News Release

“Mueller’s Own Report Undercuts Its Core Russia-Meddling Claims”

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Former FBI head Robert Mueller is finally scheduled to testify about his Russiagate report on Wednesday. While many were blindsided by Mueller’s conclusion of no collusion, many are now ignoring the story: “Judge Sides With Indicted Russian Firm on Mueller Report’s Harm,” see below.

AARON MATÉ, aaronmate at gmail.com, @aaronjmate

Maté recently won the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College’s Izzy Award (named after I. F. Stone) for “meticulous reporting” that “consistently challenged the way the public was being informed about the Mueller investigation and related issues.” His first pieces on the subject were in 2017 and included, for The Nation: “Stop With the Conspiracy Theories — Trump Is Bad Enough” and “Russiagate Is More Fiction Than Fact.” He was regularly featured by accuracy.org on some of the scores of news releases that debunked and scrutinized numerous aspects of Russiagate.

He just wrote the piece “CrowdStrikeOut: Mueller’s Own Report Undercuts Its Core Russia-Meddling Claims,” which states: “While the 448-page Mueller report found no conspiracy between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, it offered voluminous details to support the sweeping conclusion that the Kremlin worked to secure Trump’s victory. …

“But a close examination of the report shows that none of those headline assertions are supported by the report’s evidence or other publicly available sources. They are further undercut by investigative shortcomings and the conflicts of interest of key players involved:

* “The report uses qualified and vague language to describe key events, indicating that Mueller and his investigators do not actually know for certain whether Russian intelligence officers stole Democratic Party emails, or how those emails were transferred to WikiLeaks.

* “The report’s timeline of events appears to defy logic. According to its narrative, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced the publication of Democratic Party emails not only before he received the documents but before he even communicated with the source that provided them.

* “There is strong reason to doubt Mueller’s suggestion that an alleged Russian cutout called Guccifer 2.0 supplied the stolen emails to Assange.

* “Mueller’s decision not to interview Assange — a central figure who claims Russia was not behind the hack — suggests an unwillingness to explore avenues of evidence on fundamental questions. …”

Maté stresses: “In a newly unsealed July 1 ruling, a federal judge rebuked Mueller and the Justice Department for having ‘improperly suggested a link’ between the IRA [Internet Research Agency] and the Russian government. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich said Mueller’s February 2018 indictment ‘does not link the [IRA] to the Russian government’ and alleges ‘only private conduct by private actors.’ The judge added the government’s statements violate a prohibiting lawyers from making claims that would prejudice a case.”