Judge Amy gets another headache

In a two-page notice, DOJ said that administration officials on Wednesday had "instructed relevant personnel" to preserve six categories of records while a lawsuit over how the White House handles records of Trump's and other senior officials' communications with foreign officials goes forward. The groups originally sued in May, but this week asked the judge to enter an emergency order requiring the administration to preserve documents in light of new information about Trump's conversations with foreign leaders and reports of efforts by the White House to restrict access to those records.

A DOJ lawyer had declined to immediately give that assurance at a court hearing on Tuesday, arguing the Justice Department had already instructed administration officials to preserve records relevant to the lawsuit, and there was no evidence of any risk of document destruction. US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson expressed confusion about why the government couldn't take the extra step of confirming it would preserve certain categories of information for now and avoid forcing her to make a swift decision on potentially complex legal questions.

Those categories of documents that the administration committed to preserving include all records of the president's meetings, calls, and other communications with foreign leaders, documents about the administration's record-keeping practices and policies, and records about any efforts by the White House or other executive branch officials to "claw back" or otherwise limit access to records about officials' communications with foreign leaders.

Jackson on Tuesday had strongly encouraged the Justice Department to consider making a voluntary assurance that the government would preserve documents to maintain the "status quo," as opposed to have the court officially weigh in on the plaintiffs' request for an emergency temporary restraining order.

[...]

As part of its argument for having the case tossed out, the Justice Department contends the court lacks authority to hear the case at all. During Tuesday's hearing, DOJ lawyer Kathryn Wyer expressed concern that giving a voluntary assurance to preserve records at this stage could be interpreted as a concession by the government. The government also took the position that in asking for assurances that documents would be preserved while the case proceeds, the plaintiffs were trying to get information about privileged legal advice. Jackson said she didn't understand the government's position, since the plaintiffs weren't asking to see any of the documents, or for specific information about what documents existed.

[...]

"Defendants voluntarily agree, solely in the interest of acceding to the Court’s request to moot Plaintiffs’ Motion, to preserve the material at issue," Wyer wrote.

  Buaafeed News

Who's going to know whether they do it or not?

You'd think there'd be some attorneys in the justice department who had the integrity to quit and go into private practice.  But maybe they've all been weeded out.  And maybe some of them are just testing themselves to see if they are cut out for criminal defense work.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Whht's hidden in that code-word server?

[N]o moment in U.S.-Saudi relations was more fraught than a phone call that took place almost exactly one year ago, between the 45th president and the kingdom’s de facto day-to-day ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. For nearly two years, Trump and his son-in-law-turned-Middle-East-point-man Jared Kushner had coddled and flattered the young Saudi strongman (and vice versa), trading late night messages over Kushner’s protected app and critical intelligence.

[...]

On October 2, 2018, something went terribly, terribly wrong. Jamal Khashoggi was both a Saudi dissident high on MBS’ “enemies list,” and an American journalist — granted U.S. residency and writing a column for the Washington Post, a newspaper that Trump frequently tars an “enemy of the people.” The columnist, needing official paperwork, had been lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul — and then never came out. Turkish intelligence filled in the gory and beyond-shocking details — that a Saudi hit team planted itself inside the government outpost, suffocating Khashoggi and somehow disposing of his body, possibly with the help of a bone saw.

[...]

[Khashoggi's] body has still not been found, no one has been convicted and questions continue to linger over the crown prince’s culpability.

[...]

An angry world wanted answers, and Trump was certainly in a position to ask the tough questions when he spoke on the phone to MBS. [...] Instead — as we are just learning now, thanks to some skilled reporting from CNN — whatever happened in that phone call was the subject of elaborate effort to shield what was really talked about. In other words, a cover-up.

“In the case of Trump’s call with bin Salman, officials who ordinarily would have been given access to a rough transcript of the conversation never saw one, according to one of the sources,” CNN reported last Friday. “Instead, a transcript was never circulated at all, which the source said was highly unusual, particularly after a high-profile conversation.”

[...]

Much like Trump’s now-infamous July phone call with the Ukrainian president — now at the center of the impeachment inquiry that’s rocked the nation — officials told CNN the secrecy seemed less a matter of classified information and more an effort to avoid leaks and political embarrassment.

[...]

There are many reasons why citizens need to know what happened on this call. For one thing, even as the whereabouts of Khashoggi’s dismembered remains are still unknown, the Trump administration continues to provide the Saudi dictatorship with expensive weapons, nuclear secrets, bombs to slaughter civilians in Yemen and now a vow to defend it against Iran in what could quickly become the worst conflict since World War II.

[...]

But there are also disturbing questions about America’s own conduct. In Kushner’s frequent, sometimes off-the-books late night bull sessions with MBS, did Trump’s son-in-law offer valuable U.S. intelligence, such as intercepted conversations, that helped the crown prince to round up and torture dissidents? Did U.S. government officials have advance knowledge of the Saudi plot against Khashoggi, and if so why was [the] Washington-based journalist not warned? Did Trump give MBS and his goons a free pass for slaughtering Khashoggi — just like the Washington Post reported that the president gave top Russians a free pass for interfering in the 2016 election?

[...]

Shortly after Trump secured the GOP nomination in the summer of 2016, Donald Trump Jr. met in Trump Tower with a longtime adviser to the Saudis and their closest ally, the United Arab Emirates, George Nader, as well as the Israeli head of an intelligence firm specializing in “psy-ops.” Nader, according to the New York Times, told the junior Trump “that the princes who led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president.” The participants insist nothing came of this, although the firm later gave a presentation of work it may or may not have done to elect Trump and Nader later gave the firm’s owner a check for as much as $2 million.

[...]

In the fateful year of 2001, the Saudi government paid $4.5 million to buy the entire 45th floor of Trump Tower, one of a number of business dealings with the New Yorker. “They spend $40 million, $50 million,” Trump told a 2015 campaign rally in Alabama. "Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.” Emolumentally, the Saudis spent several hundred thousands dollars at Trump’s D.C. hotel after he was elected.

[...]

[Trump] made Saudi Arabia the destination for his first international trip as president (traditionally it’s Canada) and stunned many in his own administration when he sided with the Saudis in a spat against Qatar, long-time host of a key American military base.

[...]

He authorized the sale of sensitive nuclear technology to the regime, vetoed legislation to end American aid for the bloody Saudi military, and sold arms to their monarchy over the objections of Congress.

[...]

MBS reportedly bragged to his associates in UAE that [Jared] Kushner was “in his pocket” and eyebrows were raised when the Saudi prince launched his roundup of dissidents just a week after Trump’s son-in-law visited the kingdom in fall 2017.

[...]

In the end, Team Trump’s warped dealings with Ukraine, Russia and Saudi Arabia all point toward the same high crimes and misdemeanors of the 45th presidency — a willingness to conduct life-and-death foreign policy not over what’s good for the American people but what’s good for Trump’s political prospects, his bankbook, or his fragile ego.

[...]

Both the revelation of a concerted White House effort to conceal the substance of Trump’s talks with MBS and King Salman and the added power and weight of a House impeachment inquiry make it imperative for investigators to learn what the president and his son-in-law knew about a cold-blooded murder [of Jamal Khashoggi], and when they knew it.

  Philadelphia Inquirer

MBS didn't like what Khashoggi wrote, Trump hates the Washington Post, for whom Khashoggi was writing, and he owes his soul to the Saudis. I can see them working together.

On notice

Keeping the lawyers busy

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:




Or line up on the White House lawn.

Still more singers and potential resignations

It's not clear if aides took the additional step of placing the Saudi Arabia and Russia phone calls in the same highly secured electronic system that held a now-infamous phone call with Ukraine's president and which helped spark a whistleblower complaint made public this week, though officials confirmed calls aside from the Ukraine conversation were placed there.

[...]

Officials said the practice began more than a year ago after embarrassing leaks revealed information about Trump's phone conversations with the leaders of Australia and Mexico.

[...]

Like the call with Saudi's crown prince, the Ukraine transcript did not contain highly classified information to require such a move, raising questions about why the order was made.

[...]

Administration officials say John Eisenberg, the White House deputy counsel for national security affairs and a national security legal adviser, directed the Ukraine transcript call be moved to the separate highly classified system, as detailed in the whistleblower complaint.

[...]

Eisenberg also played a role in the early Justice Department handling of the whistleblower complaint. Eisenberg was on an August 14 call with the general counsel of the intelligence agency where the complainant worked, and John Demers, the assistant attorney general for the Justice national security division, a US official briefed on the matter said.

  CNN

There's two more who're going to have to resign.

During that call, the general counsel informed Eisenberg and Demers that there were concerns being raised about one of Trump's phone calls with a foreign leader. Eisenberg invited Demers and the intelligence agency's general counsel to review the transcript of the call, and Demers traveled to the White House the following day to review it. The general counsel of the intelligence agency declined to review the call, according to the official.

One smart person.

The White House acknowledged earlier Friday that administration officials directed the Ukraine call transcript be filed in a highly classified system, confirming allegations contained in the whistleblower complaint.

In a statement provided to CNN, a senior White House official said the move to place the transcript in the system came at the direction of National Security Council attorneys.

"NSC lawyers directed that the classified document be handled appropriately," the senior White House official said.

The dam has burst

President Trump told two senior Russian officials in a 2017 Oval Office meeting that he was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because the United States did the same in other countries, an assertion that prompted alarmed White House officials to limit access to the remarks to an unusually small number of people, according to three former officials with knowledge of the matter.

The comments, which have not been previously reported, were part of a now-infamous meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, in which Trump revealed highly classified information that exposed a source of intelligence on the Islamic State. He also said during the meeting that firing FBI Director James B. Comey the previous day had relieved “great pressure” on him.

A memorandum summarizing the meeting was limited to all but a few officials with the highest security clearances in an attempt to keep the president’s comments from being disclosed publicly, according to the former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

  WaPo

Everybody will be scrambling now to sing their way out of trouble.

Trump also seemed to invite Russia to interfere in other countries’ elections, they said.

[...]

According to the fourth former official, Trump lamented to Lavrov that “all this Russia stuff” was detrimental to good relations. Trump also complained, “I could have a great relationship with you guys, but you know, our press,” this former official said, characterizing the president’s remarks.

[...]

It is not clear whether a memo documenting the May 10, 2017, meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak was placed into [the same code-word server system as Trump's call to Zelensky mentioned in the whistleblower's complaint], but the three former officials said it was restricted to a very small number of people.

Getting larger all the time.

Bingo!

UPDATE:

Hiding Trump's calls

Experts are homing in on allegations that the White House used a computer system meant for highly classified information to store details of President Donald Trump’s calls with foreign leaders, in what they described as a stark departure from how the server is normally used and how memos of the president’s exchanges are typically handled.

[...]

And it has surprised former White House and National Security Council officials who say the NSC’s codeword-level system is specifically designed to protect highly sensitive compartmented intelligence matters.

  Politico

Right there seems to be a contradiction to Joe Maguire's testimony that he went to the White House and DOJ with the complaint because it didn't fit the requirement of pertaining to intelligence matters, which would be the trigger for him going direct to the Intel Committee with the complaint. I wonder why they didn't press him with that in the hearing.

Those include covert action programs, diplomatically sensitive information and other national security secrets, said Larry Pfeiffer, the former Situation Room senior director under President Barack Obama and CIA chief of staff in the George W. Bush administration. An example, he said, would be “information surrounding the very sensitive negotiations and conversations involving Oman” in the early stages of negotiating the Iran nuclear deal.

“It would never be used to protect or ‘lock down’ politically sensitive material or to protect the president or senior officials from embarrassment,” Pfeiffer said.

That was then. Things have changed.

[T]he whistleblower alleged that senior White House officials had intervened to “‘lock down’ all records” of [Trump's July 25 call to Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky] by removing it from the system where these transcripts are normally stored and uploading it into a separate system “managed directly by the NSC’s Directorate for Intelligence Programs.” They did so because “of the likelihood, in the officials’ retelling, that they had witnessed the president abuse his office for personal gain,” according to the whistleblower.

[...]

After 2017, when verbatim transcripts of his conversations with the leaders of Australian and Mexico were leaked to the press, the White House began to restrict the number of officials who had access to the transcripts. One former Trump administration official confirmed that the White House started placing transcripts into the codeword system after those leaks. “I don’t think the person who leaked those was ever really discovered,” said the former Trump administration official. “So there was a decision to tighten the restrictions for those who had access to those transcripts.”

Can't wait till the impeachment committee subpoenas them all. And you have to wonder about the calls he's undoubtedly made on his own personal unsecured phone in the middle of the night that nobody else would know about.

That classification indicates that the disclosure of the call would cause "serious damage" to national security, cannot be disseminated by anyone except the originator, and is prohibited from disclosure to foreign nationals. A code word classification, meanwhile, is top secret—a level higher than secret—and then further compartmentalized by adding a code word so that only those who have been cleared for each code word can see it.

[...]

“It risks undermining a whole host of important national security activities,” [April Doss, who served as senior minority counsel for the Russia investigation on the Senate Intelligence Committee and, prior to that, as a top attorney at the National Security Agency] said, noting that “most if not all” officials who would need to have access to call readouts as part of carrying out their regular duties in advising on foreign affairs and implementing the administration’s policies “would not have access” to the codeword system.

The president has ultimate classification authority and it’s an open legal question whether he’s bound by executive orders, including one signed by Obama in 2009 that says information can’t be classified in order to “conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error” or “prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency.”

I'm sure his lawyers, and by "his" lawyers, I include the DOJ, will argue he's not.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE: