Ball of Collusion

by Andrew C. McCarthy

  55. Jeff Carlson, “A Quiet Hero—NSA Director Mike Rogers Retires” (Epoch Times, May 5, 2018).

  CHAPTER 6

  1. NBC News, Meet the Press (Feb. 14, 2018).

  2. Gregory D. Johnsen, “The Untouchable John Brennan” (BuzzFeed, April 23, 2015), supra.

  3. Nico Hines and Jamie Ross, “Trump’s Source on Fake Story That Britain Spied on Campaign: There’s a Conspiracy to Frame Me as ‘Conspiracy Nut’” (Daily Beast, April 24, 2019); Amy B. Wang, “Suspended Fox News expert returns—and doubles down on baseless wiretapping claims” (Washington Post, March 29, 2017).

  4. House Intelligence Committee Hearing, March 20, 2017, FBI Director James B. Comey (questioning by then-Ranking Member Adam Schiff (D., Calif.)).

  As noted above, in NSA Director Michael Rogers’s testimony, he seconded Comey. (See Ch. 5, n.52, supra.) Director Comey’s testimony that the Justice Department had asked him to share this information with the committee is interesting. Comey, of course, had been widely rebuked for usurping the role of the Obama Justice Department in proclaiming that no charges should be brought against Hillary Clinton. At the time of the March 20 testimony, there were no Trump appointees in the Justice Department chain of command: Attorney General Sessions had recused himself from Trump–Russia matters; the Acting Attorney General, Dana Boente, was the Obama-appointed U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania whom Trump had abruptly promoted upon firing Obama holdover Sally Yates for insubordinately defying him on an executive order restricting travel by aliens from several countries with terrorism problems. Trump did not know Boente; one suspects he chose him because Obama had issued an executive order right before leaving office that cut Boente out of the Justice Department order of succession (in the apparent hope that, if the Russia investigation forced Trump DOJ officials to recuse themselves, the probe might end up in the hands of Channing Phillips, a protégé of former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder whom Obama had unsuccessfully tried to get confirmed as U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C.). In any event, the Justice Department that “asked” Comey to share its rejection of Trump’s tweets about Obama surveillance of Trump was still being run by Obama appointees. See President Barack Obama Executive Order 13762, “Providing an Order of Succession Within the Department of Justice” (Jan. 13, 2017).

  5. Kailani Koenig, “Former DNI James Clapper: ‘I Can Deny’ Wiretap of Trump Tower” (NBC News, March 5, 2017); see also Andrew C. McCarthy, “Parsing Clapper—What he said was probably true, but what he didn’t say was more revealing” (National Review, March 8, 2017).

  6. Fiona Hamilton, “GCHQ ridicules White House over claims it spied on Trump” (Times of London, March 17, 2017).

  7. David E. Sanger and Maggie Haberman, “Transcript: Donald Trump on NATO, Turkey’s Coup Attempt and the World” (New York Times, July 21, 2016).

  8. See, e.g., Bojan Pancevski, “How a Russian Gas Pipeline Is Driving a Wedge Between the U.S. and Its Allies—The Nord Stream 2 gas-transport project is a bone of contention with Washington, which fears it will make Germany too reliant on Moscow” (Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2019); “Tough to stop Nord Stream 2 now it’s being built—EU’s Oettinger” (Reuters, Dec. 28, 2018).

  9. Wolf Blitzer, “Donald Trump Interview” (CNN, March 21, 2016).

  10. John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) July 16, 2018, Tweet; see also Brennan April 23, 2019 Tweet; Nancy LeTourneau, “John Brennan Says That Trump Is in Putin’s Pocket” (Washington Monthly, March 6, 2019); Stephen F. Cohen, “What the Brennan Affair Really Means” (The Nation, Aug. 22, 2018); McCarthy, “Revoking Brennan’s Security Clearance: The Right Thing, Even if for the Wrong Reason,” supra.

  11. James Clapper, testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee (questioning by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.)), May 9, 2017. Luke Harding, “British spies were first to spot Trump team’s links with Russia” (The Guardian, April 13, 2017).

  12. Lee Smith, “Did President Obama Read the ‘Steele Dossier’ in the White House Last August?” (Tablet, Dec. 20, 2017); Devin Nunes interview by Jake Tapper (CNN, April 12, 2016).

  13. The U.S. embassy in Ashgabat passed the information along in a cable to the State Department in Washington. Kevin G. Hall, “Why did FBI suspect Trump campaign adviser was a foreign agent?” (McClatchy, April 14, 2017).

  14. Hall, “Why did FBI suspect Trump campaign adviser was a foreign agent?, supra; Julia Ioffe, “Who Is Carter Page?: The mystery of Trump’s man in Moscow” (Politico, Sept. 23, 2016); Jason Zengerle, “What (if Anything) Does Carter Page Know?” (New York Times, Dec. 18, 2017); Scott Shane, Mark Mazzetti, and Adam Goldman, “Trump Adviser’s Visit to Moscow Got the F.B.I.’s Attention” (New York Times, April 19, 2017); Goldman, “Russian Spies Tried to Recruit Carter Page Before He Advised Trump” (New York Times, April 4, 2017).

  15. See, e.g., Robert Zubrin, “Trump: The Kremlin’s Candidate—Donald Trump’s energy adviser is all in for Putin” (National Review, April 4, 2016); Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Spencer Ackerman, Julian Borger, and Luke Harding, “Former Trump adviser Carter Page held ‘strong pro-Kremlin views’, says ex-boss” (The Guardian, April 14, 2017); Hall, “Why did FBI suspect Trump campaign adviser was a foreign agent?”, supra; Shane et al., “Trump Adviser’s Visit to Moscow Got the F.B.I.’s Attention”, supra.

  16. Dan Freedman, “N.Y. GOP’s Cox introduced Carter Page to Trump campaign” (Times Union, Feb. 5, 2018).

  17. See, e.g., David Lightman and William Douglas, “Trump slams George W. Bush in freewheeling GOP debate” (McClatchy, Feb 13, 2016); MJ Lee, “How Donald Trump blasted George W. Bush in S.C.—and still won” (CNN, Feb. 21, 2016); John Solomon and Buck Sexton, “Trump slams Bush for ‘worst single mistake’ in U.S. history” (The Hill, Sept. 18, 2018); “Letter from G.O.P. National Security Officials Opposing Donald Trump” (New York Times, Aug. 8, 2016).

  18. Michael Crowley, “Trump’s foreign policy team baffles GOP experts” (Politico, March 21, 2016).

  19. Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 2384.

  20. See, e.g., Title 50, U.S. Code, Section 1861(2)(B): “An investigation conducted under this section shall … not be conducted of a United States person solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”

  21. Title 50, U.S. Code, Section 1801(b)(2).

  22. Mueller Report, Vol. I, pp. 96-97.

  23. United States v. Evgeny Buryakov, Igor Sporyshev, and Victor Podobnyy, Arrest Complaint (Southern District of New York, Jan. 23, 2015) pp. 12-13 (Page is “Male-1,” whom the Russian spy Victor Podobnyy refers to as an “idiot,” and one of whose 2013 interviews by the FBI is described in paragraph 34.); Andrew C. McCarthy, “A Foreign Power’s Recruitment Effort Is Not a Basis for a FISA Court Warrant” (National Review, Jan. 26, 2013); McCarthy, “The Schiff Memo Harms Democrats More Than It Helps Them” (National Review, Feb. 25, 2013).

  24. United States v. Buryakov, et al., Complaint, supra, p. 13, para. 34.

  25. Schiff Memo, supra, p. 4 (the relevant footnote (no. 10) is redacted except for a cite to the Buryakov complaint).

  26. Mike Levine, “Trump ‘dossier’ stuck in New York, didn’t trigger Russia investigation, sources say” (ABC News, Sept. 18, 2018) (“sources told ABC News [Page’s] file, like many counterintelligence files, was never closed”).

  27. Mueller Report, Vol. I, pp. 95-101.

  28. Title 50, U.S. Code, Section 1701, et seq. See also Andrew C. McCarthy, “Legislative Emergencies and the Long-Lost Legislative Veto” (National Review, Jan. 12, 2019).

  29. “Text: Obama’s Speech at the New Economic School” (New York Times, July 7, 2009).

  30. Mueller Report, Vol. I, pp. 95-101.

  31. Ibid.

  32. Under state and party rules, the results of primary elections tend to be advisory; they do not bind the delegate to vote for the popular vote winner. See also Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman, “Donald Trump Hires Paul Manafort to Lead Delegate Effort”
(New York Times, March 28, 2016).

  33. Glenn Thrush, “To Charm Trump, Paul Manafort Sold Himself as an Affordable Outsider” (New York Times, April 8, 2017).

  34. Evan Perez, Shimon Prokupecz, and Pamela Brown, “US government wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman” (CNN, Sept. 17, 2017).

  35. Josh Gerstein, “New scrutiny of potential Manafort link with Russia” (Politico, May 1, 2018). Federal discovery rules require the prosecutor to disclose to the defendant prior to trial “any relevant written or recorded statement by the defendant” if it is within the government’s possession. Rule 16(a)(1)(B), Fed. R. Crim. P.

  36. See Josh Gerstein, “How Paul Manafort could put the FBI on trial” (Politico, April 8, 2018) FBI Agent Peter “Strzok also appears to have been involved in preparing Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications related to the Russia probe. Whether any of those relate directly to Manafort is unclear, although the FBI placed one of Manafort’s associates, Russian-Ukrainian national Konstantin Kilimnik, under court-ordered surveillance.”).

  37. Peter Schweizer, Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends (Harper 2018), chapters 2 and 3; Chuck Ross, “Nellie Ohr: Ukrainian Lawmaker Was Fusion GPS Source” (Daily Caller, Feb. 6, 2019); Jeff Carlson, “Joe Biden, Obama Officials Stood to Gain from Ukrainian Influence—New evidence suggests Ukraine played a key role in creating Trump–Russia collusion narrative at behest of Obama officials” (Epoch Times, April 26, 2019); John Solomon, “How the Obama White House engaged Ukraine to give Russia collusion narrative an early boost” (The Hill, April 25, 2019).

  38. Schweizer, Secret Empires, supra.

  39. See McCarthy, “Is ‘Collusion with Russia’ Over?”, supra; McCarthy, “A Bipartisan Dossier of Collusion” (National Review, Oct. 28, 2017). In April 2019, Craig was indicted for lying to the government about his work for Ukraine. United States v. Gregory B. Craig (U.S. District Court, District of Columbia) (Indictment, April 11, 2019). Like Craig, Tony Podesta (among other lobbyists said to have done work for foreign countries) was referred by Trump–Russia Special Counsel Robert Mueller for investigation by other Justice Department components. See, e.g., Associated Press, “Feds ramp up probe into Podesta lobbying firm with ties to Manafort” (New York Post, Dec. 5, 2018).

  40. Marc Caputo, “Sources: Roger Stone quit, wasn’t fired by Trump in campaign shakeup” (Politico, Aug. 8, 2015).

  41. Kenneth Vogel, David Stern, and Josh Meyer, “Manafort faced blackmail attempt, hacks suggest” (Politico, Feb. 3, 2017); see also Matthew Kupfer, “UPDATE: Publication of Manafort Payments violated law, interfered in US election, Kyiv court rules” (Kyiv Post, Dec. 12, 2018).

  42. Perez et al., “US government wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman,” supra.

  43. Kimberley Strassel, “Was Trump’s Campaign ‘Set Up’? At some point, the Russia investigation became political. How early was it?” (Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2018).

  44. Schiff Memo (HPSCI Minority Memo, January 29, 2018) p. 3 & n.10 (though this footnote remains redacted).

  CHAPTER 7

  1. Mueller Report, Vol. 1, pp. 80-95, 192-93.

  2. United States v. Papadopoulos, No. 17 Cr. 182 (RDM), Statement of the Offense (Oct. 5, 2017).

  3. Jeff Carlson, “Ties that Bind—Stefan Halper, Joseph Mifsud & Alexander Downer (& Papadopoulos)” (Epoch Times, May 10, 2018); see also Griff Witte and Karla Adam, “Is there more than meets the eye with the professor at the center of the Trump–Russia probe—or less?” (Washington Post, Nov. 4, 2017) (republished, Salt Lake Tribune).

  4. It is unclear whether the Model UN participation claim is an exaggeration. Brian Whitaker, “What George Papadopoulos did before joining the Trump campaign: a chronology” (Medium.com, Aug. 24, 2018); Jason Meisner and Patrick M. O’Connell, “Week after bombshell, George Papadopoulos largely remains a mystery man” (Chicago Tribune, Nov. 7, 2017).

  5. Lee Smith, “The Maltese Phantom of Russiagate” (Real Clear Investigations, May 30, 2018).

  6. Smith, “The Maltese Phantom of Russiagate,” supra; Stephan C. Roh and Thierry Pastor, The Faking of Russia-gate: The Papadopoulos Case, an Investigative Analysis (ILS Publishing Ltd. 2018).

  7. Mueller report, Vol. II, p. 83.

  8. Mrs. Polonskaya was originally introduced to Papadopoulos by as “Olga Vinogradova,” which is reportedly her maiden name. Her brother told The New York Times she had no connection to Putin or the Russian government (“She’s not interested in politics. She can barely tell the difference between Lenin and Stalin.”) The brother, it should be noted, further denied that she portrayed herself as Putin’s niece, though that is alleged in the special prosecutor’s statement of the offense—a claim that Papadopoulos did not dispute but which was irrelevant to the lie he admitted telling FBI agents. Sharon LaFraniere, David D. Kirkpatrick, Andrew Higgins, and Michael Schwirtz, “A London Meeting of an Unlikely Group: How a Trump Adviser Came to Learn of Clinton ‘Dirt’” (New York Times, Nov. 10, 2017); see also Mueller report, Vol. I, pp. 84, 87-89, 193.

  9. Mueller report, Vol. 1, pp. 89-90.

  10. Mueller report, Vol. I, p. 193.

  11. See, e.g., Andrew C. McCarthy, “The Travel Ban Is about Vetting—Which Means It’s about Islam” (National Review, March 18, 2017).

  12. Andrew C. McCarthy, The Grand Jihad (Encounter 2010); McCarthy, “The Jihad in London” (National Review, March 25, 2017); John O’Sullivan, “Britain Needs to Have an Uncomfortable Conversation about Islamic Terrorism” (National Review, June 7, 2017).

  13. Associate Press, “Say sorry to Trump or risk special relationship, Cameron told” (Times of London, May 4, 2016); “David Cameron stands by attack on Donald Trump over Muslim ‘ban’” (BBC, May 16, 2016). Papadopoulos was eventually dumped from the Trump campaign after making foolish comments to a Russian news agency about how sanctions were incentivizing Russia into closer relations with China. Mueller report, Vol. 1, p. 93 & n.492.

  14. John Solomon and Alison Spann, “Australian diplomat whose tip prompted FBI’s Russia-probe has tie to Clintons” (The Hill, March 5, 2018); Brennan Weiss, “Some Republicans are latching onto a dubious new theory about the Australian diploma who was pivotal to launching the Trump–Russia probe” (Business Insider, March 5, 2018); Australian Associated Press, “Ex-Trump adviser takes aim at Alexander Downer after Mueller report” (The Guardian, March 25, 2019).

  15. Stephen Robinson, “MI6, a death in China and the very secretive Mayfair company full of spooks: Labelled a ‘convenient rest home’ for spies, Hakluyt had always managed to stay in the shadows—until a top intelligence operator lost his life in murky circumstances” (Evening Standard, March 30, 2012).

  16. A well-informed researcher who tweets under the name Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber—an homage (or perhaps a prod) to the Utah U.S. attorney appointed by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to examine actions by the FBI and Justice Department relevant to the 2016 campaign), notes that Hak-luyt is an homage to Richard Hakluyt, a sixteenth-century British explorer who promoted the colonization of North America and published maps under of what he called “Novus Orbis.” When former British spy Christopher Steele, an acquaintance of several Hakluyt figures, left British intelligence to start his own private-eye firm, he named it “Orbis.”. Undercover Huber’s thread relates the Halper-Downer panel at Cambridge. Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber), “Is a mysterious British private spy firm linked to a series of ‘collusion’ stings on the @realDonaldTrump team? Is HAKLUYT the ‘British Fusion GPS’?” (TreadReader app., May 8, 2018); “Pembroke College William Pitt seminar—Geopolitics: crisis and change” (Oct. 15, 2010). See also Jeff Carlson, “Dearlove Connections—UK Intel Firm Hakluyt, Alexander Downer, Stefan Halper & Papadopoulos” (Epoch Times, May 9, 2018); @The_War_Economy Tweet (Jan. 17, 2018) (Facebook entry with photos of former CIA Director John Brennan appearing at the Hakluyt Leadership Seminar); Tim Shipman, “Louis Susman: Obama’s choice as London envoy�
��Barack Obama might very well owe his national political career to Louis Susman” (Telegraph, Feb. 21, 2009); Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order (Cambridge University Press 2005); Halper and Clarke, The Silence of the Rational Center—Why American Foreign Policy Is Failing (Basic Books, 2007); World Affairs Council, Premium Member and Trustee Event announcement: “Jonathan Clarke, a Scholar at the Cato Institute and co-author of America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order” (Oct. 2004).

  17. Smith, “The Maltese Phantom of Russiagate,” supra; see also Elizabeth Lea Vos, “All Russiagate Roads Lead to London as Evidence Emerges of Joseph Misfud’s Links to UK Intelligence” (Zerohedge, April 4, 2018) (including photo of Mifsud and Smith together at a training program on international security organized by Link Campus University and the London Academy of Diplomacy).

  18. Chuck Ross, “Alexander Downer Describes Barroom Meeting with Trump Adviser George Papadopoulos” (Daily Caller, May 27, 2018) (discussing Downer interview with The Australian on April 28, 2018).

  19. Rudy Takala, “Leaked papers appear to reveal Dem ‘pay for play’ scheme” (Washington Examiner, Sept. 14, 2016); Michael Sainato, “Corruption doesn’t start or end with Hillary” (Observer, Sept. 14, 2016); Ryan Lizza, “Let’s Be Friends—Two presidents find a mutual advantage” (New Yorker, Sept. 3, 2012).

  20. Greg Miller, The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy (Custom House, 2018).

  21. Statement of the Offense, supra, pp. 7-8.

  22. Mueller report, Vol. I, p. 89 n.465.

  23. Mueller report, Vol. I, p. 89 n.464.

  24. Chuck Ross, “Papadopoulos Addresses Key Question Looming Over Collusion Conspiracy Theory” (Daily Caller, Sept. 14, 2018).

  25. Andrew C. McCarthy, “The Steele Dossier’s ‘Corroborated’ Claims Were Old News” (National Review, March 4, 2019).

  CHAPTER 8

  1. Tom Kertscher, “Donald Trump wants to pull the U.S. out of NATO, Hillary Clinton says” (Politifact, April 1, 2016).