Impeachment proceedings against Trump

I doubt there's anything in the media coming out that would affect Mueller's progress or plans to publish the findings of the investigation (supposedly the Washington Post has been sitting on an article for the past year at the request of the SCO, we shall see if that comes to pass). It does seem that it is coming closer to an end, with Mattis leaving and Rosenstein announcing he would leave once the new AG was confirmed.

Recently published:
F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia
By Adam Goldman, Michael S. Schmidt and Nicholas Fandos
Jan. 11, 2019

WASHINGTON — In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.

The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.

Mueller: Manafort worked behind scenes to stock Trump administration
By DARREN SAMUELSOHN 01/15/2019 07:12 PM EST

Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, was working through mystery intermediaries in January 2017 to get people appointed in President Donald Trump’s new administration, according to a court filing released Tuesday.

According to Gates, Manafort continued speaking with the unidentified people — their names are redacted in the court filing submitted by Mueller’s prosecutors — through about February 2018, several months after the longtime GOP operative had first been indicted in the special counsel’s Russia inquiry on charges of money laundering, making false statements and other crimes.

Court filing: www.politico.com/f/?id=00000168-53a4-d4bd-affb-ffedb71b0001

Impeach Donald Trump
Starting the process will rein in a president who is undermining American ideals—and bring the debate about his fitness for office into Congress, where it belongs.
Yoni Appelbaum, The Atlantic
March 2019 Issue

On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump stood on the steps of the Capitol, raised his right hand, and solemnly swore to faithfully execute the office of president of the United States and, to the best of his ability, to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. He has not kept that promise.

Instead, he has mounted a concerted challenge to the separation of powers, to the rule of law, and to the civil liberties enshrined in our founding documents. He has purposefully inflamed America’s divisions. He has set himself against the American idea, the principle that all of us—of every race, gender, and creed—are created equal.

This is not a partisan judgment. Many of the president’s fiercest critics have emerged from within his own party. Even officials and observers who support his policies are appalled by his pronouncements, and those who have the most firsthand experience of governance are also the most alarmed by how Trump is governing.

Two more:
Trump has concealed details of his face-to-face encounters with Putin from senior officials in administration
By Greg Miller
January 13, 2019

President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.

The constraints that Trump imposed are part of a broader pattern by the president of shielding his communications with Putin from public scrutiny and preventing even high-ranking officials in his own administration from fully knowing what he has told one of the United States’ main adversaries.

As a result, U.S. officials said there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years. Such a gap would be unusual in any presidency, let alone one that Russia sought to install through what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as an unprecedented campaign of election interference.

Donald Trump, the Kremlin and the ghost of Alger Hiss
The anti-Trump ‘Resistance’ ought to prepare itself for disappointment, since the unclassified version of the Mueller report will be lacking in detail
John R. Schindler

Everyone in the nation’s capital is waiting for the report to be issued by Robert S. Mueller, III and his Special Counsel investigation, reportedly by the spring. Some version of that report will reach the public, eventually, no matter how mightily the Trump administration tries to prevent its release.

That said, the anti-Trump ‘Resistance’ ought to prepare itself for disappointment, since the unclassified version of the Mueller report they will someday see is destined to be lacking in detail. We already know that the Special Counsel inquiry possesses highly classified intelligence regarding Trump’s Moscow connections; the contents are reported to be devastating to the president and his retinue.

However, such top-secret-plus intelligence will never wind up in the unclassified version of Mueller’s report due to the need to protect classified sources and methods.

These information gaps will give President Trump maneuver room to keep lying. We know that bald-faced dishonesty about one’s secret Kremlin’s ties, evidence be damned, is an effective strategy, at least among true-believing members of one’s political tribe. It’s worked before, and it was the Left which pioneered this seedy modus operandi.

Oh, and lest you think that this won't affect the Democratic party:
Democrats Have Their Own Kremlin Influence Problem, Starting with Al Gore and Maxine Waters
By John R. Schindler • 11/20/18 2:18pm