Thread by @tburages

How about having a few friends over for a barbecue and then casually show them a condensed version of the Mueller Report Volume II - complete with pictures?

You're free to use mine. #ReadTheMuellerReport

First element of obstruction: The President's Conduct Concerning the Investigation of Michael Flynn.

Buried 2/3 down a David Ignacius column entitled, “Why did Obama dawdle on Russia’s hacking?” was a bombshell. Flynn and Kislyak communicated multiple times on the day Obama’s Russia sanctions were announced.

Trump told Reince Priebus to contact Flynn and “kill the story.”

Sally Yates and Mary McCord, a senior DOJ national security official, spoke in person with Don McGahn on January 26, 2017. Not only had Flynn lied to administration officials, but he had lied to the FBI twice.

“Comey said that when he arrived for the dinner that evening, he was surprised and concerned to see that no one else had been invited.”

It was after Andrew McCabe provided senior White House officials access to the underlying evidence of the Kislyak/Flynn communications that “McGahn and Priebus concluded that Flynn should be terminated and recommended that course of action to the President.”

Christie told Mueller’s team that he had no intention of following through on Trump’s request because he thought it was “nonsensical.”

“Comey testified under oath that he took the President’s statement ‘as a direction’ because of the President’s position and the circumstances of the one-on-one meeting.”

McFarland also worried that complying with this request could later appear to be a quid pro quo for an ambassadorship she’d been offered.

This was only one of the many outreaches to Mike Flynn after he left the administration that appear to have been an attempt to influence his allegiances.

This message was passed following news that Flynn was negotiating with the FBI and congressional investigators for immunity in exchange for his testimony.

Richard Hoeg’s analysis of the report’s examination of whether asking Comey to “Let Flynn Go” states that the criteria for Obstruction of Justice may be met.

https://twitter.com/HoegLaw/status/1133745957110198272?s=20

The President’s Reaction to Public Confirmation of the FBI’s Russia Investigation #TheMuellerReport #VolumeII

The DOJ began its analysis of whether Sessions should recuse in late February 2017.

McGahn also reached out to Sessions himself three times that day reiterating that Trump did not want him to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.Sessions told Mueller’s team that several other WH advisors called him that day in attempts to get him to not recuse.

On March 2, Sessions announced his recusal. He later said that his decision was not a close call and that his desire was to follow the department rules.

“Sessions said he had the impression that the President feared that the investigation could spin out of control and disrupt his ability to govern, which Sessions could have helped avert if he were still overseeing it.”

The Mueller Report seems to imply that it was possibly Senate Intel Chair, Richard Burr, who tipped of the White House to Comey’s briefing.

“Officials in the White House Counsel’s Office became so concerned that the President would fire Comey that they began drafting a memorandum that examined whether the President needed cause to terminate the FBI director.”

“Boente recalled telling McGahn that there was no good way to shorten the investigation and attempting to do so could erode confidence in the investigation’s conclusions.”

Coats responded that it isn’t the DNI’s role to make public statements on investigations.Pompeo told the Special Counsel’s Office that Trump “regularly urged officials to get the word out that he had not done anything wrong related to Russia”

"the most unusual thing he had experienced in 40 years of government service." !!

In reaching out to intelligence chiefs, one common theme in Trump’s communications was that the investigation was interfering with his ability to make deals with Russia, to do business and “get things done” with Russia.

In Comey’s book he writes, “I did not reply or ask him what he meant by ‘that thing,’ but it seemed an attempt to invoke a mutual pledge of loyalty.”

In Richard Hoeg’s analysis of the report’s examination of this particular component, "Trump’s Response to the Russia Investigation," the criteria for Obstruction of Justice is not met.

https://twitter.com/HoegLaw/status/1133745957110198272?s=20

Events Leading Up To and Surrounding The Termination of FBI Director Comey.

#ReadTheMuellerReport #Volume2

At the hearing Comey refused to answer questions about the status of the Russia investigation. He said he was “not going to say another word about it” until the investigation was completed.

Trump said repeatedly at different times and to different people that “Kennedy appointed his brother. Obama appointed Holder” and that he needed an Attorney General would “protect” him and frequently referenced Roy Cohn.

The letter he dictated to Miller started, “While I greatly appreciate you informing me that I am not under investigation concerning what I have often stated is a fabricated story on a Trump-Russia relationship - pertaining to the 2016 presidential election ... "

Trump distributed copies of the termination letter he had drafted with Stephen Miller before he asked Rosenstein to write a memo. Later, he told the public that firing Comey was entirely Rosenstein’s idea.

Comey learned he was fired in the middle of giving a speech at an FBI Diversity Agent Recruiting event in Los Angeles.

He writes in his book: “I stopped in midsentence. On the TV screens along the back wall I could see COMEY RESIGNS in large letters.”

Sean Spicer was apparently a bit reticent about holding this press conference. He had been hiding in the bushes for several minutes before he was noticed by the press.

I often wonder whether Trump sometimes convinces even himself of his own lies.

Mueller notes in his analysis that “Rosenstein articulated his criticism of Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation after the President had already decided to fire Comey.”

“Sessions also informed the White House Counsel’s Office that evening that Rosenstein was upset that his memorandum was being portrayed as the reason for Comey’s termination.”

I often think about this moment when I remember that the week after the Mueller investigation ended, Trump spoke to Putin. And Putin mocked the investigation.

Trump also told McCabe that he wanted to discuss with him whether Trump should come visit FBI headquarters and make a speech to employees. McCabe later publicly said he had thought this had been a very bad idea.

Sarah Sanders also stated that Rosenstein decided “on his own” to review Rosenstein’s performance.

I'm pretty sure she never corrected this statement either.

Rosenstein told his colleagues that his own reasons for replacing Comey were “not Trump’s reasons.”

“The President told White House Counsel’s Office attorneys in advance of the interview that the communications team could not get the story right, so he was going on Lester Holt to say what really happened.”

Richard Hoeg’s analysis of the report’s examination of Trump’s firing of Comey states that the criteria for Obstruction of Justice MIGHT be met.

https://twitter.com/HoegLaw/status/1133745957110198272?s=20

Fourth possible occurrence of obstruction: The President’s Efforts to Remove the Special Counsel

Trump was with McGhan, Sessions and Sessions’s Chief of Staff Jody Hunt conducting interviews for the recently vacated FBI Director position.

Trump lamented, “This is the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

Sessions’s letter said, in its entirety, “Pursuant to our conversation of yesterday, and at your request, I hereby offer my resignation.”

Mueller referenced Sessions's Chief of Staff's notes when he wrote, “When Priebus and Bannon learned that the President was holding onto Sessions’s resignation letter, they became concerned that it could be used to influence the Department of Justice.”

Hope Hicks told Mueller’s team that she saw Trump pull the letter from his pocket and ask advisors what he “should do about it.”

When Priebus asked about it, he denied that he had it with him.

On May 23, 2017, the DOJ announced that ethics officials cleared Mueller to serve despite Trump’s oft-stated “conflicts” claim.

“Bannon told the President that the golf course dispute did not rise to the level of a conflict and claiming one was ‘ridiculous and petty.’”

Trump’s own tweets helped build the obstruction case against him. I often wonder how many of his current tweets will see the inside of a courtroom after he leaves office.

Trump was at Camp David. McGahn was at home.

“McGahn was concerned about having any role in asking the Acting AG to fire the Special Counsel because he had grown up in the Reagan era and wanted to be more like Judge Robert Bork and not “Saturday Night Massacre Bork.”

The report says, “McGahn considered the President’s request to be an inflection point and he wanted to hit the brakes.”

“McGahn did not tell Donaldson the specifics of the President’s request because he was consciously trying not to involve her in the investigation.”

Also: "He had not told the President directly that he planned to resign, and when they next saw each other the President did not ask McGahn whether he had followed through with calling Rosenstein."

Mueller’s analysis on this Obstruction charge is very clear. It meets all required criteria and Trump WOULD be charged with this count if Trump were not the current President.

https://twitter.com/HoegLaw/status/1133745957110198272?s=20

Part 5: Trump’s Efforts to Curtail Mueller’s Investigation (i.e. Limit it to investigate *future* election interference only).

The message Trump dictated for Lewandowski was priceless.

It demanded that Sessions give a speech and gave him exact words for that speech, which included "He didn’t do anything wrong except he ran the greatest campaign in American history!"

There is very little Lewandowski won’t do for Trump including, it seems, making demands of the Attorney General of the United States, even though he himself was just a private citizen. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It was a month after Trump made the initial request and Lewandowski still hadn’t met up with Attorney General Sessions to deliver “The Letter” that demanded Sessions make this speech that would limit Mueller’s investigation to only future elections.

This whole episode was really pretty comical.

Lewandowski knew it was ridiculous for himself to make these outrageous demands from the AG but he didn’t want to disappoint Trump. So he handed the letter off to Rick Dearborn.

When Trump demanded that Priebus get Sessions to resign, Priebus called McGahn and asked for advice. He said he didn’t want to “pull the trigger on something that was all wrong.”

They talked about resigning rather than having to follow Trump’s obstructive order.

The report says that Priebus believed his job hinged on whether he followed Trump’s order to fire Sessions. So he told Trump he would try to get Sessions to resign even though he had no intention of contacting Sessions.

These are the three tweets (in order) that Mueller lists in his report in this section.

Mueller’s analysis on this Obstruction charge is also clear. It meets all required criteria and Trump would most likely be charged with this count if he was not the President.

Part 6: Trump’s Efforts to Prevent Disclosure of Emails about the June 9, 2016 Meeting Between Russians and Senior Campaign Officials

According to the report, "Trump Organization attorneys became aware of the June 9 meeting no later than the first week of June 2017, when they began interviewing the meeting participants."

When Hope Hicks viewed the emails she recalled being shocked by the emails because they looked “really bad.” She talked to Trump repeatedly about them.

Trump initially told Hicks not to comment on the story. The reports says, “Hicks thought the President’s reaction was odd because he usually considered not responding to the press to be the ultimate sin.”

He later consented to release a statement, albeit a false one.

The false statement that was given to The Times:

The Times published its story as Trump was returning from the G20 summit.

Mueller’s team documented the false statements that Trump attorney Jay Sekulow made on CNN, Good Morning America (ABC), and Meet the Press (NBC).

"These efforts by the President involved his communications team and was directed at the press. They would amount to obstructive acts only if the President, by taking these actions, sought to withhold info. from or mislead congressional investigators or the Special Counsel."

Part 7: The President’s Further Efforts to Have the Attorney General Take over the Investigation.

#TheMuellerReport #Volume2

From the time the Special Counsel was appointed until Trump fired Sessions a year and a half later, he continually badgered him to reverse his recusal. He indicated that he thought his AG should both shut down the Mueller investigation AND prosecute his political adversaries.

Former Staff Secretary Rob Porter is friends with former Associate AG Rachel Brand. Trump asked Porter to find out if she was "on the team." Then he checked in with him from time to time, asking him if he'd spoken with her.

Sessions had recused himself not only from the Russia investigation, but from ALL investigations that involved 2016 campaign issues.

Yet Trump constantly berated him for not investigating Hillary Clinton.

Every time Trump tweeted that Sessions should investigate Clinton, the Special Prosecutor’s team took notice. These tweets are evidence against Trump.

The timing here is significant. Flynn’s guilty plea preceded his formal agreement to cooperate with the government.

Trump desperately wanted control over the investigation at that point.

Mueller brings up these statements to demonstrate that Trump’s harassment spanned many months and never abated.

More of Trump’s tweets that Mueller’s team documented as potential evidence of obstruction of justice.

One of Trump’s favorite ways of getting a message out is to get a staged interview at Fox with softball questions.

Mueller took note - and documented his comments for a possible future prosecution.

Sessions responded to Trump's statement to Fox.

And then Trump tweeted.

To Donald Trump: "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you tweet may be used against you in a court of law."

This is the very last sentence in the Evidence portion of this section.

The harassment of Sessions ended with appointing an Acting AG and then an actual AG who had both signified their opposition to the probe.

Days after Barr's confirmation, the investigation was declared over.

Possible charge for Trump’s actions in harassing Sessions to reverse his recusal? Maybe.

Mueller was much too generous.

Part 8: The President Orders McGahn to Deny that the President Tried to Fire the Special Counsel.

#TheMuellerReport #Volume2

The WaPo story clarified the Times story to say that McGahn had not told Trump directly he was quitting.

He *did* tell Bannon, Preibus, and Annie Donaldson, his Chief of Staff. Any of these three could have been sources for both the Times and WaPo story.

The report does not state that it was John Dowd who made this call. Trump was represented at the time by Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow.

My guess is that it was Dowd who made the call b/c he had made similar unethical calls to Flynn’s and Manafort’s attorneys.

Second attempt at getting McGahn to deny the story: Having Sarah Sanders approach him.

Third attempt: Wrap the message with a felony demand, tie it up with a threat, and send Rob Porter as the delivery boy.

Porter relayed two messages from the President:

1) McGahn should create a false record.
2) If he refuses, he’ll be fired.

This episode culminated with John Kelly arranging a hash-it-out session.

“The President began the Oval Office meeting by telling McGahn that the New York Times story did not ‘look good’ and McGahn needed to correct it.”

Kelly told the SCO the "meeting was a little tense."

Mueller says: “McGahn thought the President was testing his mettle to see how committed McGahn was to what happened.”

Mueller also states, “substantial evidence supports McGahn’s account that the President had directed him to have the Special Counsel removed.” (page 118)

Donald Trump would be charged with Obstruction of Justice for this episode if he were not the President of the United States.

Part 9: The President's Conduct Towards Flynn and Manafort

Shortly after Flynn resigned, Trump sent Reince Priebus to tell Flynn that Trump “still cared about him” and that he was “an American hero.” He also K.T. McFarland to tell Flynn that the President said he should, “Stay strong.”

After Flynn began cooperating, his attorney contacted Trump’s attorneys to notify them they would no longer be part of their joint defense agreement and that they could no longer share information with them.

Once the President and his attorneys learned that Flynn was entering a cooperation agreement with the government, they began to put significant pressure on him. John Dowd left a menacing voicemail for Flynn’s attorney.

Flynn’s attorney returned Dowd’s call and stated clearly again that they would no longer be sharing information. Dowd indicated that he would be telling Trump that Flynn was now “hostile.”

Manafort and Gates were the first of the special counsel’s indictments.

Dowd appears to have contacted multiple potential cooperators and dangled pardons.

Mueller’s footnotes indicate that it was Rob Porter and Don McGahn who told him that Trump was voicing his concern that Manafort might give negative information about him to Mueller’s team.

Manafort’s bail was revoked because he himself was tampering with witnesses.

Shortly thereafter, Giuliani started dangling pardons publicly.

Jury tampering.

The report lists many other public statements and tweets that Trump made disparaging the case against Manafort. He made these statements before the trial, during the trial, and during jury deliberations.

There was a SINGLE juror who refused to vote for conviction on 10 counts (for which all the other jurors felt there was enough evidence to convict). We may never know how much Trump’s statements during the trial swayed that juror.

The DC indictment involved Manafort’s work as an undeclared foreign agent.

While Manafort was supposed to be cooperating with Mueller’s team his lawyers were secretly giving Trump’s lawyers briefings on what they discussed.

Shortly after entering into his plea agreement, Manafort began lying to investigators about almost everything. Thus, the deal was breached.

I think it's fair to say Trump *successfully* obstructed justice.

Trump gave Manafort’s lying a public stamp of approval.

Mission accomplished.

Re: Flynn Mueller says, “because of privilege issues, we could not determine whether the President was personally involved in .. the specific message his counsel delivered to Flynn’s counsel.”

Re: Manafort, Mueller states,

"There is evidence that the President’s actions had the potential to influence Manafort’s decision whether to cooperate with the government."

Part 10: The President’s Conduct Involving Michael Cohen

Beginning in the fall of 2015, Trump was in negotiations to develop a Trump Tower Moscow.

The Trump family and all his advisors were told to downplay or outright deny any connections to Russia.

Cohen and others entered into a Joint Defense Agreement with Trump’s attorneys. Others in this agreement were Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi and the Trump children. There are very likely many other members as well.

In the fall of 2017, Cohen drafted a statement to give to Congress regarding Trump Tower Moscow. It contained several falsehoods. He was directed to lie to Congress by Trump's attorneys.

Jay Sekulow was the attorney who was in contact with Cohen and suborned perjury from Cohen.

After both days of Cohen’s testimony to Congress in October, where he made false statements, he spoke with Trump’s attorney.

Enter … the Stormy Daniels saga.

Although Michael Cohen stated he paid Stormy Daniels out of his own pocket, Trump reimbursed him. Both Trump Sr. and Trump Jr. signed reimbursement checks – while Trump was President.

Michael was thanked for his lying.

There comes a point in every fixer's life when he wonders if it's all worth it.

This was Michael's turning point.

They. Are. Mobsters. All of them.

"You have friends in high places."

That pardon power really needs to be more tightly regulated.

Trump turned on Cohen after Cohen broke free from the “party line.”

Trump publicly called Cohen a “rat.” This was after he knew Cohen would be going to prison. As a shady real estate developer from Queens, Trump knows how “rats” are treated in prison.

Yes. Trump would be charged with obstruction of justice if he was not the President. Some of Trump’s lawyers could also be charged with witness tampering and suborning perjury.

He's a criminal. He shouldn't be walking free among us, let alone be the President.