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Posted

A few interesting interpretations from Marcy Wheeler:

The Mueller Investigation Is The Second Most Important Investigation Into Which Flynn Assisted

 

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The Flynn sentencing memo, with a largely redacted addendum describing his cooperation, is out. Effectively, Mueller recommends no prison time because of Flynn’s substantial cooperation, his early cooperation, his record of service to the country.

The section on cooperation describes Flynn’s assistance in three investigations. The Mueller investigation is actually the second thing listed, which I take to suggest that the the Mueller investigation is just the second most important. My wildarse guess is that these consist of a criminal national security investigation (the Turkish investigation tied to Reza Zarrab could be one possibility), the Mueller investigation, and a counterintelligence investigation into the Russians. But obviously the first and third are just a guess.

Between the three investigations, Flynn sat for 19 interviews with prosecutors.

The description of the first and third investigations are both almost entirely redacted.

The description of his cooperation with the Mueller investigation is split into three topics — interactions between the transition team and Russians, plus another redacted section.

The transition discussions map what appeared in his criminal information. It does make it clear that Flynn reported false information to them about his conversation with Sergei Kislyak, which means what really went on between him and Kislyak goes beyond what appeared in emails involving KT McFarland, which is pretty damning by itself. That also suggests he really may have lied to Mike Pence.

The second, almost entirely redacted section, is actually the longest, and it’s two paragraphs.

Finally, the description of the third investigation is just five lines long.

 

 

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Posted
  On 12/5/2018 at 2:54 AM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Mueller’s task is to find out what happened with Russia in the 2016 election.

He’s not assigned to take down Trump. 

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Yeah, about that:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3726408-Rosenstein-letter-appointing-Mueller-special.html

 

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In appointing Mueller, however, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein gave him broad authority not only to investigate "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated" with Trump's campaign, but also to examine "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation." 

Rosenstein also gave Mueller the power to investigate "any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a)" — including perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses. 

 

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Posted

By the end of this, the only friends Trump will have left will be his 2 boys and all the venom spewing human pipe bombs with Maga hats. Even that idiot Hannity will conjure up a reason to bail on him. Ivanka will. Fox will. Roger Stone will.

 

Posted
  On 12/5/2018 at 3:15 AM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I wonder if Manafort would trade places with Flynn if he could do it all over again. 

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Manafort bet wrong. And so he's going to be used as an example to Stone, Corsi and everybody else.

You don't cooperate, book thrown at you. You do, easy time (Cohen) or no time (Flynn).

This is boilerplate mobster whiteboard stuff. CSI America.

Posted
  On 12/5/2018 at 3:04 AM, Yuk said:
 

What I am missing? Trump’s name wasn’t redacted. Everyone knows Mueller is investigating ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Posted
  On 12/5/2018 at 4:25 AM, Tuco said:

What I am missing? Trump’s name wasn’t redacted. Everyone knows Mueller is investigating ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.


Never mind...second frame wasn’t showing up on Tapa.
Posted
  On 12/5/2018 at 3:08 AM, Francisco 2.0 said:
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Gottdam that's fire.  Hell, that's a fat orange crater of fire fueled by Stone, Manaford and everybody else still linked to the goo brained ball of flammable grease.  They could make things right but f'k it, they'll risk burning and their families living in shame than walking. All the while fat f'k will only think of himself.

Posted
  On 12/5/2018 at 3:22 AM, TornACL said:

You can pray that nothing like this ever happens to your family, or your family can choose not to live their lives like pieces of shit. 

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Never happens to other families?  The mofo had to leave the country to pursue it.  The arrangement didn't fall out of the sky.  If you sell your country out for money to ruthless dictators, yeah, this could happen to you.  

Posted

Trump ambling around dazed. Rudy exceedingly confused. A goon appointed as AG. 

They know. What's coming.

This is a Berlin 45 Hitler bunker meltdown. And the Russians are cool as cucumbers. Better surrender, completely, to the Americans, like Flynn and Cohen.

Posted
  On 12/4/2018 at 10:51 PM, bolverk said:

I really like the metaphor proposed in this piece and think @Brisketexanwill appreciate the author's conclusion in the closing.

Mueller Is Laying Siege to the Trump Presidency

It won’t be a single news event that takes down the president.

“Today is the first day I actually thought Donald Trump might not finish his term in office,” said the legal commentator Jeffrey Toobin on CNN last Thursday.

“This is the beginning of the end for Trump,” declared Neal Katyal, a former acting solicitor general, on MSNBC.

“The deal may be among the biggest news in the nearly 18-month investigation,” wrote Barry Berke, Noah Bookbinder, and Norman Eisen in The New York Times.

It happens this way every time: A big news event in the Trump-Russia investigation takes place, and commentators talk about it as though a house of cards were collapsing or a row of dominoes were falling. Each time, it’s the beginning of the end. Each indictment or plea is the “big one.” And then those expectations are disappointed. The sun rises the next day—in the east, as expected—and it sets in the west, as it did the day before. The Trump presidency endures.

This time it was the new plea deal from Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer and fixer. On Thursday, Cohen pleaded guilty to one count of lying to Congress, related to how long into the 2016 campaign he pursued building Trump Tower Moscow—and who exactly was aware of his efforts. In the surprise criminal information that formed the basis of his plea, Cohen admitted that, although he had told Congress the project had ended in January 2016, in advance of the Iowa caucus, planning for the project continued well into June 2016. What’s more, a person named in the criminal information as “Individual 1” but identifiable as Trump, along with his family members and his campaign officials, were briefed on Cohen’s efforts along the way. Additionally, Cohen was in contact with senior Russian officials about the matter.

The admission that the Trump Organization was working secretly—colluding, one might say—with the Russian government on a business deal late into the campaign and that Trump knew about this activity led many observers, including those quoted above, to treat this latest plea as the turning point for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

But the underlying metaphors are wrong. There is no sudden bend in the path of the investigation. There is no house of cards. The dominoes will not fall if gently tipped. The administration is not going to come crashing down in response to any single day’s events. The architecture of Trump’s power is more robust than that.

We need to stop thinking of it as a fragile structure waiting for the right poke to fall in on itself. Think instead of the myriad investigations and legal proceedings surrounding the president as a multi-front siege on a walled city that is, in fact, relatively well fortified.

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My favorite Mueller anecdote, from a Wired profile:

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AFTER NINE MONTHS at war, he was finally due for a few short days of R&R outside the battle zone. Mueller had seen intense combat since he last said goodbye to his wife. He’d received the Bronze Star with a distinction for valor for his actions in one battle, and he’d been airlifted out of the jungle during another firefight after being shot in the thigh. He and Ann had spoken only twice since he’d left for South Vietnam.

Despite all that, Mueller confessed to her in Hawaii that he was thinking of extending his deployment for another six months, and maybe even making a career in the Marines.

Ann was understandably ill at ease about the prospect. But as it turned out, she wouldn’t be a Marine wife for much longer. It was standard practice for Marines to be rotated out of combat, and later that year Mueller found himself assigned to a desk job at Marine headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. There he discovered something about himself: “I didn’t relish the US Marine Corps absent combat.”

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He doesn't relish life absent combat at all to this very day. 

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Posted
  On 12/5/2018 at 3:22 AM, TornACL said:

You can pray that nothing like this ever happens to your family, or your family can choose not to live their lives like pieces of shit. 

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flynn is actually the hero. you see the breakup between Flynn and Obama was a covert op because they knew Trump was going to be running for prez as early as 2013 and planned to use Russia's help as early as then. flynn was a martyr to go undercover as a pro-Russia relations general to get his way into the Trump campaign.

 

or maybe i've been drinking too much.

Posted
  On 12/5/2018 at 8:42 AM, MaybeACoordinator said:

My favorite Mueller anecdote, from a Wired profile:

He doesn't relish life absent combat at all to this very day. 

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this country has truly gone to shit when a hero like mueller is vilified by a big chunk of the country. when this whole thing is done i dont know how we fix this turd trump/fox news are leaving behind.

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