Ike Kaveladze’s Missing Suit

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I’ve been puzzling through something from the June 9 materials for some time: what happened with Ike Kaveladze’s missing suit? Or rather, what does the exchange about his missing suit with his daughter suggest?

I’ll get to the suit in a bit, but first some background. Back in January, I suggested the well-orchestrated public narrative about the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting was a limited hangout. The public narrative fed by defense attorneys (above all, Agalarov lawyer Scott Balber, representing Ike Kaveladze and with him the Agalarovs) never explained why Crocus Group Vice President Kaveladze jumped on a plane from LA to NY — with just two days advance warning — for the meeting. Additionally, the public narrative at least hinted that there was a later part of the meeting not covered by the public narrative.

The materials released by the Senate Judiciary Committee are crystal clear on the first point: Kaveladze, not Rob Goldstone, was actually in charge. Kaveladze describes meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya before the meeting, and vetting her presentation for his boss, Aras Agalarov.

My purpose [in attending the meeting] was to read that longer synopsis, whatever she had over there, and my understanding was that longer synopsis contained something which I could alarm Mr. Agalarov about — you know, I would alarm him, and he would call off the meeting. That synopsis was about same thing [Magnitsky], so there was no alarm or nothing.

Kaveladze would again be managing Vesenitskaya later in the year, in a bid to get the second meeting Don Jr had tacitly offered, until he finally handed her off to Balber in January 2017. And a year later, when things started to blow up, Emin Agalarov described that “the meeting happened through Ike and my dad,” something Rob Goldstone — who has always gotten public credit for arranging the meeting — happily agreed with.

It was always clear (indeed, Vesenitskaya said so explicitly) that Aras was really the one behind the meeting. Kaveladze’s role in the meeting only reinforces the point. Yet that’s a point that the public narratives — the narratives fed by those who set up the meeting — have all obscured.

As for the second question, whether there was a second part of the meeting, the materials allow for the possibility of either Goldstone staying behind or Kaveladze returning upstairs for a follow-up.

In his testimony, Kaveladze provides a clear description of Goldstone staying behind, and even suggests that’s the only possible time VKontakte, which Goldstone described discussing with Don Jr and Trump in a June 29 follow-up (PDF 20), could have come up. In any case, by Kaveladze’s account, Goldstone did not accompany the rest of the group when they went to the lobby bar for a drink afterwards.

Q: To the best of your recollection, did Mr. Goldstone discuss this VK proposal during the June 9, 2016, meeting?

A: No, unless he stayed after the meeting.

Q: Did you not leave the building with him? Did he remain behind?

A: No, I left the building with Natalia Veselnitskaya, Anatoli Akhmetshin — Anatoli Samochornov and Rinat Akhmetshin.

Q: To the best

A: Correction, correction. We didn’t leave the building. We walked into a Trump bar which was located inside of the building, and after a round o f drinks, I left the building myself. They stayed in the bar .

Goldstone claims he proposed the VK pitch just as the meeting broke up, then took the elevator down with the others, but didn’t stop for a drink because he hopped into an Uber and headed home (a detail that, because of Uber’s data retention, Mueller would easily be able to check). Veselnitskaya’s translator, Anatoli Samochornov isn’t sure, sometimes saying Goldstone went down, sometimes saying he was there, but ultimately saying he didn’t join for drinks. “[T]here were four people. I do not remember Mr . Goldstone being there. So he left at some point, either upstairs or downstairs.” Akhmetshin agrees with Kaveladze that Goldstone wasn’t there. “I don’t think Mr. Goldstone with us — was with us.”

Goldstone’s account deviates from the others’ in another way: he doesn’t mention Ivanka’s presence in the upstairs lobby as the group was leaving, even though his December 15 interview took place after all the others’, which were in November (this is a topic that Mueller brought some witnesses back in for second interviews about). Kavleadze lays this all out very clearly, thanks to the intervention of Balber, who scripted so much of this story.

MR . BALBER : One more question before you leave this topic. Was there anybody you met in the kind of reception area as you were leaving the meeting?

MR . KAVELADZE : Yeah. We were greeted by Ivanka Trump .

BY MR . PRIVOR :
Q. Was she ever present in the meeting?

A: No . She was at the reception. She said hello to us, and we said hello, how are you, and we had, like, polite conversation for maybe 1 minute. And then she told us to have a good day, and we left.

Akhmetshin reports that they spoke “for like 3 seconds.” Samochornov describes only seeing her pass through the lobby without stopping.

That says that if someone stayed behind, it’d have been Goldstone, by himself.

All that said, given that the meeting after the event took place at the bar in the Trump Tower lobby, it’s possible Kaveladze went back upstairs after speaking to Aras by phone. Kaveladze’s narrative has him going to the lobby bar with Veselnitskaya, Samochornov, and Akhmetshin for 15 minutes, receiving a call from Aras, and then leaving.

MR . FOSTER: Okay. So after the June 9th meeting, you talked about how you went downstairs to the bar on the lobby  level of the Trump Tower, and you were there with three other people — Ms. Veselnitskaya, Rinat Akhmetshin, and Mr. Samochornov.

A . Yeah, uh-huh.

Q. Do I have that right?

A . I think Samochornov left slightly earlier, like – – but I’m not sure about Samochornov because — or maybe he stayed, but,  yeah , those — we walked all together and then some of them — and I left in 15 minutes.

Q. And you had a round of drinks with them, we saw. Do you recall what conversation you had during that round of drinks?

A. Mostly about meeting, and out of that 15 minutes, probably 5 minutes I spoke with Mr. Agalarov, and for 10 minutes it was I think they were satisfied with the fact that Mr. Junior has suggested that it might be a second meeting if they win. And so they were talking about that, you know, to prepare for that second meeting.

[snip]

Q. What did you discuss with Mr. Agalarov?

A. In general , the meeting went well. Oh good. Then Natalia asked for the phone, and I passed the phone to her, and she kind of thanked him for helping to organize that meeting.

Q. Did you say anything to Mr. Agalarov about the matter that had given you some concern earlier, the potential information about Hillary Clinton?

A . No, I didn’t discuss it over the phone.

[snip]

Q. Is there anything else you can remember from the conversation other than the two topics that you noted — the theater coming up as well as some happiness about a potential second–

A. I stayed there for, like I said, 15 minutes. No, I don’t think we discussed anything else.

Q. Did you all leave simultaneously?

A. No. I left first.

This would have been around 5:20, given that Agalarov somehow knew the meeting would be done and called to check in at 5:14.

BY MR . PRIVOR:

Q. You stated that when you went to the bar after the June 9th meeting and you were downstairs, that you called Mr. Agalarov

A. No. He called me.

Q. He called you? Okay. I’m sorry. He called you. How did he know — do you know how he knew to call you after the meeting? How would he have known the meeting ended?

A. He gave it a try.

So Kaveladze leaves around 5:20 PM. That means Kaveladze’s estimate that he stayed only for 15 minutes is inaccurate, which is not surprising given that he paid the bill for the drinks, and service in Manhattan is never quick enough to order, get served, and pay in 15 minutes, much less at a Trump facility. Kaveladze’s narrative about general satisfaction with the meeting also matches no one else’s story, which given the claimed content of his call to Agalarov is important

What he does for the next 24 hours is of interest for several reasons. Most of all, it’s interesting because in his first appearance before SJC, Kaveladze neglected to tell the committee that he went from his trip to NYC (for which he got 2 days warning, remember) directly to Moscow to meet with Agalarov, with whom he discusses matters of import face-to-face because, “Agalarov is based in Russia, and I’m pretty sure, you know, his phone is being, you know, monitored.” So his original story is he flew to NY for the meeting, then returned to his home in LA the next day. 

Q. What was your itinerary while in New York during this trip?

A. I stayed for one day, and I returned back home on June 10. My itinerary included only one item as a meeting actually, two items. There was lunch with Natalia Veselnitskaya prior to the meeting and then meeting itself .

[snip]

Q. And so you left the next day on June 10th?

A. Yeah, June 10.

Q. Where did you fly to?

A. Los Angeles.

After some questions about both his phone records and email traffic from SJC questioners, Kaveladze admits that he might have traveled elsewhere in June, but would need to check his records for travel reservations (he claims he doesn’t keep a calendar). In February, as part of submitting errata to the transcript, Balber would alert the committee that Kaveladze had actually traveled to Moscow for over a month-long trip on June 10 (though even after consulting travel records, couldn’t reveal when he had returned).

Before he did that, though, this was this explanation (save his phone traffic, which I’ll get to) from his first appearance that Kaveladze offered for the balance of his time in NYC.

Q. So I believe you said you left on the morning of the 10th; is that correct?

A. Correct.

Q. After leaving the Trump Bar, what did you do with the rest of the day?

A. I do not recall. I might have some meetings with my friends, but nothing business related.

Q. Did you discuss the Trump Tower meeting with any of those friends, to the best of your recollection?

A. I don’t even remember if I had a meeting with friends, so I definitely don’t remember discussing it with them. I think I was kind of tired because of a jet lag, because it was a red eye flight I arrived on, and I went to bed really early.

Given that Kaveladze flew through Frankfurt, and flights from NYC to Frankfurt start after 4PM, he probably remained in NYC through the afternoon of June 10, a full 24 hours after the Trump Tower meeting.

Is it correct that you departed New York City for Russia on June 10th, 2016, the day after the Trump Tower meeting?

A. To be more specific, I departed — on June 10, I have left New York City for Frankfurt, Germany, and I believe I arrive to Moscow on June 11.

One thing we know he did in that 24 hour period was talk to Goldstone. After some dodging, he admits that a call placed to him at around 6:51PM on June 9 must have come from Goldstone, but he doesn’t recall what was said.

Q. Okay. Do you recall whether you did speak to Mr . Goldstone after the June 9th meeting by telephone?

A. I don’t have a recollection, but

MR . BALBER: If you don’t have a recollection —

MR . KAVELADZE: I don’t have a recollection of that phone call.

Goldstone, however, remembers calling him in an angered state.

Q. Did you have any other conversation with him after the meeting, in the immediate time after the meeting that day?

A. I — I believe I would’ve spoken to him by phone later that day, in a sort of angered state.

So Kaveladze spoke to Agalarov right after the meeting, and then sometime two hours later, spoke with Goldstone, who was probably working on the letter he’d send Rhona Graff the next day at 3:41 (PDF 30), a follow-up on the exchange he had with Keith Schiller at Trump Tower about how to send Trump a gift the next week. According to the version presented at his first appearance, Kaveladze then spoke to Agalarov again.

Curiously, even within that first appearance, he offers conflicting evidence about whether he spoke with Agalarov by phone once or twice on June 9.

Q. Okay. So you didn’t do any sort of report after the meeting back to your boss, “Here’s what I did”? You didn’t write a memo?

A. No.

Q. Send an email?

A. No. Just a phone conversation. Two of them, to be specific.

Q. And do you recall when those were?

A. One was within 30 minutes after the meeting ended, and the other one was within 2 to 3 hours after the meeting ended.

Q. Can you describe them to the best of your recollection?

A. As I mentioned before, the first one was basically me reporting that the meeting went well, and the reason I said that because Natalia Veselnitskaya was right next to me. And the next one I said it was complete loss of time.

MR . FOSTER: Okay.

This comes up again later in the interview and Balber carefully coaches Kaveladze to distinguish the first conversation, for which there would have been witnesses, at which he said the meeting went great, and the second, when he said it was a “loss of time,” using the same exact phrase both times.

Q. Did you report back to Aras Agalarov about the meeting?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. How did you describe it to him?

A. That it was complete loss of time and it was useless meeting. But —

MR. BALBER : Was there a prior conversation, though?

MR. KAVELADZE: Yeah.

MR. BALBER: Why don’t you run through both the conversations.

MR . KAVELADZE: Okay. Well, when we walked out of the meeting room and went down to the bar, he called me , and Natalia was present there, and I said, oh, well, everything is fine, we had a great meeting and stuff, because I didn’t want to upset her. But then I believe 2 hours later we had another conversation where I gave details of the meeting, and at that conversation I explained that it was loss of time

The thing is, I don’t believe the second phone call shows up in Kaveladze’s phone log (they’re totally redacted, starting at PDF 50, but there’s no discussion of a second call while he’s in NY as they review his call logs). Though if a call or other communication occurred two hours after the meeting, it may have shortly followed the call from Goldstone. Goldstone, incidentally, also says they exchanged a WhatsApp or other text during the meeting which remained, as of his testimony, undiscovered.

In Kaveladze’s second appearance, he changes his testimony and says no recollection of “that” phone call (which given his imperfect English could mean either the phone call he had described previously, or the notion of an additional phone call).

Q. When you were before the committee a couple months ago and testified previously, we had asked you about a telephone conversation with Aras Agalarov, and we had shown you a telephone bill that showed the time of the call was 5:14 p.m. on June 9th after the meeting . In between that telephone call and your arrival in Moscow, did you have any other conversations that you can recall with Mr. Agalarov?

A. I have no recollection of that, conversations.

But Kaveladze does admit a face-to-face meeting in Moscow.

Q. Was anyone else present for that meeting?

A. Not for that topic. I mean, I had met we had like a private meeting, but you know how there is like — there is like a big room, and there is like people getting in for different issues, and I had like — I had 2 minutes o f his privacy and had this quick conversation.

Q. And with respect to that conversation, as it pertained to the June 9th meeting, was anyone else participating by telephone? Or was it just you and Mr. Agalarov?

A. Just me and Mr. Agalarov.

Q. Do you recall anything else from that conversation, other than having reiterated your belief that it would’ve been better to have Ms. Veselnitskaya meet with lawyers?

A. No, I do not.

So that’s the story: he oversees a meeting, has a short round of drinks, gets a call from his boss, whom he tells everything went swimmingly in spite of the disappointment around the table. Goldstone calls him later that night, he may have another chat with his boss. And then the next day — a day he originally didn’t admit to — he hops on an initially undisclosed flight to Moscow, where he can explain what went on in the meeting to Agalarov face-to-face.

Before he leaves, though, he makes three more phone calls, one to (we learn later) somewhere in NY, and two more, at least one to a Russian mobile phone.

Q. So let’s take a look now at Bates page 282, and you’ll see that this is showing call details for your telephone number. Do you see that?

A. Yes.

Q. At the top of the page, it your telephone number. So I want to point you to June 10th, and you can see the first call on June 10th is at 10:34 in the morning.

A. Uh-huh. Yes.

Q. 10:34. Two numbers down below that, 12:36 and 12:48, do you recognize either of those telephone numbers?

A. No, I do not.

Q. You can see that the destination for the first one, the one that ends in [redacted], says “Russia MOB.” Do you know what that means?

A. Mobile number.

Q. Mobile. And the number immediately below it, the [redacted] number, do you recognize that number?

A. I do not.

Kaveladze dodges a bit until Balber weighs in and asks if he knows the numbers.

MR. BALBER: Okay . The only question is: Do you know the numbers?

MR. KAVELADZE: No.

MR. BALBER: Okay. Then that’s it.

MR. KAVELADZE: I don’t recognize the numbers.

BY MR. PRIVOR:

Q. Would you be able to match the numbers to names in your phone book or your electronic directory?

A. I could try. It’s in my phone book.

When Kaveladze testifies again in March, however, he has not yet checked any of those numbers. He also remains unsure about who he called from Russia, on June 15 and 16, at least one of which was back to New York (apparently a four character name).

That, by itself, isn’t all that interesting. I probably wouldn’t be able to ID the phone numbers I called 15 months ago, cold. Though it does seem that Balber is less than excited about doing the quick check to ID these numbers given that, in spite of a request from the committee, he hadn’t done so for the second appearance.

Anyway, did I say that this post was about Kaveladze’s missing suit?

With all this as background I want to look at what happens overnight on June 14 and 15, when Kaveladze is in Russia, making those calls to people whose identity he won’t ID. As has gotten some press, on June 14, at around 1:08 PM, Goldstone sent Kaveladze this article, citing Trump’s relationship with Putin,  in an email, calling it “eerily weird based on our Trump meeting last with with the Russian lawyers.” Kaveladze replies from Russia at 1:22 ET, 10:22AM PT, or 8:22PM in Moscow.

Nine hours (overnight) later, Kaveladze has a curious email exchange with this daughter, starting at PDF 15.

First some background. Recall that after Agalarov told Kaveladze to hop a plane to NY, and after Kaveladze learned that Paul Manafort, Don Jr, and Jared Kushner would be at the meeting, Kaveladze called Roman Beniaminov, Emin Agalarov’s business assistant in NJ. He asked, “Do you know anything about that meeting? Do you know anything about the fact that we’re going to be meeting with three top political electoral campaign representatives to discuss Magnitsky Act?” To which Beniaminov responded that, as far as he had heard, “attorney had some negative information on Hillary Clinton.” That’s a story, incidentally, telegraphed to the press by Balber after Kaveladze had testified, and after Goldstone had published his rough draft of what he’d testify to, but before he actually testified.

Anyway, later that day, Kaveladze had a conversation with his daughter and probably also his son and told them, with reported concern, that the meeting was going to be about negative information on Hillary.”

Which is how this exchange between Kaveladze and his teenage daughter, taking place 6 days after he left, came about:

June 14, 10:48PM ET IK to daughter: How are you? Could you imagine, I have  left iPad on the plain to New York, and then left my suit in the hotel. Crazy (7:48PM Los Angeles time, June 15, 5:48AM Moscow time)

10:49PM daughter to IK: 1. It’s plane 2. AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH 3. Did u get the iPad and suite back?

11:19PM IK to daughter: They have sent iPad to my New Jersey office. Suite is gone.

11:20PM daughter to IK: What about the suite

11:23PM IK to daughter: hotel can’t find it

11:23PM daughter to IK: That seems weird, tomorrow I’m going with [redacted] to six flags

11:23PM IK to daughter: Nice. who is driving u?

11:24PM daughter to IK: [redacted] is getting a big van for me [redacted] and friends

11:25PM IK to daughter: are u gonna do all crazy rides?

11:27PM daughter to IK: Yup how was meeting with Trump people what happened

11:29PM IK to daughter: meeting was boring. The Russians did not have any bad info in Hillary

At a minimum, what this exchange did was sustain a conversation long enough such that Kaveladze could leave a record of telling the one family member he was sure (given his other testimony) he had told he was dealing dirt that in fact no dirt got dealt. While Kaveladze may have been swamped once he got to Moscow, I find it interesting that the exchange didn’t happen until six days after he left, and only after Goldstone had raised concerns that just after their meeting, the press reported that dirt on Hillary got stolen by Russia. That is, I think it likely that after Goldstone alerted him, Kaveladze (who is smart enough to know he shouldn’t say anything sensitive to his boss on the phone because it’s probably surveilled) to create a contemporaneous record saying no dirt got dealt — whether it did or not.

Which brings us to the missing suit.

As best as I can tell, Kaveladze is admitting to his daughter that first he forgot his iPad on the red-eye to NYC on June 8-9, and then admitting he left his “suite” in the hotel room when he left — in no rush at all, because he was in NYC at least until 1PM — June 10. The airline would be able to verify  to Mueller that they did, in fact, find Kaveladze’s iPad forgotten in the seat back of his airplane seat and sent it on to the NJ office. That claim is further corroborated (sort of) by the fact that Kaveladze went to a Staples for something on June 9.

But the suit?

The reason I find the missing suit as suspicious as his daughter does is because he wasn’t actually, as he originally claimed, flying to NYC for an overnight. I mean, that by itself is sketchy, because if you’re flying an overnight, you bring a change of shirt and underwear and wear the same suit home.

But Kaveladze was in fact traveling on to Moscow for a month, with presumably a number of suits. Making it likely you had a hanging bag in the closet right there next to the suit you wore on June 9. If Kaveladze really did have an early morning flight on June 10, I can get how you’d overlook that suit hanging by itself (perhaps you had no reason to don a suit on the 10th, and so wore comfys for the second red eye in three days and left the spare suit in the hotel room?). But he was still on his phone at 12:48, which (even given NYC’s abysmal airport transport options) would allow a quite leisurely trip to the airport. And all that’s assuming that a hotel of the caliber Kaveladze would stay at (with his last minute trips to NYC and then Moscow) wouldn’t make a point of putting the suit aside for safe delivery.

So yeah, I’m with Kaveladze’s daughter. The missing suit is weird.

Yevgeniy Prigozhin Doubles Down on Lawfare as Intelligence Collection

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I realize that the Concord Management defense in the Mueller indictment is intended to be nuisance lawfare. As noted, Mueller even moved four DOJ attorneys onto the team to manage with an onslaught of such nuisance filings.

But I am rather fascinated by the fight over the protective order.

As I noted, back on June 13, Mueller’s team objected to Concord’s demands that they get to share information with Yevgeniy Prigozhin without first requiring him to come to the US to get the intelligence. In a typically snotty response, Concord not only demanded that they get to share the information, but specifically requested they not receive all the personal identifying information in discovery; they just want the more substantive stuff showing informants and networks of communication. I took it as a concession that Prigozhin didn’t need the PII, because he already stole it, so the only thing new he would need is the stuff with intelligence value.

The two sides have just submitted a draft protective order with a brief laying out their disagreements. As this passage makes clear, the key dispute is whether Reed Smith can share sensitive information with nationals of the US and individual officers of Concord, and whether Reed Smith can share sensitive information with a co-defendant who refuses to show up before the court.

As Reed Smith has already made clear, there are only two people at Concord they want to share information with. One is Prigozhin, a co-defendant.

Finally, during the June 15, 2018 hearing, the Court asked defense counsel for information regarding the number of officers and employees of Defendant Concord. Concord has two statutory officers as required under Russian law, a General Manager and a Chief Accountant. The General Manager is co-defendant Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who has decision making authority. The Chief Accountant is not responsible for the day-to-day activities of the company and does not have decision-making authority. Undersigned defense counsel has represented to the Special Counsel’s Office, at present defense counsel needs to disclose discovery materials to only two individuals at Concord, Mr. Prigozhin, and the Head of the Legal Department (who is not a co-defendant and does not have decision making authority).

It’s the two other details that give up the game though. First, the defense not only wants to share information with someone who won’t show up to face his charges, but they also want to explicitly avoid being bound by the jurisdiction of the court.

That is, Reed Smith is saying they want to share information with the Head of Concord’s Legal Department and Prigozhin without either having to be bound by the jurisdiction of the court, which would make the order virtually unenforceable.

And then Reed Smith wants to dodge jurisdiction of the court themselves, by refusing to babysit those who won’t be bound by jurisdiction of the court when they review sensitive material. They deem that “onerous.”

Reed Smith has made a show of agreeing that none of this stuff will leave the country. They’re just refusing to sign a document that will prevent, say, the unnamed Head of the Legal Department from sticking stuff in his socks and taking it back to Prigozhin (who’s not going to show up to the US to read any of this), and with him, Putin.

Honestly, I think the question of whether Prigozhin can be prohibited from helping to defend his corporation without showing up to the US to be arrested will be an interesting legal fight.

Here’s the thing: First, I don’t think Dabney Friedrich is dumb enough to fall for the two little moves at the end, and I assume she’ll guard her own authority enough not to invite some Russian lawyer to abuse her authority.

Moreover, given that her interim protective order limited all review of sensitive materials to the defense counsel, see seems inclined to side with Mueller’s team.

 

Roger Stone and ConFraudUs

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CNN’s David Gelles has an instructive tweet this morning showing how the rate at which Trump tweets about the Mueller “witch hunt” is accelerating.

Assuming this includes this morning’s two “witch hunt” tweets, Trump is on pace to use the phrase 28 times by the end of the month, though I bet he’ll continue to accelerate the use of it in the week remaining in the month.

The Mueller investigation is, I suspect, coming to a head.

I don’t claim I know how it will turn out. The president has an enormous amount of power and his flunkies in Congress promise they’re about to end Rod Rosenstein’s bend-don’t-break defense by impeaching him (though Rosenstein and Chris Wray have just thrown more documents out to slow the Republicans). It’s certainly possible that Trump will make a last ditch effort to undercut the Mueller investigation and that effort will be competently executed and none of the secondary fall-back defenses Mueller has put into place will work. For now, though, the Trump team seems intent on a delay and discredit strategy, which won’t stave off any imminent steps.

So we shall see whether Trump succeeds in undercutting the investigation. I keep thinking, “that’s why they play the game,” but this is no game.

There are a number of reasons I think Mueller’s investigation is coming to a head. But consider one detail. I’ve long explained that Mueller seems to be building a series of Conspiracy to Defraud the United States indictments that will ultimately incorporate the entire Russian operation (and may integrate the Trumpsters’ international self-dealing as well). As Mueller’s team has itself pointed out, for heavily regulated areas like elections, ConFraudUs indictments don’t need to prove intent for the underlying crimes. They just need to prove,

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

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

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

Let’s see how evidence Mueller has recently shown might apply in the case of Roger Stone, Trump’s lifelong political advisor. We already knew that Stone had communications that he did not immediately disclose with Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks. With both, Stone has contributed to and reinforced claims the entities were not Russian operations, though his conversion about the source of the Hillary emails was pretty sudden and curiously timed.

Now we know that in May, Stone had lunch with someone calling himself Henry Greenberg offering dirt on Hillary. His explanation — based only on the texts that Michael Caputo was asked about in a Mueller interview — is not that he didn’t entertain the offer, but that he didn’t take Greenberg up on the offer as made in late May because Greenberg was asking for big money.

Both clearly recognized Greenberg as a Russian, therefore a foreigner offering something of value during an election.

Bizarrely, in trying to rebut the import of this exchange publicly, Caputo and Stone are doing nothing more than working the public refs, claiming to assume this was an FBI sting. Mueller knows whether it was an FBI sting, and there’s virtually no way he’d be asking questions about it if it were (particularly if Stone really didn’t take the bait). In short, Stone has no justification for this he’s willing to offer publicly; instead, he’s just adopting the SpyGate narrative in an attempt to discredit the investigation. And that’s assuming there were no follow-ups or other damning texts that didn’t involve someone willing to leak them to the press.

And all that happened before Peter Smith came on the scene, someone who, unlike Donald Trump, was willing to spend money for such things, an operation Stone is suspected of being involved in but which he studiously avoids mentioning when trying to explain himself. Smith did obtain emails from people Matt Tait advised him might be part of a Russian operation, and when he couldn’t validate them, sent them on to Wikileaks.

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

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

And all that’s without leaning on the the other stuff Mueller found on Stone’s phone, which Stone is also trying to explain away by public conspiracies (in this case that the phone content was obtained with a FISA order rather than with a probable cause warrant obtained on March 9).

This is just one of the people Mueller has publicly focused on in recent days. We could lay out similar arguments for Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, and Brad Parscale, at a minimum. Mueller had — and acted on — probable cause warrants covering five AT&T phones in March, all of which probably had close ties to Rick Gates. Assuming those targets are distributed proportionately with the US population, he’s likely to have obtained warrants for as many as 15 phones just in that go-around.

So if Roger Stone is any indication, the Mueller investigation may soon be moving into a new phase.

Mueller Frees Up the Troll Team

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In the background of the celebrating over the Carpenter SCOTUS decision — which held that the government generally needs a warrant to access historical cell phone location — there were a few developments in the Mueller investigation:

  • The George Papadopoulos parties moved towards sentencing, either on September 7 or in October. If Mueller told Papadopoulos his wife Simon’s Mangiante seeming coordination of the Stefan Halper smear with Sam Clovis (and his lawyer, Victoria Toensing) and Carter Page got him in trouble, we got no sign of that.
  • Amy Berman Jackson dismissed a Paul Manafort attempt to limit the criminal penalties of his Foreign Agent Registration Act violations; this isn’t very sexy, but if the well-argued opinion stands, it will serve as a precedent in DC for other sleazy influence peddlers.
  • After ABJ made sure Rick Gates ask Mueller if he really didn’t mind Gates going on a trip without his GPS ankle bracelet, Gates got permission to travel — with the jewelry.
  • Kimba Wood accepted Special Master Barbara Jones’ recommendations, which among other things held that just 7 of the files reviewed so far pertain to the privilege of anyone, presumably including Trump,  to whom Michael Cohen was providing legal services. So Cohen and Trump just paid upwards of $150,000 to hide the advice Cohen has gotten from lawyers and seven more documents — that is, for no really good reason.
  • In two separate filings, four DOJ lawyers filed notices of appearance in the Internet Research Agency/Concord Management case.

It’s the latter that I find most interesting. Mueller has added a team of four lawyers:

  • Deborah A. Curtis
  • Jonathan Kravis
  • Kathryn Rakoczy
  • Heather Alpino

To a team with three (plus Michael Dreeben):

  • Jeannie Sclafani Rhee
  • Rush Atkinson
  • Ryan Kao Dickey

Devlin Barrett (he of the likely impressive link map) reported that Mueller did this to prepare for the moment when his office shuts down and the Concord Management nuisance defense drags on for years.

People familiar with the staffing decision said the new prosecutors are not joining Mueller’s team, but rather are being added to the case so that they could someday take responsibility for it when the special counsel ceases operation. The case those prosecutors are joining could drag on for years because the indictment charges a number of Russians who will probably never see the inside of a U.S. courtroom. Russia does not extradite its citizens.

The development suggests Mueller is contemplating the end of his work and farming out any potentially outstanding prosecutions to other parts of the Justice Department.

Except this doesn’t make sense. Not only are Concord and the judge, Dabney Friedrich, pushing for a quick trial, but Atkinson and Dickey are themselves DOJ employees, so could manage any residual duties.

Far more likely, Mueller is ensuring one of his A Teams — including Dickey, DOJ’s best cyber prosecutor — will be able to move on to more important tasks on the central matters before him.

Two Details about DOJ IG’s Leak Investigations, Plural, Including the One into Rudy Giuliani’s Sources

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Amid the discussions about the NY office’s rampant leaks to Rudy Giuliani back in 2016, HuffPo confirmed that he was interviewed by two FBI Agents who, he said, were investigating on behalf of the IG.

Giuliani told HuffPost that he spoke with [James] Kallstrom as well as one other former FBI official he would not identify.

But Giuliani said he told the FBI agents who interviewed him that he had neither inside knowledge of the Clinton probe’s status nor advance warning of Comey’s Oct. 28 announcement. He was merely speculating that FBI agents were so upset by Comey’s earlier decision not to charge the Democratic nominee with any crimes that they would “revolt,” either by leaking damaging information about her or by resigning en masse.

“Did I get any leaks from the FBI? I said no,” Giuliani said, adding that the “surprise” that he promised in 2016 was a 20-minute national television ad he was urging Trump to buy to deliver a speech “hitting very hard on the Comey decision.”

[snip]

The agents did not record the interview and did not offer him the opportunity to review their report before they submitted it to their supervisor. One of Giuliani’s private security guards was also present, he said.

“They seemed like straight kids,” he said of the agents.

He added that he was unconcerned that his inquisitors were from the FBI, which conducts criminal investigations, rather than investigators from Horowitz’s office. “They definitely told me they were investigating for the IG,” Giuliani said. “I wasn’t surprised at all.”

I’d like to add two data points from Inspector General Horowitz’s testimony about leaks.

First, while it should have been obvious, this exchange with North Carolina Congressman Mark Walker (particularly Horowitz’ lovely agreement self-correction) made me realize that there are leak investigations, plural.

Horowitz: Looking at the charts here you can see that these are not, generally speaking, one call. So, I would leave it at that. We’re looking at the, that deeper question.

Walker: When you say you’re looking at it, does that mean there may be warrant–it may warrant more investigation for some of those who’ve been players in this situation?

Horowitz: There is — there are, there are active investigations ongoing by our office.

As I said, that should have been clear: the IG Report refers to them as investigations.

Chapter Twelve describes the text messages and instant messages expressing political views we obtained between certain FBI employees involved in the Midyear investigation and provides the employees’ explanations for those messages. It also briefly discusses the use of personal email by several FBI employees, and provides an update on the status of the OIG’s leak investigations.

[snip]

In addition to the significant number of communications between FBI employees and journalists, we identified social interactions between FBI employees and journalists that were, at a minimum, inconsistent with FBI policy and Department ethics rules. For example, we identified instances where FBI employees received tickets to sporting events from journalists, went on golfing outings with media representatives, were treated to drinks and meals after work by reporters, and were the guests of journalists at nonpublic social events. We will separately report on those leak investigations as they are concluded, consistent with the Inspector General (IG) Act, other applicable federal statutes, and OIG policy. [my emphasis]

As a footnote notes, we learned of one result — the Andrew McCabe investigation — when it got referred for criminal investigation.

Between two hearings and three committees, not a single person asked about the methodology of the link clusters I complained about the other day, but I wonder whether they each represent a separate leak investigation?

The far more interesting exchange, however, came yesterday, between Horowitz and Dianne Feinstein. After she laid out Rudy’s claims back in 2016, she asked Horowitz if he was investigating. As he did repeatedly when asked about Rudy, he deferred. But after she asked if such leaks were lawful, and then followed up about whether the investigation was ongoing, he said something interesting.

Horowitz: I’m not in a position at this point to speak to any investigative outcomes.

Feinstein: Do you believe disclosures of this sort, especially during an election are appropriate, are they lawful?

Horowitz: I don’t believe disclosures of this sort are appropriate at any point in time in a criminal investigation. I was a former prosecutor. Worked extensively with FBI Agents, in my prior capacity, and all of us would have thought that was entirely inappropriate.

Feinstein: The report says that you, and I quote, will separately report on those investigations as they are concluded. Does this mean that this leak investigation is ongoing?

Horowitz: Our work remains ongoing and when we can do that consistent with the IG Act, the law, policy, we will do so.

Horowitz suggested that the reason they haven’t reported out the conclusions to these other leak investigations, plural, including the Rudy one is (in part) because it would be inconsistent with the IG Act.

There are specific restrictions on the DOJ IG in the IG Act, but the key one — which permits the Attorney General to halt an investigation for a variety of reasons — itself requires notice to the two committees that were in today’s hearing.

Which leaves the general restrictions on disclosing information in the IG Act. In both the specific DOJ IG language and here, the key restriction is on disclosing information that is part of an ongoing criminal investigation.

(1) Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize the public disclosure of information which is—
(A) specifically prohibited from disclosure by any other provision of law;
(B) specifically required by Executive order to be protected from disclosure in the interest of national defense or national security or in the conduct of foreign affairs; or
(C) a part of an ongoing criminal investigation.

(2) Notwithstanding paragraph (1)(C), any report under this section may be disclosed to the public in a form which includes information with respect to a part of an ongoing criminal investigation if such information has been included in a public record.

Which would say that, as with the firing of Comey (which Horowitz explained they’ve halted because an ongoing investigation is investigating it), DOJ IG might have been unable to further report the results of its leak investigations because it referred them, plural.

Mind you, that’s not what happened with Andrew McCabe. The DOJ IG completed its investigation, concluded McCabe lied, and then referred him. But it does seem likely that the hold-up on explaining all those link clusters has to do with criminal investigations.

Why Was George Papadopoulos Bitching about the UK While Working on His Presentencing Report?

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The government and the lawyers for George Papadopoulos have a joint status report due on Friday. That means the lawyers are all, surely, in communication right now. Probably, Papadopoulos has already seen a draft if not the final of his presentencing report, which among other things, will talk about whether he met the terms of his plea deal. The plea deal, unlike virtually all the others we know Mueller’s team to have signed, included a list of people Papadopoulos was not permitted to contact.

That’s why I find this tweet from Papadopoulos, which TCleveland4Real caught on Twitter, to be so interesting.

TCleveland4Real noted two more things: first, this seems to be an allusion to “perfidious Albion,” the notion that the UK will sell you out in international diplomacy and spying. Perfidious Albion has also been used, repeatedly, to discuss Brexit. And shortly after TCleveland4Real noted it, Papadopoulos deleted the Tweet.

Perhaps this is all utterly unrelated to the filings that will determine whether Papadopoulos does prison time this week. But I sure do wonder whether this curse about Great Britain pertained to what he’s looking at, or even if this tweet was meant as some kind of signal to others.

Update: Here’s the release conditions language he would have violated if he compared notes with others about talking to Stefan Halper.

And he was directed not to have any contact, direct or indirect, with individuals relating to the campaign or to any of the conduct set forth in the complaint. The Government provided a list of those individuals to the Defendant and defense counsel.

Arguably, even Simona asking for a pardon constitutes indirect communication with an individual relating to the campaign, given that only Trump could be the audience for that.

Update, 9/1/18: I realize that Papadopoulos couldn’t have been reviewing his PSR. That only got done on August 1. So something else made him realize he was screwed.

The Trump People Really Really Want to Know How Much Mueller Knows about Roger Stone’s “Collusion”

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In a piece that lets Roger Stone claim he un-forgot the Russian he met offering Hillary dirt for $2 million and also fails to ask Stone why it took over a month for him to correct his perjury before HPSCI and also fails to ask if there was follow-up about someone else paying for that dirt on Hillary, Ken Dilanian lets Stone float a claim that Mueller must have obtained the contents of his phone using a FISA order.

Stone also wondered to NBC News how Mueller “has copies of my text messages if not through an illegal FISA warrant. I have filed a notice of my intention to bring a lawsuit against the government for a civil rights and right to privacy violation to get to the bottom of that question.”

As I have noted repeatedly, close to the beginning of the time when Mueller has focused unrelentingly on Stone, on March 9, Mueller obtained a probable cause search warrant to obtain the contents of 5 AT&T phones, “In the Matter of the Search of Information Associated with Five Telephone Numbers Controlled by AT&T (D.D.C.) (18-sc-609).” When Paul Manafort attempted to unseal the parts of the affidavit laying out the probable cause for those phones covered by the warrant that he didn’t own, Amy Berman Jackson refused the request. The court record makes it fairly clear that the other phones don’t belong to Manafort.

THE COURT: What if — I think one of them is about phone information. What if the redacted phones are not his phone?

MR. WESTLING: I don’t have a problem with that. I think we’re talking about things that relate to this defendant in this case.

We should assume that, in addition to those five phones, there’s a warrant covering a proportional number (Verizon covers more of the cell phone market in the US than AT&T does) of Verizon phones.

All of which is to say that the most obvious explanation for how Mueller obtained the text messages Stone has selectively shared with the press showing he did accept a meeting with a Russian offering dirt on Hillary Clinton is that Mueller convinced a judge there was probable cause to believe that there was evidence of crimes were on that phone.

That is, the interest in Roger Stone is no longer strictly a counterintelligence question of whether Henry Greenberg was idly reaching out to Stone to offer dirt. Rather, it’s a question of whether, in his subsequent response (about which no journalist seems to have asked Stone questions) constitutes a crime.

In any case, Roger Stone’s attempt to turn this into another FISA pseudo scandal (including his suggestion that any warrant targeting him would be “illegal”) is just a desperate indication of how badly the Trump people want to know how much Mueller knows about the crimes Stone may have committed.

The Most Irresponsible Thing Michael Horowitz Has Done as DOJ IG

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As you likely know, I’m a big fan of Michael Horowitz. I think he has routinely discovered key aspects of DOJ and FBI’s behavior that needs improvement. I think he has stood up to FBI pushback reasonably well, if not always successfully. That other professional IGs look to him as their leader reflects the great respect he has earned among his peers.

I’ve already mentioned, in passing, that I think Horowitz’ treatment of the NY field office leaks in the IG Report on the Hillary investigation to be really problematic. The report, and the Andrew McCabe report before it, makes it very clear the rampant leaking from NY motivated a lot of the defensive behavior at FBI and DOJ (not to mention the decision to take an overt act in advance of the election in violation of standing policy). Among other passages, the report cites this very long response (it starts on report page 385 if you want to read the whole thing) from Loretta Lynch, describing how much hatred towards Hillary there was in NY.

I said, but this has become a problem. And he said, and he said to me that it had become clear to him, he didn’t say over the course of what investigation or whatever, he said it’s clear to me that there is a cadre of senior people in New York who have a deep and visceral hatred of Secretary Clinton. And he said it is, it is deep. It’s, and he said, he said it was surprising to him or stunning to him. You know, I didn’t get the impression he was agreeing with it at all, by the way. But he was saying it did exist, and it was hard to manage because these were agents that were very, very senior, or had even had timed out and were staying on, and therefore did not really feel under pressure from headquarters or anything to that effect. And I said, you know, I’m aware of that…. I said, I wasn’t aware it was to this level and this depth that you’re talking about, but I said I’m sad to say that that does not surprise me. And he made a comment about, you know, you understand that. A lot of people don’t understand that. You, you get that issue. I said, I get that issue. I said I’m, I’m just troubled that this issue, meaning the, the New York agent issue and leaks, I am just troubled that this issue has put us where we are today with respect to this laptop.

The report makes clear that the NY leaks played a key role in Comey’s disastrous decision to announce the reopening of the investigation into Hillary.

Comey denied that a fear of leaks influenced his decision to send the October 28 letter to Congress. However, other witnesses told us that a concern about leaks played a role in the decision. As Baker stated, “We were quite confident that…. [I]f we don’t put out a letter, somebody is going to leak it. That definitely was discussed….” Numerous witnesses connected this concern about leaks specifically to NYO and told us that FBI leadership suspected that FBI personnel in NYO were responsible for leaks of information in other matters. Even accepting Comey’s assertion that leaks played no role in his decision, we found that, at a minimum, a fear of leaks influenced the thinking of those who were advising him.

In spite of the magnitude that these leaks had, Horowitz did not seize the FBI phones of the presumed leakers to find out what kind of damning texts they sent among themselves. This is a point made by NYCSouthpaw in a thread the day the report came out. The asymmetric focus on bias against Trump and not against Hillary is a real problem with this report.

I’m sympathetic with the IG’s explanations for why it didn’t find the source of leaks and hopeful by its promise to follow up.

Against this backdrop, and as noted at the time the OIG announced this review, we examined allegations that Department and FBI employees improperly disclosed non-public information. We focused, in particular, on the April/May and October 2016 time periods. We have profound concerns about the volume and extent of unauthorized media contacts by FBI personnel that we have uncovered during our review. Our ability to identify individuals who have improperly disclosed non-public information is often hampered by two significant factors. First, we frequently find that the universe of Department and FBI employees who had access to sensitive information that has been leaked is substantial, often involving dozens, and in some instances, more than 100 people. We recognize that this is a challenging issue, because keeping information too closely held can harm an investigation and the supervision of it. Nevertheless, we think the Department and the FBI need to consider whether there is a better way to appropriately control the dissemination of sensitive information.

Second, although FBI policy strictly limits the employees who are authorized to speak to the media, we found that this policy appeared to be widely ignored during the period we reviewed.221 We identified numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization and with no official reason to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters. The large number of FBI employees who were in contact with journalists during this time period impacted our ability to identify the sources of leaks. For example, during the periods we reviewed, we identified dozens of FBI employees that had contact with members of the media. Attached to this report as Attachments G and H are link charts that reflects the volume of communications that we identified between FBI employees and media representatives in April/May and October 2016.222

In addition to the significant number of communications between FBI employees and journalists, we identified social interactions between FBI employees and journalists that were, at a minimum, inconsistent with FBI policy and Department ethics rules. For example, we identified instances where FBI employees received tickets to sporting events from journalists, went on golfing outings with media representatives, were treated to drinks and meals after work by reporters, and were the guests of journalists at nonpublic social events. We will separately report on those investigations as they are concluded, consistent with the Inspector General (IG) Act, other applicable federal statutes, and OIG policy. [my emphasis]

Though I would like more details about what the IG discovered when it tried to chase down FBI leaks. We know they grilled McCabe (and discovered the source of one leak that damaged Hillary). Who else did they grill, and how many were in NY?

But here’s the part I find totally irresponsible.

This is, of course, one of the totally decontextualized link analyses the IG includes in the report to substantiate its claim that the FBI leaks like a sieve. By context, this one (of two) probably reflects communications from October, a period we know (from the McCabe report) that DOJ investigated heavily, based in part off an effort to identify Devlin Barrett’s sources and those of other journalists who created a panic right before the election. The IG has gone through the effort to identify (between the two link analyses, assuming no overlap of journalists, though I suspect there may be some) the FBI sources for seven different journalists. At least the two or three journalists with more sources likely recognize they’ve been burned, as might their sources.

But the IG released these two link analyses without telling us information that it surely knows. That is: how many members of these clusters were sitting in NY, and how many in DC? Is the prolific one here Barrett (which is virtually the only way the IG would be able to claim there were too many calls to ID sources for a story we know they examined closely)? If so, then the IG already knows whether it’s true that NY started leaking about both the Weiner emails and the Clinton Foundation investigation with the purpose of pressuring DC to make certain decisions.

That is, having done this analysis, the IG knows the answer to a critical question: did leakers in NY have a significant role in forcing decisions that played a key role the outcome of the election?

If most of these leakers are in NY, then the answer is clear. But the IG didn’t tell us that information.

Worse still, by withholding this information, the IG allowed these two pages to be used (as released) out of context. They were waved around on TV all morning, with the clear suggestion that each of these leaks reflected someone trying to do in Trump. But the reality is possibly (likely even!) precisely the opposite — that a good chunk of these leakers were trying to help Trump.

And they may well have succeeded.

Michael Horowitz owes us at least that context. And I hope Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee demand that answer when Michael Horowitz shows up to testify.

Update: One more question I’ve got — how DOJ IG decided to stop the analysis at October, and not at the election. After all, the most damaging fake news story of the election, IMO, was the false leak to Bret Baier, attributed to “two sources inside the FBI,” that Hillary was going to be indicted.

 

In Attempt to Learn How Much Mueller Knows about Roger Stone’s “Collusion,” Devin Nunes Blames FBI for Stone and Michael Caputo’s Perjury to HPSCI

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On Thursday, in the wake of the release of the DOJ IG Report showing that Jim Comey hurt Hillary Clinton with his intervention after the end of the email server investigation, the Gang of Eight met with Rod Rosenstein and Christopher Wray to discuss the House Intelligence Committee demand for documents allegedly investigating FISA abuse.

On Thursday night, Rudy Giuliani (whose receipt of leaks from the NY FBI field office received no attention in the IG Report) appeared on Sean Hannity and argued that the Mueller investigation (which removed Strzok once his inappropriate texts were revealed) should be suspended immediately and instead investigated by those very same NY FBI agents.

Every FBI agent should demand that that man be fired and tomorrow Mueller should suspend his investigation and he should go see Rod Rosenstein who created him and the Deputy Attorney General and Attorney General Sessions who should now step up big time to save his Department should suspend that investigation.  Throw out all the people is that have been involved in the phony Trump investigation and bring in honest FBI agents from the New York office who I can trust implicitly and they should turn their attention to Comey, Strzok, Page.

[snip]

Who are we providing them to? People who have already concluded to frame Donald Trump, agents who started a phony Russia investigation. That’s the whole core of this. That’s why the investigation should be suspended. And I am talking for myself now, not the president. But I believe he would agree with this. A very serious investigation has to be done of the FBI agents at the very top by FBI agents who are honest in order to prosecute them…

Rosenstein and Jeff Sessions have a chance to redeem themselves and that chance comes about tomorrow. It doesn’t go beyond tomorrow. Tomorrow, Mueller should be suspended and honest people should be brought in, impartial people to investigate these people like Peter Strzok. Strzok should be in jail by the end of next week.

On Friday, in the wake of the Thursday Gang of Eight meeting, Paul Ryan, Devin Nunes, Trey Gowdy, and Bob Goodlatte had a meeting with Wray and Rosenstein to demand documents on their investigation into alleged FISA abuse.

Also on Friday, Roger Stone appeared on Laura Ingraham’s show to comment on the IG Report. He made no comment about the story he was seeding with the WaPo, spinning that the Russian he reached out to learn about dirt on Hillary Clinton, whom he didn’t mention when the House Intelligence Committee asked him about contacts with Russians, was actually an FBI spy. In its story this morning, the WaPo didn’t point out all the reasons why it’s almost certain that “Henry Greenberg” was not operating under the control of the FBI; as a result, the WaPo gave the informant story credibility it shouldn’t have.

Today, Devin Nunes went on Fox to report on the Friday meeting. In three segments (one, two, three), Maria Bartiromo treated the Friday meeting as breaking news. Nunes said that their subpoenas “will be complied with” or the House would take other measures. When Bartiromo asked Nunes specifically what he was looking for, he didn’t respond. Instead, he posed the quest this way.

How did you use our nation’s counterintelligence capabilities. These are capabilities used to track terrorists and other bad guys around the globe. How did you weaponize that against a political campaign, against the Trump campaign, where ultimately it ended up in Carter Page having a FISA warrant put against him which allowed the government to go in and grab all of his emails and phone calls. So that’s primarily what we’ve been investigating for many many months. I will tell you that Chairman Gowdy was very very clear with the Department of Justice and FBI and said that if there was any vectoring of any informants or spies or whatever you want to call them into the Trump campaign before the investigation began, we better know about it by Sunday, meaning today. He was very very clear about that. And as you probably know there’s breaking news this morning that now you have a couple Trump campaign people who are saying that they were, that they’ve amended their testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, they sent in both Friday night and this morning, amendments to their testimony saying that in fact they feel like somebody, they’re not claiming that it was the FBI, but someone ran informants or spies into them to try to get information and offer up Russian dirt to the Trump campaign. Now this would have been in May of 2016. Which is obviously months before this counterintelligence investigation was opened by the FBI into the Trump campaign.

[snip]

If I were them I would pick up the phone and let us know what this is about, this story that broke in the Washington Post, this morning, just hours ago. They probably ought to tell us whether or not they were involved in that or else they have a major major problem on their hands.

[snip]

We should have been told about this about eight months ago. In compliance with the subpoena that we issued last August.But for sure a couple months ago, when we began to ask, we asked questions about, we had a subpoena, and we wanted to figure out what they were doing before and af, right before and right after the opening of the counterintelligence investigation. So we asked for specific information and documents. As you know, that’s what we’ve been fighting over for the last couple months now. And on Friday night it culminated with us telling them because they have swore up and down that they have given us everything that’s pertinent to our investigation after the investigation was open. And they have claimed that there is nothing else that exists before that date. Now, this Washington Post story, I don’t know that they’re claiming for sure that this was an FBI spy or informant, you know, I have no idea whether it is or not, but it has all the makings of the looks of some type of spy or informant. And that would be a major problem because that is not something that has ever been brought to us, and it would be totally out of bounds.

In an appearance providing extensive details about past classified requests and meetings with DOJ (including the one on Friday), Nunes also accuses Rosenstein of leaking by telling the press that Nunes hasn’t read the documents they’ve been demanding but which DOJ has already turned over.

At midnight, just a week ago, the Department of Justice put out something on Republicans saying that we had not read documents that the Department of Justice had provided for us to read. Now, that is a major leak, of a classified meeting, that also happens to be false because they knew that we ran out of time and didn’t have time to actually read these documents, but they did that to embarrass the Speaker of the House and myself and Chairman Gowdy who were given access to those documents but not given time to read those documents. That came from the top of the Department of Justice. Why are those people still working at the Department of Justice. They are leaking.

[snip]

Here’s the bottom line. Mr. Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General, and Director Wray have to decide whether or not they want to be part of the cleanup crew or they want to be part of the cover-up crew.

Then Nunes ends by saying he will move towards impeaching Rosenstein and Wray this week, based off a claim that the FBI is withholding details about that contact with “Greenberg,” the one both Stone and Caputo lied to his own committee to cover up.

Nunes: There”s going to be hell to pay by Wednesday morning.

[snip]

This is going to go from myself and just a few committee chairmen to all the members of the House of Representatives who are going to begin to take action against the Department of Justice and FBI.

Bartiromo: Taking action meaning contempt of Congress?

Nunes: Well that’s just one of the options. That’s just one of many options. But I can tell you that it’s not gonna be pretty.

Bartiromo: Are you going to force the resignation of Rod Rosenstein?

Nunes: We can’t force the resignation, but we can hold in contempt, we can pass sense of Congress resolutions, we can impeach, and look, I think we’re getting close to there.

So let’s unpack what’s going on here, aside from a really well orchestrated campaign that has been in the works since January.

First, note how Nunes twists the meaning of counterintelligence here? When discussing why the FBI obtained a FISA order on Carter Page, whom FBI suspected was a willing Russian asset going back to 2013 and whom FBI had questioned the same month Trump added him to the campaign, as part of those ongoing concerns, Nunes suggests FISA orders are only used on terrorists and international bad guys, not people who’ve been suspected of being Russian assets for years. But later in the appearance, he treats the formal start of the counterintelligence investigation into Russians infiltrating Trump’s campaign — the counterintelligence investigation (he is now using counterintelligence in its traditional sense) — as if any investigation of Page or Manafort on their own right before that would be corrupt.

Then Nunes moves to suggest that a Russian contact that Mueller may have only discovered after he obtained a warrant for Stone’s phone on March 9 — a contact that both Caputo and Stone lied to the committee about — is something the FBI has been hiding, not Caputo and Stone.

In an appearance providing a slew of non-public information about a long series of contacts, Nunes accuses Rosenstein for once doing the same thing, with the important difference that Rosenstein was correcting the false claims that Nunes was presenting to the press.

And out of all that — out of Nunes’ willingness to blame the FBI for Stone and Caputo’s lies to his own committee — Nunes is going to bring an impeachment case against Rosenstein and Wray.

Obviously, there’s an easy way for Rosenstein and Wray to defuse this, in more of the bend don’t break approach they’ve been using with these extortionists. They could explain what I have surmised: that the materials about the contact with “Greenberg” that Stone and Caputo lied to him about actually came pursuant to a grand jury search warrant based on information Rick Gates provided in February and March. This is probably a grand jury search warrant (or one similar) that Paul Manafort already tried to, but failed, to get unsealed. As far as we know, Rosenstein and Wray haven’t provided any grand jury material to HPSCI.

Of course, providing the background to this question would require providing more details about what Mueller does and doesn’t know about Roger Stone’s efforts to conspire with Russians during the election.

That’s the hostage situation that Nunes is creating here: Impeachment or details about what Mueller knows of Roger Stone’s conspiracy with Russians to obtain dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Rat-Fucker Extraordinaire Roger Stone Probably Had Far More Damning Texts Seized by FBI on March 9

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After two years of denying any contacts with Russians, epic rat-fucker Roger Stone has now willingly disclosed one to the WaPo, revealing details about how a Russian approached Michael Caputo’s business partner, offering dirt on Hillary, which led Stone to accept a meeting with the guy. Here’s what a rat-fucker limited hang-out looks like:

One day in late May 2016, Roger Stone — the political dark sorcerer and longtime confidant of Donald Trump — slipped into his Jaguar and headed out to meet a man with a Make America Great Again hat and a viscous Russian accent.

The man, who called himself Henry Greenberg, offered damaging information about Hillary Clinton, Trump’s presumptive Democratic opponent in the upcoming presidential election, according to Stone who spoke about the previously unreported incident in interviews with The Washington Post. Greenberg, who did not reveal the information he claimed to possess, wanted Trump to pay $2 million for the political dirt, Stone said.

“You don’t understand Donald Trump,” Stone recalled saying before rejecting the offer at a restaurant in the Russian-expat magnet of Sunny Isles, Fla. “He doesn’t pay for anything.”

Stone is disclosing this damning story now for two reasons: First, because he has discovered (surely tipped by someone) that “Greenberg,” whose real last name appears to be Oknyansky, worked as an FBI informant for years (apparently after being flipped in immigration custody) [Update: Caputo, who claims to have IDed this guy using his open source defense fund, says his real name is Gennadiy Vasilievich Vostretsov]. So it feeds the narrative that the Deep State is out to get Trump.

“If you believe that [Greenberg] took time off from his long career as an FBI informant to reach out to us in his spare time, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I want to sell you,” Caputo said in an interview.

In a separate interview, Stone said: “I didn’t realize it was an FBI sting operation at the time, but it sure looks like one now.”

[snip]

Between 2008 and 2012, the records show, he repeatedly was extended permission to enter the United States under a so-called “significant public benefit parole.” The documents list an FBI agent as a contact person. The agent declined to comment.

Immigration lawyer David Leopold, former president of American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the documents described an immigration history generally consistent with Greenberg’s claims that he had been allowed to enter the United States to assist law enforcement.

In a 2015 court declaration, Greenberg — using the last name Oknyansky — said he’d been giving information to the FBI since returning to Russia from the United States in 2000.

They’re also raising it because Caputo was asked about it in his interview with the Mueller team on May 2 and are now both in the process of “correcting” their sworn testimony to HPSCI.

Stone and Caputo said in separate interviews that they also did not disclose the Greenberg meeting during testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence because they had forgotten about an incident that Stone calls unimportant “due diligence” that would have been “political malpractice” not to explore.

Caputo said that he was asked during a session with the committee in July whether he’d ever been offered information about the Clinton campaign by a Russian, and he either answered “no” or that he could not recall.

However, Stone and Caputo said their memories were refreshed by text messages that Caputo said he no longer has in his possession but was shown during a May 2 interview.

By revealing that Mueller caught Caputo and Stone dealing in dirt with Russians, they reveal a certain detail to other co-conspirators: probably, that Mueller has obtained the contents of Roger Stone’s phone. As a reminder, on March 9, the FBI obtained the cloud-stored contents of 5 AT&T phones (and probably at least as many Verizon ones), at least one but not all of which were Paul Manafort’s. There’s a lot of reason to believe that at least one of the phones obtained was Stone’s.

An earlier filing explained that the second, AT&T, affidavit was obtained on March 9 and it covers “ongoing investigations that are not the subject of either of the current prosecutions involving Manafort.”

On April 4, 2018, the government produced in redacted form, and for the first time, an affidavit supporting a search warrant that had been obtained on March 9, 2018. That affidavit likewise contains redactions—albeit more substantial ones—relating to ongoing investigations that are not the subject of either of the current prosecutions involving Manafort.

As I believe others pointed out at the time, this would put it just a few weeks after Rick Gates pled on February 23, and so might reflect information obtained with his cooperation.

In her ruling, ABJ cited the last week’s hearing, suggesting that the phones still redacted in the affidavit materials might not be Manafort’s.

THE COURT: What if — I think one of them is about phone information. What if the redacted phones are not his phone?

MR. WESTLING: I don’t have a problem with that. I think we’re talking about things that relate to this defendant in this case.

Since just before this phone data was obtained, Mueller’s team has focused closely on Roger Stone, starting with the Sam Nunberg meltdown on March 5, including a retracted claim that Trump knew of the June 9 meeting the week beforehand (there’s a phone call Don Jr placed on June 6 that several committees think may have been to Trump, something Mueller presumably knows). Ted Malloch was stopped at the border and interviewed (and had his phone seized) on March 30, and scheduled for a since aborted grand jury appearance on April 13. Stone assistants John Sullivan and Jason Kakanis were subpoenaed earlier in May. Of particularly interest, Michael Caputo was interviewed about meetings he and Stone had with Gates before and during the campaign.

And Stone, by all appearances, still has the text exchange with Caputo to share with the WaPo. Which means Mueller has a whole slew of other text exchanges that Stone is not revealing.

We can be virtually certain, too, that Stone is offering just a limited version of the story, as he has done over and over again. Of note: Stone doesn’t claim he said to Oknyansky that he wasn’t interested in the information; rather, he only claims that Trump wouldn’t pay $2 million for it. By the end of the summer someone else — Peter Smith — was offering money for dirt on Hillary. And the Clinton Foundation was a key focus of Stone’s; he raised it 8 times on Twitter between that meeting at the election.

Now, as I said, the reason we’re learning about this particular lie from Caputo and Stone is because it feeds a certain narrative, that the FBI was seeking to set up the Trump campaign. That makes zero sense, given that even accepting the outreach from a Russian would have triggered attention from the FBI, and it’s clear FBI just got this information recently (probably, as I’ve noted, on March 9). Remember, too, the FBI didn’t formally learn that the Russians were targeting the Democrats, to the extent they did (and the Russians targeted Rubio and Graham as well) until June. So there’s no reason the FBI would have used a Russian to deal dirt in May. In other words, Caputo and Stone’s story makes zero sense.

But it is notable that Russians and their partners have used so many former informants in their outreach to Trump’s team. In addition to Oknyansky (whom the Russians would have known by the networks he helped expose), there’s Felix Sater (whose role as an informant was already known), who pitched both a Tower deal and “peace” in Ukraine. And while it hasn’t been confirmed, George Nader would not be a free man right now if he hadn’t traded cooperation for freedom, in light of his serial child pornography violations.

Of course, the Trump team hasn’t said a word about Nader and Sater being FBI informants infiltrating their campaign, perhaps because Mueller had them cooperating before this strategy got rolled out.

I have long said that one of the easiest ways to avoid network analysis scrutiny the US is known to do is to become (or remain) an informant. Both David Headley and Tamerlan Tsarnaev appear to have evaded scrutiny that way, and even Omar Mateen may have gotten less scrutiny because his father was an informant. There’s lots of reason to believe that gets your communication channels pulled from the network mapping programs, for two reasons: first, because informants need to be deconflicted (meaning you need to make sure the DEA doesn’t arrest someone who’s working for the FBI), and because if they remain in the network mapping pool, you’ll soon have half the FBI two degrees from drug lords and terrorists and therefore subject to NSA’s analytical tradecraft.

If I know that, Russia knows that (and there’s good reason to believe Russia has exploited that in the past). Moreover, the FBI has been hacked itself in recent years, multiple times. If data on the FBI’s own networks is available, it’d make it even easier for Russia to identify people it could use as outreach to the Trump campaign.

In other words, it’s possible, if not likely, we’ll see more former FBI assets networked into efforts to compromise the Trump campaign. Because that would be the best way to avoid scrutiny.