UNTOUCHABLE
TRUMP IS DAMNED IF HE DOES FIRE ROBERT MUELLER. TRUMP IS DAMNED IF HE DON'T FIRE ROBERT MUELLER.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Psalm 23:4
12/19/17
Trump legal team seeking precedent to avoid Mueller interview: report
BY BRANDON CARTER - 01/27/18 08:05 AM EST
President Trump legal team has been looking into a 20-year-old federal court order that could be used to limit or avoid an interview between Trump and special counsel Robert Mueller, according to a new report.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump’s lawyers are researching a 1997 case in which a federal appeals court ruled that sitting presidents and their top advisers are protected against disclosing certain information about decision-making and official government actions.
In the case, the appeals court ruled that prosecutors who hope to override claims of executive privilege are required to show the court that they hope to obtain “important evidence” that is otherwise unobtainable.
Legal scholars told the Journal that Trump’s lawyers could use the case to make a potential interview with Mueller more favorable for Trump and prevent a long court fight over the process.
“This is really the only argument they can make outside of the Fifth,” Todd Presnell, an attorney who has studied presidential privilege, told the Journal. “The Fifth Amendment would be a public-relations nightmare.”
The New York Times reported Thursday that Trump attempted to fire Mueller last June, but backed off after White House counsel Don McGahn refused Trump’s order and threatened to quit.
The Times's report came one day after Trump said he would be willing to interview with Mueller.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that he is "looking forward" to the opportunity to sit down with Mueller, but cautioned it would happen “subject to my lawyers.”
Trump also pushed back at critics who have accused him of obstructing the Russia probe by attacking the investigations and referring to them as a “witch hunt.”
“You fight back, oh, it’s obstruction,” Trump mockingly told reporters.
The Take Over
DONALD TRUMP AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY HAVE TAKEN A STANCE OF A HOSTILE TAKE OVER, AT THE WHITE HOUSE. LAW INSTITUTIONS THAT IS SUPPOSED TO WORK HAND IN HAND WITH CONGRESS, IS BEING INVESTIGATED AND BAMBOOZLED.
1/29/2019 3:00pm Le Andre Dukes
Andrew McCabe, FBI deputy director, steps down amid Trump and Republican criticism
Kevin Johnson and David Jackson, USA TODAY Published 12:53 p.m. ET Jan. 29, 2018 | Updated 6:19 p.m. ET Jan. 29, 2018
WASHINGTON – FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who has been a target of unrelenting criticism from President Trump and some Republican lawmakers, abruptly announced his resignation Monday, according to two government officials who were not authorized to comment publicly on personnel matters.
McCabe was expected to resign in March when he was eligible for retirement. But the bureau's second-in-command submitted his resignation more than a month early, one official said, adding that his accumulated leave time would allow him to qualify for full retirement benefits.
Prior to McCabe's announcement, the official said, FBI Director Christopher Wray raised the prospect of moving McCabe to another post within the bureau – out of the line of fire from the White House – but the deputy director ultimately decided to leave.
McCabe, who rose through the counter-terrorism and national security ranks, served as the agency's acting director this summer after Trump fired former director James Comey in May.
Trump has blamed McCabe for influencing the decision not to criminally charge his former election opponent Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server when she was secretary of State. In response to accusations that McCabe exerted undue or partisan influence over the probe, the FBI has maintained McCabe had no personal conflicts, as he did not oversee that inquiry while his wife Jill McCabe was running for state office in Virginia as a Democrat.
The president's fixation on McCabe's personal political leanings was apparent soon after he was named acting FBI director when Trump pointedly asked McCabe in his initial interview at the White House who he voted for in the 2016 election. McCabe, according to an official with knowledge of the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly, told Trump that he did not vote.
Trump's repeated public references to McCabe, in tweets and public statements subsequently, has helped feed suspicion among an ultra-conservative wing of House Republicans that the FBI was biased against the Trump administration.
Yet Trump's unusual questions about McCabe's political leanings and personal attacks also form another potential data point in the ongoing investigation into whether the president tried to obstruct justice in the federal probe into Russia's election interference and possible collusion with Trump associates.
One official said Monday that McCabe – like his predecessor Comey – likely documented his encounters with Trump and may have maintained similarly detailed notes.
In memos that Comey has since turned over to federal prosecutors, the former director alleged that Trump last year urged him to drop the FBI's investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn and requested a pledge of loyalty. The memos are now part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether Trump sought to obstruct justice.
As the president is expected to testify for Mueller's investigation in the coming weeks, the tensions between Republicans and law enforcement continue to escalate. Members of the House Intelligence Committee are threatening to make public a classified memo outlining alleged FBI and Justice Department abuses of surveillance authority. Justice and FBI officials have rejected such assertions and have warned the committee that release of the material would be "reckless."
More: FBI documents: Andrew McCabe had no conflict in Hillary Clinton email probe
More: FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe to retire next year following Trump, GOP criticism
McCabe's resignation is virtually certain to be welcomed at the White House, as Trump has said McCabe is "racing the clock to retire with full benefits," though White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the president was not involved in McCabe's departure.
"The only thing the President has been applying pressure to was to make sure we get this (Russia investigation) resolved so that you guys and everyone else can focus on the things that Americans actually care about," Sanders said. "And that is making sure everybody gets the Russia fever out of their system once and for all..."
Still, as recently as last month, Trump seized on McCabe's role in the Clinton inquiry and his wife's political bid, noting that Jill McCabe received nearly $470,000 from a political action committee associated with Clinton ally and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
"How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin’ James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife’s campaign by Clinton Puppets during the investigation?" Trump tweeted in December.
Yet the FBI has released documents showing McCabe's role in the Clinton case began in February 2016, following his appointment as deputy director and three months after his wife lost her bid for a state Senate seat.
Despite pressure from the White House, McCabe has held the support of the bureau's leadership, including the new FBI Director. Christopher Wray, who succeeded Comey, has kept McCabe in place for the first five months of his tenure.
Since joining the bureau in 1996, McCabe has served Republican and Democratic administrations at the bureau's highest levels.
"FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is, and has been, a dedicated public servant who has served this country well," said former Attorney General Eric Holder, who served as former President Obama's first attorney general. "Bogus attacks on the FBI and DOJ to distract attention from a legitimate criminal inquiry does long term, unnecessary damage to these foundations of our government."
The president still has "full confidence" in Wray, Sanders said.
Associate Deputy Director David Bowdich, the former FBI chief in Los Angeles who oversaw the investigation into the 2015 San Bernardino mass shooting that left 14 dead, has been named deputy director.
House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes briefs reporters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
The Full Text of the Nunes Memo
On Friday, the House Intelligence Committee released the controversial document, which alleges surveillance abuses by the FBI.
On Friday, the House Intelligence Committee, which is chaired by Republican Representative Devin Nunes, released a four-page memo alleging surveillance abuses by the FBI. Earlier this week, Republicans on the committee voted to make the document public. The classified document has drawn criticism from Democratic lawmakers, who argue it is misleading, as well as from law enforcement officials. In a rare statement, the FBI warned against the document’s release, saying it had “grave concerns” about its accuracy. Despite pushback from officials, the White House approved the release of the memo Friday.
Below, read the memo in full.
January 18, 2018
To: HPSCI Majority Members
From: HPSCI Majority Staff
Subject: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Abuses at the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Purpose
This memorandum provides Members an update on significant facts relating to the Committee’s ongoing investigation into the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and their use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) during the 2016 presidential election cycle. Our findings, which are detailed below, 1) raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain DOJ and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and 2) represent a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process.
Investigation Update
On October 21, 2016, DOJ and FBI sought and received a FISA probable cause order (not under Title VII) authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISC.A page is a U.S. citizen who served as a volunteer advisor to the Trump presidential campaign. Consistent with requirements under FISA, the application had to be first certified by the Director or Deputy Director of the FBI. It then required the approval of the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General (DAG), or the Senate-confirmed Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division.
The FBI and DOJ obtained one initial FISA warrant targeting Carter Page and three FISA renewals from the FISC. As required by statute (50 U.S.C. §,1805(d)(l)), a FISA order on an American citizen must be renewed by the FISC every 90 days and each renewal requires a separate finding of probable cause. Then-Director James Comey signed three FISA applications in question on behalf of the FBI, and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe signed one. Then-DAG Sally Yates, then-Acting DAG Dana Boente, and DAG Rod Rosenstein each signed one or more FISA applications on behalf of DOJ.
Due to the sensitive nature of foreign intelligence activity, FISA submissions (including renewals) before the FISC are classified. As such, the public’s confidence in the integrity of the FISA process depends on the court’s ability to hold the government to the highest standard—particularly as it relates to surveillance of American citizens. However, the FISC’s rigor in protecting the rights of Americans, which is reinforced by 90-day renewals of surveillance orders, is necessarily dependent on the government’s production to the court of all material and relevant facts. This should include information potentially favorable to the target of the FISA application that is known by the government. In the case of Carter Page, the government had at least four independent opportunities before the FISC to accurately provide an accounting of the relevant facts. However, our findings indicate that, as described below, material and relevant information was omitted.
1) The “dossier” compiled by Christopher Steele (Steele dossier) on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign formed an essential part of the Carter Page FISA application. Steele was a longtime FBI source who was paid over $160,000 by the DNC and Clinton campaign, via the law firm Perkins Coie and research firm Fusion GPS, to obtain derogatory information on Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.
a) Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DOJ and FBI officials.
b) The initial FISA application notes Steele was working for a named U.S. person, but does not name Fusion GPS and principal Glenn Simpson, who was paid by a U.S. law firm (Perkins Coie) representing the DNC (even though it was known by DOJ at the time that political actors were involved with the Steele dossier). The application does not mention Steele was ultimately working on behalf of—and paid by—the DNC and Clinton campaign, or that the FBI had separately authorized payment to Steele for the same information.
2) The Carter Page FISA application also cited extensively September 23, 2016, Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, which focuses on Page’s July 2016 trip to Moscow. This article does not corroborate the Steele dossier because it is derived from information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo News. The Page FISA application incorrectly assesses that Steele did not directly provide information to Yahoo News. Steele has admitted in British court filings that he met with Yahoo News—and several other outlets—in September 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS. Perkins Coie was aware of Steele’s initial media contacts because they hosted at least one meeting in Washington D.C. in 2016 with Steele and Fusion GPS where this matter was discussed.
a) Steele was suspended and then terminated as an FBI source for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations—an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI in October 30, 2016, Mother Jones article by David Corn. Steele should have been terminated for his previous undisclosed contacts with Yahoo and other outlets in September—before the Page application was submitted to the FISC in October—but Steele improperly concealed from and lied to the FBI about those contacts.
b) Steele’s numerous encounters with the media violated the cardinal rule of source handling—maintaining confidentiality—and demonstrated that Steele had become a less than reliable source for the FBI.
3) Before and after Steele was terminated as a source, he maintained contact with DOJ via then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, a senior DOJ official who worked closely with Deputy Attorneys General Yates and later Rosenstein. Shortly after the election, the FBI began interviewing Ohr, documenting his communications with Steele. For example, in September 2016, Steele admitted to Ohr his feelings against then-candidate Trump when Steele said he “was desperate that Donald Trump not gets elected and was passionate about him not being president.” This clear evidence of Steele’s bias was recorded by Ohr at the time and subsequently in official FBI files—but not reflected in any of the Page FISA applications.
a) During this same time period, Ohr’s wife was employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump. Ohr later provided the FBI with all of his wife’s opposition research, paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign via Fusion GPS. The Ohrs’ relationship with Steele and Fusion GPS was inexplicably concealed from the FISC.
4) According to the head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, Assistant Director Bill Priestap, corroboration of the Steele dossier was in its “infancy” at the time of the initial Page FISA application. After Steele was terminated, a source validation report conducted by an independent unit within FBI assessed Steele’s reporting as only minimally corroborated. Yet, in early January 2017, Director Comey briefed President-elect Trump on a summary of the Steele dossier, even though it was—according to his June 2017 testimony—“salacious and unverified.” While the FISA application relied on Steele’s past record of credible reporting on other unrelated matters, it ignored or concealed his anti-Trump financial and ideological motivations. Furthermore, Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information.
5) The Page FISA application also mentions information regarding fellow Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos, but there is no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos. The Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Pete Strzok. Strzok was reassigned by the Special Counsel’s Office to FBI Human Resources for improper text messages with his mistress, FBI Attorney Lisa Page (no known relation to Carter Page), where they both demonstrated a clear bias against Trump and in favor of Clinton, whom Strzok had also investigated. The Strzok/Lisa Page texts also reflect extensive discussions about the investigation, orchestrating leaks to the media, and include a meeting with Deputy Director McCabe to discuss an “insurance” policy against President Trump’s election.
LENA FELTON is an editorial fellow at The Atlantic
Bannon is Subpoenaed in Mueller's Russian Investigation
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT JAN. 16, 2018
WASHINGTON — Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, was subpoenaed last week by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to testify before a grand jury as part of the investigation into possible links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
The move marked the first time Mr. Mueller is known to have used a grand jury subpoena to seek information from a member of Mr. Trump’s inner circle. The special counsel’s office has used subpoenas before to seek information on Mr. Trump’s associates and their possible ties to Russia or other foreign governments.
A second subpoena for Mr. Bannon to testify came from a House panel on Tuesday.
The Mueller subpoena could be a negotiating tactic. Mr. Mueller is likely to allow Mr. Bannon to forgo the grand jury appearance if he agrees to instead be questioned by investigators in the less formal setting of the special counsel’s offices about ties between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia and about the president’s conduct in office, according to the person, who would not be named discussing the case. But it was not clear why Mr. Mueller treated Mr. Bannon differently from the dozen administration officials who were interviewed in the final months of last year and were never served with a subpoena.
The subpoena is a sign that Mr. Bannon is not personally the focus of the inquiry. Justice Department rules allow prosecutors to subpoena the targets of investigations only in rare circumstances.
On Tuesday, he was questioned for 10 hours behind closed doors before the House Intelligence Committee, which is also conducting a Russian election meddling investigation. The meeting turned contentious as Mr. Bannon repeatedly said he could not answer questions, citing executive privilege. The committee eventually subpoenaed Mr. Bannon to compel him to provide answers.
After the interview, Democrats on the committee accused the White House of exerting influence over Mr. Bannon to keep him from expounding about his time in the West Wing. A senior administration official insisted that the White House had not told Mr. Bannon to exert executive privilege. Mr. Bannon did not address reporters, and a spokesman for Mr. Mueller did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Mr. Mueller issued the subpoena after Mr. Bannon was quoted in a new book criticizing Mr. Trump, saying that Donald Trump Jr.’s 2016 meeting with Russians was “treasonous” and predicting that the special counsel investigation would ultimately center on money laundering.
After excerpts from the book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” were published this month, Mr. Trump derided Mr. Bannon publicly and threatened to sue him for defamation. Mr. Bannon was soon ousted as the executive chairman of the hard-right website Breitbart News.
Some legal experts said the subpoena could be a sign that the investigation was intensifying, while others said it might simply be a negotiating tactic to persuade Mr. Bannon to cooperate with the investigation. The experts also said it could be a signal to Mr. Bannon, who has tried to publicly patch up his falling-out with the president, that despite Mr. Trump’s legal threats, Mr. Bannon must be completely forthcoming with investigators.
Prosecutors generally prefer to interview witnesses before a grand jury when they believe they have information that the witnesses do not know, or when they think they might catch the witnesses in a lie. It is much easier for a witness to stop the questioning or sidestep questions in an interview than during grand jury testimony, which is transcribed, and witnesses are required to answer every question.
“By forcing someone to testify through a subpoena, you are providing the witness with cover because they can say, ‘I had no choice — I had to go in and testify about everything I knew,’” said Solomon L. Wisenberg, a prosecutor for the independent counsel that investigated Bill Clinton when he was president.
Significant grand jury activity may undermine the case that White House officials have made for months: that they believe the inquiry is coming to an end and are convinced that the president will be cleared. Mr. Mueller has told Mr. Trump’s lawyers that he will probably want to question the president before the investigation concludes, but no interview has been scheduled.
Mr. Bannon has limited firsthand knowledge about two key issues within Mr. Mueller’s purview — the president’s firing of James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, a decision made without Mr. Bannon present, and the drafting of a misleading statement about the subject of the June 2016 meeting with Russians, in which they promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
But even Mr. Bannon’s secondhand knowledge could be used to draw a contrast with statements from people with firsthand knowledge whom Mr. Mueller has already interviewed. And Mr. Bannon was directly involved in a number of other major moments, including the decision-making around the firing of Michael T. Flynn, the president’s first national security adviser, who was dismissed after he lied to Vice President Mike Pence about phone calls with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition.
Mr. Bannon also helped run the transition after Chris Christie, now the former governor of New Jersey, was fired as head of that team. And he was the chief executive of the Trump campaign in October 2016 when WikiLeaks began releasing thousands of stolen personal emails from the hacked account of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta.
In “Fire and Fury,” Mr. Bannon was quoted by the author, Michael Wolff, as suggesting that Donald Trump Jr.; the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner; and Paul Manafort, his campaign chairman at the time, were “treasonous” and “unpatriotic” for attending the meeting with Russians at Trump Tower. Mr. Bannon said he believed there was “zero” chance that the younger Mr. Trump did not take them to meet his father, who has said he knew nothing about the meeting.
“The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor — with no lawyers,” Mr. Bannon said in the book.
Mr. Trump erupted in anger after the excerpts were published, calling Mr. Bannon “Sloppy Steve” on Twitter and saying he had “cried when he got fired and begged for his job.”
“Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Too bad!”
Days after the excerpts were published, a statement was issued in Mr. Bannon’s name in which he tried to back away from his assertions in the book. He said that his reference to treason was aimed at Mr. Manafort, not the president’s son. Mr. Bannon did not apologize, however, and though he had approved the statement, an associate sent it to reporters without his knowledge.
The president appeared to ease his anger toward Mr. Bannon at the end of last week. When asked in an interview with The Wall Street Journal whether his break with Mr. Bannon was “permanent,” the president replied, “I don’t know what the word ‘permanent’ means.”
People close to Mr. Bannon took the president’s comments as a signal that Mr. Trump was aware that his fired strategist would soon be contacted by investigators.
Mr. Trump has a history of reaching out to people he has fired, including those under investigation, directly or indirectly, as he did with Mr. Flynn after he was dismissed and before he struck a plea deal with Mr. Mueller’s investigators.
Mr. Bannon has hired William A. Burck of the Washington office of the Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan law firm to represent him in the defamation threats from Mr. Trump and the congressional inquiries. Mr. Burck also represents several current and former administration officials who have been interviewed as witnesses by Mr. Mueller’s investigators. Among them are the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, and the former White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus.
The Russia investigation and Donald Trump: a timeline from on-the-record sources
By John Kruzel on Thursday, February 15th, 2018 at 3:29 p.m.
U.S. law enforcement agencies and Congress are investigating links between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia, as part of a broader probe into Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 election.
At least eight Trump associates had contacts with Russian government officials or business people during the campaign and presidential transition. To date, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has swept up four members of Trump’s campaign, including two who have agreed to work with Mueller’s team as part of a plea deal.
As the investigation has unfolded, we’ve learned that some things the Trump team claimed never happened, actually did happen. Stories have changed, recollections have been refreshed and government officials have come forward with new assessments of the intelligence.
This timeline documents everything we know thus far about the investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia. The sources are either verified events, court filings, public statements, or on-the-record media reports.
June 16, 2015: Donald Trump announces candidacy for president.
July 2015: Hackers backed by the Russian government penetrate the Democratic National Committee’s networks, stealing large volumes of data and maintaining access for about a year.
Mid 2015: Thousands of Kremlin-backed social media accounts begin to spread propaganda and disinformation, showing a clear preference for Trump.
January 2016: Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer, emails Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
March 19, 2016: The chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, John Podesta, falls victim to an email phishing scam. It is believed this is how a group of Russian hackers gained access to his email account.
Early March 2016: George Papadopoulos joins the Trump campaign as an adviser. While traveling in Italy in mid-March, Papadopoulos meets a London-based professor whom Papadopoulos understood to have "substantial connections to Russian government officials."
March 21, 2016: Trump identifies Papadopoulos and Carter Page as members of his foreign policy team, in an interview with the Washington Post.
March 24, 2016: Papadopoulos meets in London with the professor who introduces him to a female Russian national who Papadopoulos believes to be a relative of Putin with links to other senior Russian officials.
March 29, 2016: Trump taps Paul Manafort to manage the Republican National Convention.
March 31, 2016: Papadopoulos tells Trump, Jeff Sessions and other campaign members that he can use his Russian connections to arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin.
April 2016: Papadopoulos’ professor source tells the Trump adviser about a meeting with high-ranking Russian government officials in Moscow who have "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails."
April 2016: Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak attends Trump’s foreign policy speech in Washington, where he meets Trump’s son-in-law and campaign adviser Jared Kushner.
June 3, 2016: Donald Trump, Jr. receives an email from Rob Goldstone, a business associate. Goldstone tells the younger Trump that Moscow supports his father’s candidacy, and says he has a connection to a Russian government official with incriminating evidence against Hillary Clinton.
Goldstone tells Trump Jr.: "This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump."
The younger Trump replied that same day: "If it’s what you say I love it."
June 9, 2016: Trump, Jr.,Manafort and Kushner meet with a Russian national and several others at Trump Tower, based on Goldstone’s promise to Trump Jr. that a "Russian government attorney" would deliver damaging information about Clinton. Several shifting accounts of the meeting were later offered.
June-July 2016: WikiLeaks and DCLeaks release thousands of documents about Clinton and internal DNC deliberations.
Early July 2016: Trump campaign adviser Carter Page travels to Moscow, where he meets with Russia’s deputy prime minister and a high-ranking Russian oil official. Page emails campaign staffers that the deputy prime minister had "expressed strong support for Mr. Trump," and that he had gleaned "incredible insights and outreach" in Russia.
July 18, 2016: Sessions talks with Kislyak after Sessions’ speech at the Republican National Convention.
July 25, 2016: The FBI publicly confirms it is investigating the DNC hack.
July 2016: The FBI opens a counterintelligence investigation into links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee later confirmed that information from Papadopoulos triggered the investigation.
July 27, 2016: During a press conference, Trump says of Clinton’s emails: "Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you can find the 33,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."
September 2016: Sessions meets with Kislyak in his Senate office.
Oct. 7, 2016: An Access Hollywood tape is released in which Trump can be heard in the 2005 interview bragging about groping women. Less than an hour later, WikiLeaks publishes more than 2,000 emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
Mid October 2016: Trump Jr. corresponds with WikiLeaks through Twitter’s private message service. WikiLeaks asks the younger Trump to direct his Twitter followers to its trove of documents. Fifteen minutes later, candidate Trump tweets about WikiLeaks. Two days later, Trump Jr. tweeted a link to WikiLeaks’ archive.
Oct. 21, 2016: The FBI and Justice Department obtain a warrant to monitor Page after convincing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that there is probable cause to believe Page is acting as an agent of Russia.
Nov. 8, 2016: Trump is elected president.
Dec. 1, 2016: Kushner and campaign adviser Michael Flynn meet with Kislyak at Trump Tower.
Dec. 13, 2016: Kushner meets with Russian banker Sergey Gorkov, the CEO of a state-run Russian bank under U.S. sanction. Gorkov was described to Kushner as "someone with a direct line to the Russian president who could give insight into how Putin was viewing the new administration and best ways to work together."
Dec. 29, 2016: In the waning days of his presidency, Barack Obama responds to Russia’s interference in the election by expelling 35 Russian diplomats and issuing new sanctions.
Late Dec. 2016: Following Obama’s move against Russia, Flynn asks Kislyak to "refrain from escalating the situation." Kislyak later tells Flynn that Russia "had chosen to moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of his request."
Jan. 10, 2017: In his confirmation hearing to become Trump’s attorney general, Sessions says under oath that he did not have contact with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign. In a separate questionnaire submitted a week later, Sessions denied contacting any Russian officials regarding the 2016 election.
Jan. 10, 2017: A dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele goes public. Steele wrote the dossier on behalf of Fusion GPS, a research firm whose work had been funded in part by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The document suggests the Kremlin possesses compromising material against Trump and raises the possibility Trump is vulnerable to blackmail.
Jan. 20, 2017: Trump is inaugurated as president.
Late Jan. 2017: Flynn, now Trump’s national security adviser, lies to the FBI, falsely claiming that he never discussed the Obama administration’s Russia sanctions with Kislyak.
Jan. 27, 2017: Trump tells FBI Director James Comey, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty," according to sworn testimony Comey would later deliver to Congress. Trump has denied this.
Feb. 13, 2017: Flynn resigns after 24 days as national security adviser.
Feb. 14, 2017: Trump asks Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn, according to sworn testimony Comey would later deliver to Congress. Comey says Trump told him: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go." Trump has denied this.
March 1, 2017: The Washington Post reports that Sessions met with Kislyak twice over the previous year, encounters that Sessions failed to disclose during his confirmation proceedings. Sessions later confirms these meetings.
March 2, 2017: Sessions recuses himself from any "existing or future investigations" related to the 2016 presidential election.
March 20, 2017: Comey publicly confirms the FBI’s counterintelligence probe includes "investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts."
May 9, 2017: Trump fires FBI Director James Comey.
May 11, 2017: Trump says "this Russia thing" was part of his reasoning for firing Comey.
Trump tells NBC’s Lester Holt: "When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won."
May 17, 2017: The Justice Department appoints former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to lead the investigation into possible ties or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, as well as other matters that "may arise directly from the investigation."
July 8, 2017: The New York Times reports on the June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower where Trump, Jr., Manafort and Kushner met with a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer.
That story prompted Trump Jr. to issue the following statement to the media:
"It was a short introductory meeting. I asked Jared (Kushner) and Paul (Manafort) to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up.
"I was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but was not told the name of the person I would be meeting with beforehand."
July 9, 2017: The New York Times reports that Trump Jr. arranged the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting after being promised he would receive damaging information about Clinton.
For the second consecutive day, Trump Jr. issued a statement to the media about the meeting. (Read a full account of the Trump team’s shifting explanations here.)
Aug. 1, 2017: White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked about a news report that the president had tried to change the narrative around Trump Jr.'s meeting with the Russian lawyer. Sanders says Trump "weighed in" on his son’s statement about the June 9 Trump Tower meeting. Sanders’ statement is inconsistent with previous explanations offered by Trump’s team.
Oct. 5, 2017: Papadopoulos pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about his efforts to put the Trump campaign in contact with Moscow, and enters a plea agreement with Mueller.
Oct. 30, 2017: Manafort and Trump campaign associate Rick Gates surrender to the FBI after being charged with a dozen felonies each, including failing to disclose lobbying activities on behalf of foreign entities, financial crimes and making false statements. They plead not guilty to all charges.
Nov. 2, 2017: Page tells the House Intelligence Committee he had notified Sessions about contacts he made with Kremlin officials during his July 2016 Russia, contradicting Sessions’ previous denials.
Nov. 30, 2017: Flynn pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about his discussions with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition, and enters a plea agreement with Mueller.
Feb. 2, 2018: Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee release a memorandum accusing the Justice Department and FBI of abusing their authority in the early stages of the investigation into collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
The memo claims that officials selectively withheld information when they obtained a warrant to monitor Page. It also says that FBI agent Peter Strzok, one of the investigators, harbored a bias against Trump. Mueller removed Strzok from the Russia probe after he learned that Strzok and a colleague had exchanged text messages that criticized Trump.
Democrats have countered that the memo cherry-picks information, and have sought to release a memo countering these allegations.
Feb. 3, 2018: Trump claims via Twitter that the GOP memo "totally vindicates" him in the Russia probe.
Feb. 9, 2018: The White House blocks Democrates from releasing their own memorandum rebutting Republicans' Feb. 2 memo.
Mueller eyes charges against Russians who stole, spread Democrats’ emails
MAR 1 2018, 5:00 PM ET by KEN DILANIAN, WILLIAM M. ARKIN and JULIA AINSLEY
WASHINGTON — Special counsel Robert Mueller is assembling a case for criminal charges against Russians who carried out the hacking and leaking of private information designed to hurt Democrats in the 2016 election, multiple current and former government officials familiar with the matter tell NBC News.
Much like the indictment Mueller filed last month charging a different group of Russians in a social media trolling and illegal-ad-buying scheme, the possible new charges are expected to rely heavily on secret intelligence gathered by the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), several of the officials say.
Mueller's consideration of charges accusing Russians in the hacking case has not been reported previously. Sources say he has long had sufficient evidence to make a case, but strategic issues could dictate the timing. Potential charges include violations of statutes on conspiracy, election law as well as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. One U.S. official briefed on the matter said the charges are not imminent, but other knowledgeable sources said they are expected in the next few weeks or months. It's also possible Mueller could opt not to move forward because of concerns about exposing intelligence or other reasons — or that he files the indictment under seal, so the public doesn't see it initially.
The sources say the possible new indictment — or more than one, if that's how Mueller's office decides to proceed — would delve into the details of, and the people behind, the Russian intelligence operation that used hackers to penetrate computer networks and steal emails of both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The release of embarrassing Democratic emails through WikiLeaks became a prominent feature in the 2016 presidential election, cited at least 145 times by Republican candidate Donald Trump in the final month of the campaign. At one point he publicly urged "Russia" to find and release emails Trump believed were missing from Democrat Hillary Clinton's private server.
DHS and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a joint statement in the month before the 2016 election saying officials were "confident that the Russian government directed the recent compromises" that led to leaked emails being published by DCLeaks.com, WikiLeaks and an online persona known as Guccifer 2.0. — all considered to have been acting as Russian agents.
No criminal charges have been filed, however. In July 2016 the FBI began a counterintelligence investigation into how the Russians carried out the operation and whether any Americans, including members of the Trump campaign, were involved. Mueller took over the probe in May 2017. His office has filed more than 100 criminal charges against 19 people and three companies, securing guilty pleas and cooperation agreements from three members of the Trump campaign.
It is unlikely that the United States would be able to extradite alleged Russian hackers or their paymasters, but an indictment would "send a signal" both to Russia and to any Americans who may have participated, a government official said. In 2014, the Justice Department filed charges against five Chinese military hackers, accusing them of economic espionage. In 2016, authorities indicted seven hackers associated with the government of Iran, accusing them of hacking into bank websites and a computer system that controlled a small New York state dam. None of the accused in either case are in custody.
It could not be learned to what extent, if at all, Mueller's office would make allegations in the possible indictments about the role of Russian President Vladimir Putin in ordering and supervising the operation. NBC News has reported that U.S. intelligence agencies have evidence Putin was closely involved, but sources say the intelligence underlying that conclusion is extremely sensitive.
The CIA long ago turned over all the relevant intelligence it had on the Russian operation to FBI investigators, officials said. The NSA, DHS and the ODNI have also passed along to Mueller analysis and forensic information connected to the hacks, including telltale "signatures," malware and methods.
Another question is whether Mueller will charge Russian intelligence officers alleged to have supervised the operation. Often, the people who do the hacking for the Russian government are private freelancers. A former FBI official briefed on the matter said it was likely Russian government officials would be charged — but that Mueller would have to consult widely in the government about that decision.
"The Kremlin has used hackers to steal personal communications that Russian operatives then parceled out in targeted leaks, and created fake social media personas and news items on all sides of controversial issues in the hope of stirring discord in the West," Adm. Mike Rogers, the director of the NSA and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, told Congress this week.
Last November, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department had identified more than six members of the Russian government involved in hacking the Democratic National Committee’s computers and swiping sensitive information that became public during the 2016 presidential election, and that prosecutors and agents have assembled evidence to charge the Russian officials.
Another major unanswered question is whether Mueller's grand jury will charge any Americans as witting participants in the hacking and leaking scheme — including anyone associated with Trump's presidential campaign. Americans referenced in Mueller's previous indictment of Russians were described as "unwitting."
One source suggested that a new indictment could include unnamed American co-conspirators as part of a strategy to pressure those involved to cooperate. The previous Mueller indictment involving the Russian social media operation cited a co-conspirator that it did not name.
Much like the social media activity laid out in Mueller's recent indictment, the Russian hacking operation began long before the 2016 election.
In 2015, Russian hackers stepped up a campaign to use "spear phishing" techniques to steal emails and other data from Capitol Hill staffers, political operatives and foreign policy experts, U.S. officials and outside experts tell NBC News. Such techniques involve sending what appears to be a friendly email that is actually loaded with malware that gives the sender access to the recipient's computer, and potentially the organization's network.
In March 2016, Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta got an email instructing him to change his password. A staffer told him it was legitimate. The staffer was wrong. The Russians soon were inside his machine.
A few days later, a DNC employee acted on a similar email.
The GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, began vacuuming up emails from Podesta and from DNC accounts, according to CrowdStrike, the firm hired to analyze the breach. Another Russian intelligence agency, the SVR, also at some point breached DNC networks, CrowdStrike found.
A month later, in April, a junior Trump campaign adviser named George Papadopoulos met a mysterious European professor for breakfast at a London hotel.
According to court documents, the professor conveyed to Papadopoulos that he had learned from Russian government officials in Moscow that the Russians had obtained "'dirt' on then-candidate Clinton," including "thousands of emails."
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents and is now cooperating with Mueller.
The bulk of the stolen Democratic emails ultimately were made public through WikiLeaks, the self-described transparency organization that CIA Director Mike Pompeo has branded as a “hostile nonstate intelligence service” that “collaborated” with Russia. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange disputes that his organization got the emails from the Russians. Another big question is whether Mueller will seek to charge anyone associated with WikiLeaks, who may claim in defense that they were acting as journalists.
On Wednesday, NBC News reported that Mueller's team is asking witnesses pointed questions about whether Trump was aware that Democratic emails had been stolen before that was publicly known, and whether he was involved in their strategic release, according to multiple people familiar with the probe.
Trump has repeatedly denied collusion and has called the Mueller investigation a "witch hunt."
A spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment.
Timeline of Mueller probe of Trump campaign and Russia
APRIL 10, 2018 / 10:27AM Writing by Warren Strobel; Editing by John Walcott and Will Dunham
July 26, 2017 - Federal agents execute a pre-dawn raid of Manafort’s home.
Oct. 30, 2017 - As part of Mueller’s investigation, Manafort and business partner Rick Gates are indicted on money-laundering and other charges. Manafort pleads not guilty. Gates later pleads guilty to lesser charges and cooperates with Mueller’s probe.
Papadopoulos pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russia contacts and agrees to cooperate with the special counsel.
Dec. 1, 2017 - Flynn pleads guilty to lying to the FBI and agrees to cooperate with the special counsel.
Feb. 16, 2018 - Mueller charges 13 Russian individuals and three Russian companies, including the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, with conspiracy to tamper with the 2016 election.
April 3, 2018 - Alex van der Zwaan, the Dutch son-in-law of one of Russia’s richest men, is sentenced to 30 days in prison and fined $20,000 for lying to Mueller’s investigators, becoming the first person sentenced in the special counsel’s probe.
April 9, 2018 - FBI agents raid the offices and home of Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen. The raid is in part related to Cohen’s payment of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an affair she said she had with Trump.
This week’s wild Trump White House chaos, explained
Hope Hicks is out. Kushner, McMaster, Cohn, and Sessions are all said to be on the ropes.
By Andrew Prokopandrew@vox.com Mar 2, 2018, 12:05pm EST
The Trump White House has devolved to a new low of chaotic infighting.
The president’s son-in-law just lost his top-secret clearance and, under increasing ethical scrutiny, is said to be “paranoid” about who’s leaking against him. One of the president’s closest aides, Hope Hicks, is leaving and may be facing herown legal woes. His family is clashing with his chief of staff. Rumors are swirling that his national security adviser might soon be pushed out too, and that his top economic adviser could quit. On top of all that, he’s angrily lashing out at his attorney general on Twitter and trying to interfere with an investigation — again.
Many of these are long-simmering grudges and problems in the administration. But they’ve been further destabilized by new developments like the scandal over White House staff secretary Rob Porter and a round of reports that special counsel Robert Mueller is looking into what seems to be everything under the sun. And we’re already seeing policy consequences, with Trump circumventing what had been the policy process to declare he’d impose new tariffs.
The Porter scandal tipped the dominoes
After President Trump fired Reince Priebus and replaced him with John Kelly last July, the retired general tried to bring some more rigor to what had been a messy and disorganized White House process. Kelly saw no use for those he saw as bombastic, machiavellian troublemakers — like Anthony Scaramucci and Steve Bannon, both of whom he pushed out within weeks. Other outside advisers in Trumpworld, too, saw their access cut off.
But when it came to Jared Kushner, the presidential son-in-law who had a seemingly limitless portfolio, Kelly took a different tack. He scaled back Kushner’s portfolio but didn’t oust him or first daughter Ivanka Trump, allowing them to continue to hold prominent White House posts. As for Hope Hicks — a favorite of the president and ally of Jared and Ivanka, though viewed by some as underqualified — Kelly ended up agreeing to promote her to communications director on a permanent basis.
At the same time, Kelly enlisted White House staff secretary Rob Porter as a key ally in his quest to get more control over the paper flow to Trump, the workings of the policy process, and who got to go into the Oval Office. Porter, it so happened, was dating Hicks.
So an equilibrium emerged. The old retired general, Kelly, would tolerate the two romantically entwined pairs of younger high-level White House aides (Porter and Hicks, Jared and Ivanka), rather than gunning for them — and vice versa.
But when Porter’s history of alleged spousal abuse came to light, leading to his ouster from the White House, the dominoes began to fall:
~Kelly appeared to be suddenly vulnerable on the Porter matter — he’d handled the thing abysmally and couldn’t keep his story straight to the press — and his enemies both inside and outside the White House unsheathed their knives, hoping Trump would oust him. Rumors that Kelly would soon be fired swept Washington for days.
~But at the same time, Kushner also became more vulnerable than ever. A great deal of attention focused on the fact that Porter was never granted a full top-secret security clearance by the FBI but still stayed in his job. As it happens, Kushner was in the exact same situation.
~Kelly, then, responded by rolling out a new policy in which White House aides with interim clearances could no longer have access to top-secret information — even though this policy would marginalize Kushner. And President Trump stood by and let it happen, in a tremendous blow to his son-in-law’s standing in the White House. (Kushner’s spokesperson Josh Raffel will also be departing soon.)
~Meanwhile, by all accounts, the scandal over Hicks’s romantic partner understandably wore her down. She also spent hours testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on the Russia scandal this week. And Vanity Fair’s Gabe Sherman reports that Kelly recently told Hicks he wanted to scale back her portfolio — and that she’s facing expensive legal bills related to Mueller’s probe. So now she’s leaving too.
~And a seemingly endless series of damaging leaks about Kushner, his business entanglements, and his foreign contacts have continued all week, calling his future in the White House further into question and even spurring the Washington Post to write about “the fall of the house of Kushner.”
All of this has led to some alarm in Trumpworld, with Scaramucci perhaps speaking for the Jared/Ivanka/Hicks camp when he sounded off Thursday about Kelly (who, we should remember, fired him). “Does the president want to lose everyone because of General Jackass?” Scaramucci asked Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg News. “The guy is a bad dude. Fear and intimidation doesn’t work in a civilian organization.”
Porter’s exit also seems to have helped lead to tariffs
Meanwhile, Porter’s exit also seems to have caused, or at least contributed to, tumult on an entirely separate topic: trade policy.
All along, there has been a camp of advisers in the administration who have been pushing for tariffs and other “tougher” trade policies — including White House aide Peter Navarro and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. But up to this point, they’ve generally been marginalized by a more establishment-friendly group, including National Economic Council chair Gary Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin — and, it seems, Rob Porter.
But Politico’s Ben White and Andrew Restucciareport that in the days since Porter’s ouster, the trade hawks have gained ascendancy:
Cohn had been working closely with former staff secretary Rob Porter to postpone, kill or narrow the scope of the tariffs. But Porter’s departure last month amid domestic abuse allegations further complicated their efforts.
Porter had been organizing weekly trade meetings in which senior officials and Cabinet secretaries debated the merits of the proposals. Without Porter to organize the administration’s policy debate, Trump’s advisers reverted back to the chaos of the early days of the administration, where aides fell all over each other to influence the president in any way they could.
Meanwhile, the Times’s Ana Swanson recently reported that not only Navarro is a player again, but Trump has promised him a new promotion. “Amid the tumult, Mr. Navarro has been able to leverage a close personal relationship with the president to gain more access,” Swanson wrote, citing a source close to the White House.
This led to a chaotic day of conflicting reports leading up to Trump’s surprise announcement yesterday, with no details, that he’s going to put a tariff of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum imports. Cohn is now rumored to be considering quitting the White House in response.
But not all the drama is Porter’s fault
Yet it’s too simple to claim that without the Porter scandal, the Trump administration would be in great shape on a personnel front. Two other matters have been problems for months, and returned to the headlines this week.
One is the position of National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. It’s been widely reported that Trump doesn’t get along with McMaster, who has been rumored to be headed for the exits for a while. But on Thursday, some sources sent up a trial balloon for ousting him to MSNBC. The new development was that Kelly and Secretary of Defense James Mattis were said to be on board with the plan too.
Still, it’s worth remembering that there was a report like this about Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s supposedly imminent ousterlast November — and he’s still around three months later. (An NSC spokesperson called the report on McMaster “fake news.”)
Last but most certainly not least, there’s the never-ending drama surrounding Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions — a drama that could have major consequences for the Russia probe.
Both in private and in public (and on Twitter), Trump has mocked and harshly criticized Sessions since he recused himself from oversight of the Russia probe, in an apparent effort to pressure him into resigning. (Sessions hasn’t taken the bait.) The president’s attention to the issue has waxed and waned, but on Wednesday, he sent another furious tweet Sessions’s way, which set off a new round of chatter that Trump could fire Sessions.
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse. Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!
4:34 AM - Feb 28, 2018
Trump’s specific criticism of Sessions here makes no sense, but the bigger picture is that, as he’s said repeatedly, he wants the Justice Department to do more to investigate his political enemies and is annoyed that Sessions won’t take a greater personal role in doing so.
If Trump does pull the trigger and fire Sessions, he’d set off yet another crisis to embroil his administration and throw the future of the Mueller investigation into question. (Sessions is recused from oversight over the probe, but a new attorney general wouldn’t necessarily be — and could rein it in.)
Will he do it? Who knows. But Axios’s Jonathan Swan and Mike Allen had a pithy sentence to describe where things are now: “Trump is in a bad, mad place.”
First sentence handed down in Mueller probe
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
..This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!
3:24 AM - Aug 1, 2018
He used the phrase in a second tweet Wednesday.
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
Russian Collusion with the Trump Campaign, one of the most successful in history, is a TOTAL HOAX. The Democrats paid for the phony and discredited Dossier which was, along with Comey, McCabe, Strzok and his lover, the lovely Lisa Page, used to begin the Witch Hunt. Disgraceful!
4:01 AM - Aug 1, 2018
By Spencer S. Hsu April 3 Email the author
A London-based lawyer was ordered to serve 30 days in prison after a federal judge Tuesday handed down the first sentence in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Alex van der Zwaan, 33, a son-in-law of a prominent Russian-based banker, pleaded guilty Feb. 20 to lying to the FBI about his contacts in September and October of 2016 with a business associate of onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and with Manafort’s deputy, former Trump aide Rick Gates. Prosecutors said van der Zwaan also destroyed emails the special counsel had requested.
“What I did was wrong,” van der Zwaan said in court Tuesday. “I apologize to the court for my conduct. I apologize to my wife and to my family for the pain I have caused.” While van der Zwaan is not a central figure in the investigation, filings in his case illustrated Mueller’s continuing interest in Manafort and Gates’s actions through Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
According to prosecutors, van der Zwaan, who is a Dutch citizen, said he had been told by Gates that the Manafort associate had been an officer with the Russian military intelligence service. Van der Zwaan turned over secret recordings to Mueller’s investigators that he had made of his conversations with Gates, the associate and a senior partner at his law firm.
Van der Zwaan was a lawyer in the London office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom from 2007 to 2017, when the firm worked with Manafort during a decade when he served as a political consultant in Ukraine.
Manafort, 68, has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, money laundering and tax and bank fraud related to his lobbying work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine and former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. He has asked a judge to toss out charges, saying prosecutors are pursuing conduct that predate his work for Trump.
Gates, 45, who was deputy campaign manager for Trump and worked with Manafort in Ukraine, pleaded guilty Feb. 23 to conspiracy and lying to the FBI in a cooperation deal with Mueller’s probe.
Van der Zwaan admitted lying and withholding documents about information prosecutors said was “pertinent” to their investigation — that he had been in direct contact in September and October of 2016 with Gates and with the Manafort associate, identified in court documents as “Person A,” an individual who “has ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016.”
The defendant also admitted that Gates had informed him that Person A was a former officer of the Russian military intelligence service known as the GRU, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors charged that when van der Zwaan was initially interviewed by the FBI on Nov. 3, he falsely told investigators that he last communicated with Gates in mid-August 2016 through an innocuous text message.
Prosecutors made the allegation without naming the Manafort associate but described his role with Manafort in detail. The description matches Konstantin Kilimnik, the Russian manager of Manafort’s lobbying office in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. 2:54
Untangling the web of Paul Manafort
Kilimnik ran Manafort’s office in Kiev during the 10 years he did consulting work there, The Washington Post reported in 2017. Kilimnik worked as a liaison to the Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, with whom Manafort had done business. Emails previously described to The Post show Manafort asked Kilimnik during the campaign to offer Deripaska “private briefings” about Trump’s effort.
A Deripaska spokeswoman has said the billionaire, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was not offered and did not receive briefings.
Kilimnik has previously denied intelligence ties, telling The Post in a statement in June that he has “no relation to the Russian or any other intelligence service.”
A spokesman for Manafort, who is under a court gag order, has previously declined to comment about the van der Zwaan filings.
Van der Zwaan faced a recommended sentence ranging from zero to six months in prison and asked for no prison time for one count of lying to investigators, a felony.
Van der Zwaan is married to the daughter of billionaire German Khan, who owns the Alfa Group, Russia’s largest financial and industrial investment group.
Van der Zwaan attorney William Schwartz said his client’s family connections should not be a reason to penalize him and argued he deserved consideration for the loss of his career, for the suffering of his wife, who is expecting the couple’s first child in August in a difficult pregnancy, and for turning over recorded conversations and other evidence of his guilt.
“It is unusual conduct to make a false statement and then immediately provide proof of a false statement,” Schwartz said. He said that if it were another defendant, those tapes “could have found their way to the bottom of the Thames,” the river in London.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson acknowledged van der Zwaan’s character and willingness to turn over evidence of his crimes but said that given his means, allowing him to “pay a fine at the door and walk away would not send a message of deterrence. It would do the opposite.”
“It is a message that needs to be sent, particularly because you are an attorney,” Jackson said.
Jackson said that she did not know whether van der Zwaan was motivated to join Manafort and Gates for excitement, for the money or because he was engaged in a deeper “coverup,” but that in lying “he put his own interests ahead of the interests of justice” in an investigation of national and international importance into whether the U.S. democratic process was corrupted.
Prosecutors said that van der Zwaan concealed that Gates directed him in September 2016 to contact Person A. Van der Zwaan recorded his conversations with each of them, as well as a separate conversation he had with Gregory Craig, a Skadden senior partner overseeing work involving Manafort.
Van der Zwaan also deleted emails rather than turning them over to authorities, including one from Person A directing him to communicate using encrypted applications, and others showing he explored leaving the law firm to work directly for Gates and Manafort around 2012 and 2013.
The subject of the recorded phone call, prosecutors said, was a 2012 report prepared by van der Zwaan’s law firm about the jailing of former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Yanukovych had imprisoned Tymoshenko, a political rival, after a gas-supply controversy in 2009 involving Russia.
The Skadden report has been controversial in Ukraine in part because its findings seemed to contradict the international community’s conclusion that Tymoshenko had been unjustly jailed.
In addition, the Ukrainian government claimed to have paid only $12,000 for the report, an amount that put it just below the limit that would have required competitive bidding for the project under Ukrainian law.
Prosecutors have alleged that Manafort and Gates used an offshore account to secretly pay $4 million for the report.
Obstruction of justice bombshell will explode before midterms
BY BRENT BUDOWSKY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 08/03/18 10:15 AM EDT
Why is President Trump escalating his attacks against special counsel Robert Mueller, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Department of Justice, the FBI and the free press to a fever pitch in recent days?
The reason is that the odds are very high that Mueller will offer a declarative public statement before the midterm elections, and very likely before Labor Day, that the president is guilty of obstruction of justice.
The Mueller declaration of obstruction of justice could be issued in the form of a letter to Congress and may or may not ultimately be issued in the form of an indictment if he believes that the Trump situation creates extraordinary circumstances that warrant his seeking approval for a formal indictment.
It is impossible to know exactly what Mueller will do. We do not know the evidence he has that has not yet been made public. We do not know his private thinking on great matters of state and law that will govern his actions.
In April, there were public reports that Mueller would ultimately release his findings in two stages, the first being obstruction of justice, which could be released in whatever form it takes this summer.
When public reports indicated that Mueller is looking at Trump tweets, among other factors, in the obstruction investigation, some of his handful of legal defenders suggested that Trump tweets are not relevant evidence of obstruction. They are wrong, though the tweets are far from the most important evidence.
Consider the obstruction of justice provisions in the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon that were passed by the House Judiciary Committee before Nixon resigned. Article 1, Section 8 of the articles of impeachment included this:
“making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States and personnel of the Committee for the Re-election of the President, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct.”
In other words, repeatedly making false statements intended to deceive the public about matters under investigation constitute acts in furtherance of obstruction of justice in violation of American law.
Now consider this. Literally in real time, Trump is virtually at war over facts with leading members of his Cabinet about whether Russia has attacked American elections in the 2016 campaign and continues to attack American elections in the 2018 midterms.
On Thursday, leading members of his administration joined together in an extraordinary public session warning the nation about the continuing Russian attack against our elections. His national security adviser, director of National Intelligence, FBI director and secretary of Homeland Security stood united before the nation, warning of the continuing Russian attack in clear and powerful terms.
Trump could have joined them in person to offer his support. He did not. Instead, only hours later, he publicly claimed, again, that the Russia investigation was a hoax and that his recent meeting with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin was a huge success.
If charges that Trump obstructed justice by making false statements are considered in court or congressional hearings, it would be powerful testimony for his Cabinet members to be called to testify about whether Trump’s statements that the Russia investigations are a hoax are true or false.
Similarly, Trump’s fevered and escalating attacks against the free press, which even his daughter Ivanka had the good sense to rebut, provide more powerful and compelling evidence of intent to mislead the public about matters under intense investigation.
While Trump is in dramatic conflict with Cabinet members who warn about the Russian attack, which he falsely claims is a hoax, he attacks the free press for reporting about the Russian attack, which he falsely claims is fake news.
Mueller could argue that Trump is seeking to execute the first televised obstruction of justice, in plain view before the nation every day.
With a high probability that the obstruction issue reaches a crescendo before the midterm elections, there is now a growing likelihood that an anti-Trump wave will doom Republicans to a disastrous defeat in November.
In Texas, Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D) has surged to within a few points of defeating Sen. Ted Cruz (R). In Tennessee, former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen has a strong chance of winning the election to replace Sen. Bob Corker (R). Democratic Senate candidates have a strong chance to take Republican Senate seats in Arizona and Nevada.
It is now probable that Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives with a real possibility that Democrats win a larger than expected majority. For Republicans, it is the worst possible time for the coming obstruction of justice bombshell to explode.
It is political suicide for Republicans when the president escalates his attacks against the free press to such extreme levels that even his daughter distances herself from these attacks. His attacks against Mueller have reached such extreme levels that he puts the fear of God into Republicans running in 2018.
Brent Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was chief deputy majority whip of the U.S. House of Representatives. He holds an LLM in international financial law from the London School of Economics.
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