So far, special counsel Robert Mueller has issued dozens of indictments. Yet, none of these charges have anything to do with a conspiracy to influence the 2016 presidential race.
The latest subject to become ensnared in Mueller’s 18-month probe is former InfoWars Washington Bureau Chief Jerome Corsi, who believes he has been targeted for political reasons. “My crime was that I dared to support Donald Trump,” Corsi revealed in a livestream on Monday.
Witch hunt widens
Even as sources close to President Donald Trump’s legal team say that the collusion investigation appears to be “winding down,” Corsi said that his ongoing negotiations with the special counsel have “just blown up” since FBI agents showed up at his residence unannounced on Aug. 28. He remembered how the unscheduled interrogation left his wife “startled” just three days prior to his 72nd birthday.
Initially, Corsi thought that his repeated interactions with investigators went well, adding that he “did everything” expected of a cooperating witness, handing over two Apple computers and giving agents access to his emails and Twitter account. Despite “doing a pretty good job” of cooperating, Corsi now believes that his days as a free man are numbered.
“I fully anticipate that in the next few days I will be indicted by Mueller for some form or other of giving false information to the special counsel or to one of the other grand jury — or however they want to do the indictment. But I’m going to be criminally charged,” he said.
Stone cold facts
Although he failed to offer any independent corroboration during his YouTube livestream, Corsi believes that the special counsel is interested in him because he spoke to longtime friend and political operative Roger Stone about Wikileaks in the final months of the Trump campaign. Last week, Mr. Stone admitted that Mueller was looking into “whether I somehow directed or urged Wikileaks to release the allegedly hacked emails from the DNC in the wake of the Billy Bush accusations against Trump on Oct. 7.”
Stone denies having any insider knowledge of the Wikileaks dump. “I did not — and there is no evidence to the contrary,” he wrote. “In fact, Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange announced his release schedule on Oct. 2.”
The special counsel may be interested in determining what compelled Stone to tweet in August 2016, just before Wikileaks began releasing thousands of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s emails, that it would soon be the Democrat’s “time in the barrel.” However, Corsi maintains that he was the source of Stone’s tweet after he told his friend about Podesta’s unethical business relationship with an offshore company.
Corsi took the opportunity during Monday’s livestream to deny having any knowledge of Wikileaks 2016 campaign to release stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. He believes that the special counsel, which consists almost entirely of prosecutors and agents tied to the Democratic Party, are going after him because of his political connections.
“Criminals are running the Department of Justice. My crime was that I dared to support Donald Trump,” Corsi said in the livestream. “And that supporting President Trump, and since 2004 having written 20 books — I guess those were my crimes. I guess I’m going to prison for the rest of my life because I dared to oppose the deep state.”
Fish in a barrel
While Mueller has so far secured indictments or guilty pleas from 32 individuals and three companies, 26 of these were Russians who will never see an American courtroom, and all three businesses are Russian-owned. Mueller has so far failed to find any evidence to tie the Kremlin to the Trump campaign.
Trump campaign officials indicted by the special counsel have either faced charges related to conduct that occurred under previous administrations or were charged with misleading investigators. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, for instance, pleaded guilty to charges stemming from his work with pro-Russian Ukrainian officials. However, Manafort’s lobbying occurred in collusion with Democratic operatives tied to the Clinton State Department.
Other Trump officials, like former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, were entrapped and charged with perjury by Obama holdovers within the Justice Department after he inaccurately recounted the exact details of a conversation he had with a Russian ambassador. However, the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn don’t believe that he lied to them, and the Washington Post later reported that Flynn may have only agreed to plead guilty after Mueller threatened to indict his son on unspecified charges.
Corsi fears that something similar may happen to him. He told his viewers that he has been relentlessly “quizzed” by investigators with a thick binder of information, and he fears that he’ll “die in prison” because of a “perjury trap” by the special counsel.
As the author of The Obama Nation, a book highly critical of former President Barack Obama, Corsi believes that the investigation has taken a toll on his health. “This has been one of the most frightening experiences of my life,” he said. “At the end of the two months, my mind was mush.”
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