Mueller’s Conflict of Interest, Part 2

During Mueller’s leadership at the FBI, reports The Wall Street Journal’s Devlin Barrett, the political organization of Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, “an influential Democrat with longstanding ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, gave nearly $500,000 to the election campaign of the wife of an official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation who later helped oversee the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email use…The Virginia Democratic Party, over which Mr. McAuliffe exerts considerable control, donated an additional $207,788 worth of support to Dr. McCabe’s campaign in the form of mailers, according to the records. That adds up to slightly more than $675,000…”

The information that has been ascertained provides a disturbing picture of the Clinton campaign utilizing highly partisan research of very dubious veracity from individuals colluding with Russia to prompt surveillance from officials of the Obama Administration, which itself had obtained a significant reputation of misusing federal agencies such as the IRS and the Justice Department for partisan purposes. Yet there is not yet even of hint from Mueller about examining those very important facts.

When a special counsel vigorously pursues one side of the political divide based on evidence that is highly speculative and derived from demonstrably biased sources, but rather pointedly ignores any and all evidence of a far more substantive nature on the other side, there is ample cause for concern.

There may be a very substantial reason for Mueller’s reluctance. When the FBI was doing its partisan best to affect the Presidential election, ignoring Hillary Clinton’s misdeeds in regards to email security but moving forward with the Trump investigation, Mueller was head of the FBI, remaining in that position until September 4, 2013. While much of the FBI/FISA application activity occurred afterwards, the investigations didn’t suddenly spring to life. They were, doubtless, the end product of work begun while Mueller ran the FBI, just as much of time when the agency engaged in a partisan refusal to prosecute Hillary Clinton for her email and Uranium trade misdeeds. A Harvard-CAPS poll reported by The Hill’s Jonathon Easley revealed that “A majority of polled voters say special counsel Robert Mueller has a conflict of interest because of his past ties to former FBI Director James Comey, according to the latest Harvard CAPS-Harris survey.When asked if Mueller has a conflict of interest “as the former head of the FBI and a friend of James Comey,” 54 percent responded that the “relationship” between the two amounts to a conflict of interest, including 70 percent of Republicans, 53 percent of independents and 40 percent of Democrats…the two have been described as “brothers in arms”…”

Some in the media have begun to pay attention to Mueller’s conflict of interest. Glenn Harlan Reynolds, in a USATODAY opinion column, stated that “Special Counsel Robert Mueller has a problem: He has a disqualifying conflict of interest regarding a large part of his work. It involves a choice between investigating or relying on former FBI director James Comey, a longtime close friend of Mueller’s. Ideally, he’ll recognize that and resign. But if he doesn’t resign, Attorney General Jeff Sessions should appoint another special counsel to take over the obstruction-of-justice part of the investigation, where Mueller is disqualified… Mueller is too close to Comey to be impartial, and that violates Justice Department conflict of interest rules.”
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Mueller is not alone in being under a cloud of suspicion. A Rasmussen report points out that “Loretta Lynch, Sally Yates, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Jim Baker, Rod Rosenstein, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. These are just some of the names on the growing list of senior DOJ and FBI officials that, according to the House and Senate Intel Committees, may have illegally conspired to exonerate Hillary Clinton of any wrongdoing in her handling of classified information on a personal server while Secretary of State and to destroy President Trump.”

In a sign of desperation, Mueller, according to Jonathan Swan in an Axios report, “is subpoenaing all communications — meaning emails, texts, handwritten notes, etc. — that a witness sent and received” from Carter Page, Corey Lewandowski, Donald J. Trump, Hope Hicks, Keith Schiller, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, and Steve Bannon, from November 1, 2015 to the present. It’s a classic fishing expedition move by an investigator in search of a crime.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) believes that a second special counsel is necessary to investigate the Department of Justice.

Mueller, indeed, should be on the receiving end of an investigation into political corruption. Instead, he is running one.

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.