[View here as a Twitter thread]
Incredibly enough, people still say Mueller has turned up “no evidence” of TrumpRussia crimes
The comment is so absurd it shouldn’t even require an answer.
This is for easy argument settling and re-tweeting.
So here we go: a quick trip through the court findings, plea agreements, and indictments.
1/ First, a comment about “facts” and “evidence.”
In my world (appellate law) facts are those found by a court. This includes facts sworn in plea agreements.
A prosecutor who alleges a fact alleges s/he has evidence to prove the fact beyond a reasonable doubt.
2/ So for “evidence” I’ll restrict myself to court findings, plea agreements, and facts alleged in indictments.
To keep the goalposts in the right place, recall Mueller’s mandate, which is to investigate the “Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.”
3/ The mandate also includes “links and/or coordination” between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Here’s the court transcript where a judge made a finding that Trump’s campaign manager, Manafort “deliberately lied to shield his Russian conspirator.” See p. 27.
4/ This means Manafort had a Russian conspirator.
The judge also said Manafort’s lies raise questions about where his loyalties lie.
The “conspiring” happened on Aug. 2, 2016, during the campaign, while Manafort was working as Trump’s campaign manager.
5/ In this plea agreement Papadopoulos swore under oath that he learned the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails” — while he was serving as national security advisor on the Trump campaign.
6/ He also swore that he met with a Russian woman with connections to the “Russia Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” and that he continued communicating with her, and kept the campaign informed about this “outreach to Russians.”
Links/and or coordination?
7/ From Michael Flynn’s plea agreement: Flynn (a Trump campaign official) was instructed by another Trump campaign official to secretly negotiate with Russians in December of 2016 while Obama was still president.
More “links and/or coordination”?
8/ Richard Pinedo, an American, pleaded guilty to stealing the identities of Americans and selling hundreds of bank accounts to Russia to help them infiltrate the American electorate.
There. An American pleaded guilty to a crime in 2016. With Russians.
9/ Alex van der Zwaan pleaded guilty to communicating with Gates, a Trump campaign official, and “Person A” [Konstantin Kilimnik, who of course, has ties to Russian intelligence.]
Gates + Trump Campaign member + Russian Government official.
They conspired with persons “known and unknown” to the Grand Jury.
11/ Gates, in his guilty plea admitted to defrauding the US and committing crimes through 2017—while Gates helped lead the Trump campaign and transition.
Are any members of the GOP still bothered by crimes?
12/ Michael Cohen also committed a campaign finance violation in 2016 at Trump’s direction.The “at Trump’s direction” was offered under oath in court.
There you go. Trump implicated in a campaign crime.
13/ The whopper indictment is the Viktor Borisovich Netyksho indictment alleging that Russian military officials hacked Democrats and weaponized stolen emails. Notice the “military” part.
Dear GOP: Does that bother you at all?
14/ Now we have Roger Stone, another Trump pal, connected to the Netyksho case.
The court rules require the prosecutor, when filing an indictment, to notify the clerk if there’s a “related” case pending before the court.
15/ One way two cases can be related is if the evidence comes from the same wiretaps or search warrant.
When Special Counsel filed Stone’s indictment, he designated Stone’s case as related to the pending U.S. v. Netyksho—the Russian hacking case.
16/ The Netyksho indictment alleges (among other things) that the Russian hackers conspired with persons “known and unknown to the grand jury” to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.
All the Netyksho defendants are employed by Russian intelligence(GRU).
17/ Roger Stone naturally didn’t want his case designated as “related” to the Russian hacking case, so his lawyers filed an objection to having his case designated as related to the Netyksho case.
18/ Among other things, he argued that his alleged crimes and the Russian hacking occurred a year apart, so the cases were “unlikely” to have arisen from the same wiretap or search warrant.
Special Counsel filed a response and revealed a few new facts:
19/ Special Counsel tells us that in fact, the evidence against Stone and the evidence against the Russians DID come from the same search warrants.
“In particular,” SC says, “evidence in this case was found in accounts that were subject to search warrants executed in Netyksho.”
20/ Oops. So Mueller’s search warrants into the Russian hackers turned up evidence about Stone. That doesn’t bode well for Stone.
Special Counsel also argues that the cases are related because Stone is accused of obstructing an investigation into the Russian Netyksho hacking.
21/ These cases are just getting started, and much is redacted.
There are bombshells under the reactions. How do I know? Read about “it” here.
22/ Mueller’s mandate was to find evidence of Russian interference in the election and “links and/or coordination” between Russians and the Trump campaign.
The only reason we have to “connect dots” is because the redactions haven’t (yet) been removed.
Don’t worry. They will be.
