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Driving Carter Page: What the 302 Says

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One of the seventeen Woods violations the DOJ IG Report cites in its list of errors in the Carter Page report involves a chauffeured car.

It involves a June 1, 2017 interview with Yuval Weber, who is the son of Shlomo Weber, the academic who invited Page to speak before the New Economic School. The IG Report seems to raise doubts about the more important allegation here — that Page was rumored to have met with Igor Sechin (which would match a claim made in the Steele dossier).

A June 2017 interview by the FBI of an individual closely tied to the President of the New Economic School in Moscow who stated that Carter Page was selected to give a commencement speech in July 2016 because he was candidate Trump’s “Russia-guy.” This individual also told the FBI that while in Russia in July 2016, Carter Page was picked up in a chauffeured car and it was rumored he met with Igor Sechin. However, the FD-302 documenting this interview, which was included in the Woods File for Renewal Application No. 3, does not contain any reference to a chauffeured car picking up Carter Page. We were unable to locate any document or information in the Woods File that supported this assertion. 371

This week’s release of Mueller 302s includes the 302 from this interview. It shows that, amid a broad discussion of the way that Russia tries to cultivate Americans (including using invitations such as the one offered to Mike Flynn), Weber described,

SA [redacted] later asked why would NES want a speaker [redacted] Weber said that it was because he was Trump’s Russia-guy. The university typically had heads of state and Nobel Laureates as commencement speakers; in fact, Weber claimed they could have any Nobel Laureate they wanted for the speech.

[redacted]

In July, when Page had traveled to give the commencement speech at NES, Weber recalled that it was rumored in Moscow that Page met with Igor Sechin. Weber said that Moscow is filled with gossip and people in Moscow were interested in Page being there. It was known that a campaign official was there.

Page may have briefly met with Arkady Dvorkovich at the commencement speech, considering Dvorkovich was on the board at NES. But Weber was not aware of any special meeting.

[redacted] was not with Page 100% of the time, he met him for dinner, attended the first public presentation, but missed the commencement speech. They had a few other interactions. Page was very busy on this trip.

The 302 notes the follow-up call (but, as the IG Report correctly notes, does not mention the chauffeured car):

On 6/06/2017, SA [redacted] and SA [redacted] conducted a brief telephone follow-up interview of Weber. Weber provided the following information:

SA [redacted] asked a question specifying Weber’s previous statement that it was rumored in Moscow in July of 2016 that Page had met with Igor Sechin, as stated above, Weber said “I think so.” Weber described that Page mentioned in July that he previously met with the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi. Weber was surprised that Page would meet a head of state, but it made him less surprised about the rumor of Page meeting Sechin.

Weber also told the agents that if they wanted to chase the rumor that Moscow had started monitoring Trump when oligarchs started “moving” money into NY real estate, they should,

…speak to any billionaire who purchased real estate from Trump, including [redacted] and Kirill Dimitriev.

Dmitriev, of course, is the Russian who successfully reached out to the Trump Transition via Erik Prince and Rick Gerson.

Ultimately, this was still just a rumor, and the FBI accurately noted it as such in the FISA application. The detail about a chauffeured car — which in this day and age could be an Uber! — seems unnecessary to the application, but also did make it into the application in violation of Woods procedures.

Still, as always, the real problems with Page’s applications were not the Woods procedure violations; they involved the more substantive exculpatory information that didn’t make it into the application.

The Recruitment of Jared Kushner

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The other day, DOJ provided its sixth installment of Mueller 302s in response to BuzzFeed and CNN’s FOIAs. The batch includes files that have previously been referred to other agencies, such as multiple pages from Steve Bannon’s February 14, 2018 interview that were sent to DOD, which has determined they must be protected under b5 (deliberative) and one b4 (trade secrets) exemption.

A whole set of previously referred interview reports pertain to Russian outreach to Jared Kushner. These reports include:

In addition, the 302 of Richard Burt and some other people from Center for National Interest — Simes’ think tank — were released.

As a reminder, CNI served as the host for Trump’s first foreign policy speech on April 27, 2016. There were allegations that CNI provided feedback on the speech and questions about whom Sergey Kislyak spoke with at the speech. Simes continued to advise Kushner on policy pertaining to Russia throughout the campaign. When Kushner wanted to vet an email from Vladimir Putin immediately after the election, he reached out to Simes for Kislyak’s contact information. Then, a series of meetings arranged via Kislyak during the Transition, during one of which Kushner asked for a back channel, resulted in a meeting with the head of sanctioned bank, Vnesheconombank, Sergei Gorkov.

Parallel to the Kislyak-led effort, Russia made three other attempts to establish a back channel during the Transition. One, via Robert Foresman reaching out to Mike Flynn, one via CNI Board Member and Alfa Bank board member Richard Burt through Simes, and a third — the most successful — in which Kirill Dmitriev reached out first via George Nader and then through Kushner’s college buddy Rick Gerson.

None of these newly released interview reports have exemption markings akin to the ones on Bannon’s reprocessed pages describing which agency they had been referred to (which may suggest they were reviewed by CIA), but they seem to pertain to the cultivation of the President’s son-in-law.

To be very clear: while Dmitriev, using Gerson, succeeded in setting the agenda for the first phone call between Putin and Trump, the Mueller Report found no evidence that Russia succeeded in using CNI has a back channel.

The investigation did not identify evidence that the Campaign passed or received any messages to or from the Russian government through CNI or Simes.

That said, all of this remains appears to remain under active investigation. Between Simes’ first and second interviews, over 200 redactions cite a b7A exemption for an ongoing investigation; many of those also cite b3, which may indicate classified information. 25 redactions in Burt’s interview cite b7A and there are a number of b3 exemptions. Four paragraphs in what may be a continuation of the Simes discussion in Kushner’s interview include b7A redactions. There are also b7A redactions (some also marked b3) in the interview reports of fellow CNI employees, Jacob Heilbrunn and Paul Saunders.

And while the available reports suggest Kushner was just an easy mark in all of this (as he likely is for all the foreign countries he negotiates with — there’s nothing unique about Russia here), there are a few details about how this got written up in the Mueller Report worth noting. For example, the Mueller Report describes Kushner reaching out to Simes because they had so little support from experienced foreign policy people.

Kushner told the Office that the event came at a time when the Trump Campaign was having trouble securing support from experienced foreign policy professionals and that, as a result, he decided to seek Simes’s assistance during the March 14 event.

The underlying 302 report describes Kushner “admitt[ing] to ‘pursuing’ SIMES.”

A paragraph in the Mueller Report describing Kushner’s periodic contact with Simes during the campaign depicts Kushner as the passive recipient of Simes’ attention.

Between the April 2016 speech at the Mayflower Hotel and the presidential election, Jared Kushner had periodic contacts with Simes.648 Those contacts consisted of both in-person meetings and phone conversations, which concerned how to address issues relating to Russia in the Campaign and how to move forward with the advisory group of foreign policy experts that Simes had proposed.649 Simes recalled that he, not Kushner, initiated all conversations about Russia, and that Kushner never asked him to set up back-channel conversations with Russians.650 According to Simes, after the Mayflower speech in late April, Simes raised the issue of Russian contacts with Kushner, advised that it was bad optics for the Campaign to develop hidden Russian contacts, and told Kushner both that the Campaign should not highlight Russia as an issue and should handle any contacts with Russians with care.651 Kushner generally provided a similar account of his interactions with Simes.652

648 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 27.

649 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 27.

650 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 27.

651 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 27. During this period of time, the Campaign received a request for a high-level Campaign official to meet with an officer at a Russian state-owned bank “to discuss an offer [that officer] claims to be canying from President Putin to meet with” candidate Trump. NOSC00005653 (5/17/16 Email, Dearborn to Kushner (8: 12 a.m.)). Copying Manafort and Gates, Kushner responded, “Pass on this. A lot of people come claiming to carry messages. Very few are able to verify. For now I think we decline such meetings. Most likely these people go back home and claim they have special access to gain importance for themselves. Be careful.” NOSC00005653 (5/17/16 Email, Kushner to Dearborn).

652 Kushner 4/11 /18 302, at 11-13.

But the unredacted details in Kushner’s 302 are of interest. They describe Simes sending Kushner a “memo on what Mr. Trump may want to say about Russia.” And in his interview, Kushner described never receiving information from Simes that could be “operationalized” (this passage appears before a description of Simes floating dirt on Clinton).

Similarly, the Mueller Report does not include something that appears in Kushner’s 302 describing the President’s son-in-law asking for a back channel, that Kushner asked to be connected with people “who can make decisions.” Days later, of course, Kislyak started to set up the meeting with Sergei Gorkov.

The Report notes that these meetings took place in either Kushner’s office or that of Colony Capital (Tom Barrack’s office). But the passage from Kushner’s 302 which the Report cites for the location of the Gorkov meeting (page 19) remains redacted.

The one-on-one meeting took place the next day, December 13, 2016, at the Colony Capital building in Manhattan, where Kushner had previously scheduled meetings. 1152

1152 Kushner 4/11/18 302, at 19; NOSC00000130-135 (12/12/16 Email, Kushner to Berkowitz).

And there’s a detail made public since the Mueller Report that suggests Kushner may not have been entirely candid in his interview: in testimony before Congress last year, Rex Tillerson disputed a key detail from Kushner’s testimony — that he had passed along a document from Dmitriev shared via Rick Gerson. There’s no record Mueller interviewed Tillerson.

To be fair, DOJ has released two details not included in the Mueller Report, which by the standards of this FOIA release is generous. Yet Jared also happens to be a top Trump advisor — the beneficiary of absurd levels of nepotism — involved in every aspect of foreign policy. He could not obtain security clearance on his own. And the details of these FOIA releases suggest that’s because it’s not yet clear what happened with Russian efforts to cultivate him during the election.

Given how the Mueller Report leaves out key details of Kushner’s vulnerability to such cultivation, DOJ should be forced to release more of this 302.

Amid Description of Kushner’s Shadow Foreign Policy, Tillerson Counters a Jared Claim to Mueller about Kirill Dmitriev’s Plan

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When the FBI interviewed Mike Flynn on January 24, 2017, he offered a lame excuse for why he and other Transition officials (notably including Jared Kushner) were hiding their meetings with foreign leaders.

FLYNN explained that other meetings between the TRUMP team and various foreign countries took place prior to the inauguration, and were sensitive inasmuch as many other countries did not want the then-current administration to know about them.

In reality, the Trump Transition had provided Obama’s team reassurances they would not try to undermine Obama’s policies, but were doing so secretly.

But it wasn’t just the Obama Administration that Kushner was hiding his actions from. In a May interview with the House Foreign Relations Committee, Rex Tillerson revealed this continued to happen. He provided an example where he caught Mexico’s Foreign Minister meeting with Jared “and I don’t remember who else was at the table” without his knowledge.

Q And we’ve had concerning reports lately that Mr. Kushner has traveled to the Middle East with virtually no assistance or input of his ability from the embassy. Was that something that you experienced? You know, obviously you said that there was this exchange about a broader framework that he had worked on to develop and inform the Saudi-U.S. relationship.

Did you ever experience anything of the nature of this trip I just mentioned where diplomatic engagement occurred, whether or not it was related to that framework, but it was outside the scope of your knowledge or didn’t involve preparation by the State Department?

A Yes.

Q Could you say a little more about that?

A In Saudi Arabia particularly?

Q Or other examples that I think are similar in nature.

A Yeah. There were — on occasion the President’s senior adviser would make trips abroad and usually, you know, kind of was in charge of his own agenda.

Sr. Democratic Counsel. And just to clarify, you mean Mr. Kushner?

Mr. Tillerson. Yes. Yeah. Yes. And typically not a lot of coordination with the embassy.

Sr. Democratic Staff. Did you ever raise this phenomenon with Mr. Kushner or —

Mr. Tillerson. I did.

BY SR. DEMOCRATIC COUNSEL: Q What were those conversations like?

A He said he would try to do better.

Q Did he?

A Not much changed.

Q How did that impact your job?

A Well, I think — you know, I alluded earlier to the fact that it’s always challenging if everyone isn’t kind of working from the same playbook. And certainly there — and let me be clear — there are occasions, and it’s certainly the President’s prerogative, to have individuals undertake special assignments in a very compartmentalized way. Not using — I’m trying not to use the word “compartmentalize” relative to —

Q Not a term of art.

A Right. But in a way that, for whatever reasons, they prefer to have it carried out by an individual that way, and it’s the President’s prerogative to do that. But it — yeah, it presents special challenges to everyone if others who are trying to effect foreign policy with a country and move the agenda forward are not fully aware of other conversations that are going on that might be causing your counterparty in that country to take certain actions or behave a certain way and you’re not clear as to why, why did they do that.

Q Did you ever find yourself in one of those situations where Mr. Kushner had had a meeting or had a conversation that you weren’t aware of and it caught you off guard?

A Yes.

Q Could you be specific about that?

A Well, I’ll give you just one example and then maybe we can —

Q Yes, sir.

A — leave it at the one example. But Mexico was a situation that that occurred on a number of occasions. And I mention this one because I think it was — some of the elements of it were reported publicly that the Foreign Secretary of Mexico was engaged with Mr. Kushner on a fairly — unbeknownst to me — a fairly comprehensive plan of action.

And the Foreign Secretary came to town — unbeknownst to me — and I happened to be having a business dinner at a restaurant in town. And the owner of the restaurant, proprietor of the restaurant came around and said: Oh, Mr. Secretary, you might be interested to know the Foreign Secretary of Mexico is seated at a table near the back and in case you want to go by and say hello to him. Very innocent on his part.

And so I did. I walked back. And Mr. Kushner, and I don’t remember who else was at the table, and the Foreign Secretary were at the table having dinner. And I could see the color go out of the face of the Foreign Secretary of Mexico as I very — I smiled big, and I said: Welcome to Washington. And I said: I don’t want to interrupt what y’all are doing. I said: Give me a call next time you’re coming to town. And I left it at that.

As it turned out later, the Foreign Secretary was operating on the assumption that everything he was talking to Mr. Kushner about had been run through the State Department and that I was fully on board with it. And he was rather shocked to find out that when he started telling me all these things that were news to me, I told him this is the first time I’m hearing of it. And I don’t know that any of those things were discussing ultimately happened because there was a change of government in Mexico as well.

Earlier in the interview, staffers told Tillerson (for the first time!) that Kushner and Steve Bannon got advance notice of the Gulf blockade of Qatar, which pissed Tillerson off.

Q A couple of weeks later on May 20th, 2017, you were in Riyadh with the President in advance of the Middle East summit. And you again gave public remarks with the Saudi Foreign Minister. This is the night before the President’s speech. Did he say anything to you or did anyone else say anything to you on that same topic, regional tensions, something might be changing?

A No.

Q So that same night as we understand it, so on or about May 20th, 2017, there was apparently a private dinner that was hosted between Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, and the rulers of Saudi Arabia and UAE, respectively. Were you aware of that dinner?

A No.

Q We understand that as part of that dinner the leaders of Saudi and UAE did lay out for Mr. Kushner and Mr. Bannon their plans for the blockade. That wasn’t something that you had heard previously?

A No.

Q And to clarify, sir, not prior to when I just said it? A Correct.

Q Okay. What’s your reaction to a meeting of that sort having taken place without your knowledge?

A You mean now?

Q Yes. A Today?

Q Well —

A It makes me angry.

Q Why is that?

A Because I didn’t have a say. The State Department’s views were never expressed.

In any case, the revelation that Jared continued to conduct shadow foreign policy even after his father-in-law took over — and the fact that his so-called “peace” “process” in Palestine has been shown instead to be a hedge fund driven excuse to turn apartheid into a profit center (See these threads on just how bad it is: one, two, three) — I’d like to point to a more subtle detail in Tillerson’s interview. He claims that — contrary to what Jared told Mueller — the President’s son-in-law did not share a plan from Kirill Dmitriev with him.

Either during the transition or early in your tenure as Secretary, did anyone ever pass you a plan or sort of a roadmap regarding policy changes in the US Russia relationship?

A Not that I can recall.

Q And as you’ll note, sir, I believe one of those was mentioned in the Mueller report and it was stated that that had gone from a Mr. Kirill Dmitriev to Mr. Kushner who I believe was said that that was passed to you. Do you have any recollection of that?

A I don’t recall ever receiving any such report as described in the Mueller report or any other.

Q Okay. And no other sort of here’s what we should do on Russia proposals from anyone else?

A No.

Q Nothing from the Trump family, the organization?

A No.

As you’ll recall, Kirill Dmitriev, whom Putin tasked to reach out to the new Administration, got to Jared via one of his hedgie friends, Rick Gerson and via George Nader. Between the three of them, they had a role in setting the agenda for the January 28 phone call between Putin and Trump (Tillerson, who was not confirmed yet, did not sit in on that meeting).  That plan included “win-win investment initiatives.” According to the Mueller Report, Jared claimed he had given that report to Bannon (who was in the meeting) and Tillerson, but neither followed up on it.

Dmitriev told Gerson that he had been tasked by Putin to develop and execute a reconciliation plan between the United States and Russia. He noted in a text message to Gerson that if Russia was “approached with respect and willingness to understand our position, we can have Major Breakthroughs quickly.”1105 Gerson and Dmitriev exchanged ideas in December 2016 about what such a reconciliation plan would include. 1106 Gerson told the Office that the Transition Team had not asked him to engage in these discussions with Dmitriev, and that he did so on his own initiative and as a private citizen.1107

[snip]

On January 16, 2017, Dmitriev consolidated the ideas for U.S.-Russia reconciliation that he and Gerson had been discussing into a two-page document that listed five main points: (1) jointly fighting terrorism; (2) jointly engaging in anti-weapons of mass destruction efforts; (3) developing “win-win” economic and investment initiatives; (4) maintaining an honest, open, and continual dialogue regarding issues of disagreement; and (5) ensuring proper communication and trust by “key people” from each country. 1111 On January 18, 2017, Gerson gave a copy of the document to Kushner. 1112 Kushner had not heard of Dmitriev at that time. 1113 Gerson explained that Dmitriev was the head of RDIF, and Gerson may have alluded to Dmitriev’s being well connected. 1114 Kushner placed the document in a file and said he would get it to the right people. 1115 Kushner ultimately gave one copy of the document to Bannon and another to Rex Tillerson; according to Kushner, neither of them followed up with Kushner about it. 1116 On January 19, 2017, Dmitriev sent Nader a copy of the two-page document, telling him that this was “a view from our side that I discussed in my meeting on the islands and with you and with our friends. Please share with them – we believe this is a good foundation to start from.” 1117

Gerson informed Dmitriev that he had given the document to Kushner soon after delivering it. 1118 On January 26, 2017, Dmitriev wrote to Gerson that his “boss”-an apparent reference to Putin-was asking if there had been any feedback on the proposal. 1119 Dmitriev said, ” [w]e do not want to rush things and move at a comfortable speed. At the same time, my boss asked me to try to have the key US meetings in the next two weeks if possible.”1120 He informed Gerson that Putin and President Trump would speak by phone that Saturday, and noted that that information was “very confidential.”1121

The same day, Dmitriev wrote to Nader that he had seen his “boss” again yesterday who had “emphasized that this is a great priority for us and that we need to build this communication channel to avoid bureaucracy.” 1122 On January 28, 2017, Dmitriev texted Nader that he wanted “to see if I can confirm to my boss that your friends may use some of the ideas from the 2 pager I sent you in the telephone call that will happen at 12 EST,”1123 an apparent reference to the call scheduled between President Trump and Putin. Nader replied, “Definitely paper was so submitted to Team by Rick and me. They took it seriously!”1124 After the call between President Trump and Putin occurred, Dmitriev wrote to Nader that “the call went very well. My boss wants me to continue making some public statements that us [sic] Russia cooperation is good and important.” 1125 Gerson also wrote to Dmitriev to say that the call had gone well, and Dmitriev replied that the document they had drafted together “played an important role.” 1126

1116 Kushner 4/11/18 302, at 32.

The claim that Kushner handed over the document is sourced solely to him (Steve Bannon did testify after Kushner made this claim; it’s not clear if Tillerson ever did).

It may or may not be a big deal that Tillerson doesn’t agree with Kushner’s claim. Tillerson claims to have forgotten a lot about what happened while he was at State, so it’s possible he just forgot. But given that Kushner repeatedly kept Tillerson out of the loop, it’s certainly possible that he did so with this plan, as well.

Which would raise interesting questions if he actually made up his claim that he had kept Tillerson in the loop on this plan.