Kushner told Congress he did not recall campaign contact with WikiLeaks: report

The following article by Max Greenwood was posted on the Hill website November 17, 2017:

Credit: Reynold/Epa-Efe/Rex/Shutterstock

President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner told congressional investigators in July that he was not aware of any communications between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks, according to a CNN report on Friday.

That testimony appears to contradict a letter from the Senate Judiciary Committee this week disclosing that Kushner had received an email in 2016 from Donald Trump Jr. about contact the president’s eldest son had with the anti-secrecy website.

According to CNN, a source familiar with Kushner’s testimony in July said he answered lawmakers’ questions accurately and did not recall whether anyone else on the campaign was in contact with WikiLeaks. Continue reading “Kushner told Congress he did not recall campaign contact with WikiLeaks: report”

Robert Mueller Has Subpoenaed More Than a Dozen Trump Officials for Documents Related to Russia: Report

The following article by Chris Sosa was posted on the AlterNet website November 16, 2017:

Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The Wall Street Journal reports that a source has confirmed investigators under special counsel Robert Mueller subpoenaed the 2016 campaign of then-candidate Donald Trump for documents containing Russia-related keywords.

More than a dozen individuals are included among those compelled to turn over documents.

Members of the 2016 Trump campaign were reportedly caught off guard, because they’d been voluntarily complying with the investigation up to that point. While Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associates were subpoenaed in the past, this marks the first time the campaign itself has been subpoenaed by Mueller’s team. Continue reading “Robert Mueller Has Subpoenaed More Than a Dozen Trump Officials for Documents Related to Russia: Report”

Mueller puts spotlight on foreign lobbying

The following article by Megan R. Wilson was posted on the Hill website November 15, 2017:

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The cottage industry of foreign lobbying is taking center stage as special counsel Robert Mueller investigates the activities of people in President Trump’s orbit.

Foreign advocacy work in Washington is common, lucrative and occasionally controversial, but has rarely received the front-page scrutiny it’s attracting now.

That’s mostly because of Paul Manafort and Richard Gates, two high-level figures from the Trump campaign who have been indicted as part of Mueller’s investigation. The charges against the two men, including allegations of money laundering, stem from work they did years ago to benefit a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine. Continue reading “Mueller puts spotlight on foreign lobbying”

Investigators probe Trump knowledge of campaign’s Russia dealings: sources

The following article by Mark Hosenball and John Walcott was posted on the Reuters website November 10, 2017:

Credit: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has questioned Sam Clovis, co-chairman of President Donald Trump’s election campaign, to determine if Trump or top aides knew of the extent of the campaign team’s contacts with Russia, two sources familiar with the investigation said on Friday.

The focus of the questions put to Clovis by Mueller’s team has not been previously reported.

“The ultimate question Mueller is after is whether candidate Trump and then President-elect Trump knew of the discussions going on with Russia, and who approved or even directed them,” said one source. “That is still just a question.”

Clovis testified in late October before the grand jury in Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He is also cooperating with the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating the same issues.

Contacted late on Friday, the White House declined to comment.

One of the sources described Clovis as “another domino” after former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI over his own contacts with Russians during the 2016 election campaign.

“The investigators now know what Papadopoulos was doing on the Russian front, which he initially tried to conceal, and who he told that to,” said the other source. “Now [they] want to know whether Clovis and others reported these activities and others related to Russia, and if so, to whom,” this source said.

Attorneys for Clovis did not respond to requests for comment. Lawyers for Papadopoulos had no immediate comment.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, declined to comment.

According to court documents related to Papadopoulos’ guilty plea, he reported to Clovis in an email on a March 24, 2016, meeting he had in London with a professor later identified as Joseph Mifsud.

Mifsud in turn introduced him to a Russian woman and the Russian ambassador in London, and they discussed setting up meetings to talk about U.S.-Russia ties in a Trump presidency.

The documents showed Clovis responded to the proposed meetings by saying he would “work it through the campaign.” While he told Papadopoulos not to make a commitment then to set up those meetings, he congratulated him for “great work.”

In August 2016, after Trump won the Republican presidential nomination, Clovis encouraged Papadopoulos to “make the trip” when Papadopoulos proposed going to an off-the-record meeting with unnamed Russian officials, the court documents show.

Victoria Toensing, one of Clovis’s lawyers, said last week her client “always vigorously opposed any Russian trip for Donald Trump and/or the campaign”.

After Papadopoulos’ guilty plea, the White House and former Trump campaign officials dismissed Papadopoulos and Clovis as minor figures in the campaign.

The campaign’s National Security Advisory Committee, which Clovis formed, has become a focus of the investigations by both Mueller and the Senate, sources said.

“Sam built the first group of eight,” J.D. Gordon, the director of the campaign foreign policy group, told Reuters, adding that he and then-Senator Jeff Sessions, now the U.S. Attorney General, had “nearly doubled” it in size.

However, two other sources familiar with the investigations said investigators have been told the committee Clovis formed did very little, and that other advisers appeared to carry more weight with Trump.

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Top Trump aide Miller interviewed in Mueller’s probe: report

The following article by Brett Samuels was posted on the Hill website November 9, 2017:

White House senior adviser Stephen Miller has been interviewed as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into Russian influence over the 2016 election, CNN reported Thursday.

Miller is the highest-ranking current member of the Trump administration to be interviewed in Mueller’s investigation, signaling the probe is closing in on the White House. Continue reading “Top Trump aide Miller interviewed in Mueller’s probe: report”

Are Bannon’s Ongoing Contacts With Trump Illegal?

The following article by Norman Eisen, RIchard W. Painter and Virginia Canter was posted on the Politico website November 3, 2017:

Bannon-Trump communications may also run afoul of obstruction of justice and witness tampering laws.

Credit: Evan Vucci/AP Photo

The latest news in the saga of Steve Bannon is that the former White House senior adviser has reportedly been pushing President Donald Trump to be more forceful against special counsel Robert Mueller. Bannon’s ideas allegedly include urging Trump to cut funding for the probe, telling Trump to withhold documents and pressing Trump to bring in more aggressive lawyers. These latest alleged Bannon-Trump communications come on top of other reported contactsbetween the two since Bannon left the White House. And it all raises serious questions as to whether Bannon is violating federal ethics laws and perhaps other statutes, including those concerning obstruction of justice.

Former White House staff members—whether encamped at Breitbart News or anywhere else—are constrained by 18 USC 207, which governs “restrictions on former officers, employees, and elected officials of the executive and legislative branches.” One provision of this statute prohibits former senior executive branch officials from communicating with their former agency for one year on behalf of other persons, whether their current employers, persons who are targets of a government investigation or anyone else. And former very senior White House officials, such as Bannon, are subject to a two-year cooling off period, which bars them not only from making such communications on behalf of others back to White House staff, but also to other very senior people in the government, such as the attorney general—and also the president. Continue reading “Are Bannon’s Ongoing Contacts With Trump Illegal?”

Post-ABC poll: Most Americans approve of Trump-Russia probe, and nearly half think Trump committed a crime

The following article by Emily Guskin and Matt Zapotosky was posted on the Washington Post website November 2, 2017:

More than twice as many Americans approve as disapprove of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of possible coordination between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Russian government, a new Washington Post-ABC News pollfinds, indicating that the conservative effort to discredit the probe has fallen flat as the case has progressed toward its first public charges.

A 58 percent majority say they approve of Mueller’s handling of the investigation, while 28 percent say they disapprove, the Post-ABC poll finds. People’s views depend in large part on their political leanings, but overall, Americans are generally inclined to trust Mueller and the case he has made so far.

Meanwhile, fewer than 4 in 10 Americans say they believe Trump is cooperating with Mueller’s investigation, while about half believe he is not. Continue reading “Post-ABC poll: Most Americans approve of Trump-Russia probe, and nearly half think Trump committed a crime”

Analysis: An Odd Sequence of Russia-Related Events

The following article by John T. Bennett was posted on the Roll Call website October 30, 2017:

There were signs aplenty that something was coming in the Russia inquiry

Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The puzzle pieces were strewn about the board late last week, several small fragments waiting to be put together. There were signs aplenty something was coming in the congressional and federal probes into Russia’s 2016 election meddling, but in isolation, each piece failed to reveal much.

A relatively quiet day at the White House was upended Friday evening by a CNN report that Justice Department special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is poised to reveal formal charges against individuals who once had ties to or remain close to President Donald Trump. Other major media outlets matched the report, which came after several brow-furrowing developments that suggested increased activity in the federal inquiry.

The signs began to emerge Thursday afternoon. Richard M. Burr, the North Carolina Republican leading the Senate’s Russia probe, had a light but noteworthy encounter with reporters. Continue reading “Analysis: An Odd Sequence of Russia-Related Events”

Fired US attorney: Watch how Trump reacts to Mueller charges

The following article by Brett Samuels was posted on the Hill website October 29, 2017:

Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Sunday it will be important to see how President Trump reacts to the first charges in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“We know from history in recent months that the president of the United States has strong reactions to public events. Even events that have been caused by his own actions,” Bharara told CNN’s Jake Tapper, explaining he expects Trump could react in two ways to charges potentially against an ally.

Bharara said the public should ask, “Is he sending a message of intimidation in some way through himself or his cohorts suggesting people should not be talking and people should keep their mouth shut?” Continue reading “Fired US attorney: Watch how Trump reacts to Mueller charges”

Mueller’s team interviewed Priebus on Friday

The following article by Josh Dawsey and Annie Karni was posted on the politico.com website October 13, 2017:

‘He was happy to answer all of their questions,’ the former White House chief of staff’s lawyer said.

Former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus had been preparing for several weeks, according to people who spoke with him. | Alex Brandon/AP

Former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus was interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team on Friday, according to his lawyer, William Burck.

“Mr. Priebus was voluntarily interviewed by Special Counsel Mueller’s team today. He was happy to answer all of their questions,” Burck said.

The interview, which took place at the special counsel’s office, was expected as part of Mueller’s sprawling Russia-related investigation. Priebus had been preparing for several weeks, according to people who spoke with him.

Priebus didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday afternoon. Continue reading “Mueller’s team interviewed Priebus on Friday”