The Media Reports on the June 9, 2016 Meeting

The Media Reports on the June 9, 2016 Meeting

¶Before the President's flight home from the G20 landed, the New York Times published its story about the June 9, 2016 meeting.⁷¹⁷⁷¹⁷ See Jo Becker et al., Trump Team Met With Lawyer Linked to Kremlin During Campaign, New York Times (July 8, 2017); Raffel 2/8/18 302, at 10. In addition to the statement from Trump Jr., the Times story also quoted a statement from Corallo on behalf of the President's legal team suggesting that the meeting might have been a setup by individuals working with the firm that produced the Steele reporting.⁷¹⁸⁷¹⁸ See Jo Becker et al., Trump Team Met With Lawyer Linked to Kremlin During Campaign, New York Times (July 8, 2017). Corallo also worked with Circa News on a story published an hour later that questioned whether Democratic operatives had arranged the June 9 meeting to create the appearance of improper connections between Russia and Trump family members.⁷¹⁹⁷¹⁹ See Donald Trump Jr. gathered members of campaign for meeting with Russian lawyer before election, Circa News (July 8, 2017). Hicks was upset about Corallo's public statement and called him that evening to say the President had not approved the statement.⁷²⁰⁷²⁰ Hicks 3/13/18 302, at 8; Corallo 2/15/18 302, at 6-7.

¶The next day, July 9, 2017, Hicks and the President called Corallo together and the President criticized Corallo for the statement he had released.⁷²¹⁷²¹ Corallo 2/15/18 302, at 7. Corallo told the President the statement had been authorized and further observed that Trump Jr.'s statement was inaccurate and that a document existed that would contradict it.⁷²²⁷²² Corallo 2/15/18 302, at 7. Corallo said that he purposely used the term "document" to refer to the emails setting up the June 9 meeting because he did not know what the President knew about the emails.⁷²³⁷²³ Corallo 2/15/18 302, at 7-9. Corallo recalled that when he referred to the "document" on the call with the President, Hicks responded that only a few people had access to it and said "it will never get out."⁷²⁴⁷²⁴ Corallo 2/15/18 302, at 8. Corallo took contemporaneous notes of the call that say: "Also mention existence of doc. Hope says 'only a few people have it. It will never get out.'"⁷²⁵⁷²⁵ Corallo 2/15/18 302, at 8; Corallo 7/9/17 Notes ("Sunday 9th – Hope calls w/ POTUS on line"). Corallo said he is "100% confident" that Hicks said "It will never get out" on the call. Corallo 2/15/18 302, at 9. Hicks later told investigators that she had no memory of making that comment and had always believed the emails would eventually be leaked, but she might have been channeling the President on the phone call because it was clear to her throughout her conversations with the President that he did not think the emails would leak.⁷²⁶⁷²⁶ Hicks 3/13/18 302, at 9.

¶On July 11, 2017, Trump Jr. posted redacted images of the emails setting up the June 9 meeting on Twitter; the New York Times reported that he did so "[a]fter being told that The Times was about to publish the content of the emails."⁷²⁷⁷²⁷ @DonaldJTrumpJR 7/11/17 (11:01 a.m. ET) Tweet; Jo Becker et al., Russian Dirt on Clinton? 'I Love It,' Donald Trump Jr. Said, New York Times (July 11, 2017). Later that day, the media reported that the President had been personally involved in preparing Trump Jr.'s initial statement to the New York Times that had claimed the meeting "primarily" concerned "a program about the adoption of Russian children."⁷²⁸⁷²⁸ See, e.g., Peter Baker & Maggie Haberman, Rancor at White House as Russia Story Refuses to Let the Page Turn, New York Times (July 11, 2017) (reporting that the President "signed off" on Trump Jr.'s statement). Over the next several days, the President's personal counsel repeatedly and inaccurately denied that the President played any role in drafting Trump Jr.'s statement.⁷²⁹⁷²⁹ See, e.g., David Wright, Trump lawyer: President was aware of "nothing", CNN (July 12, 2017) (quoting the President's personal attorney as saying, "I wasn't involved in the statement drafting at all nor was the President."); see also Good Morning America, ABC (July 12, 2017) ("The President didn't sign off on anything. . . . The President wasn't involved in that."); Meet the Press, NBC (July 16, 2017) ("I do want to be clear—the President was not involved in the drafting of the statement.").Show full note After consulting with the President on the issue, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told the media that the President "certainly didn't dictate" the statement, but that "he weighed in, offered suggestions like any father would do."⁷³⁰⁷³⁰ Sarah Sanders, White House Daily Briefing, C-SPAN (Aug. 1, 2017); Sanders 7/3/18 302, at 9 (the President told Sanders he "weighed in, as any father would" and knew she intended to tell the press what he said). Several months later, the President's personal counsel stated in a private communication to the Special Counsel's Office that "the President dictated a short but accurate response to the New York Times article on behalf of his son, Donald Trump, Jr."⁷³¹⁷³¹ 1/29/18 Letter, President's Personal Counsel to Special Counsel's Office, at 18. The President later told the press that it was "irrelevant" whether he dictated the statement and said, "It's a statement to the New York Times. . . . That's not a statement to a high tribunal of judges."⁷³²⁷³² Remarks by President Trump in Press Gaggle (June 15, 2018).

¶On July 12, 2017, the Special Counsel's Office [Redacted: (b) (3)] Trump Jr. [Redacted: (b) (3)] related to the June 9 meeting and those who attended the June 9 meeting.⁷³³⁷³³ [Redacted: (b) (3)] .

¶On July 19, 2017, the President had his follow-up meeting with Lewandowski and then met with reporters for the New York Times. In addition to criticizing Sessions in his Times interview, the President addressed the June 9, 2016 meeting and said he "didn't know anything about the meeting" at the time.⁷³⁴⁷³⁴ Peter Baker et al., Excerpts From The Times's Interview With Trump, New York Times (July 19, 2017). The President added, "As I've said—most other people, you know, when they call up and say, 'By the way, we have information on your opponent,' I think most politicians — I was just with a lot of people, they said . . . , 'Who wouldn't have taken a meeting like that?'"⁷³⁵⁷³⁵ Peter Baker et al., Excerpts From The Times's Interview With Trump, New York Times (July 19, 2017).

¶Analysis

¶In analyzing the President's actions regarding the disclosure of information about the June 9 meeting, the following evidence is relevant to the elements of obstruction of justice:

¶a. Obstructive act. On at least three occasions between June 29, 2017, and July 9, 2017, the President directed Hicks and others not to publicly disclose information about the June 9, 2016 meeting between senior campaign officials and a Russian attorney. On June 29, Hicks warned the President that the emails setting up the June 9 meeting were "really bad" and the story would be "massive" when it broke, but the President told her and Kushner to "leave it alone." Early on July 8, after Hicks told the President the New York Times was working on a story about the June 9 meeting, the President directed her not to comment, even though Hicks said that the President usually considered not responding to the press to be the ultimate sin. Later that day, the President rejected Trump Jr.'s draft statement that would have acknowledged that the meeting was with "an individual who I was told might have information helpful to the campaign." The President then dictated a statement to Hicks that said the meeting was about Russian adoption (which the President had twice been told was discussed at the meeting). The statement dictated by the President did not mention the offer of derogatory information about Clinton.

¶Each of these efforts by the President involved his communications team and was directed at the press. They would amount to obstructive acts only if the President, by taking these actions, sought to withhold information from or mislead congressional investigators or the Special Counsel. On May 17, 2017, the President's campaign received a document request from SSCI that clearly covered the June 9 meeting and underlying emails, and those documents also plainly would have been relevant to the Special Counsel's investigation.

¶But the evidence does not establish that the President took steps to prevent the emails or other information about the June 9 meeting from being provided to Congress or the Special Counsel. The series of discussions in which the President sought to limit access to the emails and prevent their public release occurred in the context of developing a press strategy. The only evidence we have of the President discussing the production of documents to Congress or the Special Counsel is the conversation on June 29, 2017, when Hicks recalled the President acknowledging that Kushner's attorney should provide emails related to the June 9 meeting to whomever he needed to give them to. We do not have evidence of what the President discussed with his own lawyers at that time.

¶b. Nexus to an official proceeding. As described above, by the time of the President's attempts to prevent the public release of the emails regarding the June 9 meeting, the existence of a grand jury investigation supervised by the Special Counsel was public knowledge, and the President had been told that the emails were responsive to congressional inquiries. To satisfy the nexus requirement, however, it would be necessary to show that preventing the release of the emails to the public would have the natural and probable effect of impeding the grand jury proceeding or congressional inquiries. As noted above, the evidence does not establish that the President sought to prevent disclosure of the emails in those official proceedings.

¶c. Intent. The evidence establishes the President's substantial involvement in the communications strategy related to information about his campaign's connections to Russia and his desire to minimize public disclosures about those connections. The President became aware of the emails no later than June 29, 2017, when he discussed them with Hicks and Kushner, and he could have been aware of them as early as June 2, 2017, when lawyers for the Trump Organization began interviewing witnesses who participated in the June 9 meeting. The President thereafter repeatedly rejected the advice of Hicks and other staffers to publicly release information about the June 9 meeting. The President expressed concern that multiple people had access to the emails and instructed Hicks that only one lawyer should deal with the matter. And the President dictated a statement to be released by Trump Jr. in response to the first press accounts of the June 9 meeting that said the meeting was about adoption.

¶But as described above, the evidence does not establish that the President intended to prevent the Special Counsel's Office or Congress from obtaining the emails setting up the June 9 meeting or other information about that meeting. The statement recorded by Corallo—that the emails "will never get out"—can be explained as reflecting a belief that the emails would not be made public if the President's press strategy were followed, even if the emails were provided to Congress and the Special Counsel.

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

¶Overview

¶From summer 2017 through 2018, the President attempted to have Attorney General Sessions reverse his recusal, take control of the Special Counsel's investigation, and order an investigation of Hillary Clinton.

¶Evidence