The interview with Paul Jay and Coleen Rowley was on a Real News podcast
that I heard yesterday. There a "This Can't Be Happening" podcast, but I
just deleted it today because after 4 weeks, no episodes have downloaded on
my stream. Who knows why?
Miriam
Bi-Partisans Love Mueller, Should The Movement Be Worried?
Jake Waage; Edited: LW / TO
By Coleen Rowley, www.therealnews.com
May 18th, 2017
Above Photo: Jake Waage; Edited: LW / TO
Robert Mueller is getting rave reviews from bi-partisans in Washington, DC.
As the longest serving FBI agent ever, other than the J. Edgar Hoover he is
well connected to the DC political establishment. He is closely connected to
both parties serving under George W. Bush and Barak Obama. He worked under
James Comey when Comey was a deputy attorney general in DOJ and reportedly
the two our friends.
The reality is that Mueller has a very different history when viewed from
the perspective of peoples movement. He was FBI director when the anti-war
movement was most active before the Iraq War and was infiltrated and spied
on by the FBI. He was also director during the Occupy Movement when occupy
was infiltrated by the FBI and worked with Homeland Security and police
agencies across the country to close occupy encampments.
Long-time activist Richard J. Ochs wrote on the Washington Post website:
Some history on Robert Mueller: The lead investigator into the BCCI banking
scandal was Robert Mueller, who steered the investigation clear of any money
laundering investigation into any of BCCIs clients, despite ample evidence
that would have incriminated a large number of international players,
including the Bush family. Mueller was also the lead prosecutor in the
Noriega case, and fixed it so that Noriega wasnt allowed to mention the CIA
at his trial, or show any evidence that he worked for the CIA.
Delta Oil, the Saudi oil company, is partly owned by Khalid Bin Mahfouz,
business partner of the Bin Ladin family and the Bush family. Mahfouz was
involved in the BCCI banking scandal, as reported in the Kerry Commission
report on BCCI.
Mueller became head of the FBI three months before the 2001 anthrax letters
terrorized the country into the Iraq War and Patriot Act. The anthrax was
traced to a U.S. army lab and the Carlisle Group, owned by Bush family and
bin Laden family. The lead FBI investigator resigned in protest of a flawed
investigation (more)during Robert Muellers tenure.
After 9/11 there were roundup detentions of Muslim and Arab men, reportedly
1,200 people.Mueller is a defendant in an ongoing case filed by those who
were detained. More on Mueller in this discussion between me, David Lindorff
of This Cant Be Happening and Brian Becker of the ANSWER Coalition and host
of Loud and Clear.
We will have to wait and see how the Trump campaign investigation proceeds,
but coming from the establishment in Washington, DC should be something that
makes President Trump very nervous. Is Mueller the final blow for a deep
state coup? KZ
Special Counsel Investigating Trump Deeply Tied To The Deep State
Former FBI agent and 9/11 whistleblower Coleen Rowley says former FBI head
Robert Mueller, now appointed to investigate the Trump campaigns ties to
Russia, participated in covering up the pre 9/11 role of the U.S.
intelligence agencies and the Bush Administration, helped create the post
9/11 national security/surveillance state, and helped facilitate the
pre-Iraq war propaganda machine
PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. Im Paul Jay. On Wednesday
afternoon, Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert S.
Mueller to be a special counsel to investigate the Russia affair, those, not
his words, those are mine, to look into the whole issue of alleged Russia
interference in the American elections, and that would also, one think,
include a look into what happened with James Comey, and James Comeys
firing, and his memo and such. So just who is Robert Mueller? And now
joining us to discuss this is Coleen Rowley. Coleen is a retired FBI agent,
former legal counsel for the FBI. She testified about the 9/11 lapses to the
Senate Judiciary Committee. 9/11 lapses is generous. This is what was
written for me. I would say 9/11 subterfuge, but at any rate, shes known as
a whistleblower due to her testimony to two congressional committees that
led to an investigation of two FBI 9/11 failures, and one would also have to
be generous to call them failures. At any rate, thats another story. Thanks
for joining us, Coleen.
COLEEN ROWLEY: Yes, thanks for having me.
PAUL JAY: So who is Robert Mueller, and what do you make of this
appointment?
COLEEN ROWLEY: Robert Mueller had only been director for a few days when
9/11 occurred, so he really didnt have any responsibility for that, but he
also was in charge when this kind of cover-up occurred, where they really
werent telling the truth. The FBI and all the other officials claimed that
there was no clues, that they had had no warning, etc., and that was not the
case. There had been all kinds of memos and intelligence coming in. I
actually had a chance to meet Director Mueller personally the night before I
testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he was more or less
There
was another agent in Phoenix who had, he had done the same with, trying to
get us on his side, on the FBI side, so that we wouldnt say anything
terribly embarrassing. And he told me that if I ever witnessed anything like
that again, the pre-9/11 failures, that I should call him directly. I should
get in touch with him.
He told me this in our office, and yeah, when you had the lead-up to the
Iraq War where the FBI, actually Robert Mueller and, of course, the CIA and
all the other directors, saluted smartly and went along with what Bush
wanted, which was to gin up the intelligence to make a pretext for the Iraq
War. For instance, in the case of the FBI, they actually had a receipt,
another documentary proof, that one of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta, had not
been in Prague, as Dick Cheney was alleging. And yet those directors more or
less kept quiet. That included, like I said, CIA, FBI, Mueller, and it
included also the Deputy Attorney General at the time, James Comey.
And so when James Comey was appointed to be FBI director by Obama, I wrote
this opinion piece for The New York Times, and it appeared the same day of
the confirmation hearing, and I suggested that James Comey be asked hard
questions about why he had signed off on illegal warrantless monitoring, why
he had signed off on the torture tactics. In fact, The New York Times even,
they didnt want me to use the word torture. That was still, at the time,
that was a verboten term. They wanted me to say some harsh interrogation
tactics or something, and we settled on saying, which experts believe is
torture, thats how its phrased in the op-ed. And then he also signed off,
this is even worse in a way, James Comey defended a warrantless detention
without charges and without right to counsel for three years of an American
citizen. This, none of our mainstream news has been going back to what they
think is ancient history, which is what the Bush administration did
initially on.
Both of these figures, Mueller and James Comey, first of all, they became
very close with each other, because this was in the first three or four
years after 9/11 when there was essentially a state of emergency that
Ashcroft was signing off every 90 days, and this was the creation of John
Yoo and those Office of Legal Counsel. They thought that if you declared it
was an emergency
By the way, all secretly. The public knew none of this,
that there was this emergency, but if you declared it was a national
emergency, then you could institute a form of martial law. And if you see
the John Yoo memos, they say everything that, in times of war, we dont have
a First Amendment. Those are memos that are written within weeks of 9/11,
but its based on this emergency. So you get to three years, about three
years, out, and people like James Comey, Mueller, and some of the new Office
of Legal Counsel lawyers that took over after Comey had left
I mean, excuse me, after John Yoo had left, they started saying, How long
can we keep saying its an emergency? And they said, No, were going to
have to stop this, and thats when that famous hospital room standoff
occurs, where first James Comey races to Ashcrofts room and stands up to
the Bush administration, Gonzalez and Card. They arrive, and they try to get
a very sick Ashcroft to sign off on this every 90 days emergency, again,
authorizing a form of martial law, and Ashcroft, to his credit, does not
sign it. Of course, the other part of this that people dont know is that
not only did Comey and the other officials go along with it before that
hospital room standoff, but then they also went along with it afterwards.
They simply found new loopholes and new legal mechanisms, I call it
pettifoggery, legalization ways of making the same things happen afterwards.
PAUL JAY: So-
COLEEN ROWLEY: Now, Mueller and Comey both got undeserved reputations as
being men of integrity. In fact, Mueller, it was extended. Theres a 10-year
term for FBI director, and because he was considered so beyond reproach, and
he had skated so well between this morass, and of course, some of this
didnt always come out, he was held on for 12 years. And so, again, these
two were close, and when Comey spoke out about that hospital room, a lot of
people objected to him and argued with him, and it was Mueller, I believe,
that kept notes of the hospital room meeting. And so Mueller backed up Comey
for that whole hospital room situation.
PAUL JAY: Coleen, so you look at this appointment now. Rosenstein appoints
Mueller. Mueller, as youve told me off camera, is a very good friend of
Comey, and theyve worked together for years. Where do you see this
appointment falling down? In terms of whose side, theres clearly, it seems
to me, Comey has decided to get Trump, and Trump fired Comey. Trump writes
this, Comey writes this memo, and we know, at least according to the press
reports in The Washington Post, Comey decides to
This memo is not
classified. Theres several reports that say that some of the memos that he
would keep after meeting with Trump, he would make classified. Others were
unclassified. The memo thats in question that everyones talking about,
which is the memo that says that Trump asked him to drop the investigation
into Flynn, that memo he consciously decides to click unclassified. Now, how
do we know theres even a memo? We know it because Comey has given the memo
to associates. Im doing question marks here, or quotation marks, because we
dont know who the associates are. Are they in the FBI? Are they outside the
FBI?
Some of his associates then leak this information to the Post, apparently
also to The New York Times, apparently also to AP, which, if the memos not
classified, then I suppose its not illegal, I guess. But Comey made it so,
so Comey wanted this memo to get out, clearly, after he was fired, and now
his buddy is being appointed the investigator. Is Rosenstein appointing
someone who knows how to be subservient and do whatever his president wants,
or is he appointing someone who will work with Comey and others to get
Trump?
COLEEN ROWLEY: If you go back to the Obama administration, both Mueller and
Comey were close with the Obama administration, and so Obama himself, or
people around him, made sure that the memos that they were writing from the
summer on of the suspicions about Russia and things like that, they made
sure that these memos were shared widely in the intelligence community.
Thats actually been reported by mainstream news, that there was a
deliberate effort to make sure that this information got out and would not
somehow be kept secret. And so if you consider that both Comey and, going
further back, Mueller, were very much aware of that, they worked with the
Obama administration, and Comey, especially, would just be carrying out what
was already begun before Trump took office. Thats what I think. I think the
[S 00:09:53] on associates, and again, officials, youll see sometimes the
sources described as officials.
You never see them described as whistleblowers, and I think thats good,
that the media does not describe them as whistleblowers, and I think theres
a lot of indications that these are leakers, certainly, but that they are
not motivated for having witnessed a fraud, waste, abuse, or another illegal
act, I think that this is a lot of political motivation. And maybe they can
justify it in their own heads, and, again, its more than one person. I
think there
PAUL JAY: But where do you think-
COLEEN ROWLEY:
are people working together.
PAUL JAY: But what do you think of this appointment? Is this an appointment
Like Mueller, based on what youve been saying, is more than happy to
fudge facts, to cover things up, and play along, but whos he playing along
with? Because youre suggesting that maybe this is still the echo of the
Obama administration, that this is part of the state apparatus that was
around the Obama presidency, and perhaps, a lot of people have been arguing,
including me, that the people that are so opposed to Trumps Russia
quote-unquote détente are people in the industrial-military complex that
has so many decades, 60 years, invested into an anti-Russian narrative. Do
you think this is all part of this, or is Mueller someone whos going to
help Trump?
COLEEN ROWLEY: I dont know if hes going to help Trump or help the deep
state at this point, and probably he doesnt even know, but Rosenstein,
going back to who picked Mueller, Rosenstein probably knows both of them
very well, Mueller, obviously, and Comey. And again, hes picking them
This is a educated guess. Hes picking them because they have these
reputations, whether deserved or not, for integrity, so thats what he
wanted. He wanted someone that would be above reproach
PAUL JAY: I mean, hes-
COLEEN ROWLEY:
while Mueller went out in the highest amount of praise. He
was held over another two years, so for starters, Rosenstein is pretty
powerful right now, too, vis-à-vis the Trump administration, because he was
the one that was kind of sullied in all of this, saying that, It was your
recommendation to fire Comey to begin with.
PAUL JAY: Oh, he did. He did certainly lay the groundwork for the firing of
Comey.
COLEEN ROWLEY: Thats right, but in that dynamic, Rosenstein gets a little
bit of power himself now to say, Well, then, now, Im going to pick
somebody whos above reproach. Maybe Trump isnt that happy with picking
Mueller, who knows, but I dont think Trump really would have much of a leg
to stand on if Rosenstein says, This is the guy we need. I think
Rosenstein was pretty powerful in this case for a lot of reasons, and
Mueller, if you think about the standpoint of the public, whatever, may not
be the worst choice. In fact, because of his background and reputation, I
think that a lot of, certainly bipartisan, would trust him. Now, if you go
back to the deep state and all of these entities that I think want to keep
the war in Syria and this rapprochement
Again, if you want to give a little bit of credit to Trump, who I did not
vote for and has a lot of flaws, but one of the things that I agreed with in
his campaign promises, and now, frankly, he has been carrying out, he has
been meeting with Lavrov and has a meeting scheduled with Putin. Its in
order to work on the issues of Syria and ISIS so that there can be some
coordination, and so I actually am for that. I think that we should give him
some credit, give Trump some credit for that. There are a lot of people in
Washington that this is stepping on their toes and their profits. This is
not the direction they wanted to go. In fact, if you heard the debates
between Hillary Clinton and whatever, this was a sore point, and Trump was
criticized for this.
I think some of the motivation, maybe not all of it, but some of the
motivation for all of this series of leaks from unknown officials and former
intelligence sources, various ways described, I think that some of the
motivation is actually to put a damper on Trumps rapprochement or détente
with Russia. And, of course, that goes back to the foreign policy, a
bipartisan foreign policy that has existed after 9/11, and Trump actually
has gone against that, and I think that a lot of this is
Now, how this
will all play out with the investigation of Russia, I think, is actually
anyones guess. And the reason I dont think its settled is because some
officials, including Feinstein, including Clapper, I think Comey even one
time kind of talked out of both sides of his mouth a little bit on this,
have said, made statements to the effect that there is not enough smoking
evidence connecting the Trump campaign to Russia and meddling to elect
Trump.
I know that theyve said this
In fact, Feinstein said it to Wolf Blitzer.
He asked her point blank, and she said, No, theres no evidence, and this
is after shes been briefed.
PAUL JAY: Right, but there certainly is smoke and maybe
COLEEN ROWLEY: Theres-
PAUL JAY:
fire in the corruption, in all the financial
COLEEN ROWLEY: [Yeah 00:15:20].
PAUL JAY:
wheeling and dealings of Trumps inner connections with various
Russian oligarchs, and maybe Comey was on to that.
COLEEN ROWLEY: Well, this is whats happened. This is what I and other
veteran intelligence professionals warned, all of the NSA whistleblowers,
warned about from the start, is, all of this massive data collection would
not be so dangerous, maybe, for the common person who has quote-unquote
nothing to hide except their privacy, but for officials who are political
figures, who are engaged in this, power struggles in Washington, DC.,
getting information about people, and could be blackmail
Usually, its
sex-related, but in this case, it could be all different things.
PAUL JAY: Well, Petraeus felt that blow.
COLEEN ROWLEY: Yes, but others, too, and if you go back to the Hoover era,
he was able to control pretty much every president because he did have
information. He collected information on all of these figures. Well, this
was what we warned about, going back to this era of J. Edgar Hoover, where
we had massive data collection. And honestly, its played out. With all of
the leaks of things, you see this fear that you have these powerful figures
using different pieces of information as leverage, even as blackmail, and
all else fails, leak it to the press in order to get public opinion.
PAUL JAY: Right.
COLEEN ROWLEY: And its very
Anyways, I think that thats one of the
dangers of what weve always warned about with the massive data collection.
PAUL JAY: Right. Well, my fear in all of this is that something Trump wants
to do anyway, now hes got enormous pressure to do, which is to turn his
sights on Iran. Hes in Saudi Arabia. Hes going to be working with the
Saudis to build an anti-Iran front. Theres nothing like a good war to make
him presidential, as we heard after this attack on the Syrian base. The more
dangerous this gets for Trump, the more likely he needs a good war to get
out of it, and then the Schumers, and the Democrats, and the deep state,
everyones going to be cheering him on.
COLEEN ROWLEY: Well, maybe he learned the lesson that they only cheer him on
for a couple of days, that this bombing-
PAUL JAY: A good fight with Iran, theyll be cheering him on longer, I
think.
COLEEN ROWLEY: Well, thats the whole problem, and thats what James Madison
warned about, that all presidents
Thats why we were supposed to have
checks and balances on going to war, and of course, thats long been gone,
dissipated, and now we have many wars, undeclared wars. We dont even call
them wars. So theres underlying problems here. Absolutely, Trump, to his
credit, has been insisting on some kind of détente with the nuclear
superpowers, and even China, to some extent. Maybe, who knows with Iran? It
seems like that was definitely in his campaign rhetoric, that he was going
to look hard at tearing up the agreement with Iran, but I think the deep
state, the military-industrial, congressional, media complex, has really
been working largely together.
Whether they actually want to see Trump out and Pence in, I think they
probably would be happier with someone less independent, who tweeted less,
which would be Pence, and so thats certainly a possibility, that if they
can get enough momentum here, that they would prefer Pence, and I think that
that would be bipartisan as well, and absolutely-
PAUL JAY: And that would be even more dangerous.
COLEEN ROWLEY: Exactly, even more dangerous, and not for Iran, but for
Russia, for China, for all of these even nuclear superpowers.
PAUL JAY: All right. Thanks for joining us, Coleen.
COLEEN ROWLEY: Thank you.
PAUL JAY: Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.