“A tranche of FBI 302s (summaries of agent interviews) were declassified this week via a Freedom of Information Act request. Among them was a 302 from a July 12, 2017 interview with State Department translator Anatoli Samochornov, who attended the now infamous June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting.
Fox News Contributor and investigator Dan Bongino explains the significance of this 302 in episode 1198 of his daily podcast. This single document proves that Special Counsel Robert Mueller knew in July 2017 nothing nefarious had happened during the meeting. Yet, he ignored the evidence and continued on with his bogus investigation – to protect his own. This was a pivotal month for the Mueller team as you’ll soon see.
In early July 2017, word was circulating through the intelligence community that the FBI would be interviewing the participants of a June 2016 meeting held in Trump Towers. Those who attended the meeting included Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya (client of Fusion GPS founder, Glenn Simpson), Samochornov (wife worked for State Department), lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, a former Soviet military officer, and Rob Goldstone, an acquaintance of Trump Jr. who helped set up the meeting. Bongino explains that this meeting was a set-up intended to foster the Russian collusion story.
(…) Four days later, the FBI interviewed Anatoli Samochornov. The 302 states:
US government Russian language interpreter Anatoli Samochornov (center right/wearing glasses) at 2015 UN meeting held between President Obama and President Putin. (Credit: Japan Times)
There was no discussion of the 2016 U.S. presidential election or collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign…There was no smoking gun. Samochornov did not believe there had been any mention of Hillary Clinton…Veselnitskaya did not offer any materials during the meeting and no papers were exchanged.
Samochornov was not particularly fond of Donald Trump Jr., but stated that Donald Trump Jr.’s account of the meeting with Veselnitskaya, as portrayed in recent media reports, was accurate. Samochornov concurred with Donald Trump Jr.’s accounts of the meeting. He added, “they” were telling the truth. Samochornov told the interviewing agents that he would have contacted the FBI if he thought the meeting was nefarious.
Bongino asks the obvious question and then answers it. Why didn’t they mention Hillary during the meeting? Wasn’t that the reason for the meeting? He says:
Because they didn’t have anything on Hillary. They weren’t there to give them fake information on Hillary. And if they gave the Trump team fake information that was later discovered to be fake, they would have figured out this was a scam.
The only purpose for them was to just show up. That’s it. The only thing they needed for the media story was the meeting…The meeting was the evidence. The optics. Soundbites and snapshots.
All they needed was the picture of them going in there or the soundbite, ‘Hey, Kremlin linked lawyer met with Trump, Jr.’ That’s all they needed.
So what does Mueller do? He suppresses the evidence and keeps the investigation going for two more years.
Then he does something else. (Hat tip to Techno Fog.)
The Mueller team obtains a search warrant for the “communications, records, documents, and other files involving all of the attendees of the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower, as well as Aras and Amin Agalorov.” (Aras and Amin Agalorov are alleged to have helped set up this meeting.)
What else happens in July 2017?
The Inspector General gives Mueller the (FBI agent) Peter Strzok/(FBI Lawyer) Lisa Page text messages and now Mueller realizes that the real investigators have nothing either.” (Read much more: Redstate, 3/07/2020) (Archive)