Horowitz

DOJ’s Accounting of Its FISA Errors Cannot Be Compared to the Carter Page Report

/10 Comments/in , , , /by

Last year, Bill Barr adopted the stance that Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s assessment of FISA — in the report on the Carter Page FISA applications — wasn’t strict enough, because it found no evidence that the errors in the applications arose from political bias. Last week, Bill Barr’s DOJ adopted the opposite stance, that DOJ IG was too critical of FISA, finding errors in the FBI process where there were none.

It did so in the second of two filings reviewing the errors that DOJ IG had found in 29 other FISA applications. When DOJ IG released an interim report (MAM) describing those errors in March, it appeared to suggest that the level of error in the Carter Page applications — at least with respect to the Woods Files — was actually lower than what DOJ IG had found in the 25 applications.

Now, DOJ appears to be trying to claim — without basis — that that’s not the case.

Ahead of the release of the actual filing, DOJ and FBI orchestrated a press release last week, announcing that they would tell the court none of the errors identified by DOJ IG invalidated the probable cause finding for the 29 files. Predictably, both the responsible press and the frothy right (in stories that misunderstood the findings of either DOJ IG report and at times made errors about the FISA process), concluded that this review shows that Page’s application was uniquely bad.

Only after the press had jumped on that conclusion did DOJ release the filing (here’s the earlier one and here’s AAG John Demers’ statement in conjunction with last week’s release).

The filing makes it clear that it is impossible to draw any comparison between these findings about the earlier Carter Page ones (or even to declare — as many in the press have — that this filing proves DOJ’s FISA problems aren’t as bad as DOJ IG suggested).

That’s true for three reasons:

  • DOJ IG has not finished the kind of review on any of the 29 files it did for Page, and DOJ is not claiming it did either
  • DOJ used a dramatically different methodology for this Woods review than DOJ IG did for the Page review
  • DOJ effectively disagreed with DOJ IG’s findings for roughly 46% of the errors DOJ IG identified — and it’s not clear they explained to the FISA Court why they did so

Before I explain these, there’s a more important takeaway.

In giving itself a clean bill of health, DOJ judged that it doesn’t matter that a 2016 FISA application claimed that one of their sources accused a person of sympathizing with a particular terrorist organization when in fact the source said the person had become sympathetic to radical Muslim causes. For the purposes of FISA, this is a huge distinction, because a terrorist organization counts as a foreign power for the sake of FISA, but radical Muslim causes do not. It’s the difference between targeting someone as a suspected agent of a foreign power and targeting them for First Amendment protected activities. DOJ said this error didn’t matter because there was so much other derogatory information against the target; whether that’s true or not, it remains the case that DOJ’s self-congratulation nevertheless admits to a key First Amendment problem in one of the applications.

Woods violations are different from significant inaccuracies are different from material inaccuracies are different from probable cause

As I explained in this post, the IG Report on Carter Page found two types of problems: 17 “significant inaccuracies” that were mostly errors of omission (see PDF 12 and 14-15 for a list), and Woods file errors (PDF 460ff) for which an assertion made in the application did not have or match the back-up in the accuracy file that is supposed to prove it. The “significant inaccuracies” are the more serious of the two, but a number of those were overblown and in a few cases, dubious, in the DOJ IG Report.

Both of those categories are different from material misstatements, of which DOJ admitted to a number by the time they withdrew the probable cause claim from the third and fourth, but not the first two, Page applications. Before the conclusion of the DOJ IG Report they had told the court of the following material misstatements:

  • July 12, 2018: Cover stories Papadopoulos gave to informants that FBI accurately assessed in real time as false, statements Bruce Ohr made that (in the slightly misrepresented form included in the DOJ IG Report) call into question Christopher Steele’s motives, admissions that Steele himself had spoken to the press
  • October 25, 2019 and November 27, 2019: Details about the actions of Kevin Clinesmith — first not disclosing and then altering a document to hide Page’s relationship with the CIA that covered some but not all of his willful sharing of non-public information with known Russian intelligence officers

It’s not clear the government specified which aspects of the DOJ IG Report it submitted to Rosemary Collyer in December 2019 it deemed material, but she focused on:

  • Statements made by Steele’s primary sub-source that undermined key claims about Page
  • Page’s denials (some proven true, some of still undetermined veracity) of details in the Steele dossier
  • Steele’s derogatory comments about Sergei Millian

On the scale of severity, the material misstatements are the ones that matter, because they’re the ones that will affect whether someone gets wiretapped or not. But the Woods file errors in the Carter Page report identified by DOJ IG describe just four (arguably, three) details even related to things ultimately deemed material which, in turn, led to the withdrawal of two of the applications. None directly described the core issues that led to the withdrawal of the two applications (though the Page denials in conjunction with the sub-source comments did).

Indeed, one key conclusion of this entire process — one that DOJ, DOJ IG, and FISC have all agreed with — is that the Woods files process is not very useful at finding the more important errors of omission of the kind that were the most serious problems in the Page application.

And that’s important because all three of these reports — the March DOJ IG MAM and the June and July responses to FISA — stem from, and only explicitly claim to address, Woods file errors. In its MAM, DOJ IG described what it called its “initial” review this way:

During this initial review, we have not made judgments about whether the errors or concerns we identified were material. Also, we do not speculate as to whether the potential errors would have influenced the decision to file the application or the FISC’s decision to approve the FISA application. In addition, our review was limited to assessing the FBI’s execution of its Woods Procedures, which are not focused on affirming the completeness of the information in FISA applications.

For its part, DOJ calls DOJ IG’s report “preliminary” (seemingly ignoring that the IG claimed in that MAM and claims on its website to be continuing this part of what it calls a preliminary part of a larger review of FISA). DOJ’s Office of Intelligence did do materiality reviews of both the errors DOJ IG found and some that it found in the process of compiling these reports (in addition to the CT material misstatement described above, it found what sounds like the omission of exculpatory statements in a CI case).

But all this amounts to the more basic of the two kinds of reviews that DOJ IG did in the Carter Page case.

For these reports, DOJ continued to use the accuracy review methodology it now agrees is inadequate

As noted, all parties now agree that the Woods procedure wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do. One reason it wasn’t is because the FBI has always given agents a few weeks notice before they review one of their Woods files, allowing them to scramble to fill out the accuracy file.

But DOJ IG (perfectly reasonably) didn’t give the Crossfire Hurricane team or any of the people involved in the 29 FISA applications it reviewed here that same notice. It conducted its Woods file assessment on what was actually in the accuracy file. In the case of the Carter Page review, they found a placeholder for a 302 that said exactly what DOJ IG faulted FBI for not having evidence for, an observation about how much Stefan Halper has been paid, and publicly available details about Gazprombank, among other true claims that were nevertheless not backed up in the Woods file. It would have been child’s play — but take some work — to get proof of those and most other claims in the file. The Woods file review that DOJ IG did in the Page case — and almost certainly, the review of the 29 files — tested whether the Woods procedures were being adhered to at all, not whether the Woods procedure effectively ensured only documented claims made it into a FISA application.

If you’re going to rely on the Woods procedure as an accuracy tool, that’s what reviews need to do, because otherwise they’re doing nothing to test the accuracy of the reports.

And DOJ now agrees. In its June filing, DOJ committed to changing how it does accuracy reviews starting in September (maybe). Starting then, agents will get no notice of a review before it happens, and the accuracy rate of that no-notice review will be tracked along with the accuracy once an agent is given time to chase down the documentation he didn’t include the first time.

NSD has determined that commencing with accuracy reviews starting after September 30, 2020, it will not inform the FBI field offices undergoing NSD oversight reviews which applications will be subjected to accuracy reviews in advance of those reviews. This date is subject to current operational limitations the coronavirus outbreak is imposing. NSD would not apply this change in practice to accuracy reviews conducted in response to a request to use FISA information in a criminal proceeding, given the need to identify particular information from particular collections that is subject to use. NSD also would not apply this change in practice to completeness reviews ( discussed further below); because of the pre-review coordination that is contemplated for those reviews.

NSD will expect that the relevant FBI field offices have ready, upon NSD’s arrival, the accuracy sub-files for the most recent applications for all FISAs seeking electronic surveillance or physical search. NSD will then, on its arrival, inform the FBI field office of the application(s) that will be subject to an accuracy review. If the case will also be subject to a completeness review, pre-coordination, as detailed below, will be necessary. The Government assesses that implementing this change in practice will encourage case agents in all FISA matters to be more vigilant about applying the accuracy procedures in their day-to-day work.

In addition, although NSD’s accuracy reviews allow NSD to assess individual compliance with the accuracy procedures, NSD’s historical practice has been to allow agents to obtain documentation during a review that may be missing from the accuracy sub-file. NSD only assesses the errors or omissions identified once the agent has been given the opportunity to gather any additional required documentation. While the Government believes that, in order to appropriately assess the accuracy of an application’s content, it should continue to allow agents to gather additional documentation during the accuracy review, it assesses that this historical practice has not allowed for the evaluation of how effective agents have been at complying with the requirement to maintain an accuracy sub-file, complete with all required documentation.

As a result, NSD will tally and report as a part of its accuracy review process all facts for which any documentation, or appropriate documentation, was not a part of the accuracy sub-file at the time the accuracy review commenced.

That said, that’s not how DOJ did these reviews. In fact, John Demers emphasized this fact in his statement claiming victory over these reviews.

In addition, when the OIG found a fact unsupported by a document in the Woods file, the OIG did not give the FBI the opportunity to locate a supporting document for the fact outside the file.

Indeed, that’s not the only thing that DOJ did to help DOJ clean up DOJ’s shitty performance on DOJ IG’s review of their work. After FBI Field Office lawyers got the DOJ IG assessment, they pulled together the existing documentation, then DOJ’s OI worked with agents to fill in what wasn’t there. In fact, DOJ even got an extension on the second report because DOJ and FBI agents were still working through the files, suggesting it took up to three months of work to get the files to where DOJ was willing to tell FISC about them.

In other words, whereas the Crossfire Hurricane team got judged — by Bill Barr’s DOJ — on what was in the Woods file when DOJ IG found it, Bill Barr’s DOJ is judging Bill Barr’s DOJ on what might be in a Woods file after agents have up to three months to look for paperwork to support claims they made as long as six years ago.

DOJ disagreed with DOJ IG’s finding of error about 46% of the time

Finally, DOJ and DOJ IG did not use the same categories of information to track errors on the Woods file reviews, and one of the most common ways they dismissed the import of an error was by saying that DOJ IG was wrong.

The MAM divides the errors it found into three categories: claims not supported by any documentation, claims not corroborated by the supposed back-up, and claims that were inconsistent with the supporting documentation.

[W]e identified facts stated in the FISA application that were: (a) not supported by any documentation in the Woods File, (b) not clearly corroborated by the supporting documentation in the Woods File, or (c) inconsistent with the supporting documentation in the Woods File.

In addition to the two material errors they found, DOJ claims the errors they found fall into five categories (described starting on page 10):

  • Non-material date errors
  • Non-material typographical errors
  • Non-material deviations from the source documentation
  • Non-material misidentified sources of information
  • Non-material facts lacking supporting documentation

But to get to that number, DOJ also weeded out a number of other problems identified by DOJ IG via three other categories of determination reflected in the up to three month back and forth with OI:

  • Claims made that were substantiated by documents added to the file after DOJ IG’s review
  • Claims that, after reviewing additional information, OI “determined that the application accurately stated or described the supporting documentation, or accurately summarized other assertions in the application that were supported by the accuracy subfile”
  • Claims not backed by any document, but for which “the supporting documentation taken as a whole provided support for the fact in the application”

DOJ doesn’t count those instances in its overview — as distinct from individual narratives — of the report (indeed, the scope of added documentation is not qualified at all). And while the DOJ fillings say FBI described that it added documentation to the file in the redacted FBI declaration for FISC, it’s not clear whether it told FISC what it added and how much and where and when it came from (FBI has been known to write 302s long after the fact to document events not otherwise documented in real time).

Here’s what all this looks like in one table (FBI did what is probably a similar table, but it’s classified). Note that DOJ IG used still different categories for the Carter Page review: “Supporting document does not state this fact,” which is probably the same as their “not clearly corroborated” category. In my table, I’ve counted that as a “lacking documentation error.”

There are several takeaways from this table.

First, the numerical discrepancy provides some idea of how many errors DOJ IG found that DOJ made go away either by finding documentation for them, or by deciding that DOJ IG was wrong. DOJ IG said it found an average of 20 errors in the 25 applications it was able to review, or 500 total. DOJ says it found 63 errors in the June report and 138 errors in the July Report, over a total of 29 applications (they did a review of the four files for which DOJ IG was provided with no Woods file, so had 4 more files than DOJ IG).

My numbers are off by 3 from theirs, which might be partly accounted for recurrent errors in a reauthorized application or lack of clarity on DOJ’s narrative. Or maybe like DOJ, I subtracted 48 from 138 and got 91.

Approximately 48 of these 138 non-material errors reflect typographical errors or date discrepancies between an assertion in an application and a source document. Of the remaining 91 non-material errors or unsupported facts, four involve nonmaterial factual assertions that may be accurate, but for which a supporting document could not be located in the FBI’s files; 73 involve non-material deviations between a source document and an application; and 13 involve errors in which the source of an otherwise accurate factual assertion was misidentified.

But my count shows that DOJ simply declared DOJ IG to be wrong 151 times in its assessment that something was an error, with an amazing 35 examples of that in one application, and of which 14 across all applications were instances where DOJ couldn’t find a document to support a claim (not even with three months to look), but instead said the totality of the application supported a claim.

Claiming that the totality of an application supports a claim, while being unable to find documentation for a discrete fact, sure sounds like confirmation bias.

And in the up to three months of review, FBI found documentation to support upwards of 130 claims that originally were not supported in the Woods file. In other words, these weren’t errors of fact — they were just instances of FBI not following the Woods procedure.

We know that if the Crossfire Hurricane team had been measured by the standard DOJ did in these filings, it would have done better than most of these applications (again, only with respect to the Woods file). That’s because, aside from the four claims that rely on intercepted information (which is not public), there is public documentation to support every claim deemed unsupported in the report but three: the one claiming that James Clapper had said that Russia was providing money in addition to the disinformation to help Trump.

The DNI commented that this influence included providing money to particular candidates or providing disinformation.

And the two claiming that Christopher Steele’s reporting had been corroborated, something the DOJ IG Report lays out at length was not true in the terms FBI normally measured. Except, even there, Steele handler Mike Gaeta’s sworn testimony actually said it had been. He described jumping when Steele told him he had information because he was a professional,

And at that time there were a number of instances when his information had borne out, had been corroborated by other sources.

He also provided a perfectly reasonable explanation for why Steele’s reporting was not corroborated in the way DOJ IG measured it in the report: because you could never put Steele on a stand, so his testimony would never be used to prosecute people.

From a criminal perspective and a criminal investigative kind of framework, you know, Christopher Steele and [redacted] were never individuals who were going to be on a witness stand.

In other words, while it appears that DOJ cleaned up many of the errors identified by DOJ IG by finding the documentation to back it over the course of months, the public record makes it clear that Crossfire Hurricane would have been able to clear up even more of the Page Woods file.

The exceptions prove the rule. There are, as my table notes, two or three claims that do not accurately describe what the underlying document says, claiming:

  • That Page never refuted the claims against him (he had, and in many cases, was telling the truth in his refutations)
  • That Steele told the FBI he never shared information with anyone outside his “business associate” [Fusion] and the FBI (he also shared it with State, as other parts of FBI had been told)
  • That in his first FBI interviews Papadopoulos admitted he had met with Australian officials but not that he discussed Russia during those meetings (it’s unclear how accurate this claim is)

Assume the last bullet (used just once) reflects the redacted parts of Papadopoulos’ 302s even though it does match his current statements, that nevertheless leaves you with an error rate on arguably the worst category — misrepresenting your evidence — of 2 or 3 per application. The first two of these are the Woods file errors that turned out to have a tie (a significant one in the first bullet) with the material reasons why some of the files were withdrawn. They’re the two errors in the Woods file that most directly tied to omitted evidence in the application that would lead to their withdrawal.

Of the 29 applications reviewed by DOJ, 12 of them have 3 or more “deviations from the source” material. One has 14 and another has 15.

So on the worst measure that this review actually did measure, the one that on Page’s application tied most directly to reasons to withdraw the application, Page’s application actually was within the norm.

It may well be that when all the reviews are done, DOJ will have proof that Carter Page’s application was an exceptionally bad application. Certainly, the material misstatements may end up being worse.

But the only thing this apples to oranges comparison of the Page methodology and the traditional DOJ methodology has proven is that — as a matter of the Woods file reviews — Bill Barr has used a different standard for Bill Barr’s DOJ than he has with Crossfire Hurricane. And that if the Page file had been treated as all the others were, from a Woods file perspective, it actually wouldn’t look that bad.

It also shows that when Bill Barr’s DOJ wants to continue spying on Americans who don’t happen to be associated with Donald Trump, he’s happy to argue that Michael Horowitz’s very legalistic reviews of the sort that did Andrew McCabe in are wrong.

Updated for clarity.

In Previously Undisclosed December 2018 Interview, Jared Kushner Got Warned Falsely Claiming to Not Recall Is Still a Lie

/57 Comments/in , /by

BuzzFeed released another tranche of Mueller documents the other night. Generally, they’re as interesting for the small details as for any blockbuster reveals.

Someone got interviewed in October 2018 about recordings he made of Jay Sekulow’s conversations with him. A woman voluntarily allowed the FBI to take a forensic image of her refurbished iPhone 7 in October 2018, apparently so they could try to get the comms of its previous owner. The 302 for Brittany Kaiser (the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower) shows no b7A redactions for ongoing investigation, even though other 302s with CA related information do.

But I’m particularly intrigued that Jared Kushner had a previously undisclosed December 19, 2018 interview that didn’t even show up on the master list of Mueller interviews. It was conducted by Andrew Goldstein, Andrew Weissmann, and Zainab Ahmad, so it definitely was a (high profile) Mueller interview. (One Paul Manafort lie Meuller’s team was trying to sort through at the time likely pertained to Kushner, though I’m not sure Ahmad would be involved in an interview on that topic.)

Most of the interview, like the other Kushner interviews, is redacted, mostly under b5 (deliberative) redactions, though there are some b7A ones.

About the only thing left unredacted is this warning from Goldstein:

SASC Goldstein advised Kushner that the interview was being conducted under the same terms as the prior interview. SASC Goldstein advised Kushner that it was a crime to lie during the interview. SASC Goldstein advised Kushner that answering a question with “I don’t recall,” when you do recall, is a lie.

Which doesn’t say much about what Kushner said in this interview. It does reveal what he had said in past interviews.

In other words, Kushner at least attempted to pursue the same strategy his father-in-law did, by not recalling really damning information.

The Maryland US Attorney’s Office Included Erik Prince in a FOIA Response on the Stone Sentencing

/19 Comments/in , /by

Jason Leopold once again did more for overseeing DOJ than the House Judiciary Committee managed — this time beginning the process of liberating documents held by the US Attorney’s Office pertaining to Roger Stone’s sentencing. As Leopold notes in his story on the documents, this was the first of several installments, so more interesting documents may come out later.

This installment clearly all came from the Maryland US Attorney’s office, reflecting the mailbox of Aaron Zelinsky, who has always been and remains employed there; he returned there full time after he resigned as a Special AUSA assigned to the Mueller team. The remaining installments — at least those from the EOUSA — will likely mirror this production, but also include emails involving Timothy Shea’s Chief of Staff, David Metcalf, JP Cooney, John Crabb, and Alessio Evangelista, who were also involved in the events of February 10 and 11.

Maryland may have responded quickly to this FOIA because it is more sympathetic to Zelinsky’s efforts. Indeed, the most interesting exchanges in these emails show Zelinsky discussing these matters with people in that office. On February 10, he kept Jonathan Lanzner in the loop, letting him know when, “looks like they are blinking.” The following day, just after DOJ disavowed the sentencing memo approved just the night before (which the prosecutors appear to have found out about via media reports), Zelinsky made an urgent request of three others in MD USAO. There was some discussion of precedent and a drafting of a document. But after Zelinsky withdrew from the case, he alerted them that “we will not have the opportunity to do” whatever they were trying to do.

As discussed, I have filed the withdrawal motion and emailed the public corruption chief JP Cooney. I withdrew just after I sent the email below notifying him. As we discussed, I do not believe he has the power to compel  me to stay in the case. There are currently three attorneys on the docket for the United States. In addition, JP has indicated that Main Justice will file a motion of somekind in the case later today and we will not have the opportunity to do this.

Nevertheless, there’s a follow-up with Lenzner later in the day. In it, Zelinsky makes it clear that his Memorandum of Understanding (presumably pertaining to his SAUSA role tied to Mueller) only pertains to Roger Stone.

The suggestion that these events may have affected other cases, to which Zelinsky’s MOU did not apply, is particularly interesting given that DOJ deemed an email to Zelinsky from Erik Prince’s lawyer attaching a story about that investigation, sent after everything started blowing up, to be responsive to this FOIA.

I see no reason why that email would be included in this FOIA response (the attached WSJ story, for example, does not mention the Stone). But for some reason, Maryland’s US Attorney’s office considers it responsive to the Leopold FOIA.

I’ll have more to say about this FOIA response in a bit.

I have included all the emails, save some inquiries from journalists, in the timeline below. Note that it is difficult to distinguish between b5 (deliberative) and b6 (privacy) in these redactions, so I may have gotten a few of those wrong.

February 10

7:49: Zelinsky sends his US Attorney email, “Zelinsky Withdrawal Motion Draft 2.docx.”

7:52: Zelinsky forwards his draft withdrawal motion, still titled, “Zelinsky Withdrawal Motion Draft 2.docx,” to Adam Jed and Jonathan Kravis (but not Michael Marando), stating, “A much slimmer version — let me know what you think.” Note that the email he attached the draft to has a time stamp of 7:46, preceding the one above. This appears to be substantially the motion he submitted the following day.

9:01: A Maryland US Attorney employee, Paul Budlow, responds to Zelinksy regarding a “Presentations Skills for Training and Trial” course in March, saying only “Thanks.” The email was likely responsive because of what Zelinsky said to Budlow on Friday, February 7, which is redacted under b6.

9:40: Email from John Kruzel at The Hill.

1:25: Zelinsky sends Marando his withdrawal letter, now titled, “Zelinsky Withdrawal Motion Draft Final.docx.”

2:04: Zelinsky writes Jonathan Lenzner at Maryland’s US Attorney’s office with the subject line, “Looks like they are blinking.” It is redacted under b5.

2:05: Timothy Shea’s Chief of Staff David Metcalf emails Zelinsky, “If you actually want to talk, let me know.” The rest is redacted under b6.

2:07: Zelinsky responds to Metcalf. The first line is redacted under b6. The email then says, “What would you like to discuss? I am a bit busy because of Stone sentencing memo (as I’m sure you’re aware) and I [redacted, b6].

2:08: Lenzner responds. It is redacted under b5.

2:11: Zelinsky responds. It is redacted under b5.

3:25: Michael Marando emails the other three prosecutors, attaching a “Joint Submission re Redactions.docx,” with the subject link, “Can you let me know if this is OK?”

3:58: Zelinsky responds again to Metcalf, “I’m headed out now. Happy to talk by phone.” The rest of the email is redacted under b6.

4:22: Marando forwards email reading, “Counsel, the attached documents were filed with the Court under seal today.” Marando’s email that forwarded the PACER entry to Stone’s lawyers cc’ing the other prosecutors, which is (still sealed) docket number 278, is included in this FOIA production as well, but the time is not legible.

4:22: Kravis emails Zelinsky, “Final draft attached. Let me know when we have the ok to file.” He attaches, “stone sentencing memo 2-10-20.docx.”

4:22: Kravis emails Cooney, John Crabb, Alessio Evangelista, cc’ing the Stone prosecutors. “Final draft attached. Let me know when we have the ok to file.” Attached is “stone sentencing memo 2-10-20.”

4:28: Zelinsky responds to Kravis, “This says [redacted] got thirteen months. I thought it was 14?

4:30: Zelinsky responds again to Kravis, “Never mind. Looks like thirteen in all news stories.”

4:32: Zelinsky responds to Marando, “Thanks for doing this.”

6:02: Zelinsky receives ECF notice of the prosecutors’ sentencing memo, which was filed at 6:01.

6:07: Cooney emails “Team,” stating, “I just let Jonathan know that you have the green light to file the pleading.” The rest of the email is redacted under a b6.

7:04: Zelinsky responds to Cooney thanking him. The rest of the email is redacted under b6.

10:57: Zelinsky receives notice of Stone’s sentencing memo, which was filed at 10:55.

February 11

7:03 AM: Zelinsky forwards the sentencing memo from Stone’s attorneys, including the leniency letters, to the other prosecutors in the case, making some comment that was redacted for b5 and b6 reasons.

7:04 AM: Zelinsky responds to the Cooney email from the evening stating, “Thanks JP,” with the balance redacted for b6.

8:32: Adam Jed writes the other Stone prosecutors with the subject line, “Stone’s sentencing memo.” The content is redacted under b5.

9:50: Zelinsky responds to the other prosecutors regarding an email all four plus Timothy Shea got sent, calling them “Corrupt Whores” and “Are Poor FuckingEvil,” complaining they called for “7 to 9 years for Rodger [sic] Stone?” and calling them, “COCKROACHES.” Apparently this email merited a response, because he said,

I’ll draft a response. Good news– we know the U.S. Attorney won’t get this threat because he doesn’t use email.

12:02: Marando forwards an inquiry from The Hill’s John Kruzel, asking about the Fox story that DOJ is changing Stone’s sentencing recommendation, to Cooney, saying only “FYI.”

12:07:11: Cooney responds to Marando’s question, False.

12:07:32 PM: Marando forwards the 12:07:11 email from JP Cooney to Zelinsky.

12:13: Zelinsky responds to Marando and Kravis in the Cooney “False” thread, linking CNN journalist Shimon Prokupecz’s tweet quoting DOJ disavowing of the sentencing memo:

DOJ on Roger Stone: “This is not what had been briefed to the department,” the official told CNN. “The department believes the recommendation is extreme and excessive and is grossly disproportionate to Stone’s offenses.”

12:50: Zelinsky sends “Zelinsky Withdrawal Motion Draft February 11.pdf” to Neil White and John Sippel at Maryland’s US Attorney’s office, stating,

Dear Neil and John,

Sorry to buy you with an urgent request.

Quick background:

[long paragraph redacted under b5]

1:00: White responds. The first line is redacted under b5. The rest reads,

Jon briefed me about this earlier today. I tried calling you and I am happy to chat this afternoon. I can be reached at [redacted].

1:04: Zelinsky responds to White, cc’ing Roann Nichols, “Neil — on phone with DC now. Will call in a moment.”

1:13: Zelinsky emails Neil White cc’ing Roann Nichols, “Just tried you again. Thanks,”

1:55: Cooney sends an email, with only two periods, to Kravis, with the subject “memo.”

2:02: Kravis forwards the email from Cooney to the other prosecutors.

2:34: Zelinsky receives ECF notice of a letter in support of sentencing.

2:55: Kravis sends Zelinsky an email with the subject line, “Send me your notice?”

2:55:18: Zelinsky responds to Kravis. The first sentence is redacted under b5. The rest says, “JP approved this yesterday. If you see any typos, let me know!” He attaches, “Zelinsky Withdrawal Motion Draft February 11.docx.”

2:59: Zelinsky receives ECF notice of his withdrawal motion, which was filed at 2:58.

2:59:23: Zelinsky emails Cooney, cc’ing the other prosecutors, Withdrawal, attaching, “Zelinsky Withdrawal Final Signed FINAL.pdf”:

Dear JP,

Pursuant to our conversation yesterday and your approval of this filing yesterday, I am now filing the attached withdrawal from the Stone case and resigning as a SAUSA in DC.

2:59: Zelinsky again responds to Kravis with the file, “Zelinsky Withdrawal Motion Draft February 11.docx.”

3:00: Cooney responds to Zelinsky, “I am not approving of you withdrawing from this case right now.”

3:02: Zelinsky forwards Nichols and White the Cooney response, adding:

Dear Roann and Neil,

As discussed, I have filed the withdrawal motion and emailed the public corruption chief JP Cooney. I withdrew just after I sent the email below notifying him. As we discussed, I do not believe he has the power to compel  me to stay in the case. There are currently three attorneys on the docket for the United States. In addition, JP has indicated that Main Justice will file a motion of somekind in the case later today and we will not have the opportunity to do this.

Thanks for all yoru [sic] help.

3:04: Leo Wise responds to Zelinsky, explaining, Attached is a rough redlined draft. Also attached is the case [redacted] is also attached. The subject of the email and the names of the attachment are also redacted.

3:30: News Alerts from Law360 that includes reference to the sentencing memo filed the day before.

3:41: Steven Brill writes the Stone prosecutors urging them to “speak out against improper internal pressure.”

3:55: Zelinsky receives Kravis’ withdrawal motion from ECF; it was filed at 3:54.

4:04: Zelinsky forwards an email from NBC’s Kevin Breuninger asking for a statement on his withdrawal to the press people in Maryland’s US Attorney’s office, telling them, “I’m just going to forward these to you. THanks! Sorry!” Other standard emails he forwarding included one from The Hill, CNN (Katelyn Polantz), CBS, CNN (Wolf Blitzer).

4:04: Zelinsky forwards an email from Reuters’ Brad Heath, with the subject line 44.5, asking if the notice of withdrawal was his own decision; Zelinsky forwarded it to the press people in Maryland’s US Attorney’s office

4:38: Zelinsky receives ECF notice that John Crabb filed an appearance in the case

4:46: Zelinsky receives ECF notice of the revised sentencing memo, which was filed at 4:44

5:01: Marcia Murphy, one of the press people in MD USA, responds Zelinsky regarding an email he forwarded from CNN explaining,

Aaron,

I have responded to all the inquiries you forwarded with something similar to the below statement. I tried to make it clear that I was responding on your behalf, so they wouldn’t think the office was preventing you from making a statement. If you get anymore, I will be happy to respond. Have a good evening. Hope you get some rest! Marcy

5:32: Zelinsky receives Marando’s notice of withdrawal from ECF; it was filed at 5:30.

7:08: Michael Cunningham, in the Maryland US Attorney’s Office, emails the NYT story on the Stone prosecutors withdrawing to Zelinsky, saying, “Very proud of you!”

9:10: Zelinsky responds to Cunningham: “Thanks! Just doing what any of us would have done in the circumstance.”

10:03: Lenzner responds to the Nichols and White email. His response is redacted under b5.

10:21: Zelinsky responds to Lenzner, starting, “Thanks. My MOU is certainly only for the Stone case.” The rest is redacted under b5.

10:36: Zelinsky responds to a thread involving Stuart Sears about a panel on Political Prosecutions involving, among others, Jeannie Rhee (the panel would later get delayed until September). The first part is redacted under b5. It finishes, “Thanks for the kind invitation.”

11:26: Zelinsky forwards an email from Erik Prince’s lawyer, Boies Schiller’s Matthew Schwartz to Michael Marando, explaining, FYI I don’t plan to respond. The email itself reads:

Aaron —

I hope all is well. I couldn’t help but notice the article just published in the Wall Street Journal, which suggests that the Department is on the verge of charging Mr. Prince. What’s going on?

 

Full DC Circuit Shifts Mike Flynn Analysis Back to What It Should Be: Unusual Remedy

/55 Comments/in , /by

The full DC Circuit just announced it will rehear Mike Flynn’s petition for a writ of mandamus on August 11.

That they’re doing so is no surprise. Neomi Rao’s opinion threatened to overturn not only precedent on mandamus, but also on false statements cases. The decision was all the more radical insofar as it granted relief to DOJ, which had not asked for it.

What’s notable is that the Circuit is shifting the analysis back to where it should have been in the first place.

When the panel of Karen Henderson, Neomi Rao, and Robert Wilkins first invited briefing on this issue, they focused on whether US v. Fokker required Judge Sullivan to dismiss the case, as the government moved.

Today’s order instructed the parties to be prepared to address whether there are not other adequate means to attain the relief desired, which goes to the core of writs of mandamus (which are only supposed to be available if something like an appeal is unavailable).

Even Karen Henderson suggested in the last hearing that Flynn did have other means of relief — an appeal of any decision that Sullivan actually makes (it has yet to be determined whether, by delaying the decision on whether to dismiss the case, Sullivan has taken an action at all).

Flynn will have a much harder time making this argument, as he can appeal whatever decision Sullivan makes. The government, however, will be in a much more awkward place, because they’re arguing — having not filed for a writ — that they’ll face irreparable harm if they have to show up for a hearing before Judge Sullivan, a ridiculous claim yet nevertheless one Rao seized on to be able to rule for Flynn. It’s unclear whether this new frame — which is what the court should have reviewed in the first place — will even leave space for the government to make that argument.

Which might mean Billy Barr will have to explain why DOJ flip-flopped even though nothing had changed from the time his own DOJ called for prison time for Mike Flynn.

Bill Barr Repeatedly Lied, Under Oath, about Judge Amy Berman Jackson

/79 Comments/in , , /by

The judge agreed with me, Congressman.

The judge agreed with me.

The judge agreed with me.

Bill Barr spent a lot of time in yesterday’s hearing claiming the federal officers in Portland have to violently suppress the protests in Portland because the protests are an assault on the Federal courthouse.

He also lied, repeatedly, to cover up the assault on the judiciary he ignored.

In just one exchange with Ted Deutch, Barr claimed at least six times that Judge Amy Berman Jackson agreed with his analysis on the Roger Stone sentence.

Barr tried — and ultimately succeeded — in dodging Deutch’s question, which is whether there was ever a time in the history of the Justice Department where DOJ considered threats against a witness and a judge just a technicality.

Deutch: You said enhancements were technically applicable. Mr. Attorney General, can you think of any other cases where the defendant threatened to kill a witness, threatened a judge, lied to a judge, where the Department of Justice claimed that those were mere technicalities? Can you think of even one?

Barr: The judge agreed with our analysis.

Deutch: Can you think of even one? I’m not asking about the judge. I’m asking about what you did to reduce the sentence of Roger Stone?

Barr: [attempts to make an excuse]

Deutch: Mr. Attorney General, he threatened the life of a witness —

Barr: And the witness said he didn’t feel threatened.

Deutch: And you view that as a technicality, Mr. Attorney General. Is there another time

Barr: The witness — can I answer the question? Just a few seconds to answer the question?

Deutch: Sure. I’m asking if there’s another time in all the time in the Justice Department.

Barr: In this case, the judge agreed with our — the judge agreed with our —

Deutch: It’s unfortunate that the appearance is that, as you said earlier, this is exactly what you want. The essence of rule of law is that we have one rule for everybody and we don’t in this case because he’s a friend of the President’s. I yield.

The exchange is interesting for a lot of reasons — Barr’s story on the timeline on replacing Jesse Liu and Timothy Shea’s subsequent interventions in the Stone and Mike Flynn cases does not hold up in the least, though now he’s on the record, under oath, with that story.

As to the part where there is a public record, Barr was wrong on the facts. For example, while Barr claims that Randy Credico said he didn’t feel threatened by Stone after Stone made threats against him, Credico has said he feared what Stone’s thuggish friends might do. And, as Amy Berman Jackson noted in the sentencing hearing, Credico described to the grand jury how he wore a disguise and lived in hiding out of fear.

I note, since the defense has informed me that I can consider this material, that that is not consistent with his grand jury testimony, which was closer in time to the actual threats, at which time he said he was hiding and wearing a disguise and not living at home because he was worried, if not about Trump, about his — about Stone, but about his friends. So, I think his level of concern may have changed over time.

The revised sentencing memo that Barr falsely claimed ABJ agreed with suggested “the Court [] not [] apply the eight-level enhancement for threatening a witness with physical injury.” But ABJ explicitly said the guideline applied, but she said would account for the nature of the threats and Credico’s leniency letter in deciding whether the sentence should apply the full guideline enhancement.

The guideline plainly applies. Even if one considers the threat to the dog to be property damage, that’s covered too. Application Note 5 explains that the guideline includes threats of property loss or damage, quote, Threatened as a means of witness intimidation.

But as the second government’s memorandum appears to be suggesting, as the defense has argued, the vague nature of the threat concerning any physical harm and its actual impact on Mr. Credico can be considered when I determine whether this sentence should fall within the guideline range or not, and they will.

In other words, ABJ said Stone should be punished for the kinds of threats he made about Credico, but that the enhancement itself was too severe.

ABJ similarly argued the opposite of what Barr did with regards to the enhancement for Stone’s obstruction of his prosecution, which the revised sentencing memo claimed, “overlaps to a degree with the offense conduct in this case,” and argued may not have, “actually prejudiced the government at trial.”

ABJ scoffed at DOJ’s erroneous claim that an enhancement designed to address entirely post-indictment actions could overlap — as DOJ claimed — with the pre-indictment actions charged in the indictment.

The supplemental memorandum says: Well, this enhancement overlaps, to a degree, with the offense conduct in this case.

I’m not sure I understand that assertion. As proposed, the guideline is not meant to cover any pre-indictment conduct at all. And, yes, the guideline says it doesn’t apply if obstruction of justice is the charge of conviction; but, that’s not true, say the guidelines, if there is further obstruction during the prosecution.

The government also said in its supplemental memo: It’s unclear to what extent the defendant’s obstructive conduct actually prejudiced the government at trial. But that isn’t the test. Obstruction is an attempt; it doesn’t have to be successful. And the administration of justice is a little bit more than whether they got in the prosecution’s way.

And she laid out, at length, the import of Stone’s threats and lies.

Even after he first denied and then acknowledged personally selecting the crosshairs photo, he sat there telling me: Yes, I’m going to follow any restrictions on talking about the investigation; but, forgetting to mention that he had a book on the subject wending its way to publishers as we spoke. I certainly haven’t seen anything that would attribute that to mere anxiety.

The defense also says his conduct, quote: Didn’t cause significant further obstruction of the prosecution of the case, close quote.

[snip]

But, certainly, A., threatening or intimidating a juror or a fact-finder in the case; F., providing false information to a judge; and J., not complying with the restraining order. While the orders here are not the ones specifically mentioned in the list, it’s not necessary that there’s an exact fit. The list is supposed to be illustrative.

And given the similarity of the conduct in this case to what’s listed in A., F., and J., I find that the guideline applies. The defendant engaged in threatening and intimidating conduct towards the Court, and later, participants in the National Security and Office of Special Counsel investigations that could and did impede the administration of justice.

I suppose I could say: Oh, I don’t know that I believe that Roger Stone was actually going to hurt me, or that he intended to hurt me. It’s just classic bad judgment.

But, the D.C. Circuit has made it clear that such conduct satisfied the test. They said: To the extent our precedent holds that a §3C1.1 enhancement is only appropriate where the defendant acts with the intent to obstruct justice, a requirement that flows logically from the definition of the word “willful” requires that the defendant consciously act with the purpose of obstructing justice.

However, where the defendant willfully engages in behavior that is inherently obstructive, that is, behavior that a rational person would expect to obstruct justice, this Court has not required a separate finding of the specific intent to obstruct justice.

Here, the defendant willfully engaged in behavior that a rational person would find to be inherently obstructive. It’s important to note that he didn’t just fire off a few intemperate emails. He used the tools of social media to achieve the broadest dissemination possible. It wasn’t accidental. He had a staff that helped him do it.

As the defendant emphasized in emails introduced into evidence in this case, using the new social media is his “sweet spot.” It’s his area of expertise. And even the letters submitted on his behalf by his friends emphasized that incendiary activity is precisely what he is specifically known for. He knew exactly what he was doing. And by choosing Instagram and Twitter as his platforms, he understood that he was multiplying the number of people who would hear his message.

By deliberately stoking public opinion against prosecution and the Court in this matter, he willfully increased the risk that someone else, with even poorer judgment than he has, would act on his behalf. This is intolerable to the administration of justice, and the Court cannot sit idly by, shrug its shoulder and say: Oh, that’s just Roger being Roger, or it wouldn’t have grounds to act the next time someone tries it.

The behavior was designed to disrupt and divert the proceedings, and the impact was compounded by the defendant’s disingenuousness. As the opinion in Henry pointed out in U.S. versus Maccado, 225 F.3d 766, at 772, the D.C. Circuit even upheld a §3C1.1 enhancement for failure to provide a handwriting example because such failure, quote, Clearly has the potential to weaken the government’s case, prolong the pendency of the charges, and encumber the Court’s docket.

And the record didn’t show a lack of such intent. The defendant’s conduct here certainly imposed an undue burden on the Court’s docket and court personnel, as we had to waste considerable time convening hearing after hearing to get the defendant to finally be straight about the facts, to get the defendant to comply with court orders that were clear as day, and to ensure that the public and that people who come and go from this building every day were safe. Therefore, I’m going to add the two levels, and we are now at a Level 27.

Contrary to the government’s claim that Stone’s lies and threats had no effect on the case, ABJ laid out the risks of the threat and the added time she and court personnel had to expend responding to them.

It is true that ABJ ended up around where Barr wanted Stone’s sentence to end up, but as she explicitly said, she got there the same way she would have for any defendant, but deciding that the sentencing guidelines are too severe. If Barr agreed with that then other people would benefit from Barr’s brief concern about prison sentences.

That didn’t happen.

But Barr is not afraid to lie and claim it did, under oath.

Bill Barr Testifies He’s Unfamiliar with the Obstruction Portion of the Mueller Report

/59 Comments/in , /by

I’m just finishing up the Bill Barr testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. While it wasn’t useful at eliciting new information, Barr did not succeed at filibustering over questions he wanted to ignore. Jim Jordan, whose favorite tactic is to scream and refuse to let witnesses answer questions, four times complained that Democrats had insisted on reclaiming their time when Barr tried to filibuster.

Democrats didn’t nail Barr on some of his key lies. For example, as he did in his written testimony, he complained that protestors were endangering federal judges; yet Democrats let him get away with the lie — which he yelled over and over — that Amy Berman Jackson agreed with his view on the Stone sentencing. The reality is ABJ very pointedly disagreed with Barr’s decision that Stone should not be punished for threatening her.

The headline of the hearing, though, should be that, now that he’s finally testifying under oath, Barr backed off his claim — made when releasing the Mueller Report — that the White House fully cooperated with the Mueller investigation. [This is about 45 minutes before the end.]

Joe Neguse: I want to go through a couple of your prior statements. On April 19–or, excuse me, April 18 of 2019, you stated that the White House fully cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation. You’re aware of that?

Barr: Umm hmm.

Neguse: Today, yes or no Mr. Barr with the penalty of perjury, do you testify that that statement was true at the time you made it?

Barr: I thought it to be true at the time I made it. Why isn’t it true–

Neguse: I’ll get to that Mr. Barr.

Barr: Does it have to do with quibbling over–

Neguse: Mr. Barr, I’ll get to that, reclaiming my time, you answered the question. I have another question for you. On June 19, of 2020,

Barr: Actually, I have to answer that question.

Neguse: Mr. Barr, you did answer that question.

Barr: No, you said under penalty of perjury. I’m going to answer the damn question.

Neguse: You said the answer was yes. Are you saying no?

Barr: I think what I was referring to — and I’d have to see the context of it — was the supplying of documents.

Neguse: No, Mr. Attorney General, the statement was not limited to the supply of documents. You stated it at a press — Mr. Attorney General —

Barr: I think that’s that I was talking about —

Neguse: Reclaiming my time —

Barr: I think that’s what I was talking about —

Neguse: Reclaiming my time. You stated at a press conference on April 19, 2019 that the White House fully cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation. You knew, when you made that statement, that the President had not agreed to be interviewed by the Special Counsel.

Barr: I think that was subsequently —

Neguse: Now on June 18th of this year —

Barr: I was referring to —

Neguse: Mr. Attorney General, I was referring to

Barr: The production of documents —

Neguse: Mr. Attorney General, on June 18th of this year, the Department of Justice issued a statement saying that Mr. Berman, the former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, had quote, “stepped down.” You’re aware of that statement being released by the department, correct?

Barr: Yes.

Neguse: And do you testify today that that statement was true, at the time the Department issued it?

Barr: Um, he may not have known it, but he was stepping down.

Neguse: He may not have known that he was stepping down? That’s your testimony today?

Barr: He was being removed.

Neguse: Mr. Attorney General. The statement did not say he was being removed. It did not say he was being fired. It said that he was stepping down.

But I think the far more damning testimony from the Attorney General is that he is not familiar with the obstruction part of the Mueller Report.

Eric Swalwell had this exchange with Barr:

Swalwell: Mr. Barr, have you ever intervened other than to help the President’s friend get a reduced prison sentence for any other case where a prosecutor had filed a sentencing recommendation with a court?

Barr: A sentencing recommendation?

Swalwell: Yeah. Have you ever intervened, other than that case with the President’s friend?

Barr: Not that I recall–

Swalwell: Does that seem like something you’d recall? Where you would–

Barr: Well, I’m saying I can’t really remember my first — if you let me finish the question, I can’t remember thirty years ago I was Attorney General.

Swalwell: As Attorney General now?

Barr: Uh, no, I didn’t. But that’s because issues come up to the Attorney General in a dispute and I’ve never [starts yelling] I’VE NEVER HEARD OF A DISPUTE … I’VE NEVER HARD OF A DISPUTE WHERE LINE PROSECUTORS–

Swalwell: Mr. Attorney– Mr. Attorney–

Barr: [still yelling] THREATEN TO QUIT —

Swalwell: Well it’s a pretty big deal–

Barr: Because of a discussion over sentencing–

Swalwell: Mr. Barr, Americans from both parties are concerned that in Donald Trump’s America there are two systems of justice. One for Mr. Trump and his cronies. And another for the rest of us. But that can only happen if you enable it. At your confirmation hearing, you were asked, “Do you believe a President could lawfully issue a pardon in exchange for the recipient’s promise to not incriminate him?

Barr: Not to what?

Swalwell: You said, “That would be a crime.” You were asked, could a President issue a pardon in exchange for the recipient’s promise to not incriminate him, and you responded, “no, that would be a crime.” Is that right?

Barr: Yes, I said that.

Swalwell: You said “a crime.” You didn’t say, “it’d be wrong,” you didn’t say, “it’d be unlawful.” You said, “it’d be a crime.” And when you said that, that a President swapping a pardon to silence a witness would be a crime, you were promising the American people that if you saw that, you would do something about that, is that right?

Barr: That’s right.

Swalwell: Now, Mr. Barr, are you investigating Donald Trump for commuting the prison sentence of his long-time friend and political advisor Roger Stone?

Barr: No.

Swalwell: Why not?

Barr: Why should I?

Swalwell: Well, let’s talk about that. Mr. Stone was convicted by a jury on 7 counts of lying on the Russian investigation. He bragged that he lied to save Trump’s butt. But why would he lie? Your prosecutors, Mr. Barr, told a jury that Stone lied because the truth looked bad for Donald Trump. And what truth is that? Well, Donald Trump denied in written answers to the Russia investigators that he talked to Roger Stone during the time that Roger Stone with in contact with Agents of a Russian influence operation. There’s evidence that Trump and Stone indeed did talk during that time. You would agree that it’s a federal crime to lie under oath, is that right?

Barr: Yes.

Swalwell: It’s a crime for you, it’s a crime for me, and it’s certainly a crime for the President of the United States. Is that right?

Barr: Yes.

Swalwell: So if Donald Trump lied to the Mueller investigators, which you agree would be a crime, then Roger Stone was in a position to expose Donald Trump’s lies. Are you familiar with the December 3rd, 2018 tweet, where Donald Trump said Stone had showed “guts” by not testifying against him?

Barr: No, I’m not familiar with that.

Swalwell: You don’t read the President’s tweets?

Barr: No!

Swalwell: Well, there’s a lot of evidence in the President’s tweets, Mr. Attorney General, I think you should start reading them, because he said Mr. Stone, “showed guts,” but on July 10 of this year, Roger Stone declared to a reporter, “I had 29 or 30 conversations with Trump during the campaign period. Trump knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t. The prosecutors wanted me to play Judas, I refused.” Are you familiar with that Stone statement?

Barr: Actually I’m not.

Swalwell: So how can you sit here and tell us, why should I investigate the President of the United States,” if you’re not even aware of the facts concerning the President using the pardon or commutation power to swap the silence of a witness?

Barr: Because we require, you know, a reliable predicate before we open a criminal investigation.

Swalwell: And I just gave you, sir–

Barr: I don’t consider it, I consider it a very Rube, uh, Goldberg theory that you have —

Swalwell: Well it sounds like you’re hearing this theory for the first time.

Barr: And by the way if apply this standard it’d be a lot, it’d be a lot more people under investigation.

Swalwell: Mr. Attorney General, the very same day that Roger Stone said that Donald Trump — no surprise — commuted his

Barr: The two tiered standards of justice were really during the tail end of the Obama Administration.

Barr may well be unfamiliar with Trump’s December 3, 2018 tweet.

Let’s take his testimony as truth.

If that’s true, than Barr is also unfamiliar with the Obstruction portion of the Mueller Report. In passages just recently declassified by Billy Barr’s DOJ, the Mueller Report laid out how the back-and-forth between Stone and Trump might be evidence of obstruction.

As described above, in an interview on November 28, 2018, one week after submitting his written answers, the President criticized “flipping” and said that Stone (along with Manafort and Corsi) was “very brave” in indicating he would not cooperate with prosecutors.897 On December 2, 2018, Stone told the press that there was “no circumstance” under which he would “testify against the president.”898 He also said he had had no discussions about a pardon.899 On December 3, 2018, the President tweeted, “‘I will never testify against Trump.’ This statement was recently made by Roger Stone, essentially stating that he will not be forced by a rogue and out of control prosecutor to make up lies and stories about ‘President Trump.’ Nice to know that some people still have ‘guts!’”900

On January 24, 2019, a grand jury indicted Stone on charges of obstruction, witness tampering, and making false statements.901 One of the counts charged Stone with violating 18 U.S.C. § 1001 for testifying falsely in Congress that he had never told anyone involved in the Trump Campaign about discussions he was having during the campaign with an individual who acted as an intermediary between him and Assange.902 After making an initial court appearance on January 25, 2019, Stone told reporters, “There is no circumstance whatsoever under which I will bear false witness against the president, nor will I make up lies to ease the pressure on myself. . . . I will not testify against the President, because I would have to bear false witness.”903

That evening, Stone appeared on Fox News and indicated he had knowledge of the President’s answers to this Office’s written questions. When asked if he had spoken to the President about the allegation that he had lied to Congress, Stone said, “I have not” and added, “When the President answered the written interrogatories, he correctly and honestly said Roger Stone and I never discussed this and we never did.”904

[snip]

Finally, there is evidence that the President’s actions towards Stone had the potential to affect a decision about cooperating with the government. After Stone publicly announced that he would never provide evidence against the President’s interests, the President called Stone “very brave” and said he had “guts!” for not “testify[ing] against Trump.”

[snip]

With regard to the President’s conduct towards Stone, there is evidence that the President intended to reinforce Stone’s public statements that he would not cooperate with the government when the President likely understood that Stone could potentially provide evidence that would be adverse to the President. By late November 2018, the President had provided written answers to the Special Counsel’s Office in which the President said he did not recall “the specifics of any call [he] had” with Stone during the campaign period and did not recall discussing WikiLeaks with Stone. Witnesses have stated, however, that candidate Trump discussed WikiLeaks with Stone, that Trump knew that Manafort and Gates had asked Stone to find out what other damaging information about Clinton WikiLeaks possessed, and that Stone’s claimed connection to WikiLeaks was common knowledge within the Campaign. It is possible that, by the time the President submitted his written answers two years after the relevant events had occurred, he no longer had clear recollections of his discussions with Stone or his knowledge of Stone’s asserted communications with WikiLeaks. But the President’s conduct could also be viewed as reflecting his awareness that Stone could provide evidence that would run counter to the President’s denials and would link the President to Stone’s efforts to reach out to WikiLeaks. On November 28, 2018, eight days after the President submitted his written answers to the Special Counsel, the President criticized “flipping” and said that Stone was “very brave” for not cooperating with prosecutors. Five days later, on December 3, 2018, the President applauded Stone for having the “guts” not to testify against him. These statements, as well as those complimenting Stone and Manafort while disparaging Michael Cohen once Cohen chose to cooperate, support the inference that the President intended to communicate a message that witnesses could be rewarded for refusing to provide testimony adverse to the President and disparaged if they chose to cooperate.

The December 3, 2018 tweet was a key part of Mueller’s case that Trump’s discussion of pardons for Roger Stone were an effort to get him to be silent about the fact that Trump had lied (not just about talking about WikiLeaks, but also about a pardon for Julian Assange).

This was a key part of the Mueller Report’s analysis of the obstruction case against Trump.

And Billy Barr testified today, under oath, he’s not familiar with it.

It’s not just that Barr disclaims familiarity about Trump’s tweets (though his testimony was inconsistent about whether he saw the one claiming Stone’s sentence was unfair). It seems to be the case that Barr testified that he’s not familiar with the obstruction portion of the Mueller investigation.

And yet, the Attorney General claims to have reviewed that and concluded — for reasons that have nothing to do with DOJ’s policy that a President can’t be indicted — Trump did not commit obstruction.

In other words, the Attorney General’s sworn testimony as of today is that he’s not familiar with the obstruction case against Trump and — arguably — never read it, or at least is unfamiliar with the case it lays out about why, if Trump gave Stone clemency, it would be a crime.

Billy Barr Admits, for the Third and Fourth Time, that He Intervenes without Knowing the Facts

/127 Comments/in , /by

Billy Barr’s statement for his testimony today is here. It is as cynical and dishonest as you might imagine.

In his first paragraph, he pays tribute to John Lewis, without mentioning the ways he personally is trying to roll back the ability for every citizen to vote (most notably, of late, by falsely suggesting that the only safe way to vote during a pandemic is susceptible to fraud).

In his second paragraph, he suggests only politicians are political, and then suggests “mobs” are among those pressuring DOJ to take political decisions.

We are in a time when the political discourse in Washington often reflects the politically divided nation in which we live, and too often drives that divide even deeper. Political rhetoric is inherent in our democratic system, and politics is to be expected by politicians, especially in an election year. While that may be appropriate here on Capitol Hill or on cable news, it is not acceptable at the Department of Justice. At the Department, decisions must be made with no regard to political pressure—pressure from either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, or from the media or mobs.

Then he spends five paragraphs addressing what he calls “Russiagate,” a term used exclusively by those who like to diminish the seriousness of an attack on our country.

Ever since I made it clear that I was going to do everything I could to get to the bottom of the grave abuses involved in the bogus “Russiagate” scandal, many of the Democrats on this Committee have attempted to discredit me by conjuring up a narrative that I am simply the President’s factotum who disposes of criminal cases according to his instructions. Judging from the letter inviting me to this hearing, that appears to be your agenda today.

Four paragraphs later, Billy Barr admits that the sole reason he returned to government was to avenge what he believed — as an admitted outsider!! — to be two systems of justice.

But as an outsider I became deeply troubled by what I perceived as the increasing use of the criminal justice process as a political weapon and the emergence of two separate standards of justice. The Department had been drawn into the political maelstrom and was being buffeted on all sides. When asked to consider returning, I did so because I revere the Department and believed my independence would allow me to help steer her back to her core mission of applying one standard of justice for everyone and enforcing the law even-handedly, without partisan considerations. Since returning to the Department, I have done precisely that. My decisions on criminal matters before the Department have been my own, and they have been made because I believed they were right under the law and principles of justice.

Remember: Billy Barr has repeatedly stated that the investigation into Trump’s associates (not Trump himself) was unprecedented, proving he’s either unaware of or uninterested in the two investigations into Hillary, both of which involved abuses (the ostensible reason for the firing of both Jim Comey and Andrew McCabe) and leaks. The only evidence that a biased FBI Agent was running an informant on a candidate during the election involved the Clinton Foundation investigation which — unlike the Russian investigation — is understood to be entirely predicated on dodgy opposition research. Clinton did sit for an interview in the investigation into her actions; Trump refused.

In other words, every complaint floated about the Russian investigation actually applies more readily to the two Clinton ones, the treatment of investigations which had some effect, however unmeasured, on the election.

Yet the Attorney General of the United States has now admitted that he came into office planning to avenge what he sees as the opposite. Importantly, he admits he formed this conclusion an outsider! That means he formed the conclusion in spite of — by his own repeated admission — not knowing the facts of the investigation. “I realize I am in the dark about many facts,” he admitted in his memo on what he believed Mueller was doing on obstruction. As part of his confirmation process, he told both Dianne Feinstein and the Senate Judiciary that, “As I explained in a recent letter to Ranking Member Feinstein, my memo was narrow in scope, explaining my thinking on a specific obstruction-of-justice theory under a single statute that I thought, based on media reports, the Special Counsel might be considering.”

Billy Barr decided to become Attorney General based off what he admitted then and has proven since to be badly mistaken understanding of what the Russian investigation entailed. That’s it. That’s why he agreed to become Attorney General.

Barr may think he’s working from an independent standpoint (a laughable claim in any case given his outspoken hatred for anything progressive), but he keeps admitting that he’s doing something worse, working from an understanding based off media portrayals rather than an understanding based off the public, much less the investigative, record.

No wonder Reggie Walton ruled that Attorney General Barr had spun the real outcome of the investigation. Barr, by his own admission, formed conclusions when he was “in the dark about many facts.” There’s no evidence he has revisited those conclusions since.

Billy Barr performs his own toxic bias in numerous other ways in his opening statement, for example by focusing on Antifa’s potential threat to law enforcement rather than Boogaloo’s much greater threat.

Most cynical, though, is the way he explains the storm troopers in Portland as an effort to defend not just Federal property (which it is, if counterproductively heavy-handed), but Article III judges.

Inside the courthouse are a relatively small number of federal law enforcement personnel charged with a defensive mission: to protect the courthouse, home to Article III federal judges, from being overrun and destroyed.

Barr has demonstrated his disdain for Article III judges over and over: by overriding the decisions of Emmet Sullivan on the Mike Flynn case, by lying to courts on census cases, by ignoring Supreme Court orders on DACA.

Most importantly, however, on issues pertaining to Trump’s flunkies — even the Roger Stone case that he has twice said was righteous — Barr completely dismissed the seriousness of an actual threat to a Federal judge. As I have noted, contrary to Barr’s repeated claims that Amy Berman Jackson agreed with the sentencing recommendation DOJ made after he made an unprecedented intervention to override a guidelines sentencing recommendation, she did not agree that his revised sentencing included the appropriate enhancements. Not only did Barr dismiss the seriousness of making a violent threat against a witness, but Barr’s revised sentencing memo eliminated the sentencing enhancement for threatening a judge, opining (as Barr has a habit of doing) that DOJ wasn’t sure whether Stone’s actions had obstructed his prosecution and trial under ABJ.

Moreover, it is unclear to what extent the defendant’s obstructive conduct actually prejudiced the government at trial.

This is why we have judges: to decide matters like this! Indeed, that’s the justification for recommending guidelines sentences in the first place — so the actual judge who presided over the case, rather than an Attorney General who has admitted to repeatedly forming opinions without consulting the actual record, makes the decisions based off the broadest understanding of the record. Even in this, his most egregious action, Billy Barr’s DOJ weighed in while admitting it didn’t have the knowledge to do so. And did so in such a way that minimized the danger of threats against Article III judges.

Billy Barr thinks the moms defending protestors in Portland are a threat to judges. But his repeated, acknowledged intervention on matters he knows fuckall about is a bigger threat to the rule of law, up to and including when that record includes threats against judges.

HJC Should Ask Bill Barr Why It Would Do Irreparable Harm if He Had to Explain His Actions in the Flynn Case

/51 Comments/in , /by

Unless he comes up with some new excuse, tomorrow Billy Barr will finally show up for an oversight hearing in the House Judiciary Committee.

There are a number of sets of questions that commentators have suggested for the hearing (a strategic set of four topics that will show how Barr is hurting the US, an updated set from JustSecurity, some questions about Geoffrey Berman’s firing).

I could come up with similar lists. They’d be long and — by the time anyone executed them competently on the Democratic side — the big media outlets would have already filed their story on the hearing.

One thing that should be included, however, is the letter that Sidney Powell sent Barr and Jeffrey Rosen in June 2019 and Bill Barr’s actions to deliver on her demands in the subsequent year, actions that DOJ itself admits would do irreparable harm if DOJ had to explain.

The letter was effectively a road map of demands, many of them based off hoaxes, almost all of them unrelated to Flynn’s prosecution or false. It later became the Brady demand that Judge Emmet Sullivan rejected in a meticulous opinion last December. In it, Powell demanded that DOJ conduct a review of the prosecution and then dismiss the prosecution.

At the end of this internal review, we believe there will be ample justification for the Department to follow the precedent of the Ted Stevens case and move to dismiss the prosecution in the interest of justice — whether it be we ink a simple joint motion or sua sponte by the Department.

NYT wrote about this letter in June, calling it “little noticed” but predictably not crediting me, who did noticed it and wrote about it repeatedly.

HJC should raise this letter with Billy Barr for several reasons. First, little in the letter turned out to be true. Indeed, DOJ has asserted in court filings that even where documents Powell asked for existed, none of it was Brady material (and in fact, in spite of Timothy Shea’s claim that these materials were new, that was false, meaning DOJ has no justification for flip-flopping on its call for prison time for Flynn from earlier this year). Powell should have gotten none of it, and yet Barr invented an unprecedented process to give it to her and then use it to self-sabotage the case.

More importantly, the way in which Barr has rolled out the release of these documents has served, in part, to hide the shoddiness of Timothy Shea’s motion to dismiss. Based off a misrepresentation of Bill Priestap’s notes, Shea pretended that the interview with Flynn focused exclusively on the Logan Act. That wasn’t even an accurate reading of Priestap’s own notes. Since then, DOJ has released several more documents that make it clear FBI’s focus was on whether Flynn was a foreign agent (and also provide more evidence that the Flynn 302s track the Agents’ description of the interview), documents that undermine their own motion to dismiss. They’ve either withheld a Bill Priestap 302 explaining what happened or Powell has decided it doesn’t help her. And there are more records that they are sitting on that undermine the claims in their motion to dismiss.

Importantly, while DOJ was making claims that Flynn’s lies were not material, John Ratcliffe was releasing documents that explained why they were.  Of particular note, on February 14, 2017 — weeks after all the meetings DOJ has been focused on, Peter Strzok, in an annotation that made it clear he did not have it in for Trump or his flunkies, also made it clear that FBI didn’t have any phone records yet.

We have very few call logs. NSLs have been issued for Manafort, Page, and Flynn, many of which have not yet been returned.

On February 25, notes from Tashina Gauhar make clear, Strzok and Joe Pientka believed Flynn didn’t believe he had been lying. They also judged — not having phone records or much else yet — that they did not think he was an agent, but they needed to verify that.

That got translated into a later draft summary into a conclusion that Flynn wasn’t a foreign agent.

But as FBI would get first call logs (which would reveal Flynn had also lied about being in contact with Mar-a-Lag0) and then his texts (which would make it clear Flynn knew well about the sanctions Obama had imposed), that would dramatically change the import of his lies. By the time he started cooperating, Flynn made it clear that he and KT McFarland had immediately set about trying to cover up the response Sergey Kislyak gave to Flynn’s request.

After the briefing, Flynn and McFarland spoke over the phone. 1258 Flynn reported on the substance of his call with Kislyak, including their discussion of the sanctions. 1259 According to McFarland, Flynn mentioned that the Russian response to the sanctions was not going to be escalatory because they wanted a good relationship with the incoming Administration.1260 McFarland also gave Flynn a summary of her recent briefing with President-Elect Trump. 1261

The next day, December 30, 2016, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov remarked that Russia would respond in kind to the sanctions. 1262 Putin superseded that comment two hours later, releasing a statement that Russia would not take retaliatory measures in response to the sanctions at that time. 1263 Hours later President-Elect Trump tweeted, “Great move on delay (by V. Putin).” 1264 Shortly thereafter, Flynn sent a text message to McFarland summarizing his call with Kislyak from the day before, which she emailed to Kushner, Bannon, Priebus, and other Transition Team members. 1265 The text message and email did not include sanctions as one of the topics discussed with Kislyak. 1266 Flynn told the Office that he did not document his discussion of sanctions because it could be perceived as getting in the way of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy.1267 [my emphasis]

KT McFarland’s 302s would show she told the same untruths that Flynn had told, even after he got fired for telling them. More recently, it became clear that the White House scripted Bannon to deny discussing sanctions as well.

Meanwhile, the government is still withholding the first (known) post-election transcript between Flynn and Kislyak, where he first started this game of deal-making with the country that just attacked us.

All these details may not amount to Flynn acting as an Agent of Russia.

Rather, they amount to a concerted cover-up of the White House role in this sanction discussion. That’s a topic that a sentencing memorandum approved by top people in Bill Barr’s DOJ argued was significant and material, because a concerted effort to undermine sanctions on Russia, “could have been evidence of links or coordination between the Trump Campaign and Russia.”

The defendant’s false statements to the FBI were significant. When it interviewed the defendant, the FBI did not know the totality of what had occurred between the defendant and the Russians. Any effort to undermine the recently imposed sanctions, which were enacted to punish the Russian government for interfering in the 2016 election, could have been evidence of links or coordination between the Trump Campaign and Russia.

The concerted effort to hide the extensive coordination on sanctions — involving at least Flynn, McFarland, and Bannon — was designed hide whether the Trump response to Obama’s sanctions amounted to the kind of quid pro quo Mueller was appointed to investigate. A question on sanctions relief is the single one that Trump totally blew off in his responses to Mueller.

DOJ wants to claim that Flynn’s conversations with Sergey Kislyak were totally normal. But not only are they still hiding at least one of them, but they were utterly material to the Mueller investigation.

But then there’s the final reason why HJC should question Barr about the letter from Sidney Powell that he apparently delivered on a year after she demanded: DOJ itself admitted that explaining DOJ’s actions here would do irreparable harm.

The more interesting argument came from Wall. He argued, repeatedly, that DOJ will be irreparably harmed if Sullivan is permitted to hold a hearing on DOJ’s motion to dismiss. In particular, he seemed horrified that Sullivan might require sworn declarations of affidavits.

As Beth Wilkinson, arguing for Sullivan, mentioned, neither Sullivan nor Amicus John Gleeson has called for such a thing. Both are simply moving towards a hearing scheduled for July 16. Wilkinson also noted that District courts hold such hearings all the time. (And they predictably will have to in another case where DOJ has moved to end a prosecution recently, in which — unlike this case — there appears to have been prosecutorial misconduct, Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad, which I’ll return to).

Wall is literally arguing that DOJ will be permanently damaged if it has to show up and answer for its actions in this case (in particular, to explain why the prosecutors in this case didn’t sign the motion to dismiss).

That Wall argued so forcibly as to the injury that DOJ would suffer if it had to show up and defend its motion to dismiss is all the crazier given that they didn’t file the petition. The only harm that matters here procedurally is any harm to Flynn, not DOJ, and Powell really made no such case.

Indeed, that’s the reason why the DC Circuit granted mandamus in the Flynn case — not because of any injury that Flynn might face from having Sullivan scrutinize the case, but because having to answer for what Barr did here would — simply having to show up to the kind of hearing that DOJ shows up to every day and answer questions under oath — would do grave damage to DOJ.

HJC should take DOJ at its word. DOJ has confessed their actions can’t withstand the least amount of scrutiny. HJC should demand to know why.

How Chuck Ross Helped Make Roger Stone a Felon

/13 Comments/in , , , /by

Last night, Chuck Ross all but admitted he doesn’t know what he’s talking about with respect to to the Roger Stone case.

I tweeted several things in response to this Ross coverage of the exposure of Igor Danchenko as Christopher Steele’s primary subsource. Ross got sloppy with a lot of details in his story, including everything in this paragraph:

The special counsel’s report debunked the claim about Cohen, saying that he did not visit Prague. It also said that no Trump associates conspired with Russia or helped release emails through WikiLeaks.

My tweet thread started by noting that Mueller did not say no Trump associates conspired with Russia. It specifically said that when the report said the investigation did not establish something — presumably including any such conspiracy — that didn’t mean there wasn’t any evidence. Indeed, there was evidence they may have, but the investigation was thwarted by the obstruction of Trump, Paul Manafort, Erik Prince, and others, including Roger Stone.

I then noted that both of Ross’ claims about the WikiLeaks finding were overstated (note, Ross also falsely claimed the report said Cohen didn’t go to Prague; Mueller’s congressional testimony did).

As noted, the report states clearly that the investigation was never able to determine whether Stone — who had a slew of suspicious calls in the lead-up to the Podesta email release — had a role in their timely release.

The investigation was unable to resolve whether Stone played a role in WikiLeaks’s release of the stolen Podesta emails on October 7, 2016, the same day a video from years earlier was published of Trump using graphic language about women.

I further noted that when a bunch of Stone-related warrants were released in April, a bunch that focused on a new strand of the investigation, investigating Foreign Agent (18 USC 951) charges on top of the conspiracy one that had long been listed in warrants, remained heavily redacted as part of an ongoing investigation. One of those affidavits made clear that Stone was one of the subjects of the investigation they were hiding that Foreign Agent prong of the investigation from.

It does not appear that Stone is currently aware of the full nature and scope of the ongoing FBI investigation.

The thing that appears to have really set Ross off, however, was my observation that he got Stone subpoenaed by credulously reporting his lies.

To add to the fun, Ross claimed (after admitting he didn’t know what I was talking about) that he barely wrote about Stone until after he was subpoenaed.

Stone was never subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee (that was one reason the government was able to show he obstructed that investigation; by claiming he had no communications to subpoena, he made it more likely he wouldn’t be subpoenaed). He was subpoenaed by the Mueller team.

It’s not clear precisely what date Stone was subpoenaed, but he complied in November 2018. A warrant explaining the subpoena reveals that the government learned Stone had texts involving Randy Credico from media accounts. Later in the affidavit, it specifically cites this story from Chuck Ross. The government used Ross’ attribution to Stone as his source to justify searching Stone’s houses for the old phone.

“Julian Assange has kryptonite on Hillary,” Randy Credico wrote to Stone on Aug. 27, 2016, according to text messages that Stone provided to The Daily Caller News Foundation.

[snip]

Pointing to the text messages, Stone asserts that Credico “lied to the grand jury” if he indeed denied being Stone’s contact to Assange.

“These messages prove that Credico was the source who told me about the significance of the material that Assange announced he had on Hillary. It proves that Randy’s source was a woman lawyer,” Stone told TheDCNF.

Stone, who is the men’s fashion editor for The Daily Caller, had struggled for months to provide evidence to back up his claims about Credico. The former friends had engaged in a he said-he said battle through various media outlets for months.

But Stone finally obtained the text messages, which he says is smoking gun evidence supporting his claims, after his lawyers were able to extract the communications from a cell phone he stopped using in 2016.

It is unclear whether Mueller’s team has also obtained the messages.

It turns out Mueller had obtained some of these texts from Stone’s iCloud and from Randy Credico. But there were a set that Credico no longer had, and so Ross’ credulous reporting of an obviously cherry picked set of texts provided some of the key justification for the subpoena and warrant. An initial version of the government’s exhibit list appears to source a series of texts between Credico and Stone from August and September 2016 to Stone’s return. Those texts included some showing the circumstances of Credico’s August 2016 interview with Julian Assange, which were part of the proof that Credico couldn’t have been the guy Stone was claiming as his go-between in early August 2016.

I’ve noted repeatedly that, by sharing his comms with Credico and Corsi in an attempt to rebut public claims, Stone proved two of the charges against him, that he lied when he claimed he had no such communications (and, indeed, provided proof that he knew of those texts). All that said, given that Trump commuted his sentence and that Ross and other frothers continue to lie about what Mueller found, telling lies to journalists that ended up getting him subpoenaed probably was a good trade-off for Stone.

Unless, of course, there was something more interesting on that phone that Ross’ credulous reporting helped prosecutors get a warrant for.

Joe Pientka Warned Trump to Be Worried about People on His Periphery While Flynn Was Signing a Deal with Turkey

/61 Comments/in , /by

Donald Trump continues to use the Office of Director of National Intelligence role to declassify information to feed to frothy journalists so they can misrepresent the investigation into his campaign. Yesterday, John Ratcliffe released the FBI part of the classified briefing given to Trump, Chris Christie, and Mike Flynn on August 17, 2016. Among the things Ratcliffe disclosed is the FBI case files for both Crossfire Hurricane and the Flynn investigation, the paltry content of defensive briefings for a Presidential candidate, and that the FBI believed there were more Russian spies working under official cover in 2016 than Chinese spies.

They just don’t give a fuck anymore. They will compromise whatever they need to to try to spin the investigation into Trump, even if most of what they release doesn’t back their story.

The briefing also demonstrates that Trump had no concept of how spies work. He asked a childish question about whether — because they have more spies under official cover — whether they are bad.

Trump asked the following question,”Joe, are the Russians bad because they have more numbers are they worse than the Chinese?” Writer responded by saying both countries are bad. The numbers of IOs present in the U.S. is not an indicator of the severity of the threat. Writer reminded Trump the Chinese asymmetrical presence in the U.S. [redacted]. In addition, the OCONUS cyber threat posed by []PLA would have to be considered when making comparisons.

Having just been briefed that the Russians use official cover while the Chinese use non-official cover, Trump then collapsed that very basic concept to address just diplomatic cover.

The only interesting comment from Trump or Flynn, from an investigative standpoint, was that Trump seemed to suggest that Russia could match the US counterterrorism resources, an inaccurate belief the genesis of which is actually really interesting.

Meanwhile, Flynn asked Joe Pientka something totally off topic — how many FBI Agents they had as compared to counterterrorism cases. Flynn also, later, bragged about having done SIGINT (he seems to have wanted to prove his expertise).

Nothing in this briefing — not even the role of Kevin Clinesmith and Peter Strzok in approving an anodyne report — supports the frenzied response to it, and most commentators are totally misrepresenting what the briefing as a whole was (the first intelligence briefing, as reflected by redacted references to who gave those briefings), and what the nature of the defensive briefing that Pientka gave.

The far more interesting details is that Pientka warned Trump (accurately, as it turned out) about Russia and others trying to get to Trump through peripheral people and businessmen,

In the classical sense, an IO will attempt to recruit an individual to tell him or her the things he or she wants to know. This is known as HUMINT. It is highly unlikely a Foreign Intelligence Service will attempt to recruit you, however you need to be mindful of the people on your periphery: your staff , domestic help, business associates, friends, etc. Those individuals may present more vulnerabilities or be more susceptible to an approach. Those individuals will also be targeted for recruitment due to their access to you. That does not mean IOs will not make a run at you . They will send their IOs in diplomatic cover, businessperson NOCs, as well as sources they have developed around you to elicit information and gain assessment on you.

At the time Pientka gave this briefing, Flynn was finalizing the details of a deal with Turkey, using a businessman the government has credibly accused of being an agent of Turkey to cover up the Turkish government’s direct role in the deal. In his grand jury testimony, Flynn described knowing almost nothing of Ekim Alptekin when he pursued this deal.

So even as the FBI was trying to explain to Trump that people like his coffee boy and his rat-fucker would be used to assess his intentions, the guy sitting in the room was pursuing a big payday with a frenemy government seeking to do just that.

Pientka’s briefing lasted 13 minutes out of a total of at least 1 hour 55 minutes, though it looks like Trump left the briefing before they had presented everything, to catch a plane.