Mueller Subpoenas Trump Organization, Demanding Documents About Russia Image It was not clear why the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, issued the subpoena instead of simply asking for the documents from the company.CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times By Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman
March 15, 2018 WASHINGTON — The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has subpoenaed the Trump Organization to turn over documents, including some related to Russia, according to two people briefed on the matter. It is the first known instance of the special counsel demanding documents directly related to President Trump’s businesses, bringing the investigation closer to the president.
The breadth of the subpoena was not clear, nor was it clear why Mr. Mueller issued it instead of simply asking for the documents from the company, an umbrella organization that oversees Mr. Trump’s business ventures. In the subpoena, delivered in recent weeks, Mr. Mueller ordered the Trump Organization to hand over all documents related to Russia and other topics he is investigating, the people said.
The subpoena is the latest indication that the investigation, which Mr. Trump’s lawyers once regularly assured him would be completed by now, will drag on for at least several more months. Word of the subpoena comes as Mr. Mueller appears to be broadening his investigation to examine the role foreign money may have played in funding Mr. Trump’s political activities. In recent weeks, Mr. Mueller’s investigators have questioned witnesses, including an adviser to the United Arab Emirates, about the flow of Emirati money into the United States.
Neither White House officials nor Alan S. Futerfas, a lawyer representing the Trump Organization, immediately responded to requests for comment. The Trump Organization has typically complied with requests from congressional investigators for documents for their own inquiries into Russian election interference, and there was no indication the company planned to fight Mr. Mueller about it.
The Trump Organization has said that it never had real estate holdings in Russia, but witnesses recently interviewed by Mr. Mueller have been asked about a possible real estate deal in Moscow. In 2015, a longtime business associate of Mr. Trump’s emailed Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, at his Trump Organization account claiming he had ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and said that building a Trump Tower in Moscow would help Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign.
Mr. Trump signed a nonbinding “letter of intent” for the project in 2015 and discussed it three times with Mr. Cohen.
Mr. Mueller could run afoul of a line the president has warned him not to cross. Though it is not clear how much of the subpoena is related to Mr. Trump’s business beyond ties to Russia, Mr. Trump said in an interview with The New York Times in July that the special counsel would be crossing a “red line” if he looked into his family’s finances beyond any relationship with Russia. The president declined to say how he would respond if he concluded that the special counsel had crossed that line.
A month before Mr. Trump spoke of his red line, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, threatened to quit after Mr. Trump asked him to have Mr. Mueller fired because the president believed he had conflict-of-interest issues that precluded him from running the special counsel investigation.
Mr. Mueller was appointed in May to investigate whether Mr. Trump’s campaign colluded with the Russians to influence the 2016 presidential election and any other matters that may arise from the inquiry. He is also examining whether the president has tried to obstruct the investigation.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers are in negotiations with Mr. Mueller’s office about whether and how to allow his investigators to interview the president. Mr. Mueller’s office has shared topics it wants to discuss with the president, according to two people familiar with the talks. The lawyers have advised Mr. Trump to refuse an interview but the president wants to do it, as he believes he has done nothing wrong and can easily answer investigators’ questions.
At the same time, Mr. Trump is considering whether to bring on a new lawyer to help represent him in the special counsel’s investigation. Last week, Mr. Trump spoke with Emmet Flood, a longtime Washington lawyer who represented former President Bill Clinton during the impeachment process, about coming into the White House to deal with the inquiry.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
John Dowd Resigns as Trump’s Lead Lawyer in Special Counsel Inquiry
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and MAGGIE HABERMANMARCH 22, 2018
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s lead lawyer for the special counsel investigation, John Dowd, resigned on Thursday as his strategy for cooperating with the inquiry grew increasingly at odds with Mr. Trump’s desire for a more aggressive posture.
Mr. Dowd, who took over the president’s legal team last summer and considered leaving several times, ultimately concluded that Mr. Trump was ignoring his advice, a person briefed on the matter said.
“I love the president,” Mr. Dowd said in a telephone interview. “I wish him the best of luck. I think he has a really good case.”
His departure marked the most significant shake-up for the president’s legal team in months and underscores the president’s growing frustration with the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russia’s election interference and possible ties to Trump associates as well as whether the president obstructed the inquiry.
The president has in recent days begun publicly assailing Mr. Mueller, a shift in tone that appears to be born of Mr. Trump’s concern that the investigation is bearing down on him more directly. He has also insisted he should sit for an interview with the special counsel’s office, even though Mr. Dowd believed it was a bad idea.
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“Yes, I would like to,” the president told reporters at the White House on Thursday. “I would like to.”
Mr. Trump often keeps his own counsel, and whether he will agree to an interview is uncertain. But he is unmistakably veering toward the combative approach to the investigation that was supported by his longtime personal lawyer, Marc E. Kasowitz, who stepped back last summer but was still in contact with the president occasionally over the past several months. He could take on a larger role again, two people close to the president’s legal team said.
The president was said to be pleased with Mr. Dowd’s resignation, as he had grown frustrated with him, particularly over the weekend when Mr. Dowd called on the Justice Department to end the special counsel investigation. Mr. Dowd, who had forged relationships with the special counsel’s office, said at first that he was speaking for the president, but later backtracked.
The president was angered with Mr. Dowd’s handling of the episode, telling people it was ham-handed and Mr. Dowd should not have backed off his initial statement. Mr. Dowd, a former Marine Corps captain, has told people that the president has recently implored him to stay but was said to be considering quitting on Monday, which he denied in an interview that night.
“I’m sitting here working on the president’s case right now,” he said.
Despite claiming otherwise on Twitter, the president has expressed displeasure with his legal team for weeks. He has met with the veteran Washington lawyer Emmet T. Flood, who represented President Bill Clinton during impeachment, about coming inside the White House to serve as his top lawyer. Neither Mr. Dowd nor Jay Sekulow, the president’s other personal lawyer for the investigation, knew about the meeting at the time, and after The New York Times reported about it, were said to be concerned that their standing with the president had fallen. He tried to reassure them on Twitter.
“The Failing New York Times purposely wrote a false story stating that I am unhappy with my legal team on the Russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help out. Wrong. I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow,” Mr. Trump wrote. “They are doing a great job.”
It is not clear who will take over the team. Mr. Sekulow is liked by Mr. Trump and brought on this week one of his longtime friends, Joseph E. diGenova, to join the team.
Mr. Cobb, the White House lawyer for the investigation, came aboard around the same time as Mr. Dowd and Mr. Sekulow and advocated on behalf of cooperating with the special counsel. But the president has discussed with close associates in recent days whether to fire Mr. Cobb, while reassuring Mr. Cobb that he had no plans to do so.
“John Dowd is a friend and has been a valuable member of our legal team,” Mr. Sekulow said. “We will continue our ongoing representation of the president and our cooperation with the office of special counsel.”
Mr. Dowd, a seasoned Washington defense attorney, has been at the center of several prominent investigations. He led the Major League Baseball inquiry into gambling accusations involving Pete Rose, baseball’s all-time hits leader and the former Cincinnati Reds manager, during the late 1980s. Mr. Dowd also represented Senator John McCain, Republican senator of Arizona, when he was accused of improperly meeting with federal bank regulators as a favor for a political donor. Mr. McCain was ultimately exonerated.
In December, Mr. Dowd found himself apologizing to the White House for composing a tweet that the president posted suggesting Mr. Trump knew his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, had lied to the F.B.I. when the president asked the bureau’s director at the time to drop the case against Mr. Flynn. The poorly worded tweet came a day after Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. and agreed to cooperate with the special counsel investigation.
The documents, filed by special counsel Robert Mueller's team, allege that Rick Gates, a longtime business partner of Manafort and President Trump's former deputy campaign manager, was aware that an unidentified associate "was a former Russian Intelligence Officer."
The documents also allege that Gates and the individual continued to communicate with one another in the months before the 2016 presidential election. Such communication "was pertinent to the investigation," prosecutors said.
^^^^^ welp.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
The documents, filed by special counsel Robert Mueller's team, allege that Rick Gates, a longtime business partner of Manafort and President Trump's former deputy campaign manager, was aware that an unidentified associate "was a former Russian Intelligence Officer."
The documents also allege that Gates and the individual continued to communicate with one another in the months before the 2016 presidential election. Such communication "was pertinent to the investigation," prosecutors said.
Romans 10:9 "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."
DEVIN NUNES THREATENS TO IMPEACH DOJ’S ROD ROSENSTEIN AND FBI’S CHRIS WRAY BY GRAHAM LANKTREE ON 4/11/18 AT 4:41 AM 00:00 Devin Nunes Planning To Impeach FBI’s Christopher Wray SHARE U.S. DONALD TRUMP DEVIN NUNES RUSSIA INVESTIGATION ROBERT MUELLER Updated | The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee says he is prepared to impeach the head of the FBI and Deputy Attorney General if he doesn’t get a two-page document he says prompted the Russia investigation.
“Just the fact that they're not giving this to us tells me there's something wrong here,” California Republican Representative Devin Nunes told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on the The Ingraham Angle Tuesday night.
“I can tell you that we're not just going to hold in contempt, we will have a plan to hold in contempt and to impeach,” Nunes told Ingraham, who asked what his committee would do to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein if they don’t bow to his demand.
04_11_Nunes House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, the Republican from California, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor, Maryland, on February 24. Nunes says says he is prepared to impeach if he doesn’t get a document he says prompted the Russia investigation. JOSHUA ROBERTS/REUTERS
RECOMMENDED SLIDESHOWS 00 51 In Pictures: The 50 Most Powerful Military Forces in the World Abraham Lincoln 44 In Pictures: Every U.S. President Ranked From Best to Worst Intro 51 In Pictures: Top 50 U.S. Cities Ranked by Quality of Life And Average Salary The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has been seeking an unredacted version of the document, which marked the beginning and formal basis of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign on allegations it aided Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
Last August Nunes’s committee subpoenaed the FBI and Justice Department for documents about the investigation and a dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. The dossier contains explosive allegations that the Kremlin has compromising information on President Donald Trump that could be used to blackmail him.
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Nunes and other Republicans have argued the unverified dossier was the spark that eventually led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, whose investigation has resulted in the indictment of several of Trump’s close aides and former officials.
Related: “Total witch hunt”: Trump vents fury at FBI raid of his attorney Michael Cohen’s office
In December, The New York Times reported that it was Trump campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos—who told an Australian diplomat in May 2016 that he was informed Russia had thousands of emails damaging to candidate Hillary Clinton—that prompted American law enforcement to investigate.
Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to an indictment by the probe for lying to investigators and is now cooperating with Mueller. In the indictment, Mueller states Papadopoulos was told about the emails by a Kremlin connected academic in March 2016 and that the two attempted to arrange a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In early 2017 American intelligence agencies issued a report that found Moscow hacked U.S. political parties and conducted a misinformation campaign to influence the election in Trump’s favor.
So far the FBI and DOJ have rebuffed Nunes demands for an unredacted version of the two-page document. In a letter to Nunes early this month, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote his department is working in a “manner consistent with relevant legal precedents.” The two top lawmakers on the committee, Boyd wrote, have been given “numerous in-camera reviews of classified materials.”
“We’re at a boiling point where we need this two-page document,” Nunes told Ingraham Tuesday.
Democratic Representative Ted Lieu wrote on Twitter Tuesday that Nunes’s interview with Ingraham demonstrates how “continual attacks by some extreme Republicans on law enforcement are becoming shameful and wildly out of touch with reality.”
Early this year Nunes ignited controversy when, against the wishes of the FBI, Republicans released an intelligence memo they said showed the FBI improperly spied on former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. The FBI said in a statement it had “grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.” Some Republicans on the committee also argued the memo did not vindicate Trump.
"We are going to get the document,” Nunes said Tuesday, indicating he will move to impeach Rosenstein, who is overseeing the Mueller investigation, and Wray if it isn’t delivered.
Early Wednesday Trump attacked Rosenstein by name on Twitter, calling him conflicted and blaming him for authorizing the extension of a foreign intelligence surveillance warrant against Page as part of the Russia investigation. The Associated Press reports Trump has privately considered firing Rosenstein in recent days.
“We are going to get the two pages," Nunes told Ingraham. "So they can either cough them up now or it will get really complicating starting tomorrow night, and we’ll have to take all the necessary steps to get the documents.”
This story has been updated to include background on President Donald Trump and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein​.
lol
