The 2022 midterms have long been seen as a litmus test for the political whims of our nation, particularly as it pertains to the looming 2024 presidential election that it precedes.
In particular, we are seeing the curious timing of several overtly political operations coinciding around the contest, with heavy partisan slants arriving in the headlines in droves. Some of these storylines are new, conjured for the sake of the midterms themselves, while others are rehashed reminders of political attacks of the past.
This week, we were redvisited by one of the Democratic Party’s most obtuse conspiracy theories, (The “RussiaGate” scandal), and the FOIA release of a heavily redacted “alternative” Mueller Report.
The Justice Department has released portions of a previously unseen alternative version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on ties between former President Donald Trump and Russia.
However, the 37-page report prepared at the direction of Mueller deputy Andrew Weissmann and released this week under the Freedom of Information Act is heavily redacted. Justice Department officials withheld large swaths of the document on grounds of ongoing investigations, privacy and protecting internal deliberations.
The deletions are typically made by career officials at the Justice Department and the FBI, but the secrecy puts the Biden administration in the curious position of fighting to keep from public view evidence of alleged wrongdoing by top advisers to Trump. It appears that those blacking out the redacted document sought to delete any details not made public in the version of Mueller’s report released in 2019 or in other public documents.
This particular information was oddly topical, as it pertained to Russian aggression in Ukraine and the secret diplomacy that the Trump White House was engaged in.
The report focuses on the work of what was known within Mueller’s office as “Team M” a group of investigators and prosecutors focused on connections between Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and businessmen and politicians friendly to Russia.
The report details contacts between Manafort, his campaign deputy and longtime business partner Rick Gates and pro-Russian business figures. It argues that Manafort, who worked for Trump’s campaign without pay, expected to improve his financial situation as a result of his ties to a potential Trump administration.
Mueller’s prosecutors contend in the report that Manafort and Gates worked closely during the period with a Russian-Ukrainian political adviser the FBI has contended had close ties to Russian intelligence services, Konstantin Kilimnik.
After the U.S. election, the men allegedly discussed by email the possibility of getting Trump to offer “a very minor ‘wink’ (or slight push)” that could launch a peace process in Ukraine with Manafort as a U.S. special representative. Manafort and Kilimnik were later involved in polling about a peace plan that “Manafort conceded constituted backdoor means for Russia to take over eastern Ukraine,” the report says.
The entire Mueller investigation has been steeped in controversy due to revelations regarding the use of the Steele Dossier to procure FBI warrants to surveil the campaign of eventual president Donald Trump.
The dossier’s contents are unverifiable at best, and complete malarky at worst.
