Incidental Collection Under Section 702 Has Probably Contributed to Trump’s Downfall, Too

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As you’ve no doubt heard, the House passed the bad reauthorization to Section 702 yesterday. The Senate will vote on cloture on Tuesday — though both Rand Paul and Ron Wyden have threatened to filibuster it — and will almost certainly be voted into law after that.

I’ll have comment later on the rising costs, for politicians, for mindlessly reauthorizing these bills in a follow-up post.

Paul Ryan told President Trump Section 702 hasn’t affected his people

But for the moment, I want to comment on the debate that took place in response to Trump’s two tweets. The first tweet, which was clearly a response to a Judge Napolitano piece on Fox News yesterday morning, complaining about FISA.

Then, after a half hour lesson from Paul Ryan on the different FISA regimes (note, for some reason Devin Nunes was conspicuously absent from much of this process yesterday, both the coddling of the President and managing debate on the bill), a follow-up tweet hailing Section 702’s utility for “foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land.”

In response to those tweets, many commenters stated, as a matter of fact, that Trump hasn’t been impacted by Section 702, that only traditional FISA intercepts drove key developments in the Russian investigation.

That’s unlikely to be true, and I suspect we already have evidence that that’s not the case.

It is true that incidental collection on a Title I got Mike Flynn in trouble

To defend the case that incidental collection off a traditional FISA order has impacted Trump’s administration, people point to the December 29, 2016 intercepts of communications between Sergey Kislyak and Mike Flynn which were cited in Flynn’s guilty plea. It is true that those intercepts were done under a traditional FISA order. Admiral Mike Rogers as much as confirmed that last March in his efforts to explain basic FISA law to the House Intelligence Committee Republicans who are supposed to oversee it.

Rogers: FISA collection on targets in the United States has nothing to do with 702, I just want to make sure we’re not confusing the two things here. 702 is collection overseas against non US persons.

And Speaker Ryan, fresh off his efforts to teach the President basic surveillance law, yesterday clarified — inaccurately — that,

Title 1 of the FISA law is what you see in the news that applies to U.S. citizens. That’s not what we’re talking about here. This is Title 7, Section 702. This is about foreign terrorists on foreign soil.

Whatever the facts about FISA orders targeting Carter Page and Paul Manafort, the intercepts that have done the most known damage to the Trump Administration so far targeted a foreigner on US soil, Sergey Kislyak, and Flynn just got picked up incidentally.

Papadopoulos’ affidavit and statement of offense make different claims about his false claims and obstruction

But as I said, I suspect it is highly likely the Trump Administration has also been brought down by an American being caught up incidentally in a Section 702 tasking. That’s because of several details pertaining to the George Papadopoulos plea which I nodded to here; they strongly suggest that Papadopoulos’ Facebook communications with Joseph Mifsud were first obtained by the FBI via Section 702, and only subsequently parallel constructed using a warrant. It’s further likely that the FBI obtained a preservation order on Papadopoulos’ Facebook account before he deleted it because of what they saw via Section 702. [Update: KC has alerted me that they may not have gotten a preservation order, but instead were able to access the Facebook account because that content doesn’t all go away when you deactivate an account, which is what the October 5 document describes as happening.]

Compare the two descriptions of how Papadopoulos obstructed justice. The July 28, 2017 affidavit supporting Papadopoulos’ arrest describes Papadopoulos destroying his Facebook account to hide conversations he had with Timofeev.

The next day, on or about February 17, 2017, however, GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS, the defendant, shut down his Facebook account, which he had maintained since approximately August 2005. Shortly after he shut down his account, PAPADOPOULOS created a new Facebook account.

The Facebook account that PAPADOPOULOS shut down the day after his interview with the FBI contained information about communications he had with Russian nationals and other foreign contacts during the Campaign, including communications that contradicted his statements to the FBI. More specifically, the following communications, among others, were contained in that Facebook account, which the FBI obtained through a judicially authorized search warrant.

The affidavit makes it clear that Papadopoulos attempted to hide “his interactions during the Campaign with foreign contacts, including Russian nationals.” The descriptions of the communications that Papadopoulos attempted to hide are described as “a Facebook account identified with Foreign Contact 2,” Timofeev.

The FBI recorded both interviews, suggesting they already by January 27 they had reason to worry that Papadopoulos might not tell the truth.

The October 5 statement of the offense describes one of Papadopoulos’ false statements this way:

PAPADOPOULOS failed to inform investigators that the Professor had introduced him to the Russian MFA Connection [Timofeev], despite being asked if he had met with Russian nationals or “[a]nyone with a Russian accent” during the Campaign. Indeed, while defendant PAPADOPOULOS told the FBI that he was involved in meetings and did “shuttle diplomacy” with officials from several other countries during the Campaign, he omitted the entire course of conduct with the Professor and the Russian MFA Connection regarding his efforts to establish meetings between the Campaign and Russian government officials.

And it describes his obstruction this way:

The next day, on or about February 17, 2017, defendant PAPADOPOULOS deactivated his Facebook account, which he had maintained since approximately August 2005 and which contained information about communications he had with the Professor and the Russian MFA Connection. Shortly after he deactivated his account, PAPADOPOULOS created a new Facebook account that did not contain the communications with the Professor and the Russian MFA Connection.

On or about February 23, 2017, defendant PAPADOPOULOS ceased using his cell phone number and began using a new number.

In neither document does FBI mention having the content of Papadopoulos’ April 2016 Skype calls with Timofeev and neither one cites data — such as texts — that might have been on his cell phone.

What FBI (probably) learned when

While we can’t be sure — after all, the government may simply be withholding more information from other suspects — the differences between the two legal filings and other public information suggest the following evolution in what the government knew of Papadopoulous’ communications with his interlocutors when. Most importantly, the FBI had learned of Papadopoulos’ communications with Joseph Mifsud and Olga Vinogradova before his two interviews, but they had not learned of his communications with Ivan Timofeev.

Late July 2016

In a drunken conversation in May 2016, Papadopoulos told the Australian Ambassador Alexander Downer that he had been told (by Joseph Mifsud, but it’s not clear Papadopoulos would have revealed that) the Russians had dirt on Hillary in the form of emails.

Before January 27, 2017

  • Papadopoulos might lie and so should be recorded
  • Papadopoulos had interesting communications with Joseph Mifsud and Olga Vinogradova
  • Since Timofeev did not come up in the interview, FBI appears not to have learned of those conversations yet

Before February 16, 2017

  • Papadopoulos’ Facebook was interesting enough to sustain a preservation request but (because FBI still didn’t know about Timofeev) FBI had not yet accessed its content via Papadopoulos [Though see update above]
  • FBI had not yet accessed Skype, which would have shown call records between Timofeev and Papadopoulos
  • FBI did not have a warrant on Papadopoulos’ phone and never obtained one before February 23

By July 28, 2017

  • FBI had obtained a warrant for Papadopoulos’ email
  • FBI had read the Facebook content Papadopoulos tried to delete, discovering the communications (and the relationship) with Timofeev
  • FBI had identified the Skype conversations that had taken place, but not in time to collect them using 702

By October 5, 2017

  • FBI had obtained far more email from the campaign side
  • FBI had discovered that, in addition to destroying his Facebook account, Papadopoulos had also gotten a new phone number (and, I suspect, a new phone), thereby destroying any stored texts on the phone

FBI probably tracked Papadopoulos’ Facebook communications with Mifsud before February 16

Again, this is just a guess, but given the evolution of FBI’s understanding about Papadopoulos laid out above, it seems highly likely that FBI had obtained some (but not all) of Mifsud’s communications before February 16, had submitted preservation requests to Papadopoulos’ providers, but had not yet obtained any legal process for content via Papadopoulos. Given that Papadopoulos’ Facebook content was preserved even in spite of his effort to destroy it, it seems clear the government had reason to know its content was of interest, but it did not yet know about his Facebook communications with Timofeev. This is how FBI routinely launders Section 702 information through criminal process, by getting a warrant for the very same content available at PRISM providers that they already obtained via PRISM. They key detail is that they appear to have known about the content of some but not all of Papadopoulos’ Facebook messages in time to preserve the account before February 16.

This strongly suggests the FBI had obtained Mifsud’s Facebook content, but not Papadopoulos’.

Once FBI opened a full investigation into the Russian ties — which we know they did in late July, in part because of that Papadopoulos conversation about the Mifsud comments — it could task and obtain a raw feed of any known PRISM account for any foreigner overseas associated with that investigation. Once it identified Mifsud as Papadopoulos’ interlocutor — and they would have been able to identify their common relationship from their common front organization, the London Centre of International Law Practice — they would have tasked Mifsud on any identifier they could collect.

And collecting on Facebook would be child’s play — just ask nicely. So it would be shocking if they hadn’t done it as soon as they identified that Mifsud was Papadopoulos’ interlocutor and that he had a Facebook account.

Incidental collection under 702 may have led to the preservation of evidence about the Timofeev relationship Papadopoulos tried to destroy

If all this is right — and it is admittedly just a string of well-educated guesses — then it means FBI’s ability to incidentally collect on Papapdopoulos by targeting Mifsud may have been what led them to take action to preserve Papadopoulos’ Facebook content, and with it evidence of ongoing communications with Timofeev that he had tried to hide.

And the fact that he did try to hide it is what led to Mueller flipping his first cooperating witness.

So if all this is right, then incidental collection on Papadopoulos under Section 702 may be every bit as central to Trump’s legal jeopardy right now as the incidental collection on Flynn under Title I. They’re both critical pieces in proving any hypothetical case that Trump traded policy considerations for the release of Hillary emails.

This is how Section 702 is supposed to work, and could be done under USA Rights

Let me be clear: I’m not saying the discovery of Papadopoulos’ Facebook communications with Mifsud and through them his Facebook communications with Timofeev is an abuse. On the contrary, this is how 702 is supposed to work.

If we’re going to have this program, it should be used to target suspect agents of a foreign power located overseas, as Mifsud clearly was. If he was targeted under 702, he was targeted appropriately.

But there is no reason to believe doing so required any of the more abusive uses of 702 that USA Rights would limit. Unless Mifsud was already tasked at FBI when they opened the investigation in July 2016, there’s no reason to believe this account could have been found off of a back door search at FBI. Mifsud may have been tasked at NSA or even CIA, but if he was, searching on Papadopoulos because the government suspected he was being recruited by a foreign power would fall under known justifications for back door searches at those foreign intelligence agencies (especially at CIA).

USA Rights would permit the use of this 702 information to support the criminal case against Papadopoulos, because it’s clearly a case of foreign government spying.

And no use of the Tor exception would be implicated with this search.

In other words, Section 702 as Ron Wyden and Rand Paul and Justin Amash and Zoe Lofgren would have it would still permit the use of Section 702 as a tool to — ultimately — lead FBI to figure out that Papadopoulos was hiding his contacts with Ivan Timofeev.

As it turns out, the kinds of people Trump’s foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos was chatting up on Facebook — Joseph Mifsud and Ivan Timofeev — are precisely the kind of people the FBI considers “foreign bad guys on foreign land” for the purposes of Section 702, meaning the Bureau could get their Facebook account quite easily.

And the incidental collection of Americans of such conversations can be — may well have been — as dangerous to Donald Trump as the incidental collection of Americans under Title I.

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Let me tell you a story

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People often wonder about how attraction affects whether an interaction is sexual harassment or not. I have an answer for that, a story from my own life. This is my story, but I’m so damn tired of starring in it. Let’s make it your story this time.

Warning: this piece is scary and disturbing af, and worst of all, true. It is the story of a night-time stalker, and if that’s not for you right now, stop here. No shame in it. 

  

The scene opens with you standing in a small ground floor apartment, West LA, 1992. Grey speckled carpet, layers of matte beige paint. It’s got a couch, a bed, a table, all hand-me-downs. A small kitchen is stocked with pasta, sauce, ramen, and the basics of whatever the Safeway nearby stocks cheap. You are there, shuffling and floating room to room with your cat, a tabby girl called Speedbump. You are probably worried about how to make rent. You are usually worried about how to make rent. You are a short brown-eyed white girl, born and raised in LA. The apartment is near where you recently didn’t graduate from high school, and also not too far from UCLA, where you will never attend college. You are 18, technically an adult. You are two years out of your mom’s house, not on good terms. You are few months split with a not very good boyfriend, on better terms, if still not good. You are funny, but often sad, and not very good at socializing. You’re also a teenage bag of hormones for anything cute, male or female. You look longingly and lustily at a lot of people, most of whom don’t return the look.

To not put too fine a point on it, you’re awkward, easy, and damn lonely.

You are living alone in this apartment, which you definitely can’t afford, but somehow have a lease on. You are poor, and scared of everything. There’s stains on the carpet already, and you know you’re not getting more and more of the deposit back. You need that deposit. As a high school drop out in the middle of a recession you’re struggling to find work. You’re working at Rene Faire and doing bit jobs, but you have no idea if you have any future at all. You are vulnerable. You look vulnerable. You probably smell vulnerable. You have friends, but they’re all as broken and crappy as you are. You’re the only one with your own apartment, so friends come over. You’re not that neighbor, the bad neighbor, you’re just not the good neighbor either. Sometimes, the neighbors have to tell you that you’re being too loud, and you apologize, mortified. You are easily mortified. There are a couple incidents at the house, and the police are called. People coming around who shouldn’t, that kind of thing. One homeless guy starts leaving things on your doorstep, which freaks you out a bit. After a little while, he stops.

A few weeks later, someone else is around. He’s not living in your complex, he’s starting to just, be there. He’s around your apartment at night, walking across the parking lot when you are. At first you don’t see much of him, just enough to see it’s the same guy, always at night. He seems to wear white, but you don’t see his face clearly. And then, it’s almost every night. He’s outside your apartment. He tries the door. Sometimes there’s a tap on the wall or window and you turn around and see him running away. You get a shotgun. You call the police a lot. They don’t really do or say much, and you get the feeling they don’t really care. You can’t describe the guy. You know he’s this tall, wears a lot of white, fast runner, at least compared to you. (Everyone is a fast runner compared to you.) No one you know. No one you’ve ever met. The police shrug and wish you luck shooting him. They actually say that, and leave again.

One day you’re in your room, and you turn around to see him next to you, inches away, just outside the window. He’s looking at you, staring. You can see his face, his upper body. He’s gorgeous. He looks 20-ish, clean cut in preppy white clothes, every inch a classic hot UCLA college boy.

Your whole body flushes. You are warm, and your heart is pounding. Fear and shock wash over you, along with the hatred prey feels for the predator.

Without any conscious thought that you can recall, you make a fist and punch at his face. He jumps back. You don’t so much hear the glass breaking as remember later there was the sound of glass breaking. You don’t remember the feeling of your fist going through the glass. He runs, you turn and run out of your house to chase him, never realizing your hand is streaming blood. His face is etched in your memory. It’s beautiful. You hate it. You hate him. He vanishes down the corner into an alley and you lose him. But now, you can do something you never could before: you can describe him. You call LAPD, again. A friend comes over and bandages up your hand while you wait for the police. You tell him over and over everything you’ve noticed about this man at your window. You look at the window, and think about the deposit again, but you don’t say anything.

The police don’t find him, no one ever finds him. But an officer tells you that your description matches a serial rapist who breaks into women’s houses at night. All the women he attacks live alone. He breaks in, overpowers them, rapes them, and leaves. LAPD wishes you luck, and leaves.

You feel more disgusted and hateful and fearful than you can describe. You realize that if you’d seen this guy at a party, you’d chat with him without any reservation. You throw up a lot, you stop sleeping. When you do sleep, it’s short and fitful and you sleep with the shotgun within hands’ reach. A few times you manage to get out of the house fast enough to chase him, but you lose him, you always lose him. Another time, he shows up when you have your friend with you. You see his face in the window and reach down under the bed, grabbing the shotgun. You don’t remember what happened next except blind rage. Your friend tells you that you cocked the shotgun screaming and chased him. When your memory picks up again, you’re running down a Los Angeles street holding a shotgun. No one stops you, no one gets involved. But your friend, still white in the face, reassures you that guy won’t be back after that.

That guy is back within two nights.

He’s always well groomed, always attractive, and soft-eyed, when he stares at you through your windows. That he’s attractive only makes it worse, so much fucking worse. It’s not that you’d let him get close to you if you didn’t know what he was, it’s that you could imagine a situation where you would want him to. It’s like some part of you is betraying you so utterly that the more you hate him, the more you hate yourself. You hate that you could ever find something like that attractive.

You go to your property rental company and beg them to let you break your lease, explaining that you’re in danger. You offer to give them copies of police reports about your stalker. They threaten to sue you. You try to hang on for your year-long lease to end.

After a couple months, you just move to Oregon and stiff them for the last few rent checks. You feel guilty, but not about the lease. You feel guilty that you couldn’t do anything, that he’ll probably move on to a woman without shotgun and a propensity to chase him screaming. You feel like you’re letting other women down by not catching him. You will feel this way for the rest of your life.

You don’t like pretty people for a while after that. You don’t even like having them for friends. You have, as the saying goes, trust issues. You try to hang on to friendships and relationships, but at the same time, you mostly burn down everything in your life. By the next year, you’re homeless.

Eventually, far away from your hometown, and floating from place to place, you start to heal. You start to sleep for more than a couple hours at a time. You start to be willing to kiss people again. But you never felt particularly safe in your homes, and never hung onto them very well after that. You still don’t, that part of you was broken, and no amount of crazy glue and clamps will ever make it strong enough to hold your weight again.

 

Quinn circa 1992ish. At a Rene Faire. Because of course I was.

Hi, it’s me again, the person to whom this happened. Things did get better. I worked hard to get them better. In the course of those years I learned the upside of letting yourself be attracted. When someone attractive seeks consent, you feel like a million bucks. You feel attractive yourself, and powerful, and wanted, which makes the whole thing fucking magic. “Me? You want me to say yes?” Let’s kiss all night. Let me stare at you, let me say yes, let me hear you whisper yes, let’s see how far two throaty yeses can take us.

But that’s not what happens when someone attractive to you doesn’t want your yes. When an attractive person seeks power, exploits you, makes you feel small and preyed upon, you hate that any part of you can like any part of them. You hate yourself. You hate the idea of attraction. Everything is betraying you at once. It’s like you can never say yes again, like you looked for “yes” and “no” and found them erased from the universe. That’s what the years after this were like for me; freezing, and not finding either yes or no.

There’s a lot of ways to flirt in this world. Some of them look the same as assault, rape, and harassment to the sufficiently distant eye. “How can this be so terrible and that so wonderful, if they look so much alike?” The difference is simple: The partner wants to be with you, and wants you to be with them. The predator not only doesn’t seek your consent, they don’t want it. I couldn’t have given consent to that man. Consent, if it could have happened, would have ruined it for him. Predators don’t want you, they want the end of you. They go out of their way to make it so that you can’t consent, there is never a place where it can be safe to say yes. Because they’re not trying to have sex with you. They’re trying  to suck your life up into their ego, and destroy who you are, to make it clear that what you want and what you feel doesn’t matter, doesn’t even exist.

All that matters is seeing you succumb.

I don’t know what happened to that young man. I don’t even know if the story the LAPD told me was true. It took me years to sleep right, to stop looking for danger everywhere, even when I was next to a loving partner. Maybe, if I’m honest, I haven’t completely stopped. It took me the better part of a decade to trust anyone, and not to destroy my relationships with friends and lovers. It took me longer to know it was ok to trust myself. Like feeling safe at home, I don’t know if I will ever rest entirely comfortably on finding a stranger attractive again.

If the person trying to rape you looks like a movie star to you, it can be different. It can be worse.

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Mark Corallo’s Obstruction Concerns: “The President…did not attend the meeting.”

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Mark Corallo reportedly told Michael Wolff that he quit working for Donald Trump as Marc Kasowitz’ spokesperson because he believed the Air Force One response to the June  9 meeting to be a cover-up.

An aggrieved, unyielding, and threatening president dominated the discussion, pushing into line his daughter and her husband, Hicks, and Raffel. Kasowitz—the lawyer whose specific job was to keep Trump at arm’s length from Russian-related matters—was kept on hold on the phone for an hour and then not put through. The president insisted that the meeting in Trump Tower was purely and simply about Russian adoption policy. That’s what was discussed, period. Period. Even though it was likely, if not certain, that the Times had the incriminating email chain—in fact, it was quite possible that Jared and Ivanka and the lawyers knew the Times had this email chain—the president ordered that no one should let on to the more problematic discussion about Hillary Clinton.

[snip]

In Washington, Kasowitz and the legal team’s spokesperson, Mark Corallo, weren’t informed of either the Times article or the plan for how to respond to it until Don Jr.’s initial statement went out just before the story broke that Saturday.

[snip]

Mark Corallo was instructed not to speak to the press, indeed not to even answer his phone. Later that week, Corallo, seeing no good outcome—and privately confiding that he believed the meeting on Air Force One represented a likely obstruction of justice—quit.

Though as the book makes clear, Trump’s handling (which came just after spending an hour speaking with Vladimir Putin with no minders) of the June 9 meeting story is also what led Kasowitz to leave — both parts of a legal firewall that Steve Bannon had personally put in place.

Given my increasing suspicion that there was a second part of the meeting that has not yet been made public and Bannon’s claim — one Stephen Miller spent 12 minutes not denying over the weekend — that there was no chance that Trump wasn’t part of the meeting, I want to look more closely at the things Corallo said before he was silenced, before the former DOJ spox left out of concerns real obstruction of justice had just occurred.

Here’s some of what appeared in the first NYT story on the June 9 meeting, including a Mark Corallo statement that got repeated elsewhere.

In his statement, Donald Trump Jr. said: “It was a short introductory meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up.”

He added: “I was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but was not told the name of the person I would be meeting with beforehand.”

Late Saturday, Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the president’s lawyer, issued a statement implying that the meeting was a setup. Ms. Veselnitskaya and the translator who accompanied her to the meeting “misrepresented who they were,” it said.

In an interview, Mr. Corallo explained that Ms. Veselnitskaya, in her anti-Magnitsky campaign, employs a private investigator whose firm, Fusion GPS, produced an intelligence dossier that contained unproven allegations against the president. In a statement, the firm said, “Fusion GPS learned about this meeting from news reports and had no prior knowledge of it. Any claim that Fusion GPS arranged or facilitated this meeting in any way is false.”

That’s interesting enough, because it piggy backs on the larger efforts to treat the dossier as the sole basis for the Russian investigation, and more importantly because it focuses on Natalia Veselitskaya and Rinat Akhmetshin, and not Ike Kaveladze and Rob Goldstone — whom I increasingly suspect stuck around for a second part of the meeting.

If there were two parts to this meeting, then Corallo’s statement and NYT interview addressed just one part of it.

But that’s not the last thing Corallo did that week, before leaving.

He also released this statement to the AP and others.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Trump’s legal team, said only, “The President was not aware of and did not attend the meeting.”

The guy who left the White House out of concern about obstruction of justice that very same week, the guy whom Steve Bannon (he who was sure that Trump did meet the meeting attendees) as a firewall in the Russia investigation, denied that Trump had been at the meeting.

The last words Corallo said before leaving out of concerns about obstruction of justice were that Trump did not attend the meeting.

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The Government’s MalwareTech Case Goes (Further) To Shit

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MalwareTech’s lawyers just submitted a motion to compel discovery in his case. It makes it clear his case is going to shit — and that’s only the stuff that is public.

DOJ is hiding what drunken MalwareTech understood about un-common law

First, the motion reveals that even though the FBI recorded its interview with Marcus Hutchins at the Las Vegas airport, where Hutchins allegedly admitted to creating the Kronos malware (though in actuality Hutchins only admitted to creating that code), they somehow forgot to record (or even write down) the Miranda warning part.

After Mr. Hutchins was taken into custody, two law enforcement agents interviewed him at the airport. The memorandum of that interview generically states: “After being advised of the identity of the interviewing Agents, the nature of the interview and being advised of his rights, HUTCHINS provided the following information . . .” A lengthy portion of Mr. Hutchins’ interview with the agents was audio recorded. Importantly, however, the agents did not record the part of the interview in which they purportedly advised of him of his Miranda rights, answered any questions he might have had, and had him sign a Miranda waiver form.

This is important for several reasons. First, Hutchins is a foreign kid. And while I presume he has seen Miranda warnings a jillion times on the TV, those warnings are different in the US than they are in the UK, contrary to whatever else we might share as common law.

Mr. Hutchins is a citizen of the United Kingdom, where a defendant’s post-arrest rights are very different than in the United States.4 The United Kingdom’s version of Miranda contains no mention of the right to counsel, and if a defendant does not talk, it may later be used against him under certain circumstances.5 Because of this, any government communications in advance of Mr. Hutchins’ arrest and regarding how to advise him of his rights under Miranda are important to demonstrate that Mr. Hutchins would not have understood any purported Miranda warnings and that he was coerced to waive his rights.

4 United Kingdom law requires the following caution being given upon arrest (though minor wording deviations are allowed): “You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in Court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

So the specific wording of the warning he got would be especially important to understand whether he was told how things are different here in the former colonies, where you’re always told you can have a lawyer.

Also Hutchins was drunk and — because he’d been at DefCon and Black Hat all week — exhausted. But the defense can’t show that because the government isn’t turning over any of the surveillance materials from the week the FBI was surely following Hutchins in Las Vegas.

The defense believes the requested discovery will show the government was aware of Mr. Hutchins’ activities while he was in Las Vegas, including the fact that he had been up very late the night before his arrest, and the high likelihood that the government knew he was exhausted and intoxicated at the time of his arrest.

The government doesn’t want you to know co-defendant Tran is just a convenient excuse to arrest MalwareTech

Next, the government is withholding both information about Hutchins’ co-defendant, and the MLAT request the government used to get that information. The co-defendant’s last name is Tran, but the government has been hiding that since it accidentally published the name when Hutchins’ docket went live. Tran has not yet been arrested, but apparently there was evidence relating to him in a country that would respond to an American MLAT request. The government hasn’t turned it over.

[T]he government may be withholding information that could exculpate Mr. Hutchins. For example, any material showing that the codefendant operated independently of Mr. Hutchins’ alleged conduct would tend to demonstrate that they did not conspire to commit computer fraud and abuse (Count 1). The indictment itself supports that notion: it alleges that the codefendant advertised and sold the Kronos malware independently of Mr. Hutchins. (Indictment at 3 ¶ 4(e)-(f).) Moreover, the indictment alleges that the malware was advertised on the AlphaBay market forum, which the Department of Justice seized and shut down on July 20, 2017 in cooperation with a number of foreign authorities.8 In connection with that case, the government likely has records of the co-defendant’s activities on AlphaBay that it has not produced (e.g., records obtained through MLAT requests).

They also haven’t turned over the MLAT application itself, which would explain why some country has turned over evidence on Tran, but not Tran himself.

To date, the government has produced materials responsive to a single MLAT request, and has declined to produce the MLAT request itself. The MLAT request, however, surely contains information regarding the government’s theory of the case and may have been signed by an agent who will testify at trial. MLAT requests vary from country to country, but they can be quite similar to search warrants, since they are often used to obtain documents.

DOJ won’t tell you which ham sandwiches the grand jury intended knowed to indict

Hutchins’ lawyers then ask for the grand jury instructions because the indictment as charged doesn’t get the mens rea necessary for the underlying charges. Basically, two of the charges against Hutchins were laid out as if the only thing needed for a crime was to knowingly do something, as opposed to intentionaly do it.

The defense needs the legal instructions for an anticipated motion to dismiss the indictment. One ground for that motion is that at least two of the charged counts are defective on their face, failing to include the appropriate mens rea. Since the two counts deviate materially from the required and heightened mental states set forth in the operative statutes, this demonstrates likely irregularities in how the grand jury was instructed on the law.

[snip]

Count 6 suffers from a similar defect. It charges that the defendants:

[K]nowingly caused the transmission of a program, information and command and as a result of such conduct, attempted to cause damage without authorization, to 10 or more protected computers during a 1-year period. In violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1030(a)(5)(A), (c)(4)(B)(i) and (ii), (c)(4)A(i)(VI), 1030(b), and 2.

(Indictment at 8 (emphasis added).)

But 1030(a)(5)(A) states it is illegal to:

[K]nowingly cause[] the transmission of a program, information and command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally cause[] damage without authorization, to a protected computer[.] (Emphasis added.)

Likewise, the Seventh Circuit Pattern Jury Instructions state the elements of the offense are:

1. The defendant knowingly caused the transmission of a [program; information; code; command]; and

2. By doing so, the defendant intentionally caused damage to a protected computer without authorization. (Emphasis added.)

The plain text of 1030(a)(5)(A) and the Pattern Jury Instructions leave no doubt that Count 6, as it is pleaded, does not include the requisite “intentional” mens rea for causing damage without authorization, again failing to allege an essential element of the offense.

Effectively, they’re arguing that the government has charged Hutchins for knowingly done something when they had to charge him for intentionally doing something. Which, given that his code was probably used without his knowledge, is going to present difficulties. And so Hutschins’ team is going to attack the indictment itself.

Considering that Counts 2 and 6 misstate the required mental states specified in the statutes, there is a high likelihood the government did not properly instruct the grand jury on the law, and the grand jury returned a legally defective indictment, as a result of improper legal instructions.

What about “Randy”?

But the thing that intrigues me the most about this case is that some guy the government is naming “Randy” — because they don’t want to actually reveal anything about this dude — is a key witness against Hutchins. 

The defense expects “Randy” to testify at trial because he is alleged to have had extensive online chats with Mr. Hutchins around the time of the purported crimes in which Mr. Hutchins discussed his purported criminal activity. Any communications and materials relating to “Randy” are therefore material to defense preparations.

The defense argues that the government is treating Randy like a tipster rather than a witness as a way to hide who he is. This is worth citing at length (also note Marcia Hofmann and Brian Klein added local lawyer Daniel Stiller, who — I presume — is Seventh Circuit citing with great abandon).

The informant privilege does not permit the government to conceal a witness when, as here, disclosure “is relevant and helpful” to a defendant’s defense “or is essential to a fair determination of a cause.” United States v. McDowell, 687 F.3d 904, 911 (7th Cir. 2012) (quoting Roviaro v. United States, 353 U.S. 53, 60-61 (1957)). Indeed, the Seventh Circuit’s treatment of the privilege indicates that its reach is typically limited to background sources of information, as in a tipster who furnishes details that commence an investigation resulting in a prosecution premised on the fruits of the investigation, not the details of the background tip.

A mere tipster, according to the Seventh Circuit, is “someone whose only role was to provide the police with the relevant information that served as the foundation to obtaining a search warrant.” Id. Tipsters differ from what the Seventh Circuit terms “transactional witnesses,” who are individuals “who participated in the crime charged . . . or witnessed the event in question.” Id. For tipsters, “the rationale for the privilege is strong and the case for overriding it is generally weak.” Id. In contrast, “the case for overriding the privilege and requiring disclosure tends to be stronger” for transactional witnesses. Id.

Here, the government’s refusal to disclose even the identity of “Randy’s” attorney is apparently the result of miscategorizing an important witness as a mere tipster. “Randy” is a cooperating witness, one whose provision of information to law enforcement was facilitated by consideration—proffer immunity, at the least—from the government. This circumstance alone weighs against continuing confidentiality because “Randy” surely knows his cooperation will be revealed.

The government won’t even give the defense the name of this dude’s lawyer so the lawyer can tell them his client doesn’t want to talk to them.

Me? I’m guessing if the government were required to put “Randy” on the stand they’d contemplate dismissing the charges against Hutchins immediately. I’m guessing the government now realizes “Randy” took them for a ride — perhaps an enormous one. And given how easy it is to reconstitute chat logs — but here, it’s not even clear “Randy” has the chat logs, but just claimed to have been a part of them, in an effort to incriminate him — I’m guessing this part of the case against Hutchins won’t hold up.

It’d probably be a good time for the government to dismiss the charges against Hutchins and give him an H1B for his troubles so he can surf off the last 6 months of stress. But that’s not how the government works, when they realize they really stepped in a load of poo.

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The Papadopoulos Delay

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We now know that sometime after July 22, 2016, Australian Ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey, told the FBI that George Papadopoulos got drunk with Australia’s Ambassador to the UK, Alexander Downer, two months earlier and told him he had learned the Russians had dirt, emails, on Hillary Clinton.

That revelation has led a lot of people to ask why it took so long — January 27, 2017 — for the FBI to interview Papadopoulos.

I don’t have an answer for that. But I want to point to some dates from his arrest affidavit and information that are newly of interest giving that timing.

As numerous people have pointed out, those documents provide the outlines of the dates when FBI first interviewed Papadopoulos, on January 27, when they had a follow-up interview, on February 16, and when, the day after, he deleted his Facebook account. The follow-up would have happened in the wake of FBI interviewing Joseph Mifsud while he was in the US for the Global Ties conference on February 8. They didn’t arrest Papadopoulos until July 27, roughly a year after the Australians first informed the FBI that he had foreknowledge of what may have been the hacked emails.

But I’m at least as interested in how the other dates from the documents on Papadopoulos relate to that timeline as laid out in the two timelines below.

Note that every Facebook message is to Ivan Timofeev — a legal target under 702. Even in the July arrest affidavit, some emails between Americans are cited. Thus, the need for the warrant.

Importantly, there are no texts cited, at all. In the arrest affidavit, just Papadopoulos’ shutdown of his Facebook account is mentioned. The information explains that, “On or about February 23, 2017, defendant PAPADOPOULOS ceased using his cell phone number and began using anew number.” Whatever texts he might have had on his phone (including more secure Signal texts) would have been destroyed. While Papadopoulos wasn’t using particularly good operational security (particularly in that he was communicating with Timofeev over a PRISM provider), it is possible that the most sensitive communications with the Trump campaign involved texts that got destroyed after his first interview with the FBI.

My guess is that the FBI didn’t start pursuing warrants against Papaopoulos until after that first interview (remember, he remained involved with Trump up until he wasn’t given the energy portfolio on the National Security Council). It’s possible, too, they used FISA orders at first (which would take some time to obtain, unless they got emergency ones), then obtained search warrants to parallel construct the evidence.

“Emails obtained through a judicially authorized search warrant”

March 24, Papadopoulos to campaign

Papadopoulos: “just finished a very productive lunch with a good friend of mine, [Mifsud] . . . ‐ who introduced me to both Putin’s niece and the Russian Ambassador in London ‐ who also acts as the Deputy Foreign Minister.”

“The topic of the lunch was to arrange a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss U.S.-Russia ties under President Trump. They are keen to host us in a ‘neutral’ city, or directly in Moscow. They said the leadership, including Putin, is ready to meet with us and Mr. Trump should there be interest. Waiting for everyone’s thoughts on moving forward with this very important issue.”

Early April: Papadopoulos writes multiple emails about his “outreach to Russia.”

April 10, Papadopoulos to Olga Vinogradova

“We met with [Mifsud] in London. The reason for my message is because [Mifsud] sent an email that you tried contacting me.”

“it would be a pleasure to meet again. If not, we should have a call and discuss some things.”

April 11:

Vinogradova: “now back in St. Petersburg” but would be “very pleased to support your initiatives between our two countries and of course I would be very pleased to meet you again.”

Papadopoulos, cc’ing Mifsud: “I think a good step would be for me to meet with the Russian Ambassador in London sometime this month” would “like to discuss with him, or anyone else you recommend, about a potential foreign policy trip to Russia.”

Mifsud: “This is already been agreed. I am flying to Moscow on the 18th for a Valdai meeting, plus other meetings at the Duma.”

Vinogradova: “I have already alerted my personal links to our conversation and your request. . . . As mentioned we are all very excited by the possibility of a good relationship with Mr. Trump. The Russian Federation would love to welcome him once his candidature would be officially announced.”

April 12, Vinogradova to Papadopoulos:

I have already alerted my personal links to our conversation and your request. The Embassy in London is very much aware of this. As mentioned we are all very excited by the possibility of a good relationship with Mr. Trump. The Russian Federation would love to welcome him once his candidature would be officially announced.”

April 18, Mifsud to Papadopoulos, cc’ed to Ivan Timofeev

“long conversation in Moscow with my dear friend [Timofeev] . . . about a possible meeting between the two of you. [Timofeev] is ready to meet with you in London (orUSA or Moscow). I am putting the two of you in touch to discuss when and where this potential meeting can actually take place.”

April 18, Papadopoulos to Timofeev

“try and come to Moscow,” sets up Skype call for 3PM Moscow time 

April 22, Timofeev to Papadopoulos

Thanks him “for an extensive talk!” and proposing “to meet in London or Moscow”

April 22, Papadopoulos to Timofeev:

Suggests “we set one up here in London with the Ambassador as well to discuss a process moving forward.”

April 25, Papapopoulos to Stephen Miller

“The Russian government has an open invitation by Putin for Mr. Trump to meet him when he is ready []. The advantage of being in London is that these governments tend to speak a bit more openly in ‘neutral’ cities.”

April 26: Papadopoulos learns of the “dirt” in the form of emails

April 27, Papadopoulos to Miller

“Have some interesting messages coming in from Moscow about a trip when the time is right.”

April 27: Papadopoulos to Corey Lewandowski

“to discuss Russia’s interest in hosting Mr. Trump. Have been receiving a lot of calls over the last month about Putin wanting to host him and the team when the time is right.”

April 27: Papadopoulos authored speech that he tells Timofeev is “the signal to meet“

April 29:

Papadopoulos “I am now in the process of  seeing if we will come to Russia. Do you recommend I get in touch with a minister or embassy person in Washington or London to begin organizing the trip?”

Vinogradova: “I think it would be better to discuss this question with [Mifsud].” 

Papadopoulos:  “0k. I called him.”

April 30, Papadopoulos to Mifsud:

Thanks for the “critical help” in arranging a meeting between the Campaign and the Russian government

“It’s history making if it happens.”

May 4 [this gets forwarded to Lewandowski, Clovis, and Manafort by May 21]:

Timofeev to Papadopolous “just talked to my colleagues from the MFA. [They are] open for cooperation. One of the options is to make a meeting for you at the North America Desk, if you are in Moscow.”

Papadopolous to Timofeev: “Glad the MFA is interested.”

May 4, Papadopoulos to Lewandowski (forwarding Timofeev email):

“What do you think? Is this something we want to move forward with?”

May 5: Papadopoulos has a conversation with Sam Clovis, then forwards Timofeev email, with header “Russia updates.”

May 8, Timofeev to Papadopoulos:

Emails about setting Papadopoulos up with the “MFA head of the US desk.”

May 13, Mifsud to Papadopoulos:

“an update” of what they had discussed in their “recent conversations,” including: “We will continue to liaise through you with the Russian counterparts in terms of what is needed for a high level meeting of Mr. Trump with the Russian Federation.”

May 14, Papadopoulos to Lewandowski:

“Russian govemment[] ha[s] also relayed to me that they are interested in hostingMr. Trump.”

May 21, Papadopoulos to Paul Manafort, forwarding May 4 email:

“Request from Russia to meet Mr. Trump”

“Regarding the forwarded message, Russia has been eager to meet Mr. Trump for quite some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss.”

May 21, Manafort forwards Papadopoulos email to Rick Gates:

“Lets discuss. We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips. It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal.”

June 1: Papadopoulos to Clovis, after having been told Clovis was “running point” by Lewandowski

“Re: Messages from Russia”: “I have the Russian MFA asking me if Mr. Trump is interested in visiting Russia at some point. Wanted to pass this info along to you for you to decide what’s best to do with it and what message I should send (or to ignore).”

June 9: Trump Tower meeting

June 15: Guccifer 2.0 starts releasing emails

June 19: Papadopoulos to Lewandowski

“New message from Russia”: “The Russian ministry of foreign affairs messaged and said that if Mr. Trump is unable to make it to Russia, if a campaign rep (me or someone else) can make it for meetings? I am willing to make the trip off the record if it’s in the interest of Mr. Trump and the campaign to meet specific people.”

July 14, 2016, Papadopoulos to Timofeev:

Proposes “meeting for August or September in the UK (London) with me and my national chairman, and maybe one other foreign policy advisor and you, members of president putin’s office and the mfa to hold a day of consultations and to meet one another. It has been approved from our side.”

August 15, Clovis to Papadopoulos

“I would encourage you” and another foreign policy advisor to the Campaign to “make the trip[], if it is feasible.”

Facebook messages “obtained through a judicially authorized search warrant”

July 15:

Papadopoulos: “We can chat on this, this weekend if you can’t tonight.”

Timofeev: 

July 21, Papadopoulos to Timofeev:

“How are things [Timofeev]? Keep an eye on the speech tonight. Should be good.”

July 22: Wikileaks starts releasing DNC emails

July 22, Papadopoulos to Timofeev [Particularly given NYT’s confirmation they spent a lot of time together, I wonder if this is about Sergei Millian?]:

“If you know any background of him that is noteworthy before I see him, kindly send my way.”

October 1, Papadopoulos sends a link to this Interfax article.

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Oz on Papadopoulos

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I want to use this thread to review certain details about recent George Papadopoulos disclosures.

NYT’s sources cannot be exclusively FBI

First, GOPers have suggested that the NYT story disclosing that Papadopoulos got drunk and told the Australian Ambassador, Alexander Downer, that Russians had dirt on Hillary is an FBI attempt to relieve pressure on Mueller by providing a different explanation for the start of the investigation. But that can’t be true, at least not entirely. Here’s how the NYT describes their sources:

four current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians’ role

That is, at least one (and possibly several) of their sources is a foreign official, presumably Australian. The description of these sources as “officials” could also mean they’re current or former members of Congress.

The story also provides a really odd statement about Papadopoulos’ lawyers’ involvement, saying only that his lawyers declined to provide a statement.

In response to questions, Mr. Papadopoulos’s lawyers declined to provide a statement.

This admits the possibility they said something off the record.

Finally, remember that Papadopoulos’ fiancée told ABC that he had a bigger role in the campaign than Trump defenders have claimed; she also said she had emails to prove it.

Mangiante said Papadopoulos “set up meetings with leaders all over the world” for senior campaign officials. He was “constantly in touch with high-level officials in the campaign,” she added. That included direct communication with now-former senior Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn, Mangiante said, adding that she had seen correspondence supporting the assertion.

[snip]

Mangiante said that while she is eager to offer proof that Papadopoulos was a campaign insider, she has been instructed by attorneys to not provide emails or other possible evidence to reporters.

[snip]

She said she believes he will now have a firm place in history as “the first domino in the Russia investigation.”

If I were an enterprising NYT journalist, I’d certainly try to convince her to offer that proof, especially any proof she had that Papadopoulos was “the first domino” in the investigation — the story offered by the NYT.

So there’s no reason to believe the NYT story comes entirely — or even partially — from the FBI. It likely came from Papadopoulos and Australians, perhaps confirmed by former members of Congress.

Turnbull to Trump: Don’t blame me for the investigation

Meanwhile, the Australians are trying to dodge blame for this story coming out, accusing Americans of leaking Downer’s role.

It is also understood there is now annoyance and frustration in Canberra that the High Commissioner to Britain Alexander Downer has been outed through leaks by US officials as the source of information that played a role in sparking an FBI probe into the Trump campaign’s dealings with Moscow.

Note, Downer is in the process of being replaced as Ambassador to the UK, so he may have some reason to make life difficult for Turnbull, who has a trip to the US scheduled for February. That said, the Age cites several other people, both at CSIS, who appear to have some familiarity with the story who could also be NYT’s sources. And even in a piece trying to blame Americans for this story, it reveals that Ambassador to the US Joe Hockey personally worked with the FBI on this tip.

Aussie sources narrowing in on which emails were discussed?

While I don’t take it to be definitive (because a lot of journalists, even in the US, don’t track these details well enough), the Age claims that Papadopoulos described the emails as “hacked Democratic Party emails.”

In May 2016, Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos told Mr Downer over drinks at an upscale London wine bar that the Russians had a dirt file on rival candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of hacked Democratic Party emails.

If that is indeed what Papadopoulos told Downer, it would be a key detail in the case against Trump’s team, because it would mean they likely learned specifically what Russia had hacked and leaked.

Delayed reporting

The Age explains why the Aussies didn’t report the conversation to the FBI right away (though, again, I’m not sure this is meant as definitive).

Downer conveyed the conversation to Canberra via an official cable, though apparently not immediately – perhaps because he did not take the 28-year-old adviser’s claims altogether seriously until the hacked emails were released by Wikileaks in late July.

If this reporting is correct, it suggests the delay came on Downer’s side, with Hockey informing the FBI in timely fashion after Downer submitted his report on an official cable. I’d still like to know why the Guccifer 2.0 releases didn’t elicit any reporting. After all, it’s possible that Downer only reported the conversation when it became clear their wayward citizen, Julian Assange, was acting in a way that might affect the elections.

In a follow-up post I’m going to look at some timing details in the Papadopoulos documents.

 

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Why Call Alice Donovan a Troll?

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The WaPo and CounterPunch have the story of Alice Donovan, a pseudonymous persona the FBI suspected (it’s not clear starting when) of being part of a Russian influence operation. The WaPo makes it clear sources told them about the investigation (though without clearly revealing when FBI identified Donovan or when they learned about the investigation) and leaked the report behind this story (or perhaps it is all one report).

The FBI was tracking Donovan as part of a months-long counterintelligence operation code-named “NorthernNight.” Internal bureau reports described her as a pseudonymous foot soldier in an army of Kremlin-led trolls seeking to undermine America’s democratic institutions.

[snip]

The events surrounding the FBI’s NorthernNight investigation follow a pattern that repeated for years as the Russian threat was building: U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies saw some warning signs of Russian meddling in Europe and later in the United States but never fully grasped the breadth of the Kremlin’s ambitions.

CP first learned about it when Adam Entous called about the leaked intelligence report on her.

We received a call on Thursday morning, November 30, from Adam Entous, a national security reporter at the Washington Post. Entous said that he had a weird question to ask about one of our contributors. What did we know about Alice Donovan? It was indeed an odd question. The name was only faintly familiar. Entous said that he was asking because he’d been leaked an FBI document alleging that “Alice Donovan” was a fictitious identity with some relationship to Russia. He described the FBI document as stating that “Donovan” began pitching stories to websites in early 2016. The document cites an article titled “Cyberwarfare: Challenge of Tomorrow.”

And CP reveals they first came to believe that Donovan was fake (and not just a serial plagiarist) when a NYT story listed Donovan’s account among those that Facebook had shut down as fake.

This long story focused on dozens of phony Facebook accounts which the Times claims pushed pro-Russian messages during the election. Buried in the 28th paragraph of the story was the name “Alice Donovan.” Donovan’s Facebook page, the Times said, “pointed to documents from Mr. Soros’s Open Society Foundations that she said showed its pro-American tilt and — in rather formal language for Facebook — describe eventual means and plans of supporting opposition movements, groups or individuals in various countries.’” According to the Times, Facebook had deactivated the Donovan account after it failed a verification protocol.

CP ends by noting that for the entirety of the period when FBI was investigating this pseudonymous persona, they never informed CP.

If the FBI was so worried about the risks posed by Alice Donovan’s false persona, they could have tipped off some of the media outlets she was corresponding with. But in this case they refrained for nearly two years. Perhaps they concluded that Donovan was the hapless and ineffectual persona she appears to be. More likely, they wanted to continue tracking her. But they couldn’t do that without also snooping on American journalists and that represents an icy intrusion on the First Amendment. For a free press to function, journalists need to be free to communicate with whomever they want, without fear that their exchanges are being monitored by federal agencies. A free press needs to be free to make mistakes and learn from them. We did.

It’s an interesting example — and given my prior focus on Facebook’s intelligence apparatus (one reiterated by the revelation that Facebook has been taking down NK infrastructure of its own accord) — one that raises questions about whether FBI identified this persona or FB did.

But I’m wondering why both WaPo and CP are calling the Donovan persona a troll. While it sounds like Donovan’s election related interventions were trollish about Hillary, some of what she published at CP and other outlets clearly supported Russian policy objectives (that CP might legitimately agree with) or — as CP notes — mirrored mainstream reporting on Clinton’s emails.

Donovan served not just to poison debate, as trolls do.

So I’m wondering why people are using that term. I’m wondering, in part, why we should distinguish Donovan’s authorship (or plagiarism) of articles from leaks from foreign intelligence services, which news articles have long relied on, whether Israeli, Saudi, or Russian sources (remember, for example, how presumed Yemeni or Saudi sources have repeatedly revealed details of US or UK double agents). A number of people in DC have laughed with me about the way that Rinat Akhmetshin — a central figure in the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting and as such suspected of doing Russian intelligence bidding — has long regaled mainstream journalists as a source. And I’ve suggested that Scott Balber — and American lawyer working for a Russian oligarch — may be fostering a cover story for the same meeting.

So why is one kind of intelligence disinformation called journalism and another called trolling?

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The “Insurance” Text Explained: A Debate on How Urgently to Investigation Trump’s Russian Ties

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WSJ has the fascinating explanation for Peter Strzok’s August 15, 2016 “insurance” text that Republicans have been spinning into a grand scandal. Effectively, Strzok and Lisa Page were debating about how aggressively FBI should investigate Trump’s Russian ties. Page figured they could do so deliberately, and therefore avoid any risk they’d burn sources, because he wasn’t going to win. Strzok disagreed, arguing they had to investigate more aggressively in case he did win.

The text came after a meeting involving Ms. Page, Mr. Strzok and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, according to people close to the pair and familiar with their version of events. At the meeting, Ms. Page suggested they could take their time investigating the alleged collusion because Mrs. Clinton was likely to win, the people said.

If they move more deliberately, she argued, they could reduce the risk of burning sensitive sources.

Mr. Strzok felt otherwise, according to these people.

His text was meant to convey his belief that the investigation couldn’t afford to take a more measured approach because Mr. Trump could very well win the election, they said. It would be better to be aggressive and gather evidence quickly, he believed, because some of Mr. Trump’s associates could land administration jobs and it was important to know if they had colluded with Russia.

The investigation is telling for a number of reasons.

First, the comments came after just 7 of the 17 dossier reports — even assuming FBI got two reports dated August 10 immediately. Many of the most inflammatory ones — notably all the ones involving Michael Cohen — came after this. As WSJ notes, the text also comes four days after another Strozk one, dated August 11, exclaiming, “OMG I CANNOT BELIEVE WE ARE SERIOUSLY LOOKING AT THESE ALLEGATIONS AND THE PERVASIVE CONNECTIONS.” That’s probably not the dossier per se. But it may well be Paul Manafort’s burgeoning scandal; Manafort would resign August 19.

I’m also interested in how this plays with the report that Trump was warned Russians — and other countries — would try to infiltrate his campaign. The report is not that newsworthy; this kind of briefing is routine. But I wonder whether it’s coming out because the timing is of interest — perhaps in conjunction with Strzok’s increasing panic. I even wonder whether Strzok participated in the briefing.

All of which is to say that on this matter, Strzok and Page were not in agreement. Indeed, the text is actually a work debate about the tradeoff of guarding sources and methods and the urgency of excluding any compromised figures from joining Trump’s government.

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The Many Gaps and Inconsistencies in Natalia Veselnitskaya’s Story, Starting with Ike

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In this post, I laid out the latest attempt from one-time Trump and current Aras Agalarov lawyer Scott Balber to craft an unincriminating story for the June 9 Trump Tower meeting. In general, Balber has gone to great lengths to provide innocent explanations for digital tracks suggesting the meeting was incriminating, and especially to deny that Agalarov — who orchestrated the meeting — had any direction from Putin.

In this post, I’m going to look at what Natalia Veselnitskaya (who, as I’ve noted, met with Balber sometime before October, which is where the documents she admits to first got introduced to the public) wrote in her statement to Chuck Grassley back in November, because she makes some really interesting dodges.

To start with, Veselnitskaya defines certain things so as to be able to deny certain relationships.

First, she distinguishes between Glenn Simpson and Fusion, admitting to a relationship with the former but not the latter.

I did not work with Fusion GPS, I know Glenn R. Simpson, whom since 2014 I have viewed as an individual investigator-analyst, a former investigative journalist with a long record of service and experience gained by a team of lawyers for point tasks that arose in connection with the preparation for trials, interrogations under case 13-civ-06326 the United States of America v. Prevezon Holdings Ltd. et al., initiated by Browder through the US Attorney’s Office with reference to my client. In my perception, it was Glenn R. Simpson who worked on the Prevezon Case, as to in what capacity – either as an individual or as a company – it was of no interest to me. I do not have any documents as to Fusion GPS.

[snip]

Glenn Simpson was hired by lawyers from Baker Hostetler, as well as other people who worked on the case. Some of them I have never even met. I used to receive reports from Glenn Simpson – CC-ed on all the lawyers working on the case.

[snip]

I didn’t work with Fusion GPS. In my study, analysis and documents I partly used the information obtained in December 2014 from Glenn Simpson within the scope of his services on legal research of Browder’s corporate relations, and his links to the United States, to serve a subpoena on him.

Importantly, she denies a claim made by Fox to have met with Simpson before and after the June 9 meeting.

So, on June 8, in the evening, I arrived in New York. On June 9, I attended the second district court hearing on Browder’s complaint and worked on some other issues. On June 10, I went to Washington to coordinate our position with our key lawyer in Washington.

[snip]

No, there had been no contacts with him on specified dates. Last week Fox News 38 referring to a confidential source reported that I met with Glenn Simpson before and after the meeting with Trump’s son, and that “but hours before the Trump Tower meeting on June 9, 2016, Fusion co-founder and ex-Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson was with Veselnitskaya in a Manhattan federal courtroom, in a hearing on the DOJ’s claim against Prevezon Holdings, a Cyprus company owned by a Russian businessman Denis Katsyv.” This statement does not reflect the reality.

[snip]

I met Glenn Simpson on the as-needed basis, as well as whenever he came to the office to see the lawyers.

The distinction may have the primary function of divorcing her relationship with (and the presence at the meeting of) Rinat Akhmetshin from Fusion and the Christopher Steele dossier. She claims that Akhmetshin’s presence at the meeting was tied to his role in an anti-Magnitsky NGO, with no involvement of Prevezon attorneys Baker Hostetler.

If the question is how he was introduced at the meeting on June 9, then as a consultant of the Human Rights Fund for relations with Congress.

This seems inconsistent with her reference to his having an NDA with her — who is the NDA with?

Most incredibly, Veselnitskaya distinguishes between meeting with Don Jr — a friend of a friend, she explains it as — and the Trump campaign.

Meeting on June 9, 2016, was not a “meeting with the Trump campaign”. My understanding is, this was to have been a private meeting with Donald Trump, Jr., – a friend of my good acquaintance’s son on the matter of assisting me or my colleagues in informing the Congress members as to the criminal nature of manipulation and interference with the legislative activities of the US Congress.

[snip]

No [she did not have advance knowledge of the other attendees], except for those people who had come with me and the person I was going to (Trump, Jr.), I did not have the slightest idea that someone else would be present at the meeting.

[snip]

No. I did not meet with the “Trump campaign”. At the meeting with Donald Trump, Jr. I had a reference in my own handwriting (see Exhibit 1.1), which I was ready to leave to Mr. Trump, Jr., should he need it. But to offer or provide this information was pointless, because as I understood during the meeting, Mr. Trump, Jr. was not at all aware of my request and could not help me at all.

Having done that, Veselnitskaya is in a position to deny knowing certain things: any involvement in tampering with the election and any tie to the Fusion dossier.

The additions she makes to three responses reinforce this focus. First, when asked whether she has any information on the Russian influence operation, to which she says, “Nor do I know anyone who would be in possession of such documents or knew about something like that.” She also doesn’t know who in the Russian government would know of her involvement. “Not that I know about. If so, who? Why were they briefed? What was their role?” And whether she knows Christopher Steele, to which she responds, “I do not know Christopher Steele. I first heard of him from US media.”

With that frame, here’s how Veselnitskaya explains the genesis of her meeting.

I had never asked anyone for a meeting with the Trump team.

Nor did I ask to organize namely a meeting with Donald Trump, Jr., it was enough for me to hand over a reference outlining the request (see Exhibit 1.1). Around the end of May 2016, during a conversation with a good acquaintance of mine, being my client, Aras Agalarov on a topic that was not related to the United States, I shared the story faced when defending another client, Denis Katsyv, about how terribly misled the US Congress had been by the tax defrauder William Browder, convicted in Russia, who, through his lobbyists and his close-minded rank-and-file Congress staffers, succeeded in adopting the Act in the name of a person whom Browder practically hardly ever knew.

I considered it my duty to inform the Congress people about it and asked Mr. Agalarov if there was any possibility of helping me or my colleagues to do this. I do not remember who of us was struck by the idea that maybe his son could talk about this with Donald Trump, Jr., who, although a businessman, was sure to have some acquaintances among Congress people. After my conversation with Mr. Agalarov, I prepared a reference in case it would be necessary to hand over the request – to support the hearings in the Subcommittee in the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs as to the Magnitsky’s and Browder’s story, scheduled for mid-June. I was ready to hand over the reference, talk on the phone, or meet personally.

Note, later in her answers, she claims to guard client confidentiality closely, even beyond things covered by privilege. But here, she claims to have discussed Katsyv’s plight with Agalarov.

And even though Aras Agalarov was crucial to organizing this meeting, Veselnitskaya claims to have no knowledge of any other involvement he had (which is something Balber has been trying to reinforce throughout).

All I know is that Aras Agalarov asked his son Emin Agalarov to enquire if Donald Trump, Jr. could help with my request. I am not aware of any further actions of Emin.

In the passage above, note how she obscures whether the Magnitsky/Ziff document released publicly (a report Putin parroted on October 19) got written in advance for the meeting or to lobby Congress with. Curiously, in this day of digital creation, she claims she doesn’t know precisely what day she drafted it (even thought the publicly released copy is dated May 31 on the Russian version).

A note about the meeting that I prepared in Moscow on or about May 31, 2016 for its possible handover to any interested party

That claim is critical given that — in a previous Scott Balber installment — the preexistence of this document involved an exchange between Veselnitskaya and the Prosecutor General, Yuri Chaika, offered up to explain why Rob Goldstone told Don Jr she had a tie to the Crown Prosecutor. She denies he had any involvement in the meeting and in he descriptions of involvement with him doesn’t describe the report.

I have no relationship with Mr. Chaika, his representatives, and institutions, other than those related to my professional functions of a lawyer. As a lawyer of Denis Katsyv, since 2013 I have sent several appeals to the Russian Federation General Prosecutor’s Office requesting documents within my legal powers, and also filed applications to verify the information about Mr. Browder’s activities in Russia that resulted in the wrongful seizure of my client’s assets in the USA and Switzerland, received answers, analyzed them and addressed them anew, should I be refused answers or provision of documents – I appealed to the court.

That’s important because she can offer no explanation for the reference, in Rob Goldstone’s email to Don Jr, to the Crown Prosecutor.

I do not know what Mr. Goldstone was talking about. Given what I know, I can assume that Mr. Agalarov might tell him a little about me, mentioning that I had previously worked in the prosecutor’s office, and the information I wanted to tell in the US Congress had also been reported by me before to the General Prosecutor’s Office of Russia and it was confirmed there. Having compiled this, the musical producer (as I learnt more than a year later) could either confuse everything, or intentionally make everything look intriguing so that the meeting could take place.

Another timing detail, Veselnitskaya denies remembering when she learned the meeting for which she claims to have made handouts would be a meeting, though she claims it was after she arrived in the US.

I do not remember from whom and at what time I first heard that I could personally express my request (see Exhibit 1.1) during at the meeting.

[snip]

I do not remember the moment when I first heard that I could personally make my request during a meeting. Nor do I exactly remember who told me about it. But upon arrival in New York in the evening of June 8, 2016, in my e-mail box I found a letter from a certain Goldstone, who notified me of the time and place of the meeting with Donald Trump, Jr. In this correspondence Aras Agalarov’s colleague, Irakli Kaveladze, who had been living in the United States for a long time and to whom I left my mail for contacts, was mentioned in the copy.

[snip]

I do not remember discussing it with anyone before I found out that there would be a meeting. This was an alternative way of communicating the request and I did not insist on a meeting. The day I was told that I would be met by Trump, Jr. (everything that I was able to restore in my memory, confirmed by mail from Goldstone – this could take place when I was already in New York), I informed Denis Katsyv about this.

This description raises real questions about Ike Kaveladze. Here’s the email Veselnitskaya said she received when she landed; note that, as publicly released, the reference to Kaveladze has been hidden, though it may be what the reference to “both” is. Note, the shift of the meeting from 3 to 4 is also not included in the email chain; Goldstone learned the change needed to be made by 10:34AM on June 8.

The apparently obscured reference to Kaveladze is particularly interesting given how she describes inviting Samochernov to attend as her translator on the morning of the meeting.

On the day of the meeting – June 9, I asked my interpreter – Anatoly Samochernov, and my colleague who had previously worked on the Prevezon Case – Rinat Akhmetshin, who was also a registered lobbyist for the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation (HRAGI), and dealt with issues on behalf of the Foundation in the US Congress, which I planned to talk about at the meeting with Donald Trump, Jr. Both are US citizens. I informed Goldstone about them on June 9, which is confirmed by my correspondence.

Akhmetshin was reportedly in NYC for a theater production, but she apparently learned he’d be in town by 9:24.

Rinat Akhmetshin, who arrived that day in New York for an evening performance of Russian theatre stars.

Her description of Kaveladze’s role (remember, he’s represented by Balber) is particularly curious, in that she admits he was ostensibly there to serve as translator, which was unneeded since she had brought her own.

[She and Kaveladze] got acquainted first by phone when I was in Moscow. I met him personally first on June 9 shortly before the meeting.

[snip]

We had a phone call and met at a café, I do not remember where and at what café. I told him briefly what I knew about the Browder case, about the Ziffs and their possible support when lobbying his interests in the United States.

[snip]

I can suppose, he attended the meeting as a translator, however, as I was with a translator he was just sitting and listening.

The curious silences about Kaveladze are all the more interesting given that, unlike Veselnitskaya, he knew that Manafort and Kushner would be there and that dirt on Hillary would be dealt. And based on that description, he flew to NYC from LA.

Curiously, Veselnitskaya says neither Paul Manafort nor Jared Kushner were introduced at the meeting.

I came to the meeting with Anatoly Samochornov, a translator, Irakly Kaveladze, a lawyer of my client who helped to arrange for the meeting, Rinat Akhmetshin, my colleague who was working with me on the Prevezon case. We were met by a big, stout man who introduced himself as Rob and escorted us on the elevator to the boardroom. I saw two men in the boardroom – one of them introduced himself as Donald Trump Jr., while the other did not introduce himself. Another young man entered the boardroom a little later and left it shortly afterwards. I found out much later that the two unidentified gentlemen were P. Manafort and J. Kushner.

Laying all this out, it’s not so much that it doesn’t make sense (though there are clear gaps).

It’s that even with all of Scott Balber’s efforts, there’s still no explanation for why Kaveladze attended this meeting. Given Balber’s significant efforts to minimize Agalarov’s role in the meeting — and his denials that Agalarov might have ties directly to Putin — I find the failure to explain that notable.

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Pay Now and Pay Later: What Losing CHIP means to America

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Let me tell you something you (most probably) secretly believe, secret even from yourself,  because you are an American: poor and sick children aren’t going to amount to anything. This is true whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat. The two sides will argue it’s for completely different reasons, but the conclusion is the same. We all know that poor and sick children aren’t going to live lives of note or interest.Nevertheless, we all want to be good people, and that’s why CHIP has bipartisan support. CHIP is the Children’s Health Insurance Program, originally SCHIP, a Clinton-era expansion of social security specifically for children who were too poor to get insurance, but not able to be covered by Medicaid.

CHIP’s Congressional authorization expired in September. The program is slowly running out of money, with just under nine million children potentially facing life without access to healthcare.

Americans talk a lot about the cost of healthcare. The cost of not providing healthcare to children in a world with failing environmental protections and failing schools is impossible to calculate. It is very high, it lasts lifetimes and generations.

I am taking breaks as I write this. My neck and shoulders are making typing hard, and I am coughing up a yellow sputum, very much the same as I have been coughing up since I was a child, and I will have to see the doctor soon about it. I am an active 44-year-old woman, lifelong non-smoker, with a healthy BMI who has been receiving healthcare in Europe for the last three years. But for my life before my 40s, I was mostly an uninsured low-income American, born and raised in Los Angeles.

I was an active child and an avid dancer. When I became a teen I slowed down a bit, there were times when I would cough and cough for weeks, sometimes coughing up little solid and foul smelling lumps of material from my lungs. I threw up involuntarily a lot when I exercised. I didn’t talk about it much, there didn’t seem to be any point.

I dealt with mental health issues, which were treated by the school district. That treatment was not only substandard, but deleterious, always pushing poor children to see themselves as the source of their troubles, even at times when the troubles were obviously medical in nature. Everything was always in our heads, everything, even throwing up involuntarily and migraine headaches were something I was doing to myself.

Los Angeles in the 1980s was a time of intensive personal responsibility and very poor air quality. It was the Reagan years, and we were all self-reliant cowboys. There was always a cadre of depression-era grandparents around, calling themselves the Greatest Generation, and telling us that no matter what happened we had it easy and our complaints were just whining. The drug war was at fever pitch, and the world was made up of Good Guys and Bad Guys, and you sure as shit did not want to be one of the Bad Guys. And the air that I grew up in was so bad you could live next to a mountain range and not know it for months.

CHIP was created in 1997. The Clintons were pushing the nation towards centrism, the air in LA was getting cleaned up, and I was 24 — far past the age where it could have helped me.

I was used to making due by then anyway. Poor kids aren’t allowed to be sick, it’s a moral failing, and I’d learned to compensate and sneak to get what I could. But still, even after some kind of insurance became available, it was never because we deserved it. As children we’re burdens on the struggling poor. As students and eventual adults, we’re no better. We’re making it up, we’re lazy, we’re difficult, we cost too much and are worth far, far too little. The political debate has never been about letting us find our potential, for we have none. The debate has been about whether it’s more moral to help us or let us die quietly.

Of the 9 million kids insured on CHIP 3 million are, like me, chronically ill. Not all of them would die without medical treatment, I’m sure they could move on, scarred, struggling to survive, out of childhood and any realistic chance of being cared for. I know how it feels to be one of those children. I try to be a generous and caring person and see all of humanity as my family, but there is a part of me that really doesn’t care what those children decide to do to the rest of you. You have it coming.

Being uninsured when you’re a chronically sick child isn’t just the lack of care. It’s the constant and unrelenting sense that you are not valued, not desired by your society. It is the rejection of your ability to live itself, the feeling that you can never be more than lice on the body politic. Any self-esteem you can grab back from the way society treats you comes with a hate so dark it makes ISIS look like a summer camp.

But the truth is these children mostly won’t do anything. They’ll wander desperately through life, looking for hope, going to the ER for rescue inhalers, and trying to score many kinds of drugs to dull the pain both physical and mental. Some will escape up the socio-economic ladder, but they’ll hide where they came from because you think we’re all worthless. That’s what I did for years. Statistically, we’ll die younger than you, probably uninsured, in a hospital. The commentary on our lives won’t be: What have we done? How did we fail these fellow humans so terribly? What have we lost in creativity and talent? Instead the political story of our lives will be: This causes healthcare costs to rise.

There are sick children all over the world. There is only one country that blames them for making healthcare costs rise because we won’t give them care as children.

CHIP passed in 1997. In 1998, I got my first employer healthcare. The diagnoses started rolling in. Migraines, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Major Depressive disorder. GERD with Barrett’s Esophagus. It wasn’t caused by weight, but because my esophagus doesn’t close. It just doesn’t. Weird, huh!? That would have been handy to know sooner.

That diagnosis wasn’t a surprise, as least not after I understood the context. I tended to throw up if I bent over too far. I was a high school gymnast, and even back then the contents of my stomach would regularly come out of my nose on the uneven parallels. My coach would send me home sometimes, but no one ever suggested I see a doctor. It was in my head, I was doing it to myself somehow, being a burden on everyone.

After the ’98 round of medical diagnoses and treatment, I came back and yelled at my mother for never believing me. I cried, I apologized later. She’d been a child herself when I was born, and she was trusting authorities who were telling her I was broken, and so was she. She apologized too, we cried and screamed and stomped off and hugged and cried some more.

This is how we cope. To try to think about this not personally, to see it as part of politics and society and an economic plan is too big and too painful to contemplate. Even now, it makes my throat tighten and a wave of nausea pass through me. It is so evil.

The diagnoses kept coming in the new century, and I became ineligible for any kind of insurance that wasn’t employer-based. EDS Hypermobility type, Cervical Dystonia, PTSD. The last one I crowdfunded to pay for, the old-fashioned way. I passed the hat amongst my friends and raised the money to pay the PTSD therapist. It was a difficult and sometimes humiliating decision, but it was the right one. I emerged from my therapy not fixed, but healing. I had tools I hadn’t had before. I went back to work. My friends had passed up dinners and presents and special things to help me get that therapy, but it worked.

GoFundMe brags about raising $5 billion in crowdfunding for medical care in America. Of course there’s more than that over the years; families that sell their houses for each other, friends that skip vacations to give the people they love a chance at life. Leonard Pitts wrote rather viciously about a conservative man trying to raise money to retain his sense of sight. This man was politically unworthy, socially irresponsible, and medically suspect; he smoked and owned a house. How could he ask for help? This is America, and even the people who believe in universal healthcare balk at care for those they deem Unworthy. We don’t even know how to imagine a system that just cares for people because they are people.

It’s been two years, and I hope that man is not blind, and I hope his loved ones haven’t suffered too much. Between people who love each other, there is no better use of these little monetary tokens to express love than paying so they may live and live well.

From an economic perspective, it’s a disaster. Every meal and trip skipped to pay for medical expenses slows down the stimulus that money could provide. The medical payments funnel money into the upper echelons of society where is slows down, sits, and ossifies. It is a disaster in every way.

But Congress is full of good people who are the somebodies who think of the children, and so CHIP is bipartisan. But it’s so expensive, and it’s hard for Congress to find the ~$14b it will cost. When it comes to funding stupid planes perfect for types of wars that don’t exist anymore, Congress has no problem finding the budget to switch from the disastrously stupid F-22 fighter (>$70b) to the next stupendously expensive F-35 fighter (>$400b for R&D). The F-22 finally saw action in two countries several years after being discontinued: against ISIS in Syria, and the Taliban in Afghanistan, both military forces more known for fighting out of the back of pick-up trucks than dogfighting with jets. More money goes to the federal employee travel budget than goes to CHIP. (According to Hatch and Coburn) More money goes to the black budget devoted to spying on everything and everyone on the net than goes to CHIP, but most of Congress probably doesn’t know how much more, it’s a secret. Congress can even find billions to make stupid fucking pennies no one wants.

A sick kid doesn’t realize the money that could help them is going to something as stupid as fighter jets no one needs or black budgets that may be straight-up illegally spying. But they do know that they’re a burden, they know that the world doesn’t want them. It makes them sad and angry, and everyone around them scrambles to find billions of dollars in spare change to take care of the people they love because Congress is so bad at finding things.

When you don’t treat the minds and bodies of children, it isn’t just those children who are affected. Something as simple as getting check-ups, interceding on basic problems early, and making mental and sexual health resources easy to access can stop a lifetime of expensive and heart-rending problems that weigh down families and communities and echo through generations.

Programs like CHIP, or universal healthcare as provided in Europe, are not about handing things to the worthless poor. They are about the epidemiology of the whole of society. Treating your neighbor’s kid now is about not having to treat them later, and not living with the consequences of their illness in your environment or tax expenditures. It is choosing to not live in a society of desperation and constant quiet anger. Programs like CHIP, and the proposal for Medicare For All, are fundamentally selfish, just a long-sighted form of selfishness that Americans are kind of bad at.

Without a program like CHIP, we are in the position of hoping parents bring their children into the ER for routine needs, jacking up our healthcare costs to ever more ridiculous heights, because the alternative is somehow much, much, worse. Untreated children don’t just infect other children with their diseases, they drag down schools, divert the resources of their families, increase crime and even lower property values. They spend so much time struggle to find their own worth, they deny the world their talents. If you don’t want to treat poor sick children, you might be better off going all Sparta on us and throwing us off cliffs than just letting us struggle along in society.

By the way, Sparta was a terrible place to live, despite what you’ve seen in 300. It was miserable and authoritarian and full of legally-required slavery and child rape and never really developed or got better. The Persian Empire, and even Athens, were better societies on every count, including military. Sparta wasn’t good at infrastructure and tended to steal what they did have. Infrastructure is what makes society nice to live in, and worth the bother. This is a fact Americans used to get; we like our highways and dams and standing armies and power lines, but apparently the water’s edge is schools, pollution, healthcare and paying taxes. Those are, for some reason, not infrastructure.

I never accepted my worthlessness, I never stopped fighting. I also never shot anyone or became a drug addict. I did a lot of sketchy things to get medical care. I’ve taken a lot of other people’s leftover drugs, and coordinated with other people to pass around drugs and advice from medical professionals who may have never known where it was going, and probably didn’t want to. And I rebelled and rejected society, sometimes violently, so that I could do worthwhile things not in keeping with my station in life.

Now I live in a place that provides me care. I haven’t had to prove my economic worth, which is good because it’s likely I never will. But now, after my expenses, I still have a little money left over. And every Saturday morning after food shopping, I go get myself a good cappuccino in the city center, and sit for a while enjoying the light, watching people go by, and little children chase dogs and birds. I’m not in paradise, there are plenty of problems here, like everywhere. But none of them are sick children hiding the yellow sputum they cough up from their parents because no one can afford a fucking inhaler.

My work for Emptywheel is supported by my wonderful patrons on Patreon. You can find out more, and support my work, at Patreon.

Some of my sources were:
https://www.kff.org (many articles, it’s a treasure trove of information)
8.9 million children enrolled, cost is around $14 billion. 35 million children are enrolled in CHIP or Medicaid or both.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-12/america-s-health-care-crisis-is-a-gold-mine-for-crowdfunding
https://www.vox.com/2017/12/3/16730496/orrin-hatch-chip-tax-bill

More information on children on Medicaid: https://www.medicaid.gov/chip/downloads/fy-2016-childrens-enrollment-report.pdf

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