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Bannon’s One-Time Co-Conspirators Admit They Cheated Trump Supporters in the Conspiracy Trump Pardoned Bannon For

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Thus far, SDNY (which was busy arresting the former President of Honduras on drug-trafficking charges) has not yet posted the minutes of yesterday’s plea hearing for Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato, much less their plea agreements and statements of offense.

Here is Adam Klasfeld’s live-tweet of the hearing and his write-up.

Until those documents are posted, we’re left with varying press descriptions of men — with whom Steve Bannon was charged, until a last minute pardon from Trump got him off federal charges — who cheated a bunch of Trump supporters. Klasfeld’s headline gets to that relationship:

Two of Steve Bannon’s Former Co-Defendants Just Pleaded Guilty to Allegations He Dodged Through Trump’s Pardon

NYT led with Bannon’s pardon:

After Pardon for Bannon, 2 Admit Bilking Donors to Border Wall

In Donald J. Trump’s final hours as president in January 2021, he pardoned his onetime chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, who faced charges that he had conspired to swindle donors to a private group that promised to build a wall along the Mexican border.

But three men charged with Mr. Bannon were not pardoned, and two of them pleaded guilty on Thursday in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

The WaPo doesn’t even describe the crime in the headline,.

Disabled vet pleads guilty in border-wall scheme that included Bannon

WaPo describes Bannon’s involvement, and the allegation he personally cheated Trump supporters out of $1 million, this way.

“We Build the Wall” was a large-scale private crowdfunding effort orchestrated by Kolfage, Bannon, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea in 2018. Its stated goal was to help the federal government complete the coast-to-coast barrier President Donald Trump had repeatedly promised his supporters. The four men were arrested in August 2020, when prosecutors accused Bannon of personally pocketing more than $1 million.

Bannon, a far-right figure who was a key strategist in Trump’s 2016 campaign, followed Trump to the White House for a relatively short stint as an administration official.

Their relationship had not completely soured by the end of Trump’s presidency, and Bannon received a presidential pardon on the eve of Trump’s departure from the White House, part of a wave of more than 140 other clemency actions — including for Trump associates who were ensnared in the Justice Department’s probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

Here’s how CNN handles the guilty pleas and Bannon’s involvement:

Two of Bannon’s co-defendants plead guilty to ‘We Build the Wall’ fraud

[snip]

The men are accused by federal prosecutors of using hundreds of thousands of dollars donated to an online crowdfunding campaign called We Build the Wall for personal expenses, among other things.

Bannon, who pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing, was pardoned by then-President Trump in his final days in office. The Manhattan district attorney’s office is investigating Bannon for the same conduct and whether it violated state law. The pardon only covered federal crimes.

Timothy Shea, a fourth man charged in the fundraising effort, has pleaded not guilty. Last month he indicated to the judge that he would plead guilty, but changed his mind and is set to go to trial next month.

Bannon and Kolfage promised donors that the campaign, which ultimately raised more than $25 million, was “a volunteer organization” and that “100% of the funds raised … will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose,” according to the indictment.

But instead, according to prosecutors, Bannon, through a nonprofit under his control, used more than $1 million from We Build the Wall to “secretly” pay Kolfage and cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bannon’s personal expenses.

The NYPost calls the men “fraudsters” in the headline and — in a caption to a Bannon photo — notes he “was involved in the swindling GoFundMe campaign.” To its credit, that may be the best summary of what happened.

It is, admittedly, difficult to get what happened legally into the story yet, much less in a headline. That’s because while Bannon’s acceptance of a pardon might be viewed as evidence of guilt, he has not himself admitted he cheated Trump’s supporters. Plus, he could still be at legal exposure himself. I noted in December when Bannon hired pardon broker Robert Costello that Bannon might still face NY State charges (in which prosecution his former co-defendants could testify against him). Even before Cy Vance left, he was pursuing that possibility.

Even ignoring the circumstances of Bannon’s pardon, this fraud goes to the core of Trump’s relationship with his followers. Bannon’s co-conspirator Kolfage admitted that he lied to donors, people so worked up over Trump’s fear-mongering over brown people that they donated their own money, in part so he could sustain his own posh lifestyle (something else the NYP with its emphasis on images highlighted). This scheme treated Trump’s enthusiastic supporters as targets to be cheated, rubes whose support for Trump could be easily exploited.

Steve Bannon sure understood the relationship Trump has with his supporters.

Now consider the circumstances of Bannon’s pardon.

Dustin Stockton and Jennifer Lawrence, who have shown a real willingness to testify to anyone who would listen, described how pardons for cheating Trump supporters were tied to a commitment to help Trump steal an election.

In December 2020, as the tour rolled around the country, Stockton and Lawrence say they got a call from Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and his chief of staff, Thomas Van Flein. According to Stockton, Van Flein claimed he and the congressman had just met with Trump, who was considering giving them a “blanket pardon” to address the “We Build the Wall” investigation.

“We were just in the Oval Office speaking about pardons and your names came up,” Van Flein allegedly said. Van Flein did not respond to a request for comment.

Gosar suggested the bus tour was helping Stockton and Lawrence build support for a pardon from the caucus and Trump. “Keep up the good work,” Gosar said, according to Stockton. “Everybody’s seen what you’re doing.”

The hypothetical pardon for the two of them was tied to helping Trump fool his supporters into believing he was cheated out of a victory he had won. Stockton and Lawrence didn’t end up getting such a pardon (thus far, they haven’t needed one).

But Bannon — who played an as-yet unexplained role in convincing thousands of Trump supporters to commit crimes in service of this fraud — did get his pardon.

This fraud — where Trump allowed close associates to cheat his supporters, only to have Trump selectively pardon the single important person accused in the fraud in seeming exchange for his role in an even bigger fraud — perfectly captures Trump’s parasitic relationship with the cult he has created. It’s a pyramid scheme of abuse in which, thus far, the little guys at the bottom are the ones who pay the biggest price.

Trump not only doesn’t care that these people cheated his supporters, he’s willing to reward Bannon for helping him cheat them on still grander scale.

How we describe this pyramid scheme of abuse going forward is an important measure of the press’ ability to capture how Trump works. Thus far, Trump supporters have never rebelled against being used and cheated like this. Instead, they double down on their belief that Trump is the victim, rather than the con man victimizing them.

But yesterday, Brian Kolfage admitted that Trump supporters are the victims.

Barbara Jones’ Special Mastery of Releasing Donald Trump’s Lawyers’ Crime-Fraud Excepted Communications

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I knew Rudy Giuliani was in trouble when I read him — along with his lawyer Robert Costello, who allegedly tried to bribe Michael Cohen with a pardon in the wake of an SDNY seizure of his phones — claim that SDNY had first accessed Michael Cohen’s communications after SDNY seized Cohen’s phones in a search of his house and office.

In April 2018, the Government was in this exact same position it is in now in dealing with seizures made from the personal attorney to the President. This is now the second dawn raid of the office and home of an attorney for then President Trump. A year before they searched Giuliani’s iCloud account in November 2019, they were dealing with the raid of Michael Cohen’s home and law office. In Cohen v. United States, 18-mj-3161 (KMW), after conducting a search of President Trump’s personal lawyer’s home and law office, the Government opposed the appointment of a Special Master in a letter to the Court dated April 18, 2018. Counsel for Michael Cohen and intervening counsel for President Trump both requested that a Special Master be appointed and that the Special Master review the evidence, but only after counsel for the respective parties had reviewed the evidence and made their own claims of privilege. On the day of a scheduled conference to decide the issue, the Government, in a letter to Judge Wood, withdrew their opposition to the Special Master, but requested that the Special Master, and not defense counsel, review all the evidence and make the initial determinations of privilege. Judge Wood adopted the compromise and appointed a Special Master to review all materials. One of the Government’s counsel that signed that letter is counsel on this matter as well.

As a result, the Government was well aware that it had agreed to a Special Master in a case involving claims of attorney-client and executive privilege regarding the search and seizure of an attorney’s home and office when that attorney was the personal attorney for the President of the United States. Here, when faced with the exact same situation in November 2019, the Government decided on its own, to use its own Taint Team to sift through all of the evidence gathered and decide what materials were privileged. To make matters worse, not only was Giuliani not informed about this practice, but the Government also continued to keep him, the President and his counsel in the dark for 18 months while Giuliani cooperated with another office of the United States Attorney. Based on its experience in the Cohen case, the Government knew better, or should have known better, that it should not make unilateral, uninformed secret decisions about privilege, but clearly threw caution to the wind in its attempt in this investigation in search of a crime.

Was it really possible, I asked myself, that the President’s own lawyer, as well as the President’s lawyer’s lawyer, had no idea that Mueller’s team had obtained Michael Cohen’s Trump Organization emails from Microsoft with an August 1, 2017 warrant, content which they later shared with SDNY?  Was it really possible, I wondered, that Rudy and Costello didn’t know that Mueller also obtained Cohen’s Google and iCloud content, obtained a non-disclosure order for it, and then later passed it on to SDNY, which obtained a separate warrant to access it? Did they not know that that process started 8 months before SDNY raided Cohen’s home and office and took his devices, which then led to the appointment of Special Master Barbara Jones? Did they really not know that SDNY first obtained Cohen’s content with some covert warrants, reviewed that information with the use of a filter team, and only after that got some of the very same information by seizing Cohen’s phones, only with the later seizure, used a Special Master to sort out what was privileged and what was not?

After the government’s reply, I thought for sure they’d start to cop on. I figured Rudy and Costello — who collectively, allegedly tried to bribe Cohen’s silence about the crimes he had committed while purportedly providing legal representation for Donald Trump — would understand the significance of this passage of the government reply:

Giuliani also analogizes this case to Cohen, suggesting that the Government should have known to use a special master because it had just agreed to use one in that case. (Giuliani Ltr. at 11). But Cohen favors an opposite conclusion: there, as here, the Government first obtained covert search warrants for accounts belonging to the subject. The returns of those covert warrants were reviewed by a filter team—a process which was not challenged. Although Judge Wood ultimately appointed a special master in Cohen, she repeatedly made clear her view that the use of a filter team was acceptable and was consistent with the substantial body of law in this Circuit. (See, e.g., Cohen, Dkt. 38 at 8). However, based on the unique circumstances of the case—Cohen’s principal and perhaps only client was then the President, and the case was subject to significant public attention—Judge Wood believed, and the Government agreed, that the use of a special master was needed for the “perception of fairness, not fairness itself.” (Cohen, Dkt. 104 at 88). But even after appointing a special master, Judge Wood continued to recognize the appropriateness of the use of a filter team: at the end of the special master’s review, there was one cellphone that had not been decrypted, and Judge Wood ordered that the if the cellphone was ultimately extracted, the privilege review could be conducted by the Government’s filter team. (Cohen, Dkt. 103 at 6). Thus, following Cohen, it was entirely appropriate for the Government to use a filter team during the covert phase of its investigation, but in light of the intense public interest in this matter following the overt execution of the 2021 Warrants, the Government agrees that while the appointment of a special master is not necessary for fairness, it is in the interest of ensuring that the privilege review process is perceived as fair.

But I didn’t write up the implications of that yet, because I figured there was still something that might save Rudy and Victoria Toensing. Maybe they’d pick a Special Master who would apply dramatically different rules than Special Master Barbara Jones had with Cohen, particularly an approach that said Cohen and Trump could claim privilege and hide the content, but any legal argument about that privilege had to be public. Surely they would be smart enough not to pick Jones, right? Surely, I thought, Rudy and Costello wouldn’t be dumb enough to be lulled into agreeing to appoint Jones herself, perhaps based on a false sense of confidence that since she works at Rudy’s former firm, she’ll go easy on the Mayor?

And yet, yesterday the government wrote to inform Judge Paul Oetken that the parties had agreed on a single choice to serve as Special Master: Barbara Jones.

The Government writes on behalf of the parties to propose the appointment of the Honorable Barbara S. Jones, a retired federal judge with the law firm of Bracewell LLP, to serve as the court-appointed special master for this matter.

They further asked that Oetken write up an order applying the same approach as Jones used with Cohen with Rudy.

The Government respectfully requests that the Court appoint Judge Jones to serve as the special master in this matter because her background and the resources available to her at her law firm will allow her to complete a privilege review in a fair and efficient manner. Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Toensing, through counsel, have both agreed to the appointment of Judge Jones. The Government has conferred with Judge Jones and she is available to accept this appointment. The Government respectfully suggests that the Court issue an Order of Appointment similar to the one issued by Judge Wood in the Cohen matter, setting forth the duties of the special master, the reporting and judicial review requirements, terms of compensation, terms of engagement of other professionals, and other relevant provisions. Cohen, No. 18 Misc. 3161 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 27, 2018) (Dkt. 30). Judge Jones is available to speak with the Court directly should the Court have any questions about her potential appointment.

Understand, the government has now gotten Rudy on the record begging that he get the same treatment as Michael Cohen. It has gotten Rudy on the record saying he prefers to have a Special Master rifle through his potentially privileged communications than a filter team.

Had this been done overtly, or through the Government’s less onerous subpoena powers, we would have requested that a Special Master to be appointed at the time.

It has also gotten Victoria Toensing to agree on the value of a Special Master (even though she requested she get first shot at reviewing her content).

Appoint a Special Master from the list of candidates proposed by the parties or another suitable candidate identified by the Court to oversee the process and resolve any disputes that may arise;

When former SDNY US Attorney Rudy Giuliani and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Victoria Toensing made those comments, though, they probably didn’t think through the implication of filter team protocols that both presumably know or once knew, but which the government was kind enough to spell out in their reply to the lawyers’ letters:

As is its practice, the filter team did not release any potentially privileged materials based on the possible application of waiver or crime fraud principles, even if the applicability of those exceptions was apparent on the face of the document.

SDNY filter teams will not pass on potentially privileged materials seized from an attorney even if there is an obvious crime-fraud exception. By description, SDNY suggests that “the applicability of [such] exceptions was apparent on the face of” some of the communications — new copies of which SDNY seized last month — SDNY’s filter team reviewed already. But they couldn’t pass them on because that’s not how SDNY filter team protocols work.

And yet, as a result of Barbara Jones’ review of material seized from Donald Trump’s attorney’s devices, SDNY obtained evidence — of Michael Cohen negotiating hush payments with two women — that might otherwise have been privileged, but that was clearly evidence of a crime. In fact, Trump thought about fighting the release, except after Judge Kimba Wood ruled that legal disputes have to be public, Trump decided not to challenge its release.

An SDNY filter team cannot share evidence that shows a lawyer breaking the law in the service of doing Donald Trump’s dirty work.

But Special Masters can. And Barbara Jones already has.

When I first read these filings — especially SDNY’s very generous offer to pick up the tab for a Special Master — I thought it was just about timeliness, about getting Rudy’s evidence in hand as quickly as possible. But it’s not. It’s the only way that they can obtain materials that they know exist that show Rudy committing a crime in the guise of serving as a lawyer. Admittedly, it might just be materials implicating Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. But, as happened to Cohen, it might also cover things Rudy did while allegedly doing lawyer stuff for Donald Trump.

Remember, this whole process started when John Dowd claimed that Parnas and Fruman helped Rudy represent Trump, Rudy represented Parnas and Fruman, and they also helped Toensing represent Dmitro Firtash.

Be advised  that Messrs. Parnas and Fruman assisted Mr. Giuliani in connection with his representation of President Trump. Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman have also been represented by Mr. Giuliani in connection with their personal and business affairs. They also assisted Joseph DiGenova and Victoria Toensing in their law practice. Thus, certain information you seek in your September 30, 2019, letter is protected by the attorney-client, attorney work product and other privileges.

John Dowd made an absurd claim that, even then, was a transparent attempt to hide real dirt behind attorney-client privilege. That’s precisely the material that SDNY is asking Barbara Jones to review to see whether it’s really privileged.

Update: Lev Parnas renewed his bid to force DOJ to go look for materials that help him at trial and support his selective prosecution claim. Along with describing some communications that he believes to exist that would be in Rudy’s files (such as proof of Rudy saying that one of their mutual Fraud Guarantee victims did no due diligence), Parnas outlines the evidence that he was prosecuted to shut him up. The Dowd actions are central to that.

The Government argues that, since Parnas was not yet attempting to cooperate with Congress at the time he was arrested, his selective prosecution claim is without merit. However, by the time of Parnas and Fruman’s arrest, Parnas had received a demand letter seeking evidence from the House Intelligence Committee, and been referred by Giuliani and Toensing to Attorney John Dowd—who had previously represented former President Trump. Attorney Dowd then secured a conflict waiver from Trump—who claimed not to know Parnas—by e-mail through the President’s chief impeachment counsel, Jay Sekulow. Next, Dowd met with Parnas and took custody of materials that he believed were responsive to Parnas’ demand letter. Then, Dowd informed the Intelligence Committee that Parnas would not be appearing as requested, and the evening before Parnas and Fruman were arrested wrote an e-mail to Giuliani, Jay Sekulow, Toensing, and others assuring that Parnas and Fruman would not be appearing to give a deposition or evidence against the former President. Giuliani then backed out of a planned trip to Vienna with Parnas and Fruman, and they were arrested as they boarded their flight. The following day, then-Attorney General William P. Barr made a “routine” visit to the SDNY, and, in the following months, sought the removal of SDNY U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman under still-undisclosed circumstances that may well have related to prosecutorial decisions made in Parnas and his co-defendants’ case.

Update: Oetken has indeed appointed Jones.

The [Thus Far] Missing Seth DuCharme Emails Pertaining to Rudy Giuliani’s Russian Disinformation

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As I’ve been harping of late, Billy Barr and Jeffrey Rosen went to great lengths to protect Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to obtain and disseminate what the Intelligence Community already knew was Russian-backed disinformation laundered through Andrii Derkach. That effort included the following:

  • For whatever reason, not warning Rudy that the Intelligence Community knew Russia was targeting him for an information operation before he traveled to his December 2019 meeting with Derkach
  • Prohibiting SDNY from expanding its existing investigation into Rudy’s foreign influence peddling to include his efforts with Derkach by making EDNY a gate-keeper for any such decisions
  • Asking Pittsburgh USA Attorney Scott Brady to accept the information that the IC already knew was Russian disinformation from Rudy
  • Doing nothing while Rudy continued to share information the IC already knew was Russian disinformation during an election
  • After belatedly opening an investigation into the Derkach effort that the IC had known was Russian disinformation for a year, opening it at EDNY and scoping it to ensure that Rudy’s own actions would not be a subject of the investigation

As a result of this remarkable effort, led by the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, to protect Russian disinformation, DOJ willingly ingested a bunch of Russian disinformation and used it to conduct an investigation into the son of the President’s opponent.

Last year, when it was disclosed that Barr had directed Brady to willingly accept this Russian disinformation, American Oversight FOIAed and then sued for the paper trail of the effort, submitted as four separate FOIAs:

  1. [To OIP and USAPAW] “Brady Order and Written Approval” — which specifically asked for “two readily-identifiable, specific documents” — described as:
    • The written approval of the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General authorizing U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania (USAPAW) to create and/or administer a process for receiving purported investigatory information from Rudy Giuliani concerning matters that relate to former Vice President Biden
    • A copy of the Attorney General’s order directing USAPAW to conduct an evaluation, review, probe, assessment, “intake process,” preliminary investigation
  2. [To OIP and USAPAW] “Giuliani Directives, Guidance, & Communications,” described as:
    • All directives or guidance provided to USAPAW regarding an evaluation, review, probe, assessment, “intake process,” preliminary investigation, or other investigation of any information received from Rudy Giuliani, including information that may concern former Vice President Biden
    • All records reflecting communications between (1) the Office of the Attorney General or the Office of the Deputy Attorney General and (2) USAPAW regarding an evaluation, review, probe, assessment, preliminary investigation, or other investigation of any information received from Rudy Giuliani
    • All records reflecting communications within the OAG or the ODAG regarding any evaluation, review, probe, assessment, “intake process,” preliminary investigation, or other investigation of any information received from Rudy Giuliani, including information which may concern former Vice President Biden
  3. [To USAPAW] “Brady-Giuliani Communications,”described as all records reflecting communications between (1) USAPAW in the course of any evaluation, review, probe, assessment, “intake process,” preliminary investigation, or other investigation of any information received from Rudy Giuliani and (2) Rudy Giuliani, or any of Mr. Giuliani’s personal assistants or others communicating on his behalf, including but not limited to Jo Ann Zafonte, Christianne Allen, or Beau Wagner
  4.  [To USAPAW] “Brady-White House Communications,” described as any communications between (1) USAPAW in the course of any evaluation, review, probe, assessment, “intake process,” preliminary investigation, or other investigation of any information received from Rudy Giuliani and (2) anyone at the White House Office

Before American Oversight filed the lawsuit, the Trump Admin did two things that will have an effect on what we’re seeing. First, DOJ combined requests one and two above; as we’ll see, that had the effect of hiding that Barr didn’t put anything in writing. In addition, USAPAW told American Oversight that they were going to refer the request for such an order to Main Justice for referral.

While the lawsuit was filed under the Trump Administration, the substantive response to it started in February. The FOIA is a way to understand more about this effort — both how willing Barr’s DOJ was to put this scheme in writing, as well as the volume of paper trail that it generated.

The first status report, submitted on February 22, revealed the following based on an initial search:

  1. “Brady Order and Written Approval” and “Giuliani Directives, Guidance, & Communications” (aggregated) at Main DOJ: 8,851 items
  2. “Giuliani Directives, Guidance, & Communications” and “Brady-Giuliani Communications” at USAPAW: 1,400 pages
  3. “Brady-White House Communications:” none

The second status report, submitted on April 1, reported that of the initial search, the following was deemed potentially responsive:

  1. “Brady Order and Written Approval” and “Giuliani Directives, Guidance, & Communications” (aggregated) at Main DOJ: 30 pages referred
  2. “Giuliani Directives, Guidance, & Communications” and “Brady-Giuliani Communications” at USAPAW, of 272 pages reviewed so far:
    • 3 pages released in full
    • 189 pages referred to other agencies for consultation
    • 83 duplicates or non-responsive

Here is the USAPAW production.

The third status report, submitted on May 3, reported the following:

  1. “Brady Order and Written Approval” and “Giuliani Directives, Guidance, & Communications” (aggregated) at Main DOJ:
    • 18 pages released in partly redacted form
    • 4 pages withheld entirely under b5 deliberative exemption
    • 6 pages awaiting a response from some other component
  2. “Giuliani Directives, Guidance, & Communications” and “Brady-Giuliani Communications” at USAPAW, of 263 pages reviewed this month:
    • 5 pages released, 3 of which include b6, b7A and b7C redactions
    • 14 pages referred to another component
    • 244 pages non-responsive or duplicates

Here is the USAPAW production and here is the Main DOJ production.

Here’s what has currently been provided to American Oversight (go here for live links).

Note, this may be clarified in upcoming dumps, but for now, there appears to be something very irregular with the OIP response. At first, DOJ said there were up to 8,851 items that were responsive to American Oversight’s request. But with the next status report, DOJ said there were just 30 pages. The most recent release claimed to account for 28 of those 30 pages.

In the second joint status report, OIP stated that it had completed its search and its initial responsiveness and deduplication review of potentially responsive documents and identified approximately 30 pages of material likely responsive to Plaintiff’s request. See ECF No.7, ¶ 2. OIP further stated that it had sent these records out for consultation pursuant to the Department’s regulations, 28 C.F.R. § 16.4(d), and expected to be able to provide its first response to Plaintiff on or around April 29, 2021. Id. On April 29, 2021, OIP made its first interim response. It released 18 pages in part with portions redacted pursuant to Exemptions 5 and/or 6 and withheld four pages in full pursuant to Exemption 5. OIP is awaiting responses from other components on the remaining six pages.

The math looks like this:

18 pages released

4 pages withheld under b5 exemption*

6 pages referred to another component

Total: 28 pages

Remaining: 2 pages

That’s a problem because there are at least two pages of emails that were part of the USAPAW response that must have had a counterpart at DOJ, as well as one missing from both (though USAPAW has 1000 pages to release):

  • A January 3, 2020 email from Seth DuCharme to Scott Brady asking, “Scott do you have time for a quick call today in re a possible discreet assignment from OAG and ODAG?” (Brady’s response, which includes DuCharme’s original, is included in both, but the copy released by OIP was printed out from Brady’s account, not DuCharme’s).
  • A February 11, 2020 email from Brady to DuCharme, asking “Seth, do you have a few minutes to catch up today?” The email should exist in both accounts, and should be included in both OIP and USAPAW’s response.
  • A March 5, 2020 email from Brady to DuCharme, asking “Seth: do you have 5 minutes to talk today?”

Brady resigned effective February 26 and DuCharme resigned effective March 19. At the time he resigned, DuCharme was supervising an investigation into this Derkach stuff, one that excluded Rudy as a subject.

I assume this will become more clear with further releases (indeed, American Oversight may have the next installment already). Perhaps there’s a sound explanation. But thus far, it looks like only the Brady side of exchanges between him and DuCharme have been provided in response.

* The response letter to Jerry Nadler was two pages long, and the draft was sent twice (or there were two drafts), so those probably account for the 4 pages withheld on b5 exemptions.

Rudy Giuliani’s Alleged “Cooperation” Is a Threat to Lay out How Bill Barr and Jeffrey Rosen Protected Russian Disinformation

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Now that I’ve waded through Rudy Giulilani’s response to learning that SDNY had conducted a covert search on him in November 2019 before it conducted an overt search in April 2021, I’m certain Rudy engaged in just the kind of bad lawyering SDNY hoped he would — more on that in a week or so.

But a big part of his letter was not an attempt to engage in good lawyering, but instead to send messages to a variety of people. He provided co-conspirators a map they can use to understand which of their communications are in SDNY’s hands, and which are not. But he also laid out what he called his “cooperation,” which aside from minimal claims (which SDNY disputed) to have cooperated with SDNY against Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, really amounts to the corrupt stuff he believed he was protected for because he did it on behalf of Donald Trump. Indeed, he claims that if Judge Paul Oetken only knew he had permission to do all this stuff, then he wouldn’t have approved the warrants against him.

It is unknown if the Government informed the Court of Giuliani’s cooperation with the State Department or his offers to cooperate with the SDNY or his actual cooperation with the Western District of Pennsylvania.

His first claim of “cooperation” revisits claims he made in the wake of the whistleblower complaint in 2019, claiming that he was working closely with State when he was lobbying to fire Marie Yovanovitch.

It was premature and unwarranted for the Government to seize Giuliani’s ESI because Giuliani had already cooperated with the US State Department (“State”) through Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, in March 2019 concerning Ukraine. He also cooperated again in July and August of 2019 at the request of the State Department in assisting them with regard to Ukraine.

This is almost certainly the meat of the SDNY investigation, and whatever else Rudy has done by invoking it, he has put Mike Pompeo on the hotseat.

It may not be a coincidence that in the wake of this letter, Gordon Sondland sued Mike Pompeo for covering up what really happened in State in 2019 and provided several excuses — most importantly, that Pompeo refused to let him access his own backup materials before testifying — for why his two existing sessions of sworn testimony might conflict with what SDNY seized from Rudy.

In his other claim of cooperation, Rudy detailed how he shared disinformation from Russian agent Andrii Derkach with DOJ, which he described as “cooperation” with Main Justice in the guise of its delegate, Pittsburgh US Attorney Scott Brady.

Before I repeat Rudy’s description of how he shared disinformation from Andrii Derkach with a hand-picked and very pro-Trump US Attorney, consider several details: first, immediately in the wake of the raid on Rudy in April, there were leaked explanations for how Rudy managed to meet with a known Russian agent — right in the middle of impeachment!! — even though both National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien and FBI’s Counterintelligence folks knew that Russia was feeding Derkach disinformation to feed to Rudy.

The WaPo originally reported that the FBI had warned Rudy, but had to retract that. Rudy never got warned.

Correction: An earlier version of this story, published Thursday, incorrectly reported that One America News was warned by the FBI that it was the target of a Russian influence operation. That version also said the FBI had provided a similar warning to Rudolph W. Giuliani, which he has since disputed. This version has been corrected to remove assertions that OAN and Giuliani received the warnings.

The FBI became aware in late 2019 that Rudolph W. Giuliani was the target of a Russian influence operation aimed at circulating falsehoods intended to damage President Biden politically ahead of last year’s election, according to people familiar with the matter.

Officials planned to warn Giuliani as part of an extensive effort by the bureau to alert members of Congress and at least one conservative media outlet, One America News, that they faced a risk of being used to further Russia’s attempt to influence the election’s outcome, said several current and former U.S. officials. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter remains highly sensitive.

The FBI became aware of the Russian information operation at a time when Giuliani was deeply involved with former president Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign and related activities in Ukraine to surface unflattering or incriminating information about the Biden family.

[snip]

In late 2019, before Giuliani’s trip to Kyiv, U.S. intelligence agencies warned the Trump White House that Giuliani was the target of a Russian influence operation, as The Post reported last year. Officials became concerned after obtaining evidence, including communications intercepts, that showed Giuliani was interacting with people tied to Russian intelligence. The warnings led then-national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien to caution Trump that any information Giuliani brought back from Ukraine should be considered contaminated by Russia.

Then, after matching the WaPo’s original story and similarly having to retract it, NBC offered an explanation why Rudy wasn’t given that briefing: because it would “complicate” what NBC called “the criminal investigation” into Rudy.

The FBI prepared a so-called “defensive” briefing for Rudy Giuliani in 2019 in which agents were poised to warn him he was being targeted by a Russian intelligence influence operation as he sought to gather opposition research on the Biden family, according to a source familiar with the matter.

But that briefing was not given, according to a second source familiar with the matter, because of concerns that the briefing could complicate the criminal investigation into the former New York City mayor.

Yet, at the time Rudy would have gotten this warning, SDNY had already shown probable cause Rudy was an agent of one or another pro-corruption Ukrainians, almost certainly Yuri Lutsenko in his efforts to fire Marie Yovanovitch. Without a Derkach angle to the SDNY investigation — an angle Jeffrey Rosen went to great lengths to prevent them from pursuing — it’s not clear how it would have complicated that investigation.

Rudy didn’t get his warning and instead of warning him, Trump said that was Rudy being Rudy. So Rudy first met with Lutsenko, the subject of the first investigation, and headed from that meeting directly to meet with Derkach.

A month later, Rosen issued a memo prohibiting any prosecutors from expanding the scope of their already opened investigations, which would have had the effect of preventing SDNY from investigating Rudy’s ongoing influence peddling for known Russian agent Andrii Derkach, about whom FBI decided not to warn Rudy even though everyone briefed on it knew it was a Russian intelligence operation.

But that wasn’t the only thing that Billy Barr and Rosen’s efforts to divvy up Ukrainian investigations did. After Rosen wrote that memo (ensuring no one could start an investigation into Rudy’s dalliances with Derkach), but still a week before Trump was acquitted for coercing dirt from Ukraine to use against Joe Biden, per Rudy’s timeline, Barr assigned Pittsburgh US Attorney Scott Brady to oversee intake of all Ukrainian dirt and, within a day, Rudy was in the business of sharing Derkach’s dirt directly with Pittsburgh’s US Attorney’s office.

In his letter, Rudy clearly identifies four of the nine people who rushed to accept Rudy’s dirt, which the government had identified as Russia disinformation before he went to collect it in December.

[I]n January 2020, counsel for Giuliani contacted high officials in the Justice Department, to inform them that Giuliani wanted to provide evidence for their consideration about the Ukraine. Within a day, the United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Scott W. Brady, contacted Giuliani’s counsel and offered to hold a meeting in Pittsburgh with both the United States Attorney’s office personnel and the FBI. Mayor Giuliani immediately accepted, and a meeting was scheduled for January 29, 2020.

On January 29, 2020, Mayor Giuliani and his counsel, flew to Pittsburgh at their own cost, where they were met by agents of the FBI and transported to FBI headquarters in Pittsburgh. Present at that meeting were the United States Attorney, the First Assistant United States Attorney, the Chief of the Criminal Division, and two additional Assistant United States Attorneys (“AUSA’s”) from the Western District of Pennsylvania. The FBI was represented by the Special Agent in Charge (“SAIC”) of the Pittsburgh FBI, the Assistant Special Agent in Charge (“ASAIC”), and three other special agents of the FBI.

Prior to the meeting, Giuliani’s counsel had provided the Pittsburgh United States Attorney’s office with documents and an extensive outline of the subject matter to be discussed, so that the Government could be fully informed and prepared to ask probing questions. Giuliani began the meeting by making a presentation with handouts. During his presentation, and at the end of it, the Mayor and his counsel answered every question they were asked, to the apparent satisfaction of all of the Government officials in the room. In addition to the presentation, Giuliani provided the Government with the names and addresses of individual witnesses, both in the United States and in Ukraine, that could corroborate and amplify the information that the Mayor was providing. Subsequent to that meeting, and covering a period of months, counsel for Giuliani received a number of inquiries, discussions and requests from the First Assistant United States Attorney. All requests were granted and all inquiries were answered. [my emphasis]

And, as Rudy tells it, that First AUSA kept coming back for more, a claim (like his other claims about the personnel involved) that matches a story published in the NYT after those involved knew that Trump had lost. That story also described that Brady kept pushing for inappropriate investigative steps until, ultimately, Seth DuCharme had to get involved.

Officials said that Mr. Brady almost immediately started pushing to take aggressive steps. He had a list of people he wanted F.B.I. agents to question. It was not clear whether they were the same witnesses that Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Costello had submitted, but a former law enforcement official said that Mr. Brady had wanted the F.B.I. to question people mentioned in Mr. Giuliani’s materials.

The steps were outside “normal investigative procedures,” one former senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the events said, particularly in an election year; Justice Department policy typically forbids investigators from making aggressive moves before elections that could affect the outcome of the vote if they become public.
The Pittsburgh F.B.I. office refused to comply without the approval of David L. Bowdich, the F.B.I.’s deputy director, the former official said.

Mr. Brady’s demands soon prompted a tense confrontation with F.B.I. officials at the bureau’s headquarters in Washington. The meeting was mediated by Seth D. DuCharme, now the acting U.S. attorney in Brooklyn and at the time a trusted aide and ally of Mr. Barr’s at the Justice Department in Washington.

Then, after Barr failed to replace Geoffrey Berman with a hand-picked flunky when he fired him on June 20 of last year, Barr instead installed DuCharme in Brooklyn on July 10, thereby making DuCharme (who had already been personally involved in Pittsburgh) the gatekeeper on any investigations pertaining to Ukraine. And sometime months after that — as Rudy continued to share known Russian disinformation during the election — DuCharme approved not an expansion of the investigation in SDNY that Barr tried to shut down by firing Berman, which would have been the logical thing to do if you were concerned about Russians interfering in our elections, but instead a parallel investigation in EDNY that, per the more recent NYT report, by design would not treat Rudy as a subject. Meanwhile, Rosen created repeated roadblocks — higher and higher levels of approvals for a search of Rudy — in an attempt to prevent SDNY from advancing their investigation into Rudy any further.

There are some involved in this story, like the FBI Agents who got promoted into the jobs formerly held by Andrew McCabe and Bill Priestap and Peter Strzok, who probably let all this happen because they knew the best way to advance their careers was to not make the mistake that their predecessors had made by trying to keep the country safe from Russian interference during an election. Others may rationalize what they did as a means to placate the President, perhaps imagining that it wouldn’t do that much damage to the country — that was the excuse cited by the NYT article on the Pittsburgh investigation. But those people, in recognizing Trump would lash out if they tried to investigate Russian interference in the 2020 election, would have therefore understood that Trump wanted Russian spies to interfere in the election and would be furious if they prevented it. They would have had to have understood that the way to keep Trump happy was to let Russia have its way. They would have been operating on the recognition that all the claims about what Trump did in 2016 were true, at least as far as 2020.

Plus, no one who pushed as hard as Scott Brady did can claim to be trying to placate the President.

Finally, worst of all, there are those who took a vow to “protect and defend against enemies foreign and domestic” who made affirmative attempts to protect not just the disinformation that Rudy was feeding to DOJ and FBI, but also protect Rudy for serving as the willful handmaiden of someone they knew was a Russian spy.

The Russian scandal of 2020 is, in many ways, even more scandalous than the Russian scandal of 2016. At least Paul Manafort and Roger Stone were in a position to claim plausible deniability. Bill Barr and Jeffrey Rosen are not.

Update: This email obtained via American Oversight shows that the decision to use Scott Brady to protect the Russian disinformation intake started earlier, by January 3.

Government Refuses to Let Steve Bannon Sneak Away from His Federal Fraud Indictment

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On February 11, Steve Bannon’s pardon was lodged in his federal docket with no explanation, entered with a date of January 19. As compared to the Mike Flynn pardon, there was no DOJ request to dismiss the prosecution nor an indication that Bannon had accepted it.

Apparently, on February 18, Bannon’s lawyer wrote Judge Analisa Torres an email requesting that she dismiss the indictment against Bannon. In response, yesterday the government submitted a letter agreeing that Bannon can be terminated from the docket and have his bond returned, but opposing that the indictment be dismissed.

As prosecutors explain, a pardon is only meant to forgive punishment, it is not intended to forget the crime. And if the court dismissed the indictment, prosecutors point out, it would have consequences beyond the pardon.

The fact that Bannon was pardoned does not extinguish the fact that a grand jury found probable cause to believe that he committed the offenses set forth in the Indictment, nor does it undercut the evidence of his involvement therein which the Government expects to elicit as part of its presentation at trial. Were the Court to dismiss the Indictment against Bannon, it could have a broader effect than the pardon itself, among other things potentially relieving Bannon of certain consequences not covered by the pardon.

[snip]

Accordingly, because Bannon does not set forth any legal authority for the proposition that a court should dismiss an indictment following a pardon, and the only stated basis for his request is to “clarify” his status, the Court should deny the request.

The government also demands that Bannon file the letter in the docket.

Finally, the Court should direct Bannon to publicly file his February 18th letter on the docket. Bannon’s counsel submitted the letter to the Court by email—and therefore effectively under seal—because, in his view, “Bannon should no longer be a defendant in the case.” However, until the defendant is administratively terminated, he remains a named defendant and more important, Bannon’s status in the case is not a basis to make his submission under seal.

The government submitted the filing on the same day that CNN reported an accelerating state investigation into Bannon for the same crimes.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office has subpoenaed financial records related to Steve Bannon’s crowd-funding border-wall effort, signaling that its criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s chief strategist is advancing, according to people familiar with the matter.

Prosecutors sent the subpoenas after Trump pardoned Bannon in late January for federal conspiracy crimes tied to the southern border-wall project, making Bannon among the Trump world figures — including the former president — subjects of criminal investigations by Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance.

The grand jury subpoenas were sent to Wells Fargo, one of the financial institutions that handled some of the accounts used in the fundraising effort, and to GoFundMe, the crowdfunding platform where Bannon’s project, “We Build the Wall,” once operated, the people said.

The state grand jury investigation revives the possibility that Bannon, the conservative and outspoken political strategist, could face state criminal charges after shedding the federal case last month.

In addition to the criminal investigation, the New Jersey attorney general’s office has launched a civil inquiry into We Build the Wall. In September, the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs subpoenaed We Build the Wall for documents seeking a wide range of records, according to court filings.

This all suggests that Bannon may be in a far worse place for having obtained a Trump pardon.

In mentioning its intent to elicit testimony of Bannon’s actions in the letter, the government seems to be alluding to the fact that Bannon is a named co-conspirator. They will want (and need) to introduce his actions and statements as a co-conspirator into evidence to convict the others. Thus, it is important for prosecutors that he remain a named — albeit pardoned — co-conspirator in the Federal crimes.

Forcing Bannon’s attorney to submit the letter in the docket itself will effectively force him to officially accept the pardon, which prosecutors will then argue is admission of guilt, making the co-conspirator evidence from him even more valuable by association.

The public filing may also be necessary before Cy Vance can request the grand jury materials from Judge Torres, as referenced in the CNN piece.

And, of course, rather than facing a sentence at some Club Fed prison, Bannon might now be facing a crappier New York State prison like Rikers.

All that’s before any other federal charges facing Bannon related for foreign influence peddling.

It was never going to be easy for Bannon to pull off a Trump pardon. Thus far, his attorney Robert Costello may be making things worse.

Lev Parnas’ Co-Defendant David Correia Tests the Send-Your-Phone Border Exception Work-Around

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As much of a splash as Lev Parnas made during the Trump impeachment, his co-defendants are each mounting more intriguing defenses.

In the case of David Correia — who was charged in the marijuana side of the indictment — that includes an attempt to bypass the border exception (which allows authorities to search anything carried on your person through customs) by sending his attorney an iPhone, a Microsoft Surface Pro, a hard drive, and two notebooks he had with him before he returned to the United States to be arrested in October.

Are devices sent from overseas to an attorney covered by attorney-client privilege?

The issue first became public in March, when the government asked Judge Paul Oetken to order Correia’s lawyers, William Harrington and Jeff Marcus, to file a privilege claim over the package by March 23 (the government has been holding off accessing the evidence from the devices awaiting such claims). In a letter claiming that March 23 deadline was unrealistic given the COVID crisis, Correia’s lawyers claimed the government had totally misrepresented the attorney-client claim (and complained that the government had neither informed Correia right away about the seizure in October nor raised this issue at a status conference in February). With the government’s consent, Oetken gave Correia an extension.

Ultimately, Correia argued that he had sent the materials, “for the purpose of seeking legal advice,” The filing argued that because the FBI had ample notice that Marcus represented Correia (Correia lawyered up by August), and because Marcus negotiated a self-surrender upon Correia’s return from abroad, the government had to recognize that the DHL package was privileged when they obtained it. Correia further argued that because the notebooks include information that was clearly intended to solicit advice, the entire package must be privileged (that argument, however, was utterly silent about the devices). The lawyers also note that Correia did not send all the papers he had with him, which they point to as proof that the documents — to include the devices — that he did send were a selection specifically intended to get advice.

The government just submitted its response (note that one of the lawyers on this case, Nicholas Roos, also took part in the privilege fight over Michael Cohen’s devices). In it, they reveal that a privilege team reviewed the notebooks, after which prosecutors sent scanned copies of the notebooks and asked Correia’s lawyers to assert any privilege claims by January 20.

In the course of reviewing these materials for privileged information, the Government’s filter team identified items that potentially could be privileged. Accordingly, those items were withheld from the prosecution team and were redacted from the materials that are being produced in discovery. Since the filter team identified those items as only potentially privileged because the records do not contain adequate information to make a definitive assessment, the filter team will be providing the unredacted materials to you. If you believe any of the items that were redacted, or any other items, are privileged, please so indicate by January 20, 2020, and provide the factual basis for such a privilege assertion to the filter team. After that date, the materials in their unredacted form will be released to the prosecution team and produced in discovery.

After receiving that, Correia first claimed that everything in the package, including the devices, was privileged.

The government, however, cites Second Circuit and SDNY precedent holding that materials pre-existing attorney-client communications are not privileged.

Indeed, as the Second Circuit held nearly sixty years ago—rejecting a claim that the attorney-client privilege applied to various documents provided by a client to his counsel—“the attorney-client privilege protects only those papers prepared by the client for the purpose of confidential communication to the attorney or by the attorney to record confidential communications,” but “pre-existing documents and . . . records not prepared by the [client] for the purpose of communicating with their lawyers in confidence . . . acquired no special protection from the simple fact of being turned over to an attorney.” Colton v. United States, 306 F.2d 633, 639 (2d Cir. 1962); see also United States v. Walker, 243 F. App’x 261, 623-24 (2d Cir. 2007) (“putting otherwise non-privileged business records . . . in the hands of an attorney . . . does not render the documents privileged or work product (citing Ratliff v. Davis Polk & Wardwell, 354 F.3d 165, 170-71 (2d Cir. 2004))).

And it argues that they should be able to access anything pre-existing that is not privileged (the filter team continues to review the content of the devices).

The FBI’s preliminary analysis indicates that Correia’s hard drive contains tens of thousands of documents, images, and audio and video files; his iPhone contains tens of thousands of documents, images, and audio and video files, as well as other data such as internet browsing history and location information; and his Suface Pro computer contains hundreds of thousands of documents, images, and audio and video files. It is undisputed that these materials, as well as his notebooks, existed prior to Correia’s communications with counsel on this case. They were not, in toto, created at the direction or advice of counsel, and did not become privileged merely because Correia sought to send them to his counsel.

The government rejects Correia’s argument that by accessing the files, the government learned about what selection of materials Correia was seeking counsel. It argues that nothing in the package reflected instructions from Marcus to Correia (there was no note included at all), and the  government first learned that the selection of items in the package ended up there based on Marcus’ advice from Correia’s own filing.

Correia erroneously claims that by intercepting the DHL package, the Government learned what materials counsel had advised Correia to collect. On the contrary, the DHL package contained no such communication. The Government “learned” that fact—assuming it is true— only through counsel’s briefing on this motion. In any event, it is simply false to suggest that the DHL package contained a carefully curated selection of relevant documents. It contained the opposite: the entirety of Correia’s multiple devices and notebooks, with no indication as to what particular documents or portions of documents may be relevant. The seizure of those materials revealed nothing about counsel’s “defense planning” (Mot. 13)

[snip]

As counsel is well aware, the Government’s assumption had been that Correia simply sent his devices and notebooks to counsel so that they would not be in his possession and subject to seizure when he was arrested.

While the government doesn’t address the documents Correia had on his person on his arrest, they describe that he had no devices at all, just the charging cords for them.

Although Correia still had a phone case, multiple phone chargers, and charging cords with him, he did not have a single electronic device on his person.

Given how often InfoSec people have argued that this method — sending your lawyer sensitive devices before crossing a border — is the best way to protect them, the resolution of this issue has some wider legal interest.

But in this case, the resolution likely comes down to the fact that prosecutors told Judge Oetken, when getting a warrant for the DHL package, that it was sent from Correia to his lawyer.

This Court, based upon an affidavit that made clear the DHL package was sent by Correia to his counsel, found probable cause to believe that the package and its contents contained evidence, fruits, and instrumentalities of federal crimes.

[snip]

On or about October 21, 2019, the Court signed a search warrant authorizing the Government to search a package sent via DHL from Correia to his counsel (the “DHL Package Warrant”). The supporting affidavit explained the following, among other things: On October 9, 2019—the same day that Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were arrested—agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) attempted to arrest Correia at his home, but learned from his wife that Correia was out of the country. Shortly thereafter, Jeff Marcus, Esq., contacted the FBI, identifying himself as Correia’s counsel. Counsel arranged for Correia to fly into New York on October 14, 2019, arriving on October 15, 2019, in order to surrender. Counsel confirmed that Correia was aware that he would be arrested by the FBI upon landing in the United States.1 On October 14, 2019, however, counsel advised the FBI that Correia had left his passport at a DHL store, where he was mailing something before flying back to the United States, and could not board the plane without his passport.

[snip]

The affidavit in support of the DHL Package Warrant further stated that “materials obtained from DHL” reflected that Correia had mailed the DHL package to his counsel. The affidavit noted that the package’s listed contents—provided by the sender, Correia—apparently included a phone, tablet, and hard drive, which “do not appear to be items that were created for the purpose of legal advice but rather appear to have been sent by mail so that they would not be on Correia’s person when he arrived in the United States to be arrested.” The affidavit stated that the Government would nonetheless “utilize a filter review process, including through the use of a filter team comprised of agents and prosecutors who are not part of the prosecution team, for review of the [DHL package and its contents].”

That is, Oetken has already weighed in on this matter, and the government has provided a good deal of Second Circuit and SDNY precedent far more on point than a single Fifth Circuit case, United States v. Hankins, that Correia relies on. One key detail seems to distinguish this seizure and search from any garden variety attempt to bypass the border exception: Correia knew he was going to be arrested when he landed, meaning he knew he was trying to defeat not just the border exception, but a search warrant for anything on his person.

Where did the seizure happen and under what legal authority?

All that said, there’s a detail that, while it probably doesn’t affect the legal argument, raises questions about how and when the government seized the package. As noted, Correia sent the package from a DHL office in whatever country he was in (he was somewhere in the Middle East, and wherever it is, flights to JFK all seem to involve red eyes). He left his passport at that office, so he was unable to board his scheduled flight on October 14. In explaining the one day delay in Correia’s self-surrender, Marcus unwisely told prosecutors that DHL was involved and only in later communications revised his explanation to say Correia had left his passport in a “local” store. It’s unclear whether the government seized the package in that foreign country or as it entered the US. Nor is it clear — from the scant details of the affidavit included in the government filing — whether the government had, or needed, a warrant to make that seizure. However they seized it, Correia is not challenging the legal sufficiency of the seizure itself on any but privilege grounds (though he may file suppression motions in May).

As Correia described it, when the package never arrived at Marcus’ office, they asked DHL where it had gone, and DHL ultimately claimed to have lost it.

In the following days, Mr. Marcus’s law firm never received the communication sent by Mr. Correia via DHL. Id., at ¶ 20. Mr. Correia made repeated inquiries to DHL about its status but was told several times that it was “lost” in transit and DHL was taking steps to locate the sent package. Id. Finally, on October 29, 2019, DHL informed Mr. Correia that “[a]fter conducting extensive searches of our Service Centers, including warehouses, docks, vehicles and lost and found facilities, we have not been able to locate your shipment.” Id. They also said they were ending their search.

DHL was either obeying a gag, or seem not to have received process from the government that would show up in their files.

So unbeknownst to Correia, the government somehow seized the package, and on October 21 (a week after Correia sent it), got Judge Oetken to approve a warrant to search the package and the devices in it.

Correia only learned details of what happened, serially, between December and January.

After a December 2019 court conference, the defense team learned that the Government said it was in possession of the telephone that Mr. Correia had sent to his lawyers via DHL. Id., at ¶ 21. The defense team also subsequently received a search warrant which indicated that the Government had intercepted and searched Mr. Correia’s communication to Mr. Marcus. Id., at ¶ 22. In a production letter dated January 10, 2020, the Government produced an agent’s inventory of Mr. Correia’s communication to Mr. Marcus which included two notebooks, a hard drive, a computer and a telephone.

The most likely answer, however, is that the government obtained the package with DHL’s assistance, which is not legally surprising, but something worth noting for those attempting to use this method to bypass border exceptions.

The pending superseding indictment

The government has said in past hearings that it plans to obtain a superseding indictment before May. Given how COVID has affected all legal proceedings, including grand juries, that likely will be delayed. But it seems clear that the government wants to obtain this information before that happens.