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The Robert Mueller Investigation


Hugo Stiglitz

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Also, on all of this revealing redacted or otherwise-unavailable-to-the-public information to the House, I don't think there is anything constraining the House of Representatives or any of its committees from making this stuff public.

Back when there was a special counsel law, it provided for disclosure of all to the House, but no further (just silent).  In almost every case, the House immediately published all of it, although in the past, I don't think the special counsel left any investigative/prosecutorial loose ends (so ongoing investigation would not apply), and I don't think there was any "national security/defense" type info.

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1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Also, on all of this revealing redacted or otherwise-unavailable-to-the-public information to the House, I don't think there is anything constraining the House of Representatives or any of its committees from making this stuff public.

Back when there was a special counsel law, it provided for disclosure of all to the House, but no further (just silent).  In almost every case, the House immediately published all of it, although in the past, I don't think the special counsel left any investigative/prosecutorial loose ends (so ongoing investigation would not apply), and I don't think there was any "national security/defense" type info.

So does this only refer to grand jury cases that weren't handed off to SDNY, etc?  Sorry, I really know nothing about the nitty gritty of the courts.

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1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

So does this only refer to grand jury cases that weren't handed off to SDNY, etc?  Sorry, I really know nothing about the nitty gritty of the courts.

It would be any citations/quotations to evidence or testimony presented to the grand jury during the Mueller investigation.  Because grand jury proceedings are intended to be secret, to protect the innocent and unindicted among other things, under Fed. R. Crim. P. 6, grand jury information of all kinds is maintained super-duper secret and can only be released to certain parties under circumscribed conditions.  One of those parties/conditions is a party to another "judicial proceeding," which would normally mean another prosecution unit or the defense in a criminal case.

The other primary grounds of redaction of the Mueller report were that it was information pertaining to an ongoing investigation or prosecution that might taint same if made public; and information affecting/revealing national security or defense information (spy methods and programs, etc.).  That kind of info is not going to be unredacted, assuming the redactions are of that type of information, in either the House case or the FOIA case involving a press entity.

Perhaps more directly answering the question, I believe the Mueller grand jury (to which Mueller presented his evidence to obtain indictments) dissolved when the Mueller investigation ended.  He handed off some indicted cases (e.g. Flynn and the Russian cases) and maybe some unindicted or sealed indictment cases we don't know about yet.  Regardless, it's the information cited in the report and redacted by Mueller or other elements of the government on the basis of being secret grand jury information.

Perhaps more information you may find useful.  A grand jury is impaneled for a period of time within a court jurisdiction (SDNY, for example, WD Tex for another, Travis or Dallas or Harris County for a state example) and is used by that prosecution unit to hear evidence and issue indictments for crimes committed in that jurisdiction and being investigated and prosecuted by that prosecution unit.  They are dissolved at the end of their term and replaced by another..

Because Mueller was a prosecution unit not associated with the usual geographic court districts, he got his own grand jury.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Just a friendly reminder that the trump admin till take advantage of literally anything to push their goals forward.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/politics/concord-case-russian-interference.html

Quote

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department moved on Monday to drop charges against two Russian shell companies accused of financing schemes to interfere in the 2016 election, saying that they were exploiting the case to gain access to delicate information that Russia could weaponize.

The companies, Concord Management and Concord Consulting, were charged in 2018 in an indictment secured by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, along with 13 Russians and another company, the Internet Research Agency. Prosecutors said they operated a sophisticated scheme to use social media to spread disinformation, exploit American social divisions and try to subvert the 2016 election.

Unlike the others under indictment, Concord fought the charges in court. But instead of trying to defend itself, Concord seized on the case to obtain confidential information from prosecutors, then mount a campaign of information warfare, a senior Justice Department official said.

...

With the case set to go to trial next month, prosecutors recommended that the Justice Department drop the charges to preserve national security interests and prevent Russia from weaponizing delicate American law enforcement information, according to the official. The prosecutors also weighed the benefits of securing a guilty verdict against the companies, which cannot be meaningfully punished in the United States, against the risk of exposing national security secrets in order to win in court.

...

The charges against Concord were part of the special counsel’s first major look at Russia’s election interference campaign in 2016. The companies were established to finance a wide-ranging scheme to steal the identities of American citizens and pose as political activists to exacerbate the nation’s divisions over immigration, religion and race to manipulate voters and inflame tensions, prosecutors said.

Investigators for the special counsel’s office determined that the Internet Research Agency and Concord Management and Consulting were tools of the Russian state, acting at the direction of the Kremlin. Their internet trolls, centered in St. Petersburg, Russia, aimed to suppress Democratic turnout by targeting African-American voters and sought to provoke voters on the right.

In January 2019, the federal government accused Concord of violating a protective court order designed to safeguard information shared among lawyers on the case. Prosecutors said a trove of nonclassified information they had turned over to Concord’s defense team had turned up on a website the previous October.

A message on a newly created Twitter account read: “We’ve got access to the Special Counsel Mueller’s probe database as we hacked Russian server with info from the Russian troll case Concord LLC v. Mueller. You can view all the files Mueller had about the IRA and Russian collusion. Enjoy the reading!”

So the move not only protects the narrative of "no russian help" by keeping it out of the public, but it also prevents the further release and dissemination of the unredacted Mueller Report.

I don't mean to sound all tinfoil hat-y, but a global fucking pandemic ain't a bad distraction to do shady shit like this.

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10 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Just a friendly reminder that the trump admin till take advantage of literally anything to push their goals forward.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/politics/concord-case-russian-interference.html

So the move not only protects the narrative of "no russian help" by keeping it out of the public, but it also prevents the further release and dissemination of the unredacted Mueller Report.

I don't mean to sound all tinfoil hat-y, but a global fucking pandemic ain't a bad distraction to do shady shit like this.

That case was going nowhere fast.

Quote

The prosecutors also weighed the benefits of securing a guilty verdict against the companies, which cannot be meaningfully punished in the United States, against the risk of exposing national security secrets in order to win in court.

 

Edited by TwiceHorn
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  • 4 weeks later...
4 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Sorry, not sorry.

 

Footnotes in watchdog report indicate FBI knew of risk of Russian disinformation in Steele dossier

BY CATHERINE HERRIDGE

APRIL 10, 2020 / 10:58 PM / CBS NEWS

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/footnotes-in-watchdog-report-indicate-fbi-knew-of-risk-of-russian-disinformation-in-the-steele-dossier/

 

The rest of us knew just from reading it.

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4 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Sorry, not sorry.

 

Footnotes in watchdog report indicate FBI knew of risk of Russian disinformation in Steele dossier

BY CATHERINE HERRIDGE

APRIL 10, 2020 / 10:58 PM / CBS NEWS

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/footnotes-in-watchdog-report-indicate-fbi-knew-of-risk-of-russian-disinformation-in-the-steele-dossier/

 

Yeah. So?

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From the no fucking shit file. I remember when total dip shits like @suddenly shaggy lost their fucking minds when I suggested that the dossier contained Russian disinformation. Also buried in this is the fact that the Russians knew about Steele's work before the FBI, and that they ran an intelligence operation targeting Orbis. The DNC was unwittingly funding a vehicle for russian disinformation to be inserted into the American intelligence community.   

 

https://apnews.com/d6960fe493d0eb65791778f2f5a4c131

WASHINGTON (AP) — Newly released material raises the possibility that Russian disinformation made its way into a dossier of opposition research that the FBI relied on when applying for warrants to eavesdrop on a former campaign adviser to President Donald Trump.

The new material, contained in footnotes to a Justice Department watchdog report that were recently declassified by the Trump administration, indicates the FBI was advised even as it sought the warrants that some of the information included in the dossier was not accurate or was potentially influenced by Russian disinformation.

...

One of the footnotes says the FBI was alerted in 2017 that a particular allegation included in the dossier was “part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.”

It also cites a February 2017 U.S. intelligence report saying that an individual with reported ties to Trump and Russia had cautioned that certain allegations related to Trump’s behavior during a trip to Moscow four years earlier were false and the product of Russian intelligence “infiltrate(ing) a source into the network.”

 

Edited by Anastasis
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27 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

One of the footnotes says the FBI was alerted in 2017 that a particular allegation included in the dossier was “part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.”

It also cites a February 2017 U.S. intelligence report saying that an individual with reported ties to Trump and Russia had cautioned that certain allegations related to Trump’s behavior during a trip to Moscow four years earlier were false and the product of Russian intelligence “infiltrate(ing) a source into the network.”

Awesome.  Still doesn't explain any of his beyond the pale behavior towards Russia and Putin.

Edited by Biff Tannen
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26 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Sorry.  I thought that you guys cared about Russian intelligence operations aimed at influencing American politics. My bad. 

I'm pretty sure everyone involved in this whole affair knows that Russian intelligence operations are aimed at influencing American politics. It's not really a secret.

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1 hour ago, David Dennison said:

I'm pretty sure everyone involved in this whole affair knows that Russian intelligence operations are aimed at influencing American politics. It's not really a secret.

Right. Which is why the dossier was highly suspect. Good job FBI relying on it for surveillance applications. Well done. The things that everyone involved in the whole affair knows was totally whiffed on by the FBI. Not once but twice, if you also count the Russian disinformation that influenced Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation. 
 

Kind of interesting that none of that was discussed by mueller in his report though, right. Couldn’t report anything that would tarnish the competency or reputation of the FBI, company man and all. 
 

Edited by Anastasis
Autocorrexit.
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19 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Still don't understand taking on Carter fucking page as the hill to die on. I'm happy for you that you've got a good covid distraction though. 

Just trying to get the gang back together again for good times at the cantina.

I’ll even let you try to dunk on me again when you read a story sourced from Steele’s lawyers, with no awareness of the motives of anonymous sources. Lol if you think dumbfuck Carter Page is the point. But I realize that you have nothing left to fall back on at this point, pivot to new delusions. 

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5 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Just trying to get the gang back together again for good times at the cantina.

I’ll even let you try to dunk on me again when you read a story sourced from Steele’s lawyers, with no awareness of the motives of anonymous sources. Lol if you think dumbfuck Carter Page is the point. But I realize that you have nothing left to fall back on at this point, pivot to new delusions. 

I think most people have “pivoted” to focus on the virus killing thousands and costing trillions. Not everyone apparently.

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12 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

Hi Anastasis.

Why do you hate me so? Its hurting my feelers.

I don't hate you jimmy.  I just think that you are a dumbfuck.  If you seek to understand why, you should filter your posts on this thread and have a read. 

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News flash: Anastasis believes probable cause standards should equate to beyond a reasonable doubt without allowing for any investigation.

At the end of the day, without the ability to fully question witnesses or view all documents, the Mueller investigation found that Russia interfered with the election (which was a major point of the Dossier), that there was massive amount of contact between Trump associates and Russian operatives, and that Trump obstructed justice.

Of note in the Mueller Report, was the anecdote that Trump believed Russia had incriminating tapes on him.

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9 minutes ago, Eskimohorn said:

News flash: Anastasis believes probable cause standards should equate to beyond a reasonable doubt without allowing for any investigation.

 

It's usually a red flag when a message board poster attempts to frame the position of another poster without actually quoting them.   

Edited by Anastasis
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5 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I actually thought that you had turned the corner and we were making some progress after the OIG findings were released.  I appear to have overestimated you. 

Do I think the FISA process is, was, and will continue to be abused? Yes.

Do I think the application was sloppy and not 100% above reproach in using not completely confirmed information and misrepresenting the veracity of a subset of their claims? Yes.

Do I think that nullifies and obliviates the findings of the Mueller report or the criminal convictions that flowed out of it? Nope.

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Your second point grossly understates the conclusions of the OIG report, and the many red flags of russian disinformation which continue to be revealed.  I do not think that there is any reason to downplay the problems with the FBI's use of uncorroborated political opposition research, likely based largely on Russian disinformation, to conduct surveillance in a political context. But if you need to frame it as just a sloppy mistake to save some sort of face, I can accept that.

But you're only gonna get a silver star.

5114736bdabf5b7e97f130e54a04db6c.jpg 

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28 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

Uh oh. Looks like this post has disappointed professor anastasis. 

He is disappointed.

Hi Dumbfuck.

I am happy to issue you some CLE credits for the educational services I have provided to you on this thread. God knows somebody has to pick up the slack for your legal education. I hope for the good of our university that you did your law training somewhere else. 

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1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

Hi Dumbfuck.

I am happy to issue you some CLE credits for the educational services I have provided to you on this thread. God knows somebody has to pick up the slack for your legal education. I hope for the good of our university that you did your law training somewhere else. 

Hi Ansastasis. 

Thanks for the offer but I got all the CLE I need. So tanks for nuttin!

And yes professor, while I did attend our beloved UT for undergrad, you will be relieved to know that I had too good a time at UT and as a result had to go to law school somewhere distant else. 

But now I’m back. Been quite a while actually. And when I’m not busy tormenting you on the net, I would like to believe I am helping out our fellow Austinites on some level. Maybe not as much as you are though.

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4 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

Hi Ansastasis. 

Thanks for the offer but I got all the CLE I need. So tanks for nuttin!

And yes professor, while I did attend our beloved UT for undergrad, you will be relieved to know that I had too good a time at UT and as a result had to go to law school somewhere distant else. 

Yes, this was already obvious. 

6 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

But now I’m back. Been quite a while actually. And when I’m not busy tormenting you on the net, I would like to believe I am helping out our fellow Austinites on some level.

Good on you man.  With all sincerity.

But you are still a total dumbfuck. You would not get this treatment, other than the fact that you have earned it by prior posting behavior. 

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Just now, Anastasis said:

Yes, this was already obvious. 

Good on you man.  With all sincerity.

But you are still a total dumbfuck. You would not get this treatment, other than the fact that you have earned it by prior posting behavior. 

That’s ok. I never tried to be a beloved stable genius on this board, or the shag. Quite the opposite actually.

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1 minute ago, JimmyJames said:

That’s ok. I never tried to be a beloved stable genius on this board, or the shag. Quite the opposite actually.

Really the best thing that you can do is try to develop an understanding of your boundaries and limitations, and try not to box yourself into a position where you get way out over your skis. That's my sincere advice to you. 

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Just now, Anastasis said:

Really the best thing that you can do is try to develop an understanding of your boundaries and limitations, and try not to box yourself into a position where you get way out over your skis. That's my sincere advice to you. 

K and thanks. 

One thing I think I do well is I am always questioning my own convictions and always trying to learn from my mistakes.

For example, I admit, as I did in the Biden thread, that I was totally wrong about Bush. I realized that in his second term and realized my vote for him in 2004 was a monumental mistake. Live and learn.

But trump is a danger. I don’t question that at all.

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