#special counsel Robert S. Mueller

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich ::

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 10, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

FEB 11, 2024

A key story that got missed yesterday was that the Senate voted 64–19 to allow a bill that includes $95.34 billion in aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan to advance a step forward. In terms of domestic politics, this appears to be an attempt by those who controlled the Republican Party before Trump to push back against Trump and the MAGA Republicans. 

MAGA lawmakers had demanded border security measures be added to a national security supplemental bill that provided this international aid, as well as humanitarian aid to Gaza, but to their apparent surprise, a bipartisan group of lawmakers actually hammered out that border piece. Trump immediately demanded an end to the bill and MAGA obliged on Wednesday, forcing the rest of the party to join them in killing the national security supplemental bill. House Republicans then promptly tried to pass a measure that provided funding for Israel alone.

At stake behind this fight is not only control of the Republican Party, but also the role of the U.S. in the world—and, for that matter, its standing. And much of that fight comes down to Ukraine’s attempt to resist Russia’s invasions of 2014 and 2022. 

Russian president Vladimir Putin is intent on dismantling the rules-based international order of norms and values developed after World War II. Under this system, international organizations such as the United Nations provide places to resolve international disputes, prevent territorial wars, and end no-holds-barred slaughter through a series of agreements, including the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the U.N. Genocide Convention, and the Geneva Conventions on the laws of war. 

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, deliberate targeting of civilian populations, and war crimes are his way of thumbing his nose at the established order and demanding a different one, in which men like him dominate the globe. 

Trump’s ties to Russia are deep and well documented, including by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was dominated by Republicans when it concluded that Trump’s 2016 campaign team had worked with Russian operatives. In November 2022, in the New York Times Magazine, Jim Rutenberg pulled together testimony given both to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and the Senate Intelligence Committee, transcripts from the impeachment hearings, and recent memoirs. 

Rutenberg showed that in 2016, Russian operatives had presented to Trump advisor and later campaign manager Paul Manafort a plan “for the creation of an autonomous republic in Ukraine’s east, giving Putin effective control of the country’s industrial heartland, where Kremlin-armed, -funded, and -directed ‘separatists’ were waging a two-year-old shadow war that had left nearly 10,000 dead.” 

But they were concerned that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) might stand in their way. Formed in 1947 to stand against Soviet expansion and now standing against Russian aggression, NATO is a collective security alliance of 31 states that have agreed to consider an attack on any member to be an attack on all.

In exchange for weakening NATO, undermining the U.S. stance in favor of Ukraine in its attempt to throw off the Russians who had invaded in 2014, and removing U.S. sanctions from Russian entities, Russian operatives were willing to put their finger on the scales to help Trump win the White House. 

When he was in office, Trump did, in fact, try to weaken NATO—as well as other international organizations like the World Health Organization—and promised he would pull the U.S. out of NATO in a second term, effectively killing it. Rutenberg noted that Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine looks a lot like an attempt to achieve the plan it suggested in 2016. But because there was a different president in the U.S., that invasion did not yield the results Putin expected. 

President Joe Biden stepped into office more knowledgeable on foreign affairs than any president since Dwight Eisenhower, who took office in 1953. Biden recognized that democracy was on the ropes around the globe as authoritarian leaders set out to dismantle the rules-based international order. He also knew that the greatest strength of the U.S. is its alliances. In the months after he took office, Biden focused on shoring up NATO, with the result that when Russia invaded Ukraine again in February 2022, a NATO coalition held together to support Ukraine.

By 2024, far from falling apart, NATO was stronger than ever with the addition of Finland. Sweden, too, is expected to join shortly. 

But far more than simply shore up the old system, the Biden administration has built on the stability of the rules-based order to make it more democratic, encouraging more peoples, nations, and groups to participate more fully in it. In September 2023, Secretary of State Antony Blinken explained to an audience at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies that the end of the Cold War made people think that the world would inevitably become more peaceful and stable as countries cooperated and emphasized democracy and human rights. 

But now, Blinken said, that era is over. After decades of relative stability, authoritarian powers have risen to challenge the rules-based international order, throwing away the ideas of national sovereignty and human rights. As wealth becomes more and more concentrated, people are losing faith in that international order as well as in democracy itself. In a world increasingly under pressure from authoritarians who are trying to enrich themselves and stay in power, he said, the administration is trying to defend fair competition, international law, and human rights. 

Historically, though, the U.S. drive to spread democracy has often failed to rise above the old system of colonialism, with the U.S. and other western countries dictating to less prosperous countries. The administration has tried to avoid this trap by advancing a new form of international cooperation that creates partnerships and alignments of interested countries to solve discrete issues. These interest-based alignments, which administration officials refer to as “diplomatic variable geometry,” promise to preserve U.S. global influence and perhaps an international rules-based order but will also mean alliances with nations whose own interests align with those of the U.S. only on certain issues.  

In the past three years, the U.S. has created a new security partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom, known as AUKUS, and held a historic, first-ever trilateral leaders’ summit at Camp David with Japan and the Republic of Korea. It has built new partnerships with nations in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as with Latin American and Caribbean countries, to address issues of immigration; two days ago the Trilateral Fentanyl Committee met for the fourth time in Mexico. This new system includes a wider range of voices at the table—backing the membership of the African Union in the Group of 20 (G20) economic forum, for example—advancing a form of cooperation in which every international problem is addressed by a group of partner nations that have a stake in the outcome. 

At the same time, the U.S. recognizes that wealthier countries need to step up to help poorer countries develop their own economies rather than mine them for resources. Together with G7 partners, the U.S. has committed to deliver $600 billion in new investments to develop infrastructure across the globe—for example, creating a band of development across Africa.

Biden’s is a bold new approach to global affairs, based on national rights to self-determination and working finally to bring an end to colonialism. 

The fight over U.S. aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and the other countries with which we have made partnerships is not about saving money—most of the funds for Ukraine are actually spent in the U.S.—or about protecting the U.S. border, as MAGA Republicans demonstrated when they killed the border security bill. It is about whether the globe will move into the 21st century, with all its threats of climate change, disease, and migration, with ways for nations to cooperate, or whether we will be at the mercy of global authoritarians. 

Trump’s 2024 campaign website calls for “fundamentally reevaluating NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission,” and in a campaign speech in South Carolina today, he made it clear what that means. Trump has long misrepresented the financial obligations of NATO countries, and today he suggested that the U.S. would not protect other NATO countries that were “delinquent” if they were attacked by Russia. “In fact,” he said, “I would encourage [Russia] to do whatever the hell they want.”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#political cartoons #Mike Luckovich #Letters From an American #Heather Cox Richardson #history #NATO #alliances #foreign policy #AUKUS #security partnership #democracy #21st century #diplomatic variable geometry

[contemplatingoutlander]

House Republicans censuring Adam Schiff says more about them than him

The Editorial Board of The Washington Post rightly calls out the House Republicans for weaponizing the House to punish one of Trump's enemies, after Trump threatened to primary the 20 Republicans who initially voted against censuring him.

Here are some excerpts from the editorial:

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) became on Wednesday just the third member of Congress to be censured in the past 40 years. The party-line vote reflected worse on the House Republicans who pushed it through than it did on Mr. Schiff. The resolution accuses the former House Intelligence Committee chairman of falsely claiming that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded with the Russian government. Mr. Schiff responded that Paul Manafort, as chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign, provided internal campaign polling data to a Russian intelligence operative amid widespread Kremlin efforts to assist Mr. Trump. Experts can debate whether that technically constitutes collusion. But this semantic question is hardly the basis for a censure motion. Contrary to what many Trump supporters claim, the investigation by Robert S. Mueller III never exonerated Mr. Trump. Indeed, the special counsel’s report laid out significant evidence of obstruction of justice. It’s indisputable that Russia interfered in the 2016 election on Mr. Trump’s behalf. [...] After 20 Republicans voted last week with Democrats to table the censure resolution, Mr. Trump wrote on social media that he’d support primary challengers against them. (Mr. Schiff had spearheaded Mr. Trump’s first impeachment and played a leading role on the select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.) When the resolution came up again Wednesday, this time without a threat to fine Mr. Schiff $16 million, most of those Republicans capitulated. In so doing, they weakened the power of congressional censure as an official rebuke reserved for egregious conduct — and, in the process, made themselves appear to be the wrongdoers. [color emphasis added]

#house republicans #adam schiff #republicans weaponizing congress #trump #house republicans are corrupt #editorial board #the washington post

[ravenkings]

When Donald J. Trump responded to his latest indictment by promising to appoint a special prosecutor if he’s re-elected to “go after” President Biden and his family, he signaled that a second Trump term would fully jettison the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence.

“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Mr. Trump said at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., on Tuesday night after his arraignment earlier that day in Miami. “I will totally obliterate the Deep State.”

Mr. Trump’s message was that the Justice Department charged him only because he is Mr. Biden’s political opponent, so he would invert that supposed politicization. In reality, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, two Trump-appointed prosecutors are already investigating Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents and the financial dealings of his son, Hunter.

But by suggesting the current prosecutors investigating the Bidens were not “real,” Mr. Trump appeared to be promising his supporters that he would appoint an ally who would bring charges against his political enemies regardless of the facts.

The naked politics infusing Mr. Trump’s headline-generating threat underscored something significant. In his first term, Mr. Trump gradually ramped up pressure on the Justice Department, eroding its traditional independence from White House political control. He is now unabashedly saying he will throw that effort into overdrive if he returns to power.

Mr. Trump’s promise fits into a larger movement on the right to gut the F.B.I., overhaul a Justice Department conservatives claim has been “weaponized” against them and abandon the norm — which many Republicans view as a facade — that the department should operate independently from the president.

[...]

As the Republican Party has morphed in response to Mr. Trump’s influence, his attacks on federal law enforcement — which trace back to the early Russia investigation in 2017, the backlash to his firing of then-F.B.I. director James B. Comey Jr. and the appointment of Robert S. Mueller III as special counsel — have become enmeshed in the ideology of his supporters.

Mr. Trump’s top rival for the Republican nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, also rejects the norm that the Justice Department should be independent.

“Republican presidents have accepted the canard that the D.O.J. and F.B.I. are — quote — ‘independent,’” Mr. DeSantis said in May on Fox News. “They are not independent agencies. They are part of the executive branch. They answer to the elected president of the United States.”

Several other Republican candidates acknowledged that Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents — as outlined in the indictment prepared by the special counsel, Jack Smith, and his team — was a serious problem. But even these candidates — including Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, and former Vice President Mike Pence — have also accused the Justice Department of being overly politicized and meting out unequal justice.

The most powerful conservative think tanks are working on plans that would go far beyond “reforming” the F.B.I., even though its Senate-confirmed directors in the modern era have all been Republicans. They want to rip it up and start again.

[...]

#this seems.............bad............ #donald trump #politics #usa #news #article

[sjerzgirl]

The truth about Russia, Trump and the 2016 election - By Glenn Kessler

There have been four major investigations into Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election and the FBI’s handling of the subject — a 2019 report released by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, a 2019 Justice Department inspector general report, a bipartisan report by the Senate Intelligence Committee issued in 2020 by a GOP-controlled Senate, and now a 2023 report released by special counsel John Durham. All told, the reports add up to about 2,500 pages of dense prose and sometimes contradictory conclusions.

But broad themes can be deduced from a close reading of the evidence gathered in the lengthy documents, as well as indictments and testimony on related criminal cases. We took a long look and wrote a comprehensive report that explores four key takeaways:

*Russia tried to swing the 2016 election to Trump

*The FBI had reason to investigate a tip suggesting Trump campaign involvement

*The Trump campaign welcomed help from Russia

*The ‘Steele dossier’ proved to be a red herring

#trump #Russia #steele dossier #interference #politics

[newstodayjournal]

New Trump Charges Highlight Long-Running Questions About Obstruction

When Robert S. Mueller III, the first special counsel to investigate Donald J. Trump, concluded his investigation into the ties between Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, his report raised questions about whether Mr. Trump had obstructed his inquiry. Justice Department officials and legal experts were divided about whether there was enough evidence to show Mr. Trump broke the law, and his…

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[stringcrocus4]

3 Simple Techniques For This Week in the Trump Investigations

As brand new Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith takes over a series of unlawful investigations right into former President Donald Trump, he has one clear advantage: current past. It is as a rule enforcement pro and a past district attorney that he was most able to hit him by means of his personal e-mail accounts. In his instance, the bureau began appearing in to the make use of of a assortment of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. It additionally appeared right into how the company's inner e-mail marketing initiative operated. In a lot of ways, Smith is stepping right into the footwear loaded through past FBI Director Robert Mueller, named in May 2017 to review charges of connections between Trump’s 2016 governmental campaign and Russia. Final year, Trump met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and then-Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak at Trump Tower in New York. Trump's public admission to the meeting at the opportunity startled the then-FBI Director James Comey.

Smith lacks the social profile of Mueller, who prior to taking the special counsel blog post had provided as FBI director, U.S. legal representative in San Francisco and the head of Justice’s unlawful department. A elderly government authorities in Washington and outside Washington said that, after this full week's declarations of his meetings with participants of the Trump campaign, the FBI is not anticipated to have anything to do along with that. But Smith has nearly three many years of prosecutorial encounter, as a lawyer for condition and government federal governments as well as two excursions as an global battle criminal activities district attorney at the Hague. In June 2013 he and three past elderly legal representatives from the district attorney's workplace, the International Prosecutor's Office (IRO), submitted a legal action against former President George W Bush, alleging he existed to the Justice Department regarding what they were going by means of when they were indicted by his district attorneys in 1998. Mueller’s lengthier document of government service verified to be a double-edged falchion. In the overdue 1960's, George H.W. Bush became the probable Republican governmental candidate, and he was indicted of lying and not being honest when he acknowledged to lying regarding his involvement in the Kennedy assassination. But that was simply a blip of the last decade. "That was one years ago, Bush and his bro Robert were performing bad traits. He was 73 at the opportunity of his exclusive guidance visit and 75 when his file was provided. Mr. Cummings, attesting before the House Ways and Means Committee on April 16, 2006, submitted a letter to the House Administration Committee courted June 9, 2006 titled 'On the Department of Justice Counsel on Legal Issues on Secrecy in Government Communications'. The character discussed merely an session of Special Counsel to change Mr. Holder to an setting at which Mr. Cummings had formerly served. Smith, 53, seems to be not likely to deal with the kinds of objection Mueller carried out regarding his absolute best years being behind him and supposedly permitting his deputies to play outsized parts in decision-making. But trump going away party is expected to play a essential duty in finding a brand new regulation administration officer. "If that lawyer is going to be a big title in my workplace, he needs to perform it at least a little little bit through himself," pointed out Deputy District Judge Kevin G. Smith. And his low profile might produce him a more challenging intended for Trump’s allies to weaken. But that is simply a instance of making use of social media to promote a details source, not to resist a particular applicant. To what degree do Donald Trump's tweets and his own tweets that ensure brutality against law violations and the judiciary go right into inquiry? Some proof advises that this might be correct. He also has a long past of taking corruption situations to test and sentence, a abilities that may have created him an eye-catching option for Garland — and an threatening one for Trump. At least three federal government trials of past Gov. Scott Walker by Republican district attorneys have already been set up, depending on to resources knowledgeable with her situations, while he likewise has been an energetic advocate of Trump's governmental project. Listed below’s POLITICO’s appearance at the challenges and opportunities Smith experiences as he dives in to the volatile world of Trump inspections: Mueller memory Smith’s greatest resource may be the one Mueller never ever possessed: a recent exclusive guidance probe of Trump himself. Right here is the tale for you, with our own Politician. Trump is encountering two various other illegal examinations that he is taking up because of the Russia investigation—both involving alleged Trump project ties—and one involving Trump initiative assistants.

#is trump back on twitter #cnn trump #trump jr twitter #lamelo ball and teanna trump

[truck-fump]

<b>Trump's</b> obstruction of justice problem in classified documents case - The Washington Post

New Post has been published on https://truckfump.life/2022/10/13/trumps-obstruction-of-justice-problem-in-classified-documents-case-the-washington-post/

Trump's obstruction of justice problem in classified documents case - The Washington Post

No matter how Donald Trump spun it — and continues to spin it — the fact is that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia report didn’t …

#Uncategorized

[malenipshadows]

+ The liberal group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed its opposition to the Justice Department's motion to stay a federal judge's order to release the document, which laid out the legal rationale for essentially clearing former pres-ident Tr*mp of wrongdoing in relation to the special counsel investigation. + The DOJ said this week it would be appealing the order from District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, though it apologized in response to her accusations that former Attorney General William Barr had been "disingenuous" and asked her to stay her decision while it filed an appeal. + In a brief filed on Friday (5-28-2021), CREW accused the DOJ of seeking to protect its "parochial interest in preventing embarrassing information from becoming public that would cast the agency and individual agency actors in a bad light." + "By contrast, continuing to deprive the public of critical information to evaluate the conduct of former Attorney General Barr and former pres-ident Tr*mp, who still plays an outsize role on the political stage and has yet to be held accountable for his many misdeeds in and since leaving office, would cause harm to Plaintiff and the public," the court filing reads. "Under any

analysis, the public interest in disclosure outweighs any interest DOJ has in continuing to keep this information secret." + The Justice Department revealed its intention to appeal Jackson's decision this week.  "In retrospect, the government acknowledges that its briefs could have been clearer, and it deeply regrets the confusion that caused," the DOJ said in a court filing Monday (5-24-2021). + The decision disappointed Tr*mp critics and Democrats in Congress who had called on the new administration not to block the document's release following Jackson's blistering decision earlier this month. + CREW filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2019, seeking to obtain a memo prepared for Barr, that is said to lay out the reasoning for the former attorney general's conclusion that the conduct described in the report from former special counsel Robert Mueller did not support obstruction of justice charges against Tr*mp. + Jackson had accused the DOJ of misrepresenting the Mueller report's conclusions to the public in 2019 during the brief period after it had been submitted to the department but before it had been released to Congress.  She also criticized the department's attorneys for misrepresenting the memo in a way that would support keeping it out of public view. special counsel 

#Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington #William Barr the Tr*mp attorney general #William Barr dubious AG to Tr*mp #William Barr memo may explain DOJ rationale on tr*mp rulings #Manchin voted to approve William Barr #Amy Berman Jackson federal district court judge #Amy Berman Jackson #special counsel Robert S. Mueller #Robert S. Mueller III ex-FBI director #special counsel Robert S. Mueller III #mueller investigation #Robert S. Mueller III #tr*mp intentionally interfered with Mueller investigation #tr*mp lies constantly #tr*mp WH most corrupt regime in U.S. history

[republicanidiots]

...Mr. Mueller’s letter revealed deep concern about how Mr. Barr handled the initial release of the special counsel’s findings — which Mr. Mueller said created “public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation.” “This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the department appointed the special counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations,” Mr. Mueller wrote.

New York Times, 5/1/2019

#Robert S. Mueller #the Mueller Report #William Barr #Donald Trump #politics #special counsel

[buddylistsocial]

Justice Dept. Documents Highlight Criticisms of Mueller Inquiry

Justice Dept. Documents Highlight Criticisms of Mueller Inquiry

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department this week turned over to allies of President Trump documents that appeared to undermine aspects of the investigation into the campaign’s ties with Russia.

The documents — related to flawed applications for a wiretap on a former Trump adviser and an F.B.I. agent’s criticisms of the prosecution of the former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn — were the…

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#barr #Carter #Christopher (1964- ) #Danchenko #Donald J #Federal Bureau of Investigation #Flynn #Igor #Justice Department #kislyak #Michael T #mueller #Page #Peter #Presidential Election of 2016 #Robert S III #Russian Interference in 2016 US Elections and Ties to Trump Associates #Sergei I #Special Prosecutors (Independent Counsel) #Steele #Strzok #Trump #United States Politics and Government #William P #Wiretapping and Other Eavesdropping Devices and Methods

[atheistforhumanity]

Soon we will see Mueller have the chance to finally question Trump. Mueller has made it clear that right now he wants to discuss the firings of both Flynn and Comey, as well as his aggression toward Sessions for recusing himself. Obviously, this is about possible obstruction of justice charges. Before this happens, Mueller will be meeting with Steve Bannon, who has agreed to fully cooperate with the investigation.

In a recent interview on the upcoming meeting, Trump had this to say:

“You fight back,” he said, and such a response is characterized as, “‘Oh, it’s obstruction.’”

This statement may come back to bite Trump. The way to “fight back” in such a situation would be in a court room or on a podium. Firing people who are investigating you and attempting to intimidate them is not a legitimate stance.

I have said before that Trump has a weak defense against Comey. If not for any other reason than he said on television that he fired him because of the “Russia thing.”

For anyone who think that Trump may be innocent of collusion, there a lot of why questions to be answered.

If he is innocent, then WHY...

Why did he hire Flynn when Yates and Obama warned that Flynn was dirty?

Why did he aggressively pressure Comey to let ease off Flynn and as for his “loyalty”?

Why would he literally say on television that he fired Comey because of “the Russia thing?”

Why would he warn Mueller not to look into his finances?

Why did virtually every member of his campaign staff have secret meetings with Russian Gov. officials, that they all were caught lying about multiple times, and suspiciously no one can remember details about?

Why are there a string of financial ties between Russia and Trump?

Why were there back door meetings set up in the UAE?

Why does everyone in the White House have a lawyer?

Seriously! Everything these people do just screams GUILTY.

#mueller #robert s iii #Trump #Russia Investigation #questioning #politics #White House #obstruction of justice #special counsel #impeachment

[cultureofresistance]

The investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election hit the White House for the first time Friday as President Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador and agreed to help investigators as they focus on other presidential aides. U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras said the retired three-star Army general had agreed to provide "substantial assistance for prosecution of another person," giving special counsel Robert S. Mueller III a critical leg up as he pursues the case. The documents don’t identify that person. But a former official said Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior advisor, was the “very senior member” of Trump’s transition team who directed Flynn to contact Russia’s envoy last year, according to the filings. The former official identified K.T. McFarland, who was Flynn’s deputy in the White House, as the “senior member” of the team also cited in prosecution papers.

Flynn guilty plea brings Mueller investigation directly into the White House - LA Times

#michael flynn #jared kushner #us district judge rudolph contreras #trump #Chris Megerian #David S. Cloud #David Willman #la times #special counsel robert mueller

[96thdayofrage]

The former U.S. Treasury senior staffer who leaked tens of thousands of records laying bare investigations into the world of illicit financing globally will not be released from federal prison early, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.

Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, a 43-year-old former senior advisor to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), claimed to have been a whistleblower when she leaked a record-breaking trove of suspicious activity reports, also known as SARs, to BuzzFeed reporter Jason Leopold.

BuzzFeed subsequently teamed up with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and more than 400 journalists in 88 countries to pick apart and publish what became known as the “FinCEN Files.” As summarized by BuzzFeed, the catalogue of 200,000 suspicious financial transactions provided an “unprecedented view of global financial corruption, the banks enabling it, and the government agencies that watch as it flourishes.”

U.S. District Judge Gregory Woods, a Barack Obama appointee, found Edwards’s disclosures to be a reckless exposure of the U.S. national security secrets she was sworn to protect.

“Dr. Sours Edwards disclosed approximately 50,000 records, including at least 2,000 individual SARs, to someone who she knew intended to make them public,” Woods wrote on Tuesday. “Among the materials that Dr. Sours Edwards disclosed were leads regarding financing for the terrorist organization, Hezbollah. […] She also disclosed information about ongoing sensitive law enforcement operations.”

The judge added that the files that she leaked could have tipped off financial criminals and implicated the privacy of innocent third parties.

“SARs are used by investigatory agencies to unearth money laundering, terrorism and other crimes,” the ruling states. “Their disclosure harms the interests of law enforcement and the privacy interests of innocent people who may be the subject of the reports.”

Currently serving a 6-month sentence inside the West Virginia-based Federal Prison Camp Alderson, Edwards is currently slated to be released on Feb. 28 of this year. She sought her immediate release amid the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic among prison populations.

Judge Woods, who postponed her sentencing multiple times because of that spread, denied that any sentencing break was deserved.

“The defendant’s reported negative experiences in prison do not materially impact the Court’s evaluation of the sentencing factors,” Woods wrote. “The defendant’s crime was very serious. The Court considered the defendant’s medical history and the existence of COVID in the federal jail system at the time of sentencing. The manifestations of those issues described in her memorandum and supporting declaration do not materially change the Court’s evaluation. The Court’s evaluation of the need for personal and general deterrence has not changed. Nor has its assessment of the other sentencing factors.”

Since publishing the trove, BuzzFeed vocally defended Edwards for disclosing more than 200,000 suspicious financial transactions valued at more than $2 trillion across multiple global financial institutions for nearly two decades. Her supporters say that the files show regulators of banks doing little to stop apparent money laundering and other financial crimes.

News organizations like the European-based Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) teamed up with Courthouse News on what FinCEN knew about convicted Iranian-Turkish money launderer Reza Zarrab, the man behind a multibillion-dollar scheme to bust U.S. sanctions against Iran.

OCCRP also worked with Law&Crime on what Standard Chartered bank may have known about Zarrab’s conspiracy with Turkey’s state-run Halkbank.

Denying that she was a whistleblower, prosecutors said that Edwards leaked the files to advance her “own political agenda, which included disrupting or distracting from the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III.” Edwards opined in one private message that the special counsel “needs to go down too,” prosecutors said.

Edwards made her disclosures during the height of Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“Of course, none of the SARs called into question the basis or propriety of the Special Counsel’s investigation either, although leaking certain of the SARs might reasonably have been expected to negatively impact it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly J. Raven wrote in a sentencing memo in October 2020. “And that was precisely what it appears the defendant hoped would happen.”

A now-deleted Twitter account attributed to Edwards in the government’s memo showed a hodgepodge of far-right conspiracy theories and causes, including pro-Trump memes, criticism of COVID-19 mask restrictions, and a retweet of a call by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to impeach President Joe Biden.

She also, from that account, retweeted a post suggesting that she was framed, even though her supporters argue that she should be pardoned for her now-admitted actions.

[deadpresidents]

The Justice Department secretly took steps in 2017 to narrow the investigation into Russian election interference and any links to the Trump campaign, according to former law enforcement officials, keeping investigators from completing an examination of President Trump’s decades-long personal and business ties to Russia.

The special counsel who finished the investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, secured three dozen indictments and convictions of some top Trump advisers, and he produced a report that outlined Russia’s wide-ranging operations to help get Mr. Trump elected and the president’s efforts to impede the inquiry.

But law enforcement officials never fully investigated Mr. Trump’s own relationship with Russia, even though some career F.B.I. counterintelligence investigators thought his ties posed such a national security threat that they took the extraordinary step of opening an inquiry into them. Within days, the former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein curtailed the investigation without telling the bureau, all but ensuring it would go nowhere.

#President Trump #Russia #Justice Department #New York Times #ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES

[uphindia-world]

Roger Stone sorry for judge crosshair post

Roger Stone removed the post from Instagram

Roger Stone has apologised to a US judge after posting on Instagram an image of her next to what appeared to be the cross-hairs of a gun sight.

The ex-Trump campaign adviser was arrested in January and charged with seven counts as part of Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

In a comment…

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#Instagram Roger stone sorry #Judge Jackson dismissed legal action against Mrs Clinton taken by the parents of two of the four Americans killed in a 2012 attack on the US #Mr Stone called the special counsel a &quot;deep state hit-man 2017 #Roger Stone removed the post from Instagram Roger Stone has apologised to a US judge after posting on Instagram an image of her next to what #Roger Stone sorry for judge crosshair post #The ex-Trump campaign adviser was arrested in January and charged with seven counts as part of Robert Mueller&039;s investigation into Russ #who is overseeing his trial

[malenipshadows]

+ U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered the release of a 2019 legal memorandum to a government accountability group, ruling the document prepared for then-Attorney General William Barr as he considered his decision did not qualify as protected attorney-client communications. + In the ruling, Jackson characterized the memo as a "strategic" document, asserting that Justice Department officials had come to a predetermined conclusion that Tr*mp would not be charged with obstruction of justice. + "In other words, the review of the document reveals that the Attorney General was not then engaged in making a decision about whether the Pres-ident should be charged with obstruction of justice; the fact that he would not be prosecuted was a given," Jackson ruled.  The memo had been requested by

the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government under the Freedom of Information Act. + Jackson, who presided over Mueller prosecutions involving former Tr*mp campaign manager Paul Manafort and political adviser Roger Stone, also aimed scathing criticism at Barr for his handling of the Mueller report, citing the attorney general's decision to issue a brief summary of its findings only days after receiving the voluminous 448-page report. ... + The decision by Barr and senior Justice Department leaders to clear the former pres-ident of obstruction prompted Tr*mp to declare that he had been vindicated even though Mueller had not made such a declaration. + Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a public records request seeking communications about the obstruction decision after Barr said that he and other senior officials had reached that conclusion (that sitting presidents could not be charged with obstruction of justice) in consultation with the Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal opinions to executive branch agencies. + Jackson ruled that one of the documents requested by the group, described by a Justice Department official as an "untitled, undated draft legal analysis" that was submitted to the attorney general as part of his decision-making, was properly withheld from the group. But she ordered the release of the memo, which concluded that the evidence assembled by Mueller's team would not support an obstruction prosecution of Tr*mp.

#William Barr the Tr*mp attorney general #William Barr dubious AG to Tr*mp #Donald Dunce #crooked donald #Dunce and his swamp #judge orders release of tr*mp obstruction memo #judge orders release of 2019 DOJ memo #tr*mp had faced obstruction of justice charges #Barr's DOJ let tr*mp skate on obstruction charges #William Barr memo may explain DOJ rationale on tr*mp rulings #Robert S. Mueller III ex-FBI director #Robert S. Mueller III #special counsel Robert S. Mueller III #mueller investigation #Paul Manafort #Roger Stone the GOP provocateur #Roger Stone corrupt political villain