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FBI Director Christopher Wray Has a Shocking Admission About the Mueller Report

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By Townhall. During a hearing about the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) budget on Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray was asked about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the 2020 FBI budget.

“Have you had an occasion to read the Mueller report?” Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL) asked Wray at the beginning of the hearing.

“I have not,” Wray replied.

What’s interesting about this: Mueller turned in his report almost two weeks ago. During his almost two-year investigation, Mueller utilized three dozen agents from the FBI, which falls under the Department of Justice, The Hill reported.

Attorney General William Barr provided Congress with a summary of Mueller’s report on March 24th, at which time no further indictments were brought forth against President Donald Trump’s campaign team. Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein also concluded there was not sufficient evidence to say Trump obstructed justice. (Read more from “FBI Director Christopher Wray Has a Shocking Admission About the Mueller Report” HERE)

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FBI Director Says He Hasn’t Read the Mueller Report

By The Hill. Mueller delivered the confidential report concluding his 22-month investigation to Attorney General William Barr two weeks ago. The report’s contents have remained closely held within the Justice Department as officials review it for public release.

The FBI is part of the Justice Department, and Mueller’s team was assisted by more than three dozen agents from the bureau.

In a four-page letter to Congress on March 24, Barr revealed that Mueller did not charge anyone associated with President Trump’s campaign with conspiring with the Russian government to meddle in the election. Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein also concluded after reviewing Mueller’s report that there was not sufficient evidence to accuse Trump of an obstruction of justice offense, despite the special counsel not making a judgment one way or another.

House Democrats are pressuring Barr to release Mueller’s report in its entirety, without any redactions. Barr has indicated he plans to restrict details that could impact ongoing investigations, grand jury information, classified material and “information that would unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.” (Read more from “FBI Director Says He Hasn’t Read the Mueller Report” HERE)

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Democrats Vote to Subpoena Mueller Report Over Republican Objections

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Democratic efforts to compel the release of the Mueller report to Congress from the Department of Justice ended as expected on Wednesday, but not without vocal pushback from Republicans.

A meeting of the House Judiciary Committee resulted in a party-line 24-17 vote to authorize a subpoena of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report of his investigation and all the underlying evidence from Attorney General William Barr.

“Why are we here?” asked Judiciary member and Oversight Committee ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. “Seems to me we’re here because the Mueller report wasn’t what the Democrats thought it was going to be.”

“In fact, it was just the opposite,” Jordan continued. “What’d the attorney general tell us that the principal findings of Mr. Mueller’s report were? No new indictments, no sealed indictments, no collusion, no obstruction.”

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, also called out Democratic efforts to keep digging into the issue, despite the findings of the Mueller report.

“Enough is enough, for heaven’s sakes, let’s please move on,” Gohmert said, before turning his critiques directly to committee chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.

“There was a time when I loved and appreciated the current chairman’s desire to protect privacy rights; I saw that dramatically eroded during the Obama administration,” Gohmert continued. “But I am still hoping and praying that our now-chairman’s once great desire to protect privacy rights and to try to hold back the bounds of what Orwell described as happening now … it’s time to go back and clean up the mess that’s been made over years of abuse.”

The committee’s top Republican took issue with Democrats’ demand for underlying evidence, saying that Barr would have to violate federal law to comply with it.

“The subpoena for the Mueller report and its underlying evidence commands the attorney general to do what the unthinkable is,” said committee ranking member Doug Collins. “We’re going to ask the attorney general to break his regulations, to break the law.”

“The attorney general’s entire mandate is to enforce the law, and he’s expressly forbidden from providing grand jury [material] outside of the department, [with] very limited and narrow exceptions,” Collins added. “Congress is not one of the exceptions and the chairman knows it.”

A few weeks ago, the House of Representatives voted almost unanimously to make as much of the report public as possible, though a small handful of Republicans objected to the resolution by voting “present.”

Barr told congressional leaders last week that he plans to release what he can of the report and that he expects his department “will be in a position to release the report by mid-April, if not sooner.”

In his opening statement, Nadler said that he won’t issue the report right away, but will instead give Barr a chance to “change his mind” about whether to send a redacted or unredacted report to Congress.

(For more from the author of “Democrats Vote to Subpoena Mueller Report Over Republican Objections” please click HERE)

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Oh Yeah, That Has to Be It: CNN Host Has a Pathetic Reason for Why Liberal Media Ratings Are Trash Post-Mueller Report

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By Townhall. So, how is the liberal media doing after it was revealed that President Trump didn’t commit Russian collusion? Not too well. In fact, they’ve been bleeding viewers ever since the big nothing burger was revealed. Again, a lot of us knew this was the case, but the Left peddled this myth for two years. Now, they all have to eat crow. When will they be done? It remains to be seen. . .

So, yes, blood pressures will equalize, though I do wish this were more of a devastating and long-term rating blow to the liberal media establishment, which are enemies of the people. CNN’s Brian Stelter blamed the rating dip on a “slow news week.” Are you kidding me, bro? (via Daily Caller):

Stelter wrote in his newsletter “Reliable Sources” Wednesday night that viewers aren’t tuning in to CNN and MSNBC because “there hasn’t been much news” since special counsel Robert Mueller delivered his report on Russian collusion to Attorney General Bill Barr. Fox News has not been affected by the alleged slow news week, Stelter reasoned, because Barr’s letter on the Mueller findings is “being celebrated like a sequel to election night.”

Joe Concha, media reporter for The Hill, explained on Fox News that there have been plenty of big stories for the media to cover since Mueller finished his investigation and suggested the ratings drop is due to a lack of trust among viewers.

“Yesterday, CNN didn’t even average more than 540,000 viewers as a 40-year-old network with a big brand name and a crazy news cycle,” Concha argued.

(Read more from “Oh Yeah, That Has to Be It: CNN Host Has a Pathetic Reason for Why Liberal Media Ratings Are Trash Post-Mueller Report” HERE)

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Maddow, other MSNBC hosts see ratings drop, Fox up

By AP. Rachel Maddow isn’t backing away from her coverage of President Donald Trump and any connection to Russia’s involvement in trying to influence the 2016 presidential campaign. The question is how much her fans want to listen.

Maddow’s audience has dipped on her two days back on the air since Attorney General William Barr reported that special counsel Robert Mueller had found no collusion between Trump and Russia’s efforts. Her audience of 2.5 million on Monday was 19 percent below her average this year, and it went down further to 2.3 million on Tuesday, the Nielsen company said.

Meanwhile, her head-to-head competitor on Fox News Channel, Sean Hannity, saw his audience soar on Monday to 4 million viewers, a 32 percent increase from his average. It slipped to 3.57 million on Tuesday. One of Trump’s most prominent media fans, Hannity was to interview the president on Wednesday’s show. (Read more from “Maddow, Other MSNBC Hosts See Ratings Drop, Fox Up” HERE)

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Constitution Forced Mueller’s Hand

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The Mueller Report is complete, and Donald Trump has been absolved of collusion with the Russians.

Mueller stopped short of saying that his investigation exonerated the president. However, if I were suspected of something, if my antagonists publicly predicted I would “die in jail,” and if I were investigated for 675 days, and they raided my personal lawyer and read everything on his hard disk, and leaned on my closest associates to incriminate me, and then had to admit the evidence didn’t support a legal accusation, much less a conviction, I would feel exonerated.

If I were one of the people who falsely accused a man on a daily basis, I would feel great shame and contrition now. But this is not in the Democrats’ repertoire. They merely shift their innuendo to Mueller, accusing him of a betrayal.

MSNBC Democrat Chris Matthews was scandalized that Mueller never interrogated the president. But nobody accused of a crime in America, since the ratification of the Bill of Rights, has been obligated to give testimony against himself. After some initial bluster, the president wisely decided not to match wits with head-hunting prosecutors.

Perhaps he respected his attorneys’ advice. Or maybe he saw for himself the landscape littered with the bleached skeletons of defendants who were a little too cavalier about about the Fifth Amendment. The fact that you are innocent doesn’t mean you have nothing to fear from testifying under oath, or interrogation by prosecutors.

His first National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, was convicted of lying to the FBI. The interview was so casual that Flynn had no legal counsel present, and the FBI agents didn’t give the usual warning about penalties for lying. He was not under oath. But from the moment he lied about an arcane United Nations matter, the prosecutors owned him.

The sentencing judge, who apparently wasn’t paying very close attention, berated him in court for representing a foreign country’s interests while serving in the White House. But Flynn’s contract with that country ended the previous year, before Trump appointed him National Security Adviser.

The judge stunned onlookers when he used the term “treason,” an embarrassing misstatement for a federal judge who ought to be familiar with the elements of the only crime that is defined in the U.S. Constitution. It can only be surmised that the judge believed Flynn guilty of much greater crimes than the prosecutors accused him of. This is the risk you run when you agree to casual interviews with the FBI.

The granddaddy of all perjury traps may have been in the Lewis “Scooter” Libby trial. Libby was Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. He was accused of exposing a clandestine CIA agent’s cover.

A journalist testified that Libby had told her a State Department civilian overseas was in fact a CIA agent. She later wrote in her memoir that it was a misunderstanding, and that she may have helped convict an innocent man. A senior State Department official later admitted it was he who blew the CIA agent’s cover.

But Libby was convicted of making false statements to investigators, perjury in the grand jury, and obstruction of justice in an attempt to impede the investigation. It ruined his life. All he needed to do was to refuse to talk to people who wanted him to rot in jail.

The downside of the Fifth Amendment is that criminals can use it to frustrate investigations and avoid conviction. Government officials in the IRS and EPA have used it to prevent legislative oversight. But it’s a price that the Founders were willing to pay. It’s a firewall against tyrannical prosecution and wanton harassment.

In this case, it has helped force investigators to stick to the subject. Despite winning several confessions to unrelated crimes such as lying on loan applications, the investigation has been forced back onto the central question: did the President, or did he not, collude with the Russians to interfere in our elections?

There would be no cleverly designed perjury traps for Trump, no rabbits pulled from a hat. The investigation was forced back on track. And it was a successful investigation. We have our answer.

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Trump Allies Await Results of Two Internal Probes That Could Expose Russia Investigation Backstory

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Following the revelation that Special Counsel Robert Mueller unearthed no evidence that President Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia to sway the 2016 election, Trump allies are now awaiting the results of two long-running internal probes that could expose the backstory behind the Russia probe’s beginnings — and provide more detail on already-documented misconduct among top FBI and DOJ officials.

DOJ Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz confirmed at a panel discussion last week that his office is continuing to review potential surveillance abuses by the FBI, a review that began last March and that Fox News is told is nearing completion. Horowitz has previously found that senior FBI officials routinely leaked information without authorization to the media, and also received “improper gifts” from reporters, including meals and sporting event tickets. Most notably, Horowitz found that FBI officials’ anti-Trump communications raised doubts as to the integrity of their work.

Republicans, meanwhile, are increasingly looking for answers from U.S. Attorney for Utah John Huber, who was appointed a year ago by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to review not only surveillance abuses by the FBI and DOJ, but also authorities’ handling of the probe into the Clinton Foundation. Huber, Republicans have cautioned, has apparently made little progress, and spoken to few key witnesses and whistleblowers.

But in January, then-Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker reportedly indicated at a private meeting that Huber’s work was continuing apace.

Among the primary looming questions that the IG has said he will address, and that Huber is expected to review: Did the FBI follow all applicable “legal requirements” when FBI lawyer Lisa Page and then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to surveil Trump aide Carter Page — weeks before the 2016 presidential election — by relying heavily on a dossier created by a firm working for the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC)? (Read more from “Trump Allies Await Results of Two Internal Probes That Could Expose Russia Investigation Backstory” HERE)

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WATCH: Blistering Montage Reveals Media Pounding Russian Collusion Theory

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The mainstream media earned the biggest black eye of all following the Robert Mueller report which showed that the 2016 Trump campaign did not collude with Russia to steal the election from Hillary Clinton.

As the video shows, the media not only ran with the idea that President Trump colluded with the Kremlin, they were nearly unanimous in their style of reporting, often leading with phrases like “the beginning of the end,” “bombshell,” “turning point,” and most laughably, “impeachment.”

Furthermore, not only did members of mainstream media suggest that Trump colluded with Russia more than once, they were cocksure he would not serve out his first term as president and would leave either by way of resignation or impeachment.

Knowing fully well their bias has once again been laid bare, the media is now scrambling to justify their collusion drumbeat by suggesting that President Trump’s erratic behavior gave them no choice. . .

“Mueller’s assignment was to get to the truth about Russian interference,” Stelter said. “Now, did many commentators and Democratic politicians allege collusion? Yes. Did many journalists ask about it? Yes. But there is a giant difference between asking and telling. The job of the nation’s news media is to ask, to question all sides and to scrutinize all sides and report on opposing points of view and only take the side of truth and decency.” (Read more from “WATCH: Blistering Montage Reveals Media Pounding Russian Collusion Theory” HERE)

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Mueller FINALLY Submits Russia Probe

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By Fox News. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has submitted to Attorney General Bill Barr his long-awaited report on the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential race and possible collusion with Trump associates — marking the end of the politically explosive probe and the beginning of a new battle over its contents and implications.

Mueller is “not recommending any further indictments,” a senior DOJ official told Fox News.

The report was delivered Friday afternoon to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s office and it was delivered to Barr’s office within minutes, a senior DOJ official told Fox News. The White House was notified that the DOJ had received the report around 4:45 p.m., before lawmakers on Capitol Hill were informed. Neither the White House nor Congress has seen the actual report. . .

Following word that Mueller was not recommending more indictments, Giuliani told Fox News that they were “confident” the investigation would show there was no collusion.

“This marks the end of the Russia investigation. We await a disclosure of the facts,” he said. “We are confident that there is no finding of collusion by the President and this underscores what the President has been saying from the beginning – that he did nothing wrong.” (Read more from “Mueller FINALLY Submits Russia Probe” HERE)

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Mueller Report Handed off to Department of Justice; Won’t Recommend Any Further Indictments, a Senior Official Says

By ABC News. According to federal regulations, the special counsel’s final report should be “a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the Special Counsel.”

After reviewing Mueller’s report, Barr will then send what he has described as his own “report” on the Mueller investigation to the top Democrats and Republicans on the House and Senate judiciary committees. Barr has promised to be as transparent as possible, but it’s unclear how extensive or detailed Barr’s own “report” to Congress will be.

In a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, Barr wrote that he is reviewing the report and anticipates that he “may be in a position to advise you of the Special Counsel’s principal conclusions as soon as this weekend.” He continued that, separately, he intends to “consult with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Special Counsel Mueller to determine what other information from the report can be released to Congress and the public consistent with the law.”

Sources who have spoken to President Donald Trump told ABC News that his initial reaction to Friday’s news was that he’s “glad it’s over.” (Read more from “Mueller Report Handed off to Department of Justice; Won’t Recommend Any Further Indictments, a Senior Official Says” HERE)

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Here’s How Many Americans Think Trump Is the Victim of a ‘Witch Hunt’

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Amid signs that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference may be near its conclusion, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds that trust in Mueller has eroded and half of Americans agree with President Donald Trump’s contention that he has been the victim of a “witch hunt.”

Support for the House of Representatives to seriously consider impeaching the president has dropped since last October by 10 percentage points, to 28 percent.

Despite that, the survey shows a nation that remains skeptical of Trump’s honesty and deeply divided by his leadership. A 52 percent majority say they have little or no trust in the president’s denials that his 2016 campaign colluded with Moscow in the election that put him in the Oval Office. . .

Twenty-eight percent say they have a lot of trust in former FBI director Mueller’s investigation to be fair and accurate. That’s the lowest level to date and down 5 points since December. . .

Mueller indicted 34 people, including Russian intelligence operatives and some of Trump’s closest aides and advisers. The indictments detailed the eagerness of the Trump campaign to benefit from a sophisticated Russian effort to influence the 2016 election but have not accused the president’s aides of participating in that operation. Last week, Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was sentenced to a total of 7.5 years in federal prison for financial crimes. (Read more from “Here’s How Many Americans Think Trump Is the Victim of a ‘Witch Hunt'” HERE)

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Dems’ Plan to Split GOP Over Mueller Report Didn’t Play out How They Wanted

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The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, voted for the resolution calling for any final report in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation to be made public, but told Fox News on Sunday it was unnecessary.

“It was a political stunt by the Democrats who felt that they could divide Republicans into voting no upon it because at the end of the day after I looked at it, when they dropped it … they said this is nothing but simply a first-year law student’s restatement of what the regular regulations say that Mr. (Attorney General William) Barr is going to have to do,” he said on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo.

The House voted unanimously Thursday for the resolution, a symbolic action designed to urge Barr into releasing as much information as possible when the investigation is concluded.

The Democratic-backed resolution, which passed 420-0, comes as Mueller appears to be nearing an end to his investigation. Lawmakers in both parties have maintained there will have to be some sort of public resolution when the report is done — and privately hope that a report shows conclusions that are favorable to their own side. . .

“We know and you know, as you said earlier, that there’s not going to be collusion here. This is where it is going to be … very hard for the Democrats. All this was. Don’t be fooled by this. This was simply a stunt because they thought they could divide Republicans to make us look bad as not being transparent,” Collins said Sunday. “I have no problem being transparent with what we see is coming forward, and it’s within the regulation to say that this was nothing more than a political stunt. (Read more from “Dems’ Plan to Split GOP Over Mueller Report Didn’t Play out How They Wanted” HERE)

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The Navy Fighter Pilot Judge Who Shot Down Mueller

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By The Washington Examiner. A federal judge known for his impatience in court sentenced former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on Thursday to less than four years behind bars, defying a requested prison term of 19 to 24 years by special counsel Robert Mueller.

T.S. Ellis III, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan and serves on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, called Mueller’s recommended sentence “excessive.” Instead, the former U.S. Navy aviator, who piloted an F-4 Phantom before heading to Harvard Law School and then Oxford University, handed down a 47-month sentence. . .

The 78-year-old judge, who presided over the trial in which Manafort was convicted of eight financial crimes, including bank fraud, tax fraud, and failure to disclose a foreign bank account, seemed swayed by his attorneys’ argument for a sentence “substantially below” the federal guidelines. . .

But Manafort’s attorneys had hit back at the special counsel in their own sentencing memo, claiming prosecutors were trying to “vilify Mr. Manafort as a lifelong and irredeemable felon” and “spreading misinformation about Mr. Manafort to impugn his character in a manner that this country has not experienced in decades.”

Ellis was often curt during the case. At a pre-trial hearing, he questioned why the special counsel’s office had charged Manafort with crimes unrelated to their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Ellis argued that prosecutors ultimately wanted to pressure Manafort to give them information “that would reflect on Mr. Trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment or whatever.” (Read more from “The Navy Fighter Pilot Judge Who Shot Down Mueller” HERE)

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Trump says he feels ‘very badly’ for Paul Manafort, but ‘honored’ by sentencing judge

By The Washington Examiner. President Trump said Friday he felt “very badly” for Paul Manafort, but “very honored” by the federal judge who sentenced his former campaign manager to a shorter-than-expected prison sentence.

Trump told reporters at the White House that U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis’s sentencing of Manafort to 47 months in prison — far below federal sentencing guidelines — clears him of collusion allegations between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russian elements.

“I feel very badly for Paul Manafort. I think it has been a very, very tough time for him. But if you notice, both his lawyer, a highly respected man, and a very highly respected judge, the judge said there was no collusion with Russia,” Trump said.

“This had nothing to do with collusion. There was no collusion. It’s a collusion hoax, it’s a collusion witch hoax. I don’t collude with Russia,” Trump said. “[Manafort’s] lawyer went out of his way to make a statement last night, no collusion with Russia. There was absolutely none. The judge, I mean for whatever reason, I was very honored by it, also made the statement that this had nothing to do with collusion with Russia. So you know, keep it going. Keep the hoax going. It’s just a hoax.” (Read more from “Trump says he feels ‘very badly’ for Paul Manafort, but ‘honored’ by sentencing judge” HERE)

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