Ball of Collusion

by Andrew C. McCarthy

  The FBI and other government intelligence agencies have tried to keep the name and any photographs of “Azra Turk” out of news reporting. They were similarly protective of Halper when his role emerged. This is entirely appropriate. We need people willing to do the often dangerous work of covert intelligence operations in order to protect the United States. We will not find willing people if the government becomes notorious for failing to safeguard their identities, endangering them and their loved ones. Nevertheless, the indignant anger over questions about the Crossfire Hurricane undercover operations displayed by current and former government officials is misplaced.

  There are many crucial public interests at stake in this controversy, including the right of the American people to govern themselves through election processes kept free of tampering by the incumbent government. It is remarkable that commentators who rightly worry about external interference in our campaigns by foreign powers are insouciant regarding the dire threat of internal interference by government officials. The latter threat is more insidious: Foreign meddling is apt to be presumed adversarial, so we are on guard. U.S. officials, by contrast, act under the color of legal authority and we generally presume their good faith. They are in a position to do more damage (which, by the way, is exactly the reasoning of critics who argue that Trump’s transgressions against presidential norms are dangerously destabilizing).

  This insouciance, moreover, is blatantly partisan. The media–Democrat complex is quick to assume that Republican administrations will abuse their intelligence and law-enforcement powers for partisan ends. When it comes, however, to the potentially abusive actions of Democratic administrations, any questioning or call for examination of patently suspect decisions, such as the decision to investigate the opposition political campaign, is limned as a reckless attack on our institutions and the rule of law itself.

  With the charge of recklessness, the shoe should be on the other foot. If our law enforcement and intelligence agencies do not want inquiries into their use of informants and other spying tactics, then they need to use them judiciously.

  As a former prosecutor, I can assure you that there are many things prosecutors are permitted by law to do but which are not done in the vast majority of cases because, if applied, they would be seen as overkill. In most cases, it is not necessary, for example, to break a company with subpoenas and indictments; to charge trifling crimes against the wives or children of a suspect; to demand fee information or other testimony from a suspect’s lawyer; to subpoena a journalist in order to identify a source. The law might allow such things to be done, but in most situations, the public would rightly see them as abuses of power. The authority to take extreme measures exists because there is the rare, extraordinary case in which doing so might be appropriate and necessary—in which a factual predicate justifies drastic investigative tactics. But before such tactics are used, good investigators have a thoughtful discussion along the lines of “Are we going to be able to defend this?”

  In this country, it is the public’s right (and a properly functioning media’s responsibility) to question government officials’ use of the powers we entrust to them. That means the onus is on government investigators to consider beforehand whether the tactics they contemplate using are appropriate. They should not be heard, after the fact, to complain, “How dare you ask me that?” And obviously: If they had a sound reason, grounded in real evidence, for suspecting a presidential candidate was in a corrupt conspiracy with a foreign power, they should not only be able to tell us what it is; they should be anxious to tell us what it is.

  Papadopoulos: Carrots and Sticks

  Pursuant to the FBI’s direction, Halper on September 2, 2016, sent Papadopoulos an unsolicited email, offering him a $3,000 honorarium to write a policy paper on a Mediterranean natural gas project involving Turkey, Israel, and Cyprus—ingratiatingly pitched as Papadopoulos’s area of expertise. The young Trump adviser was then in the United States, but the Cambridge professor offered to fly him to London and lodge him, all at Halper’s expense, for academic discussions on the subject. Papadopoulos accepted the offer.

  As this book goes to press, the Obama administration’s decision to use informants is under scrutiny by the Justice Department’s inspector-general and prosecutors. Trying to get out in front of those inquiries, unidentified “people familiar with the F.B.I. activities of Mr. Halper, Ms. Turk, and the inspector general’s investigation” described those activities to The New York Times. Tellingly, they explained that Ms. Turk, a well-trained investigator, was assigned to provide “a layer of oversight” for Halper, and because she would be able to “serve as a credible witness in any potential prosecution that emerged from the case” (emphasis added). This underscores a major and abusive flaw of the Trump–Russia investigation: in the absence of a solid factual predicate for a criminal investigation, foreign counterintelligence powers were used as a pretext to dig for criminal evidence that would support a hoped-for prosecution.

  Just as telling is what Turk said to Papadopoulos when they first met in a London bar on September 15. Posing as Halper’s research assistant, Turk buzzed the adviser with a direct question: Was the Trump campaign working with Russia? Not “Was Papadopoulos working with Russia?” Not “Do you know whether your fellow Trump adviser Carter Page is working with Russia?” The investigative theory here was the theory of the Steele dossier, the theory of John Brennan, the theory that Downer and the State Department conveyed to the FBI: the campaign run by Donald Trump was scheming with Russia.

  Turk texted Papadopoulos as soon as he arrived in London, to invite him for drinks. Clearly, the fact that Turk is alluring and was quick to be social was meant to beguile Papadopoulos—to put him at ease to discuss incriminating topics he might otherwise be unwilling to touch on. In the end, Turk sent Papadopoulos emails saying that meeting him had been the “highlight of my trip” and gushing, “I am excited about what the future holds for us :)”—the smiley-face symbol accentuating the point. An unidentified source told the Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross that Turk flirted heavily with Papadopoulos and later attempted (apparently unsuccessfully) to meet Papadopoulos in Chicago, where he lives.20

  Papadopoulos, however, had nothing to give Turk and Halper. His first London meeting, in the cozy bar, was with Turk alone. Her bracing questions about the Trump campaign and Russia got nowhere. The following day, Papadopoulos met Halper at a private club in London, with Turk joining the conversation. It appears that this was just a get-to-know-each-other session. But Papadopoulos and Halper agreed to meet again the next day for drinks at the Sofitel hotel on the West End, sans Turk. This time, Halper jumped right in, asking Papadopoulos loaded questions about the hacked emails and how exactly Russia was helping the Trump campaign. As later described by Papadopoulos, they were the inculpatory questions an informant would typically ask a suspect he was covertly recording, along the lines of: “So George, hacking is in the interest of your campaign. Of course the Russians are helping you … and of course you’re probably involved in it, too. That’s correct, right George?” Papadopoulos says he was livid at Halper’s insinuations, telling him, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Papadopoulos recalls it as an unpleasant conversation, with the older man sweating in the role of aggressive interrogator. The Trump adviser claims to have ended the meeting abruptly and angrily.

  I have my doubts about how angry he could have been: Papadopoulos did write the paper for Halper, deliver it as requested in October, and collect the $3,000.21

  It is worth observing here that the FBI would not undertake such an undercover operation in London without the blessing of British authorities. The Times suggestively notes that “British intelligence officials were also notified about the operation, the people familiar with the operation said, but it was unclear whether they provided assistance.” What is clear is that the venture was a bust. The paper’s sources conceded, “The London operation yielded no fruitful information.”22 If I may translate, in th
e Obama administration’s Trump–Russia parlance, “fruitful” only means “incriminating.”

  Were Halper and Turk the only covert operatives the government deployed against Papadopoulos? We don’t know. Papadopoulos recounts that, “out of the blue,” he was contacted on LinkedIn by none other than Sergey Millian. The outreach occurred on July 22, the day the hacked DNC emails started being published and about a week before the FBI opened the Crossfire Hurricane probe.

  As we’ve seen, Millian has a history of overhyping his ties to Donald Trump. He struck up a relationship with Papadopoulos, online and in a few in-person meetings. Millian claimed to be working with Trump on real estate ventures, and to have a professional tie to Bashneft, a Russian energy company. In October, the two met at the bar in the Trump International Hotel in Chicago. Papadopoulos says Millian made “some sort of shady business proposal,” in which Papadopoulos would be paid $30,000 per month as a media consultant for the energy firm, but he would be required, simultaneously, to continue working for Trump. Papadopoulos says he smelled a rat and rejected the offer.

  Yet he continued to email and meet with Millian. In October, Papadopoulos was booted from the campaign for making ill-advised comments to the Russian press.23 But at the inauguration festivities after Trump was elected, Papadopoulos ran into Millian, who was accompanied by his music producer friend, Aziz Choukri. According to Papadopoulos, Millian had been meeting with Senator John McCain and other lawmakers. When they met later for cocktails, Papadopoulos claims Choukri blurted out, “Oh, you know, Sergey is working for the FBI,” as Millian looked on sheepishly. Choukri denies the story. While Papadopoulos now says he suspected Millian was an informant, two unidentified sources said to be “familiar with the FBI’s Russia investigation” told The Washington Post that Millian was not working for the Bureau—at least during his interactions with Papadopoulos.24

  Millian, meanwhile, is apparently out of the country, and Special Counsel Mueller’s staff claimed to be unable to interview him.25 This leads to another unseemly episode of prosecutorial innuendo: as with Trump and Page, Mueller claims Papadopoulos cannot be exonerated because his behavior could not be fully evaluated—Mueller was frustrated by Millian’s unavailability. To repeat, it is not an American’s burden to establish his innocence; it is the prosecutor’s burden to prove guilt or, if the prosecutor cannot, to remain silent rather than to smear. Here, the fact is that Mueller had as much access to Papadopoulos as he could have wanted, in addition to two years to investigate him, during which numerous witnesses were interviewed. All Mueller could come up with was a false statement about the date of a meeting.

  Papadopoulos is not a straight shooter. You may have noticed that this book takes his assertions with a grain of salt, and there are few allusions in the endnotes to his “Deep State” memoir. That said, the heavy-handedness of his prosecution is something to behold.

  The FBI formally began interviewing Papadopoulos in January 2017. They never had evidence of a serious crime. Mueller’s staff knew Papadopoulos was represented by counsel, and they could thus have arranged to meet with him at their offices at any point. Instead, they waited until the night of July 27, 2017, when Papadopoulos, then twenty-nine-years-old, landed in the United States on a flight from Germany. If there was an arrest warrant for Papadopoulos at the time, it has never been publicly released. Of course, police do not need a warrant if they have probable cause to make an arrest, but that generally applies to a situation in which they observe a crime being committed and need to intervene lest the suspect flees. Here, the probable cause involved a false statement made months before. There was no legitimate reason to arrest Papadopoulos in this manner. Mueller could have contacted his attorneys and had him surrender at court for processing and a bail hearing. If the point was to get Papadopoulos’s attention, that would have more than done the trick.

  By arresting him at the airport at night—i.e., after the court was closed—prosecutors ensured that Papadopoulos would be shocked, scared, and imprisoned for the night. FBI agents grabbed him as soon as he stepped off his flight in Virginia at about 7 p.m. He could not lawfully have been questioned since prosecutors knew he had retained lawyers. But they also knew those lawyers were in Chicago, so Papadopoulos would not be able to see them—he was permitted to speak to them by phone that night. Records indicate he was not booked at the city detention center in Alexandria until about seven hours later, at 1:45 a.m. That this was a blatant intimidation tactic is shown by what happened in court the next day: Papadopoulos was released on his own recognizance—no posting of bail required. If there was no need for prosecutors to seek a bail package as a hedge against flight, then there was no reason to arrest Papadopoulos in the first place. They did it because they could. They did it as a message that this was just a taste of what was in store for Papadopoulos if he refused to cooperate—which, of course, he did, though to what good end is not clear since there appears to have been no conspiracy his cooperation would have helped uncover.26

  That’s worth keeping in mind when investigators and their backers become indignant at the suggestion that they might occasionally use their awesome powers abusively.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Amateur Hour

  As the FBI and intelligence agencies feverishly hunted down Trump–Russia connections, the Trump campaign made sure they would eventually have some to find—and made matters worse by acting guilty. The Trump campaign’s actions were legal, even if their revelation could have been politically damaging. The president’s dissembling was a gift to his detractors.

  Shortly before being inaugurated, President-elect Trump tweeted, “I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA—NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NOTHING!” He was more expansive at a press conference, claiming that his business dealings with Russians were limited to “selling condos” and one big real-estate deal in Florida, in which he sold to a Russian oligarch for about $100 million a mansion he’d purchased for about $40 million.1

  The president-elect seemed oblivious to the fact that his foes would not accept this as further evidence of his “art of the deal” savvy, but as a $60 million Russian payoff. But that would be the least of the problem. More consequential was the adamant claim of no business dealings with Russia.

  It wasn’t true.

  Trump Tower Moscow

  For years, Trump and his organization had been enticed by the concept of a Trump Tower in Moscow. The idea picked up steam in 2013, when Trump hosted the Miss Universe pageant in the Russian capital. By late 2015, as Trump emerged as a serious candidate for the presidency, the negotiations were gaining traction. Trump’s point-man on the project was Michael Cohen, a Trump organization attorney notable not so much for legal acumen but for his brass-knuckles style and loyalty to the boss.2

  On January 20, 2016, Cohen had an extensive telephone conversation with the personal assistant of Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov. As the eventual criminal charges against Cohen would spell out, the presidential candidate’s lawyer outlined the Moscow project, including a description of “the Russian development company with which the [Trump] company had partnered.” Cohen asked for the Kremlin’s help “in moving the project forward, both in securing land to build the proposed tower and financing the construction.”3

  Cohen had been referred to Peskov by Donald Trump’s friend Felix Sater, who is an interesting character to say the least. Born in Moscow, Sater is a former business partner of Trump’s, having been the managing director of Bayrock Group, a real estate conglomerate involved in the construction of the Trump SoHo building in Manhattan. Sater is also a convicted racketeer and a former (we assume it’s former) government informant.4 He often boasted of ties to Putin. For example, referring to the Trump Tower Moscow project, Sater told Cohen in a November 3, 2015, email:

  Michael[,] I arranged for [Donald Trump’s daughter] Ivanka to sit in Putins [sic] private chair at his desk and office in the Kremlin. I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected. We both
know no one else knows how to pull this off without stupidity or greed getting in the way. I know how to play it and we will get this done. Buddy our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putins [sic] team to buy in on this.

  Sater served as an intermediary between the Trump organization and the Kremlin on the Moscow project. On January 21, the day after Cohen spoke with the Kremlin press official, Sater sent Cohen a message asking him to call: “It’s about Putin. They called today.”

  In the ensuing months, the Moscow project was discussed several times within the Trump company. Cohen separately talked with Trump and Sater about the likelihood that Trump would travel to Russia in connection with the project, potentially to meet in person with Putin. On May 4, Sater sent a message to Cohen explaining that he “had a chat with Moscow,” and that while Cohen could come to Russia for a “pre-meeting trip” at any time, they needed to address whether a potential Trump trip—for a meeting of “the 2 big guys”—would happen “before or after the [Republican] convention” in Cleveland. Cohen responded, “My trip before Cleveland. [Trump’s trip] once he becomes the nominee after the convention.”

  The next day, Sater told Cohen that Putin’s press secretary was extending an invitation for Cohen to be his personal guest at “the St. Petersburg Forum which is Russia’s Davos,” from June 16–19. There was also this carrot: Cohen would get to meet with one or both of Putin and Dmitry Medvedev.5 Sater emphasized that such meetings would not be limited in scope to the Moscow project: “anything you want to discuss including dates and subjects are on the table.”