In the wake of the Michael Cohen plea, Richard Burr made some comments about his committee’s relationship with the Special Counsel. He referred to multiple referrals to Mueller, even using the phrase “a lot.”

“It’s a loud message to everybody that’s interviewed by our committee. … If you lie to us, we’re going to go after you,” Mr. Burr said during a candid question-and-answer session at the annual Texas National Security Forum. [snip] [T]he committee has on more than one occasion recommended prosecutions based on their interviews. “We continually go back and look at the testimony we’ve been given, and we weigh it against any new information that might be out there that either a reporter has been able to [get] in a comment from an individual,” he said. “We have shared, when permission has been given by those we interview, interview notes with the Department of Justice and specifically with the special prosecutor.” “We have made referrals to the special prosecutor for prosecution,” he continued. “In a lot of cases, those might be tied to lying to us.”

While it’s not clear how much SSCI confirmed about Cohen’s lies (Cohen testified on October 25, 2017, and Felix Sater testified on April 4, 2018), given Sater’s public comments up to and including BuzzFeed’s big story, At a minimum (per Sater’s description of his testimony to BuzzFeed, SSCI knew that Cohen had lied about how many times he spoke to Trump about the deal.

The Moscow Project was discussed multiple times within the Company and did not end in January 2016. Instead, as late as approximately June 2016 , COHEN and Individual 2 discussed efforts to obtain Russian governmental approval for the Moscow Project. COHEN discussed the status and progress of the Moscow Project with Individual 1 on more than the three occasions COHEN claimed to the Committee, and he briefed family members of Individual 1 within the Company about the project .

And SSCI almost certainly learned that Cohen was working on a trip to Russia up to the time when news broke that the Russians had hacked the DNC.

COHEN agreed to travel to Russia in connection with the Moscow Project and took steps in contemplation of Individual l ‘ s possible travel to Russia. COHEN and Individual 2 discussed on multiple occasions traveling to Russia to pursue the Moscow Project. COHEN asked Individual 1 about the possibility of Individual 1 traveling to Russia in connection with the Moscow Project, and asked a senior campaign official about potential business travel to Russia. On or about May 4 , 2016 , Individual 2 wrote to COHEN, “I had a chat with Moscow. ASSUMING the trip does happen the question is before or after iii. the convention. Obviously the pre – meeting trip (you only) can happen anytime you want but the 2 big guys where [sic] the question. I said I would confirm and revert.” COHEN responded, “My trip before Cleveland. [Individual l] once he becomes the nominee after the convention. ” On or about May 5, 2016, Individual 2 followed up with COHEN and wrote, “[Russian Official l] would like to invite you as his guest to the St. Petersburg Forum which is Russia’s Davos it’s June 16- 19. He wants to meet there with you and possibly introduce you to either [the President of Russia] or [the Prime Minister of Russia], as they are not sure if 1 or both will be there. He said anything you want to discuss including dates and subjects are on the table to discuss. ” On or about May 6, 2016, Individual 2 asked COHEN to confirm those dates would work for him to travel. COHEN wrote back, “Works for me.” From on or about June 9 to June 14, 2016, Individual 2 sent numerous messages to COHEN about the travel, including forms for COHEN to complete. However, on or about June 14, 2016, COHEN met Individual 2 in the lobby of the Company’s headquarters to inform Individual 2 he would not be traveling at that timeT.

SSCI would have known this in April (perhaps not coincidentally, five days before the raid on Cohen by SDNY; remember that Paul Manafort was raided the night after testifying to SSCI).

In addition to Cohen, we also know SSCI referred Sam Patten to Mueller (though SSCI seems to have referred Patten for something other than the lies laid out in his criminal information). Patten lied about funneling oligarch money into Trump’s inauguration.

PATTEN misled the SSCI in that he intentionally did not provide SSCI certain documents that could lead to revelation of him causing and concealing the foreign purchase of the PIC tickets, described about, and gave false and misleading testimony to avoid disclosing that he had caused and concealed foreign money to be paid to the PIC. In addition, PATTEN provided misleading testimony about his representation of foreign principals in the United States, so as to conceal his violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Finally, after the interview, PATTEN deleted documents pertinent to his relationships with the above-described foreign principals.

So in other words, by April, SSCI knew, as part of their investigation into whether Trump conspired with the GRU officers who hacked and leaked Hillary’s email, that Trump was in bed with GRU money on both the front end of the election — in attempting to set up this Trump Tower deal — and the back end — in accepting laundered money from GRU-connected individuals.

And yet two times during election season, first in August and then again in September, Richard Burr claimed that his committee had found “no hard evidence of collusion.” In response to both, I suggested that it looked like the committee wasn’t pursuing what evidence it had learned of. Now Burr is openly talking about referring “a lot” of people to Mueller’s office — and the two we know he referred, together, may not be a smoking gun but certainly would set off my itchy smoke alarm.

As I disclosed in July, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I’m going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here on out. I will include the disclosure whether or not the stuff I shared with the FBI pertains to the subject of the post.