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Thursday, June 6, 2019

UPDATED: Mueller Caught In More Deception?

Deception--that would be the polite way to say: lies.

John Solomon's latest Thursday night bombshell is a biggie.

Do you remember Konstantin Kilimnik? He was a key Ukrainian associate of Paul Manafort, and he ended up being charged by Mueller with obstruction and conspiracy. He's said to have coached witnesses, preventing Mueller from getting to the real truth. Kilimnik is so important to the whole narrative that Mueller flags him right up front--on page 6 of his Dossier:

“The FBI assesses [Kilimnik] to have ties to Russian intelligence.”

That's so that each time you see Kilimnik's name mentioned throughout the rest of the Mueller Dossier you'll say to yourself: "Ha, that guy with Russian intelligence ties again--talking to the Trump campaign!" And you'll draw the conclusion Mueller wants you to draw: there was no way to prove collusion, but there was still something fishy going on. It also helps to keep alive the myth of "all out" Russian "meddling" in the election. How convenient that Kilimnik is another of those elusive Russians (Ukrainians?) who Mueller indicted but will never see the inside of a US courtroom.

And, wouldn't you know, the NYT picked up on that angle, too, when they learned that Paul Manafort had shared polling data from the Trump campaign with Kilimnik and even--the horror--discussed a peace plan for Ukraine! It must be collusion!

... during the campaign, Mr. Manafort and his Russian associate, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, discussed a plan for peace in Ukraine. Throughout the campaign and the early days of the Trump administration, Russia and its allies were pushing various plans for Ukraine in the hope of gaining relief from American-led sanctions imposed after it annexed Crimea from Ukraine. 
Prosecutors and the news media have already documented a string of encounters between Russian operatives and Trump campaign associates dating from the early months of Mr. Trump’s bid for the presidency, including the now-famous meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan with a Russian lawyer promising damaging information on Hillary Clinton. [This] disclosure appeared to some experts to be perhaps most damning of all. 

But, we're told, this information is the worst of all:

“This is the closest thing we have seen to collusion,” Clint Watts, a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said of the data-sharing. “The question now is, did the president know about it?”

What did Trump know and when did he know it?


That story came out on January 8 of this year, 2019. The last gasp for the collusion narrative before the Mueller Dossier laid the the whole Russia Hoax to rest.

But there's a big problem with this story, and with the Mueller Dossier, and that's what John Solomon is telling us in his latest: Key figure that Mueller report linked to Russia was a State Department intel source. If you're guessing that that State Department intel source is Kilimnik, you're guessing right. Here's what Solomon documents.

Despite "assessing" in the Mueller Dossier that Kilimnik had "ties to Russian intelligence," the FBI and Team Mueller were fully aware of Kilimnik's close ties to the US State Department. Those ties were so close that Kilimnik was used to relay messages between the US government and the Ukraine government. This interaction had been going on since at least 2013. And to show you how important a source Kilimnik was Solomon describes for us the unusual measures that were taken to safeguard his identity. To take just one example:

State officials ... deemed Kilimnik to be such a valuable asset that they kept his name out of cables for fear he would be compromised by leaks to WikiLeaks.

And as for Kilimnik's political sympathies:

State officials told the FBI that although Kilimnik had Ukrainian and Russian residences, he did not appear to hold any allegiance to Moscow and was critical of Russia’s invasion of the Crimean territory of Ukraine.

There's much more, all along these lines, in Solomon's article. And Mueller knew all this:

Three sources with direct knowledge of the inner workings of Mueller’s office confirmed to me that the special prosecutor’s team had all of the FBI interviews with State officials, as well as Kilimnik’s intelligence reports to the U.S. Embassy, well before they portrayed him as a Russian sympathizer tied to Moscow intelligence or charged Kilimnik with participating with Manafort in a scheme to obstruct the Russia investigation.

But things get even more interesting, regarding that peace plan:

[The Mueller Dossier] makes a big deal about Kilimnik’s meeting with Manafort in August 2016 at the Trump Tower in New York.
... 
Specifically, the Mueller report flagged Kilimnik’s delivery of a peace plan to the Trump campaign for settling the two-year-old Crimea conflict between Russia and Ukraine. 
“Kilimnik requested the meeting to deliver in person a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort acknowledged to the Special Counsel’s Office was a ‘backdoor’ way for Russia to control part of eastern Ukraine,” the Mueller report stated.
But State emails showed Kilimnik first delivered a version of his peace plan in May 2016 to the Obama administration during a visit to Washington. [Yes, Kilimnik visited Washington twice during 2016, to meet with State Department officials.] 
... 
So Kilimnik’s delivery of the peace plan to the Trump campaign in August 2016 was flagged by Mueller as potentially nefarious, but its earlier delivery to the Obama administration wasn’t mentioned. That’s what many in the intelligence world might call “deception by omission.”

Deception by omission. Or lying by omission.

Solomon claims to have reviewed memos and emails and FBI reports detailing all this and much more. That means that plenty of other people--at the FBI and DoJ and probably the White House--are already aware of Mueller's little game.

AG Barr can't stop with the origins of the Russia Hoax. For the good of the country he needs to turn the entire Hoax inside out, and that means turning the Mueller Inquisition inside out, too. Because Mueller was no less than a continuation of the disinformation and coup plot that was originally hatched by John Brennan.

UPDATE 1: J. E. Dyer summarizes the bottom line implications of Mueller's Kiliminik deceptions that I want to quote her:

The other 6 June update – this one qualifying as a “bombshell” – is that an infamous associate of Paul Manafort’s in Ukraine, Konstantin Kilimnik, has turned out to be materially misrepresented in the Mueller special counsel narrative. 
Kilimnik appeared all over the statements of offense for Manafort, Robert Gates, and attorney Alex van der Zwaan of Skadden, Arps, represented as an individual with a background in intelligence and espionage who was probably a spy for the Russians in Ukraine. 
It turns out, according to John Solomon’s always excellent reporting, that Kilimnik, a Ukrainian businessman, besides being linked to Democrat-run lobbying firms and Democratic politicians, has been a confidential informant for the U.S. State Department for years. 
In other words, Kilimnik may be a number of things, but one thing he is not is a character about whom the U.S. government has unsatisfied suspicions.  The U.S. government knows who this guy is.  The FBI and Mueller knew it too.  Kilimnik’s relationship with the U.S. embassy in Ukraine goes back to 2012, covering the timeframe when Manafort was doing business there.

UPDATE 2: Commenter Unknown suggests that Mueller might be well advised to lay low at this point. Precisely in that regard, Catherine Herridge is reporting that US Attorney Durham 'very dialed in' as he launches Russia probe review, met with Barr 'multiple times'. Durham is also said to be "asking all the right questions" and plans to conduct prosecutions personally. Given that Durham is the guy who investigated but was prevented from getting to the bottom of all the bad behavior by FBI/DoJ in the Whitey Bulger case--which included Robert Mueller--if I were Mueller I'd be feeling a bit apprehensive. The "very dialed in" Durham may feel that he has some unfinished business to attend to.



25 comments:

  1. The past few days I've been discussing what to make of Mueller with a friend of mine who was an FBI agent for over 25 years. I have wondered what caused Mueller, who my friend (perhaps wistfully) describes as having been possessed of a 'stellar reputation' at the Bureau (notwithstanding the damning case Louie Gohmert has marshalled against him), to act so incautiously...even recklessly: He ignored conventional wisdom regarding conflicts of interest, and, more importantly, the danger of appearance of conflicts of interest. Any one of ten apparent conflicts would have caused any thoughtful lawyer practicing in the realms Mueller occupies to turn down the job in the first place. He was purporting to investigate (implicitly) the actions of one of his closest professional colleagues, for god's sake! He assembled a team which, whether or not it was actually biased against Trump, certainly had the appearance of bias. Which Mueller had to know and ignored. Back in the day, no leading lawyer I ever knew would ignore this obvious problem. It now appears that the obstruction case made in his Report may have been improperly slanted against Trump. What thoughtful lawyer of high reputation would submit a report to the Attorney General (knowing it would be made public) regarding the conduct of the President of the United States which alleges potentially incriminating facts without bending over backwards to accurately present all of the facts, including reasonable interpretations going both ways. I know it is increasingly apparent (obvious) that Mueller prepared a political report on obstruction, but that is not what wise, expert lawyers with integrity do. What happened to Mueller? My friend and I didn't reach any conclusions. Two possibilities to atleast consider: One is that his cache as former FBI Director and Federal prosecutor wasn’t delivering the billables for what Wilmer Hale was paying him and he needed the income. Not impossible. Two, and more likely, is that he was worried that when Trump was elected and fired his buddy Comey, someone would look into Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation, both of which 'happened' on his watch...Not saying that either of these explains Mueller's actions...just that there is undoubtedly more to this than we now know...and we will have to look under every stone. It doesn't add up.

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    1. A third possibility is that Mueller is a never-Trumper suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

      A fourth possibility is that he always has been a thug.

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    2. I think Mike is on the right track.

      Back in the day ...

      Mueller got his good rep among agents from the combination of 1) being a former marine and 2) his reputation as a prosecutor.

      Of course agents didn't know the truth of what happened in Boston--that's the point of a cover-up, right?

      I personally became disillusioned with him during the anthrax case, and I shared by misgivings with other agents. Those misgivings deepened during the Libby case, in which both Mueller and Comey were involved and their pal Fitzgerald played the leading role.

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    3. Mike, if you want to see real Trump Derangement Syndrome at work, check out @MichelleInBrooklyn.

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    4. Cassander,

      I'm with Mark. There's the anthrax case, which Mueller not only botched horribly, he was nasty about it when questioned about his incompetence.

      Then there's Martha Stewart, and the Boston case, for which the FBI had to pay out over $100 million.

      I can't even say the word Libby without the top of my head blowing off.

      So, your FBI agent friend sees Mueller as this highly polished, competent, stand-up, Chaucer's knight kind of guy? After all this?

      My take away, admittedly not backed up by any contact with FBI agents, is that the FBI, and by that I mean the agents, not just Mueller, whom I see as Iago, is both mentally and morally compromised, so much so that I want the agency either completely repopulated, with people who understand rule of law and morals, or done away with. We can farm out the forensics to Crowdstrike.

      The image of despicable agents chasing after white collar "criminals" with heavy fire power in the dawn's early light is something out of Stalin.

      Your FBI friend sees none of this?


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    5. It's not realistic in this legal climate--and I refer to employment law--to expect the agent population to be significantly more moral than the general population. Perhaps somewhat, but not that much. The same, of course, goes for prosecutors. And you can trace it back--at least in a very proximate sense--to the cultural collapse of the 60s.

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    6. @Titan28

      I must have really screwed up my post. I thought I said my agent friend (who gave his life and career to the bureau) described Mueller as having been (that's past tense, right?) possessed of a 'stellar reputation' (notice the quotes). We were simply wondering why Mueller would put all of that at risk...I probably should have added that my friend is well aware of Gohmert's compilation of revelations and as outraged by it as you and I. He concludes that the totality of it is tragically 'surreal and saddening'. I suspect he is outraged at the damage Mueller is doing to the bureau.

      Sorry I was not more clear.

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  2. That story, if true, is awfully damning for the Mueller investigation.

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  3. Of course, we now have to consider the strong possibility that Kilimnik was just another lure sent at the Trump Campaign by someone in the Obama Administration.

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  4. 11 Teach me how to live, O LORD . Lead me along the right path, for my enemies are waiting for me. 12 Do not let me fall into their hands. For they accuse me of things I’ve never done; with every breath they threaten me with violence. 13 Yet I am confident I will see the LORD ’s goodness while I am here in the land of the living. 14 Wait patiently for the LORD . Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the LORD .
    ~Psalm 27
    HMH

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  5. From what I have read, I have the impression that the only reason to think Kilimnik was a Russian Intelligence agent is that he was a military linguist many years ago.

    I myself was a military linguist many years ago. That does not prove that I now am a secret agent for the CIA.

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  6. "That does not prove that I now am a secret agent for the CIA."

    It would if it would help get Trump.

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    1. Indeed. They would dig up Major Andre if they thought they could put him in the same room with a Trump ancestor and a set of Matryoshka dolls.

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  7. As discussed in an earlier thread, how was it possible that Mueller didn't expect or anticipate his report would be analyzed to death by relevant and interested parties, especially those unfriendly to his mission? We're well past the point where omissions can be viewed as a simple oversight, but as an act of fraud (intentional deception), as a more comprehensive understanding as known to third parties is exposed.

    By attempting to create a narrative of "possible" obstruction, Mueller's dossier has been revealed as full of holes as swiss cheese.

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    1. Yeah, that has puzzled me, too. Especially when you consider that the Mueller Dossier was written in the knowledge that a lawyer of Barr's experience and standing would be reading and judging it. How did he think he could get away with that? Hubris? Reliance on protection from Dems in Congress and the media?

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    2. --> Hubris? Reliance on protection from Dems in Congress and the media?

      Yes. And the cocoon of the Deep State, where previously their authority stood for a gravitas that was unimpeachable (!), and an expertise that was unchallengeable.

      While it appears they can still bully and steamroll peripheral targets into guilty pleas to process crimes, their documented evidence, reasoning, and legal theories are coming up not just short, but empty. String enough of these together--Lewis Libby, Steven Hatfill, Conrad Black, et al., not to mention Whitey Bulger or Ted Stevens--and the FBI/DOJ has the air of rotting fish.

      And perhaps the public sees leaks to the press as tactic used by the Deep State to manipulate the story (as in Lee Smith's article), rather than the false narrative of deeply sourced, relentless reporting as claimed by the Pulitzer committee. After all, Woodward and Bernstein were stenographers for Mark Felt's personal animosity and payback agenda. Hubris, as went Nixon, so goes Mueller.

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    3. Check out UPDATE 2. Sounds like Barr and Durham are very serious.

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    1. Yeah, and that's the point that Mark Meadows was making last night--he and Jim Jordan, and a small army of researchers, have been going over the Mueller Dossier with a fine toothed comb. He mentioned John Solomon's article and then guaranteed that there'd be lots more discoveries like that.

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  9. In for a penny, in for a pound. Once Mueller joined the coup against Trump (and his Special Council offensive was the last major attack of the coup campaign), he had no choice but to swing for the fences. He failed to coerce anyone (Manafort, Flynn, Stone) into becoming a John Dean type witness, and his gambits with the Manafort/Stone arrests to incite Trump into firing him or Rosenstein also failed. He was then left with writing a lame report that perhaps the House Democrats could use as an impeachment vehicle, but then Barr stepped in and ruined that as well. He will soon be viewed by both sides of the isle as an incompetent failure, but even that masks his underlying criminality. I doubt Barr will seek anything more than censor for Mueller, but Mueller would do well to hide under a rock for a while if he wants to avoid too much more harm to his reputation.

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    1. I have an update in mind that may address your last point, i.e., hiding under a rock as an advisable course of action for Mueller.

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