As the FBI Hits Back At GOP/Trump Improprieties, a Constitutional Crisis Looms

Frighteningly, House Republicans continue to be hell bent to release a memo concocked by Rep. Devin Nunes, an apparent Trump/Putin minion, that the FBI and Justice Department state will create a national security danger to America.  Their sole motivation seems to be protect Der  Trumpenführer who is increasingly desperate to undermine the Mueller investigation.  As former RNC chairman Michael Steele noted last evening, some one innocent does not got to such extreme lengths to kill or discredit an investigation.  Steele's conclusion?  Trump has something very bad that he is seeking to hide.  As for Houser republicans and others who are trashing the FBI and Justice Department, his prediction is that the ultimate fall out will be extremely damaging to the Republican Party. Meanwhile, the FBI -including Trump's handpick director - and Justice Department took the unusually step of warning that the release of Nunes' concocked memo will cause serious national security to the nation.  I truly do not remember a time in my life time - Watergate included - when one political party has put partisanship and protecting an extremely foul occupant of the White Hose ahead of the national interest.  A piece in The Atlantic at the headlong plunge toward a constitutional crisis.  Here are excerpts:

For more than two weeks, the Trump White House has engaged in an unprecedented assault on the president’s own Justice Department, and in particular on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the the FBI. On Wednesday, the targets of that assault started firing back.

The apparent catalyst is a memo, prepared at the behest of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, that is said to allege inappropriate use of a dossier, compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, in securing a warrant to surveil former Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser Carter Page. On Monday, the committee voted along partisan lines to release the memo, and the White House now has a chance to review the release.

The DOJ and FBI have both strenuously argued in private that the memo is factually wrong, because it leaves out key points; that it is misleading, because it is decoupled from the intelligence that feeds it; and that it would recklessly reveal classified information. On Monday, according to The Washington Post, Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray went to the White House to campaign against release. On Wednesday, the FBI went farther, releasing a highly unusual, unsigned public statement arguing against release. Saying that the FBI takes cooperation with congressional overseers seriously, it nonetheless laid down its flat opposition to releasing the memo. “The FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it,” the statement said. “As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

In publicly making this blunt statement, the FBI places itself on a collision course with the White House. The president, hoping the memo will vindicate him or at least undermine the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia, seems disposed to release it. . . . . Wednesday’s statement looks like a last-ditch effort to convince the White House, but if it doesn’t work, the rift will be clear. Wray risks making himself the second FBI director Trump fires.

Later on Wednesday, CNN reported that in December, as the Justice Department tried to push back on demands for documents from Nunes, Rosenstein visited the White House to ask Trump’s assistance. . . . . Rosenstein was also preparing for important testimony at the Capitol. Nunes, meanwhile, was a member of the Trump transition team and previously colluded with White House aides. . . . According to CNN, citing “sources familiar with the meeting,” Trump asked Rosenstein if he was “on my team.”

Trump has a history of asking questions of aides that seem to demand personal loyalty, even of those charged with upholding laws. Fired FBI Director James Comey testified under oath that Trump asked him for loyalty in January 2017. At a May meeting, Trump reportedly asked Comey’s deputy, Andrew McCabe, who became acting director of the FBI, who he had voted for in the 2016 election.

Then CNN dropped another big story about FBI agent Peter Strzok, who has been accused of conspiring to hurt Trump’s campaign; . . . . Emails obtained by CNN indicate Strzok wrote the first draft of a letter that Comey sent to Congress on October 28, 2016, informing members that the FBI was reopening an investigation into Clinton based on emails newly found on Anthony Weiner’s computer. Strzok “also supported reopening the Clinton investigation once the emails were discovered on disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner's laptop, according to a source familiar with Strzok’s thinking,” CNN said. The revelation further undermines the story of Strzok leading some sort of resistance cell to Trump inside the FBI . . . .

[A]s my colleague David Frum put it on Twitter, “Never start a leak war against the FBI.” . . . . people in the bureaucracy have used leaks to get back at those who cross them.

A man who campaigned for president as the candidate of “law and order” is sprinting headlong into releasing a memo that the head of the FBI—Trump’s own hand-picked director—and the deputy attorney general, another Trump pick, believe could mislead the public and damage law enforcement. Meanwhile, there’s a real possibility that Trump’s attacks on the FBI and Justice Department have inspired retaliatory leaks, meaning that the president would have effectively elicited just the deep-state conspiracy against him that he alleged in the first place.

The White House’s assault on Justice and the FBI has long been premised on being able to an asymmetric war: Trump and his allies can make claims or even release the memo, but DOJ, bound by concerns about classified information, is hobbled from rebutting the memo. But many of the claims laid out by Trump champions make little or no sense.

In an increasingly energetic attempt to discredit the investigations that are targeting him, especially the Mueller probe, Trump is not discriminating about his targets.  The question is less whether Rosenstein or any other individual views himself as on the president’s team, but whether the president sees them as members of the opposing team.

FBI Eyes Cypriot Bank as Possible Link in Trump/Russia Conspiracy

Personally, I had hoped that Robert Mueller would give Donald Trump an early Christmas gift on Friday and release indictments against Jared Kushner.  Sadly, that did not happen but it now appears that the FBI is investigating a defunct bank in Cyprus that may have been a conduit for moving illegal Russian funds into New York City and other real estate ventures.  If this happened, Trump, of course, would likely have been a recipient of such illegal funds. From there it is easy to conjecture that Vladimir Putin viewed this as a way to conspire with and meanwhile get blackmail information on Trump.  Given Trump's past history of deals with the Mafia and other underworld figures, it truly isn't much of a stretch to believe that Trump would be all in on such an arrangement, especially if it brought much needed cash to prop up Trump's precarious real estate empire.  A piece in The Guardian looks at the FBI investigation and how it could add to Trump's legal nightmares.  Here are excerpts:

The FBI has asked officials in Cyprus for financial information about a defunct bank that was used by wealthy Russians with political connections and has been accused by the US government of money laundering, two sources have told the Guardian.

The request for information about FBME Bank comes as Cyprus has emerged as a key area of interest for Robert Mueller, the US special counsel who is investigating a possible conspiracy between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Kremlin.

People familiar with the FBI request told the Guardian that federal investigators and the US Treasury approached the Central Bank of Cyprus in November seeking detailed information about FBME, which was shut down this year.

One person familiar with the FBI request said it appeared to be connected to Mueller’s ongoing examination of Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign manager who was indicted in October, and money that flowed between former Soviet states and the US through Cypriot banks.

The Central Bank of Cyprus, which in 2014 placed FBME under administration in a direct response to US action and obtained full access to the bank’s data, declined to comment. The US special counsel’s office also declined to comment.

FBME has vigorously denied accusations that it has been a conduit for money laundering and other criminal activity.

Bloomberg said the Russia-related investigation, which is being led by the US attorney’s office in New York, was connected to a flow of illegal Russian funds into the New York real estate market.

FBME, previously known as the Federal Bank of the Middle East, was based in Tanzania but about 90% of its banking was conducted in Cyprus. A report by the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in 2014 said the bank was an institution of “primary money laundering concern”.

The report found that the bank was evading efforts by the Central Bank of Cyprus to supervise its activities, and that FBME was facilitating money laundering, terrorist financing, transnational organised crime, fraud, sanctions evasion, weapons trading and political corruption. . . . . about half of the bank’s clients were Russian nationals, including Vladimir Smirnov, who is close to Putin, and Aleksandr Shishkin, a member of Putin’s political party.
 
It is not clear why Mueller and his team of investigators appear to be interested in FBME’s financial data. But it indicates that the special counsel is continuing to examine money flows from Cyprus.

Manafort has pleaded not guilty to charges that he laundered millions of dollars through foreign banks as part of a scheme to hide his work for political parties in Ukraine. He is accused of funnelling the funds through foreign shell companies, including many that were based in Cyprus.

Mueller’s team has separately issued a subpoena for information from Deutsche Bank. According to a person close to the bank, the subpoena was issued in the autumn. The German bank is Trump’s biggest lender.

Deutsche also worked as a correspondent bank for FBME. Internal emails seen by the Guardian show that executives from both banks were in contact in 2014 discussing accounts that were “on the radar” of US law enforcement.

Deutsche Bank said in a statement: “We severed our relationship with FBME in 2014 and have added more than 1,000 anti-financial crime staff in recent years to make our business safer and increase our controls.”

Trump Should Be Very Afraid of Mueller: Ask John Gotti or Sammy “The Bull”

While Congressional Republicans and the foul occupant of the White House are striving to focus attention on the U.S. Senate's passage of a horrific tax bill - if the nation is lucky, the House and Senate will prove unable to come to an agreement that merges the two versions of a massive give away to the obscenely wealthy and large corporations - the real news from yesterday is that Michael Flynn has struck a plea deal with Robert Mueller and is now set to spill his guts about Trump campaign collusion with Russia and/or obstruction of justice flowing from the oval office.  Besides setting the stage for serious legal exposure to Der Trumpenführer, the first inklings have appeared that Mike Pence may well also find himself in legal jeopardy.  A piece in the Washington Post notes in part as follows:

After six months of work, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has indicted two advisers to President Trump and accepted guilty pleas from two others in exchange for their cooperation with his probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election — a sign of mounting legal peril for the White House.

With the guilty plea Friday by former national security adviser Michael Flynn — one of Trump’s closest and most valued aides — the investigation has swept up an array of figures with intimate knowledge of the campaign, the transition and the White House.

It appears to have swiftly expanded beyond Russia’s interference in the campaign to encompass a range of activities, including contacts with Russian officials during the transition and alleged money laundering that took place long before Trump ran for office.
And Flynn’s agreement to fully cooperate with investigators suggests that Mueller is not done yet.

Both Flynn and George Papadopoulos, who served as a foreign policy adviser to Trump’s campaign, acknowledged lying to the FBI about their contacts with the Russians. Now, both are cooperating with Mueller, according to prosecutors, potentially providing evidence against other Trump aides.

On Friday, the news about Flynn’s deal broke after the regular senior staff meeting at the White House, startling top officials and leaving many feeling helpless.  “We don’t know really what is going on,” said one adviser who speaks to Trump often and requested anonymity to describe private conversations. “Who’s it going to implicate? What are they going to say?”

Flynn’s cooperation poses particular risks for the White House. . . . . If anyone on the campaign coordinated with the Russians in their efforts to interfere with the election, Flynn would probably have been aware.

Aside from the legal implications, Flynn’s account could ratchet up the political pressure on the White House, which will now face more questions about why incoming Vice President Pence, chief of staff Reince Priebus and then-spokesman Sean Spicer insisted that Flynn did not discuss sanctions with Kislyak when other senior officials knew otherwise.

Not surprisingly, Der Trumpenführer is tweeting that Flynn did not implicate anyone in the White House.  Like everything coming from Trump's lips or fingers, the claim is not true.  It seems that Jared Kushner in particular should be very nervous about his own false statements.  As for Mueller's strategy of only hitting Flynn with one of the many charges that he could have faced, a piece in Vanity Fair lays out why Trump should be very, very afraid of what Mueller hopes to accomplish.  Here are highlights:

For months, Mueller has been working his way up the Trump food chain, beginning with a guilty plea by campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, and, more recently, a 12-count indictment against former campaign manager Paul Manafort. (Manafort has pleaded not guilty.) On Friday, after meetings to discuss a deal, the president’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, walked into a federal courtroom in Washington, D.C., and pleaded guilty in an arrangement that reportedly includes his testimony against more campaign officials, possibly including Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the president himself.

It is, one person close the administration recently observed, a “classic Gambino-style roll-up.” To understand how Mueller might now proceed, to get a sense of the compromises he’d be willing to make to bag the larger prosecutorial targets in his sights, it’s eye-opening to go back to the deal he [Mueller] cut with Sammy the Bull.

When Gravano sent word from his cell in 10 South that he wanted to meet with the F.B.I., and that, more pointedly, he wanted to speak to them alone, the overwhelming suspicion was that it was more bull from the Bull. Robert Mueller didn’t believe it.

It is not difficult to imagine the tortured debate within Mueller’s mind as he weighed the decision. He could allow Sammy, a man who had admittedly killed 19 men, to play for Uncle Sam’s team. Or he could go into the Gotti trial knowing that Teflon Don—the swaggering crime boss who had walked away from three prior trials—could once again get away with murder.

All that is known with certainty is that Mueller agreed to the deal that would make Gravano the government’s star witness, the lynchpin of the federal case. In return, a murderer with 19 notches on his gun would wind up spending not much more time in jail than a deadbeat dad.

And all at once John Gotti was on his feet, and he let out a piercing wail as he recognized the act of betrayal that was unfolding just outside his cell door. The plaintive scream, Mouw would say, seemed to echo throughout the entire prison, bouncing off the walls and filling every bit of space. It was a sustained and powerful noise. And he imagined he could still hear the Don’s lamentations as he hustled Gravano into the back of the Chevrolet parked on the street 10 floors below.  It was a nice bit of theatre, but in the end, when the curtain fell, Gotti was—at last!—found guilty.

And Robert Mueller, who would go on to head the F.B.I., had discovered the logic that is the unwritten precept in any treatise on the art of the deal: winning is better than losing. It is ample justification for most any compromise.

Now, as special counsel, he is once again making deals.  He is still determined to get his man at all costs. First he flipped Papadopoulos. And then his office met with Robert Kelner, Michael Flynn’s lawyer. Many accusations were swirling around Flynn, including, not least, his alleged role in a complicated plot to kidnap Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen in return for a $15 million payday (a charge his lawyer has adamantly denied on his client’s behalf). But on Friday the deal was cut: Flynn was charged with one felony count of making a false statement to the F.B.I. regarding his potentially incriminating conversations with the Russian ambassador.

In return for getting off with what amounts to little more than a slap on his bony wrist—the maximum sentence the former general now faces is five years—Flynn will soon have to keep his side of the bargain. Can there be any doubt that the general who had chanted “Lock her up!” at the Republican National Convention has, like Gravano, agreed “to change sides?” Or is there any doubt that Mueller has brought Flynn into his fold because he has his eye fixed, once again, on bigger prey?

It is not difficult to imagine the wail of indignation, a keening and self-righteous outburst [from Trump] that would rival John Gotti’s at his moment of betrayed shock, that might rise out of the Oval Office when Flynn’s testimony finds its target.

Let's hope that Flynn's decision to be "flipped" will be viewed by history as the beginning of the end of the Trump/Pence regime. 

UPDATED:  A fun piece at Mother Jones looks at why Mike Pence likewise needs to be very afraid of where things may be headed.  Here's a small taste:

Mueller’s statement puts Pence on the hot seat. Was he really unaware of what “senior members” of the transition team were told about Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak? After all, at that time, Pence was the head of the transition team. A spokeswoman for Pence did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The bottom line is that Pence, as vice-president elect, made remarks that concealed a questionable Flynn interaction with Russia that was actually approved by the transition team that Pence himself was in charge of. The question now is: Was Pence a witting participant in this plot? And if not, who are the senior Trump aides named in the Mueller document who allowed this cover-up to occur?
 

Mueller’s Use of Grand Jury Confirms What We Already Knew

Two demagogues, two liars, two mentally unstable men

Tonight Trump was in West Virginia ranting that the entire Russian investigation is a lie and utter fabrication and whined about the FBI's failure to prosecute Hillary Clinton and numerous insane claims.  Indeed, in his remarks, Trump seem to advocate for a dismantling of the rule of law. Meanwhile, word is out today that special prosecutor Robert Mueller has impaneled a second grand jury, in the District of Columbia, to further probe potential witnesses and  to subpoena documents from individuals and institution that would otherwise refuse to produce documents and information.  Having worked with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office on more than one occasion, few things are more intimidating than receiving a subpoena from those offices.  Short of an attorney client privilege situation, you will turn over requested documents.  Just as important, witness will be forced to choose between protecting themselves and avoiding perjury charges or lying for Trump and his sycophants.   Of course, as a column in the Washington Post points out, none of this should come as a surprise.  I have always believed that Trump was dirty - not to mention a pathological liar - and Mueller's investigation is going to find something damning. Here are column excerpts:

Breathless tweets and breaking-news banners notwithstanding, reports that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has empaneled a grand jury in the ongoing investigation of the Trump campaign and potential Russian collusion are entirely unsurprising. This development isn’t a nothing-burger, but it doesn’t suggest anything we didn’t already know.

The grand jury has the subpoena power that prosecutors need to compel reluctant witnesses to testify under oath. Grand jury subpoenas are also how prosecutors gather documents such as bank records, emails and corporate papers from entities or people who might not produce them voluntarily.

If a preliminary inquiry suggests there is nothing to a case, prosecutors might never empanel a grand jury. They and the FBI might conduct voluntary interviews, examine readily available documents and determine that no more formal inquiry is warranted.

It’s been clear for months that the allegations are sufficiently serious to merit a full investigation. And in the world of federal prosecutors, that means using a grand jury. . . . In fact, prosecutors in this probe have been using a grand jury for some time. Grand jury proceedings take place in secret, so there is often not a lot of news about what is happening in the room.

The reality is that any investigation serious enough to warrant the appointment of a special counsel was always likely to involve a grand jury. It was always going to drag on for months. In a case this complex, it takes a long time to investigate the various allegations, subpoena and review relevant documents, and put relevant witnesses before the grand jury. If there are grants of immunity or plea deals to be negotiated, that takes time as well.

Mueller has already hired more than a dozen prosecutors to staff his investigation. Anyone who thought this was going to be over quickly was kidding themselves. The “news” confirms what we already knew.

In the past weeks, there have been a number of startling and significant developments in the Russia probe. News that the special counsel is using a grand jury is not one of them.

I sincerely hope that Mueller finds enough evidence of crimes on Trump's part to drive him from office either via resignation or impeachment.  As for Mike Pence, I continue to believe that he is not the unknowing "Sergeant Schultz" that he claims to be.  He needs to go down with Trump. 

Congress/FBI Investigating Another Possible Undisclosed Sessions-Kislyak Meeting

Prior posts have made it very clear that I view Attorney General Jeff Sessions as a miserable excuse for a human being.  My feelings date all the way back to my days in Mobile, Alabama when Sessions refused to prosecute KKK members who lynched a young black man in Mobile.  Combine  Sessions' flaming racism with his homophobia and apparent constant lying to Congress and it ought to be obvious to anyone other than a white supremacist and/or Christofascists - my "friends" who voted for Trump and support Sessions can pick which of these two best describes them - that Sessions is unfit for the office of Attorney General of the United States of America.  Now, on top of all of this, it appears that Sessions may have had another secret meetings with the Russian ambassador - a meeting that he never disclosed to Congress even in his "corrected" disclosure.  Here are highlights from CNN:

Congressional investigators are examining whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions had an additional private meeting with Russia's ambassador during the presidential campaign, according to Republican and Democratic Hill sources and intelligence officials briefed on the investigation.

Investigators on the Hill are requesting additional information, including schedules from Sessions, a source with knowledge tells CNN. They are focusing on whether such a meeting took place April 27, 2016, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, where then-candidate Donald Trump was delivering his first major foreign policy address. Prior to the speech, then-Sen. Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak attended a small VIP reception with organizers, diplomats and others. In addition to congressional investigators, the FBI is seeking to determine the extent of interactions the Trump campaign team may have had with Russia's ambassador during the event as part of its broader counterintelligence investigation of Russian interference in the election. The FBI is looking into whether there was an additional private meeting at the Mayflower the same day, sources said.
 Sessions has previously failed to disclose meetings with Russian officials. During his confirmation hearing on January 10, Sessions testified that he "did not have any communications with the Russians" during the campaign. He also said in a written statement submitted to the Senate judiciary committee that he was not in contact with anyone linked to the Russian government during the election. Those answers became problematic for Sessions when reports emerged in March that he did have two meetings with Kislyak during the campaign -- one at the Republican National Convention in July and one in his Senate office in September.
 [W]hen Sessions updated his sworn testimony to the Senate judiciary committee, he acknowledged the two meetings with Kislyak but did not mention any encounter at the Mayflower Hotel. Russia was already trying to help Trump before the Mayflower Hotel speech, according to a US intelligence community assessment released in January. The report concluded that by March 2016, Kremlin-backed news outlets began supporting Trump and Russian military intelligence had kicked off its election-related cyber operations.

Sessions needs to resign immediately.  Prosecution for perjury and contempt of Congress are also in order.

100 Days of Russiagate and No End in Sight

With almost no accomplishments to show 100 days into his misrule, Trump has managed to do something few presidents have done so quickly: trigger and on going FBI investigation and four Congressional investigations into whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russian intelligence operatives and thus the Kremlin to throw the 2016 election to Trump.  It's about the only "huge" thing Der Trumpenführer has managed and the good news is that there is no end in sight for the Russiagate investigations which, I personally hope will find collusion and treason and end the Trump/Pence nightmare for the country.  A piece at CNN looks at the ongoing saga (read the whole piece):

Russia's influence is currently the subject of four separate congressional probes, and has led to the resignation of the national security adviser and the recusal of the attorney general for the Justice Department investigation into the matter.

The steady drip of leaks coming from intelligence sources familiar with the federal investigation has turned into a consistent stream of embarrassing news for the new administration.

As the Trump White House heads into the 100th day, House and Senate investigators are on a slow, methodical track, pulling together the many threads of Russia's ties to a core group of Trump's top advisers, all of which promises to extend the steady stream of news related Russia much farther into the President's term.

The White House has consistently argued there is no connection between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives. In an amusing exchange during his daily briefing last month, White House press secretary Sean Spicer made the point that overzealous reporters are seeking something that doesn't exist.

The Russia investigations stand at a juncture now -- with questions of whether they will turn out more like Watergate, which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon (a president Trump is often compared to stylistically) or closer to Whitewater -- a fiasco which harangued President Bill Clinton through his first term in office, but ended with no criminal charges against the president.

The one thing that is certain is this cloud of Russia questions is not moving from over the administration any time soon.

The very run-up to Trump's 100-Day mark was dominated by news first that former national security adviser Michael Flynn may have broken the law by not disclosing payments from RT-TV on his security clearance application -- a revelation not from the House intelligence committee, but instead the House oversight committee.

We've already seen this coverup behavior for the last few months: the number of people who met with Russians who didn't disclose it, the information that we've asked for -- whether it's Flynn, or Sessions, or Kushner -- that they won't turn over is concerning."

The White House has distanced itself from the four major targets of both the FBI probe and Congressional investigators -- Flynn, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page and former Trump aide Roger Stone.

Veteran congressional investigators say the best answer is to simply not fight the inquiries, by either withholding documents or distracting. . . . . The White House does not appear to heeding at least some of that advice, telling the House oversight committee earlier this week that for several reasons it would not be handing over documents they requested related to Flynn.

The peril for the Trump administration is that it now faces not just an active FBI investigation, but two major, functioning Congressional probes and additional inquiries -- all churning slowly in quiet, digging deeper into the Trump campaign's ties to Russian operatives.

Meanwhile, outside the Capitol, "Tax Returns!" has become a chant in rowdy town hall meetings where Democratic and Republican lawmakers are bombarded with questions about Trump's financial holdings that, progressive activists say, could easily show Trump's own ties to Russia.

So far, Republicans in the House and Senate have resisted calls to subpoena Trump's tax returns. But House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has noted that, if Democrats win back the House in 2018, they could easily seek his tax returns.

The 100-Day benchmark is typically a victory lap for a new administration -- but the parade of Russia stories from this fledgling White House and the outstanding questions -- almost guarantees the story far away from its ending.

It's Time to Follow the Russian Money

I have worked with the FBI on several occasions in the past.  All of these cases involved real estate and financial improprieties and what ultimately constituted wire fraud and receipt of illicit funds.  On one occasion I was a witness in a federal court trial and in the others, I was the real estate expert that literally gave FBI special agents and .attorneys in the U. S. Attorneys office a tutorial, if you will, on real estate transactions and who money and document recordings should be done if a transaction is above board. One of the targets received a 30 year sentence. When all else fails, often wire fraud can be the hook to take down crooked real estate players.

All of this brings me to the topic of Russian money and how it flowed into numerous Trump properties - a post from  roughly a week ago noted the almost $100 million that had flowed into Trump properties in South Florida - and how Trump associates are alleged to have been swimming in Kremlin directed monies.  As in the cases I worked on with the FBI, often the flow of monies can build a fuller picture of what is really going on and who is receiving illicit funds, often knowingly by those who viewed themselves as smarter than everyone else and above the law.  Sound like Donald Trump?  A column in the Washington Post looks at the need for the FBI and IRS to "follow the money."  Here are excerpts:

As the Watergate probe was heating up in the summer of 1973, the special prosecutor’s office gained a silent partner: the Treasury Department’s Internal Revenue Service. The Watergate scandal had engulfed the activities of corporations and corporate officials. An IRS investigation found tax violations committed with campaign contributions to the 1972 presidential campaign of Richard M. Nixon.

With information gained from the IRS, the special prosecutor’s probe resulted in 18 corporate officials and 17 corporations pleading guilty to violations of campaign contribution laws.

This week, FBI Director James B. Comey told Congress that the bureau is “investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”

Based upon what has come to light thus far, expect the FBI to be joined by Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the IRS. They are the agencies best equipped to conduct financial investigations into any possible crimes dealing with or motivated by money — as in money laundering.

Case in point: The Post’s March 21 article on a Ukrainian lawmaker’s release of financial documents allegedly showing that former Trump aide Paul Manafort laundered payments from the party of an ex-leader of Ukraine with ties to Russia using accounts in Belize and Kyrgyzstan.

If the financial documents are accurate and, as alleged by Ukrainian lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko, Manafort falsified an invoice to a Belize company to legitimize a $750,000 payment to himself, then the FBI and Treasury may come calling. . . . . Treasury agents, the Associated Press reported , have already obtained information about offshore transactions involving Manafort in connection with a federal anti-corruption investigation into his work in Eastern Europe.

The Financial Times reported in October that an investigation that it conducted had turned up evidence of ties between one Trump venture and an alleged international money-laundering network. Title deeds, bank records and correspondence showed that a Kazakh family accused of laundering hundreds of millions of dollars bought apartments in a Manhattan building part-owned by Trump and pursued business ventures with one of his partners.

Real estate provides a safe haven for overseas investors. It has few reporting requirements and is a preferred way to move cash of questionable provenance. Amid the turmoil, buyers found a dearth of available projects. Trump World Tower, opened in 2001, became a prominent depository of Russian money.”

Trump may be correct when he says he has no money in Russia and has never invested there. He can’t say, however, that Russians haven’t invested in his real estate properties.

His son Donald Jr. said no less, claiming in 2008 that Russian investments were “pouring in” to Trump’s business ventures.

So the feds must “follow the money trail” wherever it leads. Check records, bank accounts and real estate files where laundered money can ooze like water through a sponge. Who gave it, who got it, and when? Where is it now? And what was received in return?

Can federal agents under Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin count on Mnuchin’s defense against outside interference?

Congress strongly protected the integrity of federal investigations into Watergate. What about now?

FBI Is Investigating Whether Far-Right Sites Helped Russians

Another day and yet more news that ought to make sane Americans more upset with Republicans who are trying to cover up for Der Trumpenführer and his toxic regime.  As McClatchy reports, the FBI is investigating whether far-right "news" sites aided Russian efforts to throw the 2016 presidential election to Trump.   Given the insanity of some of these sites on a good day, there truly is no telling what these purveyors of lies and deranged conspiracy theories might have done.  The same holds true for their loyal followers.  Here are story highlights:

Federal investigators are examining whether far-right news sites played any role last year in a Russian cyber operation that dramatically widened the reach of news stories — some fictional — that favored Donald Trump’s presidential bid, two people familiar with the inquiry say.

Operatives for Russia appear to have strategically timed the computer commands, known as “bots,” to blitz social media with links to the pro-Trump stories at times when the billionaire businessman was on the defensive in his race against Democrat Hillary Clinton, these sources said.

The bots’ end products were largely millions of Twitter and Facebook posts carrying links to stories on conservative internet sites such as Breitbart News and InfoWars, as well as on the Kremlin-backed RT News and Sputnik News, the sources said. Some of the stories were false or mixed fact and fiction, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the bot attacks are part of an FBI-led investigation into a multifaceted Russian operation to influence last year’s elections.

Investigators examining the bot attacks are exploring whether the far-right news operations took any actions to assist Russia’s operatives.

Russia-generated bots are one piece of a cyber puzzle that counterintelligence agents have sought to solve for nearly a year to determine the extent of the Moscow government’s electronic broadside.

“This may be one of the most highly impactful information operations in the history of intelligence,” said one former U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Bureau director James Comey confirmed Monday at a House Intelligence Committee hearing what long has been reported: that the FBI is investigating possible links between individuals in the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian campaign to influence the election and whether there was any coordination between the two.

As for the bots, they carried links not only to news stories but also to Democratic emails posted on WikiLeaks, especially those hacked from Podesta and made public in October, said Philip Howard, a professor at the Oxford University Internet Institute who has researched the bot attacks.

Russia also used “trolls,” hundreds of computer operatives who pretended to be Trump supporters and posted stories or comments on the internet complimentary to Trump or disparaging to Clinton. Sources close to the inquiry said those operatives likely worked from a facility in St. Petersburg, Russia, dedicated to that tactic.

“Russian bots and internet trolls sought to propagate stories underground,” said Mike Carpenter, a former senior Pentagon official during the Obama administration whose job focused on Russia. “Those stories got amplified by fringe elements of our media like Breitbart.”

“They very carefully timed release of information to shift the news cycle away from stories that clearly hurt Mr. Trump, such as his inappropriate conduct over the years,” he said, referring to the October release of a video in which Trump bragged about grabbing women’s genitals. That event corresponded with a surge in bot-related traffic spreading anti-Clinton stories.

Breitbart’s chief executive officer, Larry Solov, did not respond to phone and email requests seeking comment.

Bannon and Gorka have controversial profiles. Bannon has been accused of taking anti-immigrant and racist positions. Last week, the Jewish newspaper Forward reported that Gorka had taken a lifelong loyalty oath to a Hungarian far-right group that for decades was allied with the Nazi Party. 

The White House declined to respond to questions about Gorka.

At least one of the congressional committees investigating the Russian meddling is looking into the bots.  The Senate Intelligence Committee “intends to look actively at ‘fake’ news and the ways that Russian bots and trolls were used to influence the election,” said Rachel Cohen, a spokeswoman for Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the panel’s ranking Democrat.

As noted in the previous post, the non-stop reporting on ties between Trump campaign officials and Russian intelligence agents has Der Trumpenführer in a foul mood and seems to be linked to his delusional claim that Barack Obama had the phones in Trump Tower wire tapped.  Why the hysteria?  Because polls indicate that many Americans support further investigations of the Trump-Russia ties be it through Congressional investigations or otherwise. If collusion indeed with a hostile enemy foreign power occurred - and let's face it, Trump is well aware as to whether it occurred or not - Trump has ever reason to want to shut down investigations before the truth is revealed.  Politico looks at the popular support for further investigation which has to have Trump worried.  Here are excerpts:

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released this week asked Americans if they believe that Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin is “too friendly” or not. A 38 percent plurality called the Trump-Putin relationship too friendly, more than the 29 percent who said it wasn’t too friendly. Nearly a third, 32 percent, didn’t have an opinion.

When it comes to the Trump-Russia issue, there are two parallel trends that should raise red flags for the White House. First, as Americans have formed opinions on the issue, it has been to Trump’s detriment. Since December, the percentage of undecided Americans on the Trump-Putin relationship has declined from 44 percent to 32 percent. At the same time, the percentage who view Trump as too friendly with the Russian leader has risen from 31 percent to 38 percent.

Moreover, while nearly two-thirds of Democrats feel Trump is too friendly with Putin, only half (52 percent) of Republicans feel he isn’t too friendly with his Russian counterpart. Independents are unsure about Trump’s relationship with Putin — but more feel they are too friendly (35 percent) than think they aren’t (27 percent).

[M]ultiple surveys show widespread support for new and continued investigations into Trump’s connections with Russia, despite the president’s assertions that the controversy is contrived by the media to obscure the much-reported fact that Trump won last year’s election.

In the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, majorities think the Congress should investigate both whether or not there was contact between Russian officials and individuals in Trump’s campaign (53 percent) and whether the Russian government interfered with the election (54 percent).

If Trump is guilty of possible treason, even his narcissistic ass has to be very worried.

FBI Had Planned to Pay British Spy Who Authored Trump Dossier

Donald Trump and his henchmen have loudly disavowed the 35 page dossier prepared by former British spy Christopher Steele.  Many of his fellow Republicans who put party above country have followed suit and painted a picture of the dossier and its author as unreliable.  Now, it seems that the FBI though otherwise and had planned to pay Steele to continue his work to ferret out Trump/Russia ties until the dossier was leaked and the political storm surrounding it broke.  In my gut, I continue to believe that there is fire beneath the smoke contained in the dossier and that the most important thing the intelligence agencies can do is to document Trump's treason (and that of his minions, hopefully, including Mike Pence).  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the FBI's plan to have engaged Steele.  Here are excerpts:

The former British spy who authored a controversial dossier on behalf of Donald Trump’s political opponents alleging ties between Trump and Russia reached an agreement with the FBI a few weeks before the election for the bureau to pay him to continue his work, according to several people familiar with the arrangement.

The agreement to compensate former MI6 agent Christopher Steele came as U.S. intelligence agencies reached a consensus that the Russians had interfered in the presidential election by orchestrating hacks of Democratic Party email accounts.

While Trump has derided the dossier as “fake news” compiled by his political opponents, the FBI’s arrangement with Steele shows that the bureau considered him credible and found his information, while unproved, to be worthy of further investigation.

Ultimately, the FBI did not pay Steele. Communications between the bureau and the former spy were interrupted as Steele’s now-famous dossier became the subject of news stories, congressional inquiries and presidential denials, according to the people familiar with the arrangement, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

Steele was familiar to the FBI, in part because the bureau had previously hired him to help a U.S. inquiry into alleged corruption in the world soccer organization FIFA. The FBI sometimes pays informants, sources and outside investigators to assist in its work. Steele was known for the quality of his past work and for the knowledge he had developed over nearly 20 years working on Russia-related issues for British intelligence. The Washington Post was not able to determine how much the FBI intended to pay Steele had their relationship remained intact.

The revelation that the FBI agreed to pay Steele at the same time he was being paid by Clinton supporters to dig into Trump’s background could further strain relations between the law enforcement agency and the White House.

A spokesman for the FBI declined to comment. Steele’s London-based attorney did not respond to questions about the agreement.

Steele’s frustration with the FBI peaked after an Oct. 31 New York Times story that cited law enforcement sources drawing conclusions that he considered premature. The article said that the FBI had not yet found any “conclusive or direct link” between Trump and the Russian government and that the Russian hacking was not intended to help Trump.

After the election, the intelligence community concluded that Russia’s interference had been intended to assist Trump.

Could The Election Itself Be Hacked?

Given that Russian hackers have successfully attacked the DNC computers and purportedly those of the Clinton campaign as well, and that Putin loving Wikileaks has threatened to release hacked documents harmful to Hillary Clinton prior to election day, it may not be too far fetched to have worries about efforts to hack election results themselves.  Indeed, the FBI has warned two states to take action to protect their voting systems after apparent foreign efforts to hack the same.  Then, of course, there is the growing desire on the part of the GOP to win election costs through voter disenfranchisement, gerrymandered districts and other means.  Hacking would in some ways be the next logical progression for the GOP and its shrinking base of angry, often uneducated, white voters.  A column in Talking Points Memo looks at the fears of a hacked election.  Here are excerpts:

A few weeks back, when I was writing about possible Russian efforts to influence the US election, a number of security experts pointed me to concerns about hacking or tampering with the actual US voting apparatus. Now the FBI has reached out to local election officials after hacks were detected in two states. Whether something has Russian fingerprints on it is obviously hugely inflammatory and polarization. I think the emphasis here is something that someone may be trying to do this - at least on first blush, precisely who it is is less important to taking precautions to prevent problems.

For years, I've generally poo-poo'd claims about how elections had been or could be hacked. Mainly this is simply an evidence based criticism. Back in the aughts "Diebold" became the Dems equivalent of GOP "vote fraud" claims, an amorphous and generally evidenceless explanation for why your party is losing elections you wanted to win.

People get confused sometimes and believe that arguments that something can happen is proof that something has happened. Logic is hard.

There is one huge and incredibly important difference: none of the black box voting folks ever proposed solutions targeted at making it harder for one class or race of people to vote, which is what the GOP's 'vote fraud' nonsense is entirely about. So I'm not equating the two. The proposed remedies for combatting electronic or cyber-attack based election tampering may not be as necessary as some claim. But they don't do any harm. We should make these things as secure as possible.

If a political party or people working on its behalf want to hack an election that is not only an inherently difficult thing to do. More importantly, it's hard to do without leaving evidence. It also involves a lot of little explored complexities: to know what's going to be a 'reasonable' shift in the totals, you need some real time idea of what the actual results are. It's a complicated proposition that would likely involve a number of people working in concert and thus difficult to keep secret.

But here's the thing. If foreign hackers of any source or domestic hackers for that matter want to disrupt an election, that's much simpler. Perhaps you've hacked into the servers in advance and then you simply erase the data late in the day? Or shift it to all Clinton or all Trump. If it's being done from somewhere in Senegal or Bangkok you're never going to track down and apprehend the culprits. And the changes to the numbers don't need to be credible to severely disrupt the election. Complete hypothetical: what if 10 critical precinct tallies in Florida and Ohio are simply erased or tampered with so that the numbers bear no confidence? What do you do then? We're not in a high trust climate in our politics where something like that could be easily resolved. Precisely because we are already in such a low trust political era, even a tiny number of demonstrated cases of cyber-tampering would cast a penumbra of doubt over the whole process, especially for the losing party.

The point is that disruption doesn't really require hiding your tracks. It's enough to disrupt, delete, alter. It can also be done by people who don't have any particular concern with the actual election outcome, have no need to make the results credible and have none of the legal or reputational vulnerabilities that might deter people within the political system itself from trying to tamper with election results.

The country has enough things to freak out about as a country. I'm not saying we should start wigging out about this. But it's definitely worth being concerned about and hopefully one that federal law enforcement authorities are focusing on and proactively working with local authorities to prevent. And it's something qualitatively easier to pull off for bad actors whose aim is disruption rather than winning.

Why Hillary Not Likely to Be Indicted in E-Mail Flap

While the Republican establishment remains distraught and plotting over how to sabotage Donald Trump's possible nomination win, they remain near orgasmic over dreams that Hillary Clinton will be indicted over her use of a private e-mail server while Secretary of State - something we have since learned her predecessors did as well - thus throwing the Democrat side of the election process into chaos.  A column in the Washington Post looks at why this Republican wet dream is unlikely to happen.  Here are excerpts:

For those of you salivating — or trembling — at the thought of Hillary Clinton being clapped in handcuffs as she prepares to deliver her acceptance speech at the Democratic convention this summer: deep, cleansing breath. Based on the available facts and the relevant precedents, criminal prosecution of Clinton for mishandling classified information in her emails is extraordinarily unlikely.

My exasperation with Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state is long-standing and unabated. Lucky for her, political idiocy is not criminal.

There are plenty of unattractive facts but not a lot of clear evidence of criminality, and we tend to forget the distinction,” American University law professor Stephen Vladeck, an expert on prosecutions involving classified information, told me. “This is really just a political firestorm, not a criminal case.”

Could a clever law student fit the fact pattern into a criminal violation? Sure. Would a responsible federal prosecutor pursue it? Hardly — absent new evidence, based on my conversations with experts in such prosecutions.

There are two main statutory hooks. Title 18, Section 1924, a misdemeanor, makes it a crime for a government employee to “knowingly remove” classified information “without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location.” Prosecutors used this provision in securing a guilty plea from former CIA director David H. Petraeus, who was sentenced to probation and fined $100,000. But there are key differences between Petraeus and Clinton.

Petraeus clearly knew the material he provided to Paula Broadwell was classified and that she was not authorized to view it. “Highly classified . . . code word stuff in there,” he told her. He lied to FBI agents, the kind of behavior that tends to inflame prosecutors.

In Clinton’s case, by contrast, there is no clear evidence that Clinton knew (or even should have known) that the material in her emails was classified. Second, it is debatable whether her use of the private server constituted removal or retention of material.

Another possible prosecutorial avenue involves the Espionage Act. Section 793(d) makes it a felony if a person entrusted with “information relating to the national defense” “willfully communicates, delivers [or] transmits” it to an unauthorized person. That might be a stretch given the “willfully” requirement.

Section 793(f) covers a person with access to “national defense” information who through “gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust.” 

The argument here would be that Clinton engaged in such “gross negligence” by transferring information she knew or should have known was classified from its “proper place” onto her private server, or by sharing it with someone not authorized to receive it. Yet, as the Supreme Court has said, “gross negligence” is a “nebulous” term. Especially in the criminal context, it would seem to require conduct more like throwing classified materials into a Dumpster than putting them on a private server that presumably had security protections.

My point here isn’t to praise Clinton’s conduct. She shouldn’t have been using the private server for official business in the first place. It’s certainly possible she was cavalier about discussing classified material on it; that would be disturbing but she wouldn’t be alone, especially given rampant over-classification.

The handling of the emails is an entirely legitimate subject for FBI investigation. That’s a far cry from an indictable offense.