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Expletives asterisked

Sunday, April 21st, 2019

[ by Charles Cameron — language, Sir, such language! ]
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The most interesting redactions in the entire Mueller affair are these, signifying as they do the tenor of President Trump and his administration.

The first redaction is not made under a claim of executive privilege:

Nor is the presidential attorney’s remark noted here redacted on grounds of attorney-client privilege:

Such language was already in Use in Nixon’s Oval Office (and no doubt before), and the words “expletive deleted” were familiar to me from that era in some ways so parallel to our own. “Redacted” however is the word bandied about in our own day, and it took me a while to realize that all those asterisks in fact represent “expletives redacted”..

Language, my enduring love.

Prof Hadar Aviram’s close reading of Mueller, 2

Friday, April 19th, 2019

[ by Charles CameronHadar Aviram continues her distillation of the Mueller report, here providing us with the essence of volume 2 ]
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Mueller Investigation Report, Volume II: Obstruction of Justice.

2. The report starts off with a decline of the “binary” decision to prosecute or decline, because of the DOJ’s opinion that indicting a sitting president would “impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”

3. Despite Mueller’s opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted, they conducted the factual investigation “when memories were fresh and documentary materials were available.” The report EXPLICITLY states that “a president does not have immunity when he leaves office.”

4. They deliberately refrained from an ordinary determination whether crimes were committed because ordinary channels for clearing one’s name are unavailable in this case, and because the consequences of a recommendation would extend “beyond the realm of criminal justice.”

5. Most importantly: they did not find that the president did NOT obstruct justice and say so explicitly. The money shot is enclosed:

6. The report proceeds to review the efforts to cover up the contacts with Russia, which were reviewed in my previous thread. The chronology is as follows:

7. During the campaign, Trump repeatedly denied links to Russia, denied that the leaks were coming from Russia, and denied that he or other campaign officials sought any information from Russians. As my previous thread shows, the Mueller team found these denials to be false.

8. In Jan 2017, Flynn lied to Pence about meeting Kislyak. When Trump found out, he summoned Comey, then FBI director, and told him that he needed “loyalty.” He then proceeded to fire Flynn and commented to an outside advisor, “now that we fired Flynn, the Russia thing is over.”

9. Later that evening, Trump summoned Comey to a one-on-one meeting, telling Comey, “I hope you can see your way to letting this go.”

Trump proceeded to ask Deputy National Security Advisor McFarland for a letter saying that Trump did not order Flynn to meet Kislyak. McFarland declined because he did not know if it was true and didn’t want that to look like a quid-pro-quo favor for his Ambassadorship.

11. As Sessions began to consider recusing himself, Trump asked White House counsel McGahn to instruct Sessions not to recuse, and after Sessions’ recusal, took Sessions aside and asked him to “unrecuse.”

12. Later, when Comey admitted that there was an FBI investigation on Russia, Trump reached out to National Security Advisors asking them what they could do to dispel this suggestion. Despite McGahn’s advice to the contrary, he also reached out twice personally to Comey.

13. On May 3, Comey testified in a congressional hearing, refusing to say that Trump himself was under investigation. Within days, he was terminated. Trump claimed that the termination was unrelated to the testimony, but the timeline does not bear this out.

14. On May 17, Rosenstein appointed Mueller special counsel. Trump reacted by telling advisors that this was “the end of [his] presidency.” He first demanded that Sessions resign (but then did not accept his resignation.)

15. Trump then argued that Mueller had a conflict of interest, but his advisors told him that claim was meritless.

16. When Mueller announced that Trump was a target, the latter called McGahn at home and asked him to fire Mueller. Fearful of starting a Saturday Night Massacre, McGahn resigned, instead.

17. Two days after the convo w/McGahn, Trump met with Corey Lewandowski, asking him to relay a message to Sessions, who as you recall had recused himself.

18. Lewandowski was to instruct Sessions to issue a public announcement that, notwithstanding his recusal, Trump had done nothing wrong, and to instruct the Special Counsel to redirect the focus of the investigation toward “future elections.”

19. Lewandowski told Trump he understood the message, but did not want to relay it himself, so he asked senior White House official Rick Dearborn to do it. Dearborn didn’t want to do it either and did not relay the message.

20. In the meantime, while Trump was waiting for Lewandowski to relay the message to Sessions, Trump went on a twitter tirade, criticizing Sessions and implying that firing Sessions was imminent.

21. In the summer of 2017, news of the meeting at Trump Tower leaked to the press. On numerous occasions, Trump instructed aides not to reveal any information about the meeting and expressed confidence that the information would not leak on its own.

22. When Trump Jr. issued a statement about the meeting, Trump (the father) edited out what we know to be true: that the campaign was promised incriminatory information on Clinton. The edited statement stated that the meeting was about adoptions of Russian children.

23. Trump’s lawyer subsequently denied to the press that Trump played any role in crafting or editing Trump Jr.’s statement.

24. In Summer 2017, Trump made several efforts to reach out to Sessions and convince him to “unrecuse” himself. Trump met with Sessions at the Oval Office and asked him to “take [a] look” at investigating Clinton.

25. When Flynn pleaded guilty and collaborated with the Mueller investigation, Trump called Sessions again and told him that, if he “unrecused” himself, he would be “a hero”. Sessions did not “unrecuse” himself.

26. In early 2018, the media revealed the story behind McGahn’s resignation. Trump directed White House officials to tell McGahn to publicly deny that Trump had ordered McGahn to sack Mueller. McGahn refused to publicly deny this, saying that the reports were factually accurate.

27. Subsequently, Trump summoned McGahn to the Oval Office and pressured him to deny the reports, interrogating him about what he had told Mueller. McGahn told the investigation team later that he got a sense that the President was “testing his mettle.”

28. When Flynn started to collaborate with the Government, Trump reached out to him and asked him for a “heads up” if he learned “information that implicates the President.”

29. Flynn informed Trump that he was unable to cooperate with this request. Trump’s personal counsel said he would make sure that the President knew that Flynn expressed “hostility” toward the President.

30. During Manafort’s trial, Trump praised Manafort for not “flipping” (pleading guilty and cooperating with the investigation team), saying among other things that “flipping” “ought to be illegal.”

31. In 2017, as explained in Vol. 1, Michael Cohen falsely testified before Congress that Trump’s involvement in the Trump Tower Moscow project ended long before the campaign (when in fact it continued well into 2016.) Trump praised Cohen for his testimony.

32. In April 2018 the FBI raided Cohen’s home. Trump encouraged him to “stay strong” and relayed messages of support. Cohen reached out to Rudy Giuliani to discuss the possibility of a pardon.

33. When Cohen started cooperating with the investigation in Summer 2018, Trump turned on him, called him a “rat”, and suggested that his family members had committed crimes.

34. We now turn to how the Mueller team analyzed whether these facts constitute Obstruction of Justice.

35. Obstruction of Justice has three elements: [1] an obstructive act [2] a nexus between the obstructive act and an official proceeding and [3] a corrupt intent.

36. The offense covers both successful endeavors and attempts to obstruct justice.

37. The report enumerates the people they questioned in connection with the report. It explicitly says that “The President declined to be interviewed” and there are redacted bits around this statement.

38. The Mueller team had the power to subpoena Trump and refrained “in view of the substantial delay that such an investigative step would likely produce at a late stage in our investigation.” Also, even w/o his testimony, they had enough evidence “to understand relevant events.”

39. In deciding whose version was credible, they relied on general principles, including reasons to lie, good memory, opportunity to observe events, corroboration, and contradictions.

40. The part of the report that discusses Trump’s reaction to the Russian hacks and his instructions to Cohen and Manafort in this respect is heavily redacted.

41. Trump reached out to the intelligence community asking them to publicly deny the Steele Memo after it leaked through Buzzfeed.

42. We now move on to the Mueller team’s conclusions about whether Trump’s behavior constituted obstruction of justice.

43. Regarding Flynn’s resignation and pressure on Comey: Trump’s effort to procure false reports about Flynn, and especially the 1-on-1 convos w/Comey, count as “obstructive acts”.

44. This was directly related to concerns about criminal exposure for Flynn (=”official proceeding.”)

45. Corrupt intent: Trump’s demeanor in pressuring Comey suggests he knew he was not doing something that was above board. => OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE.

46. Regarding the pressure on Comey and others in the intelligence community to end the investigation: Trump’s convos about this, through McGahn and others, were not interpreted as inappropriate efforts to end the investigation.

47. There was a nexus to official proceedings that would follow disclosures about the involvement with Russia.

48. The nature of the pressure on intelligence officials does not clearly reveal corrupt intent. => NO CONCLUSIVE OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE. Read on.

49. Re firing Comey and claiming it was unrelated to Russia: This would qualify as an obstructive act if the anticipated effect was ending the investigation, which is unclear here.

50. Nexus: There is some connection this is related to the proceedings against Flynn.

51. Corrupt intent: The evidence supports the idea that the firing was aimed at protecting the president and that the other reasons were merely pretextual. => IF NOT “OBSTRUCTIVE ACT” THEN DOESN’T RISE TO LEVEL OF OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE.

52. Re the efforts to remove Mueller through McGahn and others: This is clearly an “obstructive act” to terminate Muller.

53. Nexus: There is a clear nexus between the effort to remove Mueller and the desire to end the investigation.

54. Corrupt intent: Substantive evidence links this to an effort to end the investigation and not to aboveboard behavior. => OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE

55. Efforts to curtail the investigation through Lewandowski, Sessions, etc: Obstructive acts: Trump’s directives show that he was trying to push Sessions to deviate the Mueller investigation.

56. Nexus: This was directly related to the Mueller grand jury.

57. Corrupt intent: Provable through Trump’s 1-on-1 meeting with Lewandowski. => OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE

58. Trump’s efforts to cover up the Trump Tower meeting: Obstructive act – there’s no strong evidence that this was more than a press strategy.

59. Nexus: unclear.

60. Corrupt intent: Unclear from these facts if it’s merely a press strategy. => NO SUFFICIENT PROOF OF OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE.

61. Trump’s efforts to “unrecuse” Sessions and have him take control of the investigation: Obstructive act b/c clearly aimed at terminating the Russia investigation.

62. Nexus to the Russia investigation is clear.

63. Corrupt intent: “a reasonable inference” on Trump’s side was that Sessions would “play a protective role.” => OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE

64. Trump tries to get McGahn to lie that he wasn’t ordered to fire Mueller. Obstructive intent: Duh – he’s trying to get McGahn to create a false record.

65. Nexus: It was foreseeable that McGann would testify about these matters, so there’s a connection to the Russia investigation.

66. Corrupt intent: an effort to influence McGahn’s account in order to deflect or prevent further scrutiny of Trump. => OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE

67. Trump’s statements to Flynn and Manafort in the context of the criminal proceedings against them: Obstructive act in the sense that his statements could influence the jury.

68. Nexus to both trials.

69. Intent: because of Atty-client privilege issues, we don’t exactly know what Giuliani did when threatening Flynn and whether he properly represented Trump’s opinion. => NOT ENOUGH FOR OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE

70. Trump’s about-face toward Cohen (praise then excoriation when Cohen cooperated w/the Feds.) Obstructive act: Trump knew that Cohen provided false testimony but no proof that he procured said false testimony.

71. Proceeding: Cohen’s testimony at investigations.

72: Intent: There’s evidence to support the inference that he hoped Cohen would falsely testify. => BUT NOT ENOUGH TO SUGGEST HE PROCURED THE FALSE TESTIMONY.

73: Now the report looks at these instances as a whole. The report cautiously suggests that Trump might have just been upset because the Russia investigation (which, as per Part I, stops short of arguing conspiracy) cast doubt on his legitimacy as president.

74. There were multiple efforts to exert undue influence, but they were largely unsuccessful (this, I think, is a legal mistake, because obstruction of justice does not require success, merely an attempt.)

75. In general, federal law advances a broad definition of obstruction.

76. Also, other obstruction statutes might be relevant to Trump’s conduct, including tampering with witnesses.

77. This speaks for itself – no criminal charges against a sitting president, but there are other avenues (“I won’t indict, but you can impeach”):

78. More “I won’t indict, but you can impeach” statements:

79. I’ll let the parting shot speak for itself:

80. Thank you all for reading along. I hope this was helpful to you. Please tweet and share in case others find this useful.

**

Note from Charles Cameron:

I’m grateful to Thread Reader, the application which makes extensive Twitter threads like this one available in easily readable, sequential form, and which was used to reformat Hadar’s threads before posting them here on ZP.

Prof Hadar Aviram’s close reading of Mueller, 1

Friday, April 19th, 2019

[ by Charles Cameron — I’ll leave it to my friend Hadar Aviram to lay out her distillation of the report, starting with Volume I ]
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One of the best uses of Twitter is to provide continuous threads by a single author on a topic of interest.

Hadar Aviram, who teaches law at UC Hastings, wrote up a detailed rundown of the Mueller report yesterday evening, and released it in the form of two Twitter-threads, one for each volume. With her gracious permission, I’m reposting them here on ZP.

Hadar points out that her threads mostly recount the contents of the two volumes, with only one or two of her own comments. Volume I deals with Russia’s election interference and its interactions with the Trump campaign.

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Volume 1:

1. #MuellerReport Volume 1, redux: We now know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Russian government procured the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Election, in order to obtain a presidency that was hospitable to their aspirations in the Ukraine.

2. They did so in two ways: deep and sophisticated infiltration of social media since 2014, and hacking the DNCC emails.

3. The Russian hackers impersonated not only right-wing groups, but also progressive groups.

4. Many rallies throughout the US, purportedly organized by “grassroots activists”, were organized by Russians.

5. Among these dozens of rallies, the ones that stand out in particular were the ones supposedly organized by the coal industry.

6. Russian operatives organized self-defense classes for African Americans to fight police, posing as a black rights org called “black fist.”

7. The Trump campaign, including Trump himself, endorsed Russian political operative by retweeting their tweets and cooperating with their rallies. Unclear whether they knew they were interacting with Russians.

8. The Russian military hacked Democrat accounts in several waves, in a concerted and sophisticated effort.

9. This involved planting malware on the servers, as well as the theft of thousands of documents.

10. The GRU disseminated the stolen documents first through two anonymized accounts, DCLeaks and Guccifer, and then through WikiLeaks.

11. The Guccifer account reached out directly to the Trump Campaign offering more information, but no evidence of further communication with the campaign.

12. WikiLeaks were not neutral parties, and their collaboration was fostered by partisanship. Assange explicitly said to WikiLeaks employees that “it would be better for the GOP to win.”

13. The GRU and Wikileaks hid their communications, so the #MuellerReport has only partial information about the transfer, but they did establish when some of the documents were transferred.

14. The day that Trump publicly said, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you can find the 30,000 emails” on Clinton’s server, the GRU hacked Clinton’s account.

15. The GRU also directly intervened in the election by targeting election administrators and hacking computer systems, specifically in Illinois and Florida. B/c of redactions, unclear from this version which of these interventions were successful.

16. The part about the Trump Campaign’s interest in the hacking activities is heavily redacted. Some of the redactions involve incidents mentioned by Cohen and Manafort and involving Trump personally, but too much redacted material to get a full picture.

17. Page 54: It seems like Trump and Gates were going to the airport, Trump got a call and then told Gates that more emails were forthcoming.

18. Correspondence between Trump Jr. and Wikileaks shows that they were in communication and that Trump Jr. shared their leaked emails, but falls short of showing Jr. actively asking them to do things.

19. There is evidence of several Trump campaign officials making efforts to recover Clinton’s discarded emails, most of them without success and some pursued “to some degree.”

20. Two of these people, Barbara Ladeen and Peter Smith, were contacted by Michael Flynn and asked to dig for the emails, and Smith even formed a corporation aimed at doing so.

21. Connections btwn Trump campaign & Russians before Nov. 8, 2016: [1] Trump Tower Moscow project negotiations btwn Trump and oligarchs (Crocus Group) begin after Miss Universe pageant in Russia. Last communication on this appears to be Nov. 24, 2014.

22. In 2015, Moscow tower convo is revived with communication between new investment group, and Michael Cohen, through Felix Sater. Throughout 2015 and 2016 Cohen reported to Trump about the progress of the project.

23. Btwn Oct 2015 and Jan 2016, Trump negotiated directly with the Russian Government and the City of Moscow re the tower, personally signing a “letter of intent.” In this context, Sater emails Cohen, telling him that Putin has the power to make Trump POTUS.

24. Cohen does not remember Trump explicitly discussing the impact of business on his presidency, but remembers Trump saying that the presidency will result in good business.

25. After signing the letter of intent, Klokov, an energy corporation exec, contacted Ivanka offering help with the campaign. She forwarded his email to Cohen, who corresponded with Klokov, the latter suggesting a course of action ending in a Trump-Putin meeting.

26. Klokov suggested that the Trump-Putin meeting be informal and divorced from the political issue.

27. Cohen continued pressing through the Sater channel, but his email asking for a meeting didn’t go through b/c he misspelled the recipient’s email address.

28. Cohen later resent to the correct address. He lied to congress that he didn’t get a response. In fact, he had received a response, and was still working on arranging the meeting and reporting to Trump well into June 2016.

29. Sater continued to make attempts to bring Cohen and Trump to Moscow to negotiate the tower well into mid-2016. In one correspondence item, Cohen specifically said Trump will travel after he becomes the nominee.

30. Trump himself was invited twice to Russia, once through Ivanka’s fashion connections, and ended up not going for various reasons involving the timing of the campaign and the identity of the people who invited him.

31. Moving on to outreach to foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos. He was contacted in April 2016 by British professor Mifsud, who told him that the Russian government has procured “dirt” on Clinton.

32. Papadopoulos shared this information outside the campaign, but there is no conclusive evidence that he shared it with a campaign official, and the meeting he tried to broker never came to pass.

33. Papapdopoulos was recruited to the Trump campaign partly because of his Russia acumen, and he understood Russia was going to be “an important aspect of the campaign’s foreign policy.”

34. In March 31, 2016, Papadopoulos attended a meeting with Sessions and Trump (see pic), in which he informed them of Putin’s interest in meeting Trump. Trump and Sessions expressed interest.

35. It was only after this meeting that Papadopoulos learned from Mifsud that Russia has dirt on Clinton.

36. Manafort, who heard of this from Papadopoulos, worried about Trump involvement, and emailed another campaign official that “we need someone to communicate that [Trump] is not making these trips. It should be someone low level in the campaign so as to not send any signal.”

37. Handwritten notes from Papadopoulos confirm all this, including the need for there to be “no official letter/no message from Trump.” (p. 92.)

38. Steven Miller, Clovis, and other campaign officials deny having heard from Papadopoulos about “dirt” on Clinton.

39. Moving on to Carter Page, who joined the Trump Campaign as foreign policy advisor in March 2016, after having lived and worked in Russia and been approached by Russian intelligence years before the campaign.

40. Page’s interaction with Russian Intelligence were exposed in indictments of Russian nationals for espionage. In their communications, Page was referred to as “Male-1.”Page admitted providing them “immaterial non-public information.”

41. Page worked with the campaign from Jan 2016 in an informal capacity, and wrote to senior campaign officials at the time that “Trump could have a ‘game-changing effect. . . in bringing the end of the New Cold War.'”

42. In July 2016, Page traveled to Moscow to give a speech at the New Economic School (NES). He tried to get Trump to do it in his place, but the campaign said that was not possible and that he’d have to take the trip “out side [sic] of your role” in the campaign.

43. At NES, Page spoke openly against U.S. sanctions against Russia and met businessmen and officials, leading him to email the campaign promising “a readout soon regarding some incredible insights and outreach I’ve received” from Russian politicians.

44. Some of Page’s activities in Russia, which might explain this communication, are redacted in the copy I have, and the redacted copy only says that “Page’s activities in Russia. . . were not fully explained.”

45. The negative press about Page’s trip and his subsequent meeting with Kislyak (Russian ambassador to the U.S.) led to his removal from the campaign in September 2016.

46. Moving on to the think-tank CNS (Center for the National Interest) and its presidency Dimitry Simes (USSR born and well connected to Russian politicians and businesspeople.) In March 2016, Simes met Jared Kushner, suggesting an advisory expert group. Kushner was receptive.

47. In April 2016, CNS and Kushner discussed a Trump policy speech. The venue was moved, at Kushner’s request, to the Mayflower hotel. Trump was introduced to congress members in attendance. Kislyak was in attendance and said to Kushner, “we like what your candidate is saying.”

48. There is no evidence that Kislyak spoke directly to Trump – looks like Trump left the venue to the airport shortly after his speech.

49. Sessions was to be seated next to Kislyak, but no photographic evidence that he spoke to him at the event.

50. Kushner and Simes remained in contact until the election, with the latter advising Kushner against the “bad optics” of Russia connections and too much focus on Russia.

51. In August 2016, Kushner provided Simes, at the latter’s request, with material on Bill Clinton’s contact with Russia. Kushner thought they were “old news” and thus worthless, but Simes shared them with the think tank.

52. Moving on to Trump Tower mtg. on June 9, 2016, btwn Trump Jr. and Robert Goldsone, on behalf of Russian real-estate scion Agalarov. Trump Jr was promised material that “would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia” and replied “if it’s what you say I love it.”

53. At the mtg, Russian atty Natalia Veselnitskaya said that Clinton received funds derived from illegal activities in Russia. Trump Jr. asked her to authenticate. She reportedly did not do so, instead critiquing Russian sanctions (the Magnitsky Act.)

54. Kushner and Manafort were aware of the meeting and its importance. Cohen recalls Trump being told, though he does not recall he was told specifically it was with Russians.

55. Trump, Kushner, and Manafort all deny that Trump was informed of the meeting.

56. We know, however, that when Veselnitskaya did not substantiate the Clinton info and the conversation turned to the Magnitsky Act, Kushner sent a text to Manafort, saying “waste of time,” and excused himself before the meeting ended.

57. Following the meeting, there were two unsuccessful follow-up efforts from the Russian side. The American side, however, became increasingly worried re the optics of Trump Jr.’s attendance. Goldstone told Alagarov that he “kept you and your father out of it” as a “favor”.

58. There is evidence on both sides of an effort to match versions about what happened at the meeting and make it seem innocuous on Trump Jr.’s part.

59. Moving on to RNC convention in July 2016. Sessions met Kislyak and seems to have answered a question from him during his speech. Other communications btwn them, according to Sessions, were limited to exchanging pleasantries and to “some things about U.S.-Russia relations.”

60. At behest of Trump’s foreign policy advisors, the RNC platform, which originally supported “lethal assistance” to the Ukraine, was modified to “appropriate assistance.” Senator Gordon, who also talked with Kislyak at the convention, was instrumental in procuring this change.

61. After the convention, Kislyak continued contacting Sessions and Gordon, meeting the former in September. Sessions recalls Kislyak relaying his govt.’s receptiveness to Trump’s campaign overtures. At the advice of Sandy Luff, Sessions declined further meetings.

62. Moving on to Manafort, who worked on Trump Campaign from March to August 2016. Manafort was well connected to Russian oligarchs from his previous work (see his indictment & convictions for tax fraud and money laundering) and cultivated his contacts well into the campaign.

63. Manafort employee Konstantin Kilimnik, with deep ties to Russian intelligence, contacted Manafort about a proposed peace agreement that would enable Russia to control Eastern Ukraine. The agreement would require U.S. support to succeed.

64. Manafort and Kilimnik corresponded about this peace plan well into Spring 2018. He hid and encrypted these communications and lied to Mueller and the Grand Jury about them (thus violating his plea agreement.)

65. Throughout the campaign, Manafort shared polls etc. with Kilimnik, which he perceived, per his convos with partner Rick Gates, as “good for business.”

66. Here, the report delves into Manafort’s deep Ukraine connections dating back to 2005, which explain his familiarity with Kilimnik and other Russians, and which are public knowledge b/c of Manafort’s indictment.

67. Manafort was recruited for the Trump campaign because of his deep connections with Russia, and for a while he worked for the campaign without pay. Rick Gates suspected Kilimnik of being a “Russian spy”, a view he shared with Manafort.

68. Manafort shared his campaign appointment with his Russian allies through Kilimnik, mentioning to Gates that this was “good for business” and would increase the likelihood that he would be paid $2m that he was owed for his campaign consulting work in Ukraine.

69. Manafort consistently shared, directly or through Gates, information and polling with his Russian contacts. This advanced his own business interests that go way beyond the issue of this campaign and have to do with his pre-campaign business dealings and financial situation.

70. Which brings me to a personal insight: The more I read this, the more I realize that the stuff you guys and I care about–civil rights vanishing, children in cages, planet protections evaporating, all the stuff we hold near and dear–this is just a SIDESHOW here.

71. This is not about the business dealings advancing a political appointment. This is about the political appointment advancing THE BUSINESS DEALS. Manafort is not a step toward Trump. He and his interests are the LYNCHPIN of this story. We’ve all been looking at this wrong.

72. Okay, back to the report. Manafort met Kilimnik twice during the campaign, and on both occasions the issue of the Trump campaign is mentioned as a sideshow to the business dealings and to the campaigns in the Ukraine.

73. Kilimnik cites Yanukovych (the ousted Ukrainian president) as an interested party. This illuminates Manafort’s briefings to Kilimnik not as focused on the U.S., but as using the U.S. election as a platform for the real issue, which is the proposed pro-Russian peace agreement.

74. Indeed, and this part is heavily redacted, but it seems that Manafort’s post-campaign activities relied on capitalizing on the results of the U.S. election to bring about the Yanukovych peace plan.

75. There is no conclusive evidence that Manafort brought the peace plan to the Trump campaign’s attention. Kilimnik, however, continued pressuring the Dept. of State about this well into 2018.

76. Shifting gears to contacts after the campaign. The day after the election, Hope Hicks is purportedly contacted by Putin. A few days later, Trump and Putin speak by phone, and Russian officials begin aggressively seeking inroads into the Trump administration.

77. Petr Aven, self-identified Russian oligarch, testified before Mueller team that there was a flurry of Russian activity and effort to get in touch with the Trump campaign, including outreach to transition team and to businesspeople connected with Trump.

78. This is consisted with a plan for U.S.-Russia reconciliation drafted by Kyrill Dmitriev, who heads Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, which Dmitriev argues was cleared through Putin.

79. The report section detailing Dmitriev’s aggressive efforts to insinuate himself into the Trump administration and advance the plan is heavily redacted.

80. Among other people, Dmitriev met in the Seychells with Erik Prince, who had financed the effort to find Clinton’s emails. Prince later conferred with Steve Bannon about this meeting, trying to introduce Bannon to Dmitriev and advance the plan.

81. The content of the Prince-Bannon communications cannot be verified because Bannon deleted them from his Blackberry.

82. In January 2017, Dmitriev met with Kushner’s friend Rick Gerson, and they developed a five-point memo on U.S.-Russia reconciliation. Point (3) is “developing ‘win-win’ economic and investment initiatives.” Gerson provided Kushner w/the document.

83. Subsequently, Dmitriev said the Trump-Putin phone convo “went well” and the document he had prepared “played an important role.” But communications btwn him and Gerson ceased as their investment plan went nowhere.

84. Kislyak also sought to meet Kushner after the election. Kushner was informed that in non-substantial matters, Kislyak was the person to talk to, and subsequently met him with Flynn at Trump Tower on Nov. 30, 2016. Kushner expressed U.S. desire to start afresh with Russia.

85. In December, Kushner met with Sergey Gorkov, manager of Russia’s government bank. Kushner described the meeting as diplomatic; the bank, as a business matter involving Kushner’s corporation.

86. Oligarch Petr Aven also reached out to the transition team through Simes, trying to procure a meeting with Kushner, but was told that given the media interest “on the question of cyber-hacking (and who ordered what), Project A was too explosive to discuss.”

87. Carter Page, who was no longer part of Trump’s circle, presented himself as such in Russia after the election, and met Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who expressed interest in a dialogue with the U.S. There’s more on this, but it’s redacted.

88. We shift gears to dealings through Flynn. While Obama was still president in Dec, Flynn reached out to Russian officials to procure a negative vote on U.N. resolution against Israeli settlements (which was aligned with Obama-era policies but not with Trump’s position.)

89. When Obama introduced the sanctions against Russia, Kislyak approached Flynn. Flynn first spoke with the transition team at Mar-a-Lago, and then with Kislyak, asking the latter not to escalate in response to the sanctions.

90. The next day, Russian foreign minister announced that Russia would not retaliate. Trump congratulated Putin on twitter for this decision. Kislyak told Flynn that their conversation led to this decision.

91. This concludes the facts before the cover-up. Now there’s a heavily redacted section explaining the choices in prosecuting Russian nationals about their role in the campaign (bots and hacking).

92. Now, to the Trump Campaign’s responsibility. The report analyzes this through the lens of conspiracy, which requires an agreement between two or more persons to violate criminal law. It finds that the multiple contacts in the report did not rise to that level.

93. The evidence also falls short of showing that any of these individuals was a “foreign agent” = an “individual” who “agrees to operate” in the U.S. “subject to the direction or control of a foreign government or official.”

94. Notable exceptions were Manafort and Gates, for whom there was ample evidence of acting as foreign agents.

95. As to campaign finance violations, insufficient evidence re Trump tower mtg, because: [1] insufficient proof that the campaign officials acted “willfully” (knowing the negativity of their actions) and [2] the value of the damning Clinton information is difficult to gauge.

96. There’s a redacted portion about possible First Amendment barriers to prosecution. I don’t understand why this is redacted.

97. Several people lied to the campaign about their meetings with Russians, notably Papadopoulos, Flynn, Cohen, and two redacted individuals. Regarding Sessions’ lies, the investigation did not find him “willfully untruthful” when omitting his meetings with Kislyak.

98. This thread covered Volume 1 of the report. I will now grab a quick bite before moving on to Volume 2 in a separate thread. Thank you for your attention – please retweet and share with anyone interested.

Here’s the thread for Volume 2, for those of you following here:

Two Valentines for 2019

Thursday, February 14th, 2019

[ by Charles Cameron — one from Mueller, one from Parkland ]
.

Here’s one of those tiny little heart-shaped candies — its image enlarged, so you can read the message on it:

Courtesy of Meet the Press yesterday..

**

And let’s not forget that a year ago, Valentine’s Day was shattered for the students, teachers, staff and neighbors of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida:

Each in our measure, the rest of us mourned with them.

Not a target, squared — plus one

Wednesday, April 4th, 2018

[ by Charles Cameron — Putin, Mueller, Trump, and Nada Bakos ]
.

IMO it is a pure coincidence that these two barely related headlines popped up on the same day:

That’s “not a target” squared. Not that I generally believe in coincidence — I favor synchronicity, but admittedly switch between magical and naturalistic worldviews as suits the moment.
**

Sources:

  • The Week, Report: Mueller named Trump a subject, not criminal target
  • NY Times, For Russia, Trump Was a Vehicle, Not a Target
  • **

    while we’re on the subject of targets, here’s the Targeter par excellence, Nada Bakos, whose can’t wait book is currently targeted for redaction by the relevant CIA publications review office::

    Hers is the definitive al-Zarqawi-ISIS story.


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