TBR News May 2, 2018

The Voice of the White House 

Washington, D.C. May 2, 2018:” Pressure is building inside the Beltway of official Washington to oust Donald Trump from the Oval Office.

This is not because of his political or religious beliefs but because of his increasingly obvious psychological problems.

These can be seen in his often jumbled press conferences or, especially, in his Twitter expostulations.

Trump has, obviously, a weak ego structure and badly needs blind obedience and recognition of his desire to be an important person.

He is brutal with members of his staff, both the ones in the White House and  his private business ventures.

He delights in cheating workmen in his employ by bullying them and eventually, refusing to pay them for their work.

His many business ventures do not reflect practical business sense and his manipulent behavior is the despair of anyone foolish enough to do business with him.

That he, in person and through his front men, has been dealing, very foolishly indeed, with the Russians, promising them much and, typically, giving them nothing in return is well-known in Washington.

That a Russian-controlled WikiLeaks released documents that did terrible damage to the Clinton campaign is not to be doubted but Trump, typically of him, did not return the favor.

Any staff member who disagrees with him or is reluctant to execute his garbled and often very counter-productive orders is summarily fired and then insulted by Trump for daring to deny his divinity.

His psychological problems will only increase with his advancing age and the end result will be more domestic uproar, his removal from office by whatever means possible and the reestablishment of sensible governance by the oligarchs.”

 

Table of Contents

• Israel’s Risky Strategy of Banking on Muted Iranian Response in Syria
• Netanyahu’s cheap theatrics fall flat, but alas, he has an audience of one — Trump
• Donald Trump’s ex-doctor claims president dictated 2015 health letter
• Donald Trump and narcissism: What’s behind his big ego?
• ‘Fire and Fury’ paints strange picture of Trump family ties
• Trump family secrets
• Mueller ‘threatened Trump with subpoena’ amid Russia probe
• An academic look at Trump’s lies
• Why Answering Mueller’s Questions Could Be a Minefield for Trump
• The Questions Mueller Wants to Ask Trump About Obstruction, and What They Mean
• Donald Trump’s Russian connections

 

Israel’s Risky Strategy of Banking on Muted Iranian Response in Syria

May 1, 2018

by Patrick Cockburn

The Independent/UK

It is likely that Israel launched the missile attack in Syria  that killed at least 26 pro-government fighters, many of them Iranians, late on Sunday night. The targets included a ground-to-ground missile depot that exploded with the seismic impact of a small earthquake.

Iranian news outlets first confirmed and then denied that Iranian facilities had been destroyed, suggesting that Tehran wants to deny that the incident took place because it does not intend to retaliate against Israel at this time.

Israel has not confirmed officially that it was responsible for the airstrikes, but the Israeli media is reporting them as if there was no doubt that Israel was behind them.

Iran may feel that retaliatory military action against Israel is not in its interests in the days leading up to Donald Trump’s likely withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal on 12 May.

The Iranian leadership will want to avoid providing Mr Trump with an excuse for his actions, thus enabling them to put as much blame as possible on the US for pulling out of the 2015 agreement.

Israel may calculate that it can expect to benefit from Iranian restraint in Syria for the next few weeks or even months, even if Israel escalates its airstrikes against Iran-related targets.

It is a risky strategy: much depends on the extent of Israeli ambitions in Syria. It can expect strong support from the US and the new, hawkish US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had just left Israel when the missile attacks took place.

But if the Israeli air war in Syria continues and begins to affect the balance of power in the seven-year civil war, then Iran will certainly retaliate. Iranian reaction to developments affecting its interests in the Middle East – such as the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 – have tended in the past to be long delayed but effective.

Sustained Israeli military action in Syria could not single out Iranian targets. It would draw in Russia which does not want to see the military successes of it ally, Bashar al-Assad, reversed by Israel. Relations between Israel and Russia are deteriorating: previously Israel informed the Russians about impending Israeli attacks, but this liaison is reported to have lapsed.

Israeli strikes in Syria have increased this year, primarily focusing on facilities where Iranian fighters and equipped were alleged to be based. Serious incidents include an Israeli warplane shot down returning from a bombing raid in Syria on 9 February and an Israeli attack on the Syrian government’s T4 airbase between Homs and Palmyra on 9 April that killed seven Iranians.

Israel is certainly capable of inflicting losses on Iran in Syria, but would not be able to force them out of the country. Trying to do so might well provoke a wider war. US policy in Syria is contradictory, with Mr Trump demonising Iran as the source of all evil which must be opposed, but also saying that he wants to pull US forces out of the country.

An Israeli-Iranian confrontation in Syria, would add yet another battle front to the conflict there that already has multiple fronts.

If sustained, it could draw in Hezbollah in Lebanon which has been an important ally of Assad. The US may back a more aggressive Israeli posture in Syria, but the single-minded obsession of the Trump administration with Iran  as the source of all instability in the Middle East is dangerously simple-minded and injects more instability into a region already deeply unstable.

 

Netanyahu’s cheap theatrics fall flat, but alas, he has an audience of one — Trump

May 1, 2018

by Philip Weiss

Mondoweiss

The good news from Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech on Iran’s “secret atomic archive” yesterday is that it was so cheaply theatrical that it is being widely dismissed as vaudeville. He used the word secret 15 times, and in the encore pulled back a black curtain on his evidence, proclaiming, “I just revealed something the world has never seen before.”

The bad news is that the world doesn’t matter; Netanyahu obviously pitched his message to one person, Donald Trump, who is moved by cheap theatrics; and lobbying Trump to go to war against Iran looks to be a far better bet than lobbying his predecessor, Barack Obama. Under similar pressure three years ago, Obama said that only one country in the world was against the deal, Israel, and that it would be an “abrogation of my constitutional duty” to defer to Israel rather than the American people.

Alas, Trump isn’t so fussy.

The overnights on the speech were almost all negative. Reuters:

Intelligence experts and diplomats said he did not seem to have presented a “smoking gun” showing that Iran had violated the agreement, although he may have helped make a case on behalf of hawks in the U.S. administration who want to scrap it.

Most of the purported evidence Netanyahu unveiled dated to the period before the 2015 accord was signed, although he said Iran had also kept important files on nuclear technology since then, and continued adding to its “nuclear weapons knowledge”.

Former Obama security aide Rob Malley:

For those who have followed the Iranian nuclear file, there is nothing new in Bibi’s presentation. All it does is vindicate need for the nuclear deal But the Israeli prime minister has an audience of one: Trump And he’s unfortunately unlikely to reach the same conclusion.

Noga Tarnopolsky:

Can anyone remember the last time a Head of Government announced a major emergency address to his nation, then spoke in a foreign language using graphics incomprehensible to his own citizens?

J Street:

Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing an amazing job making the case for an international agreement to provide unprecedented monitoring and inspections of Iran’s nuclear program to ensure it cannot produce nuclear weapons.

The concern is that Netanyahu is whispering in Trump’s ear for a war on Iran in Syria– even as Israel has struck Syria again, killing 26 people, and is preparing to carry out another massacre on Israel’s border with Gaza. “The bogus pretext for war: Iran lied about their nuclear program before the nuclear deal, therefore the nuclear deal should be scrapped, even though inspections are ultra-invasive and foolproof,” writes one anonymous foreign policy observer.

J Street tweeted out Netanyahu’s last successful push for an American war, the invasion of Iraq. Netanyahu told Congress in 2002:

If you take out Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region…. I think people sitting right next door in Iran will say the time of such regimes, such despots is over…

There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking and is working and is advancing toward the development nuclear weapons.. No question whatsoever.. Once he acquires them, history shifts immediately.

This time Netanyahu is missing some of his neoconservative consort.  One soldier who’s absent this time, Jeffrey Goldberg; the Atlantic calls the Netanyahu presentation “strange” and says it’s all based on old conduct. Another unimpressed warhorse, Richard Haass of CFR, is retweeted by Obama’s former ambassador Daniel Shapiro:

Nothing stated by Israel PM or WH contradicts that Iran in compliance w JCPOA and best US policy is to live with it, counter Iranian push for regional primacy

Unfortunately the New York Times is parroting Netanyahu. It publishes a wheedling page 1 article by David Halbfinger, David Sanger, and Israeli hawk Ronen Bergman in which you have to wait until paragraph 17 to discover it’s all about the past, nothing new at all, on a par with Netanyahu’s cartoon bomb diagram at the UN. Lest you forget

The foreign minister of Iran reminds us of that stunt:

BREAKING: The boy who can’t stop crying wolf is at it again. Undeterred by cartoon fiasco at UNGA. You can only fool some of the people so many times.

Today Netanyahu has released more of the magic act, this one where he pulls black curtains on loose leaf binders and CDs.

“Iran lied through its teeth,” he says in that performance, two days after telling Mike Pompeo,  “Iran is trying to gobble up one country after the other.”

Netanyahu now promises to lobby Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, just days after they met with Donald Trump.

Few are pointing out what should be noted: Netanyahu is under investigation at home for corruption, with many expecting indictments. “Any report on Netanyahu’s speech about Iran must explain that many, in Israel and elsewhere, believe he is distracting from the multiple corruption probes that are targeting him and his wife, Sara,” writes James North. The NY Times article doesn’t mention Netanyahu’s fears of investigation(s) until the 33rd paragraph, right near the end. The Washington Post never mentions it.

It’s springtime for neocons. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies is pushing the Netanyahu line.

Simple takeaway from Netanyahu presentation: Iran regime conducted nuclear weaponization activities, lied to the IAEA and to the world & hid 100,000+ documents, videos, photos with the instructions to restart a nuke weapons program at a time of its choosing.

FDD cites Netanyahu’s former national security adviser, who is a visiting fellow at the Foundation, Jacob Nagel. Sort of like Ronen Bergman the promoter of the Mossad working for the New York Times. This pinball machine never Tilts.

 

Donald Trump’s ex-doctor claims president dictated 2015 health letter

The 2015 doctor’s note attested that Donald Trump’s “physical strength and stamina are extraordinary.” The president’s former doctor Harold Bornstein now claims Trump dictated the contents of the letter.

May 2, 2018

DW

Donald Trump’s former doctor has claimed that a letter extolling the then-presidential candidate’s health was dictated by the president himself.

“He dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter,” Harold Bornstein told CNN television.

The letter released by the Trump campaign in December 2015 claimed he would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”

“Mr. Trump has had a recent complete medical examination that showed only positive results,” the letter with Bornstein’s signature said.

“Actually, his blood pressure, 110/65, and laboratory results were astonishingly excellent. His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary,” the letter said. “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”

The doctor told CNN that Trump dictated the letter while Bornstein and his wife were driving across New York’s Central Park.

“(Trump) dictated the letter and I would tell him what he couldn’t put in there,” he said.

Bornstein had previously claimed that he wrote the letter while in a hurry

The revelation comes as Bornstein was also in the news for alleging that Keith Schiller, the president’s longtime bodyguard and former director of Oval Office operations, raided his office with two other men in February 2017 to seize the president’s medical records.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders dismissed this version of events.

“As is standard operating procedure for a new president, the White House Medical Unit took possession of the president’s medical records,” she told reporters at a White House briefing.

 

Donald Trump and narcissism: What’s behind his big ego?

Narcissists don’t accept any criticism. They consider themselves infallible. That sounds suspiciously like Donald Trump. Behind such a big mouth is often a very troubled person, says therapist Bärbel Wardetzki.

May 2, 2018

by Julia Vergin

DW

Remote diagnosing is a controversial practice among psychologists. But for a while now, many in the field have been concerned about US President Donald Trump’s seemingly dire mental state. In February last year, a letter written by 33 psychiatrists and psychologists was published in The New York Times. They warned of the risks the US president poses. In “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump”, a book published in October, 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts describe the president’s severe personality disorder. The most frequent diagnosis in the book is narcissistic personality disorder.

Bärbel Wardetzki is a psychotherapist in Germany who has written several books about narcissism. In an interview with DW, she explains what narcissism is.

DW: Am I a narcissist if I like myself?

Bärbel Wardetzki: No, the term narcissism is not easy to define. I see narcissism as a way of dealing with the world. It ranges from positive narcissism to pathological narcissism. People who say “I like myself” simply have high self-esteem. They do not experience self-doubt but they are still able to structure their inner life, help and comfort themselves. They are aware of their capabilities and limits. Actually, many people view this attitude as negative narcissism but it is actually positive. A narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by a deeply disturbed sense of self-esteem that is compensated for by creating a larger-than-life image of oneself.

What about negative narcissism? Does US President Donald Trump suffer from a narcissistic personality disorder?

It is difficult to diagnose Trump as I do not actually know him and can only interpret his behavior. Maybe he suffers from a completely different personality disorder but the narcissistic aspect is what catches the eye. He’s a prime example of narcissism. His behavior and way of dealing with others by simply dividing the world into good and evil is typical of this disorder.

What type of behavior do psychologists associate with a narcissistic personality disorder?

There are several criteria that must be met before one can speak of a disorder. Criticism is met with anger as it is associated with shame and humiliation. People with this disorder are manipulative. Relationships with others are exploited for personal gain. Another factor is overblown self-esteem. The person feels unique and great. Those who have a personality disorder constantly fantasize about infinite success, power, beauty, brilliance and idealized love. They make great demands on themselves and others. They constantly expect attention and admiration. Furthermore, narcissists lack empathy. This point however, is a topic of contention at the moment. People with a personality disorder can show empathy but not in the sense of compassion, which means feeling for others. Last but not least, people with a narcissistic personality disorder are extremely envious of others

You say that a narcissistic personality disorder is based on low self-esteem. So if Trump brags about having a bigger nuclear button than Kim Jong Un, does he actually fear having a smaller one?

Exactly. “I am not good enough” is the underlying fear in this disorder and it can be an existential fear. People who develop narcissistic structures often do not even know who they are. They have often been manipulated as children who had to live up to a specific image. They draw their self-esteem from external accomplishments: power, big cars or important positions. But all this conceals an emotionally neglected child who was never given the attention it actually needed.

What’s the best way to deal with a narcissist like Trump?

Well, that’s the million dollar question. When dealing with people like that, your own self-esteem is challenged. After all, they can quickly make you feel worthless and miserable and no longer the person you are. It is important to learn to take a stand against them, to raise your voice and not be intimidated. And to leave when the relationship becomes too destructive. Which, unfortunately, we cannot do in this case.

Bärbel Wardetzski is a psychotherapist and the author of the book “Narzissmus, Verführung und Macht in Politik und Gesellschaft” (“Narcissism, seduction and power in politics and society”)

The interview was conducted by Julia Vergin.

 

 

‘Fire and Fury’ paints strange picture of Trump family ties

Michael Wolff’s new book describes the president’s “perplexing” marriage and absentee parenting. The account of life inside the White House depicts an isolated president.

May 1, 2018

by Elizabeth Schumacher

DW

The author of “Fire and Fury,” an incendiary new book about the Trump White House, has made it clear that his book is by no means a historical record.

Rather, writes journalist Michael Wolff, the book is a he-said-she-said composite picture of Trump’s political and personal lives.

“Many of the accounts of what has happened in the Trump White House are in conflict with one another; many, in Trumpian fashion, are baldly untrue. These conflicts, and that looseness with the truth, if not with reality itself, are an elemental thread of the book,” Wolff says in the opening pages of his sought-after tome, which sold out in some areas shortly after its release on Friday.

The accounts collected by Wolff paint President Donald Trump as a lonely figure, someone with few true supporters and even fewer friends, including inside his own family. Staffers, including former advisor-turned-foe Steven Bannon, describe how no one — not even Trump himself — thought he would win the presidency, and how even after this victory, everyone around Trump treated him like an incompetent child.

While tales of strategizing against Russia revelations are nothing new, the book offers an insight into one aspect of the president’s life that has been kept relatively under wraps — how White House insiders view Trump’s family relationships.

Wolff describes how campaign staffers were surprised to see that he and his wife Melania “could go days at a time without contact,” spending relatively little time together, even when they were both in Trump Tower, before moving into the White House.

“Trump’s marriage was perplexing to almost everybody around him,” writes Wolff, who says the first couple has adopted a “live and let live” approach to their relationship. The president also reportedly called Melania a “trophy wife” often, sometimes even in her presence.

According to the book, Melania cried on election night, because becoming First Lady “would destroy her carefully sheltered life.”

‘An absentee father’

“Fire and Fury” presents an even more scathing picture of President Trump’s relationships with his children.

“An absentee father for his first four children, Trump was even more absent for his fifth, Barron, his son with Melania.”

As for his elder children, the book makes no mention of Tiffany, Trump’s daughter with his second wife Marla Maples, and his two other sons are portrayed as comical figures with little agency of their own.

“Don Jr., thirty-nine, and Eric, thirty-three, existed in an enforced, infantile relationship to their father, a role that embarrassed them, but one that they also professionally embraced.”

According to Wolff’s sources, the pair had entertained hopes of being involved in their father’s administration as closely as their sister Ivanka.

Uday and Qusay

“Don Jr. and Eric — behind their backs known to Trump insiders as Uday and Qusay, after the sons of Saddam Hussein — wondered if there couldn’t somehow be two parallel White House structures, one dedicated to their father’s big-picture views, personal appearance and salesmanship, and the other concerned with day-to-day management issues.”

The two eventually became subjects of ridicule — not least because of Donald Jr.’s 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower, a move Steven Bannon infamously dubbed “treasonous” in an interview with Wolff.

As for Ivanka, often touted as the “smart one” and Trump’s favorite, Wolff writes that their relationship was “in no way a conventional family relationship. If it wasn’t pure opportunism, it was certainly transactional. It was business. Building the brand, the presidential campaign, and now the White House — it was all business.”

According to journalist Joe Scarborough, who knows Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner well, the couple have affection for the president, but remain detached from his flamboyant positions and statements.

“They have tolerance but few illusions,” as Wolff puts it.

 

Trump family secrets

May 2, 2018

by Christian Jürs

The current American President is directly descended from the German Trumpf family. His ancestor in the direct line was Johannes Trump(f), a native of the village of Kallstadt.

The same Trumpf family also produced one Arnold Wilhelm August Trumpf.

Arnold Trumpf was Vorstand Reichsverband Deutscher Landwirtschaftlicher Genossenschaften-Raiffensene.V and Hauptabteilungsleiter III of the Reichsnahrstand, Allegemeine SS since 1934.

Trumpf was a director of the Reichsbank.

SS background of Arnold Trumpf:

SS-Oberführer / Leutnant d.R. a.D.

Born: 27. Oct. 1892 in Gifhorn

Died: 7. January 1985 in Garmish-Partenkirchen

NSDAP-Nr.: 389 920 from 1, December 1930

SS-Nr.: 187 119

Promotions:

SS-Oberfuhrer: 30. Jan. 1939

Career:

Bei dem RuS-Hauptamt: (9. Nov. 1944)

Decorations & Awards:

1914 Eisernes Kreuz II. Klasse

 Kriegsverdienstkreuz II. Klasse ohne Schwerter

 Verwundetenabzeichen, 1918 in Schwarz

 Ehrenkreuz fur Frontkampfer

 Ehrendegen des RF SS

 Totenkopfring der SS

The RuSHA was founded in 1931 by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler

Among their duties were:

• Kidnapping of children suitable for Germanization
• Population transfers
• The persecution and liquidation of Jews

 

The RuSHA also employed Josef Mengele from November 1940 to early 1941, in Department II of its Family Office, where he was responsible for “care of genetic health” and “genetic health tests”

References

• http://de.metapedia.org/wiki/Trumpf,_Arnold
• Das Deutsche Führerlexikon, Otto Stollberg G.m.b.H., Berlin 1934
• Dienstaltersliste der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP 9, November 1944

 

Mueller ‘threatened Trump with subpoena’ amid Russia probe

May 2, 2018

BBC News

Special Counsel Robert Mueller warned he could order Donald Trump to testify as part of a probe into alleged Russian election meddling, US media report.

Mr Mueller suggested the move during talks with Mr Trump’s lawyers in March.

The threat to issue a subpoena, as it is known, was reportedly met with a sharp response from one of Mr Trump’s former lawyers.

It is believed to be the first time the special counsel has raised such a possibility.

Mr Trump’s lawyers insisted during the meeting that the president was under no obligation to face questions by federal investigators in relation to the Russia inquiry, the Washington Post reported.

However, Mr Mueller’s team reportedly responded by suggesting they would issue a subpoena if Mr Trump declined. They agreed to provide the president’s lawyers with more specific information about the questions they wished to ask Mr Trump

The president’s former lawyer, John Dowd, has also said that Mr Mueller mentioned the possibility of forcing Mr Trump to face questions.

Mr Dowd, who resigned about a week and a half after the meeting, said he told investigators that the probe was not “some game”, adding: “You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States.”

The list of possible questions has since been published in the New York Times, and it reportedly covers the president’s motivations in dismissing former FBI director James Comey last May and his campaign’s contacts with Russia.

Mr Trump repeated his claim that the Russia inquiry is a “witch hunt” on Wednesday.

Explosive legal battle coming?

Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington

If negotiations between Donald Trump’s legal team and the special counsel’s office have been a delicate dance, Robert Mueller just stomped on his counterpart’s toes.

A subpoena to force the president before a grand jury could start an explosive legal battle that eventually reaches the US Supreme Court. Mr Trump and his lawyers may argue that a president can’t be compelled to answer such wide-ranging questions.

The president has reportedly cooled on the idea of willingly meeting the special counsel – a result of his feeling that the Mueller team is out to get him. There have been hints that his legal advisers are torn on the matter.

John Dowd, who resigned in March as the president’s top personal lawyer, was said to be against an interview. Others, including recent arrival Rudy Giuliani, appear more open to co-operation.

This may explain this week’s spate of revelations. Possible Mueller questions, as compiled by the president’s lawyers, were splashed across front page yesterday. The subpoena threat is today’s news.

Mr Mueller’s team remains tight-lipped, but the evolving strategies of the president’s side are playing out nearly in full view – and they may be inclined to turn this dance into a rumble.

Presentational grey line

So will Mr Trump talk?

The US president himself has said he is willing to speak to Mr Mueller, but CNN reports that his enthusiasm has cooled after the offices of his personal attorney were raided.

The network cites sources close to Mr Trump as saying they are yet to make a recommendation about whether he agrees to an interview with Mr Mueller. Some advisers reportedly believe Mr Mueller would not go so far as to issue a subpoena.

If one was issued, Mr Trump’s lawyers could fight it in court, or he could refuse to answer questions by pleading the Fifth Amendment, a constitutional protection against potential self-incrimination.

Prominent US lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, who has expressed support for Mr Trump in his legal battles, advised against the US president speaking to the special counsel.

“The strategy is to throw him softballs so that he will go on and on with his answers,” he told the Washington Post.

“Instead of sharp questions designed to elicit yes or no, they make him feel very comfortable and let him ramble.”

What is Robert Mueller investigating?

The special counsel is looking into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 US election, whether there was any collusion between the Kremlin and Mr Trump’s election campaign and whether the president unlawfully tried to obstruct the inquiry.

Mr Mueller was appointed special counsel following Mr Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey last May.

He was chosen by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself due to undisclosed communications with the Russian ambassador.

Mr Rosenstein, who is the only Justice Department official with the authority to fire Mr Mueller, has been reportedly targeted for impeachment by House Republicans.

Speaking on Tuesday, he addressed the “people who have been making threats privately and publicly against me for quite some time”.

“I think they should understand by now the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted,” he said.

The president has long insisted there was no collusion between his election campaign and the Russians.

US media reported that sources familiar with the case said Mr Mueller informed Mr Trump’s attorneys in March that he is a subject of the investigations, but not a criminal target.

It remains unclear when Mr Mueller will request a meeting with the president.

 

An academic look at Trump’s lies

April 30, 2018

by Bella DePaulo

Chicago Tribune –

I spent the first two decades of my career as a social scientist studying liars and their lies. I thought I had developed a sense of what to expect from them. Then along came President Donald Trump. His lies are both more frequent and more malicious than ordinary people’s…..

At The Washington Post, the Fact Checker feature has been tracking every false and misleading claim and flip-flop made by Trump this year…. I categorized the most recent 400  lies that The Post had documented through mid-November in the same way my colleagues and I had categorized the lies of the participants in our study.

The college students in our research told an average of two lies a day, and the community members told one. (A more recent study of the lies 1,000 U. S. adults told in the previous 24 hours found that people told an average of 1.65 lies per day; the authors noted that 60 percent of the participants said they told no lies at all, while the top 5 percent of liars told nearly half of all the falsehoods in the study.) The most prolific liar among the students told an average of 6.6 lies a day. The biggest liar in the community sample told 4.3 lies in an average day.

In Trump’s first 298 days in office, however, he made 1,628 false or misleading claims or flip-flops, by The Post’s tally. That’s about six per day, far higher than the average rate in our studies. And of course, reporters have access to only a subset of Trump’s false statements — the ones he makes publicly — so unless he never stretches the truth in private, his actual rate of lying is almost certainly higher.

That rate has been accelerating. Starting in early October, The Post’s tracking showed that Trump told a remarkable nine lies a day, outpacing even the biggest liars in our research.

… My colleagues and I found it easy to code each of our participants’ lies into just one category. This was not the case for Trump. Close to a quarter of his false statements (24 percent) served several purposes simultaneously.

Nearly two-thirds of Trump’s lies (65 percent) were self-serving. Examples included: “They’re big tax cuts — the biggest cuts in the history of our country, actually” and, about the people who came to see him on a presidential visit to Vietnam last month: “They were really lined up in the streets by the tens of thousands.”

Slightly less than 10 percent of Trump’s lies were kind ones, told to advantage, flatter or protect someone else. An example was his statement on Twitter that “it is a ‘miracle’ how fast the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police were able to find the demented shooter and stop him from even more killing!” In the broadest sense, it is possible to interpret every lie as ultimately self-serving, but I tried to stick to how statements appeared on the surface.

Trump told 6.6 times as many self-serving lies as kind ones. That’s a much higher ratio than we found for our study participants, who told about double the number of self-centered lies compared with kind ones.

The most stunning way Trump’s lies differed from our participants’, though, was in their cruelty. An astonishing 50 percent of Trump’s lies were hurtful or disparaging. For example, he proclaimed that John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey, all career intelligence or law enforcement officials, were “political hacks.” He said that “the Sloppy Michael Moore Show on Broadway was a TOTAL BOMB and was forced to close.” He insisted that other “countries, they don’t put their finest in the lottery system. They put people probably in many cases that they don’t want.” And he claimed that “Ralph Northam, who is running for Governor of Virginia, is fighting for the violent MS-13 killer gangs & sanctuary cities.”

 

Why Answering Mueller’s Questions Could Be a Minefield for Trump

May 1, 2018

by Charlie Savage

The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump has insisted he is eager to make the case to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, that he has done nothing wrong. But the questions that Mr. Mueller wants to ask show why the president’s lawyers have countered that an interview would be a minefield for Mr. Trump.

It is not just that the president has a history of telling demonstrable falsehoods, while the special counsel has already won four guilty pleas for the crime of lying to investigators. The questions would pose additional challenges for Mr. Trump, legal experts said.

Many of Mr. Mueller’s questions, obtained and published by The New York Times, are so broad that Mr. Trump would need a detailed command of a range of issues. And, complicating efforts to try to adequately prepare him for such an encounter, the president’s lawyers do not know everything that the special counsel has learned

“This list reinforces the notion that the president should not go in for an interview with Mueller,” said Sol Wisenberg, a white-collar defense lawyer who was a deputy independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation. “Mueller knows all kinds of things — we don’t know exactly what he knows — and these are both broad and detailed questions, making real land mines.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump denounced the publication of the questions in a pair of Twitter posts. He called it “disgraceful” and again pronounced Mr. Mueller’s investigation a “witch hunt.” He also incorrectly declared both that none of the questions were about “collusion” — in fact, many centered on his campaign’s ties to Russia — and that it would be “hard to obstruct justice for a crime that never happened.” (Efforts to obstruct an investigation can be prosecuted even if no underlying crime is found.)

Most of the dozens of questions are about now well-known events, like the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between top Trump campaign officials and Russians promising damaging information about Hillary Clinton. While a few touch on Mr. Trump’s business dealings — in particular, campaign-era talks about a proposed real estate project in Moscow — they do not signal that Mr. Mueller is examining Trump Organization finances more broadly or contain other major surprises.

In many instances, Mr. Mueller wants Mr. Trump to explain his knowledge of, reactions to or communications about private events where there were other witnesses, such as his campaign’s internal discussions of Russia-related matters and his conversations as president with and about James B. Comey, whom he fired as F.B.I. director.

The questions were drawn up in March and reflect no events since then, leaving open the possibility that they may have changed as the president’s lawyers and the special counsel continued to negotiate over an interview.

The handover to the president’s lawyers grew out of a tense moment early that month between Mr. Mueller and Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer at the time, John Dowd. Mr. Dowd had argued that Mr. Trump was too busy running the country to sit for an interview, especially if he was not a target of the investigation, according to a person briefed on the encounter.

Mr. Mueller replied that he had to question Mr. Trump to determine whether he had criminal intent when he took actions like firing Mr. Comey and raised the possibility of subpoenaing Mr. Trump to appear before a grand jury, the person said. News of Mr. Mueller mentioning the subpoena was first reported by The Washington Post.

A few days later, a lawyer working for Mr. Mueller called Mr. Dowd to arrange a second meeting, in the hopes of persuading Mr. Dowd to allow Mr. Trump to sit for an interview. At that meeting, investigators for Mr. Mueller provided Mr. Dowd with the list of questions they had for the president. After reviewing the list, Mr. Dowd become even more convinced, the person said, that allowing the president to be interviewed would be a problem.

Mr. Dowd quit in March after he advised Mr. Trump that sitting down with investigators would put him in too much jeopardy, but Mr. Trump signaled that he was prepared to ignore Mr. Dowd’s advice.

One major threat to Mr. Trump posed by such open-ended questions is that, as his Twitter diatribe showed, he has a history of saying things that are not true — especially when he rambles off the cuff. It is a felony to lie to law enforcement officials or to conceal a material fact during a proceeding like a formal interview.

Moreover, the list of questions is most likely a starting point for follow-ups as investigators try to iron out ambiguities. Paul Rosenzweig, another former Whitewater prosecutor and a senior fellow at the R Street Institute, a conservative and libertarian research organization, said they could be seeking such details as: What was the source of your knowledge? When did you find out? Who told you and what exactly did they say?

“You don’t just ask, ‘What did you know about the Trump Tower meeting?’ and he tells you the answer,” Mr. Rosenzweig said. “With 48 questions like that, that’s honestly a two-day interview. That’s 12 hours of questioning.”

And in part because former Trump associates who have pleaded guilty are cooperating with the inquiry, the White House does not know what evidence the special counsel has obtained that could contradict Mr. Trump, Mr. Wisenberg said. Because of that, he said, the president’s lawyers were in a worse position to prepare their client for an interview than President Bill Clinton’s team was in the Whitewater investigation.

“It’s totally different than when President Clinton came into the grand jury room to talk to us,” he said. “He pretty much knew everything we knew. It was far less risky.”

Even so, Mr. Clinton perjured himself by falsely denying that he had had a sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky. That became part of the referral to Congress by Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel, that led to Mr. Clinton’s impeachment.

As part of those proceedings, the videotape of Mr. Clinton’s false testimony became public, taking its place in his legacy. It is far from clear, however, that any transcript or recording of Mr. Trump’s interview — if he gives one — would similarly become public. Mr. Rosenzweig said the interview would be covered by investigative secrecy rules, and there was no clear mechanism for it to be disclosed under Mr. Mueller, who has less power than Mr. Starr enjoyed.

Mr. Mueller’s authorities remain uncertain; it is not clear that he could charge Mr. Trump with a crime or send an impeachment referral report directly to Congress. That has left his potential endgame unclear if he does conclude the president committed some kind of wrongdoing.

But the list of questions indicates that the investigation remains a significant threat to Mr. Trump even if he were to be honest about everything in any interview.

The questions zero in on Mr. Trump’s possible liability — and little else, noted Samuel W. Buell, a Duke University criminal law professor and a former federal prosecutor who helped lead the Enron investigation.

“‘What did you know and think?’ and ‘When did you know it and think it?’ are not questions you ask someone to determine whether they have information about someone else’s commission of a crime,” Mr. Buell said. “They are questions you ask to determine whether the person you are questioning had the guilty mind required to break the law.”

Mr. Wisenberg said he was struck by Mr. Mueller’s focus on establishing the president’s mind-set when he weighed whether to fire Mr. Comey, and potential steps like whether to oust Attorney General Jeff Sessions, pardon people charged by Mr. Mueller or force the Justice Department to dismiss the special counsel.

No Supreme Court precedent exists to guide Mr. Mueller on whether obstruction of justice can occur if a president exercises a constitutional power with a bad motive, like firing a subordinate to cover up a crime; Mr. Wisenberg counted himself among those who do not think it can. But Mr. Mueller’s questions, he said, suggest the special counsel has adopted a broader interpretation of the law.

Some of the questions may present an opportunity for Mr. Trump, however. Asking him to explain what he meant when he told NBC News that he was thinking about the Russia investigation when he decided to fire Mr. Comey, for example, would permit Mr. Trump to backpedal on the remark or explain it away, perhaps by saying he did not really mean it.

Alan M. Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School criminal law professor who has frequently defended Mr. Trump on television and is informally consulting with him, told CNN  on Monday that he thought Mr. Trump could invoke executive privilege to refuse to answer questions about his thinking when he decided to exercise constitutional powers.

But the problem for Mr. Trump is that those questions, Mr. Dershowitz said, were the “easy” ones. By contrast, Mr. Trump could not invoke the privilege about events that took place before he became president, like his business dealings.

Several legal experts said it was unusual for prosecutors to give Mr. Trump a preview of the questions, speculating that Mr. Mueller was bending over backward to defang any accusations of overreach. Mr. Buell said the move might also be aimed at uncovering any disputes over executive privilege now so they do not disrupt an interview.

But he predicted that despite all the “posturing,” Mr. Trump would allow his lawyers to talk him out of sitting down with Mr. Mueller.

“The game,” he said, “is to appear to be interested and cooperating without doing so.”

Michael S. Schmidt contributed reporting.

 

The Questions Mueller Wants to Ask Trump About Obstruction, and What They Mean

The questions show the special counsel’s focus on obstruction of justice and touch on some surprising other areas.

by Matt Apuzzo and Michael S. Schmidt

April 30, 2018

The New York Times

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, recently provided President Trump’s lawyers a list of questions he wants answered in an interview. The New York Times obtained the list; here are the questions, along with the context and significance of each. The questions fall into categories based on four broad subjects. They are not quoted verbatim, and some were condensed.

Questions related to Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser

• What did you know about phone calls that Mr. Flynn made with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, in late December 2016?

These questions revolve around whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct justice to protect Mr. Flynn from prosecution. His phone calls with Mr. Kislyak are at the heart of that inquiry.

During the calls, Mr. Flynn urged Russia not to overreact to sanctions just announced by the Obama administration. But Mr. Trump’s aides publicly denied that sanctions were discussed and, when questioned by the F.B.I., Mr. Flynn denied it, as well. Mr. Mueller wants to know whether Mr. Flynn was operating on Mr. Trump’s behalf. Prosecutors may already know the answer: Mr. Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying and is cooperating with investigators.

• What was your reaction to news reports on Jan. 12, 2017, and Feb. 8-9, 2017?

In January, the Washington Post columnist David Ignatius revealed Mr. Flynn’s phone calls with Mr. Kislyak. Mr. Ignatius questioned whether those conversations had violated a law prohibiting private citizens from attempting to undermine American policies. In February, The Washington Post revealed the true nature of Mr. Flynn’s conversations with Mr. Kislyak.

Mr. Mueller wants to know, among other things, whether Mr. Trump feared that his national security adviser had broken the law and then tried to shield him from consequences.

• What did you know about Sally Yates’s meetings about Mr. Flynn?

Ms. Yates, the acting attorney general for the first weeks of the Trump administration, twice warned the White House that Mr. Flynn was lying, and those lies made him vulnerable to Russian blackmail. No one from the White House has ever said how much Mr. Trump knew about those warnings.

• How was the decision made to fire Mr. Flynn on Feb. 13, 2017?

Eighteen days after Ms. Yates’s warning, Mr. Flynn was asked to resign. The White House said that Mr. Trump lost confidence in Mr. Flynn because he had lied. But the White House has never fully explained why, after learning about the lie, officials waited so long to act.

• After the resignations, what efforts were made to reach out to Mr. Flynn about seeking immunity or possible pardon?

The Times recently revealed that, when Mr. Flynn began considering cooperating with the F.B.I., Mr. Trump’s lawyers floated the idea of a pardon. Mr. Mueller wants to know why.

Questions related to James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director

• What was your opinion of Mr. Comey during the transition?

The questions about Mr. Comey relate to whether Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey last year to shield Mr. Flynn, or anyone else, from prosecution. Mr. Trump has denied that, saying he fired Mr. Comey because of his mishandling of the F.B.I.’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

This question is important because, if Mr. Trump truly was upset about the Clinton investigation, he would have shown an early distaste for Mr. Comey.

• What did you think about Mr. Comey’s intelligence briefing on Jan. 6, 2017, about Russian election interference?

The briefing revealed that American intelligence agencies had concluded that Russian operatives meddled in the election to hurt Mrs. Clinton and to boost Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on these conclusions and said he believes the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, who denies any interference.

• What was your reaction to Mr. Comey’s briefing that day about other intelligence matters?

This question addresses documents written by a retired British spy, Christopher Steele, who said that Russia had gathered compromising information on Mr. Trump. The documents, which became known as the Steele Dossier, also claim that the Trump campaign had ties to the Russian government. Mr. Comey privately briefed Mr. Trump about these documents.

• What was the purpose of your Jan. 27, 2017, dinner with Mr. Comey, and what was said?

A few weeks after his briefing, Mr. Comey was called to the White House for a private dinner. Mr. Comey’s notes say that Mr. Trump raised concerns about the Steele Dossier and said he needed loyalty from his F.B.I. director. This question touches on Mr. Trump’s true motivation for firing Mr. Comey: Was he dismissed because he was not loyal and would not shut down an F.B.I. investigation?

• What was the purpose of your Feb. 14, 2017, meeting with Mr. Comey, and what was said?

That was a key moment. Mr. Comey testified that the president told him, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.” Mr. Trump has denied this.

• What did you know about the F.B.I.’s investigation into Mr. Flynn and Russia in the days leading up to Mr. Comey’s testimony on March 20, 2017?

Mr. Comey’s testimony publicly confirmed that the F.B.I. was investigating members of the Trump campaign for possible coordination with Russia. Mr. Mueller wants to know what role that revelation played in Mr. Comey’s firing.

• What did you do in reaction to the March 20 testimony? Describe your contacts with intelligence officials.

In the aftermath, The Post reported, Mr. Trump asked the United States’ top intelligence official, Daniel Coats, to pressure Mr. Comey to back off his investigation. Mr. Mueller wants to ask Mr. Trump about his contacts with Mr. Coats as well as the C.I.A.’s director at the time, Mike Pompeo, and the National Security Agency’s director, Michael S. Rogers. The conversations could reflect Mr. Trump’s growing frustration with Mr. Comey — not about the Clinton case, but about his refusal to shut down the Russia inquiry.

• What did you think and do in reaction to the news that the special counsel was speaking to Mr. Rogers, Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Coats?

It is not clear whether Mr. Mueller knows something specific about Mr. Trump’s reaction to these interviews, but the question shows that Mr. Mueller is keenly interested in how Mr. Trump responded to each step of his investigation.

• What was the purpose of your calls to Mr. Comey on March 30 and April 11, 2017?

Mr. Comey said that Mr. Trump called  twice to ask him to say publicly that he was not under F.B.I. investigation. In the second call, Mr. Comey said, the president added: “I have been very loyal to you, very loyal. We had that thing, you know.”

• What was the purpose of your April 11, 2017, statement to Maria Bartiromo?

While the White House ultimately said Mr. Comey was fired for breaking with Justice Department policy and discussing the Clinton investigation, Mr. Trump expressed no such qualms in an interview with Ms. Bartiromo of Fox Business Network. “Director Comey was very, very good to Hillary Clinton, that I can tell you,” he said. “If he weren’t, she would be, right now, going to trial.”

• What did you think and do about Mr. Comey’s May 3, 2017, testimony?

In this Senate appearance, Mr. Comey described his handling of the Clinton investigation in detail. Mr. Comey was fired soon after. Mr. Mueller’s question suggests he wants to know why Mr. Trump soured.

• Regarding the decision to fire Mr. Comey: When was it made? Why? Who played a role?

Over the past several months, Mr. Mueller has asked White House officials for the back story, and whether the public justification was accurate. He will be able to compare Mr. Trump’s answers to what he has learned elsewhere.

• What did you mean when you told Russian diplomats on May 10, 2017, that firing Mr. Comey had taken the pressure off?

The day after Mr. Comey’s firing, Mr. Trump met with Russian officials in the Oval Office. There, The Times revealed, Mr. Trump suggested he had fired Mr. Comey because of the pressure from the Russia investigation.

“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

• What did you mean in your interview with Lester Holt about Mr. Comey and Russia?

Shortly after firing Mr. Comey, Mr. Trump undercut his own argument when he told NBC News that he had been thinking about the Russia investigation when he fired Mr. Comey.

I was going to fire Comey knowing there was no good time to do it. And in fact, 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. It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.

What was the purpose of your May 12, 2017, tweet?

After The Times revealed the president’s private dinner with Mr. Comey, Mr. Trump responded on Twitter.

Mr. Comey appeared unworried. “Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” Mr. Comey said. The White House ultimately said that, no, there were no tapes.

• What did you think about Mr. Comey’s June 8, 2017, testimony regarding Mr. Flynn, and what did you do about it?

After he was fired, Mr. Comey testified about his conversations with Mr. Trump and described him as preoccupied with the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russia. After the testimony, Mr. Trump called him a liar.

• What was the purpose of the September and October 2017 statements, including tweets, regarding an investigation of Mr. Comey?

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said that Mr. Comey had testified falsely to Congress and suggested that the Justice Department might investigate. Mr. Trump followed up with tweets suggesting that he should be investigated for rigging an inquiry into Mrs. Clinton. Such comments reinforced criticism that Mr. Trump views the Justice Department as a sword to use against his political rivals.

• What is the reason for your continued criticism of Mr. Comey and his former deputy, Andrew G. McCabe?

Mr. Comey and Mr. McCabe are among Mr. Trump’s favorite targets. Mr. McCabe is a lifelong Republican, but Mr. Trump has criticized him as a Clinton loyalist because Mr. McCabe’s wife, a Democrat, ran unsuccessfully for office in Virginia and received donations from a Clinton ally. This question suggests that Mr. Mueller wants to know whether Mr. Trump’s criticism is an effort to damage the F.B.I. while it investigates the president’s associates.

Questions related to Attorney General Jeff Sessions

• What did you think and do regarding the recusal of Mr. Sessions?

Mr. Trump has criticized Mr. Sessions’s recusal from the Russia investigation. The Times reported that Mr. Trump humiliated him in an Oval Office meeting and accused him of being disloyal. Mr. Sessions ultimately submitted his resignation, though Mr. Trump did not accept it. Along with the next two questions, this inquiry looks at whether Mr. Trump views law enforcement officials as protectors.

• What efforts did you make to try to get him to change his mind?

The Times has reported that Mr. Trump told his White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, to stop Mr. Sessions from recusing himself. Mr. McGahn was unsuccessful, and Mr. Trump erupted, saying he needed an attorney general who would protect him.

• Did you discuss whether Mr. Sessions would protect you, and reference past attorneys general?

Mr. Trump has spoken affectionately about past attorneys general who he said were loyal to their presidents. He cited Robert F. Kennedy and Eric H. Holder Jr.  as examples. “Holder protected the president,” he said in a Times interview in December. “And I have great respect for that.”

• What did you think and what did you do in reaction to the news of the appointment of the special counsel?

In a twist, Mr. Mueller’s very appointment has become part of his investigation. Mr. Trump has repeatedly denounced the inquiry as a “witch hunt.” Mr. Trump blames the appointment on Mr. Sessions’s recusal.

• Why did you hold Mr. Sessions’s resignation until May 31, 2017, and with whom did you discuss it?

Mr. Trump rejected Mr. Sessions’s resignation after aides argued that it would only create more problems. The details of those discussions remain unclear, but Mr. Trump’s advisers have already given Mr. Mueller their accounts of the conversations.

• What discussions did you have with Reince Priebus in July 2017 about obtaining the Sessions resignation? With whom did you discuss it?

Mr. Priebus, who was Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, has said he raced out of the White House after Mr. Sessions and implored him not to resign. Mr. Mueller has interviewed Mr. Priebus and would be able to compare his answers with those of Mr. Trump.

• What discussions did you have regarding terminating the special counsel, and what did you do when that consideration was reported in January 2018?

Again, Mr. Mueller’s investigation intersects with its own existence. The Times reported that, in June 2017, Mr. Trump ordered Mr. McGahn to fire Mr. Mueller. Mr. McGahn refused. Though Mr. Trump’s own advisers informed Mr. Mueller about that effort, Mr. Trump denied it: “Fake news,” he said. “A typical New York Times fake story.”

• What was the purpose of your July 2017 criticism of Mr. Sessions?

Mr. Trump unleashed a series of attacks on Mr. Sessions in July.

Campaign Coordination With Russia

• When did you become aware of the Trump Tower meeting?

This and other questions relate to a June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer who offered political dirt about Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., arranged the meeting. He said he did not tell his father about it when it happened.

• What involvement did you have in the communication strategy, including the release of Donald Trump Jr.’s emails?

When The Times found out about the meeting, Mr. Trump helped draft a misleading statement in his son’s name, omitting the true purpose of the meeting. After The Times obtained the younger Mr. Trump’s emails, he published them on Twitter.

• During a 2013 trip to Russia, what communication and relationships did you have with the Agalarovs and Russian government officials?

The Trump Tower meeting was arranged through the Russian singer Emin Agalarov, his billionaire father, Aras Agalarov, and a music promoter. Mr. Mueller is scrutinizing the nature of connections between the Agalarovs, Mr. Trump and Russian officials.

• What communication did you have with Michael D. Cohen, Felix Sater and others, including foreign nationals, about Russian real estate developments during the campaign?

Mr. Mueller is referring to a failed effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Mr. Sater, a business associate, proposed the idea to Mr. Cohen, the longtime personal lawyer to Mr. Trump. Emails show that Mr. Sater believed that the project would showcase Mr. Trump’s deal-making acumen and propel him into the presidency.

• What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding any meeting with Mr. Putin? Did you discuss it with others?

Journalists and lawmakers have uncovered several examples of Russian officials trying, through intermediaries, to arrange a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin. Senior campaign officials rejected some overtures, but Mr. Trump’s involvement has been a mystery.

• What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding Russian sanctions?

Even as the Obama administration stepped up sanctions on Russia, Mr. Trump struck a laudatory tone toward Mr. Putin.

• What involvement did you have concerning platform changes regarding arming Ukraine?

A portion of the Republican platform was changed in a way more favorable to Russia.

• During the campaign, what did you know about Russian hacking, use of social media or other acts aimed at the campaign?

This is a key question. Mr. Trump praised the release of hacked Democratic emails and called on Russia to find others. Mr. Mueller’s investigation has unearthed evidence that at least one member of Mr. Trump’s campaign — George Papadopoulos — was told that Russia had obtained compromising emails about Mrs. Clinton. But Mr. Trump has repeatedly said there was “no collusion” with the Russian government.

• What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?

This is one of the most intriguing questions on the list. It is not clear whether Mr. Mueller knows something new, but there is no publicly available information linking Mr. Manafort, the former campaign chairman, to such outreach. So his inclusion here is significant. Mr. Manafort’s longtime colleague, Rick Gates, is cooperating with Mr. Mueller.

• What did you know about communication between Roger Stone, his associates, Julian Assange or WikiLeaks?

Mr. Stone, a longtime adviser, claimed to have inside information from WikiLeaks, which published hacked Democratic emails. He appeared to predict future releases, and was in touch with a Twitter account used by Russian intelligence. This question, along with the next two, show that Mr. Mueller is still investigating possible campaign cooperation with Russia.

• What did you know during the transition about an attempt to establish back-channel communication to Russia, and Jared Kushner’s efforts?

Mr. Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, has testified that the Russian ambassador proposed getting Mr. Flynn in contact with Russian officials to discuss Syria. In response, Mr. Kushner said, he proposed using secure phones inside the Russian Embassy — a highly unusual suggestion that was not accepted.

• What do you know about a 2017 meeting in Seychelles involving Erik Prince?

The meeting was convened by Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates. It brought Mr. Prince, an informal adviser to Mr. Trump’s team, together with a Russian investor close to Mr. Putin.

• What do you know about a Ukrainian peace proposal provided to Mr. Cohen in 2017?

Mr. Cohen, the lawyer, hand-delivered to the White House a peace proposal for Ukraine and Russia. This unusual bit of backdoor diplomacy is of interest because it involved a Ukrainian lawmaker who said he was being encouraged by Mr. Putin’s aides. Mr. Cohen has said he did not discuss the proposal with Mr. Trump.

Matt Apuzzo is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter based in Washington. He has covered law enforcement and security matters for more than a decade and is the co-author of the book “Enemies Within.”@mattapuzzo

Michael S. Schmidt is a Washington correspondent covering national security and federal investigations. He was part of two teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 2018 — one for reporting on workplace sexual harassment and the other for coverage of President Trump and his campaign’s ties to Russia.@NYTMike

 

Donald Trump’s Russian connections

May 2, 2018

by Christian Jürs

 

One of Mr.Trump’s campaign managers, Paul Manafort, had worked for several years to help pro-Russian politician Viktor Yanukovich win the Ukrainian presidency.

Other Trump associates, including former National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn and political consultant Roger Stone, have been connected to Russian officials. Russian agents were overheard during the campaign saying they could use Manafort and Flynn to influence Trump.

Members of Mr.Trump’s campaign and later his White House staff, particularly Flynn, were in contact with Russian officials both before and after the November election In a December 29, 2016 conversation, Flynn and Kislyak discussed the recently imposed sanctions against Russia; Mr.Trump later fired Flynn for falsely claiming he had not discussed the sanctions.

Donald Trump has pursued business deals in Russia since 1987, and has sometimes traveled there to explore potential business opportunities. In 1996, Trump trademark applications were submitted for potential Russian real estate development deals. Mr.Trump’s partners and children have repeatedly visited Moscow, connecting with developers and government officials to explore joint venture opportunities. Mr.Trump was never able to successfully conclude any real estate deals in Russia. However, individual Russians have invested heavily in Trump properties, and following Mr.Trump’s bankruptcies in the 1990s he borrowed money from Russian sources. In 2008 his son Donald Trump Jr. said that Russia was an important source of money for the Trump businesses.

In 1996 Mr.Trump partnered with Liggett-Ducat, a small company, and planned to build an upscale residential development on a Liggett-Ducat property in Moscow. Trump commissioned New York architect Ted Liebman, who did the sketches.

In 1987 Mr.Trump visited Russia to investigate developing a hotel

In Russia, Mr.Trump promoted the proposal and acclaimed the Russian economic market. At a news conference reported by The Moscow Times, Mr.Trump said he hadn’t been “as impressed with the potential of a city as I have been with Moscow” in contrast to other cities had visited “all over the world.

By this time, Mr.Trump made known his desire to build in Moscow to government officials for almost ten years ranging from the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev (they first met in Washington in 1987) to the military figure Alexander Lebed.

Moscow’s mayor, Yuri M. Luzhkov, showed Trump plans for a very large shopping mall to be located underground in the vicinity of the Kremlin. The mayor complimented Mr.Trump’s suggestion that this mall should have access to the Moscow Metro, and it was eventually connected to the Okhotny Ryad station. Although the 1996 residential development did not happen, Mr.Trump was by this time well known in Russia.

Between 2000–2010, Mr.Trump entered into a partnership with a development company headquartered in New York represented by a Russian immigrant, Felix Sater. During this period, they partnered for an assortment of deals that included building Trump towers internationally and Russia was included. For example, in 2005 Slater acted as an agent for building a Trump tower alongside Moscow River with letters of intent in hand and “square footage was being analyzed.”

In 2006, Mr.Trump’s children Donald Jr. and Ivanka stayed in the Hotel National, Moscow for several days, across from the Kremlin, to interview prospective partners, with the intention of formulating real estate development projects.

Sater had also traveled to Moscow with Mr. Trump, his wife Ivanka and son Donald Jr.

Mr. Trump was associated with Tevfik Arif, formerly a Soviet commerce official and founder of a development company called the Bayrock Group, of which Sater was also a partner.

Bayrock searched for deals in Russia while Trump Towers company were attempting to further expand in the United States. Mr. Sater said, “We looked at some very, very large properties in Russia,” on the scale of “…a large Vegas high-rise.”

In 2007, Bayrock organized a potential deal in Moscow between Trump International Hotel and Russian investors

During 2006–2008 Mr.Trump’s company applied for a number of trademarks in Russia with the goal of real estate developments. These trademark applications include: Trump, Trump Tower, Trump International Hotel and Tower, and Trump Home.

In 2008, Mr. Trump spoke at a Manhattan real estate conference, stating that he he really prefered Moscow over all cities in the world and that within 18 months he had been in Russia a half-dozen times.

Mr.Trump had received large and undisclosed payments over 10 years from Russians for hotel rooms, rounds of golf, or Trump-licensed products such as wine, ties, or mattresses, which would not have been identified as coming from Russian sources in the tax returns

A secret KGB memo under date of February 1, 1984 concerned the necessity of making an expanded use of the facilities of cooperating foreign intelligence services—for example, Czechoslovakian or East German intelligence networks.

The most revealing section concerned kompromat.

The document specifically requested any compromising information about Donald Trump, including illegal acts in financial and commercial affairs, intrigues, speculation, bribes, graft … and exploitation of his position to enrich himself. Plus any other information that would compromise the subject (Trump) to his country’s authorities and the general public. Naturally the information could be used to cause him serious problems in his country if exposed.

Finally, the report mentioned that his attitude towards women was also of interest. The point of interest would be if he was the habit of having affairs with women.

Mr. Trumps’ first trip to Moscow came after he found himself seated next to the Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin in 1986. His original position was Soviet ambassador to the U.N. Dubinin’s mission as ambassador was to make contact with America’s business elite.

There was a luncheon held by Leonard Lauder, the son of Estée Lauder. Mr. Trump was invited to meet the Ambassador. Ambassador Dubinin spoke fluent English and during the course of the luncheon Trump spoke at length with the Ambassador who proposed that Trump build a large luxury hotel, directly across from the Kremlin, in association with the Soviet government.

Mr.Trump at once became interested in the project and expressed his willingness to cooperate on such a project.

By January 1987, Mr.Trump had become a “prominent person” status and therefore Ambassador Dubinin deemed Mr.Trump interesting enough to arrange his trip to Moscow. U.S.-based Soviet diplomat, Vitaly Churkin—the future U.N. ambassador—was of assistance in this project.

Mr. Trump first visited the Soviet Union on July 4, 1987.

Mr. Trump flew to Moscow for the first time, together with his wife Ivana and Lisa Calandra, Ivana’s Italian-American assistant. Ambassador Dubinin’s invitation to Trump to visit Moscow was a standard operation exercise by the KGB.

The Trump trip was orchestrated by the Intourist Agency which was under the control of the KGB. Its duty was to investigate and monitor all foreigners coming into the Soviet Union.

The Trumps were treated with great courtesy by Soviet officials and they were housed in Lenin’s suite at the National Hotel, at the bottom of Tverskaya Street, near Red Square.

The hotel was connected to the Intourist complex next door and was under KGB control.

The Lenin suite had been fixed for electronic surveillance.

In November of 2013, the Miss Universe pageant was held iin Moscow

It was there that  Mr. Trump — then the pageant’s owner — spent several days socializing with Russia’s business and political elite and becoming acquainted with a wealthy developer whose connections his son would later seek to capitalize on. The developer, Aras Agalarov, offered to pass on information about potential rival Mrs. Clinton from Russia’s top prosecutor to help a projected Trump presidential campaign.

The contest was held at Crocus City Hall, a venue owned by Agalarov. The event would be a family affair: Agalarov’s son, a pop singer named Emin, performed on stage and his wife was a judge.

Mr.Trump remained on good and productive terms with the Agalarov family, at one point, appearing in a music video with Emin and sending him a videotaped greeting on his 35th birthday.

During his trip to Moscow on November 9-11, 2013 for the Miss Universe pageant, Mr.Trump surrounded himself with business people and those necessary to sign a deal which would bring a Trump Tower project to Moscow. These were: Aras Agalarov, Emin Agalarov,Yulya (Yulia) Alferova,Herman Gref, Artem Klyushin, Vladimir Kozhin, Chuck LaBella, Rotem Rosen, Phil Ruffin, Alex Sapir, Keith Schiller, Roustam Tariko and Bob Van Ronkel.

At first, President Putin, who had planned on meeting Mr.Trump at the pageant, sent numerous individuals tied to the Russian construction sector to the event to discuss potential lucrative building plans and to ascertain Mr. Trump’s attitudes.

President Putin to establish a distance, stated he was unable to attend the pagent because of a last-minute visit from the King of the Netherlands.

Previous to this meeting, there had been no positive positions on the possibility that Mr. Trump, with Russian assistance and financing, might construct a luxury hotel in Moscow. Trump made several tweets thanking individuals in Moscow and bragging about his future plans. Then on November 12th, 2013 Trump posted a link to the Moscow Times, remarking that his organization was working on building a luxury hotel in Moscow “@AgalarovAras I had a great weekend with you and your family. You have done a FANTASTIC job. TRUMP TOWER-MOSCOW is next. EMIN was WOW!”

This hotel deal was finalized during Trump’s weekend stay in Moscow for his Miss Universe pageant. At the Four Seasons Hotel at Ulitsa Okhotnyy Ryad, 2, a private meeting was held between Mr. Trump and President Putin. As the President is fluent in English, no other person was present. President Putin praised the business abilities of Mr. Trump and said that he would be a “refreshing person” as President of the United States. President Putin said that his people would be pleased to support Mr. Trump and that if this support was deemed material in achieving a victory, President Putin had one request to make of Mr. Trump. President Putin said his best wish was to establish “friendly and cooperative attitudes” by both parties, firmer business contacts and an abandonment of the policy of threats to the Russian Republic. President Putin stressed that certain very right-wing groups in America had been constantly agitating against him and against the Russian Republic and he hoped that Mr. Trump, if elected, could ignore these few people and work with, not against the Russian Republic. Mr. Trump repeatedly assured the President that he woud be most eager to do just that and he agreed to work with various people in the United States who were friendly towards, and had connections with, the Russian Republic.

This most important conversation was recorded as a form of kompromat. And it is certain that a direct quid pro quo took place in November of 2013 between President Putin and Mr. Trump.

On June 16, 2015, Mr. Trump announced his candidacy for President