Roger Stone Found Guilty On All Counts

Trump associate Roger Stone has been found guilty on numerous charges by a federal jury. The guilty verdict includes charges of witness tampering and lying to Congress in connection with the Russia investigation.

Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted Stone in connection with his September 2017 testimony before Congress. Texts and emails showed that Stone had lied to congressional investigators about his attempts to communicate with WikiLeaks about leaks of stolen Democratic emails and passing information he gained to the Trump campaign. Stone allegedly also tried to silence the testimony of liberal talk-show host Randy Credico.

Stone is reportedly being released on his own recognizance until his sentencing, but he is still subject to a gag order on the case.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Republicans Shouldn’t Gloat Over Mueller Testimony

In 1960, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon squared off in the first nationally televised presidential debate. Nixon, who was leading by eight points in the polls going into the debate, had been recently hospitalized and refused to wear makeup. Kennedy, tanned from the campaign trail, decided at the last minute to wear makeup. Visually, the two candidates contrasted sharply with Nixon appearing pale and unshaven and Kennedy looking tan and fit. People who listened to the debate on the radio thought that Nixon won, but Kennedy’s edge with television viewers was enough to erode Nixon’s lead. Yesterday’s Mueller testimony was a lot like that.

For those of us who were unable to watch the hearings but were able to hear parts of it on the radio, Mueller sound calm, collected and careful. However, those who watched the hearings on television thought that Mueller underperformed. Much of the difference seems to be a question of style versus substance.

In the hours that followed, Republicans attacked Mueller’s style as well as his refusal to answer questions about the Steele dossier, even though his opening statement made clear that he would not comment on ongoing matters or privileged information from within the Justice Department. This is consistent with Mueller’s public statement in May in which he said that any testimony would not go beyond his office’s written report.

Mueller’s grueling testimony before two committees seemed to largely consist of Democrats baiting him to attack President Trump and Republicans attacking the Russia investigation vicariously through him and chortling when he failed to show that he had every passage of his two-volume report memorized. Mr. Mueller didn’t give either side what it wanted, parsing his words carefully as lawyers tend to do.

The main thrust of Mueller’s testimony consisted of four points which were emphasized in his opening statement. First, Mueller pointed out once again that the “Russian government interfered in our election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” This fact continues to be downplayed by President Trump and Republicans. Second, there was not enough evidence to charge any member of the Trump campaign in a criminal conspiracy related to that interference. Third, the special counsel investigated attempts to obstruct justice and lie to investigators, but, fourth, “based on Justice Department policy and principles of fairness, we decided we would not make a determination as to whether the President committed a crime.”

Even though President Trump and Republicans are celebrating in the aftermath of Mueller’s testimony, the grilling did more damage to President Trump’s image. In an exchange with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) Mueller conceded that Trump’s actions seemed to meet the three-pronged test for criminal obstruction that consists of an obstructive act, connection to an official proceeding, and corrupt intent.

In another exchange, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Hawaii), said, “We have heard today that the President ordered former White House counsel Don McGahn to fire you. The President ordered Don McGahn to then cover that up and create a false paper trail. And now we’ve heard the President ordered Corey Lewandowski to tell Jeff Sessions to limit your investigation so that he, you, stop investigating the President. I believe a reasonable person looking at these facts could conclude that all three elements of the crime of obstruction of justice have been met. And I like to ask you the reason again that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of OLC opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting President. Correct?”

“That is correct,” Mueller answered.

Lieu pressed, “The fact that their orders by the President were not carried out. That is not a defense because the statute itself is quite broad. It says that as long as you endeavor or attempt to obstruct justice, that would also constitute a crime.”

“I’m not getting into that at this juncture,” Mueller answered.

Later in the day, Mueller clarified his answer to Lieu, stating in his opening statement to the House Intelligence Committee, “Now before we go to questions, I want to go back to one thing that was said this morning by Mr. Lieu, who said, and I quote, ‘You didn’t charge the president because of the OLC opinion.’ That is not the correct way to say it. As we say in the report, and as I said at the opening, we did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime. With that, Mr. Chairman, I’m ready to answer questions.”

In another short exchange, Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) asked, “Isn't it fair to say that the President's written answers were not only inadequate and incomplete because he didn't answer many of your questions, but where he did, his answers showed that he wasn't always being truthful?”

Mueller answered, “I would say generally.”

If the president’s written statement to investigators was untrue, then Donald Trump could be indicted for lying to investigators. In a separate exchange, Mueller did acknowledge that Trump could be indicted after he leaves office for crimes that he might have committed while he was president.

In another moment that directly contradicted Trump’s claims, Rep. Nadler asked, “The president has repeatedly claimed your report found there was no obstruction and it completely and totally exonerated him. That is not what your report said, is it?”

“Correct, not what the report said,” Mueller answered, effectively calling the president a liar.

If Democrats failed to score a knockout blow at the hearings, so did Republicans. As Jonah Goldberg pointed out on Twitter, Mueller hardly seemed like the zealous head of witch hunt. Instead, the special counsel was very restrained and repeatedly failed to seize opportunities to attack Trump.

https://twitter.com/JonahNRO/status/1154039243863285762?s=20

One of his most direct criticisms of the president was Mueller’s statement condemning Trump’s 2016 embrace of WikiLeaks. When asked if Trump’s statements were a problem, Mueller replied, “Problematic is an understatement, in terms of what it displays, in terms of giving some hope or some boost to what is and should be illegal activity.”

The hearings were not must-see TV, but they were not a bust either. For Republicans to celebrate that Mueller did not indict the president represents a low moment for the Grand Old Party. The facts consistently presented by Mueller paint the picture of a chief executive with no respect for the rule of law.

In the end, the allegations that President Trump acted to block the Russia investigation on multiple occasions stood. Democrats made their point that Trump’s actions meet the legal definition of obstruction of justice even if Mueller’s adherence to the OLC memo prevents him from saying so publicly. Republicans are left to defend a president whose actions can only be defended by saying that he was unsuccessful in attempts to obstruct justice because his subordinates failed to follow his orders.

Mueller’s testimony and written report show that on multiple occasions, Donald Trump tried to interfere with and block the Russia investigation. Either the president knew he was acting illegally, in which case he is corrupt, or he was ignorant of the requirements of his job and unwilling to listen to advisors who tried to help him. In either case, Trump is unfit for office.

Nunes 'Expects Worst' From Mueller Testimony

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, says that he “expect[s] the worst” when former special counsel Robert Mueller testifies before Congress next week. Speaking to Fox News, the California congressman said that he expects Mueller to show up for the testimony and hinted that what he tells Congress could be damaging to President Trump.

“I really expect the worst, because Bob Mueller does not have to show up,” Nunes said. “So, he's doing this on his own free will. That tells me the last time he operated on his own free will, everybody forgets, (Attorney General William) Barr came out with a memo, was very clear about the decisions that he had made, and then a few days later, Mueller decided on his own to go out and hold a nine-minute press conference.”

“So I am very concerned,” Nunes continued. “I think we should expect the worst because he only has to say a couple [of] things and the rest of the media -- not saying you here at Fox, but 90 percent of the media will take one little phrase and run with it and try to run towards impeachment.”

“And look, I know there was no collusion and I know there was no obstruction, so in that sense it was fine,” Nunes added. “However, there shouldn't -- this whole investigation was an obstruction of justice trap.”

Nunes fails to point out that avoiding the “obstruction of justice trap” was a simple matter. All the president had to do was not attempt to obstruct the ongoing investigation. Per the testimony of Trump Administration officials contained in the Mueller report, however, the president did not meet this low bar.

Since the Mueller report was released last April following a summary version by Barr in March, Republicans have claimed that Mueller found no collusion and no obstruction. However, Nunes’ uneasiness with Mueller’s testimony indicates that the claim is on shaky ground. Mueller’s previous public statement in May seemed explicitly tailored to counter Republican claims that the report had exonerated the president.

“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” Mueller pointed out in both the written report and his public statement. “We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime.”

Not making a determination is not the same thing as an exoneration.

In his statement, Mueller went on to explain why his team did not make a determination as to whether President Trump broke the law, saying, “Under long-standing department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office…. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that, too, is prohibited.”

“A special counsel’s office is part of the Department of Justice, and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy,” Mueller continued. “Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider.”

Mr. Mueller will testify in open session on July 24 before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees. His testimony was originally scheduled for July 17 but was moved in order to give members of both parties more time for questioning. It is also possible that the change could have been due to the fact that President Trump had scheduled a rally in North Carolina for the same day, which could have distracted from Mueller’s testimony.

At this point, no one knows what Mueller will say in his testimony, but Republicans are obviously nervous that he will undercut their claims that President Trump did not obstruct justice in his attempts to block the Russia investigation. A question that is certain to be asked is whether Mueller would have indicted Mr. Trump for his actions if he had not been president. If Mr. Mueller answers directly, it could do more serious damage to President Trump’s already shaky reputation.

Another likely line of questioning involves Mueller’s letter to Barr contradicting his public characterization of the report. In the private letter sent after the release of Barr’s summary but before his decision to release a redacted version of the report, Mueller said that the public summary “did not fully capture the context nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions” and that it had led to “public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation.”

The bottom line is that if, as President Trump and Republicans have claimed for the past several months, that the president did nothing wrong then there would be nothing to fear from Robert Mueller’s testimony. The fact that Republicans “expect the worst” from the author of a report that the GOP has claimed exonerates the president should make us wonder how honest Republicans have been in their defenses of the Donald Trump.  

Originally published on The Resurgent

Mueller To Testify Before Congress

Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller has agreed to testify publicly before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees after Democrats issued a subpoena. In his press conference on May 29, Mueller indicated that he did not want to testify before Congress and intended his report to be his testimony.

“Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report,” Mueller said at the time, adding, “The report is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before Congress.”

Nevertheless, many Americans want to hear more from Mr. Mueller. “Americans have demanded to hear directly from the Special Counsel so they can understand what he and his team examined, uncovered, and determined about Russia's attack on our democracy, the Trump campaign's acceptance and use of that help, and President Trump and his associates' obstruction of the investigation into that attack,” House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler and House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said in a joint statement.

Other Americans pointedly don’t want to hear more about the special counsel investigation. As the news of Mueller’s upcoming testimony broke on Tuesday, President Trump tweeted, “Presidential harassment!”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1143709133234954241

Even if, as is likely, Mr. Mueller brings no new details of Russian collusion or presidential obstruction of justice to the witness chair, there are lingering questions about his report that his testimony could help answer. First and foremost is whether Mueller would have recommended prosecution of Donald Trump for obstruction of justice if he had not been president. Along that line is whether Trump’s actions, in Mueller’s opinion, constituted impeachable offenses.

There is also the question of Mueller’s letter to Attorney General William Barr. It was only after Mueller sent a letter complaining about Barr’s characterization of the Mueller report that the attorney general agreed to release a redacted version of the report to the public. Did Barr originally intend to mislead the public with summary that allowed the president to claim “No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION” while not revealing that Mueller’s failure to recommend prosecution for obstruction was because he did not make a prosecutorial judgment due to Justice Department policy that prohibits indictment of a sitting president?

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1109918388133023744

For their part, Republicans will likely use the opportunity to attack the credibility of the Special Counsel’s office and the FBI as well as question the origins of the Russia investigation. Republicans can be expected to question Mueller about the Steele dossier as well as probe whether the FBI was biased in its investigation of the Trump campaign. Many Republicans, including AG Barr, have alleged that the FBI behaved in a corrupt fashion during the investigation but have not provided evidence to support their claims.

Congressional hearings will also provide Mueller with a platform to draw attention to what he seems to see as the bigger elephant in the room: the fact that Russia went to great lengths to tamper with the election. As Mueller stressed in his press conference, “There were multiple systemic efforts to interfere in our election. And that allegation deserves the attention of every American.”

House Democrats will be certain to point out that Republicans, who traditionally have been strong on national security, have spent two years blocking efforts to beef up election security and minimizing the effect of Russian cyber attacks on election infrastructure. As recently as this week, Senate Republicans blocked a bill by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) that would have required backup paper ballots and provided election security grants to states.

Ultimately, much can be gleaned from the expectations of the two parties. The eager anticipation of Democrats shows that they think it is likely that Mueller’s testimony will be damaging to the president. The panicked reaction of the Republicans shows that they agree.

Mueller’s testimony is scheduled for July 17.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Mueller: Indicting Trump Was ‘Not an Option’

In a public statement today, Special Counsel Robert Mueller said that the investigation into Russian meddling in 2016 presidential campaign and the ancillary investigation into possible obstruction of justice were both justified “in order to find truth and hold wrongdoers accountable.”

Mueller said that there were “numerous efforts emanating from Russia to influence the election.” Mueller added that there was “insufficient evidence” of a “broader conspiracy” involving the Trump campaign.”

Mueller added again that “if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime then we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination that the president did commit a crime.”  This underscores the fact that the president was not exonerated.

Mueller cited “longstanding Justice Department policy” that president cannot be indicted while in office, calling the possibility “unconstitutional.”

“Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option that we could consider,” Mueller said.

Mueller said that he wanted the report to be seen as his testimony and that he was would not testify further by his own choice. He added that the wording of the report was chosen carefully and that he would not add any new public information in testimony to Congress.

He also said that he believed that Attorney General Barr acted in “good faith” in disclosing the report.

In his closing, Mueller underscored the fact that Russia had attacked the election, a point that the Special Counsel obviously believes should receive more attention. “There were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election and that allegation deserves the attention of every American,” Mueller said in closing.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Barr Bails Amid Mueller Message Mess

Attorney General Bill Barr canceled his appearance before the House Judiciary Committee after the body decided to allow an extra hour of questioning by staff lawyers. The Department of Justice objected to the extended questioning. The hearing was scheduled to begin Thursday at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time without Barr’s participation.

In a statement, the Department of Justice said that “having staff question the Attorney General, a Senate-confined Cabinet member, is inappropriate.” There was no explanation for why this would be inappropriate.

The statement also notes that the majority of the committee “are themselves attorneys, and the Chairman has the ability and authority to fashion the hearing in a way that allows for efficient and thorough questioning by the Members themselves, the Chairman’s request is also unnecessary.” That authority would presumably include the authority to delegate the questioning to professional attorneys.  It is worth noting that Senate Republicans hired an outside counsel to question Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, last September.

Axios reports that House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) had previously said that he would subpoena Barr if he refused to testify voluntarily. If Barr ignores the subpoena then he could be held in contempt of Congress.

Barr’s refusal to testify leaves House Democrats with few good options. NBC News explains that most likely scenario to force Barr’s testimony is to pursue a contempt case in civil court. A judge could impose sanctions in an attempt to get Barr to comply with the subpoena.

Even without testimony from the attorney general, the brouhaha over the Mueller report and Barr’s characterization of it is not likely to go away. The obvious next step is for House Democrats to invite Robert Mueller to testify.

When he released the redacted version of the Mueller report on April 18, Barr said he had “no objection” to allowing Mueller to testify. It will be interesting to see if Barr is still open to that possibility. It will also be interesting to see if Mueller’s sworn testimony backs up Barr’s claim from yesterday that the special counsel “was not suggesting that we had misrepresented his report.”

As with most of the details from the Russia scandal, Barr’s testimony left many questions unanswered. With denials of wrongdoing from an administration that is well-known for covering up embarrassing behavior, the only logical course is to go straight to the horse’s mouth for answers. It’s time to hear from Robert Mueller.   

Originally published on The Resurgent

Another One Bites The Dust

IIt’s another one of those resignations that you knew was coming sooner or later. The only question was when which turned out to be yesterday. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the man responsible for appointing Robert Mueller to investigate the Russia scandal, officially submitted his resignation. Rosenstein’s last day on the job will be May 11.

Rosenstein appointed the special counsel to investigate both the Russian attacks on the 2016 election and “other matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation” after President Trump linked the firing of FBI Director James Comey to “this Russia thing.” Rosenstein himself had been placed in charge of the investigation after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation because he had been part of the 2016 Trump campaign. Both Sessions and Rosenstein faced repeated and blistering attacks from President Trump for their roles in the Mueller investigation.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Sessions withstood almost two years of Trump’s criticism and insults before resigning immediately after the 2018 midterm elections. Rosenstein lasted long enough to see the Mueller investigation through to its conclusion and the release of Mueller’s redacted report to the public.

In his resignation letter, Rosenstein said that the Justice Department had “made rapid progress in achieving the Administration’s law enforcement priorities – reducing violent crime, curtailing opioid abuse, protecting consumers, improving immigration enforcement, and building confidence in the police – while preserving national security and strengthening federal efforts in other areas.” He added, “Our nation is safer, our elections are more secure, and our citizens are better informed about covert foreign influence efforts and schemes to commit fraud, steal intellectual property, and launch cyber attacks.”

Rosenstein failed to cite a specific reason for his resignation but noted that “the median tenure of a Deputy Attorney General is 16 months, and few serve longer than two years.”

“I am grateful to you for the opportunity to serve, for the courtesy and humor you often display in our personal conversations, and for the goals you set in your inaugural address,” Rosenstein told the president, “Patriotism, unity, safety, education, and prosperity, because ‘a nation exists to serve its citizens.’”

Nevertheless, the last three paragraphs of the letter seem to be a pointed rebuke to Donald Trump. “Political considerations may influence policy choices, but neutral principles must drive decisions about individual cases,” Rosenstein wrote. He then quotes three different past attorneys general to underscore his point that enforcement of the law must be impartial and objective.

“We enforce the law without fear or favor because credible evidence is not partisan, and truth is not determined by opinion polls,” Rosenstein said. “We ignore fleeting distractions and focus our attention on the things that matter because a republic that endures is not governed by the news cycle.”

Given the high value that Donald Trump places on personal loyalty, there was little doubt that Rosenstein’s tenure at the Department of Justice would not last for Trump’s full term. In November 2018, the president tweeted an imagethat showed Rosenstein, Mueller, Comey and several Obama officials behind bars. It’s safe to say that Rosenstein had lost the support of the president years ago and was serving on borrowed time, owing his job to the fact that it was politically inconvenient for Trump to fire him.

In his departure, Rosenstein joins an impressive list of former officials who have tried to rein in Trump’s worst instincts and protect the president from himself, often by disobeying his orders. Among the high-profile departures since last year’s elections were Chief of Staff John Kelly, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and, of course, Jeff Sessions. Following the revelations in the Mueller report, it seems likely that White House Counsel Don McGahn may be on the chopping block soon.

As I predicted last December when the departures of Kelly and Mattis were announced, the absence of advisors who were able to restrain Mr. Trump has led to a more erratic and extreme presidency. Since then we have seen the government shutdown, a contrived national emergency to bypass Congress, the attempted coverup of Mueller’s findings about Trump’s efforts to obstruct the Russia investigation, and further consolidation of executive power through the dismissal of subordinates who resist unwise and illegal orders.

By all indications, Rod Rosenstein is an honorable man who served the country well during his tenure as Deputy Attorney General. His successor must be prepared to not only defend the United States from enemies both foreign and domestic but to protect the country and the president from the chief executive’s own bad ideas. This job description is patently unfair but that is the world in which we now live.

Why Mueller’s Exoneration Won’t Guarantee Trump’s Re-Election

Robert Mueller’s long-awaited report is complete and the Cliff Notes version that Mueller found no illegal collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians is now public knowledge. As a longtime critic of Trump, I for one am relieved that no one on Team Trump engaged in an illegal conspiracy with the Russians. On the other hand, Trump’s exoneration on allegations of throwing the election is unlikely to change either my mind or the minds of millions of others about Trump’s fitness for office.

On a personal level, I was never convinced of the accusations of Russian collusion. From the earliest days of the controversy, I considered it plausible that someone in the Trump campaign conspired with the Russians, but considered it a long shot that there would be a smoking gun left behind for investigators to find. Anyone engaging in such a serious crime would take steps to cover their tracks.

Additionally, as someone pointed out long ago, President Trump would be an unlikely person for a foreign intelligence service to engage in a clandestine conspiracy with because his mouth and Twitter feed seem to have no filter. If Trump was dealing with the Russians, the fact probably would have slipped out long ago.

Having said all that, Mueller did not find “nothing.” In fact, over the course of the investigation, Mueller’s team found much more than I ever thought they would. Among other things, the investigation uncovered secret meetings between the president’s son and Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton, secret negotiations for a Moscow Trump Tower that took place during the election despite claims to the contrary by Trump, a beautiful Russian agent who infiltrated the National Rifle Association to influence the group’s policy to benefit Putin, and the fact that Roger Stone was acting as a conduit for information between WikiLeaks, a known Russian front, and the Trump campaign. Of course, none of this implicates the Trump campaign in criminal wrongdoing except for the lies that its members told to the FBI to cover up their actions. As with many other scandals, the coverup was worse than the underlying crime.

And there was a coverup that went all the way to the top. If President Trump has been consistent on anything other than the wall over the past two years it has been that he did not want Robert Mueller to complete his investigation. Mr. Trump stopped short of obstruction of justice but did try to undermine investigators at every turn, including subjecting the man who just exonerated him to two years of character assassination. Again, this is not a crime but does speak to the president’s character.

And that brings up back around to why Mueller’s findings will not put Trump over the top in his 2020 re-election campaign. The short version of this is that whatever bump the president gets from being exonerated by Mueller will probably be erased within a couple of weeks due to Mr. Trump’s own actions. In the past, the president’s need for attention has led to outlandish comments and tweets that quickly push any good news for the Administration off the front page.  

When I recently made my case against supporting Donald Trump for re-election, I didn’t mention Russia or collusion. Instead, my two main concerns were the same as they were in 2016, namely that Donald Trump’s character makes him unfit for office and that his policy agenda, which on some issues is to the left of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, is not a good one for the United States.

The bright spot for President Trump is the economy. Voters have consistently rated the president well for his handling of the economy but poorly for pretty much everything else. Polling shows the president underwater on foreign affairs, trade, immigration, the federal budget, race relations, and corruption, among other things. Trump is even viewed unfavorably on taxes despite the tax reform law passed two years ago. Polling of individual states indicates that Mr. Trump’s widespread unpopularity makes it unlikely that he will repeat the Electoral College fluke that sent him to the White House in 2016.

Further, the favorable findings of the Mueller report don’t mean the end to President Trump’s legal troubles. Federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York are still investigating alleged financial crimes on a number of fronts. While it’s unlikely that these investigations would lead to impeachment, they could negatively affect Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign. There is also the possibility that, even though Mueller exonerated the president on allegations of an illegal conspiracy with Russia, the full report, if it is ever released, could contain information that is damaging or embarrassing to Mr. Trump.

In short, Mueller’s report is good news for President Trump, but it is not a silver bullet. To win re-election, the president cannot rely on claiming vindication over Democratic accusations. He must actively get out and win over the moderate and independent voters that he has alienated over the past two years. That will require making a strong pitch that reaches beyond base supporters at his rallies.

Originally published on The Resurgent

The Roger Stone Indictment Examined

Former Trump campaign advisor Roger Stone was arrested by the FBI last night on charges stemming from Stone’s contact with WikiLeaks about the release of stolen DNC data during the 2016 election. Stone is being charged with obstructing the investigation into Russian interference in the election through making false statements and attempting to convince another witness to make false statements. Stone’s arrest by armed FBI agents in a pre-dawn raid was filmed by CNN.

The indictment does not directly mention President Trump but it does provide firm links between Stone, WikiLeaks and the Trump Campaign. That is bad news for a president who has claimed for years that there was no collusion, and it may explain why Rudy Giuliani, the president’s lawyer, has shifted from denying collusion to saying that the president was not involved in illegal conspiracies.

Stone’s indictment is not sealed and is available online here. Per the indictment, Stone left his official position at the Trump campaign in August 2015 but remained in contact with Trump staffers throughout the election. In June or July 2016, Stone informed the Trump campaign that he had information that WikiLeaks had access to the stolen DNC data that would be damaging to the Clinton campaign.

After WikiLeaks dumped a cache of stolen emails on July 22, 2016, “a senior Trump campaign official was directed,” the indictment does not say by whom, to contact Stone about future releases. Afterward, Stone stayed in contact with the Trump campaign and informed them about upcoming dumps of DNC data.

The Washington Post reported in March 2018 that Stone had been in contact with Sam Nunberg, a Trump campaign advisor, about Assange. Nunberg may be the senior Trump campaign official, but it could also be Steve Bannon. The New York Times obtained emails between Stone and Bannon that match the dates the question.

The indictment also indicates that the FBI has access to Stone’s personal emails. It cites Stone’s correspondence with Person 1, an unnamed web media figure and political commentator, in which the two discussed WikiLeaks and coordination of attacks on the Clinton campaign. In numerous emails and in a radio interview with Person 2, a radio host, Stone claimed to be in contact with Julian Assange, the head of WikiLeaks, through a “mutual friend.” Person 1 is conspiracy author Jerome Corsi and Person 2 is Randy Credico, a right-wing talk show host.

In one email dated August 2, 2016, Person 1 told Stone, “Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps. One shortly after I’m back [from a trip in Europe]. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging…” The email continued, “Would not hurt to start suggesting HRC old, memory bad, has stroke — neither he nor she well. I expect that much of next dump focus, setting stage for [Clinton] Foundation debacle.”

Stone and Person 2 were in email contact in early October and discussed the WikiLeaks “October surprise.” Stone seemed to know that something big was coming but not the precise information that would be released. When Stone sent an email titled “WTF” to Person 2 on Oct. 2 after WikiLeaks canceled a big data dump, Person 2 responded that the move was a “head fake” and said, “Hillary and her people are doing a full-court press” to stop the next dump. Afterward, Stone passed this information along to Trump supporters in the campaign and the conservative media.

A few days later on Oct. 7, WikiLeaks released the first of the emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Afterward, an associate of the Trump campaign official sent Stone a text message that said, “Well done.” Stone claimed credit for the Podesta release in subsequent conversations with Trump campaign officials.

In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on Sept. 26, 2017, Stone denied any foreknowledge of the WikiLeaks releases. The indictment charges him with making deliberately false and misleading statements to Congress about the matter as well as lying about having documents pertinent to the Russia investigation. In truth, the indictment says, Stone possessed numerous emails and text messages about the WikiLeaks dumps including an email to a “high-ranking member of the Trump Campaign on Oct. 4 that promised “a load every week going forward.”

Stone lied under oath about his contacts with Assange. Stone said that his contacts with Assange were all through Person 2, Credico, when, in reality, he had communicated with WikiLeaks through Person 1, Corsi, before making contact with Person 2. Stone never admitted to being in contact with Person 1 in his testimony.

Stone claimed that he never asked for information about the stolen DNC documents from either Person 1 or 2. The indictment shows that Stone directed both of the intermediaries to inquire about information damaging to the Clinton Campaign. Stone also denied having written communications with the intermediaries, but the FBI seems to have been able to recover both email and text messages.

Most damaging to President Trump, Stone also lied about his contacts with the Trump campaign. The indictment says that Stone told “senior Trump Campaign officials” about the WikiLeaks materials and timing of the releases “on multiple occasions.” It specifically cites three emails in early October just ahead of the Podesta dump.

In October 2017, Stone tried to cover his tracks. He sent an email to Credico, Person 2, and asked him to confirm his testimony to the House Intelligence Committee. Credico responded that Stone’s testimony was false and that he should correct it.

In November 2017, Credico was called to testify before the House Committee. His initial response was to contact Stone, who again asked Credico to lie for him. Stone also suggested that Credico say that he could remember what he told Stone or to invoke the Fifth Amendment.

“Stonewall it. Plead the fifth. Anything to save the plan. . . Richard Nixon,” Stone texted.

Credico declined to testify voluntarily before the House committee and was subpoenaed. He continued to contact Stone, who attempted to direct his testimony and instructed him not to talk to the FBI. At one point, Stone told Credico to “do a ‘Frank Pentangeli,’” a reference to a member of the mafia in Godfather II who played dumb before Congress.

Roger Stone’s indictment does not provide a smoking gun that Donald Trump was involved in illegal collusion with the Russians through WikiLeaks. However, it is a major setback for the Trump Administration because of the years of claims that no one in the Trump campaign had worked with the Russians against Hillary. Those claims are now proven false through Roger Stone’s email and text contacts with members of the Trump campaign.

The indictment almost certainly does not tell everything that Mueller knows about the Trump campaign’s involvement with WikiLeaks and the Russians. There will no doubt be more to come in future indictments.

Originally published on The Resurgent

How The Mueller Investigation Led To A Hold On Judicial Confirmations

You wouldn’t think that the Mueller investigation would have any impact on the ability of Republicans to confirm federal judges. In the current crazy news cycle, you would be wrong.

On Wednesday, a trio of anti-Trump senators tried to bring up a bill that would protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller from being fired. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) sided with Republican leadership and blocked the bill from coming to vote. Lee’s move led directly to the cancellation of a scheduled Thursday meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee that would have prepared several judicial nominees for confirmation votes.

Here is how the two are related:

Lame duck Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) was one of the sponsors of the Mueller protection bill. Flake, who is a vocal Trump critic, had threatened to block judicial nominees if Republicans did not allow a vote on the bill.

In retaliation for the Republican action on the Mueller bill, Flake voted against advancing the nomination of Thomas Farr to a federal District Court judgeship. Farr’s nomination did move forward after a 50-50 tie in which Vice President Mike Pence cast the deciding vote. Farr’s confirmation is still in doubt since Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who voted “yes” yesterday, has indicated that he may vote “no” on Farr’s confirmation.  

Scott’s hesitation on Farr stems from a Justice Department memo that links the nominee to a controversial postcard campaign for a Jesse Helms campaign in 1990 that targeted black voters. At the time, Farr was the attorney who represented the head of the North Carolina Republican Party in the investigation of the postcards.

Since there are currently only 51 Senate Republicans, Flake’s stand makes it extremely difficult to advance and confirm judicial nominees. If the 49 Democrats all vote “no,” any Republican opposition in addition to Flake would reject a nominee.

The situation is similar on the Senate Judiciary Committee where Republicans outnumber Democrats 10-9. A “no” vote from Flake paired with 9 Democrat “no” votes would give nominees an unfavorable rating. Even though Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could bring nominees up for a vote with an unfavorable rating, Republican leaders hope to avoid that contingency.

Time is on the side of the Republicans in the battle for the judiciary. When the new Congress convenes in January, the GOP will have gained two seats and will have a larger margin in party-line votes. The House, which will soon be under Democrat control, does not have a role in confirming presidential appointments.   

Also in January, Jeff Flake will be gone. The man who has been such a thorn in the side of President Trump and Mitch McConnell is retiring. He will be replaced in the Senate by the new Senator from Arizona, Kirsten Sinema.

Originally published on The Resurgent

The Mueller Team Just Blew Up The Seth Rich Conspiracy Theory

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators just debunked the Seth Rich conspiracy theory. As part of the draft document against conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, Mueller’s team cites an email that purports to show that Corsi knew full well that the DNC emails were stolen by Russian hackers in 2016, even as they advanced the baseless theory that Seth Rich, a DNC staffer, stole the emails as part of an inside job and was murdered in retribution.

Earlier this month, Corsi, an Infowars contributor who has also authored books questioning Barack Obama’s birth certificate and citizenship, predicted that he would be indicted by Mueller’s investigation. Corsi recently said that he was offered a plea deal, which he plans to reject. As evidence of his claim, he posted the draft Statement of Offense online.

The document alleges that Corsi was approached in the summer of 2016 by “Person 1,” apparently Roger Stone, who asked him to get in touch with “Organization 1,” WikiLeaks, about the release of the stolen emails. Stone was a top Trump advisor until August 2015 and the two men were longtime friends who apparently kept in contact even after Stone left the Trump campaign. Per the draft, Corsi falsely claimed that he rebuffed Stone’s request and never contacted WikiLeaks.

Per the DOJ, Corsi contacted Julian Assange, who was in hiding in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. Corsi then related to Stone that WikiLeaks was in possession of documents damaging to Hillary Clinton and that WikiLeaks planned to release the documents as part of an October surprise.

As evidence, the draft cites a string of emails in which Stone instructs Corsi to contact Assange in July 2016. The first email, in which Stone asked Corsi to contact WikiLeaks, is dated July 25, three days after the initial WikiLeaks dump of 20,000 stolen emails. Two days later, on July 27, Donald Trump called on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s private server. The indictment of Russian intelligence agents last July indicated that the Russian hackers spear-phished the Clinton campaign for the first time the same day that Trump made his request.

In the second email, dated July 31, 2016, Stone told Corsi that an unnamed “overseas individual” should “see [the founder of Organization 1],” Assange. The overseas individual was possibly Ted Malloch, an American Trump supporter living and working in England who was reportedly considered for an ambassadorship to the European Union by President Trump.

In an email dated August 2, 2016, Corsi responds:

“Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps. One shortly after I’m back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging.… Time to let more than [the Clinton Campaign chairman] to be exposed as in bed w enemy if they are not ready to drop HRC [Hillary Rodham Clinton]. That appears to be the game hackers are now about. Would not hurt to start suggesting HRC old, memory bad, has stroke -- neither he nor she well. I expect that much of next dump focus, setting stage for Foundation debacle.”

On August 12, the hacker Guccifer 2.0 posted contact information for most congressional Democrats. The information apparently came from the stolen DNC data.

Even though Corsi acknowledged that hackers were responsible in his August 2, 2016 email, he continued to publicly espouse the conspiracy theory that Seth Rich was murdered by the CIA on the orders of John Brennan for the benefit of Hillary Clinton well into 2017 on Twitter, in Infowars articles, and in YouTube videos.

On August 21, 2016, Roger Stone, whose account is now suspended, tweeted, “Trust me, it will soon the Podesta's time in the barrel. #CrookedHillary.” Another Stone tweet on Oct. 3 said, “I have total confidence that @wikileaks and my hero Julian Assange will educate the American people soon #LockHerUp.” The next day, Julian Assange released a video announcing that WikiLeaks would be releasing more DNC emails, these stolen from John Podesta. On Oct. 7, hours after the release of the Access Hollywood tape, the next document dump from WikiLeaks is released.

Corsi now says that on August 30, Stone contacted him for help in concocting a cover story to explain the Podesta tweet. Corsi says he wrote a memo about Podesta’s business dealings which Stone claimed was the inspiration for his eerily prescient tweet. Stone denies this version of events, but the Mueller team’s computer analysis may sort out the truth.

“What I construct, and what I testified to the grand jury, was I believed I was creating a cover story for Roger because Roger wanted to explain this tweet,” Mr. Corsi said in the Wall Street Journal. “By the way, the special counsel knew this. They can virtually tell my keystrokes on that computer.”

Stone has denied any knowledge of coordination between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks. He also denies that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are de facto Russian agents, a fact disputed by US intelligence. Mike Pompeo, a Republican and President Trump’s pick to head the CIA, called WikiLeaks a “hostile intelligence service.” The group even had a television show on RT, a Russian propaganda network, in 2012.

The document posted by Corsi raise interesting questions about contacts between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks, but it offers definitive proof that the Seth Rich conspiracy theory was never seriously believed by either Corsi or Stone. It was merely a smokescreen to conceal the fact that Russian hackers had penetrated the DNC and ultimately used their stolen emails to help elect Donald Trump.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Conspiracy Activists Accused Of Framing Mueller For Rape

The special counsel investigation headed by Robert Mueller referred new allegations to the FBI for investigation yesterday. These new allegations don’t involve Russian meddling in American elections, however. Instead, they relate to an attempt by conservative activists to frame Mr. Mueller for sexual assault.

The story began when the Gateway Pundit reported that “Robert Mueller was accused by a very credible witness of rape.” The story, which has since been removed, alleged that Mueller raped a woman in the St. Regis Hotel in New York in 2010.

The story quickly collapsed when two women claimed that they had been offered money in exchange for accusing Mueller of sexual misconduct. Lorraine Parsons, in an email obtained by The Atlantic, described how a man with a British accent from a company called Surefire Intelligence had contacted her because she worked as a paralegal for Mueller in 1974. Parsons said that the man told her he had been hired by “some sort of politics guy in Washington named Jack Burkman.” Burkman is a talk show host and lobbyist best known for pushing conspiracy theories about the murder of Seth Rich.

Burkman tweeted at noon on Tuesday, “On Thursday, November 1, at the Rosslyn Holiday Inn at noon, we will reveal the first of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's sex assault victims. I applaud the courage and dignity and grace and strength of my client.”

Parson’s email describing the plot to defame Mueller was sent to numerous journalists. In it, she described how the man who contacted her “said (and I will never forget exactly what it was) ‘I want you to make accusations of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment against Robert Mueller, and I want you to sign a sworn affidavit to that effect.’”

In exchange for her testimony, she wrote, the man “offered to pay off all of my credit card debt, plus bring me a check for $20,000 if I would do” it.  She added, “He knew exactly how much credit card debt I had, right down to the dollar, which sort of freaked me out.”

The trail to Surefire Intelligence showed that the company was incorporated in Delaware only a few weeks ago per The Atlantic. The records for the company’s website domain registry led to another activist, Jacob Wohl. Wohl’s email was listed as a contact and a telephone number on the Surefire website belonged to Wohl’s mother.

Wohl is an avid Trump supporter and former hedge fund manager. He was accused of cheating clients of his fund as well as using pictures of women without permission on his website. More recently, Wohl has operated a conspiracy website, The Washington Reporter.

At midday on Oct. 30, Wohl teased the upcoming release of the Mueller story, tweeting, “Several media sources tell me that a scandalous story about Mueller is breaking tomorrow. Should be interesting. Stay tuned!”

Interestingly, Jane Mayer of the New Yorker pointed out on Twitter that Wohl and Matthew Cohen, the founder of Surefire Intelligence, bear a striking resemblance to one another. In fact, the two appear to be the same person.

If that weren’t enough, a second woman has also come forward to claim that Surefire approached her about her “encounters with Robert Mueller.” Jennifer Taub, a Vermont Law School professor, says that the company offered to pay her for information about Mueller. Taub, who says that she has never met or had contact with Mueller but has acted as a legal expert about the Mueller investigation for news organizations, promptly forwarded the email from Surefire to the special counsel office. Taub discussed the solicitation in a phone call with MSNBC.

To its credit, the Gateway Pundit has removed the allegations about Mueller from its website. A message at the link where the story was posted says, “We took the documents down and we are currently investigating these accusations. There are also very serious allegations against Jacob Wohl. We are also looking into this.” The site also notes, “There is still a press conference scheduled for Thursday at noon in Washington DC.”

Both Burkman and Wohl deny the allegations against them. Burkman tweeted,“The allegations of paying a woman are false.  The left is trying to defend Mueller against sex assault allegations so they attack me in desperation.” Burkman also tweeted, “The woman to whom we allegedly offered payment--Lorraine Parsons--does not exist.”

In a series of tweets, Wohl said the media was “accusing me of offering to pay accusers with ZERO PROOF and ZERO EVIDENCE!” He also claimed that “this ‘woman’ who claims she was offered payment is actually just an invention of the MSM aimed at discrediting the actual accuser (who is VERY credible).”

Wohl and Burkman both claim that their press conference will go ahead as scheduled on Thursday. It should be interesting to see if they follow through with their plans and who, if anyone, shows up to accuse Mueller with them.

Originally published on The Resurgent

McConnell Says No Republican Senator Will Replace Sessions

There has been a lot of speculation that President Trump will fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the midterm elections. Now Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has weighed in on the matter of a possible replacement for Sessions.

A replacement for Sessions, McConnell told the AP, is “not going to come from our caucus, I can tell you that.”

McConnell’s objections to losing a Republican senator to the Department of Justice seemed more grounded in political practicality than in an ethical problem related to Trump’s reasons for dismissing Sessions. McConnell cited the Republicans’ slim 51-49 majority as a reason for not referring a Senate Republican to Trump for the job. When rogue Republicans such as Jeff Flake, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are considered, the Republican majority often evaporates quickly.

McConnell is undoubtedly concerned about replacing a Senate Republican in the current political climate. When a special election was held for Jeff Sessions’ Alabama seat, Republican voters rejected his appointed successor, Luther Strange, in favor of Roy Moore, who ended up losing in the general election to Doug Jones.

If he waits until after the election to fire Sessions, President Trump may have a hard time getting a replacement confirmed. Current Senate polling suggests that Republicans have the upper hand in the battle for control of the body, but Democrats remain within striking distance. Even if the appointment goes to the current Congress, some Republican senators would likely refuse to cooperate with an attempt to oust Sessions. Ben Sasse of Nebraska said in August that he found it “really difficult to envision any circumstance” in which he would vote to confirm a successor to Sessions.

McConnell did not address any effect that firing Sessions might have on the Mueller probe but did argue that the current Congress has been “extraordinarily accomplished.” He cited tax reform, regulatory reform, changes to the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and the appointment of numerous conservative judges to federal courts as well as a bipartisan bill to combat the opioid crisis.

Originally published on The Resurgent

What The Mueller Indictment Really Says

By now most Americans have heard about last week’s indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. While some details of the indictment have been reported in the media, the entire 29-page document is available online and contains surprising details about Russia’s clandestine operation to subvert American elections.

The first count of the indictment is conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States. The indictment describes how multiple units of the GRU, Russian military intelligence, conducted large-scale cyber operations to interfere with the 2016 US presidential election.” Two units, 26165 and 74455, are specifically mentioned.

The indictment describes how the GRU, beginning in March 2016, hacked volunteers and employees of the Hillary Clinton campaign. By April, the attacks had extended to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee. The attacks included the theft of emails and documents, covert monitoring and implanting malware.

By June, the GRU officers had begun to publicly release the stolen documents online using false personas. Among the accounts used by the Russians were “Guccifer 2.0” and “DC Leaks” and the website of “Organization 1,” publicly identified as Wikileaks.

The indictment goes on to say that the defendants, who are listed by name, used spearphishing techniques to penetrate the internet security of the Clinton campaign. Using emails that spoofed Google notifications and emails that appeared to come from other campaign staffers, the Russians stole internet credentials and emails from “numerous individuals associated with the Clinton campaign.” The spearphishing attacks continued throughout the summer and targeted both Democrat operatives and a third-party contractor.

The indictment references “Victims 1 and 2.” One of the victims has been previously publicly identified as John Podesta, the chairman of the Clinton campaign. Podesta became a spearphishing victim in March 2016 after he clicked on a fake email that spoofed a communication from Google.

In addition to the phishing attacks, the Russians also hacked the DCCC and DNC computers beginning in March 2016. The GRU then planted malware called “X-Agent” on the Democrat computers that allowed them to monitor computer activity and steal information. The hackers could even take screenshots of the computer activity of DNC employees. The stolen information was then transferred to servers in Arizona and Illinois that were leased by the GRU.

Once they had access to the Democrat computers, the Russians stole files related to opposition research and strategy for the 2016 election. The indictment notes that on April 15, 2016 the hackers searched Democrat computers for the words “Hillary,” “Cruz” and “Trump.” They also copied a folder titled “Benghazi investigations.” At that point, the Republican primary was a three-way race between Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich.

In May 2016, the Russians hacked a Microsoft Exchange server used by the DNC. The hack resulted in the theft of thousands of additional emails.

After the thefts, the Russians attempted to cover their tracks by deleting event logs and computer files on the compromised computers in May 2016. Despite these efforts, the DNC became aware of the hacks about the same time.

When the DNC became aware that their networks were compromised, they hired a third-party cybersecurity firm to identify the intruders and mitigate the damage. The indictment refers to this company as “Company 1,” but the firm was previously identified in the press as Crowdstrike.

As Crowdstrike cleaned the computers, the Russian hackers fought back and tried to maintain access. At one point, the hackers mimicked DCCC fundraising page and used stolen credentials to redirect donors to their own site.

Crowdstrike was able to remove X-Agent from the DNC computers, but the Russians successfully attacked again in September 2016. This time the hackers gained access to DNC networks through a cloud computing service. The hackers used this breach to steal analytical data from the DNC.

Preparations to release the stolen information began in April 2016. The dcleaks.com URL was registered through an anonymous service on April 19 using the same email address that had sent the spearphishing email to Podesta. The stolen documents were posted on the DC Leaks site operated from June 2016 through March 2017. The site received more than one million page views.

In addition to the stolen Democratic emails, the DC Leaks site also posted stolen Republican documents. The Republican hack occurred in 2015 and predated the 2016 Republican primary. There is no indication that the Russians targeted the GOP during the 2016 campaign season.

DC Leaks was promoted on a Facebook page run by fictitious accounts. There was also a DC Leaks twitter account. The DC Leaks twitter account was run from the same computer as another Twitter account that promoted the #BlacksAgainstHillary hashtag.

On June 14, 2016, the DNC announced that it had been hacked by the Russian government. The indictment says that the hackers created Guccifer 2.0 in response. Guccifer 2.0 claimed to be a lone Romanian hacker, but was linked to the Russians via internet searches for terms that appeared in Guccifer’s posts before they were published. The indictment also notes that the stolen information and financing records between the Russian hackers and Guccifer overlapped.

The indictment also says that Guccifer sent stolen documents to other individuals. In August 2016, Guccifer received a request for stolen documents from “a candidate for the US Congress” and sent back stolen documents related to the candidate’s opponent. The candidate has been identified as Brian Mast, a first-time candidate in Florida who is now a congressman. The Wall Street Journal reported in May 2017 that Aaron Nevins, a Republican consultant who worked for Mast, had received stolen data from Guccifer. Rep. Mast denies knowledge of wrongdoing.

On August 22, 2016, Guccifer also sent stolen DNC documents about Black Lives Matter. The reporter is not identified, but the content of the leak was discussed on Snopes.com at the time.

Guccifer also had contact with a “person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.” This “US person” is Roger Stone, a Trump campaign advisor who left the campaign in August 2015. Stone admitted in August 2016 to being in contact with Guccifer and Wikileaks’ Julian Assange. In a tweet on August 21, Stone said, “Trust me, it will soon the Podesta’s time in the barrel.” More than a month later, on October 7, Wikileaks released the first stolen emails from John Podesta.

Counts two through nine are for aggravated identity theft from eight unidentified victims. The sources of the theft were personal email passwords in four cases and DCCC network passwords in the other four.

Count 10 is money laundering. This deals with transactions in numerous currencies including US dollars and bitcoin that were used by the hackers to finance the operation.

The eleventh count is conspiracy to hack into protected computers that dealt with the administration of US elections in order to steal voter data and other information. The indictment states that the hackers stole personal information about 500,000 voters in July 2016 from a state that public sources identify as Illinois.

The Russians also hacked an election software company identified as “vendor 1” in the indictment. This company is apparently VR Systems of Florida. The Intercept reported last year that the GRU had breached security at VR Systems based on an NSA report leaked by Reality Winner.

The attacks didn’t stop there. Numerous state and country election entities were attacked in the final days of the campaign. The indictment specifically mentions several counties in Georgia, Iowa and Florida.

While the indictment falls short of offering evidence of illegal collusion, it is interesting to note that the indictment mentions “failed attempts to transfer the stolen documents starting in late June 2016.” This seems very close to the meeting between Donald Trump, Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya on June 9, 2016. This meeting and any follow-ups are likely to be investigated by the special counsel team.

It is also obvious from the indictment that Russian efforts in the 2016 were a one-sided affair. There was no known hack of the Republican Party after Donald Trump ascended to frontrunner status. Every leak that the Russians posted was calculated to hurt the Clinton campaign.

Roger Stone would also seem to be a likely focal point for the Mueller team. At this point, it isn’t clear whether Stone broke the law or passed any information from Guccifer to Trump campaign officials, but it seems likely that Mueller would want to ask Stone and his associates those questions.

The bottom line is that while President Trump and Rudy Giuliani talk about “witch hunts,” Robert Mueller and his team are quietly digging. Despite claims that the Mueller probe is dragging out too long, Mueller seems to be making rapid progress. The indictments of the 12 GRU officers, which seem purposefully timed to throw a cloud over the Trump’s meeting with Putin, are likely just the tip of the special counsel’s case. It makes one wonder what else Robert Mueller knows, but has yet to tell.

Originally published on The Resurgent