WASHINGTON — Attorney-client privilege is coming under fire from all angles.

Federal government insiders believe that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein did not have the authority to legally appoint Robert Mueller as special counsel, due to a major glaring conflict of interest in the case.

Robert Mueller worked for WilmerHale — the very firm representing Paul Manafort — when Rod Rosenstein contacted Mueller to give him the go-ahead to investigate Manafort for suspected Russia ties. That should have come up in any fair (and legally required) background check that Rosenstein should have done on Mueller.

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Mueller was a partner at WilmerHale when he switched over to become Special Counsel, and he has brought members of the WilmerHale team over to his federal investigation team.

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Manafort was represented by Mueller’s fellow WilmerHale partner Reginald Brown, who served as special assistant to President George W. Bush and Bush White House associate counsel.

Manafort was still being represented by WilmerHale when his house was raided by federal authorities in August 2017, at which time he dropped WilmerHale as his representation.

“Acting AG Rod Rosenstein did not follow the law established to appoint a special counsel,” longtime former FBI Special Surveillance Group member Chuck Marler tells Big League Politics.

“This was made clear when he and the special counsel on Monday filed a response to Paul Manafort’s motion to dismiss. In the CFR (600.3) for special counsel it states “to ensure that a Special Counsel undergoes an appropriate background investigation and a detailed review of ethics and conflicts of interest issues“.

That’s where the entire Rosenstein-Mueller team runs into trouble.

“In the Prosecutions response to Manafort’s motion to dismiss, they provide as evidence Attachment “A” the letter from Rosenstein dated 05/17/2017 appointing Robert Mueller as special counsel. They also provide Attachment “B” the 08/02/2017 Memorandum from Rosenstein to Mueller referencing the scope of investigation and definition of authority. In the “Memorandum” Rosenstein list Manafort as a prime target “Allegations that Paul Manafort: Committed ….”!”

“Mueller was working at the WilmerHale law firm when picked as special counsel. Manafort has and was using WilmerHale as his law firm. The prosecution’s response to the motion to dismiss reveals that Rosenstein did not follow the law otherwise the background would have initially disqualified Mueller or any staff from WilmerHale or at the least would have disqualified them once Rosenstein issued the Memorandum in August revealing that Mueller’s Firm’s client Manafort as a target,” Marler said.

“Part of the Memorandum is redacted and the further question exists: is Jared Kushner in the redacted section because the fact that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are and have been client’s of Mueller’s law firm should have been reason to disqualifiy “WilmerHale insiders” during the required background check of Mueller and his staff,” Marler said.

Wilmer Hale is also the firm that threatened to sue Internet writer Mike Cernovich, a leader of the pro-Trump movement, over use of the Pepe the Frog cartoon.

Cassandra Fairbanks reported for Big League Politics on September 20:

Free speech activists gathered for an impromptu and unannounced protest outside WilmerHale on Wednesday to speak out against the firm’s lawsuits threats on behalf of their Pepe-creator client Matt Furie.

The DC-based firm has filed a cease and desist on behalf of Furie regarding the use of Pepe memes against Mike Cernovich, Baked Alaska, The Donald subreddit, and others — as well as threatening a lawsuit.

On Wednesday, approximately 20 people gathered with signs, including at least one featuring Pepe himself, and chanted “Stop Censorship.”

As Big League Politics reported earlier in the day, a meme of Pepe wearing a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat was also projected on the front of the Wilmer Hale building late Tuesday evening.

Photos and video of the projector protest was provided exclusively to Big League Politics by an anonymous tipster. The tipster told Big League Politics that “projecting the content that WilmerHale is so desperate to censor onto its headquarters is a good way to let them know that their bullying won’t work.”“If WilmerHale thinks it can use its status as a white-shoe

DC law firm to silence speech with which its elitist clients disagree, they are sorely mistaken. I expect more things like this to happen in the future, as free speech advocates will continue to push back against WilmerHale’s Orwellian tactics,” the anonymous source added.