Report: Durham probe focusing on 10 actions by Mueller team
The recently unsealed documents in the Michael Flynn case indicate the Justice Department is focusing its investigation of the Obama administration's Trump-Russia probe on a pattern of questionable tactics by Robert Mueller's special counsel team, reports Just the News.
The documents exonerating Flynn, Trump's first national security adviser mark "the first official unraveling" of Mueller's cases, reports Lee Smith. And they indicate that U.S. Attorney John Durham's inquiry into the origins and conduct of the Russia probe is widening, ecompassing several Mueller prosecutors as well as top FBI leadership.
Last week, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee said there likely will be criminal referrals on the Mueller team.
In the Flynn case, the new documents show FBI agents had recommended closing the case because of a lack of evidence. But lead FBI investigator Peter Strzok kept it going, and a memo shows agents plotted a "perjury trap" that led to charges against Flynn.
Just the News reports there are 10 actions of the Mueller team that could be investigated for prosecutorial misconduct:
- Mueller prosecutors claimed to the court that Trump volunteer George Papadopoulos blocked the FBI's Russia investigation. But declassified FBI interviews show Mueller staffers concealed from the court that Papadopoulos actually volunteered to help.
- Evidence was concealed showing a translator at the famed June 2016 Trump Tower meeting confirmed the discussions there did not include dirt on Hillary Clinton. Instead, special counsel members insinuated that the meeting involving the president's son was "direct evidence" of campaign collusion.
- Court documents were deceptively edited to make it appear an email from Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Sam Clovis told Papadopoulos to pursue contacts with Russia, when in fact the email includes a warning that he not do that.
- The memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein setting the scope for Mueller's investigation apparently was based partly on information from the discredited Steele dossier, including claims of collusion with Russian government officials.
- The Mueller team continued to investigate a collusion narrative for years, even though Steele's primary subsource said the claims were made in "jest."
- The final Mueller report did not disclose that many of its conclusions were based on the dubious Steeler dossier.
- A voicemail from White House lawyer John Dowd in 2017 was deceptively edited to bolster a narrative that Trump was obstructing the investigation.
- A secret side deal in which prosecutors promised not to indict Flynn's son as a material term of the plea agreement was not disclosed to the court.
- The improper acquisition of the Trump team's emails.
- And deliberately misleading lawyers for the president about their decision to target him.
Nunes, in an interview last week, pledged to pursue multiple criminal referrals.
He said prosecutors "knew there was no collusion the day that Mueller walked in the door."
"They set an obstruction of justice trap. There's no doubt in my mind that we will make a conspiracy referral there."
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz already has concluded the FBI made "at least 17 significant errors or omissions" in the applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants targeting former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
President Trump repeatedly has called the Obama administration's Russia investigation a "hoax."
Further, newly released documents show there was no legal justification for the special counsel investigation.
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