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“The Trump Organization, subpoenaed by Mueller, is now run jointly by Trump Jr. and his brother Eric.”

In the past, Trump Jr. has bragged about the company’s Russian business ties.

“In terms of high-end product influx into the U.S.,” Trump Jr. said during an interview in 2008, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. … We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

“In 2011, a woman who worked for a company that facilitated obtaining visas noted on social media that the Russian consulate in New York City had an autographed photo of Trump Jr. on the wall. Contacted by The Post, she said she couldn’t remember specifically what the photo depicted or what the signature said. (Beyond the contemporaneous post, we were unable to confirm the photo’s existence.)”

“There are few people beyond the president who are as knowledgeable about the Trump Organization’s efforts in Russia as Trump Jr.”

Then, of course, there’s the infamous meeting in Trump Tower in June 2016.

“The first layer here is the meeting itself. Trump Jr., contacted by a music promoter he’d met when the Miss Universe pageant was held in Moscow, is offered dirt on Hillary Clinton that was collected by the Russian government as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

“If it’s what you say it is, I love it,” Trump Jr. replied. He then asked to speak with the music promoter’s client, Emin Agalarov, before finalizing the meeting time. After calls were placed between Trump Jr. and Agalarov, the meeting was set — though Trump Jr. has claimed that he doesn’t remember actually speaking with Agalarov. Trump Jr. then invited Trump’s then-campaign chairman Manafort and Jared Kushner to the meeting, and both attended.”

T”here are a slew of questions that arise. Did Manafort and Kushner know what the meeting was about? What were they told? Did Trump Jr. speak to Agalarov? What was promised?”

On the topic of his conversations with Emin Agalarov prior to the meeting, Don Jr. has been very squirrelly. In his Senate Intelligence Committee testimony, he claimed he didn’t remember if he spoke to Agalarov at all before June 9-that it might just have been voice mail messages. Agalarov for his part, though, confirms they spoke.

“That brings us to the other layer. When the Times first reported on the Trump Tower meeting, the response from Trump Jr. was a deeply misleading statement claiming that it was predicated on the issue of adoption. When the emails surfaced proving that this was false, Trump Jr. changed his story. Mueller’s been investigating the initial response to that report to determine whether Trump Jr. or others tried to obstruct justice by misrepresenting what had happened. Hearing Trump Jr.’s description of how that statement was developed seems important.”

“The FBI is reportedly looking at another question that involves Trump Jr. We learned last year that Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of Russia’s central bank, repeatedly sought to be connected to the Trumps using connections he’d made at the NRA. The FBI is reportedly investigating whether the NRA took money from Russian interests that was then used to boost Trump’s campaign. Torshin himself leveraged his relationships to reach out to the Trumps, seeking, at one point, to set up a dinner between Trump and Putin. At some point that same month, Trump Jr. and Torshin met briefly at an NRA-related event in Kentucky.”

“Beyond those specifics, Trump Jr. was also deeply involved in the campaign itself. He was regularly on the trail with the president and involved in key decisions like the firing of Trump’s first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. Trump Jr. was also involved in the presidential transition, despite criticism. Even had he not been involved in the business or involved in the Trump Tower meeting or linked to Torshin, that involvement would seem to make him an important point of contact.”

Yet Mueller hasn’t interviewed Jr yet. Again, this is likely not a good sign but quite the opposite:

“So why hasn’t Mueller talked to Trump Jr. — assuming he hasn’t? One reason may be that Trump Jr. is so important. Since Trump Jr. was so involved in so many important parts of the campaign and the business, Mueller may be trying to figure out what he needs to ask Trump Jr. before he asks it.”

“There are really two possibilities here: Mueller has already spoken with Trump Jr. and we don’t yet know about it — or he will at some point soon. It seems impossible that Mueller won’t want to know what Trump Jr. knows.”

Another possibility-Jr is a subject or even a target of Mueller’s investigation.

Update: Former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega raised another possibility.

“It’s entirely true, based on public reports so far, that Donald Trump, Jr. appears to have been involved in many significant events that would be of interest to Special Counsel Mueller,” she wrote in a message to The Post. “That very fact suggests a third alternative explanation for Mueller’s failure to interview him thus far: Don, Jr. is a serious subject or, quite possibly a target of the Special Counsel investigation.”

“Federal prosecutors rarely interview targets of an investigation,” she continued. “Instead, they build the case around them, with documents, emails, public admissions and other witnesses.”

It’s certainly seeming more and more likely that Roger Stone is either a very serious subject or even a target of Mueller.

By the way, Ivanka Trump seems to be in the same boat. 

She apparently hasn’t been interviewed either and this is likely because she-and Jr-are being saved until the end.

“The real reason Mueller hasn’t called Ivanka Trump.”

“The special counsel seems to be leaving the president’s children for last.”

“She was in Bedminster, New Jersey, with President Donald Trump the rainy May 2017 weekend when he decided to fire FBI Director James Comey.”

“She was a passenger on the plane flying home from the G-20 conference in Germany the next month, strategizing about how to manage the fallout of her brother Don Jr.’s 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer peddling “dirt” about Hillary Clinton.

Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and West Wing adviser, also spoke briefly at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer and a lobbyist who was present for that meeting during the campaign.”

“Yet the family member closest to the president — and the woman who as a key campaign figure helped lobby her father to hire Paul Manafort, a man who is now under indictment on money laundering and fraud charges, as campaign manager — has yet to be called in for questioning by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to multiple people familiar with the investigation.”

“As Mueller negotiates an interview with the president, former White House aides who themselves have sat down with prosecutors for daylong grillings are wondering why.”

“She’s involved in everything,” said one former White House adviser who has previously clashed with the Trump children. “It’s odd. Unless they consider her that ‘T’ word.”

“So far, only Ivanka Trump’s Washington enemies are actively floating the idea that she might be a “target” of Mueller’s investigation — and therefore not called in as a witness.

LOL-I wonder who that former White House adviser could be? I’ll take Steve Bannon for $1000. Of course, Bannon has his own Russia issues. He already was interviewed by Mueller for 20 hours.

“Steve Bannon, the combative former chief strategist for President Donald Trump, was interrogated for 20 hours over two days this week as part of special counsel Robert Mueller‘s Russia investigation, according to a person familiar with the process.”

“The person, who declined to be named because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation, said Bannon answered every question that was put to him by Mueller’s team. That’s in contrast to a Thursday interview with the House intelligence committee, where Bannon declined to answer some of lawmakers’ questions, despite a subpoena.”

Of course, Devin Nune’s intelligence committee didn’t hold him in contempt for ignoring their subpoena.

While we don’t know what the content of questions Bannon was asked you can guess at a few:

1. About the email he received from Peter Smith in September, 2016 about a search to find Clinton’s deleted emails. There’s reason to believe that Peter Smith was Joseph Schmitz’s client he received the-what turned out to be fake-Clinton emails.

https://lastmenandovermen.com/2018/08/12/a-trump-adviser-bought-fake-clinton-emails-off-the-dark-web-in-2016-was-peter-smith-his-client/

It’s important to realize that Schmitz was: the COO of Blackwater. And, of course, the CEO was Erik Prince. And Prince and Bannon are simpatico. 

So if Smith was Schmitz’s agent then it’s not at all hard to understand why Smith would email Bannon-Bannon is close to Prince who was close to Schmitz.

2. Why did Rhona Graff forward the email from Rob Goldstone for a second Trump Tower meeting in late November, 2016 to him, asking him what to do about it? Had he spoken to her about the Trump Tower meeting before? Who else had he spoken to about it? Was he at the pre Trump Tower meeting on June 7, 2016?

What did he tell Graff?

This right off the bat. There are plenty of others-like his and Prince’s coordination of the Seychelles meeting, etc. You can ask someone a lot of questions over 20 hours