Latest U.S. Resist Op Eds

Earlier this month, Paul Manafort agreed to cooperate fully with the Mueller investigation. As part of a plea agreement following his trial on numerous charges, Manafort has forfeited over 46 million dollars in assets, including several homes in New York City and the Hamptons, as well as several bank accounts. As part of this agreement, Manafort will not appeal the charges from his previous trial which stemmed from allegations of tax fraud and other charges. Only a few days prior, Manafort’s legal team had met with members of Trump’s legal team, including Rudy Giuliani, leading to speculation that Manafort would remain close-lipped about any information he had related to the ongoing investigation.

In response to the announcement that Manafort would cooperate, Giuliana released a statement saying “Once again an investigation has concluded with a plea having nothing to do with President Trump or the Trump campaign. The reason: the president did nothing wrong and Paul Manafort will tell the truth.” Interestingly, this statement was soon after revised to remove the phrase “the president did nothing wrong.” While it certainly does not mean anything on its own, it is interesting to consider why the Trump team would take the time to edit this statement so carefully when the president himself is often fast and reckless in his own tweets. It would seem that as the investigation gains speed and midterms draw near, even the suggestion that the president is capable of doing something wrong may further erode both the president’s approval numbers and the slim majority that his party currently enjoys in congress.

Perhaps in retaliation, or perhaps in a desperate attempt to derail the investigation, president Trump ordered  documents related to the investigation declassified in a move that riled politicians on both sides of the spectrum. Immediately following this announcement, Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia and outspoken advocate for the Mueller investigation, tweeted: “The President shouldn’t be declassifying documents in order to undermine an investigation into his campaign or pursue vendettas against political enemies. He especially shouldn’t be releasing documents with the potential to reveal intelligence sources.” A few days later, on September 21^st, Tump backed-off of the order, tweeting that “I met with the DOJ concerning the declassification of various UNREDACTED documents. They agreed to release them but stated that so doing may have a perceived negative impact on the Russia probe. Also, key Allies’ called to ask not to release.” Trump had received criticism from numerous intelligence officials requesting that he not move forward with the declassification of the documents, “warning that sources and methods could be revealed”. Britain also voiced serious objections to the declassification of investigation documents, concerned that “The material includes direct references to conversations between American law enforcement officials and Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled a dossier alleging ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.”

This Entry into USRN’s Russia Investigation blog was submitted by Thomas Wellesley:  contact Tom@usresistnews.org

President Trump’s July 16^th meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki quickly became a source of significant controversy both at home and throughout NATO. In a shocking reversal of decades of presidential decorum, President Trump took the opportunity to praise the Russian president while admonishing members of NATO. It would perhaps be more shocking if it weren’t so expected.

In the week leading up to the widely anticipated summit, Trump took the opportunity to criticize NATO members Germany and the United Kingdom. At a bilateral breakfast in Brussel’s, Trump levied a remarkable attack on Germany for, ironically, what he perceives as servility to Russian interests stemming from a $12 billion pipeline proposal between Germany and Russia. In addition, Trump criticized Germany, as well as NATO as a whole, for not spending enough money on defence. The latter of these two criticisms is not entirely surprising in itself. Military spending has long been a point of contention between the United States and other NATO nations, as the US far outspends any other member nations on defence. This inequality has led to the perception among Americans of the US being the guardian of Europe, often to the detriment of the American citizen. It should be noted that even Barack Obama criticized other NATO nations for not spending enough on their militaries, albeit somewhat more gracefully. The former allegation, however, comes as a complete surprise given what the public knew, at this point, of the magnitude of Russian interference in the 2016 election. It is even more baffling considering what happened at the Helsinki summit not even a week later.

It would seem that Trump’s visit abroad left something of a trail of agitated US allies, as he also took the opportunity to blast Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit compromise. In an exclusive interview, The Sun reported that Trump warned “any attempts to maintain close ties with the EU would make a lucrative US trade deal very unlikely.” Trump also stated that “If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK, so it will probably kill the deal.” Trump also took the opportunity to blast EU members for allowing in migrants, criticize London Mayor Sadiq Khan for a supposedly weak stance on terrorism, and oddly enough maintain that he would “keep ties with Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin despite the Salisbury Novichok poisonings.” Delivered in typically blunt Trump fashion, the remarks prompted some shock and outrage in the UK. Trump’s visit was met with thousands of protestors, who likely would have shown regardless of his comments, as the president is unsurprisingly unpopular abroad.

These two incidents in particular would suggest that President Trump is, perhaps deliberately, driving a wedge between NATO nations. This of course puts Russia in an advantageous position, but, is this what Trump wants?

President Trump and Russian President Putin met in a two hour, closed door meeting on July 16^th. The press conference following the meeting has been commonly referred to in the media as the Helsinki Summit. You can find the official White House transcript of the summit here.  At this summit, Trump took the opportunity to openly rebuke the US intelligence community, declining to endorse the US government’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 Election. Trump instead supported Vladimir Putin’s denial of the allegations. Trump stated that “President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”

When asked if he wanted Trump to win the 2016 election, President Putin said “Yes I did. Because he talked about bringing the US-Russia relationship back to normal.” Of the allegations that he has collected compromising information on President Trump, Putin stated “I heard these rumors that we allegedly collected compromising material on Mr. Trump when he was visiting Moscow… When President Trump was at Moscow back then, I didn’t even know that he in Moscow. … I treat President Trump with utmost respect. But back then, when he was a private individual – a businessman – nobody informed me that he was in Moscow… It’s difficult to imagine an utter nonsense of a bigger scale than this. Please just disregard these issue and don’t think about this anymore again.” “Russia has never interfered in and is not going to interfere in US internal affairs, including the elections,” Putin stated. “If there are any specific materials, if they are presented, we are ready to review them together.” Trump called the election interference probe “a disaster for our country.” He later backpedalled on his criticisms reading from a prepared script that he has “full faith” in US intelligence communities, claiming that he misspoke in Helsinki.

Putin’s remarks stand in stark contrast to the findings of the US intelligence community, which has concluded that there is a very high likelihood that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections to the benefit of Donald Trump’s campaign. Trump’s own appointee, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, warned that “We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security.” Even House Speaker Paul Ryan, who generally sides with the President issued a statement saying that “The President must appreciate that Russia is not our ally. There is not moral equivalence between the United States and Russia, which remains hostile to our most basic values and ideals.”

The summit between Trump and Putin has been billed as an historic one, though perhaps not for great reasons. Never before in US history has a president taken this sort of opportunity to diminish the credibility of American intelligence agencies in the face of a long-standing geo-political adversary. Expectedly, the criticism of Trump’s comments in Helsinki has been widespread. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) said “The comments were so egregious they’ve crossed the tripwire, and you see Republicans speaking out in a way you really haven’t before. This was about the country. It cuts to a nerve in the American psyche and the psyche of the Republican party.” Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) went on to state that “There’s a possibility that we may well take up legislation related to this.” And, according to Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) a bill has been introduced that would potentially label Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The backlash from Trump’s performance in Helsinki, combined with the now mounting Manafort investigation, will only fan the already growing flames of this investigation. In our next entry, we will cover the most significant developments in the trial of Paul Manafort, which is now underway and already producing interesting results.

This Russia Blog Post was submitted by USRESIT NEWS Analyst Thomas Wesley: Contact Tom@usresistnews.org

Russia Investigations Blog
Entry 20: Michael Cohen Investigation, Trump-Mueller Interview Prospects & Giuliani’s Legal Negotiations, House Intel Final Report
Compiled and written by Stella Jordan (stella@usresistnews.org)

Developments in the Investigations

Important developments abound this week in the Russia investigations; things, as always, seem to be moving at a breakneck pace. Last month we learned that the FBI had conducted surprise raids on Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen’s home, office, and hotel room. Warrants for the raid were approved by a federal judge after a request from the US Attorney for the southern district of New York and a recommendation from the special counsel. The FBI apparently seized evidence mainly related to Cohen’s payoff during the campaign to adult film actress Stormy Daniels over an alleged relationship with Trump than obtaining materials related to the Russia investigation.

The President acknowledged last week that Cohen represented him in the Daniels deal, which may have violated campaign finance law. The raids could very well result in special counsel indictments for financial crimes or campaign-finance violations, putting pressure on Cohen to cooperate in the special counsel’s broader Russia investigation, much like the Manafort and Gates cases. Cohen was implicated in the Steele dossier, which alleged that he had a strong “covert relationship with Russia” and was in close contact with Russian officials during the campaign and colluded with them to undermine the Clinton campaign. These allegations have not yet been independently verified, but there has been much speculation about Cohen’s role in the Trump campaign and his communications with foreign operatives.

Cohen filed a libel suit against BuzzFeed, the first to publish the dossier, and Fusion GPS, the company that backed it, but dropped both lawsuits during the past month’s events. Cohen is also being sued by Stormy Daniels, and recently announced that he would plead the fifth in that case in order to avoid self-incrimination in his ongoing criminal case. This move likely indicates that Cohen and his attorneys are worried that the FBI and federal prosecutors could use something he says in the civil case against him in the criminal case they are building. Invoking fifth amendment rights does not necessarily imply guilt; Cohen is simply seeking to protect himself from incrimination since he does not know exactly how prosecutors will build the criminal case against him and what evidence or coercion they may try to use.

There has been much buzz in Washington over the past few weeks about whether or not Cohen will ‘flip,’ or cave under the pressure of his federal case and start cooperating with special counsel investigators. Some Trump advisers are reportedly worried about the possibility of one of the President’s closest allies flipping on him if the charges brought against Cohen are severe enough. Cohen has previously said he would “take a bullet” for Trump and “do anything to protect” him, but there has been increasing speculation about the pressure Cohen will face as investigators move ahead with his case, especially given the apparently difficult way Trump has treated his lawyer in the past. Trump himself is apparently very concerned and angry about the Cohen investigation but has said he thinks his lawyer will remain loyal, and those around him seem to be split on the destructive potential of recent developments. Cohen’s own lawyers and other White House lawyers are arguing that the raids on Cohen and subsequent document seizures constitute a violation of attorney-client privilege, as the documents taken may contain sensitive information about people Cohen had been representing. Last week Cohen and his lawyers attempted to suppress some of the seized materials from investigators through a temporary restraining order, which was denied by a federal judge who instead recommended the appointment of a ‘special master’–an independent official who would review the evidence for potential conflicts. This sparked the appointment of an ex-judge to that role, who will be tasked with deciding whether any of the evidence the FBI took in the Cohen raids contains sensitive and classified materials regarding clients. The White House, apparently trying to distance itself from Cohen of late, underscoring the point that the raids were focused on Cohen’s private business activities and had “nothing to do” with Trump, according to the President himself.

There have been some other important shakeups in the Trump legal world, centered on the recent news that Rudy Giuliani has joined the White House legal team; Giuliani, the former NYC mayor and a longtime Trump supporter, stepped into the role vacated last month by John Dowd of coordinating the White House’s legal response to the Russia investigations. Trump struggled to find lawyers willing to handle the Russia investigations, but has recently added two other attorneys to his legal team in addition to Giuliani: Jane and Marty Raskin, both former federal prosecutors. For his part, Guiliani told reporters that he had joined the team in order to “negotiate an end” to the special counsel investigation, and has been negotiating with the special counsel to arrange an interview with Trump. Giuliani reportedly met with Mueller last week to negotiate terms for a special counsel interview with the President. The special counsel is expected to release Russia investigation reports in stages, with the first focusing on obstruction of justice, and Mueller has repeatedly told Trump’s legal team that an interview is essential to concluding this first stage of the investigation. Trump was at first open to an interview, but is apparently now reluctant to speak to the special counsel.

Later in the week Giuliani did an interview with Fox News where he revealed that President Trump had reimbursed Michael Cohen from his own funds for the $130,000 paid to the porn star Stormy Daniels to ensure her silence about her affair with the President. This move apparently was a ploy to avoid Cohen or anyone else from being charged with campaign finance violations. Amazingly Trump then confirmed that he had made such a payment. However this effort was then immediately contradicted by Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels lawyer, Avenatt, who in an interview on MSNBC, claimed that he has evidence of conversations between Michael Cohen and Daniels former lawyer, Keith Davidson,  during the months immediately preceding the 2016 election. In those conversations Cohen apparently emphasized the need for payments to be made as soon as possible. “How stupid to they think they are,” said Avenatti in the interview referring to Trump and Giuliani.

Last week, the questions that had been compiled by the special counsel in preparation for a potential interview with the President were leaked, and subsequently obtained by the New York Times. The questions mainly related to obstruction of justice, but seem overall to be open-ended and wide-ranging. These questions show how the special counsel is trying to understand how and what Trump was thinking during the major events that have marked the Russia investigation, such as the Comey firing and the news that Trump was considering firing Mueller, as well as more generally how the President views and has tried to influence the Russia investigations so far. According to the Times, the questions fall into four main categories: Flynn, Comey, Sessions, and campaign coordination with Russia. After the questions were leaked Trump denounced their publication, calling it “disgraceful.” The leak apparently did not come from the special counsel’s office; the questions had been given to the Trump legal team during the interview negotiations and the Times said someone outside of that circle had provided them. The speculation is that Mueller’s Office just gave the President’s team a series of  talking points for the interview, and that a member of Trump’s legal team, Jay Sekulow, took Mueller’s talking points and turned them into questions. The President also falsely tweeted that there were no questions about collusion; in fact, some of the special counsel’s questions seemed aimed at uncovering more about Trump’s potential knowledge of campaign aides’–such as Manafort , Gates, Papadopoulos and others–communications with Russia during the campaign.

Other major developments in the Russia investigations include the embattled House Intelligence Committee’s final Russia investigation report, which was declassified and publicly released last week after a summary of the report’s findings last month. The 253-page report found no evidence of collusion during the Trump campaign, but did acknowledge Russian electoral interference, although not to the extent agreed upon by the rest of the intelligence community. The report also dwells on the intelligence community’s use of the Steele dossier and their alleged bias against Trump, which was a major flashpoint during the Committee’s investigation. No Committee Democrats endorsed the report, whose politicized conclusions they rebuked in a counter-report highlighting Republicans’ refusal to pursue relevant leads in the investigation. During the declassification process, parts of the Committee’s report were redacted by intelligence agencies; Committee Republicans say the redactions were excessive and are apparently working to declassify more of the report. Trump unsurprisingly greeted the report’s release with a triumphant tweet in which he claimed the report vindicated him of all accusations of collusion and called for an immediate end to the other Russia investigations.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill last week to protect the special counsel from being fired. The bill had bipartisan support in the Committee, although Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Senate leaders said they wouldn’t bring the bill to a full Senate vote, deeming it unnecessary. Chairman Chuck Grassley co-sponsored the bill and voted with Committee Democrats, in a departure from his usual mode of proceeding slowly and cautiously in Trump and Russia investigation-related matters and generally siding with the President’s interests. Grassley and the bill’s other supporters have argued that the legislation will provide special counsel investigations – which arise from conflicts within the executive branch to begin with – more independent accountability and congressional oversight. The bill doesn’t explicitly prohibit a President from firing a special counsel, but would put in place expedited oversight and review mechanisms to ensure any executive dismissals or changes weren’t politically motivated or obstructive.

Last week a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Manafort and his lawyers which attempted to prevent any future special counsel charges being brought against the former Trump campaign manager. Manafort’s lawyers have argued that the special counsel “overstepped his authority” and appear to be challenging Mueller as a defense tactic. The judge wrote that a civil case such as a lawsuit may not be used to interfere with or influence an ongoing criminal case, which the defendant can already legally challenge through appeals. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to multiple felony financial charges, and is also trying to get a separate tax and banking-related case dismissed in a Virginia federal court.

Finally, new revelations emerged about the Russian lawyer who attended the summer 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr and other top campaign officials to offer them “dirt” on Clinton, allegedly on behalf of the Russian government. Natalia Veselnitskaya, according to a New York Times report based on leaked emails, had repeatedly denied any ties to the Kremlin and initially described the meeting as a privately-driven event. The new emails reveal Veselnitskaya’s close relationship with the top Russian legal officer and other prominent Kremlin connections; after recent revelations she told reporters that she had acted as an “informant” for the Russian Prosecutor General, Yuri Chaika, since 2013. This news raises new concerns about the Trump Tower meeting: if Veselnitskaya was representing the Russian government more directly than previously thought or proven, the meeting could have more serious implications for the Trump campaign officials who attended, as well as wider-ranging obstruction of justice implications for Veselnitskaya herself.

Entry 19: Facebook & Cambridge Analytica Scandals, New Russia Sanctions, Mueller & Manafort Updates

Compiled and written by Stella Jordan (stella@usresistnews.org) 

Summary of New Developments

 With each week seeming to bring ever more drama to the White House and Russia investigations, recent news has brought no respite. The past two weeks have been dominated by the emerging controversy surrounding the data firm Cambridge Analytica and the Facebook user data it may have taken advantage of during the 2016 election; the new sanctions imposed by the Trump administration against Russian oligarchs and their companies; and many noteworthy moves by the special counsel, including the first sentencing in the Russia investigation: that of a Dutch attorney connected to Paul Manafort and Rick Gates who pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators. Manafort’s own case has also seen some new developments, as the former Trump campaign manager explores mounting a legal defense based on FBI misconduct and alleged bias. The Senate Intelligence Committee held a hearing with Department of Homeland Security and state election officials and is releasing a report on systemic electoral vulnerabilities that hostile foreign actors may try to exploit ahead of the 2018 midterms. More on all of this, and more, below.

DoJ & Special Counsel

One of the most surprising developments in the special counsel investigation over the past two weeks has been the sentencing of Alex van der Zwaan, the Manafort/Ukranian-connected Dutch lawyer. Van der Zwaan was sentenced to 30 days in prison and fined 20,000 for lying to the FBI, in the special counsel grand jury’s first sentencing. He had previously pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his conversations with Rick Gates and an unnamed person connected to Russian intelligence, whom many have speculated also plays a role in the Manafort and Gates indictments. However, it is not clear whether van der Zwaan’s case is in any way related to the election or the Trump campaign specifically. Within the broader Russia investigation, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where this development fits. My best guess, purely speculatively, is that details about this case came from Rick Gates, Manafort’s partner, who is currently cooperating with the special counsel and may be providing Mueller with names and details of other people involved in the criminal activities–specifically those related to Russia–for which Gates and Manafort were charged.

Last week, news emerged of a classified memo that Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein sent to Mueller last summer, authorizing the special counsel to investiate allegations of collusion between Manafort and Russian officials to coordinate electoral interference. More broadly, the DoJ had authorized Mueller to investigate Manafort’s financial ties to Ukranian politicians, which is ultimately one of the major components of Manafort’s indictment. Although the charges against Manafort have not so far related to the election or Trump campaign, it is interesting that the DoJ saw merit in initially investigating collusion with Russians as well; it may be that Mueller found no evidence of such collusion, or that he has another path in mind for digging into that issue. Manafort, for his part, has been arguing that the special counsel overstepped its authority in his indictment, and has mounted a civil suit against the special counsel and DoJ to get his charges dropped on the grounds that they are unfair and potentially biased. Mueller recently filed an argument not to dismiss Manafort’s case, indicating that he intends to continue investigating communications and financial connections between Manafort and Russian or pro-Russian politicians and officials, both before and during the campaign, that may have resulted in collusion or other illegal behavior during the campaign.

Aside from his civil suit, Manafort is also fighting the special counsel on document evidence seized from him by the FBI. Last May, FBI agents working with the special counsel entered a storage unit owned by Manafort’s company to gather documents and other evidence. This week, Manafort’s lawyers filed a motion alleging that the unit was entered illegally without a warrant or proper consent, and that the warrant the FBI subsequently obtained to take evidence from the unit was overly general and violated Manafort’s rights; the motion calls for the evidence from the storage unit to be suppressed in court. We do not know the specifics of the evidence in question, but if the FBI obtained a warrant to seize it, it would probably have contributed to Manafort’s prosecution.

More broadly, Manafort’s legal team is reportedly debating how much to use FBI misconduct and political bias as a defense in his case. Making a solid case of federal investigative misconduct, overreach or bias could also help make a credible case for a presidential pardon, which Manafort may be angling for. However, basing his defense on an offensive against the DoJ would bring even more politicization and partisanship to his trial, and it could be risky for Manafort to question the credibility of the special counsel and prosecution before a grand jury. This is probably a risk Manafort is willing to take, given the possibility of executive intervention and the already tumultuous situation faced by the FBI and DoJ as their integrity has repeatedly come under attack over the past year. Indeed, last week the New York Times reported that recently-resigned Trump lawyer John Dowd had discussed the possibility of presidential pardons for Manafort and Flynn with their lawyers last year. The President’s legal team was reportedly worried about what information such high-level witnesses as Flynn and Manafort might give the special counsel. Mueller at the time was building cases against the two, so the possibility of pardons may have been meant to influence their cooperation or compliance in the special counsel investigation. It isn’t clear whether Dowd’s discussion of pardons constitutes obstruction of justice in Mueller’s investigation; pardons are a president’s constitutional mandate and are very hard to challenge, but the prospect of a pardon being used to influence a target’s cooperation in an investigation seems improper. It is also unclear whether Trump knew about Dowd’s discussions, although the President had reportedly asked his legal team about pardons for high-level campaign and administration officials before. Dowd and other White House lawyers denied any discussions of pardons.

Since Dowd’s resignation, Trump has been hard-pressed to find a replacement to handle the response to the Russia investigations on his legal team. Over the past two weeks many reports have indicated that the President’s offers to multiple high-profile attorneys have been turned down, including lawyers Joseph DiGenova and Victoria Toensing, who were originally reported to have been joining the team but later backed out, as well as former US attorney Dan Webb, who declined an offer to manage the White House response to the special counsel. Given the President’s reputation for refusing to follow legal advice, chafing at perceived critiques, and fostering a sense of chaos among his staff, Trump has had mounting difficulty finding a reputable and qualified attorney to represent him in the increasingly complex Russia probe.

Trump is very much still a subject of the special counsel investigation, according to recent reports: Mueller reportedly told White House attorneys that Trump is still under investigation, but is not currently a criminal target. This means that the President’s conduct is still being investigated, but investigators lack sufficient evidence to bring charges at this point. Trump reportedly viewed Mueller’s distinction as a sort of exoneration and is apparently open to an interview with the special counsel, against the counsel of his legal team. A subject of an investigation can very easily become a target, especially through their own testimony, which could incriminate them if they lied or misrepresented themselves under oath, as it is not hard to imagine Trump doing. Mueller has underscored the need to interview Trump before his probe concludes, and this issue was at the heart of the debate that prompted Dowd’s resignation, amidst arguments with other members of the legal team who thought Trump should give an interview given his vehement denial of any collusion or crime, and his condemnation of the Russia investigation itself. Mueller also reportedly told the White House legal team that the special counsel is creating a report about possible obstruction of justice and other issues during Trump’s presidency; the special counsel apparently plans to release reports on the Russia investigation’s findings in stages, with obstruction as the theme of the first report. Mueller first reports conclusions to Rosenstein, who directly oversees the special counsel investigation, and ultimately decides what should be publicly released.

The special counsel has been directing attention to Russian oligarchs of late: multiple Russian businessmen and government allies traveling into the US have been stopped and questioned–or searched–by FBI investigators, according to recent reports. Mueller’s team appears to be looking for financial ties to the Trump campaign, and potential illegal Russian-based campaign donations. This special counsel attention coincides with the recent Treasury Department sanctions, a large part of which focus directly on Russian oligarchs. This new set of sanctions–the most significant American sanctions against Russia in years–target 7 Russian individuals and 12 related companies, notably focused on close Putin allies and ultra-powerful businessmen, including Oleg Deripaska, an oligarch with former ties to Manafort. These sanctions, according to the Treasury, are in response to multiple Russian activities, including the occupation of Crimea and violence in Ukraine; support of Assad in Syria; and attempts to undermine western democracies, including cyberattacks and social manipulation in the 2016 US Presidential election. The language in the sanctions also explicitly highlights Russian corruption, and a system that consolidates power and money in the hands of a small circle of Putin insiders. These sanctions, more than past measures, are expected to discourage domestic and international financial and business interactions with the individuals and companies involved.

In other DoJ news, the office of the Inspector General recently published a press release announcing the commencement of their internal review of DoJ and FBI conduct and compliance regarding Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrants and the use of confidential sources. Presumably, the review will look specifically at some of the issues surrounding last month’s controversial House Intelligence Committee memo, which blamed the FBI for improperly seeking and obtaining a FISC warrant to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page with intelligence partially gathered from the Steele dossier. More broadly, the DoJ IG is conducting a wide-ranging review of the Department’s management of the early stages of the Russia investigation, upon which much Congressional and Presidential attention has been focused over the past few months as high-profile firings and resignations have brought increased scrutiny and politicization to the Department’s leadership and processes. Apropos DoJ leadership, Deputy AG Rosenstein has picked a new deputy to assist in the oversight of the special counsel Russia investigation. Former federal prosecutor and DoJ national security and counterterrorism official Ed O’Callaghan will become Rosenstein’s Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, a top post which entails working closely with Rosenstein on investigative oversight. The former official occupying that position, Robert Hur, left last month for a post as US attorney of Maryland.

House Intelligence Committee

Although their Russia investigation has officially concluded, the House Intelligence Committee has remained active in related affairs. At the beginning of the month Committee Chairman Devin Nunes sent a letter to the DoJ and FBI, demanding that they provide him the original FBI document summarizing the rationale for beginning the Russia investigation. Nunes asked that the document be provided by April 11, and has repeatedly threatened Rosenstein and FBI Director Wray with legal action if they fail to comply. Nunes also reportedly asked for 4 classified FISC applications related to the warrant on Carter Page, ostensibly to bolster the claims in his contentious memo. So far, Wray and Rosenstein have apparently not given Nunes any documents, and it’s not clear what–if any–legal action he would actually be able to take against them, especially with the closure of his investigation and without the support of the full House Intelligence Committee.

Senate Intelligence Committee

The Senate Intelligence Committee held a hearing at the beginning of the month to discuss election security, focused on Russian attacks on electoral infrastructure in 2016, the federal response to those attacks, and the mitigation of future vulnerabilities. The Committee heard from the Department of Homeland Security as well as state election officials, many of whom highlighted the need for increased state and federal cooperation and communication in elections. The hearing underscored concerns about the upcoming midterm elections, as many states have not significantly improved their voting systems since 2016, when Russian hackers were able to breach systems in 21 states. Among the Homeland Security officials at the hearing were Kristjen Nielsen, the DHS Secretary, and former Secretary Jeh Johnson, who testified about weaknesses in current state voting systems that could still be exploited by cyberattacks, and also discussed weaknesses in communication between state election officials and the federal government, which failed to act promptly in providing information, security and resources to states whose systems had been compromised in 2016. Nielsen and Johnson also highlighted the particular vulnerability of swing states, which have disproportionate control over electoral outcomes, and are therefore larger targets for hostile state attacks. The Senate Intelligence Committee released a shortlist of recommendations following the hearing, ahead of a classified report on election vulnerabilities which is currently under review by federal intelligence agencies. The Committee called for states to secure their voting infrastructure with paper ballot machines and more secure databases, with additional funding and resources being provided by the federal government for security and threat monitoring. The recommendations backed up previous intelligence community recommendations to states regarding elections, but also urged the federal government and the White House to take a firm stand against election interference and to allocate additional resources, including information, to state officials. Congress appears poised to approve almost 700 million dollars in aid to states to secure voting infrastructure before the midterms.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has also been investigating Facebook and the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal, which has again thrown the social media giant into the spotlight for its role in the 2016 election. Last week Facebook deleted hundreds of accounts associated with or controlled by the Internet Research Agency, a Russian propaganda firm that was indicted last month by the special counsel for its role in the proliferation of divisive misinformation on social media during the 2016 election. Most of the content the company removed was in Russian and was apparently aimed at influencing Russian and European users, in ways similar to those the IRA employed to influence US users during the election. Facebook also outlined a plan to make political ad purchases–and data about ad influence–more publicly transparent before the midterms. This week Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before joint Senate Committees, addressing both Russian activity and influence on the platform and data privacy concerns sparked by the recent news that data from around 87 million Facebook users–according to a recently expanded estimate by Facebook–may have been illegally or improperly shared with the data firm Cambridge Analytica in 2016. Cambridge Analytica, which was founded by Steve Bannon and Stephen Mercer, a powerful Republican donor, used Facebook information to run big data analytics and create ‘psychographic profiles’ of users in order to target ads and potentially manipulative information during the election. Zuckerberg admitted that in the past decade Facebook has not adequately protected users’ data, and has allowed third parties such as apps and advertisers to use data without users’ knowledge or consent.

For its part, Cambridge Analytica has built its reputation around elections, advising political campaigns around the world using data analytics to profile and target voters and ultimately influence outcomes, sometimes also employing clandestine methods. The head of the firm, Alexander Nix, offered an undercover reporter from Britain’s Channel 4 news posing as a political client to set up rival politicians using bribery or entrapment. Other Cambridge Analytica officials were caught on tape bragging about their heavy involvement in the chaotic Kenyan presidential elections last year. The company is facing similar scrutiny in the UK, where Parliament held hearings earlier in the month to discuss Russian social media interference in the Brexit referendum and Cambridge Analytica’s potential use of Facebook user data to influence public opinion. In the US, the firm was working on behalf of the Trump campaign in 2016, but has denied any improper use of Facebook data, claiming they didn’t use psychographic profiling or personality models to target ads, only data that Facebook and other companies made available to all advertisers. It was later revealed that Cambridge Analytica had at one point been in possession of Facebook user data that violated Facebook policies, but later deleted it and claimed it was never used in their Trump campaign work. The prospect of Facebook data being used by the Trump campaign without users’ knowledge or consent is a heavy one, compounding the morass already created by Russian misinformation on social media. This issue will probably remain central to the Russia investigations in the coming months, as the company meets with Congressional Committees and the special counsel to explain its actions during the election.

Senate Judiciary Committee

The Senate Judiciary Committee, whose Russia investigation has been stalled for the past few months by a reluctant Chairman Grassley and other Republican members, has been active in recent weeks with a few Russia-related matters. Last week former Trump adviser and close ally Roger Stone agreed to hand over documents to the Committee. Stone said the request, which originally came from ranking member Diane Feinstein last fall, was ‘absurd,’ but nonetheless complied. The Committee is reportedly interested in Stone’s communications with WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange–who apparently worked with Russians in 2016 to release stolen DNC and Clinton emails during the election–as well as other Russian officials and Trump campaign members. Stone has long been a somewhat enigmatic subject of the Russia investigations, due to his closeness to Trump and alleged ties to Assange, as well as his proximity to an increasing number of other witnesses. He will likely remain in investigators’ spotlights.

The Judiciary Committee was also involved in the recent Facebook drama, hearing testimony this week from Zuckerberg in a joint hearing with the Senate Commerce Committee, where Senators probed the issues of Russian fake news and political interference, as well as data privacy. The Facebook hearing precipitated an unusually bipartisan movement in Congress to discuss regulations and necessary changes to Facebook and other companies occupying the inscrutable world of social media, as it becomes increasingly clear how easily misinformation can spread on such platforms, undermining political debate and aggravating social issues. iIlustrative of this point is the ease with which Facebook allowed user data to spread to other more nefarious operators in the past, and how easily companies like Cambride Analytica can further twist political and social narratives by using that data to target voters in specific ways for the benefit of specific political figures.