias in NYT, particularly during WW2.

    Levin claimed on “The Todd Starnes Show” the mainstream media are ideologically in line with the Democrats and have become a “one-party press.”

    “The mass modern media today has nothing to do with the free press. In fact, they are destroying a free press. They are ideological progressives,” he claimed. “They are mostly aligned with the Democratic Party, and they are social activists.”
    …
    The “Life, Liberty & Levin” host added he thought the press is protecting the bureaucracy and the public should be concerned.

    “They are the Praetorian Guard for big government,” he claimed. “We’re being horribly served by this. The modern media is a danger to the notion of a free press.”
    …
    The conservative radio host said his book makes the claim America’s newsrooms are home to “ideological monopolies” and conservative-leaning reporters are left as a tiny minority.

    “It tells you that our newsrooms have ideological monopolies. There’s no ideological diversity, there’s no independent thinking,” he claimed.

  24. Talking about the NYT always leads to the topic of Fake News, and the Atlantic is just about as clueless as The Grey Lady (BTW, isn’t that sexist, and maybe colorist?)

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/fake-news-republicans-democrats/591211/

    This looks a lot like a split over the definition of fake news, rather than the actual problem. Put differently, Republicans may well be responding not to out-and-out fakery, but to bias—real or perceived—in news coverage. It would make sense that conservatives would be primed to accept the idea of widespread bias in the press after a decades-long campaign against the credibility of the mainstream press. Indeed, Republicans are about three times more likely than Democrats (58 percent versus 20 percent) to say that journalists create a lot of fake news, though they still assign more blame to both politicians and activist groups.

    Earlier, the author makes this claim:
    “The term has come to mean different things to different people. It was coined to describe deliberately false articles created by Potemkin news sites and spread on social media. But in a deliberate effort to muddy the waters, President Donald Trump began labeling news coverage that was unfavorable to him “fake news.” …Now when Trump’s supporters refer to “fake news,” they often seem to mean mainstream news they dislike, whereas when others do so, they mean bogus information spread by fringe actors.”

    Soooo — maybe they dislike it because (a) it’s biased; or (b) it’s bogus.
    See any number of “news” reports over the last 3 years about Russia & collusion.

    PS: “The New York Times used to be called the Gray Lady of American newspapers. The sobriquet implied a certain stateliness, a sense of responsibility, the possession of high virtue.”
    … and also lots of text without pictures.

    Well, kiss that sobriquet good-bye.

  25. Barry Meislin on June 7, 2019 at 2:10 am said:
    More mounting Mueller dishonesty:
    https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/447394-key-figure-that-mueller-report-linked-to-russia-was-a-state-department

    (Gosh, he’s starting to develop a reputation…)
    * * *
    There have been stories before about the egregious use Mueller made of Manafort’s connection to Kilimnik, but what he put in his report, knowing that he had omitted exculpatory information, is beyond biased, if not out-right false.

  26. sdferr on June 6, 2019 at 7:43 pm said:
    Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) thread on the ever so slowly breaking news about Lt. Gen Flynn’s case today.
    * * *
    It was interesting stuff (although I wish people would go back to writing essays instead of multi-Tweet twitterfests).

    One of his responders is, perhaps, knocking Flynn, but it’s still an interesting point:

    SHIFTLOCK
    @DriverX_
    Replying to
    @drawandstrike
    A guilty person always know why they are being interviewed by the FBI. Unless they are guilty of so many crimes they have to hear the questions first.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

↑