Russia Collusion Scandal (aka A Leftist fantasy)

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Eric Levitz

On the morning of July 26, President Trump publicly reprimanded his attorney general for failing to fire the acting FBI director, and summarily banned transgender Americans from serving in the military, over Twitter.

Hours earlier, in Alexandria, Virginia, FBI agents had marched into the home of Trump’s former campaign manager. The raid began in the predawn hours, one day after Paul Manafort had met with the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Manafort had been voluntarily producing documents to congressional committees, but special counsel Robert Mueller (apparently) lacked confidence that the operative would turn over every piece of paper his team of investigators was interested in perusing. And so the FBI secured a “wide-ranging” search warrant, and confiscated “various records” from Manafort’s home, according to the Washington Post.

Manafort’s spokesperson confirmed the raid Wednesday, telling NBC News that his client “has consistently cooperated with law enforcement” and “did so on this occasion as well.”

The investigators were specifically seeking “tax documents and foreign banking records,” according to the New York Times. The paper notes that the FBI “typically seeks such records when investigating violations of the federal Bank Secrecy Act, which requires Americans to report their foreign banking accounts.” Manafort has leased his political know-how to a wide array of corrupt foreign leaders, including former Ukrainian president (and Putin ally) Viktor Yanukovych.

It’s unclear whether the records taken from Manfort’s home proved significant. Regardless, the raid itself certainly is.

Sending out subpoenas does not require investigators to establish probable cause of a crime — but obtaining a search warrant does. Which is to say: Mueller’s team apparently possessed enough information to convince a judge that a search of Manafort’s home would quite likely turn up evidence of criminal activity.

The raid may also provide insight into the broader strategy of Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Or, so Manafort’s team fears, according to the Post:

Manafort’s allies fear that Mueller hopes to build a case against Manafort unrelated to the 2016 campaign, in hopes that the former campaign operative would provide information against others in Trump’s inner circle in exchange for lessening his own legal exposure.

Such a gambit would explain why Mueller would resort to raiding Manafort’s home, when the political operative was already cooperating with the Russia investigation: Congress wasn’t going to ask Manafort to turn over evidence that he violated the Bank Secrecy Act, years before Trump ever ran for president (and Manafort wasn’t going to honor such a request, if it did).

Last month, the New York Times revealed that Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., and Jared Kushner attended a meeting in Trump Tower that was pitched to them as an opportunity to receive opposition research on Hillary Clinton, as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
 
Manafort had already informed the FBI about Junior's meeting with the Russian lawyer/lobbyist. Meaning the FBI had to sit back and endure all those lies from the White House.
 
“I want to be really specific. A real-estate deal would be outside the scope of legitimate inquiry.” If he senses “drift” in Mueller’s investigation, he said, he will warn the special counsel’s office that it is exceeding its mandate. The issue will first be raised “informally,” he noted. But if Mueller and his team persist, Sekulow said, he might lodge a formal objection with the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, who has the power to dismiss Mueller and end the inquiry. President Trump has been more blunt, hinting to the Times that he might fire Mueller if the investigation looks too closely at his business dealings.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/21/trumps-business-of-corruption

LOLGOP‏ @LOLGOP 16m16 minutes ago

LOLGOP Retweeted Yashar Ali

It's like I always tell the police when they pull me over: "Whatever you do, don't look the glove compartment. No way. OFF LIMITS."
 
"like a cheap suit"

digby‏ @digby56 18h18 hours ago

He made these notorious comments while he was campaigning and simultaneously trying to get his Moscow Trump Tower approvals

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A while back 57 proclaimed that DJT is the President because Putin wanted him to be. i'd still like to understand how
 
So Felix Sater (whom Trump has testified to not knowing) and Michael Cohen were engaged in trying to get a Trump-branded project in Moscow built during the presidential campaign.

Tip of another iceberg?
 
i still am trying to figure out why the orange one and republicans are trying to shut down this investigation
 
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