Nick James:
Like a headless turkey running around in circles, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s anti-Trump investigation is dead, even if he does not yet realize it. While his investigation stumbles onward, with life support provided by the biased media, from a legal perspective the viability of any criminal case that Mueller could possibly bring has been effectively gutted thanks to the news (suppressed for months by Mueller’s team) that the FBI’s “key agent” in both the Russia investigation and the Clinton email probe was an ardent Hillary supporter with an anti-Trump bias.
Under federal law, a prosecutor is required “to disclose exculpatory and impeachment information to criminal defendants and to seek a just result in every case.” Specifically, pursuant to Giglio v. United States, prosecutors are obligated to provide defendants with impeachment evidence, which includes, according to the DOJ’s guidelines, evidence of a witness’s biases, “[a]nimosity toward defendant,” or “[a]nimosity toward a group of which the defendant is a member or with which the defendant is affiliated.”
As a result, in any prosecution brought by Mueller against a Republican target, defense counsel would be entitled under the Constitution to all evidence in the government’s possession relevant to exploring the apparent biases of FBI agent Peter Strzok and his animosity toward Trump and the Republican Party. This, in and of itself, could be a case-killer because it is very unlikely that Mueller or the DOJ would want defense counsel poring through all the records and documents, emails, and texts in the DOJ’s and Strzok’s possession revealing the agent’s biases since this could fatally undermine any other cases or investigations the agent has worked on—such as the FBI’s decision to recommend charging General Flynn with lying to federal agents even though Hillary Clinton’s besties, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, were given a free pass despite apparently doing the same thing.
Significantly, the fatal damage done to Mueller’s anti-Trump investigation does not only rest in the fact that defense counsel will be able to conduct an unlubricated prostate examination on the FBI’s key agent at trial. Instead, the real reason why Mueller will not risk a criminal trial is the lasting damage that would be done to the FBI’s reputation by having Strzok’s baggage brought into the daylight.
To expose the agent’s biases, defense counsel would have the opportunity to cross-examine the agent and his apparent mistress, an FBI lawyer who alsoworked on Mueller’s investigation and the Clinton email probe, about their exchanged messages showing support for Clinton and hostility to Trump. Additionally, the agent’s wife, a high-profile attorney at another federal agency, apparently was a member of several pro-Obama and pro-Clinton Facebook groups and is a follower of a Facebook page called “We Voted for Hillary.”
One can only imagine the fun that an aggressive defense attorney would have shredding Strzok’s credibility by grilling him to see if he shared his wife’s posted political views.
The prospect of having to reveal to defense counsel and the public the FBI’s dirty laundry concerning Strzok—the former deputy head of the agency’s counterespionage unit—plus having to watch as defense attorneys parade the disgraced agent, his disgraced FBI mistress, and possibly his betrayed wife before the jury to explore the extent of his anti-Trump biases pretty much kills the likelihood of Mueller indicting any other Republicans. There’s simply too much downside.
Undeniably, if Mueller were to proceed with a trial under these tainted circumstances, he would be exposing the country’s vaunted legal system and the agency he once headed, to both national and international ridicule. The FBI’s reputation for impartiality would be forever flushed down the toilet. This price simply is not worth it particularly since he has found no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia. Indeed, one wonders, cynically, if this realization prompted Mueller to offer a light plea deal to Flynn so that he could quickly sign him up as a cooperator and add the general as a notch on his prosecutorial belt before the DOJ notified the public of the real reason for Strzok’s removal from Mueller’s team? (Arguably, Giglio disclosure obligations only apply after a person has been indicted but not if he pleads guilty pre-indictment.)v
Crumbling around heir ears as they pray to what ever diety they worship the next move isnt indictments for them.
But they are coming.
Then I guess republicans can stop worrying and cease their efforts to kill it. Which, for some odd reason, doesn’t seem to be what’s happening.
In hack political writing, a word such as undeniably commonly precedes a totally bullshit assertion, as in the example up above.
The closer Mueller gets to the truth, the more frantic efforts to stop him and discredit him will become.
@Greg: In your dreams pj boy
A major flaw in the analysis is that the liberals never really worry about credibility or reputation. That’s what the media is for, to rewrite the narrative to suit the liberal agenda. If they have a shot at taking down Trump (which, as we have seen, grows inordinately large within their furtive imaginations) I doubt they would allow something like the exposure of the bias we all know is there anyway impede them.
@Greg:
Why allow something that is proven to be corrupt continue and waste MORE taxpayer money?
Sort of like “settled science” and “debate over”?
Mueller has had the truth from the very beginning… there NEVER WAS any collusion between Trump and the Russians; all the collusion was by Hillary, the Democrats and the Russians.
Yesterday I heard Judge Andrew Napolitano make a very good point about FBI agents investigating the phony “Russian collusion” accusations. The Judge points out that all FBI agents have political opinions yet act (or should, theoretically) independent of them. If agents were investigating organized crime, he said, would their political views influence their pursuit of crimes?
Good point. Of course not. Makes perfect and rational sense. However, I got to thinking later, what if a member of a political party became connected, via the investigation, with the organized crime? Now, politics is back involved and the agents have to steel themselves against allowing ideology to enter into the investigative process.
So, this brings us back to the Hillary email scandal. One of the investigators working on Mueller’s team, Strzok, was also on the email case. HE changed the wording of Comey’s statement regarding not charging Hillary from “gross negligence” (the actual description of what constitutes the crime) to “very careless”, which sounds more like she just accidentally dropped something and it broke. Again, he is (was) on Mueller’s team supposedly putting an unbiased eye upon whether or not Trump colluded with the Russians to redirect and influence the 2016 Presidential election (the fact that this is being investigated, after a full year of attention to it and not a single shred of evidence surfacing to indicate it MIGHT be true is proof enough of bias).
So, yes indeed, bias can play a part and, as we have seen throughout the the 2016 campaign and since, nobody can exploit and abuse bias like a liberal ideologue.
@Bill… Deplorable Me, #4:
The GOP hasn’t proved a single thing about the Mueller investigation to be corrupt. Corruption is what the Mueller investigation is in the process of revealing.
How much did the GOP’s endless investigations targeting Secretary of State Clinton cost taxpayers? As of May 2016, the tab had run over $20 million. And that was for FBI costs alone.
Gee golly I wonder why all the laptops of Hillarys accomplices were destroyed by the FBI, even though they were given immunity and lied to the FBI. Almost as if they were helping cover up criminal activity or something.
https://thepoliticalinsider.com/hillary-made-deal-destroy-laptops-fbi-criminal-investigation-caught/
They may have destroyed as much evidence as the Lawyers that had no clearance and got to choose what was “personal information” and bleach bit.
@Greg:
Right. The GOP didn’t prove it, Shrzok proved it. He also corrupted the email investigation, though he isn’t the only one, to be sure.
How much of that cost is because the administration and Hillary stonewalled and lied? We’d have a hearing, then a week later new information, previously hidden and suppressed by the administration, and a whole new line of questioning was developed. Of course, I agree with you; the investigation was a waste. I knew from the beginning it was a terrorist attack that Hillary’s incompetence allowed to happen and Obama lied about in order to cover his stupid grandstanding over having won the war on terror and defeated al Qaeda.
Notice that the Republicans man up, show up and answer the questions while Democrats won’t appear, plead the 5th or simply lie, as Hillary did under oath before Congress ON VIDEO.
@kitt:
What, are you crazy? Because they were all so innocent, obviously. They probably had internet searches for yoga lessons that they could not erase. Duh.
I’ll read that as an acknowledgement that after spending $20 million, there still wasn’t any basis for filing charges.
What the taxpayers got for their $20 million was sufficient exploitable damage to Clinton’s image to elect Donald Trump—who was never even vetted.
@Greg:
Nope, we’re still left with plenty of perjury, destruction of evidence, obstruction of justice and mishandling of classified information. Hillary’s stonewalling only confirmed all of that. When she DID cooperate, she was recorded lying under oath to Congress.
Hillary’s image is of a corrupt liar too incompetent to prevent the sacking of a consulate. That image was only reinforced, not damaged. Trump not vetted? REALLY? He has been vetted to the point that, finding nothing the left has had to invent lies with which to attack him. If he was not vetted, you can blame your own party since it wasted time having the phony dossier created instead of an honest investigation.
@Greg: No not a thing. Delusional much?
@Mully: That can’t be true because of all of Mueller’s integrity.
@Mully, #10:
Don’t ask me. Ask your doctor.
Mueller Had at Least 15 Search Warrants, 400,000 Pieces of Evidence in Manafort Case
@Greg: So? All that indicates is that Manafort has been persecuted for a while. Remember, he was fully cooperating with the investigation but, to generate some headlines and please the Colosseum full of liberals that have come to see nothing less but bloodletting, Mueller decided to conduct an early morning guns-drawn raid of Manafort’s home.
This is all political theater and one big farce.
@Bill… Deplorable Me:
Nothing is stopping republicans from filing a criminal complaint in federal court. Other than the fact that they’re making all of this b.s. up, of course. Unlike Mueller, who apparently has compelling evidence that was put before a grand jury.
@Greg: Are you saying that Hillary did not state, under oath, before Congress, that she did not have any classified information on her personal, secret, unsecured server and that she turned over all the emails to the DOJ when, in fact, there were thousands of emails with classified information on them (hundreds which the FBI admitted were sent and received with classified markings on them) and that thousands and thousands of emails, many with classified information on THEM, were recovered by the FBI that were not turned over?
I’m saying if they could make a case against her in court, they would have done so long before now. They aren’t doing so because they can’t prove their claims.
As you’ve pointed out in the case of Roy Moore, accusations don’t matter.
Republicans are frantically trying to take down Robert Mueller because they strongly suspect he’s going to come up with the hard evidence to take down Donald Trump. Their problem is that the closer he gets, the harder it will be for them to get away with it. I think they’re too late already. The investigation has too obviously become substantive. If they take it down they’ll give democrats a very serious weapon to use against them in the 2018 and 2020 elections, which democrats would be only too happy to use to maximum effect.
@Greg:
In the Obama administration with a Lynch Attorney General? During the campaign? Just after she lost? While the DOJ is investigating Trump?
You didn’t answer the question, Greg. Did she lie, on video? I realize I am asking a person that happily believes she deleted, beyond recovery, 33,000 emails, just after she was told she needed to turn them over, just because they were “personal”, so I don’t really expect an honest answer. I realize you will never accept the liberal bias that exists throughout the DOJ, controlling courts, investigations and what is pursued, even with the ample evidence we all see. So, why discuss it?
@Greg: So with 400,000 pieces of evidence why do the indictments have nothing to do with election meddling? Isn’t that what this is supposed to be about? Where is the Trump Russia election connection in the indictments?
@Mully: Well, because there wan’t any. But, they are going to stack up a bunch of easily defeated indictments concerning things that happened well before the campaign and not connected in any way to the Trump team in the hopes Manafort will go full CNN on them and just start making up stories to prolong the investigation. It’s a brilliant plan… for a liberal plan.
@Bill… Deplorable Me: #7
Well not diagnosed as of yet, how bout you? 😉
@kitt: Much more of this denied yet plain as the nose on your face Soviet-style attack politics and I’ll be there.
@Bill… Deplorable Me: We are not going anywhere, stay frosty the left plants fake too good to be true websites everywhere. Just ordered ” Rediscovering Americanism” for myself for Christmas in audio.