This story — now beginning its “third chapter” — is being relayed to TruthNewsNet.org by Texas Congressman Louis Gohmert. Congressman Gohmert has an extensive past as a criminal attorney, a judge, and now a longtime member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He also has extensive personal interactions with Robert Mueller when Director of the FBI. Gohmert serves on the House Judiciary Committee that holds oversight of the U.S. Intelligence community as one of its highest priorities. It is in that setting that Congressman Gohmert has obtained a detailed and accurate understanding of Robert Mueller as a man, as an attorney, as an FBI Director, and now as Special Counsel in the Russia/Trump Campaign “collusion” investigation that remains ongoing.
If you have not read or listened to Parts One and Two of this story, please do so before reading or listening to Part Three. Doing so will give you a greater understanding of Mr. Mueller.
Tomorrow we will wrap this story up. But our wrapping it up will NOT end it — Mueller is still trying to find something — ANYTHING AT ALL — to use to attack President Trump. Maybe after these four chapters about Robert Mueller, the professional inside interactions between Mueller and Congressman Gohmert, and your own interpretation of Mueller’s actions, you will be able to form informed and objective determinations of the Truth in this “Mueller Matter.”
THE FRAMING OF SCOOTER LIBBY
In 2003, during yet another fabricated and politically-charged FBI investigation, this one “searching” for the leak of CIA agent Valery Plame’s identity to the media. Robert Mueller’s very dear close friend James Comey was at the time serving as the Deputy Attorney General. Comey convinced then-Attorney General John Ashcroft that he should recuse himself from the Plame investigation. At the time, Ashcroft was in the hospital. After Deputy A.G. Comey was successful in securing Ashcroft’s recusal, Comey then got to choose the Special Counsel. He then looked about for someone who was completely independent of any relationships that might affect his independence and settled upon his own child’s godfather and named Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the source of the leak. So much for the independence of the Special Counsel.
The entire episode was further revealed as a fraud when it was later made public that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald, FBI Director Mueller, and Deputy Attorney Comey had very early on learned that the source of Plame’s identity leak came from Richard Armitage. But neither Comey nor Mueller nor Fitzgerald wanted Armitage’s scalp. Oh no. These so-called apolitical, fair-minded pursuers of their own brand of justice were after a bigger name in the Bush administration like Vice President Dick Cheney or Karl Rove. Yet they knew from the beginning that these two men were not guilty of anything. Nonetheless, Fitzgerald, Mueller, and Comey pursued Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, as a path to ensnare the Vice President. According to multiple reports, Fitzgerald had twice offered to drop all charges against Libby if he would ‘deliver’ Cheney to him. There was nothing to deliver.
Is any of this sounding familiar? Could it be that these same tactics have been used against an innocent Gen. Mike Flynn? Could it be that Flynn only agreed to plead guilty to prevent any family members from being unjustly prosecuted and to also prevent going completely broke from attorneys’ fees? That’s the apparent Mueller-Comey- Special Counsel distinctive modus-operandi. Libby would not lie about Cheney, so he was prosecuted for obstruction of justice, perjury, making a false statement. This Spectator report in 2015 sums up this particularly egregious element of the railroading: [https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/04/judith-miller-scooter-libby- and-the-trouble-with-special-prosecutors/]
“… By the time Scooter Libby was tried in 2007, it wasn’t for anything to do with the Plame leak — everyone then knew Armitage had taken responsibility for that — but for lying to federal officials about what he had said to three reporters, including Miller. It is relating to this part of the story that an extraordinary new piece of information has come to light. After her spell in prison, and with her job on the line, Miller was eventually worn down to agree to hand over some redacted portions of notes of her few conversations with Libby. Several years on, she could no longer recall where she had first heard of Plame’s CIA identity, but her notes included a reference to Wilson alongside which the journalist had added in brackets ‘wife works in Bureau?’ After Fitzgerald went through these notes it was put to Miller that this showed that the CIA identity of Plame had been raised by Libby during the noted meeting. At Libby’s trial, Miller was the only reporter to state that Libby had discussed Plame. His conviction and his sentencing to 30 months in prison and a $250,000 fine, rested on this piece of evidence.
But Miller has just published her memoirs. One detail in particular stands out. Since the Libby trial, Miller has read Plame’s own memoir and there discovered that Plame had worked at a State Department bureau as cover for her real CIA role. The discovery, in Miller’s words, ‘left her cold’. The idea that the ‘Bureau’ in her notebook meant ‘CIA’ had been planted in her head by Fitzgerald. It was a strange word to use for the CIA. Reading Plame’s memoir, Miller realized that ‘Bureau’ was in brackets because it related to her work at State Department. (Emphasis added) What that means is that Scooter Libby had not lied as she originally thought and testified. He was innocent of everything including the contrived offense. For his honesty and innocence, Scooter Libby spent time behind bars and still has a federal felony conviction he carries like an albatross.
The real culprit of the allegation for which the Special Counsel was appointed and massive amounts of taxpayer dollars expended was Richard Armitage. A similar technique was used against Martha Stewart. After all, Mueller’s FBI developed both cases. If the desired crime to be prosecuted was never committed, then talk to someone you want to convict until you find something that others are willing to say was not true. Then you can convict them of lying to the FBI. Martha Stewart found out about Mueller’s FBI the hard way. Unfortunately, Mueller has left a wake of innocent people whom he has crowned with criminal records.
History does seem to repeat itself when it is recording the same people using the same tactics. Can anyone who has ever actually looked at Robert Mueller’s history honestly say that Mueller deserves a sterling reputation in law enforcement? One part of his reputation he does apparently deserve is the reputation for being James Comey’s mentor.
MUELLER’S ‘COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP’ WITH DOJ ALLEGED CO-CONSPIRATORS OF TERRORISM
In 2011, in one of the House Judiciary Committee’s oversight hearings, FBI Director Mueller repeatedly testified during questioning by various Members about how the Muslim community was just like every other religious community in the United States. He also referenced an “Outreach Program” the FBI had with the Muslim community. When it was my turn to question, I could not help but put the two points of his testimony together for a purge question: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haayF4jmthU ]
GOHMERT: Thank you, Director. I see you had mentioned earlier, and it’s in your written statement, that the FBI’s developed extensive outreach to Muslim communities and in answer to an earlier question I understood you to say that you know Muslim communities were like all other communities, so I’m curious as the result of the extensive outreach program the FBI’s had to the Muslim community, how is your outreach program going with the Baptists and the Catholics?
MUELLER: I’m not certain of, necessarily the rest of that, the question I would say — there is outreach to all segments of a particular city or county or society is good.
GOHMERT: Well do you have a particular program of outreach to Hindus, Buddhists, the Jewish community, agnostics or is it just an extensive outreach program to –
MUELLER: We have outreach to every one of those communities.
GOHMERT: And how do you do that?
MUELLER: Every one of those communities can be affected can be affected by facts or circumstance.
GOHMERT: I’ve looked extensively, and I haven’t seen anywhere in anyone from the FBI’s letters, information that there’s been an extensive outreach program to any other community trying to develop trust in this kind of relationship and it makes me wonder if there is an issue of trust or some problem like that that the FBI has seen in that particular community.
MUELLER: I would say if you look at one of our more effective tools or what we call citizens academies where we bring in individuals from a variety of segments of the territory in which the office operates . . . look at the citizens’ academy, the persons here, they are a cross- section of the community, they can be Muslim, could be Indian, they can be Baptists –
GOHMERT: Okay but no specific programs to any of those. You have extensive outreach to the Muslim community and then you have a program of outreach to communities, in general, is what it sounds like.
(Congressman Louie Gohmert)
We went further in the questioning. The 2007 trial of the Holy Land Foundation, the largest terrorism financing trial in American history, linked the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas. CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case. Because of this affiliation, the FBI issued policy and guidance to restrict its non-investigative interactions with CAIR in an effort to limit CAIR’s ability to exploit contacts with the FBI. As a result, FBI field offices were instructed to cut ties with all local branches of CAIR across the country.
GOHMERT: Are you aware of the evidence in the Holy Land Foundation case that linked the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America and the North America Islamic Trust to the Holy Land Foundation?
MUELLER: I’m not going to speak to specific information in a particular case. I would tell you on the other hand that we do not –
GOHMERT: Are you aware of the case, Director? [CROSSTALK]MUELLER: – relationship with CAIR because of concerns –
GOHMERT: Well I’ve got the letter from the Assistant Director Richard Powers that says in light of the evidence – talking about during the trial – evidence was introduced that demonstrated a relationship among CAIR, individual CAIR founders, including its current president emeritus and executive director and the Palestine committee, evidence was also introduced that demonstrated a relationship between the Palestine Committee and Hamas, which was designated as a terrorist organization in 1995. In light of that evidence, he says, the FBI suspended all formal contacts between CAIR and FBI. Well now it’s my understanding, and I’ve got documentation, and I hope you’ve seen this kind of documentation before, it’s public record, and also the memo order from the judge in turning down a request that the unindicted co-conspirators be eliminated from the list, and he says the FBI’s information is clear there is a tie here, and I’m not going to grant the deletion of these particular parties as unindicted co-conspirators. So, I’m a little surprised that you’re reluctant to discuss something that’s already been set out in an order, that’s already been in a letter saying we cut ties in light of the evidence at this trial. I’m just surprised it took the evidence that the FBI had, being introduced at the trial in order to sever the relationships with CAIR that it (the FBI) had that showed going back to the 1993 meeting in Philadelphia, what was tied to a terrorist organization. So, I welcome your comments about that.
MUELLER: As I told you before, we have no formal relationship with CAIR because of concerns with regard to the national leadership on that.
What Director Mueller was intentionally deceptive about was that the FBI had apparently maintained a relationship and even “community partnership” instigated on his watch with CAIR and other groups and individuals that his FBI had evidence showing they were co-conspirators to terrorism. That, of course, is consistent with his misrepresentation that Mueller’s FBI had outreach programs to other religious communities just like they did with the Muslim community. They did not. He was not honest about it.
In a March 2009 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) questioned Mueller over the FBI move to cut off contact with CAIR. Mueller responded to Kyl’s pressing over how the policy was to be handled by FBI field offices and headquarters with the following: [https://www.investigativeproject.org/1242/fbi-director-vague-on-cair-freeze]
MUELLER: We try to adapt, when we have situations where we have an issue with one or more individuals, as opposed to the institution, or an institution, large, to identify the specificity of those particular individuals or issues that need to be addressed. We will generally have — individuals may have some maybe leaders in the community who we have no reason to believe whatsoever are involved in terrorism, but may be affiliated, in some way, shape or form, with an institution about which there is some concern, and which we have to work out a separate arrangement. We have to be sensitive to both the individuals, as well as the organization and try to resolve the issues that may prevent us from working with a particular organization.
KYL: They try to “adapt” with members of terror-related groups? Are they as “sensitive” with other organizations? Do they work out “separate arrangements” with members of, say, the Mafia or the Ku Klux Klan for “community outreach”? Why the special treatment for radical Islamic terrorism?
A March 2012 review of FBI field office compliance with this policy by the Office of Inspector General found a discrepancy between the FBI’s enforcement policy restricting contact and interaction with CAIR and its resulting actions. Rather than FBI headquarters enforcing the rules, they hedged. Mueller set up a separate cover through the Office of Public Affairs and allowed them to work together, despite the terrorist connections. That was the cultivated atmosphere of Mueller’s FBI.
The DOJ actually set out in writing in an indictment that CAIR and some of the people Mueller was coddling were supporters of terrorism. I had understood that the plan by the Bush Justice Department was that if they got convictions of the principals in the Holy Land Foundation trial, they would come right back after the co-conspirators who were named in the indictment as co-conspirators but who were not formally indicted.
In late 2008, the DOJ got convictions against all those formally indicted, so DOJ could then move forward with formally indicting and convicting the rest—EXCEPT that the November 2008 election meant it was now going to be the Obama DOJ with Eric Holder leading. The newly-named but not confirmed Attorney General apparently made clear they were not going to pursue any of the named co-conspirators. That itself was a major loss for the United States in its war against terrorism in the Obama administration. It was a self-inflicted refusal to go after and defeat our enemies. All of the named co-conspirators would not likely have been formally indicted, but certainly there was evidence to support the allegations against some of them, as the federal district court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals had formally found.
One of the problems with FBI Director Mueller is that he had already been cozying up to named co-conspirators with evidence in hand of their collusion with terrorists. That probably was an assurance to President Obama and Attorney General Holder that Mueller would fit right into the Obama administration. He did. It also helps explain why President Obama and AG Holder wanted him to serve and an extra two years as FBI Director. Mueller was their kind of guy. Unfortunately for America, he truly was!
PURGING THE FBI TRAINING MATERIALS
We repeatedly see cases where people were radicalized, came on the FBI radar, but the federal agents were looking for Islamophobes, not the terrorists standing in front of them. That is because Mueller’s demand of his FBI Agents, in the New Age to which he brought them, was to look for Islamophobes. If a Mueller-trained FBI agent got a complaint about a potential radical Islamist who may pose a threat, the agent must immediately recognize that the one complaining is most likely an Islamophobe. That means the agent should first investigate whether the complainant is guilty of a hate crime.
Too often it was AFTER an attack occurred that Mueller-trained FBI agents would decide that there really was a radical Islamic threat to the United States. The blinding of our FBI agents to the domestic threat of radical Islam is part of the beguiling damage Robert Mueller did as FBI Director. That is also the kind of damage that got Americans killed, even though Mueller may have avoided offending the radical Islamists who were killing Americans. As terrorism expert Patrick Poole continually points out in his “Known Wolf” series, the overwhelming majority of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil are committed by those the FBI has interviewed and dismissed as a threat. Here are three of the more high-profile cases: [https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/2016/09/28/known-wolf-terrorism-a-dozen-cases-of-fbi-failure-on- obamas-watch/]
ORLANDO: The mass killer who attacked the Pulse nightclub in June 2016, Omar Mateen, had been interviewed by the FBI on THREE separate occasions. The open preliminary investigation in 2013 lasted 10 months after Mateen had told others about mutual acquaintances he shared with the Boston bombers and had made extremist statements. He was investigated again in 2014 for his contacts with a suicide bomber who attended the same mosque. At one point, Mateen was placed on TWO separate terrorism databases. He was later removed from them.
NORTHWEST AIRLINES: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded Detroit- bound Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009 with 289 other passengers wearing an underwear bomb intended to murder them all. He was well-known to U.S. intelligence officials before he boarded.
Only one month before the attempted bombing, Abdulmutallab’s father had actually gone to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria and met with two CIA officers. He directly told the CIA that he was concerned about his son’s extremism. Abdulmutallab’s name was added to the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) database. However, his name was not added to the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database. Or even the no-fly list. So, he boarded a plane.
When asked about the near-takedown of the flight and these missteps, then-Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano remarkably told CNN that “the system worked.” The only “system” that worked in this incident: a culture that values bravery, already instilled in the passengers who acted.
BOSTON: Prior to the bombing of the Boston Marathon by Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in April 2013 that killed three people and injured 264 others, the FBI had been tipped off. Twice. Russian intelligence warned that Tamerlan was “a follower of radical Islam.”
Initially, the FBI denied ever meeting with Tamerlan. They later claimed that they followed up on the lead, couldn’t find anything in their databases linking him to terrorism, and quickly closed the case. After the second Russian warning, Tamerlan’s file was flagged by federal authorities demanding “mandatory” detention if he attempted to leave or re-enter the United States. But Tsarnaev’s name was misspelled when it was entered into the database. An internal FBI report of the handling of the Tsarnaev’s case — unsurprisingly — saw the FBI exonerate itself.
When I asked at yet another House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, Mueller himself admitted in response to my questioning, that the FBI had indeed gone to the Boston mosque the bombers attended. Of course, The FBI did not go to investigate the Tsarnaevs.
The bombers’ mosque, the Islamic Society of Boston, was incorporated by known and convicted terrorists. The incorporation papers were signed by none other than Abduram Al-Amoudi who is currently serving 23 years in a federal prison for funding terrorism. One of the members of the Board of Trustees included a leader of the International Muslim Brotherhood, Yusef al-Qawadari, who is barred from entering the United States due to his terrorist ties. Did Mueller’s FBI go to the Boston bombers’ mosque to investigate the Tsarnaevs? This is from the House Judiciary oversight hearing transcript: https://judiciary.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/113-32-81462-1.pdf
GOHMERT: The FBI never canvassed Boston mosques until four days after the April 15 attacks. If the Russians tell you that someone has been radicalized and you go check and see the mosque that they went to, then you get the articles of incorporation, as I have, for the group that created the Boston mosque where these Tsarnaevs attended, and you find out the name Al-Amoudi, which you will remember, because while you were FBI Director this man who was so helpful to the Clinton administration with so many big things, he gets arrested at Dulles Airport by the FBI and he is now doing over 20 years for supporting terrorism. This is the guy that started the mosque where the Tsarnaevs were attending, and you didn’t even bother to go check about the mosque? And then when you have the pictures, why did no one go to the mosque and say, who are these guys? They may attend here. Why was that not done since such a thorough job was done?
MUELLER: Your facts are not altogether——
GOHMERT: Point out specifically.
MUELLER: May I finish my——
GOHMERT: Point out specifically. Sir, if you’re going to call me a liar, you need to point out specifically where any facts are wrong.
MUELLER: We went to the mosque prior to Boston.
GOHMERT: Prior to Boston?
MUELLER: Prior to Boston happening, we were in that mosque talking to the imam several months beforehand as part of our outreach efforts.
“Outreach efforts”? Yes. That is apparently Mueller’s efforts to play figurative patty- cake with the leaders and tell them how wonderful they are and how crazy all those Islamaphobes out there are, but they surely got the assurance that Mueller’s FBI is after those bigots. Maybe they sat around on the floor and had a really nice meal together. One thing for certain, they weren’t asking about the Tsarnaevs! But the hearing got even worse:
GOHMERT: Were you aware that those mosques were started by Al-Amoudi?
MUELLER. I’ve answered the question, sir.
GOHMERT. You didn’t answer the question. Were you aware that they were started by Al-Amoudi?
MUELLER. No.
Then my time for questioning expired, leaving many questions unanswered. Why was the FBI unaware of the origins of the mosque attended by the Boston bombers? This was arguably the most traumatic Islamic terrorist attack in America since 9-11 because the explosions happened on live television at the Boston Marathon. When did the FBI become an outreach-to-terrorism organization to the detriment and disregard of its investigations? Under Director Robert Mueller’s tenure, that’s when!
In Director Mueller’s efforts to appease and please the named co-conspirators of terrorism, he was keenly attuned to their complaints that the FBI training materials on radical Islam said some things about Islamic terrorists that offended some Muslims. Never mind that the main offense was done to the American people by radical Islamists who wanted to kill Americans and destroy our way of life. Mueller wanted to make these co-conspirators feel good toward Mueller and to let them know he was pleased to appease.
Director Mueller had all of the training materials regarding radical Islam “purged” of anything that might offend radical Islamic terrorists. So, in addition to using his “Five Year Up-or-Out” policy to force out so many experienced FBI agents who had been properly trained to identify radical Islamic terrorists, now Mueller was going even further. He was ensuring that new FBI agents would not know what to look for when assessing potentially radicalized individuals.
When some of us in Congress learned of the Mueller-mandated “purge” of FBI training materials, we demanded to see what was being removed. Unfortunately, Mueller was well experienced in covering his tracks, so naturally, the pages of training materials that were purged were ordered to be “classified,” so most people would never get to see them. After many terrorist attacks, we would hear that the FBI had the Islamic terrorists on their radar but failed to identify them. Now you are beginning to see why FBI agents could not spot them. They were looking more at the complainant than they were at the radical Islamist because that is what Mueller had them trained to do.
Michele Bachmann and I were extremely upset that Americans were being killed because of the terribly flawed training. We demanded to see the material that was “purged” from the training of FBI agents regarding radical Islam. That is when we were told it could not be sent over for review because the purged material was “classified.” We were authorized to review classified material, so we demanded to see it anyway. We were willing to go over to the FBI office or the DOJ, but we wanted to review the material. We were told they would bring it over and let us review it in the Rayburn Building in a protected setting. They finally agreed to produce the material. Members of Congress Michele Bachmann, Lynn Westmoreland, and I went to the little room to review the vast amount of material. Lynn was not able to stay as long as Michele and I did, but we started pouring through the notebooks of materials.
It was classified so naturally I am not allowed to disclose any specifics, but we were surprised at the amount of material that was purged from training our agents. Some of the items that were strictly for illustration or accentuation were removed. A few were silly. But some should clearly have been left in if an FBI agent was going to know how and what a radical Islamic terrorist thinks, and what milestone had been reached in the radicalization process. It was clear to Michele and me as we went through the purged materials that some of the material really did need to be taught to our FBI agents.
For those densely-headed or radical activists who will wrongly proclaim that what I am writing is an Islamophobic complaint, please note that I have never said that all Muslims are terrorists. I have never said that because all Muslims are NOT terrorists. But for the minority who are, we have to actually learn exactly what they study and learn how they think.
As Patton made clear after defeating Rommel’s tanks in World War II, he studied his enemy, what he believed and how he thought. In the movie, “Patton,” he loudly proclaims, “Rommel, you magnificent ___, I read your book!” That is how an enemy is defeated. You study what they believe, how they think, what they know. Failure to do so is precisely why so many “Known Wolves” are able to attack us. Clearly, Mueller weakened our ability to recognize a true radical Islamic terrorist. As one of my friends in our U.S. Intelligence said, “We have blinded ourselves of the ability to see our enemy! You cannot defeat an enemy you cannot define.” Robert Mueller deserves a significant amount of the credit for the inability of our federal agents to define our enemy.
PURGING THE ADVANCED COUNTER-TERRORISM AGENTS’ TRAINING MATERIALS
FBI Special Agent Kim Jensen had spent a great deal of his adult life studying radical Islam. He is personally responsible for some extraordinary undercover work that remains classified to this day. He was tasked with putting together a program to train our more experienced FBI agents to locate and identify radicalized Muslims on the threshold of violence. Jensen had done this well before Mueller began to cozy up with and pander to groups such as CAIR.
Complaints by similar groups caused Mueller to once again demand that our agents could not be properly instructed on radical Islam. Accordingly, Jensen’s approximately 700-pages of advanced training material on radical Islam were eliminated from FBI training and all copies were ordered destroyed. When Director Mueller decides he wants our federal agents to be blind and ignorant of radical Islam, they are indeed going to be blind and ignorant. Fortunately, in changing times well after Mueller’s departure as FBI Director, a new request went out to Mr. Jensen to recreate that work because at least someone in the FBI needed to know what traits to look for in a terrorist. It still did not undo the years of damage from Mueller’s commanded ignorance of radical Islam.
MUELLER’S UNETHICAL ACCEPTANCE OF APPOINTMENT AS SPECIAL PROSECUTOR
Robert Mueller had more than one direct conflict of interest that should have prohibited him from serving as the Special Counsel to investigate President Donald Trump. For one thing, President Trump fired his close friend and confidante, disgraced FBI Director James Comey. Mueller had long served as a mentor to Comey, who would most certainly be a critical witness in any investigation of Donald Trump. Mueller and Comey had also been exceedingly close friends beyond the mentor relationship. But Comey’s insertion of himself into so much of the election cycle and even its aftermath in conversations he had with the President himself made him a critical witness in the investigation. There is no way Mueller could sit in judgment of his dear, close friend’s credibility, and certainly no way he should be allowed to do so.
Gregg Jarrett explained one aspect of this situation quite clearly and succinctly at FoxNews.com in an article titled, “Gregg Jarrett: Are Mueller and Comey ‘Colluding’ against Trump by acting as co-special counsel?” A portion of that article said the following:
The law governing the special counsel (28 CFR 600.7) specifically prohibits Mueller from serving if he has a “conflict of interest.” Even the appearance of a conflict is disallowed.
The same Code of Federal Regulations defines what constitutes a conflict. That is, “a personal relationship with any person substantially involved in the conduct that is the subject of the investigation or prosecution” (28 CFR 45.2). Comey is that person. He was substantially involved in the conversation with President Trump who may be the subject of an obstruction investigation. In fact, the former Director is the only other person involved. There were no witnesses beyond himself. A conflict of interest is a situation in which an individual has competing interests or loyalties. Here, it sets up a clash between the special counsel’s self-interest or bias and his professional or public interest in discharging his responsibilities in a fair, objective and impartial manner. His close association with the star witness raises the likelihood of prejudice or favoritism which is anathema to the fair administration of justice. Mueller has no choice but to disqualify himself. The law affords him no discretion because the recusal is mandatory in its language. It does not say “may” or “can” or “might”. It says the special counsel “shall” recuse himself in such instances.
An excellent post by Robert Barnes, a constitutional lawyer, identifies five statutes, regulations and codes of conduct that Mueller is violating because of his conflict of interest with Comey. Byron York, the chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner recounts in detail the close personal relationship between Mueller and Comey which gives rise to the blatant conflict of interest. [http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/06/12/gregg-jarrett-are-muller-and-comey-now- acting-in-concert-as-co-special-counsel.html]
Another deeply troubling aspect of Mueller’s conflict of interest is and was his role in the investigation of Russia’s effort to illegally gain control of a substantial part of United States’ precious supply of uranium. That investigation was taking place within the Mueller FBI, which should have had a direct effect on prohibiting Secretary of State Clinton from participating in the approval of the uranium sale into the hands that were ultimately the Russian government.
Of course, then U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein had direct control over that Russia- uranium investigation in conjunction with FBI Director Mueller. It certainly appears that with what they had gleaned from that undercover investigation, they should never have been involved in any subsequent investigation that might touch on potential collusion and millions of dollars paid to Clinton’s foundation by the very beneficiaries of the Russians’ uranium schemes. Rosenstein and Mueller’s failure to warn against or stop the sale reeks of its own form of collusion, cooperation, or capitulation in what some consider a treasonous sale.
Quite the interesting little duo now in charge of all things investigatory surrounding their own actions. In fact, Rosenstein and Mueller are now in a position to dissuade others from pursuing THEM for their own conduct.
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