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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump launches all-out assault on Mueller probe
Trump has launched an all-out assault on the federal investigation into his campaigns ties to Russia, reflecting an intensifying obsession with the probe within the West Wing.
As reports emerged this week that special counsel Robert Mueller has widened his investigation to include the presidents business transactions, Trump issued a public warning that such inquiries were a violation of the scope of the probe.
In a bombshell interview with The New York Times published Wednesday night, he stopped short of saying that he would fire Mueller if he crossed that line because I dont think its going to happen.
But he threatened to expose many other conflicts that he believes make Muellers position at the head of the investigation unethical a claim that comes on the heels of a round of Sunday show appearances by the presidents attorney, Jay Sekulow, suggesting that Muellers appointment to the post was illegitimate.
Multiple outlets have also reported that Trumps legal team is digging into Muellers team, looking for alleged conflicts of interest and discussing the limits of the presidents authority to issue pardons.
And on Thursday, the spokesman for Trumps outside legal team, Mark Corallo, reportedly resigned in part because of his discomfort with the presidents strategy of attacking Muellers integrity.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/343164-trump-launches-all-out-assault-on-mueller-probe?rnd=1500739275
meow2u3
(24,757 posts)Dangerous criminals--that's who! tRump is nothing but a common criminal whose money shields him from just punishment.
ancianita
(35,926 posts)Leghorn21
(13,522 posts)WASHINGTON ― Allies of President Donald Trump are reportedly plotting to smear the credibility of journalists, perpetuating his pattern of undermining the free press and dismissing critical reporting as fake news.
The strategy was detailed in a Washington Post report Tuesday night about chaos within the White House, as administration officials struggle to mount an effective response to revelations of the presidents eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., meeting with a Russian government-linked lawyer who promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton during last years election.
As the Post reported:
"A handful of Republican operatives close to the White House are scrambling to Trump Jr.s defense and have begun what could be an extensive campaign to try to discredit some of the journalists who have been reporting on the matter.
Their plan, as one member of the team described it, is to research the reporters previous work, in some cases going back years, and to exploit any mistakes or perceived biases. They intend to demand corrections, trumpet errors on social media and feed them to conservative outlets, such as Fox News."
Any luck with that yet, "Republican operatives"??
- say, are these the same "operatives" who couldn't find the fucking light switches in the White House?
Yeah, thought so - assault away, LOSERS
SergeStorms
(19,148 posts)He has to have Daddy and his friends fight his battles for him because he's such a sniveling little coward. I guess the rotten apple doesn't fall far from the diseased tree, does it. Daddy Trump is much the same, only he has an army of Attorneys fight his battles for him.
What a fucked up family.
Leghorn21
(13,522 posts)know what I'm sayin here!!)
11 Bravo
(23,925 posts)Leghorn21
(13,522 posts)Leghorn21
(13,522 posts)ANDREW WEISSMANN
Most recently the chief of the Justice Departments fraud section, Weissmann joins Muellers team with decades of experience prosecuting cases involving organized crime, corporate misconduct and criminal fraud.
Some of the blockbuster cases he has taken the lead on include the prosecution of executives from now-defunct energy company Enron for their elaborate schemes to conceal their firms financial woes, and his conviction of members of the Gambino, Colombo and Genovese crime families as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn.
In the 1990s, Weissmann worked on a case involving Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman with organized crime connections who would go on to become a business associate of Trumps. Weissmann signed a deal Sater struck to become a government informant after he pleaded guilty in a $40 million fraud scheme, according to the Financial Times.
Weissmann is also renowned for his expert in flipping witnesses, as Reuters has reporteda skill that could come in handy as the special counsel team tries to determine if anyone associated with the Trump campaign colluded with Russian operatives.
MICHAEL DREEBEN
The Justice Departments deputy solicitor general is working part-time on the special counsel investigation, where he brings decades of experience in criminal law.
Dreeben has argued over 100 cases before the Supreme Court, and represented the federal government on cases including the public corruption probe into former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R).
His addition to Muellers team was widely seen as a sign that Mueller was investigating possible criminal violations by President Donald Trump or others, according to the National Law Journal.
JAMES QUARLES III
Quarles kicked off his career working as an assistant special prosecutor on the special prosecution force investigating the Watergate scandal. After that investigation ended with the conviction of several of President Richard Nixons top aides for various abuses of power, Quarles joined the white-shoe D.C. law firm WilmerHale in the mid-1970s.
JEANNIE RHEE
Another WilmerHale veteran, like Mueller himself, Rhee has extensive experience working on criminal investigations. As a young lawyer, she served as an assistant US attorney for the District of Columbia, where she prosecuted Washington Teachers Union officials who embezzled some $5 million.
Rhee later served as deputy assistant attorney general for the DOJs office of legal counsel and, in private practice, focused on advising clients who were the subjects of federal investigations. Some of Rhees most high-profile cases involve the Clintons: She was on the legal team representing the Clinton Foundation in a racketeering lawsuit brought by Freedom Watch, a litigious conservative advocacy group, and represented Hillary Clinton in a lawsuit that sought to obtain access to her private emails.
Rhee, like several other special counsel attorneys including Quarles and Weissman, has been criticized for donating to political campaigns for Democratic politicians including Clinton and former president Barack Obama.
AARON ZEBLEY
A former FBI special agent on counterterrorism cases and assistant U.S. attorney in the National Security and Terrorism Unit, Zebley has had a long working relationship with Mueller. He served as Muellers chief of staff during his tenure at the FBI and then worked alongside him as a partner at WilmerHale.
Prior to joining WilmerHale, Zebley worked as senior counsel in the DOJs national security division. His expertise is in national security, terrorism and violent crime cases.
BRANDON VAN GRACK
Van Grack is a veteran prosecutor in the counterespionage section of the DOJs national security division. In two recent cases, Van Grack helped prosecute a former government contractor who stole classified national defense documents and a computer hacker who provided the Islamic State with the names and contact information of over 1,000 government and military workers.
Van Grack had led a grand jury inquiry in the Eastern District of Virginia into ousted national security adviser Michael Flynns lobbying on behalf of foreign governments, which reportedly has since been picked up by Mueller.
RUSH ATKINSON
A trial attorney in the fraud section of the DOJs criminal division, Atkinson has worked on complex cases involving corporate malfeasance. Earlier this year, he helped indict a former top executive at Bankrate Inc., a financial services company, for manipulating the companys statements and artificially inflating its earnings.
ANDREW GOLDSTEIN
Goldstein joins the special counsel team from his post as head of the public corruption unit in the U.S. Attorneys Office in the Southern District of New York. Under former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, a frequent critic of the administration who was fired by Trump earlier this year, the office burnished its reputation for aggressively prosecuting cases involving white-collar crime and public corruption.
Goldstein was a prosecutor on the team that convicted longtime State Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver and other members of the state government of public corruption, according to the New York Times. He has experience working on money laundering and asset forfeiture cases.
ZAINAB AHMAD
An assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York, Ahmad served as the deputy chief of the national security and cybercrime section. As the New Yorker documented in a recent profile, Ahmad successfully prosecuted 13 international terrorism suspects for the U.S. government without losing a single case.
Some of her biggest cases include the prosecution of a Pakistani al-Qaeda operative planning a terrorist attack on a U.K. shopping center and of a Nigerian citizen convicted of providing material support to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
ELIZABETH PRELOGAR
An assistant to the solicitor generals office, Prelogar previously clerked for Supreme Court justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan and worked in private practice at Hogan Lovells.
She appears to be fluent in Russian from her undergraduate and graduate studies, and served as a Fulbright Scholar in Russia, as the National Law Journal reported.
LISA PAGE
Page developed experience in money laundering and organized crime cases during her tenure as a trial attorney in the DOJs organized crime and gang section. She prosecuted a member of the Lucchese organized crime family and Bulgarian nationals who conducted a money laundering scheme using fake eBay ads.
ADAM JED
Jed has worked for the DOJ since 2010, most recently in the civil division, according to the National Law Journal. He defended the Affordable Care Acts contraceptive insurance requirement on behalf of the federal government in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Sebelius, and received an exceptional service award from the DOJ for helping implement the Supreme Court decision that effectively legalized gay marriage.
AARON ZELINSKY
An experienced line prosecutor who has worked on organized crime cases, Zelinsky has spent the past three years working as as assistant U.S. Attorney in Maryland under Rod Rosenstein, who is now the deputy attorney general overseeing the special counsel probe. Zelinsky has taught constitutional and national security law at Peking University and the University of Maryland, respectively.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/special-counsel-probe-beefs-up-bigly
dalton99a
(81,386 posts)onethatcares
(16,161 posts)I don't think these attorneys signed up just for the publicity.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)mom and dad off of the trail, here Trump is trying to say "nothing here".
SCVDem
(5,103 posts)With all the swagger of a 'made man'!
Didn't we see this in the Godfather and Sopranos series.
Look at that cocky fuck!
SergeStorms
(19,148 posts)nothing gets done about anything else. That can be a good thing, but there are hundreds of unfilled positions in our government - some of them highly critical - that Trump can't be bothered with even nominating someone for.
This idiot is totally out of control, but this doesn't bother Congressional Republicans one little bit. They don't care if the country falls down around us, as long as they retain control of their precious power.
HipChick
(25,485 posts)IronLionZion
(45,380 posts)another one:
bucolic_frolic
(43,027 posts)Trump blaming Mueller for investigating Trump
It's not a political Witch Hunt, it's a criminal investigation.
I doubt very much this is something that's going to be hashed out in a trial courtroom.
A few rulings by the Supreme Court. If we lose the FBI here, we've lost the rule of law
entirely. With that goes everything else - privacy, religious, property rights to name a few.