Special counsel's team includes former Clinton Foundation lawyer, contributors to Obama, Hillary, more

by Brendan Kirby | Updated 12 Jun 2017 at 3:29 PM

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich sparked a mini-meltdown in the media Monday with a tweet challenging the fairness of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Gingrich, who also appeared on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” pointed to the early hires special counsel Robert Mueller has made.

“Republicans are delusional if they think the special counsel is going to be fair,” he tweeted. “Look who he is hiring.check fec [sic] reports. Time to rethink.”

He's not wrong about the donations. Four top lawyers hired by Mueller have contributed tens of thousands of dollars over the years to the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates, including former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump's 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.

One of the hires, Jeannie Rhee, also worked as a lawyer for the Clinton Foundation and helped persuade a federal judge to block a conservative activist's attempts to force Bill and Hillary Clinton to answer questions under oath about operations of the family-run charity.

Campaign-finance reports show that Rhee gave Clinton the maximum contributions of $2,700 in 2015 and again last year to support her presidential campaign. She also donated $2,300 to Obama in 2008 and $2,500 in 2011. While still at the Justice Department, she gave $250 to the Democratic National Committee Services Corp.

Rhee also has contributed to a trio of Democratic senators: Mark Udall of New Mexico, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

James Quarles, who worked on the Watergate investigation as a young prosecutor, has an even longer history of supporting Democratic politicians. He gave $1,300 to Obama in 2007 and $2,300 in 2008. He also gave $2,700 to Clinton last year.

He has supported a number of other Democratic candidates, including Van Hollen, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), former Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.), former Vice President Al Gore, 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry, former Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), and Colorado congressional candidate Gail Schwartz.

In addition, Quarles gave money to former Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) and three current Democratic senators — Ron Wyden of Oregon, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, and Robert Menendez of New Jersey. He chipped in $300 to the DNC Services Corp. $300 in 2012.

Quarles did donate to a couple of GOP politicians — $250 to then-Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) in 2006 and $2,500 to Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) in 2015.

Andrew Weissmann, a former Justice Department lawyer who now is at Jenner & Block, contributed $2,300 to Obama in 2008 and $2,000 to the DNC Services Corp. in 2006. Weissmann served as chief of the Justice Department's criminal fraud section and worked on the Enron fraud case.

A fourth lawyer on Mueller's staff, Michael Dreeben, donated $1,000 to Clinton 2006 and $250 to Obama in both 2007 and 2008. He was deputy solicitor general and has appeared many times before the Supreme Court.

Media pundits generally dismissed concerns over the Democratic Party ties of the staff Mueller is building. Several Trump critics noted that Gingrich previously had tweeted that Mueller was a "superb choice to be special counsel" and that his reputation was "impeccable for honesty and integrity."

Journalist Paul Vale, who has written for the Huffington Post and The Times of London, tweeted, "Boiled cabbage Gingrich lays out the White House plan to discredit career lawman Mueller — all in the service of his babbling paymaster."

CNN anchor John King on Monday asked the network's chief congressional correspondent, Manu Raju, if it should be a concern.

"No, because Bob Mueller is the one who's in charge of this investigation and will ultimately decide how to proceed, and there is some oversight over him by [Deputy Attorney General] Rod Rosenstein, even though there is a special counsel," he said.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645407&forum_id=2#33540673)

He may not agree

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645407&forum_id=2#33540760)

if the president instructs the AG to dismiss him, he's out of there. nothing illegal/unethical about it.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645407&forum_id=2#33540781)

How long did Clinton shit go on for?Trumptards frothing at the mouth about Lynch having one casual conversation with Bill Clinton with all the shady shit going on to impede this investigation? Suck a dick you hypocrites

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645407&forum_id=2#33543511)

1) incompetence on the part of the IC

2) there is nothing to find

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645407&forum_id=2#33543887)

Sessions never should've recused himself. Now that we know TRUMP IS NOT UNDER INVESTIGATION, Sessions should take it back & fire Mueller.

RETWEETS 4,900 LIKES 10,273

11:55 AM - 12 Jun 2017

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645407&forum_id=2#33540762)

Former FBI Director, now special prosecutor, Robert Mueller has added Andrew Weissmann to the prosecution team investigating allegations of the Trump Administration's "collusion" with Russia.

Mainstream media has touted both men's credentials, but there is a huge back-story they all ignore.

Mr. Weissmann's real record as a "special prosecutor" is so egregious that Mr. Mueller's decision to choose his former counsel Weissmann should cause concern for anyone with even a passing interest in truth and justice.

From a tough mob prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York United States Attorney's Office (with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell), Mr. Weissmann became the first Deputy Director — and then Director — of the elite Enron Task Force, formed in 1991.

The Task Force quickly devolved into a cabal that used mob tactics itself.

It dealt the death penalty to the venerable accounting firm of Arthur Andersen LLP, which employed 85,000 people world-wide and represented approximately 2500 publicly-traded companies. It even coerced a guilty plea out of Andersen partner David Duncan.

In a trial rife with prosecutorial misconduct obviously calculated to win at any cost, Weissmann helped rewrite crucial jury instructions defining the "crime" and the intent required.

Three years later, a unanimous Supreme Court reversed the conviction. All the justices agreed that Andersen's conduct was not a crime, and it was "shocking how little criminal culpability the jury instructions required."

In plain English, Mr. Weissmann concocted a crime, destroyed a company and 85,000 jobs, spent millions of tax dollars, and obtained a wrongful conviction — all for nothing.

The prosecutors were so over-reaching that the judge even allowed Mr. Duncan to withdraw his guilty plea.

Weissmann ran the grand jury like a petty tyrant. He instructed one defendant (my client) — who had appeared voluntarily — to share his "personal understanding" of a telephone call he had not even participated in, "whether his understanding was accurate or not." Then, Weissmann indicted him for perjury and obstruction of justice for his answer.

Determined to "send a message to Wall Street," Weissmann supervised the prosecution of four Merrill Lynch executives on charges that were unprecedented.

Like a character from the TV series The Blacklist, Weissmann himself often made multiple phone calls to lawyers for potential defense witnesses, threatening the indictment of anyone who might testify for the defense — including in-house legal counsel.

To top it off, Weissmann and team actually yellow-highlighted evidence that was favorable to the defense before the Barge trial, but hid it for six years while four Merrill executives served a year in prison on an indictment that failed to allege a crime as charged.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed 12 out of 14 counts of conviction, acquitted one defendant completely, and later held that the prosecutors "plainly suppressed evidence" favorable to the defense and provided misleading summaries instead.

Weissmann left the Enron Task Force amid escalating allegations of prosecutorial misconduct during the Enron Broadband case. No one seemed to notice what had happened to the victims, or that all of the cases they actually tried and at least two of the guilty pleas they coerced were reversed.

Not only has our Department of "Justice" failed to drain the swamp, it has just restocked it with a swamp-monster who has proven that he is willing to do anything to win. To paraphrase Billy Jack, "When [prosecutors] break the law, there is no law."

Sidney Powell served in the Department of Justice for 10 years, in three federal districts under nine United States Attorneys from both political parties. She was lead counsel in more than 500 federal appeals. She is the author of Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice – a legal thriller that tells the inside story of high-profile prosecutions including Arthur Andersen LLP, the Ted Stevens case, and the Enron Barge case in which she represented one of the Merrill Lynch executives.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645407&forum_id=2#33540767)

by Byron York | Jun 11, 2017, 11:09 PM

Fired FBI Director James Comey has emerged as the main figure in what some Democrats believe will be an obstruction of justice case against President Trump in the Trump-Russia matter. Comey's stories of conversations with the president, plus the fact that he was fired, ostensibly as a result of the Russia probe, make him potentially the star witness in the case.

Which brings up an intriguing legal question. Comey is a good friend of special counsel Robert Mueller — such a good friend, for about 15 years now, that the two men have been described as "brothers in arms." Their work together during the controversies over Bush-era terrorist surveillance has been characterized as "deepening a friendship forged in the crucible of the highest levels of the national security apparatus after the 9/11 attacks," after which the men became "close partners and close allies throughout the years ahead."

Now Mueller is investigating the Trump-Russia affair, in which, if the increasing buzz in the case is correct, allegations of obstruction against the president will be central. And central to those allegations — the key witness — will be the prosecutor's good friend, the now-aggrieved former FBI director.

Is that a conflict? Should a prosecutor pursue a case in which the star witness is a close friend? And when the friend is not only a witness but also arguably a victim — of firing — by the target of the investigation? And when the prosecutor might also be called on to investigate some of his friend's actions? The case would be difficult enough even without the complicating friendship.

This is by no means a definitive answer, but I put that question to five Washington lawyers Sunday — lawyers in private practice, on Capitol Hill, in think tanks, some of them veterans of the Justice Department. The verdict came back mixed. But the answers made clear this is a question that will have to be answered in the course of the Mueller investigation.

"This is very odd," said one big-firm lawyer and Justice Department veteran Sunday:

An ordinary prosecutor would turn this over to someone uninvolved, and there would be lots of candidates. That is particularly so here where Comey is not just the star witness but a potential target. That said, I doubt anyone outside can or should do anything here. Mueller should resign, but if he chooses not to — either on the theory he can handle the conflict, or on the theory it is such a mess he should just persevere — the attorney general should not fire him. As to how Mueller might handle, he could announce that the Comey part of the case will be handled by someone else within his office, but that is complex and not very satisfactory.

On the other hand, from another big-firm lawyer and Justice Department veteran:

I don't see any problem with a prosecutor being a friend of a potential witness. It's hard to imagine a scenario, for example, where information acquired as part of a friendship would impair the prosecutor's ability to do his or her job or, alternatively, improperly influence the witness' testimony. I expect, in any event, that any interview of Comey would be very much a group effort on the part of Mueller's team, so that his personal relationship with Comey would hardly be an issue.

From a Capitol Hill veteran now in private practice:

They [Comey and Mueller] have a mutual admiration society. Mueller should hire another prosecutor to deal with Comey. But Comey is central to their case, so it infects the whole prosecution. Could [a close colleague] investigate me? No, he would recuse. But Mueller's stature is great, and he may be able to overcome it.

From another Justice Department veteran:

I think it raises a serious conflict of interest that would normally require the prosecutor to recuse himself from the case.

And finally, from another Hill lawyer:

It's somewhat ironic, no? I mean, the whole purpose of the special counsel is to have a prosecutor from outside the government and outside of the normal chain of command because inherent conflicts render the Justice Department incapable of handling it. So, now the special counsel is a close friend (mentor/mentee relationship) with the star witness, who by his own admission leaked the memos at least in part to engineer the appointment of a special counsel. Only in Washington. You can't make this stuff up.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645407&forum_id=2#33540771)

Republicans are delusional if they think the special counsel is going to be fair. Look who he is hiring.check fec reports. Time to rethink.

RETWEETS 6,229 LIKES 12,111

4:34 AM - 12 Jun 2017

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645407&forum_id=2#33540778)

Your options are: deal with a long and annoying investigation that will almost certainly exonerate you while possibly landing several of your associates in troubles OR fire the special counsel before he's made a single public statement, thereby convincing everyone outside your shrinking base that you are guilty as hell.

Yah, Trump is gonna fire him.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645407&forum_id=2#33542708)

http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/13/gohmert-mueller-is-dirty-and-should-recuse-himself/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645407&forum_id=2#33544246)

lmfao at rapetile pearl clutching over 250 dollar donations, i donated more than that

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645407&forum_id=2#33543408)

http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645917&mc=3&forum_id=2

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645407&forum_id=2#33545043)

Mueller spokesman Peter Carr confirmed in an email Friday the total number of staffers working on the Russia probe, while adding “several more in the pipeline.”

Story Continued Below

Carr didn’t disclose the names of any of Mueller staffers beyond the ones who had previously been reported were on the Russia investigation squad — a prosecution team with experience going after everything from the Mafia and Enron to al Qaeda and President Richard Nixon.

The special counsel’s team, Carr for the first time confirmed, includes Aaron Zebley, Mueller’s former FBI chief of staff; James Quarles, a former Watergate assistant special prosecutor; Michael Dreeben, the deputy solicitor general; Andrew Weissmann, the chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division fraud section; Jeannie Rhee, a former deputy assistant attorney general from DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel; and Lisa Page, from the FBI’s general counsel office.

Justice Department veterans say they’re not surprised that Mueller’s team is growing given the vast array of witness interviews that will need to be conducted to the financial documents and other records that Trump officials are expected to produce.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645407&forum_id=2#33580063)

Hard.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645407&forum_id=2#33580100)

trump should fire as waste of resources

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3645407&forum_id=2#33582233)