THIS JUST IN: Senate Finance Committee launches bipartisan investigation into conservative think tank over Maria Butina meetings with senior U.S. administration officials in 2015.

Story TK
https://twitter.com/timkmak/status/1096522900599959553

Just out: Mueller says that in Russian hacker investigation, several search warrants were executed "on accounts that contained Stone’s communications with Guccifer 2.0 and with Organization 1" (WikiLeaks). Warrants discussed further in sealed addendum


"The defendant's false statements did not arise in a vacuum," Mueller team writes. Made in the course of an investigation of "possible links" between Russian individuals, WikiLeaks, and US persons (including Stone)
https://twitter.com/awprokop/status/1096522172753948672

Big scoop by @PamelaBrownCNN: Sarah Sanders has been interviewed by Mueller

https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1096503674157772800

National Enquirer Publisher Asked Justice Department for Advice on Saudi Connection

American Media inquired about having to register as foreign agent after publishing glossy magazine promoting Saudi Arabia and its new crown prince

(I'm not a member, so that all I can copy & paste...)

More: https://www.wsj.com/articles/national-enquirer-publisher-asked-justice-department-for-advice-on-saudi-connection-11549908996

McCabe: Rosenstein wrote Comey memo under duress

The White House directed the firing of former FBI Director James Comey in a manner that left Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein "shaken" over his role in Comey's ouster, according to a new book.

In "The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump," former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe writes that Rosenstein was deeply uncomfortable over Comey's firing and told him at the time that the move "wasn't his idea," according to excerpts obtained by The Guardian.

“He said it wasn’t his idea. The president had ordered him to write the memo justifying the firing,” McCabe writes.

“There’s no one here that I can trust,” he quotes Rosenstein as saying, according to The Guardian.

More: https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/429149-mccabe-rosenstein-wrote-comey-memo-under-duress

National Enquirer’s AMI Scrutinized Over Bezos Story, Sources Say

Federal prosecutors are reviewing the National Enquirer’s handling of its story about Jeff Bezos’ extramarital affair to determine if the company violated an earlier cooperation deal with prosecutors, according to two people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News reports.

Prosecutors in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office were provided with information about key exchanges concerning Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com Inc., who went public in a jaw-dropping public blog post Thursday night. In it, Bezos detailed exchanges with American Media Inc. and accused the company of extortion.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-08/national-enquirer-s-ami-scrutinized-over-bezos-story-sources-say?utm_medium=social&utm_content=politics&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-politics

Mueller Probes an Event With Nunes, Flynn, and Foreign Officials at Trump’s D.C. Hotel

Devin Nunes has been a pitbull for the president, growling at the prosecutors investigating Trumpworld. Now an event that Nunes himself attended is under Mueller’s microscope.

The Special Counsel’s Office and federal prosecutors in Manhattan are scrutinizing a meeting involving former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, one-time National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and dozens of foreign officials, according to three sources familiar with the investigations.

The breakfast event, which was first reported by The Daily Sabah, a pro-government Turkish paper, took place at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. at 8.30 a.m. on Jan. 18, 2017—two days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration. About 60 people were invited, including diplomats from governments around the world, according to those same sources.

The breakfast has come under scrutiny by federal prosecutors in Manhattan as part of their probe into whether the Trump inaugural committee misspent funds and if donors tried to buy influence in the White House. The existence of that probe was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The Special Counsel’s Office is also looking at the breakfast as part of its investigation into whether foreigners contributed money to the Trump inaugural fund and PAC by possibly using American intermediaries, as first reported by The New York Times. Robert Mueller’s team has asked Flynn about the event, according to two sources familiar with the Special Counsel’s Office questioning.

Nunes, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, has been perhaps Trump’s most important congressional ally over the last two years. After serving on Trump’s transition team, Nunes became a vigorous defender of the president against federal and congressional inquiries. The California Republican pushed a misleading memo alleging misconduct in the FBI investigation of Trump’s associates that the bureau said contained “material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

Now Nunes—a key figure behind the right-wing counter narrative that Trump is at the mercy of a “Deep State” conspiracy—finds at least one meeting that he himself attended under the special counsel’s scrutiny.

More: https://www.thedailybeast.com/mueller-probes-an-event-with-nunes-flynn-and-foreign-officials-at-trumps-dc-hotel

New York prosecutors seek records from Trump inauguration committee: Sources

Another probe that could hamstring the president and his lawyers is widening.

Prosecutors in New York’s Southern District have reached out to President Donald Trump’s inauguration committee and plan to subpoena the organization for documents, sources with direct knowledge tell ABC News, indicating that even as the special counsel probe appears to be nearing an end, another investigation that could hamstring the president and his lawyers is widening.

The contact from the Southern District, which came from its public corruption section, is the latest activity focusing on Trump’s political fundraising both before and immediately after his 2016 election. Lawyers for the inauguration committee were contacted midday Monday and asked if they could accept a subpoena for documents from federal prosecutors, according to sources familiar.

The details of the request remain unclear.

Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen has been extensively interviewed by prosecutors in the Southern District office. Longtime family accountant and Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg has agreed to cooperate, though the extent of his help is unknown.

More: https://abcnews.go.com/beta-story-container/Politics/york-prosecutors-seek-records-trump-inauguration-committee-sources/story?id=60841246

A Lobbyist At The Trump Tower Meeting Received Half A Million Dollars In Suspicious Payments

A bank flagged transactions, including large cash deposits, made before and after Rinat Akhmetshin attended the 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

Source: BuzzFeed News

A Russian-born lobbyist who attended the controversial Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 received a series of suspicious payments totaling half a million dollars before and after the encounter.

Documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News show that Rinat Akhmetshin, a Soviet military officer turned Washington lobbyist, deposited large, round-number amounts of cash in the months preceding and following the meeting, where a Russian lawyer offered senior Trump campaign officials dirt on Hillary Clinton.

The lobbyist also received a large payment that bank investigators deemed suspicious from Denis Katsyv, whose company Prevezon Holdings was accused by the US Justice Department of laundering the proceeds of a $230 million Russian tax fraud.

The Trump Tower meeting and those who attended it have become a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into whether the president’s campaign colluded with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election. As part of that inquiry, banks were asked to pull financial information on the meeting attendees, and investigators at Wells Fargo handed over documents on Akhmetshin to the US Treasury in 2017. Those records were passed to Mueller's team, but Peter Carr, a spokesperson for the special counsel, declined to say whether the transactions are under investigation. Congressional investigators also requested the financial information from the Treasury Department.

Read more: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmaloop/trump-tower-meeting-russian-lobbyist-akhmetshin-suspicious-p