June 2016 Meeting with Russian Lawyer Pt.3 – Volume 2 (105-107) The Mueller Report

Pt. 1 discussed the follow up to the meeting between Russian Lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort. Pt. 2 went into detail about what happened in the meeting. In Pt. 3 today, we show Mueller’s summary of President Trump’s actions regarding these events (particularly his exchanges with his then communications adviser Hope Hicks) and an overall analysis of the entire event.

“a. [In regards to potential obstruction by Trump] On at least three occasions between June 29, 2017, and July 9, 2017, the President directed Hicks and others not to publicly disclose information about the June 9, 2016 meeting between senior campaign officials and a Russian attorney. On June 29, Hicks warned the President that the emails setting up the June 9 meeting were “really bad ” and the story would be “massive” when it broke, but the President told her and Kushner to “leave it alone.” Early on July 8, after Hicks told the President the New York Times was working on a story about the June 9 meeting, the President directed her not to comment, even though Hicks said that the President usually considered not responding to the press to be the ultimate sin. Later that day, the President rejected Trump Jr. ‘s draft statement that would have acknowledged that the meeting was with “an individual who I was told might have information helpful to the campaign.” The President then dictated a statement to Hicks that said the meeting was about Russian adoption (which the President had twice been told was discussed at the meeting). The statement dictated by the President did not mention the offer of derogatory information about Clinton” (105-106). 

Each of 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 information from or mislead congressional investigators or the Special Counsel. On May 17, 2017, the President’s campaign received a document request from SSCI that clearly covered the June 9 meeting and underlying emails, and those documents also plainly would have been relevant to the Special Counsel ‘s investigation” (p. 106).

“But the evidence does not establish that the President took steps to prevent the emails or other information about the June 9 meeting from being provided to Congress or the Special Counsel. The series of discussions in which the President sought to limit access to the emails and prevent their public release occurred in the context of developing a press strategy . The only evidence ,we have of the President discussing the production of documents to Congress or the Special Counsel is the conversation on June 29, 2017, when Hicks recalled the President acknowledging that Kushner ‘s attorney should provide emails related to the June 9 meeting to whomever he needed to give them to. We do not have evidence of what the President discussed with his own lawyers at that time” (p. 106).

Analysis: There is nothing illegal about what you do or do not disclose to the press, no matter what the information is. However, considering it is common knowledge that Trump is constantly berating the credibility of news media, the act of withholding events that compromises one’s own credibility goes against his own stated view of the media. Even Hope Hicks was surprised by his decision to leave the meeting out of the press: “the President directed her not to comment, even though Hicks said that the President usually considered not responding to the press to be the ultimate sin.”

“b. Nexus to an official proceeding. As described above, by the time of the President’s attempts to prevent the public release of the emails regarding the June 9 meeting, the existence of a grand jury investigation supervised by the Special Counsel was public knowledge, and the President had been told that the emails were responsive to congressional inquiries. To satisfy the nexus requirement, however, it would be necessary to show that preventing the release of the emails to the public would have the natural and probable effect of impeding the grand jury proceeding or congressional inquiries. As noted above, the evidence does not establish that the President sought to prevent disclosure of the emails in those official proceeding” (p. 106).

Analysis: Whether or not Trump prevented the information from going public is irrelevant, as long as the information was not prevented from being sent to official proceedings, which it wasn’t.

“c. intent. The evidence establishes the President’ s substantial involvement in the communications strategy related to information about his campaign’s connections to Russia and his desire to minimize public disclosures about those connections. The President became aware of the emails no later than June 29, 2017, when he discussed them with Hicks and Kushner , and he could have been aware of them as early as June 2, 2017, when lawyers for the Trump Organization began interviewing witnesses who participated in the June 9 meeting. The President thereafter repeatedly rejected the advice of Hicks and other staffers to publicly release information about the June 9 meeting. The President expressed concern that multiple people had access to the emails and instructed Hicks that only one lawyer should deal with the matter. And the President dictated a statement to be released by Trump Jr. in response to the first press accounts of the June 9 meeting that said the meeting was about adoption” (p. 106-107)

“But as described above, the evidence does not establish that the President intended to prevent the Special Counsel’s Office or Congress from obtaining the emails setting up the June 9 meeting or other information about that meeting. The statement recorded by Corallo-that the emails “will never get out”-can be explained as reflecting a belief that the emails would not be made public if the President’s press strategy were followed, even if the emails were provided to Congress and the Special Counsel” (p. 107).

As mentioned in section B. the Trump team is allowed to do whatever they wish about the information being public or not, as long as they don’t impede the government from receiving and analyzing the emails, which they did not.

 

Overall Summary:

According to the Mueller Report, president Trump, specifically in regards to the June 2016 meeting with the Russian lawyer, did not obstruct justice, because he did not prevent any information regarding the meeting from being disclosed to the legal system. He has the right to hide this information from the news media, and he certainly did do that.

However, his son, Donald Trump Jr.’ was more than willing to accept harmful information on then Candidate Clinton that was offered by the Russian lawyer: “…emails exchanged during the campaign arranging a meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and a Russian attorney… the emails stated that the “Crown [P]rosecutor of Russia” had offered “to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia ” as part of “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Trump Jr. responded, “[I]f it’s what you say I love it” (p. 98-88).

He then implied a favor he would return for this harmful information by responding that he would “revisit the issue [sanctions against Russia discussed by the Russian lawyer in the meeting] if and when they [Trump and his team] were in government.”

Trump Jr.’s language paints a picture of conspiracy in the form of willingly accepting information sourced from an individual with connections to a non-ally country and then using it to discuss sanctions against this non-ally. As said in yesterday’s post, the Department of Justice website states that, “The general conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371, creates an offense ‘[i]f two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.’ ” If we can agree that this Russian Lawyer’s intention was to defraud the US by selling info on Clinton to Trump. Jr. in return for lifting Russian sanctions, then we can agree it is a conspiracy.

It should also be noted that the entire ordeal is a testament to the lack of credibility of the Trump administration. The willingness to cooperate with a non-US ally to obtain harmful information on a US Government official/US candidate not only goes against United States interests and national security, but demonstrates a lack of competency of the Trump team, they are not fit to be a presidential administration.