Mueller Critics Prove Russian Swindle Is Working

The Russian swindle of America is still paying off.

Just how does a demagogue get to stay President of the United States, unreprimanded, while a Marine Vietnam War Hero, still fighting for his country after 50 years, is exhaustively disparaged for doing his patriotic duty to protect the homeland?

We're talking "The Great American Experiment" in democracy -- an experiment that's once again in danger of suffering its final meltdown.

How is it possible that a large swath of Americans are not only okay with a brazen President Donald Trump and the trashing of former special counsel Robert Mueller, but can't hear Mueller's dire warning that "demands the attention of every American"?

Mueller is absolutely right. Not only has Russia hacked its way into American Democracy. It's doing a bang up job of bamboozling the citizenry.

Callous cynics, enflamed by a desperate, compromised President, who are foolishly maligning Mueller's testimony before the House Judiciary and Intelligence commitees two weeks ago, only bolster the unsettling conclusion of the former special counsel's damning and foreboding report.

Russia, in concert with Trump and loyal congressional Republican insiders have hijacked and contorted our sense of reality and moral discernment to such a radical "sweeping and systematic" degree -- that the average impressionable Joe fails to recognize the alarming truth that's staring him in the face.

These are the documented facts:

Russia created fake Facebook accounts with inflammatory posts favoring Trump that reached an estimated 120 million Americans and hacked into Democratic Party leader's emails, releasing hundreds of them through WikiLeaks, with Trump's enthusiastic endorsement.

Trump incorporated Russia's election help while hoping to make millions of dollars off a Trump Tower Moscow deal. Then, he lied to federal investigators about his Russian business venture and multiple times tried to obstruct their investigation into Russiagate.

Within a day of Mueller's testimony, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report revealing Russia had targeted the election systems in all 50 States in 2016.

But, Trump fans, fence sitters, and even some progressives didn't like the message -- or, more specifically, the manner in which the message was delivered -- so they've shot the messenger.

Three years of Russian meddling has only emboldened Trump's distracting incites and fueled the truth-muddling criticisms in the media, on Facebook and Twitter.

For Russia, Trump and his unscrupulous, arguably treasonous enablers, their dirty work is paying off big time. Mission accomplished.

Perhaps, Mueller's most revealing testimony wasn't so much in any of his one word replies of "yes" or "true." Nor was it when he agreed with Intelligence House Chair Adam Schiff that for a public office candidate to accept aid from a foreign nation was unethical and "problematic to say the least."

Maybe, Mueller's most telling testimony was in those same painstaking optics the talking heads relentlessly bashed.

Yes, Mueller is human, afterall. Not Superman. But if he were Superman, Russiagate would be his kryptonite.

So what if Mueller didn't meet the visual expectations of today's Reality TV standards, favoring baseless incites and corrupting vitriol ushered in by the disingenuous and destructive Oval Office occupier?

Would Americans have rathered Mueller mocked Trump and childishly called him names? That wasn't Mueller's job, nor is it his style, thankfully. Integrity, more than ever, does matter.

So, balancing the need to inform and warn of imminent danger with a measured sense of restraint to protect myriad key ongoing investigations into President Trump and his accomplices, Mueller confirmed the truth of what's in his 440-page report.

And that's all Americans should need in order to take the Russian threat seriously.

(Kevin McKinney is a freelance writer and former daily newspaper journalist living at the Jersey Shore. His writing has appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Hill, Counterpunch, and various McClatchy newspapers. He tweets @WriteFight99.)

Mueller

The truth is plain. President Donald Trump worked to obstruct the Justice Department's investigation of Russia's high-financed cyber interference in the 2016 presidential election which helped land Trump the presidency.

For a synopsis of why and how, ahead of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's testimony before the House Judicial and Intelligence committees tommorow morning and afternoon respectively, read and/or listen to Mueller's full executive summaries below.

(from Lawfare's website: https://www.lawfareblog.com/full-text-mueller-reports-executive-summaries.)

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DONALD TRUMP

Full Text of the Mueller Report's Executive Summaries

By Lev Sugarman

 Thursday, April 18, 2019, 3:41 PM

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Editor’s Note: Below are the executive summaries of the two volumes of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's final report. Volume I deals with links between Russia and the Trump campaign, while Volume II deals with potential obstruction of justice by President Trump. This article is available in audio format on the Lawfare Podcast: Special Edition:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY TO VOLUME I

RUSSIAN SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN

The Internet Research Agency (IRA) carried out the earliest Russian interference operations identified by the investigation—a social media campaign designed to provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States. The IRA was based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and received funding from Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin and companies he controlled. Prigozhin is widely reported to have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter]

In mid-2014, the IRA sent employees to the United States on an intelligence-gathering mission with instructions [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter]

The IRA later used social media accounts and interest groups to sow discord in the U.S. political system through what it termed "information warfare." The campaign evolved from a generalized program designed in 2014 and 2015 to undermine the U.S. electoral system, to a targeted operation that by early 2016 favored candidate Trump and disparaged candidate Clinton. The IRA's operation also included the purchase of political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities, as well as the staging of political rallies inside the United States. To organize those rallies, IRA employees posed as U.S. grassroots entities and persons and made contact with Trump supporters and Trump Campaign officials in the United States. The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons conspired or coordinated with the IRA. Section II of this report details the Office's investigation of the Russian social media campaign.

RUSSIAN HACKING OPERATIONS

At the same time that the IRA operation began to focus on supporting candidate Trump in early 2016, the Russian government employed a second form of interference: cyber intrusions (hacking) and releases of hacked materials damaging to the Clinton Campaign. The Russian intelligence service known as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Army (GRU) carried out these operations.

In March 2016, the GRU began hacking the email accounts of Clinton Campaign volunteers and employees, including campaign chairman John Podesta. In April 2016, the GRU hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The GRU stole hundreds of thousands of documents from the compromised email accounts and networks. Around the time that the DNC announced in mid-June 2016 the Russian government's role in hacking its network, the GRU began disseminating stolen materials through the fictitious online personas "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0." The GRU later released additional materials through the organization WikiLeaks.

The presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump ("Trump Campaign" or "Campaign") showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton. Beginning in June 2016, [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] forecast to senior Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release information damaging to candidate Clinton. WikiLeaks's first release came in July 2016. Around the same time, candidate Trump announced that he hoped Russia would recover emails described as missing from a private server used by Clinton when she was Secretary of State (he later said that he was speaking sarcastically). [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] WikiLeaks began releasing Podesta’s stolen emails on October 7, 2016, less than one hour after a U.S. media outlet released video considered damaging to candidate Trump. Section III of this Report details the Office's investigation into the Russian hacking operations, as well as other efforts by Trump Campaign supporters to obtain Clinton-related emails.

RUSSIAN CONTACTS WITH THE CAMPAIGN

The social media campaign and the GRU hacking operations coincided with a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government. The Office investigated whether those contacts reflected or resulted in the Campaign conspiring or coordinating with Russia in its election-interference activities. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

The Russian contacts consisted of business connections, offers of assistance to the Campaign, invitations for candidate Trump and Putin to meet in person, invitations for Campaign officials and representatives of the Russian government to meet, and policy positions seeking improved U.S.-Russian relations. Section IV of this Report details the contacts between Russia and the Trump Campaign during the campaign and transition periods, the most salient of which are summarized below in chronological order.

2015. Some of the earliest contacts were made in connection with a Trump Organization real-estate project in Russia known as Trump Tower Moscow. Candidate Trump signed a Letter of Intent for Trump Tower Moscow by November 2015, and in January 2016 Trump Organization executive Michael Cohen emailed and spoke about the project with the office of Russian government press secretary Dmitry Peskov. The Trump Organization pursued the project through at least June 2016, including by considering travel to Russia by Cohen and candidate Trump.

Spring 2016. Campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos made early contact with Joseph Mifsud, a London-based professor who had connections to Russia and traveled to Moscow in April 2016. Immediately upon his return to London from that trip, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that the Russian government had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. One week later, in the first week of May 2016, Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton. Throughout that period of time and for several months thereafter, Papadopoulos worked with Mifsud and two Russian nationals to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and the Russian government. No meeting took place.

Summer 2016. Russian outreach to the Trump Campaign continued into the summer of 2016, as candidate Trump was becoming the presumptive Republican nominee for President. On June 9, 2016, for example, a Russian lawyer met with senior Trump Campaign officials Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and campaign chairman Paul Manafort to deliver what the email proposing the meeting had described as "official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary." The materials were offered to Trump Jr. as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." The written communications setting up the meeting showed that the Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist candidate Trump's electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyer's presentation did not provide such information.

Days after the June 9 meeting, on June 14, 2016, a cybersecurity firm and the DNC announced that Russian government hackers had infiltrated the DNC and obtained access to opposition research on candidate Trump, among other documents.

In July 2016, Campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page traveled in his personal capacity to Moscow and gave the keynote address at the New Economic School. Page had lived and worked in Russia between 2003 and 2007. After returning to the United States, Page became acquainted with at least two Russian intelligence officers, one of whom was later charged in 2015 with conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of Russia. Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow and his advocacy for pro-Russian foreign policy drew media attention. The Campaign then distanced itself from Page and, by late September 2016, removed him from the Campaign.

July 2016 was also the month WikiLeaks first released emails stolen by the GRU from the DNC. On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks posted thousands of internal DNC documents revealing information about the Clinton Campaign. Within days, there was public reporting that U.S. intelligence agencies had "high confidence" that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the DNC. And within a week of the release, a foreign government informed the FBI about its May 2016 interaction with Papadopoulos and his statement that the Russian government could assist the Trump Campaign. On July 31, 2016, based on the foreign government reporting, the FBI opened an investigation into potential coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign.

Separately, on August 2, 2016, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort met in New York City with his long-time business associate Konstantin Kilimnik, who the FBI assesses to have ties to Russian intelligence. 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; both men believed the plan would require candidate Trump's assent to succeed (were he to be elected President). They also discussed the status of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's strategy for winning Democratic votes in Midwestern states. Months before that meeting, Manafort had caused internal polling data to be shared with Kilimnik, and the sharing continued for some period of time after their August meeting.

Fall 2016. On October 7, 2016, the media released video of candidate Trump speaking in graphic terms about women years earlier, which was considered damaging to his candidacy. Less than an hour later, WikiLeaks made its second release: thousands of John Podesta's emails that had been stolen by the GRU in late March 2016. The FBI and other U.S. government institutions were at the time continuing their investigation of suspected Russian government efforts to interfere in the presidential election. That same day, October 7, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint public statement "that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations." Those "thefts" and the "disclosures" of the hacked materials through online platforms such as WikiLeaks, the statement continued, "are intended to interfere with the US election process."

Post-2016 Election. Immediately after the November 8 election, Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new administration. The most senior levels of the Russian government encouraged these efforts. The Russian Embassy made contact hours after the election to congratulate the President-Elect and to arrange a call with President Putin. Several Russian businessmen picked up the effort from there.

Kirill Dmitriev, the chief executive officer of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, was among the Russians who tried to make contact with the incoming administration. In early December, a business associate steered Dmitriev to Erik Prince, a supporter of the Trump Campaign and an associate of senior Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Dmitriev and Prince later met face-to-face in January 2017 in the Seychelles and discussed U.S.-Russia relations. During the same period, another business associate introduced Dmitriev to a friend of Jared Kushner who had not served on the Campaign or the Transition Team. Dmitriev and Kushner's friend collaborated on a short written reconciliation plan for the United States and Russia, which Dmitriev implied had been cleared through Putin. The friend gave that proposal to Kushner before the inauguration, and Kushner later gave copies to Bannon and incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

On December 29, 2016, then-President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia for having interfered in the election. Incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn called Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and asked Russia not to escalate the situation in response to the sanctions. The following day, Putin announced that Russia would not take retaliatory measures in response to the sanctions at that time. Hours later, President-Elect Trump tweeted, "Great move on delay (by V. Putin)." The next day, on December 31, 2016, Kislyak called Flynn and told him the request had been received at the highest levels and Russia had chosen not to retaliate as a result of Flynn's request.

***

On January 6, 2017, members of the intelligence community briefed President-Elect Trump on a joint assessment—drafted and coordinated among the Central Intelligence Agency, FBI, and National Security Agency—that concluded with high confidence that Russia had intervened in the election through a variety of means to assist Trump's candidacy and harm Clinton's. A declassified version of the assessment was publicly released that same day.

Between mid-January 2017 and early February 2017, three congressional committees—the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC)—announced that they would conduct inquiries, or had already been conducting inquiries, into Russian interference in the election. Then-FBI Director James Comey later confirmed to Congress the existence of the FBI's investigation into Russian interference that had begun before the election. On March 20, 2017, in open-session testimony before HPSCI, Comey stated:

I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts. . . . As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed.

The investigation continued under then-Director Comey for the next seven weeks until May 9, 2017, when President Trump fired Comey as FBI Director—an action which is analyzed in Volume II of the report.

On May 17, 2017, Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed the Special Counsel and authorized him to conduct the investigation that Comey had confirmed in his congressional testimony, as well as matters arising directly from the investigation, and any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a), which generally covers efforts to interfere with or obstruct the investigation.

President Trump reacted negatively to the Special Counsel's appointment. He told advisors that it was the end of his presidency, sought to have Attorney General Jefferson (Jeff) Sessions unrecuse from the Russia investigation and to have the Special Counsel removed, and engaged in efforts to curtail the Special Counsel's investigation and prevent the disclosure of evidence to it, including through public and private contacts with potential witnesses. Those and related actions are described and analyzed in Volume II of the report.

***

THE SPECIAL COUNSEL'S CHARGING DECISIONS

In reaching the charging decisions described in Volume I of the report, the Office determined whether the conduct it found amounted to a violation of federal criminal law chargeable under the Principles of Federal Prosecution. SeeJustice Manual § 9-27.000 et seq. (2018). The standard set forth in the Justice Manual is whether the conduct constitutes a crime; if so, whether admissible evidence would probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction; and whether prosecution would serve a substantial federal interest that could not be adequately served by prosecution elsewhere or through non-criminal alternatives. See Justice Manual § 9-27.220.

Section V of the report provides detailed explanations of the Office's charging decisions, which contain three main components.

First, the Office determined that Russia's two principal interference operations in the 2016 U.S. presidential election—the social media campaign and the hacking-and-dumping operations—violated U.S. criminal law. Many of the individuals and entities involved in the social media campaign have been charged with participating in a conspiracy to defraud the United States by undermining through deceptive acts the work of federal agencies charged with regulating foreign influence in U.S. elections, as well as related counts of identity theft. See United States v. Internet Research Agency, et al., No. 18-cr-32 (D.D.C.). Separately, Russian intelligence officers who carried out the hacking into Democratic Party computers and the personal email accounts of individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign conspired to violate, among other federal laws, the federal computer-intrusion statute, and they have been so charged. See United States v. Netyksho, et al., No. 18-cr-215 (D.D.C.). [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter, Personal Privacy]

Second, while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges. Among other things, the evidence was not sufficient to charge any Campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principal. And our evidence about the June 9, 2016 meeting and WikiLeaks's releases of hacked materials was not sufficient to charge a criminal campaign-finance violation. Further, the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.

Third, the investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to the Office, and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference. The Office charged some of those lies as violations of the federal false statements statute. Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying about his interactions with Russian Ambassador Kislyak during the transition period. George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor during the campaign period, pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about, inter alia, the nature and timing of his interactions with Joseph Mifsud, the professor who told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Former Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress about the Trump Moscow project. [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] And in February 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that Manafort lied to the Office and the grand jury concerning his interactions and communications with Konstantin Kilimnik about Trump Campaign polling data and a peace plan for Ukraine.

***

The Office investigated several other events that have been publicly reported to involve potential Russia-related contacts. For example, the investigation established that interaction between Russian Ambassador Kislyak and Trump Campaign officials both at the candidate's April 2016 foreign policy speech in Washington, D.C., and during the week of the Republican National Convention were brief, public, and non-substantive. And the investigation did not establish that one Campaign official's efforts to dilute a portion of the Republican Party platform on providing assistance to Ukraine were undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia. The investigation also did not establish that a meeting between Kislyak and Sessions in September 2016 at Sessions's Senate office included any more than a passing mention of the presidential campaign.

The investigation did not always yield admissible information or testimony, or a complete picture of the activities undertaken by subjects of the investigation. Some individuals invoked their Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination and were not, in the Office's judgment, appropriate candidates for grants of immunity. The Office limited its pursuit of other witnesses and information—such as information known to attorneys or individuals claiming to be members of the media—in light of internal Department of Justice policies. See, e.g., Justice Manual §§ 9-13.400, 13.410. Some of the information obtained via court process, moreover, was presumptively covered by legal privilege and was screened from investigators by a filter (or "taint") team. Even when individuals testified or agreed to be interviewed, they sometimes provided information that was false or incomplete, leading to some of the false-statements charges described above. And the Office faced practical limits on its ability to access relevant evidence as well-numerous witnesses and subjects lived abroad, and documents were held outside the United States.

Further, the Office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated—including some associated with the Trump Campaign—deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records. In such cases, the Office was not able to corroborate witness statements through comparison to contemporaneous communications or fully question witnesses about statements that appeared inconsistent with other known facts.

Accordingly, while this report embodies factual and legal determinations that the Office believes to be accurate and complete to the greatest extent possible, given these identified gaps, the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY TO VOLUME II

Our obstruction-of-justice inquiry focused on a series of actions by the President that related to the Russian-interference investigations, including the President's conduct towards the law enforcement officials overseeing the investigations and the witnesses to relevant events.

FACTUAL RESULTS OF THE OBSTRUCTION INVESTIGATION

The key issues and events we examined include the following:

The Campaign's response to reports about Russian support for Trump. During the 2016 presidential campaign, questions arose about the Russian government's apparent support for candidate Trump. After WikiLeaks released politically damaging Democratic Party emails that were reported to have been hacked by Russia, Trump publicly expressed skepticism that Russia was responsible for the hacks at the same time that he and other Campaign officials privately sought information [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] about any further planned WikiLeaks releases. Trump also denied having any business in or connections to Russia, even though as late as June 2016 the Trump Organization had been pursuing a licensing deal for a skyscraper to be built in Russia called Trump Tower Moscow. After the election, the President expressed concerns to advisors that reports of Russia's election interference might lead the public to question the legitimacy of his election.

Conduct involving FBI Director Comey andMichael Flynn. In mid-January 2017, incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn falsely denied to the Vice President, other administration officials, and FBI agents that he had talked to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about Russia's response to U.S. sanctions on Russia for its election interference. On January 27, the day after the President was told that Flynn had lied to the Vice President and had made similar statements to the FBI, the President invited FBI Director Comey to a private dinner at the White House and told Comey that he needed loyalty. On February 14, the day after the President requested Flynn's resignation, the President told an outside advisor, "Now that we fired Flynn, the Russia thing is over." The advisor disagreed and said the investigations would continue.

Later that afternoon, the President cleared the Oval Office to have a one-on-one meeting with Comey. Referring to the FBI's investigation of Flynn, the President said, "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go." Shortly after requesting Flynn's resignation and speaking privately to Comey, the President sought to have Deputy National Security Advisor K.T. McFarland draft an internal letter stating that the President had not directed Flynn to discuss sanctions with Kislyak. McFarland declined because she did not know whether that was true, and a White House Counsel's Office attorney thought that the request would look like a quid pro quo for an ambassadorship she had been offered.

The President's reaction to the continuing Russia investigation. In February 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions began to assess whether he had to recuse himself from campaign-related investigations because of his role in the Trump Campaign. In early March, the President told White House Counsel Donald McGahn to stop Sessions from recusing. And after Sessions announced his recusal on March 2, the President expressed anger at the decision and told advisors that he should have an Attorney General who would protect him. That weekend, the President took Sessions aside at an event and urged him to "unrecuse." Later in March, Comey publicly disclosed at a congressional hearing that the FBI was investigating "the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election," including any links or coordination between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. In the following days, the President reached out to the Director of National Intelligence and the leaders of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) to ask them what they could do to publicly dispel the suggestion that the President had any connection to the Russian election-interference effort. The President also twice called Comey directly, notwithstanding guidance from McGahn to avoid direct contacts with the Department of Justice. Comey had previously assured the President that the FBI was not investigating him personally, and the President asked Comey to "lift the cloud" of the Russia investigation by saying that publicly.

The President's termination of Comey. On May 3, 2017, Comey testified in a congressional hearing, but declined to answer questions about whether the President was personally under investigation. Within days, the President decided to terminate Comey. The President insisted that the termination letter, which was written for public release, state that Comey had informed the President that he was not under investigation. The day of the firing, the White House maintained that Comey's termination resulted from independent recommendations from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General that Comey should be discharged for mishandling the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But the President had decided to fire Comey before hearing from the Department of Justice. The day after firing Comey, the President told Russian officials that he had "faced great pressure because of Russia," which had been "taken off' by Comey's firing. The next day, the President acknowledged in a television interview that he was going to fire Comey regardless of the Department of Justice's recommendation and that when he "decided to just do it," he was thinking that "this thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story." In response to a question about whether he was angry with Comey about the Russia investigation, the President said, "As far as I'm concerned, I want that thing to be absolutely done properly," adding that firing Comey "might even lengthen out the investigation."

The appointment of a Special Counsel and efforts to remove him. On May 17, 2017, the Acting Attorney General for the Russia investigation appointed a Special Counsel to conduct the investigation and related matters. The President reacted to news that a Special Counsel had been appointed by telling advisors that it was "the end of his presidency" and demanding that Sessions resign. Sessions submitted his resignation, but the President ultimately did not accept it. The President told aides that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and suggested that the Special Counsel therefore could not serve. The President's advisors told him the asserted conflicts were meritless and had already been considered by the Department of Justice.

On June 14, 2017, the media reported that the Special Counsel's Office was investigating whether the President had obstructed justice. Press reports called this "a major turning point" in the investigation: while Comey had told the President he was not under investigation, following Comey's firing, the President now was under investigation. The President reacted to this news with a series of tweets criticizing the Department of Justice and the Special Counsel's investigation. On June 17, 2017, the President called McGahn at home and directed him to call the Acting Attorney General and say that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed. McGahn did not carry out the direction, however, deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre.

Efforts to curtail the Special Counsel's investigation. Two days after directing McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed, the President made another attempt to affect the course of the Russia investigation. On June 19, 2017, the President met one-on-one in the Oval Office with his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, a trusted advisor outside the government, and dictated a message for Lewandowski to deliver to Sessions. The message said that Sessions should publicly announce that, notwithstanding his recusal from the Russia investigation, the investigation was "very unfair" to the President, the President had done nothing wrong, and Sessions planned to meet with the Special Counsel and "let [him] move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections." Lewandowski said he understood what the President wanted Sessions to do.

One month later, in another private meeting with Lewandowski on July 19, 2017, the President asked about the status of his message for Sessions to limit the Special Counsel investigation to future election interference. Lewandowski told the President that the message would be delivered soon. Hours after that meeting, the President publicly criticized Sessions in an interview with the New York Times, and then issued a series of tweets making it clear that Sessions's job was in jeopardy. Lewandowski did not want to deliver the President's message personally, so he asked senior White House official Rick Dearborn to deliver it to Sessions. Dearborn was uncomfortable with the task and did not follow through.

Efforts to prevent public disclosure of evidence. In the summer of 2017, the President learned that media outlets were asking questions about the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between senior campaign officials, including Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian lawyer who was said to be offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." On several occasions, the President directed aides not to publicly disclose the emails setting up the June 9 meeting, suggesting that the emails would not leak and that the number of lawyers with access to them should be limited. Before the emails became public, the President edited a press statement for Trump Jr. by deleting a line that acknowledged that the meeting was with "an individual who [Trump Jr.] was told might have information helpful to the campaign" and instead said only that the meeting was about adoptions of Russian children. When the press asked questions about the President's involvement in Trump Jr.'s statement, the President's personal lawyer repeatedly denied the President had played any role.

Further efforts to have the AttorneyGeneral take control of the investigation.In early summer 2017, the President called Sessions at home and again asked him to reverse his recusal from the Russia investigation. Sessions did not reverse his recusal. In October 20 17, the President met privately with Sessions in the Oval Office and asked him to "take [a] look" at investigating Clinton. In December 2017, shortly after Flynn pleaded guilty pursuant to a cooperation agreement, the President met with Sessions in the Oval Office and suggested, according to notes taken by a senior advisor, that if Sessions unrecused and took back supervision of the Russia investigation, he would be a "hero." The President told Sessions, "I'm not going to do anything or direct you to do anything. I just want to be treated fairly." In response, Sessions volunteered that he had never seen anything "improper" on the campaign and told the President there was a "whole new leadership team" in place. He did not unrecuse.

Efforts to have McGahn deny that the President had ordered him to have the Special Counsel removed. In early 2018, the press reported that the President had directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed in June 2017 and that McGahn had threatened to resign rather than carry out the order. The President reacted to the news stories by directing White House officials to tell McGahn to dispute the story and create a record stating he had not been ordered to have the Special Counsel removed. McGahn told those officials that the media reports were accurate in stating that the President had directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed. The President then met with McGahn in the Oval Office and again pressured him to deny the reports. Tn the same meeting, the President also asked McGahn why he had told the Special Counsel about the President's effort to remove the Special Counsel and why McGahn took notes of his conversations with the President. McGahn refused to back away from what he remembered happening and perceived the President to be testing his mettle.

Conduct towards Flynn, Manafort, [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter].After Flynn withdrew from a joint defense agreement with the President and began cooperating with the government, the President's personal counsel left a message for Flynn's attorneys reminding them of the President's warm feelings towards Flynn, which he said "still remains," and asking for a "heads up" if Flynn knew "information that implicates the President." When Flynn's counsel reiterated that Flynn could no longer share information pursuant to a joint defense agreement, the President's personal counsel said he would make sure that the President knew that Flynn's actions reflected " hostility" towards the President. During Manafort's prosecution and when the jury in his criminal trial was deliberating, the President praised Manafort in public, said that Manafort was being treated unfairly, and declined to rule out a pardon. After Manafort was convicted, the President called Manafort “a brave man” for refusing to “break” and said that “flipping” “almost ought to be outlawed.” [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter]

Conduct involving Michael Cohen. The President's conduct towards Michael Cohen, a former Trump Organization executive, changed from praise for Cohen when he falsely minimized the President's involvement in the Trump Tower Moscow project, to castigation of Cohen when he became a cooperating witness. From September 2015 to June 2016, Cohen had pursued the Trump Tower Moscow project on behalf of the Trump Organization and had briefed candidate Trump on the project numerous times, including discussing whether Trump should travel to Russia to advance the deal. In 2017, Cohen provided false testimony to Congress about the project, including stating that he had only briefed Trump on the project three times and never discussed travel to Russia with him, in an effort to adhere to a "party line" that Cohen said was developed to minimize the President's connections to Russia. While preparing for his congressional testimony, Cohen had extensive discussions with the President's personal counsel, who, according to Cohen, said that Cohen should "stay on message" and not contradict the President. After the FBI searched Cohen's home and office in April 2018, the President publicly asserted that Cohen would not "flip," contacted him directly to tell him to "stay strong," and privately passed messages of support to him. Cohen also discussed pardons with the President's personal counsel and believed that if he stayed on message he would be taken care of. But after Cohen began cooperating with the government in the summer of 2018, the President publicly criticized him, called him a "rat," and suggested that his family members had committed crimes.

Overarching factual issues. We did not make a traditional prosecution decision about these facts, but the evidence we obtained supports several general statements about the President's conduct.

Several features of the conduct we investigated distinguish it from typical obstruction-of-justice cases. First, the investigation concerned the President, and some of his actions, such as firing the FBI director, involved facially lawful acts within his Article II authority, which raises constitutional issues discussed below. At the same time, the President's position as the head of the Executive Branch provided him with unique and powerful means of influencing official proceedings, subordinate officers, and potential witnesses—all of which is relevant to a potential obstruction-of-justice analysis. Second, unlike cases in which a subject engages in obstruction of justice to cover up a crime, the evidence we obtained did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference. Although the obstruction statutes do not require proof of such a crime, the absence of that evidence affects the analysis of the President's intent and requires consideration of other possible motives for his conduct. Third, many of the President's acts directed at witnesses, including discouragement of cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons, took place in public view. That circumstance is unusual, but no principle of law excludes public acts from the reach of the obstruction laws. If the likely effect of public acts is to influence witnesses or alter their testimony, the harm to the justice system's integrity is the same.     

Although the series of events we investigated involved discrete acts, the overall pattern of the President's conduct towards the investigations can shed light on the nature of the President's acts and the inferences that can be drawn about his intent. In particular, the actions we investigated can be divided into two phases, reflecting a possible shift in the President's motives. The first phase covered the period from the President's first interactions with Comey through the President's firing of Comey. During that time, the President had been repeatedly told he was not personally under investigation. Soon after the firing of Comey and the appointment of the Special Counsel, however, the President became aware that his own conduct was being investigated in an obstruction-of-justice inquiry. At that point, the President engaged in a second phase of conduct, involving public attacks on the investigation, non-public efforts to control it, and efforts in both public and private to encourage witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation. Judgments about the nature of the President's motives during each phase would be informed by the totality of the evidence.

STATUTORY AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEFENSES

The President's counsel raised statutory and constitutional defenses to a possible obstruction-of-justice analysis of the conduct we investigated. We concluded that none of those legal defenses provided a basis for declining to investigate the facts.

Statutory defenses. Consistent with precedent and the Department of Justice's general approach to interpreting obstruction statutes, we concluded that several statutes could apply here. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 1503, 1505, 1512(b)(3), 1512(c)(2). Section 1512(c)(2) is an omnibus obstruction-of-justice provision that covers a range of obstructive acts directed at pending or contemplated official proceedings. No principle of statutory construction justifies narrowing the provision to cover only conduct that impairs the integrity or availability of evidence. Sections 1503 and 1505 also offer broad protection against obstructive acts directed at pending grand jury, judicial, administrative, and congressional proceedings, and they are supplemented by a provision

in Section 1512(b) aimed specifically at conduct intended to prevent or hinder the communication to law enforcement of information related to a federal crime.

Constitutional defenses. As for constitutional defenses arising from the President's status as the head of the Executive Branch, we recognized that the Department of Justice and the courts have not definitively resolved these issues. We therefore examined those issues through the framework established by Supreme Court precedent governing separation-of-powers issues. The Department of Justice and the President's personal counsel have recognized that the President is subject to statutes that prohibit obstruction of justice by bribing a witness or suborning perjury because that conduct does not implicate his constitutional authority. With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.

Under applicable Supreme Court precedent, the Constitution does not categorically and permanently immunize a President for obstructing justice through the use of his Article II powers. The separation-of-powers doctrine authorizes Congress to protect official proceedings, including those of courts and grand juries, from corrupt, obstructive acts regardless of their source. We also concluded that any inroad on presidential authority that would occur from prohibiting corrupt acts does not undermine the President's ability to fulfill his constitutional mission. The term "corruptly" sets a demanding standard. It requires a concrete showing that a person acted with an intent to obtain an improper advantage for himself or someone else, inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others. A preclusion of "corrupt" official action does not diminish the President's ability to exercise Article Il powers. For example, the proper supervision of criminal law does not demand freedom for the President to act with a corrupt intention of shielding himself from criminal punishment, avoiding financial liability, or preventing personal embarrassment. To the contrary, a statute that prohibits official action undertaken for such corrupt purposes furthers, rather than hinders, the impartial and evenhanded administration of the law. It also aligns with the President's constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws. Finally, we concluded that in the rare case in which a criminal investigation of the President's conduct is justified, inquiries to determine whether the President acted for a corrupt motive should not impermissibly chill his performance of his constitutionally assigned duties. The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President's corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.

CONCLUSION

Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President's conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

Apollo 11

I remember this day 50 years ago.

My family and I were gathered in the front room of a Jersey Shore vacation rental house. Avalon?

It was dark except for the glow of the black and white TV in the corner. An air of quiet, reverent excitement filled the room.

At age 5, I didn't quite understand it all. But I was being told by my mother and father and oldest brother, Brian, that this was an important moment. Shsh. Watch. I was told in response to a six-year-old's innocent questions.

And so we all focused with rapt attention on the glowing TV like we were watching the climax of a suspenseful thriller. We watched in awe Neil Armstrong take his first steps on the moon.

Like I said I didn't quite understand it all. But it's a life episode burned in my memory.
A found memory with all my family together, my younger brother, Brendan, next to me on the floor, sitting too close to the TV as usual.

But my father, this time, didn't seem to mind.

American Dream Or American Scheme?

"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."

-- Edward R. Murrow

Forget the irony. The hypocrisy is suffocating.The grandstanding insufferable. The cruel indifference, disgusting. The crimes against humanity right under our noses, blatantly, gratingly criminal.

President Donald Trump has twisted the "American Dream" into a lurid, conniving, vain American scheme. And it will be on full, obnoxious display this Fourth of July 2019.

Happy Independence Day.

As we Americans -- purported champions of truth, justice and human decency -- fly Old Glory and fire up our BBQ grilles to celebrate our democratic liberties, we'd do well to consider whether those liberties we espouse so readily, are sound.

Just pause long enough in between rushed purchases of red, white and blue plastic hats and paper plates at Wal-Mart, to ask:

Are we still truly America -- "home of the brave" and "land of the free"?

If so, then where's the overwhelming brave citizen outrage defending those espoused freedoms in the face of unprecedented, destabilizing criminal threats to the Republic?

Fresh off another troubling, cringe worthy performance on the national stage -- shunning our allies and embracing murderous dictators at the G-20 summit -- while his punishing immigration policy imprisons thousands of children in concentration camps -- President Donald Trump plans to throw a grand ol' party.

For himself.

At our expense.

On our Independence Day.

Now, to be sure, this Fourth of July at the nation's capital there will be plenty of due homage to our patriots of the past and present, who have fought and died to win and defend our freedoms as a sovereign Republic.

It should end there.

But, it won't. Indications are that The Donald's professed "Salute To America" will pretty much be about The Donald.

Trump intends to contort America's most celebrated national holiday, typically geared toward honoring the brave freedom fighting Colonists who shed their blood for our Independence from imperialist England some 240 years ago, into essentially a Trump 2020 campaign rally.

Unspoken campaign slogan: "Keep America Grating."

The same narcissist whose policy has perpetuated the suffering of desperate Central American migrants, separating adults from their children and caging them like wild animals for months on end so his corporate campaign donors can reap daily dividends, ultimately scoring millions of dollars for literally caging kids -- is going to outdo his predecessors.

Trump plans to stage the most opulent and garish of Independence Day commemorations dating back to 1801 when  President Thomas Jefferson first opened the White House doors to the public for the nation's fireworks-punctuated birthday bash.

Big deal.

After all, P.T. Barnum, the world's first greatest showman in the 19th Century, once said: "The public appears disposed to be amused even when they are conscious of being deceived."

But there's a danger in all the vain hoopla, of course, as it's orchestrated to mask Trump's criminal degradation of America; the insidiously abnormal is incrementally being normalized.

How long can a society endure the incessant, corrupting eroding of American ideals under a demagogue like Trump without a devastating, lingering impact on our values?

We've already seen hates crimes spike in the States starting dramatically in 2017, Trump's first year in the Oval Office; the nation hasn't been so divided since the Civil War.

Surely, the Fourth in Washington D.C., with Trump as the ringmaster, will be a spectacle. A hard-to-resist circus sideshow extravaganza which would make showman Barnum, Trump's admitted mentor, proud. 

Supplicant major cable and network news channels no doubt will be tuned into the gaudy attraction, further legitimizing the unfit leader in return for consistent jacked ratings.

By doing so, the nightly cable and network news is guilty of just the kind of dereliction of duty that legendary TV broadcast pioneer Edward R. Morrow, who exposed the Communist fear-mongering of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950's, specifically warned the broadcast industry against.

"This instrument (TV) can teach, it can illuminate; yes, it can even Inspire," said Murrow in a 1958 speech to the Radio-TV News Directors Association. "But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it's nothing but wires and lights in a box.."

Anymore, we're pretty much stuck staring at "wires and lights in a box" -- deprived of anything inspiring or edifying particularly when Trump's tiresome mug fills the boob tube screen.

Non-the-less, snubbing tradition, the President intends to be intimately involved with D.C's Fourth of July festivities -- perhaps marching in a Bastille Day-like military parade, speaking at The Lincoln Memorial or stroking an M1A1 Abrams tank or two. 

Trump may have signed a 4.6 billion border bill on Monday, reportedly to improve care of the migrants in detention centers and bolster border security. But the measure fails to enforce the 90-day stay limit and doesn't allow legislators to inspect the facilities unannounced, as Democrats had pushed for.

In the meantime, the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General announced Tuesday it had discovered squalid, over-crowded conditions at detention centers for asylum-seeking migrants near the border, confirming Democrats' recent discoveries.

"No child should ever be separated from their parent," said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, an outspoken critic of the detention centers, she appropriately described as "concentration camps." "No child should ever be taken from their family. They should be given water, they should be given access to human rights."

So, as the President delivers his scheduled Lincoln Memorial address about America's "tremendous" military might and our "great" democratic ideals, chances are brown-skinned children as young as two years old, with runny noses and wearing dirty diapers, may still be in need of water and sitting on cold, concrete floors just so Republican campaign donors like private prison companies, GEO Group & CoreCivic, can make millions of dollars.

"No child ever has to suffer for the benefit of another," added Ocasio-Cortez.

Fox News viewers falling for the liar-in-chief's "fake news" claims on the whole matter, 

should ask themselves why in the past week the acting director of Customs & Border Patrol resigned and typically Conservative-accommodating Bank of America announced it would stop financing the for-profit immigrant detention centers.

Just follow the money. At an estimated cost of $775 a day to house a single child, the federal government last year shelled out $2 billion to private prison companies. One company has cashed in on $43 million just since September for shuttling immigrants to camps.

As one private prison executive has said plainly, the President's immigration policy is "good for business."

Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jerry Nadler on Monday described the long-term housing of migrant children, he's witnessed in person, as "disgusting" and  "criminal."

"This clearly is child abuse and subject to prosecution," said Nadler. "It violates probably half a dozen laws."

Of course, Trump on the Fourth, will be surrounded by the exceedingly disingenuous and criminally complicit. The Republican National Committee reportedly is handing out VIP tickets for front row seats to big-time campaign donors. 

And don't be surprised if Trump propagandist outlet Fox News touts an exclusive sit down with the ever conflicted commander-in-chief.

As is the norm, the public are invited too.
But, Trump's grandiose plans suggest a logistics nightmare for the Washington D.C. police, as the fireworks display shift away from the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to the West Potomac Park for the first time 20 years.

In the end, it won't have mattered how much fireworks, patriotic anthems, pompous poses and preposterous platitudes that ambitious White House loyalists squeeze into a single celebratory day -- meant only to sway the complacent and gullible towards viewing the impulsively autocratic President in a kinder, gentler light.

The truth is out there and it's begging to be seen and heard by folks who give a damn and are willing at least to not pretend all is copacetic in the White House.

If the American people somehow were to be swayed into a false sense of patriotic-infused security, by the intentionally distracting, manipulative Reality TV circus this Thursday, it's another resounding step towards game over.

If we were to forget Trump's dysfunctional behavior abroad or ignore his relentless divisive incites, obstruction of RussiaGate and his tortuous treatment of desperate southern border migrants in our homeland, we'll have abandoned our moral right to defend ourselves from the White House deception in the future.

Here, the words of the late famed American writer Gore Vidal forbode: "We are the United States of Amnesia, we learn nothing because we remember nothing."

Yeah, Trump is a fool and yeah he's dangerous as hell, the overwhelmed majority of Americans seem to be saying, but I got to take out the trash, feed the dog and kick the cat. No time to sweat it.

But, if the President's inhumane immigration policy, that has overseen the deaths of at least six children this year, doesn't ultimately dictate the end of Trump's presidency, it may just lead to our end as a free people.

What would stop an emboldened Trump, who has demonstrated not a sliver of compassion as he trashes our constitution and our country, from going further and start caging political opponents or members of The Press -- which he has repeatedly accused as "enemies of the people" and purveyors of "fake news"?

We already know that the President feels more kinship with the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korea's Kim Jong-un and the Saudi Crown Prince than he does with our allies.

As TV and radio broadcast pioneer, Murrow, exposed McCarthyism's oppressive overreach in a 1954 CBS address, he accused McCarthy of causing "alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad" and giving "considerable comfort to our enemies." 

That's exactly what Trump is doing.

Now, is the time to speak out and stand up to crimes against humanity -- signed, sealed and delivered not by the Democrats, or President Barrack Obama, but undeniably by our authoritarian President. 

It's Trump's policy that has reportedly lost track of an estimated one thousand immigrant children, as if they were mere slips of paper in an overwhelmed accounting system. 

Abetted by loyalist Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, it's Trump's policy, bereft of humanity or justice, that is exacerbating the desperate situation at the border -- and further dividing our nation.

So, yeah as we rightfully embrace our freedoms as Americans this July 4, we should be as mindful as ever of the old saying, "Freedom isn't free."

As President Trump, immersed in militaristic grandeur, embarks on his nationalistic speech before an immortalized President Abraham Lincoln, he should be reminded of a line from Murrow's 1954 landmark televised confrontation of McCarthyism.

"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."

(Kevin McKinney is freelance writer and former daily newspaper journalist living at the Jersey Shore. His writing has appeared in publications across the country, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Hill, The Spokesman Review, Knoxville News Sentinel, CounterPunch and McClatchy Newspapers. He tweets @WriteFight99. Email: mckinneywrites@outlook.com)