202. Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States, 544 U.S. 696 and 705–706 (2005).
203. “Attorney General Confirmation Hearing, Day 1,” C-SPAN, January 15, 2019. See also Matt Zapotosky, Carol D. Leonnig, Rosalind S. Helderman, and Devlin Barrett, “Mueller Report to Be Lightly Redacted,” Washington Post, April 17, 2019.
204. Politico Staff, “Full Text: James Comey Testimony on Trump and Russia,” Politico, June 8, 2017.
205. Ibid.
206. Michael S. Schmidt, “Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him to End Flynn Investigation,” New York Times, May 16, 2017; David Lauter, “Trump Asked Comey to Shut Down Investigation of Flynn, New York Times Reports,” Los Angeles Times, May 16, 2017.
207. The Mueller Report, 333.
208. Politico Staff, “Full Text: James Comey Testimony on Trump and Russia,” 66.
209. Ibid., 20.
210. Washington Post Staff, “Read Full Testimony of FBI Director James Comey in Which He Discusses Clinton Email Investigation,” Washington Post, May 3, 2017.
211. Alex Pappas, “Mueller Releases Flynn Files Showing FBI Doubts over ‘Lying,’ Tensions over Interview,” Fox News, December 14, 2018.
212. Confidential Memo to Mueller from Trump Legal Team, January 29, 2018, 13, available at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/02/us/politics/trump-legal-documents.html.
213. Ibid., 14.
214. In re Aiken County, 725 F.3d 255, 262–66, U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit (August 13, 2013); see also United States. v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974); United States v. Goodwin, 457 U.S. 368 (1982); Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Pierce, 786 F.2d 1199, 1201, D.C. Circuit Court (1986).
215. The Mueller Report, 299.
216. Ibid., 239.
217. Ibid., 239–40.
218. Ibid., 243.
219. Rod J. Rosenstein, memorandum for the Attorney General re “Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI,” May 9, 2017, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/Rosenstein_Memo.pdf.
220. Jeff Sessions, Office of the Attorney General, Correspondence with President Donald Trump, May 9, 2017, available at http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/politics/fbi-director-james-b-comeys-termination-letters-from-the-white-house-attorney-general/2430/.
221. William Cummings, “Full Text of Trump’s Letter Telling Comey He’s Fired,” USA Today, May 9, 2017.
222. The Mueller Report, 256.
223. Ibid., 255.
224. Tim Haines, “President Trump’s Full Interview with Lester Holt: Firing of James Comey,” RealClearPolitics, May 11, 2017.
225. The Mueller Report, 4, 5.
226. Ibid., 243.
227. Ibid., 253–54.
228. Ibid., 256.
229. Ibid., 280.
230. Eliza Relman, “Jeff Sessions Explains Why He Recused Himself from Trump Campaign–Related Investigations,” Business Insider, June 13, 2017.
231. Fox News Staff, “Transcript: What Is Trump’s Endgame with Sessions?,” Fox News, July 25, 2017.
232. The Mueller Report, 283.
233. Ibid., 272.
234. Ibid., 257.
235. Ibid.
236. Ibid.
237. Ibid., 264.
238. Ibid., 305.
239. Ibid., 316.
240. Ibid., 320.
241. Ibid., 321.
242. Ibid.
243. Ibid., 322.
244. Robert Charles, “Mueller’s Been Showboating—Time for Senate Judiciary Committee to Ask Him These Questions,” Fox News, May 31, 2019.
245. Louie Gohmert, “Robert Mueller: Unmasked,” April 26, 2018, https://www.hannity.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Gohmert_Mueller_UNMASKED.pdf, 1.
246. Ibid.
Chapter 6: The Media Witch Hunt
1. David Kramer, deposition, Aleksej Gubarev et al. v. BuzzFeed, Inc, et al., United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, 17-cv-60426-UU, December 13, 2017, 22, available at https://www.scribd.com/document/401932342/Kramer-Deposition#from_embed. The description of Kramer’s actions in regard to the Steele Dossier is taken from this deposition.
2. Eric Edelman and David J. Kramer, “How Trump’s Victory Could Give Russia Another Win,” Politico, November 16, 2016.
3. Allegra Kirkland, “GOP National Security Experts Ask Congress to Investigate DNC Hack,” Talking Points Memo, July 28, 2016.
4. David E. Sanger and Maggie Haberman, “50 G.O.P. Officials Warn Donald Trump Would Put Nation’s Security at Risk,” New York Times, August 8, 2016.
5. Brooke Singman, “FISA Memo: Steele Fired as an FBI Source for Breaking ‘Cardinal Rule’—Leaking to the Media,” Fox News, February 2, 2018.
6. John Solomon, “FBI’s Steele Story Falls Apart: False Intel and Media Contacts Were Flagged Before FISA,” The Hill, May 9, 2019.
7. Michael Isikoff, “U.S. Intel Officials Probe Ties Between Trump Adviser and Kremlin,” Yahoo! News, September 23, 2016.
8. Julia Ioffe, “Who Is Carter Page? The Mystery of Trump’s Man in Moscow,” Politico, September 23, 2016.
9. David Corn, “A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump,” Mother Jones, October 31, 2016.
10. Chuck Ross, “Ex–FBI Official: Fusion GPS Founder Tried to ‘Elevate’ Dossier by Spreading It All Around Washington,” Daily Caller, March 22, 2019.
11. Evan Perez, Jim Sciutto, Jake Tapper, and Carl Bernstein, “Intel Chiefs Presented Trump with Claims of Russian Efforts to Compromise Him,” CNN, January 12, 2017.
12. Ken Bensinger, Miriam Elder, and Mark Schoofs, “These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties to Russia,” BuzzFeed, January 10, 2017.
13. Jim Rutenberg, “BuzzFeed News in Limbo Land,” New York Times, January 20, 2019.
14. Chuck Ross, “Emails: Jake Tapper Tore Into ‘Irresponsible’ BuzzFeed Editor for Publishing the Steele Dossier,” Daily Caller, February 8, 2019.
15. Chuck Ross and Peter Hasson, “CNN’s Undisclosed Ties to Fusion GPS,” Daily Caller, October 28, 2017.
16. Ross, “Emails.”
17. Sean Illing, “Did the Media Botch the Russia Story? A Conversation with Matt Taibbi,” Vox, April 1, 2019.
18. Sean Davis, “A Catastrophic Media Failure,” Wall Street Journal, March 26, 2019.
19. Paul Farhi, “The Washington Post Wins 2 Pulitzer Prices for Reporting on Russian Interference and the Senate Race in Alabama,” Washington Post, April 14, 2018.
20. Greg Norman, “Media’s Trump–Russian Collusion Coverage Is the ‘Worst Journalistic Debacle of My Lifetime’: Brit Hume,” Fox News, March 25, 2019.
21. Michael Goodwin, “New York Times Reporter Broke the Biggest Rule in Journalism,” New York Post, June 9, 2018.
22. Lisa de Moraes, “Tom Brokaw Declares ‘We’re at War’ After Donald Trump Tweets Another ‘Fox & Friends’ Love Letter,” Deadline, December 21, 2017.
23. Hadas Gold, “Survey: 7 Percent of Reporters Identify as Republicans,” Politico, May 6, 2014.
24. Examiner Staff Writer, “Obama, Democrats Got 88 Percent of 2008 Contributions by TV Network Execs, Writers, Reporters,” Washington Examiner, August 28, 2010.
25. “Exhibit 1-1: The Media Elite,” Media Research Center, https://www.mrc.org/media-bias-101/exhibit-1-1-media-elite.
26. “Journalists Denying Liberal Bias, Part One,” Media Research Center, https://www.mrc.org/media-bias-101/journalists-denying-liberal-bias-part-one.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Chuck Ross and Peter Hasson, “CNN’s Undisclosed Ties to Fusion GPS,” Daily Caller, October 28, 2017.
30. Mollie Hemingway, “Politico Hides Fusion GPS Employment of Key Source,” The Federalist, November 1, 2017.
31. Editorial Board, “The Rest of the Russia Story,” Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2017.
32. Jason Schwartz, “Murdoch-Owned Outlets Bash Mueller, Seemingly in Unison,” Politico, October 30, 2017.
33. Art Swift, “Americans’ Tru
st in Mass Media Sinks to New Low,” Gallup, September 14, 2016.
34. John Kass, “Media Has Been Largely Negative on Trump,” Chicago Tribune, May 19, 2017.
35. Jennifer Harper, “Media Bias Continues: 90% of Trump Coverage in Last Three Months Has Been Negative, Study Says,” Washington Times, December 12, 2017.
36. Rich Noyes, “Bias: 1,000 Minutes for Trump/Russia ‘Collusion’ vs. 20 Seconds for Hillary/Russia Scandal,” Media Research Center, NewsBusters, October 25, 2017.
37. Jim Rutenberg, “Trump Is Testing the Norms of Objectivity in Journalism,” New York Times, August 7, 2016.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. Justin Baragona, “James Clapper Questions Trump’s ‘Fitness’ for Office: ‘I Just Find This Extremely Disturbing,’ ” Mediaite, August 23, 2017.
41. Madeline Osburn, “4 Different Lies James Clapper Told About Lying to Congress,” The Federalist, March 6, 2019.
42. Jonathan S. Tobin, “When Unfounded Smears Are Treated as Facts,” National Review, March 23, 2018.
43. ” ‘Fake News’ Threat to Media; Editorial Decisions, Outside Actors at Fault,” Monmouth University Polling Institute, April 2, 2018.
44. Bill D’Agostino, “ ‘The Walls Are Closing In’: Cable Journalists Chant Dems’ New Mantra Five Times a Day,” NewsBusters, December 20, 2018.
45. Franklin Foer, “Putin’s Puppet: If the Russian President Could Design a Candidate to Undermine American Interests—and Advance His Own—He’d Look a Lot like Donald Trump,” Slate, July 4, 2016.
46. Jeffrey Goldberg, “It’s Official: Hillary Clinton Is Running Against Vladimir Putin,” The Atlantic, July 21, 2016.
47. David Remnick, “Trump and Putin: A Love Story,” The New Yorker, August 3, 2016.
48. Abigail Tracy, “Is Donald Trump a Manchurian Candidate?,” Vanity Fair, November 1, 2016.
49. Ibid.
50. Aiko Stevenson, “President Trump: The Manchurian Candidate?,” Huffington Post, January 18, 2017.
51. Ross Douthat, “The ‘Manchurian’ President?,” New York Times, May 31, 2017.
52. Ibid.
53. David Nakamura and Debbi Wilgoren, “Caught on Open Mike, Obama Tells Medvedev He Needs Space on Missile Defense,” Washington Post, March 26, 2012.
54. Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign (New York: Crown, 2017), 395.
55. Willis L. Krumholz, “35 Key People Involved in the Russia Hoax Who Need to Be Investigated,” The Federalist, March 8, 2019.
56. Franklin Foer, “Was a Trump Server Communicating with Russia?,” Slate, October 31, 2016.
57. Hillary Clinton, tweet, October 31, 2016, https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/793250312119263233.
58. Rowan Scarborough, “Democrats Lose Interest in Server Conspiracy Claims Linking Trump to Russia’s Alfa Bank,” Washington Times, March 10, 2019.
59. Jeff Carlson, “Perkins Coie Lawyer Michael Sussmann’s Coordinated Leaks to Media and FBI’s James Baker, Likely Came from Steele, Fusion GPS,” The Epoch Times, October 4, 2018.
60. Dan Gainor, “Trump Triumphs—Media’s ‘Primal Scream’ Is Heard Round the World,” Fox News, November 9, 2016.
61. Ibid.
62. Howard Kurtz, “Some in the Media Dig in Against ‘Normalizing’ Donald Trump,” Fox News, November 21, 2016.
63. Colby Hall, “George Stephanopoulos Challenges Jay Sekulow: ‘Cooperation Is Collusion!,’ ” Mediaite, October 31, 2017.
64. Rebecca Savransky, “Watergate Reporter Says Current White House ‘Potentially More Dangerous Situation,’ ” The Hill, May 14, 2017.
65. Tim Haines, “Dan Rather: ‘Hurricane Vladimir’ Is ‘Approaching Category Four’ for Trump Presidency,” RealClearPolitics, August 31, 2017.
66. Paul Krugman, “Days of Greed and Desperation,” New York Times, November 11, 2017.
67. Aidan McLaughlin, “Jake Tapper Goes Cronkite on Don Jr. Emails: ‘Evidence of Willingness to Commit Collusion,’ ” Mediaite, July 11, 2017.
68. “Former Watergate Prosecutor Nick Akerman on Trump Jr. Meeting,” Hardball with Chris Matthews, MSNBC, July 11, 2017.
69. Dan Gainor, “Impeach Trump? Liberal Media Profiteering from Anti-Trump Clickbait,” Fox News, May 30, 2017.
70. Aidan McLaughlin, “MSNBC’s Joy Reid: What if Trump Locked Himself in White House and Refused Arrest?,” Mediaite, April 9, 2018.
71. Constitution of the United States of America, Amendments V and XIV.
72. Juliet Eilperin and Adam Entous, “Russia Hackers Penetrated U.S. Electricity Grid Through Utility in Vermont,” Washington Post, December 30, 2016. See also Warner Todd Huston, “Washington Post’s Fake News of Russian Vermont Power Plant Hack,” Breitbart, December 31, 2016.
73. Jennifer Palmieri, “The Clinton Campaign Warned You About Russia. But Nobody Listened to Us,” Washington Post, March 24, 2017.
74. The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, July 11, 2017.
75. Tim Haines, “Mika Brzezinski: ‘Noose’ Tightening on Trump Family; Might Go to Jail for the Rest of Their Lives,” RealClearPolitics, December 5, 2017.
76. “Chris Hayes on Trump-Russia Allegations: Why Is Everyone Acting Guilty?,” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, YouTube, March 9, 2018.
77. Michael S. Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti, and Matt Apuzzo, “Trump Campaign Had Repeated Contacts with Russian Intelligence,” New York Times, February 14, 2017.
78. Becket Adams, “Mainstream Media Errors in the Trump Era,” Washington Examiner, February 9, 2017.
79. Byron York, “From Former Trump Lawyer, Candid Talk About Mueller, Manafort, Sessions, Rosenstein, Collusion, Tweets, Privilege and the Press,” Washington Examiner, April 3, 2019.
80. Vivian Wang, “ABC Suspends Reporter Brian Ross over Erroneous Report About Trump,” Washington Post, December 2, 2017.
81. Ibid.
82. Glenn Greenwald, “The U.S. Media Suffered Its Most Humiliating Debacle in Ages and Now Refuses All Transparency over What Happened,” The Intercept, December 9, 2017.
83. Michael M. Grynbaum and Sydney Ember, “CNN Corrects a Trump Story, Fueling Claims of ‘Fake News,’ ” New York Times, December 8, 2017.
84. Jeff Pegues, “House Intel Investigates Trump Jr. Email Involving Documents Hacked During Campaign,” CBS News, December 8, 2017.
85. Allan Smith, “CNN Makes Major Correction on Trump-Russia bombshell After Washington Post Threw Timeline into Question,” Business Insider, December 9, 2017.
86. Greenwald, “The U.S. Media Suffered Its Most Humiliating Debacle in Ages and Now Refuses All Transparency over What Happened.”
87. Jason Schwartz, “CNN Error Extends Run of Journalistic Mishaps,” Politico, December 8, 2017.
88. Amber Athey, “The Media’s Russia ‘Bombshells’ Look Even Worse Now That Mueller Found No Collusion,” Daily Caller, March 25, 2019.
89. Jim Rutenberg, “BuzzFeed News in Limbo Land,” New York Times, January 20, 2019.
90. Colby Hall, “BuzzFeed News Bombshell Reporter: No We Have Not Seen the Evidence Supporting Our Report,” Mediaite, January 18, 2019.
91. Dan Gainor, “This Week We Learned That Mainstream Media Won’t Tattle on Each Other, No Matter How Badly They Do Journalism,” Fox News, January 27, 2019.
92. Gregg Jarrett, “BuzzFeed Report with False Attack on Trump Is Media Malpractice,” Fox News, January 19, 2019.
93. David Rutz, “CNN Analyst: Many Americans Will Dismiss Media as ‘Leftist Liars’ over Disputed BuzzFeed Story,” Washington Free Beacon, January 18, 2019.
94. Gainor, “This Week We Learned That Mainstream Media Won’t Tattle on Each Other, No Matter How Badly They Do Journalism.”
95. Greg Miller and Greg Jaffe, “Trump Revealed Highly Classified Information to Russian Foreign Minister and Ambassador,” Washington Post, May 15, 2017.
96. Todd Shepherd, “Fusion GPS Paid Journalists, Court Papers Confirm,” Washington Examiner, November 2017.
97. Jerry Dunleavy, “No Collusion: 10 Anonymously Sourced Trump-Russia Bombshells That Look Like Busts,” Washington Examiner, March 24, 2019.
98. Grynbaum and Ember, “CNN Corrects a Trump Story, Fueling Claims of ‘Fake News.’ ”
99. Brian Flood, “CNN Quietly Backtracks Another Report Tying Trump Campaign to Russia,” Fox News, December 11, 2017.
100. Peter Stone and Greg Gordon, “Source: Mueller Has Evidence Cohen Was in Prague in 2016, Confirming Part of Dossier,” McClatchy, April 13, 2018.
101. Peter Stone and Greg Gordon, “Cell Signal Puts Cohen Outside Prague Around Time of Purported Russian Meeting,” McClatchy, December 27, 2018. An editor’s note was added after the release of the Mueller Report: “Robert Mueller’s report to the attorney general states that Mr. Cohen was not in Prague. It is silent on whether the investigation received evidence that Mr. Cohen’s phone pinged in or near Prague, as McClatchy reported.”
102. Ivan Watson and Kocha Olarn, “Jailed Russian ‘Sex Coaches’ Offer to Trade Election Info for US Asylum,” CNN, March 6, 2018.
103. Dunleavy, “No Collusion.”
104. Liam Quinn, “Trump Dossier, Michael Flynn Testimony, Michael Cohen in Prague: Stories That Fell Flat During Mueller Probe,” Fox News, March 25, 2019.
105. Anna Sanders, “WaPo Reporter Apologizes After Trump Calls Out ‘Wrong’ Rally Photo,” New York Post, December 9, 2017.
106. Becket Adams, “Mainstream Media Errors in the Trump Era,” Washington Examiner, February 9, 2017.
107. Margaret Sullivan, “Jeffrey Toobin Went Ballistic About Trump and Comey. It Was Great TV,” Washington Post, May 10, 2017.
108. Eli Watkins, “Toobin: ‘Three Words: Obstruction of Justice,’ ” CNN, May 16, 2017.
109. Pete Kasperowicz, “Alan Dershowitz: Comey Firing Was Legal Even if Trump Was Trying to End the Russia Investigation,” Washington Examiner, April 18, 2018.
110. Derek Hawkins, “Jeffrey Toobin to His Former Professor Alan Dershowitz: ‘What’s Happened to You?,’ ” Washington Post, March 22, 2018.
111. Ibid.
112. Alan M. Dershowitz, “How CNN Misled Its Viewers,” The Hill, March 27, 2019.
113. Ibid.
114. Ibid.
115. Chuck Ross, “Van Jones Responds to O’Keefe Sting Video,” The Daily Caller, June 29, 2017.
Witch Hunt Page 55