Obstruction of justice? Mueller’s team WIPED over 30 cell phones before turning them over to inspector general
Over a dozen members of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russiagate-investigating team “accidentally” wiped their phones before they could be inspected and “lost” the phone of disgraced FBI lawyer Lisa Page with anti-Trump texts.
Mueller and his team were tasked with investigating accusations of President Donald Trump’s “collusion” with Russia during the 2016 election, but found no evidence of it. In their final report they tried to insinuate that Trump was guilty of obstruction of justice, but stopped short of outright saying so.
An 87-page document, released by the Justice Department on Thursday under the Freedom of Information Act, reveals that Mueller’s investigators “accidentally” or deliberately wiping their devices when the DOJ inspector-general asked for them.
Federal records show that Mueller deputy Andrew Weismann claims to have "accidentally" wiped, via wrong passwords at least 2 phones detailing his activity during the anti-Trump probe. James Quarles' phone "wiped itself." Greg Andre also made the same wrong password claim...
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) September 10, 2020
At least 12 officials, whose names are redacted, claimed to have accidentally erased all data from their phones. Five officials are mentioned by name: Andrew Weissman, James Quarles, Greg Andre, Kyle Freeny and Rush Atkinson. Their phones allegedly wiped themselves or reset after too many wrong password entries.
As many as 31 phones may have been affected, including the devices that had been “reassigned.”
Andrew Weismann wiped two of his three Special Counsel's Office phones.He wiped one by accident. He wiped the other by entering the wrong password too many times.Has anyone ever wiped their phone by accident? Asking for a friend. pic.twitter.com/MFsb4kInbB
— Ivan Pentchoukov (@IvanPentchoukov) September 10, 2020
Weissman was Mueller’s principal deputy. He is generally considered to have actually been in charge of the ‘Russiagate’ probe, especially after the former FBI director couldn’t recall much of anything during his July 2019 testimony before Congress.
Another discovery in the document was that the phone belonging to FBI lawyer Lisa Page got “lost” by the Mueller team, and the name of the official who had custody of it: Christopher Greer. It was eventually retrieved, but the IG report found that it had been wiped two weeks after Page had left the special counsel team.
The DOJ IG found that Mueller's office lost Lisa Page's iPhone. IG later found the phone was wiped two weeks after Page left the Mueller teamNow we know who had it when Page left—Christopher Greer.IG: https://t.co/rZSj1ikk4hDOJ: https://t.co/DUjvvVd8Kepic.twitter.com/aSesRztOYQ
— Ivan Pentchoukov (@IvanPentchoukov) September 10, 2020
Page was involved both in the early stages of the special counsel investigation and the original ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ probe of the Trump campaign – alongside Agent Peter Strzok, with whom she had an extramarital romantic relationship. Both were quietly removed from Mueller’s team after the discovery of text messages that disparaged Trump voters and even referred to “stopping” his election via an “insurance policy.”
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
