https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/09/mcgahn-testimony-trump-pressure-492715 McGahn on Trump's pressure: I felt 'perturbed, trapped' A transcript of the long-awaited testimony by former White House counsel Don McGahn was released by the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Former White House lawyer Don McGahn said he felt "trapped" by former President Donald Trump's relentless insistence that he have Special Counsel Robert Mueller ousted, according to newly released transcript of his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee. McGahn appeared before the committee last week, after years of legal sparring over whether his testimony was required. In the hearing, he discussed his role at the White House while Trump tried to stymie Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to the 241-page transcript published Wednesday. In the hearing, McGahn described his feelings about the president’s directive that he order then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to fire Mueller. And he said he worried — presciently — the whole situation could result in his being pulled into a congressional hearing. After Trump pushed him to have Mueller ousted a second time during a phone call, McGahn said he didn’t feel great. “After I got off the phone with the President, how did I feel? Oof. Frustrated, perturbed, trapped,” he told the panel of congressional investigators. “Many emotions.” “Felt trapped because the President had the same conversation with me repeatedly, and I thought I conveyed my views and offered my advice, and we were still having the same conversation,” he added. “And I figured, at some point, he'd want to have that conversation again. And, at that point, I wasn't exactly sure how — how to navigate that one, so I felt that I was trapped.” Rep. Jerry Nadler, the chair of the committee who pushed for the McGahn testimony for years, released a statement describing the testimony as revelatory. “All told, Mr. McGahn’s testimony gives us a fresh look at how dangerously close President Trump brought us to, in Mr. McGahn’s words, the ‘point of no return,’” the New York Democrat said. The hearing got occasionally testy as Democrats pressed McGahn on events from four years earlier. McGahn appeared to sidestep certain questions — such as his reaction to actions taken by the former president — or in some instances said he didn’t understand the question. For example, McGahn said he did not have a “crisp recollection” about certain conversations with Trump and others and deferred to his previous testimony. “I hope you're not suggesting I'm not answering honestly,” McGahn told the committee staff when pressed about his memories of his previous testimony. Still, the former White House counsel elaborated on several damning accounts of Trump’s actions early in his presidency, including the moment when Trump learned that a special counsel had been appointed to investigate his campaign’s ties to Russia. Trump’s reaction then, according to McGahn, had been to lean back in his chair and say: “This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked" — an exchange that was also included in Mueller’s initial report. McGahn also confirmed that Trump later complained to him about potential “conflicts” that Mueller would have as special counsel — potentially involving golf membership dues — and urged McGahn himself to look into the matter. McGahn affirmed that he told Trump he would not take further steps by calling Rosenstein and that Trump should not do so either to avoid poor optics: “It didn't mean the President was meddling, but certainly it would be easily made to look that way.” McGahn said he also found it “concerning” that Trump would suggest then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions should resign because he recused himself from overseeing the investigation. “Because the Attorney General is the Cabinet-level, Senate-confirmed head law enforcement officer of the U.S. It's not an inconsequential moment,” McGahn said when asked about his concern. “It's not the sort of thing that happens every day ... They don't teach you this in law school."
Supreme Court order ends congressional Democrats' attempts to determine if Trump lied in Mueller probe (CNN)Congressional Democrats' years-long attempt to nail down whether then-President Donald Trump lied to special counsel Robert Mueller effectively ended on Friday, with the US Supreme Court wiping away court decisions where the House Judiciary Committee was told it could access secret grand jury records from key witnesses in the Mueller investigation. The House now won't get those grand jury records -- bringing to a close Democrats' pursuit of what witnesses in the Mueller investigation said confidentially under oath about their interactions with Trump and others during the 2016 campaign. Since 2019, the Judiciary Committee had sought access to records from the Mueller investigation's grand jury proceedings, which were cited in Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The House had repeatedly said it wanted the records so it could consider whether to impeach Trump for attempting to obstruct the Russia investigation, which Mueller also documented. But over the past two years, the fight plodded through the court system, with the Justice Department under Trump unsuccessfully arguing to block the release of the grand jury documents. The Supreme Court initially had agreed to hear the case, but then delayed it following Trump's loss of the presidency in November. On Friday, the high court vacated earlier rulings. The Justice Department under President Joe Biden wanted this result, saying the case had become moot. The House didn't oppose the department's move. But a top lawyer for the House in June noted the case was ending because Trump was no longer President. "The Trump Administration succeeded in running out the clock and thereby undermined the ability of the House of Representatives to have access to all of the relevant facts as it considered impeachment," House General Counsel Douglas Letter wrote in a filing to the Supreme Court. In the future, "the Committee fully trusts that the Justice Department will return to its prior longstanding position and support disclosure at the appropriate time. Any failure to do so would gravely unsettle the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution and undermine the public's trust in our system of government." Unanswered questions from Mueller The case's resolution after Trump's departure highlights how the Justice Department during Trump's presidency successfully blocked his political opponents in Congress from gaining key investigative documents. Mueller had attempted to look at whether Trump had lied to him in the written answers to a set of questions, including about whether Trump had known of his campaign's interest in WikiLeaks and of releases the site planned in 2016. Trump said in his written answers he didn't recall any conversations about WikiLeaks with his political confidant Roger Stone. Yet Stone lied to Congress about trying to reach WikiLeaks on behalf of the 2016 Trump campaign, and Mueller had asked several witnesses, including during grand jury proceedings, about what Trump knew and when. Dozens of witnesses testified before Mueller's grand jury, according to CNN reporting, including Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and at least two people who attended an infamous Trump Tower meeting in summer 2016. Grand jury records are largely kept secret, except for use at times in judicial proceedings. The House Judiciary Committee in 2019, under Democratic control, had sued for access to the transcripts of grand jury witness interviews that were cited in Mueller's final report, believing they could help keep alive threads of the obstruction investigation into Trump even after Mueller closed his prosecutors' office. Mueller didn't charge Trump with any crimes, largely because of Justice Department policy that a sitting president couldn't be indicted. Separation of powers The end of the case at the Supreme Court also leaves unresolved a major separation of powers fight over the secrecy of grand jury information. The House had also said in 2020 that it still wanted to pursue the records as it considered a second impeachment investigation of Trump -- the type of proceeding that lower courts believed was quasi-judicial and worthy of seeing secret grand jury investigation records. Though Trump was impeached by the House twice during his presidency, the second time for incitement of the January 6 insurrection, Congress never carried through with a full investigation into Mueller's findings that Trump had taken steps to shut down the Russia probe. Instead, after Mueller testified to Congress that his investigation hadn't exonerated the President, Democrats shifted their focus to Trump's attempts to push Ukraine to investigate his 2020 opponent, Biden. A trial court-level judge had acknowledged in 2019 that the Mueller grand jury records could be relevant to an impeachment investigation in Congress because the House could continue Mueller's obstruction investigation. An appeals court had also sided with the House in March 2020, reminding the Justice Department that grand jury records weren't its to control. When Trump left the presidency this year, the Mueller-obstruction impeachment inquiry effectively ended. In a tangential development on Friday, the Justice Department released several letters between Mueller's investigators and Trump's lawyers as Mueller had pushed for more answers from the then-President and sought a sit-down interview. Yet Trump's team held them off. The never-before-seen written exchanges further highlight how Mueller had questions for Trump that have never been answered.
Wonder if Biden will follow Trump's lead and ask Trump's buddy for hacking help (Certainly Putin can assist with our Russian hacking issues):
it's the gaurdian so take it for what it's worth: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2..._medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1626343663 Kremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White House Exclusive: Documents suggest Russia launched secret multi-agency effort to interfere in US democracy Vladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia’s national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents. The key meeting took place on 22 January 2016, the papers suggest, with the Russian president, his spy chiefs and senior ministers all present. They agreed a Trump White House would help secure Moscow’s strategic objectives, among them “social turmoil” in the US and a weakening of the American president’s negotiating position. Russia’s three spy agencies were ordered to find practical ways to support Trump, in a decree appearing to bear Putin’s signature. By this point Trump was the frontrunner in the Republican party’s nomination race. A report prepared by Putin’s expert department recommended Moscow use “all possible force” to ensure a Trump victory. Western intelligence agencies are understood to have been aware of the documents for some months and to have carefully examined them. The papers, seen by the Guardian, seem to represent a serious and highly unusual leak from within the Kremlin. The Guardian has shown the documents to independent experts who say they appear to be genuine. Incidental details come across as accurate. The overall tone and thrust is said to be consistent with Kremlin security thinking. Vladimir Putin holds a meeting with permanent members of the security council on 22 January 2016 at the Kremlin. Photograph: Alexei Nikolsky/Russian presidential press service/TASS The Kremlin responded dismissively. Putin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov said the idea that Russian leaders had met and agreed to support Trump in at the meeting in early 2016 was “a great pulp fiction” when contacted by the Guardian on Thursday morning. The report – “No 32-04 \ vd” – is classified as secret. It says Trump is the “most promising candidate” from the Kremlin’s point of view. The word in Russian is perspektivny. There is a brief psychological assessment of Trump, who is described as an “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex”. There is also apparent confirmation that the Kremlin possesses kompromat, or potentially compromising material, on the future president, collected – the document says – from Trump’s earlier “non-official visits to Russian Federation territory”. The paper refers to “certain events” that happened during Trump’s trips to Moscow. Security council members are invited to find details in appendix five, at paragraph five, the document states. It is unclear what the appendix contains. “It is acutely necessary to use all possible force to facilitate his [Trump’s] election to the post of US president,” the paper says. This extract from a secret Kremlin document gives details of the Russian operation to help an impulsive and ‘mentally unstable’ Donald Trump to become US president This would help bring about Russia’s favoured “theoretical political scenario”. A Trump win “will definitely lead to the destabilisation of the US’s sociopolitical system” and see hidden discontent burst into the open, it predicts. The Kremlin summit There is no doubt that the meeting in January 2016 took place – and that it was convened inside the Kremlin. An official photo of the occasion shows Putin at the head of the table, seated beneath a Russian Federation flag and a two-headed golden eagle. Russia’s then prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, attended, together with the veteran foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. Also present were Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister in charge of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency; Mikhail Fradkov, the then chief of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service; and Alexander Bortnikov, the boss of the FSB spy agency.Nikolai Patrushev, the FSB’s former director, attended too as security council secretary. According to a press release, the discussion covered the economy and Moldova. The document seen by the Guardian suggests the security council’s real, covert purpose was to discuss the confidential proposals drawn up by the president’s analytical service in response to US sanctions against Moscow. Donald Trump after winning the Florida state primary in West Palm Beach, Florida, in March 2016. A report prepared by Putin’s expert department recommended Moscow use ‘all possible force’ to ensure a Trump presidential victory. Photograph: Rhona Wise/AFP/Getty Images The author appears to be Vladimir Symonenko, the senior official in charge of the Kremlin’s expert department – which provides Putin with analytical material and reports, some of them based on foreign intelligence. The papers indicate that on 14 January 2016 Symonenko circulated a three-page executive summary of his team’s conclusions and recommendations. In a signed order two days later, Putin instructed the then chief of his foreign policy directorate, Alexander Manzhosin, to convene a closed briefing of the national security council. Its purpose was to further study the document, the order says. Manzhosin was given a deadline of five days to make arrangements. What was said inside the second-floor Kremlin senate building room is unknown. But the president and his intelligence officials appear to have signed off on a multi-agency plan to interfere in US democracy, framed in terms of justified self-defence. Various measures are cited that the Kremlin might adopt in response to what it sees as hostile acts from Washington. The paper lays out several American weaknesses. These include a “deepening political gulf between left and right”, the US’s “media-information” space, and an anti-establishment mood under President Barack Obama. The ‘special part’ of a secret Kremlin document setting out measures to cause turmoil and division in America The paper does not name Hillary Clinton, Trump’s 2016 rival. It does suggest employing media resources to undermine leading US political figures. There are paragraphs on how Russia might insert “media viruses” into American public life, which could become self-sustaining and self-replicating. These would alter mass consciousness, especially in certain groups, it says. After the meeting, according to a separate leaked document, Putin issued a decree setting up a new and secret interdepartmental commission. Its urgent task was to realise the goals set out in the “special part” of document No 32-04 \ vd. Members of the new working body were stated to include Shoigu, Fradkov and Bortnikov. Shoigu was named commission chair. The decree – ukaz in Russian – said the group should take practical steps against the US as soon as possible. These were justified on national security grounds and in accordance with a 2010 federal law, 390-FZ, which allows the council to formulate state policy on security matters. According to the document, each spy agency was given a role. The defence minister was instructed to coordinate the work of subdivisions and services. Shoigu was also responsible for collecting and systematising necessary information and for “preparing measures to act on the information environment of the object” – a command, it seems, to hack sensitive American cyber-targets identified by the SVR. Vladimir Putin in 2016. The Russian president has repeatedly denied accusations of interfering in western democracy Photograph: Sputnik/Reuters The SVR was told to gather additional information to support the commission’s activities. The FSB was assigned counter-intelligence. Putin approved the apparent document, dated 22 January 2016, which his chancellery stamped. The measures were effective immediately on Putin’s signature, the decree says. The spy chiefs were given just over a week to come back with concrete ideas, to be submitted by 1 February. Written in bureaucratic language, the papers appear to offer an unprecedented glimpse into the usually hidden world of Russian government decision-making. Putin has repeatedly denied accusations of interfering in western democracy. The documents seem to contradict this claim. They suggest the president, his spy officers and senior ministers were all intimately involved in one of the most important and audacious espionage operations of the 21st century: a plot to help put the “mentally unstable” Trump in the White House. The papers appear to set out a route map for what actually happened in 2016. A matter of weeks after the security council meeting, GRU hackers raided the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and subsequently released thousands of private emails in an attempt to hurt Clinton’s election campaign. Hillary Clinton at the Democratic party’s convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in July 2016. GRU hackers released thousands of private emails in an attempt to hurt Clinton’s election campaign. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images The report seen by the Guardian features details redolent of Russian intelligence work, diplomatic sources say. The thumbnail sketch of Trump’s personality is characteristic of Kremlin spy agency analysis, which places great emphasis on building up a profile of individuals using both real and cod psychology. Moscow would gain most from a Republican victory, the paper states. This could lead to a “social explosion” that would in turn weaken the US president, it says. There were international benefits from a Trump win, it stresses. Putin would be able in clandestine fashion to dominate any US-Russia bilateral talks, to deconstruct the White House’s negotiating position, and to pursue bold foreign policy initiatives on Russia’s behalf, it says. Other parts of the multi-page report deal with non-Trump themes. It says sanctions imposed by the US after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea have contributed to domestic tensions. The Kremlin should seek alternative ways of attracting liquidity into the Russian economy, it concludes. The document recommends the reorientation of trade and hydrocarbon exports towards China. Moscow’s focus should be to influence the US and its satellite countries, it says, so they drop sanctions altogether or soften them. ‘Spell-binding’ documents Andrei Soldatov, an expert on Russia’s spy agencies and author of The Red Web, said the leaked material “reflects reality”. “It’s consistent with the procedures of the security services and the security council,” he said. “Decisions are always made like that, with advisers providing information to the president and a chain of command.” He added: “The Kremlin micromanages most of these operations. Putin has made it clear to his spies since at least 2015 that nothing can be done independently from him. There is no room for independent action.” Putin decided to release stolen DNC emails following a security council meeting in April 2016, Soldatov said, citing his own sources. Sir Andrew Wood, the UK’s former ambassador in Moscow and an associate fellow at the Chatham House thinktank, described the documents as “spell-binding”. “They reflect the sort of discussion and recommendations you would expect. There is a complete misunderstanding of the US and China. They are written for a person [Putin] who can’t believe he got anything wrong.” Wood added: “There is no sense Russia might have made a mistake by invading Ukraine. The report is fully in line with the sort of thing I would expect in 2016, and even more so now. There is a good deal of paranoia. They believe the US is responsible for everything. This view is deeply dug into the soul of Russia’s leaders.”