Carter Page Shared “Immaterial Non-Public Information” with Rosneft While “Working” for Trump

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William McGurn and Brit Hume have decided that Carter Page, who the government convinced a judge might be acting as an Agent of Russia in 2016, is a latter day Martin Luther King Jr, based solely on the fact that Page was not charged as an agent of Russia (though a redacted discussion of the charging decision for him suggests it was a close call and Page is also one of two likely candidates to be the Trump aide who lied to the grand jury but wasn’t charged).

Remember, the FBI sought a warrant on Mr. Page from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court based on the claim that the former Trump campaign associate was “an agent of a foreign power,” namely Russia. Yet Mr. Page is one of the few targets of the investigation to have emerged without ever being charged with anything.

McGurn obscures the difference between the government showing probable cause that someone is an agent of a foreign power and charging them as such.

More interestingly, McGurn doesn’t engage with the new evidence about Page’s behavior revealed in the Mueller Report. For example, the report reveals that after Page was described but not identified in Victor Podobnyy’s complaint, he sought out a Russian official at the UN to tell them he didn’t do anything — something that conflicts with a right wing myth that Page was a cooperating witness with the FBI. He was, however, interviewed about his contacts with Podobnyy, and he told the FBI that, “the more immaterial non-public information I give [Russia], the better for this country,” which may be why FBI got a FISA warrant on Page before 2016.

Which is interesting background given that when, on March 30, 2017, the FBI interviewed him about his two trips to Russia in 2016, he admitted to them that, “he and [Rosneft head of investor relations Andrey] Baranov talked about ‘immaterial non-public’ information,” the same language he used to defend his prior sharing of information with Russian intelligence officers.

Mueller’s conclusion on Page’s July 2016 trip was actually inconclusive.

The Office was unable to obtain additional evidence or testimony about who Page may have met or communicated with in Moscow; thus Page’s activities in Russia–as described in his emails with the Campaign–were not fully explained.

His conclusion on Page’s activities in December 2016 are redacted, though he makes it clear that Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich was pitching business an ongoing relationship — an academic partnership — with Page.

Republicans should be more attentive to this detail, though: Long after Page had been fired from the Trump campaign, at a time when the Transition was ignoring Page’s application for a job in the Administration, just weeks before Steve Bannon called up Page and told him not to appear on MSNBC, he was still wandering around Moscow claiming to be speaking for Trump.

In a December 8, 2016 email intended for Manafort, Kilimnik wrote, “Carter Page is in Moscow today, sending messages he is authorized to talk to Russia on behalf of DT on a range of issues of mutual interest, including Ukraine.”

Most Administrations would be furious that someone who had become a political liability would continue to represent himself as someone who spoke for the Administration. They might even be grateful that the FBI continued to keep its eye on that person, to prevent them from facing any liability for what Page might say in Russia.

Not so today’s Republican party. For them, Carter Page — someone Trump fired and then refused to consider employing — is MLK Jr.

As I disclosed last 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. 

BREAKING: Roger Stone Insists Russia Hacked the DNC

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Last month, Roger Stone argued in his criminal case that the government knows that Russia did not hack the DNC.

Roger Stone is challenging the main underpinning of the search warrant applications supporting the warrants – the Russian government hacked the DNC, DCCC, and one Clinton Campaign official from locations outside where the computer servers were stored. First, Stone will demonstrate that the Government’s proposition is untrue.

[snip]

The government’s agents knew that they could not prove the Russian state hacked the DNC or the other targeted servers, and transferred the data to WikiLeaks when it presented the search warrants to the various magistrates and district court judges.

The government debunked this claim last week.

That’s pretty interesting, given that the very same lawyers just argued in the DNC lawsuit that Russia definitely did hack the DNC.

The factual background and context of Plaintiff’s complaint cannot survive the Report’s significant and substantial findings supporting the Special Counsel’s conclusion that no American conspired with any agent of the Russian state to break in to the DNC’s computers (hack); steal any of its data, transmit any of its data to WikiLeaks, or aid in the public dissemination of that data.2

2 In fact, the Mueller Report explicitly states that the Office of Special Counsel’s investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interreference In The 2016 Russian Presidential Election, Volume I of II, 1-2 (2019). Furthermore, the Mueller Report makes abundantly clear that in April 2016 it was “units of the Russian Federation’s Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (GRU) [that] hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC),” not the Defendants. Mueller Report at 36.

Both here and elsewhere, Stone misstates what the Report found in really interesting ways, which I may return to in more depth (as it may indicate where Stone thinks the discovery he has seen suggests the government may be headed).

But for now, I just want to note that after insisting to Judge Amy Berman Jackson that Russia didn’t hack the DNC, Stone lawyers Grant Smith and Robert Buschel are arguing to Judge John Koeltl that Russia did hack the DNC.

I wonder what Donald Trump will say when he discovers his rat-fucker has given up on the hoaxes claiming Russia didn’t do the hack?

As I disclosed last 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. 

Key Mueller Witness, George Nader, Arrested on Child Pornography Charges

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DOJ just arrested George Nader on charges for transporting child pornography found when he re-entered the country on January 17, 2018 and he promptly became Mueller’s star witness on the Seychelles meeting and other events involving the Gulf states.

The affidavit in the case makes it clear they found the child porn while doing a search for what must have been the Mueller investigation.

On January 16, 2018, Search Warrant 1:18-SW-30 was sworn out in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan D. Davis. The search warrant pertained to a matter unrelated to child pornography. The attachments to the search warrant specified the items to be searched as “the person of George Nader” and “Any baggage associated with George Nader.. .including but not limited to any check baggage associated with George Nader on flight EF 231 as well as any carry-on baggage, including but not limited to any briefcase, satchel, or duffel bag.” The items to be seized included “Any electronic devices capable of storing, transmitting, or receiving information, including but not limited to: Cellular telephone. Tablet, Laptop…”

On January 17, 2018, NADER departed Dubai, United Arab Emirates on a direct flight aboard Emirates Airlines Flight 231 and arrived the same day at Washington-Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia. Washington-Dulles International Airport is located in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Upon arrival at Washington-Dulles International Airport, NADER declared to an agent from the United States Customs and Border Protection he was in possession of three iPhones. NADER was later voluntarily interviewed by FBI agents regarding a matter unrelated to child pornography. At the conclusion of the interview, NADER was informed of the existence of the search warrant issued by this Court (1:18-SW-30) and the three iPhones were subsequently seized.

[snip]

The three iPhones seized from NADER were then forensically processed pursuant to the search warrant for a matter not involving child pornography. At the completion of the forensic processing, the digital forensic files derived from iPhone 7 with serial number F2LSD2XFHFY4 (“IPHONE 7 FILES”) were made available to the case agent in that other matter for review using a forensic software package specifically designed to allow investigators to review material without risk of changing or altering the evidence.

On February 12, 2018, the case agent for that other matter conducted an initial review of the IPHONE 7 FILES for evidence unrelated to child pornography. During that review, the case agent in that other matter uncovered multiple files which appeared to contain child pornography. The potential child pornography matter was subsequently referred to my office, and the case was assigned to your affiant.

On March 5,2018, the IPHONE 7 FILES were saved to a Seagate Hard Drive Model ST3750640AS with serial Number 5QD502SH. On March 16,2018, Search Warrant 1:18-SW-154 was sworn out in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and signed by US Magistrate Judge John F. Anderson. The attachments to the search warrant specified the property to be searched as “digital forensic files derived from the iPhone 7 with serial number F2LSD2XFHFY4 seized from George Aref Nader on January 17,2018 currently located on a Seagate Hard Drive Model ST3750640AS with serial Number 5QD502SH that is in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in its Northern Virginia Resident Office, 9325 Discovery Boulevard, Manassas, Virginia 20109.” The items to be seized included, but were not limited to, fruits, evidence, and instrumentalities of “child pornography and child erotica.”

The Mueller Report describes most interviews with Nader as being conducted under a proffer agreement.

Nader provided information to the Office in multiple interviews, all but one of which were conducted under a proffer agreement [grad jury redaction].

Footnotes reflect Nader interviews on January 19, 22, 23 — so all would have taken place before a Mueller agent found the porn on February 12.

But the charge was filed against him last April. I thought it was after that point that he was permitted to close up his apartment in DC and travel back to Dubai, where he has been for months.

Which raises questions about whether he was permitted to travel overseas for some reason.

If FBI Had Spied on Trump’s Campaign As Alleged, They’d Have Known Why Manafort Traded Michigan for Ukraine

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If the FBI had spied on Trump’s campaign as aggressively as alleged by Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan, then Robert Mueller would have been able to determine why Trump’s campaign manager had a meeting on August 2, 2016 to discuss how to get paid (or have debt forgiven) by Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs while discussing how to win Midwestern swing states and how to carve up Ukraine. In fact, the public record suggests that the FBI did not start obtaining criminal warrants on Manafort’s election year activities until the July 25, 2017 warrant authorizing the search of Manafort’s condo, which was the first known warrant obtained on Manafort that mentioned the June 9 meeting. A mid-August warrant authorizing a search of the business email via which Manafort often communicated with Konstantin Kilimnik is probably the first one investigating that August 2 meeting (as distinct from his years of undisclosed Ukrainian foreign influence peddling).

In other words, it took a full year after the Steele dossier first alleged that Paul Manafort was coordinating on the Russian election interference operation, and over a year after he offered Oleg Deripaska private briefings on the Trump campaign, before the FBI obtained a criminal warrant investigating the several known instances where Trump’s campaign manager did discuss campaign details with Russians.

While there are definitely signs that the government has parallel constructed the communications between Kilimnik and Manafort that covered the period during which he was on the campaign (meaning, they’ve obtained communications via both SIGINT collection and criminal process to hide the collection of the former), it seems highly unlikely they would have obtained campaign period communications in real time, given the FBI’s slow discovery and still incomplete understanding of Manafort’s campaign period activities. And the public record offers little certainty about when if ever Manafort — as opposed to Kilimnik who, as a foreigner overseas, was a legitimate target for EO 12333 collection, and would have been first targeted in the existing Ukraine-related investigation — was targeted under FISA directly.

All the while Manafort was on a crime spree, engaging in a quid pro quo with banker Steve Calk to get million dollar loans to ride out his debt crisis and lying to the government in an attempt to hide the extent of his ties with Viktor Yanukovych’s party.

Similarly, by all appearances the FBI remained ignorant of one of George Papadopoulos’ dodgy Russian interlocutors until after his second interview on February 16, 2017, suggesting they not only hadn’t obtained a FISA order covering him, but they hadn’t even done basic criminal process to collect the Facebook call records that would have identified Ivan Timofeev. Papadopoulos told Congress that when the FBI first interviewed him in January 2017, they knew of his extensive Israeli ties, but the asymmetry in the FBI’s understanding of Papadopoulos’ ties suggests it may have come from spying on the Israelis rather than targeting Papadopoulos himself.

Those are a few of the details illustrated by a detailed timeline of the known investigative steps taken against Trump’s associates. The details comport with a claim from Peter Strzok that he lost an argument on August 15, 2016, about whether they should pursue counterintelligence investigations of Trump Associates as aggressively as they normally would. The overt details of the investigation, at least, are consistent with Attorney General William Barr’s May 1, 2019 observation that the investigation into Trump’s associates was “anemic” at first.

The timeline does suggest that one of Trump’s associates may have been investigated more aggressively than he otherwise might have been, given the known facts. That person was Michael Cohen, whom the dossier alleged had played a central role in negotiations with Russia and even — the last, most suspect dossier report claimed — had paid hackers.

Cohen, of course, was never formally part of the campaign.

But even there, Cohen was not under investigation yet at the time Richard Burr shared the targets of the investigation with the White House on March 16, 2017 (at that point, only Roger Stone had been added to Carter Page, Papadopoulos, Manafort, and Mike Flynn, who are believed to be the four initial subjects).

In the days after Robert Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2017, the investigation might still not have amounted to anything, even in spite of Trump’s reaction, “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’ m fucked.” The next day, after all, Peter Strzok (who had been involved in the investigation from the start) said, “my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.” And less than a month later, Lisa Page appears to have suggested to Strzok that the FBI hadn’t decided whether Agents on Mueller’s team would be able to use 702 data — something that, in normal national security investigations, Agents can access at the assessment level.

But by June 21, Mueller was investigating Cohen’s Essential Consulting bank account — the one from which he paid hush payments to Stormy Daniels — because it appeared he was accepting big payments from Viktor Vekselberg, perhaps in conjunction with a plan Felix Sater pitched him on Ukranian peace. At first, Mueller got a preservation order on his Trump Organization emails. But then on July 18 — shortly after Mueller got a preservation order for all of Trump Organization emails in the wake of the June 9 meeting disclosure — Mueller got a warrant for Cohen’s emails, which set off an investigation into whether Cohen had been an unregistered foreign agent for any of a number of countries.

The investigation into the Essential Consulting account would lead the SDNY to charge him in the hush payments. And the collection on Cohen’s Trump Organization emails — collected directly from Microsoft instead of obtained via voluntary production — that would disclose the Trump Tower Moscow plan that Trump lied and lied and lied about.

Only after Mueller started ratcheting up the investigation against Cohen did Mueller first get a warrant on Roger Stone, in August 2017. That’s one of the two investigations (the other being Manafort) that remains ongoing.

Meanwhile, every one of these targets continued to engage in suspect if not criminal behavior. Manafort went on a crime spree to hide his paymasters, stay afloat long enough to re-engage them, and in January 2017 even tried to “recreate [his] old friendship” with Oleg Deripaska. Carter Page went to Moscow in December 2016 and claimed to be speaking on behalf of Trump with regards to Ukrainian deals. Papadopoulos considered a deal with Sergei Millian worth $30,000 a month while working at the White House, starting the day after the election, something even he thought might be illegal (but about which he didn’t call the FBI). Mike Flynn continued to try to implicate Hillary Clinton in his efforts to get Fethullah Gulen arrested on behalf of his secret foreign paymasters, all while getting intelligence briefings. And Cohen moved to collect on reimbursements for the illegal campaign donations he made to silence some of Trump’s former sex partners.

This is just the public record, presented in warrant applications being progressively unsealed by media outlets in court dockets. There may be an entirely asynchronistic counterintelligence investigation conducted using intelligence authorities. Though given the FBI’s actions, it seems highly unlikely, given their apparent ignorance of key details, that’s the case.

Which is to say that the public record supports Peter Strzok’s claims that the investigation lagged what a normal counterintelligence investigation might have. And all the while the investigation slowly moved to uncover the secrets that George Papadopoulos and Mike Flynn and Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort and (allegedly) Roger Stone lied to cover up, those men continued to engage in sketchy behavior, adding more reason to pursue the investigation.

As I disclosed last 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. 

Timeline

March 2016: Start date on spreadsheet of communications between Konstantin Kilimnik and Paul Manafort (possible parallel construction, though available portions of chart do not show whether contacts include phone calls).

April 26, 2016: Joseph Mifsud tells George Papadopoulos the Russians have Hillary emails that will be damaging to her that they plan to release to help Trump.

May 6, 2016: Papadopoulos speaks to Downer aide Erica Thompson; this is the day the Mueller Report says Papadopoulos first shared news that the Russians had emails.

May 10, 2016: Papadopoulos tells Alexander Downer some of what Mifsud told him.

June 14, 2016: DNC announces Russia has hacked them.

June 15, 2016: Guccifer 2.0 claims credit for the DNC hack.

June – July 2016: Facebook provides FBI two warnings about GRU using social media to conduct an espionage operation.

July 1, 2016: Christoper Steele writes Bruce Ohr email about “our favorite business tycoon,” referring to Oleg Deripaska, part of an effort to pitch Deripaska as a source to the US.

July 7, 2016: Via email, Paul Manafort offers private briefings on the campaign for Oleg Deripaska.

July 19, 2016: Steele dossier allegations about Carter Page trip to Moscow

July 25, 2016: Stone gets BCCed on an email from Charles Ortel that shows James Rosen reporting “a massive dump of HRC emails relating to the CF in September;” Stone now claims this explains his reference to a journalist go-between. Stone emails Jerome Corsi and tells him, “Get to [Assange]. At Ecuadorian Embassy in London and get the pending Wikileaks emails . . . they deal with Foundation, allegedly.” Corsi forwards that email to Ted Malloch.

July 27: Paul Manafort struggles while denying ties to Russia, instead pointing to Hillary’s home server.

July 27, 2016: In a press conference, candidate Trump:

  • Asks Russia to find Hillary’s missing emails
  • Lies about having ongoing business discussions with Russia
  • Suggests he may have ordered someone to reach out to foreign countries (which he seems to have done with Flynn)
  • Suggests he’s considering recognizing Russia’s seizure of Crimea

Both before and after this press conference, Trump asked aides — including Flynn and Gates, and probably Stone to go find the emails.

July 28, 2016: Paul Manafort gets a refinance in exchange for a campaign position for Steve Calk; this has led to a criminal conviction for Manafort and a bribery charge for Calk.

July 30, August 1, 2016: Papadopoulos and Sergei Millian meet in NYC; Millian invites Papadopoulos to two energy conferences.

Before July 30, 2016: First Steele dossier allegation that Manafort managed cooperation with Russia.

July 30: Bruce and Nellie Ohr meet with Christopher Steele; they talk about two claims from dossier, that “a former head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, had stated to someone…that they had Donald Trump over a barrel,” and that Carter Page had met with high level Russians while in Moscow. They also discuss Oleg Deripaska’s efforts to get evidence Manafort owes him money (though not, according to Ohr’s notes, the claim that Manafort was coordinating an election-year operation with Russia) and Russian doping. Ohr passes the information on to Andrew McCabe and Lisa Page.

July 31, 2016: FBI opens investigation into Papadopoulos and others based on Australian tip.

July 31, 2016: GAI report on From Russia with Money claiming Viktor Vekselberg’s Skolkovo reflects untoward ties; it hints that a greater John Podesta role would be revealed in her deleted emails and claims he did  not properly disclose role on Joule board when joining Obama Administration. Stone emails Corsi, “Call me MON,” and tells him to send Malloch to see Assange.

August 1, 2016: Steve Bannon and Peter Schweitzer publish a Breitbart version of the GAI report.

August 2, 2016: Paul Manafort meets with Konstantin Kilimnik to talk 1) how the campaign plans to win MI, WI, PA, and MN 2) how to carve up Ukraine 3) how to get paid by his Ukrainian and Russian paymasters. Corsi writes Stone, “Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps. One shortly after I’m back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging.”

August 4, 2016: Stone flip-flops on whether the Russians or a 400 pound hacker are behind the DNC hack and also tells Sam Nunberg he dined with Julian Assange.

August 5, 2016: Manafort puts Calk on an advisory committee. Stone column in Breitbart claiming Guccifer 2.0 is individual hacker. Page texts Strzok that, “the White House is running this,” which is a reference to the larger Russian active measures investigation.

August 7, 2016: Stone starts complaining about a “rigged” election, claims that Nigel Farage had told him Brexit had been similarly rigged.

August 8, 2016: CrowdStrike report on hack of Democrats (referred to here).

August 10, 2016: Steele dossier reports on Mike Flynn RT meeting that had already been publicly reported.

August 12, 2016: Guccifer 2.0 publicly tweets Stone.

August 10, 2016: Manafort tells his tax preparer that he would get $2.4 million in earned income collectable from work in Ukraine in November.

August 14, 2016: NYT publishes story on secret ledgers. Corsi would later claim (falsely) to have started research in response to NYT story.

August 15, 2016: Papadopoulos follows up with Sam Clovis about a September 2016 meeting with Russia. Manafort and Gates lie to the AP about their undisclosed lobbying, locking in claims they would make under oath later that fall. In response to NYT story on Manafort’s graft, Stone tweets, “@JohnPodesta makes @PaulManafort look like St. Thomas Aquinas Where is the @NewYorkTimes?” Strzok loses an argument with McCabe and Page about aggressively investigating the Trump leads; afterwards he texts Page, “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office—that there’s no way he gets elected—but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40….”

August 17, 2016: Trump’s first intelligence briefing. While working as an unregistered agent of Turkey, Mike Flynn accompanies Trump to his intelligence briefing.

August 17, 2016: AP publishes story on Manafort’s unreported Ukraine lobbying, describing Podesta Group’s role at length.

August 19, 2016: Paul Manafort resigns from campaign in part because he was not forthright about his ties to Russia/Ukraine.

August 21, 2016: Roger Stone tweets, it will soon be Podestas’ time in the barrel.

August 23, 2016: Sergei Millian offers Papadopoulos “a disruptive technology that might be instrumental in your political work for the campaign.”

August 24, 2016: CrowdStrike report on hack of Democrats (referred to here).

September 1, 2016: Stefan Halper meets with Sam Clovis.

September 2, 2016: Halper reaches out to Papadopoulos. Lisa Page texts Peter Strzok that “POTUS wants to know everything we are doing;” per her sworn testimony, the text is a reference to the larger Russian investigation.

September 12: Following further reporting in the Kyiv Post, Konstantin Kilimnik contacts Alex Van der Zwaan in attempt to hide money laundering to Skadden Arps.

September 13, 2016: DOJ starts inquiring about Manafort obligation to register under FARA.

September 13-15, 2016: Papadopoulos meets with Stefan Halper and Azra Turk in London. He believes Halper records his answer to the emails question, including his remark it would “treason.”

Mid-September: FBI has opened sub-inquiries into Page and (probably) three other people linked to Trump, including Papadopoulos and probably Manafort and Flynn.

September 19, 2016: As part of his work for Turkey, Flynn meets with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Turkish Energy Minister (and Erdogan son-in-law) Berat Albayrak to discuss how to get Fethullah Gulen extradited. After meeting, James Woolsey informs Joe Biden.

September 24, 2016: Trump campaign severs all ties with Carter Page because of his suspect ties to Russia.

Early October 2016: Trump campaign dismisses Papadopoulos in response to Russian-friendly Interfax interview he did.

October 6, 2016: Corsi repeats the Joule/GAI claims.

October 7,  2016: Manafort gets Calk to increase the loan still further. WikiLeaks begins releasing Podesta emails right after Access Hollywood video drops. Steve Bannon associate tells Stone, “well done.”

October 11, 2016: Release of Podesta email allegedly backing Joule story (December 31, 2013 resignation letter, January 7, 2014 severance letters).

October 14, 2016: While working as unregistered agent of Turkey, Flynn plans to launch FBI investigation into Fethulah Gulen by alleging ties to Clinton Foundation and Campaign.

October 17, 2016: Michael Cohen forms Essential Consultants LLC.

October 18, 19, 20, 2016: Steele dossier reports on Michael Cohen role in operation.

October 21, 2016: DOJ applies for FISA order on Carter Page (Jim Comey and Sally Yates approve it). Manafort emails Kushner proposing to call Clinton “the failed and corrupt champion of the establishment” based on using WikiLeaks’ leaks. “Wikileaks provides the Trump campaign the ability to make the case in a very credible way – by using the words of Clinton, its campaign officials and DNC members.”

October 26, 2016: Cohen opens bank account for Essential Consultants, claiming it will be for his consulting with domestic clients, uses it to pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 to prevent her from sharing true information about Trump.

October 30, 2016: Giorgi Rtslchiladze texts Michael Cohen to tell him he has stopped the flow of some compromising tapes in Moscow.

November 5, 2016: Manafort predicted Hillary would respond to a loss by, “mov[ing] immediately to discredit the [Trump] victory and claim voter fraud and cyber-fraud, including the claim that the Russians have hacked into the voting machines and tampered with the results.”

November 8, 2016: Mike Flynn publishes op-ed for which Turkey paid almost $600,000, without disclosure, thereby serving as an unregistered agent of a foreign government; Steve Calk approves $9.5 million to Manafort he knew wasn’t backed by underwriting. Michael Cohen starts contacting Andrew Intrater regularly.

November 9, 2016: Papadopoulos arranges to meet Millian to discuss business opportunities with Russian “billionaires who are not under sanctions.”

November 10, 2016: Obama warns Trump against picking Mike Flynn as National Security Advisor; Mike Flynn gets his third payment for working as an unregistered agent of Turkey.

November 11, 2016: Calk asks his loan officer to call Manafort to find out if he’s under consideration for Secretary of Treasury.

November 14, 2016: Calk gives Manafort a list of potential roles in the Trump Administration; Manafort claims he is “involved directly” in the Transition; Papadopoulos and Millian meet in Chicago. Carter Page applies for a job in the Administration.

November 16, 2016: Calk’s bank closes on Manafort’s loan.

November 18, 2016: Elijah Cummings warns Mike Pence about Mike Flynn.

November 30, 2016: Manafort asks Jared Kushner to get Calk appointed Secretary of the Army, in response to which Kushner said he was “on it!”

December 8, 2016: Kilimnik raises plan to carve up Ukraine again in (probably foldered) email to Manafort; he also reports, “Carter Page is in Moscow today, sending messages he is authorized to talk to Russia on behalf of DT on a range of issues of mutual interest, including Ukraine.”

December 13, 2016: Steele dossier reports Michael Cohen contributed money for hackers.

December 15, 2016: Manafort arranges Calk interview for Under Secretary of the Army.

December 22, 2016: Calk directs his loan officer to approve a further $6.5 million loan to Manafort because he’s “influential.”

December 29, 2016: Flynn convinces Kislyak to hold off on retaliating for sanctions.

December 31, 2016: Kislyak tells Flynn they’ve held off because of Trump’s wishes.

January 3, 2017: Loretta Lynch approves procedures authorizing the sharing of NSA EO 12333 data with other intelligence agencies.

January 4, 2017: Manafort signs new $6.5 million loan.

January 5, 2017: IC briefs Obama on Russian investigation; possible unmasking of Flynn’s name in Sergei Kislyak transcripts in attempt to learn why Russians changed their response to sanctions.

January 6, 2017: Comey, James Clapper, John Brennan, and Mike Rogers brief Trump on Russian investigation.

January 10, 2017: Calk interviews for Under Secretary of the Army job. Intrater emails Cohen about the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, referencing Victor Vekselberg.

January 12, 2017: Manafort in Madrid at meeting set up by Kilimnik and Boyarkin to “recreate old friendship” with Deripaska; Manafort stated that “need this finished before Jan. 20.”

January 12, 2017: DOJ applies for FISA reauthorization on Carter Page (Jim Comey and Sally Yates approve it).

Before January 15, 2017: Steve Bannon would have been picked up on a FISA intercept targeting Carter Page telling him not to do an appearance on MSNBC.

January 19, 2017: In NYT report that Manafort investigation relies on foreign intercepts (without specifying whether he or others are targeted), he denies the kinds of meetings he had a week earlier. Stone has (probably erroneously) pointed to mention of his name in article to claim he was targeted under FISA.

January 20, 2017: In conjunction with inauguration, Manafort meets with Ukrainian oligarchs and Papadopoulos parties with Millian.

January 24, 2017: FBI interview of Mike Flynn.

January 27, 2017: FBI interview of George Papadopoulos.

Between January 27 and February 16, 2017: FBI asks if Papadopoulos is willing to wear a wire targeting Mifsud, suggesting they believed his comments in the first interview.

February 10, 2017: FBI interviews Mifsud in DC.

February 16, 2017: By his second FBI interview, FBI still has not subpoenaed logs from George Papadopoulos’ Skype and Facebook accounts (because they don’t know about Ivan Timofeev).

February 17, 2017: Papadopoulos attempts to delete his Facebook account.

February 23, 2017: Papadopoulos gets a new phone.

February 26, 2017: Manafort and Kilimnik meet in Madrid and again discuss Ukraine plan.

March 2017: Carter Page interviewed five times by FBI.

March 5, 2017: White House Counsel learns the FBI wants transition-period records relating to Flynn.

March 7, 2017: Flynn submits a factually false FARA registration.

March 10, 2017: FBI interviews Carter Page.

March 16, 2017: Richard Burr tells White House Counsel FBI is investigating Flynn, Manafort (though not yet for his campaign activities), Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, and Roger Stone. FBI interviews Carter Page.

March 20, 2017: Jim Comey confirms investigation.

March 30, 2017: FBI interviews Carter Page.

March 31, 2017: FBI interviews Carter Page.

Early April 2017: DOJ obtains reauthorization for FISA order on Carter Page (Comey and Dana Boente approve it).

May 7, 2017: Cohen has meeting with Vekselberg at Renova.

May 9, 2017: Jim Comey fired, ostensibly for his treatment of Hillary Clinton investigation; within days Trump admits it was because of Russian investigation.

May 17, 2017: Appointment of Mueller; Rosenstein includes Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and George Papadopoulos along with Flynn in the list of Trump officials whose election year ties might be investigated.

May 18, 2017: Strzok texts Page that, “my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there” in the Russian investigation.

May 27, 2017: Application for search of Manafort’s storage compartment does not mention June 9 meeting.

May 28, 2017: Lisa Page assigned to Mueller’s team.

Early June 2017: Peter Strzok assigned to Mueller’s team.

June 2017: Federal agents review Michael Cohen’s bank accounts.

June 6, 2017: Mueller team still not certain whether they would search on Section 702 materials.

June 16, 2017: Trump campaign tells Mueller GSA does not own Transition materials.

June 21, 2017: FBI sends a preservation order to Microsoft for Michael Cohen’s Trump Organization account.

June 29, 2017: DOJ obtains reauthorization for FISA order on Carter Page (Andrew McCabe and Rod Rosenstein approve it).

July 12, 2017: Mueller subpoenas people and documents pertaining to June 9 meeting.

July 14, 2017: FBI sends a preservation order to Microsoft for all Trump Organization accounts.

July 15, 2017: Lisa Page leaves Mueller team.

July 18, 2017: Application for search of Michael Cohen’s Gmail reflects suspicions that Essential Consulting account used for payments associated with unregistered lobbying for Ukraine “peace” deal (name of AUSA approving application redacted); warrant obtains email from January 1 through present.

July 19, 2017: Peter Strzok interviewed, apparently to capture events surrounding Flynn firing.

July 20 and 25, 2017: FBI sends grand jury subpoenas for call records related to Michael Cohen Trump Organization account.

July 25, 2017: Application for search of Manafort’s condo includes request for materials relating to June 9 meeting; does not mention election year meetings with Kilimnik.

July 27, 2017: Early morning search of Paul Manafort’s condo. Horowitz tells Mueller about Page-Strzok texts. George Papadopoulos arrested.

July 28, 2017: Strzok moved off Mueller team.

August 2017: First search warrant obtained against Roger Stone, focused on CFAA.

August 1, 2017: Application for search warrant for Cohen’s Trump Organization email account adds Bank Fraud to suspected crimes; Mueller signed the nondisclosure request.

August 2, 2017: Rosenstein memo codifies scope to include Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and George Papadopoulos already under investigation, adds the Manafort financial crimes, the allegations that Papadopoulos had acted as an unregistered agent of Israel, and four allegations against Michael Flynn.

August 7, 2017: FBI obtains search warrant on Cohen’s Apple ID.

August 11, 2017: Strzok receives his exit clearance certificate from Mueller’s team.

Between August 14 and 18, 2017: Application for Manafort’s [email protected] email includes predication (probably Russian investigation related) unrelated to his financial crimes.

August 17, 2017: Andrew McCabe interviewed.

August 23, 2017: Mueller requests Transition emails and devices for nine Transition officials from GSA.

August 30, 2017: Mueller requests Transition emails and devices for an additional four Transition officials.

September 19, 2017: CNN reports that FBI obtained a FISA warrant on Paul Manafort (though claims that search of storage facility happened under FISA, not criminal, warrant).

October 20, 2017: Rosenstein expands scope to include Michael Cohen, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, Don Jr, and at least one other person, plus Jeff Sessions’ lies to Congress.

November 13, 2017: FBI obtains Cohen’s Gmail going back to June 1, 2015 (prior warrants covered January 1, 2016 to present) and personal email hosted by 1&1.

January 19, 2018: Trump signs 702 reauthorization without any new protections on back door searches.

January 29, 2018: By this date, White House had turned over 20,000 pages of records to Mueller covering (see this post for more background):

  • White House response to DOJ concerns about Mike Flynn, his resignation, and White House comments about Jim Comey
  • White House communications about campaign and transition communications with Manafort, Gates, Gordon, Kellogg, Page, Papadopoulos, Phares, Clovis, and Schmitz
  • Records covering Flynn’s campaign and transition communications with Kislyak and other Russian officials, as well as the May 10, 2017 meeting
  • Records relating to the June 9 meeting
  • Records pertaining to Jim Comey’s firing

Between that date and June 5, 2018, the White House also turned over:

  • McGahn’s records pertaining to Flynn and Comey firings
  • White House Counsel documents pertaining to research on firing Comey before it happened
  • Details on the Bedminster meeting in advance of Comey’s firing
  • Details on McCabe’s communications with Trump right after he fired Comey
  • Details on the Trump’s actions during the summer of 2017 during events pertaining to obstruction

March 2018: Mueller subpoenas Trump Organization.

March 9, 2018: Application for search of five AT&T phones includes predication (and, apparently, phones) unrelated to Paul Manafort.

April 9, 2018: Michael Cohen raid.

June 5, 2018: White House turns over some visitor log information.

August 3, 2018: Three warrants against Stone in DC, focused on CFAA.

August 8, 2018: Search warrant against Stone in DC, focused on CFAA.

Around January 25, 2019: One SDNY, two SDFL, and one DC warrant against Stone focused on false statements.

January 25, 2019: Roger Stone raid and arrest.

February 2019: One DC warrant against Stone focused on CFAA.

On the Fizzle and Boom in Friday’s Mike Flynn Friday Night News Dump

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Some events set in motion by a request WaPo made in April to unseal the sentencing files of Mike Flynn that have resulted in some fizzle, some pop, and a lot of premature speculation.

In their response to the request, the government said that the release of the Mueller Report meant they could release three of the four documents WaPo initially asked for in less redacted form: Flynn’s cooperation addendum (parts of which were and are still sealed to protect ongoing investigations), an Andrew McCabe memo on his interview, and a Peter Strzok 302 (both of which had personal privacy and deliberative privilege redactions). The government moved to unseal them. In approving that unsealing, Judge Emmet Sullivan picked up on the reference to the Flynn transcript and issued an order to the government to unseal both that transcript, any sealed parts of the Mueller Report that “relate to Flynn,” and transcripts of all recordings involving Flynn, “including, but not limited to, audio recordings of Mr. Flynn’s conversations with Russian officials.”

Meanwhile, WaPo expanded their request to include Flynn’s original 302. Unlike the other documents they had earlier requested, his 302 quoted from the transcripts of his conversations with Kislyak. Surprisingly, Sullivan did not respond (I had wondered whether he might order the government to release it along with the other items). The government said it will review what can be released in that, as they had with other filings, though Flynn objects to this release. And WaPo responded in their original request, reaffirming their interest in Sullivan being involved.

Last night, the government filed the transcript of the call from John Dowd to Flynn’s lawyer Rob Kelner, as well as a filing blowing off at least one, and probably two, of Sullivan’s requests. The one that has gotten all the attention is that the government blew off Sullivan’s order to include all transcripts of audio recordings of Flynn’s conversations with Russian officials by claiming no other records are part of the guilt and sentencing record.

The government further represents that it is not relying on any other recordings, of any person, for purposes of establishing the defendant’s guilt or determining his sentence, nor are there any other recordings that are part of the sentencing record.

I also believe the government is being rather cute with this explanation about the Mueller Report.

With respect to the Report, the government represents that all of the information in the Report that the defendant provided to the Special Counsel’s Office has been unredacted, as has all of the information in the Report that others provided about the defendant. In those sections where the defendant’s conduct is discussed, limited remaining redactions pertain to the sourcing of information, such as references to grand jury subpoenas. See, e.g., Report, Volume I, pp. 169- 72.

Sullivan ordered the government to turn over all portions of the Report that relate to Flynn, not just those that describe information he provided to Special Counsel or that others provided about him. Plus, the government should have warned Sullivan they were going to withhold references to grand jury materials (their representation that these were just references stating that the call records the government used to clarify whom Flynn spoke to before and after his calls to Kislyak is pretty clearly correct), rather than just informing him of that in this filing.

But I also don’t understand how it is possible that this footnote does not relate to Flynn.

The Mueller Report admits elsewhere that Flynn was under counterintelligence investigation for his ties to Russia, on top of the investigation into his sleazy influence peddling for Turkey. It should be explained in this section, but is not — unless it is in this redacted footnote.

Of course, that’s precisely the kind of thing Sullivan would probably like to have made public, given his opinion that Flynn “arguably … sold [his] country out.” Which may be why the government excused not turning it over with the same indirect explanation — that even if this footnote “relates” to Flynn (and so would fall into his order) it isn’t pertinent for sentencing. The same indirect excuse they offered for withholding what are surely FISA transcripts.

All that said, I’m not sure the government’s intransigence is as big a deal as people are making out, nor am I convinced this is Bill Barr’s doing, to protect Trump.

To be sure, I think if the government were forced to turn over all transcripts where Flynn got recorded — even if it were just with Russian officials, and not anyone else a National Security Advisor designee would speak to — it would be fairly damning, and not just because the three Kislyak calls are really damning. There are more Kislyak-Flynn calls than the government wants to talk about right now: at a minimum, the calls surrounding a meeting Flynn and his spawn had in advance his RT-paid trip to Moscow in December 2015, as well as a call in early 2016. But there are likely even more from during the campaign period, calls that discuss policy issues that would be unseemly for a candidate to be discussing with the adversary who also happens to be trying to help Flynn’s boss get elected.

But even given Sullivan’s tendency to respond especially poorly to government defiance, I’m not sure this is going to escalate (in part, because it hasn’t yet). Had Sullivan really wanted to push this issue, he would have already ordered Flynn’s 302 be released, and he hasn’t. Plus, I think WaPo’s supplemental request for Flynn’s 302 will shift this debate to a more appropriate area of discussion.

Having been told by the government they would discretionarily release these files, the WaPo reply reiterated their original argument about First Amendment right of access to court filings. And Flynn’s original 302 is — because Sullivan ordered it to be, in response to a cute ploy by Flynn — a document already posted to the docket. So the WaPo’s argument that the full 302 should be disclosed should be fairly persuasive for Sullivan.

But the 302 also quotes directly from at least Flynn’s December 29, 2016 call with Kislyak,  because the FBI Agents decided (as recorded in the McCabe memo) that they would quote directly from the transcript if Flynn pretended not to remember this. For example, the FBI Agents tried to remind Flynn he had used the term “tit-for-tat” that he also used with KT McFarland’s assistant earlier in the day; they appear to quote the phrase, “don’t do something” to him twice.

Sullivan already has scheduled a hearing to discuss all this, on June 24. So between the supplemental WaPo request and that hearing, there’s plenty of opportunity to litigate all this without Sullivan blowing up.

In spite of a lot of suspicions, I suspect the non-responsive response came from DOJ’s National Security Division, not from Bill Barr. That’s true, in part, because DOJ as an institution is less patient with Sullivan’s quirky demands than they should be. That’s also true because there are almost certainly three levels of intercepts that might be responsive to Sullivan’s request that, at each level, would raise more and more heartburn for NSD, first for things they’d disclose about Flynn (and Trump), and then generally for the precedent it would set generally.

As I disclosed last 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. 

What the Stone Search Warrants Suggest about the Ongoing Investigation into Him

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In a filing opposing Roger Stone’s effort to suppress the fruits of 18 searches against him, the government lays out some details about the investigation into Stone that — especially combined with reports of Andrew Miller’s testimony yesterday — provide some idea of how the investigation into Stone evolved. Here’s how the government describes the 18 search warrants against Stone.

Between August 2017 and February 2019, the government obtained eighteen search warrants for electronic facilities and properties related to Roger Stone. Doc. 109, Exs. 1-18. Many of these search warrants were issued in the District of Columbia by Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell. Doc. 109, Exs. 1-10, 16, 18. Three warrants were issued in the District by other district judges. See Ex. 11 (Judge Contreras); Ex. 12-13 (Judge Boasberg). Others were issued by magistrate judges in other districts. Exs. 14 (S.D.N.Y); Exs. 15, 17 (S.D. Fl.).

Fourteen of the affidavits (“the 1030 warrant affidavits”) allege probable cause that the search will yield evidence of a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030, which makes it a crime to “intentionally access[] a computer without authorization or exceed[] authorized access and thereby obtain[]…information from any protected computer.” 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)(C). See Exs. 1- 13, 18. In brief, each of these affidavits (at a minimum) states that Stone communicated with the Twitter account Guccifer 2.0 about hacked materials Guccifer had posted. Each affidavit states that on June 15, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 publicly claimed responsibility for the hack of the computer systems of the Democratic National Committee (“DNC”). Each affidavit states that Organization 1 published materials stolen from the DNC in the hack. Each affidavit describes Stone’s communications (including his own public statements about them) with Guccifer 2.0, Organization 1, and the head of Organization 1. Each affidavit submits that, based on those communications, there was probable cause to believe that evidence related to the DNC hack would be found in the specified location. Many of these affidavits contain additional evidence alleging probable cause to believe evidence will be found of violations of additional crimes, including 18 U.S.C. § 3 (accessory after the fact); 18 U.S.C. § 4 (misprision of a felony); 18 U.S.C. § 371 (conspiracy); 18 U.S.C. §§ 1505 and 1512 (obstruction of justice); 18 U.S.C. § 1513 (witness tampering); 18 U.S.C. § 1343 (wire fraud); 18 U.S.C. § 1349 (attempt and conspiracy to commit wire fraud), and 52 U.S.C. § 30121 (foreign contribution ban). See, e.g., Exs. 7-13 (all crimes). Stone raises no arguments regarding these other crimes.

In addition, four of the affidavits (the “false statement warrant affidavits”), issued close in time to Stone’s indictment, allege probable cause that the search will yield evidence of false statements, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering. See Exs. 14-17. Those affidavits set forth evidence supporting the allegations in the indictment that Stone made false statements in his September 2017 testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (“HPSCI”), obstructed ongoing investigations, and tampered with a witness.

The warrants laid out may look something like this:

  1. Beryl Howell, August 2017, CFAA
  2. Beryl Howell, CFAA
  3. Beryl Howell, CFAA
  4. Beryl Howell, CFAA
  5. Beryl Howell, CFAA
  6. Beryl Howell, CFAA
  7. Beryl Howell, CFAA: include “all crimes” (18 U.S.C. § 3 (accessory after the fact); 18 U.S.C. § 4 (misprision of a felony); 18 U.S.C. § 371 (conspiracy); 18 U.S.C. §§ 1505 and 1512 (obstruction of justice); 18 U.S.C. § 1513 (witness tampering); 18 U.S.C. § 1343 (wire fraud); 18 U.S.C. § 1349 (attempt and conspiracy to commit wire fraud), and 52 U.S.C. § 30121 (foreign contribution ban)
  8. Beryl Howell, CFAA: includes “all crimes”
  9. Beryl Howell, CFAA: includes “all crimes”
  10. Beryl Howell, CFAA: ¶¶ 35-40 discuss Stone’s communications with WikiLeaks and Julian Assange: includes “all crimes”
  11. Rudolph Contreras, CFAA: ¶ 24 discusses private Twitter message between Stone and Guccifer 2.0: includes “all crimes”
  12. James Boasberg, CFAA: includes “all crimes”
  13. James Boasberg, CFAA: includes “all crimes”
  14. SDNY, January 2019, False Statements
  15. SDFL, January 2019, False Statements
  16. Beryl Howell, January 2019, False Statements
  17. SDFL, January 2019, False Statements
  18. Beryl Howell, February 2019, CFAA and False Statements: ¶¶ 64-77 relate to Stone’s conversations with Randy Credico

A May 14, 2019 Amy Berman Jackson minute order demanding that Stone clean up the first iteration of an exhibit list reveals that there were some warrants obtained in August 2018, which may be those from the other DC District judges (and which may suggest they did not come from Mueller’s grand jury, or maybe that Howell took a vacation in August last year).

The Court notes that defendant’s Search Warrant Exhibit, Dkt. 101 (sealed), purports to be a list of the search warrants attached to the motion, but the list lacks exhibit numbers, and the order of the items listed does not correspond to what was actually provided. For instance, the first item on the list indicates that one of the warrants included in the motion was a warrant for the search of defendant’s former home issued by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, but neither that warrant nor the application has been supplied to the Court. Also, the Search Warrant Exhibit lists warrants issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on August 3, 2018 to three recipients, but only two warrants issued on that date were submitted to the Court (with one of them being filed twice). Finally, a search warrant issued by U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on August 8, 2018 was filed with the Court but not listed on the Search Warrant Exhibit.

Even though Stone was listed among those Richard Burr told the White House Counsel’s Office on March 16, 2017 that the FBI was investigating, the government did not obtain a search warrant on him until August 2017. Probably, the government started with searches of Stone’s Twitter accounts.

If the warrants are listed in temporal order in Stone’s exhibit (which seems likely given the timing), then it appears that for 13 months, the government pursued Stone for some involvement in the actual hack and leak, with various theories implicating him in the crime, including conspiracy, accessory after the fact, and misprison of a felony.

It appears that got the government to the point where they were trying to get Jerome Corsi to explain how he and Stone learned that WikiLeaks would release John Podesta’s emails. Then he went all Jerome Corsi on the government, and appears to have diverted the investigation, such that the government finalized the false statements, obstruction, and witness tampering indictment currently being prosecuted, but moved away from charging a CFAA-related crime.

It appears likely the government got warrants for his properties in NY and FL and some other facilities in advance of his arrest on January 25. The additional warrant in Florida may reflect a search of a phone or other devices obtained in the raid.

Then (again assuming Stone’s cleaned up exhibit is temporal) there’s a February 2019 warrant, again from Howell (so presumably Mueller’s grand jury). The timing of this may coincide with the threat Stone issued against ABJ herself, possibly including a warrant to Instagram. And/or it could be a follow-up warrant based off something (such as previously unknown devices) discovered in the January 25 searches.

Yesterday, Andrew Miller finally testified after his year long attempt to avoid doing so. He reportedly testified about his relationship with Stone, Stone’s movements and schedule at the 2016 RNC, and Miller’s relationship since then. Given that prosecutors may have returned to their pursuit of a CFAA related case against Stone in February, there may be something about the RNC that they’ve been trying to pin down.

The Mueller Report seems to have a section, starting at Volume I page 176, explaining why distributing stolen emails isn’t a crime, which is consistent with what Barr has said publicly. It clearly has a section, starting at Volume I page 188, explaining why having stolen emails released for you is not an illegal campaign gift. The latter section clearly includes significant discussion of Stone. But given what this description of warrants shows, the first section might, as well.

As I disclosed last 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. 

On Nine Different Occasions, Bill Barr Was Unable to Offer Any Evidence of Irregularity in Russia Investigation

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Bill Barr says a lot of things in his softball interview with CBS that are factually incorrect. He repeatedly states that counterintelligence activities were directed at the Trump Campaign.

People have to understand, you know, one of the things here is that these efforts in 2016, these counter-intelligence activities that were directed at the Trump Campaign, were not done in the normal course and not through the normal procedures as a far as I can tell.

[snip]

WILLIAM BARR: Well, I just think it has to be carefully look at because the use of foreign intelligence capabilities and counterintelligence capabilities against an American political campaign to me is unprecedented and it’s a serious red line that’s been crossed.

JAN CRAWFORD: [1] Did that happen?

WILLIAM BARR: There were counterintelligence activities undertaken against the Trump Campaign.

[snip]

I think it’s important to understand what basis there was for launching counterintelligence activities against a political campaign, which is the core of our second amendment- I’m sorry, the core of our first amendment liberties in this country.

[snip]

The fact that today people just seem to brush aside the idea that it is okay to you know, to engage in these activities against a political campaign is stunning to me especially when the media doesn’t seem to think that it’s worth looking into. [my emphasis]

Counterintelligence activities were directed at three people the campaign itself fired because of their suspect ties to Russia, and a fourth guy who was secretly acting as a paid agent of a foreign country even while serving as the primary advisor for Trump’s campaign intelligence briefings. And the only known counterintelligence activities, as opposed to predicated criminal investigative techniques, were directed at people after they had been ousted from the campaign.

He claims, falsely and in contradiction to what Mueller said the other day, that there was “no” evidence of a conspiracy.

WILLIAM BARR: Well it might be legit under certain circumstances but a lot of that has to do with how good the evidence was at that point. And you know Mueller has spent two and half years and the fact is there is no evidence of a conspiracy. So it was bogus, this whole idea that the Trump was in cahoots with the Russians is bogus. [my emphasis]

He makes an absolutely hilarious comment about how, if there were evidence that FBI agents investigating — say — Hillary Clinton were biased or leaking, we’d be hearing about it. He even mentions the conspiracy theories about Obama that were fed, at a national level, by a guy named Donald Trump.

JAN CRAWFORD: But it seems like you have a concern that there may have been a bias by top officials in the FBI as they looked at whether to launch and conduct this investigation?

WILLIAM BARR: Well it’s hard to read some of the texts with and not feel that there was gross bias at work and they’re appalling. And if the shoe were on the other–

JAN CRAWFORD: Appalling.

WILLIAM BARR: Those were appalling. And on their face they were very damning and I think if the shoe was on the other foot we could be hearing a lot about it. If those kinds of discussions were held you know when Obama first ran for office, people talking about Obama in those tones and suggesting that “Oh that he might be a Manchurian candidate for Islam or something like that.” You know some wild accusations like that and you had that kind of discussion back and forth, you don’t think we would be hearing a lot more about it?

We’re not hearing about it precisely because Barr is treating the investigation into people who had loose ties to Trump’s campaign as unprecedented as if the investigation into Hillary by FBI Agents who were leaking about it wasn’t happening at the same time. These are all things that he should have been corrected on air — as well as the fact that the public record shows that the investigation into Trump’s former campaign aides was slower than it normally would have been.

In general, Jan Crawford was utterly supine in this interview, letting the Attorney General state one falsehood after another, without correction.

The one place where she did commit some journalism was in asking repeatedly for evidence that something went wrong that justifies his investigation into the investigation. Nine times, Crawford asks the Attorney General for actual evidence that there’s reason for an investigation into the investigation.

JAN CRAWFORD: [2] So I guess in making this turn can you help us understand, I mean what’s- what is the concern? What have you seen, what’s the basis for that?

WILLIAM BARR: Well I don’t want to  get you know, too much into the facts because it’s still under review.

[snip]

JAN CRAWFORD: [3] What have you seen? What evidence? What makes you think, I need to take a look at this? I mean, what have you seen in the summer of 2016?

WILLIAM BARR: Well, I’ll say at this point is that it, you know, I- like many other people who are familiar with intelligence activities, I had a lot of questions about what was going on. I assumed I’d get answers when I went in and I have not gotten answers that are well satisfactory, and in fact probably have more questions, and that some of the facts that- that I’ve learned don’t hang together with the official explanations of what happened.

JAN CRAWFORD: [4] What do you mean by that?

WILLIAM BARR: That’s all I really will say. Things are just not jiving, and I’m not saying at this stage that–

[snip]

JAN CRAWFORD: I mean, [5] there’s a concern that this may have happened before we realized that the investigation was initiated in July. I mean, what…

WILLIAM BARR: I don’t want to get into those details at this point. I would just say that, you know…

JAN CRAWFORD: [6] But you said there’s a timeline concern.

WILLIAM BARR: Well I won’t, I won’t confirm that, but I’ll just say that, you know, there’s some questions that I think have to be answered, and I have a basis for feeling there has to be a review of this.

JAN CRAWFORD: You’ve said, you’ve said the time frame between the election and the inauguration, you’ve said this publicly, was kind of strange. Some strange things may have happened.  [7] What concerns you there? Specifically, the meeting at Trump Tower.

WILLIAM BARR: I don’t want to- I don’t want to get into that.

[snip]

JAN CRAWFORD: [8] What suggests to you there was a failure in the upper echelon at the FBI?

WILLIAM BARR: Because I think the activities were undertaken by a small group at the top which is one of the- probably one of the mistakes that has been made instead of running this as a normal bureau investigation or counterintelligence investigation. It was done by the executives at the senior level. Out of head quarters–

[snip]

JAN CRAWFORD: [9] And you think that happened even with the investigation into the campaign, potentially?

WILLIAM BARR: I am concerned about that.

To each of those nine questions, he responds by making false claims about what happened, speaking about his feelings, or simply dodging.

That should be the takeaway of this interview. The Attorney General has launched an investigation without having any basis on which to do so, even while exhibiting either ignorance or outright deliberate false statements about what happened.

Two Factors that May Change the Impeachment Calculus, Part Two: Criminalizing a Roger Stone Pardon

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In this post, I described how recent developments in Michael Cohen’s case give Congress a number of reasons to use it as a basis for impeachment. The neat fit of so many details might affect the calculus on whether Democrats carry out an impeachment inquiry on Trump.

In this post, I’ll point to a cynical electoral reason to begin impeachment: to prevent Trump from preempting Stone’s pre-election trial which, if it takes place in November 2019 as scheduled, will be utterly damning to the President. Don’t get me wrong — Democrats should move to stop Trump from using pardons to suborn perjury as a basic rule of law thing. But the timing of Stone’s trial and the extent to which it will implicate the President makes that imperative electorally beneficial for Democrats as well.

Even as currently charged, Stone’s case implicates the President directly

As I’ve noted, because everything in the Mueller Report pertaining to Roger Stone got redacted to (appropriately) preserve Stone’s right to a fair trial, lots of details on how Trump himself was involved in pushing Stone to optimize the WikiLeaks releases is redacted.

[I]t seems highly likely that some of the information in these redacted passages is stuff that would only prejudice Stone’s case by raising the import of it to Trump.

Consider, for starters, that (unless I’m mistaken) not a word from Stone’s indictment appears in this Report. [For example,] the indictment makes it clear that Stone was talking to the campaign about WikiLeaks releases.

ROGER JASON STONE, JR. was a political consultant who worked for decades in U.S. politics and on U.S. political campaigns. STONE was an official on the U.S. presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump (“Trump Campaign”) until in or around August 2015, and maintained regular contact with and publicly supported the Trump Campaign through the 2016 election.

During the summer of 2016, STONE spoke to senior Trump Campaign officials about Organization 1 and information it might have had that would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign. STONE was contacted by senior Trump Campaign officials to inquire about future releases by Organization 1.

[snip]

By in or around June and July 2016, STONE informed senior Trump Campaign officials that he had information indicating Organization 1 had documents whose release would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign. The head of Organization 1 was located at all relevant times at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, United Kingdom.

After the July 22, 2016 release of stolen DNC emails by Organization 1, a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact STONE about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 had regarding the Clinton Campaign. STONE thereafter told the Trump Campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by Organization 1.

We see outlines of precisely who those references are to in the report.

Most notably, after describing Trump’s enthusiasm after Stone told Trump while Michael Cohen was listening on the speaker phone that the DNC emails would drop in a few days just before they did (which Cohen described in his testimony to Oversight), these two paragraphs, appear to to describe Manafort and Trump’s enthusiasm after the DNC release, with Manafort telling both Stone directly and Gates that he wanted to be kept informed via Stone of what was coming. And having gotten some indication of what was coming, the campaign started making plans to optimize those releases. It appears that Gates, like Cohen before him, witnessed a Stone-Trump call where the rat-fucker told the candidate what was coming.

These pages also have more background about how important all this was to Trump, who was frustrated that Hillary’s deleted emails hadn’t been found (something also told, in Flynn’s voice, in the Peter Smith section).

The references to Stone in these passages may well be appropriately redacted. But the descriptions of conversations between Trump and Manafort or Gates should not impact Stone’s defense — unless you want to argue that Trump’s personal involvement in Stone’s rat-fucking might change the deliberations for a jury. They don’t serve to hide Stone’s actions. They hide Trump’s enthusiasm for using materials stolen by Russia to win.

So the part of the 2016 operation that clearly amounted to coordination but was not charged because of First Amendment considerations, and the part of the 2016 operation for which (perhaps because witnesses learned it would not be charged as a conspiracy) there’s the most evidence of Trump’s direct involvement, remains hidden from view out of concerns for Stone’s due process rights.

Right now, Stone’s trial is scheduled to start on November 5. A recent status report on Rick Gates’ cooperation makes it clear he is likely to be a witness at Stone’s trial. While Gates’ testimony is probably not necessary to prove that Stone lied to HPSCI, it would be useful to explain Stone’s motive: significantly, protecting Trump.

If Andrew Miller’s testimony leads to new charges, the tie to Trump may be still more damning

Tuesday, the DC Circuit Court issued its final order in Stone associate Andrew Miller’s challenge to a grand jury subpoena.

Yesterday — technically minutes after Mueller’s press conference announcing the investigation was completed and he’s going home — Judge Beryl Howell rejected another attempt by Miller to challenge the subpoena. Multiple outlets report that he has agreed to testify Friday at 9:30.

Miller’s testimony Friday is premised on potential new charges against Stone and before Howell rejected Miller’s challenge, Aaron “Zelinsky and Jonathan Kravis from the US Attorney’s Office in DC told the judge privately why they still needed Miller.”

Last night, Howell released some of the details behind Miller’s most recent challenge. Along with a useful timeline from Miller’s lawyers on their challenge, it makes it pretty clear that prosecutors are still looking for information on (as Miller lawyer Paul Kamenar describes it) “Roger Stone’s actions during the 2016 election and his involvement in WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and the hacking of Hillary Clinton’s and the DNC’s emails and any collusion with Russia” or (as Aaron Zelinsky has described it), “Roger Stone’s connection to WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, Guccifer 2.0, Russia.”

In other words, it appears that prosecutors might still indict Stone with new crimes pertaining to the core issues that were under investigation.

That’s one reason I find the timing of Mueller’s announcement so interesting. The Howell hearing yesterday was technically after Mueller’s statement finished. I don’t know when yesterday’s announcement will become official, but it would seem to be final before Friday’s Miller grand jury appearance.

That would mean any charges that former Mueller prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky (as well as DC AUSA Jonathan Kravis, who has picked up the bulk of the ongoing matters from Mueller’s team) might decide to pursue after Friday would be subject neither to the logic of the Mueller investigation — which decided not to charge Stone for some WikiLeaks-related crimes in part based on First Amendment considerations, nor to the direct supervision of Attorney General Barr.

As I’ve noted, the logic EDVA used in its superseding indictment of Assange is in direct conflict with the logic Mueller used in deciding that WikiLeaks’ and Trump’s “wish lists” for Hillary emails do not establish a basis for a conspiracy charge in the same way WikiLeaks’ wish list for classified materials was used. That might mean that decisions made after Miller’s testimony Friday would work out differently than decisions on Stone’s charges in January. Mueller’s off the case. It’s DC US Attorney Jesse Liu’s decision now.

All of which is to say, even assuming Friday’s testimony doesn’t lead to new charges, unless Trump finds a way to pre-empt Stone’s trial, it will mean some of the most damning information about Trump’s involvement in what Mueller didn’t charge as conspiracy but which by most definitions would count as “collusion” will get aired less than a year before the 2020 election.

Given how rock solid that Stone indictment is, there are just two ways to avoid that: for Stone to flip on Trump or others (though prosecutors are unlikely to give Stone a deal without vetting his claims after the way Paul Manafort abused the process, and it would be too late to flip on Assange). Or for Trump to pardon Stone.

Some of the clearest evidence of obstruction of justice in the Mueller Report pertains to Trump floating pardons, including a 2.5 page redacted passage (Volume II pages 128-130) pertaining to Stone himself. Even Bill Barr says it would be a crime to float pardons to prevent someone from testifying truthfully. Note, too, that Mueller asked Trump whether he considered pardoning Assange before he was inaugurated (to which Trump gave a typically contemptuous non-answer), and Stone was involved in an attempt to pardon Assange as recently as January 2018, which has been the subject of Mueller’s questioning.

The political hit from a Stone trial — and the kind of pardon-related obstruction that Barr himself conducted to kill the Iran-Contra investigation — might well be enough for Trump to prefer the political hit of pardoning Stone. Democrats have one way of altering that calculus to ensure the Stone trial — with all the damning details of Trump’s actions it’ll reveal — happens as scheduled.

While I’m not, at all, a fan of gaming trials for political effect, the fact of the matter is that if Stone’s trial goes forward, it would present as damning a case against Trump’s cheating as any impeachment trial could do. But to ensure that happens, Democrats need to make it clear that pardoning his way out of this will incur even greater costs for the President.

As I disclosed last 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. 

Two Factors that May Change the Impeachment Calculus, Part One: To Enforce a GOP Subpoena Covering a Trump Lie to Mueller

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Since Justin Amash started laying out the necessity of impeachment and even more after yesterday’s Mueller press conference, the question of whether or not to start an impeachment proceeding against the President has picked up steam.

In my opinion, Democrats have to start that process, in part to have a ready response as Trump’s increasingly authoritarian approach to governing violates more and more foundational norms.

But I also wanted to point to two fairly recent developments that may change that calculus. This post will describe how Trump Organization did not comply with a GOP-issued Congressional subpoena that sustained a lie that Trump has since reiterated, under oath, to Mueller.

New evidence that Trump lied to Mueller and Trump Organization defied a (GOP-issued) subpoena

As I noted the other day, Michael Cohen’s testimony to the House Intelligence Committee revealed several things:

  • Trump replicated Cohen’s lies — that is, a cover story his defense attorney helped to write — in his sworn answers to Mueller
  • Trump Organization (probably Alan Garten) withheld emails from Cohen and HPSCI that would have made it clear Cohen was lying about the Trump Tower Moscow deal

Trump’s statement, submitted under oath, to Mueller included the following assertions:

  • Trump and Cohen only had a few (three) conversations about the deal rather than ten or more
  • Trump did not know of any travel plans to Russia
  • Trump didn’t discuss the project with anyone else at Trump Org, including Ivanka and Don Jr
  • Cohen’s attempt to contact Dmitry Peskov in January 2016 was via a public email address and proved unsuccessful

Compare those lies with the three main lies Cohen pled guilty to.

  • The Moscow Project ended in January 201 6 and was not discussed extensively with others in the Company.
  • COHEN never agreed to travel to Russia in connection with the Moscow Project and “never considered” asking Individual 1 to travel for the project.
  • COHEN did not recall any Russian government response or contact about the Moscow Project.

That is, in spite of rumblings that Cohen was cooperating with Mueller, Trump still told the story his lawyer had helped Cohen write. And Mueller gave Trump an opportunity to fix his testimony, but he refused. In spite of the more-than-a-year long effort to avoid telling lies to the Special Counsel, Trump still managed to do so.

Perhaps that’s why the FBI (though possibly NY-based agents tied to the investigation into Bob Costello’s pardon dangle) interviewed Cohen again on March 19, 2019, which is the latest interview noted in the Mueller Report (this section must be one of the last things Mueller’s team finished as footnotes 1057-9 and 1071 all post-date the discussion of Trump’s non-responsive answers in Appendix C).  Along with more details about the various pardon dangles offered to Cohen, that interview elicited this testimony:

During the summer of 2016, Cohen recalled that candidate Trump publicly claimed that he had nothing to do with Russia and then shortly afterwards privately checked with Cohen about the status of the Trump Tower Moscow project, which Cohen found “interesting.”940 At some point that summer, Cohen recalled having a brief conversation with Trump in which Cohen said the Trump Tower Moscow project was going nowhere because the Russian development company had not secured a piece of property for the project.941 Trump said that was ” too bad,” and Cohen did not recall talking with Trump about the project after that.942 Cohen said that at no time during the campaign did Trump tell him not to pursue the project or that the project should be abandoned. 943

[snip]

Cohen recalled explaining to the President’s personal counsel the “whole story” of the attempt to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin and Trump’s role in it.981 Cohen recalled that he and the President’s personal counsel talked about keeping Trump out of the narrative, and the President’s personal counsel told Cohen the story was not relevant and should not be included in his statement to Congress.982

[snip]

941 Cohen could not recall the precise timing of this conversation, but said he thought it occurred in June or July 2016. Cohen recalled that the conversation happened at some point after candidate Trump was publicly stating that he had nothing to do with Russia.

That Trump adhered to this lie even after Cohen showed signs of flipping makes the apparent fact that Trump Organization withheld emails that would make it clear Cohen lied to the House Intelligence all that more damning. This is one of three emails that would have made it clear to HPSCI in real time that Cohen was lying that apparently did not get turned over.

Remember: Cohen was almost alone among Trump flunkies in having been subpoenaed by any committee in Congress. And the subpoena that Trump Organization defied was signed not by Adam Schiff, but by Devin Nunes [Update: this may have been Mike Conaway].

Even with all the efforts Republicans in Congress have made to help Trump avoid legal jeopardy, he — or rather, his eponymous company — still managed to break the law in complying with GOP requests!

Congress can obtain withheld Trump Organization emails more easily than thought

And while normally proving that Trump Organization violated the law to protect the President would be especially hard for Congress to prove (because they’ll fight subpoenas even more aggressively than Trump’s accountants or creditors), the opposite may be the case in this instance.

That’s because since June 21, 2017, Microsoft — which provides Trump Organization’s email service for the company — has been preserving Michael Cohen’s Trump Organization emails and since July 14, 2017, Microsoft has been preserving all Trump Organization emails.

54. On or about July 14,2017, the Federal Bureau of Investigation sent a request, pursuant to l8 U.S.C. $ 2703(f), to Microsoft, requesting that Microsoft preserve all content for all email accounts associated with the domain “trumporg.com,” which included the Target Account.

[snip]

62. On or about June 21, 2017, the Federal Bureau of Investigation sent a request, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. $ 2703(f), to Microsoft, requesting that Microsoft preserve all content associated with the Target Account.

So rather than going to Trump Organization to obtain proof that their Attorney Alan Garten withheld documents that were clearly responsive to a Congressional subpoena, HPSCI can go to Microsoft itself.

Michael Cohen is the a demonstrable example of someone who was willing to lie only so long as a pardon offer was on the table

One more detail about Cohen makes his case a particularly apt case to impeach the President.

The sworn evidence in the case makes it very clear Cohen was willing to — and did — lie to Congress so long as he believed he’d be pardoned for those lies.

But as soon as it became clear that he could not expect a pardon, Cohen decided to start telling the truth.

(I’ll revisit and reconfirm this, but the record shows that a pardon was withdrawn (and Trump stopped paying Cohen’s legal bills) around the same time 1) Trump got to see all the paperwork and recording that might back Cohen’s claims against him 2) He saw that Cohen had recorded him agreeing to the Karen McDougal hush payment).

He told the truth about something implicating “Individual-1” as a co-conspirator.

And he told the truth about lying to Congress.

In other words, with Cohen, it will be very easy to show that Trump’s pardon offers led to a witness providing false testimony in response to a Congressional subpoena (false testimony made possibly only through parallel obstruction on the part of Trump’s business).

In other words, Cohen is a fairly strong case proving Trump successfully suborned perjury.

So with Cohen, there is all new evidence of Trump-related crimes: Trump’s sworn lies about Trump Tower Moscow to Mueller mirrored by Trump Organization’s defiance of a Republican issued Congressional subpoena on precisely that topic.

And Congress should be able to get proof of it.

This provides an opportunity to pitch impeachment in terms of GOP equities. That will surely not make a difference for Republicans, at first, but for any that want to find an excuse to come around to supporting impeachment, it may be useful down the road.

As I disclosed last 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. 

Mueller’s Emphasis: Russia’s Greater than Two Efforts to Interfere in the Election

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I want to parse a few things that Robert Mueller said in his press conference today.

First, he departed from the language of the report — which said the investigation “did not establish” a conspiracy — and said “there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy.” The meaning is the same, but the emphasis is different. There was, obviously, a good deal of evidence that there was a conspiracy between Russia and people in Trump’s camp. Just not enough to charge.

That’s significant for two other reasons. He ended his statements by saying, “there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election.”

Now consider how he described Volume One, with that “insufficient evidence” language:

The first volume details numerous efforts emanating from Russia to influence the election. This volume includes a discussion of the trump campaign’s response to this activity, as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy.

Everything in Volume One is, by this description, an effort by Russia to influence the election. That means Mueller is treating the third part of the volume, describing the links between Russian-linked individuals and the Trump campaign, as “an effort emanating from Russia to influence the election.” (The report itself states that the office selected which outreach to include.) That appears to mean that Mueller considers the things included in the volume — including the multiple Trump Tower Moscow dangles, the Kislyak outreach (including to JD Gordan), Konstantin Kilimnik’s outreach, and even Dmitri Simes’ advice (the latter of which surprises me, somewhat) — as a third systematic effort to influence the election.

He’s not saying Trump’s people conspired in that effort (though especially with Page and Manafort, the report is inconclusive on their willingness to participate). But he is suggesting that that outreach constitutes further “systematic efforts to interfere in our election.”

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