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Mueller Ready to Get Trump on the Record on His Involvement in the Russian Conspiracy

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EUREKA!!!

The NYT finally has a story that admits Trump is at risk under conspiracy charges!

It reports that Mueller told Trump’s lawyers last Friday that he’d be willing to start with written answers about his involvement in the election conspiracy, while bracketing obstruction questions as privileged.

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, will accept written answers from President Trump on questions about whether his campaign conspired with Russia’s election interference, Mr. Mueller’s office told Mr. Trump’s lawyers in a letter, two people briefed on it said on Tuesday.

But on another significant aspect of the investigation — whether the president tried to obstruct the inquiry itself — Mr. Mueller and his investigators understood that issues of executive privilege could complicate their pursuit of a presidential interview and did not ask for written responses on that matter, according to the letter, which was sent on Friday.

Mr. Mueller did not say that he was giving up on an interview altogether, including on questions of obstruction of justice. But the tone of the letter and the fact that the special counsel did not ask for written responses on obstruction prompted some Trump allies to conclude that if an interview takes place, its scope will be more limited than Mr. Trump’s legal team initially believed, the people said.

For the moment, I’m not going to say what I think this means (I’ve got some ideas, but will hold those for now).

Instead, consider what questions will be included in Trump’s take-home test, from the list the NYT first published (though it has presumably grown since March when Jay Sekulow wrote it up). I’m going to group them, here, under things we know Mueller has been up to in recent months.

November 30, 2017: Mike Flynn pleads guilty as part of a cooperation deal

Last year, Mike Flynn pled guilty as part of a cooperation deal; he has a status hearing — scheduled on a 24 day interval — on September 17. Flynn has spent the last nine months answering these questions:

  • What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding Russian sanctions?
  • During the campaign, what did you know about Russian hacking, use of social media or other acts aimed at the campaign?
  • What did you know during the transition about an attempt to establish back-channel communication to Russia, and Jared Kushner’s efforts?
  • What do you know about a 2017 meeting in Seychelles involving Erik Prince?
  • What do you know about a Ukrainian peace proposal provided to Mr. Cohen in 2017?

February 23: Rick Gates pleads guilty as part of a cooperation deal

On February 23, Rick Gates pled guilty as part of a big cooperation agreement. Two weeks later, Mueller obtained search warrants for 5 AT&T phones (and probably an equivalent number of Verizon phones), at least one of which is Paul Manafort’s and one of which may be Roger Stone’s. Gates can surely help answer the following questions:

  • What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding any meeting with Mr. Putin? Did you discuss it with others?
  • What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding Russian sanctions?
  • What involvement did you have concerning platform changes regarding arming Ukraine?
  • During the campaign, what did you know about Russian hacking, use of social media or other acts aimed at the campaign?
  • What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?

April: Jared testifies for seven hours

Sometime in April, Jared testified for seven hours. Jared is likely to be able to provide some answers about the following questions:

  • What did you know during the transition about an attempt to establish back-channel communication to Russia, and Jared Kushner’s efforts?
  • What do you know about a 2017 meeting in Seychelles involving Erik Prince?
  • When did you become aware of the Trump Tower meeting?
  • What involvement did you have in the communication strategy, including the release of Donald Trump Jr.’s emails?
  • During the campaign, what did you know about Russian hacking, use of social media or other acts aimed at the campaign?

May 22: Sam Patten makes his first proffer for a cooperation deal

On August 31, Sam Patten pled guilty to FARA violations in the context of a cooperation agreement for which he made his first proffer back on May 22. Patten may know some of the answers to these questions:

  • What do you know about a Ukrainian peace proposal provided to Mr. Cohen in 2017?
  • What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding Russian sanctions?
  • What involvement did you have concerning platform changes regarding arming Ukraine?

August 17: Paul Manafort seeks a plea deal

During jury watch in his first trial, Manafort and Mueller’s lawyers had aborted discussions about a plea deal, at least to resolve his second trial. Manafort’s lawyers are only belatedly preparing for the second trial, jury selection for which begins on September 17.

Manafort would be able to answer the following questions:

  • During the campaign, what did you know about Russian hacking, use of social media or other acts aimed at the campaign?
  • What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding any meeting with Mr. Putin? Did you discuss it with others?
  • What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding Russian sanctions?
  • What involvement did you have concerning platform changes regarding arming Ukraine?
  • During the campaign, what did you know about Russian hacking, use of social media or other acts aimed at the campaign?
  • What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?

August 21: “They’re squeezing Don Jr. right now”

On August 21, Vanity Fair reported that Mueller has been making document follow-up requests pertaining to Jr.

Another theory for what’s motivating Trump’s increasingly unhinged tweets is that Mueller may be closing in on his son Don Jr. “A lot of what Trump is doing is based on the fact [that] Mueller is going after Don Jr.,” a person close to the Trump family told me. “They’re squeezing Don Jr. right now.”

Don Jr.’s lawyer said, “I’m not going to comment.” Another person briefed on the investigation disputed the term “squeeze,” but said the Mueller team continues to ask for documents.

These questions would directly pertain to Don Jr and the documents he has been turning over:

  • During a 2013 trip to Russia, what communication and relationships did you have with the Agalarovs and Russian government officials?
  • When did you become aware of the Trump Tower meeting?
  • What involvement did you have in the communication strategy, including the release of Donald Trump Jr.’s emails?
  • What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding any meeting with Mr. Putin? Did you discuss it with others?
  • What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding Russian sanctions?
  • During the campaign, what did you know about Russian hacking, use of social media or other acts aimed at the campaign?

August 21: Michael Cohen pleads guilty to eight charges while begging to cooperate

On August 21, Michael Cohen pled guilty to eight charges; both before and after he has desperately shopped a plea deal (though he has gone quiet in recent days). Cohen’s cooperation might help answer these questions:

  • During a 2013 trip to Russia, what communication and relationships did you have with the Agalarovs and Russian government officials?
  • What communication did you have with Michael D. Cohen, Felix Sater and others, including foreign nationals, about Russian real estate developments during the campaign?
  • What do you know about a Ukrainian peace proposal provided to Mr. Cohen in 2017?

September 7: The second-to-last known witness against Roger Stone testifies before the grand jury

On Friday, Randy Credico will bring his dog to visit the grand jury and describe how Roger Stone tried to convince him to claim he was Stone’s back channel to Assange (he has already interviewed with Mueller’s team, so they know what he’s going to say). Mueller has been questioning witnesses about Stone since February, and just one — Andrew Miller — remains to testify (assuming the sealed order Beryl Howell signed on August 13) didn’t immunize him for part of his testimony).

That long line of witnesses likely provided information relevant to these questions:

  • During the campaign, what did you know about Russian hacking, use of social media or other acts aimed at the campaign?
  • What did you know about communication between Roger Stone, his associates, Julian Assange or WikiLeaks?

In short, while the NYT has been reporting incessantly about the obstruction charges against Trump, Mueller has accumulated a good deal of evidence to answer the questions about the Russian conspiracy that Trump’s lawyers have in the past said they’d be willing to answer.

I’d say Mueller’s ready to get Trump’s answers — which will not be truthful — on the record. You don’t need obstruction charges involving Jim Comey when you’re guaranteed the President will lie on the record about conspiracy.

Update: In their version of this story, WaPo notes they’ll return to obstruction discussions later.

On potential obstruction-of-justice issues, “he said he’d assess it down the road,” said one person familiar with Mueller’s letter who requested anonymity to discuss private communications. “They’re essentially saying, ‘We’ll deal with this at a later date.’”

That makes sense. There’s bound to be more obstruction to discuss later down the road, whether it’s lies in response to these questions or attempted pardons.

Update: One other thing this does. This letter, inviting Trump to answer questions in writing, came a day after the first detailed story on Rudy’s counter-report came out. Rudy’s blabbing about how they’re going to release a report that purportedly addresses all of Mueller’s concerns will make it hard (but never impossible) to refuse to comply. And it will also give Rudy a hobby that will distract from inventing conspiracy theories about Mueller conflict.

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

What Roger Stone’s Latest Lies Tell Us about Mueller’s Investigation into Him

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As I disclosed last month, 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. 

After a puff piece in the NYT over the weekend, Roger Stone took to the Daily Caller to attack Mueller’s case against him. As bad as the Daily Caller is, it actually ends up being far more informative than the NYT because Stone is so bad at telling lies they’re informative for what they mirror.

So assuming, for the moment, that Stone’s piece reflects some kind of half-accurate reflection of what witnesses have said they were questioned about him, here’s what we learn.

Mueller is examining conduct that goes back 10 years

Obviously, statutes of limitation have probably tolled on any crimes Stone committed more than five years ago, but this suggests witnesses are being asked about conduct that goes back further, ten years.

Mueller is running a criminally abusive, constitutionally -unaccountable, professionally and politically incestuous conspiracy of ethically conflicted cronies colluding to violate my Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights and those of almost everyone who had any sort of political or personal association with me in the last 10 years.

Given the involvement of Peter Jensen and Kristin Davis in Stone’s recent rat-fucking, perhaps as an explanation of more recent rat-fucking we’ll finally get an accounting of Stone’s role in taking out Eliot Spitzer ten years ago. (h/t Andrew Prokop for Jensen tie to Spitzer op)

Mueller is considering charging Stone with ConFraudUs

I assume this reference to ConFraudUs comes from a friendly witness passing on what a subpoena described were the crimes being investigated.

Mueller and his hit-men seek to frame some ludicrous charge of “defrauding the United States.”

This is, of course, based on a false and unproven assumption that Assange is a Russian agent and Wikileaks is a Russian front — neither of which has been proven in a court of law. Interestingly Assange himself has said, “Roger Stone has never said or tweeted anything we at Wikileaks had not already said publicly.”

As described, it looks like how I envisioned Stone might be charged with ConFraudUs back in June.

As Mueller’s team has itself pointed out, for heavily regulated areas like elections, ConFraudUs indictments don’t need to prove intent for the underlying crimes. They just need to prove,

(1) two or more persons formed an agreement to defraud the United States;

(2) [each] defendant knowingly participated in the conspiracy with the intent to defraud the United States; and

(3) at least one overt act was committed in furtherance of the common scheme.

Let’s see how evidence Mueller has recently shown might apply in the case of Roger Stone, Trump’s lifelong political advisor.

[snip]

Stone repeatedly entertained offers from foreigners illegally offering dirt that would benefit the Trump campaign — Greenberg, Guccifer 2.0, possibly Peter Smith’s Dark Web hackers. He may even have exhibited a belief that Australian Julian Assange had and could release the latter dirt, possibly with the knowledge they came from Russians.

So we’ve got Stone meeting with other people, repeatedly agreeing to bypass US election law to obtain a benefit for Trump, evidence (notwithstanding Stone’s post-hoc attempts to deny a Russian connection with Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks) that Stone had the intent of obtaining that benefit, and tons of overt acts committed in furtherance of the scheme.

Stone appears to address just one conspiracy with a foreigner — Julian Assange — to obtain something of value, by insisting (though less strongly than he has in the past!) that Assange is not a Russian asset. Except, foreign is foreign, whether Australian or Russian, so making a weak case that Assange is not Russian won’t get you off on ConFraudUs.

Moreover, now that I’ve reviewed some dodginess about Stone’s PACs, I suspect there may be two levels of ConFraudUs, one pertaining to depriving the US government from excluding foreign influence on the election, and the other pertaining to depriving the US government of the ability to track how political activities are being funded.

That is, Mueller’s reported focus on Stone’s finances may well pertain to a second ConFraudUs prong, one based on campaign finance violations.

Stone thinks Mueller wants him to flip, rather than to punish him for the case in chief

In spite of the abundant evidence that Stone is a key target of this investigation, Stone appears to believe that Mueller only wants to charge him to get him to flip on Trump.

Mueller’s hit team is poking into every aspect of my personal, private, family, social, business and political life — presumably to conjure up some bogus charge or charges to use to pressure me to plead guilty to their Wikileaks fantasy and testify against Donald Trump who I have known intimately for almost 40 years.

Side note: I appreciate the way Stone — an unabashed swinger — worked that word “intimately” into his description of his relationship with Trump.

Which is one of the reasons I’m so interested in how he describes hiring a new lawyer, a nationally known one who used to work for Trump.

I have been ably served by two fine lawyers Grant Smith and Rob Buschel who won dismissal of a harassment lawsuit based on the same Wikileaks/Russian conspiracy theory by an Obama directed legal foundation in D.C. last month. No evidence to support this false narrative was produced in court other than a slew of fake news clippings from lefty media sites.

I have recently reached agreement to retain a highly respected and nationally known attorney who has represented Donald Trump to join my legal team and lead my defense.

Possibly this is just a hint that some operative like Victoria Toensing or Joseph DiGenova is going to take on Stone’s propaganda case. Possibly it reflects a recognition from Trump that Stone now presents as big a risk to him as Manafort does. Whichever it is, I look forward to learning how serious a lawyer Stone has and whether — Stone claims reports that he has $20 million are false, but if he has been engaging in epic campaign finance violations, who knows? — Trump is paying for his defense going forward.

Stone doesn’t understand how stored communications work

As I pointed out the last time Stone claimed he was targeted by a FISA order, what likely happened instead is Mueller obtained the contents of his phone along with four or nine others in a probable cause warrant on March 9. But that doesn’t stop Stone from claiming he was targeted under FISA again, explaining that his emails, text messages, and (this is less credible) phone calls have been seized going back to 2016.

Even more chilling is the fact that I have learned that — in this effort to destroy me — the government began reading my e-mails and text messages and monitoring my phone calls as early as 2016.

I believe that I, like Carter Page and Paul Manafort, was subject to an illegal FISA warrant in 2016, as the New York Times reported on January 20, 2017. The New York Times published this claim in a page-one story on the same day as President Trump’s inauguration ceremony.

A whistleblower has told my lawyers where my name and the fact that application had been made for a FISA warrant on me was redacted from the stunning Carter Page FISA warrant application released by the FBI last week with 300 of 400 pages blacked out.

What Stone’s dumbass “whistleblower” was pointing to instead was a passage describing the other people being investigated in October 2016, when Page was first targeted. But being investigated is not the same as being targeted under FISA, and what Stone is really trying to obscure here is that Mueller (probably) already showed a judge, back in March, he had probable cause that Rog committed some crimes back in 2016.

Another witness Stone would like to discredit by calling an informant

Back in June, Stone tried to spin the fact that he willingly accepted a meeting with yet another Russian offering dirt on Hillary by noting (correctly, it appears) that the Russian had served as a source for the FBI on Russian organized crime before — just like Felix Sater, whom the Trump folks are all still peachy with. In spite of the fact that it was so obviously bunk the last time, he’s trying again, hinting at a second informant working against him.

We also now know that at least one FBI informant in the United States on an informant’s visa approached me in May 2016 in an effort to entrap me and compromise Donald Trump. I declined his proposal to “buy dirt on Hillary.” There is now substantial evidence that a second FBI informant may have infiltrated my political operations in 2016. Stand by.

Who knows whether this is another person — like the Russian dealing dirt on Hillary, “Henry Greenberg,” is just someone who has worked his way out of legal trouble by serving as an informant — or whether there’s some other reason Stone is calling him or her an informant. Most likely, Stone is trying to suggest a perfectly ordinary witness cooperating with the government against him is an informant, to inflame his people. Possibly, this is prepping a claim that Randy Credico set up Roger.

Jeannie Rhee is leading the questioning of Stone witnesses

In tandem with Trump’s attacks on Mueller prosecutors with Hillary ties, Stone states that Jeannie Rhee led the questioning of his witnesses, and claims it’s a conflict.

Incredibly, leading the questioning of witnesses before the Grand Jury about me is Jeannie Rhee, who in private practice represented the Clinton foundation in the Hillary e-mail scandal that is front and center in the special prosecutor’s investigation of me! Can you say conflict of interest?

Of course, he gets the attack wrong: Rhee represented the Foundation, not Hillary’s email defense, and she did so against a nutbag Republican challenge, not with DOJ.

But in telling us that Rhee is leading this inquiry, Stone is (helpfully) telling us that a person who has led the Russian side of the inquiry is leading the inquiry into … oh my! Roger Stone!

Even with all his prevarications, it turns out, a Stone column might be more informative than a NYT puff piece!

On Credico and Stone and Hillary’s Purported Libya Email

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WSJ has an underreported story revealing that Roger Stone emailed Randy Credico seeking specific emails from Wikileaks in September 2016.

Former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone privately sought information he considered damaging to Hillary Clinton from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The emails could raise new questions about Mr. Stone’s testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in September, in which he said he “merely wanted confirmation” from an acquaintance that Mr. Assange had information about Mrs. Clinton, according to a portion of the transcript that was made public.

In a Sept. 18, 2016, message, Mr. Stone urged an acquaintance who knew Mr. Assange to ask the WikiLeaks founder for emails related to Mrs. Clinton’s alleged role in disrupting a purported Libyan peace deal in 2011 when she was secretary of state, referring to her by her initials.

“Please ask Assange for any State or HRC e-mail from August 10 to August 30–particularly on August 20, 2011,” Mr. Stone wrote to Randy Credico, a New York radio personality who had interviewed Mr. Assange several weeks earlier. Mr. Stone, a longtime confidant of Donald Trump, had no formal role in his campaign at the time.

I say it’s underreported for two reasons: as presented, WSJ doesn’t really explain why this is news. It doesn’t show that the emails were responsive to HPSCI’s request, a point made by Stone’s attorney in the story and not refuted by Adam Schiff. Furthermore, Credico claims he never really asked Julian Assange for any emails (which may be one of the reasons Stone’s lawyer deems the exchange unresponsive). Schiff claims that this exchange suggests Stone was misleading at best in his testimony.

Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the emails hadn’t been provided to congressional investigators. “If there is such a document, then it would mean that his testimony was either deliberately incomplete or deliberately false,” said Mr. Schiff, who has continued to request documents and conduct interviews with witnesses despite the committee’s probe concluding earlier this year said.

But for reasons I’ll explain, I think Stone may have been technically correct in his statement.

Another way the story is underreported is because WSJ doesn’t explain — or even consider — what emails Stone might be talking about, a silence that has led sloppy readers to assume these are a reference to known hacked emails.

The email may be a reference to emails believed by some to be hacked!

But absent any explanation what the emails are, they should be assumed to be the emails released by State in response to Jason Leopold and others, which Wikileaks only curated. There are several that might fit Stone’s criteria, including some of the ones based on intelligence from Sid Blumenthal that drove the nutters crazy.

That said, the withheld emails may be newsworthy for reasons WSJ doesn’t lay out.

First, consider the fact that as part of Don Jr’s SJC interview, he was asked about people who may have been involved in the Peter Smith effort to find Hillary’s deleted emails, from Russian hackers if need be. The last person included was Stone.

Q. Did you or anyone else make any effort to obtain Hillary Clinton’s e-mails?

A. No.

Q. Did you or anyone else ever receive Hillary Clinton’s e-mails other than something that might have been publicly published ?

A. No.

Q. Do you know who Peter Smith is?

A. No .

Q. Were you aware of Mr. Smith’ s efforts to obtain Hillary Clinton’s  e-mails?

A. I don’t recall knowing Peter Smith. So I’m not aware of his efforts. Who was he?

Q. There’s been public reporting on him. So it’s in the press.

A. Okay. I haven’t seen it.

Q. Do you know if any of the following people made any efforts to obtain Secretary Clinton’s e-mails. Michael Flynn?

A. I don’t know.

Q. Steve Bannon?

A. I don ‘t know.

Q. Kellyanne Conway?

A. I don’t know.

Q. Sam Clovis?

A. I don ‘t know.

Q. Carter Page?

A. I don’t know.

Q. Roger Stone ?

A. No idea.

We shouldn’t necessarily make that much of the fact that Stone appears on this list, both because no one on it has been confirmed to have been involved in Smith’s efforts, and because he’d be the most likely person to be involved in any case. Nor do I make too much out of the fact that Don Jr answered differently on Stone — “no idea” — than the “I don’t know” he offered for everyone else.

That said, this does seem to confirm Stone is among the people alleged to be involved in the effort.

The Peter Smith operation is something Stone assiduously avoided addressing in his statement to Congress.

Now consider that on August 10, 2016, Stone tweeted, “Assange, you see has all the @HillaryClinton e-mails @HumaAbedin thought she and @CherylMills erased #busted.” (Thanks to Susan Simpson for noting that Stone’s deleted account can be found and searched on the Trump Twitter Archive site.) That tweet would have fallen right between the time Stone told Sam Nunberg he had been speaking with Assange on August 5 and the time he started chatting via DM with Guccifer 2.0 on August 14. That’s also the timeframe Matt Tait said Smith reached out having already received emails from someone on the Dark Web. 

A few weeks later, right around the time the DNC emails were dumped by Wikileaks—and curiously, around the same time Trump called for the Russians to get Hillary Clinton’s missing emails—I was contacted out the blue by a man named Peter Smith, who had seen my work going through these emails. Smith implied that he was a well-connected Republican political operative.

[snip]

Smith had not contacted me about the DNC hack, but rather about his conviction that Clinton’s private email server had been hacked—in his view almost certainly both by the Russian government and likely by multiple other hackers too—and his desire to ensure that the fruits of those hacks were exposed prior to the election. Over the course of a long phone call, he mentioned that he had been contacted by someone on the “Dark Web” who claimed to have a copy of emails from Secretary Clinton’s private server, and this was why he had contacted me; he wanted me to help validate whether or not the emails were genuine.

When Smith couldn’t validate the emails he had received, he had the hackers themselves forward them to WikiLeaks.

Mr. Smith said after vetting batches of emails offered to him by hacker groups last fall, he couldn’t be sure enough of their authenticity to leak them himself. “We told all the groups to give them to WikiLeaks,” he said. WikiLeaks has never published those emails or claimed to have them.

All of which is to say that, if Stone was involved in this effort, he may have known emails pertaining to Libya (perhaps forgeries written to fit into the known, officially released ones) had gotten forwarded to WikiLeaks as early as August. In which case his nudge to Credico the next month may have been an effort to flush out the emails he believed to be in WikiLeaks’ possession.

Which would mean his response to Congress — that Stone was just looking for confirmation WikiLeaks had materials he thought they did — would be technically accurate.

There’s one other detail of interest in the WSJ story. Credico, like Stone, has not been interviewed by Mueller’s team. And like Stone, absent a direct interview, Credico appears to be trying to make his case in the public sphere.

Messrs. Stone and Credico said they haven’t been contacted by Mr. Mueller’s office, which declined to comment.

[snip]

After earlier asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the House probe, Mr. Credico now says he is willing to talk with investigators. He said he met on Wednesday with the committee’s Democratic staff members for what he called a limited conversation about WikiLeaks, the 2016 campaign and Mr. Stone.

As Mr. Credico has become more vocal about what he says are discrepancies in Mr. Stone’s account, Mr. Stone has responded with a series of threats, according to emails and text messages reviewed by the Journal.

In early April, in one of those emails, Mr. Stone accused Mr. Credico of serving as an informant.

“Everyone says u are wearing a wire for Mueller,” the April 7 email said. Two days later, Mr. Stone wrote: “Run your mouth = get sued.” Mr. Credico denies being an informant.

It’s possible that Stone was using Credico as a go-between to try to confirm what he already knew, to pressure WikiLeaks to release documents he and his rat-fucking associates had planted there.

Which might make the withheld emails far more newsworthy.

Update: Because there was some confusion, I’ve added more of the Don Jr transcript to make the context clear.