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Also see: Anatoly Antonov; Jeff Sessions; Michael
Flynn; Michael Cohen; Jared Kushner; backchannels;
Russia; Guccifer 2.0; Wikileaks; Trump Tower meeting;
May 17: The United States
Department of Justice has announced that a special counsel has been appointed to
investigate Russian interference into last year's presidential election and
links or coordination with the campaign of President Donald Trump.
May 18: So confident was [Trump] of his own
immunity to convention that he once boasted he could shoot someone in the middle
of New York's Fifth Avenue and wouldn't lose voters. But as President, that
impunity has been challenged and Trump's behavior became a liability.
Ultimately, had he not fired [FBI Director James] Comey in a fit of pique about
the Russia investigation, it might never [have] emerged that he reportedly asked
the FBI chief to cool it in his investigation. And [Deputy Attorney General Rod]
Rosenstein's hand may not have been forced and Trump may not have faced a
special counsel [Robert Mueller].
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/18/politics/donald-trump-robert-mueller-democracy/?iid=ob_lockedrail_bottomlist
July 21: Former CIA Director John Brennan
says government officials should refuse orders to fire special counsel Robert
Mueller if they are told to by the White House.
"I think it's the obligation of some executive branch officials to refuse to
carry that out. I would just hope that this is not going to be a partisan issue.
That Republicans, Democrats are going to see that the future of this government
is at stake and something needs to be done for the good of the future," [Brennan
said] ...
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/21/politics/brennan-clapper-aspen-trump/index.html
July 25: In the most vocal opposition to
president Donald Trump yet, former CIA Director John Brennan said that if the
White House tries to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, government officials
should refuse to follow the president orders, as they would be - in his view -
“inconsistent” with the duties of the executive branch.
Brennan appeared alongside his former colleague, Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper, and both men who served in the Obama administration,
told [Wolf] Blitzer they have total confidence in Mueller. "Absolutely. It was
an inspired choice- they don't come any better, " Brennan said adding that "If
Mueller is fired, I hope our elected reps will stand up and say enough is
enough."
http://www.nationalgunforum.com/political-news-discussions/122505-former-cia-director-calls-coup.html August 9:
Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller and key members of his team
revealed millions of dollars of financial holdings and previous legal work for
companies that could figure into their investigation of President Donald Trump's
campaign, according to financial disclosures released Tuesday.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/09/politics/robert-mueller-team-financial-disclosure/?iid=ob_lockedrail_bottomlist
December 2:
After six months of work, special counsel
Robert Mueller III has indicted two top advisers to President
Donald Trump and accepted guilty pleas from two others in exchange for their
cooperation with his probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election - a sign
of mounting legal peril for the
White House.
With the guilty plea Friday by former national security adviser Michael Flynn -
one of Trump's closest and most valued aides - the investigation has swept up an
array of figures with intimate knowledge of the campaign, the transition and the
White House.
December 16:
A spokesman for special counsel Robert Mueller has denied accusations by Trump
transition lawyers that Mueller's team got unauthorized access to thousands of
transition emails.
http://www.crossroadstoday.com/category/288113/all-stories -- 2018 --
Back to top January 4: Mueller learned of Trump attempt
to stop Sessions recusal, NY Times reports ... Trump had ordered White House
counsel Don McGahn last March to stop Sessions from recusing himself from
oversight of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
January 23: Special counsel Robert S.
Mueller III is seeking to question President Trump in the coming weeks about his
decisions to oust national security adviser Michael Flynn and FBI Director James
B. Comey, according to two people familiar with his plans.
According to the report, the president decided against it after White House
counsel Don McGahn threatened to resign over the planned firing. McGahn believed
that firing Mueller would only add to speculation over whether the president had
obstructed justice by attempting to interfere with the probe.
January 25: Democrats late Thursday renewed
their calls for Congress to pass legislation to protect Mueller and future
special counsels from being fired by the president. At least two such bills have
been introduced in recent months by members of both parties.
[Trump] has continued to fume about the investigation, even as his lawyers have
publicly pledged to work with the special counsel. On Thursday, Dowd released a
memo outlining the administration’s commitment to transparency, noting that more
than 20 White House officials have voluntarily given interviews.
But the revelation that Trump tried to fire Mueller could be a critical piece of
evidence for the special counsel as he tries to build an obstruction case, said
white-collar criminal defense attorney Jacob Frenkel, who previously worked in
the Office of Independent Counsel.
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/01/25/donald-trump-tried-to-fire-robert-mueller/
January 25: In a July interview with The New
York Times, Trump warned Mueller against expanding the special counsel
investigation to his family's financial affairs.
January 25: Lawyers involved with Mueller’s
investigation viewed the report as a potentially ominous sign.
“It’s one more brick in the wall,” said a Washington lawyer representing another
senior Trump aide in the Russia probe who added that the most interesting aspect
of the Trump-Mueller story to him was that “people are leaking this shit.”
“That is a sign to me people perceive this ship has sprung a leak and it’s time
to make themselves look good,” the attorney said. “To some extent I think the
fact of the leaking is almost the most significant, that we’ve reached an
inflection point where people at the center of things feel the need to redeem
themselves at the expense of the president.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/25/trump-mueller-fired-order-report-370807
February 2: Russia probe lawyers think Mueller
could indict Trump ... Many legal scholars
doubt a U.S. vs. Trump case is possible, but two attorneys who have dealt with
special counsel Robert Mueller's team disagree. One expects Mueller to move as
early as this spring.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/02/trump-russia-indictment-mueller-probe-384969
February 5: Lawyers reportedly don’t want
Trump to talk to Mueller because of Trump’s habit of lying ... Some on the
president’s legal team would rather risk fighting the special counsel in court.
This attempt to protect Trump could set up a protracted legal showdown with the
potential to extend the Mueller investigation, and put more attention on the
president and the Russia investigation
he so loathes. Mueller, for example, could issue a grand jury subpoena to
Trump — which the president’s lawyers would try to fight, allowing the battle to
play out in the courts for weeks or months.
https://www.vox.com/2018/2/5/16976552/trump-mueller-lawyers-interview
February 7: New documents show how Mueller
quickly expanded investigation
Special counsel Robert Mueller asked a government agency last June to preserve
documents relating to Donald Trump's transition to the presidency, according to
records obtained by CNN -- an indication of how he expanded the investigation
soon after his appointment.
February 15:
Rick Gates, a campaign adviser to President Trump and former business partner of
Paul Manafort, is close to finalizing a plea deal with Special Counsel Robert
Mueller's office
February 23: Former Trump campaign official
Rick Gates is set to plead guilty to criminal charges brought against him by
special counsel Robert Mueller.
According to a newly unsealed court filing Friday afternoon, Gates has been hit
with a superseding indictment charging him with conspiracy against the United
States and making a false statement.
March 5:
Lawmaker wants ex-Trump aide Nunberg to testify ... A US
lawmaker investigating allegedRussian election meddling says an ex-Trump aide
should testify on wild claims he has made about the president.
Mr Nunberg said Mr Trump was aware of a 2016 meeting between his
aides and a Russian lawyer, and may have "done something" during the campaign.
Democrat Adam Schiff responded by saying his congressional panel "needs to
explore" Mr Nunberg's allegation.
March 9: Former Trump aide Sam Nunberg shows
up to face grand jury
After a wild round of cable television interviews earlier this week, former
Donald Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg appeared to face a grand jury Friday
hearing a case presented by
special counsel
Robert Mueller.
He ignored shouted questions as he left the courthouse late Friday afternoon
after spending more than six hours inside with Mueller's team and the grand
jury.
March 17: Special counsel Robert Mueller has
memos written by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe documenting his
conversations with President Donald Trump, a source with knowledge of the matter
told CNN.
The memos also detail what former FBI Director James Comey told McCabe about his
own interactions with Trump while he was FBI director and are seen as a way to
corroborate Comey's account in Mueller's probe on Russian interference in the
2016 election.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/17/politics/mccabe-memos-trump/index.html
March 17: Trump’s lawyer calls on Justice
Department to immediately end Russia probe
March 18: “Any effort to go after Mueller
could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency unless Mueller did
something wrong,” Graham told reporters on Capitol Hill, where he outlined plans
to introduce legislation next week that would move to block any Trump attempts
to fire Mueller.
March 19: Congressional Republicans sounded
alarm Sunday over President Donald Trump’s increasing belligerence toward
special counsel Robert Mueller, but they offered no hint about what actions they
might take if Trump attempts to fire him.
“I’m not sure the House can do a lot,” said Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) on “Fox
News Sunday.” Gowdy urged the president to give Mueller the space and resources
to finish his probe unimpeded, but he noted that the Senate has more leverage
over Trump on this issue because it has a say in his senior administration
appointments.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/18/congress-trump-mueller-republicans-fired-470062
April 10:The top Republican on
the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday that if President Donald Trump were
to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, "it would be suicide."
"I think it would be suicide for the President to fire him," Iowa Republican
Sen. Chuck Grassley told CNN. "I think the less the President says about this
whole thing, the better off he will be. And I think Mueller is a person of
stature and respected and I respect him. Just let the thing go forward."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/10/politics/chuck-grassley-firing-mueller-suicide/index.html
April 10: ... as part
of a larger tantrum, Donald Trump insisted
this morning, “Attorney–client
privilege is dead!” As NBC News explained this morning, that's plainly
wrong. The privilege is not dead. It's
just that that the privilege alone won't
prevent the issuance of a search warrant for documents in an attorney's office.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/despite-trumps-claims-attorney-client-privilege-not-dead
April 10: "American voters in huge numbers,
including a majority of Republicans, tell President Donald Trump: Keep your
hands off Special Counsel Robert Mueller," said Tim Malloy, assistant director
of the Quinnipiac University Poll.
https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2534
April 19: Pittsburgh police ordered to bring
riot gear in case Trump fires Mueller ... Police Cmdr. Victor Joseph reportedly
sent an email Wednesday, instructing Major Crimes detectives to bring full
uniforms and riot gear to work "until further notice."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/19/us/pittsburgh-police-mueller-riot-gear/index.html
May 30: What Would Happen If Trump Fired
[Deputy Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein Rosenstein?
Dismissing him
would be a
more obvious attempt to control the outcome of Mueller’s investigation than
insisting on a separate probe of the FBI. But even in the case of a hypothetical
Rosenstein firing, there isn’t a clear line between the president’s legitimate
authority over law enforcement agencies and criminal interference in an ongoing
investigation. Dismissing the deputy attorney general would be a political
bombshell, but the extent of the legal fallout would depend largely on what the
president did next.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-fallout-of-a-rosenstein-firing-would-depend-on-what-happens-next/
July 13:Robert Mueller charges 12 Russian
intelligence officers
Indictment in Russian meddling probe revealed three days before Trump-Putin
summit
Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating alleged Russian election
meddling, has charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking Hillary
Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016
presidential election. Mr Mueller alleged that the 12 Russians stole and leaked
emails as part of a Russian government effort to interfere with the election.
https://www.ft.com/content/2909ff62-86b4-11e8-96dd-fa565ec55929
Back to top July 13:
Mueller indictment appears to make reference to Roger Stone
Special counsel
Robert Mueller’s indictment of Russian military officers in the 2016
hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) appears to make reference to
former informal Trump campaign adviser
Roger Stone.
July 13:Mueller’s New Indictment Points to
Collusion With Russia
In what is possibly an astonishing coincidence, but probably not, that very
night, according to the new indictments from the Department of Justice, Russian
hackers “attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts
at a domain hosted by a third-party provider and used by Clinton’s personal
office. At or about the same time, they also targeted seventy-six email
addresses at the domain for the Clinton campaign.” Trump asked Russia to hack
his opponent, and Russia did “[f]or the first time,” as the indictment says.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/mueller-indictment-suggests-trump-colluding-with-russia.html
July 13:The Justice
Department announced the
indictment of twelve Russian intelligence officers for their role in
Russia's interference in the 2016 election. The indictment alleges that the
officers, who were members of two GRU units, successfully spearfished persons
associated with the Clinton campaign, the DNC and DCCC. They used their access
to collect internal campaign correspondence and, using online personas they
created like Guccifer 2.0 and DCleaks.com, fed that information to journalists,
Wikileaks (which the indictment calls Organization 1), and one candidate for
U.S. Congress who
requested information about their opponent.
https://www.cfr.org/blog/cyber-week-review-july-13-2018
July 15: Special counsel Robert Mueller’s
indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officials may be the most vivid
illustration yet of how cryptocurrencies can be used for alleged criminal
purposes.
July 25:
Donald Trump postpones summit with Vladimir Putin until new year
The national security adviser, John Bolton, in a statement, cited special
counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016
election as the reason for the delay.
August 1:
President Trump's barrage of tweets Wednesday morning going after
special counsel
Robert Mueller's Russia investigation reportedly came after the
president learned that Mueller wants to ask him about obstruction of justice.
ABC News, citing sources close to the White House, reported that Trump was
upset with Mueller’s interest in obstruction and fired off a fresh round of
attacks on the special counsel's credibility while calling for Attorney General
Jeff Sessions
to end the probe.
August 1: Mueller responds to Trump
attorneys' request for parameters of potential interview
... sources say that Mueller has agreed to reduce the number of questions for
Trump from an initial list of 49 and is willing to have some questions answered
in writing – though he wants other questions answered orally.
August 1: U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III
specifically told prosecutors to stop using the word “oligarch” to describe
wealthy Ukrainians, whose dealings with Manafort are at the heart of the fraud
charges he faces in northern Virginia federal court.
The judge said the term has a “pejorative” meaning and is not relevant in this
case. Further, he cautioned that using it could suggest Manafort is associated
with bad people – and guilty by association.
August 27: Rudy Giuliani, President Donald
Trump's attorney, said the President's lawyers have not heard back from special
counsel Robert Mueller's office in nearly three weeks.
"I figured we wouldn't hear until after the Manafort trial, but we (still)
haven't," Giuliani said.
He said Mueller's office has told them it is "still studying" the latest letter
from Trump's team, which Giuliani said was only five to six pages.
September 15: Paul Manafort knows some of
Trump's deepest secrets. And now he works for Mueller.
Analysis: If anyone knows about collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign,
it's Paul Manafort. That may explain the prosecutors' interest in a plea deal.
The decision by President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman
to admit his guilt and cooperate with prosecutors could be a game-changer
for special counsel Robert Mueller, while dramatically ratcheting up the
pressure on the president.
September 18:
Trump-proof aspects of Manafort deal rankle lawyers
Robert Mueller seems to have built in safeguards to discourage the president
from pardoning Manafort.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s plea agreement with Paul Manafort on Friday
took unusual and possibly unprecedented steps to undercut President Donald
Trump’s ability to pardon his former campaign chairman.
October 2: Kyle Freeny and Brandon Van Grack,
two prosecutors who worked on Paul Manafort's criminal cases, are ending their
tenure working for special counsel Robert Mueller.
Van Grack left recently to return to his job in the National Security Division
of the Justice Department, and Freeny will leave the office in mid-October to
return to the Criminal Division. Both were detailed to Mueller's office over the
past year, said special counsel spokesman Peter Carr.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/02/politics/mueller-two-prosecutors-leave/index.html
October 30:The Atlantic
is reportingthat the FBI is looking into a matter sent to them by
the office of special counsel Robert Mueller about an anonymous woman who is
alleging she was offered $20,000 to make a false allegation of sexual harassment
against Mueller. The woman had initially spoken to at least ten reporters from a
variety of news outlets, who were unable to verify her account. In a letter to a
reporter, she claimed, a man “offered to pay off all of my credit card
debt, plus bring me a check for $20,000 if I would do.” She added, “He knew
exactly how much credit card debt I had, right down to the dollar, which sort of
freaked me out.”
November 7: ... one of the more remarkable things about the Mueller investigation, at
least so far, is that it hasn’t added any costly burdens to American taxpayers.
In fact, it seems to be a generator of revenue.
December 24: Supreme Court Chief Justice
John Roberts has weighed in on a clash over a mysterious grand jury subpoena,
which is rumored to be connected to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe.
The dispute involves an unknown company owned by a foreign nation, which has
fought the subpoena and appealed a related contempt citation. In a brief order
issued Sunday, Roberts stayed that contempt citation and associated financial
penalties pending a response from government lawyers, due Dec. 31.
There is scant information in the public docket about the case, but a
three-judge D.C. Circuit panel examining the
appeal revealed the witness fighting the subpoena is a corporation owned by
a foreign state, Politico reported. The panel went on to reject the company’s
argument that it is immune from grand jury subpoenas and that complying would
violate the law in the company’s home country.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/chief-justice-roberts-weighs-in-on-mystery-subpoena-clash
The warning, a stark and unusual message from some of Congress’s most
influential Democrats, underscores the increasing legal and political peril
facing Mr. Trump. Democrats are beginning their own investigations of him as the
special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, appears to move toward a conclusion in
his investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia and potential
obstruction of justice by Mr. Trump.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/13/us/politics/trump-cohen-testimony.html
February 22: On Tuesday, the New York Times
published
the results of an extensive investigation into Trump's "two-year war on the
investigations encircling him." The paper found that there has been a
"sustained, more secretive assault by Mr. Trump on the machinery of federal law
enforcement" than has been previously publicly known ....
As part of his efforts to contain the ongoing legal crises he faces, Trump
reportedly tried to install a loyalist in New York's Southern District, US
attorney Geoffrey S. Berman, as the new person in charge of the investigations
into Trump's hush-money payments, like the one apparently made to Stormy Daniels
in 2016.
https://sfist.com/2019/02/22/sf-based-irs-agent-stormy-daniels/
April 30: Mueller's Letter To Barr
Complained That Trump-Russia Report Summary Lacked 'Context'
Special counsel Robert Mueller wrote a letter in late March objecting to
Attorney General William Barr's four-page summary of the conclusions of the
investigation into possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, a
Justice Department official confirmed Tuesday night.
May 6: Cohen was mentioned in
Mueller's report more than 800 times.
Cohen pleaded guilty to financial crimes, allegations that he facilitated a
combined $280,000 in hush money payments to two women, and also for lying to
Congress about the length of time Trump was trying to reach a deal in Moscow to
build a skyscraper there. Trump has long denied sexual encounters with the
women.
Five men in Trump's orbit have pleaded guilty or been convicted of an array of
offenses and another faces a trial later this year. Among the Trump aides,
Cohen's three-year term is second only to the 7.5-year sentence handed out to
former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who was convicted of several
financial crimes.
https://www.voanews.com/a/one-time-trump-fixer-michael-cohen-heads-to-prison/4905684.html
May 26: House Democratic Caucus
Chairman Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday morning that there’s reason to believe
President Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice.
