Russia probe expands to the Middle East: Robert Mueller reportedly looking at Trump's ties to Saudis

Mueller's team is preparing to tie the White House to Middle East operatives

Published December 13, 2018 1:01PM (EST)

Donald Trump; Mohammad Bin Salman; Jared Kushner (AP/Salon)
Donald Trump; Mohammad Bin Salman; Jared Kushner (AP/Salon)

This article originally appeared on Raw Story
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According to a report at the Daily Beast, special counsel Robert Mueller’s legal team is preparing a new series of legal filings tying the White House to Middle East influence.

The Beast notes that the new filings are expected to drop in 2019, based on investigations looking into “how Middle Eastern countries pushed cash to Washington politicos in an attempt to sway policy under President Trump’s administration.”

According to the report, “witnesses affiliated with the Trump campaign have been questioned about their conversations with deeply connected individuals from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, according to people familiar with the probe.”

Sources say that Mueller’s legal team have been spending months debating whether to make this part of the investigation public.

“If this is going to be unveiled, this would be like the surfacing of the submarine but on the other plank which we haven’t seen,” explained for U.S. Attorney Harry Litman. “I guess what Mueller has to date has turned out to be pretty rich and detailed and more than we anticipated. This could turn out to be a rich part of the overall story.”

The report goes on to state this next phase of the investigation was planned to follow legal dealings with former National Security adviser Michael Flynn.

According to Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, the entire scope of Mueller’s investigation could open up a can of worms in Washington, D.C.

“Many of these characters involved are somewhat unsavory,” Ibish elaborated. “But governments deal with all kinds of people all the time. It might be possible to question the wisdom of some of these connections, but not really possible to impugn the right of a government to deal with shadowy dealers in influence and access.”

You can read the rest of the report here.


By Tom Boggioni

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