Mueller Just Got Served.
The Department of Justice appears to be hiding Special Counsel Robert Mueller's budget
from the American people.
Among other hidden things that are now coming to light, Mueller has some 17 lawyers many
of which have direct ties to either the Clintons or the Obamas, digging into President Donald
Trump and his administration and associates with virtually no oversight.
The Washington Post reported that Mueller submitted a proposed budget to the Justice
Department, "but officials declined to make the document public and committed only to
releasing reports of the team's expenditures every six months."
This is a departure from the usual protocol, as even WaPo notes "When Patrick J. Fitzgerald,
at the time a U.S. attorney, was appointed as special counsel to investigate the leak
of the identity of CIA Officer Valerie Plame, the U.S.
Government Accountability Office audited his expenditure statements every six months and
released them publicly."
Given that lack of oversight, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) concerning the budget and administrative
records of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in
the 2016 election.
Judicial Watch is led by attorney Tom Fitton and is an American conservative activist and
watchdog group that files Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits to investigate potential
misconduct by government officials.
The case is known as Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice with a case number of
1:17-cv-02079 in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
The lawsuit was originally filed after the Department of Justice failed to respond to
a July 10, 2017, FOIA request seeking the following information:
A copy of the budget prepared and submitted by Robert S. Mueller III or his staff in his
capacity as appointed "Special Counsel to oversee the previously-confirmed FBI investigation
of Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and related
matters."
Temporal scope of this request is from 17 May 2017 to 10 July 2017.
A copy of all guidance memoranda and communications by which the Justice Management Division will
review the Special Counsel's Office's "Statement of Expenditures" prior to or
for the purpose of making each public.
Temporal scope of this request is from 1 June 2017 to present.
A copy of each document scoping, regulating, or governing the Special Counsel's Office
appointed under the leadership of Mueller III.
Temporal scope of this request is from 17 May 2017 to present.
According to Tom Fitton, in an op-ed via TheHill.com:
"Three suspicious activities stand out, all intertwined: The so-called Comey Memos,
Comey's controversial testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee and Comey's
book deal.
After Comey was fired by President Trump on May 9, 2017, he arranged to give the New York
Times a Feb. 14, 2017 memorandum he had written about a one-on-one conversation with Trump
regarding former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
The New York Times published a report about the memo on May 16, 2017.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed the following day.
On June 8, 2017, Comey testified under oath before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, where he stated he authored as many as nine such memos.
Regarding the Flynn memo, Comey admitted: "I asked a friend of mine to share the content
of the memo with a reporter [for The New York Times].
I didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons, but I asked him to because I thought that
might prompt the appointment of a special counsel."
Comey also testified about President Trump's firing of him, and he detailed multiple conversations
with President Trump, during which Comey confirmed he told President Trump three times that he
was not a target of investigation.
Judicial Watch is pursuing numerous FOIA lawsuits relating to Comey's memoranda and FBI exit
records as well a lawsuit for Justice Department communications about Comey's Senate testimony.
The American people deserve to know what, if any, complicity his former colleagues had
in drafting that testimony and/or in engineering the appointment of Robert Mueller.
The day before Comey's testimony, Fox News reported: "A source close to James Comey
tells Fox News the former FBI director's Senate testimony has been 'closely coordinated'
with Robert Mueller…".
Comey may have violated the law in leaking his official FBI memos to the media, and it
would be a scandal if Comey coordinated his Senate testimony with Mr. Mueller's special
counsel office.
That we have had to sue in federal court to discover the truth speaks volumes.
The FBI has built a protective stonewall around Comey by refusing to release the Comey Memos
and refusing to disclose records of communications between the FBI and Comey prior to and regarding
Comey's testimony before the Senate Intel Committee.
Since his forced departure from the FBI, Comey signed a book deal in August 2017, set for
publication in April 2018, for which he reportedly received an advance in excess of $2 million.
Given the fact that the FBI appears to be letting Comey get away with stealing and leaking
official government documents and colluding with the special counsel to get Trump, even
a trusting person must be suspicions about his book deal.
The FBI has fanned those suspicions by, you guessed it, adding a new layer to the protective
stonewall around Comey.
Again, Judicial Watch has been forced to sue a recalcitrant FBI for records, including
but not limited to forms Comey was required to complete relating to prepublication review
of the book by the FBI.
Did Comey's associates give the fired FBI director a pass on this long-standing requirement?
Is that why they are stonewalling the Judicial Watch FOIA?
Based upon Comey's performance to date, this book likely will be an elaborate exercise
in self-apotheosis.
That's why the American public deserves to know if Comey's former colleagues — many
of whom we now know aided in his exoneration of Hillary Clinton and have participated in
the contrived investigation of Donald Trump – scrutinized his literary claims or simply
green-lighted his every word.
There is no doubt that the deep state is in deep cover-up mode.
The FBI, Justice Department and the special counsel all are stonewalling our requests
for Comey documents.
The more they stonewall, the deeper the suspicions grow about Comey's complicity in the entire
attempt to use the bogus Trump dossier to prevent the election of Donald Trump, and
then use it to undermine his presidency once he was elected to office.
In my experience in Washington, when people refuse to come clean, it is usually because
they are hiding dirty laundry."
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