Jack - On the Oranges of Specious (feat. Marcy Wheeler)

Episode Date: September 19, 2021

This week: the failed, pathetic, and frankly unauthorized investigation of the oranges of the Trump/Russia probe conducted by John Durham; the suspension of Rosemary Vrablic – one of Trump’s go-to lenders at a Deutsche Bank subsidiary; Marcy Wheeler on this week to discuss some of the new Rick Gates 302s and how some of the redactions have changed from privacy exemptions to open and ongoing matter exemptions; an update on Devin and his multiple frivolous lawsuits; plus the Fantasy Indictment League, and more.Marcy Wheelerhttps://twitter.com/emptywheelhttps://www.emptywheel.net/Follow AG on Twitter:Dr. Allison Gill (@allisongill)Want to support the show and get it ad-free and early?https://dailybeans.supercast.tech/Orhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansPromo CodeInstead of standing in front of your bookshelf waiting for a title to jump out at you, sign up for Scribd. You get instant access to millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, and more—all with one low monthly subscription Right now, we’re offering listeners of this program a free 60-day trial. Go to http://try.scribd.com/AG for your free trial.

They might be giants that have been on the road for too long. Too long. And they might be giants aren't even sorry. Not even sorry. And audiences like the shows too much. Too much. And now they might be giants that are playing their breakthrough album, all of it.

And they still have time for other songs. They're fooling around. Who can stop? They might be giants and their liberal rocket gender. Who? No one. This happens to pay for what with somebody else's money. Hey, all.

This is Glenn Kirschner, and you're listening to Mueller She Wrote. So to be clear, Mr. Trump has no financial relationships with any Russian oligarchs. That's what he said. That's what he said. That's what I said. That's obviously what our position is. I'm not aware of any of those activities.

I have been called a surrogate at a time, a two in that campaign. And I didn't have, not have, communications with the Russians. What do I have to get involved with Putin for? I have nothing to do with Putin. I've never spoken to him. I don't know anything about a mother than he will respect me. Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find

the 30,000 emails that are missing. So it is political. You're a communist. No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring. Like all members of the oldest profession, I'm a capitalist. Hello and welcome to Muller She Wrote. I am the host formerly known as AEG.

I no longer work for the government, so you can call me Alice in Gellifiawana. You can follow me on Twitter under that name as well as Muller She Wrote and Daily Beans Pod. Big show today is I break down the failed pathetic and frankly unauthorized investigation of the oranges of the Trump Russia probe conducted by John Durham, appointed by Bill Barr. I'll also be going over the suspension of Rosemary Brablich, one of Trump's go-to lenders at Deutsche Bank subsidiary that I think was funded by Russian banks as discussed in Enrich's book Dark Towers.

And we have Marcy Wheeler joining us this week to discuss some of the new Gates 302s and how some of the redactions have changed from being redacted for privacy concerns to being redacted for open and ongoing matters. So that's interesting. Haven't seen a change like that. Of course, I haven't been doing this for very long. And of course, an update on Devon and his multiple frivolous lawsuits that no one can seem to figure out who's financially backing them,

which is a House ethics violation. But anyway, lots of good stuff today. So let's kick it off with just the facts. All right, first up, a story that isn't getting nearly enough attention from Alex Padolka at Financial Advisor IQ. The financial industry regulatory authority, or FINRA, has suspended former President Trump's personal banker at Deutsche Bank. On August 9th, Rosemary Wrablek, who resigned from the bank in December of 2020, was suspended indefinitely for failing to provide information requested by the industry's self-regulator, that's according to Broker Check.

Under Fin Road rules, if she fails to request the termination of her suspension within three months of the suspension, Vrayblik will be automatically barred on October 18th, that's according to the self-regulator. Vrayblik, who helped secure hundreds of millions of dollars for Trump's company, resigned from Deutsche Bank at the end of last year, saying in a statement she was looking forward to her retirement. That was a New York Times report in January. We went over that.

According to her broker-check profile, the bank permitted her to resign over allegations that she, quote, engaged in undisclosed activities related to a real estate investment by the representative, including the purchase of the property from a client-managed entity, and the formation of an unapproved outside entity to hold the investment. And we went over all that with Enrich on the show. Deutsche Bank has begun an internal review. They had begun it in 2013 into real estate deals between Rayblik and a company owned in

part by Jared Kushner, as we know who is Trump's son-in-law, and between Rayblik and a company owned in part by Jared Kushner, as we know who is Trump's son-in-law, and also Rayblik's client. That's according to the New York Times. Rayblik's colleague at the bank, Dominick Scalzi, was also involved in the deals and has also been suspended and has left the firm. Scalzi left the firm over the same allegations, as Deutsche Bank wrote explainingrayblik's departure, and that's according to his broker-check profile. Finra suspended Scalzi on August 9th as well, also for failing to respond to Finra's request for information. He too faces a permanent bar in October 18th if he doesn't request

termination of the suspension within three months. And I will continue to follow this story with you, I just think it's very interesting that the rumors intelligence that I've gotten that Tom Barrick is singing like Beverly Sills and then everyone asked me who Beverly Sills was that this happens. So it's interesting. I don't know that they're connected, just have a feeling. And also, of course, the Manhattan District Attorney's review of the Trump Organization also going on right now, also very interesting. Next up from our friend Adam Klasfeld at Law and Crime, a federal court of appeals ruled in rep Devin Nunez's favor on Wednesday in a defamation suit against reporter Ryan Liza. In a ruling for the California Republican, the eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected

the underlying defamation claims over Liza's November 2018 Esquire article milking the system mu. In a legally novel turn, however, US Circuit judges Stephen Colitan, who was appointed by Bush, Levensky Smith, another GW appointee, and Ralph Erickson, a Donald Trump appointee, revived the claim by Nunes that Lizza libled him when the reporter linked to the story in an November 2019 tweet. Quote, I noticed that Devon Nunes is in the news, Lizza tweeted after being sued by Nunes this month, or the month before.

If you're interested in a strange tale about Nunes, small town Iowa, the complexities of immigration policy, a few car chases, and lots of cows, I've got a story for you. That was Liz's tweet. The article in question focuses on why Nunez's new-nez's family sold their California dairy farm and quietly moved to operations in Iowa. Remember, we did this reporting. The article also alleges that Nunez and his family jockeyed to keep the move a secret. It notes that Nunez played up the Golden State Pharmacetic

in his political autobiography, while questioning whether the Nunes family farm in Iowa uses or hasn't the past used undocumented labor like so many farms in the Midwest do. Nunes lost at the district court level where all of his claims against Liza and Hearst magazine media were dismissed. The appellate court largely agreed with their analysis,

but parted ways on two key aspects here. First, the first aspect, the higher court allowed defamation by implication argument to survive, a claim that a series of published and or omitted facts can be read as a whole to create a defamatory implication. Quote, based on the article's presentation of facts, we think the complaint plausibly alleges that a reasonable reader could draw the implication that representative Nunes conspired to hide the farm's use of undocumented labor. In the end, however, the reviewing court held that because of Nunes' high profile status, Liz and Hurst were not acting with actual malice when the story was originally published.

That is, Colatin and the other judges said, there was no evidence that Lizah and Hurst acted, quote, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. Now, previous District Courts and Circuit Courts, according to Classfeld, have reached exactly the opposite conclusions about hyperlinked stories that are tweeted, but the eighth circuit opined, quote, these decisions do not hold categorically that hyperlinking to an original publication never constitutes republication. The ruling quickly set off alarm bells among media attorneys, particularly those concerned with what appeared to be the appellate court's erosion of first amendment protections for

the press. Fordham Law professor Matthew Schaeffer, who teaches a course on media law, said the decision was awful in many ways, and singled out two aspects of the ruling that were especially worrisome. If the panel's ruling is allowed to stand, the people who share articles that have been subject to the subject of defamation lawsuits may be held liable, if a plaintiff can adequately show that the person who shared the article had knowledge of the lawsuits' existence. That is to say, the ruling takes the mere existence of a lawsuit as an actionable form of notice that such an article may contain defamatory falsehoods. That's a really huge hit to 1A. And that would mean that the typically high actual malice bar for politicians can easily be met if the allegedly defamed politician simply files a lawsuit. In a way, quote, the decision, OK's gag orders, an intentional

kill switch on an article after a lawsuit is filed. That's shaffer again. Quote, that is, so long as a lawsuit with a denial is filed, the author of the article cannot redirect people to the original article on pain of waving an actual malice argument on a motion to dismiss. So no word on appeal, but I expect one is coming. All right, stay tuned for the fantasy indictment league. We're going to break down the political whimpering that is the latest Durham indictment. But first, I will have a discussion with Marcy Wheeler about Roger Stone, the proud boys, and the latest changes to the Rick Gates 302s from the Mueller probe.

Stay with us. Hey, everybody. It's A.G. Thanks for supporting Mueller She Reve. Today's episode is brought to you by Scribd, but you know, streaming has really revolutionized our lives. We used to wonder if there was anything good on TV and look for it. Now we just ask ourselves which of the thousands of great options we're in the mood for.

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U, and more, premiering exclusively on script. If you want to change things up, you're free to switch between titles or genres of formats anytime on your phone, tablet, or computer. And right now, we're offering listeners of this program a free 60 day trial of script. So go to try.scribd.com slash AG for your free trial. That's try.scribd and script is SCR IBD.com slash AG to get 60 days of script for free. And I'm really happy to be joined today by, you know, her as empty wheel on Twitter and

her blog, Marcy Wheeler. Hello, Marcy. How are you today? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you very much. And I appreciate you working with me to get this scheduled because I know we have quite a time difference. So I appreciate this. Well, I'm talking to you the yesterday. Yeah. I'm still yesterday where you are. It is still yesterday where I am. Although the recall still looks very good.

The recall looks very good. So you're on recall, and I'm like the day after, and I can tell you that Newsom's gonna win it. Yeah, because I'm calling you from the future. Yeah, yesterday or last week on the beans, because well, we're recording this just so you know on recall day at the very end of the day, which is Tuesday, September 14th.

But yeah, yesterday I had said on the beans, I think it's gonna be 64%. I think it's gonna be a 64%. No, we'll see how close I get. But the reason, the real reason I brought you here today is and was not to talk about the recall. It was to talk about this latest batch of 302s that we got from the Buzzfeed FOIA lawsuit.

As you know, as listeners know, we will be getting those for the next 800 million years every month. There's so many documents to be released. And I don't know if this Department of Justice is going to produce them any faster, but I've noticed that the State Department and the Treasury are starting to get it on the red actions now.

Not that that's weird or anything, but there were considerations that they had to make when reviewing at least in this latest download. But something that you pointed out really interestingly in the gates, because you've been really following the gates interviews for quite a while and very closely since we started getting these. What can you tell us about, there's been some changes in the kinds of redactions in these documents, and that seems significant to me.

I was hoping you could explain what you found. Well, so what is happening is that in general DOJ is reprocessing stuff that Jason Leopold, who's the FOIA God, who is liberating all these things, that might be releasable that wasn't before because people have been pardoned. And so they've gone through and redone Paul Manaforts, for example, because he's been pardoned. They have gone through all the stone related stuff again

because he's been pardoned. And what we have gotten particularly like so this month, we got all of not all of the gates because some had already come out, but we got the gates, right? So gates, we got like maybe 50 gates interviews. And there's a lot of B7A left on those. B7A is what happens with FOIS is you, the government agency releasing them can exempt certain things from release because of privacy is a big one or grand jury or classification is another one. There is a reduction called or an exemption called B7A, which is for an ongoing investigation. And that just generally means somebody doesn't want to share what they know yet because they've got still investigative equities. what came out from Gates, it's got to be counterintelligence for later.

It's got to be, you know, DOJ's ongoing effort to figure out how Russia uses Ukraine as a basically stamping round to then influence the rest of the world, including in two different consecutive presidential elections in the United States. But in one of those redactions, there's also Cambridge Analytica stuff that's coming in V-7A. And it's a broader look at Cambridge Analytica than just

what world did Alexander Nick's have on the Trump campaign, although some of that stuff is still redacted for ongoing investigations. But anyway, there's a redaction in the Gates one. It was previously redacted for, I'm seeing if I can pull it up, yeah. It was previously redacted just for privacy reasons, so B6, B7C.

And it was a B7A and ongoing investigation was added to it. The text that we can read from it says, Gates, Manifort, Pascal, and redacted, met to discuss modeling Cambridge Analytica did for the Ted Cruz campaign. Kellyanne Conway and Krishner were pushing for a CA services. So it's basically about how the Trump campaign came to use Cambridge Analytica, how later on in the campaign. And so they've added a b7a reduction to that, which says that when they last released this back in March of 2020, they said they were done with the investigation

into those aspects. And now in September of 2021, they have said, you know, maybe not. And that kind of goes along with this, you know, and it's again, pure speculation. Well, I mean, I guess it's not speculation that that some cases stalled and then got new life breathed into them when the new administration came in. We don't know if it's because they were actively being suppressed or if it's because people maybe prosecutors were kind of sitting on them or just taking a long time investigating, but for something to actually go from a privacy-related reduction to an ongoing investigation-related

reduction, is I think indicative of that of an investigation either being brought back to life or maybe a totally new one that this is involved in or like you said perhaps reopening of a counterintelligence investigation into some aspect of this. Yeah, just as proof as an example of an investigation that we know that came back to life or was renewed or what have you was Tom Brock. There's an entire Paul Mana for 302 that must be Brock related because Zyna Bonma was on there. And there are a few parts of the Gates interviews where either the Emirates comes up or Brock comes up and goes B7A. So, so that's an example where something just lingered until Biden came in, America, Ireland decided that he actually would go charge Trump's bank roller.

So, but, but in this case, yeah, I mean, I think that, again, the investigation into Cambridge Analytica was always broader and I think that there certainly, the investigation into Cambridge Analytica was always broader, and I think that there certainly is a counterintelligence side to it. I think that one of the, to my mind, one of the more interesting aspects of this late range of 302 releases is that they released all of Sam Patton's. And Sam Patton wasn't part of it, so it's not like that's an excuse for why you released Sam Patton was important. So it's not like that's an excuse for why you're really a Sam Patton. But Sam Patton gives you, I mean, they used Sam Patton

to understand constant and calimnic better, right? Calimnic wasn't telling Patton everything he was doing with Manafort, and he wasn't telling Manafort or Gates everything he was doing with Patton. And so you see that Klemnic was handling these two different well connected politicians, you know, political operatives in the United States, and his way of basically being a handler was to go into business with them. And so that's what you see in the Sam Patton 302s, but those two are really significantly B-7-8. So, you know, of course, the government has ongoing interests in constant and clinic because he keeps tampering in our investigations in our elections.

Yeah, no, that one makes sense. And, you know, I mean, we'll, everyone's going to stay on top of this and we'll, we'll find out or we won't. I mean, that's the thing is, you know, sometimes we just don't. Find out what happens to an investigation. Or even what investigation. Yeah. And for counterintelligence investigation, you're not. Yeah, you'll never. We're now going to tell the Ukrainian oligarchs everything we know about them. There is a B7A in there, for example,

that relates to furtash. We might learn what that means because we know that furtash is part of the Rudy Giuliani investigation in SDNY, but you know, they're not going to tell us about the other Ukrainian oligarchs, you aren't necessarily an investigation there. Right, or the ones in the Eastern District of New York that that whole investigation. okay we're gonna switch gears here because we have kind of a tie-in with old 2016 stuff and new 2020 stuff with proud boys associations with Roger Stone can you tell us a little bit about what you reported on that well you know obviously stop the steal is just the continuation of Ridershoan, stop the steal in 2016.

I did a piece recently pointing out that how central joke bigs, Joe Biggs is one of the four proud boys charged and what I call the leadership conspiracy. And we've seen enough of the investigation to know that he's really the pivot point, both of the attack on the Capitol, but because of his associations, the pivot point with people organized it. And we can show that by the fact that after he led the assault on the west side of the

Capitol, he left, walked around the outside, and came to the top of the east steps at the same time that the Oathkeepers and Alex Jones came to the top of the steps and then they broken that door. And that's important for one because DOJ arrested these random people that you don't need to know about who were listening to Alex Jones speak on the West side of the Capitol. And then Jones told them, we're going to go to the East Side Steps because that's where Trump is speaking. And so Alex Jones brought this mob, having brought a mob of people from the actual rally to the Capitol, he then took them from the west side of the Capitol to the east side, falsely

floured in there. Yeah. Yeah. By saying that Trump was going to speak, and that's when he, in Joe Biggs and the Oath Keepers, all assembled on the east side of the stairs and break in a second front of the attack. And then of course Biggs is close to Roger Stone. There's that famous picture where he was meeting with Lindsey Graham. He the night after Tio got arrested, he was the one in direct contact. He went and met with him, he had ongoing conversations with him, he is the one who, you know, they were, they, they clearly were using up enough operational security to not describe what their plan was

and anything that was recorded. And, but, so he's the guy that both proves there was a true fronted assault planned, which was announced in December, but also who connects you through Owen Troyer, who's an info wars guy. Remember that Joe Biggs worked for info wars until he got fired because he was behind pizza, he was behind the comic ping pong attack based off a shotty report and he's the guy who in a shotty report, and he's the guy who released the shotty report that Fox News used in their Seth Rich report that they had to retract.

So twice, Joe Biggs was the medium of these really shotty pieces of intelligence coming out of the 2016 attack. And he was probably the key defendant right now in the attack on the Capitol. Yeah, and speaking of, I mean, we just got some information that shows that they could be looking at seditious conspiracy in some of these cases. And so to me, that's like where my brain instantly goes when I hear about that too pronged attack on the capital and Alex Jones and Everything but but I want to drag Roger Stone into this for a minute though because with regards to the proud boys specifically because you had tweeted and talked about Judge Amy Berman Jackson being told

that a threat to put a bullet in the head of Speaker Pelosi was hyperbole by Cleveland Meredith Jr. And can you remind us why that argument is going to fall on deaf ears? Right. So Cleveland Meredith Jr. happens to be one of the three or four, January six, defendants who we know has a four-year degree, almost none of the rest of them do when they when they plead guilty. But he, nevertheless, in spite of the fact that he has an econ four-year degree, he was late to insurrection, but he came heavily armed. And when he arrived, he started talking about, as you said, putting a bullet in Nancy's

noggin, and one of his family members, a lord of the FBI, and he was arrested. And so he pled guilty to one count of interstate threats, basically, for that. And as he was pleading guilty to Amy Burman Jackson last week, he said it was hyperbole he didn't really mean it. And she was, she was, she, she, she was like, you said you were going to kill the speaker of the house. And it went back and forth. But the important thing to remember is that while she was prosecuting Roger Stone back at the beginning of that prosecution, so in 2019, Roger Stone posted to Instagram a picture of her with a crosshairs on it. Yep. And she had a bail determination hearing to consider denying him bail. And, and she asked him how he chose the picture.

And he kind of scrambled a bit and said that some of his volunteers that work for him did it. And he proceeded to name four proud boys. None of the ones who were involved or who have thus far been charged in the, in the attack on the Capitol, but nevertheless, crowd boys, I mean, you know, for those of you who remember, every time he went to these court hearings, he came with a posse of crowdboys as his meat, basically. And the crowdboys and the oathkeepers were the reason why Randy Cretico was so fearful of the threats against him. It wasn't stone, but it was, and the FBI, like literally the FBI's first contact with ready credit code was a duty to learn. They came to him, he was sort of in hiding, and the approach was that registrants' buddies are making threats against you.

Yeah, so the duty to warn is exactly what it sounds like. Right, so it wasn't, they didn't first come to Randy Cretico as a potential source. They first went to Randy Cretico because they were worried that these stone-related militias were going to do damage, we're going to harm him, so he wouldn't tell the story. And that led to Randy Cretico being a source and led to significantly advancing the investigation. So they are Roger Stone, search you right. But yeah, so Amy Brom and Jackson got Roger Stone to explain how this Instagram post got made. He names these FEP for proud boys.

Reportedly, DOJ did some grand jury interviews with those four and figured out whether they were getting paid by Roger Stone. Roger Stone, as we know, was not denied bail. I mean, was still given bail even after this. But Jackson's language, both when she described his threat in the first time and when Bill Bar tried to lessen Stone's sentence. So now we're talking 2020,

which was hand-handed in any case. It was really stupid because Amy Burman Jackson is a democratic point. She's not going to, you know, sentence somebody really harshly. She would have come up with the same sentence anyway. But they did that by saying several sentencing enhancements shouldn't apply. One was the threats of violence, which is sort of ridiculous, given what we now know about the oath key. I mean, they basically said that threats of violence that that stone was using involving the oath keepers and proud boys weren't that serious.

Now they've attacked the Capitol, but they also said that they didn't believe the threat against Amy Brim and Jackson's all that serious. Amy Brim and Jackson, when she sentencing him says, no, you're wrong, DOJ. This was important and you can't just ignore it. And so this is for paragraphs, which I'll just read. Here, the defendant willfully engaged in behavior that a rational person would find to be inherently obstructive. It's important to note that he didn't just fire off a few

intemperate emails. He used the tools of social media to achieve the broadest dissemination possible. It wasn't accidental. He had a staff, she's speaking of the, of the proud boys, he had a staff that helped him to do it. As the defendant emphasized in emails introduced into evidence in this case, using the new social media is his quote sweet spot. It's his area of expertise. And even the letters submitted on his behalf by his friends emphasized that incendiary activity

is precisely what he is specifically known for. He knew exactly what he was doing. And by choosing Instagram and Twitter as his platforms, he understood that he was multiplying the number of people who would hear his message. By deliberately stoking public opinion against prosecution and the court in this matter, he willfully increase the risk that someone else

with even poorer judgment than he has would act on his behalf. This is intolerable to the administration of justice and the court cannot sit by the by shrugged shoulder and say, oh, that's just Roger being Roger. Or it wouldn't have grounds to act the next time someone tries it. The behavior was designed to disrupt and divert the proceedings and the impact was compounded by the defendant's disingenuousness. And she's talking, I mean, you mentioned sedition, but in fact, DOJ is using obstruction

in this same charge against, at least so far, it may not survive review, but it's using them against the January 6th defendants. And it's actually a great tool because you can get to a 20-year sentence for people who were using significant threats of violence, but it allows you to, using these same enhancements, it allows you to calibrate based on what somebody has done.

And so that language she's using about obstructing, in this case, a trial, that's effectively what all of the felony defendants, leading, you know, all the people charged with, except for assault, all the people charged with, with felonies in the capital attackants, leading, you know, all the people charged with, except for an assault, all the people charged with, with felonies in the capital attack are charged with, with, with responding to social media, people with less judgment than Roger Stone responding to social media and taking action to go disrupt and attack the institution, in this case, the vote count.

And if we sit idly by and shrug our shoulders, it will happen again. That's interesting. Yep. Very prescient, and I'm glad that you read that because wow, that got Jill's listening to it, you know. And she said that, so that was the sentencing, that was 2020.

That was 2020 after Bill Barr, the Attorney General of the United States, treated a threat to a sitting judge as a technicality, a threat from the proud boys against a sitting judge as a technicality. Wow. Well, it all is coming out in the wash. So we'll see what happens and we'll keep following it. And then thank you so much for covering all this.

So closely, everybody follow EmptyWaylon Twitter. Marcy, it's been great talking to you. I appreciate your time today. All right, and yesterday too. Yeah. And five days from now in this air. Time travel is fun. Thanks so much.

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So be like Dita Von Tees, friends, and listen to what we're drinking with Dan Dunn, available wherever you get your podcasts. All right, everybody. Welcome back. It's time for the fantasy indictment leave. I'm going to be a dine-it!ment leave. I'm gonna be a dynast! No, it is gonna be okay. Dynast!

I'm gonna dick. A dynast! I'm gonna be a dynast! I'm gonna be a dynast! Oh, that they can't. It's gonna be okay. Just calm down. I can't calm down. I'm gonna be a dynast! Now, as I discussed briefly, on Friday, during the Daily Beans, here's a story from NBC, the special counsel appointed by Trump

and the Justice Department, A. G. Bill Barr, to probe the oranges of the Russia investigation has indicted a Democratic lawyer with making one false statement to the FBI because he didn't disclose he was working for multiple clients, including Hillary Clinton. Now her presidential campaign, I should say, this is John Durham. He charged lawyer Michael Susman over a statement during a September 19, 2016 meeting between Susman and then FBI General Counsel James Baker,

at which Susman told Baker about suspicions relating to alleged secret communications between Trump Tower, a server in Trump Tower, and Alpha Bank in Russia. The suspicions were later, quote unquote, determined to be unfounded. I'm still questioning that. But according to the indictment during the meeting,

Susman lied about the capacity in which he was providing the allegations to the FBI. He stated, apparently falsely, he wasn't doing this work on behalf of any client, which led the FBI general counsel to understand Susman was acting just as a good citizen, merely passing along information, not as a paid advocate or political operative. And this is weird to me because, you know, in order for me to not violate the Hatch Act when I was working for the government, I would simply say I am not speaking on behalf

of the Department of Veterans Affairs or as in my governmental role. And that, you know, you know, ex-go-pates you from violating the Hatch Act, which seems to be what was going on here. But even if he was, the FBI actually knew that that Sussman worked for the Clinton campaign. So it's just weird. Quote, in fact, Sussman acted on behalf of specific clients, namely a US technology industry executive, a US internet company, and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

So they're assuming, or just saying, that even though he said he wasn't acting in that capacity, that he was, the indictment says the lie was material, because it misled the FBI about the political nature of his work. President Joe Biden's Justice Department allowed the indictment to go forward, despite a written appeal by Susman's lawyers to Attorney General Merrick Garland. I have not seen that appeal.

Susman is resigned from his law firm Perkins Coey to focus on his defense. So let's break down this indictment. I'm going to pull it up here. And this is filed in the DC district, United States District Court for the District of Columbia. And the overview, introduction and overview. In about late October 2016, right, before the election, approximately one week before the presidential election, multiple media outlets reported that U.S. government authorities had received and were investigating allegations concerning a purported secret channel of communication between the Trump Organization and a particular

Russian bank, which they call Russian Bank 1, which we know as Alpha Bank. According to one of these articles published by Major US newspaper, NewsPaper 1, Intelligence officials possessed information concerning what cyber experts said appeared to be mysterious computer back channel between the Trump Organization and Alpha Bank. The article further reported that the FBI had spent weeks examining the computer data showing an odd stream of activity to a Trump Organization server,

and that computer logs obtained by newspaper one showed that the two servers at Alpha Bank sent more than 2,700 lookup messages to a Trump-connected server beginning in the spring. According to other articles, this information had been assembled by an anonymous computer researcher who used the moniker T-Leaves. The FBI had, in fact, initiated an investigation, so that's true. Meeting in response to a meeting, Michael Susman, the defendant herein, a lawyer at a major

international firm, law firm one, we know as Perkins Kui, requested and held this meeting with the FBI General Counsel on her about September 19, 2016 at FBI headquarters in DC. Susman provided to the General Counsel, this is Jim Baker, white papers, along with data files allegedly containing evidence supporting the existence of this purported secret communications channel. I like how he says purported. During the meeting, Susman lied about the capacity in which he was providing the allegations to the FBI. And this is what was in the article that I just read. Specifically, Susman stated, falsely, he was not doing his work on the aforementioned allegations for any client, which led the FBI General Counsel to understand Susman was acting as a good citizen,

merely passing on info, not as a paid advocate or political operative. In fact, and as alleged in further detail below, the statement was intentionally false and misleading because in assembling and conveying these allegations, Susman acted on behalf of specific clients, namely a US technology industry executive, tech executive one, and a US internet company,

internet company one, and the Hillary Clinton presidential One, and a U.S. Internet Company, Internet Company One, and the Hillary Clinton Presidential Campaign. The Clinton Campaign. Susman and his lie were material because among other reasons, Susman's fall statement misled the FBI General Counsel and other FBI personnel concerning the political nature of his work and deprived the FBI of information that might have permitted it to more fully assess and uncover the origins of the relevant data and technical analysis, including the identities and motivations of Susman's clients.

So what he's saying here, what Durham is saying is, this is a material lie because had they known, had the FBI known, he was working for Perkins Kooey and this other internet guy and an internet company, that information might have permitted the FBI to more fully assess and uncover the origins of the relevant data. Might have. They're inditing him on a maybe. Had the FBI uncovered the origins of the relevant data analysis as alleged below, it might have learned among other things, again, more mites, that, one, in compiling and analyzing the Russian bank allegations, Tech Executive One had exploited his access to non-public data

at multiple internet companies to conduct opposition research concerning Trump. And two, in furtherance of these efforts, Tech Executive One had enlisted and was continuing to enlist the assistance of researchers at a U.S.-based university who were receiving any analyzing internet data and connection with pending federal government cybersecurity research contract. And three, Susman Tech Executive One and Law Form One had coordinated and were continuing to coordinate with representatives and agents of the Clinton campaign with regard to the data and written materials that Susman gave to the FBI in the media. So because apparently Sussman also told people in the Clinton campaign about this, that

means he was providing this opposition research on behalf of the Clinton campaign, even though he declared that he wasn't. The FBI's investigation of these allegations nevertheless concluded there was insufficient evidence to support the allegations of a secret communications channel with AlphaBank. In particular, among other things, the FBI's investigation revealed that the email server at issue was not under-operated by the Trump organization, but rather had been administered by a mass marketing email company that sent advertisements for Trump hotels and hundreds of other clients. So then he goes on to describe the defendant and he talks about,

I mean, it's so political in nature. And then they have a section about researching Trump. And then if I scroll down here a little bit down to page 14, there's a 27 page indictment. There's a section called Susman and his client, Preparary White Paper, summarizing a Russian Bank 1 allegations. Okay. You can do that as not being party to this client. I'm a little bit further down. Scrollins, scrolling, scrolling. I'm looking for the titles of these sections here. Boy, they really go through it on this one. Then there's one, the Susman continues to communicate with the media on behalf of his clients.

And this one says, further demonstrating that Susman carried out the aforementioned work on behalf of the clients. This is the evidence. Yet Susman was, in fact, working on behalf of his clients and not just as a good citizen, a good Samaritan. It says, Susman continued in the weeks following that meeting in September to coordinate with Tech Executive One, Campaign Lawyer One, and the US investigative firm to disseminate the

Russian Bank One allegations to the media. Susman continued to bill his time for such work to the Clinton campaign. So if they, what they're saying is that the evidence that they have that that time was specifically spent on these actions and that was what he was building the Clinton campaign for that is evidence that he was working on behalf of the Clinton campaign. But that doesn't really stand to reason because you can I mean, I don't know, I would like to lay eyes on this evidence. I assume it would come up in court unless this, unless this indictment is dismissed before it even gets that far. But they say they give an example on October 10th, Sosmin emailed reporter one a link to an

opinion article which asserted in substance and in part that newspaper one's investigative reporters had not published as many stories regarding Trump as other media outlets. The subject line of Sessman's email was for your editors. The body stated, used to send this link to them. Outer around that time, and according to public resources, reporter one was working on an article concerning a Russian bank one allegations, but reporter one's editors at newspaper one had not yet authorized publication of the article. I don't see how that's evidence that he was billing time for work on Clinton's campaign. And he gives more sort of vague examples like honor about the following

to October 31st, reporter one and reporter two published articles regarding Alpha Bank. So this is just coordination between a source and reporters. I don't see how that makes it a lie and reporters. I don't see how that makes it a lie that he wasn't working on behalf. He wasn't, you know, this wasn't as role as Oppo researcher. And again, the FBI knew he was working for Perkins Kui. And if he was, he would have just said he was because there's nothing illegal about that. So it doesn't stand to reason, right? There's no malicious intent here. Then they have a Susman repeats his false statements to another government agency. In late 2016 and early 2017, Tech Executive 1, Originator 1 and Researcher 2 continue to compile additional information and data regarding AlphaBank and those allegations and gathered other reported data allegedly involving Trump-related computer networks and Russia.ussman would later convey these allegations to another US government agency,

Agency 2, in doing so. And as alleged below, Sussman repeated in substance the same false statement he had made to the FBI General Counsel, and that he was not acting on behalf of his clients. So he actually repeated this, but wasn't charged for another count, for lying to a different agency. Susman seeks a meeting with agency two in late December 2016. Susman contacted the General Counsel of Agency Two to set up a meeting, regarded updated allegations,

but the meeting didn't go forward, so there wasn't actually a meeting. It goes on, Susman contradicts his false statements in testimony before Congress. In December 2017, Susman testified under penalty of perjury before staffers at a house permanent select committee on intelligence. That's the House Intel committee, which was investigating Russian interference. During his testimony, Susman directly contradicted his false statements to the FBI and agency, too to that he was not acting on behalf of any client. Question, when you decided to engage the two principles, the FBI, General Counsel and

September and the General Counsel of agency to and December, you were doing that on your own volition based on information. Another client provide you, is that correct? No. So what was, so did your client direct you to have those conversations? Yes. Okay. And your client also was winning of you going to redact it in February to disclose the

information that individual, that individual had provided to you. Yes. Okay. I want to ask you, so you mentioned that your client directed you to have these engagements with the FBI and redacted and to disseminate the information the client provided to you. Is that correct? Well, I apologize for the double negative.

It isn't not correct, but when you say, my client directed me, we had conversations as lawyers do with their clients about client needs and objectives and the best course to take for the client. And so it may have been a decision that we came to together. I mean, I don't want to imply that I was sort of directed to do something against my and the best course to take for the client. And so it may have been a decision that we came to together. I mean, I don't want to imply that I was sort of directed to do something against my better judgment

or that we were in any sort of conflict. But this was, I think it's the most accurate to say it was done on behalf of my client. And he's talking about the internet, the tech guy, the tech exec, not the Clinton campaign. So I don't see how that proves anything either. And here's Count One about he lied and that signed John Durham special counsel

a true bill for a person, September 16th, 2021. Now what makes no sense, again, is that opposition research isn't illegal. If he felt he was representing the Clinton campaign, he could have said that, but he didn't say that he was. And then John Durham says, ah, but this is a material lie because the FBI might have done things differently had they known that, but they did know that. And they'd be able to prove that pretty easily.

So it just doesn't make any sense to me. It makes no sense. You know, assessment could have not been acting his capacity as a member of the Clinton campaign. But like if this reminds me of the Peter Struck when they tried to get Peter Struck on a one thousand one or Andy McCabe when the the grand jury refused to and die Andy McCabe for his lack of candor. Because Lisa Page said, yeah, but even if he said he didn't approve this Washington post article from going out, he wouldn't lie about that because he

has total power to do that if he wants to as the acting director of the FBI. So there's no malicious intent here. There's no reason to lie. There's no cover up. It's not like you're, you're Flynn trying to say that you didn't talk to Kisley, act. Do you know what I mean? It doesn't make any sense. And like I said, the FBI knew full well

Susman worked for Perkins-Kooey. The 1,000-one statement here appears to be that Susman told the FBI when giving them op-o research, he wasn't acting in his capacity as an op-o researcher. When he could have just easily said so, there was no motive. There's nothing to cover up here.

Notice also, there's no charge of conspiracy here here because we'd have to go down the road of op-o research being a thing of value, which is what got everybody off the hook for the Trump Tower meeting, but you can actually do this op-o research legally. What they were doing in the Trump Tower meeting, you can't. What they were expecting to be done in the Trump Tower meeting, you can't. And we know people who attended the Trump Tower meeting, they lied materially to the Mueller team and the FBI about that meeting. So where's the difference here?

This indictment is clearly political. And if Latham Watkins is listening, that is the firm representing Susman in this case. Might I recommend? And I don't know why they didn't do this in the Klein Smith indictment. Durham charged Klein Smith, that FBI lawyer with changing an email. He just, he pled guilty. But if you're, if you're at Latham Watkins, and you're one of the, well, two lawyers, I think it's Sean Berkowitz and off the top of my head, I think Michael Bosworth or his

two attorneys from Latham Watkins. I recommend filing a motion to dismiss based on the fact that Barr had no authority to appoint Durham as special counsel in the first place. Because 28 US code section 600.3A clearly states that an appointed special counsel quote, shall be selected from outside the government. At the time of his appointment, Durham was working for the federal government.

It doesn't meet the special council regulations or qualifications here. And if he was not appointed under any authority by Bill Barr's investigation into the oranges, wasn't authorized to begin with. And this is just a suggestion based on the multiple motions to dismiss filed by Manafort's lawyers, saying Mueller wasn't lawfully appointed, all of which he lost in court, all of those motions to dismiss were denied. But this one seems pretty clear to me.

I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but the special counsel regulations seem crystal clear. Shall be selected from outside the government. Shall. Not should. Not we would prefer it if. There's no wiggle room here. And I think this case could be easily dismissed. And if it's not, because, you know, like I said, there was a letter written to Attorney General

Merrick Garland from Susman's Lawyer saying don't, don't let this indictment go forward. I don't know if they brought this up in that letter. We can't see that letter. I haven't seen that letter. If anyone has it, send it to me, agatmolarsherote.com. But even if this isn't dismissed, I don't think they'll be able to successfully prosecute.

The case is flimsy. I don't think a jury would convict, especially not in the DC court. There's just no way. And I think it was irresponsible and a waste of money for Durham who has no authority to even be doing what he's doing to file these charges. All right, without out of the way, I would like to draft a spoiler for an indictment.

Can I do that? Instead of drafting somebody to be indicted, can I draft for someone to be unindicted? I think this one will be dismissed. Is that a thing? I'm making it a thing. This is, I declare. Then, of course I have one of draft all the usual suspects, Rudy Gates, Tonesing, DeGeneva. I think there

will be a Tom Barrett plea agreement because that rich fucker was not born to go to prison like like Weiselberg was. Then over at the Trump work I think we'll see Superseating Weiselberg indictments. I think we'll see a McConney and a Calamari senior plea deal and Superseating Trump organ diamonds all from the Manhattan DA all of those with my beans on assessment indictment failure That rounds out my team of 10 for this week and That's our show thanks to Marcy Wheeler again for joining me. She's just font of knowledge. She knows everything and cyclopedic. It's it's It's uncanny how much information's it's it's unhanny. How much information she has follow her at emptywheel.net. And we will see you tomorrow morning for the Daily Beans with

Dana Goldberg. And tell them, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet and take care of your mental health. I've been AG and this is Muller She Road. She wrote. Muller She wrote is written and produced by Allison Gill in partnership with MSW Media. Sound designed in engineering or by Molly Hockey, Jesse Egan is our copywriter and our art and web designer by Joelle Reeder at Moxie Design Studios. Muller She wrote as a proud member of MSW Media, a group of creator-owned podcasts focused on news, justice and politics. For more information, visit mswmedia.com.

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