Tag Archives: Donald Trump Jr.

TRUMP TEACHES BIG LAW A LESSON

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Sometimes, a client isn’t worth the billable hours it brings to the firm. But long ago, Upton Sinclair revealed why some big law firm partners don’t accept that truism: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Except when a court appoints an attorney for a defendant who can’t afford one, lawyers choose their clients. In most firms, partners “eat-what-they-kill.” The resulting culture creates short-term incentives that cause business development efforts to focus on a single question: How much revenue will the prospective client generate?

Sheri Dillon, William Nelson, and their firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, are teaching the profession an important lesson: such myopia is a mistake.

Sliding Down Trump’s Slippery Slope

In 2016, candidate Trump was pushing a flimsy “under audit” excuse for not releasing tax his returns. On March 7, 2016, Dillon and Nelson signed a letter confirming that, in fact, Trump’s tax returns for 2002 through 2008 were no longer under audit. However, the letter explained, his returns for 2009 forward “are continuations of prior, closed examinations.” Needless to say, Americans will never see those returns—at least, not because Trump releases them voluntarily. But Trump used Morgan Lewis to suit his immediate public relations needs.

In a Jan. 11, 2017 press conference, Dillon, Nelson and their firm took a more prominent role in Trump’s circus. They unveiled a plan to deal with Trump’s business conflicts of interest made a mockery of American presidential ethics. Attorneys were quick to condemn it. Subsequent events have demonstrated that the plan remains useless in preserving the integrity of the presidency.

By April, even reliable stalwart Trump defender Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) wanted to know what Trump was doing to implement his attorneys’ earlier public promises. On May 24, The New York Times reported the Trump Organization’s response: a slick brochure explaining why it was impractical to comply “fully and completely” with Sheri Dillon’s earlier assurance that Trump would donate to the US Treasury all profits from Trump hotels and similar businesses derived from foreign governments.

Recently, The Washington Post summarized just one of small slice of the ongoing scandal: “This is nothing Washington has ever seen. For the first time in presidential history, a profit-making venture [the Trump International Hotel in DC] touts the name of a U.S. president in its gold signage. And every cup of coffee served, every fundraiser scheduled, every filet mignon ordered feeds the revenue of the Trump family’s private business.”

“I Put Out a Letter”… (from somebody)

The most recent hit to the reputations of Sheri Dillon, William Nelson, and their firm came during Trump’s now infamous July 19, 2017 interview with The New York Times. Reporters asked him what would happen if special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation included Trump and Trump family finances unrelated to Russia. Would that be would a breach of Mueller’s charge?

“I would say yeah,” Trump answered. “I would say yes. By the way, I would say, I don’t — I don’t — I mean, it’s possible there’s a condo or something, so, you know, I sell a lot of condo units, and somebody from Russia buys a condo, who knows? I don’t make money from Russia. In fact, I put out a letter saying that I don’t make — from one of the most highly respected law firms, accounting firms.”

Trump’s last remark referred to the March 8, 2017 letter that Dillon and Nelson had signed. But he couldn’t even remember whether Morgan Lewis was a firm of attorneys or accountants.

Substantively, the March 8 letter had actually raised far more questions than it answered. It even seemed to rebut Trump’s prior denials of income from Russia. Dillon and Nelson stated that “with a few exceptions”—totaling about $100 million—Trump’s tax returns for the past 10 years “do not reflect” any “income from Russian sources,” “debt owed by you or [The Trump Organization] to Russian lenders,” “equity investments by Russian persons or entities,” or “equity or debt investments by you or [The Trump Organization] in Russian entities.”

Among notable omissions were: the definition of “Russian”; whether Russian funds flowed into Trump projects more than 10 years ago; whether money from other former Soviet-bloc countries made its way into Trump projects; and what, if anything, Morgan Lewis had done to determine whether individuals or entities from Russia, Ukraine, or other former Soviet-bloc countries used shell corporations for transactions involving Trump businesses.

And Then There’s This

Investigative reporters—who aren’t Trump’s lawyers—have discovered that, since the 1990’s, tens of millions of dollars from former Soviet-bloc countries have found their way into Trump projects as investments, construction financing, and condominium purchases. No one outside Trump’s immediate orbit—except, perhaps, Vladimir Putin—knows the full extent to which that money contributed to his current fortune.

But there are clues. In September 2008, Donald Trump Jr. told a real estate conference: “In terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets; say in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia. There’s indeed a lot of money coming for new-builds and resale reflecting a trend in the Russian economy and, of course, the weak dollar versus the ruble.”

Trump’s Reward

The fact that Trump couldn’t recall whether Sheri Dillon, William Nelson, and their firm practiced law or accounting is the least of their problems now. Trump has elevated the Dillon/Nelson/Morgan Lewis letter to a new status: evidence that the Russia investigation is a hoax. Depending on how special counsel Robert Mueller proceeds, those involved in preparing and signing that letter may need lawyers, too.

Other prominent law firms appear to have learned from the Morgan Lewis experience. In June 2017, Michael Isikoff reported that when Trump sought to bolster his legal team, four of the nation’s leading firms refused:

“The concerns were, ‘The guy won’t pay and he won’t listen,’ said one lawyer close to the White House who is familiar with some of the discussions between the firms and the administration, as well as deliberations within the firms themselves.”

Even if Dillon, Nelson, and Morgan Lewis have hedged the “won’t pay” problem by requiring a big retainer from their famous client, it won’t compensate for the potential impact on their professional reputations. And like all nightmare clients, Trump couldn’t care less about that.

TRUMP AND THE MORGAN LEWIS MESS — CONTINUED

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On March 7, 2016, Sheri Dillon and William Nelson put their firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bcckius, on a slippery slope with their letter purporting to justify Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns. It’s been downhill ever since. Confirming that the IRS had closed its audits through 2008, they reinforced Trump’s “under audit” excuse for not releasing any returns at all. His returns for 2009 forward, they said, “are continuations of prior, closed examinations.” On January 22, Kellyanne Conway confirmed that Trump was never going to produce those returns. Period.

As I wrote on April 12, 2017, the descent continued with the Trump/Dillon press conference on January 11. “President-elect Trump wants there to be no doubt in the minds of the American public that he is completely isolating himself from his business interests,” Dillon explained amid a mountain of paper. Some of the documents appeared to be blank and some of the folders lacked labels. Why the esteemed Fred Fielding lent his name to the cause is a mystery. Substantively, attorneys knew immediately that the Dillon/Nelson/Fielding/Morgan Lewis plan was a joke.

Farce Turns to Tragedy

To recap the failures of the plan itself, Dillon said that Trump would put his business holdings in a revocable trust—meaningless window dressing. He would continue to own and benefit from every Trump asset in his portfolio. And he wasn’t selling any of the most valuable ones involving the family business. Still, she explained, no one should worry because his sons, Eric and Donald Jr., would run the company.

Six weeks later, Eric Trump told Forbes that he would continue to update his father on the family business: “’Yeah, on the bottom line, profitability reports and stuff like that, but you know, that’s about it.’ How often will those reports be, every quarter? ‘Depending, yeah, depending.’ Could be more, could be less? ‘Yeah, probably quarterly.’ One thing is clear: ‘My father and I are very close. I talk to him a lot. We’re pretty inseparable.’”

Meanwhile, Donald Jr. has been campaigning for Montana GOP congressional candidate Greg Gianforte—who stands accused of assaulting a reporter.

Fallout

Shortly after Dillon’s press conference, H. Scott Wallace, co-chair of the Wallace Global Fund, sent a blistering termination letter to Morgan Lewis chair Jami Wintz McKeon. My previous post reviewed it in detail. Suffice it to say that Wallace was not pleased with Morgan Lewis’ willingness to help Trump sell democracy in return for billable hours.

“We believe that the legal advice given to [Trump] by your partner Sheri Dillon, in the January 11 press conference and background ‘white paper,’ is not just simplistic and ill-founded,” Wallace wrote, “but that it empowers and even encourages impeachable offenses and undetectable conflicts of interest by America’s highest official, and thus is an unprecedented invitation to corruption and an assault on our democracy.”

“It is painfully obvious that Trump is using his office for personal gain,” Wallace continued. “And Morgan Lewis is enabling and legitimizing this… Americans deserve a president of undivided loyalty. Your firm has denied them that.”

From Mar-a-Lago initiation fees to the travel ban to China trademarks, Wallace observed that “the ethical carnage is mounting.” It still is.

Meanwhile, the Kushner family was trading on Trump ties to woo Chinese investors “into wealthy luxury developments” with $500,000 “investor visas.” So it’s not just the presidency that’s for sale, it’s America itself.

Bottoming Out

On May 12, the White House released another Dillon/Nelson letter that was supposed to take the heat off Trump’s financial connections to Russia. But it became fodder for another round of jokes—just as Dillon’s January 11 press conference had.

Then on May 20, the Associated Press reported that Dillon “initially wanted [Trump] to submit an updated financial disclosure without certifying the information as true” because he was filing voluntarily this year. After discussions with the director of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, Dillon evidently agreed that Trump would sign and file by mid-June. Let’s see if that happens.

On May 24, The New York Times reported on another January 11 promise that Dillon made and Trump isn’t keeping: to give the U.S. Treasury all profits from Trump hotels and similar businesses derived from foreign governments. In response to a House Oversight Committee request, the Trump Organization produced a slick brochure explaining why it was impractical to comply “fully and completely” with that promise.

Here is my next prediction: In corporate boardrooms and law school campuses, the damage to the Morgan Lewis brand will continue. Business leaders will act on the belief that preserving critical norms of democracy should outweigh a firm’s desire to do almost anything for a client’s billable hour. But the most discerning of general counsels will leave Morgan Lewis for an entirely different reason that has nothing to do with Trump, politics, the appropriate limits of a lawyer’s role as client advocate, or every attorney’s sworn duty to protect the U.S. Constitution. Substantively, the Trump conflicts plan and the related disasters that have followed constitute embarrassingly bad lawyering.

One more note of interest to leaders of big law firms obsessed with growth for the sake of growth: Sheri Dillon and William Nelson are recent lateral hires. Both were at Bingham McCutchen until a few months before it collapsed in 2014.

TRUMP AND THE MORGAN LEWIS MESS

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On January 11, 2017, Sheri Dillon and Fred Fielding sullied themselves and imperiled the reputation of their firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. They shilled for a plainly insufficient plan to deal with Donald Trump’s massive business conflicts of interest. In doing so, they traversed far beyond the principle that an attorney should advocate zealously on a client’s behalf. I predicted that Dillon, Fielding, and the firm would regret their roles in the charade. If they haven’t seen the light by now, they never will.

Lawyers Without Boundaries; Clients Without Shame

When it comes to dealing with Trump, ignorance of his tendencies affords his attorneys no excuse. Throughout his life, he has destroyed reputations whenever it helped him fulfill an agenda item of the moment. Once his allies outlive their usefulness — or whenever Trump needs a scapegoat — they become expendable. Remember the rumors about cabinet positions for Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, and Newt Gingrich? And how quickly Mike Flynn went from loyal patriot to dishonest traitor!

Trump’s January 11, 2017 press conference made for great theater as he claimed yet another victim. “President-elect Trump wants there to be no doubt in the minds of the American public that he is completely isolating himself from his business interests,” Dillon explained amid a mountain of paper. Some of the documents appeared to be blank and some of the folders lacked labels. Substantively, attorneys knew immediately that the Dillon/Fielding/Morgan Lewis plan was a joke. Every day, it becomes less humorous.

Trump Still Owns Everything

Dillon assured the public that Trump would put his business holdings in a revocable trust — meaningless window dressing. She didn’t mention he still owned and benefited from every Trump asset in his portfolio. And he wasn’t selling any of his most valuable ones involving the family business. Still, she explained, no one should worry because his sons, Eric and Don Jr., would run the company. Trump even joked that he’d return to management in eight years, hoping that they’d done a good job and saying that he’d fire them if they didn’t.

Har-dee-har-har-har.

Six weeks later, Eric Trump told Forbes that he would continue to update his father on the family business: “’Yeah, on the bottom line, profitability reports and stuff like that, but you know, that’s about it.’ How often will those reports be, every quarter? ‘Depending, yeah, depending.’ Could be more, could be less? ‘Yeah, probably quarterly.’ One thing is clear: ‘My father and I are very close. I talk to him a lot. We’re pretty inseparable.’”

It Gets Worse

On April 4, ProPublica reported — and Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten confirmed — that a February 10 version of the revocable trust agreement states: “The Trustees shall distribute net income or principal to Donald J. Trump at his request, as the Trustees deem necessary for his maintenance, support or uninsured medical expenses, or as the Trustees otherwise deem appropriate.”

The Trustees are Don Jr. and Allen Weisselberg, who started his career working for Donald Trump’s father Fred in the 1970s. In other words, Trump can watch his wealth grow and get at his money whenever he wants.

Fallout

At the time of the press conference, self-proclaimed law firm public relations experts urged that mere proximity to Trump would make Morgan Lewis a client magnet. At least one prominent client went the other way. The co-chair of the Wallace Global Fund expressed outrage over the firm’s willingness to aid and abet Trump’s undermining of democracy.

On March 28, H. Scott Wallace sent a blistering termination letter to Morgan Lewis chair Jami Wintz McKeon: “We believe that the legal advice given to [Trump] by your partner Sheri Dillon, in the January 11 press conference and background ‘white paper,’ is not just simplistic and ill-founded, but that it empowers and even encourages impeachable offenses and undetectable conflicts of interest by America’s highest official, and thus is an unprecedented invitation to corruption and an assault on our democracy.”

Wallace, a Villanova Law grad, walked McKeon through the patent defects in the Dillon/Fielding/Morgan Lewis conflicts plan. In great detail, he covered issues that I outlined in my three-part series on the plan’s inadequacies. And he added a few zingers:

  • “Ms. Dillon has legitimized a complete non-solution to Trump’s manifold conflicts of interest….”
  • “She adds a few window-dressing safeguards….”
  • “She absolutely denied the existence of any Emoluments Clause problems….”
  • “The result is an illusion of protection against the President using his office for personal gain. Trump’s entire life has been devoted to personal gain, not a moment to public service.”

Presidential corruption matters, and the Dillon/Fielding/Morgan Lewis plan facilitates it. As Wallace observed, “the ethical carnage is mounting”:

  • Just days after Trump reaffirmed the “one China” policy, it granted 38 new Trump trademarks.
  • Trump’s newly hired director of diplomatic sales at his DC hotel has enjoyed tremendous success in foreign bookings, including Azerbaijan, Bahrain, and Kuwait.
  • Trump’s bans on Muslin-majority nations excluded countries where Trump has business interests.
  • China’s government-owned bank is the single largest tenant in Trump Tower and the lease will come up for renewal during Trump’s presidency.
  • Since Trump’s election, initiation fees at Mar-a-Lago have doubled to $200,000.

Wallace could have added that Trump has yet to make good on Dillon’s promise to donate all Trump hotel profits from foreign governments to the U.S. Treasury. And his organization’s post-election success in registering Trump trademarks around the world has been phenomenal.

“It is painfully obvious that Trump is using his office for personal gain,” Wallace continued. “And Morgan Lewis is enabling and legitimizing this… Americans deserve a president of undivided loyalty. Your firm has denied them that.”

What’s Next? Nothing Good for Morgan Lewis

Here is my next prediction: more clients will fire Morgan Lewis. Corporate boards and CEOs will shun a firm willing to tolerate Dillon’s unprofessional performance on January 11. They’ll act on their belief that preserving critical norms of democracy should outweigh a firm’s desire to do almost anything for a client’s billable hour.

But the most discerning of general counsels will leave Morgan Lewis for an entirely different reason that has nothing to do with Trump, politics, the appropriate limits of a lawyer’s role as client advocate, or every attorney’s sworn duty to protect the U.S. Constitution. Substantively, the Trump conflicts plan is embarrassingly bad lawyering.

THE TRUMP RESISTANCE PLAN: A TIMELINE — RUSSIA AND PRESIDENT TRUMP

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[This article first appeared on billmoyers.com on February 15, 2017 (updated on on February 17). You can read the earlier installments in my Trump Resistance Plan series here.]

The last installment of the Trump Resistance Plan began with Thomas Paine’s 1776 observation in Common Sense, “Time makes more converts than reason.”

Sometimes, it doesn’t take much time at all. Russia interfered with an American presidential election; Congressional Republicans unwilling to convert and seek the truth no longer have anywhere to hide.

Putin’s 2016 Ticket

Investigative reporters have begun to fill out the Trump/Russia timeline. To keep everything in one location, here’s an updated summary (so far):

— Trump’s efforts to develop business in Russia date to 1987. In 1996, he applied for his trademark in that country. Discussing ambitions for a Trump hotel in 2007, he declared, “We will be in Moscow at some point.”

— October 15, 2007, Trump said: “Look at Putin – what he’s doing with Russia – I mean, you know, what’s going on over there. I mean this guy has done – whether you like him or don’t like him – he’s doing a great job.”

— September 2008, Donald Trump, Jr. said: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets… we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

— June 18, 2013, Trump tweeted: “Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow – if so, will he become my new best friend?” While at the pageant, Trump said, “I have plans for the establishment of business in Russia. Now, I am in talks with several Russian companies to establish this skyscraper.”

— October 17, 2013: On The Late Show, David Letterman asked Trump, “Have you had any dealings with the Russians?” Trump answered, “Well I’ve done a lot of business with the Russians…” Letterman continued, “Vladmir Putin, have you ever met the guy?” Trump said, “He’s a tough guy. I met him once.”

November 2013, Trump said: “I do have a relationship [with Putin] and I can tell you that he’s very interested in what we’re doing here today [at the Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow]… I do have a relationship with him… He’s done a very brilliant job in terms of what he represents and who he’s represented.”

— November 11, 2013, Trump tweeted: “TRUMP TOWER-MOSCOW is next.”

— March 6, 2014, Trump said: “You know, I was in Moscow a couple of months ago. I own the Miss Universe Pageant and they treated me so great. Putin even sent me a present, a beautiful present.” On the same day, President Obama signed an Executive Order imposing sanctions on Russia for its unlawful annexation of Crimea.

— June 16, 2015: Trump declares his candidacy for president.

— September 29, 2015, Trump told Bill O’Reilly: “I will tell you in terms of leadership he [Putin] is getting an ‘A,’ and our president is not doing so well.”

— November 10, 2015, Trump said: “I got to know [Putin] very well because we were both on 60 Minutes. We were stablemates, and we did very well that night.”

— December 10, 2015: Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, who would become Trump’s National Security Adviser, sat at Putin’s table for the 10th anniversary gala of Russia’s state-owned television propaganda network, RT. Flynn had made a paid appearance on the network. 

— February 17, 2016: As questions about Russia swirled around Trump, he changed his story: “I have no relationship with [Putin], other than he called me a genius.”

— April 20, 2016: Paul Manafort became Trump’s campaign manager. Reports surfaced about his 2007 to 2012 ties to Ukraine’s pro-Putin former president, whom Manafort had helped to elect. 

— July 18, 2016: The Washington Post reported that the Trump campaign worked behind the scenes on a Republican convention platform plank. It gutted the GOP’s longstanding support for Ukrainians’ popular resistance to Russia’s 2014 intervention.

— July 22, 2016: On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, WikiLeaks released its first trove of emails stolen from the DNC.

— July 27, 2016, Trump said: “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.” At the same press conference, he insisted: “I never met Putin. I’ve never spoken to him.” In an interview with CBS, he reiterated: “But I have nothing to do with Russia, nothing to do, I never met Putin, I have nothing to do with Russia whatsoever.”

— July 31, 2016: Manafort denied knowing anything about the change in the Republican platform. That afternoon, Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s Russian-born adviser, spouted the Kremlin’s party line telling CNN: “Russia did not seize Crimea. We can talk about the conflict that happened between Ukraine and the Crimea…But there was no seizure by Russia. That’s an incorrect statement, characterization, of what happened.”

— August 6, 2016: NPR confirmed the Trump campaign’s involvement in the Republican platform change on Ukraine.

—August 19, 2016: As reports of Manafort’s financial connections to Ukraine intensified, he resigned from the Trump campaign.

— October 1, 2016: Six days before Wikileaks released emails that the Russians had hacked from John Podesta’s email account, Trump’s informal adviser and surrogate, Roger Stone tweeted: “Wednesday@HillaryClinton is done. #Wikileaks.”

— October 4, 2016: Trump tweeted: “CLINTON’S CLOSE TIES TO PUTIN DESERVE SCRUTINY.”

— October 7, 2016: In a joint statement, the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence said, “The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations… We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.” But two other stories dominated the news cycle: WikiLeaks began publishing stolen emails from the account of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, and Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood tapes became public.

— October 12, 2016: Roger Stone told NBC News, “I have back-channel communications with WikiLeaks.”

— October 19, 2016: During the third presidential debate, Trump dismissed the October 7 U.S. intelligence findings: “[Clinton] has no idea whether it is Russia, China or anybody else… Our country has no idea.” And he said this: “I don’t know Putin. I have no idea… I never met Putin. This is not my best friend.”

— November 9, 2016: After Putin announced Trump’s election victory, Russia’s Parliament erupted in applause.

— November 10, 2016: Russia’s deputy foreign minister admitted that during the campaign, the Kremlin had continuing communications with Trump’s “immediate entourage.”

— December 9, 2016: In response to a Washington Post report that the CIA had concluded Russia had intervened in the election to help Trump win, he said, “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’ ”

— December 11, 2016: Trump praised Rex Tillerson, chairman of Exxon Mobil and recipient of Russia’s “Order of Friendship” Medal from Vladimir Putin in 2013, as “much more than a business executive” and a “world-class player.” Trump said Tillerson “knows many of the players” and did “massive deals in Russia” for Exxon. Two days later, Trump nominated him to be Secretary of State.

— Also on December 11, 2016: Asked about the earlier U.S. intelligence report on hacking, Trump said, “They have no idea if it’s Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed some place. I mean, they have no idea.”

— December 13, 2016: NBC News’ Richard Engel reported from Moscow on Trump’s secretary of state pick, Rex Tillerson. Former Russian Energy Minister Vladimir Milov told Engel that Tillerson was a “gift for Putin.”

— December 29, 2016: On the same day that President Obama announced Russian sanctions for its interference with the 2016 election, NSA-designate Lt. Gen. Flynn placed five phone calls to the Russian ambassador.

— December 30, 2016: After Putin made a surprise announcement that Russia would not retaliate for the new sanctions, Trump tweeted, “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he was very smart.”

— January 3, January 4, and January 5, 2017: Trump tweeted a series of attacks on the integrity of the U.S. intelligence community’s findings that Russia had hacked the election.

— January 6, 2017:The CIA, FBI and NSA released their unclassified report concluding unanimously, “Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. The three intelligence agencies agreed that “the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible.” The report also stated that Wikileaks had been Russia’s conduit for the effort.

— January 11, 2017: At his first news conference, Trump said, “As far as hacking, I think it was Russia. But I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people.”

— Also on January 11, 2017: the final question of Trump’s news conference came from Ann Compton of ABC News:

“Mr. President-elect, can you stand here today, once and for all, and say that no one connected to you or your campaign had any contact with Russia leading up to or during the presidential campaign?”

Trump never answered her. Away from cameras and heading toward the elevators, he reportedly said, “No,” his team didn’t have contact with Russia.

The Flynn Affair

— January 13, 2017: In response to The Washington Post’s article about General Flynn’s December 29 conversations with the Russian ambassador, press secretary Sean Spicer said it was only one call. They “exchanged logistical information” for an upcoming call between Trump and Vladimir Putin after the inauguration.

— January 15, 2017: “We should trust Putin,” Trump told The Times of London. Expressing once again his skepticism about NATO, Trump lambasted Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.

— January 15, 2017: Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, Vice President Pence said Flynn’s call to the Russian ambassador on the same day President Obama announced new sanctions was “strictly coincidental”: “They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure on Russia…. What I can confirm, having to spoken with [Flynn] about it, is that those conversations that happened to occur around the time that the United States took action to expel diplomats had nothing whatsoever to do with those sanctions.”

— January 22, 2017: Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn was sworn in as National Security Adviser, a position that did not require Senate confirmation.

— January 23, 2017: At Sean Spicer’s first press briefing, he said that none of Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador touched on the December 29 sanctions. That got the attention of FBI Director James Comey. According to the Wall Street Journal, Comey convinced Acting Attorney General Sally Yates to delay informing the White House immediately about the discrepancy between Spicer’s characterization of Flynn’s calls and U.S. intelligence intercepts showing that the two had, in fact, discussed sanctions. Comey asked Yates wait a bit longer so the FBI could to develop more information, including an interview of Flynn that occurred shortly thereafter.

— January 24, 2017: According to a subsequent article in The Washington Post, Flynn reportedly denied to FBI agents that he had discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia in his December 2016 calls with the Russian ambassador.

— January 26, 2017: Acting Attorney General Yates informed White House counsel Don McGahn that Flynn had made misleading statements about his late December conversations with the Russian ambassador. Sean Spicer later said that Trump and a small group of White House advisers were “immediately informed of the situation.”

— January 30, 2017: Trump fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates. According to his statement, the reason was that she had “betrayed the Department of Justice” by refusing to defend Trump’s travel ban in court.

— February 8, 2017: Flynn told reporters at The Washington Post that he did not discuss U.S. sanctions in his December conversation with the Russian ambassador.

— Also on February 8, 2017: Jeff Sessions, the first senator to endorse Trump’s candidacy and the former chair of theTrump campaign’s national security advisory committee, became Attorney General. Every Republican senator and Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia voted to confirm him. During the confirmation process, Sessions had said he was “not aware of any basis to recuse myself” from the Justice Department’s Russia-related investigations of Trump.

— February 9, 2017: Through a spokesman, NSA Mike Flynn changed his position: “While [Flynn] had no recollection of discussing sanctions, he couldn’t be certain that the topic never came up.”

— February 10, 2017: Trump told reporters he was unaware of reports surrounding Flynn’s December conversations with the Russian ambassador.

— February 13, 2017: The Washington Post broke another story: Then-acting Attorney General Yates had warned the White House in late January that Flynn had mischaracterized his December conversation with the Russian ambassador, and that it made him vulnerable to Russian blackmail. Later that evening, Flynn resigned.

— February 14, 2017: The New York Times corroborated the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister’s admission on November 10. Based on information from four current and former American officials, the Times reported, “Members of the Trump campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior intelligence officials in the year before the election.” Meanwhile, advisers to Attorney General Jeff Sessions reiterated his earlier position: Sessions saw no need to recuse himself from the ongoing Justice Department investigations into the Trump/Russia connections.

— February 15, 2017: Trump tweeted a series of outbursts attacking the Trump/Russia connection as “non-sense” and diverting attention to “un-American” leaks in which “information is illegally given out by ‘intelligence’ like candy.”

Shortly thereafter, Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz and other congressional Republicans formally asked the Justice Department’s Inspector General to investigate the leaks, but they and their GOP colleagues resisted the creation of an independent bipartisan commission with the power to convene public hearings and discover the truth about the Trump/Russia connections.

During an afternoon appearance with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump refused to answer questions about connections between his presidential campaign and Russia. That evening, The New York Times reported that Trump was planning to appoint Stephen A. Feinberg, a billionaire hedge fund manager and Trump ally, to lead “a broad review of American intelligence agencies.” Feinberg has no prior experience in intelligence or government, but he has close ties to Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner.

— February 16, 2017: Trump continued his diversionary twitter assault on intelligence leaks that were intensifying scrutiny of his Russia connections. At Trump’s afternoon press conference, he said: “I own nothing in Russia. I have no loans in Russia. I don’t have any deals in Russia… Russia is fake news. Russia — this is fake news put out by the media.” Reporters asked repeatedly about anyone else involved with Trump or his campaign. “No,” Trump said. “Nobody that I know of… Russia is a ruse.”

Keep Sending the Message

In response to the latest controversy surrounding Mike Flynn and Russia, Trump tweeted a Valentine’s Day diversion: “The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington?”

No, the real story is the question Trump ducked on January 11 and deflected repeatedly on February 16: What contact did Trump or anyone on his team have with Russia before the U.S. election?

Stay on message. Tell Republicans in Congress that American democracy requires an answer – under oath – to Ann Compton’s January 11, 2017 question: “Mr. President-elect, can you stand here today, once and for all, and say that no one connected to you or your campaign had any contact with Russia leading up to or during the presidential campaign?”

Putin knows the answer. So does the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister who said in November that the Kremlin had maintained continuing communications with Trump’s “immediate entourage” prior to the election. So do any campaign members and other Trump associates who, according to The New York Times, had “repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election.”

But the American people don’t, and that asymmetry of information could give Putin the power to blackmail the country’s leaders. On January 7, Senator Lindsay Graham urged an investigation “wherever it leads.” A few Republicans want the Senate Intelligence Committee to add the Flynn affair in its ongoing inquiry – but they’re offering too little, too late. At this point, a credible investigation requires the approach that Senator John McCain initially proposed: a bipartisan commission with subpoena power. American democracy can no longer trust Senate Republicans to run this show. Nor can hearings be conducted secretly.

Congress must authorize a special independent 9/11-type commission. Step 2 of The Trump Resistance Plan has contact information for messages to Republicans and Democrats in Congress. The message to all of them is simple: “Step up, stand strong, and save democracy while someone still can.”

 Call, write, email, march, and win.