Tuesday, September 19, 2017

US officials wiretapped Paul Manafort way back in2014, and that continued during the campaign and may have included conversation he had with Trump. Update!

Courtesy of CNN:

US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, sources tell CNN, an extraordinary step involving a high-ranking campaign official now at the center of the Russia meddling probe. 

The government snooping continued into early this year, including a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump. 

Some of the intelligence collected includes communications that sparked concerns among investigators that Manafort had encouraged the Russians to help with the campaign, according to three sources familiar with the investigation. Two of these sources, however, cautioned that the evidence is not conclusive.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's team, which is leading the investigation into Russia's involvement in the election, has been provided details of these communications. 

A secret order authorized by the court that handles the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) began after Manafort became the subject of an FBI investigation that began in 2014. It centered on work done by a group of Washington consulting firms for Ukraine's former ruling party, the sources told CNN.

The surveillance was discontinued at one point and the restarted as the FBI launched its investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.

The fact that this surveillance has been going on for so long, and that Mueller has access to every recording should make it almost impossible for Trump to sleep at night.

And apparently that might be part of Mueller's strategy.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

7The moves against Mr. Manafort are just a glimpse of the aggressive tactics used by Mr. Mueller and his team of prosecutors in the four months since taking over the Justice Department’s investigation into Russia’s attempts to disrupt last year’s election, according to lawyers, witnesses and American officials who have described the approach. Dispensing with the plodding pace typical of many white-collar investigations, Mr. Mueller’s team has used what some describe as shock-and-awe tactics to intimidate witnesses and potential targets of the inquiry. 

Mr. Mueller has obtained a flurry of subpoenas to compel witnesses to testify before a grand jury, lawyers and witnesses say, sometimes before his prosecutors have taken the customary first step of interviewing them. One witness was called before the grand jury less than a month after his name surfaced in news accounts. The special counsel even took the unusual step of obtaining a subpoena for one of Mr. Manafort’s former lawyers, claiming an exception to the rule that shields attorney-client discussions from scrutiny. 

“They are setting a tone. It’s important early on to strike terror in the hearts of people in Washington, or else you will be rolled,” said Solomon L. Wisenberg, who was deputy independent counsel in the investigation that led to the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton in 1999. “You want people saying to themselves, ‘Man, I had better tell these guys the truth.’”

Keep in mind that Mueller could not get these warrants or have the leeway to use these tactics, if he was not in possession of evidence that convinces judges to hand out these subpoenas like Halloween candy to his team.

Clearly Mueller is preparing to drop the hammer.

Update: Hammer is about to drop:  

The developments indicate that Mueller's investigation "is nearing the litigation stage," said Brookings Institution fellows and legal experts Benjamin Wittes and Susan Hennessey. 

"Combined with a flurry of stories about subpoenas, grand-jury appearances and other activity, it's reasonable to expect that Mueller is moving forward on a number of different fronts and is getting close to entering a litigation phase," wrote Wittes and Hennessey, a former attorney for the National Security Agency.

That sound you hear is the tightening of the noose. 

18 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:58 AM

    Oh shit!

    LOCK EM UP .... ALL OF THEM

    Racist Don
    His main squeeze Ivanka
    His son's nanny Melania
    Collusionists Don Jr & Jared Kushner The entire Trump presidential campaign staff
    Entire White House staff
    Trump cabinet swamp members

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous9:03 AM

    Donald after all this wiretapping bad news do you still want your military parade honoring you?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:23 AM

      Oh sure - let the evil man have his military parade. I suggest he ride 'inside' a tank for the duration of the parade - maybe even drive it if he could figure it out!

      Delete
  3. ibwilliamsi9:08 AM

    It can't happen soon enough. Get this fucking idiot out of our house!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous9:09 AM

    I so hope so, IM!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous9:19 AM

    "GOP governors launch ‘news’ site critics call propaganda"

    https://apnews.com/f97fbf53c0c84468ae046f861ecf3b64

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous9:57 AM

    America's face changed overnight all because Putin was spending years trying to undermine it. He finally found the stooge who would accomplish all his wildest dreams about bringing our great country down. A money hunger a hole like Trump and his entourage. Yup, Putin knew that money is the key to sellout. He knows because he participated in using that leverage to harness his country as he tries to bring back the former Russia.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous4:02 PM

      Putin is pissy the Ru$$ia
      Money stayed here and spread abroad. No returns.
      Cry me a River. Shrug.

      Delete
  7. Anonymous10:00 AM

    that sound you hear right after the noose is tightened is trump calling for WAR (his UN speech was devastingly stupid and irresponsible - but I truly believe he would murder 1000s by going to war to try and distract from his legal issues and to try to keep himself in office

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:48 AM

      Fuck-a-BEE ""President Trump lowering the boom on North Korea's rocket man and his first address to the United Nations general assembly. Warning, the U.S. is prepared to destroy the rogue nation, if its regime threatens America.""What a terrific day and there's little bit of news going on and most of it right here. An amazing speech, I thought, by the president today." "The U.S. has great strength and patience but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to TOTALLY destroy North Korea."
      "I love that phrase because he made it very clear that this is not a diplomat speaking. Diplomats basically are insincere people speaking in a polite way when they really don't mean it and they're saying things they have no intention of doing," "I loved it and I thought it was exactly on point. He was saying to this group of people that if North Korea does not learn to behave, they could potentially be annihilated because were not going to put up with it. That's a stout stuff."Trump loves to talk like jackass and it's unfortunate that jack-offs like Mike {F}uckabee are there to cosign his idiocy."

      Delete
  8. Anonymous11:50 AM

    I swear, if Mr Mueller gets this right I will personally send him a Christmas card every year, get er done!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous1:50 PM

      Lol, i didnt think of that.

      Delete
  9. Anonymous1:09 PM

    You know we're going to vaporize an entire region in order for the Rocketman-Killer to look presidential and to distract Americans from his Russian crimes and his family crimes against our nation.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous1:54 PM

      What scares me is that when i learned about how hitler took over a country i wondered how it happened. I see and know how it went down now. I expect shitler to make and take advantage of a Reichstag type event as a reason to try to bomb the shit out of NK, just to destract and gain power at the same time.

      Delete
  10. The "witnesses" have no idea what or how much information Mueller has. If they don't tell the whole and complete truth under oath, they risk charges of perjury. For government officials, that would mean ... impeachment.

    If Trump is going to have a heart attack, it would be any time now. His blood pressure must be through the roof.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous2:45 PM

    http://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/theres-nothing-there-manafort-demands-doj-investigate-source-of-leaked-wiretap-claims/

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous2:50 PM

    https://thinkprogress.org/paul-manafort-wiretap-trump-not-vindicated-9d2e2c6dce05/

    "FBI wiretap of Manafort is big news, but not because it vindicates Trump’s claim"

    ReplyDelete

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