The biggest question hanging over the June 9th meeting is whether Donald Trump had any knowledge of it. . . . As the testimony lays out, after being contacted by Goldstone, Trump Jr. received a call from Emin Agalarov to discuss the meeting. Following the call, Trump Jr. placed a call to a blocked number, and, after that call concluded, dialed Agalarov back. Speculation has swirled that Trump was on the other end of the unknown call, and Trump Jr.’s amnesia-ridden testimony doesn’t exactly quash suspicion that Trump knew of the meeting. When asked who he called between the two calls with Agalarov, Trump Jr. replied, “I have no idea.” Corey Lewandowski testified separately that Trump’s primary residence uses a blocked number, but Trump Jr.—who one would assume would also possess this information—didn’t seem so sure. When asked if his father uses a blocked number “on his cellphone or on any phones that you call him on,” Trump Jr. replied, “I don’t know.” When asked to clarify that he doesn’t know if the call to the blocked number was to his father, Trump Jr. replied, “I don’t.”101
In January 2018, Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will demand that Trump Jr.’s three transcribed testimonies from 2017 be turned over to Special Counsel Mueller, on the argument that “President Donald Trump’s oldest son made false statements to members of the committee,” a federal crime.102
Erik Prince will face similar allegations after his November 2017 testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, with one crucial difference: media reports will indicate that Special Counsel Mueller already has evidence to confirm that Prince lied to Congress. According to a breaking news report on April 6, 2018, by ABC News:
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has obtained evidence that calls into question Congressional testimony given by Trump supporter and Blackwater founder Erik Prince last year, when he described a meeting in Seychelles with a Russian financier close to Vladimir Putin as a casual chance encounter “over a beer”. . . . Well-connected Lebanese-American businessman George Nader, a key witness given limited immunity by Mueller, has been interviewed seven times by prosecutors on a wide range of subjects. He told investigators that he set up a meeting in the Seychelles between Prince and Russian sovereign wealth fund CEO Kirill Dmitriev, mere days before Trump was inaugurated. . . . Documents obtained by Mueller suggest that before and after Prince met Nader in New York a week before the trip to the Seychelles, Nader shared information with Prince about Dmitriev . . . which appears to be inconsistent with Prince’s sworn testimony before a U.S. House of Representatives investigative panel. “I didn’t fly there to meet any Russian guy,” Prince told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in November. He testified that he travelled to the Seychelles for a meeting with United Arab Emirates officials about possible business opportunities, and they introduced him—unexpectedly—to Dmitriev.103
Prince will make a number of statements on equally significant topics—such as whether he ever had formal communications or contacts with the Trump campaign in 2016—that likewise will come under scrutiny as possible perjuries. For instance, Prince’s claim to have had no formal communication or contact with Trump’s campaign is contradicted by revelations about an August 3, 2016, Trump Tower meeting Prince set up between himself, Donald Trump Jr., George Nader, and Joel Zamel.104
In November 2017, Mueller interviews Stephen Miller, called by CNN “the highest-level aide still working at the White House known to have talked to investigators.”105 According to CNN, Miller can speak not only to Trump’s thinking as he decided whether and when to fire James Comey, but also to a “March 2016 meeting where foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos said that he could arrange a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin through his connections.”106 It is unclear whether this is the March 31, 2016, meeting Trump held with his entire National Security Advisory Committee or a smaller meeting between Trump, Papadopoulos, and Miller. Miller is known to be one of the first Trump campaign aides Papadopoulos told of his contact with Mifsud (see chapter 5), and he authored an early draft of Trump’s letter firing Comey. The New York Times reports that White House counsel Don McGahn blocked the letter because of its “angry, meandering tone.”107
Perhaps the most problematic event of the latter half of 2017 comes at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, where Trump not only meets with Putin multiple times and for longer than scheduled each time, but also manages to hold his talks with the Russian president without a full complement of witnesses and notetakers present—only Putin friend Rex Tillerson, Sergei Lavrov, and two interpreters are allowed to attend. At one of the G20’s several joint meals, Trump orchestrates a second meeting with Putin that is disclosed to the media only when leaked to the press by a concerned summit attendee.108
Annotated History
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In January 2018, Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will demand that Trump Jr.’s three transcribed testimonies from 2017 be turned over to Special Counsel Mueller, on the argument that “President Donald Trump’s oldest son made false statements to members of the committee,” a federal crime.
On September 7, 2017, Donald Trump Jr. testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee.109 He maintained that he did not collude with “any foreign government”—a statement covering, therefore, not just Russia but Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Turkey, Hungary, and other governments known to have reached out to the Trump campaign pre-election—and also that he “did not know of anyone who did.”110
The focus of Trump Jr.’s testimony was his June 9, 2016, meeting with several Russian nationals at Trump Tower. A few minutes after being told that “although [this] interview is not under oath, by law you are required to answer questions truthfully,” Trump Jr. said, “I don’t remember much from the meeting because I didn’t give it much credence.”111 He did remember, however, that the Russians told him “U.S. or Russian based . . . business people who were supporters of the DNC and perhaps Hillary Clinton were in some sort of tax scheme to avoid paying taxes in both the United States and Russia.”112 The second time he described Veselnitskaya’s narrative to the committee he was even clearer: “[P]eople who had some connections or dealings in Russia and the United States who were big funders of the DNC and/or Hillary Clinton were perhaps avoiding paying taxes in both of those markets through some sort of scheme.”113 He added, “[It] didn’t really seem all that relevant to me.”114 Noteworthy here is that on the day of the meeting Trump Jr.’s father was just ninety-six hours from a planned speech on a single subject: misconduct by the Clintons and those connected to the Clintons.115 Asked about what Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, and Kushner, one of Trump’s top advisers, were doing during the “20 minutes, maybe 30” of the meeting, Trump Jr. replied that both were on their phones—the implication being that neither man was particularly interested in the meeting.116
Though Trump Jr. told investors at a Manhattan conference in 2008 that he’d made “half a dozen trips to Russia in the last 18 months [March 2007 to September 2008],” Trump Jr. testified before Congress that he’d been to Russia only “four or five” times over the course of his life (emphasis added).117 He said there were no discussions about “real estate projects” between Trump and the Agalarovs at the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in November 2013, as it was only “following the pageant” that the parties began “preliminarily discussing” the topic.118 He added that the Trump Organization “has not . . . made investments in Russia”—ever.119 Though Paul Manafort had taken over the day-to-day operations of the Trump campaign from Corey Lewandowski by mid-April 2016, Trump Jr. claimed that “as of June 2016 . . . we were . . . in the process of replacing our campaign manager [Lewandowski]. It was an extraordinarily intense period of time. . . . [a] maelstrom.”120
Despite having told Goldstone “I love it” in response to his offer of Clinton-incriminating “official documents and information,” Trump Jr. told Congress that his first reaction to Goldstone’s offer was a “ske
ptical” one.121 He said that Kushner and Manafort attended the meeting with no idea what it was about or who would attend and were invited “on a moment’s notice.”122 He added that he had told no one else about the meeting.123 With respect to the information that Kremlin agent Natalia Veselnitskaya provided to him, Kushner, and Manafort, he said that it was very general and “difficult to understand”; moreover, he said it had no “point” because as a “private citizen” no one on the campaign could negotiate foreign policy.124 Trump Jr. returned to this same detail several times, at one moment saying to his questioners, “[W]e made [the Russians] aware that we [he himself, Kushner, and Manafort] were private citizens, this isn’t something we’re doing about adoption.”125 He added that the Magnitsky Act sanctions were “not a campaign issue and [weren’t] going to be a campaign issue, wasn’t something we were talking about [in the campaign].”126
Trump Jr. said that after the meeting was over he never spoke of it again—to anyone.127 He insisted that he had no information whatsoever as of June 3, 2016—the day Rob Goldstone emailed him about setting up a meeting at Trump Tower—that “the Russian government supported then-candidate Trump.”128
As to the phone calls and emails of June 6, 2016, just three days before the meeting, Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he couldn’t remember whether he received a call from Emin after Rob Goldstone emailed him to say Emin was about to call—indeed, he couldn’t remember any call he had made or received that day.129 He said it was possible that, after the Miss Universe pageant, he went “back and forth by phone or e-mail [with Emin Agalarov] because . . . we were looking at a potential deal in Moscow. . . . We’ve met face to face [on] two or three occasions and we looked at [doing] a deal once.”130 Tellingly, when asked about whether Emin Agalarov has ties to the Russian government, Trump responded that he knew of no “specific” ties; when asked, on follow-up, if there were any “general” ties Trump Jr. was aware of, he responded that there were no “official” ties; when then asked, as part of a further follow-up, if there were any ties at all between Emin and the Russian government, Trump Jr. responded simply, “I would only speculate.”131
Asked if, on June 9, 2016, “anyone . . . offer[ed] to release hacked e-mails to aid the Trump campaign,” Trump Jr. said “no”; however, June 9, 2016—the very day the Russian government had promised the Trump campaign, through the Agalarovs, it would hand over Clinton “dirt”—was the first full day of the website and social media operation for DCLeaks, a Russian entity whose sole purpose was to “release hacked emails to aid the Trump campaign,” per the congressional record.132
Asked if, on June 9, 2016, “anyone offer[ed] to manufacture and distribute fake news to aid the Trump campaign,” Trump Jr. responded “no”; he did not note his August 3, 2016, Trump Tower meeting with Joel Zamel, at which Zamel did exactly what Trump Jr. had just been asked about: “offer[ed] to manufacture and distribute fake news to aid the Trump campaign.” Nor did he note that, after the election, Zamel’s Psy Group formed a partnership with Cambridge Analytica.133
Asked if there was “any discussion of anything that might reasonably be considered collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government,” Trump Jr. said “no”; yet he later revealed, in the same testimony, that within minutes of being offered detrimental information about Clinton by Veselnitskaya, he told her that Trump would take another look at the Magnitsky Act if he were elected president.134
Trump Jr. claimed he had no recollection of Rinat Akhmetshin being at the meeting.135 Akhmetshin has been called by the New York Times a man with “[deep] ties to the Russian government and Kremlin-back oligarchs . . . [and] an association with a former deputy head of a Russian spy service, the F.S.B., and a history of working for close allies of Vladimir V. Putin.”136 Akhmetshin was indeed at the meeting, as he has confirmed.
Trump Jr. summarized his feelings about the meeting by saying that it was immediately “pretty apparent that this [meeting] wasn’t going anywhere and we were all looking to get back to our daily lives.”137 On the crucial question of whether he spoke to his father by telephone about the meeting before it happened, Trump Jr. had amnesia—not just for any calls he made that week to his father or to Emin Agalarov, but even on the subject of whether his father, whom he indicated he spoke with daily, used a phone number that came up blocked on Trump Jr.’s phone.138 The rest of Trump Jr.’s testimony revealed many additional issues that could, as the committee Democrats subsequently noted, open Trump Jr. up to legal liability.
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Prince will make a number of statements on equally significant topics—such as whether he ever had formal communication or contact with the Trump campaign in 2016—that likewise will come under scrutiny as possible perjuries.
Much of Erik Prince’s testimony appeared at first blush to be false.139 He told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, for instance, that he played no “official . . . or unofficial” role in Trump’s bid for the presidency; that Steve Bannon was “the only guy in the campaign I knew pretty well”; that when he met Kirill Dmitriev he had no idea Dmitriev ran the Russian government’s direct investment fund; and that he was in no way representing the Trump campaign in meeting with Dmitriev.140 Prince even claimed not to have received the committee’s pre-testimony letter requesting documents from him; according to the committee, the letter had been sent to him, on a bipartisan basis, by “certified mail, electronic mail, and facsimile.”141 Later, Prince said that he had received from the Senate the same sort of letter he said that he had not received from the House; the only known difference between the two entreaties was that Prince had met beforehand with Devin Nunes, the Republican chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.142 Indeed, Prince revealed that he had had multiple private meetings with either Nunes or his staff prior to his testimony before Nunes’s committee—a notable fact, given that Prince was active in assisting the Trump team during the transition, Nunes was a member of Trump’s transition team, and many of the allegations of improper conduct that were raised during Prince’s testimony arose from events that allegedly occurred during the transition.143
Prince’s answers at times changed in midstream. After telling Congressman Schiff under oath that he didn’t “recall specifically speaking to anyone about a meeting that happened [during the transition] with any Emirati officials in New York,” additional questioning forced a concession: “I think I remember Steve Bannon saying they [members of the transition team] had met with . . . Mohammed bin Zayed . . . and that he was a great guy.”144 Pressed further, he admitted that Bannon “characterized the meeting for him” in addition to complimenting bin Zayed.145 Likewise, in August 2016 Prince set up a meeting between an emissary of the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates, George Nader, and the Trump campaign, yet told Congress that not one of the policy papers he gave to Bannon had anything to do with the UAE.146 He also admitted to Congress having multiple interactions with Michael Flynn in 2015 and 2016, including at least one face-to-face interaction; the UAE was at the time central to the lobbying work on nuclear energy that Flynn was engaged in with Thomas Barrack, Bud McFarlane, Rick Gates, and others.147 Prince also said he had spoken with Bannon about Russia during the transition; at the time, a significant issue before the Trump team was whether Russian construction firms would be able to get contracts for nuclear-reactor construction projects in the Middle East, including in the UAE (see chapter 11).148
Prince’s description of his meeting with Dmitriev likewise strained credulity. He indicated that the meeting was a “by the way” afterthought at the end of his meetings with the Emiratis and Mohammed bin Zayed.149 Prince said the Emiratis indicated he should meet with Dmitriev only “if” he wanted to, and that the only reason to do so was because Prince happened to be in the Seychelles (Prince used the phrase “while you’re here” multiple times to describe the Emiratis’ passive endorsement of a Prince-Dmitriev meeting).150 Minutes before the meeting, Prince
said he googled Dmitriev to try to find out something about him and could discover only that he was a “Russian hedge fund manager”; Mueller’s information is that Nader had fully briefed Prince on Dmitriev even before Prince flew to the Seychelles.151 According to ABC News, Nader told prosecutors that he set up a meeting in the Seychelles between Prince and Dmitriev just days before Trump was inaugurated.152 In short, if Nader’s account is true, it means that almost nothing Erik Prince told Congress in November 2017 was.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A NATION IN SUSPENSE
2018
Summary
IN THE SECOND YEAR OF Trump’s presidency, the Trump-Russia scandal explodes, extending out in so many different directions simultaneously, it is difficult to track them all, especially as all but one congressional investigation goes dark and Special Counsel Mueller begins collecting cooperating witnesses from Trump’s orbit through ancillary indictments rather than Russia-related ones. As other scandals not directly related to Trump-Russia collusion begin to rock the Trump administration, from the resignations of cabinet secretaries to illicit hush-money payoffs to ex-mistresses, from a bungled North Korea summit to the president’s ongoing attacks on dying war hero John McCain, tracing the shape of the Trump-Russia investigation becomes more a matter of identifying nodes of activity than charting a single through-line. This is made especially difficult by the increasing number of seeming wrong turns or dead ends—leads that appear to promise the exposure of critical components of the Trump-Russia quid pro quo, only to remain frustratingly unresolved. Ultimately, the innumerable narrative tendrils of the Trump-Russia affair become so varied in their contours and trajectory in 2018 that the current state of the Trump-Russia investigation, inasmuch as it is visible to the public, can be described only as one of perpetual suspense.
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