Trump In Real Trouble Now! Mueller Hires RPCV Lawyer (Benin)
Leo, I could not find the salary of any of the lawyers with Mueller. I did find a statement that…
Thanks to the ‘heads up’ from Bob Arias (Colombia 1964-66):
Exclusive: Former Justice Department official joins Mueller team
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A former U.S. Justice Department official has become the latest lawyer to join special counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, a spokesman for the team confirmed.
Greg Andres (Benin 1989–92)
Greg Andres started on Tuesday, becoming the 16th lawyer on the team, said Josh Stueve, a spokesman for the special counsel.
Most recently a white-collar criminal defense lawyer with New York law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, Andres, 50, served at the Justice Department from 2010 to 2012. He was deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division, where he oversaw the fraud unit and managed the program that targeted illegal foreign bribery.
Mueller, who was appointed special counsel in May, is looking into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the election, among other matters. Congressional committees are also investigating the matter.
That Mueller continues to expand his team means the probe is not going to end anytime soon, said Robert Ray, who succeeded Kenneth Starr as independent counsel for the Whitewater investigation during the Clinton administration.
“It’s an indication that the investigation is going to extend well into 2018,” said Ray. “Whether it extends beyond 2018 is an open question.”
The special counsel last month asked the White House to preserve all of its communications about a June 2016 meeting that included the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
Russian officials have denied meddling in the U.S. election, and Trump denies any collusion by his campaign.
Among the cases Andres oversaw at the Justice Department was the prosecution of Texas financier Robert Allen Stanford, who was convicted in 2012 for operating an $8 billion Ponzi scheme.
Before that, Andres was a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn for over a decade, eventually serving as chief of the criminal division in the U.S. attorney’s office there. He prosecuted several members of the Bonanno organized crime family, one of whom was accused of plotting to have Andres killed.
A graduate of Notre Dame and University of Chicago Law School, Andres was a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin from 1989 to 1992.
He is married to Ronnie Abrams, a U.S. district judge in Manhattan nominated to the bench in 2011 by Democratic President Barack Obama.
Others on the special counsel team include Andrew Weissmann, chief of the Justice Department’s fraud section; Andrew Goldstein, former head of the public corruption unit at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan; and James Quarles, who was an assistant special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation that helped bring down President Richard Nixon.
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(Photo: Business Wire)
Unless one chooses to relinquish US citizenship, Mr. Trump is our president. Rather than so much fault finding and ugliness, I wish as a country we could become supportive enough to allow him to do his job!
Mary Hollis
RPCV, Republic of GE
Mary,
It is not our job as citizens to “support” our President, unconditionally. It is our job as citizens to exercise our constiutional rights to petition the government for “redress of grievances.” It is our responsibility as citizens to be eternally vigilant. Exactly how does this “prevent” the President from doing his job? Loyalty to a man is not the way our government works. We all took the oath to support the Consititution of the United States, not a man.
Wow, 16 lawyers at at least $10,000 a day or at total bill of $160,000 a day. and that is only part of the cost, to find the Russians hiding under your bed. Glad to see we are using our scarce federal funds so wisely.
And we wonder how the national debt got so enormous! I see the Russian issue as a distraction destined to further divide our country.
Mary, With all due respect. you should review our Constitution and then decide if you wish to continue your citizenship. Congress, the elected representatives of the people, and an equal branch to the Executive branch of our government, just passed overwhelmingly legislation targeting Russia with sanctions for interferring with our election. They did their job under the constitution. I am sorry that you see the operations of our government as “distractions.”
$10,000 a day? Is that really true?
Dear Leo, As we age, I think we are more susceptible to being victims of “fake news.” Please verify your assertation that Department of Justice lawyers working for the special counsel are making $10,000 a day.
What is your source?
Leo,
I could not find the salary of any of the lawyers with Mueller. I did find a statement that Mueller has not yet submitted his budget to the Department of Justice and so there are no public postings of approved salaries.
This is what I did find:
This was a quote I found in the Atlantic: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/15/15783384/trump-mueller-team-russia-investigation-dreeben-weissman-quarles-rhee-zebley
“To get a sense of the scale of the pay cut, a 2016 survey of more than 2,000 law firm partners showed that their average compensation was $877,000. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who technically sits above the special counsel, is paid at the government’s executive level 1 rate, which for 2017 was about $207,800 — less than a quarter of what law firm partners are said to earn.
“The upshot is that Mueller’s team is full of people so committed to him, and the mission he’s been given, that they’re willing to put their careers on hold and take massive pay cuts to help lead the Trump investigation.”