Mueller report ropes in Senate GOP – POLITICO

The Senate GOP found itself ensnared in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report Thursday, with new revelations about Sen. Richard Burr’s communications with the White House and details about a GOP aide’s quest to obtain Hillary Clinton‘s emails.

Though the vast majority of the report centered on Russian influence in the 2016 election and President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to undercut Mueller’s probe, the report also offers a window into how the broad investigations have touched on individual senators and even a relatively unknown congressional staffer. It also shows how eager the White House was for insight into the series of federal probes that were launched early in Trump’s presidency.

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Senate Intelligence Chairman Burr (R-N.C.), for instance, apparently supplied the White House counsel’s office with information about FBI investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to the report. The report says that on March 9, 2017, then-FBI Director James Comey briefed congressional leaders and intelligence committee heads on the ongoing investigation into Russian interference. That briefing included “an identification of the principal U.S. subjects of the investigation.”

Burr then corresponded with the White House a week later about the Russia probes, and the White House counsel’s office, led by Don McGahn, “appears to have received information about the status of the FBI investigation,” the special counsel report said.

Caitlin Carroll, a spokeswoman for Burr, said that the senator “does not recall this specific conversation with Mr. McGahn in March of 2017; however, any conversations between the two would have been in reference to the need for White House personnel to voluntarily comply with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation.”

The Senate Intelligence probe has been widely viewed on Capitol Hill as more productive than its corresponding House investigation. There’s been far less infighting and Burr has taken steps to distance himself from conflicts of interest, including skipping meetings with Trump while he’s been overseeing investigations. Former House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), now the committee’s ranking member, was seen by Democrats as far more partisan than Burr in his probes.

“If specific individuals were discussed, they would have been those known to the committee, the White House, and the media. The Chairman’s stewardship over the Committee’s bipartisan and fact-based investigation over the last two years speaks for itself,” Carroll said.

But Burr communicating with Trump’s aides about the FBI probe could undercut some of those warm bipartisan feelings. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s ranking member, Mark Warner (D-Va.), did not respond to a request for comment but Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the panel, made an indirect reference to Burr in a statement on Thursday.

“Given evidence from the Mueller report, the committee must take steps to ensure its investigations do not leak to the executive branch,” he said.

On March 16, 2017, the White House counsel’s office was briefed by Burr on “4-5 targets” of the Russia probe, according to notes taken by McGahn’s chief of staff, Annie Donaldson.

Those targets were identified as former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, campaign aide Carter Page and “Greek Guy” George Papadopoulos, who was charged with lying to the FBI, according to Donaldson’s notes. Those notes say Burr said Manafort was under investigation for Ukraine and Russia dealings — not his work for the Trump campaign — and that Page was being targeted for the “$ game.”

McGahn and Donaldson said that they believed those people were being investigated by the Senate Intelligence Committee, but the special counsel’s office was skeptical.

The committee “does not formally investigate individuals as ‘targets’; the notes on their face reference the FBI, the Department of Justice, and Comey; and the notes track the background materials prepared by the FBI for Comey’s briefing to the Gang of 8 [congressional leaders] on March 9,” the Mueller report reads.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also found himself mentioned briefly in the report, though there was no reference his 2016 meeting with intelligence officials, in which former Vice President Joe Biden alleged the Kentucky Republican declined to join a bipartisan statement on Russian hacking.

Instead, the GOP leader made a cameo amid Mueller’s inquiry on former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

McConnell spoke to McGahn about Sessions, according to the report: “McGahn continued trying on behalf of the President to avert Sessions’s recusal by speaking to Sessions’s personal counsel, Sessions’s chief of staff, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and by contacting Sessions himself two more times.”

Sessions’ decision to recuse himself prompted Trump to call for his resignation. But his then-chief of staff Reince Priebus warned against the move, arguing that the administration would not be able to get a new attorney general confirmed “and that the Department of Justice and Congress would turn their backs on the President.” Trump responded he could make a recess appointment. But that would have been untenable, since pro forma sessions now block recess appointments.

The report also offered new information about the work of a GOP Senate aide to obtain Clinton’s deleted emails during the 2016 election.

Barbara Ledeen, a Senate Judiciary Committee aide, apparently communicated with Peter Smith, an investment advisor, who was also interested in finding Clinton’s emails.

In a December 2015 exchange cited in the report, Ledeen wrote to Smith about an unnamed individual who could obtain the Clinton emails “which 1. Were classified and 2. Were purloined by our enemies.” She added “that would demonstrate what needs to be demonstrated.” Ledeen attached a proposal in the e-mail that suggested Chinese, Russian and Iranian intelligence services could put together the content on Clinton’s email server. Smith declined to participate in Ledeen’s plan, the report said.

Both were later contacted by former Trump campaign adviser Michael Flynn, who had been directed by Trump to find the Clinton emails.

Ledeen and Smith reconnected in 2016, and according to the Mueller report, Ledeen said that she obtained what appeared to be Clinton’s deleted emails via the dark web. But a tech advisor to Erik Prince, a businessman and Trump campaign supporter, found that the emails were not real.

A spokesman for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the former Judiciary chairman, said that Ledeen’s activities were “unrelated to the Judiciary Committee’s oversight work and she was never a member of the oversight team.

“Ledeen’s inquiry was not authorized by the Judiciary Committee. In fact the committee staff didn’t learn of her involvement until after it had been completed. She was instructed not to do any further follow-up once the committee learned of her involvement,” said the spokesman.

Ledeen remains an aide on the committee.