Trump Russia probe: Who's involved, where it stands Wednesday January 30th, 2019 at 2:52 AM
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President Donald Trump has characterized investigations into Russian meddling in his election as a "witch hunt." Photo by Zach Gibson/UPI | License Photo
Jan. 29 (UPI) -- It's the biggest question of Donald Trump's presidency: Did members of his campaign collude with the Russian government to sway the 2016 election?
U.S. intelligence agencies announced in October 2016 that they agree Moscow was responsible for hacking Democratic National Committee computers as well as those of other Democratic figures and organizations.
The hackers forwarded the information they obtained to WikiLeaks, some of which was seen as damaging to campaign of Trump rival Hillary Clinton.
What role, if any, Trump or his associates played in the alleged interference has prompted four investigations -- one by the FBI, one in the House and two in the Senate -- which collectively Trump has labeled a "witch hunt."
Attempts to answer the question have also prompted a new one -- whether Trump has obstructed investigations into the matter.
Here are the key players and how they're involved:
President Donald Trump
Trump has characterized allegations that his campaign colluded with Russian efforts to meddle in the election as a "witch hunt."
Though he said he wasn't involved in the DNC hacking, in July 2016, Trump said he hoped Russia would find 30,000 emails missing from Hillary Clinton's private email server during her time as secretary of state.
"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," he said during a press conference in Doral, Fla.
Trump later tweeted that if Russians did have the emails, they should share them with the FBI.
Clinton's campaign accused Trump of actively encouraging "a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent." Trump said he was only joking.
Though he often praised Russian President Vladimir Putin during his campaign, Trump repeatedly denied meeting with him prior to their first official face-to-face at a G20 summit in Berlin in July 2017.
Prior to his campaign for president, Trump had numerous business dealings with Russian companies. About one-third of the units on the most expensive floors of Trump Tower in Manhattan were sold to people or companies connected to Russia and neighboring states by 2004.
Just before ground broke on the building, Russia defaulted on $40 billion in domestic debt, the ruble plummeted and many Russian millionaires invested in U.S. real estate as a safe place for their money.
Trump and his children have traveled to Russia a number of times for business deals, and though he applied for trademarks there, he never purchased any real estate or opened hotels in Russia. Trump and members of his press team have said he has no financial or business connections to the country.
In a September 2015 interview on The Hugh Hewitt Show, Trump said he made contacts with powerful people in Russia.
"I was with the top-level people, both oligarchs and generals, and top of the government people. I can't go further than that, but I will tell you that I met the top people, and the relationship was extraordinary," he said.
Some members of Congress have questioned whether Trump obstructed the FBI's Russia probe when he allegedly asked former director James Comey to drop the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Meanwhile, Trump's personal lawyer dealing with the Russia investigation, John Dowd, unexpectedly resigned from his role in March 2018 after disagreements with the president.
Michael Flynn
File Photo by Mike Theiler/UPI
Flynn became the first former Trump administration official to be charged in the special counsel probe on Dec. 1, 2017. He pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement to the FBI regarding conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
The plea could indicate Flynn is cooperating with the special counsel investigation.
Trump forced Flynn to resign as his national security adviser Feb. 13, 2017, for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about a meeting he had with Kislyak during the transition period.
In his resignation letter, Flynn said he may have discussed policy matters and potential sanctions by the Obama administration with Kislyak, topics he later told Pence were not discussed.
Trump said he only fired Flynn because of the lack of disclosure to Pence, and supported his national security adviser's contacts with Russians during the transition. Comey testified in June that Trump implied he wanted the FBI to "let go" of its investigation into Flynn. Trump has denied the allegation.
In December 2015, Flynn sat at a table with Putin at a gala for Russia's state-owned news outlet, RT, and made an appearance on the television network. He made $65,000 that year from companies linked to Russia, but omitted the payments on his security clearance renewal paperwork in January 2016.
In April, Flynn filed revised financial disclosure forms revealing payments from three Russian companies with ties to the Kremlin shortly before he joined the Trump campaign.
After initially invoking the Fifth Amendment, Flynn said he would comply with a Senate intelligence committee subpoena for personal and professional documents related to his dealings with Russia.
James Comey
File Photo by Dennis Van Tine/UPI
Trump fired Comey as director of the FBI on May 9, less than four years into his 10-year term. Trump initially said he fired him because of his conduct in the FBI investigation into Clinton's emails.
Later, Trump attributed the dismissal to the active FBI investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian efforts to sway the presidential election. Days before he was fired, Comey asked the Justice Department for more resources and staff for the investigation.
"When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, 'You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story,'" Trump said in an interview at the time.
On June 8, Comey testified before the Senate intelligence committee and said he wrote detailed memos after every discussion he had with Trump. Comey said that shortly after Trump fired Flynn, the president asked him to stop the Flynn investigation.
"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," Comey testified that Trump said.
Comey said he didn't interpret that to mean that Trump wanted the entire Russian investigation dropped.
File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from heading the Justice Department's Russia investigation after it was revealed he didn't disclose meeting with Kislyak twice while he was a senator and surrogate of the Trump campaign.
During his confirmation hearing on Jan. 10, 2017, Sessions said he was not aware of anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicating with the Russian government.
"I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn't have -- did not have communications with the Russians, and I'm unable to comment on it," he said.
Sessions later said his meetings were part of the normal course of duty for his job as a U.S. senator and he never discussed campaign-related matters. To avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, he stepped away from the investigation, a move Trump has since criticized.
"Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself, which frankly I think is very unfair to the president," Trump told The New York Times in July. "How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, 'Thanks, Jeff, but I'm not going to take you.' It's extremely unfair -- and that's a mild word -- to the president."
Mueller's team interviewed Sessions in January 2018, the first time the special counsel team spoke to a member of the president's Cabinet about the case.
Sessions resigned as attorney general at Trump's request in November 2018.
Former FBI director Robert Mueller attends James Comey's swearing-in in 2013. File Pool Photo by Alex Wong/UPI
After Sessions' recusal, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to lead the FBI investigation into Russia. In the first year, his investigation cost nearly $17 million.
Donald Trump Jr.
File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI
Most of the focus on the president's oldest son's involvement with Russia has been on his June 2016 meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer who said she had damaging information about Clinton.
Eight people attended that meeting, which started with an email from British music publicist Rob Goldstone to Trump Jr. In it, Goldstone offered to arrange a meeting between Trump Jr. and Natalia Veselnitskaya, whom he described as a "Russian government attorney." Goldstone said she wanted to give Trump Jr. information about Clinton as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump."
Trump Jr. agreed to go, saying, "If it's what you say, I love it, especially later in the summer."
Trump Jr. later said Veselnitskaya made "vague" and "ambiguous" statements that "made no sense" related to alleged information she had that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee in support of Clinton.
He said Veselnitskaya's "true agenda" was to discuss the U.S. adoption of Russian children and the Magnitsky Act.
In addition to Trump Jr. and Veselnitskaya, six others were at the meeting: Goldstone; Ike Kaveladze, the vice president of a Russian real estate company; Paul Manafort; Jared Kushner; Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist who served in a counterintelligence unit of the former Soviet military; and Anatoli Samochornov, a former State Department employee acting as a translator for Veselnitskaya.
On Sept. 7, Trump Jr. had a private meeting with the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He said he attended the Trump Tower meeting because Veselnitskaya promised "information concerning the fitness, character or qualifications of" Clinton.
Jared Kushner
File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI
Senior White House adviser and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner said he met four times with Russian officials.
In June 2016, he was one of eight people in attendance at the meeting between Trump Jr. and a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer.
In December 2016, he met with Kislyak and Flynn at Trump Tower in Manhattan. The White House said they spoke about "potentially establishing a more open line of communication in the future."
The same month, he also met with Sergey Gorkov head of Russian state investment bank Vnesheconombank.
On July 24, 2017, Kushner testified before the Senate intelligence committee that his meetings with Russians the year before were "proper" and not an attempt to collude with them to win the election.
Kushner has come under scrutiny for not disclosing the meetings on his SF-86 questionnaire, which he submitted as part of his security clearance. He said his assistant submitted the form before he had a chance to review it.
Paul Manafort
File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI
On Sept. 14, 2018, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort entered a plea agreement with the Mueller investigation, saying he would cooperate with prosecutors in his Washington, D.C., money laundering and foreign lobbying case. The arrangement came less than a month after a federal jury in Virginia found him guilty on eight counts in a bank fraud trial in a separate case linked to the Mueller probe.
The guilty plea averted a second trial. The D.C. indictment, filed in October 2017, charged Manafort with conspiracy, money laundering, tax fraud, failure to file reports of foreign financial assets, serving as an unregistered foreign agent and giving false and misleading statements under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Witness tampering charges were added in June 2018 and named an accomplice -- Konstantin Kilimnik.
Prosecutors reduced the set of charges against Manafort on Sept. 14 from seven to two.
On the second indictment -- filed in Virginia in February 2018 -- a jury found him guilty on Aug. 21 of five tax fraud charges, one charge of hiding foreign bank accounts and two counts of bank fraud. The verdict came after four days of deliberations during which the panel of six men and six women indicated it had difficulty reaching a consensus on 10 counts. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III declared a mistrial on those 10 charges.
The indictment -- filed in Virginia in February 2018 -- accused him and business associate Rick Gates of lying to banks about their business income in order to get more than $20 million in loans.
The February 2018 indictment says Manafort and Gates passed the money they received from Ukraine through foreign bank accounts to conceal it from the Internal Revenue Service.
Manafort has been in jail since June 15, 2018, when a federal judge in Washington, D.C., revoked his $10 million bond in the first indictment he faced. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson initially put him on house arrest after he pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Manafort resigned as Trump's campaign chairman in August 2016 after The New York Times reported a Ukrainian government corruption probe found Manafort received nearly $13 million off the books from a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party. In June 2017, when Manafort registered as a foreign agent after the fact, he reported making more than $17 million from the Party of Regions.
Within the first month of Trump's presidency, U.S. intelligence agencies said they were investigating intercepted phone calls between Manafort and Russian intelligence agents. Manafort said he didn't realize they were intelligence agents.
Manafort also was one of eight people in attendance at a meeting between Trump Jr. and a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer.
Manafort was scheduled to testify before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary in July 2017, but the committee dropped its subpoena after he spoke with members of the Senate intelligence committee and gave them documents on July 25.
On Jan. 3, 2018, Manafort sued the Department of Justice, saying Mueller didn't have the authority to investigate his lobbying dealings in Ukraine. The Department of Justice asked for the suit to be dropped, saying Manafort misinterpreted Mueller's appointment as allowing him to investigate crimes "uncovered for the very first time during his investigation."
On May 15, 2018, a federal judge rejected Manafort's suit.
They said he can prosecute crimes the Justice Department knew about.
Rick Gates
File Photo by Leigh Vogel/UPI
Former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates, pleaded guilty Feb. 23, 2018, to two charges leveled against him by Mueller -- lying to the FBI and defrauding the U.S. government. As part of the agreement, he said he would cooperate with the special counsel probe.
Gates, along with Manafort, faced one of the first indictments approved by a grand jury in the Mueller probe. A judge placed him on house arrest Oct. 30, 2017, after he initially pleaded not guilty to a series of charges including conspiracy, money laundering, tax fraud, failure to file reports of foreign financial assets, serving as an unregistered foreign agent and giving false and misleading statements under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. He posted $5 million bond.
Gates is accused of transferring more than $3 million from offshore accounts.
Though Manafort was ousted from the Trump campaign in 2016, Gates stayed on and had a role in the president's inaugural committee. He also was part of a lobbying group to help push Trump's agenda, but he was forced out in April amid questions over his role in the Russia probe.
Gates faced a second indictment in February 2018 accusing him and Manafort of financial crimes.
Alex Van Der Zwaan
In April 2018, a federal judge sentenced prominent New York-based Dutch attorney Alex Van Der Zwaan to 30 days in prison after he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. His was the first punishment related to the Mueller investigation.
The indictment from Mueller's team accused him of making false statements regarding his work with a law firm on behalf of Ukraine's Ministry of Justice in 2012 to prepare a report on the trial of Ukrainian politician Yulia Tymoshenko.
Van Der Zwaan also communicated with Gates and Manafort.
In addition to the prison sentence, the judge ordered van der Zwaan to pay a $20,000 fine and serve two months of supervised release.
File Photo by Ken Cedeno
George Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, pleaded guilty in October to lying to the FBI about his interactions with Russians linked to the Kremlin.
Court documents show Papadopoulos worked to create a relationship between the campaign and the Kremlin after Trump secured the Republican nomination.
Carter Page
Carter Page speaks in Moscow on December 12, 2016. File Photo by Yuri Kochetkov/EPA
Carter Page is an American oil industry consultant who served as a foreign policy adviser to Trump during his presidential campaign.
Various U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, NSA and FBI, have investigated him for alleged contact he has had with Russian officials under U.S. sanctions. He distanced himself from the Trump campaign in September 2016 while under scrutiny.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued a warrant to allow the Justice Department to surveil Page in the summer of 2016 based on evidence he was working as a Russian agent.
In March 2017, before news of the FISA warrant became public, Page sent a letter to the Senate intelligence committee saying he may have been wiretapped during the time he spent at Trump Tower for the campaign.
A pair of dueling memos about the FISA warrant became the focus of attention for the House intelligence committee in January and February 2018. One written by the direction of committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., accuses top law enforcement officials of relying on an unsubstantiated dossier by former British spy Christopher Steel to get the FISA warrant. Trump OK'd the release of that memo in early February.
Trump declined to release another memo by ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a rebuttal of the Nunes memo. The president said there were security concerns with some of the information in that memo.
Photo by Gary I Rothstein/UPI
Political consultant Roger Stone pleaded not guilty Jan. 29, 2019, to a seven-count indictment including charges or lying to the FBI, obstruction and witness tampering. The Mueller probe accused him of lying about his contact with WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange during the 2016 campaign.
He previously said he communicated with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in order to obtain information on Clinton.
The Mueller team also said Stone attempted to intimidate Randy Credico, another witness interviewed in the probe.
Federal agents arrested him Jan. 25, 2019, at his Fort Lauderdale, Fla., home.
In March 2017, Stone also acknowledged communicating with Democratic National Committee hacker Guccifer 2.0, which U.S. intelligence agencies believe is a handle used by Russian intelligence.
He answered questions from staffers of the House intelligence committee Sept. 26, 2017, saying he was unaware WikiLeaks planned to publish Clinton's emails. He said he only knew about it beforehand "by reading about it on Twitter."
In February 2016, U.S. intelligence agencies said they were investigating whether Stone had any contact with Russian officials during the time he was involved in Trump's campaign.
During his Sept. 26 interview, he said neither he nor anyone involved in the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.
Photo by John Angelillo/UPI
On Dec. 12, 2018, a federal judge sentenced Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen to three years in prison after he pleaded guilty to nine charges, one of which stemmed from the Mueller probe. That charge -- lying to Congress -- stems from statements Cohen made to lawmakers about how much Trump knew about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow during his campaign.
The Justice Department charged Cohen for telling House and Senate committees last year that a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow ended in January 2016. But prosecutors said development continued after that date.
Trump said multiple times he had no business dealings in Russia -- and Cohen told lawmakers he never contacted anyone in Russia about the real estate project. The indictment said Cohen, in fact, spoke on the phone with a Russian intermediary for help with the development. Cohen also admitted to discussing the deal with Trump.
The other charges -- separate from, but stemming from information uncovered by the Mueller probe -- include five counts of tax evasion and one each of excessive campaign contribution, unlawful corporate contribution and making false statements to a bank.
The campaign finance charges stem from his involvement in making payments in 2016 to two women -- Stormy Daniels, also known as Stephanie Clifford, and Karen McDougal -- who claimed affairs with Trump. Prosecutors said they were intended "to influence the election from the shadows."
Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin denies accusations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election. File Photo by Yuri Kadobnov/Pool/EPA
The Russian president has repeatedly denied any government involvement in meddling in the U.S. election or hacking of political figures' email accounts.
In July 2017, when he met with Trump for the first time, he again denied the accusations. During the 2016 campaign, Putin lauded Trump as a "really brilliant and talented person," and Trump called Putin a "strong leader."
The relationship between the two countries, though, has been strained over U.S. sanctions on Russia first imposed by the Obama administration and continued under Trump over alleged election meddling.
Sergey Kislyak
Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak attends a ceremony at NASA Headquarters on December 2, 2016. File Photo by Joel Kowsky/NASA
Sergey Kislyak served as the Russian ambassador to the United States from shortly before Barack Obama became president in 2008 until July 23. Meetings between Kislyak and members of Trump's campaign team have come under scrutiny.
Trump forced Flynn to resign Feb. 13, 2017, for failing to disclose the nature of a meeting he had with the ambassador before Trump's inauguration. Kislyak met twice with then-Sen. Sessions, who did not disclose the meetings during Senate confirmation hearings to become attorney general. Kushner also met with Kislyak in 2016 and did not disclose it to congressional and federal officials.
On May 10, Kislyak met with Trump in the Oval Office along with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. During that meeting, Trump shared classified intelligence information with the Russians.
For his part, Kislyak said his interactions with Trump surrogates are part of his job as a diplomat -- to make connections with political figures in the United States.
Status of investigations
Special counsel
On May 17, Rosenstein appointed special counsel Mueller to oversee the FBI's investigation. The team also is considering whether Trump obstructed the FBI investigation into Flynn.
Mueller assembled a legal team that includes Andrew Weissman, who once ran the Justice Department's fraud section, Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben, Michael Bowe, John Dowd, and three partners from his former law firm, Aaron Zebley, Jeannie Rhee and James Quarles.
The team has the legal authority to issue subpoenas and can use its own discretion whether to inform members of the Trump administration about the investigation's progress. Trump has the authority to fire Mueller, though senators have introduced at least two pieces of legislation to prevent that.
Mueller's investigation issued its first charges on Oct 30, against Manafort and a former business associate, Gates. Flynn and Van Der Zwaan also have faced charges.
Additionally as part of the Mueller probe, Richard Pinedo of California pleaded guilty in February 2018 to identity fraud for providing online services to circumvent the security features of online payment processors. It allowed Russian nationals -- accused of interference in the U.S. presidential election -- to open 14 PayPal accounts with the stolen identities of people in the United States.
On Oct. 10, 2018, a federal judge sentenced Pinedo to six months in prison, six months of home confinement and 24 months of supervised release.
Pinedo's guilty plea was connected to an indictment earlier that week of 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities. The defendants, posing as persons located inside the United States, created false personas and operated social media pages and groups designed to attract American audiences, the indictment said.
On July, 13, 2018, the Justice Department announced indictments against 12 Russian intelligence officials stemming from the Mueller probe. The 12 officers in the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, were accused of being involved in a cyberattack against Democratic Party organizations as well as the presidential committee of Clinton.
The 29-page indictment outlines 12 counts, including alleged interference in the election, aggravated identity theft, money laundering, and computer access without authorization.
Rosenstein said two GRU groups were involved, one to "actively steal information" and "another to disseminate it." Two online parties, named DC Leaks and Guccifer 2.0, were the personae by which the Russian hackers operated. Both were previously identified as non-Russian entities, but "were controlled by the Russian GRU."
The first sentence related to his probe came April 3, 2018, for Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan, for lying to the FBI.
In December, 2019, the Department of Justice said the Mueller probe has cost more than $25 millionsince it began in the spring of 2017.
U.S. Senate
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Committee on the Judiciary are investigating Russian election meddling.
The intelligence committee heard testimony from Comey on his dismissal and interactions with Trump; has subpoenaed documents from Flynn; and has interviewed Manafort and Trump Jr.
On May 16, 2018, the panel issued a report saying it agreed Russia meddled in the 2016 election and that the effort was directed by Putin.
The judiciary committee in June announced it would investigate whether the Obama and Trump administrations improperly interfered with the FBI investigation into Russia.
There are been some disagreement between the two Senate committees on witnesses, and judiciary committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said he would consider subpoenaing Comey and other witnesses.
U.S. House of Representatives
This House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was the first body to conclude its investigation -- determining in March 2018 that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia prior to the 2016 election. The committee said it would release the final Republican-authored report on its findings after it is redacted of classified information.
Democrats said they do not sanction the report's findings and vowed to continue the investigation.
On March 20, 2017, Comey told the committee there was a counterintelligence investigation into Trump. On Sept. 26, Stone said there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian state.
In Apri 2017l, the committee's chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, said he would temporarily step aside from the panel's Russia investigation after he gave wiretapping evidence to Trump before he shared it with panel members.
Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, took over the Russia investigation.
Impeachment efforts
On July 12, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., introduced articles of impeachment against Trump, though the measure attracted virtually no support, even among Democrats. It had one co-sponsor, Rep. Al Green, D-Texas.
Democrats have sought to tamp down talk of impeaching Trump for fear it would backfire among moderates and shift focus away from the ongoing investigations.
Sherman's articles allege Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey after Comey refused to end an investigation into Flynn at Trump's behest.
Articles of impeachment are the first step on a long path set out in the Constitution for removing a president from office. Given the Republican control of both the House of Representatives and Senate, Sherman's measure has virtually no chance of advancing with the majority necessary in each chamber.
- Topics
- Hillary Clinton
- Michael Flynn
- James Comey
- Donald Trump
- Jeff Sessions
- Jared Kushner
- Sean Spicer
- Mike Pence
- Roger Stone
- Julian Assange
- Sergey Lavrov
- Chuck Grassley
- Devin Nunes
- Mike Conaway
- Al Green
- Barack Obama
- Oval Office
- Robert Mueller
- Wikileaks
- G20
- 2016 Election
- George Papadopoulos
- P. Diddy
- Adam Schiff
- T.S. Ellis III
- Rod Rosenstein
- Michael Cohen
- Stormy Daniels
- Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
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Late-night hosts interpreted the end of the government shutdown and the arrest of Roger Stone.
Seth Meyers: ‘Eating a Happy Meal on a date with Stormy Daniels’
On Monday’s Late Night, Seth Meyers addressed what he saw as a particularly symbolic weekend of news for the White House. Between Trump’s capitulation on the government shutdown and the arrest of his close associate Roger Stone, Meyers said, “it’s not often that a single event sums up an entire presidency but on Friday, we got one that came pretty close.
“Remember, Trump brags that he only hires the best people, calls the Russian investigation a hoax, calls CNN fake news, and his government shutdown left FBI agents without pay,” Meyers explained. “So it was especially ironic when one of Trump’s closest associates was arrested by unpaid FBI agents working for the special counsel on the Russia investigation, and the whole thing was caught on tape by CNN.
“The only way that could’ve been more humiliating for Trump,” Meyers said, “is if Robert Mueller celebrated by eating a Happy Meal at McDonald’s on a date with Stormy Daniels.”
The indictment against Stone may seem damning – he allegedly told a radio host that he should “pull a Frank Pentangeli”, in reference to a Godfather character who lied to a congressional committee – but Stone left his house in high spirits, imitating his hero Richard Nixon’s victory pose.
“Now you might be thinking to yourself: didn’t Nixon resign in disgrace? Maybe that’s not the best pose to show your innocence? But Stone doesn’t remember that, because he spent most of the 70s traveling around in a glass elevator that he stole from Willy Wonka,” Meyers joked about Stone and his off-kilter, retro-formal outfits.
“This guy was basically begging to be arrested,” Meyers said. “I mean, he imitates Richard Nixon, he quotes from The Godfather, and he dresses like Hannibal Lecter.”
Stephen Colbert: ‘The definition of insanity is Donald Trump’
Stephen Colbert also poked fun at the braggadocio of the Trump team in the face of seeming defeat. Trump compromised his harsh position on his signature campaign promise on Friday, agreeing to not veto a Senate bill to appropriate funding as long as a Senate committee looked into border funding.
However, “not everyone thought Donald Trump folded like an origami swan,” said Colbert. “For instance, Donald Trump.” The president tweeted that the reopening was “in no way a concession”, and that if there’s no border security deal with wall funding in 21 days, then “it’s off to the races!”
“And believe me, folks, I know races,” Colbert continued in the president’s voice. “Many people call me a racist.”
“So, just to be clear,” Colbert said of the new situation, “he’s making the exact same offer, backed by the exact same threat, but somehow he expects different results. Well, you know what they say: the definition of insanity is Donald Trump.”
Trevor Noah: ‘Calm down, fourth blind mouse’
On the Daily Show, Trevor Noah examined the Fox News response to Roger Stone’s arrest. “It was really interesting to see how his supporters and Trump’s supporters on the right reacted to the way he was arrested,” Noah said in reference to footage of Sean Hannity and Roger Stone decrying the use of armed FBI agents and excessive force in the arrest of Trump’s surrogate.
Stone said in a news interview that more force was used in his arrest than in the raid on Osama bin Laden, El Chapo or Pablo Escobar. “Calm down, fourth blind mouse, calm down,” Noah exhorted, with a poke at Stone’s signature dark, circular sunglasses. “It wasn’t more force than Bin Laden - Bin Laden is at the bottom of the ocean right now.”
Basically, Noah continued, “you have Trump and his people lambasting the police for what they did … and for how many years have black people been saying police in America are extreme – the way they arrest people, the way they interact with citizens when they take them away.”
When those concerns are raised, Noah said, the same people calling foul for the treatment of Roger Stone always say “blue lives matter”, “respect the police” or “that’s the law”.
In an interview with Fox, Stone even compared the FBI approach to that of the Gestapo. “Really? When the cops arrest you, they’re Nazis?” Noah said. “And when they go after black people, you’re like, ‘Well, that’s the law.’
“Look, I’ll be honest with you: I agree with Roger Stone,” Noah continued. “I think the amount of force when that the police used to arrest him seemed excessive … but I also don’t blame the cops. They were just following orders from the top.” Noah then cut to footage from a July 2017 speech Trump gave to law enforcement officers, in which he encouraged them to be rougher when putting suspects in police cars.
“Yeah, poor Trump, he thought rough policing would only apply to MS-13,” joked Noah. “Who knew they would also be using it on the Maga 6.”
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WASHINGTON — A new American intelligence assessment of global threats has concluded that North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear stockpiles and that Iran is not, for now, taking steps necessary to make a bomb, directly contradicting the rationale of two of President Trump’s foreign policy initiatives.
Those conclusions are part of an annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment” released on Tuesday that also stressed the growing cyberthreat from Russia and China, which it said were now “more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s.”
The 42-page threat report found that American trade policies and “unilateralism” — central themes of Mr. Trump’s “America First” approach — have strained traditional alliances and prompted foreign partners to seek new relationships.
In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee linked to the release of the report, the nation’s intelligence chiefs tried to avoid directly questioning administration policies. Yet they detailed a different ranking of the threats facing the United States, starting with cyberattacks and moving on to the endurance of the Islamic State and the capabilities of both North Korea and Iran.
Dan Coats, the national intelligence director, told lawmakers that the Islamic State would continue “to stoke violence” in Syria. He was backed up by the written review, which said there were thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria and a dozen Islamic State networks around the world.
Just last month, Mr. Trump said that “we have won against ISIS; we’ve beaten them, and we’ve beaten them badly” in announcing the withdrawal of American troops from Syria.
The starkest contradiction drawn by the intelligence chiefs was their assessment of North Korea.
Mr. Trump is expected to meet next month with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, in a second round of direct negotiations aimed at ridding Pyongyang of its nuclear weapons. After his last meeting, in Singapore, Mr. Trump tweeted that “there is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.”
Mr. Coats described his concerns in opposite terms.
He cited “some activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearization,” adding that most of what North Korea has dismantled is reversible. He said the North’s “leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival.”
Similarly, the threat review declared that “we currently assess North Korea will seek to retain its W.M.D. capability and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capability.”
Mr. Trump has often noted, accurately, that North Korea has suspended missile tests; its last major test was 14 months ago. But on Tuesday, Gina Haspel, the C.I.A. director, said the government in Pyongyang “is committed to developing a long-range nuclear-armed missile that would pose a direct threat to the United States.”
Ms. Haspel said it was encouraging that North Korea was communicating with the United States. But under questioning by Senator Kamala Harris, the California Democrat who this month announced her candidacy for president, Ms. Haspel said the diplomatic objective was still to insist that North Korea fully disclose and dismantle its nuclear program.
On Iran, Mr. Coats cited Tehran’s continued support of terrorism in Europe and the Middle East, including sponsoring Houthis in Yemen and Shiite militants in Iraq. He also said that he believed that Iranian hard-liners would continue to challenge centrist rivals.
But on one of Mr. Trump’s key assertions — that Iran had cheated on the spirit of the 2015 nuclear agreement even if it was temporarily following its terms — Mr. Coats said Tehran continued to comply with the deal even after the president announced in May that the United States would withdraw from it.
“We do not believe Iran is currently undertaking activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device,” Mr. Coats said.
He added, however, that Iranian officials have “publicly threatened to push the boundaries” of the nuclear agreement if it did not see benefits that were promised, including a resumption of oil sales and an end to American sanctions against its financial transactions around the world.
Mr. Trump has called the nuclear agreement “defective at its core” and warned that Iran would “be on the cusp of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons” if it remained in place. The agreement still stands, largely with support from European capitals.
Senator Angus King, the Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, asked Ms. Haspel point-blank if Iran remained in compliance with the nuclear deal.
She said it was, but added that Iranian leaders were considering steps that would “lessen their adherence” to the agreement.
“They are making some preparations that would increase their ability to take a step back if they make that decision,” Ms. Haspel said. “So at the moment, technically they are in compliance, but we do see them debating amongst themselves as they’ve failed to realize the economic benefits they hoped for from the deal.”
Intelligence officials have long taken stronger positions than Mr. Trump on North Korea’s continuing nuclear activity, the strength of the Islamic State and Russia’s attempts to influence elections. Mr. Trump has often chafed at assessments he finds at variance with his worldview.
April F. Doss, a former associate general counsel at the National Security Agency, said it is not surprising for the intelligence community to stake out facts at odds with the administration view, given that the most recent National Intelligence Strategy noted the spy agencies’ responsibility to “speak truth to power.”
The intelligence chiefs emphasized “the commitment to analyzing intelligence in a manner tied to objective facts, not domestic partisan agendas,” said Ms. Doss, now a partner at the law firm Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr.
Mr. Trump famously clashed with the spy agencies over their conclusions that Russia was behind the hacking and influence operations that marred the 2016 presidential election. On Tuesday, the new director of the Cyber Command, Gen. Paul Nakasone, told the Senate committee that the American efforts to blunt Russian interference in the recent midterm elections had been successful, though he gave no details — an effort Mr. Trump has never discussed.
Much of the hearing focused on cyberthreats from Russia and particularly from China, which the written report said is now positioned to conduct effective cyberattacks against American infrastructure. It specifically cited Beijing’s ability to cut off natural gas pipelines.
Lawmakers discussed the challenges that new technologies being developed by China, Russia and others were posing.
“We’re now living in yet another new age, a time characterized by hybrid warfare, weaponized disinformation, all occurring within the context of a world producing more data than mankind has ever seen,” said Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina and the committee’s chairman.
Foreign enemies “want to see the United States weakened, if not destroyed,” he said. “They want to see us abandon our friends and our allies. They want to see us lessen our global presence. They want to see us squabble and divide. But their tools are different.”
Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, joined Mr. King to highlight dangers posed by Huawei, the Chinese telecommunication giant, which was named in Justice Department indictments on Monday.
Mr. King said the company needed to choose between being “a worldwide telecommunications company or an agent of the Chinese government.”
Responding, Lt. Gen. Robert P. Ashley Jr., the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said no Chinese company could truly choose whether to cooperate or hand over data, given Beijing’s grip.
“It is really authoritarian capitalism in the way the government provides oversight and puts very strict rules in place,” General Ashley said. “It is very problematic.”
The written threat review also found that Russia’s ability to conduct cyberespionage and influence campaigns remains similar to its efforts in the 2016 American presidential election. But, it said, the bigger concern is that “Moscow is now staging cyberattack assets to allow it to disrupt or damage U.S. civilian and military infrastructure during a crisis.”
It specifically noted Russia’s planting of malware in the United States electricity grid. Russia already has the ability to bring the grid down “for at least a few hours,” the review concluded, but is “mapping our critical infrastructure with the long-term goal of being able to cause substantial damage.”
Taken together, the report paints a picture of threats vastly different from those asserted by Mr. Trump.
Notably missing in the written review was evidence that would support building a wall on the southwestern border; the first mention of Mexico and drug cartels was published nearly halfway through the report — following a range of more pressing threats.
Mr. Trump has said the wall is among the most critical security threats facing the United States.
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· · · · · ·
By Mike Levine and Lee FerranJan 29, 2019 5:40 PM ET
Intel chiefs challenge some of Trump's national security claims
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WATCH | Intel chiefs challenge some of Trump's national security claims
By Mike Levine and Lee FerranJan 29, 2019 5:40 PM ET
America's top intelligence officials on Tuesday appeared to challenge some of President Donald Trump's most prominent claims about global national security issues, warning lawmakers that ISIS is still a serious threat to U.S. interests around the world, acknowledging that Iran has -- at least temporarily -- abandoned its efforts to build nuclear weapons, and insisting that North Korea is "unlikely to give up" its own nuclear arsenal.
The testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee coincided with the release of the U.S. intelligence community's latest "worldwide threat assessment," which noted that even "some U.S. allies and partners are seeking greater independence from Washington in response to their perceptions of changing US policies on security and trade."
"In many respects, it is a rebuke to the political rhetoric from the administration," John Cohen, a senior Homeland Security official focusing on threat-related intelligence under the Obama administration, and an ABC News contributor, said. "[It's] striking in some respects."
Last year, Trump removed the United States from the international deal reached with Iran during the Obama administration, claiming the deal would only provide a cloak for Iran to continue its nuclear development. More recently, the Trump administration has touted its operations against ISIS, with Trump himself tweets last month that ISIS had been "defeated" in Syria.
But on Tuesday, the nation's top intelligence official, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, told lawmakers that while ISIS is "nearing territorial defeat" in the region, it "is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria." And Coats said that U.S. intelligence agencies "do not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device."
"Iranian officials have publicly threatened to push the boundaries of [the international deal's] restrictions if Iran does not gain the tangible financial benefits it expected from the deal," Coats added.
Cohen, the former Homeland Security official, said that "what is striking about this detailed assessment is what it doesn't say."
"The report does not reinforce or support recent claims by the administration of a national security crisis at the southern border," Cohen said.
In his opening remarks, Coats framed "migration flows" as a "challenge" to U.S. interests, saying Mexican authorities are not able to "fully address" drug cartels. He also said "[h]igh crime rates and weak job markets will continue to spur U.S.-bound migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras."
Coats told lawmakers his opening remarks were intended "to provide you an overview of the national security threats facing our nation." He was the only one to give opening remarks, as he was speaking on behalf of those seated beside him: CIA Director Gina Haspel, FBI Director Christopher Wray, National Security Agency Director Gen. Paul Nakasone, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Gen. Robert Ashley and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Director Robert Cardillo.
"Threats to U.S. national security will expand and diversify in the coming year, driven in part by China and Russia as they respectively compete more intensely with the United States and its traditional allies and partners," the newly-published 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment warns. "At the same time, some U.S. allies and partners are seeking greater independence from Washington in response to their perceptions of changing US policies on security and trade and are becoming more open to new bilateral and multilateral partnerships."
China dominated much of the discussion, as Coats said China was leveraging economic, military and political muscle to "tout a distinctly Chinese fusion of strong-man autocracy and a form of western style capitalism as a development model and implicit alternative to democratic values and institutions," in pursuit of "global superiority."
The chairman of the Senate panel, GOP Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, echoed those sentiments, warning, "The objective of our enemies has not changed -- they want to see the United States weakened, if not destroyed. They want to see us abandon our friends and allies. They want to see us lessen our global presence. They want to see us weak and divided."
The U.S. officials specifically warned about the economic espionage threat they said emanates from China and targets not only the U.S. government but business and academic institutions.
FBI Director Wray said the nation's use of economic espionage was so widespread that most of the FBI field offices had an open investigation linked to China.
"I would say China writ large is the most significant counter-intelligence threat we face," Wray told lawmakers.
Coats said that China's "pursuit of intellectual property, sensitive research and development plans, and U.S. Person data, remains a significant threat to the US government and private sector."
Wray said, however, that he was "encouraged" that the American people, from those in business to academia, are "now sort of waking up" to the understanding of the blurred lines between Chinese firms and the government and threat that that relationship poses. American allies are starting to rethink their economic and business relationships with the Chinese government and Chinese companies, he said.
Meanwhile, the officials said an economically weakened Russia is working to sow discord in Western institutions and to "undermine the post-WII international order," as Coats put it.
The officials said Russia has continued the social media influence campaign that was so prevalent ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The NSA's Nakasone indicated that some actions of his agency, which handles much of the intelligence community's cyber work, diminished Russian capabilities ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. But the threat has hardly gone away, the officials said.
"We assess that foreign actors will view the 2020 U.S. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests," Coats said. "We expect them to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other’s experiences and efforts in previous elections."
When questioned by Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California, about whether the intelligence community had a single strategy document for combating foreign influence online ahead of the 2020 election, Coats said that one document wouldn't make sense in such a "fluid" environment, but attempted to assure Harris that it was a top priority for the intelligence community.
Rounding out what Coats called the "Big 4" threats, in addition to Russia and China, the officials fielded questions about Iran and North Korea, mostly about their nuclear aspirations.
Despite President Trump's optimism that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would denuclearize his nation, the threat assessment said North Korea is unlikely to do so, as it views nuclear weapons as vital to the survival of the regime.
Still, the CIA's Haspel said that North Korea had frozen nuclear testing and that ongoing dialogue between North Korean and U.S. official was "positive," something of value to North Korea. Coats told lawmakers that when it comes to North Korea, the U.S. intelligence community was going into the topic with "eyes wide open."
Haspel also testified that Iran was "technically" in compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, even if the regime appeared to have taken some steps that might better position the nation should it decide to withdraw from the deal. There were ongoing discussions in Tehran about whether it was worth adhering to the accord's requirements, she said.
Echoing the recently released National Intelligence Strategy, the threat assessment also touched on the dangers of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, 5G networks and deep fakes, and how they could be utilized by adversary nations.
"All four of these states – China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran – are advancing their cyber capabilities, which are relatively low-cost and growing in potency and severity," Coats said. "This includes threatening both minds and machines in an expanding number of ways, such as stealing information, attempting to influence populations, or developing ways to disrupt critical infrastructures."
The threat assessment warned that both China and Russia currently have the ability to hit "localized" sections of American critical infrastructure -- perhaps interrupting a local electrical grid for a few hours or interfering with a natural gas pipeline for days.
In discussing the terrorist organization ISIS, Haspel said that while the group had lost virtually all of its physical territory in Iraq and Syria, the group still commanded thousands of fighters and said it was "still dangerous."
DNI Coats said it was a threat that wasn't going away anytime soon. "While we have defeated the caliphate except for a couple little villages," he said, the U.S. should not "underestimate" the ability of terror groups like ISIS to live on in different places or through their ideology.
"ISIS will continue to be a threat to the United States," he said.
"The composition of the current threats we face is a toxic mix of strategic competitors, regional powers, weak or failed states, and non-state actors using a variety of tools in overt and subtle ways to achieve their goals," Coats said. "The scale and scope of the various threats facing the United States and our immediate interests worldwide is likely to further intensify this year. It is increasingly a challenge to prioritize which threats are of greatest importance. "
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Cliff Sims, left, with Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
January 29 at 2:16 PM
Yet another former aide to President Trump is in the news for writing a memoir about working in the White House. This time, it’s Cliff Sims, scribe of “Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House.”
Yes, the book reportedly contains the kind of salacious behind-the-scenes details about Trump’s most controversial moments that have come to characterize this very specific genre. But Sims also presents himself as a supporter of the president and his politics and has spoken on his press tour about his own personal failings. “I was ruthless. I was a coward. I was self-serving. … Sometimes I didn’t speak up,” he told “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert of his time as a staffer.
Sims doesn’t have the name recognition of other former staffers who have gone on to write books, such as Sean Spicer or Omarosa Manigault Newman. But after Tuesday morning, anyone who follows Trump on Twitter knows his name.
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Donald Trump took huge sums of money from his father, then promptly blew it all on bad real estate ideas. This set up an endless cycle in which he would file for bankruptcy to dump his failed investments, then borrow money from banks and try again, only to fail yet again and have to file for bankruptcy again. In the end, when no legitimate banks would loan him money, he ended up borrowing from Russian money launderers and worse. It leads to the question: how can anyone be this bad at business?
We were just handed a rather stark reminder of how skilled Donald Trump is at setting large amounts of money on fire in a short amount of time. He staged his government shutdown in an attempt at extorting $5.7 billion from the U.S. Treasury, so he could give it to whichever border wall vendor agreed to give him personal kickbacks in exchange for the contract. No one was willing to give him the money, and five weeks later, he finally reopened the government.
Now the Congressional Budget Office says that Donald Trump’s shutdown erased roughly $11 billion from the U.S. economy. Not only did Trump lose twice what he was trying to steal, he also managed to set eleven billion dollars on fire in just five weeks. There are almost no words for this level of financial destructiveness.
It does, however, help us to better understand how Donald Trump has managed to spend his entire life quickly blowing through billions of dollars, only to have to illegitimately get his hands on billions more dollars before blowing it as well. This guy is quite possibly the worst businessman and negotiator in the history of the planet, and he’s gotten eve worse at it over the years, yet he just keeps trying. Now, instead of setting his inheritance and bank loans on fire, he’s setting U.S. Treasury money on fire. It’s all the more reason why his swift ouster is absolutely essential.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report
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