Russiagate, Russiagate, Rah, Rah, Rah!

#FakeNews! NBC announced that Feds are monitoring phones of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and spotted one call with White House - NBC News, but oopsy, NBC corrects bombshell report saying Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was wiretapped

Citing three senior U.S. officials, the corrected report from NBC News instead claims Cohen’s phones were being monitored using a device called a pen register, which records numbers called from a certain phone line and the duration of calls. But that device doesn't listen into the calls.

NBC News initially reported federal investigators tapped Cohen’s phone lines and intercepted at least one call between Cohen and the White House.

Among the calls logged was at least one between one of Cohen’s phone lines and the White House, according to the corrected article.

Ace on the case: #FakeNews: Media Retracts Claim Michael Cohen Was "Wiretapped;" Now Says Only The Numbers Coming In Or Dialing Out Were Captured

This means that Mueller could not have learned that "Cohen was about to destroy evidence," unless he can psychically infer that from a phone number. . . . By the way: Giuliani predicted this.

American Spectator Banana republic behavior is infra-dig against Trump — what if his name were Hillary?   So the scandal of the day is that either Trump called his lawyer, or his lawyer called him.  Tucker Carlson: Feds’ Michael Cohen Investigation Tactics ‘Orwellian’ — ‘A Grotesque Violation of Civil Liberties’ Rush tries to explain Why Rudy Brought Up the Cohen Payment to Stormy:

What this is all gonna boil down to once again is was this payment that Cohen made to the porn star, was it actually to help Trump win the presidency, or was it essentially to protect Trump’s marriage? And if it was made to protect Trump’s marriage, there’s nothing illegal about this, it doesn’t even involve the campaign. And everybody I’ve spoken to today says it would be practically impossible to actually get a conviction anywhere on this payment having anything to do with violating campaign finance laws.

But you see the law doesn’t matter. We’re now in the court of public opinion. The effort here is to designed to convince low-information voters, potential jurors, whoever, that Trump broke campaign finance laws and that Rudy just admitted it. So that’s what they’re all focused on now. Of everything said by Caputo, everything said by Rudy, that’s all the Drive-Bys are focused on today.

 Allahpundit at Hot Air: Giuliani Again: It’s Time For Jeff Sessions To Investigate The People Investigating Michael Cohen , The Hill: Giuliani calls for Sessions to 'step in' on Cohen investigation and a little bit of crosstalk with Comey:

Giuliani also hit back at criticism — including from fired FBI Director James Comey — about his use of the term “stormtroopers” in relation to the FBI raids last month on Cohen’s home, office and hotel room.

On Twitter, Comey wrote: “I know the New York FBI. There are no 'stormtroopers' there; just a group of people devoted to the rule of law and the truth. Our country would be better off if our leaders tried to be like them, rather than comparing them to Nazis.”

Giuliani countered that he had not made a Nazi comparison, arguing, “there are stormtroopers all over.”

But, he added, “If you don’t like it, don’t act that way.”

Rudy Giuliani’s media blitz provides ammunition for Trump foes  Watchdog: Rudy Giuliani's Stormy revelation grounds for Justice Department investigation Maybe he's trying to get ahead of it. Please put all you payments to blackmailers on line 6357 of the FEC form 1303. Porn Star Payment Likely Not Illegal, Says Former FEC Chairman,  Just one Minute: Giuliani Engaging In Ex Post Rationalization The world is full of fuzzy lines.

If I wrote a check for $130,000 I would know where it went and why. But if I were a billionaire with a long time fixer whose role was to make problems go away, I might well have gotten out of the habit of asking where the money was going and why. Plausible deniability was not invented by Trump. Nor was implausible deniability.

"Tyrus" was on "The 5" the other night, talking of his time as Snoop Dogs "body guard" and fixer. He explained fixers as "Did you make the problem go away?" "Yes." No mention of how, or how much.

But enough about Giuliani and Cohen, on to Mueller! Manafort lawyers: Mueller “has not produced any materials” showing Manafort contacts with Russians Russian? Russiagate is about Russia? Who knew? But Mueller is clearly not through torturing and trying to break Manafort: Robert Mueller files request for 70 blank subpoenas in Paul Manafort’s Virginia case. Blank subpoena's are a thing? Who knew?

A blank subpoena means the party serving the subpoena, in this case the federal government, can fill in the name later, as long as it is done so before the subpoena is served.

The document says each recipient “must also bring with you the following documents, electronically stored information or objects” — but what follows the colon is under seal.

Giuliani says decision on Trump-Mueller interview 'several weeks away',  Terms of Entrapment: Trump Should Demand Hillary's Deal,

Trump should insist on an interview limited to just two hours and at which staff members past and current can be present, like Mike Flynn, Carter Page, and Paul Manafort.  They should be given immunity deals, as were the likes of Cheryl Mills at Hillary's interview.  His interviewer should be as pro-Trump as Peter Strzok, who conducted Hillary's interview, was pro-Clinton.  He should be allowed to say, "I don't recall" or its equivalent 39 times, as Hillary did.  Prior to the interview, Mueller should have a press conference listing the charges against Trump and then exonerate him, explaining why no reasonable prosecutor, which Mueller is not, would take the case.

Believe Mueller’s Still Looking At Collusion

. . .two main stories emerge from Carlson’s debriefing of Caputo just after his interview with Mueller’s team. The first, which occupies only the first minute or so of the conversation, is that Robert Mueller remains very much interested in potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence. The second is that Caputo says he’ll never work on a Republican campaign ever again, accusing Democrats of weaponizing prosecution as a political tool. . .

Trump should insist on an interview limited to just two hours and at which staff members past and current can be present, like Mike Flynn, Carter Page, and Paul Manafort.  They should be given immunity deals, as were the likes of Cheryl Mills at Hillary's interview.  His interviewer should be as pro-Trump as Peter Strzok, who conducted Hillary's interview, was pro-Clinton.  He should be allowed to say, "I don't recall" or its equivalent 39 times, as Hillary did.  Prior to the interview, Mueller should have a press conference listing the charges against Trump and then exonerate him, explaining why no reasonable prosecutor, which Mueller is not, would take the case.

Flynn Sentencing Delayed for at Least Two Months 'Due to Status of Investigation'  Robert Mueller Likely Knows How the Trump Russia Investigation Ends. Newest Mueller Prosecutor Donated To Hillary Clinton. Of course, you can't swing a dead cat in Washington D.C. without hitting a lawyer who donated to Hillary. Levin: It’s time for Congress to put Mueller in his place, speaking of which Rep. Louie Gohmert has 40 Questions Special Counsel Robert Mueller Needs to Answer Now:

1.) Why did you hire only lawyers with backgrounds as Democratic Party donors for your investigative team? Were there no Establishment Republicans willing to help railroad President Trump? . . .

Did Comey Learn His Monkey Trick from Adam Schiff?

How the heck do they do it, Comey and Schiff? Each can deliver a string of half-truths, contradictions, outlandish obfuscations, distortions, misrepresentations, and even preposterously self-serving whoppers in a way – and here's the monkey trick – that makes him seem, on balance, and taken as a whole...reasonable.

Weirdly, it seems to work: they come off as reasonable guys, giving reasonable answers in good faith and with innocent intention. Somehow, the fact that none of it hangs together and all of it is self-serving fails to register. As such, they get a pass.

A laundry list of problems at Mueller's FBI.Time: The FBI Is in Crisis. It's Worse Than You Think. You think the past two directors had anything to do with that? Hot Air:

They’re losing credibility in courtrooms not just because of politics but because of their own behavior. A few years ago, the FBI laboratory was forced to acknowledge that they fudged results in hundreds of cases, many of which resulted in convictions that later DNA evidence contradicted. More recently, Lichtblau points out, the FBI has been caught along with prosecutors in violating the discovery process in trials, most recently in the Cliven Bundy prosecution, which blew up in large part because the jury decided they couldn’t trust testimony from the bureau’s agents. Those issues are systemic enough to suggest that leadership at the bureau is the problem, even if it has nothing to do with politics.

More FBI misconduct? Were Strzok-Page texts deleted? Sources say IG flagged gaps in record, or maybe just a lovers quarrel. Insty subscribes to the WSJ so you don't have to: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIALIZES: Rod Rosenstein Protests

His choice of the word “extorted” is illuminating. Mr. Rosenstein is right to say Justice and FBI aren’t obliged to “just open our doors to allow Congress to come and rummage through the files.”

But that isn’t happening here. In the cases at hand, Congress is acting through its committees as a separate and co-equal branch of government—the branch that funds Justice and has the right and obligation to exercise oversight. Congress is making specific requests regarding specific questions and documents.

As for the articles of impeachment, these too are expressions of Congress’s power. The practical worth of contempt and impeachment actions is less about removing an official from power than leverage to encourage cooperation. We had a demonstration of how this works in January, when Mr. Rosenstein and the new FBI director, Christopher Wray, tried to make an end run around the House Intelligence Committee’s subpoenas for information about the Steele dossier on Donald Trump. Only when Speaker Paul Ryan said Congress would hold them in contempt if they didn’t comply did they turn over the documents.

Mr. Rosenstein’s irritation might be warranted if the documents produced so far demonstrated that Congress’s demands were frivolous or imperiled national security. But remember how Justice warned the Intelligence Committee that making public its report on FISA warrants would be “extraordinarily reckless”? Instead, it provided the public with welcome (but still incomplete) insight about what went down in the 2016 election.
. . .
Justice can legitimately withhold information from Congress that might jeopardize specific criminal cases. But that doesn’t seem relevant here. We don’t want to see Mr. Rosenstein fired or impeached, but he and the FBI need to recognize Congress’s constitutional authority.

And then theres's the rest of the "intelligence" crowd.   Michael Ledeen at Frontpage Mag: Former CIA Chief Blames Trump for Creating "Post-Truth" World "But the intelligence world is totally complicit." 

Many years ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan called for the abolition of CIA.  He thought we needed to reconstruct the whole thing.  He was right then (the early sixties, as I recall) and the advice applies with greater force today.

As a general policy, no agency should be allowed last more than 20 years due to the accretion of garbage and self-dealing careerists in its ranks. Clapper Claims He Didn’t Leak Info On The Dossier To CNN. I think he's parsing words very carefully if not outright lying (again). What he almost certainly leaked was the fact that Trump was briefed on the "Steele Dossier" which was the news hook that press needing to make it public.

Via Wombat-socho's "In The Mailbox: 05.03.18" the  Victory Girls bring us: CIA Wrong on Russian Pro Trump Interference

The Washington Times has reported that former CIA Director John Brennan’s conclusion that Russia interference was to ensure a Trump victory in the 2016 Election was flawed. “Tradecraft” is being blamed.

John Brennan is a vocal Obama supporter. The Washington Times article reports:

U.S. intelligence agencies’ far-reaching conclusion that Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 presidential election to specifically help Donald Trump was flawed by “tradecraft failings,” says a House report.
The conclusion was written by the CIA then under the direction of Obama loyalist John O. Brennan.
The report said the CIA’s Putin-Trump analysis violated standards for analyzing intelligence products and noted that one guideline is to “be independent of political considerations.”

Oops! Invalid. Did Russia try to interfere in the 2016 Election? Yes. Always. The Russians always want to undermine our confidence in our Republic. The only interference regarding Trump was from the Deep State to ensure his loss.

 Whew!