Mueller Investigation: Illegal ‘Fruit of the Poisonous Tree?'

The following article appeared in the American Thinker on February 5th

By Lynne K. Lechter

Over the past year the United States and, secondarily, the rest of the world, have been bombarded with the Democratic Party’s take on “Russia collusion.” Democrats have persistently declared that President Donald J. Tramp’s political ascendancy signals Armageddon. The insults started with the snarky “he’s not one of us,” to myriad accusations of anti-Semitism, racism, serial sexual harassment, xenophobia, vulgar speech, facilitation of white supremacists and violence, a crashed economy, and soured foreign relations. When none of these accusations stuck, they settled on an unrelenting, unsubstantiated drumbeat of claims that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to affect the outcome of the presidential election.

Robert the Sanctimonious

At last, the truth regarding these false accusations has been uncovered. The declassified House memo has revealed the perfidy of the Democrats’ ‘accusations against Trump, and the illegality of the Special Counsel and his investigation.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States’ Constitution provides that:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularity describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be searched.”

From that principle, United States criminal law has evolved to provide a balancing act between the rights of the individual against unlawful privacy invasion, and the rights of the “State” to apprehend and prosecute lawbreakers. Myriad laws exist to protect the individual from illegal searches and seizure, while providing authorities a roadmap that ensures due process is effectuated.

Also, it is imperative to note that every attorney is required to take a solemn oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, before being allowed to practice law. Attorneys working in governmental judicial offices are required to take an expanded, special oath. It is incumbent upon every attorney to uphold their oath and not perpetrate a fraud on the court.

Regardless of court, state or federal, the same principles apply: a warrant application must be signed by an authorized agency, that states with specificity the person to be searched or wiretapped, the alleged crime, and the exact location of the search or wiretap. Any exculpatory evidence, that which exists to exonerate the target of the warrant, must be included.  Moreover, every application must be accompanied with an affirmation that all the facts contained therein are true.

To further protect the individual against the overarching power of the State, certain “exclusionary” rules prohibit the State from using evidence that is obtained, illegally. One such doctrine is known as the “fruit of the poisonous tree,” established in the Supreme Court case Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States. (The phrase itself was first used by Justice Felix Frankfurter in Nardone v. United States.)

Essentially, this doctrine provides that if the State obtains evidence from an illegal source (the poisonous tree), that evidence is tainted. Accordingly, any tainted evidence (fruit) is also poisonous and may not be admitted into any court proceeding.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), is a federal court established to oversee requests for surveillance against foreign spies inside the United States. Warrants are typically issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or the National Security Agency (NSA). The Department of Justice (DOJ) may also file warrant applications. The FISA Court was not created to spy on United States presidential candidates.

However, during the presidential campaign of 2016-2017, the FBI filed a warrant with the FISA court based on a dossier paid for by the Democratic National Party (DNC) and then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The warrant did not specify the genesis of the report. Instead, it cited as a secondary source a Yahoo news article, based on information provided by the same, uber-biased author of the dossier. Because the warrants are only valid for ninety days, the warrant was signed and submitted by the FBI six times! And, for six times, they were signed by attorneys who had sworn an oath to act with fidelity to the courts. It appears that without the now-disabused dossier as supporting evidence, the FISA Court would never have signed the warrants -- thus the warrants were poisonous trees.

Carter Page, then advisor to Presidential Candidate Donald J. Trump, was the first target of the FISA-granted surveillance for purportedly colluding with Russia. From Page, the surveillance morphed to other inner circle members of the Trump campaign, and ultimately, after Trump’s presidential victory, to Trump himself, in the creation of a special counsel, former FBI Director, Robert Mueller.

Instead of a neutral investigation into whether Trump colluded with Russia to win the presidential election, Mueller stacked his team with partisan Democrats, negating even a whiff of impartiality.

Now that the credibility of the dossier that formed the basis of the FBI warrant application has been totally eviscerated, it epitomizes a poisonous tree. Clearly, under United States criminal law, the Mueller investigation is fruit of the poisonous tree and must be shut down.