Former Pollster Mark Penn: Mueller Investigation ‘Irretrievably Tainted,’ Close It Down

FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Former Pollster Mark Penn: Mueller Investigation ‘Irretrievably Tainted,’ Close It Down

April 26, 2018 (EIRNS)—Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, operating as a runaway “government within the government,” should be shut down on the grounds that it has been based on illegal evidence from the get-go, Bill Clinton’s long-time pollster and strategic advisor to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign, Mark Penn, argued in an op-ed published in The Hill today. The op-ed, “Mueller, Comey, and the Poisonous Tree,” which merits reading. Penn cites the judicial doctrine dubbed “fruits of a poisonous tree” by Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1939, that evidence whose source is illegally obtained is inadmissible in court.

“The investigation was polluted from the beginning. Former British spy Christopher Steele was a government contractor when he illegally leaked the dossier to Yahoo and lied about it; Mueller team members and FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok operated with such open hatred for Trump that they were removed from the investigation after managing key parts of it; and the heads of the FBI and CIA participated in spreading and vouching for a Trump dossier they never verified and yet used to spy on Americans,”

Penn argues.

Likewise, House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Devin Nunes now reports that the document used by the FBI to open the Russia investigation—shown to him only after “endless foot-dragging” by the FBI—contains no intelligence from official channels.

Penn’s report on the latest poll by Harvard CAPS/Harris on Mueller’s operation makes clear Americans are ready for action to be taken. According to Penn, the poll found that while nearly 70% said Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should not be fired, 72% said that

“a second special prosecutor needs to be appointed and that the actions of Comey and fired former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe should be criminally investigated.”

In Penn’s view, the time has come to challenge the entire “irretrievably tainted” process in court,

“with full discovery into whether its foundation was so corrupted—and the stonewalling actions so blatant—that the doctrine of the fruits of a poisonous tree can be invoked to stop this national distraction.”