The Mueller Report

Volume II

Section A: Trump Campaign Response to Reports

Of Russian Interference

My Conclusion

After several hours of looking through this one topic in Volume II, The Campaign's Response to Reports About Russian Support for Trump, Trump was well aware of ongoing business dealings with Russia during the campaign and was aware of Russian’s meddling in the campaign and the election.  Trump and the campaign staff did all they could to suppress that information and openly lied about it to the public.  We have all seen the national press coverage where Trump openly asked Russia to attempt to gain access to the DNC emails.  And within hours, they did so.  Because he said this during a nationally televised press conference does not mitigate the fact that doing so is a conspiracy.  It is also collusion.

Trump has lied to the public and to investigating officials.  That amounts to not only obstruction of justice, but to a betrayal of this country to the Russians.

Executive Summary

The Executive Summary to Volume II contains multiple paragraphs that summarize some of the issues and events that were examined. 

The Table of Contents for Volume II, section II it titled:

FACTUAL RESULTS OF THE OBSTRUCTION INVESTIGATION

The major headings are:

 

A.      The Campaign's Response to Reports About Russian Support for Trump

B.      The President's Conduct Concerning the Investigation of Michael Flynn

C.      The President's Reaction to Public Confirmation of the FBl's Russia Investigation

D.      Events Leading Up To and Surrounding the Termination of FBI Director Comey

E.       The President's Efforts to Remove the Special Counsel

F.       The President's Efforts to Curtail the Special Counsel Investigation

G.     The President's Efforts to Prevent Disclosure of Emails About the June 9, 2016 Meeting Between Russians and Senior Campaign Officials

H.      The President's Further Efforts to Have the Attorney General Take Over the Investigation

I.        The President Orders McGahn to Deny that the President Tried to Fire the Special Counsel

J.        The President's Conduct Involving Michael Cohen

K.      Overarching Factual Issues

Campaign’s Response

This section is concerned with Section II, part A of volume 2, beginning on page 15.

During the 2016 Campaign there were questions as to Trump’s relationships with Russia. 

Side trip: There is something that must be kept in the forefront of our consciousness.  Vladimir Putin fundamentally owns the Russian government.  Putin has an intense dislike for democracy.  This is a blog and I’ll not consume much time footnoting this.  My opinion is that Putin desires to resurrect and fulfill Kruschchev’s promise: “We will bury you!”  November 18, 1956, Polish embassy in Moscow.  Instead we watched the Soviet Union bury itself.  In my opinion Putin has an intense desire to reverse that.  The goal is not to belabor that particular phrase, but to express clearly that Putin sees us as an extreme enemy and will take any measures to destroy us.  All democracies are the enemy to Putin.  When reading and considering Trump’s behavior towards Putin, bear in mind that this is Trump’s behavior towards a person and a government that wants to destroy democracy.  I don’t know if Trump is aware of Putin’s goals.  If you could really ask him, what would he say?  Would he speak truthfully?  Now back to the regularly scheduled broadcast.

There is no doubt that Putin supported Trump during the 2016 election.  Important questions include: Why did Putin want Trump in office?  Is Trump under the influence of Putin?

The Trump Tower in Moscow may play a big role. Here are some lines from the report about TTM (Trump Tower Moscow).

Page 19:  The Trump Organization, however, had been pursuing a building project in Moscow -- the Trump Tower Moscow project -- from approximately September 2015 through June 2016, and the candidate was regularly updated on developments, including possible trips by Michael Cohen to Moscow to promote the deal and by Trump himself to finalize it.42

Cohen recalled speaking with Trump after the press conference about Trump's denial of any business dealings in Russia, which Cohen regarded as untrue.43 Trump told Cohen that Trump Tower Moscow was not a deal yet and said, "Why mention it if it is not a deal?"44

Footnote 42 states:   The Trump Tower Moscow project and Trump's involvement in it is discussed in detail in Volume I, Section TV.A. I, supra, and Volume TI, Section TT.K, infra.

Foot note 44 states:   Cohen 9/18/18 302, at 4-5.

 

Trump took the position that it’s okay to say this deal does not exist if it is not a completed deal.  This is one more piece of evidence that Trump is fundamentally dishonest.

Page 19:

Page 76: Although the President publicly stated during and after the election that he had no connection to Russia, the Trump Organization, through Michael Cohen was pursuing the proposed Trump Tower Moscow project through June 2016 and candidate Trump In addition, some witnesses said that Trump was repeatedly briefed on the progress of those efforts.498 In addition some witnesses said that Trump was aware that redacted HOM at a time when public reports stated that Russian intelligence officials were behind the hacks, and that Trump privately sought information about future WikiLeaks releases.499

Page 77, footnote 500:  In addition to whether the President had a motive related to Russia-related matters that an FBI investigation could uncover, we considered whether the President's intent in firing Corney was connected to other conduct that could come to light as a result of the FBT's Russian-interference investigation. In particular, Michael Cohen was a potential subject of investigation because of his pursuit of the Trump Tower Moscow project and involvement in other activities. And facts uncovered in the Russia investigation, which our Office referred to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, ultimately led to the conviction of Cohen in the Southern District of New York for campaign-finance offenses related to payments he said he made at the direction of the President.

Page 134: … In an attempt to minimize the President's connections to Russia, Cohen submitted a letter to Congress falsely stating that he only briefed Trump on the Trump Tower Moscow project three times, that he did not consider asking Trump to travel to Russia, that Cohen had not received a response to an outreach he made to the Russian government, and that the project ended in January 2016, before the first Republican caucus or primary.

The question must be asked:  Why did Trump deny this business relationship?  Or does it really matter why for this section.  The fact is that he did lie.

Conclusion So Far

Trump knew that having business relationships with Moscow while campaigning for office would look bad.  He was fully aware that this would be bad news.  So he lied about it.  He continued to lie about it during the investigation.  Lying about business relationships such as this is an obstruction of justice.

He told his staff to not talk about such things and to suppress as many of the emails about is as possible.  Again, this is obstruction of justice.

Trump Campaign and Wikileaks

This section gets a bit wordy and is summarized here.  June 14, 2016, DNC (Democratic National Committee) announced that Russian Government had infiltrated their computers.  July 22, 2016, the day before the DNC Convention Wikileaks posts thousands of hacked emails. July 26 New Your Times reported high confidence that these posts had the intent of helping Trump.  From the report, pages 17 and 18:

Within the Trump Campain, aides reacted with enthusiasm to reports of the hacks. Redacted HOM discussed with Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release the hacked material. Some witnesses said that Trump himself discussed the possibility of upcoming releases Redacted HOM. Michael Cohen, then-executive vice president of the Trump Organization and special counsel to Trump , recalled hearing Redacted HOM.  Cohen recalled that Trump responded, "oh good, alright, ….

The redactions for HOM (Harm to Ongoing Matter) become more frequent.  The point here is that Trump and the campain were quite aware of the events and strove mightily to stop anyone from discovering the truth.  Trump and the campaign were not being honest and striving to hide information from everyone.

The proper phrase is: Obstruction of Justice.

Page 18 contains subsection 3 titled:

The Trump Campaign Reacts to Allegations That Russia was Seeking to Aid Candidate Trump

July 26, 2016 Trump tweets that is was “[c]razy” to suggest that Russia was "dealing with Trump"32 and that "[f]or the record," he had "ZERO investments in Russia."

Again, a denial that has been shown to be a lie as in June negotiations were still in progress for Trump Tower Moscow.

From pages 18 and 19:

In a press conference the next day, July 27, 2016, Trump characterized "this whole thing with Russia" as "a total deflection" and stated that it was "farfetched" and "ridiculous."34 Trump said that the assertion that Russia had hacked the emails was unproven, but stated that it would give him "no pause" if Russia had Clinton's emails.35 Trump added, "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press." Trump also said that "there's nothing that I can think of that I'd rather do than have Russia friendly as opposed to the way they are right now," and in response to a question about whether he would recognize Crimea as Russian territory and consider lifting sanctions, Trump replied, "We'll be looking at that. Yeah, we'll be looking."

The topic here is Trump’s response to reports of Russian support for him, and specifically denials.   The above indicates not only was Trump aware of their support, denying it all the time, he actively solicited their response on national television.  One can very easily conclude that if Trump engages in a conspiracy with the Russians in the open, then it cannot be called a conspiracy. After all, it is not hidden.

The response is wrong.  That is an open conspiracy.  Trump asked for Russian assistance, and within hours, Russia did exactly that.

In the next few pages the report details efforts to hide the Trump Russia connection.  He suggested that the intelligence community had: 

"no idea if it's Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed some place.”

Volume 1 of the report is dedicated to showing Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign and election.  The evidence indicates that Trump and the campaign were quite aware of it, and as noted in a national press conference, Trump open solicited their assistance.

Final Note

This can go on for pages more.  In volume II it does continue for pages.

The conclusion is that Trump and the campaign staff (I don’t know how many campaign staff were in the know) were very aware of Russian assistance to get Trump elected.  Trump and the staff did all they could to deny it, and still do.  Trump has stated openly that he believes Putin over all of the U.S. intelligence agencies. 

Yes, Trump did all he could to obstruct anyone from discovering the facts about Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign and election.

That is Obstruction of Justice.