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The Robert Mueller Investigation


Hugo Stiglitz

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I feel now's a good time to remind everyone that Mueller is a true patriot who has served his country and has stood up for what is right in a more heroic fashion than all of the MAGA-hat wearing, wrap-themselves-in-the-flag, Toby Keith-listening, I-hate-the-blacks-oops-I-mean-NFL-players-because-they-won't-stand-for-the-anthem, I-need-7-AR-15s-even-though-I-live-in-Southlake-NRA-members combined.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mueller

After waiting a year so a knee injury could heal, Mueller was accepted for officer training in the United States Marine Corps in 1968, attending training at Parris Island, Officer Candidate School, Army Ranger School, and Army jump school. Of all these, he said later that he considered Ranger School the most valuable. "[It] more than anything teaches you about how you react with no sleep and nothing to eat."[20][21]

In July 1968, he was sent to South Vietnam, where he served as a rifle platoon leader with Second Platoon, H Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division.[7][22] On 11 December 1968 during an engagement in Operation Scotland II, he earned the Bronze Star with 'V' distinction for combat valor for rescuing a wounded Marine under enemy fire during an ambush in which he saw half of his platoon become casualties.[23][24][25][26] In April 1969, he received an enemy gunshot wound in the thigh, recovered, and returned to lead his platoon until June 1969.[27] For his service in and during the Vietnam War, his military decorations and awards include: the Bronze Star Medal with Combat "V", Purple Heart Medal, two Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals with Combat "V", Combat Action Ribbon, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal with three service stars, Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross, Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal, and Parachutist Badge.[7][27][21]

 

In 1989, he served in the United States Department of Justice as an assistant to Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and as acting deputy Attorney General. James Baker, with whom he worked on national security matters, said he had "...an appreciation for the Constitution and the rule of law."[32] The following year he took charge of its criminal division.[20] During his tenure, he oversaw prosecutions including that of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, the Pan Am Flight 103 (Lockerbie bombing) case, and of the Gambino crime family boss John Gotti. In 1991, he was elected a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.[7]

 

On March 10, 2004, while United States Attorney General John Ashcroft was at the George Washington University Hospital for gallbladder surgery,[42] Comey received a call from Ashcroft's wife informing him that White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales were about to visit Ashcroft to convince him to renew a program of warrantless wiretapping under the Terrorist Surveillance Program which the DOJ ruled unconstitutional.[42] Ashcroft refused to sign, as he had previously agreed, but the following day the White House renewed the program anyway.[42] Mueller and deputy attorney general James Comey then threatened to resign.[43] On March 12, 2004, after private, individual meetings with Mueller and Comey at the White House, the president supported changing the program to satisfy the concerns of Mueller, Ashcroft, and Comey.[44][43]

220px-President_George_W._Bush_is_presen
 
President Bush is presented with an honorary FBI Special Agent credential, 2008

As director, Mueller also barred FBI personnel from participating in enhanced interrogations with the CIA. At a dinner, Mueller defended an attorney (Thomas Wilner) who had been attacked for his role in defending Kuwaiti detainees. Mueller stood up, raised his glass, and said, "I toast Tom Wilner. He's doing what an American should." However, the White House pushed back, encouraging more vigorous methods of pursuing and interrogating terror suspects. When Bush confronted Mueller to ask him to round up more terrorists in the U.S., Mueller responded, saying, "If they [suspects] don't commit a crime, it would be difficult to identify and isolate" them. Vice President Dick Cheney objected, by saying, "That's just not good enough. We're hearing this too much from the FBI."[45]

 

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On 30 June 1934, Hitler, accompanied by SS units, arrived at Bad Wiessee, where he personally placed Röhm and other high-ranking SA leaders under arrest. Over the next 48 hours, 200 other senior SA officers were arrested on the way to Wiessee. Many were shot as soon as they were captured, but Hitler decided to pardon Röhm because of his past services to the movement. On 1 July, after much pressure from Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, Hitler agreed that Röhm should die. Hitler insisted that Röhm should first be allowed to commit suicide. However, when Röhm refused, he was killed by two SS officers, Theodor Eicke and Michael Lippert.[27] The names of 85 victims are known; however, estimates place the total number killed at between 150 and 200 people.[28] While some Germans were shocked by the killing, many others saw Hitler as the one who restored "order" to the country. Goebbels's propaganda highlighted the "Röhm-Putsch" in the days that followed. The homosexuality of Röhm and other SA leaders was made public to add "shock value", even though the sexuality of Röhm and other named SA leaders had been known by Hitler and other Nazi leaders for years.

 

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7 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

I'd like to take a moment to remind everyone that in the lamest attempt at alibi forming ever, roger stone claimed that he suffered from polonium poisoning following the election. 

I'm not joking. 

As the former state manager of radioactive material licensing i can tell you his claim is bullshit.

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The good news is that the path through this is now pretty clear.

The bad news is that the Vichy republicans won’t do fuck all about this because they are complicit.

Roger Stone will flip or be rolled, but the Vichy republicans don’t care enough to fix this.

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I have not heard the pundits discussing that since the GRU agents indicted were all officers, there were dozens of hackers under their command who were not indicted. Orr perhaps there are sealed indictments against them and they are on travel lists.

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26 minutes ago, RayDog said:

I have not heard the pundits discussing that since the GRU agents indicted were all officers, there were dozens of hackers under their command who were not indicted. Orr perhaps there are sealed indictments against them and they are on travel lists.

They aren't going to bother with juniors in this.  And, if you read the indictment, some of the defendants are commanders, others are charged directly with the hacking activity.

 

And, given that these are Russian government "spies" for lack of a better word, to the extent they have any need or desire to travel outside of the Russian sphere of influence, I am sure their employer can and will provide them with the documents and other things needed to avoid detection and arrest.

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1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

They aren't going to bother with juniors in this.  And, if you read the indictment, some of the defendants are commanders, others are charged directly with the hacking activity.

 

And, given that these are Russian government "spies" for lack of a better word, to the extent they have any need or desire to travel outside of the Russian sphere of influence, I am sure their employer can and will provide them with the documents and other things needed to avoid detection and arrest.

Sometimes the smallest bird has the sweetest song.

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3 minutes ago, RayDog said:

Sometimes the smallest bird has the sweetest song.

Nikulin.jpg?resize=730,487

Yevgeniy Nikulin Appears In U.S. Court Following Extradition

 

Nikulin Was Indicted In 2016 For Hacking Into, Damaging, and Stealing Data From Computer Systems At Linkedin, Dropbox, And Formspring

SAN FRANCISCO – Yevgeniy Aleksandrovich Nikulin made his initial appearance in federal court today following his extradition from the Czech Republic, announced Acting United States Attorney Alex G. Tse and Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge John F. Bennett. He appeared before Jaqueline Scott Corley, United States Magistrate Judge in San Francisco.

Nikulin, 30, of Moscow, Russia, was charged in a 2016 indictment with illegally accessing computers belonging to LinkedIn, Dropbox, and Formspring, each of which has its headquarters in the San Francisco Bay area.  The indictment further alleges that the defendant accessed the computers without authorization and that he obtained information from the computers. According to the indictment, the defendant also caused damage to computers belonging to a LinkedIn employee and to Formspring by transmitting a program, information, code, or command. Nikulin is alleged to have used the credentials of LinkedIn and Formspring employees without their knowledge or authorization in connection with the computer intrusions.  The indictment charges that Nikulin engaged in a conspiracy with unnamed co-conspirators to traffic stolen Formspring user credentials.  

 

 

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/yevgeniy-nikulin-appears-us-court-following-extradition

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3 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

They aren't going to bother with juniors in this.  And, if you read the indictment, some of the defendants are commanders, others are charged directly with the hacking activity.

And, given that these are Russian government "spies" for lack of a better word, to the extent they have any need or desire to travel outside of the Russian sphere of influence, I am sure their employer can and will provide them with the documents and other things needed to avoid detection and arrest.

Documents and other things needed to avoid detection may not be enough unless it involves wigs and fake mustaches.  Recall this:

Quote

 

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch intelligence agency AIVD spied on the Russian group believed to be behind the hack of the Democratic Party ahead of U.S. elections, local media reported on Thursday.

[...]

Agents with the AIVD gained access to the group’s headquarters and between 2014 and 2017 passed along information to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, the report said.

The Dutch intelligence may have contributed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation inquiry into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election race, the report said.


 

The Dutch were inside as early as 2014, and they reportedly successfully hacked the building's surveillance cameras.  So we've got mug shots of everyone entering and leaving since appx 2014.  It's important to emphasize that a lot of intelligence will be used for things other than indictments.  It's an ongoing spying effort, so use your imagination to think of ways it could be useful.

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^ good summary

 

I agree with the first part of this former Navy JAG's assessment about the incremental indictments serving at least one important purpose of allowing the US public to "get our heads around it in a methodical way."   It allows us to observe how individuals implicated by association in the WH and GOP respond.  The lack of a responsible acknowledgment on their part, the guilty distractions, are important signals to the public about the reality of what the indictments allege.  It will help prepare us for the next shocking revelations.

How much the election was "rigged" in the literal sense remains to be seen, but the threads are being dangled before our eyes:

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I agree with all of this.  Mueller and Rosenstein are handling this perfectly imo even though i wish it was moving at a little faster pace

Being done right is greater than being done fast. They know the scope of this and what it means to the past US elections plus future. Imo this is the biggest deal this country has gone through since 9/11.
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I pray to God the voter rolls were not altered.   That would be disastrous for our country.  I'm hoping this newly public evidence of accessing the voter rolls is just part of the already-established Russian plot to target voters with online propaganda.  That is, that the voter roll information was used to help figure out which GOP useful idiots to target.  Which is still a terrible thing, but one that will be easier for our country to handle.  

Edited by Mojo Hand
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16 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

I pray to God the voter rolls were not altered.   That would be disastrous for our country.  I'm hoping this newly public evidence of accessing the voter rolls is just part of the already-established Russian plot to target voters with online propaganda.  That is, that the voter roll information was used to help figure out which GOP useful idiots to target.  Which is still a terrible thing, but one that will be easier for our country to handle.  

I want it to be the latter. Deep down, I think it’s the former. Hope not. 

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18 hours ago, SKJ said:

Do we, as a country, have the will to break apart even the smallest parts of the conspiracy?

Do we set examples in cases of treason?

I don't know why this site is making me respond in a quote, but whatever

 

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44 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

I pray to God the voter rolls were not altered.   That would be disastrous for our country.  I'm hoping this newly public evidence of accessing the voter rolls is just part of the already-established Russian plot to target voters with online propaganda.  That is, that the voter roll information was used to help figure out which GOP useful idiots to target.  Which is still a terrible thing, but one that will be easier for our country to handle.  

The thing is, there haven’t been any reports of people turned away at the voting booths.  At least I don’t recall any.  Altering voter rolls is too overt.  It would cause a huge stir, and the election could be suspended until the rolls could be verified.  

At least, that would have happened under a legitimate administration.  But in November, with Trump in charge... 

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2 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

The thing is, there haven’t been any reports of people turned away at the voting booths.  At least I don’t recall any.  Altering voter rolls is too overt.  It would cause a huge stir, and the election could be suspended until the rolls could be verified.  

At least, that would have happened under a legitimate administration.  But in November, with Trump in charge... 

Here in Georgia in in the sixth district during the runoff in the special election, a lot of voters' registration was suddenly expired because of inactivity, most of them black people. Turns out that a lot of them had been voting and therefore it should have remained active. I'm not saying Russian hackers did this because our piece of shit SoS likely has targeted voter suppression along racial lines before, but it should make everyone worry that so many of us aren't going to have anything close to a secure voting system come November.

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23 hours ago, Washpark said:

 

Interesting move as it overlaps in real time with the confirmation  of Trump transition team and Russian Alfa bank atty Benczkowski to No. 3 at DOJ as head of the Criminal Division of DOJ .  It means a big chunk of the Mueller investigation moving forward shifts out of view of Benczkowski as long as Rosenstein is DAG.  

Re Jim Jordan possibly initiating a move to impeach DAG Rosenstein as early as Monday, that would take awhile and involve due process as well as 2/3 vote, I believe.  A lot would have to happen for Congress to succeed in that.  Their "cause" is derived from frustration over Rosenstein actually adhering to longstanding policy to NOT disclose evidence in ongoing investigations to Congress.

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6 minutes ago, GSU&UT said:

Here in Georgia in in the sixth district during the runoff in the special election, a lot of voters' registration was suddenly expired because of inactivity, most of them black people. Turns out that a lot of them had been voting and therefore it should have remained active. I'm not saying Russian hackers did this because our piece of shit SoS likely has targeted voter suppression along racial lines before, but it should make everyone worry that so many of us aren't going to have anything close to a secure voting system come November.

So I decided it’s probably a good idea to check my registration, and the Texas SOS’s site for that service is gone:

https://teamrv-mvp.sos.texas.gov/MVP/mvp.do

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1 hour ago, Mojo Hand said:

I pray to God the voter rolls were not altered.   That would be disastrous for our country.  I'm hoping this newly public evidence of accessing the voter rolls is just part of the already-established Russian plot to target voters with online propaganda.  That is, that the voter roll information was used to help figure out which GOP useful idiots to target.  Which is still a terrible thing, but one that will be easier for our country to handle.  

 

The voter rolls being altered would provide an answer to the question as to how the polls could have been so wrong.

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5 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

So I decided it’s probably a good idea to check my registration, and the Texas SOS’s site for that service is gone:

https://teamrv-mvp.sos.texas.gov/MVP/mvp.do

 

This is actually the link. It isn't gone. It's just down for maintenance. At least that's what the claim is.


https://teamrv-mvp.sos.texas.gov/MVP/


"Due to maintenance activity Texas 'Am I Registered?' Application will not be accessible until Sunday 1:00 PM CST"

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4 minutes ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

 

The voter rolls being altered would provide an answer to the question as to how the polls could have been so wrong.

Regardless of whether foreign actors did anything to change votes or rolls, Wisconsin had successfully suppressed around 200,000 votes in the 2016 election with voter ID laws. For all the micro-dick stroking our GOP friends get over the constitution and the rule of law, they conveniently don't follow it when it hurts browns. It should be our god given right to vote without undue hardship.

Edited by GSU&UT
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Rosenstein and Mueller cannot be fired/impeached or whatever now because of Kavanaugh.  Piss off just 1 GOP Senator and Trump is back to the drawing board on selecting a SCOTUS justice.  That's too important to screw with.   

As Kavanaugh will not be confirmed until after Labor Day, and then we are deep into the election cycle; Rosenstein and Mueller are safe thru the end of the year.

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The indictments don't name what voter registration system was hacked, but the wording suggests some singularity exists, as opposed to voter roll purging that would involve multiple systems over multiple states.  Crosscheck is the most singular system that has umbrella impact on multiple states.  This piece details various ways votes could be corrupted but these two warrant close scrutiny in light of new criminal charges of Russian voter hacking:

Quote

The Crosscheck program: Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s controversial Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program is used by roughly 30 states to identify possible instances of double voting and is widely criticized for being discriminatory and unreliable. A 2017 study of Crosscheck results for Iowa found that the program misidentified potential instances of double voting 99 percent of the time. Crosscheck’s minimal search criteria—which rely mainly on first and last names and birthdates—can result in eligible Americans being misidentified as double voters. In a group of just 180 people, there is a more than 50 percent chance that at least two people will share the same birthdate. And people of color disproportionately share 85 out of the 100 most common last names.

Removal for not voting: Some states remove people from voter rolls who fail to participate in the electoral process. In 2015, Ohio purged hundreds of thousands of individuals from its voter rolls for failing to vote since 2008. More than 40,000 people were removed in Cuyahoga County alone. Ohio’s purge disproportionately affected communities of color. More than 10 percent of voter registrants in the “heavily African-American neighborhoods near downtown” Cincinnati were purged for failing to vote since 2012, compared with only 4 percent of registered voters living in the surrounding suburb of Indian Hill. In 2016, the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit struck down Ohio’s law, finding that it “constitutes perhaps the plainest possible example of a process that ‘result in’ removal of a voter from the rolls by reason of his or her failure to vote,” in violation of the National Voter Registration Act.

Crosscheck draws my attention because it was implemented by Trump pal Chris Kobach (R- Felcher, KS) and has a simultaneous umbrella impact on multiple participating states.  If GRU hacked voter roll identities in WI then hacked into MI rolls to "re-inject" the voter info from WI, Crosscheck would nullify those "duplicate registrations", and hence, votes on the back end.  Considering WI, MI, PA were cumulatively won by 80k votes, nullifying that many spread over three states would be enough.  Not hard to check (if data is available), you'd just have to know what data to look for (bulk duplicate names between state voter registration rolls appearing in comparative data bases at the same time.

Edited by triplehorn
still hacked
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4 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Rosenstein and Mueller cannot be fired/impeached or whatever now because of Kavanaugh.  Piss off just 1 GOP Senator and Trump is back to the drawing board on selecting a SCOTUS justice.  That's too important to screw with.   

As Kavanaugh will not be confirmed until after Labor Day, and then we are deep into the election cycle; Rosenstein and Mueller are safe thru the end of the year.

Separately, McConnell warned Trump there may not be enough votes to confirm BK anyway.  BK was not on the original mutually agreed upon Federalist Society list.  The BK nomination may have been an inside agreement between Kennedy and Trump in exchange for Kennedy's resignation.

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So I ask again, can the states press charges against the hackers too?  To take the federal pardon off the table.  

I know he can't pardon russians, but I am anticipating US citizens being indicted for helping in all of this. 

Hell, I don't know, maybe he can pardon russians.   I bet he'd at least try.

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12 hours ago, VRHorn said:

The good news is that the path through this is now pretty clear.

The bad news is that the Vichy republicans won’t do fuck all about this because they are complicit.

Roger Stone will flip or be rolled, but the Vichy republicans don’t care enough to fix this.

Cw6giYnVEAAQmCV.jpg

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2 hours ago, Mojo Hand said:

I pray to God the voter rolls were not altered.   That would be disastrous for our country.  I'm hoping this newly public evidence of accessing the voter rolls is just part of the already-established Russian plot to target voters with online propaganda.  That is, that the voter roll information was used to help figure out which GOP useful idiots to target.  Which is still a terrible thing, but one that will be easier for our country to handle.  

Given how hard Republicans in both chambers are pushing back, as well as Trump, my gut is starting to say they know something definitively.  

This has moved beyond the usual fuckery of Mitch threatening Obama or Fucking Moron in the House running over to the White House to share what he discovered, or Trump ranting about Hillary.

The GOP is fucking terrified of something, something serious enough that I think the House actually moves to impeach DOJ officials in the next few weeks.

The only good news is the GOP is going to destroy itself in the process, and we will have a chance to get something new out of the pieces.

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2 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Given how hard Republicans in both chambers are pushing back, as well as Trump, my gut is starting to say they know something definitively.  

This has moved beyond the usual fuckery of Mitch threatening Obama or Fucking Moron in the House running over to the White House to share what he discovered, or Trump ranting about Hillary.

The GOP is fucking terrified of something, something serious enough that I think the House actually moves to impeach DOJ officials in the next few weeks.

The only good news is the GOP is going to destroy itself in the process, and we will have a chance to get something new out of the pieces.

My ultimate worry is that we're going to have to hit a major economic recession before enough people give a shit. I'm afraid it may take massive protests to oust this people if we can't trust our electoral process.

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3 hours ago, pyrohornIII said:

So I ask again, can the states press charges against the hackers too?  To take the federal pardon off the table.  

I know he can't pardon russians, but I am anticipating US citizens being indicted for helping in all of this. 

Hell, I don't know, maybe he can pardon russians.   I bet he'd at least try.

He can pardon Russians. I'm not sure if he can pardon anyone before they are convicted though. 

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