Ball of Collusion

by Andrew C. McCarthy

  25. Isikoff and Corn, Russian Roulette, supra.

  26. Bruce Ohr House Testimony, supra; Carter Page FISA warrant application (second) (January 2017), p. 17 & n.8 (p. 100 of disclosure package).

  27. See, e.g., Schiff Memo, supra, p. 3 (allegedly supporting endnote 6 (p. 8) is redacted); Lisa Page Testimony, House Judiciary Committee (July 13, 2018), pp. 126-27; see also Jeff Carlson, “Exclusive: Transcripts of Lisa Page’s Closed-Door Testimonies Provide New Revelations in Spygate Scandal” (Epoch Times, Jan. 11, 2019) (in House testimony, Lisa Page replied “That is correct, sir,” to question stating that she did not have knowledge of Steele’s unverified memos “prior to the middle part of September”); Mike Levine, “Trump ‘dossier’ stuck in New York, didn’t trigger investigation, sources say” (ABC News, Sept. 18, 2018); Chuck Ross, “Ex-FBI Lawyer Claims He Was ‘Concerned’ with Steele Dossier, But Still Used It to Get Carter Page Spy Warrant” (Daily Caller, May 18, 2018); Margot Cleveland, “Strzok Testimony Suggests Steele Dossier Did Help Launch FBI’s Trump Investigation” (The Federalist, March 15, 2019).

  28. Bruce Ohr House Testimony, supra, pp. 10-48, 70-83, 168-184; John Solomon, “FISA shocker: DOJ official warned Steele dossier was connected to Clinton, might be biased” (The Hill, Jan. 16, 2019); Kim Strassel, “What Bruce Ohr Told Congress” (Wall Street Journal, Aug. 30, 2018); York, “Emails show 2016 links among Steele, Ohr, Simpson—with Russian oligarch in background,” supra.

  29. Victoria Nuland, Testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee (June 20, 2018); Chuck Ross, “Revealed: Christopher Steele Visited State Department Shortly Before 2016 Election” (June 20, 2018).

  30. Emily Tillett, “Victoria Nuland says Obama State Dept. informed FBI of reporting from Steele dossier” (CBS News Face the Nation, Feb. 4, 2018); Ross, “Revealed: Christopher Steele Visited State Department Shortly Before 2016 Election,” supra.

  31. Marisa Schultz, “CNN drops Brazile for feeding debate questions to Clinton” (New York Post, Oct. 31, 2016).

  32. Chuck Ross, “Exclusive: Cambridge Prof with CIA, MI6 Ties Met with Trump Adviser During Campaign, Beyond” (Daily Caller, May 17, 2018); Jerry Dunleavy, “Stefan Halper: The Cambridge don the FBI sent to spy on Trump” (Washington Examiner, April 10, 2019).

  33. It was not until a private briefing in August that CIA Director Brennan informed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that Russia was responsible for hacking the DNC … and suggested that Trump could be complicit. Isikoff and Corn, Russian Roulette, supra; Scarborough, “Obama aide started Christopher Steele-FBI alliance,” supra.

  CHAPTER 12

  1. Josh Marshal, “Trump & Putin. Yes, It’s Really a Thing” (Talking Points Memo, July 23, 2016); Strzok-Page Texts, Justice Department Production to Senate Judiciary Committee (2018), pp. 0000199 & ff.

  2. In point of fact, as Byron York has related, the party platform was tough on the Kremlin, promising to “meet the return of Russian belligerence with the same resolve that le to the collapse of the Soviet Union,” and to refuse to “accept territorial change in Eastern Europe imposed by force, in Ukraine or elsewhere.” One delegate proposed an amendment, urging the provision of “lethal defense weapons.” One Trump campaign national security adviser, J.D. Gordon, found this objectionable as not in keeping with the candidate’s preference to improve relations with Russia and induce Europeans to take more responsibility for European conflicts. Trump never weighed in on the platform. Gordon suggested tweaking “lethal defense weapons” to “appropriate assistance.” He claims not to have gotten firm guidance on this point from his campaign superiors; the campaign’s policy director, John Mashburn, says he countered that the candidate had not taken a position so the campaign should not interfere. Meanwhile, the alternative language was adopted, with Mashburn concluding Gordon had disregarded his directive that the campaign take a hands-off approach to the platform. Mueller Report, Vol. I, pp. 124-27; York, “What really happened with the GOP platform and Russia” (Washington Examiner, Nov. 26, 2017).

  3. Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, and Nicholas Fandos, “Code Name Crossfire Hurricane: The Secret Origins of the Trump Investigation” (New York Times, May 16, 2018); Andrew C. McCarthy, “The Strzok-Page Texts and the Origins of the Trump–Russia Investigation” (National Review, May 14, 2018).

  4. Michael Burke, “Brennan on Mueller summary: ‘I suspected there was more than there actually was’” (The Hill, March 25, 2019).

  5. Andrew C. McCarthy, “The Steele Dossier and the ‘Verified Application’ That Wasn’t” (National Review, May 18, 2018); Greg Re and Catherine Herridge, “Dispute erupts over whether Brennan, Comey pushed Steele dossier, as DOJ probe into misconduct begins” (Fox News, May 15, 2019).

  6. Greg Miller, Ellen Nakashima, and Adam Entous, “Obama’s secret struggle to punish Russia for Putin’s election assault” (Washington Post, June 23, 2017).

  7. These are the Senate majority and minority leaders, the Speaker of the House and the House minority leader, and the chairperson and ranking member of both the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. In summer 2016, these were, respectively, Senators Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid, Speaker Paul Ryan and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, and Representatives Devin Nunes and Adam Schiff. See, e.g., Title 50, U.S. Code, Section 3093(c)(2).

  8. Chris Cillizza, “Harry Reid lied about Mitt Romney’s taxes. He’s still not sorry.” (Sept. 15, 2016).

  9. Brennan Testimony, House Intelligence Committee (May 23, 2017); Jeff Carlson, “John Brennan Heads for the Exits” (Epoch Times, May 25, 2017).

  10. Letter of Senator Harry Reid (D., Nev.), Minority Leader, to FBI Director James Comey (Aug. 27, 2018).

  11. See Lee Smith, “How CIA Director John Brennan Targeted James Comey—The Russia investigation put the FBI in a bind well before Trump ever landed in the White House” (Tablet, Feb. 9, 2018).

  12. Stefan A. Halper and Jonathan Clarke, The Silence of the Rational Center: Why American Foreign Policy is Failing (Basic Books, 2007); see also Halper and Clarke, America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order (Cambridge University Press, 2004). To be sure, Halper’s thoughtful work would appeal to Trump supporters’ distaste for the Wilsonian impulses of Bush-43 foreign policy, particularly the “pre-emptive” war in Iraq and “Big Ideas” like Islamic democracy promotion. Halper, however, is a devotee of Trump’s bugaboo, “the Swamp,” arguing for more reliance on the stabilizing influence of government experts, think-tankers, and academics, rather than what he regards as sloganeering and appeals to emotion and bias.

  13. Andrew Kaczynski, “Trump in 2008: Hillary Clinton will ‘go down at a minimum as a great senator’” (CNN, Oct. 19, 2016).

  14. Khorri Atkinson, “Trump meets with Kissinger for the third time” (Axios, Feb. 8, 2018).

  15. Byron York, “Trump campaign vet: Informant used me to get to Papadopoulos” (Washington Examiner, May 28, 2018).

  16. Adam Goldman, Michael S. Schmidt, and Mark Mazzetti, “F.B.I. Sent Investigator Posing as Assistant to Meet With Trump Aide in 2016” (New York Times, May 2, 2019).

  17. Ibid.

  18. Ibid.; see also Dunleavy, “Stefan Halper: The Cambridge don the FBI sent to spy on Trump,” supra (noting that the FBI tasked Halper to meet with Page and Papadopoulos, but that “it is not known if [Halper’s contact with Clovis] was done with the authorization of the FBI”).

  19. Goldman et al., “F.B.I. Sent Investigator Posing as Assistant to Meet With Trump Aide in 2016,” supra.

  20. Chuck Ross, “Cambridge Professor Spied on Trump Campaign Advisers” (Daily Caller, May 19, 2018).

  21. Chuck Ross, “Papadopoulos Details His Interactions with ‘Spygate’ Figure and Steele Source” (Daily Caller, Sept. 8, 2018); Marshall Cohen, “Papadopoulos breaks silence, ‘can’t guarantee he didn’t tell Trump campaign about Russian dirt’” (Jake Tapper Interview of George Papadopoulos) (CNN, Sept. 8, 2018); R
oss, “Exclusive: Cambridge Prof with CIA, MI6 Ties Met with Trump Adviser During Campaign, Beyond” (Daily Caller, May 17, 2018); Daniel Chaitan, “FBI informant’s assistant who met George Papadopoulos was undercover” (Washington Examiner, May 2, 2019); Goldman et al, “F.B.I. Sent Investigator Posing as Assistant to Meet With Trump Aide in 2016,” supra.

  22. Goldman et al, “F.B.I. Sent Investigator Posing as Assistant to Meet With Trump Aide in 2016,” supra.

  23. Papadopoulos later falsely told The Washington Post that the Trump campaign had arranged the interview, told him what to say, and complimented him afterwards; in fact, the Russian outlet, Interfax, contacted Papadopoulos directly, and, though the campaign authorized him to do the interview, its reaction was disapproving. T. A. Frank, “The Surreal Life of George Papadopoulos” (Washington Post Magazine, May 20, 2019).

  24. Rosalind Helderman and Tom Hamburger, “Sergey Millian, identified as an unwitting source for the Steele dossier, sought proximity to Trump’s world in 2016” (Washington Post, Feb. 7, 2019); Ross, “Papadopoulos Details His Interactions with ‘Spygate’ Figure and Steele Source,” supra; Brooke Singman, “Ex-Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos says FBI asked him to wear a wire: transcript” (Fox News, March 29, 2019); George Papadopoulos, Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump (Diversion Books, 2019).

  25. Mueller Report, Vol. I, p. 94.

  26. Josh Gerstein, “George Papadopoulos’ late night with the FBI—‘Law enforcement likes to get somebody’s attention as much as they can in a lawful way,’ one of his lawyers said of the July arrest” (Politico, Dec. 4, 2017): Singman, “Ex-Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos says FBI asked him to wear a wire: transcript,” supra.

  CHAPTER 13

  1. Jessica Durando, “Trump says ‘I have nothing to do with Russia.’ That’s not exactly true” (USA Today, Jan. 11, 2017); Donald J. Trump Tweet, Jan. 11, 2019.

  2. Cohen is the infamous figure at the center of payoffs made to the pornographic actress “Stormy Daniels” (real name Stephanie Clifford) and former Playboy model Karen McDougal to buy their silence about trysts they claim to have had with Donald Trump about a decade before he ran for president. In addition to tax- and bank-fraud offenses, Cohen has pled guilty to election-law violations, on the legally debatable theory that the non-disclosure payments were in-kind campaign contributions required to be reported under federal law. In entering his plea in Manhattan federal court (the Southern District of New York), Cohen allocuted that Donald Trump had directed him to make the payments. Subsequently, Cohen pled guilty in the Mueller probe to lying to Congress about the temporal extent of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations. Andrew C. McCarthy, “Cohen’s Congressional Testimony Portends Danger for Trump” (National Review, March 7, 2019); McCarthy, “Takeaways from the House Democrats’ Cohen Hearing” (National Review, March 1, 2019); McCarthy, “Trump Tower Meeting Silently Looms Over Cohen’s False-Statements Plea” (National Review, Nov. 29, 2018); McCarthy, “On Hush Money, the President’s Best Defense Is Lack of Criminal Intent” (National Review, Aug. 25, 2018).

  3. United States v. Michael Cohen, No. 18 Crim. 850 (S.D.N.Y., 2018), Criminal Information (Nov. 2018); Ilya Arkhipov, “Russia’s Peskov Shares 2016 Emails from Ex-Trump Lawyer Cohen” (Bloomberg, Nov. 30, 2018).

  4. We met Sater briefly in a Chapter 9 endnote (33), detailing the surmise, never established as fact, that he was a source for the Steele dossier; as well as the intriguing fact that he was prosecuted and induced to become an informant by Loretta Lynch and Andrew Weissmann, respectively, Obama’s attorney general, and the chief of the Obama Justice Department’s fraud section—and, later, Robert Mueller’s deputy in the Trump–Russia probe. On the question whether Sater was a Steele source, it should be noted that there is nothing in the Steele dossier about Trump Tower Moscow; to the contrary, the dossier states that while the Kremlin had tried to entice Trump with favorable real estate deals, Trump did not bite. In fact, Trump had a major real estate deal under negotiation, but there is no evidence that the Kremlin initiated it … though, in Russia, regime approval would plainly be needed for a project of that kind—which is why Cohen was talking to Peskov’s office. See also Matt Apuzzo and Maggie Haberman, “Trump Associate Boasted That Moscow Business Deal ‘Will Get Donald Elected’” (New York Times, Aug. 28, 2017). See also, Grace Segers, “Who is Felix Sater and what’s his role in Michael Cohen’s plea deal?” (CBS News, Nov. 29, 2018); Kerry Picket, “House Intel Witness Felix Sater Was Part of Loretta Lynch’s Secret Docket” (Daily Caller, March 2, 2019); Chuck Ross, “Russian-born Businessman Linked to Trump Claims to Have Been US Spy” (Daily Caller, March 12, 2018).

  5. Medvedev is Russia’s prime minister and Putin’s flunkey. He kept the president’s chair warm for four years beginning in 2008 so the dictator could pretend to honor Russia’s constitutional term limits. In 2012, Putin went back to being president and Medvedev (who had been deputy prime minster prior to standing in as president in 2008) became being prime minister—all elected in Russia’s thriving democracy, of course.

  6. Cameron Sperance, “Meet Aras Agalarov, The Russian Developer Connecting the Trumps and Putin” (Forbes, July 12, 2017); David Ignatius, “A History of Donald Trump’s business dealings in Russia” (Washington Post, Nov. 2, 2017); Michael Birnbaum, “Here’s what the businessman who brokered the Russia meeting with Trump Jr. said in an interview last year” (Washington Post, July 11, 2017).

  7. Andrew C. McCarthy, “A Second Fusion GPS Dossier Implicated Clinton Foundation Donors” (National Review, Nov. 10, 2017).

  8. United States v. Prevezon Holdings LTD, et al., No. 13 Civ. 632 (TPG) (S.D.N.Y. 2018), Complaint (Sept. 10, 2013).

  9. Jamila Trindle, “The Magnitsky Flip-Flop—The Obama administration was against Russia sanctions before it was for them” (Foreign Policy, May 15, 2014).

  10. Safely back in Russia, Ms. Veselnitskaya will never be extradited to face U.S. prosecution. United States v. Natalya Vladimirovna Veselnitskaya, No. 18 Cr. 908 (S.D.N.Y. 2018), Indictment (Jan. 8, 2018); Benjamin Weiser and Sharon LaFraniere, “Veselnitskaya, Russian in Trump Tower Meeting, Is Charged in Case That Shows Kremlin Ties” (New York Times, Jan. 8, 2019).

  11. Putin is peddling the claimed that Browder, not the Kremlin, is the mastermind of the fraud. He managed to have Browder, a British national, placed on an Interpol watch list in hopes of apprehending him. Remarkably, even as it sued Prevezon on theory that the regime was the culprit, the U.S. government revoked Browder’s passport based on Putin’s machinations. The revocation has since been lifted. See “Interpol Should Remove William Browder from Its Watch List” (National Review editorial, Oct. 24, 2017); Jay Nordlinger, “Why Is Bill Browder Banned from America?” (National Review, Oct. 22, 2017); see also Bill Browder, Red Notice—A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice (Simon & Schuster, 2015); David J. Kramer, “I’m on Putin’s hit list but I’m not the real victim” (Politico, July 22, 2018)

  12. Glenn Simpson Senate Testimony, supra, pp. 114, 131-35.

  13. Simpson Senate Testimony, supra, pp. 27-52, 83, 99-101, 107-36. Edward Baumgarten, a Russian translator, worked on both cases, as did Simpson himself.

  14. Forbes ranks the Ziff family as among the nation’s wealthiest. Three brothers, Daniel, Robert, and Dirk, used a vehicle called Ziff Brothers Investments for various purposes, including political donations. Russia’s general prosecutor, Yuri Chaika, announced in June 2017 that his agency had presented to U.S. officials “serious evidence of violations of the law by Browder and the Ziff brothers.” Russia’s Browder obsession was on display in June 2018, when Putin met with President Trump in Helsinki; the Russian strongman repeated his standing allegation that Browder and his associates have evaded taxes on over a billion dollars in Russian income, then added the absurd claim that “they sent a huge amount—$400 million—as a contribution to the campaign of Hillary Clinton.” Andrew C. McCarthy, �
�Trump Bites on Putin’s ‘Incredible Offer’” (National Review, July 21, 2018); David Kocieniewski, Greg Farrell, Peter Robinson, and Bob Van Voris, “Russian Lawyer Who Met Trump Jr. Saw Clinton Scandal in Tax Inquiry” (Forbes, July 12, 2017); Ziff Family Profile (Forbes, June 29, 2016) (estimating net worth at $14.4 billion); Mueller Report, Vol. I, p. 117.

  15. Jo Becker, Matt Apuzzo, and Adam Goldman, “Trump’s Son Met With Russian Lawyer After Being Promised Damaging Information on Clinton” (New York Times, July 9, 2017).

  16. Simpson Senate Testimony, supra, pp. 114-19, 131-35.

  17. Mueller Report, Vol. I, pp. 114-15.

  18. Sharon LaFraniere, David D. Kirkpatrick, and Kenneth Vogel, “Lobbyist at Trump Campaign Meeting Has a Web of Russian Connections” (New York Times, Aug. 21, 2017); Mike Eckel, “Who Is Rinat Akhmetshin, the Russian-American Lobbyist Who Met With Trump’s Son?” (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, July 14, 2017); Simpson Senate Testimony, supra, pp. 107-13, 121, 254, 273-74.

  19. In December 2016, Simpson assured Justice Department official Bruce Ohr (according to Ohr’s notes,” Much of the collection about the Trump campaign ties to Russia comes from a former Russian intelligence officer (? not entirely clear) who lives in the U.S.” Lee Smith reports that Akhmetshin “served in the Soviet Union’s military counterintelligence service”; The New York Times is less assertive, reporting that Akhmetshin “worked with a military counterintelligence unit” after being drafted at age 18 to fight in the Red Army’s war in Afghanistan, “but said he never joined Russian intelligence services—unlike his father, sister and godfather.” As we noted in Chapter 12, Steele told the State Department that Vyacheslav Trubnikov, the former head of Russia’s external intelligence service, was one of his main sources. Unlike Akhmetshin, Trubnikov is not U.S.-based, and his intelligence experience is with the KGB and the SVR, not military intelligence (GRU). Interestingly, Simpson, who was trying to protect sources when he testified before the Senate, told congressional investigators that he does not know whether Steele knows Akhmetshin. Lee Smith, “2016 Trump Tower Meeting Looks Increasingly Like a Setup by Russian and Clinton Operatives” (Real Clear Investigations, Aug. 13, 2018); John Solomon, “The handwritten notes exposing what Fusion GPS told DOJ about Trump” (The Hill, Aug. 9, 2018); LaFraniere, et al., “Lobbyist at Trump Campaign Meeting Has a Web of Russian Connections,” supra; Simpson Senate Testimony, supra, pp. 254, 273-74.