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Sunday, May 6, 2018

Judge Ellis Excoriates Mueller & Team

It Should End Mueller Agenda, But Will It?

John R. Houk, Editor
© May 6, 2018

Judge Ellis, Manafort, Mueller & Rosenstein

On Friday I posted an exposé on Robert Mueller written by Rep. Louie Gohmert. That post makes remarkable sense after I read that Federal Judge T.S. Ellis III excoriated a Special Prosecutor team member in charge of the Paul Manafort prosecution. WHY?

Judge Ellis caught Mueller’s team using a,

… pre-existing FISA Title-1 warrant that was originally applied to U.S. person Carter Page and the Trump campaign.

Under normal criminal investigation any search warrant or surveillance warrant would normally proceed through U.S. courts, under Title-3, where the Mueller team would need to show probable cause for a warrant.  However, by using the Title-1 warrant from the FBI counterintelligence operation, as extended by AAG Rod Rosenstein, Robert Mueller was able to use far more intrusive and unchecked searches and seizures for his criminal probe.” (Federal Judge Catches Robert Mueller Using Preexisting FISA Title-1 Warrant Against Paul Manafort Instead of Title 3 Authority…; By sundance; The Last Refuge [aka ConservativeTreeHouse.com]; 5/4/18)

Good for Judge T.S. Ellis III!

Under any normal legal circumstances, I have little doubt the bank fraud case would be dismissed for prosecutorial misconduct. Which would mean the Special Prosecutor and his team must be discredited on ANY work they have down to find collusion between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Russian government to become POTUS.

To get the gist of Judge Ellis’ legal anger, I have four articles from Conservative sources (including the quote above) providing perspectives that are doubtful to be heard or read from the Leftist MSM.

JRH 5/6/18 (Hat Tip Ali Hoppe posting at G+ Community United We Stand One Nation Under God)
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Federal Judge Catches Robert Mueller Using Preexisting FISA Title-1 Warrant Against Paul Manafort Instead of Title 3 Authority…


May 4, 2018

Well, well, well…. they say timing is everything.

Today U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III appears to have caught on to an explosive issue CTH noted yesterday.  In building the case against Paul Manafort, special counsel Robert Mueller’s team used the pre-existing FISA Title-1 warrant that was originally applied to U.S. person Carter Page and the Trump campaign.

Under normal criminal investigation any search warrant or surveillance warrant would normally proceed through U.S. courts, under Title-3, where the Mueller team would need to show probable cause for a warrant.  However, by using the Title-1 warrant from the FBI counterintelligence operation, as extended by AAG Rod Rosenstein, Robert Mueller was able to use far more intrusive and unchecked searches and seizures for his criminal probe.

The media, and broad media-consumption public, are currently unaware the Mueller probe was simply a continuance of the 2016 FBI counterintelligence operation. Most people think the special counsel investigation is a separate issue. It’s not.

However, in addition to a scathing rebuke of the underlying prosecutorial premise, ie.  Mueller trying to keep the originating structure hidden, Judge Ellis demanded today that Mueller unredact the August 2, 2017, instructions from AAG Rosenstein.  That removal will expose the use of the FISA Title-1 warrant use that drove the investigative origin.

WASHINGTON – A federal judge on Friday harshly rebuked Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team during a hearing for ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort – suggesting they lied about the scope of the investigation, are seeking “unfettered power” and are more interested in bringing down the president.

“You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort,” U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III told Mueller’s team. “You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you to lead you to Mr. Trump and an impeachment, or whatever.”

Further, Ellis demanded to see the unredacted “scope memo,” a document outlining the scope of the special counsel’s Russia probe that congressional Republicans have also sought. […] The Reagan-appointed judge asked Mueller’s team where they got the authority to indict Manafort on alleged crimes dating as far back as 2005.

The special counsel argues that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein granted them broad authority in his May 2, 2017 letter appointing Mueller to this investigation. But after the revelation that the team is using information from the earlier DOJ probe, Ellis said that information did not “arise” out of the special counsel probe – and therefore may not be within the scope of that investigation.

“We don’t want anyone with unfettered power,” he said.

Mueller’s team says its authorities are laid out in documents including the August 2017 scope memo – and that some powers are actually secret because they involve ongoing investigations and national security matters that cannot be publicly disclosed.

Ellis seemed amused and not persuaded.

He summed up the argument of the Special Counsel’s Office as, “We said this was what [the] investigation was about, but we are not bound by it and we were lying.”

He referenced the common exclamation from NFL announcers, saying: “C’mon man!”  (read more)


The Mueller team saying: “some powers are actually secret” is a direct reference to their use of the FISA Title-1 warrant, which they took over from the FBI counterintelligence operation and applied to their criminal investigation.

With the third 90-day extension of the FISA warrant, issued by AAG Rod Rosenstein (July 18, 2017), Mueller’s team were obviously using the FISA warrant from May through October of last year.  [The FISA warrant expired 90 days from July 18.]

 
The Conservative Treehouse on Scribd


Michael Caputo discusses the scope of the Mueller Evidence – HERE

The timeline of Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller – Available HERE

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Whoa: Judge Goes Off on Mueller Staff Prosecutor, Says He’s Only Prosecuting Manafort for Bank


May 4, 2018

This has been the presumption for some time, of course. Robert Mueller wasn’t appointed to prosecute bank fraud cases. He was appointed to find out if the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. So why is he prosecuting Paul Manafort on an unrelated bank fraud case?

The answer is obvious: He’s doing it for the same reason he had his team stage a 6 a.m. raid of Manafort’s home at a time when Manafort was already cooperating with him. He’s trying to harass and intimidate Manafort into flipping and giving Mueller something he can use to bring down Trump.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis, who drew the case, sees exactly what’s going on here, and today in court he stunned Mueller’s chosen man on the case by calling a spade a spade:

A federal judge expressed deep skepticism Friday in the bank fraud case brought by special counsel Robert Mueller’s office against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, at one point saying he believes that Mueller’s motivation is to oust President Donald Trump from office.

Although Mueller’s authority has been tested in court before, Friday’s hearing was notable for District Judge T.S. Ellis’ decision to wade into the divisive political debate around the investigation.

“You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud,” Ellis said to prosecutor Michael Dreeben, at times losing his temper. Ellis said prosecutors were interested in Manafort because of his potential to provide material that would lead to Trump’s “prosecution or impeachment,” Ellis said.

“That’s what you’re really interested in,” said Ellis, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan.

Ellis repeated his suspicion several times in the hour-long court hearing. He said he’ll make a decision at a later date about whether Manafort’s case can go forward.

“We don’t want anyone in this country with unfettered power. It’s unlikely you’re going to persuade me the special prosecutor has power to do anything he or she wants,” Ellis told Dreeben. “The American people feel pretty strongly that no one has unfettered power.”

When Dreeben answered Ellis’ question about how the investigation and its charges date back to before the Trump campaign formed, the judge shot back, “None of that information has to do with information related to Russian government coordination and the campaign of Donald Trump.”

When Ellis talks about someone having unfettered power, he’s referring to Mueller. Mueller seems to think his original charge is irrelevant, and that he can go beyond it and use his prosecutorial power to bring pressure on anyone he wants, in any way he wants, regardless of the matter’s relevance to the Russia investigation, if the end result is that it will yield him something he can use to damage the president.

Judge Ellis is right to call BS on that.

If Mueller has evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians, let’s see it. If he doesn’t, let’s wrap this up. He’s had enough time.

If Paul Manafort committed bank fraud that’s worthy of prosecution, let Mueller refer that to the Justice Department proper and then stick to the matter he was appointed to deal with. Everyone can see what’s going on here, but it’s really jarring to hear it from a federal judge, from the bench. And today that’s exactly what happened.

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain.com

A new edition of Dan’s book “Powers and Principalities” is now available in hard copy and e-book editions. Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.
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Federal Judge Drops Two-Word Bomb on Mueller’s Prosecutors


BY BENJAMIN ARIE
MAY 4, 2018 AT 4:12PM

For months, the special counsel led by Robert Mueller has been spinning its wheels. Initially set up to investigate alleged “collusion” between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign team, the probe has so far been largely a dud … and now even a federal judge is fed up with it.

On Friday, Judge T.S. Ellis III had harsh words for prosecutors who are working to charge former Trump adviser Paul Manafort.

Manafort, who served as a campaign leader for a few months before leaving, is facing bank and tax fraud charges for activities that happened over a decade ago, but they appear to be unrelated to the administration.

The case looks increasingly like a “fishing expedition” being conducted by Mueller to dredge up anything that can be used against President Trump.

That’s certainly what Judge Ellis seems to think; he just accused prosecutors of trying to gather unrelated evidence against Trump team members in order to pressure them to “flip” on the president.

“You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud,” Ellis told prosecutors on Friday, according to The Washington Post. “You really care about getting information Mr. Manafort can give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump and lead to his prosecution or impeachment.”

According to a report from The Daily Caller journalist Saagar Enjeti, Judge Ellis went even further and openly scoffed at the prosecution’s insistence that decade-old tax issues had anything to do with the special counsel’s mission.

“He summed up the Special Counsel’s Office as, ‘We said this was what (the) investigation was about but we are not bound by it and we were lying,'” Enjeti explained. At one point, the judge apparently stopped taking Mueller’s team seriously, responding “C’mon man!” to their unconvincing argument.

Manafort’s defense attorney Kevin Downing maintained that the financial charges — which occurred in the state of Virginia — are not connected to the Russia probe and that Mueller’s team is dramatically over-reaching.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Downing said in court. “It’s so unrelated as to be in violation (of the Mueller mandate).”

Judge Ellis seemed to agree and even warned prosecutors about exceeding their purview. “The American people feel pretty strongly about no one having unfettered power,” he said.

To be clear, Manafort could, in fact, be guilty of the financial crimes he’s accused of in Virginia, although of course he is presumed innocent at this time. That will be for a court to decide, but the larger question right now is whether those accusations have anything to do with Donald Trump, Russia, and the 2016 election.

For months, conservatives have maintained that the Mueller investigation has dragged on too long and produced almost no solid results. The response from Judge Ellis shows that he likely agrees.

While Manafort certainly has his problems, the overwhelming indication after months of inquiries has been that it was the FBI and the DOJ, not the Trump team, which has some serious explaining to do.

As evidence continues to show that there was political bias and perhaps an active push to undermine Trump, it looks increasingly likely that Mueller has ulterior motives.

It may be time to reel him back in and end the special counsel circus once and for all.
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HUGE NEWS! As TGP Predicted — Judge in Manafort Case BLASTS MUELLER SPECIAL COUNSEL on lawless “Unfettered Power”


Post by Jim Hoft
Guest post by Joe Hoft
May 4, 2018


In April The Gateway Pundit reported that the US is now in a constitutional crisis due to the unconstitutional and corrupt Mueller investigation kept in place by corrupt FBI and DOJ Leadership.

Former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort may soon be the one to shut it all down.

Mueller’s illegal Trump-Russia investigation continues to take corrupt and unconstitutional actions while criminal activities in Obama’s FBI, DOJ and State Department are ignored. If there is justice, America will soon have a real investigation looking into the Obama and Clinton criminal acts while in office.

Paul Manafort first made arguments in a suit with Robert Mueller, Rod Rosenstein and Jeff Sessions as Head of the DOJ, related to illegalities in the way that Rosenstein set up the Mueller special counsel. Rosenstein’s special counsel order was not based on a crime and unconstitutionally stated that Mueller could basically look at anything he wanted to look at. These provisions are against the law and are now for the courts to settle.

In addition to the above suit, Robert Barnes wrote last week at Law and Crimes that Mueller’s actions not related to the 2016 campaign are outside the scope of Jeff Sessions recusal as AG and therefore unconstitutional –

Paul Manafort‘s legal team brought a motion to dismiss on Tuesday, noting that Rosenstein could not appoint Mueller to any investigation outside the scope of the 2016 campaign since Sessions did not recuse himself for anything outside the campaign. I agree with this take on Mueller’s authority. If we follow that argument that would mean Sessions himself has exclusive authority to appoint a special counsel for non-collusion charges, and Sessions has taken no such action. Sessions himself should make that clear to Mueller, rather than await court resolution. Doing so would remove three of the four areas of inquiry from Mueller’s requested interview with President Trump.

Sessions formally notifying Mueller that he does not have authority to act outside of campaign-related cases and cases related to obstruction of Mueller’s investigation would be doing what the Constitution compels: enforcing the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. Additionally, Sessions notifying Mueller that he does not have authority to act outside of campaign-related cases would be exercising Sessions’ court-recognized Constitutional obligation to “direct and supervise litigation” conducted by the Department of Justice Furthermore, Sessions notifying Mueller that he does not have authority to act outside of campaign-related cases protects against the inappropriate use of the federal grand jury that defendant Manafort now rightly complains about.

Sessions limiting Mueller to the 2016 campaign would also be restoring confidence in democratic institutions, and restore public faith that democratically elected officials.

One thing to remember about Sessions’ recusal: Sessions only recused himself from “any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States.” This recusal letter limits the scope of Sessions’ recusal to the 2016 campaigns; it does not authorize Sessions’ recusal for anything beyond that. Constitutionally, Sessions has a “duty to direct and supervise litigation” conducted by the Department of Justice. Ethically, professionally, and legally, Sessions cannot ignore his supervisory obligations for cases that are not related to the “campaigns for President.”

In April Mueller and Rosenstein presented to the courts a rebuttal for Manafort’s latest action – they presented a previously undisclosed memo to a federal court in Washington supposedly addressing Manafort’s argument. The problem is it doesn’t.

The memo is dated August 2, 2017 and is from Rosenstein to Mueller supposedly directing Mueller to look into Manafort actions with a Russian operative perhaps before 2016. This however is clearly outside the scope of Sessions’ recusal as argued by Manafort and doesn’t even address Manafort’s argument that these actions are not for Mueller to take or Rosenstein to order but are Sessions actions alone as AG.

On Friday a federal judge agreed with Paul Manafort that the Mueller witch hunt was out of control and out of bounds.




The hearing is taking place before US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Alexandria, Virginia.
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) May 4, 2018

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Further reading from Gateway Pundit

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Judge Ellis Excoriates Mueller & Team
It Should End Mueller Agenda, But Will It?

John R. Houk, Editor
© May 6, 2018
_____________________
Federal Judge Catches Robert Mueller Using Preexisting FISA Title-1 Warrant Against Paul Manafort Instead of Title 3 Authority…

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Whoa: Judge Goes Off on Mueller Staff Prosecutor, Says He’s Only Prosecuting Manafort for Bank

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Federal Judge Drops Two-Word Bomb on Mueller’s Prosecutors

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HUGE NEWS! As TGP Predicted — Judge in Manafort Case BLASTS MUELLER SPECIAL COUNSEL on lawless “Unfettered Power”

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