USA: Russian Investigation: Analysis: Mueller is about to take a big step closer to Trump - by Philip Bump

To date, four people have pleaded guilty to charges brought against them by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his team. Two were ancillary characters: a businessman who apparently sold bank account numbers to Russian trolls; and a lawyer who had worked with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his longtime partner Rick Gates.

Two were closer to the campaign. One is campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, whose connections to Russia-linked characters helped spur the initial investigation in July 2016 into whether President Trump’s campaign had aided Russian interference efforts. And then there’s Michael Flynn, a campaign aide who wound up as Trump’s national security adviser. Both Papadopoulos and Flynn have apparently agreed to work with Mueller’s team in its investigation, but it’s not clear how much either knew about what the campaign was doing. Flynn’s role was the same on paper as Papadopoulos’s, but he was clearly closer to Trump.

Read more:Analysis: Mueller is about to take a big step closer to Trump

USA: GOP Coup D'état ?; GOP releases memo criticizing FBI surveillance to get Trump off the hook in Russian Collaboration investigation

Trump's three GOP Stooges trying to stop Russian investigation

A GOP memo alleging surveillance abuses by the FBI has been released, intensifying a fight between the White House and Republican lawmakers, on one side, and the nation’s top law enforcement agency over whether the origins of a probe into Russian interference in 2016 were tainted by political bias.

The four-page, newly declassified memo by Donald Trump and written by the Republican staffers for the House Intelligence Committee said the findings “raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain (Justice Department) and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC),’’ calling it “a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process.’’

The memo accuses former officials who approved the surveillance applications — a group that includes former FBI Director James B. Comey, his former deputy Andrew McCabe, former deputy attorney general Sally Yates and current Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein — of signing off on court surveillance requests that omitted key facts about the political motivations of the person supplying some of the information, Christopher Steele, a former intelligence officer in Britain.

The memo says Steele “was suspended and then terminated as an FBI source for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations — an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI.’’

It must be noted  that the memo is not an intelligence document and reflects information the committee has gathered, which Democrats, the FBI and Justice Department have criticized as incomplete and misleading. Current and former law enforcement officials said a major concern inside the FBI is that the rules governing classified information will impede their ability to respond to the memo’s accusations when it becomes public.

Several legal experts around the US are openly stating that this is a flagrant attempt by the GOP( (Republican Party) to get President Trump off the hook in relation to the Russian investigation, where the evidence is pointing more and more to President Trump and his election team's direct involvement in collaborating with the  Russians. 

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) released a statement Friday slamming recent efforts to discredit the integrity of U.S. intelligence agencies. "The latest attacks on the FBI and Department of Justice serve no American interests — no party, no president's, only [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's," McCain wrote.

"I fear [Russia] succeeded in fueling political discord and dividing us from one another," McCain wrote, referencing the ongoing investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. "The American people deserve to know all of the facts surrounding Russia's ongoing efforts to subvert our democracy, which is why [the FBI's Russia] investigation must proceed unimpeded." He continued: "If we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin's job for him."

USA: Russian investign: Mueller indicates he will likely seek interview with Trump - by Carol Leonnig

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has raised the likelihood with President Trump's legal team that his office will seek an interview with the president, triggering a discussion among his attorneys about how to avoid a sit-down encounter or set limits on such a session, according to two people familiar with the talks.

Mueller brought up the issue of interviewing Trump during a late December meeting with the president's lawyers, John Dowd and Jay Sekulow. Mueller deputy James Quarles, who oversees the White House portion of the special counsel investigation, also attended.

The special counsel's team could interview Trump very soon on some limited portion of questions — possibly within the next several weeks, according to a person close to the president who was granted anonymity to describe internal conversations.

"This is moving faster than anyone really realizes," the person said, who said Trump is comfortable participating in an interview and believes it would put to rest questions about whether his campaign coordinated with Russia in the 2016 election.

However, the president's attorneys are reluctant to allow him to sit down for open-ended, face-to-face questioning without clear parameters, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

Since the December meeting, they have discussed whether the president could provide written answers to some portion of the questions from Mueller's investigators, as then-President Ronald Reagan did during the Iran-contra investigation. They have also discussed the obligation of Mueller's team to demonstrate they could not obtain the information they are seeking without interviewing the President.
Dowd and Sekulow declined to comment.

In a statement, Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer overseeing the administration's response to the Mueller investigation, said "the White House does not comment on communications with the OSC out of respect for the OSC and its process," referring to the special counsel's office.

"The White House is continuing its full cooperation with the OSC in order to facilitate the earliest possible resolution," Cobb added.

Read more: Mueller indicates he will likely seek interview with Trump

USA: ‘Fake news’? The Russia investigation is getting very, very real - by Amber Phillips

President Trump keeps calling the Russia investigation ‘fake news.’ But with each passing week, the independent investigation into Trump's campaign ties to Russia is getting more real, not less.

It's expanding, both in size and scope. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has built a team of lawyers who have expertise in cybercrime, white-collar crime, the mob, money laundering and Watergate. Together, his team has more than a century of legal experience.

The Justice Department's No. 2, Rod J. Rosenstein, originally appointed Mueller to investigate Trump campaign connections to Russia, but Mueller has wide latitude to look into whatever he wishes. So far, we know that's expanded to: Jared Kushner, Michael Flynn, unspecified financial crimes and very specific accusations by the former FBI director that Trump himself tried to obstruct justice.

Read more: ‘Fake news’? The Russia investigation is getting very, very real. - The Washington Post

USA: White House: Trump fires FBI director Comey while he is investigating Trump-Russian link

President Donald Trump on Tuesday fired FBI Director James Comey in a shock development, saying Comey was no longer able to effectively lead the agency.

"It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission," he said in a letter to Comey released by the White House.

Read more: Trump has fired FBI director Comey - White House