What I Would Do with the Mueller Report If I Were Reggie Walton

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According to Politico, a hearing in the EPIC/BuzzFeed effort to liberate the Mueller Report went unexpectedly well today. It seems that Bill Barr’s propaganda effort to spin the results of the Mueller Report got Walton’s hackles up, leading him to believe that Barr’s effort covered up the degree to which Trump “colluded” with Russia.

Walton said he had “some concerns” about trying to reconcile public statements Trump and Attorney General William Barr have made about the report with the content of the report itself.

The judge pointed to Trump’s claims that Mueller found “no collusion” between his campaign and Russia and the president’s insistence that he had been exonerated from a possible obstruction of justice charge. These comments, Walton said, appeared bolstered by Barr’s description of Mueller’s findings during a DOJ news conference — before the public and media could read the document for themselves.

“It’d seem to be inconsistent with what the report itself said,” Walton said. The judge also cited a letter Mueller’s office sent to Barr questioning the attorney general’s decision to release a four-page summary of the investigation’s conclusions that “did not fully capture the context, nature and substance” of the report.

Separately on Monday, Walton raised questions about a DOJ submission defending the agency’s decision to black out large portions of the Mueller report.

“I also worked for the department,” Walton said. “Sometimes the body does what the head wants.”

I thought I’d lay out what I would do if I were Judge Walton. I’d make different decisions if I were a judge, but having covered some of his biggest confrontations with an expansive Executive, I’m pretending I can imagine how he’d think.

I’m doing this not because I think he’ll follow my guidance, but to establish what I think might be reasonable things to imagine he’ll review for unsealing.

Unseal the discussions of how Donald Trump père and fils avoided testifying to the grand jury

As I have noted, there are two passages apiece that describe how Donald Trump Sr and Donald Trump Jr avoided testifying to the grand jury. While they might discuss the grand jury’s interest in subpoenaing the men, and while they might (both!) say that the men would invoke the Fifth if forced to show up and invoke it, those passages likely don’t describe that the men did so.

Particularly given Jr’s willingness to testify to Congressional committees that likely don’t have all the documents from Trump Organization that Mueller had, those passages should be unsealed unless they involve real grand jury decisions.

Unseal the names of Trump flunkies against whom investigations were opened in October 2017

The most obviously dishonest thing Bill Barr did in releasing the Mueller Report is claim that those against whom prosecutions were declined were peripheral people. At least one person (and up to three people) in this passage is not: Don Jr. Walton should unseal these names, especially given that Barr lied about how peripheral, at least, the President’s son is.

Review the longer descriptions of those who lied but weren’t charged

There are up to three people that Mueller appears to have considered for perjury charges (page 194 and two people on page 199) and at least one more whom he considered charging for false statements. Some of the discussion of the people in the former category include non grand jury material as well.

If I were Walton, I’d review this entire section and (treating Roger Stone separately) would unseal at least the names of the senior Trump officials not charged (one is KT McFarland). Given the treatment of Jeff Sessions — whose prosecution declination was not sealed — DOJ has already treated people inconsistently in this section.

Review the declinations starting on page 176, page 179, and page 188 for possible unsealing

There are three declinations that are candidates for unsealing. The most important — which describes the office’s consideration of charging WikiLeaks’ releases of stolen emails as an illegal campaign donation — is the last one. It raises real campaign finance questions and would feed right into impeachment.

The charging decision on page 179 may explain why Don Jr wasn’t charged for sharing a link to a non-public site releasing stolen emails (but it could also pertain to someone no one knows who tried to hack Guccifer 2.0). If it’s the former, if I were Walton, I might consider unsealing that.

The most interesting charging decision, starting on page 176, may explain why WikiLeaks wasn’t charged, why Stone wasn’t or why others were not. If it’s WikiLeaks, it’s the kind of decision already made public in the recent SDNY decision and could be released. In any case, that’s a redaction that likely would be worth Walton’s judicial consideration.

Order that Roger Stone sections be unsealed if there’s a substantive change in his gag order

A huge chunk of the remaining redactions pertain to Roger Stone or his trial. They also are among the most damning to Trump, as they implicate him personally in trying to make the most of Russia’s effort to help him. I, as Marcy Wheeler, would love to see them, today.

But Reggie Walton, who presumably eats lunch with Amy Berman Jackson in the DC District Judges cafeteria, will also recognize the difficulties she faces in seating a jury for the trial of the President’s rat-fucker in November. So unless something changes to the status quo — in which ABJ has imposed a strict gag on Stone — then I suspect he’ll cede to her judgment.

And, frankly, anyone who’d like to see Stone face some kind of repercussions for his rat-fuckery should also support him getting a fair trial, meaning they should support the continued sealing.

That doesn’t stop Walton from ordering that if something changes — if Stone wins an appeal he announced today to get his gag overturned, if Trump pardons Stone, or if Stone pleads — then the sections will automatically become unsealed. One of the biggest ways Trump can avoid all repercussion for his efforts to optimize the release of stolen information is to have Stone avoid trial (either by pleading or being pardoned) but preventing a reconsideration of redactions done to protect his right to a fair trial.

Leave national security sections sealed because I’m Reggie Walton

I and many others would love to see more of the IRA and GRU sections (though there’s a gag in the IRA case now too), especially those sections about how GRU passed on materials to WikiLeaks.

But I’m not Reggie Walton. While he’s very happy to take on an expansive Executive, he generally shows significant deference for claims of national security. Thus, I expect he’ll likely leave this stuff sealed.

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. 

The Parts of the Mueller Report withheld from Roger Stone Show the Centrality of His WikiLeaks Activities to Trump’s Obstruction

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Along with denying most of Roger Stone’s frivolous challenges to his prosecution, Amy Berman Jackson also partly granted his motion to get some of the redacted Mueller Report. As she laid out, she permitted the government to withhold grand jury information, sources and methods, stuff that would harm the reputation of others, and prosecutorial deliberations.

But the Court was of the view that the Report of the Special Counsel should receive separate consideration since a great deal of deliberative material within the Report had already been released to the public.

[snip]

Having considered the defendant’s motion, the government’s response and supplemental submissions, and the Report itself, the Court has determined that the defense should have the limited access he requested to some, but not all, of the redacted material.32 Insofar as defendant’s motion to compel seeks any material that was redacted from the public report on the basis that its release would infringe upon the personal privacy of third parties or cause them reputational harm; pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e); or on the basis of national security or law enforcement concerns, including information that if revealed, could potentially compromise sensitive information gathering sources, methods, or techniques or harm ongoing intelligence or law enforcement activities, the Court will deny the motion.33 With respect to material that was withheld solely on the basis that its release could affect the ongoing prosecution of this case, the Court has concluded that the material to be specified in the order issued with this opinion should be provided to counsel for the defendant subject to the terms and conditions of the Protective Order in this case.

As she described, the government “submit[ed] unredacted portions of the Report that relate to defendant ‘and/or “the dissemination of hacked materials.”‘” Then she and the government conducted a sealed discussion about what could be released to Stone. In addition to her opinion, she submitted an order describing which specific pages must now be released to Stone.

We can compare what the government identified as fitting her order — this includes anything that fits the order, whether redacted or not — with what she has ordered released to Stone (note, the government either did not include Appendix D, showing referrals, or ABJ didn’t mention it, because in addition to an unredacted reference to Stone, there are referrals that the FOIA copies show to be related to Stone; nor did it include questions to Trump).

ABJ has not ordered the government to turn over anything pertaining to how GRU got stolen documents to WikiLeaks. This is precisely the kind of thing Stone is trying to get with his demands for Crowdstrike reports; after ABJ pointed out if they really wanted the reports, they would have tried subpoenaing Crowdstrike and they are now launching an attempt to do that. That ABJ has not ordered the government to turn this material over does not bode well for Stone’s plans to make this trial about the hack-and-leak rather than his lies. I would not be surprised if Stone made a second effort to get this information.

She has permitted the government to withhold all the prosecutorial decisions covered by her order except the one pertaining to Stone’s own lies. In addition, she let the government withhold one line about how they hadn’t determined whether or not Stone and Corsi had managed to optimize the release of the Podesta emails in October (though she did give Stone the more detailed discussion of that).

But ABJ has not included any of the references in the main part of Volume II in her order (presumably to protect Trump’s reputation!). That Volume includes three references to Trump and the campaign’s enthusiasm for or attempts to optimize the WikiLeaks releases through Stone, the reference to Richard Burr leaking news of the targets of the investigation (including Stone) to the White House before Jim Comey got fired, and three instances describing Trump floating pardons to Stone or otherwise encouraging him to remain silent.

It also includes the page on which this passage appears:

After Flynn was forced to resign, the press raised questions about why the President waited more than two weeks after the DOJ notification to remove Flynn and whether the President had known about Flynn’s contacts with Kislyak before the DOJ notification.244 The press also continued to raise questions about connections between Russia and the President’s campaign.245 On February 15, 2017, the President told reporters, “General Flynn is a wonderful man. I think he’s been treated very, very unfairly by the media.”246 On February 16, 2017, the President held a press conference and said that he removed Flynn because Flynn “didn’t tell the Vice President of the United States the facts, and then he didn’t remember. And that just wasn’t acceptable to me.” 247 The President said he did not direct Flynn to discuss sanctions with Kislyak, but “it certainly would have been okay with me if he did. I would have directed him to do it if I thought he wasn’t doing it. I didn’t direct him, but I would have directed him because that’s his job.”248 In listing the reasons for terminating Flynn, the President did not say that Flynn had lied to him.249 The President also denied having any connection to Russia, stating, “I have nothing to do with Russia. I told you, I have no deals there. I have no anything.”250 The President also said he “had nothing to do with” WikiLeaks’s publication of information hacked from the Clinton campaign.251 [my emphasis]

Clearly, it was included for Trump’s public denials — at the moment he fired Flynn in an attempt to stop the Russian investigation — of having anything to do with WikiLeaks’ publication of materials stolen from Hillary’s campaign. It is, on its face, a reference to the publication of the stolen emails, and as such qualifies under ABJ’s order. At that level, it is unremarkable.

But the government is treating it not as Trump making empty denials, but instead to make a claim specifically disavowing any involvement in WikiLeaks’ publication of stolen emails. Mueller’s team put the claim right next to a claim we know to be false, a claim designed to hide his Trump Tower deals. And he put all that amid a discussion of why he first did not, and then did, fire Mike Flynn.

Now consider something else: While it doesn’t appear in the Mueller Report at all, one thing Flynn told prosecutors was that after WikiLeaks started dumping John Podesta’s emails, he took part in conversations during which the campaign discussed reaching out to WikiLeaks.

The defendant also provided useful information concerning discussions within the campaign about WikiLeaks’ release of emails. WikiLeaks is an important subject of the SCO’s investigation because a Russian intelligence service used WikiLeaks to release emails the intelligence service stole during the 2016 presidential campaign. On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks released emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee. Beginning on October 7, 2016, WikiLeaks released emails stolen from John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. The defendant relayed to the government statements made in 2016 by senior campaign officials about WikiLeaks to which only a select few people were privy. For example, the defendant recalled conversations with senior campaign officials after the release of the Podesta emails, during which the prospect of reaching out to WikiLeaks was discussed.

There’s nothing in the public record that suggests Flynn knew of Trump’s efforts, during the campaign, to build a Trump Tower. But he did know about Trump’s efforts to optimize WikiLeaks’ releases of stolen emails. And Trump would have known that when he considered the impact of Flynn’s ties to Russia being investigated by the FBI.

And the treatment of that references as a real denial — as Trump evincing guilt even as he fired Flynn — sure makes the Flynn firing more interesting.

Roger Stone Points to Evidence His Witness Tampering Worked to Argue Selective Prosecution

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In an order rejecting most of Roger Stone’s first frivolous efforts to throw out his prosecution, Amy Berman Jackson explains why Randy Credico is not similarly situated to Stone for the purposes of his selective prosecution claim.

Defendant also characterizes Randy Credico as a similarly situated individual. In reliance upon a sealed transcript of Credico’s July 6, 2017 grand jury testimony, Stone identifies two statements Credico made about his communications with Stone that are inconsistent with the indictment and Stone’s own text messages. First, according to the defendant’s motion, Credico stated that he never discussed the head of Organization 1 with Stone, yet the Indictment in this case quotes an August 23, 2016 conversation between Stone and Credico in which they discuss the head of Organization 1.26 Disc. Mot. at 6; see Indictment ¶ 14(e). Second, Stone asserts that Credico provided information that he had never spoken to Stone about WikiLeaks prior to September 10, 2016, but Stone released text messages from August 19, 2016 in which Credico told Stone that he had a connection to Assange. Disc. Mem. at 7. [my emphasis]

What ABJ reveals — without saying so explicitly — is that Stone is pointing to lies Credico told at a previously undisclosed grand jury appearance. Credico’s previously known grand jury appearance was on September 7, 2018, over a year after the one in which Stone says he lied.

But that’s the entire point: Stone is accused of issuing threats to induce Credico to lie. And he has just made public evidence that — at a time when he was making those threats — Credico risked perjury charges in order to do as Stone wanted him to.

It’s a bad day for rat-fucking when in an attempt to mount a defense you make evidence public that your crimes were worse than previously known.

The Ongoing Question of Trump’s (and His Flunkies’) Susceptibility to Compromise by Russia

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One of Robert Mueller’s most remarkable lines in his testimony to the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees last week was a follow-up in the latter hearing to a Raja Krishnamoorthi question about how Mike Flynn’s lies exposed him to compromise.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: For example, you successfully charged former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn of lying to federal agents about this conversations with Russian officials, correct?

MUELLER: Correct.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Since it was outside the purview of your investigation your report did not address how Flynn’s false statements could pose a national security risk because the Russians knew the falsity of those statements, right?

MUELLER: I cannot get in to that, mainly because there are many elements of the FBI that are looking at different aspects of that issue.

Two and a half years after Flynn was fired, the FBI is still trying to figure out what kind of damage his venality and lies put America at risk

It should surprise no one following closely that the FBI is still looking into different aspects of how Flynn’s lies — both about Russia and about Turkey — exposed him to compromise. After all, a footnote in the Mueller Report that should describe what happened to the counterintelligence investigations into Flynn remains redacted to protect ongoing investigations.

There’s still a redaction in Flynn’s cooperation addendum that likely pertains to something that went through Mueller but cannot yet be unsealed, which I suspect is a counterintelligence investigation. In March, prosecutors in Bijan Kian’s case said at least one other district had an ongoing investigation into matters relating to Flynn (after correcting himself for saying districts, plural, had such investigations). And just recently, Kian’s lawyers disclosed that prosecutors had told them there was classified evidence showing Ekim Alptekin’s efforts to cultivate Flynn and through him, Trump, outside of his consulting company.

Prosecutors wrote to lawyers for Flynn’s ex-lobbying partner Bijan Kian that the US government was “in possession of multiple, independent pieces of information relating to the Turkish government’s efforts to influence United States policy on Turkey and Fethullah Gulen, including information relating to communications, interactions, and a relationship between Ekim Alptekin and Michael Flynn, and Ekim Alptekin’s engagement of Michael Flynn because of Michael Flynn’s relationship with an ongoing presidential campaign, without any reference to the defendant of FIG.”

Then there are the new materials released by the Oversight Committee showing how willing Flynn was to entertain a corrupt proposal to sell nukes to Saudi Arabia.

(Note, it’s a bit ironic that one of the other National Security Advisors to plead guilty to a crime spoke to Flynn of the Christmas vacation during which he had tried to secretly undermine Barack Obama’s punishment of Russia for its interference in the election spoke to Flynn of his “conviction” in the new year.)

By August 2017, Flynn was being investigated for four things, and it’s not clear we yet know all of them.

Now that Bijan Kian has been convicted, Flynn may be scot free (though the timing on his sentence will be a bit awkward, given that Judge Trenga may still overturn one or both of his convictions in early September, after Flynn’s next status hearing). But, in one of the big disclosures Mueller made last week, he revealed that the FBI is still investigating all the ways the General’s venality put the United States at risk in his short time as Trump’s top national security advisor.

And that’s just one aspect of the most important confirmations of the Mueller hearings.

When the Mueller Report came out (and even more so, when the four page Barr summary came out), denialists proclaimed that the Report (that is, the Barr summary) proved that concerns about Trump being compromised by Russia had been proven false — the substantive concern that led to the Trump investigation in the first place. The damning details of Trump’s interactions with Russia left unmentioned in the Mueller Report, as well as the descriptions of the separate FBI track of the counterintelligence investigation, already suggested that wasn’t true.

But on several different occasions, Mueller made it clear that nothing in his report rules out Trump or Flynn or several other people having been blackmailed by Russia.

To be clear, Mueller makes it clear that Trump is not a “Russian agent,” meaning the report does not present evidence that Trump is willfully doing Russia’s bidding.

WENSTRUP: So a member of this Committee said President Trump was a Russian agent after your report was publicly released. That statement is not supported by your report, correct?

MUELLER: That is accurate. Not supported.

But three other times, Mueller does not dispute and at times agrees that Trump and his flunkies’ actions pose a blackmail threat. He didn’t disagree on this point with Lou Correa:

CORREA: I may begin because of time limits we have gone in depth on only five possible episodes of obstruction. There’s so much more. And I want to focus on another section of obstruction which is the president’s conduct concerning Michael Flynn, the president’s national security advisor.

In early 27, the White House Counsel and the president were informed that Mr. Flynn had lied to government authorities about his communications with the Russian ambassador during the Trump campaign in transition. Is this correct?

MUELLER: Correct.

CORREA: If a hostile nation knows that a U.S. official has lied publicly that can be used to blackmail that government official, correct?

MUELLER: I’m not going to speak to that. I don’t disagree with it necessarily, but I’m not going to speak to — anymore to that issue.

With Adam Schiff, Mueller seemingly agreed that Flynn’s lies could expose him, though he refused to answer Schiff’s question about the President specifically:

SCHIFF: You have, I think we can all see that. And befitting the times, I’m sure your reward will be unending criticism, but we are grateful. The need to act in ethical manner is not just a moral one, but when people act unethically it also exposes them to compromise particularly in dealing with foreign powers, is that true?

MUELLER: True.

SCHIFF: Because when someone acts unethically in connection with a foreign partner, that foreign partner can expose their wrongdoing and extort them.

MUELLER: True.

SCHIFF: And that conduct — that unethical conduct can be of a financial nature if you have a financial motive or elicit business dealing, am I right?

MUELLER: Yes.

SCHIFF: It could also just involve deception. If you are lying about something that can be exposed, then you can be blackmailed.

MUELLER: Also true.

SCHIFF: In the case of Michael Flynn, he was secretly doing business with Turkey, correct?

MUELLER: Yes.

SCHIFF: That could open him up to compromise that financial relationship.

MUELLER: I presume.

SCHIFF: He also lied about his discussions with the Russian ambassador and since the Russians were on the other side of the conversation, they could have exposed that, could they not?

MUELLER: Yes.

SCHIFF: If a presidential candidate was doing business in Russia and saying he wasn’t, Russians could expose that too, could they not?

MUELLER: I leave that to you.

But Krishnamoorthi’s full exchange with Mueller not only gets him to acknowledge that Trump lied about his Trump Tower deal (and continued to lie during the investigation), but establishes that at least some of Trump’s possible vulnerabilities because of his financial ties were not included in Mueller’s investigation.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Director, since it was outside the purview of your investigation, your report did not reach counterintelligence conclusions regarding the subject matter of your report.

MUELLER: That’s true.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: For instance, since it was outside your purview, your report did not reach counterintelligence conclusions regarding any Trump administration officials who might potentially be vulnerable to compromise of blackmail by Russia, correct?

MUELLER: Those decisions probably were made in the FBI.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: But not in your report, correct?

MUELLER: Not in our report. We avert to the counterintelligence goals of our investigation which were secondary to any criminal wrongdoing that we could find.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Let’s talk about one administration official in particularly namely President Donald Trump. Other than Trump Tower Moscow, your report does not address or detail the president’s financial ties or dealings with Russia, correct?

MUELLER: Correct.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Similarly since it was outside your purview your report does not address the question of whether Russian oligarchs engaged in money laundering through any of the president’s businesses, correct?

MUELLER: Correct.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: And of course your office did not obtain the president’s tax returns which could otherwise show foreign financial sources, correct?

MUELLER: I’m not going to speak to that.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: In July 2017 the president said his personal finances were off limits, or outside the purview of your investigation and he drew a “red line,” around his personal finances. Were the president’s personal finances outside the purview of your investigation?

MUELLER: I’m not going to get in to that.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Were you instructed by anyone not to investigate the president’s personal finances?

MUELLER: No.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Mr. Mueller, I’d like to turn your attention to counterintelligence risks associated with lying. Individuals can be subject to blackmail if they lie about their interactions with foreign countries, correct?

MUELLER: True.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: For example, you successfully charged former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn of lying to federal agents about this conversations with Russian officials, correct?

MUELLER: Correct.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Since it was outside the purview of your investigation your report did not address how Flynn’s false statements could pose a national security risk because the Russians knew the falsity of those statements, right?

MUELLER: I cannot get in to that, mainly because there are many elements of the FBI that are looking at different aspects of that issue.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Currently?

MUELLER: Currently.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Thank you. As you noted in Volume two of your report, Donald Trump repeated five times in one press conference, Mr. Mueller in 2016 “I have nothing to do with Russia.”

Of course Michael Cohen said Donald Trump was not being truthful, because at this time Trump was attempting to build Trump Tower Moscow. Your report does not address whether Donald Trump was compromised in any way because of any potential false statements that he made about Trump Tower Moscow, correct?

MUELLER: I think that’s right — I think that’s right.

The FBI continues to assess the damage done by Flynn’s vulnerability to compromise. But Mueller didn’t say whether the FBI continues to assess whether the President’s own lies and entanglements have made him vulnerable to compromise.

That’s not to say they have — as Mueller said, the report does not show Trump to be an agent of Russia.

But the Mueller Report does not say, one way or another, whether Russia has been able to manipulate Trump by getting him to lie to America about his entanglements with Russia.

Federal Judge Destroys the Hopes of RICO Salvation in DNC Lawsuit

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Yesterday, Clinton-appointed Judge John Koeltl dismissed with prejudice the DNC’s lawsuit against Russia, Trump’s flunkies, and WikiLeaks alleging they conspired against the party in 2016. He also ruled against a Republican demand to sanction the DNC for sustaining their claim in the wake of Robert Mueller finding that he “did not establish” a conspiracy between Trump and Russia. Koeltl’s decision is unsurprising. But his decision is interesting nevertheless for what it reveals about his legal assessment of the events of 2016, not least because of the ways it does and does not parallel Mueller’s own decisions.

The scope of the two analyses is different: The Democrats alleged RICO and some wiretapping charges, as well as the theft of trade secrets; Mueller considered campaign finance crimes and a quid pro quo. A short version of the difference and similarity in outcome is that:

  1. Mueller charged the GRU officers who hacked the DNC for the hack (which DOJ has been doing for five years, but which has never been contested by a state-hacker defendant); by contrast, Judge Koeltl ruled that Russia’s hackers could not be sued under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (which is what the Mystery Appellant tried to use to avoid responding to a subpoena); notably, Elliot Broidy’s attempt to blame Qatar for his hack serves as precedent here. For the DNC, this meant the key players in any claimed conspiracy could not be sued.
  2. While Democrats made a bid towards arguing that such a conspiracy went beyond getting Trump elected to getting Trump to enact policies that would benefit Russia, Koeltl treated any Trump role as just that, attempting to get Trump elected. This meant that (for example) Stone’s alleged criminal obstruction after Trump got elected was not deemed part of any conspiracy.
  3. As Mueller did with both the hack-and-leak itself but also with any campaign finance violation associated with getting hacked documents as assistance to a campaign, Koeltl ruled that the Supreme Court’s decision in Bartnicki meant the First Amendment protected everyone besides the Russians from liability for dissemination of the stolen documents.
  4. DNC’s RICO fails because, while the Trump campaign itself was an association, the DNC claim that there was an Association in Fact under RICO fails because the ties between individuals were too scattered and their goals were not the same. Moreover, the goal of the Trump associates — to get Trump elected — is in no way illegal.

The most important part of the decision — both for how it protects journalism, what it says about the EDVA charges against Julian Assange, and what it means for similar hack-and-leak dumps going forward — is Koeltl’s First Amendment analysis, in which he argued that even WikiLeaks could not be held liable for publishing documents, even if they knew they were stolen.

Like the defendant in Bartinicki, WikiLeaks did not play any role in the theft of the documents and it is undisputed that the stolen materials involve matters of public concern. However, the DNC argues that this case is distinguishable from Bartnicki because WikiLeaks solicited the documents from the GRU knowing that they were stolen and coordinated with the GRU and the Campaign to disseminate  the documents at times favorable to the Trump Campaign. The DNC argues that WikiLeaks should be considered an after-the-fact coconspirator for the theft based on its coordination to obtain and distribute the stolen materials.

As an initial matter, it is constitutionally insignificant that WikiLeaks knew the Russian Federation had stolen the documents when it published them. Indeed, in Bartnicki the Supreme Court noted that the radio host either did know, or at least had reason to know, that the communication at issue was unlawfully intercepted.

[snip]

And, contrary to the DNC’s argument, it is also irrelevant that WikiLeaks solicited the stolen documents from Russian agents. A person is entitled [sic] publish stolen documents that the publisher request from a source so long as the publisher did not participate in the theft. … Indeed, the DNC acknowledges that this is a common journalistic practice.

[snip]

WikiLeaks and its amici argue that holding WikiLeaks liable in this situation would also threaten freedom of the press. The DNC responds that this case does not threaten freedom of the press because WikiLeaks did not engage in normal journalistic practices by, for example, “asking foreign intelligence services to steal ‘new material’ from American targets.” … The DNC’s argument misconstrues its own allegations in the Second Amended Complaint. In the Second Amended Complaint, the DNC states that “WikiLeaks sent GRU operatives using the screenname Guccifer 2.0 a private message asking the operatives to ‘[s]end any new material (stolen from the DNC] her for us to review.'” … This was not a solicitation to steal documents but a request for material that had been stolen. [citations removed]

Koeltl analyzes whether the Democratic claim that GRU also stole trade secrets — such as their donors and voter engagement strategies — changes the calculus, but judges that because those things were newsworthy, “that would impermissibly elevate a purely private privacy interest to override the First Amendment interest in the publication of matters of the highest public concern.”

Koeltl goes on to note that the analysis would be the same for Trump’s associates, even though they make no claim (as WikiLeaks does) to being part of the media.

[E]ven if the documents had been provided directly to the Campaign, the Campaign defendants, the Agalarovs, Stone, and Mifsud, they could  have published the documents themselves without liability because they did not participate in the theft and the documents are of public concern. … Therefore, the DNC cannot hold these defendants liable for aiding and abetting publication when they would have been entitled to publish the stolen documents themselves without liability. [citations removed]

That analysis is absolutely right, and even while Democrats might hate this outcome and be dismayed by what this might portend about a repeat going forward, it is also how this country treats the First Amendment, both for those claiming to be journalists and those making no such claim.

All that said, there are several aspects of this analysis worth noting.

This is a DNC suit, not a suit by all harmed Democrats

First, this is a suit by the DNC. Neither Hillary nor John Podesta are parties. “Podesta’s emails had been stolen in a different cyberattack,” Koeltl said, “there is not allegation they were taken from the DNC’s servers.” Had they been, they would have had to have been prepared to submit to discovery by Trump and his associates.

Including Podesta might have changed the calculus somewhat, though Koeltl does not deal with them (though he does suggest they would not have changed his calculus).

They might change the calculus, however, because (as Emma Best has noted) WikiLeaks did solicit something — the transcripts of Hillary’s speeches — that was subsequently obtained in the Podesta hack. The DNC did not include that in their complaint and that might have changed Koeltl’s analysis or, at a minimum, tested one of the theories the government is currently using in the Assange prosecution.

Similarly, while there is now evidence in the record that suggests Stone may have had advanced knowledge even of the July 2016 DNC dump, the allegations that would show him having had an impact on the release of documents pertains to the release of the Podesta emails. Jerome Corsi (who was added in the DNC’s second complaint but not as a conspirator) claimed that he had helped Stone optimize the Podesta release in an attempt to drown out the Access Hollywood video, but Mueller was not able to corroborate that.

More tantalizingly, a filing in Stone’s case shows that in at least one warrant application, the government cited some conversation in which he and others — possibly Corsi and Ted Malloch — were discussing “phishing with John Podesta.” That’s not something that will be public for some time. But even if it suggested that Stone may have had more knowledge of the Podesta hack then let on, it would be meaningless in a suit brought by the DNC.

No one knows why Manafort shared polling data and his plans to win the Rust Belt (indirectly) with Oleg Deripaska

The second DNC complaint mentions, but does not explain, that Paul Manafort had Rick Gates send polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik intended to  be share with oligarchs including Oleg Deripaska.

At some point during the runup to the 2016 election, Manafort “shar[ed] polling data . . . related to the 2016 presidential campaign” with an individual connected to Russian military intelligence. This data could have helped Russia assess the most effective ways to interfere in the election, including how best to use stolen Democratic party materials to influence voters.

[snip]

In March 2016, the Trump Campaign also hired Manafort. As noted above, Manafort was millions of dollars in debt to Deripaska at the time. He was also broke.55 Yet he agreed to work for the Trump Campaign for free. A few days after he joined the Trump Campaign, Manafort emailed Kilimnik to discuss how they could use Manafort’s “media coverage” to settle his debt with Deripaska.56 Manafort had multiple discussions with Kilimnik in the runup to the 2016 election, including one in which Manafort “shar[ed] polling data . . . related to the 2016 presidential campaign.”57 This data could have helped Russia assess the most effective ways to interfere in the election, for instance, by helping it determine how best to utilize information stolen from the DNC .

[snip]

Manafort lied about sharing polling data with Kilimnik related to Trump’s 2016 campaign.226

The Mueller Report’s further details on the sharing, including Manafort’s review of his strategy to win the Rust Belt, came too late for the complaint. And as such, Koeltl doesn’t really deal with that allegation (which would likely require naming others as conspirators in any case), and instead treats any conspiracy as limited to the hack-and-leak.

Thus, he does not treat the hints of further coordination, nor is there currently enough public evidence for the DNC to get very far with that allegation. This is a ruling about an alleged hack-and-leak conspiracy, not a ruling about any wider cooperation to help Trump win the election.

No one knows what happened to the stolen DNC analytics

Finally, while the DNC complaint extensively described the September hack of its analytics hosted on AWS servers — a hack that took place after Stone scoffed at the analytics released to date by Guccifer 2.0 — Koeltl doesn’t treat that part of the hack in detail because it was never publicly shared with anyone.

The Second Amended Complaint does not allege that any materials from the September 2016 hack were disseminated to the public and counsel for the DNC acknowledged at the argument of the current motions that there is no such allegation.

The DNC included the analytics in their trade secret discussion, but given that Russia had FSIA immunity, and given that the GOP is not known to have received any of this, Koeltl did not consider the later theft (which is not known to have had the same public interest value as the claimed trade secrets that got leaked).

The SAC asserts: “The GRU could have derived significant economic value from the theft of the DNC’s data by, among other possibilities, selling the data to the highest bidder.” There is no allegation that the Russian Federation did in fact sell the DNC’s data, and any claims against the Russian Federation under the federal and state statutes prohibiting trade secret theft are barred by the FSIA.

Finally, given that it was not released publicly Koeltl does not consider how the GRU hack of analytics after Stone’s discussion of analytics with Guccifer 2.0 might change the analysis on whether Stone was involved prior to any hacks.

Similarly, Stone is alleged to have contacted WikiLeaks through Corsi for the first time on July 25, 2016 and spoke to GRU officers in August 2016 — months after the April 2016 hack. Stone is not alleged to have discussed stealing the DNC’s documents in any of these communications, or to have been aware of the hacks until after they took place.

[snip]

DNC does not raise a factual allegation that suggests that any of the defendants were even aware that the Russian Federation was planning to hack the DNC’s computers until after it had already done so.

Again, there’s too little know about the purpose of this part of the hack (which virtually no one is aware of, but which would have been particularly damaging for the Democrats), and as such the DNC would not be in a position to allege it in any case. But it is a key part of the hack that shifts the timeline Koeltl addressed.

Which ultimately leaves Koeltl’s final judgment about the DNC attempt to obtain some kind of remedy for having Trump welcome and capitalize on a foreign state’s actions to tamper in the election. “Relief from the alleged activities of the Russian Federation,” Koeltl said, “should be sought from the political branches of the Government and not from the courts.”

One of the few ways to do that is to impeach.

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. 

Aspiring Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe Does Not Want DOJ’s Mob Experts Exchanging Information with Mob Experts

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Last night, President Trump announced that Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats is resigning, effective August 15, and will be replaced by Congressman John Ratcliffe, who is totally unqualified for the job, but who said mean things to Robert Mueller the other day, which makes him the perfect Trump pick.

There will be many controversial steps in installing Ratcliffe (not least that Sue Gordon, currently the Principal Deputy, should take over as Acting DNI when Coats leaves, but Trump seems to have a plan to ignore the law that mandates that).

But I also think Ratcliffe’s confirmation process will be troubled, and not just because he’s totally unqualified for the job. Because he has been one of the key players into the Republican investigation into the Trump investigation, there are a bunch of transcripts of him acting really stupid in depositions, even more stupid than he acted in public in the Mueller hearing. As I noted in this post, in Michael Cohen’s second interview with HPSCI, for example, Ratcliffe got his ass handed to him by Cooley Law graduate Cohen.

The Republican conspiracy theory about Bruce Ohr depends on a series of misunderstandings

One of the most alarming examples involves the joint Oversight/Judiciary interview of Bruce Ohr.

The Republicans at the time (and still, I assume) believed that Bruce Ohr served as some secret back channel to keep feeding dossier tidbits to the FBI even after Christopher Steele had been fired as an informant for sharing details of his investigation with the press, part of a nefarious plot by Hillary to keep Steele’s intelligence reports flowing at the FBI. The evidence at least suggests that, instead, FBI was using Ohr as a way to monitor what Steele was doing while keeping the Brit completely firewalled from the actual investigation. In spite of being an expert on the topics implicated by the Russian investigation, Ohr was not read into the investigation or the Mueller probe, and had a relationship with Steele going back years. So he was a good way to get informed updates from Steele without risking Steele might learn more about the investigation.

Mr. Ohr. No. I think they just say thank you for the information, and then it disappears into the FBI.

Republicans also believe that Ohr should not have shared information with DOJ and FBI because his wife, Nellie, was doing contract work with Fusion GPS at the time. Virtually every time the Republicans talk about her role, however, they exhibit rank ignorance of the full scope of Fusion’s work for Democrats and Nellie’s role in that, as well as the way that Steele’s work was largely independent of those other efforts (though did respond to questions posed as part of it).

Mr. Ratcliffe. And if you did, then they would have known that your wife was being compensated in part for contributions to what we’ve referred to as the Steele dossier?

Mr. Ohr. Well, just to be careful about that, my wife was researching various entities who are some of the same people mentioned in the dossier.

My understanding of the dossier, and I didn’t look at it that carefully, but it seems to be reports from Chris Steele to Fusion GPS.

So I don’t think my wife’s information, as far as I knew, was reported in those specific reports. It was certainly provided to Fusion, which had both Chris Steele’s reports and my wife’s research.

Nellie did research that didn’t get published (though likely fed a few stories) that probably proved more accurate than Steele’s HUMINT and as such should have been the focus of the oppo campaign. But the public record (and Ohr’s impression knowing Steele’s past work) is that what is known as the dossier was entirely Steele’s work, not edited by Fusion or integrated with information otherwise obtained by them.

Some Republicans (though not Ratcliffe) also seemed to assume in the hearing that it is remarkable that a women qualified to do research on Russia would get hired to do research on Russia, and instead assume there’s some secret plot that got her hired. But as Bruce Ohr made clear several times in the hearing, he alerted the FBI of his wife’s tie to the contractor paying Steele from the very beginning.

Mr. Meadows. So you gave no commentary on the validity of what the source told you or what you thought? You gave no commentary?

Mr. Ohr. I —

Mr. Meadows. Your 302s don’t suggest that.

Mr. Ohr. No. I warned them that my wife work for Fusion GPS.

Mr. Meadows. When did you do that?

Mr. Ohr. When I first spoke with Mr. McCabe

But the core of the frothy Republican conspiracy about Ohr is an effort to shift the timeline of when Steele started feeding information to the FBI back before the investigation into Trump’s associates got opened, so as to be able to claim that Steele’s information predicated not just Carter Page’s FISA application, but the investigation as a whole.

The information Christopher Steele shared in the July 30 meeting is not the same information that appears in the dossier

An early attempt to do this was to point to communications between Steele and Ohr — who had been sharing information on Russian organized crime since 2007 — and claim a Steele reference to Oleg Deripaska was really proof of an early obsession between the two about Trump.

When that conspiracy was debunked, the frothy right then turned to a meeting Ohr and his wife had with Christopher Steele on July 30, 2016, at which Steele provided some information on Russia, including (but not limited to) some information that would eventually show up in the dossier. After the meeting, Ohr, of his own accord,  passed the information onto someone else he had worked organized crime matters with going back years, Andrew McCabe, whose counselor, Lisa Page, happened to be in the room when that meeting took place. That, in turn, led to a meeting with Peter Strzok. But both those meetings (and certainly the Strzok one) took place after the investigation into Trump’s associates had already gotten opened. Nevertheless, Republicans use that Ohr meeting to claim that Steele was trying to gin up an investigation into Trump even before he first formally shared his dossier with the FBI.

There are a few problems with this theory.

First, as noted, what Steele shared with Ohr on July 30, 2016 was not, precisely, what made it into the dossier. Over the course of his testimony, Ohr described four things that Steele shared with him that day.

Mr. Ohr. In the July 30th conversation, one of the items of information that Chris Steele gave to me was that he had information that a former head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, had stated to someone — I didn’t know who — that they had Donald Trump over a barrel.

[snip]

Mr. Ohr. So Chris Steele provided me with basically three items of information. One of them I’ve described to you already, the comment that information supposedly stated and made by the head, former head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.

He also mentioned that Carter Page had met with certain high-level Russian officials when he was in Moscow. My recollection is at that time, the name Carter Page had already been in the press, and there had been some kind of statement about who he had met with when he went to Moscow. And so the first item that I recall Chris Steele telling me was he had information that Carter Page met with higher-level Russian officials, not just whoever was mentioned in the press article. So that was one item.

And then the third item he mentioned was that Paul Hauser, who was an attorney working for Oleg Deripaska, had information about Paul Manafort, that Paul Manafort had entered into some kind of business deal with Oleg Deripaska, had stolen a large amount of money from Oleg Deripaska, and that Paul Hauser was trying to gather information that would show that, you know, or give more detail about what Paul Manafort had done with respect to Deripaska.

[snip]

Q Were there any other topics that were discussed during your July 30, 2016, meeting?

A Yes, there were. Based on my sketchy notes from the time, I think there was some information relating to the Russian doping scandal, but I don’t recall the substance of that.

Those four things are:

  1. A former head of SVR (other Steele dossier notes make it clear that this is Vyacheslav Trubnikov) told someone else who told a Steele source that Russia had Trump “over a barrel.” (Note, Ohr’s telling of this adds to the evidence that the frothy right misread Kathleen Kavalec’s notes about Steele’s intelligence to understand Trubnikov as a source for Steele rather than as someone his source was reporting on.)
  2. Carter Page met with some high ranking Russians when he was on his publicized trip to Moscow in July.
  3. Oleg Deripaska was trying to expose details of Paul Manafort’s “theft” from him.
  4. Something about the Russian doping scandal.

Just item 1 and 2 on this list appear in any form in the dossier. But item 1 — which Ohr repeatedly describes, based off his notes, as stating just that Russia had Trump “over a barrel,” doesn’t mention the pee tape at all. (Remember, the allegations that Russia had a compromising video from Trump’s 2013 trip had been out there since shortly after the trip, and both Hope Hicks and Michael Cohen were aware of and responding to those allegations during the campaign.) Moreover, the general allegation that Russia had some means of embarrassing Trump was already true by that point: he had shown a willingness to work with a former GRU officer, sanctioned banks, and the Russian government to chase an improbably lucrative real estate deal in Moscow, and he had lied about having ongoing business projects with Russia just days before Ohr’s July 30 meeting with Steele.

And while the reference to Page meeting with top Russian officials was used in his FISA application, what appears in the application goes well beyond what Steele appears to have shared in the meeting, to include the apparent promise of kompromat before the DNC emails got released. Notably, Page’s actions in Moscow were one of the things the Mueller Report concludes remain unexplained.

Item 3 — that Trump’s campaign manager was at risk of being hit with damning new accusations by a very powerful Russian oligarch — doesn’t show up in the dossier, but was actually true and serves as crucial background to Manafort’s ongoing efforts, just days later, to share campaign information with Deripaska not just to stave off such disclosures, but also to restore his old role installing leaders who would be favorable to Deripaska business interests.

And item 4 has nothing to do with Trump at all, but was a subject of real interest to the FBI, not least because the same GRU officers who conducted the hack of the DNC were — at precisely the time this meeting took place — beginning a similar campaign against international anti-doping agencies.

In other words, none of the things Steele shared with Ohr at that first meeting have proven untrue (though the allegations about Page probably are not true). And the two details that go beyond the dossier — that Manafort was under pressure from Deripaska and that Russian continued to engage with its doping scandal — are not just true, but were unequivocally issues of urgent interest to the FBI.

John Ratcliffe thinks the FBI should remain ignorant about Russian organized crime

And John Ratcliffe, the guy who wants to oversee the entire intelligence community, didn’t think that one of DOJ’s foremost experts in Russian organized crime, Ohr, should learn what he could from another recognized expert in Russian organized crime, Steele, and pass on what he learned to another government expert in Russian organized crime, McCabe.

He grilled Ohr at length, suggesting that it was improper for him to share information with another expert in Russian organized crime, and improper for him to pass on information he obtained to the agents who could vet and, if credible. use the information.

Mr. Ratcliffe. And one of those was shortly after you met with Christopher Steele. On July 30, you had a meeting with Andy McCabe and Lisa Page.

Mr. Ohr. Yes.

[snip]

Mr. Ratcliffe. And it was sometime, you believe, in August, because it was shortly after the meeting with Christopher Steele?

Mr. Ohr. Probably, yes.

Mr. Ratcliffe. And that was because, at that point in time, you wanted the FBI to have that information and be aware of your contact with Christopher Steele?

Mr. Ohr. Yes.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Did anyone prompt that call to Andy McCabe?

Mr. Ohr. No, I don’t think so. I think that was me. Just me.

Mr. Ratcliffe. You, out of just an idea that that was the appropriate thing to do?

Mr. Ohr. Yes.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. But you also thought it was appropriate to be communicating with Christopher Steele.

Mr. Ohr. Yes.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. Even though you don’t have any authority, apparently.

Mr. Ohr. He is just calling me or meeting with me, as we had done on and off for many years. So if he tells me something that is of interest or concern, I pass that to the FBI.

Mr. Ratcliffe. And you said something about you thought that was your job.

Mr. Ohr. Yes. Part of my job, as I saw it, as having been for a long time responsible for organized crime at the Department, was to try to gather as much information or introduce the FBI to possible sources of information, whatever ways to further the program’s goals.

In fact, as Ohr explained in his interview, he had been sharing information with Steele going back almost a decade.

A I believe I met Chris Steele for the first time around 2007. That was an official meeting. At that time, he was still employed by the British Government. I went to London to talk with British Government officials about Russian organized crime and what they were doing to look at the threat, and the FBI office at the U.S. Embassy in London set up a meeting. That was with Chris Steele. And there were other members of different British Government agencies there. And we met and had a discussion. And afterwards, I believe the agent and I spoke with Chris Steele further over lunch. That was, I think, the first time I met him.

Q And you said that Mr. Steele worked for the British Government at the time. Was that at MI-6?

A Yes.

Q And you said in this meeting that he was one of several British Government employees at the meeting?

A Yes.

Q So, based on that introduction, is it fair to say that your contacts with Christopher Steele began as a, you know, shared professional specialization?

A Yes.

Q And that specialization would be Russian organized crime?

A Yes.

In other words, John Ratcliffe wants to make a big deal out of the fact that DOJ’s top person on organized crime was trying to combat organized crime by collecting and sharing information on organized crime. This is the guy Trump wants to be be in charge of the entire intelligence community.

Ratcliffe objects that Ohr shared information with career employees and not his political appointee boss

Ratcliffe didn’t just object that Bruce Ohr compared notes with other experts on Russian organized crime, he also objected to the fact that Ohr passed that information along not to political appointees — who according to the conspiracy theories could then use the information as part of an ultimately unsuccessful Deep State plot to undermine Trump — but instead to career people who could actually decide what to do with the information.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. But yet Sally Yates — she was your boss, right?

Mr. Ohr. Yes.

Mr. Ratcliffe. You said she didn’t know that you were talking to Steele or Simpson?

Mr. Ohr. Correct.

Mr. Ratcliffe. How do you know she didn’t know?

Mr. Ohr. Well, I didn’t tell her.

[snip]

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. So, again, going back to the Sally Yates issue, is it your testimony that at some point in time as you were sitting down with the FBI for the purpose of talking to them about information that you were helping to coordinate from Christopher Steele that you shouldn’t have advised or didn’t advise Sally Yates about the fact that you were being interviewed for that purpose?

Mr. Ohr. I did not inform Sally Yates that I was talking to the FBI and that I was receiving information from Chris Steele. That’s correct.

Mr. Ratcliffe. My question is, did you have the thought that it might be a good idea to let my boss know that I’m being interviewed by the FBI?

Mr. Ohr. It was — my thought at the time was I should get this to the career people who would work on it, but that was my thought.

This is ultimately something that Ohr got disciplined for — not revealing the extent of his contacts with Steele earlier. But it was also the opposite of what he would do if he wanted to politicize the information, and precisely what he would do if he considered it the course of normal information exchange. By keeping this information within career channels, Ohr took the most appropriate step to avoid politicizing it.

It’s also true that, absent some proof that Yates found out about some of the details of Steele’s conversations with Ohr (in particular, how concerned Steele was about the possibility of Trump being elected) before she approved the FISA order on Carter Page, this conspiracy theory doesn’t make any sense. Which may be the real reason Ratcliffe is so infuriated that Ohr claims he didn’t inform Yates about what, to Ohr, was ordinary information sharing.

The echo chamber Ratcliffe occupies would prevent him from keeping America safe

Again, Ratcliffe’s own questioning of one of DOJ’s top experts on organized crime makes it appear that he affirmatively objects to the fact that that expert received true and timely information from another recognized expert and passed it on to another expert.

I actually don’t believe John Ratcliffe really is affirmatively opposed to the FBI receiving as much information about Russian Oligarchs threatening to expose top campaign managers or ongoing Russian efforts to retaliate for having been caught cheating in sports, even though that’s what his questioning of Ohr necessarily presumes. I think, instead, he is stuck so deep inside a Republican echo chamber looking for conspiracy theories even in events that can be easily explained that he is incapable of seeing how dangerous his assumptions really are: including the assumption that the FBI should reject information from credible sources about ongoing threats.

That he is so deeply ensconced in the frothy right is why Trump picked him for the job — because, to those who are equally ensconced in the echo chamber, he could appear to have damaged Robert Mueller last week. And of course, Trump will be perfectly happy to have someone who sees not what is, but what needs to be true to feed Trump’s own false claims.

But having picked Ratcliffe, Trump has given Democrats the perfect opportunity to turn frothy conspiracies on their head, to demonstrate the danger of them. Both before Ratcliffe’s eventual confirmation hearing and during it, Democrats will have abundant evidence — from Ratcliffe’s own performance in interviews where he repeatedly gets exposed as a fool — to demonstrate the dangers of appointing someone so deep inside an echo chamber he doesn’t even realize the entire premise of his questioning is that the US should not pursue as much information about threats as possible.

Sure, he’s likely to be confirmed anyway. But Democrats have the opportunity to lay out the costs of Republicans casting such a vote, to install someone who affirmatively objects to FBI getting information on urgent threats to oversee the intelligence community. And when Ratcliffe’s echo chamber beliefs serve to blow up — whether by feeding Trump what he wants to hear about North Korea or Iran or Russia — Democrats will then have the record that Republicans chose to put someone with a clear record arguing that the FBI should have less information about credible threats and not more.

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. 

There Are More Charges Pending for George Nader or an Accomplice

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On July 19, the government moved to unseal a bunch of search warrants involved in the investigation of George Nader. Among other things, the warrants revealed that Mueller originally obtained warrants for one of Nader’s Gmail accounts and a Hotmail account associated with his work on November 30, 2017.

The EDVA obtained a warrant to access the data from the iPhone 7 on which a Mueller-related FBI agent had found child porn on March 16, 2018. The case agent first accessed the data on March 22. Nader skipped town on March 24.

That’s … remarkable timing. It suggests he may have gotten tipped off.

Especially since, along with the four phones he was carrying when he was arrested on June 3, he was carrying a shit-ton of luggage.

That’s totally inconsistent with Nader’s claimed explanation for returning to the US, which was to consult with a heart doctor. Remember: he returned just days after Mueller officially closed up shop.

Finally, there’s this interesting detail from the government response to the judge’s order asking what had to remain sealed in Nader’s case.

The United States does not believe that any of the documents (other than those portions involving the health status of the Defendant and noted by his counsel) identified in the docket under the caption indicated above need to remain under seal.

Though it is not directly responsive, as the Court is aware, the government has successfully sought to unseal a number of search warrants that were authorized by the U.S. Magistrate Judges in this Court in this matter. See Dkt. 71. However, there are a number of search warrants and affidavits that involve charges and subjects beyond that contained in the current Indictment. While the defense in this matter will be given access to these documents and the subsequent materials obtained pursuant to this Court’s Discovery Order and Protective Orders, they should remain under seal until the investigations are complete for the reasons set forth in the original sealing orders obtained.

One of the unsealed warrant applications describes Nader discussing child porn with someone in the Czech lands as recently as 2016. So it may be there are more trafficking charges; that same passage cites a warrant issued in April that was not among the ones unsealed.

Or it may pertain to something more interesting, such as his pitch to have PsyGroup help Trump get elected.

Update: Because very few people understand how this timing works, here’s the timeline that shows that Mueller’s team properly referred the child porn after they found it, and Mueller’s known interviews (aside from a grand jury appearance) precede when the porn was found.

November 30, 2017: Mueller obtains warrants for one of Nader’s Gmail accounts and a work-related Hotmail account.

January 16, 2018: Mueller obtains a warrant for Nader’s person.

January 17, 2018: Nader detained in Dulles, interviewed, phones seized; Mueller obtains warrant to search Nader’s three phones.

January 19, 2018: Nader interviewed by Mueller FBI Agent under proffer.

January 22, 2018: Nader interviewed by Mueller FBI Agent under proffer.

January 23, 2018: Nader interviewed by Mueller FBI Agent under proffer.

February 12, 2018: Agent in Mueller investigation conducts first review of Nader phone files, sees three child porn videos sent via WhatsApp.

Week before March 6, 2018: Nader appears before grand jury.

March 5, 2018: iPhone 7 files saved to hard drive for referral to EDVA (where the files were illegally transported).

March 16, 2018: EDVA obtains warrant to access iPhone 7 files.

March 22, 2018: EDVA case agent reviews iPhone 7 files, finds four more child porn videos.

March 24, 2018: Nader flies to Dubai.

April 19, 2018: Arrest warrant.

June 3, 2019: Nader returns to the US, ostensibly for a heart surgeon consult, but with four suitcases.

Right Wing “News” Site Deleted One of the Videos Prosecutors Wanted to Use at Roger Stone’s Trial

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Roger Stone and the government are beginning their fight over what evidence will be included and excluded in his November trial. The motions in limine submitted yesterday include:

  • A government motion to exclude any discussion about 1) Russian involvement in the hack of the DNC and 2) any coordination — or lack thereof — with Russia
  • A Stone motion to admit evidence that WikiLeaks did not receive the DNC, DCCC, or John Podesta emails from the Russian state (note the careful phrasing, which avoids addressing whether Russia did the hack itself); Stone does not explain what evidence he wants to submit, aside from mentioning his earlier motions related to this, which Amy Berman Jackson is sure to ding him for
  • A government motion to exclude claims of misconduct about the investigation
  • A government motion to admit this video from the Godfather II to explain what Stone’s allusions to Frank Pentangeli mean
  • A sealed government motion to submit two newspaper articles as part of 404(b) evidence (if I had to guess, I’d say these articles show that Stone not only had records of communications he denied having to HPSCI, but shared them with journalists when it became convenient)
  • A future government motion to admit the transcript of Stone’s HPSCI testimony (the government had tried to get Stone to stipulate to the accuracy of this transcript, but Stone ultimately refused a few days ago)
  • A government motion to admit the upload dates for various videos mentioned in the Indictment

The last motion is partly an attempt to lay out the timeline in these paragraphs of the indictment:

Starting in early August 2016, after receiving the August 2, 2016 email from Person 1, STONE made repeated statements about information he claimed to have learned from the head of Organization 1.

a. On or about August 8, 2016, STONE attended a public event at which he stated, “I actually have communicated with [the head of Organization 1]. I believe the next tranche of his documents pertain to the Clinton Foundation, but there’s no telling what the October surprise may be.”

b. On or about August 12, 2016, STONE stated during an interview that he was “in communication with [the head of Organization 1]” but was “not at liberty to discuss what I have.”

c. On or about August 16, 2016, STONE stated during an interview that “it became known on this program that I have had some back-channel communication with [Organization 1] and [the head of Organization 1].” In a second interview on or about the same day, STONE stated that he “communicated with [the head of Organization 1]” and that they had a “mutual acquaintance who is a fine gentleman.”

d. On or about August 18, 2016, STONE stated during a television interview that he had communicated with the head of Organization 1 through an “intermediary, somebody who is a mutual friend.”

When the government requested the upload times for the videos in paragraphs a through c on June 5 (the August 18 appearance was on CSPAN, from whom the government asked separately and even earlier for that upload time), they asked for the upload times of seven videos, including the ones linked above, this video of Julian Assange talking about WikiLeaks’ upcoming dump on Hillary Clinton, this August 4 interview with Alex Jones alleging Russia didn’t do the hack, and a Media Matters version of Stone’s August 8 Broward appearance (they posted it over 24 hours before Stone did).

But, as noted, one of those videos — described as a August 16 Alex Jones interview of Roger Stone — is not linked. As Google noted,

Regarding your attached legal request, after a diligent search and reasonable inquiry, we have found no records for any YouTube video file(s) identified as HXXwf-9otzU, as specified in your request. Therefore, we do not have documents responsive to your request.

The video was a mirror of the Alex Jones interview hosted by the right wing “news” channel, OpenMind.

There actually is a video of the interview (which actually appears to have taken place on August 15, not August 16), available from another site that mirrors Jones. But it appears that other site deleted the video; I’m fairly sure that happened after the government asked for it (the request was revealed the day it was filed).

The discrepancy of a day is not that great (and the government covered itself in any case with the “on or about” language. But I do find it mildly interesting that a propaganda channel tried to make the video unavailable.

The Other Servers and Laptops FBI Never Investigated: VR Systems and North Carolina Polling Books

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Ron Wyden had a lot to say in his minority views to the SSCI Report on election security released yesterday, mostly arguing that there need to be national standards and assistance and that no one can make any conclusions about the effects of Russia’s efforts in 2016 because no one collected the data to make such conclusions.

But there’s one line in his section raising questions about the 2016 conclusions I find particularly interesting, pertaining to VR Systems (which he doesn’t name).

Assessments about Russian attacks on the administration of elections are also complicated by newly public information about the infiltration of an election technology company.

Since the Mueller Report came out, Wyden has been trying to chase down this reference in the report to the VR Systems hack.

Unit 74455 also sent spear-phishing emails to public officials involved in election administration and personnel a~ involved in voting technology. In August 2016, GRU officers targeted employees of [redacted; VR Systems], a voting technology company that developed software used by numerous U.S. counties to manage voter rolls, and installed malware on the company network.

In May, he sent a letter to VR Systems President Mindy Perkins, asking how the company could claim, in March 2018, that it had not experienced a security breach when the report said it had been infected with malware in August 2016. In response, the company told Wyden (according to a letter he and Amy Klobuchar sent FBI Director Chris Wray) that they had alerted the FBI that they found suspicious IPs in their logs in real time, but that FBI had never explained the significance of that.

In a May 16, 2019, letter to Senator Wyden, VR Systems described how it participated in an August 2016 conference call with law enforcement. Participants in that call were apparently asked by the FBI to “be on the lookout for certain suspicious IP addresses.” According to VR Systems, the company examined its website logs, “found that several of the IP addresses had, in fact, visited our website” and as a result, the company “notified the FBI as we had been directed to do.” VR Systems indicates they did not know that these IP addresses were part of a larger pattern until 2017, which suggests the FBI may not have followed up with VR Systems in 2016 about the nature of the threat they faced.

The implication from Wyden’s letters is that VR Systems only hired FireEye to conduct an assessment of what happened after Reality Winner leaked an NSA document making it clear they had been targeted by GRU in 2017. [Update: Kim Zetter actually reported this here.]

In their June 12 letter, Wyden and Klobuchar asked Wray whether the FBI followed up on VR Systems’ report.

  1. What steps, if any, did the FBI take to examine VR Systems’ servers for evidence of a successful cyber breach after the company alerted the FBI, in August of 2016, to the presence of suspicious IP addresses in its website logs? If the FBI did not examine VR Systems’ servers or request access to those servers, please explain why.
  2. Several months after VR Systems first contacted the FBI, electronic pollbooks made by the company malfunctioned during the November 8 general election in Durham County, North Carolina. In the two and a half years since that incident in Durham County, has the FBI requested access to the pollbooks that malfunctioned, and the computers used to configure them, in order to examine them for evidence of hacking? If not, please explain why.
  3. VR Systems contracted FireEye to perform a forensic examination of its systems in the summer of 2017. Has the FBI reviewed FireEye’s conclusions? If so, what were its key findings?

It’s unclear how Wray answered (or didn’t). But just before Wyden sent this letter, the WaPo reported that no one had yet conducted a forensic examination of the laptops used in the VR Systems polling books in North Carolina. After Democrats took over control, they finally persisted in getting DHS to agree to check the laptops.

On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security told The Washington Post it will conduct a forensic analysis of the laptops used in Durham County elections in 2016. Lawson said North Carolina first asked the department to conduct such a review more than 18 months ago, though he added that DHS has generally been a “good partner” on election security.

“We appreciate the Department of Homeland Security’s willingness to make this a priority so the lingering questions from 2016 can be addressed in advance of 2020,” said Karen Brinson Bell, the newly appointed executive director of the State Board of Elections.

After the election, Durham County hired a firm called Protus3 to dig into what happened. The security consultant said it appeared the problems were caused by user error but ended its 12-page report with a list of recommendations that included examining computers in a lab setting and interviewing more election workers.

Durham County elections director Derek Bowens said he is comfortable with the report’s conclusions. Even so, in 2017, the county switched to electronic poll books created by the state. Bowens said in an interview that the state’s software would save money and is, in his view, better.

But for North Carolina officials, concerns resurfaced in June 2017 when the website Intercept posted a leaked National Security Agency report referencing “cyber espionage operations against a . . . U.S. company in August 2016.” The NSA report said that “it was likely that at least one account was compromised.”

VR Systems soon acknowledged that hackers had targeted the company but insisted that its network had not been breached.

North Carolina officials weren’t so sure.

“This was the first leak that indicated anything like a nation-state actor targeting a voting systems vendor,” Lawson said.

The state elections board soon launched its own investigation, seizing 40 laptops from Durham in July. And it suspended the certification that allowed more than 20 North Carolina counties to use VR Systems’ poll books during elections, an action that would later land in court. “Over the past few months there has been a considerable change in the election security landscape and the level of scrutiny we receive,” the board wrote in a letter explaining its decision to VR Systems.

No one working for the board had the technical expertise to do a forensic examination of the machines for signs of intrusion. Staffers asked DHS for technical help but did not get a substantive answer for a year and a half, Lawson said.

As noted, FireEye appears to have done an assessment at VR Systems itself in the wake of the Winner disclosure. The WaPo reports that FireEye declared VR Systems hadn’t been hacked, but wouldn’t share any information with Wyden or–apparently–DHS.

VR Systems said a cybersecurity firm it hired to review its computer network in 2017 found no evidence of a hack. A subsequent review by DHS also found no issues, the company said. VR Systems declined to give Wyden documentation of those reviews, citing the need to protect proprietary information.

Wyden in a statement to The Post accused VR Systems of “stonewalling congressional oversight.”

A senior U.S. official confirmed DHS’s review of VR Systems’s network to The Post and noted that by the time agency investigators arrived, a commercial vendor had already “swept” the networks. “I can’t tell you what happened before the commercial vendor came in there,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

The same day as the WaPo report, Kim Zetter reported that VR Systems used remote updates for their software, opening up a possible point of compromise for hackers.

For two years, GRU hack denialists have thought it was the most important thing that the DNC provided FBI Crowdstrike’s forensic images of the hacked laptops, rather than providing the servers themselves.

But that step has, apparently, not been done yet with VR Systems. And the laptops that failed on election day are only now being forensically examined.  Which is why, I presume, that Wyden believes it’s premature to claim no vote totals were affected on election day 2016.

The 18th Warrant Application against Roger Stone Investigated Hacking

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Doug Collins asked some curious questions — amid a series of questions designed to rule out Robert Mueller passing non-public information to Democrats — at Wednesday’s hearing. He asked whether Mueller had obtained any additional information since closing up shop in May 2019.

COLLINS: Since closing the special counsel’s office in May of 2019, have you conducted any additional interviews or obtained any new information in your role as special counsel?

MUELLER: In the — in the — in the wake of the report?

COLLINS: Since the — since the closing of the office in May of 2019.

MUELLER: And the question was, have we conducted…

COLLINS: Have you conducted any new interviews, any new witnesses, anything?

MUELLER: No.

The conversation served as background to Collins’ questions about whether Trump or “those close to him” were involved in Russian conspiracies.

COLLINS: Isn’t it true the evidence did not establish that the president or those close to him were involved in the charged Russian computer hacking or active measure conspiracies or that the president otherwise had unlawful relationships with any Russian official, Volume 2, page 76? Correct?

MUELLER: I will leave the answer to our report.

COLLINS: So that is a yes.

The question is interesting for two reasons.

First, as I noted, Mueller’s resignation on May 29 preceded Roger Stone aide Andrew Miller’s agreement to testify to the grand jury by minutes. Mueller stayed in place long enough to ensure the subpoena served on Miller a year earlier would be enforced. But he did not, as Special Counsel, obtain that testimony; the DC US Attorney’s office did, using a different grand jury.

One thing Collins (who reportedly had lunch with Trump’s defense attorney Bill Barr before this hearing) would have done with his question is probe whether Mueller knew what has happened with Miller’s testimony to a different grand jury. But it would also mean that Mueller’s answer — that no one close to Trump was involved in any Russian computer hacking — would not cover Miller’s testimony and aftermath.

And that’s interesting because of the history of warrants obtained through February 2019 against Roger 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.

Starting in July 2017, the government obtained warrants targeting Stone investigating — among other things — hacking. In the time leading up to Stone’s indictment in January, the government obtained four warrants investigating just the false statements and witness tampering charges he was indicted for.

And then in February 2019, the government obtained one more warrant. It’s possible that’s the warrant, issued on February 13, reflected in the liberated docket of warrants, which would appear to cover searches of devices obtained from the searches on Stone’s homes. That one targeted hacking again.

Stone’s challenge to the search warrants against him started on May 10, and the government filing laying out the warrants issued between July 2017 and February 2019 was submitted on May 31, the same day Miller testified (and before he complied with an additional request for communications with Stone). So any claim to be discussing the totality of the warrants against Stone (even assuming they’d tell him about ones investigating crimes beyond his current indictment) would not reflect any investigative steps that followed on Miller’s testimony.

To be clear: if Collins knows of further investigation for Stone for hacking, then it’d be pretty likely that he learned of it because Barr was tampering with that investigation. So this is not to say that any ongoing investigation of the President’s rat-fucker will go anywhere.

But Collins’ questions of Mueller would have the effect of cabining off (whether or not that was the intent) any investigation of Stone that continued even in the minutes after Mueller resigned and Stone’s aide finally started testifying. And the last warrant obtained before that point shows that the government continued to investigate Stone for hacking crimes.

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. 

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