Feds seized as many as 16 cell phones from Donald Trump's lawyer, who once bragged that he was part of the Russian mob.

Courtesy of The New York Post:  

Manhattan federal prosecutors seized as many as 16 cell phones when the FBI raided the home, office and hotel room of President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen. 

Prosecutor Thomas McKay made the ​astonishing revelation wh​ile telling a judge ​Thursday ​that the feds are on track to hand over seized​ ​materials to Cohen’s lawyers by May 11. 

In explaining the process, McKay said the feds have already turned over the contents of four phones and one iPad. 

McKay said the feds will turn over the “remainder of the phones seized” on Friday — before adding that they have “about a dozen” left. 

Among the devices seized are two BlackBerrys, suggesting Cohen has been holding on to his electronics for many, many years. 

The startling revelation promptly attracted the attention of porn star Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, who called Cohen’s phone hoarding “BIGLY bad.”

"Bigly bad" indeed. Because you KNOW that stored on those phones is information which will incriminate Donald Trump. Bigly!

Can you even imagine needing that many phones?

What could be the possible reason?

Wait, this next story might clear that up.

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's embattled personal lawyer, once bragged that he was part of the Russian mob, The Wall Street Journal reported.

According to The Journal, Cohen once told someone at a former friend's wedding that he belonged to the Russian mob.

Now the Business Insider article also contains a quote from a friend of Cohen's who doubts the veracity of this story, which brings me to this Rolling Stone's article:  

Cohen joined the Trump Organization in 2006, and eventually became Trump's personal lawyer, a role once occupied by Roy Cohn, Senator Joseph McCarthy's heavy-lidded hatchet man during the Red Scare who advised Trump in the 1980s. Michael Cohen's bare-knuckled tactics earned him the nickname of "Tom," a reference to Tom Hagen, the consigliore to Mafia Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather. He grew up on Long Island, the son of a physician who survived the Holocaust in Poland, and like Tom Hagen spent a childhood around organized crime, specifically the Russian Mafiya. Cohen's uncle, Morton Levine, was a wealthy Brooklyn doctor who owned the El Caribe Country Club, a Brooklyn catering hall and event space that was a well-known hangout for Russian gangsters. Cohen and his siblings all had ownership stakes in the club, which rented for years to the first Mafiya boss of Brighton Beach, Evsei Agron, along with his successors, Marat Balagula and Boris Nayfeld. (Cohen's uncle said his nephew gave up his stake in the club after Trump's election.)

So to be clear, the Feds found more than a dozen phones in Cohen's possession, who clearly has ties to the Russian mob, and whose only real client is Donald Trump. a man who is under investigation for Russian collusion during the election. 

Does anybody else see pieces falling onto place here?

ThisTime Magazine tweet is a must see.

TIME’s new cover: Donald Trump relied on Michael Cohen to weather the storm. Now the President is on his own https://t.co/Z8L5fYLuCO pic.twitter.com/UfTcklwg41

— TIME (@TIME) April 12, 2018

From the Time Magazine article: 

Since the night of Nov. 8, 2016, Trump’s political and philosophical opponents have been publicly and repeatedly asking, How long can this last? Those who have concluded “not much longer” have been vexed time after time. After all, this is a man who defied convention and criticism to achieve the highest office in the country, not to mention one who spent decades honing his abilities as a media provocateur. Skilled as Trump has been at deploying suspense, misdirection and invective to his advantage over the last 15 months, the Trump reality show appears closer than ever to colliding with reality itself.

It is hard to believe this is not the case.

But then again, as pointed out in this article, we have though that time and time again.

Devin Nunes' challengers are using his obstruction of Russian investigations against him in their campaigns.

Courtesy of USA Today:  

Rep. Devin Nunes' handling of the Russia investigation as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has become a major campaign issue as he seeks a ninth term in Congress. 

Both the California Republican and his Democratic challenger, Fresno County Deputy District Attorney Andrew Janz, are using Nunes' high-profile role in the bitterly partisan Russia inquiry to appeal for campaign cash throughout the nation.

 Janz said he has raised more than $1 million in the first quarter of 2018 in part because donors were upset by the now famous "Nunes memo" — which accused the FBI and Department of Justice of abusing their surveillance power to target a Trump campaign aide with ties to Russia. 

Democrats have denounced the memo as a blatant attempt by President Trump and House Republicans to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin and possible obstruction of justice by the president. 

"Traditionally, the prosecution of crimes has been a non-partisan activity, so I'm really disappointed to see my opponent and the Trump White House attacking federal law enforcement agencies and officials," said Janz, who has worked with FBI agents as a prosecutor. "It really undermines our criminal justice system, which is a cornerstone of our democracy."

That's very smart. I see Nunes' obstructionism as his main weakness. 

And I am going to be watching this race very closely because Devin Nunes is at the top of my list of motherfuckers that gots to go.

Trey "Benghazi" Gowdy just admitted that "Congress has proven itself incapable of conducting serious investigations.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, who chaired the House Select Committee on Benghazi, on @FaceTheNation: "Congress has proven itself incapable of conducting serious investigations." pic.twitter.com/Jw5odiMPkV

— Axios (@axios) April 1, 2018

I was thinking this might have been an April Fool's joke, but it appears he was serious.

I really do not like agreeing with Trey Gowdy on ANYTHING, but he is not wrong here.

Congress has wasted millions and millions of taxpayer dollars investigating Right Wing conspiracies, like the supposed IRS anti-conservative practices, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, and of course Hillary's e-mails.

None of those panned out, and in most cases were determined to be ridiculous by most people before the investigation was even launched.

So yes, Congress should simply get out of the investigation game and turn their attention to something they do well.

Just as soon as we determine what that might be.

Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is apparently behind attempts to sabotage investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Has this ever happened before?

Burr and Warner

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

The Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee were behind the leak of private text messages between the Senate panel’s top Democrat and a Russian-connected lawyer, according to two congressional officials briefed on the matter. 

Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the committee’s Republican chairman, and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat, were so perturbed by the leak that they demanded a rare meeting with Speaker Paul D. Ryan last month to inform him of their findings. They used the meeting with Mr. Ryan to raise broader concerns about the direction of the House Intelligence Committee under its chairman, Representative Devin Nunes of California, the officials said. 

To the senators, who are overseeing what is effectively the last bipartisan investigation on Capitol Hill into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, the leak was a serious breach of protocol and a partisan attack by one intelligence committee against the other. 

The messages between Mr. Warner and Adam Waldman, a Washington lawyer, show that the senator tried for weeks to arrange a meeting with Christopher Steele, the former British spy who assembled a dossier of salacious claims about connections between Mr. Trump, his associates and Russia. The Senate committee has had difficulty making contact with Mr. Steele, whom it views as a key witness. And Mr. Waldman, who knew Mr. Steele, presented himself as a willing partner.

Those texts, which were sent via a secure messaging application, were then leaked to Fox News who quickly used them in an attempt to discredit Senator Warner.

And they even called in a little help to do so.

Wow! -Senator Mark Warner got caught having extensive contact with a lobbyist for a Russian oligarch. Warner did not want a “paper trail” on a “private” meeting (in London) he requested with Steele of fraudulent Dossier fame. All tied into Crooked Hillary.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2018

So to be clear, Devin Nunes revealed private correspondence between a sitting Senator and his source to a national media outlet, and then the president of the United States used that information to publicly attack a fellow Republican and attempt to discredit an investigation into his own wrongdoing.

And all of this happened only weeks after the House Republicans published that erroneous memo claiming that the FBI relied only on the dossier and some media reports in order to get a FISA warrant to put Carter Page under surveillance.

Which of course is also a lie. 

We are so far down the rabbit hole now.

Hope Hicks finally testifies before the House Intelligence Committee. Decides to pull a "Bannon."

Courtesy of WaPo:

Hope Hicks, one of President Trump’s closest aides and advisers, met Tuesday with House investigators probing Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. But she refused to answer any questions about events and conversations that occurred since Trump took office, according to a Republican lawmaker who was there during the proceedings. 

Emerging from the meeting with Hicks, panel member Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) said that “there are some questions that she’s not going to answer,” adding that Hicks was not willing to detail anything from the inauguration forward. 

Her refusal to answer questions about the Trump administration’s tenure suggests lawmakers will have a difficult time learning her side of a key story: the drafting of a misleading statement to explain an un­or­tho­dox meeting at Trump Tower between top Trump campaign members and a Russian lawyer.

According to at least one Democrat on the committee to say "We got Bannoned."

However at least one interesting tidbit was revealed during the testimony:

Hope Hicks, the White House communications director, told House investigators on Tuesday that her work for President Trump, who has a reputation for exaggerations and outright falsehoods, had occasionally required her to tell white lies. 

But after extended consultation with her lawyers, she insisted that she had not lied about matters material to the investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible links to Trump associates, according to three people familiar with her testimony. 

The exchange came during more than eight hours of private testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. Ms. Hicks declined to answer similar questions about other figures from the Trump campaign or the White House. 

One has to wonder if she means "white lies" in the sense that they were harmless in nature, or just that they were okay because white people were telling them.?

Once again while I want as many investigations as possible looking into the Russia issue, I simply do not trust this House committee to actually get to any truth.

In fact I heard that they have already started writing their final report with several witnesses still to see. (Well to be honest it's the Democrats who want to see many more witnesses, as far as the Republicans are concerned Hicks was the last one.)

I am actually more interested in what Hicks might tell Mueller.

And I imagine that Mueller will not allow little miss orange stained thighs to pull any of these shenanigans on him or his investigators.

So yesterday the memo from the House Intelligence Committee Democrats was finally released, and yes it essentially refutes every false claim made in the Republican memo.

The Democratic memo is out. It claims that the Nunes memo was a “transparent effort to undermine” DOJ and FBI and special counsel’s probe. https://t.co/ozrui1yKii pic.twitter.com/JzzuNHiqMq

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 24, 2018

So here is the pdf of the memo if you want to read it for yourself.

But here is what we have essentially learned:

• Steele Dossier played NO role in opening the Carter Page investigation. They began their investigation prior to even receiving it. 
• The DOJ did in fact inform the court of the origin of the Steele Dossier. 
• They accuse Nunes of deliberately misrepresenting the underlying FISA Warrant intelligence. 
• Four different judge's approved FISA warrants including judge's appointed by Bush and Reagan. Multiple DOJ officials also approved the applications prior to the court even seeing them including Trump appointees Rosenstein and Boente. 
• They actually started listening to Page after he left Trump campaign so the idea they were watching him to spy on Trump is absurd. 
• Page has a long history with Russia going back to 2004 and was being actively investigated once before already in 2013. The FBI had even interviewed him in 2016 again prior to receiving the Steele Dossier. The Steele dossier was referenced in the application as corroboration of certain things, and not to independently demonstrate. 
• A bunch of blacked out additional evidence with a bit in the middle noting Page lied to the HIC in his testimony in 2017 about meeting with Russian officials. 
• It included the footnote that discusses the Steele dossier source which SPECIFICALLY STATES ..."The FBI speculates the the unidentified U.S. Person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1's campaign." Candidate 1 is Trump I believe, edit I previously thought Person 1 was Steele, this is the person coordinating with Steele. Steele is Source #1. 
• DOJ timely informed the court when the FBI fired Steele and why. 
• The attacks on Bruce Ohr for knowing Steele/and his wife working for Fusion GPS are 100% baseless. He was not involved in the FISA process and disclosed his relationships in November 2016. 

Basically Nunes and Gowdy lied whole cloth that the FISA warrant was primarily based on a news article and the Steele Dossier. Those were in fact the least used and most minor pieces of evidence and they picked them out specifically for that reason to discredit the investigation and lied about their use.

That last part I think we all essentially recognized from the get go.

Nunes is either a Russian agent himself, or somehow compromised, and Gowdy is just a conspiracy theory chasing POS.

Here were the final few paragraphs from the New York Times write up on this memo: 

The wiretap of Mr. Page generated useful intelligence. 

When the Justice Department repeatedly sought the court’s permission to renew the surveillance of Mr. Page, the Democratic memo said, it cited new information it was gathering through the wiretap. 

“The court-approved surveillance of Page allowed F.B.I. to collect valuable intelligence,” the Democratic memo said. It asserted that the repeated renewals “demonstrate that the F.B.I. collected important investigative information and leads by conducting court-approved surveillance.” 

What that intelligence was, however, was redacted.

The memo released by the Republicans of course suggested that the FISA warrants issued on Carter Page were illegal and unnecessary, and this memo completely refutes that argument.

What's more is that when Mueller releases his report on all of this, we are likely going to know what was learned through these warrants.

That means the House Republicans were counting on their memo derailing an investigation that they had to know would ultimately prove that they were running interference for Donald Trump.

Speaking of Donald Trump he was all over Twitter yesterday trying to refute the findings in this memo.

Mostly he was posting snippets from his insane conversation with Jeanine Pirro. But there were other attempts to discredit the memo as well,

Here was one such attempt being refuted in real time:

Holy moly. The @FoxNews anchor said "Congressman Schiff, he ARGUES the REPUBLICAN memo omitted and distorted key facts." Trump just deleted 5 words from the quote to allege the opposite meaning. https://t.co/UlSQUcc0bD

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 25, 2018

I think that kind of sums up Trump's pathetic attempts to save his ass.

White House officials saw the Florida school shooting as a "reprieve" from their constant concern about the Russia investigations and talk about Trump's extramarital affairs.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

The White House was under siege. 

Domestic abuse allegations against a senior aide were ignored, pointing to a potential high-level coverup. Two Cabinet secretaries were caught charging taxpayers for luxury travel. A Playboy centerfold alleged an extramarital affair with the president. And the special counsel’s Russia investigation was intensifying. The tumult was so intense that there was fervent speculation that President Trump might fire his chief of staff. 

But a gun massacre at a Florida high school last Wednesday, which left 17 dead, seemed to shift the media glare away from the Trump scandals and gave embattled aides an opportunity to re­focus on handling a crisis not of their own making. While the White House mourned the loss of life in Parkland, Fla., some aides privately acknowledged that the tragedy offered a breather from the political storm. 

A tentative plan for White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly to address the news media from the briefing room Wednesday — where he would have faced intense scrutiny over his role in the mishandling of the domestic abuse allegations against former staff secretary Rob Porter — was scuttled. 

One White House official said the shooting forced the White House to focus on critical and serious issues — like consoling the victims and trying to heal the nation — rather than getting bogged down in what they view as more trivial West Wing drama.

“For everyone, it was a distraction or a reprieve,” said the White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect internal conversations. “A lot of people here felt like it was a reprieve from seven or eight days of just getting pummeled.”

The official compared this media change of focus to the one that happened after the Las Vegas shooting which claimed 58 lives.

Isn't it nice that all of these innocent Americans keep laying down their lives so that the White House can take a break from talking about Trump stream of infidelities and his possible collusion with Russia?

What kind of scumbags are we allowing to occupy the People's House?

Donald Trump has gone off on some Twitter Tantrums before but today he may have reached a new low.

Finally, Liddle’ Adam Schiff, the leakin’ monster of no control, is now blaming the Obama Administration for Russian meddling in the 2016 Election. He is finally right about something. Obama was President, knew of the threat, and did nothing. Thank you Adam!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2018

Well besides this being almost unbelievably immature, it is also inaccurate.

What Schiff actually said was this:  

"While I respect the motive in terms of the Obama administration, they didn't want to be seen as meddling, the American people had a right to know what was going on and could be trusted to do the right thing with it. And they should have defended being more public and aggressive at the time, at least in my view."

This is a common criticism of the Obama Administration from those of us on the Left, but it does not say Obama did nothing, after all he started the whole Russian investigation ball rolling, it just suggests that he could have done more.

If you are looking for somebody who has done NOTHING, well I refer you to the author of that tweet.

I never said Russia did not meddle in the election, I said “it may be Russia, or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400 pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer.” The Russian “hoax” was that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia - it never did!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2018

That is untrue as well.

Courtesy of The Hill:  

Trump last year said he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin when Putin said he didn't meddle in the 2016 election. 

“Every time he sees me he says, ‘I didn’t do that,’ and I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it," Trump said last November.

Well someone's pants are on fire. 

Now that Adam Schiff is starting to blame President Obama for Russian meddling in the election, he is probably doing so as yet another excuse that the Democrats, lead by their fearless leader, Crooked Hillary Clinton, lost the 2016 election. But wasn’t I a great candidate?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2018

That's just pathetic.

If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption and chaos within the U.S. then, with all of the Committee Hearings, Investigations and Party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2018

I think we can all agree that the Russians are laughing their asses off (So presidential by the way.), but they are laughing every time Trump opens his mouth and they remember that THEY were the ones that helped to put him in the White House.

The Fake News of big ratings loser CNN. https://t.co/rYsv90cnvs

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2018

Pretty sure Trump is retweeting a Russian troll here, which of course makes perfect sense since they are still his most aggressive supporters.

This to me demonstrates a man that is having a very public psychotic break.

I imagine behind the scenes that Trump is experience huge mood swings and is likely taking it out on everybody around him.

The man is for all intents and purposes in a kind of emotional free fall, and when his lard ass finally smacks into the reality of his situation they are going to have to cart him out of there in a straitjacket. 

It appears that Steve Bannon already sang like a little birdie to Robert Mueller.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

Steve Bannon, who served as President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, was interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller over multiple days this week, NBC News has learned from two sources familiar with the proceedings. 

Bannon spent a total of some 20 hours in conversations with the team led by Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia as well as other issues that have arisen around the probe.

20 hours huh? Multiple days huh?

Well somebody sure had a lot to say.

But I'll tell you who he does not have much to say to, the House Intelligence Committee.

.@RepAdamSchiff on Steve Bannon: "I think the next step for the Congress to take is to initiate contempt proceedings." pic.twitter.com/4wn7KMo5u1

— CSPAN (@cspan) February 15, 2018

I feel bad for Adam Schiff, but with Devin Nunes on his committee you really can't blame Bannon for refusing to cooperate.

I think Bannon knows that this is just a dog and pony show, and that the REAL investigation is being conducted by Mueller and his team. 

As it turns out the guy now slated to replace the newly ousted FBI Deputy Director is also likely a witness for Robert Mueller.

David Bowdich

Courtesy of Yahoo News:  

An FBI official who served as associate deputy director under James Comey and Andrew McCabe is replacing McCabe as acting deputy director, an FBI spokesman confirmed to Newsweek. Multiple outlets including Newsweek had previously reported the news, citing sources. 

As associate deputy director, David Bowdich was the third-ranking FBI official, according to the bureau's organization chart, and would now become No. 2.

Bowdich became associate deputy director in April 2016. In that role, he oversaw most of the bureau's nonoperational branches and divisions, such as personnel, budget, administration and infrastructure. Previously, starting in 2014, he was assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles field office. Before that, he led the counterintelligence division at that office, overseeing all international and domestic terrorism investigations in the region. He joined the FBI in 1995 and at various times was a SWAT team operator and a sniper.

Sounds like a no nonsense professional with unquestionable integrity, right?

Well the same could have been said about James Comey and Andrew McCabe.

But here's the kicker: 

But Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators who have called for a “purge” of the bureau’s Comey-era officials might be disappointed, given his former proximity to Comey and McCabe. In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee last June, Comey said he had spoken to senior colleagues including Bowdich about President Donald Trump’s allegedly asking Comey to have the FBI back off its probe into Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser. 

Because of that apparent conversation, and because he was the No. 3 official under Comey, Bowdich is a potential witness into whether Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey. Last June, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, requested that the committee interview Bowdich and other FBI officials as the panel investigated Comey’s termination.

That's right. This guy, just like the last guy, was informed by Comey that Donald Trump had attempted to bully him into dropping the Michael Flynn investigation.

So what does Trump do now?

Does he fire yet ANOTHER director or deputy director of the FBI?

Because even if he does, it will have NO effect on the various investigations, which I have to believe are now accelerating forward in the wake of these new unprecedented actions by the guy in the White House.

Much anticipated Hope Hicks interview before the House Intelligence Committee postponed.

Courtesy of CNN: 

Hope Hicks' highly anticipated testimony before the House Intelligence Committee was abruptly delayed Thursday amid questions about whether the White House communications director would be able to respond to inquiries about topics after the campaign season, four sources told CNN. 

The surprise move came after Steve Bannon refused to answer scores of questions about topics during the transition and his time as President Donald Trump's chief strategist, with Bannon's attorney saying he had been instructed by the White House not to answer those questions over concerns that it could breach executive privilege. 

Hicks' appearance Friday was anticipated given her close ties to Trump, which predate the campaign, and the central role she has played through the election season and in the White House.

The committee made the decision to delay Hicks' appearance in order to give investigators time to sort out with the White House what she could and could not discuss, one of the sources said. She is still expected to speak with the panel at a later date.

Yeah that's a great way to run an investigation, by asking the subject's boss, and focus of the investigation, what they are allowed to reveal. 

Mueller certainly will not be asking Mother May I.

Sources say that Donald Trump personally directed Steve Bannon not to answer questions from the House Intelligence Committee.

Courtesy of Foreign Policy: 

President Donald Trump personally made the decision to curtail the testimony of former chief White House political strategist Steve Bannon before the House Intelligence Committee, according to two people with firsthand knowledge of the matter. 

Trump acted to limit Bannon’s testimony based on legal advice provided by Uttam Dhillon, a deputy White House counsel, who concluded that the administration might have legitimate executive privilege claims to restrict testimony by Bannon and other current and former aides to the president, according to these same sources.

Bannon infuriated both Republicans and Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee by refusing to answer questions this week regarding his role in the presidential transition and later as a White House advisor. Repeatedly during Bannon’s executive session testimony, he and his attorney took numerous breaks to confer via phone with the White House counsel’s office as to what questions he should answer and which ones he would not.

This report seems to explain how chief of staff John Kelly was able to say that the White House did NOT advise Bannon not to answer questions, while Bannon claimed that he was getting direction from the White House.

Apparently Kelly was left out of the loop, and Trump was directly obstructing this investigation on his own.

By the way, everybody seems to agree that these tactics simply will not work when Bannon stands before Robert Mueller's grand jury.

Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski has lawyered up. Update!

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

Corey Lewandowski, the president’s erstwhile campaign manager, has lawyered up. The Daily Beast has learned that Peter Chavkin, of Mintz Levin, is representing Lewandowski for purposes of the Russia investigations. Lewandowski helmed Trump’s campaign until Paul Manafort took over on May 19, 2016. A month later, the campaign announced that Lewandowski was out. There’s significant animosity between the two men. 

Apparently Lewandowsky is testifying today to the House Intelligence Committee.

JUST IN: Ex-Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to appear before House panel in Russia investigation pic.twitter.com/7AMnJjgB1q

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) January 17, 2018

I have no idea what Lewandowski knows, or doesn't know.

But I have faith that once his testimony is released that it will prove quite entertaining.

Is it just me or does anybody else hear the tune "Another One Bites the Dust" every time another former Trump campaign or current White House staffer is identified as a potential witness in these investigations?

Update: It looks like Lewandowski is taking a page from the Steve Bannon playbook.

Schiff: Lewandowski not answering Intell qs from period after he left Trump campaign, including whether he's talked to Trump about his testimony.

— Billy House (@HouseInSession) January 17, 2018

Included in the questions Lewandowski would not answer was: "Did you have a conversation with the president of the United States within the last 24 hours where you discussed your testimony?" said Schiff.

— Billy House (@HouseInSession) January 17, 2018

I bet he sings like a canary for Mueller as well.

FBI rattled, worried about ability to do their job, after Justice Department gives documents to Congressional Republicans.

Courtesy of Bloomberg:  

The Justice Department’s decision to give congressional Republicans access to documents about FBI investigations risks exposing sensitive sources or material and poses a critical early test for bureau Director Christopher Wray, current and former U.S. law enforcement officials say. 

Some officials view the department as capitulating to a small group of Republicans who are intent on helping President Donald Trump undermine the integrity of the FBI and, by extension, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump or any of his associates helped Russia interfere in the 2016 election. 

It’s the latest setback for a law enforcement agency that has long held itself out as doggedly independent and above partisan politics, only to be besieged over the last two years by questions about its handling of politically sensitive investigations into Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Trump. 

One agent said he’s now concerned that forms identifying FBI informants would be handed over to Congress. If that happened, he said, it would cause him to think carefully about whether to withhold sensitive information from future reports. 

Another agent said recent statements about the bureau by Trump and congressional Republicans have made it more difficult for him to get informants to open up. 

Trump has tweeted that the Federal Bureau of Investigations is “in Tatters -- worst in history” and has said a senior official committed “treason.”

The FBI knows full that is it only a matter of time after the Republicans get their hands on the documents, that the leaks and spreading of false information will begin.

Their agenda right now is to protect Donald Trump from the Mueller investigation, and they will burn down the entire American justice system to achieve that goal.

Bet on it.

Steve Bannon is currently testifying before the House Intelligence Committee. Next up, Hope Hicks. Update!

Steve Bannon is on Capitol Hill to give private testimony to House Intel Committee in Russia probe: https://t.co/xsWc8V42Di

— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) January 16, 2018

Courtesy of AP:

Steve Bannon, the onetime close confidant to President Donald Trump, arrived early Tuesday for his interview before the House Intelligence Committee. 

His interview follows his spectacular fall from power after being quoted in a book that he sees the president’s son and others as engaging in “treasonous” behavior for taking a meeting with Russians during the 2016 campaign.

I imagine that Bannon is spilling his guts right now.

After all what more could he possibly lose at this point?

Next one the barrel is apparently Trump's side piece. (Oh come on! You know it's true.)

Courtesy of CNN:  

White House Communications Director Hope Hicks is expected to meet with the House Intelligence Committee as soon as this week, making her one of President Donald Trump's closest confidantes to be privately interviewed in the panel's Russia investigation, multiple sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN. 

Hicks, a trusted Trump aide for years, was one of then-candidate Trump's first hires as he put together an improbable run for the White House. During the campaign, she was often by Trump's side and attended nearly every rally, while she was in frequent communication with other senior officials as they plotted their tactics to win the White House. 

The House panel plans to interview her about any knowledge she has of contacts that occurred between other Trump associates and Russians. And she is bound to be questioned about other controversies as well, namely the White House's involvement in crafting a misleading response last summer once a June 2016 meeting between Russians and Donald Trump Jr. was revealed in the press. 

The meeting is expected to occur as soon as Friday, the sources said.

I know that Hope Hicks and Stephen Bannon have a potpourri of potentially damaging information about Trump and the campaign to share, but I still lack confidence that the House Intelligence Committee is actually interested in revealing that information.

I am much more interested in what Mueller and his team manage to squeeze out of these two.

And we just learned today that Mueller has issued a subpoena for Bannon to testify before a grand jury.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, was subpoenaed last week by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to testify before a grand jury as part of the investigation into possible links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. 

The move marked the first time Mr. Mueller is known to have used a grand jury subpoena to seek information from a member of Mr. Trump’s inner circle. The special counsel’s office has used subpoenas before to seek information on Mr. Trump’s associates and their possible ties to Russia or other foreign governments. 
The subpoena could be a negotiating tactic. Mr. Mueller is likely to allow Mr. Bannon to forgo the grand jury appearance if he agrees to instead be questioned by investigators in the less formal setting of the special counsel’s offices about ties between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia and about the president’s conduct in office, according to the person, who would not be named discussing the case. But it was not clear why Mr. Mueller treated Mr. Bannon differently than the dozen administration officials who were interviewed in the final months of last year and were never served with a subpoena.

Popcorn anyone?

Update: I stand corrected, Bannon was uncooperative until he was subpoenaed during the hearing.  

Sources say Bannon told by WH not to answer questions before House Intel Cmte about the White House and the transition. Did not assert executive privilege. Committee subpoenas him during the meeting to comply while in the hearing.

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) January 16, 2018

Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirms that they will definitely still be interviewing Jared Kushner. Court date for Paul Manafort announced.

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

The Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed Friday that President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will still be interviewed as part of the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“Kushner is still going to be interviewed,” Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, said at a town hall meeting in western Iowa. “We’re getting some more documents, and that’s not done.”

Grassley assured constituents Friday that the interview would happen just days after expressing hesitation that his committee could easily secure a voluntary interview with Kushner after his Democratic counterpart, Senator Dianne Feinstein, published a 312-page transcript detailing a private interview with the founder of Fusion GPS, the organization behind the so-called Trump dossier. Grassley said Friday that the committee is just waiting on documents that Kushner has delayed in handing over before conducting the interview. 

“We’re going to do that,” Grassley said as an Iowan rebuked him over the committee’s five-month delay in interviewing Kushner. “Right now, Senator Feinstein is wanting more documents, and we wait until we get the documents, go through the documents, then we have a basis for the interviews that we’re going to have.”

While we are on the topic it appears that Paul Manafort and his associate , Richard Gates, have a shiny new court date to look forward to.

Courtesy of Reuters:  

U.S. Special Counsel in the Russia probe Robert Mueller will request a trial date of May 14 for Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and Manafort’s associate Richard Gates, Mueller said in a court filing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Friday.

Just a reminder that while all of these distractions about Trump's racism and piggish behavior are dominating the news cycle that the wheels of justice are still slowly moving forward. 

Steve Bannon lawyers up in anticipation of being sucked into the Russia investigations. Sources say he is prepared to tell all.

Yep, I have a story to tell alright.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

Steve Bannon is lawyering up as he gets ready to face investigators looking into the Trump-Russia nexus. 

The Daily Beast has learned that the former top White House strategist has retained Bill Burck, of the firm Quinn Emanuel. Two sources tell us Burck is helping Bannon prepare for an interview with the House intelligence committee, which is currently scheduled for next week. Sources also said Bannon plans to “fully cooperate” with investigators.

Oh yeah, I think we all knew this was coming.

I imagine that after being thrown under the bus by Trump, that Bannon is dying for a little payback.

I am so regretting not buying those shares in Orville Redenbacher right about now.

Pro-Kremlin Twittter trolls are coming after Robert Mueller with a vengeance.

Courtesy of Wired:

THE DENSE NETWORK of pro-Kremlin Twitter accounts tracked by the group Alliance for Securing Democracy has spent the last year spreading chaos and discord about topics as diverse as NFL players refusing to stand during the national anthem and Al Franken's alleged sexual misconduct. It was only a matter of time, then, before the troll army set its sights on special counsel Robert Mueller. 

On the website Hamilton68, the Alliance tracks some 600 Twitter accounts it says are associated with a Russia-linked influence network. According to newly released figures, in the month of December, by far the most popular articles shared by the trolls aimed to undermine Mueller and the Department of Justice's investigation into Russian interference. 

In fact, 16 percent of the articles shared by those accounts between December 9 and December 31 were related in some way to the so-called deep state, the bulk of which aimed to discredit Mueller. That's a lot of tweets, considering the site analyzes some 20,000 tweets a day. It's a volume of conversation that, in late November, was reserved for the right's favorite punching bag, Hillary Clinton. The Hamilton68 team keeps its list of suspected Kremlin trolls secret, but it consists of a balance between openly pro-Russia accounts, like Sputnik and RT, as well as bot accounts run by troll factories, and other accounts that consistently amplify pro-Russia themes.

Of course the interesting thing about this is that it coincides with attacks on the Mueller instigation that are coming from Trump supporters and the Washington Republicans.

Odd how the Americans in the GOP are working in concert with the Russian trolls to impede a legal investigation in this country don't you think?

It almost seems that Vladimir Putin is pulling everybody's strings these days.

Perhaps that helps to explain this bullshit.

Senators @ChuckGrassley and @LindseyGrahamSC have referred Christopher Steele to @TheJusticeDept for investigation after information reviewed by committee investigators revealed significant inconsistencies in statements provided to authorities pic.twitter.com/MKhJlscdKP

— Senate Judiciary (@senjudiciary) January 5, 2018

Mike Pence is rapidly losing top aides while talk swirls about a possible interview with Robert Mueller.

Courtesy of CNN:

Vice President Mike Pence's chief lawyer and domestic policy director are leaving his office at the beginning of the new year, according to four sources familiar with the staff turnover. 

The moves come amid high tensions and staff turnover in the Trump administration thanks to the ongoing Russia probe and a new tell-all book about West Wing happenings. 

"These moves have been in the works for weeks," the vice president's communications director confirmed to CNN. 

CNN has learned that longtime senior staffers Mark Paoletta and Daris Meeks are leaving Pence's office. The announcement was made by chief of staff Nick Ayers in a staff meeting at the beginning of the week. 

Paoletta and Meeks' departures follow two other top Pence aides who have left the Office of the Vice President: chief of staff Josh Pitcock and press secretary Marc Lotter. The vice president's staff is considerably smaller than the West Wing, making the departures a more notable shift at the beginning of the new year.

There has been talk for over a month that Pence will soon have his time testifying before the Muller team, which of course makes sense since Pence was in charge of the transition, and has been present at a lot of meetings with Flynn, Jared, and Donald Jr..

Apparently this possibility really troubled Steve Bannon who tried to keep Pence insulated from some of the more troubling goings on in the Trump White House.

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

It’s been widely reported that former White House political strategist Steve Bannon thought that Donald Trump Jr.’s infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russian officials was “treasonous.” 

However, author Michael Wolff also claims that Bannon worried that Vice President Mike Pence was similarly attending problematic meetings — and he worked to protect him from them because he saw Pence as a solid backup plan in the event of President Donald Trump’s impeachment. 

Specifically, Bannon worried about Pence taking meetings with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and First Daughter Ivanka Trump, whom he’d decided were, in Wolff’s words, “Russia toxic.”

“Bannon observed a hapless Pence in a lot of ‘wrong meetings,’ and helped to bring in the Republican operative Nick Ayers as Pence’s chief of staff, and to get ‘our fallback guy’ out of the White House and ‘running around the world and looking like a vice president,'” writes Wolff.

Bannon apparently believed that at some point Trump would definitely be forced from office, and he wanted to keep Pence squeaky clean so that he could carry the agenda forward once Trump was no longer gumming up the works. 

Here's hoping that his attempts to protect Pence failed to work, and that Mueller has significant dirt on him as well.