Lev Parnas Failed to Delete His iCloud Content Just before DOJ Got a Secret Warrant for Rudy Giuliani’s iCloud Content

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The government has known that Lev Parnas attempted to delete some or all of his iCloud content since shortly after October 21, 2019 — 2 weeks before it obtained covert warrants for Rudy Giuliani and Victoria Toensing’s iCloud accounts.

On January 17, 2020 (note the date on the letter has the wrong year) — the same day Jeffrey Rosen issued a memo prohibiting any DOJ personnel from expanding the scope of any investigation involving Ukraine without his and Richard Donoghue’s approval — Parnas asked to modify his protective order so he could share materials seized from his iCloud on that October date with the House Intelligence Committee for their impeachment investigation.

In a memo objecting to that request, the government noted that Parnas was perfectly free to download his own iCloud and share it with HPSCI — and asserted he had already done so.

Additionally, to the extent Parnas seeks to produce his own texts, emails, photographs or other materials, he should have access to the content stored on his iCloud account through other means: he can simply download his own iCloud account and produce it to HPSCI (and in fact, it appears he has already done so)

Parnas needed to ask the government, however, because he had deleted some of the material after the government had already obtained a preservation order for his account, meaning the government had the content but Parnas no longer did.

The materials at issue include records that, as far as the Government knows, were never in Parnas’s possession. For instance, the data produced by Apple includes deleted records (which may only exist because of the Government’s preservation requests), account usage records, and other information to which a subscriber would not necessarily have access.

The government asked for Parnas to identify the previously deleted chats he wanted to share with Congress so his co-defendants could raise privilege concerns.

To the extent that Parnas has deleted materials from his iCloud account, the Government is willing to work with counsel to ensure that Parnas can produce his own materials that are responsive to the Congressional request to HPSCI. To that end, the Government respectfully submits that Parnas’s counsel should identify for the Government any specific chats, emails, photographs, or other content Parnas is unable to access from his iCloud currently, but which exist within the discovery that has been produced to him and in his view are responsive to the Congressional subpoena. Requiring Parnas to specifically identify these materials would also permit his co-defendants to raise any concerns with respect to their privilege or privacy interests prior to the materials’ release.

“Tell us which of these texts you attempted to delete you think are the most incriminating to Rudy,” they effectively invited Parnas to explain back in early 2020, as the filter team would have just started wading through Rudy’s already seized iCloud content.

Parnas’ failed attempt to delete sensitive content that would be pertinent to the impeachment inquiry puts Rudy’s wails of outrage that the government successfully persuaded Judge Paul Oetken that if they didn’t obtain this content covertly, it might get deleted in a very different light.

In addition, in the original warrant for the iCloud account, there is a nondisclosure order based upon an allegation made to the issuing Court, that if Giuliani were informed of the existence of the warrant, he might destroy evidence or intimidate witnesses. Such an allegation, on its face, strains credulity. It is not only false, but extremely damaging to Giuliani’s reputation.

Indeed, DOJ may well have been seeking information that Parnas had successfully deleted elsewhere. Parnas seems to think that’s what happened. In his request to get access to the stuff seized from Rudy’s phone, he states that the newly disclosed materials “likely” include communications involving him “that may have been deleted.”

The seized evidence will also likely contain a number and variety of communications between Giuliani and Toensing and Parnas that are directly discoverable under Fed. R. Crim. P. 16, evidence of any conversations between Giuliani, Toensing, and others, including Parnas, that may have been deleted, communications between Giuliani, Toensing and others about the defendants and how to address their prior relationships, the arrests, and the unfolding investigation, communications between Giuliani and Toensing and others with potential Government witnesses, including communications about the defendants, the offenses charged, and the witnesses’ potential disclosures and characterizations of alleged fraud-loss computations.

Meanwhile, the government made an interesting observation in their original request for a Special Master.

Based on the Government’s investigation to date, given the overlap in date range and because certain materials, including certain emails and text messages, were backed up to the iCloud accounts that were searched pursuant to these prior warrants, the Government expects that some, but not all, of the materials present on the electronic devices seized pursuant to the Warrants could be duplicative of the materials seized and reviewed pursuant to the prior warrants.

After admitting the government expects significant overlap between what they got in 2019 and what they got in April because “certain materials” were backed up to the cloud, the government notes that “not all” of what they expect to be on the devices will be duplicative. Some of the new material will pertain to a slightly different date range on the searches. But another cause would be if Rudy and Toensing deleted stuff that could be obtained from their phone.

The investigative team has gotten deep enough in the iCloud material seized in 2019 to identify files that they know existed but were deleted from the iCloud backup, which might be recoverable from a device.

Rudy, in a “doth protest too much” theme in his letter insists he didn’t delete anything but if he did he wasn’t under subpoena anyway.

Despite these two warnings that the SDNY was seeking permission to apply for a search warrant for his electronic devices and because he had no guilty conscience, Giuliani took no steps to destroy evidence or wipe the electronic devices clean. Since Giuliani was not under subpoena, he had no legal obligation to preserve that evidence, but he did so because he is an innocent man who did nothing wrong.

[snip]

Again, all of this took place without Mayor Giuliani or his counsel having any idea that a year and a half prior, the Giuliani iCloud was the subject of a warrant. Giuliani and his counsel were both aware, because of the prominent leaks to the media, of the failed attempts in November of 2020 and again in January of 2021, to gain the required Justice Department permission to search a lawyer’s office and residence. If Giuliani was inclined, there was ample notice and time to destroy evidence.

Aside from mentioning the basis for the covert warrants, Toensing didn’t address whether any data got destroyed.

Whatever exigent circumstances the Government asserted to instead justify covert and overt search warrants in this instance were satisfied when the information was secured and preserved. The information should now be returned to Ms. Toensing and her counsel for a privilege and responsiveness review under the supervision of a Special Master. Moreover, the Government should disclose what seized information it has already reviewed and whether and what information it has provided to the case team.

She just wants everything back so she can restart the process, along with some kind of indication of what the government has already seen.

Rudy, similarly, wants to know what the government knows.

Lastly, Giuliani is entitled to the production of Apple’s entire search warrant return production, as well as the material previously deemed non-privileged and responsive and relevant to the 2019 Search Warrant by the “filter” team.

But Judge Paul Oetken, who found cause for the non-disclosure order back in 2019, was thoroughly unimpressed with all these claims about whether things might have been deleted. As he noted, the search is done.

Moreover, the review of the 2019 warrant returns is now largely complete. And any pre-indictment suppression motion would be premature at this juncture.

Rudy and Toensing can complain if they get charged.

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In [Legal] Defense of the Nazi

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The biggest known investigative fuck-up in the January 6 investigation thus far was when the FBI raided the home of Marilyn and Paul Hueper believing that Marilyn was a woman that the FBI suspects, based off surveillance video, may have been part of stealing Nancy Pelosi’s laptop. The Hueper’s claims about their actions on January 6 don’t seem to be entirely forthright, but Marilyn has made a solid case that the FBI mistook her for the woman in question.

I think the FBI did have probable cause for that search, but I also think the FBI did not use available tools — most notably the Google and GeoFence warrants they’ve used in many other cases — that should have been able to exclude Marilyn as the suspect.

I think it likely that DOJ has made an error, of another sort, with Nazi sympathizer Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, detaining him for four months based off a mistaken belief he played a more important role in January 6 violence than he did.

Hale-Cusanelli was arrested on January 15, three days after a co-worker of his, who was already an NCIS informant, alerted the FBI that Hale-Cusanelli took part in the riots and had, in the past, espoused fairly extreme white supremacist views. On January 14, the informant recorded Hale-Cusanelli describing giving hand signals to the mob and taking a flag that Hale-Cusanelli described as a “murder weapon” to destroy.

Hale-Cusanelli’s arrest warrant, which charged him with the misdemeanor trespassing charges everyone gets charged with along with a civil disorder charge, included no video from the day of the attack. When the government indicted him, they added obstruction charges and abetting.

When the FBI arrested Hale-Cusanelli, he admitted in an interview that he gave hand and voice signals — which could be no more than waving people forward — to encourage others to “advance” past cops. But the government’s primary basis to keep him jailed, when they first succeeded in doing so back in January, seems to have been that, once you cut him off from the military network he worked in as a Navy contractor, he was bound to turn to war.

Releasing Defendant from custody will only reinforce his belief that his cause is just. Given his impending debarment from Naval Weapons Station Earle, and his potential Administrative Separation from the U.S. Army Reserve, Defendant’s release will likely leave him with nowhere to go and nothing to do except pursue his fantasy of participating in a civil war. If nothing else, the events of January 6, 2021, have exposed the size and determination of right-wing fringe groups in the United States, and their willingness to place themselves and others in danger to further their political ideology. Releasing Defendant to rejoin their fold and plan their next attack poses a potentially catastrophic risk of danger to the community.

When they made a more substantive (and successful) argument he should remain detained, they focused on two things: his choice of a third party guardian was also an extremist who had helped him try to game reporting from the Navy on his extremism, and his extremism itself, including that he groomed to look like Hitler.

They also argued that Hale-Cusanelli poses a threat to the informant who IDed him.

Hale-Cusanelli is appealing his detention. But both he and his attorney, Jonathan Zucker, are getting fed up. Last week, Zucker submitted a motion asking to be replaced, but also claiming that he has received nothing in discovery about what Hale-Cusanelli did at the Capitol.

The parties were last before the court on May 12, 2021. At that time the defense expressed concern to the court regarding the paucity of discovery in this case. To date the prosecution has disclosed the defendant’s custodial interview, a surreptitiously recorded conversation between the defendant and a cooperating witness who was wearing a recording device provided by law enforcement, two portions of text messages between the defendant and two other civilians. The prosecution has provided nothing else, particularly no evidence regarding what defendant did on January 6 either outside or inside the Capitol. Nor any other evidence regarding the defendant’s activity in relation to the charged offenses. 1

1 Defendant advises that other defendants have disclosed to him that other defendants indicated they received discovery of recordings from inside the Capitol where defendant has been seen peacefully walking in the hallways.

Yesterday, the government responded. AUSA Kathryn Fifield claimed that most of what Zucker had said was not accurate.

The bulk of Defendant’s representations to the Court regarding discovery—both in terms of what they have received and government’s response to their requests—are not accurate. To date, the government has provided the most substantial portions of the government’s evidence. That includes the CHS recordings in which Defendant makes substantial admissions regarding his criminal conduct on January 6, Defendant’s custodial interview in which Defendant makes substantial admissions regarding his criminal conduct on January 6, and a partial extraction of Defendant’s cellular phone. The partial extraction includes the extraction report and the native files, including chats, videos, and photos. Defense counsel has confirmed with the undersigned that they have access to these materials on USAfx. Further, the government separately provided Capitol CCTV video capturing Defendant inside the Capitol building on January 6 and reports of interviews conducted by NCIS. Defense counsel confirmed receipt of these materials with prior government counsel. Thus, Defendant is already in possession of the evidence most relevant to detention proceedings and to Defendant’s conduct on January 6, and has been in receipt of these materials since before the last status hearing on May 12, 2021.

She described how, because of the technical issues that occur every time the government shares large volume electronic files with defense attorneys, Zucker still doesn’t have the full content of Hale-Cusanelli’s phone.

But the accompanying discovery summary in fact seems to confirm what Zucker has said: he has received no or next to no surveillance video of his client in the Capitol, and what he has gotten appears to pertain primarily to a different person he represents (Zucker also represents Jerod Wade Hughes and Thomas Webster, and did represent Dominic Pezzola for a period).

Video recording of custodial interview of Defendant Hale-Cusanelli produced via USAfx on February 22, 2021.

Bulk report of interviews conducted by NCIS produced via email on March 7, 2021.

Report of interview conducted by NCIS of Sergeant John Getz produced via email on March 8, 2021.

Partial extraction of Apple iPhone – includes Cellebrite Extraction Report (PDF 1209 pages) and native files most relevant to Defendant’s detention proceedings and conduct on January 6, 2021. Produced via USAfx on March 11, 2021.

Capitol Surveillance CCTV produced via USAfx in connection with another defendant represented by defense counsel on March 31, 2021. Upon information and belief, you confirmed receipt of this video with prior government counsel. Reproduced in the USAfx folder for this case on May 25, 2021. The Government has designated these files Highly Sensitive under the Protective Order issued in this case.

CHS video and audio recordings produced via USAfx on May 7, 2021. The Government has designated these files Sensitive under the Protective Order issued in this case. Cellebrite Extraction Report (PDF 63073 pgs): iPhone 6s (A1633), MSISDN 7328105132, ISMI 310120163205040. Produced via USAfx on May 7, 2021.

Full extraction of Defendant’s Apple iPhone produced on encrypted zip drive on or about April 28, 2021, on Blu Ray discs on or about April 28, 2021, and on defense counsel’s hard drive on or about May 25, 2021.

One of the main images in an earlier detention memo from inside the Capitol is indexed to Pezzola, so that may be the discovery in question.

This guy has absolutely loathsome views. But they are views protected by the First Amendment — and also views shared by a goodly percentage of the other January 6 defendants, many of them out on personal recognizance. The others who, like Hale-Cusanelli, were of particular concern to the government because they held clearance on January 6 also engaged in physical assault — and Freddie Klein was released even after that. As I noted, the government spent two months confirming details of active duty Marine, Major Christopher Warnagiris’ far more important conduct from the day before arresting him, and then let him out on personal recognizance.

While the government has provided evidence that he did intend to obstruct the vote count, nothing in his conduct from the day substantiates the civil disorder challenge. Yesterday, Fifield asked for two more months to find that evidence.

This seems like a mistake that the government is simply doubling down on. But if you haven’t found more compelling evidence after four months, what are the chances you will?

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The Manafort Unsealing and Konstantin Kilimnik

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Earlier this week, the court unsealed the filings in Paul Manafort’s case pertaining to his breach determination. I’ve put most of the filings below.

Much of what has been unsealed is not new. Because Manafort’s attorneys failed to actually redact their first response, the five topics about which the government claimed he lied were clear from early on, which made sussing out the rest possible. As one example, here’s a post from close to the end of the process that laid out a lot of what we knew and did not know.

That said, in part because of some big gaps in the Manafort docket, and in part because of the government’s increasing outspokenness about Konstantin Kilimnik, I want to lay out what has been released in significant fashion and what hasn’t.

When the WaPo first asked for this material, the government said no because of “ongoing investigations” and the privacy of uncharged people. When the parties came up with proposed redactions in July 2020, per a subsequently filed ABJ order, the redactions served to hide grand jury information and uncharged individuals; that is, the ongoing investigations were done. Then the WaPo pointed out several things that might be grand jury information, but should be released anyway, including people who have since been charged, including Greg Craig and Roger Stone by name, and grand jury information made public by Mueller.

Petitioner recognizes that grand jury proceedings are confidential under Rule 6(e) but asserts that “at least some” of the grand jury material in this matter should be unsealed because it has become public. Supp. Mem. at 12–13 (noting particularly the inadvertent disclosure of allegations that the defendant transferred presidential campaign polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik in the summer of 2016); see also Reply at 11 (noting certain information was made public in the March 2019 report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller). Petitioner also asserts that some of the individuals whose names and information were sealed in the court documents because they were not charged with any crimes had since been indicted. See Reply at 1 & n.2 (noting the indictments of Roger Stone and Gregory Craig).

Upon consideration of the parties’ arguments, the joint submission of the government and defendant Manafort, the applicable law, and the privacy interests of individuals who have not been charged, the Court finds that some of the information sought by petitioner may be unsealed but that some must remain sealed to protect grand jury materials and the identities or identifying information of uncharged individuals.

That’s what should be unsealed: people who have not been charged or stuff that’s not grand jury information.

As you can see below, virtually the only area where significantly new information was provided pertained to Manafort’s relationship with Kilimnik, starting with the August 2, 2016 meeting and extending for two years. That makes the delay in release (which admittedly could be COVID related) of particular interest: in that time, FBI released a wanted poster for Kilimnik with a $250,000 reward, and then Treasury stated as fact, just weeks before this release, that Kilimnik had, indeed, shared polling data and campaign strategy with Russian intelligence officers. In addition, as shown below, there are big unexplained gaps in the numbering of the docket, suggesting sealed filings (I had thought it related to the forfeiture, and it still might, but most of that was moved to a different docket).

FBI Agent Jeffrey Weiland’s declaration (here’s the original), laying out the five matters about which Manafort lied, is the best way to track what kinds of things have been unsealed or not. Here are the five topics about which Manafort lied, with a summary of what got newly unsealed in each:

Payment to Wilmer Hale: Manafort engaged in some kind of dodgy accounting to get money to pay his lawyers, who represented Manafort until August 2017. The investigation into this allegation was unsealed (along with other investigations that had been dropped) by September 2020. About the only thing that is newly released in all this is that Wilmer Hale was the firm in question, which would seem to be either an uncharged corporate entity or grand jury information that got publicly released.

Manafort’s efforts to protect Konstantin Kilimnik in the witness tampering conspiracy: In 2018, Kilimnik and Manafort were charged for conspiring to hide aspects of their Hapsburg project by trying to coach witnesses. The names of those former Hapsburg project associates, Alan Friedman and Eckart Sager, were redacted in the original and remain redacted.

Interactions with Kilimnik: In addition to trying to downplay Kilimnik’s role in the witness tampering conspiracy, Manafort was not forthcoming about the August 2, 2016 meeting with Kilimnik (though by the end of the breach agreement, Manafort had proven that prosecutors had misunderstood what happened with a printout of polling data that day), and he blatantly lied about their ongoing meetings about a Ukraine “peace” deal. This is where the most new material was released.

Some of this was already released in the Mueller Report. But there are passages that include information beyond the Mueller Report, both in Rick Gates filings (which also were released to BuzzFeed), or — for example — in this passage from a Manafort filing.

The OSC contends that Mr. Manafort lied about his meeting with Mr. Kilimnik and [redacted: probably Georgiy Oganov] January 2017. (Doc. 464 at 14-15, ¶33-35). In particular, the OSC alleges that in one interview Mr. Manafort stated [redacted] did not present a plan for peace at the meeting or ask Mr. Manafort for anything and, subsequently, Mr. Manafort said that he discussed a peace plan during the meeting. Contrary to the OSC’s allegations, these statements are not inconsistent. First, during the interview, Mr. Manafort noted that while [redacted] did not present a peace plan or ask for anything, they did discuss Ukraine, in general, and Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, in particular.

Kilimnik has been charged. But not — as far as is public — for this stuff.

Another DOJ investigation: Little new is unredacted in a passage that describes the investigation in another district that Manafort first told a damning story to, and then reneged on that story: but what is unredacted is actually key. First, a footnote that must modify the overview section links to Michael Cohen’s Criminal Information. Given the timing, the issue in question is probably the effort to buy off Karen McDougal. Another filing describes that the information implicated Senior Administration Officials, which would seem to rule out Don Jr or Cohen himself, so must implicate Trump himself and, likely, Kushner. (I’ll return to this, because other discussions of this implicate a Roger Stone email to Manafort.)

Manafort’s Contact with the Administration: This section also remains largely the same with one big exception: it describes that some lobbying he was helping people do targeted Department of Labor and pertained to ERISA. That contact has nothing to do with Igor Fruman (with whom Manafort does have ties) and Lev Parnas, who were beginning to sidle up to Trump in this period. ABJ ruled that the government hadn’t proven their case on this point, and the ERISA focus sure helps make that case.

Documents

Exhibit 1. Government’s Submission in Support of its Breach Determination: 461 (675)

Exhibit 2. Defendant Paul J. Manafort Jr.’s Response to the Special Counsel’s Submission in Support of its Breach Determination: 470 (676)

Exhibit 3. Weiland Declaration in Support of the Government’s Breach Determination and Sentencing: 477 (677)

Exhibit 4. Defendant Paul J. Manafort, Jr.’s Reply to the Special Counsel’s Declaration and Exhibits in Support of its Breach Determination: 481 (678)

Exhibit 5. Transcript of Sealed Hearing Hld before Judge Amy Berman Jackson on 2/4/2019

Exhibit 6. Defendant Paul J. Manafort, Jr.’s Post Hearing Memorandum: 502 (679)

Exhibit 7. Government’s Supplement to the Record in Response to Defendant Manafort’s Post Hearing Memorandum: 507 (680)

Exhibit 8. Transcript of Sealed Hearing Held Before Judge Amy Berman Jackson on 2/13/2019

Exhibit 9. Government’s Sentencing Memorandum: 528 (681)

Exhibit 10. Government’s Supplemental Memorandum with Respect to the Court’s February 13, 2019 Ruling: 533/537 (682)

Exhibit 11. Defendant Paul J. Manafort’s Reply and Motion to Reconsider Based on the Special Counsel’s Supplemental Memorandum With Respect to the Court’s February 13, 2019 Ruling: 538 (683)

Exhibit 12. Minute Order on March 1, 2019

The Manafort docket is here and the docket for the WaPo effort that liberated the files is here.

Timeline

March 7, 2019: WaPo moves to release the documents

March 13, 2019: Manafort sentencing

March 19, 2019: Michael Dreeben, still on the Mueller team, moves for a short extension until the release of the Mueller Report

March 25, 2019: Post-sentencing DC USAO replaces Mueller team with Deborah Curtis, Zia Faruqui, Jonathan Kravis

March 27, 2019: DC USAO, having inherited the case, moves for another short extension

April 15, 2019: Jonathan Kravis opposes an immediate unsealed, in part on account of “ongoing investigations,” and asks for an abeyance until October 15, 2019

December 6, 2020: ABJ orders Manafort and the government to see whether documents can be unsealed

January 5, 2020: Kravis asks for a 60-day deadline to review the documents

February 11, 2020: In response to Barr’s interference in Stone case, Kravis and all other Stone prosecutors quit

March 3, 2020: Molly Gaston takes over and submits a joint motion for a further 60 day delay

April 28, 2020: Citing COVID, parties submit joint motion for further 30 day delay

June 2, 202: Parties submit joint motion for further 30 day delay

June 23, 2020: FBI releases Wanted poster for Konstantin Kilimnik offering $250,000 for his arrest

July 20, 2020: Parties submit sealed redactions, asking to keep “information from grand jury proceedings protected by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) or [that is] is necessary to protect the privacy interests of certain individuals” sealed

August 19, 2020: FBI releases second package of Kilimnik wanted materials

October 13, 2020: DC USAO replaces Zia Faruqui after he becomes a magistrate judge, with Arvind Lal

April 15, 2021: Treasury states as fact that Kilimnik shared polling data and campaign strategy with Russian intelligence

May 21, 2021: ABJ orders release, protecting only grand jury information and identities that have not been charged

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“Purge:” Gordon Sondland Probably Just Won Himself Another Subpoena

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Since we’re talking about people avenging themselves for being targeted by Trump’s corruption, I wanted to look the lawsuit Gordon Sondland filed the other day against the State Department and/or Mike Pompeo in his private capacity. Sondland says that Pompeo promised to reimburse what has amounted to $1.8 million in legal fees for testifying in Trump’s first impeachment, but that Pompeo reneged on that promise. So the suit is explicitly about getting reimbursed.

Maybe the lawsuit will work, as he ostensibly intends, or maybe the government will declare immunity.

But there are several details of his suit that will — and probably were designed (especially in the wake of the news that Rudy Giuliani had his devices seized) to win Sondland an invitation to testify in SDNY, which may have the effect of expanding their existing investigation into Rudy into the cover-up.

First, Sondland says that Pompeo promised to reimburse his legal fees twice. And while Sondland describes others besides Pompeo at State who knew about it, the promise itself was made orally.

On October 16, 2019, Pompeo again reaffirmed that the Indemnity Undertaking was made with his knowledge and approval. Ambassador Sondland spoke with Pompeo via conference call from the Washington, D.C. office of his Private Counsel, who were also in attendance and listening on speakerphone. Pompeo promised without any qualification that the State Department would reimburse Ambassador Sondland the fees and costs of Private Counsel in full. Ambassador Sondland and his Private Counsel understood Pompeo to be stating that he had the authority to bind the Government to such an agreement. Ambassador Sondland relied on Pompeo’s promise and reasonably believed that he had the authority to bind the Government to such an agreement. The Under Secretary for Management and the Counselor to the Secretary of State also confirmed that Ambassador Sondland would be reimbursed in full.

I find it remarkable Pompeo would commit State without putting something in writing, and find it just as remarkable that a successful businessman like Sondland wouldn’t insist on having it in writing. Unless there was an understanding they would not put it in writing.

Sondland describes being “purged” after he testified truthfully, something that will help him make the case the decision not to reimburse him was political retaliation.

During the meeting with the Counselor to the Department of State, Ambassador Sondland stated that he had no intention of leaving his position in the near future. Instead, Ambassador Sondland mentioned that he might consider stepping down in the summer of 2020 to return to lead his businesses, and he wanted to give his colleagues notice to permit a proper transition. In response, he was advised that while the Administration appreciated his testimony, the Administration wanted to purge everyone remotely connected to the Impeachment trial. Accordingly, the Counselor to the Department of State asked for Ambassador Sondland’s resignation. In response, Ambassador Sondland said he would consider that proposal, but asked about his attorneys’ fees. The Counselor to the Department of State told Ambassador Sondland to speak with the Under Secretary for Management, who would take care of his attorneys’ fees. Later that day, Ambassador Sondland confirmed he would not resign because he did not do anything improper. After that, everything changed. Ambassador Sondland did not receive his attorneys’ fees, notwithstanding the promises from the State Department that the attorneys’ fees would be paid.

Sondland describes that he didn’t have access to any of the underlying materials to help prepare, which will at the very least help him explain his first, less-truthful testimony.

As Ambassador Sondland prepared for a second round of testimony, the Department of State continued to restrict Ambassador Sondland’s access to materials essential to his preparation

But it will also support a inference that he was asked to participate in a cover-up of what really happened.

Then there are details that Sondland didn’t necessarily need to include, such as when and how he learned about the whistleblower complaint and how he met with Kurt Volker and Pompeo to discuss the complaint.

22. On September 25, 2019, Ambassador Sondland and Pompeo attended the eighteenth annual Transatlantic Dinner. Ambassador Sondland was the only U.S. ambassador in attendance, which hosted the NATO Secretary General, the EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, and foreign ministers from Europe and Canada. During the dinner, Ambassador Sondland received an urgent phone call from The White House alerting him that his name appeared in a whistleblower complaint received by the Office of the White House Counsel.

23. The following day, September 26, 2019, Ambassador Sondland and Pompeo met to discuss the whistleblower complaint with Ambassador Kurt Volker, United States Special Representative for Ukraine.

When Rudy complained about having his phone seized, he said that he was just cooperating in State Department investigations. Now, a former State Department participant has let it be known that State really didn’t want the full story of what happened to come out.

I’d say SDNY will find it hard to pass up that testimony.

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Steve Bannon’s Mueller and Mueller Aftermath Interviews, with Backup

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Given the release of the backup materials to several Steve Bannon interviews in the BuzzFeed FOIA, I wanted to pull together the known interviews Steve Bannon did as part of the Mueller investigation and its aftermath. I’ve discussed Bannon’s interviews and grand jury appearance here and here; I discussed how White House scripted his HPSCI testimony — specifically to deny discussion sanctions — here. I did a similar post pulling together Mike Flynn’s interviews here.

Bannon’s Mueller-related materials have been released in waves, all in ways that (I suspect) were designed to keep as much of his testimony as possible hidden for as long as possible. His first interview on February 12, 2018, which pertains to Mike Flynn-related events and obstruction generally, was released in February 2020, as Flynn’s prosecution was blowing up. His second interview, on February 14, 2018, was released in three releases. DOJ released it with a bunch of other Stone-related interviews just before the rat-fucker’s trial started in November 2019, thereby hiding much of those interviews under the pre-trial gag (though this release did include back-up). Then, five pages were released in March 2020, effectively withholding under a DOD deliberative exemption stuff that had earlier been withheld under a referral/consult withholding. Finally, six pages originally withheld under the Stone trial gag were re-released in June 2020, after Billy Barr had blown up that prosecution. Bannon’s third known interview, on October 26, 2018, was released among the last batches, on October 1, 2020. A four-page interview that occurred before Bannon’s January 18, 2019 grand jury appearance has never been released, but the proffer for it was released on December 2, 2019, after it had been revealed at trial. Bannon had at least one more interview before Stone’s trial (I suspect on July 26, 2019) that has likewise never been released; but we know he reverted to his lies again in it. Early this month, DOJ released backup relating to the first and third interview.

January 16, 2018: HPSCI Interview [link]

February 12, 2018: Flynn’s December 29, 2016 calls and aftermath, Trump’s anger with Flynn

[first release]

[210802 release]

Attendees: James Quarles, Michael Dreeben, Andrew Goldstein, Elizabeth Prelogar

Entered: June 13, 2018

Topics:

  • How the transition worked, including Bannon’s role in foreign policy and the choice of Secretary of State
  • Bannon’s views on Russian outreach and Russian investigation
  • Problems with Mike Flynn and KT McFarland
  • The trip to Mar-a-Lago
  • The initial ICA briefing and the Steele dossier
  • Bannon’s claims about when he first learned about sanctions discussion
  • Sally Yates’ meeting
  • Discussions of Flynn’s firing
  • Shinzo Abe visit
  • Bannon’s efforts to get on the NSC
  • Trump’s dinner with Comey and the Yates notification
  • Details of Burr sharing details about the Senate investigation
  • Comey’s May 3 SJC testimony
  • Bannon’s relationship with Kushner
  • Bannon’s (lack of) role in firing Comey
  • Kislyak/Lavrov meeting
  • Lestor Holt interview

Backup:

  • 12/29/16 Russian Hacking Obama email
  • 12/30/16 email referring back to 12/29/16 meeting
  • 12/31/16 Bannon email giving McFarland an “attagirl”
  • 12/29/16 Transition statement on sanctions
  • 2/13/2017 Daily caller interview
  • Possibly article on Trump ordering IC heads to lie
  • Document including claim that, “During transition you had an IT guy do email search of trump servers and discovered Jared met with Anbang and Qataris to raise money for 666 Fifth. You viewed the email that connected the dots. Those meetings left Jared exposed to Comey.”
  • Document claiming that firing Comey was Kushner’s idea
  • Talking points on firing Comey
  • Email inquiry from reporter saying, “I hear DJT is pissed at Jared. POTUS has told people he blames Jared for Comey and Manafort.”

February 14, 2018: Trump’s views on Russian coverage, Sessions’ recusal, Trump’s request of Don McGahn, Prince’s relationship with Bannon, his purported silence about Dmitriev, Bannon’s deleted messages

[201102 First release]

[200302 release with DOD reprocessing 23-27]

[200630 Post-Stone declassification release 31-36]

[210802 Post Trump decassification release]

Attendees: Quarles, Dreeben, Goldstein, Zelinsky, Prelogar.

Entered: June 26, 2018

Topics:

  • Sessions recusal
  • Comey’s purported conflicts
  • Response to disclosure of June 9 meeting
  • Early relationship with Trump
  • Debate prep
  • Erik Prince
  • George Nader
  • How he met Stone

Backup:

February 15, 2018: Second HPSCI Interview [link]

October 26, 2018: Prince and Dmitriev, Mueller’s alleged conflicts [link]

[210802 second release]

Attendees: James Quarles, Jeannie Rhee, Andrew Goldstein, Aaron Zelinsky, Zainab Ahmad (second half)

Entered: June 29, 2019

Topics:

  • Stone’s boasts about Julian Assange
  • October 4, 2016 press conference (b7A)
  • Stone as Trump whisperer (b7A)
  • What Stone claimed Assange had (b7A)
  • Bannon’s conversation with Stone on October 4, 2016 (b7A)
  • Several people on the campaign Bannon claimed not to remember (b7A)
  • Andrea Preate’s presence at Trump Tower on October 7, 2016 (relevant to her text to Stone, “well done”
  • Stone’s efforts to get donors
  • 2 b7A paragraphs
  • Jerome Corsi
  • 2010 conversation with Trump about running for President where Stone came up
  • Meeting with Stone in early December 2016 that Trump didn’t want to have
  • Someone Bannon fired from Breitbart (probably one character too short to be Lee Stranahan, possibly Chuck Johnson)
  • Several b7A topics, including email referencing Polish prime minister
  • 6 paragraphs b5
  • Bannon’s surprise about Flynn and his concern that he would be investigated for FARA
  • Bannon’s claim not to remember meeting with Prince in January 2017
  • September 8, 2016 text from Prince
  • Business card from Russian who wanted to meet Trump (probably Dmitriev)
  • Bannon read Prince’s testimony to HPSCI, thought he should have hired a lawyer
  • Bannon again denies he and Prince discussed the Dmitriev meeting
  • b5
  • Bannon denies deleting his texts with Prince from his blackberry
  • Bannon met with Foresman through Mark Burnett
  • Bannon’s phone guy in LA
  • Discussion of conflicts of interest
  • 2 b5
  • Bannon mocking the claim Mueller had conflicts
  • Bannon claims it was not an effort to get rid of Mueller
  • 7b5
  • Bannon denies discussing with Jared Kushner injecting money into the campaign (the $10 million bribe from Egypt)
  • Bannon claims all his messages prior to February 23, 2017 were deleted
  • Chuck Johnson and Wesearchr (b7A, not first reference to Johnson), including reference to Stone

Backup:

January 19, 2019: Discussions of WikiLeaks [link to proffer]

Attendees [from trial testimony]: Andrew Goldstein

Unknown date (likely July 26, 2019), pre-Stone trial

November 8, 2019: Stone Trial Testimony [link]

Prosecutor: Michael Marando

Topics:

  • Stone’s claims of relationship with WikiLeaks
  • Private conversations before Bannon joined the campaign
  • Relationship with Erik Prince, Ted Malloch
  • Roger Stone was access point to WikiLeaks

Exhibits:

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You Cannot Discuss Disinformation and the Steele Dossier without Discussing Oleg Deripaska

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The New York Times’ Barry Meier is the latest person to become part of the disinformation project associated with the Steele dossier, while claiming to critique it.

Before I explain why, let me lay out some very basic facts about the Steele dossier about which anyone deigning to comment on it at this point should be expected to exhibit basic awareness.

It is a fact that, starting in 2014 and continuing at least through at least February 2017, Christopher Steele used his relationship with DOJ’s Organized Crime expert, Bruce Ohr, to encourage ties between Oleg Deripaska and the US government. That included brokering a meeting between Ohr and Deripaska in 2015, and several communications in 2016 before Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele to investigate Trump. It included Steele’s meeting with Ohr on July 30, 2016, at which Steele provided Ohr information on Russian doping, details from his reporting for the DNC, and news about Deripaska’s lawsuit against Paul Manafort. On December 7, 2016 — the day before Deripaska associate Konstantin Kilimnik would renew his pitch to Paul Manafort on a plan to carve up Ukraine — Ohr even suggested that Deripaska would be a useful source to reveal Manafort and Trump’s corruption. Just as Steele was working with the DNC via an attorney client, Steele was working with Deripaska via one or more attorney client. Like Manafort, Steele was under financial pressure in this period, and so was eager to keep Deripaska’s attorneys as a client. This post and this post provide a summary of their exchanges over that year.

It is a fact that Steele’s primary subsource, Igor Danchenko, described that in March 2016, Steele tasked Danchenko to find out what he could learn about Paul Manafort’s corruption and his ties to Ukraine (though Danchenko had little success). When asked about the client for this work, Danchenko, “had no inclinations as to why, or for whom, Steele was asking about Manafort.”

It is a fact that the DOJ Inspector General Report on Carter Page provided evidence to suggest an associate of Oleg Deripaska — and so we should assume Oleg Deripaska himself — learned of Steele’s dossier on Donald Trump by early July 2016, which would have been after just the first report had been completed.

Ohr told the OIG that, based on information that Steele told him about Russian Oligarch 1, such as when Russian Oligarch 1 would be visiting the United States or applying for a visa, and based on Steele at times seeming to be speaking on Russian Oligarch l’s behalf, Ohr said he had the impression that Russian Oligarch 1 was a client of Steele. 210 We asked Steele about whether he had a relationship with Russian Oligarch 1. Steele stated that he did not have a relationship and indicated that he had met Russian Oligarch 1 one time. He explained that he worked for Russian Oligarch l’s attorney on litigation matters that involved Russian Oligarch 1 but that he could not provide “specifics” about them for confidentiality reasons. Steele stated that Russian Oligarch 1 had no influence on the substance of his election reporting and no contact with any of his sources. He also stated that he was not aware of any information indicating that Russian Oligarch 1 knew of his investigation relating to the 2016 U.S. elections. 211

210 As we discuss in Chapter Six, members of the Crossfire Hurricane team were unaware of Steele’s connections to Russian Oligarch 1. [redacted]

211 Sensitive source reporting from June 2017 indicated that a [person affiliated] to Russian Oligarch 1 was [possibly aware] of Steele’s election investigation as of early July 2016.

This means that Deripaska’s associate probably learned of the dossier project before Steele met with Ohr on July 30 to share — along with information on Russian doping — information about Deripaska’s lawsuit against Manafort and the first tidbits from Steele’s dossier reporting.

It is a fact that in the same month, early June 2017, that the Intelligence Community found evidence that an Oleg Deripaska associate had learned of the dossier project, the Intelligence Community found evidence that two people with ties to Russian intelligence learned of the dossier project.

According to the Supervisory Intel Analyst, the cause for the discrepancies between the election reporting and explanations later provided to the FBI by Steele’s Primary Sub-source and sub-sources about the reporting was difficult to discern and could be attributed to a number of factors. These included miscommunications between Steele and the Primary Sub-source, exaggerations or misrepresentations by Steele about the information he obtained, or misrepresentations by the Primary Sub-source and/or sub-sources when questioned by the FBI about the information they conveyed to Steele or the Primary Sub-source. 342

342 In late January 2017, a member of the Crossfire Hurricane team received information [redacted] that RIS [may have targeted Orbis; redacted] and research all publicly available information about it. [redacted] However, an early June 2017 USIC report indicated that two persons affiliated with RIS were aware of Steele’s election investigation in early [sic] 2016. The Supervisory Intel Analyst told us he was aware of these reports, but that he had no information as of June 2017 that Steele’s election reporting source network had been penetrated or compromised.

The Intelligence Community has identified two associates of Deripaska — Konstantin Kilimnik and Victor Boyarkin (through both of whom Manafort’s reports on the Trump campaign were funneled) — who have ties to Russian intelligence, so it’s possible that this early June 2017 intelligence is actually the same report, showing that a Manafort associate who had ties to Russian intelligence had learned of the dossier.

It is also a fact that Natalia Veselnitskaya, who because she was also a Fusion GPS client, was by far the most likely person to learn of a project conducted by Fusion GPS (possibly through Ed Baumgartner, who was working both the Fusion project with Veselnitskaya and the one with the DNC), also has ties to Russian intelligence.

It is a fact that when DOJ’s Inspector General entertained with the Crossfire Hurricane team the possibility that the Steele dossier had been injected with disinformation, DOJ IG envisioned Oleg Deripaska running that effort.

Priestap told us that the FBI “didn’t have any indication whatsoever” by May 2017 that the Russians were running a disinformation campaign through the Steele election reporting. Priestap explained, however, that if the Russians, in fact, were attempting to funnel disinformation through Steele to the FBI using Russian Oligarch 1, he did not understand the goal. Priestap told us that

what he has tried to explain to anybody who will listen is if that’s the theory [that Russian Oligarch 1 ran a disinformation campaign through [Steele] to the FBI], then I’m struggling with what the goal was. So, because, obviously, what [Steele] reported was not helpful, you could argue, to then [candidate] Trump. And if you guys recall, nobody thought then candidate Trump was going to win the election. Why the Russians, and [Russian Oligarch 1] is supposed to be close, very close to the Kremlin, why the Russians would try to denigrate an opponent that the intel community later said they were in favor of who didn’t really have a chance at winning, I’m struggling, with, when you know the Russians, and this I know from my Intelligence Community work: they favored Trump, they’re trying to denigrate Clinton, and they wanted to sow chaos. I don’t know why you’d run a disinformation campaign to denigrate Trump on the side. [brackets original]

I have laid out the evidence that Oleg Deripaska was playing both sides in 2016, taking steps to make Manafort more vulnerable legally and financially even as his deputy Kilimnik was using Manafort’s vulnerability to swap campaign information for a plan to carve up Ukraine and financial salvation. The same post shows how every single report in the dossier could serve key Russian purposes, both associated with the 2016 operation and more generally (though I’m not arguing the entire dossier was disinformation). If the dossier was disinformation, it would taint a great number of anti-Russian experts, from Steele to the FBI to others in the US government.

If you’re going to write about the Steele dossier at all in 2021, you should exhibit some familiarity with these facts. All the more so if you’re going to talk about whether it was disinformation.

But NYT’s Barry Meier doesn’t do that. Last week, Meier published an excerpt from his book on private intelligence services. The entire excerpt uses the Steele dossier as the exemplar of what can go wrong when private intelligence services sell information collection to clients and also share that information with journalists. I don’t disagree that the dossier was a shit-show, but then I’ve been warning about that for four years now.

As part of Meier’s proof of the shoddy product in the dossier, Meier astoundingly quotes Natalia Veselnitskaya, without clearly explaining that when he says Veselnitskaya “worked alongside” Glenn Simpson, he meant she thought highly enough of his services to employ him.

Over dinner in Moscow in 2019, Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign, offered her take on the matter. Ms. Veselnitskaya had worked alongside Mr. Simpson when she represented a Russian-owned real estate firm called Prevezon Holdings and said she regarded him as a skilled investigator. As for Mr. Steele and the dossier, she had nothing but contempt.

“If you take this fake stuff for real, then you just have to be brave enough to believe, to completely dismiss all your special services, all your intelligence staff,” she said rapidly through an interpreter. She suggested how odd it was that all those people and agencies “were never able to find out what that talented person found out without ever leaving his room.”

Ms. Veselnitskaya was embroiled in her own legal drama. The Justice Department had indicted her in connection with her work for Prevezon, a charge she denied. Still, she raised an issue that reporters who embraced the dossier had blown past: How did Christopher Steele know more about Donald Trump and Russia than the C.I.A. or MI6?

One basic piece of evidence that the dossier had been compromised was that neither Simpson nor Steele ever figured out Veselnitskaya had floated a quid pro quo directly to Trump’s son — sanctions relief for dirt — with Manafort in attendance. But Meier apparently doesn’t think that Veselnitskaya was the proof that she said Steele missed. That is, he apparently doesn’t even understand — perhaps because he knows so little about what the Mueller investigation actually revealed? — that he’s being trolled by Veselnitskaya and that troll is offered up as proof that Christopher Steele is uniquely vulnerable to getting fooled by spooked up Russians.

That’s Meier’s one piece of primary evidence against the dossier. Otherwise, Meier explains, investigative journalists like himself rely on primary sources.

Investigative journalists normally rely on court records, corporate documents and other tangible pieces of evidence.

But he recites the kind of understanding of Igor Danchenko you’d get from reading right wing propaganda about him, rather than the Danchenko’s interview itself which showed ways that the DOJ IG Report did not faithfully report on the Danchenko interview (and indeed, had to make a significant correction), or, frankly, all the other problems with the DOJ IG Report.

Meier relies on a series that Erik Wemple did, for which he says, “most journalists [Wemple] contacted either defended their work or ignored his inquiries.” Meier doesn’t mention that not only did I not ignore Wemple, but I told him (twice, I think, both for an early inquiry about Chuck Ross’ reporting on the dossier and for his later series) that to the extent the dossier was disinformation, Ross and Wemple had become part of that effort. That is, Meier may not know, but Wemple himself is guilty of what Meier accuses others of, ignoring inconvenient details that undermine his narrative.

Craziest still, Meier relies on the claims of Matt Taibbi, who has harbored outright conspiracy theories about 2016, and whose own “reporting” on the Russian investigation consistently relies on, and usually misrepresents, secondary sources rather than the primary texts.

In an article for Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi cast the media’s handling of the dossier as a replay of a press disaster: the reporting before the Persian Gulf war, which claimed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. “The W.M.D. affair showed what happened when we don’t require sources to show us evidence, when we let political actors use the press to ‘confirm’ their own assertions,” Mr. Taibbi wrote. “Are we never going to own up to this one?”

On its own, Meier’s piece is a performance of the problems he complains about: relying on unreliable sources and apparent ignorance of the public record.

But it gets crazier still once you consider the response Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch posted to Meier’s work. Along with pointing to some inaccuracies in Meier’s attacks on them and some disclosures Meier should have made, they reveal that Fusion GPS played a bit part in the August 2016 NYT story on Manafort that led to his ouster from the Trump campaign.

By the time of the Democratic National Convention in July, we had been researching Trump for some 10 months — work that began for Republicans and was later continued for Democrats. On July 25, 2016, we met on the sidelines of the convention in Philadelphia with two ofthe Times’ top editors, Dean Baquet and Matt Purdy, to share information about our Trump-Russia research.

Among the topics we discussed was Paul Manafort’s prior work for Ukrainians backed by Putin. The next day, at Purdy’s request, we sent the Times a pile of public record documents that supported a conclusion that Manafort was in a compromised position in relation to Moscow, including records that showed he owed millions of dollars to Deripaska.

Purdy connected us with two of his top reporters. Barry Meier was also assigned to the story. He was having a hard time locating the Virginia court records we’d mentioned to Purdy and Baquet and reached out to Simpson and a colleague for help.

Fusion helped Meier find the records, and they featured prominently in the Times story published two weeks later, proving a vital link connecting Manafort and Deripaska:

After that story, Meier even went back to Fusion for any information they had on Deripaska.

The most important takeaway from the dossier is the way it served as a tool in Oleg Deripaska’s two-sided game that turned Paul Manafort into an easy target. And it turns out that way back in 2016, Meier (and Fusion, in yet another undisclosed way) was part of this two-sided game.

Update: The partially sealed documents in Manafort’s docket are being released today. This Rick Gates 302 shows how closely the August 2 meeting tied Deripaska’s efforts to increase Manafort’s legal and financial woes — the lawsuit — with the delivery of detailed information about how to win the campaign.

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Snowden

Insurance File: Glenn Greenwald’s Anger Is of More Use to Vladimir Putin than Edward Snowden’s Freedom

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Glenn Greenwald risks making his own anger more valuable to Vladimir Putin than Edward Snowden’s freedom.

When WikiLeaks helped Snowden flee Hong Kong eight years ago, both WikiLeaks and Snowden had the explicit goal of using Snowden’s successful flight from prosecution to entice more leakers.

In his book, Snowden described that Sarah Harrison and Julian Assange’s goal in helping him flee Hong Kong was to provide a counterexample to the draconian sentence of Chelsea Manning.

People have long ascribed selfish motives to Assange’s desire to give me aid, but I believe he was genuinely invested in one thing above all—helping me evade capture. That doing so involved tweaking the US government was just a bonus for him, an ancillary benefit, not the goal. It’s true that Assange can be self-interested and vain, moody, and even bullying—after a sharp disagreement just a month after our first, text-based conversation, I never communicated with him again—but he also sincerely conceives of himself as a fighter in a historic battle for the public’s right to know, a battle he will do anything to win. It’s for this reason that I regard it as too reductive to interpret his assistance as merely an instance of scheming or self-promotion. More important to him, I believe, was the opportunity to establish a counterexample to the case of the organization’s most famous source, US Army Private Chelsea Manning, whose thirty-five-year prison sentence was historically unprecedented and a monstrous deterrent to whistleblowers everywhere. Though I never was, and never would be, a source for Assange, my situation gave him a chance to right a wrong. There was nothing he could have done to save Manning, but he seemed, through Sarah, determined to do everything he could to save me. That said, I was initially wary of Sarah’s involvement. But Laura told me that she was serious, competent, and, most important, independent: one of the few at WikiLeaks who dared to openly disagree with Assange. Despite my caution, I was in a difficult position, and as Hemingway once wrote, the way to make people trustworthy is to trust them.

[snip]

It was only once we’d entered Chinese airspace that I realized I wouldn’t be able to get any rest until I asked Sarah this question explicitly: “Why are you helping me?”

She flattened out her voice, as if trying to tamp down her passions, and told me that she wanted me to have a better outcome. She never said better than what outcome or whose, and I could only take that answer as a sign of her discretion and respect.

It’s not just Snowden’s impression, though, that WikiLeaks intended to make an example of him. The superseding indictment against Assange cites several times when Assange invoked WikiLeaks’ role in Snowden’s successful escape to encourage others (including CIA Systems Administrators like Joshua Schulte, who had a ticket to Mexico when the FBI first interviewed him and seized his passports) to go do what Snowden did. British Judge Vanessa Baraitser even included one of those speeches in paragraphs distinguishing what Assange is accused of from legal journalism. And as early as 2017, public reporting said that WikiLeaks’ assistance to Snowden was what changed how DOJ understood WikiLeaks and why it began to consider prosecuting Assange. It wasn’t Trump that led DOJ to stop treating Assange as a journalist, it was Snowden.

According to Snowden’s own words, he shared WikiLeaks’ goal of setting an example to inspire others. In an email that Snowden must have sent Bart Gellman weeks before the exchange between him and Harrison above, Snowden described steps he took to give other leakers (this may be Gellman’s paraphrase), “hope for a happy ending.”

In the Saturday night email, Snowden spelled it out. He had chosen to risk his freedom, he wrote, but he was not resigned to life in prison or worse. He preferred to set an example for “an entire class of potential whistleblowers” who might follow his lead. Ordinary citizens would not take impossible risks. They had to have some hope for a happy ending.

To effect this, I intend to apply for asylum (preferably somewhere with strong internet and press freedoms, e.g. Iceland, though the strength of the reaction will determine how choosy I can be). Given how tightly the U.S. surveils diplomatic outposts (I should know, I used to work in our U.N. spying shop), I cannot risk this until you have already gone to press, as it would immediately tip our hand. It would also be futile without proof of my claims—they’d have me committed—and I have no desire to provide raw source material to a foreign government. Post publication, the source document and cryptographic signature will allow me to immediately substantiate both the truth of my claim and the danger I am in without having to give anything up. . . . Give me the bottom line: when do you expect to go to print?

Citizenfour also quotes Snowden describing how he hoped that proof that his “methods work[]” would encourage others to leak.

If all ends well, perhaps the demonstration that our methods worked will embolden more to come forward.

Snowden’s “methods” don’t work — they certainly haven’t for Daniel Hale, Reality Winner, or Joshua Schulte. But for each, Snowden played at least some role (there is ambiguity about how Schulte really felt about Snowden) in inspiring them to ruin their lives with magical thinking and inadequate operational security.

One of Snowden’s “methods” appears to entail quitting an existing job and then picking another at an Intelligence Community contractor with the intent of obtaining documents to leak. Snowden did this at Booz Allen Hamilton, and his book at least suggests the possibility he did that with his earlier job in Hawaii.

The government justified the draconian sentence that it had negotiated with Winner’s lawyers, in part, by claiming that she premeditated her leak.

Around the same time the defendant took a job with Pluribus requiring a security clearance in February 2017, she was expressing contempt for the United States, mocking compromises of our national security, and making preparations to leak intelligence information

Along with evidence Winner researched The Intercept’s SecureDrop before starting at her new job, the government supported this claim by pointing to three references Winner made to Snowden as or shortly after she started at Pluribus, including texts in which Winner told her sister she was on Assange and Snowden’s side the day the Vault 7 leak was revealed. That was still two months before she took the files she would send to The Intercept.

Had Hale gone to trial, the government would have shown that Hale discussed serving as a source for Jeremy Scahill by May 30, 2013, the day before he left NSA, and discussed Snowden — and hanging out with the journalists reporting on him — the day Snowden came forward on June 9. Then, on July 25, Hale sent Scahill a resume showing he was looking for counterterrorism or counterintelligence jobs. In December, Hale started the the job at Leidos where he would print out the files he sent to The Intercept.

You can think these leaks were valuable and ethical without thinking it a good idea to leave a months-long trail of evidence showing premeditation on unencrypted texts and social media.

Similarly, one of Snowden’s “methods” was to claim he had expressed concerns internally, but was ignored, a wannabe whistleblower stymied by America’s admittedly failed support for whistleblowers, especially those at contractors.

In the weeks before Snowden left NSA, he made a stink about some legal issues and NSA’s training programs (about how FISA Section 702 interacted with EO 12333) that he subsequently pointed to as his basis for claiming to be a whistleblower. The complaint was legit, and one NSA department actually did take notice, but it was not a formal complaint; indeed, it was more a complaint about US law. But his complaint had nothing to do with the vast majority of the documents that have been published based off his files, to say nothing of the far greater set of documents he took. And he made the complaint long after having prepared for months to steal vast amounts of files.

Similarly, Joshua Schulte wrote two emails documenting purported concerns about CIA security, one to a colleague less than a month before he left, which he didn’t send, and then, on his final day, one to CIA’s Inspector General that he falsely claimed was unclassified, a copy of which he was seen taking with him when he packed up. In the first search warrant for Schulte’s house obtained on March 13, 2017, less than a week after the initial Vault 7 release, the FBI had already found those emails and deemed Schulte’s treatment of them as suspect. And when they found a copy of the classified letter to the IG stashed in his headboard, it gave them cause to seize Schulte’s passports on threat of arrest. Snowden’s “methods” didn’t deliver Schulte a “happy ending;” they made Schulte’s apprehension easier.

To the extent Schulte could be shown to be following Snowden’s “methods” (again, that question was not resolved at his first trial) it would be a fairly damning indictment of those methods, since this effort to create a paper trail as a whistleblower was such an obvious attempt to retroactively invent cover for leaks for which there was abundant evidence Schulte’s motivation was spite and revenge. Maybe that’s why someone close to Assange explicitly asked me to stop covering Schulte’s case.

Had Daniel Hale gone to trial, the government undoubtedly would have used the exhibits showing that Hale had never made any whistleblower claims in any of the series of government jobs where he had clearance as a way to push back on his claim of being a whistleblower, though Hale was outspoken about his criticisms of the drone program before he took most of the files he shared with The Intercept. Indeed, given the success of Hale’s earlier anti-drone activism, his case raises real questions about whether leaking was more effective than Hale’s frank, overt witness to the problems of the drone program.

Worse still, Snowden’s boasts about his “methods” appear to have made prosecutions more likely. An early, mostly-sealed filing in Hale’s case, reveals that the government set out to investigate whether Hale was The Intercept’s source because they were trying to figure out whom Snowden had “inspired” to leak.

Specifically, the FBI repeatedly characterized its investigation in this case as an attempt to identify leakers who had been “inspired” by a specific individual – one whose activity was designed to criticize the government by shedding light on perceived illegalities on the part of the Intelligence Community.

That explains why the government required Hale to allocute to being the author of an essay in a collection of Hale’s leaked documents involving Snowden: by doing so, they obtained sworn proof that Hale is the person Snowden and Glenn Greenwald were discussing, while the two were sitting in Moscow, in the closing sequence of Citizenfour. In the scene, Glenn flamboyantly wrote for Snowden how this new leaker and The Intercept’s journalist were communicating, what appears to be J-A-B-B-E-R. That stunt for the camera would have tipped the government off, in cinema release just two months after they had raided Hale’s home, to look for and reconstruct Hale’s Jabber communications with Jeremy Scahill, which they partly succeeded in doing.

Rather than being means to a “happy ending,” then, prosecutors have found Snowden’s “methods” useful to pursuing increasingly draconian prosecutions of people inspired by him.

And now, after Snowden and Greenwald failed to persuade Trump to pardon Snowden, Assange — and in a secondary effort — The Intercept’s sources (perhaps, like Assange, they find the association with Schulte counterproductive, because they didn’t even try to get him pardoned, even though Trump himself almost bolloxed that prosecution), Snowden is left demanding pardons on Twitter for the people he set out to convince leaking could have a “happy ending.”

By associating these leaks with someone being protected by Russia so that — in Snowden’s own words — he could encourage more leaks, Snowden only puts a target on these people’s back, making a justifiable commutation of Winner’s sentence less likely (Winner is due to get out on November 23, two days before the most likely time for Joe Biden to even consider commuting her sentence).

I’m grateful for Snowden’s sacrifices to release the NSA files, but his efforts to lead others to believe that leaking would be easy was bound to, and has, ended badly.

If Vladimir Putin agreed to protect Snowden in hopes that he would inspire more leakers to release files that help Russia evade US spying (as Schulte’s leak did, at a time when the US was trying to understand the full scope of what Russia had done in 2016), the US prosecutorial focus on Snowden-related leakers undermines his value to Putin, probably by design. As that happens, Snowden might reach the moment that observers of his case have long been dreading, the moment when Putin’s utilitarian protection of Snowden will give way to some other equally utilitarian goal.

This is all happening as Putin adjusts to dealing with Joe Biden rather than someone he could manipulate by (at the very least) feeding his narcissism, Donald Trump. It is happening in the wake of new sanctions on Russia, in response to which Putin put US Ambassador John Sullivan on a plane to deliver some message, in person, to Biden. It is happening as Biden’s response to the Colonial Pipeline attack, in which ransomware criminals harbored by Putin shut down US critical infrastructure for fun and profit, includes noting that he and Putin will meet in person soon, followed by the unexplained disabling of the perpetrators in the wake of the attack.

Meanwhile, even as Snowden is of less and less use to Putin, Glenn Greenwald’s utility continues to grow. Snowden, for example, continues to speak out about topics inconvenient to Putin, like privacy. The presence in Russia of someone like Snowden with his own platform and international credibility may become increasingly risky for Putin given the success of protests around Alexei Navalny.

Greenwald, by contrast, seems to have dropped all interest in surveillance and has instead turned many of his grievances — even his complaint that former NSA lawyer Susan Hennessey will get a job in DOJ’s National Security Division, against whom one can make a strong case on privacy grounds — into a defense of Russia. Greenwald spends most of his time arguing that a caricature that he labels “liberals” and another caricature that he labels “the [American] Deep State,” followed closely by another caricature he calls “the  [non-right wing propaganda] Media,” are the most malignant forces in American life. In his rush to attack “liberals,” “the Deep State,” and “the Media,” Greenwald has coddled the political forces that Putin has found useful, including outright racists and other right wing extremists. By the end of the Trump presidency, Greenwald was excusing virtually everything Trump did, up to and including his attempted coup based on the utter denigration of democratic processes. In short, Greenwald has become a loud and important voice in support of the illiberalism Putin favors, to say nothing of Greenwald’s use of a rhetoric unbound by facts.

That Greenwald spends most of his days deliberately inciting Twitter mobs is just an added benefit, to those who want to weaken America, to Greenwald’s defense of fascists.

Most of us who used to know Greenwald attribute his Russian denialism and his apologies for Trump at least partly to his desire to free Snowden from exile. Yet Greenwald’s tantrums, because of their value to Putin, may have the opposite effect.

Stoking Greenwald’s irrational furor over what he calls “liberals” and “the Deep State” and “the Media” would actually be a huge incentive for Putin to deal Snowden to the US, in maximally symbolic fashion. There is nothing that could light up Greenwald’s fury like Putin bringing Snowden to a summit with Biden, wrapped up like a present, to send back on Air Force One. (That’s an exaggerated scenario, but you get my point.)

Plus, if Putin played it right, such a ceremonial delivery of Snowden might just achieve the completion of the Snowden operation, the public release of all of the files Snowden stole, not just those that one or another journalist found to have news value.

The Intelligence Community has, over the years, said a bunch of things about Snowden that were outright bullshit or, at least, for which they did not yet have evidence. But one true thing they’ve said is that Snowden took a great many files that had no imaginable privacy value. Even from a brief period working in the full archive aiming to answer three very discrete questions about FISA, I believe that to be true. While some (including Assange) pressured Snowden and others to release all these files, Snowden instead ensured that journalists would serve a vetting role, and after some initial fumbling, The Intercept did a laudable job of keeping those files safe. So up to now, the fact that Snowden took far more files than any privacy concern — even privacy concerns divorced from all question of nationality — could justify may not have mattered.

But as far as I know there are still full copies out there and Russia would love to spin up Glenn Greenwald’s fury so much he would attempt to burn down his caricature of “The Deep State” in retaliation — much like Schulte succeeded in badly damaging the CIA — by releasing his set.

I believe Russia has been trying to do this since at least 2016.

To be very clear, I’m not claiming that Greenwald is taking money from or is any way controlled by Russia. I am very much not claiming that, in part because it wouldn’t be necessary. Why pay Greenwald for what you can get him to do for free?

And while I assume Greenwald would respect Snowden’s stated wishes and protect the files, like Trump, Greenwald’s narcissism and resentment are very, very easy buttons to push. Greenwald has been heading in this direction without pushing. It would be child’s play to have people friendly to Russia’s illiberal goals (people like Steve Bannon or Tucker Carlson) exacerbate Greenwald’s anger at “the Deep State” to turn it into the frenzy it has become.

Meanwhile, custody of Edward Snowden would be a very enticing dangle for Putin to offer Biden as a way to reset Russia’s relationship with the US. One cannot negotiate with Putin, one can only adjust the points of leverage over each other and hope to come to some stable place, and Snowden has always been at risk of becoming a bargaining chip in such a relationship. By turning Snowden over to the US to be martyred in a high profile trial, Putin might wring the last bit of value out of Snowden. All the better, from Putin’s standpoint, if Greenwald were to respond by releasing the full Snowden set.

For the past four years, Greenwald seems to have believed that if he sucked up to Putin and Trump, he’d win Snowden’s freedom, as if either man would ever deal in good faith. Instead, I think, that process has had the effect of making Greenwald more useful to Russia than Snowden is anymore. And at this point, Greenwald seems to have lost sight of the likelihood that his belligerent rants may well make Snowden less safe, not more.

Update: According to the government sentencing memo for Hale, they didn’t write up the statement of offense, Hale did.

Hale pled guilty without any plea agreement, and submitted his own Statement of Facts. Def.’s Statement of Facts, Dkt. 197 (“SOF”).

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Vicky and Rudy: The Subjects of Delay

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When I asked around last year what the net effect of Billy Barr and Jeffrey Rosen’s efforts to protect Rudy Giuliani would be, I learned that the net effect of refusing to approve searches on Rudy would only delay, but it would not change the outcome of, the investigation into the President’s lawyer.

That’s worth keeping in mind as you read SDNY’s response to Victoria Toensing and Rudy’s demand that they get to treat both the April warrants against them, as well as the 2019 warrants, like subpoenas. Effectively, SDNY seems to be saying, “let’s just get to the indictment and discovery phase, and then you can start challenging these searches.”

The filing several times speaks of charges hypothetically.

If Giuliani is charged with a crime, he will, like any other criminal defendant, be entitled to production of the search warrant affidavits in discovery, at which time he will be free to litigate any motions related to the warrants as governed by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12. Conversely, if the Government’s grand jury investigation concludes without criminal charges, then the sealing calculus may be different, and Giuliani may renew his motion.

[snip]

If there is a criminal proceeding, the Government will produce the affidavits, warrants, and materials seized pursuant to those warrants, and at that time, the warrants’ legality can be litigated.

[snip]

Finally, Toensing will have both a forum and an opportunity to litigate any privilege issues if there is a criminal proceeding. As the Second Circuit has noted, in affirming the denial of a return-of-property motion, “If [the grand jury’s] inquiry results in indictment, the lawfulness of the seizure will be fully considered upon a motion to suppress, and any ruling adverse to the defendant will be reviewable upon appeal from a final judgment; if the grand jury declines to indict the movant, or adjourns without indicting it, its property will most likely be returned, and if not, it can initiate an independent proceeding for its return.” [my emphasis]

But the filing repeatedly makes clear that not just Rudy, but also Toensing (whose lawyer made much of being informed that Toensing was not a target of the investigation), are subjects of this investigation.

But the Government specifically chose not to proceed by subpoena in this case, for good reason, and there is no precedent for permitting the subjects of an investigation to override the Government’s choice in this regard.

None of the cases cited by Giuliani or Toensing supports their proposed approach. Toensing principally relies on United States v. Stewart, No. 02 Cr. 395 (JGK), 2002 WL 1300059, at *4-8 (S.D.N.Y. June 11, 2002), 4 but that case is readily distinguishable because it involved the seizure of documents from several criminal defense attorneys who were not subjects of the Government’s investigation and had many cases before the same prosecuting office

[snip]

Such concerns merely serve to highlight the many countervailing problems with Giuliani and Toensing’s proposal: under their approach, the subjects of a criminal investigation would have the authority to make unilateral determinations not only of what is privileged, but also of what is responsive to a warrant.

[snip]

Nevertheless, Giuliani argues that, quite unlike other subjects of criminal investigations, he is entitled to review the affidavits supporting the warrants, which would effectively give him the extraordinary benefit of knowing the Government’s evidence before even being charged with a crime.

[snip]

Her request is contrary to law and would effectively deprive the Government of its right to evidence in the midst of a grand jury investigation so that she, the subject of that investigation, may decide what is privileged and what is responsive in those materials.

[snip]

In other words, accepting Giuliani and Toensing’s argument about the impropriety of using a filter team to review covert search warrant returns would entitle subjects of a criminal investigation to notice of that investigation any time a warrant were executed that related to them, no matter if the investigation were otherwise covert and no matter if the approving Court had signed a non-disclosure order consistent with the law. [my emphasis]

SDNY correctly treats Rudy and Toensing’s demands to review this material before SDNY can obtain it as a delay tactic.

Giuliani and Toensing’s proposal to allow their own counsel to conduct the initial review of materials seized pursuant to lawfully executed search warrants, including making determinations of what materials are responsive to the warrants, on their own timeline is without any precedent or legal basis. The Government is aware of no precedent for such a practice, which has the effect of converting judicially authorized search warrants into subpoenas.

Indeed, their discussion of the Lynn Stewart precedent emphasizes their goal of obtaining this material expeditiously.

None of the cases cited by Giuliani or Toensing supports their proposed approach. Toensing principally relies on United States v. Stewart, No. 02 Cr. 395 (JGK), 2002 WL 1300059, at *4-8 (S.D.N.Y. June 11, 2002), 4 but that case is readily distinguishable because it involved the seizure of documents from several criminal defense attorneys who were not subjects of the Government’s investigation and had many cases before the same prosecuting office. (See infra at pp. 33-34). In any event, the Court appointed a special master in Stewart, as the Government seeks here. And the procedures adopted in Stewart illustrate why the Government’s proposed approach is preferable. In Stewart, the presiding judge initially believed that the special master’s review could be conducted expeditiously because the defendant’s counsel could quickly produce a privilege log (as Toensing seeks to do here). Id. at *8. But 15 months later, the judge lamented that the special master still had not produced a report on the seized materials. United States v. Sattar, No. 02 Cr. 395 (JGK), 2003 WL 22137012, at *22 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 15, 2003), aff’d sub nom. United States v. Stewart, 590 F.3d 93 (2d Cir. 2009). That cumbersome process stands in stark contrast to that adopted by Judge Wood in Cohen, wherein the special master completed her review on an expedited basis in parallel to Cohen’s counsel, and set deadlines for Cohen’s counsel to object to any of her designations. (Cohen, Dkt. 39 at 1-2). In Cohen, the special master was appointed in April 2018, and her review was complete by August 2018. The Cohen search involved approximately the same number of electronic devices seized here, but also included significant quantities of hard copy documents, which are not at issue here. In sum, the Court should follow the model set forth in Cohen, which resulted in an efficient and effective privilege review. [my emphasis]

Likewise, the government also offered to pay the costs of the Special Master, so long as the Special Master follows the expeditious procedure conducted with Michael Cohen’s content.

This Court should not permit Giuliani and Toensing to stall the investigation of their conduct in this manner, particularly where the Government’s proposal will allow them to conduct the same review in parallel with a special master. The Government’s proposal to appoint a special master to review the seized materials is the only proposal that is fair to all parties, respects the unique privilege issues that the 2021 Warrants may implicate, and will ensure that Government’s investigation proceeds without undue delay.6

6 In the Cohen matter before Judge Wood, the Government and Cohen split the costs associated with the special master’s privilege review. Here, because the Government made the initial request of the Court and considers the appointment of a special master appropriate in this matter, the Government is willing to bear the costs of the review insofar as the special master follows the procedures adopted by Judge Wood in the Cohen matter, namely to review the seized materials for potential privilege in parallel with counsel for Giuliani and Toensing. To the extent the Court adopts the proposals advanced by Giuliani and Toensing, including that the special master also conduct a responsiveness review of those same materials—which the Government strongly opposes for the reasons set forth above—Giuliani and Toensing should solely bear any costs associated with a responsiveness review, any review beyond the initial privilege review, or any cost-enhancing measures traceable to Giuliani and Toensing. [my emphasis]

I’m mindful, as I review the schedule laid out above, that Cohen was charged almost immediately after the Special Master review was completed, in August 2018. In addressing the partial overlap between the 2019 searches and the April ones, the government notes that, “the Government expects that some, but not all, of the materials present on the electronic devices seized pursuant to the Warrants could be duplicative of the materials seized and reviewed pursuant to the prior warrants.”

The government already knows what they’re getting with these warrants (and if they don’t get it, they’re likely to be able to charge obstruction because it has been deleted). They’re calling for a Special Master not because it provides any more fairness than their prior filter review (indeed, they speak repeatedly of the “perception of fairness”), especially since investigators are about to obtain the materials from the 2019 search, but because it ensures they can get this material in timely fashion, especially since, as it stands now, they’re going to have to crack the passwords on seven of the devices seized from Rudy.

The remaining seven devices belonging to Giuliani and his business cannot be fully accessed without a passcode, and as such the Government has advised Giuliani’s counsel that the devices can be returned expeditiously if Giuliani were to provide the passcode; otherwise, the Government does not have a timeline for when those devices may be returned because the FBI will be attempting to access those devices without a passcode, which may take time.

Yes, Rudy and Toensing are trying to get an advance look at how bad the case against them is. But they’re also hoping to delay, possibly long enough to allow a Republican to take over again and pardon away their criminal exposure.

Which suggests that all the hypotheticals about Rudy and Toensing being able to challenge these searches if they are indicted are not all that hypothetical. SDNY is just trying to get to the place where they can indict.

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Victoria Toensing’s Singular Multiple Devices

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The government has docketed a less redacted version of the letter it originally posted asking for a Special Master to troll through Rudy Giuliani and Victoria Toensing’s devices to separate out the privileged material. As I predicted, the redacted parts of the letter describe the filter team search conducted on the material seized in November and December 2019.

That makes the argument this argument all the more cynical.

[T]he overt and public nature of these warrants necessitates, as Judge Wood observed, the appointment of a special master for the “perception of fairness, not fairness itself.”

Particularly given the admission that the government already obtained, “certain emails and text messages,” that they expect to find on the seized devices.

Which makes the other details more interesting. The FBI obtained 18 devices from Rudy in their search (though remember that thumb drives may count as a device for the purposes of a search).

But with Toensing, the government showed up with a warrant, “to search premises belonging to Victoria Toensing and seize certain electronic devices” — devices, plural. But the FBI came back with just one device.

So why did the government think they’d come back with multiple devices and where did those devices go?

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Y’all Qaeda Northwest: Ethan Nordean Provides Yet More Proof of the Proud Boys’ Sophistication and Resilience

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The government and Ethan Nordean are having a dispute that is, at least procedurally, about whether by giving Nordean the Telegram text messages he demanded in prioritized fashion, the government committed a Brady violation. Nordean started this dispute on April 29 with a filing admitting that the texts he received before his detention hearing were the ones he asked for specifically but still complaining that he didn’t get all his texts at once.

Today, the government produced for the first time additional Telegram messages extracted from Nordean’s phone. The government provided no explanation as to why they were produced after the hearing on its third detention motion and not beforehand.1 Like the Telegram chats it used to support detention, today’s production was drawn from the same device (Nordean’s phone), the same app (Telegram), and only postdate by some days the chats the government used to detain Nordean. In reviewing the following chats, the Court may recall that because the Telegram messages are encrypted and, according to the government, “designed to evade law enforcement,” the government would have the Court believe the app users are speaking candidly in Telegram.

On March 25, Nordean requested that the government produce, at least by March 30, Telegram chats on Nordean’s phone sent and received between 1/4/21 and 1/8/21. Nordean did not say that no other chats should be produced, nor did he waive any right to Brady material of which the government was aware. On March 9, Nordean served a discovery letter on the government seeking all of the defendant’s statements and requesting that Brady material be produced according to the schedule in Rule 5.1.

The government response doesn’t point out that they gave Nordean precisely what Nordean asked for. It does describe how they provided Nordean’s Telegram chats in three waves, with the entire content of his phone provided by April 30.

On April 29, 2021, the government produced to defendant Nordean eleven (11) strings of text messages, totaling over 5,000 pages, that contained the terms “Ministry of Self-Defense” or “MOSD,” and that were recovered from defendant Nordean’s phone.

Thereafter, on April 30, 2021, a full copy of an extraction from defendant Nordean’s phone was produced to Nordean’s counsel. That production included approximately 1,172 Telegram message strings (totaling over 1.3 million messages). The extracted text of the Telegram messages in Nordean’s phone runs over 204,000 pages when printed in .pdf format, which does not include any of the images, audio, or video files that are associated with the message strings. In addition to the Telegram messages, the phone contains hundreds of other communications using other platforms, including other encrypted platforms such as Signal and WhatsApp. The government’s review of these message strings, hundreds of which contained communications between December 2020 and January 2021, is ongoing, and all of this information is in defendant Nordean’s possession.

Nordean’s reply doubles down on the accusations of misconduct, now claiming the government intentionally withheld substantiation of Nordean’s claim to have disavowed rallies.

Nordean had presented an audio recording of himself in a conversation with members of his group in which he rejected political rallying. The recording shows him annoyed with how often he had to “repeat himself” on the point. The clip was recorded in February, shortly before his arrest. It is not “self-serving,” as he was communicating with his in-group and through the medium that the government alleges was used “to evade detection.”1 The Court found that the clip “does suggest that, at some point, [Nordean] agreed that the Proud Boys should stop rallying.” Hr’g Trans., 4/19/21, p. 55:21. However, the Court also found that “without any further context there’s no indication that that was some kind of permanent decision.” Id., p. 55:22.

At the time of the hearing, there was “further context.” The government knew it and did not inform the defense or the Court. Shortly after that hearing, on April 29, the government produced late January chats in which Nordean repeatedly discussed “bans on rallies”; in which Nordean said, “fuck politics, build communities and local economy” (Cf. the Court: “politics has not [passed]”); where Nordean endorses the doubly capital notion “THE PROUD BOYS ARE NOT MARCHING ON CAPITAL BUILDINGS”; and in which Nordean reacts dismissively, in real time, to the conspiracy charge supposedly predicating his detention. On its own, the government’s late production of these chats is unequivocally a violation of the Due Process Protections Act and Local Criminal Rule 5.1. It is also a violation of Rule 3.8(e) of the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct for prosecutors.2

2 “The prosecutor in a criminal case shall not . . . Intentionally fail to disclose to the defense, upon request and at a time when use by the defense is reasonably feasible, any evidence or information that the prosecutor knows or reasonably should know tends to negate the guilt of the accused or mitigate the offense.” Rule 3.8(e) of the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct.

In his reply Nordean asks a fair question — why the government didn’t just keep screen-capping texts that were a “two-second scroll” down Nordean’s phone from the chats the government had turned over in response to Nordean’s specific request. It seems the government has a reasonable answer: because it was responding to a specific request, though they have yet to say that specifically.

Nevertheless, neither side is treating this as a dispute over misconduct. The government notes that his original motion asks for no relief.

Defendant Nordean’s notice alleging a violation of those provisions (ECF 79) seeks no relief, and no relief or further action by the Court is necessary or appropriate.

Nordean’s reply asks for no relief either. It instead says that he is “developing evidence,” but once again asks for no relief.

The government concludes its response by saying Nordean’s “notice seeks no relief because defendant is entitled to no relief.” ECF No. 84, p. 12. The government is mistaken. The notice sought no relief because Nordean is developing further evidence of the government’s misconduct in filing a series of misleading claims in this matter and in withholding evidence so that it cannot be timely used.

And Nordean goes from that comment — stating that it is incorrect that he asks for no relief by once again asking for no relief — to instead make an argument about bail. (This series of exchanges is actually about preparing a record for Nordean’s detention challenge at the DC Circuit.)

Nordean points to this declaration from Daniel Aurellano stating that Ethan Nordean is no longer the President of Proud Boys Seattle Chapter, because he, Aurellano, was elected to replace him.

Nordean is also developing evidence showing that the premises for revoking his release order are factually mistaken. For example, although Nordean’s leadership role in the Proud Boys was cited to detain him, he is no longer a leader, in any sense of the word, in that organization, nor does he have any decision-making authority, as sworn statements indicate and will further indicate.

Aurellano says he was elected to replace Nordean “in February 2021,” but doesn’t say when that happened. Nor does Aurellano say when, in February 2021, the Proud Boys Northwest chose to dissociate from the national Proud Boys. He does, however, say Nordean stopped participating in Proud Boys Internet communications after his arrest in February 2021. Which suggests Aurellano got elected to replace Nordean at a meeting that Nordean called for while still the head of the chapter, on January 20, and at which Nordean planned to discuss “bugout bags” and “bulk armor deals” because they were “on the brink of absolute war.”

Nordean makes much of the fact that subsequent to this January 20 statement, and so also subsequent to Joe Biggs’ arrest on January 20, he made a series of comments forswearing rallies.

But that means one of the last things Nordean did while still in charge was call for and prepare for war — not to mention to call for bugout bags for which the old passport of one’s ex-wife, such as the one the government alleges (though the allegation is contested) was out on Nordean’s bedroom dresser when the FBI came to search his house — would be acutely valuable. And then everyone started getting arrested and the Proud Boys took steps to cover their tracks.

Amid this whole bail dispute pretending to be a misconduct dispute, however, Nordean has helped to lay out both that this is a remarkably organized militia, and it is adopting a tactic other terrorist groups have in the past: to splinter and rebrand as a way to attempt to evade prosecution, as if the Proud Boys Northwest had adopted the name Y’All Qaeda Northwest like African branches of the Islamic State did.

Thus far, filings in the Proud Boys Leadership conspiracy case have shown that:

  • The Proud Boys started preparing a compartmented cell structure in anticipation of the January 6 insurrection on December 29
  • Enrique Tarrio anticipated he would be arrested when he came to DC on January 4 and so provided for a succession plan
  • Charles Donohoe allegedly attempted to destroy evidence of past planning in the wake of Tarrio’s arrest, specifically in an attempt to avoid gang charges (whether he succeeded or not remains contested)
  • In the aftermath of January 6, the Proud Boys (and Nordean specifically) took steps to prepare for war
  • In Seattle, the Proud Boys responded to Nordean’s arrest by ensuring the continuity of the organization

Again, none of this is exculpatory for Nordean. It shows the Proud Boys operating like sophisticated terrorist groups have operated in the past, in an attempt to retain viability while under government scrutiny.

And along the way, Nordean and the government have been drawing an utterly convincing argument — with two attempts to access passports and an explicit call for bugout bags — that he would flee the country the first chance he got.

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