It’s OVER: Byron York Blows The Lid Off Of The Mueller Probe Lies
Bryon York lays out all the evidence you need to believe why Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the collusion charges between the Trump campaign and Russian government are false and not found anywhere, reports The Washington Examiner.
York begins by pointing out that much of what we know about the Mueller investigation is still unknown, but what we can confirm and have seen are the indictments Mueller has given out to three people in Trump’s inner campaign circle.
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and former deputy campaign chairman Richard Gates, were all said to have possible ties with Russia and may have been involved in this non-existent Russia scheme. Mueller has also charged one peripheral hanger-on, George Papadopoulos, who might conceivably have been part of a collusion scenario.
But all have faced charges and none of those charges, at least so far, has involved allegations that Flynn, Manafort, Gates, or Papadopoulos played a role in a scheme of collusion, or coordination, or conspiracy.
To put it briefly, York points out that any kind of collusion scheme between Russia and the Trump campaign would have to involve Michael Flynn, Manafort, and/ or Gates. Yet, none of these very important men have been officially charged with colluding with a foreign government to influence an American election.
Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of lying to investigators about what he discussed in a phone conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. (Investigators have always known what the two men talked about since the call was wiretapped, recorded, and transcribed, York reports.)
Manafort has been charged with a daunting number of financial crimes, including fraud and tax evasion, relating to his work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine.
Gates was charged with most of the crimes Manafort faced, but received a deal from Mueller, allowing him to plead guilty to one count of lying to investigators and one count of hiding profits from his work with Manafort in Ukraine.
Both Gates and Manafort were charged with something called “conspiracy against the United States.” As the former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy points out, “there is no such offense in federal law as ‘conspiracy against the United States.'” But Mueller’s office described their alleged crimes that way, and some media commentators liked the treason-ish sound of the phrase.
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to one count of lying to investigators about a conversation he had with a Russian who wanted to create ties with the Trump campaign.
All those charges, and none alleging that any of these men, some of them at the highest levels of the Trump campaign, took part in any collusion, or coordination, or conspiracy between the campaign and Russia.
“I can’t imagine that there would have been collusion or conspiracy with the Russians that Michael Flynn didn’t know about,” said Sol Wisenberg, a former prosecutor with the office of independent counsel Kenneth Starr. “If you’re trying to make a collusion case and you are Mueller, you’re trying to get someone to plead to the crime you’re trying to prove.”
McCarthy has written much the same. “When a prosecutor has a cooperator who was an accomplice in a major criminal scheme, the cooperator is made to plead guilty to the scheme,” he wrote last December. “This is critical because it proves the existence of the scheme.”
Even Preet Bharara, the New York U.S. attorney fired by Trump and no fan of the president’s, said last year, “When we had evidence against somebody and wanted them to flip, we made them plead guilty to every bad act that they had ever done, especially if we were later going to be alleging other people had engaged in that activity as well.”
York believes that some other possibilities for collusion with Russia is that these three men just haven’t been charged yet with taking part in any such activity. Nevertheless, York believes those hoping for collusion, will probably disappointed with the overwhelming lack of evidence.