In another bit of good luck, we just got the next batch of #Muellermemos 35 minutes earlier than we usually do! We’re going to start reading through. You can read them here: buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonl…
Rybicki 302: "Sometime later, Rybicki remembered a personal e-mail he received from Corney via Rybicki's personal e-mail address. In this e-mail, Corney listed the interactions Comey had with Trump.”
Comey was criticized by the DOJ IG for his personal email usage while FBI director. It’s unclear to me when this email was written, but it’s not cited in the IG report.
If during his tenure, could be a new example of Comey using personal email for work.
New colour on Comey’s firing: It’s been reported that the day after, Trump called Andrew McCabe, upset that Comey had been allowed to fly back to DC on the FBI plane.
Rybicki said McCabe told him on the night of the firing itself that "Trump was upset” about the plane.
It’s mentioned in the Mueller report, but sourced largely to McCabe, who seems to recount it a bit differently — saying Trump called him the next day — or maybe Trump said he was mad about the plane twice.
What’s great about the 302s is the additional detail we get — the Rybicki 302 says Trump was “upset," while the Mueller report states only that Trump "told McCabe that Comey should not have been permitted to travel back to Washington, D.C. on the FBI's airplane."
Next Rybicki 302: "It would be very difficult for someone to inform the President a topic of conversation was inappropriate, such as the conversation during which Corney informed the President Flynn was a good guy."
After Trump met with Comey alone in the Oval to talk about Flynn, Comey and Rybicki met with AG Sessions about preventing further meetings like that.
After, "Rybicki expressed to Corney his concern that he didn't think Sessions really understood the point of Corney's message"
Rybicki told then-acting AG for the Russia investigation Dana Boente in April 2017 that WH counsel might call about the probe.
"Boente said something along line of, 'I was hoping he had forgotten about that', or words to that effect."
Here’s the 302 where lawyers for Michael Flynn inform Mueller’s team of a voicemail from Trump attorney John Dowd that Mueller later investigated as part of the obstruction probe.
This 302 mentions Cobb — I don’t think we’ve seen him linked to this incident yet.
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"[T]he problem of foreign actors trying to influence the American electorate is not going away and, given the current partisan divides in this country, may find fertile ground in which to grow in the future.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley just tried to pass his bipartisan bill to update the Foreign Agents Registration Act by unanimous consent in the Senate, but Sen. Bob Menendez objected.
Menendez, the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee, said they need to study the issue more.
Grassley's been working for years on updating FARA to help the Department of Justice enforce the 1930s-era law, which hasn't been updated since the 1960s.
In a speech before he asked for UC, Grassley noted that the bill’s bipartisan cosponsors — Sens. Feinstein, Cornyn, Shaheen, Rubio, and Young — sit on the Foreign Affairs, Judiciary, and Intelligence Committees, all relevant to FARA.
Some personal news: A little while ago, I decided to begin the application process for a new US work visa. If all goes well, I’ll be able to work in the US again in a couple months.
So if you’re an editor looking to expand your team, please get in touch! My email is in my bio.
A little about me: I’ve covered national security, federal law enforcement, politics (including Congress), and more in the US. I’ve also covered Canadian governments and news.
I love scoops and doing original, investigative reporting. And I'm bilingual in French and English.
When I was laid off this summer, I lost my previous work visa and came back to Canada to figure out my next steps: either apply for a new visa to return to DC long-term or fly back to DC to pack my things and move back home. After a lot of thought, I chose the former.
It's official: the final version of the NDAA contains major reforms to the United States' anti-money laundering regime. Most notably, shell companies will be forced to disclose their true owners to Treasury -- a major gap in the regime that has been criticized for years.
Statements from @MarkWarner, @SenatorRounds, and @SenDougJones applauding the inclusion of their Illicit Cash Act -- the Senate version of the beneficial ownership legislation -- in the final NDAA:
Finally, I can share the project I worked on for nearly two years at @BuzzFeedNews:
The #FinCENFiles — 1000s of SARs & other docs — offer an unprecedented view of global financial corruption, the banks enabling it & the govt agencies that fail to stop it. buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonl…