Much has been made of the possibility that Special Counsel Mueller will attempt to legally force President Trump to sit down to an interview under oath where Mueller’s team can ask a multitude of wide ranging questions.

Of course, everyone knows that the sole purpose of this interview will be to catch President Trump in some perjury trap. In a perjury trap, the Person A who is “trapped” can even be telling the truth but be prosecuted for perjury.  This is because someone else, Person B, who is lying but “believed” by the prosecutor to be telling the truth is used as the foil to prosecute Person A. In this case Comey will be the Person B to paint anything Trump says as false.

So, there you have Mueller’s “perjury” case.  Some people have even said Mueller can force Trump to testify because he can give the President trump total immunity and thus vitiate President Trump ability to claim the 5th Amendment against self-incrimination.

However, Mueller’s granting “immunity” to Trump is a legal chimera because Mueller isn’t seeking to indict Trump for a regular Federal crime.  Instead, Mueller is seeking to lay a foundation for crime that allows for Congressional Impeachment. And, Mueller can not grant Trump immunity from Congressional impeachment. Therefore, President Trump’s 5th Amendment protection is legally impervious to Mueller’s legal legerdemain.

First, I must emphasize that there are many legal theoretical and tactical reasons why any Mueller subpoena against President Trump will be defeated. For example, some say a sitting president can’t be indicted, and therefore a President can’t be forced to testify.  Tactically, Rudy Giuliani recently said, the only people who have engaged in “misconduct” have been people in Mueller’s legal team.

Putting these possible arguments aside, at the very end of the day, with just the 5th Amendment and the Impeachment of the Constitution clause at play, President Trump can’t be forced to testify because he can not be “compelled” in the criminal case of Congressional Impeachment “to be a witness against himself.”

Let’s look at the two operative clauses of the United States Constitution that would form the basis of his legal defense: The 5th Amendment to the US Constitution and Article 2 Section 4 of the Constitution.

The 5th Amendment to the US Constitution reads (in pertinent part):

“No person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, . . ..”

Article Two of the United States Constitution states in Section 4 that “The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

So again, the key concept is a prosecutor can force a person to testify to facts that would implicate the person in crimes – but only if the prosecutor grants the person criminal immunity.  The theory is that if the prosecutor has granted the person immunity, then any testimony by the person can’t be used in a criminal case against the person testifying. Prosecutors grant immunity when they think they will land a bigger criminal with this person’s “immunized” testimony.  There are variants of immunity given by prosecutors. But for purposes of this discussion, we’re assuming Mueller gave the highest level of immunity to President Trump that he could possibly give.

In the Mueller game with President Trump, once Trump sits down and invokes the 5th, Mueller will give him “total immunity.”  But, that’s only immunity for other crimes, and not immunity for Mueller asserting Trump is now lying in his present testimony.  So, Mueller can legally attack Trump claiming anything Trump says is false. There’s the perjury trap.

The key is that Mueller is not looking to indict President Trump, but to create a “criminal record” for referral for impeachment by the Congress.  And, Special Counsel Mueller is created from the Article 2 constitutional powers and holds no Congressional powers. So, Mueller can not “immunize” President Trump from the Congress using any of his testimony as the basis for the crime of Impeachment.

In fact, the sole reason Mueller wants to examine President Trump is to concoct a fictitious basis for a criminal Congressional impeachment. If Mueller had any real evidence of Russian collusion, the entire world would have known about it already. Mueller has nothing, so he desperately needs Trump to slip up and say something that Comey can falsely contradict to concoct a perjury impeachment charge.

Therefore, the simple legal question is whether the Article 2 section 4 acts of “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors” are in fact “crimes” under and within the definition of “crimes” under the 5th Amendment.  “Treason, Bribery, and other High Crimes and misdemeanors” would seem to be the archetypal crimes covered under the 5th Amendment.  In fact, the Impeachment article doesn’t just talk about “crimes,” but “High Crimes.”  Therefore, the crimes that would satisfy an Impeachment charge surely fall within “crimes” as countenanced under the 5th Amendment.

Any President can clearly invoke the 5th Amendment in an Impeachment proceeding.  If so, then any president can surely invoke the 5th in a preliminary proceeding where his testimony will surely be used in the ultimate Impeachment proceeding.  Hence, Trump can surely invoke the 5th in any Mueller interrogation.  And, since Mueller doesn’t have any power to immunize President Trump against the use of that testimony in a future Congressional Impeachment, Trump can remain silent despite any Mueller proffer of what would be a meaningless “immunity.”

If Trump remains silent, any attempt to interrogate him will ultimately prove legally fruitless, except for the political optics of President Trump “taking the 5th.”  Those optics might actually benefit President Trump given the plethora of overzealous actions the Mueller team has already displayed.

In conclusion, Mueller is both constitutionally and legally powerless to immunize President Trump from the criminal trial of a congressional impeachment when Mueller’s very goal of forcing President Trump to testify is to create the factual grounds for a criminal Congressional Impeachment.

From the ashes of the catastrophic Obama’s “Iran-First” years, and at almost no cost in American precious blood and treasure, President Trump and Secretary of Defense Mattis have executed what I called “rock-paper-scissors-shoot” strategy. 

In that strategy, Secretary of Defense Mattis has engineered a local multiplier-effect army of Kurds and Arabs to form a metaphorical “scissors” holding Eastern Syria down the eastern banks of the Euphrates River of Syria, this to effectively “cut” Iran’s attempt at creating a continuous topological “paper” from Iran through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean Sea.

The Trump/Mattis’ plan – remember, “scissors cuts paper” –  will succeed for many reasons.

Most critically, American denial of Iranian topological hegemony over the Mesopotamian east-west axis is not only in Russia’s best interests, but is also in the Arabs’ best interests.

As for the Russians, Putin must have been up in arms when Iran recently announced it was building a “super-highway” from Iran through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean Sea.  In the face of Putin’s enabling the Iranian super-victory, the Russian ruler must have felt like saying “Gee, Mom, I won the entire Syria for Iran, and all I got was a lousy t-shirt.”  Russia is now coming around to the ugly reality that its strategic “win” in Syria is, in reality, a super-win for Iran and is, at best, nothing for Russia.

It is actually a catastrophic loss for Russia because today Iran is an “ally” and tomorrow the Neo-Safavidic Iran will be the Russian enemy it always was.  Unlike Russia’s non-contiguous relationship with the United States, the Christian Russia has fought 5 separate contiguous territorial wars with the Islamic Iran/Persia from the 1600’s until today.  Russia’s support for Assad has bought Russia a pyrrhic victory, and assembled for Iran a new Safavidic Empire at Russia’s cost. Therefore, an American Eastern Syrian partition is in the best strategic interests of Russia – Russia’s “rock” has lost to Iran’s “paper.”  Continuing the “scissors-paper-rock” analogy, Russia should welcome America’s Syrian partitioning “scissors” which defeats Iran’s “paper.”

One has only to look at Iran’s rape and plunder of Iraq’s oil resources to see that the Iraqi Shiites have less under Iran’s thieving puppet Iraqi government than they had under the Sunni Saddam Hussein.  President Trump needs to use his twitter account to expose Iran as robbing both Shiite and Sunni Arabs of their oil and gas resources.

In my June 13, 2017 article, Comey’s own words prove his memos weren’t his “Personal Documents”, I argued that James Comey’s testimony before the Unites States Senate Judiciary Committee could be considered perjury as Comey, under oath, swore that his “memos” were his “personal document[s],” and not a “government document[s].”

Now that the actual documents themselves have been released, not only does the fact that Comey contemporaneously emailed these to other government officials make them “government documents,” but critically, Comey’s own designations of the documents makes them “Official” documents.  Apart from some of the “SECRET” designations, Comey personally and specifically designated some of the documents as “FOUO,” which means “For Official Use Only.”  Therefore, Comey’s Senate Judiciary testimony that any of his memo documents were his “personal documents” and not “government” documents can be defined as perjury.

Remember, after Comey was fired, the then-private citizen Comey had given at least some of the memos to the law professor whom he directed to leak to the New York Times.  So, Comey was caught in a legal bind.  The only way he could give the documents to anybody he wanted was if they were his own “personal documents.”  Otherwise, Comey would have to have admitted to taking and misappropriation of the government property of his memos.

Let’s review the transcript of Comey’s June 8, 2017 sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Under Republican Senator Roy Blunt’s questioning:

“BLUNT: So you didn’t consider your memo or your sense of that conversation to be a government document? You consider it to be somehow your own personal document that you could share with the media as you wanted to?

COMEY: Correct. I…

BLUNT: Through a friend?

COMEY: … I understood this to be my recollection, recorded, of my conversation with the president. As a private citizen, I felt free to share that. I thought it very important to get it out.”

You can’t get more clear than that!!  Comey swore that all the documents were his “personal document[s]” and not [government document[s].”

Now, let’s look at the actual designations Comey gave to each of the memo documents he wrote, and in many cases personally initialed with his own handwriting:

• January 7, 2017 Memo- “SECRET//NOFORN”

Sent from Comey’s E-mail, typed initials “JBC”

• January 28, 17 Memo- “CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN” Personally handwritten initialed “JBC 1/28/17” on page 4
• February 8, 2017 Memo–“SECRET//NOFORN”

Personally handwritten initialed “JBC” and Typed “JBC 2/8/2017”

• February 14, 2017 Memo– “UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO”

Personally handwritten initialed “JBC 2/14/17” and Typed “JBC 2/14/17”

• MARCH 1, 2017 Memo- “UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO”

Sent by Comey’s E-mail

• March 30, 2017 Memo– “UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO”

Personally handwritten initialed “JBC 3/30/17” and Typed “JBC”

• April 11, 2017- “CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN” Personally handwritten initialed “JBC 1/28/17”

Where, I have written “personally handwritten initialed” is where on the released document Comey’s actual handwritten initials appear on the released document.

The designation used in the above-herein-referenced memos are defined as the following:

SECRET: This is the second-highest classification. Information is classified Secret when its unauthorized disclosure would cause “serious damage” to national security.

NOFORN: Distribution to non-US citizens is prohibited, regardless of their clearance or access permissions (NO FOReign National access allowed).

COFIDENTIAL: This is the lowest classification level of information obtained by the government. It is defined as information that would “damage” national security if publicly disclosed, again, without the proper authorization.

UNCLASSIFIED: Unclassified is not technically a classification; this is the default and refers to information that can be released to individuals without a clearance. Information that is unclassified is sometimes restricted in its dissemination as Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) or For Official Use Only (FOUO).

FOUO: For Official Use Only. Used for documents or products which contain material which is exempt from release under the Freedom of Information Act.

We don’t know exactly which of these specific memos Comey took from the government and subsequently gave to the leaking law professor, but it is believed Comey gave at least 4 of the above-referenced memos to the law professor. The law professor had no security clearance whatsoever, and Comey admits he directed the professor to have them published because Comey wanted the memo information to be “out in the public square.”

Let’s exclude, for the moment, the Comey memos that are labeled “SECRET//NOFORN” and “CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN.” I’m excluding those memos because anyone who testifies or remotely claims under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee that any “Secret,” “Confidential,” and/or “NO Foreign National” access document is his “personal document” and not a “government document”  is acting irrationally. And, Comey wasn’t just “anybody.”  He was the former Director of the FBI!!  So, if Comey was testifying about the Secret/Confidential documents, he clearly lied.

So, the question narrows to: How could Comey possibly truthfully testify that his Trump memos were his “personal documents” even where he personally designated them with weakest classification of the batch as “FOUO” meaning “For Official Use Only”?  Remember, “Official Use” is the exact opposite of “personal use.”  “Official Use” means the document is an “official” document, not a “personal” document.  Therefore, the answer to the question is Comey could not possibly have testified truthfully that the memos weren’t “government documents,” and even about the “FOUO” documents.

The conclusion is Comey knowingly and purposefully seems to have perjured himself to Senator Blunt and to the entire Senate Judiciary Committee in saying that any of the documents were his “personal documents,” and not “government documents.”  And, since, Comey both took the documents and perjured himself to the Senate Committee after he was fired, the DOJ Inspector General doesn’t have jurisdiction and AG Sessions must authorize an investigation of Comey’s post-firing crimes.

As previously discussed, the Schiff Memo inadvertently and objectively opened the gates of an Obama governmental criminal conspiracy involving at least the Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and FBI Director James Comey to have seemingly perjured themselves in their joint swearing that the sentence in footnote #8 on page 15-16 in the October 21, 2016 FISA application that “The FBI speculates that the identified U.S. Person [Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS] was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1’s [Trump’s] campaign.” was true.  See Schiff Democrat Intelligence Minority Memo page 5.

By October 21, 2016, both surely knew Glenn Simpson aka “identified U.S. Person” was a paid Clinton Campaign/Democrat Committee agent.  So, to aver to the FISA court in writing that the FBI only “speculated” that it was only a “likely” that there was a political motive of Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS was objectively and grossly knowingly a doubly false statement to the FISA court.

The key is for the Trump defense to offensively use that sentence to destroy the entire Mueller investigation legally by asserting the October 21, FISA application was based on that perjurious sentence, and therefore the entire Mueller investigation is based on fruit of the poisonous tree of the perjured October 21, 2016 application.

Critically, one would argue that before a sitting president, President Trump, could or should be forced to testify, the defense should be able to depose Yates and Comey to expose what was an objectively cognizable conspiracy to knowingly lie in their FISA court application whose result could be to effect a coup d’etat.

The first question would be: Is such an offensive motion by the Trump defense team for a Yates/Comey deposition in, and of itself, an “obstruction of justice?”  The answer is that if legitimately attempting to zealously defend your client against a governmental conspiracy in seeking to depose the authors of a sworn written FISA document where the statement is objectively false is an “obstruction of justice,” then any legitimate act of President Trump’s legal defense by the President is, in and of itself, an “obstruction of justice.”  A person and his legal team legitimately defending himself can’t be considered “obstruction of justice,” otherwise every legitimate act in every  legal defense for every alleged defendant in the United States is obstruction of justice.

It is fair to say that all the “evidence” produced so far is based on evidence trickled out or illegally spun from from the original October 21, 2016 perjured FISA application.  So, if the footnoted sentence “The FBI speculates that the identified U.S. Person [Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS] was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1’s [Trump’s] campaign.” was perjury, then the entire October 21, 2016 will surely be found to be legally defective.

If the authors of the October 21, 2016 are criminal perjurers, then all Mueller’s legal claims based on illegal fruit of the October 21, 2016 FISA application tree become legally unusable to show any legal basis for Trump being forced to testify in the first place. In fact, just the opposite will occur. It will show that Mueller has, in fact, been, at best, unwittingly conspiring with those who made that statement, Yates and Comey, to effectively advance what was an Obama governmental attempt at a criminal coup d’etat against President Trump.

Imagine for one moment, that two Trump administration ICE agents conspired to perjure themselves in a written application for a warrant to arrest an illegal alien.  The newspapers and cable shows would be screaming “perjury” “Nazi criminal ICE agents lie to the court for the new Hitler.” Or better yet, if two Republican-leaning Deputy Attorney General and FBI Director knowingly perjured themselves in a FISA warrant against a Democrat Presidential candidate?  The world would end as we know it. But, since Yates and Comey did so to destroy the Republican Trump, the media ignores the ugly reality staring them in the face.

Everyone should focus of the October 21, 2016 FISA application statement, “The FBI speculates that the identified U.S. Person [Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS] was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1’s [Trump’s] campaign.”  The key perjury words are “speculates”, and “likely.”

“Speculate” is defined as to “Form a theory about a subject without firm evidence.” The FBI had firm evidence that Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS were in Clinton’s pay. The use of “speculates” is a lie.  And, “likely” is defined as “probable.” It was also a lie when the FBI and DOJ claimed it was only “probable” that Glenn Simpson sought dirt on Trump when it was absolutely positive. There was nothing “probable” about GPS Fusion’s singular intention. So, one sentence, two lies.

Most important, the Trump team’s legally focusing on what was an objective fraud on the FISA court is a fundamental protection of the US Constitution itself, and of every American’s rights.  If the governmental can conspire to lie to destroy a candidate from one political party, then we have become a country of men, and not of laws. If the government can affect an unconstitutional criminal coup against a presidential candidate, then no American is safe from the government’s tyranny.  President Trump legal offensive against the perjured October 21, 2016 FISA application is the ultimate defense of the United States of America.

Democrat Congressman Adam Schiff, who has relentlessly led the House Democratic “Collusion” attack on President Trump, compiled a response memo attempting to contradict the House Majority Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) memo of the Department of Justice (DOJ), and FBI FISA court abuses committed against then-Candidate, and now President, Donald Trump.

Instead of contradicting the Republican Report, Schiff provided the public with the key documentary kernel of the actual text of the above-super-top secret Carter Page DOJ/FBI FISA application.  By providing this actual key FISA application text, Schiff has confirmed that numerous DOJ/FBI staff committed Federal crimes in their October 21, 2016 Page FISA application.

DOJ/FBI represented to the FISA Court that it only “speculated” that Glenn Simpson, whom the FBI/DOJ knew had been hired by the Clinton Campaign and the Democrat National Committee, was only “likely looking” for dirt on Candidate Trump.  It is the FBI/DOJ’s own words stating that Simpson was “likely looking” for political dirt that comprise knowing and intentional perjury by the DOJ/FBI to the FISA court.

The Clinton Campaign and the DNC weren’t “likely looking” for dirt, they were paying for any and every lie they could collect.  Such clear and convincing documentary evidence of DOJ/FBI’s grave Federal crimes under 18 U.S.C. Section 1623 – False declarations before grand jury or court in a FISA application requires a Federal Prosecutor, not a powerless DOJ Inspector General.

Here is the actual unedited text of the Schiff Memo:

[Start of Minority FISA “Correcting the Record” Report page 5]

“DOJ’s Transparency about Christopher Steele

Far from “omitting” material facts about Steele, as the Majority claims, (footnote 17) DOJ repeatedly informed the Court about Steele’s background, credibility, and potential bias.  DOJ explained in detail Steele’s prior relationship with and compensation from the FBI; his credibility, reporting history, and source network; the fact of and reason for his termination as a source in late October 2016; and the likely political motivations of those who hired Steele.

DOJ was transparent with the Court about Steele’s sourcing:  The Committee Majority, which had earlier accused Obama Administration officials of improper “unmasking,” faults DOJ for not revealing the names of specific U.S. persons and entities in the FISA application and subsequent renewals.  In fact, DOJ appropriately upheld its longstanding practice of protecting U.S. citizen information by purposefully not “unmasking” U.S. persons and entity names, unless they themselves are the subject of a counterintelligence investigation.  DOJ instead used generic identifiers that provided the Court with more than enough information to understand the political context of Steele’s research.

In an extensive explanation to the Court, DOJ discloses that Steele, “was approached by an identified U.S. Person,(“Glenn Simpson”, Footnote 18), who indicated to Source #1[Steele](Footnote 19) that a U.S.-based law firm (“Perkins Coie,” Footnote 20) had hired the identified U.S. person to conduct research regarding Candidate #1’s ties to Russia.(“Donald Trump” Footnote 21)  (The identified U.S. Person and Source #1 have a long-standing business relationship.)  The identified U.S. Person hired Source #1 to conduct this research.  The identified U.S. Person never advised Source #1 as to the motivation behind the research into Candidate #1’s ties to Russia.  The FBI speculates that the identified U.S. Person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1’s campaign.” (Footnote 22- Entire preceding paragraph is from the actual Department of Justice, Foreign Intelligence Court Application, October 21, 2016, pp. 15-16, n. 8. Repeated in subsequent renewal applications.)”

[End of Minority Report]

Before discussing the “likely looking” smoking gun lie, a glimpse at some of Schiff’s legal analysis actually implicates Schiff himself in the criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States government.  Take his “unmasking” argument.  Schiff legally compares the unmasking of an incidental U.S. citizen who has been ensnared in a FISA surveillance with an actual all-too-willing U.S. citizen volunteer of “counterintelligence” information to the FBI.  To conflate the FISA civil rights protections of an incidentally surveilled US citizen with a domestic U.S. citizen and political organization who both knowingly and willingly paid for Kremlin-derived political dirt is, at best, a legal fraud.

There is absolutely no FISA application legal cause to unmask the incidentally taped US citizen who was not the counterintelligence target.  But, if a US citizen is actively paying Russian Kremlin sources for grossly political dirt, and knowingly and intentionally involving himself into a counterintelligence investigation, it is vital for the FISA court to know everything about him to assess the actual motivation behind creation of the proffered information, most especially his name.  Here, Schiff actually asserts, that the FBI/DOJ “purposefully” failed to unmasked Glenn Simpson, his firm, and most importantly his client – the Clinton Campaign.  This is such a purposeful material omission that it should be seen as a prima facie Federal crime.

For Schiff to claim the FBI/DOJ was protecting “sources and methods” by not disclosing the Clinton and DNC political source is ludicrous.  You protect the sources and methods of a “sleeper cell” in deep cover in the Kremlin because the sleeper agent will be captured by Russia.  Here the Clinton Campaign and DNC were in no danger of anything but well-deserved political embarrassment for intentionally providing the US government with lies and falsehoods.  Here, the Kremlin was explicitly and intentionally providing the political lies where the Kremlin powers-that-be were knowingly and purposefully feeding the DNC and Clinton campaign the anti-Trump lies.

And it gets worse for the Obama DOJ/FBI criminals.  The Schiff memo shows that the Steele “explanatory” paragraph was only in a “footnote” of the FISA application.  How do we know it was only referenced in a footnote in the FISA Top-secret application?  Because the Schiff “Footnote 22” states the cited paragraph was found at “pp.15-16, n. 8.”  “n. 8” means that the paragraph was in Footnote “8” at pages 15-16.  That  means the FBI/DOJ lie that no one could ever conclude was really the Clinton Campaign was hidden in a densely typed Footnote “8” making it highly unlikely anyone would even see it.

The heart of the matter is that on October 21, 2016, the date of the FISA Page application, the DOJ and FBI clearly knew Glenn Simpson was an immediate proxy and paid agent of the Clinton Campaign and the DNC.

Their FISA application footnoted and underlined statement that “The FBI speculates that the identified U.S. Person[Glenn Simpson] was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1’s [Trump’s]campaign.” is not only a sin  of omission, but an actual knowing and intentional perjury.  The FBI/DOJ knew that Simpson was a Clinton Campaign paid-agent who wasn’t “likely looking” for political dirt to discredit Candidate Trump, but  was single-mindedly, at any cost, 100% looking for any lie that they could find to discredit Candidate Trump.

The FBI/DOJ’s knowingly withholding this vital information about the real source of the financing of the Steele Memo from the FISA court, and lying about it in Footnote “8” implicate numerous Federal crimes that require an immediate appointment of a Federal prosecutor.

It is clear why the Republicans voted unanimously to release the Schiff “Rebuttal”: It contained the actual smoking gun text of the October 21, 2016 FISA application itself.  Schiff has unwittingly provided the public with the documentary evidence that proves the DOJ/FBI Obama lackeys committed federal crimes in their attempt to acquire the “insurance policy” that could destroy the Trump Administration.

If the October 21, 2016 FISA was a criminal endeavor, then we don’t have merely another Watergate, we have a massive ongoing criminal conspiracy against the United States of America.