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RE: Conspiracy to .........
Posted on: July 22, 2019 at 08:46:08 CT
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First, keep in mind some crucial background context of coordination. Trump made frequent positive public comments about Vladimir Putin, especially from 2013 through the campaign. Also keep in mind the active concealed negotiations for Trump Tower Moscow between Trump associates and Russians connected to the Kremlin from June 2015 through June 2016.
1. March-May 2016 in the Trump campaign
Trump hired Paul Manafort as campaign chairman in March. Manafort had well-known direct contacts to Putin’s orbit, namely his old oligarch patron Oleg Deripaska. As the report states, “Manafort stayed in touch with these [Russian] contacts during the campaign period through [alleged Russian spy] Konstantin Kilimnik.” In late April, Trump foreign policy adviser George “Papadopoulos was told by London-based professor Joseph Mifsud… that the Russian government had obtained ‘dirt’ on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails.”
Papadopoulos indicated that the campaign had “received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to candidate Clinton.” In response to Papadopolous’ suggestions of a meeting between Trump and Putin in late May, Manafort writes an email that Trump should not go himself, to avoid sending a public “signal,” but Manafort later makes his own secret contacts through Kilimnik. This context shows Manafort’s awareness of the Papadopolous contacts, circumstantially about the emails, and the negative consequences of public signals.
2. March-May 2016 in Russia
The report identifies this same overlapping period as the peak and pivotal hacking period by Russian military intelligence (GRU), as well as a period of a pro-Trump social media campaign by Russian agents using aliases. But the report fails to show the overlap with these Trump campaign events.
3. June 3-7: Trump Tower meeting scheduled, Trump announces a major speech on Clinton
On June 3, Rob Goldstone, the music producer for a Russian oligarch’s son, emailed Trump Jr. about the chief prosecutor of Russia offering to “provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump.” He responded: “f it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”
On June 7 at 5:16 pm, Trump Jr. scheduled the meeting for June 9. That very same evening, Trump announced: “I am going to give a major speech on probably Monday of next week and... discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons.”
The report says the investigation “did not find evidence that the original idea for the speech was connected to the anticipated June 9 meeting.” Many prosecutors would have drawn the opposite inference from Trump Jr.’s subsequent lies about the meeting and Trump’s directions to him to lie as not only felony obstruction but also as evidence of consciousness of guilt and more likely Trump’s contemporaneous knowledge of the meeting. But even if we give Trump (and Mueller) the benefit of the doubt, the next events still show coordination.
4. June 8-9: DCLeaks launches, Don Jr. meets Russian for dirt on Clinton and talks sanctions
A day after Trump’s announcement and his son’s scheduling of a meeting with Kremlin-connected lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russians immediately launched DCLeaks.com to spread emails that its agents had illegally hacked. This information is in the Mueller indictment of 12 GRU agents, but oddly, the report omits this precise timing. Whether or not Trump knew of the Trump Tower meeting, he could have perceived that his announcement of a speech on Clinton was immediately followed by DCLeaks, and it became one of the major sources of leaks all summer. And the principal campaign officers who met with Russian agents about Clinton information the next day surely could have perceived this cause-and-effect, too.
“If Trump had directed Stone’s contact or knew of such directions, the context of Trump’s order to find the emails has potential criminal significance.”
The next day, Trump Jr., Manafort, and Jared Kushner met Veselnitskaya in Trump Tower. Manafort’s notes from the meeting indicate that the main subject was lifting sanctions on Russia. Unhelpfully, the report buries Manafort’s meeting notes in a footnote with none of this crucial context or commentary. Even without an explicit quid pro quo, the premise of the meeting was “dirt” on Clinton (a quo) and lifting sanctions (quid). A meeting between top Trump campaign officials and Russian government representatives was at least implicitly a suggestion, more than the kind of “wink” and “nod” that the Supreme Court condemned in 2003. The unfolding events in the next day and next months would show acting in concert and coordination.
5. June 14: DNC announces Russian hack, Guccifer2.0 launches blog
Team Trump’s Game Plan to Destroy Mueller
Five days after the Trump Tower meeting, the DNC announced Russian hackers had breached the computer network, and its investigators blame GRU officers. The next day, “GRU officers using the persona Guccifer 2.0” created a blog to release the stolen documents, doing so between June 15 and October 18. Yet again, Mueller failed to put this event in the context of the Trump Tower meeting and Trump’s announcement of a forthcoming speech on the Clintons. Someone who knew of the meeting would have seen clear cause-and-effect.
6. July 22: first DNC emails are published, Roger Stone is directed to find out more
WikiLeaks “released over 20,000 emails and other documents stolen from the DNC network”, three days before the Democratic convention in Philadelphia. After the release, a senior campaign official “was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information” WikiLeaks had. “Stone thereafter told the Trump Campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by [WikiLeaks].” This information was in the indictment of Stone. Presumably this detail is redacted from the report, but given its potential significance to the investigation, Mueller should be asked to specify who was directed and who did the directing.
7. July 27: “Russia, if you’re listening…” followed by more hacking
Trump’s press conference on July 27, during the Democratic convention, takes on clearer significance: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” He even clarified that his message was serious at the time in response to MSNBC’s Katy Tur: “They probably have them. I’d like to have them released… I’d love to see ‘em.” (Mueller omitted this clarifying response.) Given the already established pattern of speech-as-signal or green-light to coordinated Russian response, it is reasonable—even obvious—to conclude that Trump knew precisely what this signal meant, and the signal actually had an immediate response that Mueller documented.
After Trump’s press conference invitation, Russian agents “attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third party provider and used by Clinton’s personal office. They also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton Campaign.”
“Mueller should have explicitly stated that there was substantial evidence of illegal coordination.”
At the same time as his “Russia, if you’re listening” speech, Trump ordered his campaign to find Clinton’s mythical 30,000 deleted emails: “Michael Flynn… recalled that Trump made this request repeatedly, and Flynn subsequently contacted multiple people in an effort to obtain the emails.” Given how many campaign officials had known Russian contacts, and given the recent WikiLeaks leaks, the context makes the meaning implicit: Go coordinate. (It does not matter whether direct contacts happened, because indirect contacts through intermediaries are also prohibited under campaign finance law. For example, using a common vendor can be the basis for finding illegal coordination.)
8. Late July: Trump orders campaign to find emails
Stone’s apparent contacts with Julian Assange could count as knowing coordination with a Russian agent or a known co-conspirator/intermediary with Russian agents. If Trump had directed Stone’s contact or knew of such directions around July 22, and knew of WikiLeaks’ link to hacking, the context of Trump’s order to find the emails has potential criminal significance.
9. Soon after July 22:
“Trump told Gates that more releases of damaging information would be coming… In the summer of 2016, the Campaign was planning a communications strategy based on the possible release of Clinton emails by WikiLeaks.” No matter how Trump knew, this “communication strategy” in the context of earlier events shows an intent to coordinate with Russian hacking. The report buried this detail in Volume II on obstruction, and strangely did not place it properly as a key fact of Trump-Russian coordination. Trump’s public promotion of WikiLeaks’ releases in this context becomes key evidence of coordination.
10. Aug. 2 and thereafter:
Manafort shares with Kilimnik detailed internal polling data, focusing on battleground states Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota. Manafort continued sharing such information “for some period of time” thereafter. Other Mueller prosecutorial statements indicate that this polling data was substantial, around 70 pages. Gates suspected that Kilimnik was a “spy,” and shared this suspicion with Manafort. (The report also notes the FBI assessed him to be “tied to Russian intelligence,” and that “Kilimnik was fired from his [nonprofit position] because his links to Russian intelligence were too strong.”) “Kilimnik requested the meeting to deliver in person a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort acknowledged to the Special Counsel's Office was a ‘backdoor’ way for Russia to control part of eastern Ukraine.”
1. March-May 2016 in the Trump campaign
Trump hired Paul Manafort as campaign chairman in March. Manafort had well-known direct contacts to Putin’s orbit, namely his old oligarch patron Oleg Deripaska. As the report states, “Manafort stayed in touch with these [Russian] contacts during the campaign period through [alleged Russian spy] Konstantin Kilimnik.” In late April, Trump foreign policy adviser George “Papadopoulos was told by London-based professor Joseph Mifsud… that the Russian government had obtained ‘dirt’ on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails.”
Papadopoulos indicated that the campaign had “received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to candidate Clinton.” In response to Papadopolous’ suggestions of a meeting between Trump and Putin in late May, Manafort writes an email that Trump should not go himself, to avoid sending a public “signal,” but Manafort later makes his own secret contacts through Kilimnik. This context shows Manafort’s awareness of the Papadopolous contacts, circumstantially about the emails, and the negative consequences of public signals.
2. March-May 2016 in Russia
The report identifies this same overlapping period as the peak and pivotal hacking period by Russian military intelligence (GRU), as well as a period of a pro-Trump social media campaign by Russian agents using aliases. But the report fails to show the overlap with these Trump campaign events.
3. June 3-7: Trump Tower meeting scheduled, Trump announces a major speech on Clinton
On June 3, Rob Goldstone, the music producer for a Russian oligarch’s son, emailed Trump Jr. about the chief prosecutor of Russia offering to “provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump.” He responded: “f it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”
On June 7 at 5:16 pm, Trump Jr. scheduled the meeting for June 9. That very same evening, Trump announced: “I am going to give a major speech on probably Monday of next week and... discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons.”
The report says the investigation “did not find evidence that the original idea for the speech was connected to the anticipated June 9 meeting.” Many prosecutors would have drawn the opposite inference from Trump Jr.’s subsequent lies about the meeting and Trump’s directions to him to lie as not only felony obstruction but also as evidence of consciousness of guilt and more likely Trump’s contemporaneous knowledge of the meeting. But even if we give Trump (and Mueller) the benefit of the doubt, the next events still show coordination.
4. June 8-9: DCLeaks launches, Don Jr. meets Russian for dirt on Clinton and talks sanctions
A day after Trump’s announcement and his son’s scheduling of a meeting with Kremlin-connected lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russians immediately launched DCLeaks.com to spread emails that its agents had illegally hacked. This information is in the Mueller indictment of 12 GRU agents, but oddly, the report omits this precise timing. Whether or not Trump knew of the Trump Tower meeting, he could have perceived that his announcement of a speech on Clinton was immediately followed by DCLeaks, and it became one of the major sources of leaks all summer. And the principal campaign officers who met with Russian agents about Clinton information the next day surely could have perceived this cause-and-effect, too.
“If Trump had directed Stone’s contact or knew of such directions, the context of Trump’s order to find the emails has potential criminal significance.”
The next day, Trump Jr., Manafort, and Jared Kushner met Veselnitskaya in Trump Tower. Manafort’s notes from the meeting indicate that the main subject was lifting sanctions on Russia. Unhelpfully, the report buries Manafort’s meeting notes in a footnote with none of this crucial context or commentary. Even without an explicit quid pro quo, the premise of the meeting was “dirt” on Clinton (a quo) and lifting sanctions (quid). A meeting between top Trump campaign officials and Russian government representatives was at least implicitly a suggestion, more than the kind of “wink” and “nod” that the Supreme Court condemned in 2003. The unfolding events in the next day and next months would show acting in concert and coordination.
5. June 14: DNC announces Russian hack, Guccifer2.0 launches blog
Team Trump’s Game Plan to Destroy Mueller
Five days after the Trump Tower meeting, the DNC announced Russian hackers had breached the computer network, and its investigators blame GRU officers. The next day, “GRU officers using the persona Guccifer 2.0” created a blog to release the stolen documents, doing so between June 15 and October 18. Yet again, Mueller failed to put this event in the context of the Trump Tower meeting and Trump’s announcement of a forthcoming speech on the Clintons. Someone who knew of the meeting would have seen clear cause-and-effect.
6. July 22: first DNC emails are published, Roger Stone is directed to find out more
WikiLeaks “released over 20,000 emails and other documents stolen from the DNC network”, three days before the Democratic convention in Philadelphia. After the release, a senior campaign official “was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information” WikiLeaks had. “Stone thereafter told the Trump Campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by [WikiLeaks].” This information was in the indictment of Stone. Presumably this detail is redacted from the report, but given its potential significance to the investigation, Mueller should be asked to specify who was directed and who did the directing.
7. July 27: “Russia, if you’re listening…” followed by more hacking
Trump’s press conference on July 27, during the Democratic convention, takes on clearer significance: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” He even clarified that his message was serious at the time in response to MSNBC’s Katy Tur: “They probably have them. I’d like to have them released… I’d love to see ‘em.” (Mueller omitted this clarifying response.) Given the already established pattern of speech-as-signal or green-light to coordinated Russian response, it is reasonable—even obvious—to conclude that Trump knew precisely what this signal meant, and the signal actually had an immediate response that Mueller documented.
After Trump’s press conference invitation, Russian agents “attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third party provider and used by Clinton’s personal office. They also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton Campaign.”
“Mueller should have explicitly stated that there was substantial evidence of illegal coordination.”
At the same time as his “Russia, if you’re listening” speech, Trump ordered his campaign to find Clinton’s mythical 30,000 deleted emails: “Michael Flynn… recalled that Trump made this request repeatedly, and Flynn subsequently contacted multiple people in an effort to obtain the emails.” Given how many campaign officials had known Russian contacts, and given the recent WikiLeaks leaks, the context makes the meaning implicit: Go coordinate. (It does not matter whether direct contacts happened, because indirect contacts through intermediaries are also prohibited under campaign finance law. For example, using a common vendor can be the basis for finding illegal coordination.)
8. Late July: Trump orders campaign to find emails
Stone’s apparent contacts with Julian Assange could count as knowing coordination with a Russian agent or a known co-conspirator/intermediary with Russian agents. If Trump had directed Stone’s contact or knew of such directions around July 22, and knew of WikiLeaks’ link to hacking, the context of Trump’s order to find the emails has potential criminal significance.
9. Soon after July 22:
“Trump told Gates that more releases of damaging information would be coming… In the summer of 2016, the Campaign was planning a communications strategy based on the possible release of Clinton emails by WikiLeaks.” No matter how Trump knew, this “communication strategy” in the context of earlier events shows an intent to coordinate with Russian hacking. The report buried this detail in Volume II on obstruction, and strangely did not place it properly as a key fact of Trump-Russian coordination. Trump’s public promotion of WikiLeaks’ releases in this context becomes key evidence of coordination.
10. Aug. 2 and thereafter:
Manafort shares with Kilimnik detailed internal polling data, focusing on battleground states Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota. Manafort continued sharing such information “for some period of time” thereafter. Other Mueller prosecutorial statements indicate that this polling data was substantial, around 70 pages. Gates suspected that Kilimnik was a “spy,” and shared this suspicion with Manafort. (The report also notes the FBI assessed him to be “tied to Russian intelligence,” and that “Kilimnik was fired from his [nonprofit position] because his links to Russian intelligence were too strong.”) “Kilimnik requested the meeting to deliver in person a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort acknowledged to the Special Counsel's Office was a ‘backdoor’ way for Russia to control part of eastern Ukraine.”
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RE: Conspiracy to ......... - Ace AU - 7/22 08:46:08