RE: Kremlin Hotline
And... once again anonymous sources.
You should read through this transcript from homo Anderson Cooper last night. It's a pretty good read. It's possible Kushner left out something on his FF86 form which could be a crime but as our famous former FBI Director Comey once mentioned, you must have intent. Read it it's pretty good stuff and from CNN I might add. I love how Mukasey basically tells Fagerson Cooper that he doesn't know WTF he is talking about.
"Joining me now is Jeffrey Toobin, Alan Dershowitz. David Urban is also back with us. And joining us on the phone is former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who's also served a as a federal judge.
Attorney General Mukasey, let's start with you. So we should, again, I just want to point out Jared Kushner is not a suspect here, he's not a person of interest, he is just, we're told, a focus. They want to speak to him, because he would basically, it seems like, a witness. What do you make of this?
MICHAEL MUKASEY, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL (via telephone): What I make of it is if you read back what you just said, you used two terms that are unknown to any federal investigator.
[21:40:02] Person of interest is not a term that any federal investigator ever uses and it's not a term that's appropriate to this investigation. This is a national security investigation. It's not a criminal investigation.
In criminal investigations there are three kinds of folks that the authorities talk to. Witnesses, who may have some facts that they're interested in investigating. Subjects, who may be looked at because it's possible that they committed crimes. And targets, who are people who said they've already got enough evidence to indict, but as to whom they are still conducting an investigation. None of those terms is appropriate here, because this is a national security investigation. It's not a criminal investigation. And so, pretty much everybody is a witness.
Now, what are they a witness to? They're probably a witness to the fact that the Russians were trying to get close to influence people of influence. That's what they do. That is not, in itself, surprising.
COOPER: So --
MUKASEY: What is perfectly appropriate, obviously, is for the FBI to investigate and find out the extent to which they might have actually influenced somebody I assume is what they're doing
COOPER: Jeff Toobin?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I think the attorney general makes an excellent point about this term, "person of interest," which is this sort of media term that is not familiar to those of us who have practiced in the federal courts.
However, I think, you know, Attorney General Mukasey is very much wrong that this is just a national security investigation and not a grand jury investigation for criminality. There have already been subpoenas sent out from the Eastern District of Virginia connected to the Flynn matter. So this is very much a criminal investigation.
MUKASEY: The Flynn matter is something separate from this.
TOOBIN: Well, so say you. I mean, how do you know that's the case? I mean, this is all going to come under Mueller's jurisdiction.
MUKASEY: No doubt it will.
TOOBIN: He is going to have to sort it out. But to say that this is not related to a criminal investigation, I just think that's -- you're assuming a conclusion that, you know, may or may not turn out to be the case.
MUKASEY: I think absent evidence, it's the only thing you can conclude about what they're actually doing.
COOPER: Well, didn't Lindsey Graham said he believes this is now a criminal investigation? Professor Dershowitz, what do you think?
ALAN DERSHOWITZ, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: Well, I think that Attorney General Mukasey is absolutely right. This is being done backwards and it raises great concerns about civil liberties. Usually, you can point to a statute and say, we're investigating crime under this statute.
What Mueller seems to be doing is saying, "We don't like what happened? Maybe there was some collaboration. But I can't figure out what statute was being violated." You know, when Hillary Clinton was being investigated, at least we knew what the statute was --
TOOBIN: But, Alan, he's been --
(CROSSTALK) TOOBIN: What's the statute? I don't get it. He's been working for a week, how are you expecting him to have decided what statutes that he's --
DERSHOWITZ: Wait, wait. There was an investigation before he started working. But don't you agree that there's a danger?
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: One at a time.
DERSHOWITZ: Don't you agree there's a great danger to civil liberties when you say, let's investigate and maybe we'll find something that we can find a statute to fit. That's not the way it ought to happen.
And if I was Jared Kushner's lawyer, and his lawyer is a terrific lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, who was my student, I would say, first to the investigators, "Before you talk to my client, I want to know what your authority is? What your jurisdiction is? What statute you're looking at?"
TOOBIN: Here's a statute. You want a statute? Aiding and abetting hacking. It's a crime. There were also --
DERSHOWITZ: Oh, come on. You have to show evidence. You're just making that up. You have to show evidence, not only that they knew about the hacking, but they worked hand in glove with them. You're just making it up. There's no evidence of any crime. I search the statutes, but I cannot find it.
TOOBIN: Alan, every national -- wait, let me finish. Let me talk. At national security -- every national security apparatus in the American government has said the Russian government initiated this campaign to defeat Hillary Clinton, part of which was hacking into the DNC, hacking into John Podesta's e-mails.
We also have an extraordinary number of contacts between Trump campaign officials, Jared Kushner, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, with Russian government and Russian-affiliated people. Was there a nexus between who they were talking too and the hacking? I don't know yet. That's why we have investigations.
URBAN: Jeff, I take umbrage of the notion that extraordinary. Define extraordinary, Jeffrey. There were contacts. What is extraordinary in your mind?
TOOBIN: What is extraordinary? Why was Jared Kushner meeting with bank, you know --
URBAN: But how that's extraordinary. You said there were an extraordinary number, so tell me --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: I think the comparison is to say, meeting with, you know, with Chinese officials or French officials, how many times they meet with the French ambassador or French bankers. I think that's the issue --
TOOBIN: And why went asked about it, every one of them seems to either lie or forget or not disclose and they all have complicated explanations for why they didn't disclose it.
[21:45:09] As every prosecutor knows, when you don't disclose something, one explanation is consciousness of guilt. This is why you have an investigation.
DERSHOWITZ: But, Jeffrey --
COOPER: Go ahead, Professor.
DERSHOWITZ: Jeffrey, do you really believe that anybody in the Trump campaign worked with the Russians and told them to target the DNC, to tell them how to do it? That they facilitated that? I think the worst-case scenario --
TOOBIN: I don't know.
DERSHOWITZ: -- is that they were like WikiLeaks or "The Washington Post." You don't know, but that's not the basis for having a criminal investigation. I don't know.
TOOBIN: Well, for example, you had the candidate Trump saying, "Go, WikiLeaks." Saying, "I think WikiLeaks is doing a great job." Is that enough evidence for you?
DERSHOWITZ: Does that sound like a crime to you?
TOOBIN: I don't know.
DERSHOWITZ: No, of course not. That's just talk. For it to be a crime --
TOOBIN: You're here to explain.
(CROSSTALK)
DERSHOWITZ: Jeffrey, I'm not explaining you the way. I just want to go to the evidence before you had some --
TOOBIN: That's fact. That's a fact.
DERSHOWITZ: I don't like criminal investigations to start on hoping that you have the target, maybe we'll find the crime, maybe we'll find the statute and if we can't find the statute, we'll stretch the statute to fit the person. That sounds like Lavrentiy Beria and Joseph Stalin. Show me the man and I'll find you the crime. I don't want to ever see that come to America.
TOOBIN: Neither do I.
URBAN: And Jeffrey, I don't want to beat this horse, but we all remember senator -- late Senator Ted Stevens and what happened in this town was an aberration and should never be forgotten by anyone. TOOBIN: I covered that case extensively and it was a terrible performance by the Justice Department. But to say that Robert Mueller, who is perhaps the most honored --
URBAN: I'm not impugning Robert Mueller. I'm not impugning Robert Mueller, Jeffrey.
COOPER: Let me bring in Attorney General Mukasey. Attorney General, now that Kushner -- I mean, can Jared Kushner talk about any aspect of this with the president or with anyone in the White House for that matter?
MUKASEY: It is, as they say, a free country. You can talk to whomever you like. The fact is that foreign countries try to influence people of influence. They do it. Russians do it. The Israelis do it. The Chinese do it.
As a matter of fact, I can recall a group of Americans who went over to Israel to try to influence the outcome of the Israeli elections. It happens. That is a perfectly proper subject for a national security investigation.
On the other hand, when somebody misrepresents on his FF86, who he's had contact with and conceals things from people who have a right to know them, that's a violation of a specific title and a specific section, Section 1001 of Title 18. It's a false statement to a federal officer. That is a crime.
But simply being influenced or being approached by somebody who wants to influence you is not a crime. And so far as benefiting from somebody else's crime as the Republicans may very well have benefited from the Russian's crime, is not in itself a crime.
TOOBIN: I think the attorney general is exactly right. I mean, you know, these are -- I mean, 1001 making false statements on the security clearance application is a crime if it's done intentionally and with bad intent. But, this is why we have an investigation. We don't go on cable T.V. the week after Robert Mueller has been appointed and say, "Well, there's nothing here."
COOPER: We've got to leave it there. I appreciate the discussion.
