Robert Mueller Would Like To Inform The Following People They Are WELL AND TRULY FUCKED
Once upon a time there was a Thursday night during the Trump era, and it was OH SHIT AVALANCHE OF NEWS SLAMMING INTO YOUR FACE, like pretty much every other Thursday night in the Trump era. As it happens, a lot of it was about the Robert Mueller investigation! So without further ado, here is some shit what happened like such as!
Paul Manafort, You Are Well And Truly Fucked!
The other day, Wonkette resident lawyer-splainer Five Dollar Feminist wrote a nice thing about how Paul Manafort, who is currently way far ahead in the Trump World contest to see who gets to go to jail for the many-est years, is learning the hard way that Robert Mueller KEEPS THE RECEIPTS. Manafort's lawyers had been arguing that it was unfaiiiiiirrrrrrr for Mueller to investigate all Manafort's hundreds of million crimes that he didn't undertake specifically in Russia or specifically for the Trump campaign, and that Mueller was exceeding his mandate. Unfortunately, Mueller produced a memo Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had written about that very thing, which laid out in great detail the things he had authorized Mueller to investigate. Let's look at it again, for a refresher!
As you can see, there is stuff about Trump-Russia conspiracy, and also stuff about his Ukrainian money laundering foreign agent crimes, and also there is REDACTED AS FUCK. As Five Dollar Feminist said at the time, this shit is NOT going away, and this would be Manafort's time to cut a deal.
Well, those statements are even more true today!
Thursday night, the Mueller team unsealed a filing that shows he has obtained SEVEN SEARCH WARRANTS over the course of the Manafort investigation. Manafort's lawyers have been begging this week that affidavits related to all warrants regarding Manafort be unredacted, and Mueller's official response to that is "Please to be fucking off quickly!" In his filing, Mueller notes that three of the warrants are fully unredacted at this point anyway. Three more of them have "minimal redactions," and then the last one, the NEW ONE (yes, there is a new one!) has a shitload of redactions, because of the "government's interests in protecting the identity of various sources of information and the need to preserve the confidentiality ofongoing investigations[ emphasis ours ]."
"Ongoing investigations"? What the fuck you say, Bobby Three Sticks? Mueller adds later that the redactions in the new warrant, filed March 9, 2018, contain "information related to ongoing investigations that is not at issue in either of Manafort's current prosecutions ."
Here is a list of all seven warrants, with the new one at the end:
"Information Associated With Five Telephone Numbers Controlled By AT&T." WHO IPHONES IS THAT? Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti tweeter-splained last night that this is a pretty specific request, and most likely involves "historical cell site information," in other words, figuring out where specific phones were when they made specific phone calls. Mariotti explained Mueller wouldn't have needed warrants for a lot of other Obamaphone data, but that for some reason it seems Mueller needs to know where these phones were at certain times:
12/ It suggests that the location of the people Mueller is investigating matters to him. That could be due to trips overseas or because individuals meeting each other will back up the testimony of one of his cooperators. But it certainly offers a window in what he's doing, /end
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) April 6, 2018
Paul Manafort REALLY REALLY REALLY wants to see what is in that warrant! But sorry, it is not relevant to current prosecutions, which means it must be about other stuff Manafort is being investigated for, OR it could be about some bigger, deeper, darker investigation that's related to Manafort, but is more squarely focused on other people. (Perhaps people Robert Mueller would like Manafort to flip on?)
Marcy Wheeler had an interesting and entertaining piece the other day about how, this week, after Mueller smacked Manafort's lawyers on their ass with Rosenstein's memo authorizing Mueller to investigate ALL THIS SHIT, Manafort's lawyers came back like "Oh no, we don't mean the stuff he's already done, that stuff is fine! We just would like to argue with a very serious look on our faces that Mueller shouldn't be allowed to do any more indictments , because legal reasons we made up just now." The judge, Amy Berman Jackson, responded with words that roughly translate from legalese as "LOL THE FUCK?" Apparently she was not persuaded that Manafort should be able to sue over indictments that haven't even happened yet .
But all these documents suggest that Manafort and his lawyers have seen enough to know that WAY more shit is coming. And they are desperate as fuck to stop it.
Time to make a deal, shithead!
Michael Cohen, You Are Well And Truly Fucked Also Too SAYS WHO!
McClatchy with the hot scoop! (As they say in secret journalist clubs!) So, oh dear, it sounds like Michael Cohen may have to take a WEE BREAKSIE from being the worst lawyer in America in the Stormy Daniels case, because Robert Mueller is taking a magnifying glass to all Cohen's business deals with Trump and saying "SAYS WHO?" Says Robert Mueller, that's who!
McClatchy reports that this very week, Robert Mueller's team has been talking to SOME GUY who has been an "associate of the Trump organization" who was "involved in overseas deals" for said company, and they have specifically been asking about Trump lawyer/fixer/dumb-faced thug goon Michael Cohen and his business activities in Russia, Georgia and Kazakhstan.
Three guesses who it is, TIME'S UP, IT IS FELIX SATER! Unless it isn't, because McClatchy curiously does not say. Sater, of course, is either a bona fide American hero FBI terrorist-fighter informant, or he's a criminal Russian-American who happens to be boyhood friends with Michael Cohen, and memorably bragged with Cohen over email about how their (failed) Trump Tower Moscow deal was going to get Vladimir Putin to make their boy Donald Trump president. (Or he is both of those things! It is possible.)
Here's how Mueller got Sater or a guy who is Definitely Not Sater to cooperate:
Armed with subpoenas compelling electronic records and sworn testimony, Mueller’s team showed up unannounced at the home of the business associate, who was a party to multiple transactions connected to Trump’s effort to expand his brand abroad, according to persons familiar with the proceedings.
Knock knock, Felix or Not Felix!
(Seriously, it might not be Felix. It could be this guy , whose name is Giorgi Rtskhiladze! We will do a deep dive into him if/when we are required to do so.)
McClatchy notes, apropos of nothing, that Felix Sater also testified this week before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and that he is being very cooperative with all the investigations, like the Very Good American Hero he is.
Remember how Donald Trump once said looking into his businesses would cross a great big red line? LOLOLOLOL, Mueller pole vaulted over that line months ago .
Erik Prince, Aryan Twat, Thinks He Is Above Being Well And Truly Fucked, But Actually He's Just Full Of Shit.
Hey, have you guys heard the one about how Erik Prince lied to Congress about his Trump-Russia conspiracy meeting in the Seychelles? Well, Prince is still being a petulant little baby hamster dick about it (through a spokesperson of course, as Erik Prince is above talking to you), but turns out Robert Mueller has been reading his Wonkette, because he has the same evidence we have that Erik Prince is a big liar-to-Congress-er! (To be fair, he also has a lot more evidence than Wonkette has.)
Mueller has reportedly been building his case that, far from a chance encounter with a Russian in a hotel bar, Prince's meeting with the Russian Kirill Dmitriev, the manager of a massive Russian state investment fund, was pre-planned, and Erik Prince was there for a specific purpose (setting up weird "back channels" with the Russians) as an informal adviser to the Trump transition. Mueller has learned this through interviews with that Lebanese-American lobbyist George Nader, the guy who set up the fuckin' Seychelles meeting in the first fuckin' place. Nader is TIGHT with the Russians! We wrote about this yesterday!
ANYTHING ELSE, WONKETTE? THAT IS A LOT OF STUFF, WONKETTE!
Maybe, but fuck it, it's Friday.
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Upfist for the Zevon reference.
I wonder if all these “back channel” setting up meetings are going to turn out to have had an entirely different purpose that is AMAZINGLY EVIL. And you know, kind of exciting. “Back channeling“ being the cover story, like bouncy Russian babies was.