https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ia/544409/
Bannon seems to be urging Trump to obstruct justice:
Quote: Legal experts said the court filings indicate Mueller is running a serious, deliberative, and far-sighted inquiry... The first wave of charges came against two top Trump campaign officials, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates. Their indictment describes a conspiracy to evade taxes and launder at least $75 million of foreign income into the United States from offshore accounts.
....Shortly after the Manafort and Gates indictments went public, President Trump ... dismissed the allegations against his two former staffers, noting the reported activity predated their time on his campaign. [Note from me - Not true. The time period covers his campaign as well.] He also repeated his attempts to shift the focus onto Hillary Clinton.
...Conservative media outlets had embraced a similar theme ... Trump allies seized on reports over the last week that Clinton campaign officials helped fund the controversial Steele dossier in an apparent effort to delegitimize Mueller’s probe. [Note from me: This was after GOP opponents of Trump apparently initiated the Steele dossier during the GOP primaries.] They also rehashed discredited allegations about her involvement in an Obama-era uranium deal that involved Russia.
....However, their efforts would soon be interrupted. Just over an hour after the Manafort indictment went public on Monday, the special counsel’s office revealed that George Papadopoulos, a former foreign-policy adviser for the Trump campaign, had become a cooperating witness. As part of a plea deal, Papadopoulos admitted to lying to federal investigators about his interactions with Russian nationals and their associates during the campaign.
...His indictment offered a trove of new details on the extent of internal Trump campaign discussions about overtures from Moscow’s intermediaries. [details in article]
...Most importantly, the filings and indictments signified that Mueller’s wide-ranging investigation is nowhere near over. The surprise revelation of Papadopoulos’s plea deal raises questions about what other evidence or witnesses Mueller might secretly have at his disposal that aren’t publicly known. Papadopoulos’s statement also includes a tantalizing clause that it “does not include all of the facts known to me regarding this offense”—a sign that other shoes could potentially drop in the future.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... er-reports
Quote: Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is pressing President Trump to curb special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference, according to a Politico report... According to Politico, Trump considered the idea of ousting Mueller, who was appointed by Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein in May after Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey, shortly after Mueller took over the Russia investigation, but ultimately decided against it.
CNN's Dana Bash also said late Monday that she had been told that Bannon was pushing Trump to take more aggressive action against the special counsel, including withholding documents requested by investigators.
btw, the FBI is investigating the Whitefish contract now. So much for the "nothing to see here" crowd on that.