Fruit Of The Poisonous Tree? Longtime Hillary Clinton Advisor Lays Out Why Mueller Probe Is “Corrupt” (VIDEO)

On Fox News program ‘The Story with Martha MacCallum,’ this week, former Clinton strategist Mark Penn eviscerated special counsel Robert Mueller’s “corrupt” Trump-Russia probe.

Credit: Maureen Dowling

Partial transcript via Grabein.

MARK PENN: “Well, look, I spent a year fighting Ken Starr and I think any reasonable person looking at what happened here says this investigation had no foundation and whatever foundation it had was not only wrong but corrupt. I think Christopher Steele was part of the FBI when he leaked, lied, and then was fired. Page and Strzok are clearly biased. The head of the FBI was clearly biased. The head of the CIA appeared to be doing illegal leaks as well. This whole thing was corrupt. There is a doctrine called the fruits of the poisonous tree, that says when investigations get started like, this when searches and seizures are done on this basis, they should be thrown out. I think that’s probably the best way to stop this thing because, otherwise, we are going all the way to the end and I don’t think we should waste another year here.”

Penn isn’t the first commentator to evoke the legal doctrine ‘fruit of the poisonous tree,’ in reference to the probe.

As The Gateway Pundit reported last year, legal expert Jonathan Turley asked whether or not the special counsel may have doomed the Trump-Russia investigation by way of ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’ theory.

Turley’s piece was written in response to the highly anticipated meeting between Trump lawyers and special counsel investigators, where an attorney for the President demanded Mueller to return transition documents believed to be unlawfully obtained.

Turley wrote for The Hill:

For those familiar with Mueller, the blunt-force approach taken toward the GSA is something of a signature of Mueller and his heavy-handed associates like Andrew Weissmann. As I have previously written, Mueller has a controversial record in attacking attorney-client privilege as well as harsh tactics against targets. […]

It is important to note that Mueller’s move takes his investigation into uncertain legal territory and may ultimately create some new law in his favor. Then again it might not. The question is why Mueller would take the risk. […]

This could ultimately fall into the category of being careful what you ask for. Once again, the Mueller team showed little hesitation or circumspection in plowing into this controversial area. It is the same attitude that led to the reversals of Weissmann at the cost of millions (and ruined lives) in failed prosecutions. If the evidence was improperly seized, it could contaminate later evidence derived from it in a “fruit of the poisonous tree” theory. Mueller would not be the first to face such a cascading problem of contamination. […]

However, if he proceeds to an indictment, he may have created a poison pill factor where indictments could be brought but prove unprosecutable.

According to Axios founder Mike Allen, Mueller secretly got his hands on “many tens of thousands,” of emails exchanged by Trump transition officials. Trump lawyer Kory Langhofer penned a blistering response to the news, accusing Mueller of unlawfully obtaining transition documents.

 

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