Criminal law, Politics

Filing: Rosenstein Expanded Mueller’s Mandate in 2016

Rod_Rosenstein_US_AttorneyThere is an interesting disclosure in the filing this week by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last August expanded the mandate for Mueller in allowing him to pursue collusion allegations against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort as well as criminal conduct linked to his controversial dealings with Ukraine.  The expansion shows not only the close supervision by Rosenstein but the care taken by Mueller not to exceed his mandate, which was already quite broad.  The disclosure comes in the week with the first scheduled sentencing of a Mueller defendant.  Warning: the story below contains foul language.

The disclosure came after Manafort challenged Mueller’s authority to pursue the criminal allegations against him — allegations wholly removed from both the election and Trump.  The memo by Rosenstein allowed Mueller to investigate allegations that Manafort ‘‘committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials’’ to interfere with the presidential election. It also specifically authorized Mueller to investigate any crimes linked to payments Manafort received from the Ukrainian government during the tenure of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

 

We have still not seen any charges connected to collusion allegations on the campaign though this week it was disclosed that Mueller is investigating the close Trump adviser Roger Stone’s alleged ties to the head of Wikileaks, which released many of the Clinton emails.

Stone and his former aide Sam Nunberg have been grabbing headlines with increasingly bizarre statements.  Recently, Stone denounced Nunberg as a “lying ashole” and “psycho” and “coke head.”

It is a bad combination to watch former advisers falling out while Mueller steadily plows ahead with expanded powers.  Nevertheless, the memo shows both Mueller and Rosenstein playing by the book as they delve into these various allegations.

Here is the order expanding the mandate: Rosenstein Order

 

231 thoughts on “Filing: Rosenstein Expanded Mueller’s Mandate in 2016”

  1. Trump was the “King of the Birthers” regardless of who thought of that nonsense first.

    Lest we forget…

    “TRUMP (The O’Reilly Factor, FOX News 3/30/11): He doesn’t have a birth certificate. Now, he may have one, but there’s something on that, with maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim. I don’t know.”

    It was a stupid racist lie from the first to last, and Trump was its most prominent proponent for a decade.

  2. Original Birther charge emanated from Hillary campaign Oppo research team in 2007. Same guys that colluded with Steele pn the phoney Russian Disinformation Dossier. “Follow the money!”

    1. Delusional fantasy doesn’t equate to proof. The other gullibles will no doubt squeal with delight counter with other paranoid conspiracy fantasy materials, however, so you’ve got that going for you.

      this is to “I love to just make sh*t up” ronnie

  4. The ‘holy chit’ moment for Mueller likely came when IG Horowwitz discovered and released the lovers’ text messages, July 20, 2017…..

    Shortly thereafter, on August 2, 2017, Rosenstein actually “narrowed” Mueller’s investigation, at Muellers request – he did not expand it.

    Follow the timeline ………

    1. No one knows, yet.
      Have patience, investigations of this nature require time.

  6. Last August was in 2017.

    Jonathan Turley, how do you expect me to follow this?

  7. the horror….the horror

    Trump: It Would Be Great if U.S., Russia Could ‘Get Along’
    President meets with Baltic leaders amid concerns over Russian aggression in Europe”

    cue the John McCarthy botts

    1. If you mean Joseph McCarthy… Rohrbacher wouldn’t be in the House, Prince wouldn’t be fundraising for him, Flynn wouldn’t have been National Security Advisor, Redacted Tonight wouldn’t be referenced by commenters at this blog, Assange wouldn’t be calling Hannity to give him info., Nunes wouldn’t have closed his investigation without a full accounting from Cambridge Analytica, Gates wouldn’t have been in Trump’s campaign and Trump wouldn’t be President. Conservatives wouldn’t be joined at the hip with Russian oligarchs and NRA would have had earlier scrutiny.
      McCarthy is a dark figure in American history and what he did was wrong. It does not negate the need for the U.S. and the world to be vigilant against Russia’ attempts to destabilize.

        1. Yes there was a real Russian espionage threat. No, Joe McCarthy was just a demagogue and a drunk who was finally censured by the Senate for his egregious behavior.

      2. You also have the Trump-Roy Cohn-McCarthy connection for a trio of dirtbags.

    1. why be afraid of a second Spec counsel? at this point can’t trust any of those in the DOJ period. he won’t have to dig much, a lot is already out there on a lot of the subjects.

  9. Rosenstein cannot empower a special counsel beyond the scope of AG Sessions’ recusal.

    Any attempt to do so subverts the lawful powers of the AG. Sessions never refused himself from any investigation of financial crimes dealing with Ukraine, so Mueller’s mandate on that topic is unlawfully granted.

    1. You might wish that were so but…..Don’t bet the mortgage money.

    2. from the dateline established, looks like mueller goes out does things, then comes back to get validation after the fact. just what crime was he supposed to be investigating to start off with. There has to be a crime to establish a spec pros in the first place. Nobody has said.

  10. Well, I am waiting for some fun articles, because all this Muellar crap is a waste of time. Like arguing how many Democrats can fit on the head of a pin. Or was it how many Democrats are pin heads??? Whatever.

    I will just wait for some good articles because the whole Trump Collusion thing is a big nothing burger, and even the Democrats here know it. Which makes them liars and con artists when they pretend to believe all the bullsh*t. IMHO, why waste time in their Fantasy Reality? Here’s an interesting story:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/03/being-cash-free-puts-us-at-risk-of-attack-swedes-turn-against-cashlessness

    Or this,

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/azeenghorayshi/grindr-hiv-status-privacy?utm_term=.rl3PlOpqK#.ghzmQB0wq

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

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