Why My Post Predicting the Mueller End Game Won’t Predict Anything

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The DOJ beat reporters are on tenterhooks this week, having been led to believe that The Mueller Report will be delivered today, tomorrow, or soon thereafter. That has intensified the already fever pitch around what will happen next.

Given that there is great confidence the conclusion is imminent, here’s why such speculation is misplaced.

We have no idea, and there are many possible options.

Those options include:

  1. A request for a conspiracy indictment naming Trump as a defendant, which would be denied, therefore triggering a report of that denial to the Judiciary Committees (but which would also presumably result in an indictment of others).
  2. An overarching conspiracy indictment including Don Jr and other players, with Trump named as an unindicted co-conspirator.
  3. A Road Map akin to the Watergate one, sharing grand jury material with the House Judiciary Committee; this would be a strong possibility in case of option 2.
  4. No further indictment, but a report showing a great deal of evidence a conspiracy took place, with The Report explaining why (including Presidential prerogative on foreign policy) it can’t be indicted, with or without an accompanying HJC Road Map.
  5. Some kind of report submitted as a counterintelligence report, in addition to indictments (a possibility some have floated but which I believe to utterly misunderstand the nature of Mueller’s task).
  6. The Report showing much ado about nothing.

I happen to think there’s a great deal of evidence a quid pro quo conspiracy took place, but certainly entertain the possibility that Mueller thinks he wouldn’t have an 85% chance of conviction, which DOJ would likely require before he indicted it. But even if I’m right, it still leaves open most of these options.

And the aftermath of every single one of these options is contingent. Meaning it is way premature to get into debates about what William Barr will include in his report and whether Trump can quash the report by invoking privilege until we know whether the The Report is what the regulations require them to be — with the really important details in either an indictment and/or Road Map, or in fact something more comprehensive.

Which is why I think, given the promise that Mueller’s end game is imminent, doing anything but admitting that we don’t know is a waste of air.

As I disclosed last July, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I’m going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here on out. I will include the disclosure whether or not the stuff I shared with the FBI pertains to the subject of the post. 

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The Predictable Result of Asymmetry in Terrorism Policing: Andrew McCabe’s Demise

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I recently finished Andrew McCabe’s book.

It is very effective at what I imagine its intended purposes are. It provides some fascinating new details about the genesis of the Russian investigation. It offers a great introduction in how the FBI (at its best) can work. It gives a self-congratulatory version of McCabe’s career, including key events like the Najibullah Zazi and Boston Marathon investigations; even if McCabe had wanted to tell fully honest stories about those investigations, I’m sure the less flattering details wouldn’t have passed FBI’s publication review.

The book also says satisfyingly mean things about Trump, Jeff Sessions, and (more obliquely) Rod Rosenstein. (I think McCabe’s book release significantly explains the rumors reported as fact that Mueller’s report was imminent some weeks ago; that claim served, in part, to once again eliminate any pressure to fire Rosenstein immediately).

The latter of two, of course, implemented McCabe’s firing. McCabe’s excuse for lying to the Inspector General, which led to his firing, is one of the least convincing parts of the book (he admits he can’t say more because of his continued legal jeopardy, but he does raise it). That’s true, in part, because McCabe only deals with one of the conversations in question; there were a number of them. But he also excuses his chief lie because he was frazzled about learning of the Strzok-Page texts in the same conversation. I can understand that, but elsewhere, one of his digs against Rosenstein is how overwhelmed the Deputy Attorney General was in the wake of the Jim Comey firing. McCabe suggests, in that context, that because he had dealt with big stressful issues (like the Boston Marathon attack), he wasn’t similarly rattled. Which is why I find it disingenuous to use being frazzled for not being fully truthful to the Inspector General. Plus, virtually all defendants prosecuted for lying to the FBI (including George Papadopoulos, but not Mike Flynn, who is a very accomplished liar) are frazzled when they tell those lies; it’s a tactic the FBI uses to catch people unguarded.

I was most frustrated, however, by something that has become increasingly important in recent days: McCabe’s utter lack of awareness (at least in the book) of the import of the asymmetric focus on Islamic terrorism across his career.

After moving to counterterrorism in the mid-00s from working organized crime, McCabe became an utterly central player in the war on Islamic terror, founding the High Value Interrogation Group, and then leading the CT and National Security Divisions of FBI. He was a key player in investigations — like Zazi — that the FBI is rightly proud of.

But McCabe normalizes the choices made after 9/11 to pursue Islamic terrorism as a distinct danger. He (of course) whitewashes Jim Comey’s decision to retain the Internet dragnet in 2004 under an indefensible use of the PATRIOT Act. He argues that it is politically impossible to survive a failure to prevent an attack even though he managed the Boston Marathon attack, where FBI and NSA had some warning of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s danger, but nevertheless got very little criticism as a result. Most remarkably, McCabe talks about Kevin Harpham’s attempted attack on the Martin Luther King Day parade, mentions as an aside that this was (obviously) not an Islamic terror attack, but offers no reflection on how Harpham’s attack undermines much of what he presents, unquestioningly, as a greater risk from Islamic terrorism (here’s a story on how Barack Obama did not get briefed on Harpham, a decision that may well have involved McCabe).

Granted, McCabe’s blind spots (at least in the book) are typical of people who have spent their lives reinforcing this asymmetry. You see it, too, in this utterly nonsensical paragraph in a largely ridiculous piece from Joshua Geltzer, Mary McCord, and Nick Rasmussen — all likewise accomplished players in the War on Just One Kind of Terrorism — at Lawfare.

The phrases “international terrorism” (think of the Islamic State and al-Qaeda) and “domestic terrorism” (think of the Oklahoma City bombing and the October 2018 shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue) have often been a source of confusion to those not steeped in counterterrorism. The Islamic State has its roots internationally, but what makes it such a threat to Americans is, in part, its ability to influence domestic actors like Omar Mateen to kill Americans in domestic locations like Orlando, Florida. The group may be “international,” but its attackers and attacks can be, and have been, domestic—to tragic effect.

This paragraph, in a piece that admits the focus of their career has been wrong (and neglects to mention that Christchurch terrorist Brenton Tarrant named Donald Trump, along with Anders Behring Breivik, as an inspiration), suggests that the reason international terrorism is “such a threat” is because it can inspire domestic actors. The logic inherent to that paragraph is that terrorism carried out by “domestic terrorists,” inspired by a domestic white supremacist ideology is any less dangerous than terrorism carried out by people inspired by what is treated as an international ideology. International terrorism is worse than domestic terrorism, these experts argue, because it can lead to domestic terrorism.

Dead is dead. And given the significant number of white supremacists who have had experience in the military and greater tolerance for their training, white supremacists have the potential of being far more effective, as individuals, at killing than US-based Islamic terrorists.

One thing the Lawfare piece studiously avoids acknowledging is that what it calls “domestic” terrorism (the racist ideology of which they never describe) is an ideology significantly exported by the United States. Even in a piece that rightly calls for an equal focus on both white supremacist terrorism and Islamic terrorism, it ducks labeling the ideology in question. And while this WaPo piece does label the ideology in question, it bizarrely calls an attack in New Zealand carried out by an Australian a “domestic” attack.

The WaPo piece describes one problem with the asymmetric treatment of different kinds of terrorism: that governments don’t share intelligence about international violent racist ideology. In fact, in the US, such intelligence gets treated differently, if the FBI’s failure to track the networks around Frazier Glenn Miller and Eric Rudolph is any indication.

Ironically, that’s one reason that McCabe’s failure to track white supremacist terrorism in the same way he tracked Islamic terrorism led to his demise. While the network behind the election year operation that helped elect Trump involves a lot of Russians, it also clearly involves a lot of white supremacists like Nigel Farage (and David Duke), a network Russia exploited. Additionally, as I have argued (and at least one study backs) white supremacist networks provided the real fire behind the attacks on Clinton; Russia’s information operations had the effect of throwing more fuel on a blazing bonfire.

The other problem with the US government’s asymmetric treatment of terrorism is legitimacy. Labeling Islamic terrorism “foreign” and pursuing material support cases based partly on speech has had the effect of criminalizing some speech that criticizes US foreign policy, even well-deserved criticism about the effect of US killing of Muslims. By contrast, white supremacist speech, even that which  more aggressively advocates violence is treated as speech. Yes, deplatforming has begun to change that.

But we’re still not at a place where those who incite white supremacist violence are held accountable for it.

That’s how it was possible for a man to kick off a campaign by inventing lies about Mexican immigrants and how the entire Republican party, up to and including the new supposedly sane Attorney General, are permitted to pursue counterproductive policies solely so they can appear to demonize brown people.

Irrespective of the merit or not in the finding that Andrew McCabe lacked candor with the IG, he got treated the way he did because a man whose entire political career is based off feeding white resentment needed to appear to be a victim of Andrew McCabe. That act, by itself, was not about Trump’s white supremacist ideology. But it is a structure of power that is white supremacist (exacerbated by Trump’s narcissism).

We have a President Trump in significant part because this country has tolerated and even rewarded white supremacist ideology, institutionally ignoring that it poses as much of a risk as violent Islamic ideology. It would be really useful if people like Andrew McCabe spend some time publicly accounting for that fact.

The white supremacy that brought us the Trump presidency would not be possible if we had treated violent white supremacist terror as terror for the last twenty years.

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The More Interesting Michael Cohen Redactions: On Viktor Vekselberg

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The materials backing the raid on Michael Cohen released yesterday suggest — give the large swaths of redacted pagers — that the investigation into hush payments continues. But the filings also suggest something about Mueller’s investigation.

One of the earliest warrants, dated February 28, 2018, obtained access to a USB drive holding the contents of Cohen’s Gmail account from June 1, 2015 to November 14, 2017 and a business account handed to SDNY from Mueller. The Agent’s affidavit (starting at PDF 36), describes how Mueller got access to those accounts in support of false bank entries, money laundering, and two foreign agent charges, then substantiates the need to access the same information in support of conspiracy, false bank entires, and bank fraud charges.

SDNY does not cite FARA or 951 among the crimes it was investigating.

Nevertheless, the affiant describes how the government came to be interested in Cohen’s Essential Consulting account, an account at First Republic that he hid when negotiating how to deal with his taxi medallion business. The account must have come to Mueller’s attention because of the FARA/Foreign Agent interest.

Cohen started the account on October 26, 2016. We now know he did so to pay off Stormy Daniels, but even on February 28, 2018, SDNY did not include that among the crimes it was investigating. Cohen told the bank Essential Consulting was a real estate consulting company for which his clients would be domestic individuals, which was one of the false statements he made to his bank. The affidavit notes:

[T]here is probable cause to believe that Cohen’s statements and the intended purpose of the account and source of funds for the account were false. Specifically, the account was not intended to receive–and does not appear to have received–money in connection with real estate consulting work; in addition, the account has received substantial payments from foreign sources.

A redaction about a third of a page long follows.

Then, the affidavit describes how a forensic accountant determined the account was used for other purposes, describing five payments. Those payment amounts and sources were:

  • $583,332,98 from Columbus Nova LLC, which is an investment firm controlled by Viktor Vekselberg’s Renova Group
  • $999,800 from Novartis Instruments
  • $550,000 from AT&T
  • $600,000 from Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI)
  • $150,000 from Kazkommertsbank, a Kazakhstani bank, which was listed on accounts as BTA Bank

Following the description of Columbus Nova, there is a redaction.

The affidavit then describes that emails and interviews with people at AT&T and Novartis show that the payments were associated with political consulting and notes that they may violate FARA, which this affidavit was not intended to investigate.

the aforementioned payments to the Essential Consultants Account and MDC&A ostensibly were for political consulting work, including consulting for international clients on issues pending before the Trump Administration.10

10 Based on my review of public sources, I have learned that Cohen is not registered as a lobbyist or a person acting as an agent of foreign principals, as may have been required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

It then describes emails supporting that claim for just four of the five companies:

  • KAI
  • BTA
  • AT&T
  • Novartis

In other words, even in the first affidavit, the SDNY Agent includes Columbus Nova, but then drops that out when he substantiates that the account was used for something other than Cohen had told the bank. One way or another, any FARA exposure related to KAI and BTA were still in DC. But Columbus Nova was treated differently than the other foreign entities.

And the discussion of why remains redacted. That may be because nothing ever came of it — though almost $600K is hard to explain away. Remarkably, Republicans remained silent about this payment during Cohen’s congressional testimony, even while they made a big deal about his payments from KAI and BTA.

The 18 pages of still-redacted discussion of the hush payments is interesting, because it suggests SDNY continues to pursue that prosecution, a prosecution that features a recording of Donald Trump admitting criminal intent.

But the small redactions around the Columbus Nova payment are far more interesting.

As I disclosed last July, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I’m going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here on out. I will include the disclosure whether or not the stuff I shared with the FBI pertains to the subject of the post. 

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The (Unsealed Parts of the) Michael Cohen Investigation

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As noted, the search warrants leading up to and used in the April 9 search of Michael Cohen have been partly unsealed. In this post, I want to lay out what we know about how the investigation into Cohen developed.

On July 18, 2017, Mueller’s team got a warrant on Michael Cohen’s Google activity from January 1, 2016 to July 18, 2017, for which they would already have obtained the call records showing whom he was emailing when using it and a preservation order. At the time, they were investigating:

  • False statements to a financial institution
  • Money laundering
  • Acting as an unregistered foreign agent
  • FARA violations

On August 8, 2017, Mueller’s team got a warrant for Cohen’s iCloud account.

On November 13, 2017, they got a warrant for activity associated with a business account, MCDPC, which was hosted by 1&1, as well as for Cohen’s Gmail account going back to June 1, 2015. On November 7, 2017 and January 4, 2018, Mueller got pen registers to obtain records of everyone Cohen was talking to in real time.

While sorting through that evidence, they appear to have discovered more of the bank fraud associated with his taxi medallions.

On February 2, 2018, Mueller provided SDNY a subset of content from Cohen’s iCloud. On February 8, 2018, Mueller referred some of the crimes they were investigating to SDNY, including the taxi medallion payments and other money laundering, and handed them a USB drive with the stuff obtained in those earlier email warrants (but not yet the iCloud one). That month, SDNY got some of the emails turned over as hard copies from third parties using a subpoena, and accessed the toll records for the emails. Before accessing the content, on February 16, 2018, SDNY got a d-order for header information for the two accounts handed over by Mueller. They also interviewed and acquired emails from a number of employees at Sterling, from whom Cohen was getting a loan. Then, on February 28, 2018, SDNY submitted affidavits to access the content handed over from Mueller and to obtain everything in the accounts from the interim period (that is, since November 14), as well as another Gmail and AOL account associated with the taxi medallion related bank fraud.

This suggests that while they had found his Essential Consultants bank account and recognized that he was using it for things he hadn’t informed the bank about, they were not yet focusing on hush payments as an illegal campaign donation.

On March 7, 2018, Mueller handed over the iCloud material to SDNY.

In early April, SDNY started a slew of legal process leading up to its search of Cohen’s properties.

According to the letter associated with this release, they got a warrant for out of jurisdiction materials on April 5 (reportedly for stuff held overseas). I’m still trying to find that in the attachments.

Then, on April 7, 2018, it obtained a warrant to search the existing collection for material related to illegal campaign finance.

Also on April 7, SDNY got a warrant for prospective and historical location data associated with Cohen’s AT&T phones for the periods from October 1, 2016 to November 8, 2016 and January 1, 2018 to present. The campaign finance crimes were the only ones specified in this warrant.

On April 8, SDNY got a warrant for Cohen’s condo, office, safe deposit box, and hotel, as well as two iPhones. This covered all the crimes to which Cohen pled guilty in SDNY, as well as his sleazy influence peddling with BTA, KAI, AT&T, and Novartis, but not Columbus Nova (I’ll return to this). They also got a warrant to use a Stingray to figure out which room he was in at the hotel (like the location searches on his phone, this was just for his campaign finance crimes). Then, on April 9, they went back and got another warrant for the specific room at Loews hotel.

In the materials from SDNY, some names are redacted. The biggest redactions (suggesting ongoing investigation) pertain to the campaign finance crimes, meaning Trump and Trump Organization are in trouble. There may also be redacted material associated with Cohen’s sleazy influence peddling.

As I disclosed last July, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I’m going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here on out. I will include the disclosure whether or not the stuff I shared with the FBI pertains to the subject of the post. 

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By July 18, 2017, Mueller Had Probable Cause Michael Cohen Was an Unregistered Foreign Agent

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SDNY has released the warrants behind his April 9 raid, which are here. They actually include a series of warrants, showing how first Mueller got warrants, then handed parts of the investigation over to SDNY, which then obtained its own warrants tied to the crimes they were investigating. These two affidavits (one, two) are the ones showing that hand-off — basically SDNY asking, on February 28, 2018, for access to email accounts and storage devices that Mueller had already accessed. The second one describes Mueller’s first warrant on Cohen to be dated July 18, 2017.

The same affidavit describes the crimes listed in the earlier warrants. Among those crimes — unsurprisingly — was conspiracy to defraud the US. More surprising, however, are 18 USC §§ 951 (acting as an unregistered foreign agent) and 611 (FARA).

The latter may be tied to Cohen’s work with a Kazakhstan bank (BTA Bank) and Korean airspace company (Korea Aerospace Industries) — which were basically his efforts to monetize his ties to Trump after the election. These were the deals that Republicans made such a big deal about when Cohen testified to the Oversight Committee.

In addition, Cohen was working for Columbus Nova, which was ultimately controlled by Victor Vekselberg. That would be of immediate concern for the question of Russian influence.

The 951 charge, however, is more interesting. It could relate to the same thing (basically arguing that because he was working for instrumentalities of foreign countries, he was their agent — basically a “soft” spy). Or it could relate to his efforts to negotiate a Trump Tower deal for Trump. Note that the November 13 warrant basically extended the first warrant back to June 1, 2015, which would we know would cover the Trump Tower deal (and precede any tie to BTA or KAI).

951 is a charge I always suspected might be used with Paul Manafort (it still might), or even Jared Kushner. But it appears that Mueller’s worries about Trump’s closest associates acting as spies wasn’t limited to Manafort and Flynn, but extended, too, to his personal lawyer. And Mueller already had evidence of that fact by July 18, 2017.

As I disclosed last July, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I’m going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here on out. I will include the disclosure whether or not the stuff I shared with the FBI pertains to the subject of the post. 

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“I Can’t Be Seen Taking Credit for HIS Victory:” The Purpose of Roger Stone’s Paperback

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Towards the end of the day on January 14, amid a three day stint writing the 3,000 word introduction that would justify reissuing his 2016 book, Making of the President, Roger Stone rejected the title suggested by his publisher, Skyhorse Publishing, “The Myth of Collusion; The Inside Story of How I REALLY Helped Trump Win.” He suggests instead, “The Myth of Collusion; The Inside Story of How Donald Trump really won,” noting, “I really can’t be seen taking credit for HIS victory.”

That’s the title the book now bears.

That exchange — and a number of other ones revealed in the correspondence Stone’s lawyers submitted in an attempt to persuade Judge Amy Berman Jackson they weren’t just trying to get publicity for the book when asking for a “clarification” regarding the book on March 1 — raises interesting questions about why he reissued the book how and when he did.

On one level, the explanation is easy: his publishers expected the original book, Making of the President, would be a big seller. They made 100,000 copies when it first came out in January 2017. The book flopped.

So in November 2018, Stone’s rising notoriety — and more importantly, the increased polarization surrounding the Mueller probe — provided an opportunity to recoup some of the losses on the hardcover. At that level, the reissue needs no explanation other than the obvious formula publishers use to make money: Exacerbate and profit off of controversy.

But that doesn’t explain why the project started on November 15, 2018 rather than any time in the year and a half earlier, when Skyhorse would have all those same goals. Nor does it explain how Stone went from expressing no interest in the project to rushing it through quickly in mid-December.

Given the timeline of events and a few stray comments in the correspondence (as I laid out here, Stone has probably withheld at least eight exchanges with his publisher from the court submission, after letting the publisher review what correspondence was there), I think he’s got several other purposes.

As noted below, Skyhorse first approached Stone on November 15, in the wake of the Democrats winning the House in midterm elections. On January 14, Skyhorse president Tony Lyons suggests that “We can send copies [of the book] to all U.S. Senators.” Those two details suggest that Skyhorse intended the book, on top of the obvious financial incentives, to capitalize on the general right wing campaign to discredit the Mueller investigation in an effort to stave off impeachment.

The delay between the time — on November 15 — when Skyhorse first pitched the reissue and the time — mid-December — when Stone and his lawyer, Grant Smith, start engaging in earnest suggests two other factors may be in play.

First, while Stone had been saying that Mueller would indict him for months, the aftermath of the Corsi “cooperation” starting on November 26 made Stone’s jeopardy more immediate. Yes, Corsi’s attempt to make his own cooperation useless may have delayed Stone’s indictment, but the details Corsi described to be in his own forthcoming Mueller-smearing book made it clear the Special Counsel believed Stone had successfully affected the timing of the release of the John Podesta emails on October 7, 2016, in a successful attempt to dampen some of the impact of the Access Hollywood video.

That’s why the specific content of the new introduction Stone finished on January 13, 2019, which he notes is more substantive than Skyhorse initially planned, is of interest. In the introduction, Stone:

  • Describes learning he was under investigation on January 20, 2017
  • Discounts his May 2016 interactions with “Henry Greenberg” — a Russian offering dirt on Hillary Clinton — by claiming Greenberg was acting as an FBI informant
  • Attributes any foreknowledge of WikiLeaks’ release to Randy Credico and not Jerome Corsi or their yet unidentified far more damning source while disclaiming any real foreknowledge
  • Gives Manafort pollster, Tony Fabrizio, credit for the decision to focus on Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania in the last days of the election
  • Mentions Alex Jones’ foreboding mood on election night
  • Accuses Trump of selling out to mainstream party interests, choosing Reince Preebus over Steve Bannon
  • Blames Jeff Sessions for recusing from the Russian investigation
  • Harps on the Steele dossier
  • Dubiously claims that in January 2017, he didn’t know how central Mueller’s focus would be on him
  • Suggests any charges would be illegitimate
  • Complains about his financial plight
  • Falsely claims the many stories about his associates’ testimony comes from Mueller and not he himself
  • Repeats his Randy Credico cover story and discounts his lies to HPSCI by claiming his lawyers only found his texts to Credico after the fact
  • Suggests Hillary had ties to Russia
  • Notes that Trump became a subject of the investigation after he fired Jim Comey

Some of this is fairly breathtaking, given that Corsi’s theatrics had long ago proven Stone’s Credico cover story to be false. But of course, by the time Stone wrote this, he knew that he was at risk at a minimum for false statements charges, so he was stuck repeating the long-discredited HPSCI cover story. Which may be why his attorney, Grant Smith, provided some edits of the introduction on January 15 (something Smith should have but did not disclose in the filing to Amy Berman Jackson). Stone will now be stuck with this cover story, just as Corsi is stuck with the equally implausible cover story in his book.

But to some degree, that’s clearly one purpose this introduction serves: to “retake the narrative” (as Skyhorse’s editor Mike Campbell described it when pitching Stone on the project) and try to sell at least frothy right wingers on his cover story.

Another is to make money. Stone’s first response — over three weeks after Skyhorse first floated the paperback project — was to complain that because the publisher printed way too many copies of the hard cover, which was done as part of a joint venture, he made no money off the deal (a claim that Skyhorse corrects, slightly, in the follow-up). That’s why Skyhorse ended the joint venture: to mitigate the risk to Stone and by doing so to convince him to participate in the project.

More interesting — given the January stories suggesting that Jerome Corsi may have gotten a six month severance deal as part of a bid to have him sustain Stone’s cover story — is that Stone seemingly reversed his opinion about doing the project between December 9, when he said he was uninterested, and Monday, December 17, when Smith said they were ready to move forward, because Stone urgently needed money by the next day to pay off his collaborators in the book project.

From the public record, I’m actually fairly confused about who these collaborators are. A number of them would be the witnesses interviewed by Mueller’s grand jury.

But the book itself — because it retains the Acknowledgements section from the original — thanks Corsi third, after only Richard Nixon and Juanita Broaddrick, and lauds what Stone calls Corsi’s “investigative report[ing].”

Remember: A key product of that “investigative reporting” was the report Stone asked Corsi to write on August 30, 2016, to invent a cover for why he was discussing John Podesta and Joule Holdings in mid-August 2016. Things had already gone to hell by the time this book was released in e-book form on February 18 and they (appear to) have continued to disintegrate since then.

But I am very interested in who Stone paid off with that urgently wired payment in December. And because it happened before Stone was raided on January 25, Mueller likely knows the answer, if he didn’t already.

Which brings me to the last likely purpose of this paperback, one that goes to the core of whether Stone was trying to publicize its release with his little stunt about “clarifying” whether or not it would violate his gag.

Stone’s decision to do this paperback came not long after Stone repeated a formula other Trump associates bidding for a pardon have engaged in: promise publicly you won’t testify against Trump, then deny you’re asking for a pardon.

[T]here’s no circumstance under which I would testify against the president because I’d have to bear false witness against him. I’d have to make things up and I’m not going to do that. I’ve had no discussion regarding a pardon.

The next day, Trump let Stone and all the world know he had gotten the message.

Every person who is bidding for a Trump pardon is doing whatever they can — from reinforcing the conspiracy theories about the genesis of the investigation, to declaring ABJ found “no collusion” minutes after she warned lawyers not to make such claims, to sustaining embarrassingly thin cover stories explaining away evidence of a conspiracy — to hew to Trump’s strategy for beating this rap. Indeed, the Michael Cohen lawsuit claiming Trump stopped paying promised legal fees as soon as Cohen decided to cooperate with prosecutors suggests Trump’s co-conspirators may be doing this not just in hopes of a pardon, but also to get their legal fees reimbursed.

Which brings me back to Stone’s concern that the title, “The Myth of Collusion; The Inside Story of How I REALLY Helped Trump Win” would suggest he was taking credit for Trump’s win.

There are two reasons why such an appearance might undermine Stone’s goals for the book.

Stone has loudly claimed credit for his role in Trump’s victory, particularly as compared Steve Bannon. And evidence that will come out in his eventual trial will show him claiming credit, specifically, for successfully working with WikiLeaks.

Of course, Trump is a narcissist. And the surest way to piss him off — and in doing so, ruin any chance for a pardon — is to do anything to suggest he doesn’t get full credit for all the success he has in life.

But there may, in fact, be another reason Stone was quick to object to getting credit for all the things he did to get Trump elected.

At least according to Jerome Corsi, Stone, on indirect orders from Trump, took the lead in trying to learn about and with that knowledge, optimize the release of the materials Russia stole from Hillary’s campaign. If non-public details about what Stone did — or even the public claim that Stone managed the timing of the Podesta email release — had a bigger impact on the election outcome than we currently know, then Stone would have all the more reason to want to downplay his contribution.

That is, if Stone’s efforts to maximize the value of Russia’s active measures campaign really were key, then the last thing he’d want to do is release a paperback crowing about that.

Of course, because of the boneheaded efforts of his lawyers, his concerns about doing so are now public.

Update: I’ve corrected my characterization of Skyhorse. They’re not ideological. But they do feed off of controversy.

October 30, 2018: ABC reports that Stone hired Bruce Rogow in September, a First Amendment specialist who has done extensive work with Trump Organization.

October 31, 2018: Date Corsi stops making any pretense of cooperating with Mueller inquiry.

November 6, 2018: Democrats win the House in mid-term elections.

November 7, 2018: Trump fires Jeff Sessions, appoints Big Dick Toilet Salesman Matt Whitaker Acting Attorney General.

November 8, 2018: Prosecutors first tell Manafort they’ll find he breached plea deal.

November 12, 2018: Date Corsi starts blowing up his “cooperation” publicly.

November 14, 2018: Date of plea deal offered by Mueller to Corsi.

November 15, 2018: Mike Campbell pitches Stone on a paperback — in part to ‘retake the narrative — including a draft of the new introduction.

November 18, 2018: Jerome Corsi writes up his cover story for how he figured out John Podesta’s emails would be released.

November 20, 2018: After much equivocation, Trump finally turns in his written responses to Mueller.

November 21, 2018: Dean Notte reaches out to Grant Smith suggesting a resolution to all the back and forth on their joint venture, settling the past relationship in conjunction with a new paperback.

November 22, 2018: Corsi writes up collapse of his claim to cooperate.

November 23, 2018: Date Mueller offers Corsi a plea deal.

November 26, 2018: Jerome Corsi publicly rejects plea deal from Mueller and leaks the draft statement of offense providing new details on his communications with Stone.

November 26, 2019: Mueller deems Paul Manafort to be in breach of his plea agreement because he lied to the FBI and prosecutors while ostensibly cooperating.

November 27, 2018: Initial reports on contents of Jerome Corsi’s book, including allegations that Stone delayed release of John Podesta emails to blunt the impact of the Access Hollywood video.

November 29, 2018: Michael Cohen pleads guilty in Mueller related cooperation deal.

December 2, 2018: Roger Stone claims in ABC appearance he’d never testify against Trump and that he has not asked for a pardon.

December 3, 2018: Trump hails Stone’s promise not to cooperate against him.

December 9, 2018: Stone replies to Campbell saying that because he never made money on Making of the President, he has no interest.

December 13, 2018: Tony Lyons and Grant Smith negotiate a deal under which Sky Horse would buy Stone out of his hardcover deal with short turnaround, then expect to finalize a paperbook by mid January. This is how Stone gets removed from the joint venture — in an effort to minimize his risk.

December 14, 2018: Mueller formally requests Roger Stone’s transcript from House Intelligence Committee.

December 17, 2018: Smith, saying he and Stone have discussed the deal at length, sends back a proposal for how it could work. This is where he asks for payment the next day, to pay someone off for work on the original book.

For some reason, in the ensuing back-and-forth, Smith presses to delay decision on the title until January.

December 19, 2018: It takes two days to get an agreement signed and Stone’s payment wired.

December 20, 2018: HPSCI votes to release Stone’s transcript to Mueller.

January 8, 2019: Paul Manafort’s redaction fail alerts co-conspirators that Mueller knows he shared polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik.

January 13, 2019: Stone drafts new introduction, which he notes is “substantially longer and better than the draft sent to me by your folks.” He asks about the title again.

January 14, 2019: Stone sends the draft to Smith and Lyons. It is 3386 words long. Lyons responds, suggesting as title, “The Myth of Collusion; The Inside Story of How I REALLY Helped Trump Win.” Lyons also notes Stone can share the book with Senators.

Stone responds suggesting that he could live with, “The Myth of Collusion; The Inside Story of How Donald Trump really won,” noting, “I really can’t be seen taking credit for HIS victory.”

By end of day, Skyhorse’s Mike Campbell responds with his edits.

January 15, 2019: The next morning, Smith responds with his edits, reminding that Stone has to give final approval. Stone does so before lunch. Skyhorse moves to working on the cover. Late that day Campbell sends book jacket copy emphasizing Mueller’s “witch hunt.”

January 15, 2019: Mueller filing makes clear that not all Manafort’s interviews and grand jury appearances involve him lying.

January 16, 2019: Tony Lyons starts planning for the promotional tour, asking Stone whether he can be in NYC for a March 5 release. They email back and forth about which cover to use.

January 18, 2019: By end of day Friday, Skyhorse is wiring Stone payment for the new introduction.

January 24, 2019: Mike Campbell tells Stone the paperback “is printing soon,” and asks what address he should send Stone’s copies to. WaPo reports that Mueller is investigating whether Jerome Corsi’s “severance payments” from InfoWars were an effort to have him sustain Stone’s story. It also reports that Corsi’s stepson, Andrew Stettner, appeared before the grand jury. That same day, the grand jury indicts Stone, but not Corsi.

January 25, 2019, 6:00 AM: Arrest of Roger Stone.

January 25, 2019, 2:10 PM: Starting the afternoon after Stone got arrested, Tony Lyons starts working with Smith on some limited post-arrest publicity. He says Hannity is interested in having Stone Monday, January 28 “Will he do it?” Smith replies hours later on the same day his client was arrested warning, “I need to talk to them before.”

January 26, 2019: Lyons asks Smith if Stone is willing to do a CNN appearance Monday morning, teasing, “I guess he could put them on the spot about how they really go to this house with the FBI.”

January 27, 2019: Smith responds to the CNN invitation, “Roger is fully booked.” When Lyons asks for a list of those “fully booked” bookings, Smith only refers to the Hannity appearance on the 28th, and notes that Kristin Davis is handling the schedule. Davis notes he’s also doing Laura Ingraham.

January 28, 2019: The plans for Hannity continue on Monday, with Smith again asking for the Hannity folks to speak to him “to confirm the details.” In that thread, Davis and Lyons talk about how amazing it would be to support “another New York Times Bestseller” for Stone.

February 15, 2019: After two weeks — during which Stone was indicted, made several appearances before judges, and had his attorneys submit their first argument against a gag — Stone responded to Campbell’s January 24 email providing his address, and then asking “what is the plan for launch?” (a topic which had already been broached with Lyons on January 16). Campbell describes the 300-400 media outlets who got a review copy, then describes the 8 journalists who expressed an interest in it. Stone warns Campbell, “recognize that the judge may issue a gag order any day now” and admits “I also have to be wary of media outlets I want to interview me but don’t really want to talk about the book.”

February 18, 2019: Release of ebook version of Stone’s reissued book.

February 21, 2019: After Stone released an Instagram post implicitly threatening her, Amy Berman Jackson imposes a gag on Stone based on public safety considerations.

March 1, 2019: Ostensible official release date of paperback of Stone’s book. Stone submits “clarification” claiming that the book publication does not violate the gag.

March 12, 2019: Official release date of Corsi hard cover, which Mueller may need for indictment.

As I disclosed last July, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I’m going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here on out. I will include the disclosure whether or not the stuff I shared with the FBI pertains to the subject of the post. 

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The “at Least One Other District” Mike Flynn’s Cooperation Live In

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The other day, I described the graymail that former Mike Flynn sleazy influence peddling partner, Bijan Kian, was engaged in. In an effort to identify all the lies Flynn told to discredit him on the stand, his defense team was asking for all his 302s (FBI interview reports). Yesterday, the judge gave Kian a partial victory, ordering him to come up with a specific list of things they still want.

The response is still graymail — they want documents that will embarrass Trump and disclose some of the most sensitive parts of Mueller’s investigation — but not as excessive as it could have been. Among the things they’re asking for are:

  • Details of whether he told DIA about a 2015 meeting with Sergey Kislyak and payments from RT, Kaspersky, and Volga-Dnepr Airlines.
  • A description of the reasons Flynn got fired from DIA in 2014.
  • Details of Flynn’s contact with Kirill Dmitriev and other Russian officials following the election, and whether those were reported to DIA.

Now, this graymail attempt seems to be more focused on revealing that Flynn is nowhere near as honorable as the title he’d use at trial, General, would otherwise indicate. There’s a reason Turkey picked Flynn to run their anti-Gulen campaign, and it’s that he’s willing to trade his values to make a buck, and these documents will help demonstrate that. The government may still want to delay handing these documents over.

That said, details disclosed in the hearing (CNN, Politico, CNS) suggest there may be parts of Flynn’s cooperation beyond those embarrassing details relating to the Mueller probe, parts that wouldn’t be included in Kian’s discovery request.

First, the government revealed that there are 19 Flynn 302s, of which 15 are from Mueller’s office.

In all, the Virginia prosecutors say they have 19 memos from Flynn’s cooperation –15 from the special counsel’s office and four from the Turkish lobbying investigation in Virginia.

“We do not want those 302s leaving the office” of the Virginia US attorney inside the courthouse, Gillis said

More interestingly, AUSA James Gillis at first said those other 302s pertain to investigations in more than one other US Attorney district, only to correct himself and say they pertained to at least one other district.

The prosecutor in court Friday stopped himself after he acknowledged other US attorneys may be looking at what Flynn shared with the special counsel.

“At least one other district,” he said, correcting himself after first saying “districts,” before asking to withdraw his statement in court representing the number of ongoing investigations.

Some thoughts on what this new information might mean.

The government is pretty sensitive about the 302s pertaining even to this case, asking that Kian’s attorneys review them at the EDVA US Attorney’s office, not share them with other counsel, not copy them, and not quote from those not identified as Jencks material at trial without permission.

This may, in part, be an effort to keep the documents out of the hands of Ekim Alptekin, the other defendant charged with Kian, who is back in Turkey.

As of Thursday, Kian’s team had seen just “several” and therefore not all four of the Flynn 302s pertaining to this investigation.

To be perfectly clear, the government has already permitted the defense to review a number of 302s, including several 302s of General Flynn. We have offered upon reasonable conditions to give the defense an opportunity to review all of the General’s 302s that were generated during its investigation of the crimes charged in the indictment,1 as well as the 302s for all but one2 of the other witnesses interviewed in connection with the present charges.

1. The conditions the government requested are listed in the attachment. We offered to negotiate these terms, but we have not heard from the defense. It is interesting, therefore, that the defense has filed this motion for all of General Flynn’s unrelated 302s when that have not even taken the opportunity to review those actually relevant to this prosecution.

2 This individual’s identity is being protected for the time being to prevent any reprisals or tampering involving the witness.

In addition, some of the 302s deemed to belong to the Mueller investigation mentioning Kian or Alptekin or other entities involved in the conspiracy.

Under similar conditions, we have invited the defense to review redacted versions of General Flynn’s 302s that contain any mention the defendants or any reference to the other individuals or entities involved in the charged conspiracy – regardless of whether they relate to this prosecution or to other investigations by the Special Counsel’s Office.

This suggests there’s more of a Turkish part of the Mueller investigation than previously reported.

Remember that in Flynn’s initial FBI 302 (which must be additional to the 19 capturing interviews while he was cooperating), he explained away his December 29, 2016 conversation with Sergey Kislyak to the FBI by claiming they were talking about a Syrian peace conference in Astana, Kazakhstan.

The redactions in Flynn’s 302 included two passages on Flynn’s December 29, 2016 phone calls with Ambassador Kislyak. In the first, Flynn offered up that he and Kislyak had discussed two things: a phone call with Vladimir Putin that would take place on January 28, and whether the US would send an observer to Syrian peace talks Turkey and Russia were holding in Kazakhstan the next month.

[snip]

The claim that those Kislyak phone calls discussed a later call with Putin and the Astana conference is the same one the Transition would offer to the WaPo the day after David Ignatius made clear that the FBI had recordings of the call. Mueller’s reply to Flynn’s sentencing memo describes that Flynn asked a subordinate to feed this information to the WaPo.

[snip]

Flynn’s lies to cover the discussion about sanctions and expulsions were not entirely invented; he’s a better liar than that. The Transition really was struggling over its decision of whether to join in a Syrian peace plan that would follow Russia (and Turkey’s lead) rather than the path the Obama Administration had pursued in the previous year. As he noted to the FBI, the Trump Administration had only decided not to send a senior delegation to Astana earlier that week. It was announced on January 21.

[snip]

But by staking his lies on the Astana conference — and the Trump Administration’s willingness to join a Syrian effort that deviated from existing US policy — Flynn also raised the stakes of his past paid relationship with Turkey. It became far more damaging that Flynn had still been on the Turkish government payroll through the early transition, when Trump directed him to conduct early outreach on Syria. So even while DOJ was repeatedly telling Flynn he had to come clean on his Turkish lobbying ties, he lied about that, thereby hiding that the early days of Trump Administration outreach had been conducted by a guy still working for Turkey.

Under similar conditions, we have invited the defense to review redacted versions of General Flynn’s 302s that contain any mention the defendants or any reference to the other individuals or entities involved in the charged conspiracy – regardless of whether they relate to this prosecution or to other investigations by the Special Counsel’s Office.

In other words, there appear to be parts of the Mueller investigation pertaining to Turkey outside of Flynn’s sleazy influence peddling with Kian. Some of those may have been spun off (like so much else) to other districts (perhaps SDNY, where Reza Zarrab flipped).

Now consider the addendum to Flynn’s sentencing memo describing his cooperation (of which there was an ex parte version withheld even from Flynn). I’ve suggested the description of his cooperation (which covers the same 19 302s at issue in yesterday’s hearing, so there has been no new cooperation since December) is structured like this.

Between the three investigations, Flynn sat for 19 interviews with prosecutors.

Here’s the structure of how the body of the cooperation section describes the three investigations:

A Criminal Investigation:

11+ line paragraph

6.5 line paragraph

2 line paragraph

B Mueller investigation:

Introductory paragraph (9 lines)

i) Interactions between Transition Team and Russia (12 lines, just one or two sentences redacted)

ii) Topic two

10 line paragraph

9 line paragraph

C Entirely redacted investigation:

4.5 line paragraph

The description of the first and third investigations are both almost entirely redacted.

The description of his cooperation with the Mueller investigation is split into two topics — i) interactions between the transition team and Russians, plus another ii) redacted section.

Category A is almost certainly the Kian prosecution, which consists of 4 302s.

Category B, Mueller’s investigation, breaks down into what we know (transition related activities) and something else. Parts of that something else (which likely has to do with the Trump team’s serial efforts to monetize the presidency) may well have gotten spun off.

Then there’s Category c, which given what was said yesterday, seems to relate to Mueller but is of a different sort of information — I’ve suggested it may pertain to a general counterintelligence investigation into Russia, one that might live at DOJ’s National Security Division rather than a US Attorney’s office.

That still doesn’t tell us all that much — except that Flynn hasn’t cooperated further since December and the 3-part cooperation described in his cooperation memo may involved some complexity reflecting Turkish issues that were part  of the Mueller investigation as well as other topics (graft?) that could have been spun off.

Mueller may be close to done, but his investigation seems to have spin-offs that we haven’t even begun to hear of yet.

As I disclosed last July, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I’m going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here on out. I will include the disclosure whether or not the stuff I shared with the FBI pertains to the subject of the post. 

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Lisa Page Confirms that the Trump Campaign Investigation Was Different than Russian Info Ops Investigation

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In her interviews, Lisa Page confirms something I keep explaining, only to have people try to correct me. The Russian investigation into Trump’s campaign that got started in July 2016 did not, at first, include the GRU and Internet Research Agency activity that later got subsumed into the Mueller investigation. In her first interview, Page makes this clear in a response to John Ratcliffe insinuating, incorrectly, that reference to Obama’s interest in the FBI’s activities must be an attempt to tamper in the Clinton investigation.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Let me move on to a text message on September 2nd of 2016. It’s a series of texts that you exchanged with Agent Strzok. And at one point you text him: Yes, because POTUS wants to know everything we are doing.

[snip]

Ms. Page. It’s not about the Midyear investigation, if that’s the question. It has to do with Russia. It does not have to do with the Clinton investigation at all.

Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. It does have to do with Russia, the Russia investigation?

Ms. Page. No, not the Russia investigation. It has to do with the broader look at Russian active measures.

She again makes that distinction regarding an August 5, 2016 text Strzok sent her.

Kim: Mr. Strzok wrote to you, quote: And hi. Went well. Best we could have expected other than, redacted, comma, quote, the White House is running this. Next text you stated–

Page: Yep.

Kim: –or, sorry, next text he stated, my answer, well maybe for you they are. And in response to these texts you wrote, yeah, whatever, re the White House comment. We’ve got emails that say otherwise. Do you remember what this meeting was about?

[snip]

Page: It is about — again, like the last time, it is about the broader intelligence community’s investigation of Russian active measures.

Kim: And not about the specific Russian collusion investigation?

Page: Definitely not.

In her second interview, Page was asked about whether Trump was included in the investigation during fall 2016, and Page describes the investigation at that point as “narrowly scoped.”

Kim: When we talk about the Russia collusion investigation in this timeframe, candidate Donald Trump is not the subject of that investigation, is that correct?

Page: That’s correct.

[snip]

So it was a very narrowly scoped, very discrete investigation because we understood the gravity of what it was we were looking at and we were not going to take a more extreme step than we felt we could justify.

Mark Meadows tries to suggest that the White House got briefed on the Trump investigation, and she corrects him.

Meadows; I think early on, August 5th, there’s the first original what we called at that time the Russia investigation briefing that happened. Peter Strzok comes back from [London], makes it just in time for you to have that. There’s a briefing that occurs on August 8th. And there’s a briefing with Denis McDonough at the White House where Jonathan Moffa and others attended.

[snip]

Page: But those were not about the Crossfire. To the best of my knowledge those were not —

Meadows: So they had nothing to do with any potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign? That was never mentioned?

Page: Not to my knowledge. It was always about the Russian active measures effort.

I keep harping on this point for several reasons. First, because when Republicans imagine — as they do here — that every negative comment Page and Peter Strzok made about a Russian investigation reflects bias against Donald Trump, they are unintentionally arguing that any criticism of Russian hacking by definition is a criticism of Trump. Meanwhile, they’re not considering why — sometime well after the Mueller investigation started — the Special Counsel had reason to subsume these other investigations.

But the problem with this misconception extends, too, to supporters of Mueller’s investigation. That’s because by conflating the larger counterintelligence investigation into Russian active measures with the more narrowly scoped (using Page’s description) investigation into Trump’s aides, the misinterpret the degree to which Mueller’s investigation stems from predicated investigations against individuals.

But don’t take my word for it. Take Lisa Page’s word for it.

As I disclosed last July, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I’m going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here on out. I will include the disclosure whether or not the stuff I shared with the FBI pertains to the subject of the post. 

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Judge Amy Berman Jackson Lays the Precedent for FARA

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I said while following yesterday’s live tweets of the Paul Manafort sentencing that, because so few FARA cases have been criminally prosecuted, Manafort’s will set some precedent going forward, as DOJ moves to put some prosecutorial teeth behind the law. So I wanted to look at the various things she said yesterday about it.

First, there’s the way she characterizes Manafort’s own actions. After calling out the way Manafort claims his entire life’s work has been about spreading democracy without actually presenting evidence to support the case (and leaving unstated the obvious fact that in fact he was more often serving dictators), she then notes that ultimately it was easier for him to get a win for his clients if he hid who he was working for.

The sentencing memorandum also states: Mr. Manafort has spent his life advancing American ideals and principles. It starts with his work on numerous political campaigns and positions within some of the administrations, and it goes on to say during his years outside of government service, Mr. Manafort also worked with world leaders. He has spent a lifetime promoting American democratic values and assisting emerging democracies to adopt reforms necessary to become a part of Western society.

At times he interacted with politicians and business people in emerging countries to assist in the development of American beliefs of equal justice, human rights, and free markets. There aren’t really any exhibits or letters that go along with that, so I don’t have the facts or the record before me that would permit me to either accept or question what is a very general description. It will fall to others in other settings to assess whether the way the defendant chose to market the access he gained during political campaigns and the work he did for the clients he represented has been characterized accurately. So it doesn’t factor into my consideration of the history and characteristics of the defendant.

[snip]

It may have been that in addition to thinking of his own finances, he had his clients’ ability to win in mind. He knew that revealing the true source behind the lobbying activities would have made those activities ineffective and unsuccessful, as the prosecutor said. Secrecy was integral. But that willingness to win at all costs was contrary to laws designed to ensure transparency in the political process and the legislative process. So it cannot possibly justify the behavior, particularly when there’s no question that this defendant knew better and he knew exactly what he was doing.

This is important background for how she distinguishes lobbying, even for sleazy clients, and lobbying without disclosing it.

It is important to note, in case there’s any confusion, notwithstanding the use of the word “agent,” an unregistered foreign agent is not a spy. He is a lobbyist. Lobbying is not illegal. Being paid to do it, even on behalf of clients who others might view as unseemly or odious or even tyrannical is not illegal, if you follow the laws that govern foreign financial transactions and pay your taxes. But this defendant kept his money offshore and under wraps so he wouldn’t have to pay.

[snip]

So what remains to be considered here? According to the defendant, it’s just an administrative matter, a regulatory crime, a violation of the Foreign Agent Registration Act. And that’s not a fair description. He was hiding the truth of who he represented from policymakers and the public, and that’s antithetical to the very American values that he told me he championed. And this was after he knew and already had been warned not to do it.

What becomes clear from this record is that defendant’s approach in his career, and what he didn’t abandon even after he was indicted, was that it’s all about strategy, positioning, public relations, spin. And you could say, well, there’s nothing wrong with that, at least if you’re not a journalist. But there is something wrong with it if you’re not simply advancing a position as part of a PR campaign.

It’s okay to say: Members of Congress, the government of the Ukraine, President Victor Yanukovych, would like you to consider the following when you consider how to respond to his actions, when you determine what the foreign policy of the United States should be. But what you were doing was lying to members of Congress and the American public, saying, look at this nice American PR firm, look at this nice U.S.-based law firm, look at this nice group of prominent former European officials, isn’t it great how they’ve all voluntarily stepped forward to stand up for Yanukovych and the new administration, when all along you were hiding that you and the Ukrainians actually had them on the payroll. This deliberate effort to obscure the facts, this disregard for truth undermines our political discourse and it infects our policymaking. If the people don’t have the facts, democracy can’t work.

That’s key background for how she treats Manafort’s specific violations of FARA. She dismisses Manafort’s claims that this is a mere registration violation in several ways that may lay important precedent: she invokes the money laundering (which prosecutors said was an important part of hiding the lobbying he was doing), the serial lies to DOJ — including lies told to his lawyer preparing his registration, and his efforts to get others (Tony Podesta, Vin Weber, and Greg Craig) to lie as well.

The other thing the sentencing statute tells me I’m supposed to do is I’m supposed to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct. With respect to sentencing disparities, the defense points primarily to other regulatory cases. But those involve, ordinarily, just a plain failure to register, or a plain failure to reveal a foreign bank account. They’re not analogous. They don’t involve, as here, a failure to register — to hide the existence of — multiple foreign bank accounts for the purpose of laundering millions of dollars, shielding millions of dollars from the IRS.

[snip]

I’ve got the regulatory FARA piece of Count 1 and the money laundering. And I don’t believe that’s covered by the Eastern District sentence and I think it has to be addressed. As I noted earlier, it’s not a mere oversight, it’s not a missing piece of paper. To the extent it could or should have been treated as a mere administrative matter, I think the defendant forfeited being able to rely on that sort of discretion on the part of law enforcement by having his lawyer lie to the Department of Justice twice on his behalf.

I do note that the Eastern District of Virginia found 30 months to be an appropriate sentence for the other single regulatory disclosure violation. And here, it wasn’t just a single failure to register; the defendant prevailed upon others in the scheme not to register either, and he admitted under oath at the plea that he caused them not to register.

Those three factors (the second of which was present in Mike Flynn’s FARA violation as well), are all likely to be aggravating factors that may got into criminal prosecution of FARA in the future.

Finally, there’s the timing. To rebut claims that these prosecutions were simply about long passed lobbying efforts, ABJ clearly describes the crime as persisting through the time Manafort twice lied to DOJ about his lobbying.

Furthermore, this conduct is not, as the defendant would have me conclude, old news. It’s not just some ancient failure to comply with a couple of regulations, something that took place so long before the campaign it’s just unfair and inappropriate to charge him for it in 2017. He pled guilty to laundering of funds through 2016. He pled guilty to a lobbying campaign in the United States for the government of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovych, and when he was out of office, his Party of Regions and the Opposition Bloc from 2005 to 2015. And the defense says, well, yes, but the government investigated and wrapped it all up and there wouldn’t have been a prosecution but for the appointment of the special counsel.

I’m not exactly sure what that prediction — which they’ve made to me repeatedly — is actually based on. I don’t believe there is evidence that a formal final determination was made. Prior to the time when anybody was even thinking about a special counsel, the Department of Justice was already looking into this matter. And when the Department of Justice — not the Office of Special Counsel — was looking into the matter, it asked Mr. Manafort questions. He lied to his own lawyers and he lied to the Department of Justice. He had them submit not one, but two letters, falsely stating that he had not performed lobbying activities in the United States on the part of the Ukraine.

That first lie was in November of 2016, after he resigned as campaign chair but well before the appointment of the special counsel. The second, in February, was after the special counsel investigation was underway. So it’s not entirely clear that a civil resolution would still have been possible at that point.

This, too, would have big implications for Flynn’s actions, since he lied to DOJ while he was at the White House.

Particularly given Manafort’s example, people are unlikely to wrack up these many aggravating factors in the future. But they do lay out a clear map for what a criminal FARA violation would look like in the future.

As I disclosed last July, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I’m going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here on out. I will include the disclosure whether or not the stuff I shared with the FBI pertains to the subject of the post. 

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Mueller Is Close to Done, But the Andrew Weissmann Departure Is Overblown

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As my docket tracker of the Mueller and related investigations shows, around August 1, 2018, after finalizing the GRU indictment, Ryan Dickey returned to his duties elsewhere at DOJ.

Around October 1, 2018, after submitting a filing saying Mike Flynn was ready to be sentenced, Brandon Van Grack moved back to his duties elsewhere at DOJ (though he continues to be named in documents in the case, as he was Tuesday). He is now starting a prosecutorial focus on FARA.

Around October 15, 2018, Kyle Freeny, who had worked the money laundering angle on the GRU and Manafort cases, moved back to her duties elsewhere at DOJ.

Around December 31, 2018, after successfully defending the Mystery Appellant challenge in the DC Circuit, Scott Meisler moved back to his duties elsewhere at DOJ.

Today, after getting Paul Manafort sentenced to 7.5 years in prison, imposing a $24 million restitution payment, and an $11 million forfeiture (including of Manafort’s Trump Tower condo), multiple outlets are reporting that the guy in charge of prosecuting Manafort’s corruption, Andrew Weissmann, is moving to a job at NYU.

After each prosecutor has finished their work on the Mueller team, he or she has moved on. Weissmann’s departure is more final, since he’s leaving DOJ. But his departure continues a pattern that was set last summer. Finish your work, and move on.

Nevertheless, his departure is being taken as a surefire sign the Mueller investigation is closing up.

Let me be clear: I do agree Mueller is just about done with the investigation. He’s waiting on Mystery Appellant, possibly on Andrew Miller’s testimony; he may have been waiting on formal publication of Jerome Corsi’s book yesterday. Multiple other details suggest that Mueller expects to be able to share things in a month that he’s unable to share today.

None of that tells us what will happen in the next few weeks. There is abundant evidence that Trump entered into a quid pro quo conspiracy with Russia, trading dirt and dollars for sanctions relief and other policy considerations. But it’s unclear whether Mueller has certainty that he’d have an 85% chance of winning convictions, which is around what he’d need to convince DOJ to charge it. There is also abundant evidence that Trump and others obstructed the investigation, but charging Trump in that presents constitutional questions.

If Mueller does charge either of those things, I’d still expect him to resign and either retire or move back to WilmerHale and let other prosecutors prosecute it. That’s what Leon Jaworski did in Watergate.

The far more interesting detail from Carrie Johnson’s Weissmann report is that just some of Mueller’s team are returning to WilmerHale.

WilmerHale, the law firm that Mueller and several other prosecutors left to help create the special counsel team, is preparing for the return of some of its onetime law partners, three lawyers have told NPR in recent weeks.

I’m far more interested in the plans of James Quarles (who has been liaising with the White House and so presumably has a key part of the obstruction investigation) or Jeannie Rhee (who seems to have been overseeing the conspiracy investigation) than Mueller or his Chief of Staff, Aaron Zebley. Their plans might tell us more about what to expect in the next month (though Rhee appeared in Roger Stone’s status hearing today, and may be sticking around for his prosecution, which just got scheduled for November 5).

In any case, though, we don’t have long to wait, so it’s not clear that misreading the departure of Weissmann — which is better understood as part of the normal pattern of Mueller’s prosecutors leaving when they’re done — tells us anything useful.

As I disclosed last July, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I’m going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here on out. I will include the disclosure whether or not the stuff I shared with the FBI pertains to the subject of the post. 

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