Romping Through the Russiagate Swamp

First some music to set the tone:

F#ck Mueller: Michael Flynn selling home to pay for legal fees after pleading guilty in Trump probe And you wonder why he pled out?

Family members of the retired three-star Army general told ABC News he put his home in the Old Town neighborhood of Alexandria — just outside Washington, D.C. — on the market in December with an asking price of $895,000. The 13-year-old, three-bedroom townhome is worth $841,508, according to RE/MAX, and was purchased three years ago for $774,000.

Any money made from the sale of the home will go toward Flynn’s legal fees, his youngest brother, Joe Flynn, told ABC News. "I'm not going to sugarcoat it, this has been a trying experience,” Joe Flynn said of his brother Michael's situation. "It has been a crucible and it's not over."

If it's illegal for a 3 star to lie to the FBI, why is it apparently legal for DOJ and FBI agents to lie to the FBI? Will James Comey and Andrew McCabe Face Criminal Charges?

Jonathan Turley thinks not. But he makes the case in an article at The Hill that he both McCabe and Comey likely violated laws.

But hold on, hope in not lost:  Sessions Appointed Prosecutor Months Ago to Investigate Possible Crimes, Might Appoint 2nd Special Prosecutor

Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed prosecutors in 2017 to investigate matters Congress referred to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) as growing scandals possibly involved criminal activities.

These prosecutors will report directly back to Sessions, who told Fox News on Wednesday night that he will then decide whether a second special prosecutor is necessary to take these matters to court.

High dudgeon at the New York Times as Trump Spoke To Two Witnesses About Their Discussions With The Special Counsel

In one episode, the president told an aide that the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, should issue a statement denying a New York Times article in January. The article said Mr. McGahn told investigators that the president once asked him to fire the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. Mr. McGahn never released a statement and later had to remind the president that he had indeed asked Mr. McGahn to see that Mr. Mueller was dismissed, the people said.

In the other episode, Mr. Trump asked his former chief of staff, Reince Priebus, how his interview had gone with the special counsel’s investigators and whether they had been “nice,” according to two people familiar with the discussion…

Legal experts said Mr. Trump’s contact with the men most likely did not rise to the level of witness tampering. But witnesses and lawyers who learned about the conversations viewed them as potentially a problem and shared them with Mr. Mueller.

If he didn't talk to people who'd testified to Mueller, he wouldn't have anyone to talk to beside Ivanka. And that may be part of the point, to obstruct his ability to act.

Of Course they do: House Democrats say Uranium One whistleblower 'gave no evidence' of Clinton wrongdoing

Staffers from the House Oversight and Government Reform and House Intelligence committees and the Senate Judiciary Committee said in a statement Thursday that William Douglas Campbell provided “no evidence of a quid pro quo” involving Clinton in the deal that allowed Rosatom, a company owned by the Russian government, to buy Uranium One, a company that controlled 20 percent of American uranium reserves in 2009.
. . .
The memo also reveals that the Justice Department told the committees that Campbell was an FBI informant, but that he had “serious credibility concerns” based on “inconsistencies.”

To be fair, the FBI has been suffering some credibility issues of late.

Christopher Steele and the Entitled’s Echo Chamber, "He couldn’t have meddled without its anti-Trump hysteria". And he did meddle. A foreign spy, lets not forget.

In the echo chamber of entitled left-wingers, no story was too wild about Trump and Steele exploited that hysteria. But one wonders if the story is even worse than that. Steele obviously paid Russian officials for the claims in his dossier. Could the dossier itself turn out to be the greatest infusion of Russian disinformation into the campaign? And how is it that Hillary partisans (or in the case of Glenn Simpson and Steele Hillary hired hands) turn up at every crucial moment in the harassment of the Trump campaign — from John Brennan to the Clinton Foundation alum/Aussie diplomat to Peter Strzok? That gives the whole affair an air of entrapment and hoax-making. Only a special counsel could ventilate all of these foul odors.

The Clinton Dossier Gang That Knew Nothing

Steele knew nothing. The New Yorker asks us to believe that their brilliant and trustworthy researcher passed along Shearer’s smears to the FBI without knowing who he was. ”Steele wasn’t aware that Shearer had longtime ties to the Clintons,” Mayer tells us, “as did Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton ally, who had given Shearer’s report to Winer.”

How could Steele ever be expected to know anything about the men whose material he was passing on to the FBI? Assuming, quite improbably, that Steele didn’t recognize the name of a close adviser to a former Secretary of State who had recently been involved in a foreign policy scandal, it would have taken him all of 60 seconds on Google to discover who Shearer and Blumenthal were.

Steele’s Sergeant Schultz routine betrays incompetence or dishonesty.

WaPo: Seychelles Meeting Intended To Set Up Back Channel To Russia … Right Before The Inauguration which is perfectly legal unless you believe in some Logan Act nonsense. So even if it did happen, all we have are two witnesses to the same event who disagree on its importance.

Finally, we should consider a more formal structure for presidential transitions if we plan to maintain the ten-week distance from Election Day to Inauguration Day. The awkward nature of transitions leaves incoming presidents-elect with no roadmap, and the increasingly hostile and bitter nature of partisan politics leaves them vulnerable to malicious prosecution for their attempts to make themselves ready to govern in foreign affairs on Day One. Congress needs to address the ambiguity in specific ways for incoming administrations. If we want legal lines drawn, we need better lines than the Logan Act and whimsical tradition for guidance.

We’re All Russian Bots Now "Americans don’t need help from Moscow to tear each other apart on social media." Amen.