#FBI withheld exculpatory evidence for FISA warrants

[jerseydeanne]

This is unbelievable!

IG Report: FBI Doctored Evidence To Falsely Paint Carter Page As Russian Spy

The Department of Justice’s inspector general found that a top FBI lawyer blatantly doctored evidence to falsely smear Carter Page as a Russian spy. DECEMBER 9, 2019 By 

Sean Davis and Mollie Hemingway

A wide-ranging investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) inspector general (IG) found that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) deliberately doctored evidence it presented to the nation’s top spy court in order to gain authority to spy on a key Trump affiliate.

The 476-page report from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz found that the FBI falsely claimed to the FISA Court not only that Carter Page was a Russian agent, but also falsely claimed that an unnamed intelligence agency had told the FBI that Page was “not a source” in their efforts to surveil and curtail Russian intelligence efforts.

Page, who had previously been an informant and witness 

for the United States in a federal espionage case against a Russian intelligence official

, was targeted by the Obama FBI as a Russian spy helping Putin to steal the election from Hillary Clinton in 2016. According to the IG report, before the FBI and DOJ went to the FISA Court to apply for a warrant to spy on Page, an unnamed U.S. intelligence agency had told the FBI that Carter Page had previously assisted that agency’s efforts against Russian spies. Although exculpatory information about potential spy targets is required in spy warrant applications, Obama’s FBI and DOJ deliberately withheld that information from the spy court in order to paint Page in the worst possible light.

The FBI’s malfeasance in the matter did not stop there. Ahead of an application to renew the spy warrant in 2017, a top FBI lawyer doctored evidence from the unnamed agency which confirmed that contrary to FBI claims that he was a Russian spy, Page had in fact assisted the United States in its efforts to counter Russian operations. An e-mail from the agency that clearly stated Page was “a source” for them was doctored by Kevin Clinesmith, a top FBI national security lawyer, to give the opposite impression to the federal spy court.

“The [Office of General Counsel] Attorney altered and sent the e-mail to a [supervisory special agent], who thereafter relied on it to swear out the third FISA application,” the IG report notes. Upon learning that a top FBI lawyer doctored evidence against a former Trump campaign affiliate to justify spying on him, the IG referred the attorney to DOJ for criminal prosecution.

Text messages from that same lawyer after the 2016 election revealed that he was an anti-Trump activist. “Viva la Resistance!” he texted on November 22, 2016, while in the midst of investigating Trump. He would later be terminated from the Mueller probe for conduct which a previous IG report said “brought discredit” to the FBI. Of FBI documents he approved authorizing spying on Trump campaign, Clinesmith wrote “[M]y god damned name is all over the legal documents investigating his staff.”

“[W]ho knows if that breaks to him what he is going to do,” Clinesmith continued, apparently worried about the ramifications of his illicit behavior against the Trump campaign. It is unclear whether he doctored evidence against Trump to protect his own career and reputation or simply because of anti-Trump animus. At the time, Clinesmith worked under James Baker, the FBI General Counsel who was a close confidant of fired former director James Comey. Baker was one of a slew of former deputies who resigned or were fired as the Russia collusion hoax imploded.

In his report, the Horowitz referred Clinesmith to DOJ authorities for criminal prosecution. Spanning more than 476 pages, the report cited countless examples of corruption and deceit committed by employees throughout the FBI and Department of Justice related to the Trump-Russia probe, confirming that the investigation against Trump was unusually aggressive, politically tainted, and bore no fruit. Despite its claims about Page being a traitorous Russian spy, the former Trump foreign policy affiliate was never charged with any wrongdoing since there was no evidence that he was working for the Russians.

A subsequent investigation by Robert Mueller similarly found zero evidence of treasonous collusion with Russia by Trump or his campaign to steal the 2016 election.

I suspect that it will keep getting worse for them as the night goes on. No wonder why MSM turned away from the Republican testimony to get ahead of this. 

Thank you anon, 🥰

[trueconservativepundit]

Congressman: FBI Withheld "Exculpatory" Evidence In Carter Page FISA Apps

Congressman: FBI Withheld “Exculpatory” Evidence In Carter Page FISA Apps

By Tim Brown

Well, there is no surprise here.  The federal government seems to be in the business of withholding exculpatory evidence.  Justice Department prosecutors did it in the Bundy Ranch trials, and it appears the FBI did it in Oregon concerning one of their own snipers lying about shooting at LaVoy Finicum in 2016.  Now, Congressman Devin Nunes (R-CA) says the FBI withheld exculpatory…

[americanmysticom]

FBI, State officials aware early on Steele made major mistake in Russia reporting

FBI kept silent about flaws in Steele reporting, one of which widely known.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/satfbi-state-officials-aware-early-steele-made-major

Shortly before the FBI used his dossier to secure a surveillance warrant targeting the Trump campaign, Christopher Steele met with State Department officials and relayed information suggesting Moscow was running an operation out of the Russian consulate in Miami.

There was just one problem with his intelligence: The Russians didn't have a consulate in Florida's largest city.

The anecdote, captured in contemporaneous memos and newly released testimony, illustrates just how bad some of Steele's intelligence reporting was and how widely that was known inside the FBI, even as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was being assured by the bureau that Steele was deemed credible and there was no derogatory information about his work.

Kenneth Laycock, the FBI's current Executive Assistant Director, was a section chief for Eurasian intelligence in fall 2016 when Steele made a visit to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec at the State Department.

During the October 2016 meeting, Steele admitted he was leaking to the news media while working as an FBI informant, a violation of his confidential human source agreement. (He later was terminated for it.) And he also relayed the anecdote about the Russian operation out of the Miami consulate, which officials immediately flagged as false, according to Kavalec's own notes of the meeting.

"It is important to note that there is no Russian Consulate in Miami," Kavalec wrote.

File

KavalecLessRedactedMemo.pdf

Laycock said Kavalec relayed her concerns to the FBI and that others working on the now-discredited Russia collusion investigation codenamed Crossfire Hurricane were also aware of Steele's mistake.

"Do you recall — just trying to jog your memory here in case you do recall — Ms. Kavalec conveying information to you that Steele conveyed to her information about a Russian consulate being located in Miami and that was an inaccurate assessment on Steele's part?" a Senate investigator asked Laycock in testimony taken last year but made public on Friday by the Senate Judiciary Committee,

"I recall a conversation about a consulate in Miami independent of what she had mentioned regarding what Mr. Steele said to her," Laycock answered.

File

Stephen Laycock Redacted FINAL.pdf

He added: "It came up in some other discussion regarding if there was a consulate in Miami, which we both knew is not true because we know where all the consulates and embassies are around the country. That's where I would handle normally in my purview as the  section chief of the Eurasia program. So when it came up in a discussion, it was like, we don't have a consulate in Miami."

He said FBI headquarters was aware of Steele's mistaken claim outside of Kavalec's report as well.

"Yes, independent of the Mr. Steele piece in here, it came up through other discussions," he testified.

The anecdote is just another piece of evidence of how much the FBI knew about the flaws in Steele's reporting but kept from the courts and Congress. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham said Friday the Russia collusion probe was "a massive system failure by senior leadership."

“I believe that Crossfire Hurricane was one of the most incompetent and corrupt investigations in the history of the FBI and DOJ," said Graham (R-S.C). "The FISA court was lied to. Exculpatory information was withheld on those being investigated. The investigators, with some notable exceptions, were incredibly biased and used the powers of law enforcement for political purposes."

Graham on Friday released nearly a dozen transcripts of interviews his committee did with key players in the Russia probe as a prelude to President Trump's expected declassification of a trove of FBI documents expected to show widespread abuses and failures in the probe.

Other testimonies released by Graham showed that a frontline FBI counterintelligence agent in the Russia probe initiated an "enhanced validation" review of Steele's credibility in the fall of 2016 but was stopped by superiors.

File

Supervisory Special Agent 1 Redacted FINAL.pdf

[sweetbamabelle]

I WANT YOU TO REMEMBER. 

THE ENEMY WANTS YOU TO FORGET: UNPUNISHED CORRUPTION AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 

Recently, while discussing the coronavirus pandemic, Rahm Emanuel the high-profile democrat party hack who served as Obama’s Chief of Staff and, subsequently, as Mayor of Chicago repeated his “never allow a crisis go to waste” catchphrase. This was the same quote he used during the 2008 financial crisis. 

Emanuel’s admonition has become his party’s mantra, not only because the disloyal, un-American, democrat party is literally praying the economic miseries resulting from COVID-19 closures and shutdowns will help defeat President Trump in November, but also because they are counting on YOU to remain frightened, uncertain and distracted ... DISTRACTED TO THE POINT OF FORGETTING their litany of INCONVENIENT TRUTHS that have been purposefully pushed to the periphery of the corrupt political landscape created by the Obama administration and hidden by a complicit media. 

These egregious breaches and violations of law, public trust and our Constitution remain unattended and unresolved ... all but lost, BORDERING ON BEING FORGOTTEN ... resulting in a democrat party and mainstream media “happy dance.”

THEY CONSIDER US TO BE DUNCES, STUPID, MINDLESS DEPLORABLES. SHEEPLE.

PLEASE DO NOT LOSE SIGHT OF THIS: The democrats and their complicit media lapdogs DO NOT WANT YOU TO REMEMBER THESE EGREGIOUS AND INCONVENIENT TRUTHS. 

I DO NOT WANT YOU TO FORGET. For this reason alone, I ASK AND URGE YOU TO SHARE THIS POST WITH ALL YOUR FB FRIENDS, ALL YOUR EMAIL CONTACTS, YOUR SENATORS AND YOUR CONGRESSMAN. Let them know YOU HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN and THAT YOU WILL NOT FORGET.

That which follows is a brief but fairly comprehensive list of CORRUPT GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES and but a few reminders of their egregious, corrupt acts that are purposefully being swept under a rug of COVID-19 hysteria ... an hysteria, that I posit is deliberately intended to control and distract us. 

OBAMA’S FBI DIRECTOR JAMES COMEY

• JUST REVEALED: Conspiratorial entrapment/set-up of General Michael Flynn

• Leaked documents to NYT triggering illegitimate Mueller Investigation of President Trump. 

• Too much more to even try to mention here. I am sure you know what I mean ... (and while Comey can’t be prosecuted for these deficiencies of character, he is nonetheless a pompous, arrogant SOB who considers himself morally, ethically and intellectually superior (to every U.S. citizen). He needs a “reality check.” IMO, Comey makes Bill Clinton look like a Choir Boy.

OBAMA’S CIA DIRECTOR JOHN BRENNAN

• Manic Trump hater turned-CNN spin doctor 

• Took politicized actions to pressure the intelligence community to adopt his 2017 conclusions with “high confidence” that Putin “ordered an influence campaign in 2016” and, Russia worked to “undermine public faith” in U.S. democracy, “denigrate” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and “harm her electability and potential presidency,” and “developed a clear preference” for Trump. 

• Ordered the counter-Intelligence investigation of the Trump Campaign.

• Leaked to the media MANUFACTURED BOGUS STEELE DOSSIER that was used to justify BOGUS illegally obtained FISA court warrants. A very dangerous precedent.

OBAMA’S DIRECTOR of NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: JAMES CLAPPER

• In March 2013, democrat Sen. Ron Wyden asked Clapper, under oath during a Senate Hearing, if the U.S. government was collecting “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.” Clapper paused and said, “No, sir. THIS WAS, AS IT HAS BEEN SHOWN, A FLAGRANT AND DELIBERATE LIE.

• He Lied to Congress About Leaking Details About the Steele Dossier: A report from the House Intelligence Committee published last May shared that Clapper had leaked to CNN’s Jake Tapper details of a briefing regarding the Christopher Steele dossier given to President Obama and then-President-elect Donald Trump. “Clapper flatly denied ‘discussing[ing] the dossier [compiled by Steele] or any other intelligence related to Russia hacking of the 2016 election with journalists,” the committee wrote. Clapper then backtracked when asked specifically about his discussions with Tapper. “Clapper subsequently acknowledged discussing the ‘dossier with CNN journalist Jake Tapper,’ and admitted that he might have spoken with other journalists about the same topic.”

• He Lied to Congress about His Communication with CNN

OBAMA’S DEPUTY FBI DIRECTOR ANDREW MCCABE

• Altered Interview Record used to indict General Flynn

• Leaked documents to the WSJ, lied to Federal investigators about having done so and when caught, apologized.

• Fired from FBI for lying on at least four documented occasions.

• In a 2019 interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper stated “I think it's possible” (that President Trump is a Russian asset). “I think that's why we started our investigation. And I’m really anxious to see where Director Mueller concludes that.”

• Referred to DOJ for criminal prosecution.

SENIOR FBI AGENT PETER STRZOK

• Collusion, conspiracy, lying to Congress

• Communicated via text messages about the FBI’s Insurance Policy against election of Donald Trump.

• At the center of FBI’s early “Russian Collusion” investgations of candidate Trump. 

OBAMA APPOINTED DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL, ROD ROSENSTEIN

• Signed off on a search warrant that deliberately withheld vital information from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). 

• Deliberately withheld embarrassing documents and information, knowingly hiding investigative information from Congress.

• Committed various abuses of the FISC/FISA process.

• Refused to comply with Congressional subpoenas.

• Under Rosenstein’s supervision, the DOJ and FBI intentionally hid from the FISC that the dossier was originally a political opposition research document paid for by the Clinton campaign.

CHRISTOPHER WRAY: DIRECTOR OF FBI

• Fought to prevent exculpatory evidence from surfacing in the case of President Donald Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

• New court documents were filed in Flynn’s case Friday, 1 May 2020 containing the aforementioned exculpatory evidence, commonly referred to as Brady Material. Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, announced the new filing on Twitter. Powell has repeatedly accused the FBI and Justice Department of hiding evidence in the case. That they did so is now public knowledge.

• Deliberately suppressed this evidence from the inception of this prosecution—knowing there was no crime by General Flynn.”

What then could have motivated these government employees to behave in such a reckless and intentionally deceitful manner? 

The answer is an affliction that is common to the elitists and the political class whenever it is handed virtually untrammeled power to order the lives of ordinary people: the authoritarian impulse and their inbred delusion that they know better than you and , that they are above the law. 

Thus, I implore any and all who have read this summary of egregious and unpunished corruption at the highest levels of OUR government to adopt “NEVER FORGET.” 

But beyond NEVER FORGETTING, it is each citizen’s responsibility to start screaming and to DEMAND THAT these Constitutional Traitors be charged/indicted, tried and if found guilty: Punished. 

The Establishment is relying upon your deafening silence. Will you surprise them? You have the power, by your sheer numbers to do so. 

Share. Write. Call ... Share. Write. Call ... and do not stop. 

Our very liberty depends on it. 

[opedguy]

Trump Slammed by Schiff on NBC News

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Jan. 26, 2020.--Speaking on NBC’s “Face the Nation” with Chuck Todd, 68-year-old lead impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) continued to rip 73-year-old President Donald Trump over a Tweet, saying Schiff has not “paid a price.”  Speaking to the anti-Trump Chuck Todd, Schiff said he felt threatened by the president, when Trump said nothing more than talking about the Schiff’s personal vendetta to get the president.  When Trump talks about Schiff paying a price, he’s referring to the consequences of conspiring against a duly elected president to oust him from office.  Trump views Schiff in the same way as former FBI Director James Comey, who authorized an illegal counterintelligence investigation into Trump and his campaign, lying to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act [FISA] Court to obtain warrants to wiretap Trump officials in the 2016 campaign.

            Comey denied spying on Trump, insisting he had “probable cause” to investigate Trump and his campaign for alleged Russian collusion.  Like Comey, Trump believes Schiff took the same liberties, covertly working with a so-called “whistleblower” to fabricate charges to impeach the president.  When the Mueller Report was released March 23, 2019, it cleared the president or anyone in his campaign of ties with Moscow to win the 2016 election.  Instead of accepting the results, Schiff and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerold Nalder (D-N.Y.) spent months combing through the Mueller Report to find anything impeachable.  Suddenly, Sept. 25, Schiff announces a “whistleblower” complaint accusing Trump of coercing 40-year-old Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on 77-year-old former Vice President Joe Biden and his 50-year-old son, Hunter.

            Schiff said that he had zero contact with the “whistleblower” before he released his complaint Sept. 25, 2019.  One week later, Schiff admitted Oct. 2, 2019 his office did have contact with the “whistleblower” before the complaint was released. Schiff changed his story when caught red handed, prompting concerns that he fabricated the complaint himself to get Trump impeached.  No one has heard from the “whistleblower,” not getting the real story on who crafted the complaint or, more importantly, whether Schiff concocted it.  That’s the context in which Trump asks if Schiff has “paid a price,” for fabricating evidence against the president, not, whether he’s threatening the congressman with unknown repercussions.  Yet Todd bated a willing Schiff into saying Trump threatened him.  “Do you take that as a threat,” Todd asked.  “I think it’s intended to be,” Schiff replied to Todd.

            Todd and other members of the anti-Trump press aren’t interested in what really happened with the “whistleblower,” just like they don’t want to know the egregious corruption at the Department of Justice, FBI and National Security Agence [NSA], all involved in illegally investigating Trump and his campaign.  Todd would never question whether or not Schiff helped write the “whistleblower” complaint.  When U.S. Atty. John Durham (R-Conn.) finishes his investigation for Atty. Gen. William Barr about the origins of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation against Trump and his campaign, Todd won’t report on the results it in implicates FBI wrongdoing.  Like Schiff, Todd’s committed to attacking the president, regardless of the facts.  If Schiff’s found to be culpable in a cover-up, fabricating the “whistleblower” complain tto get Trump impeached, Todd wouldn’t report on it.

            Trump didn’t “threaten” Schiff, he pointed out, like Comey and others now fired at the FBI, Schiff hasn’t been exposed for his extreme prejudice against the president.  “The President has a tendency to say things that seem threatening to people . . . .He really ought to get a grip and be a little more presidential,” said House impeachment manager Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.).. Lofgren also has no interest in hearing that U.S. government officials conspired to sabotage the Trump campaign, nor does she want to hear that Schiff helped prepare the “whistleblower” complaint. Lofgren’s statement actually exposes her extreme prejudice toward Trump, not wanting to hear anything exculpatory, especially about her fellow Democrats.  Lofgren know Trump didn’t threaten Schiff, he simply pointed out that if Schiff played dirty pool to get Trump, he should pay a price for his calculated subterfuge.

            Democrats think that having former National Security Adviser John Bolton testify would help their case against Trump.  They know Bolton has an ax to grind against Trump because of his unceremonious dismissal Sept. 10, 2019.  Even if Bolton testified that Trump withheld funds from Ukraine in exchange for information on the Bidens, his sworn testimony wouldn’t prove Trump’s motive. While the media talks about Joe Biden, there’s far more evidence Trump was interested in Hunter.  Last time anyone checked, Hunter’s not running for elective office, would be fair game.  Trump detractors in the media want to emphasize Trump seeking info on Joe but Trump was really more focused on Hunter.  Hunter, after all, made millions on Burisma Holdings’s board, a job he got through his father.  Democrats can’t prove that Trump tried to influence the 2020 presidential election.

About the Author  

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

"

[frankjanonson]

Tweeted

[6] counts. FBI agent [1][P] - FLYNN interview…….. If FISA warrant was ILLEGAL………. If FISA warrant predicated on ILLEGAL/UNCORROBORATED…….. If FISA 'actors' purposely withheld exculpatory evidence from the court…………. [Watch] what happens next. Qpic.twitter.com/GfdX1aHkxD

— SayIt⭐️⭐️⭐️OutLoud (@realTT2020) December 16, 2019

[patriotnewsdaily]

New Post has been published on PatriotNewsDaily.com

New Post has been published on http://patriotnewsdaily.com/lindsey-graham-systematic-corruption-guided-fbis-pursuit-of-trump-campaign/

Lindsey Graham: “Systematic Corruption” Guided FBI’s Pursuit of Trump Campaign

After a series of documents were obtained by Judicial Watch, proving that Justice Department official Bruce Ohr knew all about Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump bias before the FBI used his phony dossier to get a warrant against Carter Page, Sen. Lindsey Graham appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program to say that it was only the latest evidence that there was a plot within the Obama administration to bring Trump down.

“Here’s what’s we’re looking at,” said Graham. “Systematic corruption at the highest level of the Department of Justice and the FBI against President Trump and in favor of Hillary Clinton.”

Hannity asked Graham if he believed that DOJ officials intentionally lied to the FISA court so they could get their surveillance warrant on Page.

“The best you could say is that they were incompetent,” Graham replied. “The most likely outcome is that they wanted a result.”

The FISA court is somewhat like a grand jury, in that the defendant (Page, in this case) is not allowed to present evidence in his own defense. Clearly, this would defeat the purpose of the warrant in the first place; if a person knows they are about to be under federal surveillance, they are unlikely to commit any crimes. But with that advantage also comes a responsibility – it’s up to the FBI to present exculpatory evidence on the suspect’s behalf, so that the FISA court can make a fair determination about the need for a warrant. In this particular case, however, it appears the FBI went out of their way to shield evidence that would have made their request for a warrant seem ridiculous.

“I think the insurance policy is what we’re seeing here, getting into the Trump campaign,” Graham continued. “The FISA warrant against Carter Page was a fraud, I believe. The counter-intelligence investigation is something we have to look at very closely.”

Evidence that the FBI withheld from the FISA Court (or minimized):

That Steele had a passionate anti-Trump bias. This was known, according to the Judicial Watch documents, as early as September 2016, well before the FBI attempted to secure their first warrant based on Steele’s dossier.

That Steele was the sole source for a Yahoo News article around this time. Instead, the FBI used that story as independent corroboration for Steele’s claims, providing the dossier with the only real credibility it could have had (considering it has been proven almost wholly fictional at this point).

That Steele was paid by Fusion GPS, a firm which was funded by Perkins Coie, a law firm that worked for the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Graham said that if a Republican administration had acted against a Democratic campaign in this way, it would be all over the news.

“You couldn’t turn on your television,” Graham said.

But since it’s the other way around, the only attention the media gives it is to call it a “right-wing conspiracy theory.” And that’s if they ever mention it at all.

[ddbarton48]

2002, The Woods Procedure | 2019 FISA App Declassification

Director Mueller’s FBI was called out before the FISA Court for FBI abuse of its process. In obtaining secret warrants to spy on American citizens connected to foreign nationals, important exculpatory evidence and information was withheld from the court. In counter terrorism cases, possibly illegal and unjustifiable surveillance operations were the result.

The abuse started before Director…

[go-redgirl]

Mueller’s Big Problem: He Keeps Drawing Judges Who Have Read the Constitution DB Daily Update ^ | David Blackmon

Today’s Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends)

Tired of all this Winning yet? – There has been much cause for optimism lately as Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his evil band of Clinton/Obama hacks have repeatedly run into trouble when their cases must finally be heard in federal court.

Mueller’s people most famously had to endure a lecture from Federal Judge T.S. Ellis on May 4 when the judge lambasted them for basically lying to the court in an effort to claim their case against former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort has anything to do with the Special Counsel’s charge to investigate the Democrat/Media-constructed Russia Collusion fantasy. Their day before Judge Ellis became even worse when he demanded that they produce the memos from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that laid out the scope of their investigation, and do so by this coming Friday. The oily Mr. Rosenstein has fought tooth and nail to keep those memos confidential, on the specious grounds that they contain “classified” information. Oops.

The Mueller team had another major stumble in court the very next day, when Federal Judge Dabney Friedrich denied their motion for a delay in their absurd case against the Russian firm Concord Management. Concord is one of the 13 Russian entities that Mueller and his evil minions indicted back in February in a transparently dishonest effort to show their investigation has at least some tenuous connection to the whole Russia Collusion fantasy play.

To make matters even more Keystone Cop-ish, one of the Concord-related companies indicted by Mueller’s band of aspiring circus clowns, Concord Catering, did not even exist at the time the Mueller team claims it was engaged in social media shenanigans. Oops.

The catch in issuing those indictments, of course, was that the Mueller minions never expected to have to prosecute any of their specious charges, because they assumed none of the accused would actually show up in a U.S. court voluntarily. But Concord showed up, demanded the Court enforce their constitutional right to a speedy trial, and Judge Friedrich ordered the case to move forward. Oops.

Mueller’s case against former Trump National Security Advisor General Mike Flynn is also hanging on by a thread at this point. It has become increasingly obvious over the six months since Flynn entered his guilty plea to lying to the FBI that Mueller’s evil minions withheld exculpatory evidence that would likely clear Flynn of the charge. The tide in this case began to turn when it was taken over by Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan, who is well-known for his disdain for prosecutors who mislead the court. Oops.

The developments in all three of these cases clearly demonstrate the utterly dishonest nature of the Mueller “investigation.” Mueller’s operation is not an “investigation” at all: It is in fact the witch hunt that President Trump has repeatedly alleged it to be. Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of Mueller’s baseless appointment by Rosenstein, and in all that time Mueller and his ever-expanding team of witch-hunters have uncovered exactly zero evidence that anyone in the Trump Campaign or transition team colluded with any Russian to influence the 2016 election outcome.

The series of court setbacks are all very encouraging for those non-Democrats and non-fake journalists who have realized all along what a sham the entire Mueller enterprise has been. But we all need to take a little breath here and realize that all of these encouraging developments have come about largely due to the luck of the draw. The fact is that to this point, Mueller has suffered some very bad luck in terms of the judges who have been assigned to his cases.

Although a Clinton appointee to the federal bench, Judge Sullivan has long been well-known as a judge who forces both sides to adhere firmly to the rules of evidence and repect for the process. The case against General Flynn appeared to be a done deal under the original judge assigned to the case, Rudolph Contreras, an Obama appointee to the federal bench. Contreras was forced to recuse himself from the case in early December when it was publicly revealed that his is a FISA judge who likely signed off on one of the FISA warrants that gave the FBI authority to spy on the Trump Campaign in 2016. Contreras had no problem allowing Mueller to just do as he pleased.

Judge Ellis is a Reagan appointee. Judge Friedrich is a Trump appointee. Both judges have, inconveniently for Mueller and his evil minions, actually read the Constitution and hold a healthy respect for it. Had Mueller drawn Obama appointees in the Concord or Manafort cases, he’d likely not be having any problems in either case.

It’s key to note that judges are assigned to these cases on a random draw basis. Thus, to this point, Mueller has been extremely unlucky, given that there are more Clinton and Obama appointees populating the Virginia and Washington, DC federal bench – where Mueller’s grand juries are convened – than there are Reagan, Bush and Trump appointees.

We can’t count on that luck to continue. At some point Mueller will draw an Obama judge, and any notion of due process and constitutional protections for the defense will fly right out the window. Just something to think about as this mess keeps moving ahead.

Just another day in let’s hope Mueller’s bad luck continues America.

That is all.

Follow me on Twitter at @GDBlackmon