'No collusion' by Trump with Russia shown in new Cohen and Manafort court filings
By Hans A. von Spakovsky

No mention of Russian collusion in Mueller filings
Special Counsel Robert Mueller releases court filings on Paul

When he was appointed a Justice Department special counsel in May 2017, Robert Mueller was assigned the task of determining whether presidential candidate Donald Trump and/or members of the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to elect Trump president. New court filings Friday by Mueller and federal prosecutors in New York City leave this central question unanswered.

In 19 months, the Mueller probe has expanded again and again, taking an ever-widening look over many years at a broad range of activities by people associated with the Trump campaign or who had business dealings with Trump long before he moved into the White House.

Some crimes that people have been charged with or even admitted to have nothing to do with Trump, but rather pertain to wrongdoing or alleged wrongdoing by people with some association with him.

Unquestionably, this is a fishing expedition that has caught some fish. Mueller and his team of prosecutors have secured indictments, convictions and guilty pleas from people with some affiliation with Trump - but as yet, there is no "smoking gun" saying there was Trump-Russia collusion to defeat Hillary Clinton and install Trump in the Oval Office.

Will this evidence turn up in the future? The only honest answer those of us without inside information can give is that we don't know.

Much of Mueller's activities are cloaked in secrecy. Many of the documents he has filed in court have large amounts of information blacked out - "redacted" in legal terminology - so we have no idea what they say.

But we have to wonder: How long will this investigation go on? How wide a net will it cast? How far back in time will it go? How many more millions of dollars will it cost American taxpayers?

And finally, is the cloud the Mueller probe is casting over the Trump administration benefitting our nation, or simply weakening the president and preventing him from accomplishing the many things the American people elected him to do on our behalf?

The latest chapter in this long saga took place Friday when a sentencing memorandum was filed in U.S. District Court New York City by the Justice Department dealing with former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen.

Cohen earlier pleaded guilty to multiple counts of business and tax fraud. He also pleaded guilty to making an excessive contribution to the Trump campaign and to making false statements to Congress regarding unsuccessful efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
The sentencing memo for Cohen shows there is clearly no love lost between him and the Justice Department, despite his pleading guilty to the charges against him.

The Cohen memo was in sharp contrast to the sentencing recommendation that Mueller recently filed in the government's case against retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who served for 24 days as President Trump's national security adviser. That recommended little or no jail time.

But the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York asked the court to impose a "substantial term of imprisonment" against Cohen of about four to five years.

The recommendation reflects what the Justice Department document calls Cohen's "extensive, deliberate, and serious criminal conduct."

The Probation Department is recommending a sentence of 42 months in prison and a $100,000 fine for Cohen.
The sentencing memorandum castigates Cohen, saying he was "motivated by personal greed, and repeatedly used his power and influence for deceptive ends."

The four crimes Cohen pleaded guilty to - tax evasion, false statements to a financial institution, illegal campaign contributions, and false statements to Congress - were "marked by a pattern of deception that permeated his professional life (and was evidently hidden from the friends and family members who wrote on his behalf)."

In fact, Cohen's criminal conduct, according to the sentencing memo, strikes "at several pillars of our society and system of government: the payment of taxes; transparent and fair elections; and truthfulness before government and in business."

And finally, is the cloud the Mueller probe is casting over the Trump administration benefitting our nation, or simply weakening the president and preventing him from accomplishing the many things the American people elected him to do on our behalf?

The Justice Department accuses Cohen of seeking the "extraordinary leniency" of no prison sentence based on "his rose-colored view of the seriousness of the crimes" and his providing "certain information to law enforcement."
But the department downplays Cohen's cooperation with Special Counsel Mueller, calling Cohen's claim "overstated" and "incomplete."

In fact, the department says Cohen is not getting official recognition as a "cooperating witness." The sentencing memo says Cohen's providing of some information should be a "mitigating factor" but that he "repeatedly declined to provide full information about the scope of any additional criminal conduct in which he may have engaged or had knowledge."

This throws doubt on the idea that Cohen has secretly provided some kind of undisclosed information or evidence to the special counsel that bears on what is supposed to be the focus of Mueller's investigation: whether there was any unlawful collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials to change the outcome of the 2016 election.

Another interesting note in the sentencing recommendation is a statement by the Justice Department that indicates that Cohen greatly exaggerated his access to Trump. The department says that Cohen "secured a substantial amount of consulting business for himself" by claiming he had "unique insights and access to Individual-1," referring to Trump.

But while Cohen made millions of dollars from these consulting contracts, "his promises of insight and access proved essentially hollow" and he performed "minimal work," according to the sentencing memo. It also says Cohen "used sophisticated tactics to conceal his misconduct."

After a lengthy description of Cohen's crimes, the Justice Department says that his conduct "underscores the need for a substantial period of incarceration as a means to promote respect for the law and to deter future abuses by other individuals seeking improperly to influence the electoral process, evade taxes, or lie to financial institutions."

The department then spends eight pages explaining why the court should ignore Cohen's request for a sentence of time served, with no additional jail time, because in essence, Cohen thinks "he is above the laws reflected in his crimes of conviction."

Yet it cannot be emphasized enough that once again, as with prior documents filed by the Justice Department and the special counsel dealing with other defendants, there is no information in Cohen's sentencing memorandum about the issue of possible Trump-Russia election collusion.

Perhaps there is such material in whatever information Cohen gave to the special counsel in his debriefing meetings. We can only guess.
There were also new developments Friday in a separate case involving former Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort.

Mueller filed a document in U.S. District court in Washington outlining his claim that Manafort breached a plea agreement when he "told multiple discernible lies" to Mueller's office and the FBI that were "not instances of mere memory lapses."

Mueller says that Manafort met with the special counsel's office 12 times and was called before a grand jury twice.

Large portions of the filing are redacted, but Mueller contends that Manafort lied about his interactions with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian-Ukrainian political consultant who worked with Manafort.
Mueller also contends that Manafort lied about: a wire transfer of $125,000 to a firm working for Manafort; information "pertinent to another Department of Justice investigation;" and "Manafort's contact with Administration officials."

Manafort contends he has told the truth to Mueller.

Once again, with the extensive redactions, there is no way to tell whether any of these alleged false statements had anything to do with the Russian election collusion investigation. If Manafort contests the government's claims, as is likely, then the judge will hold a hearing where the special counsel says it will "prove the false statements."

If the judges in each of these cases adopt the government's recommendations and claims, Cohen will be facing a handful of years in prison and Manafort, 69, could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Manafort was convicted in August of eight counts of financial fraud and was facing another trial on additional felony charges when he agreed in September to plead guilty to two more felonies and to cooperate with Mueller's office.

What comes next? We simply don't know, because Mueller has not lifted the curtain hiding much of his activities. But as of now, from what we know on the public record, Mueller has failed to prove the Trump-Russia collusion that he was appointed to investigate 19 months ago.

-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

Hans A. von Spakovsky


HAHHAHAHAHAHAHA

Hans A. von Spakovsky

Who is Hans A. von Spakovsky:

A. Vladimir Putin's brother from another mother
B. Dutch speed skater
C. The guy in The Sound of Music
D. The stoner in Fast Times at Ridgemont High
E. Ruskie who had one too many Stolis.

No mention of Russian collusion in Mueller filings
Special Counsel Robert Mueller releases court filings on Paul

Funny that they didn't mention the links Cohen has provided. More wordsmithing bullshit.

-------------------------
I was right.

He hasn't provided ANY!

IDIOT!

-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

Hans A. von Spakovsky - LMFAO

-------------------------
QOP = Terrorists
FK = Gay

You can tell there's been some Mueller news lately.. FK is in full-on panic post mode.

-------------------------


Zzzzzzz.. Zzzzzzz.. Braaaaaapp!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

much of the print in the filings was, BLACKED OUT.

IDIOT.

FACT!

popcorn please.

All of it.

It makes zero sense.

Maybe Von Trapp drank the entire cask that was around the St. Bernard's neck?

He need to stick to yodeling in the Alps............RE-COL-A!!!!!!!!

What happened today is the president of the United States was implicated in at least two federal crimes, both of which are felonies.

It is a dark day for not only partisan, ethically challenged hacks like Spakovsky, who have to spin reality into something that makes idiots like Fish Killer feel okay.

It is also a dark day for our country. Somehow, our system allowed this scum, this lowest denominator of humanity, to hold the most powerful office on the planet.

This is much worse than the criminal Nixon and the unelected Bush, Jr. we should have seen it coming in 1972, but did nothing.
We should have seen it coming in 2000, but did nothing.

Hopefully, the silver lining to what looks like at least three years of this horeshittery will be found in a revision of our electoral system and national mindset.

"Hopefully, the silver lining to what looks like at least three years of this horeshittery will be found in a revision of our electoral system and national mindset. "

Here! Here!

-------------------------


Zzzzzzz.. Zzzzzzz.. Braaaaaapp!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

No he wasn't!
Liar!


-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

Mueller has dozens of sealed indictments,

-------------------------
"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

None with Trump's name on it.

Idiot!

-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

Do you understand what the word "sealed" means?

genius.

-------------------------
"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

The DOJ gave Mueller the green light to name Trump as the director and coordinator of Cohen's campaign finance crimes. "in coordination with and at the direction of" President Trump. The DOJ is saying Trump committed two felonies to help his election chances.

On the topic of conspiracy against the USA ("collusion"):

The filing says that in Nov. 2015, Cohen "received the contact information for, and spoke with, a Russian who claimed to be a 'trusted person' in the Russian Federation who could offer the campaign 'political synergy' and 'synergy on a government level.'"

Further, Mueller says Cohen also provided the special counsel information about "certain discrete Russia-related matters core to its investigation" that he obtained by being in contact with Trump Organization executives.

And documents Trump coordinating false testimony to Congress, etc.

Read the filing FK

Liar!

-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

Mueller already told Trump that he's not a criminal target.....

sooooooo.....

IDIOT!


-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

Mueller may abide by the unspoken rule that you can not indict a sitting president. Its not a law, its just an accommodation to the chaos and tumult that such an indictment would create. The process must start with impeachment and when the President is removed, the indictments will follow. And they will follow.

-------------------------

"One of the reasons why propaganda tries to get you to hate government is because it's the one existing institution in which people can participate to some extent and constrain tyrannical unaccountable power." Noam Chomsky.

During the midterms Trump was focused on senate races to retain and build a GOP majority to block his removal from office.

He won't be removed.

The best case scenario is he's a one term president.

Edit: Unless some damning audio or videotapes exist and are made public.

Edited: 12/09/2018 at 07:33 AM by theglide

^unhinged. forget 2020, trump needs to run NOW. LMFAO

-------------------------
QOP = Terrorists
FK = Gay

Against who?

LMFAWWO!

-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

Go straight to the source, Mueller's Cohen filing:

http://drive.google.com/file/d...WHZfTnlVVTRZVzAw/view

Yeah!

It's 100% grade 'A" BULLSHIT and says NOTHING!

FACT!

-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

Cohen admitted to the charge and is going to prison for it. A fact is a fact. Your opinion doesn't matter.

-------------------------
I was right.

Cohen LIED his ass off!

Mueller has accused Cohen (with PROOF) that he lied his ass off.

'He said she said' does NOT work in a court of law!

Fool!

-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

So what you're saying is, even if Cohen is telling the truth, you don't care if Trump is guilty because Cohen has been caught lying before. Got ya, duly noted.

How do you know if Cohen is telling the truth OR lying?

You dont!

You can't convict someone on the WORD of a known pathological LIAR!

Oh wait...YOU WOULD!

IDIOT!

Got any other proof?!?!

Didn't think so!

FOOL!@

-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

Edited: 12/10/2018 at 07:18 AM by Fish Killer

I'm asking what if. If cohen has proof, documents, recordings, witnesses etc., will you still defend your orange master?

A guy lied to give himself a prison sentence?

That's a new one.

-------------------------
I was right.

Also, a major portion of the documents were redacted. All we need to know is prosecutors are confident "Individual 1" is implicated in two felonies. Prosecutors don't go be he said she said.

One has to commit an actual ILLEGAL offense to get charged.

What Cohen ILLEGALLY did was NOT illegal for Trump to do!

You do know that...right?!?!

Bet not cause you're an IDIOT!




-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

I'll take that as a yes to my question. Felonies are illegal acts FYI.

Listen IDIOT....better look up what Cohen is CHARGED with...and apply it to a candidate running for office!

The laws for lawyers (with clients...campaign laws) and for private citizens are COMPLETLY different!

One other thing there moron.....how do you account for the MILLIONS of TAX PAYER dollars member of congress spent to pay off their illegal sexual conduct?

Thats NOT their personal money...they used MY money to pay off illegal sex situations!

FOOL!

-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

Edited: 12/10/2018 at 09:58 AM by Fish Killer

The only fool here listens to and spams opinion columns from hacks and tidbits from said articles that do not pertain to reality at all. You call me a fool, you call federal prosecutors fools. Keep believing your Russian op ed pieces. Reality will play out regardless of your beliefs...

Screw OPINION!

Look up the LAW!

Idiot!

-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

Funny coming from a guy that posts nothing but opinion pieces written by Russian trolls and US hacks.

Butina just requested a change of plea hearing. More dirt to come....

Liar!

-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

Cillian Zeal....

Pathological Liar!

-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

Yes you are. Via your recent posts and replies we have confirmed you are one.

Pathological LIAR!

-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

The guy lied to give himself a prison sentence.

FK, please explain.

-------------------------
I was right.

The guy lied to get a LESSER sentence!

His crimes AREN'T just the two he tried to implicate someone else in!

FUCKING IDIOT!

-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

Edited: 12/10/2018 at 07:47 PM by Fish Killer

LOL x 5!!!!

Personally, I would lie to get no jail time. Trump sure sucks at picking lawyers.

Great Baby Jesus you are a moron.



-------------------------
I was right.

Edited: 12/10/2018 at 07:48 PM by Cole

His crimes are MANY....IDIOT!



-------------------------
The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.