RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
March 8 to March 14

Featured Investigation
Buried From Trump Tower Meeting:
Translator' Telling FBI 'No Collusion'

John Solomon of Just the News reported this week that by the time Donald Trump was settling into the Oval Office in early 2017, James Comey's G-men had substantially debunked the theory that his campaign conspired with Moscow. And the debunking continued, not that it mattered much.

As Mark Hemingway of RealClearInvestigations reports, just days after news of the infamous Trump Tower meeting drew the attention of the Mueller probe that summer, the translator present told the FBI there was no talk of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. But this exculpatory evidence, found in FBI documents recently sprung from Freedom of Information litigation, was withheld, not even mentioned in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's final report two years later.

The official silence over the translator's interview with the FBI occurred across two years when sinister theorizing on cable TV and in the press helped shape a public impression of the June 9, 2016 meeting as central to Trump-Russia collusion.

Here is what Anatoli Samochornov, a freelance translator with long ties to the U.S. government, told the FBI: "There was no discussion of the 2016 United States presidential election or Collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign." The FBI agent notes also state: "There was no smoking gun according to Samochornov. There was not a discussion about ‘dirt' on Hillary Clinton. Samochornov did not think Hillary Clinton was mentioned by name."

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The Election Investigations: Top Articles

Erik Prince Recruited Ex-Spies for Project Veritas, New York Times
Hunter Biden Child-Support Deal After Delays and Refusals, Breitbart
Trump Co. Bribes Allegedly Cut NY Tax, ProPublica, WNYC
Steele Speaks Publicly, Hits Mueller Report as Too Narrow, Daily Beast

Other Noteworthy Articles and Series

Veterans Saw Only a Fraction of $300M Raised by Charity
Mother Jones
In 2014, New York's Attorney General came down hard on the Disabled Veterans National Foundation. It fined the charity nearly $10 million after finding that it had concocted many of the stories of brave wounded warriors it had featured in its emotional appeals and that it much of the nearly $300 million it had raised went to the company that coordinated its fundraising campaign. After that, this article reports, it was back to monkey business as usual. The "DVNF has continued fundraising at near record levels while using most of its revenue to offset exorbitant direct mail costs." The money was paid to the same players who reorganized their company under a different name.

The $3 Million-Plus Club: Scandals Don't Slow College Hoop Coaches' Pay
USA Today
The NCAA may have cancelled its basketball tournaments, but clouds of suspicion still hang over the game's top coaches. Nearly 30 months since an FBI corruption case made allegations of widespread bribery and fraud, USA Today reports several top coaches implicated in the scandal are still drawing big salaries. They include:

• Bill Self, head coach of No. 1 Kansas, who is earning $4 million this year and is due a separate $6 million lump payment in March 2022. Last September, the NCAA filed allegations against Kansas that said Self was among those who "willfully engaged in NCAA violations" and "blatantly" disregarded NCAA rules.
• Arizona coach Sean Miller, who is earning $2.8 million in basic annual pay with another raise and bonus payments on the way. Last year, federal prosecutors played a wiretapped phone call in court that suggested he was breaking NCAA rules by paying Arizona star Deandre Ayton $10,000 per month.
• Auburn coach Bruce Pearl, who is making $3.8 million this year, about $1.2 million more than last year. Auburn gave him a new contract last year just months before stating in a court filing that it expects to receive formal allegations from the NCAA about trouble in Pearl's program.

Tractor Pull: Farmers vs. Deere for the 'Right to Fix'
Bloomberg Businessweek
A grassroots campaign is growing in the heartland to restore what many farmers see as fundamental right: the right to repair their own equipment. John Deere and the other global equipment manufacturers say the copyrighted software that controls every facet of today's machines is the exclusive domain of authorized dealerships. The gear has been meticulously programmed and tested to minimize hazards and maximize productivity, Deere says, and it's all too complicated for farmers to be getting involved. This article describes "right-to-repair" legislation in Nebraska, which has inspired proposals in 20 states. The debate highlights how one of the world's oldest and most hands-on occupations has literally become hands-off. In a separate article, USA Today reports that suicide rates are rising among American farmers in the Midwest.

California Fast-Rail Workers Told to 'Shut Up' and Hide Bad News
Los Angeles Times
The folks building California's bullet train have apparently gotten so much bad news - from construction delays to quickly rising costs - that they don't want to hear anymore. "I was told to shut up and not say anything," said Mark Styles, a career construction manager who was hired by WSP, the bullet train's lead consultant. "I was told that I didn't understand the political arena the project was in. I told them I am not going to shut up. This is my job." The atmosphere described by Styles has been corroborated by a half dozen current and former senior officials knowledgeable about the project's Fresno office, this article reports.

The New Age of Revolts Against Widening Freeways
CityLab
Houston, we have a problem with traffic. In response, the North Houston Improvement Project offers a traditional solution - adding 24 miles of freeway and packing on several additional lanes in the nation's fourth-largest city. But opposition to the $7 billion project is growing louder over concerns that it will take out thousands of residential and commercial structures, thicken air pollution in an already smog-choked corridor, and tear up historic African-American communities. Freeway fighters have their work cut out for them, and not only in Houston. Portland - a city with a far more environmentally friendly reputation - is also struggling to square its progressive climate goals with the state's plans to overhaul an urban interstate. These battles reveal the powerful momentum of the road-widening machine, and the disconnect between cities and states when it comes to transportation policy. This article asks: Can America's highway-industrial complex be dismantled - and is it too late for the fast-growing cities in its path?

AA Found Better Than Other Alcoholism Treatments
New York Times
The group whose 2006 study raised doubts about the effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous has reversed course in a new study that says the program leads to increased rates and lengths of abstinence compared with other common treatments. On measures such as drinks per day, it performs as well as approaches provided by individual therapists or doctors who don't rely on A.A.'s peer connections, according to a broad review of recent research. The Cochrane Collaboration revised its conclusion after assessing the findings of 27 studies that involved 10,565 participants. "These results demonstrate A.A.'s effectiveness in helping people not only initiate but sustain abstinence and remission over the long term," said the review's lead author. "The fact that A.A. is free and so widely available is also good news. … It's the closest thing in public health we have to a free lunch."

Google Tracked His Bike Ride. That Made Him a Suspect.
NBC News
Cops are increasingly looking at users' GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and cellular connections to scrutinize everyone nearby found in the Google location data. The wider nets are used to find potential suspects when they have no leads. But they also scoop up data from people who have nothing to do with the crime. Case in point: a Florida man who wrongly became a suspect in a burglary because an app he was using to see how many miles he rode on his bike put him near the scene.