Three new investigations from the Mueller probe

Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, has referred three investigations into possible illicit foreign lobbying by Washington insiders to federal prosecutors in New York who are already handling the case against President Trump’s former lawyer, according to multiple people familiar with the cases."

The cases cut across party lines, focusing on both powerful Democratic and Republican players in Washington, including one whom Mr. Trump has repeatedly targeted — the Democratic superlobbyist Tony Podesta. [...] [The cases] represent a challenge to Washington’s elite, many of whom have earned rich paydays lobbying for foreign interests.

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All three cases are linked to Paul Manafort.

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The cases involve Gregory B. Craig, who served as the White House counsel under President Barack Obama before leaving to work for the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; former Representative Vin Weber, Republican of Minnesota, who joined Mercury Public Affairs, a lobbying firm, after leaving Congress; and Tony Podesta, a high-powered Washington lobbyist whose brother, John D. Podesta, was the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

[...]

The Podesta Group, Mr. Podesta’s firm; Mercury Public Affairs, where Mr. Weber worked; and Skadden, where Mr. Craig practiced, were all recruited by Mr. Manafort to assist with his work in Ukraine on behalf of that country’s president at the time, Viktor F. Yanukovych, who was considered a Kremlin ally.

But two of the firms — the Podesta Group and Mercury Public Affairs — were retained through a nonprofit group in Brussels, the European Center for a Modern Ukraine. The nonprofit was directed by Mr. Manafort, and the firms lobbied in Washington on behalf of the nonprofit for what Mr. Manafort billed as Mr. Yanukovych’s efforts to move Ukraine into the West.

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The firms retroactively registered to lobby for foreigners with the Justice Department in 2017. The Podesta Group collapsed in part because of the scrutiny from the case.

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The three men have not been charged with any crimes.

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All three men were informed in the late winter or early spring that Mr. Mueller was handing off the investigations to prosecutors in New York.

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Under American law, anyone who lobbies or conducts public relations on behalf of a foreign interest in the United States must register with the Justice Department. The law carries stiff penalties, including up to five years in prison. But it had rarely been enforced, and thus widely ignored, until recently.

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[I]t was unclear why the jurisdiction for the lobbying cases was changed. Unlike Mr. Cohen’s business, which was based in New York, the lobbying took place in Washington, though payments for the work from overseas most likely flowed through New York.

  NYT

Normal people might think the fact that two of the three included for investigation are Democrats cuts down Trump's partisan witch hunt claims.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Gates to plead guilty

President Trump’s one-time campaign aide Richard Gates has told family and close friends in a letter sent this morning he plans to plead guilty Friday in the special counsel’s criminal case against him, setting up the potential for Gates to become the latest well-informed Trump insider to assist in the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential contest, according to sources close to the matter.

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Despite speculation for weeks that Gates was close to or had made a deal, the source told ABC News, a deal with the special counsel’s team did not come together until the middle of this week, and prior to that deal it had looked unlikely.

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Gates has for weeks been vacillating between fighting the charges and pleading guilty, and remained undecided through much of this week, according to the sources.

  ABC News

Plus he brought on new counsel and tried to dump the old ones. I wonder if he, himself, or Manafort (or Trump) held out hoping to resist or be pardoned, and Mueller finally got tired of the game.

In the letter obtained by ABC News, Gates writes to family and friends “despite my initial desire to vigorously defend myself, I have had a change of heart,” Gates explained. “The reality of how long this legal process will likely take, the cost, and the circus-like atmosphere of an anticipated trial are too much. I will better serve my family moving forward by exiting this process.”

Not to mention the evidence against him in some very serious charges of bank fraud and money laundering.

“The consequence is the public humiliation, which at this moment seems like a small price to pay for what our children would have to endure otherwise,” Gates said in his letter.

Haha. Public humiliation would be the least of their problems if daddy went to jail as a convicted money launderer.

The exact terms of the deal are still unclear. The special counsel’s office declined to comment.

They never do.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Regarding the stuttering, confusing recent reports surrounding removal of Gates' lawyers, a Southpaw Twitter thread indicates that Gates apparently lied to Mueller's team on February 1.  If that's true, it would certainly explain why his lawyers would want out - maybe he wasn't trying to dump them.

Here's the superseding criminal information document pleading that was filed today in accordance with a guilty plea by Gates.  It's rough, but less than that monster 32-count charge we were looking at a couple of days ago.  This charge has two counts: conspiracy against the United States and false statement.  I wonder what deal he got in return.  And what information on Trump he has that he'll give to Mueller.  And whether Manafort will want to cooperate now to get some sort of deal for himself.

Here's the false statement count:




Fairly confusing, but I think it's saying in essence Manafort didn't tell Gates there was no discussion of Ukraine, but he did tell him that he told his FARA lawyer there had been no discussion of Ukraine, which I assume is admitting Manafort lied to his FARA lawyer.

I don't even know why I'm trying to figure this shit out.

The member of Congress mentioned is Dana Rohrabacher.  I assume he's going to get measured for an orange jumpsuit before all this is over. Former congressman John V. "Vin" Weber is also tangled in this Ukraine lobbying mess. I don't know where he falls into the criminality of it all, but it looks like he was also lobbying for Ukraine with Manafort, both of whom made a $1,000 campaign contribution to Rohrabacher "in connection with their lobbying."

There is no indication Rohrabacher is under investigation by the FBI or the House and Senate committees looking into what happened, but his name keeps popping up in connection to key figures and events in the investigation.

  LA Times

Which is a pretty fair hint that, if he's not under investigation, he will be.

He had this to say about that March 2013 meeting:

Rohrabacher said in an interview the meeting happened over dinner at the Capitol Hill Club, a popular Washington Republican social club. He said Manafort billed it as a chance to get reacquainted decades after they worked together in the 1970s on President Reagan’s campaign. Still, he assumed Manafort had an agenda.

“I assume when old friends call me up and are wanting to get reacquainted and stuff I always assume they are in some way under contract with somebody,” Rohrabacher said. “We discussed a myriad of things, a lot of personal stuff, a lot of different analysis of the politics of the day. It was a nice little dinner.”

Innocent.

Manafort didn’t file as a foreign agent with the Justice Department, or disclose the dinner, until he came under scrutiny during the Russia investigation.

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During a congressional trip to Russia in 2016, Rohrabacher and his longtime friend and employee Paul Behrends met privately with high-ranking Russian justice officials.

At the time, Congress was considering expanding the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which prevented Russians believed to be involved in certain human rights abuses from traveling to the United States or spending money in the country.

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They wanted Rohrabacher to cast doubt on what had happened to Magnitsky, and try to at least get Magnitsky’s name removed from the law.

Politico also reported that Rohrabacher huddled with Russian American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya while he was in Moscow, a meeting Rohrabacher hasn’t confirmed. The pair later went on to lead lobbying efforts against the expanded Magnitsky Act when Rohrabacher returned to Washington.

And the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Junior.

Rohrabacher has now been accused of violating the Russian sanctions he fought against by the man who convinced Congress to approve them.

In a complaint filed with the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, Browder alleged that by getting information from Grin — one of the Russians sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act — and using it to try to change U.S. law, “Rohrabacher’s and Behrends’ reported actions thus provided services to one of the central figures targeted by the Magnitsky Act.”

Such complaints are most commonly made about the actions of big banks or private citizens, not a sitting member of Congress.

In a statement responding to the complaint, Rohrabacher said, “anyone who knows me understands that I am the member of Congress least likely to take directions from government officials, especially foreign government officials.”

We're going to have to build a new prison to hold all these crooks. Or send them to Guantánamo.

UPDATE:






UPDATE 8/1:

Mueller has referred three cases of "possible illicit foreign lobbying" to the SDNY for investigation: Vin Weber, Tony Podesta and Greg Craig.