Surrounded by Russiagate

The recent developments with Manafort have left me with too much stuff! First, via Wombat-socho's In The Mailbox: 11.27.18, Tom Maguire at Just One Minute in  Manafort Violated Plea Agreement? quips:

Maybe Manafort really can't tell truth from lies, or maybe Mueller has an expansive definition of "lying". Either way, this has to be yet another red flag for anyone advising Trump about maybe negotiating a live interview with Mueller.

At Da Beast: The Worst Thing Manafort Could Do Is Lie to Mueller. So Why Did He Do It?. Are we really sure he did? Seems like that matter needs to be litigated. Never Trumper AllahPundit Did Manafort Lie To Mueller Because He Has A Deal With Trump?. My guess is that no, Mueller has decided to back out of his deal with Manafort because he's pissed that Manafort's lawyers talked to Trumps lawyers, (WaEx) and decided that charging him with lying was the easist way to do it. A dark view at WaPo's The Fix: Giuliani’s bizarre bragging about the Manafort-Trump alliance highlights new obstruction questions. They've basically declared any action by Trump as obstruction.

Althouse with some light stuff: "Manafort spoke to Julian Assange/Elvis's hair was black but mine's orange."



As reported at Instapundit, News Sniffer catches the Guardian in stealth editing in the reporting of the alleged Manafort/Assange meeting softening the story to a firm maybe. WaT: Manafort passport stamps don't show he entered London in all years Guardian claimed. But all the superspies have drawers full of passports. I think it's unlikely that this is supposed to be the lie that Mueller is citing to revoke the deal. Ace: The Media Continues to Buy Into Any RussiaGate Hoax-Claim, No Matter How Implausible. Fox News: WikiLeaks, Manafort reject Guardian report alleging meeting with Assange in 2016. Molly Hemingway at the Federalist: Manafort/Assange Drama Proves Media Will Buy Any Russia Conspiracy Story, No Matter Its Flaws. Well, duh.

The authors expected people to believe that Manafort and Assange, two highly surveilled people, had not one, not two, but three meetings never noticed by intelligence agencies? Most crazy of all was the notion that this explosive piece of collusion evidence was real but never leaked until now. And no one picked up on any of these three visits on congressional committees or among the media?

NyPo: Trump says pardon for Paul Manafort still a possibility A smart man keeps his options open. CNN: Nadler warns Trump 'dangling a pardon' for Manafort is 'close to obstruction of justice'. George Parry at the AmSpec: Now Paul Manafort has played Robert Mueller.

So, is Manafort crazy? In light of Giuliani’s statements and the president’s tweets, Manafort may be crazy like a fox. I’m beginning to think that for him, all life comes down to geometry, like bank shots on a pool table. “If I cut a deal with the prosecutors here and secretly feed Trump enough damaging information about Team Mueller’s antics there, I might be able to provide Trump with enough public relations air cover for a presidential pardon.”

Hey, given Manafort’s ruinous legal predicament, it isn’t much of an angle, but it’s better than nothing, which is what he had whether or not he played Mueller’s meat puppet. By jamming up Manafort so badly, the special prosecutors have left themselves very little that they can do for him no matter how much he rolls over, sits up and cooperates. Even if Team Mueller were to form a kick line and sing his praises at sentencing, Manafort is, legally speaking, a dead man walking. So why shouldn’t he go for a pardon? What’s he got to lose?

As for Trump, the incoming Democrat House majority has already made clear that they are going to vote for his impeachment with or without cause. But with 53 incoming Republicans, that exercise will be dead on arrival in the Senate. So why not pardon Manafort and, for that matter, General Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos and any other road kill squashed by the Muellerites?

Postmodern Justice

Continuing on the the story of other Mueller targets, Da Beast, Trump and Jerome Corsi Have a Defense Agreement, Giuliani Says and  Bloomberg reports Corsi, Backing Away From Plea Deal, Wants to Take On Mueller. Good.

Corsi has hired Larry Klayman, an attorney known for taking on long-shot conservative causes, to assist in his defense. Klayman founded and later split with conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch and has more recently represented former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore.

In a tweet Wednesday, Corsi said he’d added Klayman to his legal team, instructing them to file “a criminal complaint against Mueller’s Special Counsel and the DOJ for prosecutorial misconduct,” without citing any. Klayman, in an email, said he anticipated following through with a complaint to acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker “in the next few days.”

Former AG Gonzales: 'I Have a Problem' With Mueller Team If 'Perjury Traps' Are Being Set

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that it'd be "unfair" and "unprofessional" for the special counsel's team to set perjury traps in its Russia probe.

His comments on "America's Newsroom" were in response to claims made on Tuesday by author Jerome Corsi, who on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" addressed accusations by Mueller that he lied under oath. "To intentionally set a perjury trap is something that I just disagree with," Gonzales said Wednesday, adding that it's something he "wholeheartedly" condemns.

Gonzales said he has confidence in the Mueller investigation until proven otherwise, and those who are telling the truth to Mueller will "be fine." "If in fact the objective is to get people to lie, to set perjury traps, I do have a problem with that," he said.

Reading the entrails tea leaves Axios says Signs point to an acceleration of Mueller's endgame. CT Post: Mueller's team investigating candidate Trump's late-night calls to mentor Stone

In recent months, the Trump Organization turned over to Mueller's team phone and contact logs that show calls between the then-candidate and Stone in 2016, according to people familiar with the material. The records are not a complete log of their contacts - Stone told The Washington Post on Wednesday that Trump at times called him from other people's phones.

Stone said he never discussed WikiLeaks with Trump and diminished the importance of any phone records, saying, "Unless Mueller has tape recordings of the phone calls, what would that prove?" Stone and WikiLeaks have denied collaborating with each other, and Stone has decried the Mueller investigation as a "political witch hunt" to punish him for supporting Trump.

Trump has told his lawyers - and last week said in written answers to Mueller - that Stone did not tell him about WikiLeaks' upcoming release and that he had no prior knowledge of it, according to people familiar with his responses. . . "It just didn't come up," Stone said. "I am able to say we never discussed WikiLeaks. I'm not sure what I would have said to him anyway because it's all speculation. . . . I just didn't know if it's true or not."

CNN: Trump Denied Knowledge Of Wikileaks, Trump Tower Meeting In Mueller Answers. ABC News: Mueller asked Trump about 2016 RNC platform change regarding Ukraine: Sources So now we have special prosecutors to challenge changes in our political parties platforms? My guess is that only goes for Republicans. Not a chance the Clinton's accepted money for policy changes, ami right?

The platform change took place during the Republican convention organized by then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Manafort had previously worked for a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party.

Sources tell ABC News the president told Mueller he was not aware of the platform change to the best of his recollection. That would be consistent with his answer to a question about the matter to ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos during the summer of 2016.

“I wasn't involved in that. Honestly, I was not involved,” Trump said at the time.

From Red State, Jonathan Turley: ‘Mueller’s Not Getting What He Wants’

He has already had problems with witnesses who have been involved in plea agreements in one stage or the other. Papadopoulos essentially became hostile to them even as a cooperating witness to the point where Mueller tried to increase his sentencing, which the court rejected. Corsi refused to accept the deal according to his own accounts because he felt that he was being told to lie. This is fairly rare. Usually, these are witnesses who are desperate for deals and really would not risk ticking off a prosecutor, so clearly Mueller is not getting what he wants. The question is, is he getting enough to get him where he wants to go?

The key line here, legally, is whether any hacking of the emails was done before the fact with knowledge of Trump associates or whether they became some type of accomplice after the fact. The mere allegation that political operatives wanted access to these emails from Wikileaks is not a crime and indeed the status of Wikileaks in getting this material is a greatly debated question. Wikileaks insists that they’re more of a journalistic organization than the alternative and that may have to be litigated. But in order to get a really clear shot at the president, they need to start with a foundation in the criminal code and that’s going to require either an accomplice before the fact or after the fact, but not someone who simply wants to get access to information they’ve been reading about for political purposes.

Bill Whittle thinks the Mueller Probe is Falling Apart:



But Rush Limbaugh warns: 'I don't think you have any idea what's coming' 

“You’re gonna find a whole lot of Republicans signing on to what the Democrats do, because most of the people in that town despise Trump, despise the fact that he won, have not been able to get over it, have not been able to accept the election results [of] 2016. They’re waiting with bated breath on the Mueller report. They can’t wait. They’re so excited.”

Bongino’s Spygate: Exposing the Obama/Clinton Deep State Criminality

Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino’s explosive new book (with D.C. McAllister), Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump, spotlights the left’s broken trust with the American people and the blatant criminality of the Obama/Clinton Deep State. Since the moment Donald J. Trump and his wife Melania glided down the Trump Tower escalator into history, the Democrats and the allies in the Deep State have been committed to crushing him.

You can get it here, from my Amazon Associates account, and throw a few cents my way.

We've already covered this, but, hey, any excuse to post a photo of America's hottest ever first daughter: Ivanka: Come On, My E-Mail Issue Is Nothing Like Hillary’s

To the extent there’s an issue at all, for that matter. ABC News’ Deborah Roberts presses Ivanka Trump to explain why people should treat her use of private e-mail any differently than Hillary Clinton’s as Secretary of State in an interview aired today on Good Morning America. Other than not transmitting classified material, not deleting half of all the messages while under subpoena, and not setting up a poorly secured server to evade constitutional oversight, Ivanka says, no difference at all . . . 

And something new from America's First Pornstar. Da Beast: Stormy Daniels: Michael Avenatti Sued Trump For Defamation Against My Wishes and from the more mainstream  ABC: Stormy Daniels says Michael Avenatti sued Trump for defamation against her wishes

Porn star Stormy Daniels on Wednesday accused her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, of filing a defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump against her wishes, an allegation Avenatti said he was "very" surprised by.

Daniels, in a statement first reported by The Daily Beast, said that in addition to the defamation case, her attorney "has spoken on my behalf without my approval," as well as started a new fundraising site to raise money for her without her knowledge.

In a phone interview with NBC News, Avenatti said he was surprised by her statement detailing the allegations, and said "a number of things" in it were "not accurate." He did not elaborate on what was inaccurate.

"For months I've asked Michael Avenatti to give me accounting information about the fund my supporters so generously donated to for my safety and legal defense," Daniels said in the statement, obtained by NBC News. "He has repeatedly ignored those requests."

She said she hasn't yet decided "what to do about legal representation moving forward," adding that "Michael has been a great advocate in many ways."

Michael Avenatti needs a short stint in jail.

Wombat-socho has Rule 5 Sunday: Happy Hanukkah! and FMJRA 2.0: A Smooth Jazz Interlude up on time and within budget.