John Solomon:
As Donald Trump began his meteoric rise to the presidency, the Obama White House summoned Ukrainian authorities to Washington to coordinate ongoing anti-corruption efforts inside Russia’s most critical neighbor.
The January 2016 gathering, confirmed by multiple participants and contemporaneous memos, brought some of Ukraine’s top corruption prosecutors and investigators face to face with members of former President Obama’s National Security Council (NSC), the FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ).
The agenda suggested the purpose was training and coordination. But Ukrainian participants said it didn’t take long — during the meetings and afterward — to realize the Americans’ objectives included two politically hot investigations: one that touched Vice President Joe Biden’s family and one that involved a lobbying firm linked closely to then-candidate Trump.
U.S. officials “kept talking about how important it was that all of our anti-corruption efforts be united,” said Andrii Telizhenko, then a political officer in the Ukraine embassy in Washington tasked with organizing the meeting.
Telizhenko, who no longer works for the Ukraine embassy, said U.S. officials volunteered during the meetings — one of which was held in the White House’s Old Executive Office Building — that they had an interest in reviving a closed investigation into payments to U.S. figures from Ukraine’s Russia-backed Party of Regions.
That 2014 investigation was led by the FBI and focused heavily on GOP lobbyist Paul Manafort, whose firm long had been tied to Trump through his partner and Trump pal, Roger Stone.
Agents interviewed Manafort in 2014 about whether he received undeclared payments from the party of ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and whether he engaged in improper foreign lobbying.
The FBI shut down the case without charging Manafort.
More at The Hill
@Richard Wheeler: Tulsi Gabbard is not a centrist she scores an 18 on the liberty score. I guess her voting habits dont match her turd polishing. Cory Booker has the same score. AOC has a higher score at 20. Bernie scores a 21. They can all put on a fake face.
What bills has she introduced, WTF has she done while in congress?
Jimmy Gomez seems to be the centrist of your party and surprisingly represents Cali. 35 score.
@Richard Wheeler: I guess you innocently misread my question. I didn’t ask you any questions about Trump. Do you think Biden needs to answer for his connections in China and Ukraine and his efforts to shut down the Ukrainian investigation of his son and his business dealings in Ukraine?
Lying—Trump has obliterated the lying meter—it’s his m.o.-some say he believes his own lies–I Ithink he is without a moral compass and simply enjoys lying knowing his Trumpeteers , like you., will still back him.
@Richard Wheeler:
Yes, we know you are a fully indoctrinated Moonbat…oblivious…and yet hypocritically calling others “Trumpeteers” to psychologically evade the fact that you are a fully indoctrinated Moonbat. Projection, at it’s finest.
The hell you didn’t…
@Michael:
Man, you sound like the biggest loser sometimes…
I thought maybe you were a paid troll like Greg…perhaps even Greg himself. Now I know you’re just an inexperienced turd with no job.
@Nathan Blue:
Please tell me more!
@Nathan Blue:
Why can’t you take someone at his or her word? I didn’t vote for Clinton in 2016, and I didn’t vote for Obama in 2008 or 2012. Does it go against your presuppositions? Probably, but it’s a simple fact.
Saying that someone didn’t back Clinton doesn’t mean that he or she automatically backed Trump.
@Nathan Blue:
And the hell he doesn’t.
Trumpeteers BLUE and BURRIS
Please show me where I have EVER indicated support for HRC..
You two are a couple of liars like Trump.
BTW Trump outright lied when he claimed Mueller cleared him of obstruction—agreed?
@Richard Wheeler: You were a Hillary Youth from the beginning. Otherwise, why would you despise those who supported Trump over the drunken, corrupt, lying, incompetent old bag?
What would be NICE to show is evidence of you answering a simple question. Do you think Biden needs to answer for his connections in China and Ukraine and his efforts to shut down the Ukrainian investigation of his son and his business dealings in Ukraine?
@Deplorable Me: I believe your claims regarding Biden should be investigated..
Is Trump lying when he claims Mueller report cleared him of obstruction?.
Why do you continue to lie about my support of HRC? Can’t stand Trump or HRC.?
Because you don.t support Hitler does that mean you support Stalin?
@Richard Wheeler:
RW never supported Hillary. He professed his support for Jim Webb, but Webb didn’t make it on the California primary so he said he voted for (wait for it, drum roll, please) BERNIE.
Guess RW picked the most Socialist candidate on the California Democratic Party primary ballot.
@Richard Wheeler:
In FDR’s case, it did.
@Deplorable Me:
There are plenty of reasons to despise Trump apart from anything to do with Clinton.
@retire05: Thanks for that confirmation RE HRC 05. correct on FDR
you got it N.B. and Dep?
@Richard Wheeler:
They aren’t MY claims; they are FACTS. So, you would be just fine in the FBI initiating a counter intelligence investigation of Biden, replete with surveillance and spying on his campaign and intermittent leaks. That’s good because that is exactly what should happen.
And how about Bernie? He has shown deep affection for the Soviet Union and the style of government; should he have an investigation run on him and his loyalties and intentions?
Nope. Mueller’s report says there was no obstruction but maybe Congress would want to take another look. In other words, you have nothing else, so try to make an impeachment case on Trump being pissed off about endless, unwarranted investigations on unsubstantiated accusations.
If you don’t support Hitler but you undercut his ability to oppose Stalin, you are supporting Stalin. You say you did not support Hillary, and that is reasonably believable because Hillary was a despicable candidate and still is a despicable human being. Yet, you cannot understand that many people supported Trump to block Hillary’s access to the White House? If everyone supported the attorney for aardvarks, Hillary would be President. That would be supporting Hillary.
@Michael:
If you don’t understand any part of the conversation, why don’t you stay out of it?
@Deplorable Me:
If that situation ever arises, I’ll be sure to take your advice.
@Deplorable Me: Mueller report did not clear DT of obstruction–if you don’t understand that what reason for further discussion?
@rich wheeler: Mueller didn’t accuse Trump of obstruction either, did he? He COULD have. He could have indicted him (then let others decide if it would stand) but he didn’t. He had no EVIDENCE. No LEGAL SUPPORT. The left is trying to convict Trump on an array of “if’s” and “but’s”.
So, how about all that “ample, definitive proof” of Trump colluding with Russia? Where did that go? Who was lying about all that? Who was telling the truth? Like Greg and Michael, at some point you are going to have to come to grips with the extent that your liberal media and legislators have played you for a great big fool. Maybe THEN you will be able to develop a little bit of an understand of why people supported Trump over Hillary and why they now see that Trump is a far, far better option than anything else currently offered.
@Deplorable Me:
Why do you keep insisting that Mueller wouldn’t have abided by the rules under which he worked?
We could get some clarification on what he intended if he would testify to Congress (which he is apparently willing to do), but the DoJ won’t approve his doing that.
@Michael:
Because he didn’t abide by rules anyway. He packed his team with partisan Trump haters, laid perjury traps for innocent people to try and get them to lie for him, used unnecessary, dramatic armed raids on cooperating witnesses to detract from the lack of findings and then, in the end, decided to not do the very job his investigation was created to accomplish; find out if Trump committed any crimes. He could FIND no crimes, so he refused to state the obvious.
Did you happen to hear Feinstein’s questions about Trump telling McGahn to fire Mueller, leaving out all context and details of the discussion? Trump wanted Mueller fired for conflict of interests, which he demonstrated with his selections of investigators and he asked McGahn to ask Rosenstein if it could be done. And, McGahn had already testified before Mueller, so Trump couldn’t have asked him to “change his story”. That is what this “investigation” consisted of… lies, misrepresentations and lack of context. Boy, you sure like to believe that garbage.
What clarification besides his report do you need? In fact, you didn’t even need the report (unless it found Trump guilty). You still refuse to accept the results.
@Richard Wheeler:
Let me very clear; I did not correct the record because I find you to be a stellar fellow who never delves into hypotheticals/falsehoods. I corrected the record because I deal in facts, and the fact was that you did not support HRC.
The fact is also that you supported Jim Webb, based on his having worn the uniform, but voted for Clinton (the draft dodger), Obama, who never served, and Bernie Sanders, who also did not serve and was the most Socialist of all candidates on the California Democratic Party primary ballot in spite of your seemingly fealty to those who have served in the U.S. military.
@Deplorable Me:
Let’s take these one at a time.
Let’s take what you say at face value. Admittedly, it would be best not to have investigators who let their feelings affect the actual investigation, but I can’t imagine that there are any DoJ rules or guidelines laying out how investigators need to feel about the target of the investigation on a personal basis. If you know of any, I’m more than willing to read the links.
That would be tough to prove. That defense apparently rarely works, because one man’s “perjury trap” is another man’s “investigator catching a witness in the act of perjury.”
From the Brennan Center:
Continuing:
I understand that you don’t like the way it was done, but do you actually think that Mueller violated any rules, guidelines or laws in taking Stone into custody? Again, if you have anything specific to point me toward, I’d be happy to read the link.
What? I thought that Mueller’s report “totally exonerated” Trump on the issue of conspiracy with the Russian government. Certainly you’re not saying that an investigation which finds out no crime was committed is an invalid investigation. That’s the whole raison d’etre of an investigation: to find out whether or not something happened.
On the other hand, Mueller laid out a list of examples of Trump’s obstruction of justice — an entirely separate issue — explained why he didn’t indict, and turned the findings over to Congress to address, which is what he thought was the appropriate course of action. I know that you feel that Mueller should have indicted Trump, even though there’s a clear finding by the Department of Justice saying that a sitting president should not be indicted, but maybe you should try to accept the idea that Mueller was following the rules in this instance. Even stipulating for the sake of discussion that your charges are correct, the fact that someone violates some rules does not mean that he therefore violates all rules.
@Michael: Lets look at the glaring flaw in your post.
The report was written for congress?
The report is to go to his boss the AG who never was under any obligation to let congress see a word of it.
So If it was written for congress that only proves it was is political and politics is what we are trying to flush from our Justice dept.
The report with its extensive list of these are the obstruction illusions, we can say wont hold up in a court ,simply to throw mud at the President. The addition of Grand Jury information that he knew could never legally be seen another ploy.
It certainly is allowing the Democrats to posture and cry, on television. Remember most of them are attorneys, and know damn well they can never see the redactions.
@kitt: Kitt,continuing to argue with the mentally impaired has the unfortunate effect in many cases of causing both contestants to gravitate toward impairment. For your health, maybe you just need to let them rant until your truths are self evident.
@kitt:
No, but in the report he explicitly says that it is up to Congress to act, since the DoJ cannot in this case. He even says that Congress has the duty here to show that nobody is above the law.
The phrase “glaring flaw” does not mean what you seem to think it means.
@kitt:
Ah. So now “writing a complete report” is a “ploy.”
Got it.
@Michael: No dummy he way it was written, not the report itself.
No sir you misinterpret my meaning, I meant the way the report was constructed was very political in nature.
You can see by my 2 identical answers I can illicit 2 different reactions.
I was streaming on RSBN the testimony of AG Barr.
@Michael:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/former-fbi-official-ig-report-is-wrong-fbi-officials-were-politically-biased-against-trump
“Yet while the IG report specifically finds that lovebirds Strozk and Page improperly used FBI communication devices to express their bias against Trump, it concludes there was no specific action taken by them to manipulate the Clinton email investigation.”
“This conduct by FBI officials violates so many rules it’s difficult to list them all here. The IG report declines to name these employees, but their position descriptions implicate Strozk, Page and several other executives, special agents and investigative analysts.”
But for you, as you have stated before, it doesn’t have to be illegal or against the rules to be unethical…. does it?
Easy in this case. The agents that interviewed Gen. Flynn stated he did not lie, though the 302 report was not filled out in the proper time frame. However, much later after the fact, Mueller found SOMETHING Gen. Flynn, who was not informed he was being interrogated, stated from his memory that was different from the printed transcripts of his telephone calls the agents had with them.
Quoting something from Brennan, one of the principle liars in this coup, is not a wise move.
Used against Manafort, Cohen and Stone. Those types of operations are dangerous with ample opportunity for accidents, injury and death. Yet, Mueller unnecessarily abused federal assets for headlines and diversion.
It did. However, the JOB was to determine if there was a crime or not. If they did not find a crime, then he was exonerated. Right?
The question is, why didn’t he clearly state it WAS obstruction if, in fact, there was? Here… let me help you out… BECAUSE THERE WASN’T ANY OBSTRUCTION. In testimony today, it seems lots of details and context was left out of the reporting of these onerous examples of obstruction. But, it’s the accusation that matters, not the facts. Right?
Had Trump actually committed obstruction Mueller could have indicted. Would it have held up? Who knows, but the would have stated clearly there was obstruction… had here been.
If Mueller was willing to disregard some rules, why WOULDN’T he violate the rules that would have the most impact on the outcome of the investigation?
If following the rules is so important to you liberals, why were you all so upset that Barr did not immediately release the entire report?
By the way, what happened to all that collusion all you leftists had all that evidence readily available to prove?
@Michael: #75
You again are mislead,
Congress can only impeach, congress cannot indict. Its so much more a pleasure to respond to intelligent posts not those that rely on the MSM who just have no other motive than to mislead and misinform.
It sucks responding to you.
There is the 2 identical answers again.
@Michael:
But what if Barr decided not to share the report with Congress? He didn’t HAVE to; he only did it because he is honest and transparent. Mueller knew this yet he left HIS conclusions up to people that may or may not even see the report. Wow, that IS conclusive!!
@Deplorable Me:
Barr was under no requirement to show Congress the Mueller report, or to make it public with proper redactions. Barr could have simply written on a post card:
The Muller report finds no “collusion” or cooperation with Russia operatives on the part of President Donald J. Trump or ANY American. The Mueller report finds no evidence of prosecutorial obstruction of justice on the part of President Donald J. Trump.
Sincerely, William Barr, Attorney General of the United States
It cannot be ignored that Robert Mueller was tasked to make a binary decision; collusion/no collusion and obstruction/no obstruction. He did not. He punted that to the AG and the Deputy AG. That was total abdication of his responsibility and has never been done by any previous Special Counsel.
During the Starr investigation into the actions of Bill Clinton, Clinton exercised Executive Privilege more than once, even going so far as to make up reasons, not covered by statute, for that exercise. Obama claimed Executive Privilege during the Fast and Furious investigation. Trump had the same option but chose not to. Trump also provided over 1,000,000 documents to Mueller, allowed his White House Counsel to testify for over 30 hours (anyone who has ever taken a deposition understand that even 8 hours is overboard) and allowed everyone that Mueller wanted to interview be interviewed. Again, more cooperation than Clinton and Obama combined.
Today’s Barr testimony was interesting. You certainly could tell who was running for President on the Dem’s side.
@Deplorable Me:
Yes, the texts. That’s part of what the coupsters and their parrots want us to forget so they can keep their lies going. Three key facts that came out of those texts which have now been pretty much confirmed by other events/sources:
1. There was no collusion. They made that point early on in their texting and it has now been confirmed by three separate investigations. In addition, their coupsters’ favorite go to network to get their propaganda out, CNN, had members of their staff state on undercover videos that “Russiagate” was a big nothingburger.
2. There was an “insurance policy” put in place to remove PT. The “counterintelligence operation” was not some noble or patriotic effort to protect the country from Russia meddling in our elections. We know this because there weren’t any spies put in place or FISA warrants directed at the Hillary campaign when they were the ones who actively sought out and engaged both the Russians and Ukrainians. In addition, there was little to no mention of it in the Mueller Report which was supposed to be investigating Russian meddling. It was all directed against one side. Admiral Rogers also warned President elect Trump about it which is probably why Comrade Brennan wanted him fired.
3. We know that this operation reached all the way to the Obama WH because the lovebirds made reference to it in at least three text message chains. Comrade Clapper also stated on CNN that none of this would have been possible without Obama’s involvement. This is all but confirms NSA whistleblower Mike Montgomery’s assertions that Obama was spying on PT all the way back to BEFORE he was running for office.
They fired what was supposed to be their nuclear bomb and it went off like a 40mm dud. Now it’s CYA time because they know what’s a comin’ back at them. Hopefully it’ll around 25 megatons of payback.
@retire05:
Actually, he did. If he didn’t find obstruction, there was no obstruction. Beyond any possible doubt, if there had been a hint of a prosecutable case of obstruction Mueller would have clearly stated such.
Though we all knew there was never any collusion, that was never a crime anyway, so declaring that there was none was no great loss to the left (aside from the massive embarrassment of how certain, sure and convinced of the validity of all that evidence and proof they all had right at their fingertips that suddenly evaporated) but obstruction is prosecutable and Mueller could not TOTALLY fail the left and declare what he found: no evidence of obstruction.