The Documents the White House Turned Over
I wanted to pull this information, from the John Dowd’s letter to Robert Mueller, to lay out how the White House has categorized document requests from Mueller. Dowd boast the “Records voluntarily produced to your office by the White House total over 20,000 pages.” Here’s what those records like, arranged by Bates series.
The Flynn documents
The categories start with Flynn, including an astounding 2,572 pages related to Sean Spicer’s comments to the press on Jim Comey from May 3, 2017 (in the press briefing that day Spicer downplayed the threat Russia posed to the US).
- FBI Interview of Michael Flynn at the White House on January 24, 2017 (SCR001), 9 documents, 66 pages;
- Communications of DAG Sally Yates, DOJ, FBI, & WH regarding Michael Flynn (SCR002), 28 documents, 64 pages;
- Communications between White House staff regarding the FBl’s investigation into Russian interference or James Comey (SCR003), 53 documents, 248 pages;
- The resignation of Michael Flynn (SCR004), 311 documents, 762 pages;
- Sean Spicer’s May 3, 2017, statements to the press regarding James Comey (SCR005), 445 documents, 2,572 pages;
The George Papadopoulos documents
There’s just one bullet point of communications pertaining to Papadopoulos. This list must reflect the list of those who might be of interest in the Russian inquiry. Note that Jeff Sessions is not included.
- White House communications concerning campaign and transition communications between Manafort, Gates, Gordon, Kellogg, Page, Papadopoulos, Phares, Clovis and Schmitz (SCR006), 75 documents, 978 pages;
A second tranche of Mike Flynn documents
Then there are two more bullets of Mike Flynn documents, first seeking campaign and transition communications involving Russian Federation officials, and then seeking the 2,990 pages on the May 10, 2017 meeting with Sergei Lavrov. We should expect a ton of prep work in advance of such a meeting, so the number might not be that surprising. But it is the largest set of documents.
- White House communications regarding campaign and transition communications between Michael Flynn and Sergey Kislyak or other Russian Federation officials (SCR007), 303 documents, 912 pages;
- May 10, 2017, White House meeting with Russian Federation officials (SCR008), 808 documents, 2,990 pages;
The June 9 meeting documents
Only after those Flynn related comms did Mueller ask for June 9 meeting documents. They asked for three things: Documents pertaining to the June 9 meeting (note, this doesn’t include a request for the follow-up discussions in November). Then, a list of those who were involved in Don Jr’s press statements. Finally, all the comms from those people. The number of these documents is suspiciously small, particularly as compared to the volume turned over to SJC.
- June 9, 2016, meeting between Donald Trump, Jr., and Natalia Veselnitskaya (SCR009), 117 documents, 1,821 pages;
- July 8, 2017, Air Force One participants regarding Donald Trump, Jr., press statements concerning Veselnitskaya meeting (SCR010), 1 document, 1 page;
- Communications of individuals identified in category number 10 (SCR011), 141 documents, 284 pages.
Jim Comey documents
Finally, there are documents pertaining to Jim Comey’s firing. This suggests Mueller didn’t ask for these documents until at least July 2017.
- Meetings between the President and James Comey (SCR012), 109 documents, 725 pages;
- The decision to terminate James Comey (SCR013), 442 documents, 1,455 pages;
When do he and Giuliani submit reports on the the perfectly legal presidential premeditated shooting of Jim Comey?
Trump said he could shoot someone on 5th Ave. He didn’t say he could shoot anyone on 5th Ave. Perhaps that is what he meant.
Giuliani specifically mentioned that Trump could have shot Comey without being indicted. This is where we are at in this country: The Philippines or North Korea. When the president’s lawyer argues about his right to do whatever he wants, including shooting or assassinating political rivals without consequence, we have hit the third rail. If that doesn’t cause a collective shock and awakening, what will? Can you imagine any other past president coming out with this, without being scorched?
I found this hilarious, so I am a horrible person. From Marcy’s twitter:
David Waldman, LLC @KagroX
Well, at least the next president can overturn all Trump’s actions by executive order, and shoot all his judges.
So, we will see something shortly about how much the palace has turned over and why can’t Mueller just stop already, yadda yadda yadda. But, as EW has noted within all of these there are holes and pertinent omissions. Mueller’s team is experienced and thorough enough to find those gaps and asked the right questions, which is why Rudy noun-verb-9/11 is trying to force restrictions on what the OSC will ask the Kaiser.
As noted by some of the colleagues here, though, Mueller may not need to ask Caesar Disgustus anything since there is already an extensive public record and it doesn’t have to be under oath for an indictment.
“Communications between White House staff”
Just curious . . . since there’s quite a lot of evidence that various members of the White House have used private email accounts (see, for example: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/us/politics/private-email-trump-kushner-bannon.html) to discuss White House business, should we assume that the emails turned over to Mueller include (any? all?) relevant materials from the private accounts? Or, should we assume the WH didn’t turn over any (presumably not legal) email communications? Would Mueller have access to those via some other method? (Since they are private accounts, presumably search warrants could be issued for them, right?)
Also, for the emails that were turned over, is there a way that Mueller might know if all of the relevant emails were handed over? Would Mueller have access to WH accounts and/or a method to know if emails were deleted? If, for example, Cohen or Manafort’s devices are full of emails to/from the WH that are clearly relevant but have not been turned over, how does that get sorted out?
Sorry if these are dumb questions. I don’t usually deal with legal matters or White House communications in my daily work.
The White House can only hand over what it has in its control, so it’s highly unlikely they would have copies of private account emails unless a person made a deliberate attempt to keep copies at the White House.
My understanding is that Ty Cobb was diligent in doing his legal duty, and if there were references in White House email to communications that weren’t made via White House email, I would bet he would flag them so that Mueller’s team would know he looked for them and that it could be something Mueller would want to take up with the relevant people or look for in a separate account.
EW has noted earlier that Mueller’s team has released at least one Gmail from a foreigner (Russian?), so you’re right that Mueller is getting at least some private emails via other means, although I don’t know the legal hoops Mueller would need to jump through to get them. Kushner has supplied what he said was his complete private account emails, although it’s been noted that he largely communicated via messaging, and I don’t know what the status of his compliance is for his messages.
As a practical matter, it’s very hard to keep any extensive electronic communications secret. You don’t know what the recipients have done with their side of the conversation, you don’t know what the ISPs have done, you’re unlikely to know what traces are left on your devices, and the FBI has very strong forensic capabilities. And if you try to orchestrate a coverup, you run a major risk of exposing yourself to new dangers. That doesn’t mean people won’t try, of course.
There is that pesky Presidential Records Act thingy, which got the left exercised and Bush/Cheney into all sorts of trouble. Might be time to revisit that. The odds that Trump’s White House is complying with it are about as good as Scott Pruitt paying market rate for his next DC apartment.
On the off-topic of Melania (Day 24 since anyone has seen her) the Broidy fiasco that looks more like a Kaiser peccadillo was probably the last straw for her. She had the misfortune of being a trophy wife (#3) following a FLOTUS of talent, engagement and fitness mission and being “out there” was not her thing at all. On top of that, the palace’s bootlicking lackeys were busted repeatedly engaging in plagiarism for the purpose of trying to make Melania better than Michelle somehow. Not all FLOTUSes need to be an extrovert or on a mission, but it has been pretty much an unlisted requirement since Eleanor Roosevelt met the Bonus Army in 1933, especially after Jackie Kennedy brought the press into the WH. That’s why when HRC did the cookies comment it was a double reason to hate her (and all she did was try to fix health care -> IMHO it should be single payer for all). So, FWIW I would guess that the Kaiser will set another first: getting divorced in office (and then see how fast Melania and her parents’ status get squelched/rescinded as appropriate).
Melania seems to be a distraction. She’s one more piece of flotsam Donald Trump has thrown up in his wake. Her son, important to her, seems not even to register on daddy’s radar. Her absence from public view and Donald’s side seems entirely understandable.
I’m more interested in EW’s comments, and in why the American ambassador to Germany thinks it’s OK to openly espouse interference in European states and favors authoritarian, right wing regime change of the kind simmering in Hungary.
As an entirely related matter, I’m more interested in why the Oxford Union imagines it is furthering the cause of public debate by inviting the criminal, serial liar, Faux News commentator and fascist Sebastian Gorka to speak. And why even Theresa May’s government allowed him entry. But that’s just me.
Whereis Melania
Victim (another) of “The creature from the Mar a lago lagoon”?
#drainthelagoon
My WAG, speaking as one of the lawyers people warn about when they say “don’t write that down – lest the lawyers get their hands on it”, is that a lot of the stuff handed over – especially the Spicer documents – is copies of press coverage, probably attached to emails saying something along the lines of “Hey, did you see this?” or “Attached please find copy of coverage re … in the …”. Which means two things, at least – 1. the WH handed over everything from their accounts, i.e., was very responsive to the document requests from Mueller, and 2. there was a lot more going on through private email accounts than government accounts.
As noted above, we don’t know what Mueller has sought from private accounts, etc.
If Cohen’s tranche, currently being litigated in NYC, is any indication, these folks have left a carpet of breadcrumbs in their private accounts. Reconstructing who said what to whom and when, let alone what they meant or intended, in such a context is a brutally time-consuming job. In just about any case involving masses of documents, like this one, the hardest part is sorting out the hundred or two documents which lie at the core of the mess, and knowing which are and which are not germane. I once worked a civil case where the universe of documents was somewhere north of 10 million, where we had 30 attorneys using an AI-driven review platform (which learned iteratively) working 5 months straight to find the hundred or so key documents that actually meant something in the case, among about ten thousand arguably relevant. Because we had the AI-driven platform, after a couple iterations we were getting over 90 percent relevant/responsive documents delivered to us for actual review, the computer sorting out hundreds of thousands before we ever saw them.
That said, my sympathies go out to the attorneys doing the privilege review for the Special Master in the Cohen case. Been on projects like that. When they’re done they’ll sit on their couch and muse “I had no idea I was so sleep-deprived.”
Why isn’t the statement that “Trump could shoot Comey and not be indicted”, not a threat??? Couldn’t that statement be considered not only a bid for absolute power but also a veiled threat against Comey??
It is a riff off of an established Trump theme, suggesting that the Don is untouchable. It is like an 1870s pope declaring himself infallible in matters of doctrine at the same time as his temporal power was being stripped from him. It is an act of bravado and desperation.
Rudy 9/11 is pursuing a political, not a legal strategy. He is attempting to convince the Base to nullify any measure of accountability that might be imposed on Der Leader. He is contriving to make accountability appear to be an offense to God. It is part of a pre-coup. Originally planned as a response to Donald’s predicted loss to Hillary, and a way to drive revenue for his empire, it is now designed to keep him out of the hoosegow.
The Spicer documents look a lot like filler, crap intended to distract an investigator. There might be a responsive statement in there somewhere, but that would be happenstance. I would assume Mueller has a few paralegals trolling the public record to detect the odd useful morsel.
I’m happy to have this list, with the categories, & counted pages, & some indications of their provenance. But otherwise, I’m not taking from it what others appear to.
For one of thing – and it’s not small thing – Marcy’s accounting literally puts page [sic] to the line of bull shit spewing from Trump’s legal crovids [Shout out to Nixon’s Bud, Egil Krogh, the Ezra Cohen-Watnick of his day?] about the volume of documents Trump’s WH has handed over to the OSC. It even appears that the supply’s been heavily larded up with self-serving filler and salted with herrings, but even then, overall this is nothing like the volume Dowd and Rudy have been spinning.
Semi-related (riffing off Fearless’ Twitterfeed), I see Byron York like the one cousin in the Gyro Gearloose family tree who blanched at high school math & physics, so we all get treated to his word contraptions that spring leaks out of weird seals and careen about spasmodically before plunging out of the sky. Fearless could send him into meltdown with single word.
Math is hard!
/Dowd
On the indicia that Trump dictated the false statement about the June 9th Trump Tower meeting, per MSNBC and the NYT’s Charlie Savage, it may not be a crime for the president to lie to the public or to the news media. But it depends on the context. It would be a crime if the lie was meant to cover up another crime.
If a lie about an earlier crime was material and in contemplation of an existing or predictable investigation, it would be obstruction. Not to mention that Don Jr and others are probably on the hook for directly lying to Congress or federal investigators.
Jed Shugerman at Slate lays out your argument very well.
In particular he links it to the “Kasowitz Sekulow Dowd” misstatement of the relevant obstruction provisions.
That has made me wonder whether Trumps counsel were simply blundering about, or whether they were deliberately employing ‘legalistic gish gabble’ because they always calculated that they were engaged in creating talking points for the base. Nevertheless, it is all quite extraordinary, and gratefully received by the special counsel team, I expect.
Do you have a link?
Because I have seen Shugerman expose some theory that the admission to the Trump drafting on AF1 of the pertinent statement was some kind of grand strategy to avoid Trump giving live testimony. And I simply do not understand how that could be. The circumscribed admission could, and would, only lead to a plethora of other questions.
Maybe Shugerman is right. But I do not buy it, and, if so, it is some of the dumbest lawyering in the history of man. Sure, Trump’s legal team is capable of just that, but it does not feel like the full explanation here.
slate.com/news-and-politics//2018/06/president-lawyers-appear-admit-obstructed-justice.html
Bad link.
More likely, Slate requires you to click through starting from its home page. Ad revenue, trackability and all that.
Sorry
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/president-trump-lawyers-appear-admit-obstructed-justice.html
It’s not the link, it’s Slate’s mandatory click through policy. Fortunately, the Shugerman article can be found on its front page.
Steve – Thank you! The effort is much appreciated.
Your welcome
On 23 June 2017 Kasowitz committed Trump to a particular analysis of obstruction: perhaps it could have been corrected/updated unless something happened which made it embarassing to Trumps position to do so.
The AF1 cover story ocurred 8 July and was in press for days after.
Kasowitz was reported in propublica 11 July to be struggling with alcohol, and by end of month was out of job following revelation of threatening emails he sent.
A reading of these events is that by the time Dowd took the reins they figured that there was nothing to be gained from appearing to make concessions by correcting the obstruction analysis in their dealings with Mueller.
Every aspect of the AF1 statement was a total cock-up from start to finish.
It would not surprise me at all if Trump senior persuaded himself on some half baked dimly remember version of what he had been told, that there was no legal jeopardy for him to draft the reply, and then blamed Kasowitz along with everyone else when the ‘strategem’ unravelled.
Maybe they’re working on an ineffective assistance of counsel defense.
Hard to imagine that working. Mr. Trump is a supposed billionaire, a supposed master negotiator and bidnessman, a stable genius, a sophisticated investor, the grand poobah of global real estate, and President of the United States of America.
Mr. Trump has the legal counsel he wants, good, bad, indifferent. Mr. Trump has chosen exactly what he has because that is what he wants.
“… THE JUNE 9 MEETING DOCUMENTS
Only after those Flynn related comms did Mueller ask for June 9 meeting documents. They asked for three things: Documents pertaining to the June 9 meeting (note, this doesn’t include a request for the follow-up discussions in November). Then, a list of those who were involved in Don Jr’s press statements. Finally, all the comms from those people. The number of these documents is suspiciously small, particularly as compared to the volume turned over to SJC… ”
– is this sentence meant to imply that flynn documents clued the osc into the existence of the june 9 meeting?
– is this sentence meant to imply flynn was somehow involved in an evidence trail leading to the june 9 meeting?
it was bound to be somewhere in the stacks:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/03/22/hidden-amid-the-john-dowd-news-muellers-team-seems-to-think-trump-knows-about-the-june-9-meeting/
this stuff has been a long time brewing.
OT: but update, Bill Clinton is still a dick.
Afraid so and, like Trump, Bill is finding it hard to hide it. He did not need to say he does not owe Monica an apology. It makes him as tone deaf as Trump.
Of course Bill Clinton owes Monica Lewinsky an apology. He was the boss and sexual advances to an employee are inherently abusive. The passage of time does not insulate Clinton from the need to recognize the inherent in equality of that relationship and his abuse of it. It is no longer a legal issue, but there is no statute of limitation regarding the politics of it.
On the other hand, I know why the media are so addicted to this, but why is this coming up now?
If Bill Clinton wants to help the Democrats, he should STFU on this issue or learn from it. There are a lot of other issues he could speak about, and point out the harm that the current president is doing. That would go nowhere, however, until the Dems have a better story to tell about what they would do instead.
A Florida judge rejects a Russian entrepreneur who argued that the Trump dossier publication wasn’t protected as a fair report of official government action.
In its continuing fight against a Russian tech entrepreneur who alleges being defamed by the publication of the infamous Trump dossier, BuzzFeed has scored an important ruling in Florida court that may ultimately immunize the news site from liability.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/buzzfeed-allowed-key-defense-russians-defamation-suit-trump-dossier-1116737
Ruling:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4493265-Order-on-Motion-for-Judgment-on-the-Pleadings.html
Buzzfeed is based in New York, and has no offices in Florida. Judge was thinking.
However, if Buzzfeed is distributed in FL, I would suspect that creates a venue for litigation, but IANAL.
BTW
There is a Kasowitz letter missing.
Earlier report by NYT re the substance of Trump team arguments with Mueller referred to 3 letters, 2 from Kasowitz in june 4 days apart and one from Sekulow&Dowd.
Curious given the false attribution of the leak of the actual letters that an antiTrumper would not leak all 3.
Here’s a tip for the WH press corps:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZZyKCplfXo
That’s how you do it.
Manafort witness tampering filing by Mueller.
Its regarding the lobbying effort for Ukraine he organised in the US, and attempted to procure false testimony to SC from lobbyists involved, as the superceding indictment was coming down : per CNN.
Filing is 90 pages.
No bail, off to jail ; new charges ; a world of hurt.
Oh Dear, How Sad! Nevermind!