"Rashagate" - second season

In Washington, a new political drama will be played in the near future. Three committees of Congress resume a public investigation of the case of Russia's interference in the American electoral process. The special prosecutor Robert Müller begins to actively act actively. Soon he will be called for interrogations of the former and current advisers of the president. On this occasion, they hired experienced lawyers, whose services they cost $ 500-1000 per hour.

If Müller manages to “split” one of the defendants in the most vulnerable position, the defense line built by these lawyers can be broken and suspicion will turn into criminal charges. Rashagate will stand on a par with Watergate and Irangeite, ending in prison deadlines for presidential advisers, and in the case of Watergate - also forced early resignation of the president. But this is the most formidable scenario of the development of the investigation. And this is far away.

Congress

Congress committees are valid for each of their own plan. They do not coordinate him either with each other or with Müller. Their final product will be reports with recommendations and, possibly, bills. The significance of public hearings is that witnesses on them give evidence under the oath. Congress has the right to call witnesses and demand documents with summons with the same strength as the judicial. In case of refusal to testify, any person can be held accountable, up to criminal, for disrespect for Congress.

Special prosecutor

Robert Muller

If lawmakers have the opportunity to concentrate on individual episodes of the Russian saga, then the special prosecutor must explore all materials in full, conduct business in several directions at once. Müller gathered an excellent team of investigators. These are superstars of the legal world. Everyone has not only high -profile affairs with condemning high -ranking politicians and large businessmen, but also the excellent knowledge of the Washington Stra thestery. At the disposal of the special prosecutor is also the state of FBI agents. His powers are wide, although not unlimited. Trump's lawyers have already stated that Müller's interest in the President’s personal finances is beyond his mandate. But independent experts consider this statement at least controversial.

FBI

The Federal Bureau of Investigations also conducts its investigation. Almost nothing is known about him, except that it began in July last year. However, Trump's environment contacts with Russia came to the field of view of the Bureau back in 2015 during routine observation of Russian intelligence, and then surveillance acquired a purposeful nature. According to the Guardian newspaper, the British Electronic Intelligence Service GCHQ (Government Center) drew attention to these contacts. Subsequently, similar departments of Germany, Estonia, Poland, Australia, the Netherlands and France joined her. CIA and FBI, writes Guardian, far from immediately appreciated the significance of this information. On May 8, during the Senate hearings, the former national intelligence director James Clapper confirmed this information.

It was the scale of the FBI investigation and his perseverance that made President Trump ask the then director of Bureau James Komi to reduce the moment when Komi did not listen to the president, he fired him. “Dear Director of Komi,” the president wrote in his kind letter. “Although I highly appreciate the fact that you have informed me three times, in three separate cases, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless agree with the conclusion of the Ministry of Justice that you were incompatible to effectively lead the bureau.” This happened on May 9, and on May 17, the First Deputy Minister of Justice Rod Rosenstain appointed a special prosecutor to investigate Rashagate.

The President, sincerely, not understanding that the Ministry of Justice and the FBI did not serve him, but above all by the law, publicly expressed dissatisfaction with this decision and hinted that Müller and Rosenstain could dismiss. But they explained to him that this would not help: the system is arranged in such a way that the investigation, regardless of personnel permutations, will be brought to the end.

What is Robert Muller investigated?

One of Müller’s tasks is to establish whether the criminal conspiracy of the environment of Donald Trump with a foreign government took place. At the moment, the facts of personal meetings, correspondence and telephone conversations of employees of the election headquarters of the candidate Trump and the transition administration of the elected, but not yet taking over President Trump with Russian representatives - both officials and those whom the American press calls "close to the Kremlin" have not yet been proven.

Among these representatives are the Ambassador of the Russian Federation in Washington Sergey Kislyak; former senator, and now deputy chairman of the Central Bank, life member of the US National Infantry Association Alexander Torshin; Head of Rosneft Igor Sechin; The manager of the State Duma, in the recent past, deputy. Head of the Department of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation Igor Daveikin; Chairman of Vnesheconombank Sergey Gorkov. From the side of Trump, his advisers Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Carter Page, now Minister of Justice, and then Senator Jeff Saves, participated in these contacts, President’s senior, President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner and son of President Donald Trump Jr., who worked at the Father’s election headquarters.

Natalia Veselnitskaya

Natalia Veselnitskaya

At the moment, the potentially criminal character may have a meeting of Trump Jr., Kushner and Manafort with lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya, as if promising to provide a compromise for Hillary Clinton. The meeting took place on June 9 last year. On May 26, candidate Trump, before the end of the primaries, secured a nomination of the Republican Party. Clinton remained his only opponent leading Trump in polls at 4-8 percentage points. Perhaps polls were mistaken, but Trump and his advisers then believed them. He needed a sharp jerk.

Veselnitskaya denies that she promised compromising evidence. At that time, she was an active participant and organizer of lobbying efforts to cancel the Magnitsky Law in exchange for the abolition or mitigation of the "Law of Dima Yakovlev", which forbade the adoption of Russian orphans by the Americans. It was with this, according to Veselnitskaya, that she came on June 9 to the 25th floor of Trump-Bashny. Donald San confirms this. However, the first version of the confirmation says: "... but this topic did not play any role in the campaign and did not have any consequences." The lawyers probably did not like such indifference to orphans, and the second version sounds like this: “She spoke of the adoption of Russian children and mentioned the Magnitsky law. It became clear to me that this is its original goal, and the promises of useful information were only a preposition for the meeting. I interrupted it and clarified that my father is not an elected politician and that she should be with his comments and concern. Turn to him when he receives an official post. "

Be that as it may, from the electronic correspondence of Trump Jr. it is clear that he expected with exceptional impatience from Veselnitsky materials that compromise Hillary, and materials emanating from the Russian government spheres.

In principle, it can be argued that the intermediary who arranged the meeting with false promises filled her a price in Trump's eyes. But it is impossible to deny that Trump Jr. was not counting on incriminating evidence-he himself published his correspondence when he realized that she was at the disposal of the New York Times.

Parisian fee

The main plot has many branches indicating the indirect interaction of people from the near circle of Trump with Moscow. For example, Jared Trump in October last year spoke at a conference at the Ritz Paris Hotel, for which he received at least 50 thousand dollars. The event, writes Monde, was organized by Fabyen Bossar and Ronda Kassis, heading the French Prochrevsky Center for Political and International Relations and having close ties with Moscow.

Judicial prospects

Paul Manafort

With all the abundance of information, it is difficult to turn it into an indictment. The defendants can always say that the contacts were random, not binding to anything. True, representatives of Trump’s headquarters have repeatedly denied the existence of any contacts with Russia, but the statement for the press is not an indication under the oath. Lying is not good, but in this case, the lie is unlucky. To prove the conspiracy, coordination of actions between Moscow and Trump-Bashny, it is not enough to have a set of facts-you need to establish the presence of intent. Otherwise, lawyers will declare them a pure coincidence - albeit unlikely, but possible. And in an American court, all doubt is interpreted in favor of the accused.

Apparently, Robert Müller still has something more than we know. It acts carefully, but hard and decisively. In July, the FBI agents subordinates to the special prosecutor searched the Manafort House, withdrawing primarily financial documentation. As it became only known , the FBI controlled Manafort's communications since 2014, when he worked as a consultant to the government of Yanukovych and the “Party of Regions” in Ukraine then. Later they removed wiretap, because it did not give results, but then resumed. Both times the FBI acted on the order, who issues a secret court in accordance with the law on monitoring foreign intelligence (FISA). The CNN reporting this on September 19 emphasizes that the second order acted before and after the elections, when Manafort continued to communicate with the president. Contracts between Trump and Manafort were terminated at the insistence of lawyers.

We also know that Müller has connected the US Tax Service Office for the investigation. And on August 3, he called a large jury.

In American legal proceedings, this collegium decides whether there is a crime in the case. If available, the case is referred to the court. On August 11, the testimony of the large jury was given to the meeting Veselnitskaya with Trump advisers Rinat Akhmetshin, a former officer of the Russian army (American journalists call him a counterintelligence), and now the Washington lobbyist. Next in line is the employees of the White House apparatus - in particular, the director of public relations Hope Hicks. She took part in the preparation of the first version of Trump Jr. about his meeting with Veselnitskaya, which turned out to be incomplete and misleading. In addition, Hicks have repeatedly stated that there were no contacts between the Trump team and Russia.

Obstruction of justice

Another direction of the investigation conducted by the special prosecutor is a possible obstacle to justice by the president. It is again about the dismissal of the director of the FBI James Komi, who refused to lower Rashagate on the brakes. The recording of his conversation with the President of Komi passes his replica like that. “He is a glorious small one,” as if the president said about Flynne. “I hope you will find an opportunity to leave him alone.” “I agree, the guy is good,” Komi answered. But he did not promise to respect the president’s request.

Not only that. Soon after the dismissal, accepting the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the ambassador Sergei Kislyak, the president, as follows from the recording of the conversation, confidentially told them that Komi was “really ill for the whole head”, but now, after the dismissal of Komi, he had a mountain right from his shoulders.

Nevertheless, here, legally, everything is far from indisputable. The president’s conversation with the director took place on the face, his content is known only from the words of Komi. Müller requested an official correspondence relating to the reasons for the dismissal of the director. But whether he received it in full, we do not know.

Theoretically, a special prosecutor can cause testimony and president to give. Bill Clinton at one time testified to a large jury about his relations with Monika Levinsky. But the president can refer to the privilege of the executive branch - his right not to disclose the content of meetings with subordinates. This norm, which is not in the Constitution, proceeds from the presumption that the presidential advisers must have freedom of opinion, and these opinions cannot be blamed for them. However, Richard Nixon, who refused to transfer the audio recording of such meetings to Congress, this link did not help - the Supreme Court decided that he was obliged to submit records.

The transaction with justice

But what if Donald Trump really does not know the fault that he personally had not entered into any conspiracy, and his unscrupulous advisers were mutated? A quite possible option. Not to mention the fact that as the head of a private company and the star of the reality show with the crown phrase "You are fired!" He is not used to giving anyone a report in his actions and honestly does not understand why the president is not allowed what is allowed to be a single businessman.

Probably, one of the witnesses is now weighing the possibility of references to the fifth amendment to the Constitution, which makes it possible not to testify against himself. But the fifth amendment is not immunity from criminal prosecution. The suspect can be accused on the basis of the testimony of other defendants in the case, and there is no doubt that Robert Muller is now persistently looking for, if he no longer found a witness ready to conclude a deal with justice. This is what happened, for example, in 2001 with the case of the largest energy corporation Enron, accused of falsification of reporting and false bankruptcy. The company's leaders all as one took advantage of their right to the fifth amendment, but were convicted on the basis of exhausting testimonies of the financial director Andrew Fastow, who was chosen for this. The prosecutor Andrew Waisman, who investigated the Enron case, works in the Müller brigade. Yes, Müller himself used this technique in his practice more than once.

Kybyrosis

Recalculation of votes in Wisconsin at the request of the "Green" December 2, 2016

At one time it seemed that the special prosecutor was not engaged in the virtual measurement of "Rashagate" - hacker hacks and what is called the information war. But the other day it became known that Müller sent the Facebook to the agenda for information about Russian trolls that placed paid political advertising. And Facebook provided such information to the special prosecutor.

It is still difficult to say what legal consequences this can lead to, but, apparently, the investigation of Muller will also affect the massive invasion of crackers into computer networks of American election commissions. Signs of hacking and manipulations with databases, and maybe voting results were observed in 39 states. At 21, a thorough verification of these suspicions failed : the states are jealous of attempts by the federal governments to control their electoral system. And they themselves do not have enough funds for a full -fledged audit.

Potentially, this is the most dangerous topic for Donald Trump. After all, he was elected thanks to a completely unexpected victory in the three states, which Hillary considered "her" - Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Trump's advantage was from 10 to 50 thousand votes in them. In other words, to win the Republican candidate, it was enough to slightly falsify the results not even in the States as a whole, but in some electoral districts.

And finally, the last. On July 24 of this year, an organization entitled “Professional Intelligence for Sensation” (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) sent the US President an examination of former electronic warfare experts, who claim that there was no hacking of the democrats' mail - the correspondence downloaded to the external carrier of the KROT, which has access to the server. If you accept this conclusion, you need to look for this "mole". With a certain tension of the imagination, he, of course, may turn out to be a Russian agent or agent Trump. But most likely, it will turn out to be some kind of Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning-a single-loved one who was used, as they say, at all.