Special counsel Robert Mueller has forwarded potential cases about the Podesta Group and other high profile lobbyists and operatives to federal prosecutors in New York, CNN reported.
According to people familiar with the matter who spoke to CNN, the inquiries concern whether the lobbyists failed to register as foreign agents with the Justice Department when doing work on behalf of groups affiliated with Ukraine. The operatives in question, who have not been charged with any crimes: Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta, former Minnesota GOP Rep. Vin Weber’s work for Mercury Public Affairs and former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig. According to CNN’s sources, there is not yet any indication that any of the men will be criminally charged.
Mueller took a similar approach with the investigation into President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, handing over the probe into his financial dealings to the Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York this spring.
Read CNN’s full report here.
Lotta Rubles floatin’ around
Lotta Rubels
In 3, 2, 1 they ALL do it:
democratic lobbyist ,
former GOP Rep.
former Obama White House counsel.
Add that the list include 2 Dim, so they do it more to the meme.
How many rubles does it take to turn a highly educated operative into a rube?
This won’t go anywhere. Even in Mueller’s indictment of Manafort, he’s quite clear in saying that the lobbyists Manafort hired were deceived about the source of Manafort’s funding. If an American citizen hires an American lobbyist to lobby before Congress, that’s not a crime. The crime was Manafort falsifying documents to hide the fact that the money he used to pay these groups came from the Ukrainian government.
Since Manafort is also being charged with money laundering, it’s not hard to argue that he’s good at hiding the real source of any of his money. That’s what money launderers do, so there’s no reason to believe that either Podesta or Weber should have known that something was wrong when Manafort hired them.
Page 16-19 of the indictment spells all of this out: