Exclusive: First charges filed in Mueller investigation

[Ray From Cleveland]

Now we know why the Hillary distractions got so frantic all this week.

You have it backwards. Mewler is making indictments because his commision is about to come to an end.

More like he's trying to protect himself from being fired. Filing charges would make it difficult for Trump to do anything to him with the complicit MSM.

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

The repubs are pissed that the top story is not one of their distractions but instead is
the possible indictment of of one of their cronies!

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Now we know why the Hillary distractions got so frantic all this week.

Frantic how? The MSM barely mentioned it.

 

[IM2]

Now we know why the Hillary distractions got so frantic all this week.

Frantic how? The MSM barely mentioned it.

I hate to tell you but Fox is part of the MSM.

 

[dudmuck]

Now we know why the Hillary distractions got so frantic all this week.

Frantic how? The MSM barely mentioned it.

Uranium One has been all over Trump's propaganda networks (fox / breitbart / etc).

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

Now we know why the Hillary distractions got so frantic all this week.

They brought out the "smoke and mirrors" in Industrial quantities

and besides the Indictment of Trump cronies the other Big story

White House distances itself from Whitefish power grid deal

 

[DarkFury]

Top DOJ official Dana Boente resigns

Just a wild guess, but what if it's him?
Boente!

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

Talking Points Brought to Trump Tower Meeting Were Shared With Kremlin

Natalia V. Veselnitskaya arrived at a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 hoping to interest top Trump campaign officials in the contents of a memo she believed contained information damaging to the Democratic Party and, by extension, Hillary Clinton. The material was the fruit of her research as a private lawyer, she has repeatedly said, and any suggestion that she was acting at the Kremlin’s behest that day is anti-Russia “hysteria.”

But interviews and records show that in the months before the meeting, Ms. Veselnitskaya had discussed the allegations with one of Russia’s most powerful officials, the prosecutor general, Yuri Y. Chaika. And the memo she brought with her closely followed a document that Mr. Chaika’s office had given to an American congressman two months earlier, incorporating some paragraphs verbatim.

The coordination between the Trump Tower visitor and the Russian prosecutor general undercuts Ms. Veselnitskaya’s account that she was a purely independent actor when she sat down with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and Paul J. Manafort, then the Trump campaign chairman. It also suggests that emails from an intermediary to the younger Mr. Trump promising that Ms. Veselnitskaya would arrive with information from Russian prosecutors were rooted at least partly in fact — not mere “puffery,” as the president’s son later said.

...

Talking Points Brought to Trump Tower Meeting Were Shared With Kremlin



This explains why the Deplorables are trying to distract us with talk about uranium deals and the provenance of the Steele dossier.

 

[MrShangles]

I'm gonna laugh my ass off if it's Hillary or one of her cronies.

Twitter

Moron thinks Hillary is under investigation.

She is, ever hear of Uranium one?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[NYcarbineer]

Now we know why the Hillary distractions got so frantic all this week.

Frantic how? The MSM barely mentioned it.

I'm referring to the people who have reason to be frantic, aka, the Trumptards.

 

[jc456]

Now we know why the Hillary distractions got so frantic all this week.

Frantic how? The MSM barely mentioned it.

I'm referring to the people who have reason to be frantic, aka, the Trumptards.

I bet they’re just fine.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Now we know why the Hillary distractions got so frantic all this week.

Frantic how? The MSM barely mentioned it.

I'm referring to the people who have reason to be frantic, aka, the Trumptards.

Nobody is more anxious to see what happens on Monday than the Trumptards. Strange timing is what sets off red lights in my head. The only time big announcements are made on Friday or before a holiday is when it's something that's utter BS, or they are trying to take focus off of other things like the Trump dossier.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Now we know why the Hillary distractions got so frantic all this week.

You have it backwards. Mewler is making indictments because his commision is about to come to an end.

More like he's trying to protect himself from being fired. Filing charges would make it difficult for Trump to do anything to him with the complicit MSM.

See? this will be the new level of nonsense we're going to hear.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Now we know why the Hillary distractions got so frantic all this week.

Frantic how? The MSM barely mentioned it.

I'm referring to the people who have reason to be frantic, aka, the Trumptards.

I bet they’re just fine.

The hysterical flood of threads on USMB this past week proves that wrong.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Now we know why the Hillary distractions got so frantic all this week.

Frantic how? The MSM barely mentioned it.

Uranium One has been all over Trump's propaganda networks (fox / breitbart / etc).

The Trump dossier hasn't. I believe out of all the networks, they gave it 20 seconds combined reporting.

 

[IM2]

Now we know why the Hillary distractions got so frantic all this week.

Frantic how? The MSM barely mentioned it.

Uranium One has been all over Trump's propaganda networks (fox / breitbart / etc).

The Trump dossier hasn't. I believe out of all the networks, they gave it 20 seconds combined reporting.

Again, Fox is part of the Trump propaganda network.

 

[bodecea]

Will believe it when it happens. No speculation here. Just waiting for the facts.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Will believe it when it happens. No speculation here. Just waiting for the facts.

Much ado over nothing I'm sure. I smell too much politics here.

 

[Valerie]

Typically taking an aggressive, public action like sending the FBI to search a subject's home is not an early step in an investigation. A prosecutor would first take steps that can be done covertly, without the subject knowing, to gather evidence that can serve as the basis for more aggressive actions like search warrants.



One typical step that federal prosecutors take near the beginning of white-collar investigations is obtaining tax returns. I worked with federal prosecutors who obtained tax returns in every single white-collar investigation they worked on. I didn't do that, but I obtained tax returns in most white-collar cases I investigated, particularly cases involving financial transactions.

Obtaining a subject's tax returns can be a useful tool in almost any investigation. They tell you where the person invests their money, where their bank accounts are, where they have debts and who they've given money to. Often the information found in a tax return can tell a prosecutor which financial institutions and corporate entities to subpoena for records.

At times, obtaining tax returns can lead to evidence of tax offenses. If an individual receives money that is not reported in the tax return or is misrepresented, that can be charged as a separate federal crime. Hiding financial transactions also can be used as evidence that the subject knew that the underlying source of the money was illegal.

A federal prosecutor obtains tax returns by seeking an ex parte order from a federal judge. That means that the person who is being investigated doesn't know that the tax returns are being sought or if the judge issues the order. Basically, it's done in secret. That's why tax returns are often sought in the early stage of an investigation, before the subject knows exactly what the prosecutor is looking at.

The statute permitting a prosecutor to obtain tax returns in a non-tax investigation requires a senior Justice Department official to sign off on obtaining a tax return, but Mueller has authority to do so because the statute permits "United States attorneys" to obtain tax returns and he has the power of a "United States attorney" pursuant to the special counsel regulations. In my former office, a person designated by the United States attorney routinely approved requests for tax returns.

In my former office, a person designated by the United States attorney routinely approved requests for tax returns.

OPINION | Here's why Mueller might already have Trump’s tax returns

 

[Valerie]

So what does a prosecutor need to show the judge to obtain a tax return? The statute requires the prosecutor to show three things.

First, the prosecutor has to show "there is reasonable cause to believe" that a specific criminal act has been committed. That's where the recent news of the Manafort search warrant comes in. We know that Mueller had enough evidence to establish "reasonable cause" that a crime was committed because he got a search warrant.

Mueller would also have to establish that he could not "reasonably" obtain the tax return from another source, like the person's accountant. Generally speaking, that is an easy thing for a prosecutor to prove. If they can't prove that, it means they will just get the tax return elsewhere.

Finally, Mueller would have to establish that "there is reasonable cause to believe" the return "may be relevant" to his investigation. That is a very low bar, much lower than what Mueller had to establish to obtain a search warrant for Manafort's home. To obtain the search warrant, Mueller had to establish that there was probable cause to believe there was specific evidence of a crime at a specific location — Manafort's home.

All that he has to show is that the tax return might help him in his investigation. That means that even the tax return of someone other than Manafort would be helpful to Mueller as he conduct his investigation. At this point, we don't know what other evidence Mueller has and exactly whom he is focusing his investigation upon. But given that all he has to show is that the tax return "may be relevant" to his investigation, which has a very broad mandate, he could have tax return information for many individuals.

That brings us to the obvious question — does Mueller have the president's tax returns? There is not enough public information for us to know. Public reports of subpoenas relating to Trump Organization financial records could suggest that Mueller may have sought tax return information of those business entities, if not the president himself.