Screengrab from https://youtu.be/SRhd2Qs-Kxk

The inter-workings of government bureaucracy aren’t pretty and this may be one of the more disgusting episodes in recent memory.

You may remember a man named George Nader. He was the “witness” in a series of “bombshell” reports several years back alleging nefarious, evil backchannels were being setup between Trump and various foreign governments. Those reports ended up going nowhere as they turned out to fairly normal actions by a transition team getting ready to assume office. Amazingly enough, incoming administrations typically do attempt to setup up preliminary lines of communication with the world leaders they’ll eventually be interfacing with. It’s not “collusion” or improper to do so.

George Nader was the go between in trying to set some of those meetings up and he appeared at Trump Tower in December 2016. We all know that any meeting at Trump Tower is automatically bad, so Nader became a #resistance hope and key witness for Mueller’s investigation.

Now, Nader has been arrested for alleged distribution of child pornography. My colleague Brandon Morse first reported on the situation yesterday.

Officials said Nader, 60, was charged by criminal complaint over material he was traveling with when he arrived at Washington-Dulles International Airport on Jan. 17, 2018, from Dubai. At the time, he was carrying a cellphone containing visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, officials said. The charges were unsealed after his arrest Monday morning at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

While that would be embarrassing enough for Mueller and his key witness, new information is painting a much, much worse picture of what exactly went down.

The complaint against him was unsealed in Virginia federal court on Monday after his arrest. But that complaint was actually filed in April 2018, three months after he was interviewed by FBI agents in January 2018 at Washington Dulles International Airport about a matter “unrelated to child pornography,” according to the complaint.

It was during that encounter that Nader was first asked to cooperate with the special counsel.

Three of Nader’s iPhones were seized at the time. And at least one of them was later found to contain videos of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, according to the complaint unsealed Monday.

Notice the timeline. Nader wasn’t caught last week. The warrant for his arrest was first filed way back in April of 2018. It was at that time that the special counsel sought his cooperation in the Trump-Russia probe. After he obliged, Nader’s warrant was sealed and he was allowed to keep running free, including leaving the country.

In other words, Robert Mueller was so desperate to nail Trump on collusion that he let a pedophile run around unchecked, posing as a credible witness and driving “bombshell” news coverage for over a year. It wasn’t until it became clear that Nader had nothing to offer that the arrest warrant was slotted to become unsealed and enforced. With Mueller closing up shop, Nader has finally been brought in.

That’s a pretty incredible and gross set of events. It’s not surprising though. We saw others get the same treatment throughout the entire Trump-Russia probe. Michael Cohen ended up pleading on two probable non-crimes dealing with campaign finance while the prosecution ignored most of his much bigger financial crimes. Why? Because they thought Cohen could give them the goods on Trump.

Paul Manafort is headed to solitary confinement on Rikers Island right now while Tony Podesta, who did the exact same thing, is still a free man. Why? Because Podesta couldn’t be used against Trump so he’s safe.

The entire Russia investigation was always about “getting” Donald Trump. Everything revolved around that one, singular goal. If that meant letting a sicko like Nader stay a free man in exchange for some dirt on the President, then that was a deal Mueller was willing to make. In the end, Nader didn’t have the goods though, so that’s why he’s finally headed to jail.

There’s one final angle to this involving collusion conspiracy truther Rep. Adam Schiff. He made a criminal referral to the DOJ for Erik Prince, charging that he made false statements to Congress. Guess who’s testimony Schiff was using to compare against Prince’s? None other than George Nader.

Schiff was using a pedophile’s word (admittedly he was probably unaware until now) to try to go after a Trump associate. That line of investigation is now dead and it’s likely why Mueller never went after Prince in the first place.

This entire episode shows just how far investigators were willing to go to try to take down Donald Trump. Mueller and his team were not virtuous saints just doing the work of the people. They had an outcome they preferred, namely to prove Trump committed conspiracy with Russia, and they did everything they could to try to arrive at it. It’s only on the basis of Trump’s clear innocence that they weren’t able to get there and had to shift to obstruction of justice instead.

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