Russian To Judgment, Con't

The Mueller probe is closing in on Trump, with multiple interviews of Trump regime staffers in the White House over the last several months.  The focus of those interviews, according to NBC News at least, is on the two-and-a-half weeks between when the FBI informed Trump that his national security adviser Michael Flynn was a massive security risk to the nation, and when Flynn was actually fired.

Special counsel Robert Mueller is trying to piece together what happened inside the White House over a critical 18-day period that began when senior officials were told that National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was susceptible to blackmail by Russia, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. 

The questions about what happened between Jan. 26 and Flynn's firing on Feb. 13 appear to relate to possible obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump, say two people familiar with Mueller's investigation into Russia's election meddling and potential collusion with the Trump campaign. 

Multiple sources say that during interviews, Mueller's investigators have asked witnesses, including White House Counsel Don McGahn and others who have worked in the West Wing, to go through each day that Flynn remained as national security adviser and describe in detail what they knew was happening inside the White House as it related to Flynn. 

Some of those interviewed by Mueller's team believe the goal is in part to determine if there was a deliberate effort by President Trump or top officials in the West Wing to cover up the information about Flynn that Sally Yates, then the acting attorney general, conveyed to McGahn on Jan. 26. In addition to Flynn, McGahn is also expected to be critical to federal investigators trying to piece together a timeline of those 18 days. 

Neither McGahn's lawyer nor the White House responded to requests for comment. A spokesman for the Special Counsel's office declined to comment.

It ain't the crime, as they say, but the cover-up.  The key to this is Sally Yates.

The obstruction of justice question could hinge on when Trump knew about the content of Flynn's conversations with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. during the transition, which were at the crux of Yates's warning, and when the president learned Flynn had lied about those conversations to the FBI, according to two people familiar with the Mueller probe. 

Flynn pleaded guilty earlier this month to lying to the FBI on Jan. 24, an interview that took place the day after he was sworn in as national security adviser. 

Yates has testified to Congress that she informed McGahn on Jan. 26 that Flynn had not been truthful in statements to senior members of the Trump team, including Vice President Mike Pence, when he said he did not discuss U.S. sanctions with Russia's ambassador, Sergey Kislyak. Yates said Flynn was susceptible to blackmail by the Russians because he had lied about the contents of a phone call with Kislyak.

Yates was later fired by Trump.

Justice Department officials who spoke to NBC News on the condition of anonymity said they had expected the White House to fire Flynn on Jan. 26 upon learning that he had lied to the vice president. 

Instead, Trump fired Yates on Jan. 30, citing her refusal to enforce his executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from travelling to the U.S. Before she left, however, she made available, at McGahn's request, evidence she had that Flynn had not been truthful about his conversations with Kislyak, according to her congressional testimony.

Again, if the Trump regime knew Flynn was a national security threat and it took almost three weeks to fire him because Trump was actively trying to cover up that assessment, then that's your obstruction charge right there.  Ball game.

And that's just the tip of this iceberg of toxic waste.  It also points the finger at what Mike Pence knew, meaning he too could go up on obstruction charges.  And speaking of toxic waste, it looks like it's Steve Bannon's turn on the carousel.

Bannon was a key bystander when Trump decided to fire national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty earlier this month to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with foreign officials. He was among those Trump consulted before firing FBI Director James Comey, whose dismissal prompted Mueller’s appointment — a decision Bannon subsequently described to "60 Minutes" as the biggest mistake “in modern political history.” 

And during the campaign, Bannon was the one who offered the introduction to data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica, whose CEO has since acknowledged trying to coordinate with WikiLeaks on the release of emails from Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state. 

Yet Bannon hasn’t faced anywhere near the degree of public scrutiny in connection to the probe as others in Trump’s inner circle, including son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner — who was recently interviewed by Mueller’s team — or Donald Trump Jr., who was interviewed on Capitol Hill last week about his own Russian connections. 

People close to Bannon, who left the White House in August and returned to his former perch as head of Breitbart News, say he’s told them he doesn’t have a lawyer and isn’t worried about potential exposure. But others say it’s inevitable he’ll be called in as a witness in the ongoing investigations. He has not been publicly accused of any wrongdoing or named as a target of the investigations.

Stay tuned.  The Trumpies are getting scared, so scared in fact that they are desperately trying to discredit Mueller and to goad Trump into firing him.  Trump's ham-fisted attempt to do so is coming very soon.

Fox News’ Judge Jeanine Pirro called for the “cleansing” of law enforcement officials who are investigating the president on her show Saturday night. She said the FBI and Justice Department have too many "political hacks" embedded and called on a whole bunch of federal law enforcement officials to be arrested.

"There have been times in our history where corruption and lawlessness were so pervasive that examples had to be made. This is one of those times," she said. "I for one am tired of investigations, politicians posturing. Something more has to be done."

Pirro singled out Special Counsel Robert Mueller, former FBI Director James Comey, Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and FBI official Peter Strzok. Fox News opinion hosts have been using the discovery of “anti-Trump text messages” from Strzok as an excuse to undermine the entire Mueller investigation as corrupt.

“The stench coming out of the Justice Department and the FBI is like that of a third-world country where money and bullies and clubs decide election,” she said. “It all started with cardinal [James] Comey destroyed our FBI with political hacks to set events in motion to destroy the republic because they did not like the man we chose to be our president.”

Pirro called Comey a “political whore” during her show last week.

She continued on Saturday: “There is a cleansing needed in our FBI and Department of Justice — it needs to be cleansed of individuals who should not just be fired, but who need to be taken out in cuffs!”

"Handcuffs for Andrew McCabe, deputy director of the FBI. The man at the hub, protecting Hillary and attempting to destroy Trump."

Trump regime state TV calling for a mass purge of the FBI, but let's keep pretending that we're not headed for a near-guaranteed constitutional crisis and very possibly a bloody and violent one.  But that's what they want, of course.

And the Mueller probe rolls on.