Did Mike Flynn Wear A Wire During Conversations With Jared Kushner?

By now, other potential Trump administration officials who might’ve interacted with Michael Flynn following his Jan. 24 interview with FBI agents - where the former general lied about the details of his conversation with then-ambassador Kislyak - are probably tearing their hair out trying to discern whether the former National Security Adviser – who served in that post for less than a month before being fired for allegedly misrepresenting these same conversations to Vice President Pence – might’ve worn a wire during their interactions.

Of course, there’s nothing in Flynn’s Nov. 30 plea agreement that definitively answers the question of whether Flynn wore a wire.

So, in the interest of reading the tea leaves, the Guardian spoke to a handful of experts about whether there was any language in the plea agreement to suggest that Flynn – who tried to cover up the fact that he intimated to then-ambassador Kislyak that Trump would roll back some of the sanctions against the Putin government while also soliciting a Russian veto of a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements – might’ve been wired for sound.

Their conclusion? That certain language in the Flynn plea about ‘covert actions’ suggests that, yes, he did wear a wire.

Section eight of the deal reached by Donald Trump’s former national security adviser in the inquiry into Russian meddling in the US election is entitled “cooperation”. It specifies that as well as answering questions and submitting to government-administered polygraph tests, Flynn’s cooperation “may include … participating in covert law enforcement activities”.

 

Long-time students of federal law enforcement practices agreed, speaking anonymously, that “covert law enforcement activities” likely refers to the possibility of wearing a concealed wire or recording telephone conversations with other potential suspects. It is not known whether Flynn has worn a wire at any time.

 

“If the other subjects of investigation have had any conversations with Flynn during the last few months, that phrase must have all of them shaking in their boots,” said John Flannery, a former federal prosecutor in the southern district of New York.

And if there’s one member of the Trump inner circle who might have something to worry about thanks to Flynn, it’s senior Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.  

“The one who must be particularly terrified is [Trump son-in-law and adviser] Jared Kushner, if he spoke to the special counsel’s office without immunity about the very matter that is the subject of Flynn’s plea. I think he must be paralyzed if he talked to Flynn before or after the investigators debriefed him."

But aside from the language about covert action, few other details about what actions might’ve taken can be gleaned from the plea. Even the date when Flynn began cooperating with Mueller’s investigation remains a mystery - though at least one prominent Republican donor was telling friends in July this year that Flynn was already helping the Mueller probe, the Guardian reported.

The exact nature of the information that Flynn provided to Mueller also is not yet known (though we imagine, given the sieve-like nature of the Mueller camp when it comes to media leaks, some of these details will likely begin appearing in the pages of the New York Times and Washington Post). However, if there’s one clue as to the magnitude of the assistance that Flynn provided to Mueller, it’s the updated sentencing guidelines for the single charge of obstruction that Flynn has chosen to eat instead of trying his luck with a trial.

Considering the severity of Flynn’s crimes in the eyes of the FBI (which doesn’t look kindly on people who knowingly hinder investigations), the dramatic reduction in the former general’s sentencing suggests that he is going to help Mueller take down at least one other senior member of the Trump inner circle.

The main clue in the plea agreement about the importance of the information Flynn has already provided lies in the discrepancy between the maximum penalty for the crime he has admitted and the maximum sentence the special counsel has promised to recommend.

 

According to the document made public on Friday, Flynn could have been sentenced to as much as five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. As long as he cooperates in full with all of the special counsel’s requests, the document says the “estimated sentencing guidelines” range from zero to six months, with a possible fine of between $500 and $9,500. The proposed sentencing reduction also partly takes into account the fact Flynn has no criminal record.

 

“No prosecutor I know would agree to reducing a sentence that dramatically unless the witness had provided very significant information about at least one other target of his investigation,” Flannery said. “You wouldn’t get such a low sentence unless you had implicated a big target. The person that you’re lifting up allows you to sit on the ground.”

The exact language in the plea agreement requires Flynn to cooperate “fully, truthfully, completely and with this Office and other Federal, state and local law enforcement authorities identified by this Office in any and all matters as to which this Office deems the cooperation relevant”.

If Flynn refuses to cooperate fully, “the agreement will be considered breached by your client.” The agreement says any breach will have a serious impact on Flynn’s sentence.

Experts told the Guardian it was notable Flynn pleaded guilty before being indicted by a grand jury, though the logic here is easy to spot. By sparing Flynn this very public embarrassment, Flynn has more reason to feel genuinely grateful toward the former FBI director. It also makes sense from a strategic perspective: By preserving Flynn’s cover, the former National Security Adviser was free to begin recording incriminating information that could be useful for Mueller.

Whatever the nature of the agreement, Flynn has every incentive to provide Mueller with as much useful information as he possibly can. According to the agreement Flynn must cooperate “fully, truthfully, completely and with this Office and other Federal, state and local law enforcement authorities identified by this Office in any and all matters as to which this Office deems the cooperation relevant”.

If Flynn refuses or fails, “the agreement will be considered breached by your client.” The agreement says any breach will have a serious impact on Flynn’s sentence.

To be sure, the idea that Flynn – or even Papadopoulos before him – wore a wire is still, at this point, mere speculation. While it sounds like prosecutors wanted both men to do so, in Flynn’s case, Mueller may have included the suspicious passage in his plea for another unrelated purpose: To scare other potential witnesses or targets into being completely truthful with investigators.

Since there was no legal requirement for Mueller to include this information about covert law enforcement activities in the plea agreement, Flannery believes it was put there “to put the fear of God” into anyone who may have given the special counsel answers that conflict with Flynn’s information.

Of course, the nature of Flynn’s cooperation was immediately overblown by ABC in an error that might cost one senior correspondent his career – indeed, it has already greatly damaged what little credibility he had left. ABC suspended Brian Ross – who erroneously reported that Flynn would testify Trump instructed him to contact the Russians during the campaign. Flynn was actually preparing to testify that a senior Trump official 0 revealed to be Kushner – ordered him to do so during the transition. Outreach between the transition and foreign regimes is legal and common.

So, aside from undermining President Obama during the waning days of his administration, Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak was otherwise completely legitimate, which begs the question: Why’d Flynn lie? His actions, of course, were technically violations of a rarely enforced law against soliciting these types of quid-pro-quo arrangements. But the risk of being caught in a lie was far greater than risking possible punishment for his conversations with Kislyak.

So why’d he do it?

* * *

Full Flynn Plea Agreement:

Kushner Is "Senior Official" Who Ordered Flynn To Contact Russia

When commenting on the Flynn plea deal with Mueller, we said that while hardly evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia, especially since all events took place after the election, the real question is who was the "senior member of the transition team" that instructed Flynn to call Russia. Now, according to Bloomberg"s Eli Lake we may have the answer: none other than Jared Kushner, who as Lake says, "could be one of the next dominoes to fall."

According to the Bloomberg report, "one of Flynn’s lies to the FBI was when he said that he never asked Russia"s ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, to delay the vote for the U.N. Security Council resolution. The indictment released today from the office of special prosecutor Robert Mueller describes this lie: "On or about December 22, 2016, Flynn did not ask the Russian Ambassador to delay the vote on or defeat a pending United Nations Security Council resolution." At the time, the U.N. Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements was a big deal. Even though the Obama administration had less than a month left in office, the president instructed his ambassador to the United Nations to abstain from a resolution, breaking a precedent that went back to 1980 when it came to one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the U.N.

This was the context of Kushner"s instruction to Flynn last December. One transition official at the time said Kushner called Flynn to tell him he needed to get every foreign minister or ambassador from a country on the U.N. Security Council to delay or vote against the resolution. Much of this appeared to be coordinated also with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose envoys shared their own intelligence about the Obama administration"s lobbying efforts to get member stats to support the resolution with the Trump transition team.  

As Lake correctly notes, "for now it"s unclear what to make of all of this" especially since th most important part of a case is missing: motive.

We also know from Flynn"s "statement of the offense" that he lied to FBI agents as the bureau was investigating Russia"s meddling in the 2016 election and any links between Russia and the Trump campaign in this period. Nonetheless, nothing in the Flynn plea sheds any light on whether the Trump campaign actually colluded with Russia to influence the election.

Here there are two possibilities: one bad for Trump, and one innocuous. As ABC News reported on Friday, Flynn is prepared to tell Mueller"s team that Trump had instructed him to make contact with Russia during the campaign itself.

"If those contacts involved the emails the U.S. intelligence community charges Russia stole from leading Democrats, then Mueller will have uncovered evidence of actual collusion between the president and a foreign adversary during the election. Impeachment could then be in the cards."

That"s the bad case. But, Lake concedes, it"s also possible that the Justice Department became interested in Flynn"s initial conversation with Kislyak on other, less explosive grounds.

One leading theory pushed Friday by Democrats involves a violation of a 1799 statute known as the Logan Act. A relic of the John Adams administration, this discredited law makes it illegal for a private U.S. citizen to undermine the foreign policy of a sitting president in contact with a foreign power. No American has ever been successfully prosecuted under that law.

This path is likely a dead end: some conservatives urged the George W. Bush administration to prosecute former House speaker Nancy Pelosi under the Logan Act in 2007 when she visited the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, when the White House was trying to isolate him. Nothing ever came of that.

Still, a Logan Act investigation would explain the bureau"s interest in Flynn"s conversations about the U.N. Security Council resolution on Israel. This is what Senator Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Friday: "This shows a Trump associate negotiating with the Russians against U.S. policy and interests before Donald Trump took office and after it was announced that Russia had interfered in our election. That’s a stunning revelation and could be a violation of the Logan Act, which forbids unauthorized U.S. citizens from negotiating with a foreign power."

If that is the extent of Mueller"s charges, it"s nothing and Trump walks away scott free. As Lake notes, "if that"s all there is, then the whispers of collusion will look foolish. Nonetheless, it may be enough to take out not only Flynn, but also the man who married the president"s daughter."

Of course, if Kushner is the last casualty of all this, it is likely safe to say that not many tears will be shed.

Did Flynn"s Plea Deal Just Disprove Election Collusion

Submitted by iBankCoin

This whole charade with former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn reeks of desperation and makes clear that Mueller"s team has an empty hand. To summarize the plea agreement from the FBI Special Counsel’s “Statement of the Offense”:

• 
  
  On December 29, 2016, Flynn called a senior official of the Presidential Transition Team to discuss whether or not to talk to the Russians about recent U.S. sanctions imposed by Obama.
  
  


• 
  
  Flynn got the go-ahead from someone (does not name Trump) and called the Russian Ambassador, requesting that Russia not escalate the situation – asking that they only respond to the U.S. sanctions in a reciprocal manner.
  
  


• 
  
  On or about December 30 – the next day, Russian President Vladimir Putin released a statement indicating that Russia would not take retaliatory measures in response to U.S. sanctions.
  
  


• 
  
  Flynn lied about this on January 24 in a voluntary interview with the FBI
  
  


• 
  
  Flynn also lied to the FBI about calls he made to the Russian Ambassador and other countries to try and influence a UN resolution submitted by Egypt regarding Israeli settlements, stating he only asked the countries’ positions on the vote
  
  

ABC news takes it a step further, reporting from an anonymous source that “Donald Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians, initially as a way to work together to fight ISIS in Syria.” - though NBC News reports it was Trump"s son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner.

Observation and takeaways

• 
  
  The fact that Flynn spoke with the Russians in December, well after the election, has been known since February.
  
  


• 
  
  Mueller’s “Statement of Offense” establishes is that there wasn’t an existing backchannel between the Trump campaign and Russia – at least through Flynn, as it pertains to pre-election collusion. 
  
  


• 
  
  It’s perfectly reasonable to expect an incoming President to instruct his incoming National Security Advisor to establish a dialogue with a country like Russia over recent and contentious sanctions, as well as fighting ISIS in Syria.
  
  


• 
  
  If Flynn’s contact with Russia was related to “collusion” in regards to election meddling, he would be pleading guilty to an espionage conspiracy, not the “process crime” of lying to the FBI..
  
  


• 
  
  If Flynn were to now drop some new bombshell about greater Russian collusion, he would have lied to the FBI twice.
  
  

Grand irony: the underlying action that Flynn now admits he lied to the FBI about was urging de-escalation with a nuclear power, which is now no longer permissible pic.twitter.com/Vh4Nxz0nWK

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) December 1, 2017

As Andrew McCarthy of the National Review points out;

“when a prosecutor has a cooperator who was an accomplice in a major criminal scheme, the cooperator is made to plead guilty to the scheme. This is critical because it proves the existence of the scheme. In his guilty-plea allocution (the part of a plea proceeding in which the defendant admits what he did that makes him guilty), the accomplice explains the scheme and the actions taken by himself and his co-conspirators to carry it out. This goes a long way toward proving the case against all of the subjects of the investigation. That is not happening in Flynn’s situation. Instead, like Papadopoulos, he is being permitted to plead guilty to a mere process crime.

So why lie?

Why would Flynn lie about his contact with the Russians in late January, five days after the Inauguration? Was it because the nation had been whipped into an anti-Russia frenzy? Or, as some have suggested, does the rabbit hole go much deeper and there are aspects of the Trump-Russia story that haven’t been made public yet? Again, if that were known, Flynn would be pleading guilty to a much more serious crime.

That said, Flynn is facing a whopping six months in prison and a fine of up to $9,500 for lying to the Special Counsel.

Who’s next?

President Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he asked Russia’s Ambassador whether the Trump transition team could use Russia’s embassy to communicate with Moscow about Syria.

The meeting with the ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, “occurred in Trump Tower, where we had our transition office, and lasted twenty [to] thirty minutes,” Kushner wrote in an 11-page statement detailing his contacts with Russian nationals during the election and transition period.

 

“Lt. General Michael Flynn (Ret.), who became the President’s National Security Advisor, also attended … I stated our desire for a fresh start in relations.”

 

Kushner said Kislyak, whose tenure in the US ended this past weekend, asked whether there was “a secure line in the transition office to conduct a conversation” about the US’s Syria policy.

 

“General Flynn or I explained that there were no such lines,” Kushner wrote. But he said he went on to ask whether the Russian Embassy “had an existing communications channel … we could use where they would be comfortable transmitting the information they wanted to relay to General Flynn.” –Business Insider

And now it emerges that Kushner allegedly asked Flynn to contact the Russian Ambassador…

BREAKING: Jared Kushner is the “very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team” mentioned in the statement of offense against Michael Flynn, two people familiar with the matter tell @NBCNews https://t.co/4ZLASVAX9b

— NBC News (@NBCNews) December 1, 2017

So – unless there’s more than meets the eye, it appears that the coverup is far greater than the crime in regards to Flynn’s decision to lie to the FBI. And whatever the outcome, the hard bounce in the S&P 500 would seem to suggest this is perhaps another nothingburger and not quite the end of Drumpf.

The end of Drumpf? ???????? pic.twitter.com/rxoqWyfFTv

— ZeroPointNow (@ZeroPointNow) December 1, 2017

Flynn Used White House Position To Lobby For Mid-East Nuclear Reactors: WSJ

Rumors that former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn might be the next former Trump administration official to be indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller have been circulating for weeks now. Last week was no exception, with US media reporting that Flynn’s legal team had decided to stop cooperating with the White House council and President Donald Trump’s administration.  Now, in the latest Flynn development to arrive Tuesday evening, the WSJ reports on Flynn’s push during his brief tenure in the administration to convince President Trump to support a plan to build roughly a dozen nuclear power plants across the Middle East.

Private-sector backers of a controversial Middle East nuclear plan worked with former national security adviser Mike Flynn to promote it inside the White House, to the point of sending him a draft memo for the president to sign authorizing the project.

 

At issue was a proposal to build dozens of nuclear reactors, billed by its backers as a “Marshall Plan for the Middle East.” Before joining the White House, Mr. Flynn, a retired lieutenant general, had advised some of the U.S. companies involved in the plan in his capacity as a consultant.

At the heart of the issue is whether Flynn abused his position within the administration to help benefit his consulting clients.

Mr. Flynn’s efforts to promote the plan included telling a National Security Council staffer to create an official directive detailing the plan for President Donald Trump to sign, according to people familiar with the matter. He also brought the project to the attention of a key administration ally, these people say.

That said, if passed, the plan was projected to generate $250 billion in revenue for U.S. companies. However, according to WSJ, the memo never made it to the president’s desk. But this may not matter: Mueller is separately investigating Flynn’s work before he joined the White House as part of a probe into whether he improperly concealed financial ties to Turkey and to Russia.

In response, a White House spokesman said “the White House and National Security Council have rigorous processes in place to ensure that all outside proposals are thoroughly evaluated for their potential legal and policy implications.” In his White House disclosure forms, Flynn revealed his relationship with two of the companies involved in the project, but didn’t reveal any payments. He later amended those forms, saying a third company paid him more than $5,000. He said his relationship with the companies ended in December 2016.

Details of Flynn’s work promoting the project from inside the White House first became public in September. But this latest report sheds light on exactly how far Flynn about how far it progressed inside the administration, and how Flynn’s former staffer continued to promote it after he left office in February after misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, Sergei Lavrov.

In addition to Mueller’s probe, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating Flynn’s relationship with the companies involved and to what extent his prior consulting career overlapped with his role of one report, though it’s not clear exactly which companies were involved, according to WSJ which also reminds us that two ranking House Democrats said in September that Flynn appeared to violate federal law by failing to disclose details of his work for the firms on his security-clearance interview and renewal application in 2016.

What’s more, since Flynn’s resignation, his former private-sector colleagues continued to lobby various federal agencies about the plan, recently meeting with Jared Kushner (whose role in the administration, according to NYT and WaPo, has been greatly diminished).

In its story, WSJ tries to lend the impression that Flynn prioritized his lobbying work over his duties as National Security Adviser. Much of Flynn’s work on the project, however, was routed through intermediaries, who spent much of their first weeks on the job coordinating Flynn’s lobbying pitch.

One of the people Mr. Flynn brought with him, former Army Col. Derek Harvey, said at a meeting during the first week of the new administration that Mr. Flynn had told him to develop a regional economic and energy plan for the Middle East. When staffers pointed out there was an NSC office that handled economic and energy issues, Mr. Harvey said Mr. Flynn had directed him to take the lead on the issue.

 

Mr. Harvey met with a private-sector backer of the nuclear plan the first week of the Trump administration. Days later, another of the project’s backers, Robert “Bud” McFarlane, a national security adviser to President Reagan, emailed documents to Mr. Flynn.

However, sources inside the White House and other lobbyists affiliated with the effort said Flynn’s work was carried out at Trump’s request. They added that Flynn had been invited to join their group in the summer of 2016, but that in December he said he wouldn’t participate.

In one incident that has drawn Mueller’s scrutiny, Flynn reportedly forwarded an email from McFarlane asking to prepare a package for the president to the NSA’s staff. Derek Harvey, one of Flynn’s subordinates, then told his staff to put the contents of the draft memo into an official “cabinet memo” from the president. There is no indication such a memo ever made it to Trump.

Yet unsurprisingly, Harvey – a close ally of Flynn’s - the administration’s senior Middle East adviser, was dismissed in July after clashes with NSC staffers. He is now senior adviser to the chairman of the House’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

“It’s sad to see The Wall Street Journal attacking Republicans for promoting a policy, long supported by both Republican and Democratic administrations, of advocating overseas for American nuclear power,” said Jack Langer, a committee spokesman.

In summary, while the WSJ disburses numerous details about this lobbying efforts, the nature of Flynn’s exact crime is unclear: was his crime to abuse his position of power and push for a certain political outcome in exchange for some backdoor cash exchange? If so, is it also not time to also look at the Clinton Foundation, where the amount of money exchanged was orders of magnitude greater. Especially since while the implications of the article remain confusing, one thing is quite obvious: none of the above had anything to do with the Trump campaign, or the Russian government.

Trump Wants Kushner and Ivanka Out of Washington

[image: AP/Evan Vucci]

According to Vanity Fair, citing two unnamed Republicans, Trump is “frustrated with (son-in-law Jared) Kushner’s political advice in his capacity of senior advisor to the president, including his encouragement to back losing Alabama GOP candidate Luther Strange and to fire FBI Director James Comey, which Kushner denies.”

Trump urged Kushner and daughter Ivanka (first daughter and advisor to the president) to return to New York, “pressuring them to go,” according to an unnamed source.

He wants them out of the White House spotlight to avoid negative news coverage. They’re being investigated as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s witch-hunt Russiagate probe.

Reportedly, Trump told Ivanka: “Baby, you’re getting killed. This is a bad idea,” other White House staffers witnessing his comment, according to Vanity Fair.

Kushner’s influence is waning, Vanity Fair saying White House chief of staff John Kelly “clipped his wings” – under a system he instituted, requiring everyone go through him to see the president, including family members for official business.

Kelly reportedly was angered over Kushner’s trip to Saudi Arabia, meeting with crown prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS) days before his power grad, arresting hundreds of princes, ministers and business figures, making it appear the White House involved with orchestrating what happened.

In June, MBS ousted his predecessor, gaining control over Riyadh’s military, security and economic portfolios, becoming crown prince, the next Saudi king when his father steps down, expected any time because of his age and ill-health.

Trump expressed approval of MBS’ power grab, tweeting: “I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing.”

“Some of those they are harshly treating have been ‘milking’ their country for years!”

Reportedly, Kushner and Ivanka are steering clear of chief of staff Kelly as much as possible since he established control over White House operations, including scheduling and daily activities.

According to knowledgeable legal experts, Kushner failed to list all foreign contacts he’s had on his national security clearance forms, nor a full account of his financial holdings and dealings.

Washington is no place for anyone wishing to maintain a low profile – nor New York for prominent figures like Trump and his family members since he entered the presidential sweepstakes.

Since elected, he’s been hounded by media scoundrels more than any other US president in memory, Kushner and Ivanka taking their share of criticism.

According to Vanity Fair, quoting an unnamed source close to the Trumps, Kushner and Ivanka are “in a world of s..t.”

He may seem cool, but he’s sweating, and she’s like her father. She’ll never acknowledge it and (will) blame the media. But she’s been working on her reputation forever, and now it’s going to suffer horrifically. And for what?”

Life in the Washington fishbowl has lots of minuses when things don’t go as planned and media coverage is negative.

The post Trump Wants Kushner and Ivanka Out of Washington appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

Special Counsel Mueller Now Probing Kushner"s Contacts With Israeli Officials During Transition, WSJ

In a startling illustration of just how expansive Mueller"s investigation of the Trump administration has become, the Wall Street Journal now reports that the Special Counsel"s team is looking into meetings that Jared Kushner may have conducted with Israeli officials in the days leading up to an important U.N. vote on the construction of settlements in disputed territories on December 23, 2016. 

Robert Mueller’s investigators are asking questions about Jared Kushner’s interactions with foreign leaders during the presidential transition, including his involvement in a dispute at the United Nations in December, in a sign of the expansive nature of the special counsel’s probe of Russia’s meddling in the election, according to people familiar with the matter.

 

The investigators have asked witnesses questions about the involvement of Mr. Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, in a controversy over a U.N. resolution passed Dec. 23 that condemned Israel’s construction of settlements in disputed territories, these people said.

 

Israeli officials had asked the incoming Trump administration to intervene to help block it. Mr. Trump posted a Facebook message the day before the U.N. vote—after he had been elected but before he had assumed office—saying the resolution put the Israelis in a difficult position and should be vetoed. Mr. Trump also held a phone conversation with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, whose government had written a draft of the resolution. Egypt proceeded to call for the vote to be delayed, but the resolution passed the following day, with the Obama administration declining to block it.

 

Investigators have also asked witnesses about Mr. Kushner’s role in arranging meetings or communication with foreign leaders during the transition, the people said. The special counsel’s mandate gives Mr. Mueller a broad directive to examine any matters arising from the Russia investigation.

These revelations raise new questions over whether Special Counsel Mueller may attempt to use the 1799 Logan Act to apply pressure on Kushner.

A 1799 law called the Logan Act also bars Americans from communicating with a foreign government to influence the government’s actions related to a dispute with the U.S., but no one has ever been successfully prosecuted under the law.

 

In a statement that Mr. Kushner gave to congressional committees in July, he wrote that at his father-in-law’s request, he served as the main point of contact for foreign countries at a time when it was clear Mr. Trump would be the Republican nominee.

Of course, Kushner is under investigation for a litany of other allegations of wrongdoing ranging from his meeting with a Russian lawyer to inaccuracies on his financial disclosure forms to his role in Comey"s dismissal.  Why do we get the sneaking suspicion that Mueller isn"t going to stop pursuing new angles on Kushner until something sticks?

Kushner "Forgot" To Disclose Contact With Putin Ally

After being accused in a letter earlier this week sent by the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee of failing to turn over emails from September 2016 pertaining to a range of topics including Wikileaks, it appears Kushner is being punished for his obstinance with a series of embarrassing leaks presumably from the same committee that publicly chastised him only days before (bonus points for subtlety). The new allegations are likely to provoke more spurious speculation that Kushner and other members of the Trump camp (Sessions etc.) perjured themselves during Congressional testimony.

According to the leaks, Kushner neglected to disclose that Aleksander Torshin, a powerful Russian central banker and former senator with ties to both President Vladimir Putin and Russian organized crime, had reached out to the campaign with a "dinner invite" and an offer to connect Trump with Putin. Kushner, who was on the email chain, reportedly instructed junior campaign aides to rebuff the meeting.

Aleksander Torshin

Also, when asked if he was aware of any contact between Wikileaks and the campaign, Kushner reportedly said he didn’t recall any contact, even though Donald Trump Jr. informed Kushner, and several other senior campaign staff, that Wikileaks had made contact. Kushner reportedly even forwarded Trump Jr.’s Wikileaks email to another campaign staffer, Hope Hicks.

Here’s NBC, which was first to report on the Torshin emails:

President Trump"s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, failed to disclose what lawmakers called a "Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite" involving a banker who has been accused of links to Russian organized crime, three sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

 

An email chain described Aleksander Torshin, a former senator and deputy head of Russia"s central bank who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as wanting Trump to attend an event on the sidelines of a National Rifle Association convention in Louisville, Kentucky, in May 2016, the sources said. The email also suggests Torshin was seeking to meet with a high-level Trump campaign official during the convention, and that he may have had a message for Trump from Putin, the sources said.

 

Kushner rebuffed the request after receiving a lengthy email exchange about it between a West Virginia man and Trump campaign aide Rick Dearborn, the sources said.

 

Kushner responded to the email by telling Dearborn and the handful of other Trump campaign officials on the email that they should not accept requests from people who pretend to have contacts with foreign officials to aggrandize themselves, according Kushner"s lawyer, Abbe Lowell. Dearborn currently serves as a deputy chief of staff in the White House.

 

"Pass on this," Kushner responded, according to a letter Lowell sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday evening. "A lot of people come claiming to carry messages. Very few we are able to verify. For now I think we decline such meetings."

And here’s CNN on Wikileaks...

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner told congressional Russia investigators that he did not communicate with WikiLeaks and did not recall anyone on the Trump campaign who had, a source with knowledge of his testimony told CNN.

 

But Kushner did receive and forward an email from Donald Trump Jr. about contact Trump Jr. had with WikiLeaks, according to a new report this week and a letter from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

 

Kushner, President Donald Trump"s son-in-law, was asked in July during his closed-door congressional testimony if he had any contacts with WikiLeaks or its founder Julian Assange and he responded that he had not, according to the source. He also told Congress he did not know of anyone on the campaign who had contacted WikiLeaks.

 

A separate source familiar with Kushner"s interview with congressional investigators said he accurately answered questions about his contact and didn"t recall anyone else in the campaign who had contact.

Of course, Kushner isn’t the only person in Trump’s orbit to deny the Wikileaks’ contacts. When asked in October 2016 if the Trump campaign was “in cahoots” with Wikileaks, Mike Pence claimed “nothing could be further from the truth. But that’s beside the point. As Kushner’s lawyer Abbe Lowell is pushing back against the Judiciary committee, claiming there were no "missing documents," as the committee has alleged, while criticizing the panel"s leaders for going to the media on Thursday with their accusations.

"I would have assumed that, if there were any questions about our productions or exchanges, that would have been communicated to me directly before you made this a media event," Lowell wrote.

Lowell (who has, we imagine, racked up his fair share of billable hours this week) defended Kushner’s responses by pointing out that Kushner said he did not recall contact with Russian entities and Wikileaks, not that they didn’t happen. Kushner’s busy schedule ( he is, after all, in charge of a range of White House initiatives from streamlining the federal government to bringing peace to the Middle East) now, and during the campaign, when he was a senior political adviser, has made it impossible for him to remember many of these details, his lawyers have argued.

And while many on the left have been quick to cry perjury, proving that somebody deliberately lied when testifying about their recollections is notoriously tricky.

Lowell also pointed out in his rebuttal to the allegations that his client voluntarily testified before the House and Senate committees that are investigating Russian interference (or other malfeasance) related to the 2016 election.

Furthermore, Kushner endured grueling six-hour sessions, and answered every question he was asked.

"Mr. Kushner was asked if he had contacts with Wikileaks, Guccifer or DC Leaks and said no. He also said he did not know of such contacts by the campaign. From all I have now seen, his statement was accurate then as it is now. In over 6 hours of voluntary testimony, Mr Kushner answered all questions put to him and demonstrated that there had been no collusion between the campaign and Russia."

Kushner famously neglected to include meetings with Russian officials, including former ambassador Kislyak, during his security-clearance application, something his office confirmed was the result of a clerical error.

Unsurprisingly, Democrats have already capitalized on these embarrassing leaks to insist that Kushner return for more testimony – possibly in a public forum, which hints at the real reason these documents were leaked.

Full Kushner lawyer response to Senate Judiciary Committee letter calling Kushner’s document production “incomplete” pic.twitter.com/xSKqf3tIhl

— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) November 18, 2017

 Since the investigations began, Congress have been trying, unsuccessfully, to push Kushner to testify in a public hearing – an event that would inevitably create a media circus and allow Democrats on the committee a tantalizing opportunity for grandstanding. We imagine those calls will only grow louder as the coming holiday-shortened week begins.

Another Collusion Narrative Dies: New Emails Support Trump Jr.'s Account Of Infamous "Russia Meeting"

Another Trump-Russia collusion narrative has bitten the dust.

In a stunning revelation that goes a long way toward alleviating the cloud of suspicion that has hovered over Donald Trump Jr. since details about a meeting organized by Trump Jr. involving Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort along with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and her entourage were first publicized in July, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that newly disclosed emails between Veselnitskaya and Azerbaijani-Russian billionaire Aras Agalarov largely support Veselnitskaya’s account that the meeting focused on her yearslong lobbying effort to kill the Magnitsky Act.

The emails, which were provided to WSJ by Scott Balber, a lawyer for Agalarov, cover a period of time leading up to the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower. They begin in October 2015, when Veselnitskaya first shared information about her anti-Magnitsky efforts with Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika.

Veselnitskaya also shared allegations about a US investment firm called Ziff Brothers possibly dodging taxes in Russia. The firm later donated to Democrats.

In October 2015, Ms. Veselnitskaya shared information about her anti-Magnitsky campaign with Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, a top official appointed by the Kremlin, Mr. Balber said. In May 2016, less than two weeks before the June 9 Trump Tower meeting, Ms. Veselnitskaya also provided Mr. Agalarov with a five-page set of talking points that included the same information she had given Mr. Chaika, Mr. Balber said.

Included in the information she shared with the men, Mr. Balber said Monday, was a single reference to Mrs. Clinton. Ms. Veselnitskaya alleged that a U.S. firm, Ziff Brothers Investments, had dodged taxes in Russia and later donated to Democrats, including possibly Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Chaika’s office released a statement in spring 2016 alleging Ziff Brothers Investments of evading taxes in Russia. The company hasn’t been charged and has previously declined to comment on the allegations.

The emails largely support Trump Jr.’s and Veselnitskaya’s version of events. Trump said the meeting proved disappointing. In July of this year, after reports of the meeting first emerged, Trump said that Ms. Veselnitskaya “stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Clinton,” but “it quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.” Trump said he cut the meeting short after Veselnitskaya started talking about the Magnitsky Act.

The meeting is now being probed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating whether associates of Mr. Trump colluded with Moscow as part of his probe into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. election, according to people familiar with the matter.

The emails represent a blow to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who’s been aggressively investigating the meeting between Trump Jr. and Veselnitskaya. While Trump Jr. is still exposed for his infamous “if it’s what you say it is then I love it” comment made in response to publicist Ronald Goldstone’s claim that Veselnitskaya had damaging information about Clinton – the pretext for setting the meeting – all of the leaks have so far supported Trump Jr.’s version of events: Namely, that Veselnitskaya did not provide Trump Jr. with the “opposition research” he had been seeking.

We suspect this new information will not be the lead story on MSNBC, CNN, or at The Washington Post.

Democrats Want Ivanka Trump’s Security Clearance Revoked

Two Democratic lawmakers are calling for Ivanka Trump’s security clearance to be revoked. The two are citing “credibility issues” based on series of recent reports.

According to The Hill, several reports have surfaced claiming Ivanka lacks credibility. “Recent press investigations highlight severe credibility issues with Ivanka Trump, a White House official, close advisor, and daughter to the President,” Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.) wrote in a letter to White House counsel Don McGahn. In the letter, the lawmakers also renewed their call for Jared Kushner’s (Ivanka’s husband) security clearance to be revoked.

The letter cites reports that Trump “used at least two, and possibly three,” private email accounts for official White House business. Not many Democrats seemed concerned that Hillary Clinton did the same thing, but in an obviously divided government, you’ll have hypocrisy and finger pointing.

A Politico report earlier this week found Trump and [Ivanka’s] husband, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, reportedly sent hundreds of emails from a third private email account while serving in their White House roles. The lawmakers also referenced a McClatchy report that Trump and Kushner were each fined after they failed to submit financial reports required by the Office of Government Ethics on time. The financial disclosure forms submitted by Trump and Kushner also included different values for their personal assets. Some of those values had discrepancies of hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to McClatchy. – The Hill

“These new revelations, along with the ongoing White House probe of Ms. Trump’s private email use, have compromised Ms. Trump’s integrity and credibility,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter. “We are requesting that the White House immediately revoke her security clearance pending an investigation into her actions.” The letter also said, “In light of the recent developments relating to both Mr. Kushner’s e-mail accounts and his financial disclosure statements, we would like to reiterate our request that you immediately revoke his security clearance.”

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Jared Kushner Reportedly Used Private Email For White House Business

As if the flow of news on this warm September weekend wasn’t hectic enough thanks to President Trump’s decision to pick a fight with professional sports, Politico is out with the latest bombshell report alleging some nefarious act was committed by one of Trump’s closest advisors, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Politico reports that, in an ironic twist, Kushner continued to use a private email account that had been set up during the transition to communicate with fellow administration officials during Trump’s first nine months in office, even as Trump continued to bash his former rival’s mishandling of classified information on a private server during her time at the State Department.

While Politico places the implication of wrongdoing front and center in its story, it waits until lower down to provide a key piece of context from the White House communications department: "Kushner sent less than 100 emails from this account, and those that were sent consisted mostly of quips about news items and minor commentary."

Liberals like to talk about the concept of false equivalence, especially in the context of how the media covered the Clinton email scandal vs. coverage of Trump’s more controversial pronouncements and business arrangements. That"s what this Kushner story appears to be. Judging by the description, it’s clear that Kushner didn’t rely on his private account to conduct public business, and only used it to send a handful of messages. More to the point, while he may have violated public-information guidelines, he did not improperly handle classified information.

“Mr. Kushner uses his White House email address to conduct White House business,” Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Kushner, said in a statement Sunday. “Fewer than 100 emails from January through August were either sent to or returned by Mr. Kushner to colleagues in the White House from his personal email account. These usually forwarded news articles or political commentary and most often occurred when someone initiated the exchange by sending an email to his personal rather than his White House address.”

Politico also noted that Kushner’s use of a private email account was part of a larger pattern of Trump administration aides using personal email accounts for government business. Kushner allegedly used the private account to communicate with Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Gary Cohn and Josh Raffel.

Aides who have exchanged emails with Kushner on his private account since President Donald Trump took office in January include former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former chief strategist Steve Bannon, National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, and spokesman Josh Raffel, according to emails described to or shown to POLITICO. In some cases, those White House officials have emailed Kushner’s account first, said people familiar with the messages.

…and then there’s this, six paragraphs in.

There is no indication that Kushner has shared any sensitive or classified material on his private account, or that he relies on his private email account more than his official White House account to conduct government business. Aides say he prefers to call or text over using email.

And that"s not even the most glaring example of Politico"s tendency to leave key details that detract from the impression of wrongdoing until much later in the story.

Even further down, Politico admits that Kushner’s conduct may not violate the Presidential Records Act...

Private email traffic among White House aides — some of it sent between personal email accounts rather than to or from government addresses — could skirt the requirements of the Presidential Records Act, which requires all documents related to the president’s personal and political activities to be archived. Trump himself is not known to use email but occasionally has email messages to his assistant printed and presented to him.

…And, furthermore, that it couldn’t verify whether Kushner forwarded all work-related emails to his work account, which would render his behavior 100% legitimate. The White House is insisting he remained in compliance, and Politico hasn’t uncovered any evidence to discredit this claim.

Lowell said Kushner has adhered to government record-keeping requirements by forwarding all the emails to his account, though POLITICO could not verify that.

Other White House officials have also sometimes used personal accounts to correspond with Kushner and with each other, according to emails seen by POLITICO and people familiar with Kushner’s correspondence. They have also used encrypted apps like Signal and Confide that automatically delete messages, prompting former press secretary Sean Spicer in February to issue a warning to communications staffers that using such apps could violate the Presidential Records Act.

Politico then adds that private-email use in the Trump administration has been “somewhat common” despite Trump’s attacks on Clinton.

The use of personal email accounts in the Trump White House has been somewhat common, even though the president has been a harsh critic of Clinton’s private email habits, frequently leading “lock her up” chants as he traveled across the country on the campaign trail.

Politico also says Kushner and Ivanka Trump set up their private family domain late last year before moving to Washington from New York, according to people with knowledge of events as well as publicly available internet registration records. At the time, Kushner, who served as a senior campaign adviser, was expected to be named to a White House role, while Ivanka Trump was publicly saying she didn’t plan to work in her father’s administration, though she ended up taking an unpaid role with an office in the West Wing. People familiar with the account say it was primarily set up for personal use, but that Kushner has used it to communicate with acquaintances outside the White House about matters relating to Trump and the administration, according to people who have received messages.

Ivanka has an email account on the same domain, but there’s no indication she used her account for work purposes.

So is Kushner"s sending of work-related notes from his private email account a major violation on par with Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information? Or just another mainstream attack on Kushner, meant to dilute the Hillary Clinton email narrative?

CNN: Rice Unmasked Trump Team Because Obama Was Offended By UAE Crown Prince Visit To NY

For the better part of a year now Americans have speculated over precisely what pressing national security issue may have prompted the Obama administration to take the extreme measure of unmasking the names of Trump officials captured in foreign intelligence reports...you know, because bypassing the typical warrant process and violating an American citizen"s fourth amendment protections is kind of a big deal. 

So what was it...intelligence concerning an imminent terrorist attack...concrete evidence that Putin stole Hillary"s emails?  No, according to CNN, National Security Advisor Susan Rice ultimately made the call to unmask Trump officials because Obama was offended that the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates traveled to New York last December, after the election mind you, without giving him a heads up first.

Former national security adviser Susan Rice privately told House investigators that she unmasked the identities of senior Trump officials to understand why the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates was in New York late last year, multiple sources told CNN.

The New York meeting preceded a separate effort by the UAE to facilitate a back-channel communication between Russia and the incoming Trump White House.

The crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, arrived in New York last December in the transition period before Trump was sworn into office for a meeting with several top Trump officials, including Michael Flynn, the president"s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his top strategist Steve Bannon, sources said.

The Obama administration felt misled by the United Arab Emirates, which had failed to mention that Zayed was coming to the United States even though it"s customary for foreign dignitaries to notify the US government about their travels, according to several sources familiar with the matter. Rice, who served as then-President Obama"s national security adviser in his second term, told the House Intelligence Committee last week that she requested the names of the Americans mentioned in the classified report be revealed internally, a practice officials in both parties say is common.

Of course, CNN attempts to downplay the gravity of these new revelations but somehow we suspect that Obama getting his feelings hurt over a breach in travel protocol of a foreign dignitary is not a valid reason to spy on American citizens...though we"re not lawyers.

CNN noted that it"s unclear precisely which Trump officials Rice discussed at the House meeting, and thus which officials were ultimately unmasked, but multiple sources apparently confirmed to them that Zayed met at the time with Flynn, Kushner and Bannon. The three-hour discussion focused on a range of issues, including Iran, Yemen and the Mideast peace process, according to two of CNN"s sources who insisted that opening up a back-channel with Russia was not a topic of discussion.

A senior Middle East official told CNN that the UAE did not "mislead" the Obama administration about the crown prince"s visit, but acknowledged not telling the US government about it in advance. The meeting, which took place December 15, 2016, the official said, was simply an effort to build a relationship with senior members of the Trump team who would be working in the administration to share assessments of the region.

"The meeting was about ascertaining the Trump team"s view of the region and sharing the UAE"s view of the region and what the US role should be," the official said. "No one was coming in to sell anything or arrange anything."

Meanwhile, Republican responses on the hearing have been mixed with Trey Gowdy saying it appears as if Rice did nothing illegal while White House press secretary Sarah Sanders simply deferred on the legality of her actions.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican who is helping lead the House investigation, told the Daily Caller "nothing that came up in her interview that led me to conclude" that she improperly unmasked the names of Trump associates or leaked it to the press.

Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, did not say explicitly whether Trump still believes Rice committed a crime but added the issue of leaking and unmasking needs to be investigated.

"We"ve seen illegal leaking of classified materials, including the identities of American citizens unmasked in intelligence reports," Sanders told CNN. "That"s why the President called for Congress to investigate this matter and why the Department of Justice and Intelligence Community are doing all they can to stamp out this dangerous trend that undermines our national security."

Just to summarize, Susan Rice unmasked the names of American citizens, which effectively means she spied on them without a warrant, because President Obama was offended that the crown prince of the UAE met with the newly elected administration without first giving him a heads up?  Does that sound reasonable to everyone?

Then again, maybe this entire story from Rice/CNN is complete bullshit and was only concocted as a way to avoid admitting that the Obama White House was pissed they lost an election and basically turned the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus into a political weapon to dig up any dirt they could find on an adversary.

So, what say you?

Pieczenik, Jones Get into Heated Debate Over Trump Conspiracies

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

There are some people who apologize for Trump for virtually every single thing he does. They like to blame the usual cast of villains, including Dina Powell, Jared Kushner, Gary Cohn, Gen. McMaster, Mattis and Kelly -- even his own daughter Ivanka Trump. It"s easy to get swept into drama-filled theories of palace intrigue -- depicting a cabal of evil people, all with ties to George Soros, trying to take down Trump.

But if you followed that logic all the way down to its root, it would suggest that Trump was, in fact, an idiot -- unable to manage his affairs, permitting horrible people control and manage him, even isolate him from the grandeur of the alt-right media. None of this is conducive with the overarching theory by his sycophants that the President is always playing 3D intergalactic speed fencing championship tier chess -- so they resort to blaming others for isolating the President.

Case in point. During today"s broadcast of the Alex Jones show, Roger Stone made the outrageous implication that the President was being drugged -- as a precursor to a coup. He segued into that after discussing the resignation of long time Trump bodyguard, Keith Schiller. Stone said that Schiller had always been "the canary in the coal mine" for the President and that with him out of the way, forced out by Gen. Kelly, the President"s life was in danger.

This all makes for a good radio show, drives up the click views on the website -- but it cannot be substantiated, aside from a few "unnamed sources." Stone even said that McMaster made disparaging remarks about Trump while dining with the CEO of Oracle recently, with Jones chiming in that the behavior was in fact "treasonous."

All of this rhetoric was checked and flushed down a Floridian toilet bowl when Jones called up Dr. Pieczenik to get his take on this "bombshell" news. Starting off the conversation, Dr. Pie chastised him thricely for not being polite enough to ask how he was fairing during Hurricane Irma -- then he laid waste to Jones" conspiracies, pointing out that the President wasn"t a child and was smart enough to manage his own affairs.

I"ve never seen these two clash. Watch.

Some Of Trump's Lawyers Concluded Kushner Should Step Down

In what will come as music from above to Steve Bannon, as well as numerous Donald Trump supporters who just happen to have a less than soft spot for his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the WSJ reports that "some" of the US President"s lawyers concluded earlier this summer that Jared Kushner should step down as senior White House adviser due to "possible legal complications" emerging from the ongoing Russia probe, and aired such concerns directly to the president, according to WSJ sources. 

The problems involving Kushner are largely familiar: he was the adviser closest to the president who had the most dealings with Russian officials and businesspeople during the campaign and transition, many of which are currently the object of Robert Mueller"s ongoing probe - Kushner said he had four such meetings or interactions. Additionally Kushner initially omitted to disclose any contacts with foreign officials as required on a security clearance form. He only updated the form later on several occasions to include what he has said were more than 100 contacts with foreign officials.

That said, the Trump"s lawyers were not united in their condemnation of Kushner.

John Dowd, who first joined the legal team in June and now heads it, said in an interview Monday that “to my knowledge” the proposal wasn’t taken to Mr. Trump. Mr. Dowd also said he did not side with some of his colleagues who believed Mr. Kushner needed to go.

“I didn’t agree with that view at all. I thought it was absurd,” Mr. Dowd said. “I made my views known.” He called Mr. Kushner “absolutely terrific” and “a great asset, real gentleman, a pleasure to work with.”

Yet despite the reticence of the pro-Kushner camp, the process appears to have been rather involved. By June, some members of the legal team aired their concerns to Mr. Trump including in at least one meeting in the White House. At this time, press aides to the legal team began to prepare for the possibility that Mr. Kushner would step down, "drafting a statement explaining his departure."

The one person whose opinion matters the most, however, was not convinced:

"Trump wasn’t persuaded that Mr. Kushner needed to leave. One person said Mr. Trump’s view was that Mr. Kushner hadn’t done anything wrong and that there was no need for him to step down."

The current fate of the Kush-lash is unclear, further complicated by the recent transitions inside Trump"s legal team itself which underwent a major overhaul in July.

The legal team has been reshuffled since it was first assembled in late May, after the Justice Department appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller to oversee the federal probe of Russian interference in the U.S. election. In mid-July, Mr. Dowd took over leadership of the team from Marc Kasowitz, Mr. Trump’s longtime attorney.

Mr. Kasowitz in a statement said: “I never discussed with other lawyers for the President that Jared Kushner should step down from his position at the White House, I never recommended to the President that Mr. Kushner should step down from that position and I am not aware that any other lawyers for the President made any such recommendation either.”

For his part, while Kushner has repeatedly denied any links to Russia, writing in a July statement that “I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government,” some of Mr. Trump’s attorneys worried that "Mr. Kushner’s continued employment carried risks that could possibly involve other White House officials."

Events hit a crescendo on July 8, when news broke of the previously undisclosed June 2016 meeting that involved a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin, Kushner and Donald Trump Jr.

Anticipating that the meeting would become public, members of the legal team in June already had developed talking points to manage the political fallout—including a statement that would explain a potential Kushner resignation. The statement on behalf of Mr. Kushner expressed regret that the political environment had become so toxic that what he viewed as a standard meeting was becoming a weapon for Mr. Trump’s critics, according to two people familiar with the documents.

But, as events have since revealed, those talking points were never used, at least not yet, especially since they would prompt even more questions whether Kushner is departing as he is hiding something.

That said, now that this major media "trial balloon" has been leaked and the public has been duly put on notice, it is hardly inconceivable to assume that as Trump considers who to dump next ahead of the oncoming Mueller juggernaut, his own son-in-law may be next in the firing line. And should Jared be exit stage left, followed promptly by Ivanka, virtually nobody from Trump"s original team will be left standing, aside from Trump that is... and all the ex-Goldman guys of course.

Mueller Requests Interviews With 6 Members Of Trump's "Inner Circle"

In one of the Washington Post’s tamest Friday-night bombshells to date, the Jeff Bezos-owned paper of record alleges that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is trying to interview six current and former White House aides, a sign that “the probe that has dogged Trump’s presidency is starting to penetrate a closer circle of aides around the president.”

However, a closer look at exactly who Mueller is hoping to question appears to contradict WaPo’s interpretation: While his list reportedly includes a handful of senior figures like former chief of staff Reince Priebus and former press secretary Sean Spicer, names like Hope Hicks, Don McGahn, James Burnham and Josh Raffel aren’t as widely known to the public - and hardly qualify as "senior aides."

Still, the Post’s anonymous sources claimed that these individuals may have been privy to important decisions, like Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey and the White House’s initial reluctance to address warnings about former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s integrity, and the reasoning behind them.

Of course, Mueller, who has been keenly interested in the process that ultimately led to the ouster of his friend, and potential witness, James Comey, has continued to press the issue even after Comey himself said he believed Trump"s conduct during a meeting where the president allegedly asked his then-FBI director to "let go" of the investigation into gaps in Flynn"s security clearance disclosures didn"t rise to the level of obstruction of justice.

As for how Comey"s firing may be connected to Russian interference during the election - we"re still not clear on that.

“Each of the six advisers was privy to important internal discussions that have drawn the interest of Mueller’s investigators, including his decision in May to fire FBI Director James B. Comey and the White House’s initial inaction following warnings that then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had withheld information from the public about his private discussions in December with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, according to people familiar with the probe.

The advisers are also connected to internal documents that Mueller’s investigators have asked the White House to produce, according to people familiar with the special counsel’s inquiry.”

Following this round of interviews, it’s widely expected that Mueller could go after senior officials like Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.

“White House officials are expecting that Mueller will seek additional interviews, possibly with family members, including Kushner, who is a West Wing senior adviser, according to the people familiar with Mueller’s inquiry.”

The idea that Mueller wants to interview Kushner is almost ridiculous, considering he has already sat for marathon interviews with investigators from at least two Congressional committees. Former Campaign CEO Paul Manafort has also delivered extensive testimony to Congress.

In addition to Priebus, Spicer and Hicks, Mueller will probably want to question White House counsel Don McGahn.

Mueller has a different reason for speaking with each individual staffer. Hicks, who is now White House communications director, and Raffel were purportedly involved in discussion over how to respond to the New York Times, which was preparing its initial report about the now infamous “Russia meeting.”

However, if Mueller wants to learn more about Hicks"s role in the decision-making process, there appears to be an easier way: He could just pick up a copy of the Post.

“The two communications staffers advocated being transparent about the purpose of the meeting, which Trump Jr. had accepted after he was offered damaging information about Hillary Clinton that he was told was part of a Russian government effort to help his father’s campaign.

Ultimately, according to people familiar with the discussions, the president dictated language for the statement that his son would release to the New York Times, which was preparing a report about the meeting. The response omitted important details about the meeting and presented it as “primarily” devoted to a discussion of the adoption of Russian children.”

Spicer was reportedly drawn in to the administration’s handling of the Flynn firing.

“After The Washington Post reported that Flynn had talked with Kislyak about sanctions, Spicer told reporters that Flynn had “reached out to” Kislyak on Christmas Day to extend holiday greetings — effectively rejecting claims that they had talked about U.S. sanctions against Moscow. A few days later, President Barack Obama had announced he was expelling 35 Russian “intelligence operatives” in response to the Kremlin’s meddling in the U.S. election.

After Obama’s announcement, Spicer said Kislyak had sent a message requesting that Flynn call him.

‘Flynn took that call,’ Spicer said. But he stressed that the call ‘centered on the logistics of setting up a call with the president of Russia and [Trump] after the election.’”

Of course, those leftist conspiracy theorists who believe plotting Russians successfully influenced the outcome of an American election have received plenty of grist from the media this week.

On Thursday, the New York Times reported that Donald Trump Jr. told Congressional investigators that he took the now infamous Russia meeting to try and determine Hillary Clinton’s “fitness” for office. Earlier in the week, Facebook unleashed a veritable firestorm of hysteria after it “admitted” that it had sold at least $100,000 in advertising to a Russian troll farm - though the ads in question didn"t explicitly support either candidate.

While the competing Congressional investigations have largely devolved into a battle of political posturing between competing committees, it seems that Mueller remains determined to cast the widest possible net, suggesting that the former FBI Director is frantically searching for a "smoking gun.

Manafort's Russia Meeting Notes Contain "No Damaging Information" About Don Jr.

A day ago, the New York Times dropped its latest embarrassing, but ultimately meaningless, leak from Senate investigators, who told the Grey Lady (under the cover of anonymity, of course) that Donald Trump Jr. had testified that he was trying to determine Hillary Clinton’s “fitness” for office when he took the infamous “Russia meeting” at Trump Tower in June 2016, shortly after his father had cemented his grip on the Republican nomination.

Already, the White House – or perhaps a sympathetic lawmaker – is helping Trump Jr. fight back. According to a Politico report citing unnamed government officials, notes taken by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort during the Russia meeting show nothing damaging to the Trump family or campaign officials.

“The notes from the meeting do not contain any damaging information about Clinton or references to promises of damaging information about her, nor do they indicate that officials on the campaign were promising favors or seeking them in return for money, the people who’ve seen them said.

According to these people, the notes have been with Senate officials for weeks and have been reviewed by a number of people on Capitol Hill. Also in attendance at the June 2016 meeting in New York were a Russian lawyer, a Russian businessman and other Trump campaign officials, including Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.”

Manafort is believed to be the primary target in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Earlier this month, Mueller reportedly enlisted the help of an “elite” IRS investigative unit to scrutinize Manafort’s tax returns, a sign, one expert said, that the prosecutor could be looking for a “check the box” violation – or literally anything he could use against Manafort, regardless of its relevancy to the Trump campaign. He first turned over his notes to the Senate back in June when he met with investigators for closed-door testimony.

Those who’ve seen the notes say they are “not likely to be independently vital in any case.”

“Officials who have reviewed the notes say they are not likely to be independently vital to any case, if at all, because they are difficult to follow, particularly one year later. To be sure, the notes are not an exhaustive account of the meeting, and other things could have been discussed that are not included in the notes.”

In an interesting twist, the people said the notes reference financier Bill Browder, a supporter of the Magnitsky Act and enemy of the Russian government. As Politico reminds us, the act sanctioned Russian officials for human rights abuses. In retaliation for those sanctions, Russia banned US citizens from adopting Russian children. Browder is the same Russian official who revealed to lawmakers that the opposition-research firm Fusion GPS, which commissioned former UK spy Christopher Steele to assemble the now debunked “Trump dossier,” was funded in part by money from Russian entities – complicating the investigation’s narrative of Russian interference to benefit Trump.

In accordance with the version events given by everyone in attendance who has spoken with Congressional investigators of the special counsel – a group that includes a Russian lobbyist – the notes include a spirited case on why

Trump officials should overturn the Magnitsky act, and why Republicans could support it. It indicates that the Russian officials made critical comments about Browder, but that Trump officials seemed to know little about the legislation.

There you have it, folks. The grand Russian conspiracy – to convince the Trumps to overturn a minor law that had sparked outrage back home. We wonder: when will investigators leak something that amounts to, you know, actual evidence that a crime was committed? Or will this patter of inconsequential details, sanctimoniously reported by the mainstream press, continue for the next four to eight years?