Most of the information we have about the Mueller investigation comes from strategic leaks from those working for Robert Mueller. Other than that, we really don’t know much. Well, it seems that the investigation has not revealed some important items to those overseeing the investigation.<\/p>\n
Yesterday John Solomon posted an article at The Hill<\/a> that raises questions about certain aspects of the Mueller investigation.<\/p>\n The article reports:<\/p>\n But there\u2019s one episode even Mueller\u2019s former law enforcement comrades \u2014 and independent ethicists \u2014 acknowledge raises legitimate legal issues and a possible conflict of interest in his overseeing the Russia election probe.<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2009, when Mueller ran the FBI, the bureau asked Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska<\/a> to spend millions of his own dollars funding an FBI-supervised operation to rescue a retired FBI agent, Robert Levinson, captured in Iran while working for the CIA in 2007.<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, that\u2019s the same Deripaska who has surfaced in Mueller\u2019s current investigation and who was recently sanctioned by the Trump administration.<\/strong><\/p>\n The lesson here is simply–whichever side of the political aisle or the investigation you sit on, it pays to be transparent. Mueller has been anything but transparent.<\/p>\n The article concludes with several legal opinions on the matter:<\/p>\n Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz told me he believes Mueller has a conflict of interest because his FBI previously accepted financial help from a Russian that is, at the very least, a witness in the current probe.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe real question becomes whether it was proper to leave [Deripaska] out of the Manafort indictment, and whether that omission was to avoid the kind of transparency that is really required by the law,\u201d Dershowitz said.<\/strong><\/p>\n Melanie Sloan, a former Clinton Justice Department lawyer and longtime ethics watchdog, told me a \u201cfar more significant issue\u201d is whether the earlier FBI operation was even legal: \u201cIt\u2019s possible the bureau\u2019s arrangement with Mr. Deripaska violated the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits the government from accepting voluntary services.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n George Washington University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley agreed: \u201cIf the operation with Deripaska contravened federal law, this figure could be viewed as a potential embarrassment for Mueller. The question is whether he could implicate Mueller in an impropriety.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Now that sources have unmasked the Deripaska story, time will tell whether the courts, Justice, Congress or a defendant formally questions if Mueller is conflicted.<\/strong><\/p>\n In the meantime, the episode highlights an oft-forgotten truism: The cat-and-mouse maneuvers between Moscow and Washington are often portrayed in black-and-white terms. But the truth is, the relationship is enveloped in many shades of gray.<\/strong><\/p>\n Please follow the link to read the entire article. There is a lot of information there that needs to be in the public domain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most of the information we have about the Mueller investigation comes from strategic leaks from those working for Robert Mueller. Other than that, we really don’t know much. Well, it seems that the investigation has not revealed some important items … Continue reading