Russiagate Revived

Well, that's more like it, although I expect a similar lull over the July 4th holiday.

From Eric Felten, RCI, Insinuendo: Why the Mueller Report Doth Repeat So Much

From the first page of his report, the special counsel is eager to establish the narrative that that Papadopoulos, not Steele, sparked the initial investigation. Mueller writes that in May 2016 “Papadopoulos had suggested to a representative of [a] foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.”

But it’s not enough to say it once. Come page 6, Mueller writes, “Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton.”

Mueller repeats this claim nearly word for word again on pages 81, 89, and 93.

At least page 192 offers a hint of variation: The FBI “approached Papadopoulos for an interview” because of “his suggestion to a foreign government representative that Russia had indicated that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton.”

You mean when they arrested him at the airport coming into the country, looking for $10,000+ that they had arranged to give him, to subsequently charge him with lying to the FBI about some date that they probably didn't let him refresh his memory on, which charge was so severe it subsequently resulted in a two week jail sentence? That "approach"?

Such relentless repetition might be dismissed as lazy cut-and-paste writing. But repetition is an ancient and effective tool of rhetoric. The Greeks called it epimone; the Romans, commoratio. It can be used subtly and powerfully, as in “Brutus is an honorable man," or it can be employed in a clumsy effort to pound home a weak claim, as in “Papadopoulos suggested…that the Trump Campaign…”
What makes the claim weak?

The problem starts with “Papadopoulos suggested.” What exactly did he say? “Suggested” implies he expressed himself indirectly. The report’s use of that squishy verb all six times it refers to the conversation is an admission that Papadopoulos did not directly make the explosive claim that allegedly spurred the FBI into action.

The next part of the sentence is not only vague, but misleading – “Papadopoulos suggested … that the Trump campaign had received indications.”

This implies that information allegedly given to Papadopoulos – an adviser to the campaign – was shared with the entire campaign. This is especially misleading because the report later says it found no evidence that Papadopoulos told anyone else on the campaign about the emails.

And then there’s the descriptor “received indications,” which is even more amorphous than “suggested.” An “indication” could be anything from a light flashing Morse code to one of the grifters in “The Sting” putting a finger to the side of his nose. If Papadopoulos was told something, why not simply write he “was told”? The downside of the simple construction, from a prosecutor’s point of view, is that it lacks the implication that something furtive and sneaky is going on. “Receiving indications” by contrast, sounds suitably shady.

Where did those indications come from? The “Russian government,” according to the special counsel’s report. Finally, a precise and concrete claim. Unfortunately, it is also false. The source of his information was Joseph Mifsud, whom the special counsel describes as a “London-based professor who had connections to Russia and traveled to Moscow in April 2016.” There is a difference between someone with unspecified “connections to Russia” and the “Russian government.”

I quoted so much so I could get to the part about the Mysterious Mr. Mifsud. Out of the blue, as someone on Althouse commented, the WaPoo, (30 day link) has a front page article ‘The enigma of the entire Mueller probe’: Focus on origins of Russian investigation puts spotlight on Maltese professor on the vanishing academic, trying hard to make the case that the Mueller has some justification for calling the perfessor a Russian agent, which amounts to "our CIA contacts (John Brennan) told us so,
swearsies!

In Mifsud’s absence, a number of President Trump’s allies and advisers have been floating a provocative theory: that the Maltese professor was a Western intelligence plant.

Seizing on the vacuum of information about him, they have promoted the idea that he was working for the FBI, CIA or possibly British or Italian intelligence, citing exaggerated and at times distorted details about his life.

Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani told Fox News in April that Mifsud was a “counterintelligence operative, either Maltese or Italian,” who took part in what sounded to him like a “counterintelligence trap” against Papadopoulos.

Spokeswomen for the FBI, Justice Department and CIA declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Italy’s Security Intelligence Department.

Such a notion runs counter to the description of Mifsud in the Mueller report, which states Mifsud “had connections to Russia” and “maintained various Russian contacts,” including a former employee of the Internet Research Agency, the Russian organization that carried out a social media disinformation campaign in 2016.

Former FBI director James B. Comey, in an opinion column for The Washington Post in May, described Mifsud bluntly as “a Russian agent.”

If he was a Russian agent, he was the most public spy ever.  Streif at Red State comments The CIA Hits The Panic Button Over Joseph Mifsud As Barr’s Investigation Moves Ahead

How, if Mifsud is a suspected Russian spy, does he show up at these invitation-only affairs? Why was Mifsud casually questioned by the FBI in the lobby of his hotel? How did they treat other foreign nationals Mueller wished to question?
. . .
If Mifsud was a suspected Russian agent, then allowing him the access to the venues where he regularly appeared is a scandal of epic proportions.

The best interpretation of this article is that the CIA knows Mifsud’s exposure as an agent of a Western intelligence agency is going to happen. Then they are going to be left to explain how bogus information fed to Papadopoulos by a friendly intelligence agency was used to bolster the case for a special counsel to investigate a sitting president. There probably isn’t a real good explanation beyond what is here in the article, which is “well, we thought he looked fishy” and hoping that no one notices the very real coincidences that connect Mifsud and friendly intelligence agencies.

So, it looks like something is up with Mifsud. At best, Mifsud is still a mystery, and I hope Barr's investigation clear it up.

Some links via Red Pill Jew's QUICK HITS: June 30, 2019

Ex-CIA Agent: Those Who Planned Coup Against Trump Are About To Be Indicted. Take the time to get the cases tight, but… indict and squeeeeze. This goes all the way to Barackus, we know it does.

Handling Mueller Ditto. Give him the same treatment as he gave Corsi. Hours of questioning, without relief.

Breaking Video: Jimmy Carter Says Trump Is an Illegitimate President Put in Office by Russia Carter, the worst President since Barackus, needs to just STFU.

Politico worries that Trump's House allies lie in wait for Mueller

Many House Republicans on the committees set to interview him have actually supported Mueller in the past, even if they've criticized his Russia investigation; they've sought to separate the man — a senior Justice Department appointee dating to the George H.W. Bush administration and Marine Corps veteran — from the probe.

But Mueller will also face a grilling from Trump's top Republican allies in Congress, including Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Devin Nunes (Calif.) and Andy Biggs (Ariz.). They intend to press him on long-held articles of Trumpian faith: that Mueller's team was biased against the president from the start and that the Russia investigation was tainted by inappropriate surveillance.

Da Beast is even more hyperbolic, Team Trump’s Game Plan to Destroy Mueller: Hound Him About ‘FBI Lovers’. Page and Strzok certainly deserve a question or two, but they're hardly the only hitch in Mueller's giddy-up. From the Never-Trump Bulwark The American Public Needs to Hear These 10 Things from Robert Mueller . But sadly for them, and never-Trumper Allah Pundit, Poll: Plurality Of Republicans Believe The Mueller Report Totally Exonerated Trump On Obstruction Of Justice. Please remember, the goal of a prosecutor is not to exonerate, it is to find sufficient evidence to indict, or shut up. It's clear Trump did some things that Weismann didn't like, like get elected. That doesn't make it obstruction of justice. And the Atlantic (the digital magazine, not the ocean), Why Bill Barr Is So Dangerous, "He is using the office he holds to advance his extraordinary lifetime project of assigning unchecked power to the president." And besides, he might be looking into the nasty and illegal things our side did prior to and after Trump's election.

EBL asks Can Sidney Powell Save Michael Flynn?. If his conviction is overturned for prosectorial misconduct, the whole Jenga tower could collapse.