Independence Day Russiagate

John Solomon analyzes his interview with Oleg Deripaska, the Russian oligarch, in the matter of various aspects of Russiagate in Russian oligarch's story could spell trouble for Team Mueller

OK, so why should you care if a Russian denied Trump campaign collusion with Russia during the election?

First, Deripaska wasn’t just any Russian. He was closely aligned with Putin and had been helpful to the FBI as far back as 2009. So he had earned some trust with the agents.

Most importantly, Deripaska’s interview with the FBI reportedly was never provided by Team Mueller to Manafort’s lawyers, even though it was potential proof of innocence, according to Manafort defense lawyer Kevin Downing. Manafort, initially investigated for collusion, was convicted on tax and lobbying violations unrelated to the Russia case.

That omission opens a possible door for appeal for what is known as a Brady violation, for hiding exculpatory information from a defendant.

That sounds like a Weissman specialty, hiding exculpatory information.

Deripaska’s second relevance to Mueller’s congressional hearings has to do with a series of events that first gained him trust inside the FBI.

Deripaska confirmed a story I reported last year from FBI sources that he spent more than $20 million of his own money between 2009 and 2011 on a private rescue operation to free Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent captured in Iran in 2007 while on a CIA mission.

Deripaska confirmed he paid for the operation at the request of the FBI, which was then under Mueller’s direction. And he added that McCabe, then a rising FBI supervisor who was a former colleague of Levinson and later became a key figure in the Russia collusion probe, was one of those who asked him to help.

“I was approached, you know, by someone that he is under a lot of scrutiny now — McCabe,” Deripaska said. “He also said that it was important enough for all of them [FBI officials]. And I kind of trusted them.”
. . .
Deripaska’s tale has the potential to raise questions about a conflict of interest, since Mueller’s FBI first received a gift in the form of the privately funded rescue mission before Mueller, as special prosecutor, investigated Deripaska’s ties to key figures in the Russia case.

And Deripaska’s complicated tale goes on: His legal team in 2012 hired Steele, the former British MI6 agent, to do some research for a lawsuit involving a business rival that Deripaska was fighting in London: “It was a research project to support what was the case against me in London. But my understanding is that the lawyers trusted him for some reason, and he was for quite a time on retainer.”

Deripaska was unaware, though, that Steele also was working for the FBI on, among other things, a special program to recruit Russian oligarchs to provide intelligence on Putin and Russian organized crime.

He told me that Steele invited him to a September 2015 meeting with some Justice Department officials, under the guise that they might be able to help with the Russian’s long-running battle with State to get visas to visit the U.S. He said the offer to help with his visa problem was a “pretext” to recruit him.

“They actually never talk, you know, about the [visa] problem. They start talking about anything else. They ask, ‘Do you have anything? Give me names. Cases, whatever,’ ” Deripaska recalled.

From Bloomberg, A Reluctant Mueller Is Democrats’ Best Shot to Revive Their Trump Investigations

“It’s a big deal. But it also could be a big letdown,” Samuel Everett Dewey, a former congressional lawyer who led investigations in key committees in both the House and Senate, said of Mueller’s testimony.

Dewey said the high-profile event would backfire for Democrats if it becomes another in a series of anti-climactic episodes in their probes. Promises of public hearings have vaporized into canceled testimony and empty witness chairs, or acquiescence to closed-door interviews with ground rules set by the administration.

Lawmakers will break for a six-week summer recess from Washington a week after Mueller testifies. If they find the public’s takeaway from Mueller’s appearance when they go home to their districts is “OK, nothing new here,” Dewey said, lawmakers could find dwindling inspiration to push toward impeachment.

Why Hollywood Can't Quit The Mueller Report, they love their fiction.

Hollywood collectively assumed Special Counsel Robert Mueller would prove President Donald Trump colluded with Russian agents to steal the 2016 presidential election from Hillary Clinton. Even worse, Trump did everything he could to obstruct the fight to learn the truth.
. . .
Stars waited anxiously for Mueller’s final report, with one star lighting a votive candle with his likeness.

The report finally arrived April 18. The results? No collusion, no obstruction of justice after a nearly 18-month long investigation which cost north of $31 million to complete.

The industry’s players couldn’t believe what they heard. It’s a lie, they cried. Some, like director Rob Reiner, acted as if The Mueller Report said exactly what he expected, nay hoped, it would say.

Others slowly followed suit.

Louie Gomert has a special name for Mueller,  Rep. Gohmert Gives Mueller A New Nickname Prior To The Special Counsel's Congressional Testimony

Although Gohmert read Mueller's full report, it did little to tame the animosity he has towards the Special Counsel.

“It reinforced the anal opening that I believe Mueller to be."

CNS News  Ratcliffe: DOJ IG Has Finished His Investigation, But Report Not Expected for Weeks



Judicial Watch, Former Asst. Sec. of State for Diplomatic Security Testifies Under Oath that He Warned Hillary Clinton Twice About Unsecure BlackBerrys and Personal Emails and Former State Official Testifies He Warned State Department Officials about Clinton Email Issues; Concerned about Interference on Classified Clinton Benghazi Email Documents

WaFreeBe: Official Raised Alarm About Deleted Clinton Emails

Hackett: I recall it wasn't much of a conversation. I—I was—I mean, I have to say, it was emphatic to the Under Secretary of Management—and I didn't speak in tones like that very often to him—you know, that we needed these—you know, the guidelines.
… …
Judicial Watch: Why did you feel so strongly that this was necessary, that they provide this information?

Hackett: Well, we heard that there were 50,000 or 60,000 emails, and that they had—"they" being the Secretary's team—had culled out 30,000 of these. And which is—so we wanted to know what criteria they used. The standard from the National Archives is very strict. If there was—if there were mixed records, that would be considered a federal record. If it was mixed personal and mentioned a discussion, that would be—under the narrow National Archives rules, it would be considered a federal record.

Judicial Watch: And do you know if the emails that were returned by Secretary Clinton and her attorneys, if they followed that guideline to include an email that would include mixed information, personal and official?

Hackett: I don't know.

Lock. Her. Up!