After a discrepancy was discovered in source documents obtained from the special counsel’s office, U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, Republican – California, is requesting the release of all “backup and source documentation” related to Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.
According to TheBlaze, Nunes’ call came after a 2017 voicemail transcript from President Donald J. Trump’s former attorney John Dowd to the lawyer representing former national security advisor Michael Flynn was released to the public. During the communication with Flynn’s lawyer, Dowd requested a “heads up” if Flynn was aware of information damaging to Trump. The newly released transcript consisted of content that wasn’t originally included in Mueller’s source documents.
In a tweet written on May 31, 2019, Nunes said, “This is why we need all backup and source documentation for the #muellerdossier released publicly. It’s all a fraud.”
Fox News reported that the California Congressman retweeted a side-by-side comparison of the transcript text and the Mueller report text. Nunes insinuated that Mueller didn’t reveal Dowd’s entire message. Mueller’s report had removed the section of the voicemail where Trump’s former attorney stated he wanted the heads up “not only for the president but for the country.”
The report had also stricken the part of the communication where Dowd said he wasn’t asking for “any confidential information.”
Dowd’s complete transcript read, “Hey, Rob, uhm, this is John again. Uh, maybe, I-I-I’m-I’m sympathetic; I understand your situation, but let me see if I can’t state it in starker terms. If you have—and it wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve gone on to make a deal with, and, uh, work with the government—uh, I understand that you can’t join the joint defense; so that’s one thing.”
Continuing, Trump’s former lawyer remarked, “If, on the other hand, we have, there’s information that implicates the President, then we’ve got a national security issue, or maybe a national security issue, I don’t know, some issue, we got to-we got to deal with, not only for the President, but for the country. So … uh … you know, then-then, you know, we need some kind of heads up.”
Concluding his comments, Dowd stated, “Um, just for the sake of protecting all our interests, if we can, without you having to give up any confidential information. So, uhm, and if it’s the former, then, you know, remember what we’ve always said about the President and his feelings toward Flynn and, that still remains, but-Well, in any event, uhm, let me know, and, uh, I appreciate your listening and taking the time. Thanks, Pal.”
According to Fox News, “Federal prosecutors released the transcript in a court filing.” In 2018, Flynn plead guilty to lying to federal investigators regarding contacts to Russians. He’s currently awaiting his sentencing.
For his part, Flynn insisted the purpose of Dowd’s call was to thwart his cooperation with the Mueller team. But, in a statement released on May 31, Dowd said, “This is clearly a baseless, political document designed to smear and damage the reputation of counsel and innocent people.”
At the moment, multiple probes into the reasoning of the Russia investigation are occurring. The Justice Department is among those who are seeking answers. Fox News reported that these new investigations “were instigated by the president and Republicans who claim the Russia investigation was based on bad intelligence and illegal spying by the FBI on the Trump campaign.”
Last week, one Republican U.S. Congressman vowed to introduce a bill labeled “Investigate the Investigators” Act. During an interview on a broadcast of Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” Representative Bradley Byrne, Alabama, maintained that the Mueller probe revealed a “big, fat goose egg.”
Bradley commented, “It was a partisan witch hunt from the beginning and we need to get to the bottom of who was behind this and how far up the chain does it go.”
Referring to the FBI’s decision to begin a counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign and Russia, the Alabama Representative asked, “What did President Obama know and when he did he know it?”
Byrne commented that he believes Democrats are completely willing to impeach the President regardless of their lack of evidence. He remarked, “I don’t know that we can stop the Democrats on this hyper-partisan effort to go after impeachment.” Revealing that he painstakingly read the Mueller report, the Alabama Congressman said, “there is just no case there.”
On May 30, the President released a memo authorizing Attorney General William Barr to declassify any documents concerning the surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2016. Trump also ordered the intelligence community to collaborate with the Attorney General.
