There’s a 12-part series of images circulating on the internet titled “Ink Blot Test For People with Trump Derangement Syndrome” which shows pictures of a dozen nondescript ink blots all of which those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome call “Russian Collusion”. That’s about as close as they’ll get to it, because as the Mueller investigation winds down, still with no evidence of collusion, Hillary and her friends seem to be not so lucky. The lawbreaking she (and they) evaded penalty for seems finally closer to a reckoning.

Flynn, Manafort, and Cohen

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

AFTER TWO YEARS AND MILLIONS OF PAGES OF DOCUMENTS (and a cost of over $30,000,000), NO COLLUSION!

Mueller’s multimillion dollars peck, sniff, and smear operation seems to be winding down with a whimper, not a bang, despite the media’s efforts to portray it otherwise. In the long-postponed sentencing recommendation respecting retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Mueller recommended little or no jail time. Typical of the TDS crowd is Norm Eisen, former Obama official, to whom (relying on his reading of the ink blot -- in this case, the redactions), the Flynn sentencing memo means that Mueller is hot on the trail of collusion:

The sentencing memo and its addendum -- which recommend that Flynn receive little to no prison time -- appear to identify three matters on which Flynn helped the special counsel investigation. One is openly described: collusion. The memo states that Flynn has assisted with the investigation into any “links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald J. Trump.” No surprise there; Flynn himself was charged primarily because he had lied to the FBI about his own contacts with Russia. The memo’s matter-of-fact description of Mueller’s collusion review, and Flynn’s help with it, clearly undercuts Trump’s refrains of “no collusion” and “collusion is not a crime.” Those mantras have been less frequent of late, and with good reason; I have argued that both are wrong, legally and factually. The sentencing memo, in its own low-key way, signals that Mueller is taking the collusion seriously and pushing forward with it.

To me (and Sara Carter, among others) it shows quite the opposite:  

She quotes Representative Mark Meadows and others to draw her conclusions that there was no collusion evidence Flynn could or did provide:

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-NC, who has been at the forefront of Congressional investigations into the FBI’s handling of the Russia probe, told this reporter late Tuesday that it’s what’s not in Mueller’s recommendations that reveal “they didn’t have anything in the sentencing guidelines that show Flynn colluded with Russia.”

“It took nearly two years for Robert Mueller to come to the same conclusion that President Trump got to several months after Flynn was charged -- that Flynn is a good man and didn’t collude,” said Meadows. Meadows noted that the term “substantial cooperation” is a legal phrase that is necessary to include in the sentencing recommendation “in order to get a reduced sentence from the court.”

“It’s not so much used as an adjective, as it is a noun,” said Meadows.

Sara also reminds how weak was the claim that Flynn lied to cover up collusion ever was and how shoddy the investigation and investigators were:

Flynn was interviewed by FBI Special Agents Joe Pientka and Peter Strzok on Jan. 24, 2017 about conversations he had with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December 2016. According to former FBI Director James Comey, the agents did not believe Flynn was lying during their interview with him but later Mueller charged him none-the-less and eventually Flynn pled guilty in December 2017 to one count of lying.

Strzok, who not only was charged with the Russia investigation into Trump, was also part of Mueller’s Special Counsel probe. He was eventually removed from his role in the Special Counsel’s Office after it was discovered he had sent thousands of anti-Trump text messages to his alleged lover FBI attorney Lisa Page, Page, who was a close confidant of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, retired from the FBI and struck a deal to testify before Congress in July. Her explosive testimony revealed that the FBI did not have any evidence as of May 2017 that anyone in the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia. McCabe was fired from the FBI for lying multiple times to investigators about his contacts with the media and leaking to the media.

Strzok was fired by the FBI after an extensive investigation by the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz revealed his anti-Trump sentiments and as more information surfaced about his extensive roles in both the Clinton server and Trump Russia investigations. Horowitz is currently investigating the FBI’s handling of the Trump Russia investigation but his investigation isn’t expected to be concluded until next Spring.

In any event, the claim was made for the benefit of idiots who do not comprehend that it is normal and necessary for transition team members to communicate with foreign leaders during that period between administrations and to further loser Hillary’s effort to defeat Trump and later to undermine his presidency.

Manafort

This week Mueller filed a pleading, contending that Paul Manafort breached his plea agreement with the special counsel when he lied to them. Again, the pleading was full of redactions making it difficult to ascertain what the heck this is about. Perhaps the only way we’ll find out is if Manafort contests these claims and there is a hearing where Mueller will have to prove Manafort’s statements were false. All we can ascertain from the pleadings per Hans von Spakovsky is this:

Mueller contends that Manafort lied about his interactions with Konstantin Kilimnik and about a “$125,000 wire transfer to a firm working for Manafort; ‘information pertinent to another Department of Justice investigation’; and ‘Manafort’s contact with Administration officials.’

There is some reason to believe the non-cooperation claim relates to his dealings with the Podesta Group, the lobbying outfit founded by Clinton campaign manager and longtime confidant John Podesta and his brother Tony, which was deeply involved in the Ukraine business (including the Uranium One sale) about which Manafort was charged. 

Cohen

Paul Sperry tweeted after the sentence recommendation for Michael Cohen:

“Special Counsel Mueller finally acknowledges the presidents personal lawyer never actually made contact with Putin or even Putin’s press secretary in the defunct Moscow real estate project.”

Spakovsky scans the pleading and offers up several observations, among them these:

[The memo] throws doubt on the idea that Cohen has secretly provided some kind of undisclosed information or evidence to the special counsel that bears on what is supposed to be the focus of Mueller’s investigation: whether there was any unlawful collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials to change the outcome of the 2016 election. [snip] Yet it cannot be emphasized enough that once again, as with prior documents filed by the Justice Department and the special counsel dealing with other defendants, there is no information in Cohen’s sentencing memorandum about the issue of possible Trump-Russia election collusion. [snip] What comes next? We simply don’t know, because Mueller has not lifted the curtain hiding much of his activities. But as of now, from what we know on the public record, Mueller has failed to prove the Trump-Russia collusion that he was appointed to investigate 19 months ago. 

Hillary

It appears we are not the only people furious at the way the Department of State and Department of Justice have covered up for Hillary Clinton’s patent abuse of her private emails for official business, creating security breaches and evading the requirements of accountability through the Freedom of Information Act’s procedures. This week the wonderful Judicial Watch outfit persuaded a U.S. District Court Judge that it was time to bring down the hammer on this wrongdoing. The case began in 2014 in a suit by Judicial Watch to obtain Hillary’s Benghazi-related emails. These agencies responded with a deficient search to effect a settlement. Ruling these agencies’ conduct “Smacks of outrageous misconduct” and collusion to “hoodwink” and to "skirt scrutiny" of Hillary he ordered them to reopen a portion of their email inquiry. He said -- and we certainly agree -- that Hillary’s use of her private email server was “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency’

But there was more trouble for Hillary and Bill on the horizon. Representative Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) revealed that three people have come forward to the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations with hundreds of pages of evidence evincing potential wrongdoing -- including pay to play and allegations of quid-pro-quo promises to Clinton Foundation donors.

Donations to the Clinton Foundations have dropped off substantially since Hillary lost the election and had no favors to grant. There was  a 58 percent drop from the $62.9 million it received the previous year.

Indeed, the Clinton road show is having such difficulty selling tickets that they are practically giving them away on Groupon and yet the venues they chose have been very sparsely attended.

In the meantime, prosecutors working for U.S. attorney John Huber (designated by former Attorney General Sessions to investigate the foundation) reportedly requested documents from MDA Analytics, LLC, which had been investigating the Foundation, and MDA contacted the IRS, the Justice Department and the FBI with evidence it had uncovered. 

In addition, The Hill reported that a whistleblower submission filed with the FBI and IRS in August 2017 included internal legal reviews that the Clinton Foundation conducted between 2008 and 2011.

Those reviews raised concerns about legal compliance and improper mingling of personal and charity business.

According to the Hill report, MDA investigators met with Clinton Foundation CFO Andrew Kessel in late November 2016.

During the meeting, Kessel said that “one of the biggest problems was [former President Bill] Clinton’s commingling and use of business and donated funds and his personal expenses.” A separate interview memo stated that Bill Clinton “mixes and matches his personal business with that of the foundation. Many people within the foundation have tried to caution him about this but he does not listen, and there really is no talking to him.”

 Stormy Daniels

Several TDS sufferers set up Go Fund Me sites to help Stormy Daniels file a defamation suit against the president. She lost that case, and now Trump is seeking $800,000 in legal fees and expenses from her. So the contributors to this nonsense are likely to end up paying Trump for her court loss.

Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti also appears to be busted, this time by his estranged wife, and this week announced he’s dropping his plan to run for president.