They said the president’s team was adamant about maintaining a cooperative approach with the special counsel - even though the public push back from the president, his White House communications staff and even his 2020 reelection campaign were headed in a very different direction.Īs Friday night’s news dominated the cable airwaves, the president on Twitter posted a link to a New York Post tabloid op-ed with the headline, “How Team Hillary played the press for fools on Russia” along with a 34-second video titled “WHAT HAPPENED.” While Trump’s lawyers said they were just as in the dark in deducing what was happening on the Mueller indictment front, they noted White House staff interviews were continuing. “If the leaker isn’t the defense, that could be a legal issue,” said Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago, though he said that his “gut” suggests the story came from a defense attorney “who was told to have his client in court on Monday.”Ī spokesman for Mueller, Peter Carr, declined to comment. Speculation also was rising over who would release information that is sealed by a federal judge. Several lawyers close to the case were trying to gauge the accuracy of the original report, which POLITICO has not independently confirmed. Alan Futerfas, an attorney for Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said he had no insight into the CNN story or any Mueller indictments.Īaron May, an attorney for Jeffrey Yohai, Manafort’s former son-in-law, who has come under scrutiny for real estate transactions conducted with Paul Manafort, said he couldn’t talk about the case, but not because he was under any kind of court order. Michael Flynn did not disclose the payments in his application to renew his security clearance in 2016 the Democratic and GOP leaders of the House Oversight Committee earlier this year said that was likely an illegal omission.īarry Coburn, Michael Flynn Jr.’s attorney, also declined to comment. also accompanied his father to Moscow in December 2015 for a paid speech, which Putin attended, celebrating the Russian propaganda outlet RT. Flynn and his son have been under scrutiny for their lobbying work on behalf of a Turkish client with ties to the country’s authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “That moves you toward making a deal when the son or a wife is indicted,” said a white-collar attorney familiar with the Mueller probe.įor example, an indictment of Flynn’s son, who worked for his father’s lobbying firm, could put pressure on Flynn to begin to cooperate with investigators. The attorneys close to the case also said they wouldn’t be surprised if the charges were targeting Flynn or Manafort family members, or a longtime accountant or lawyer.Īndrew Weissmann, one of Mueller’s top attorneys and a frequent presence over the last month at the grand jury proceedings in Washington, including on Friday, was known to use that tactic to gain advantage when attempting to prosecute Enron executives in the mid-2000s. Michael Flynn’s attorney, Robert Kelner, declined to comment. An attorney for Manafort did not respond to a request for comment. Several attorneys who said they were in touch with the Manafort and Flynn lawyers said they had not been notified of any matter related to an indictment - which is customary in a white-collar criminal investigation - leading them to believe it wasn’t either of those two former high-ranking Trump aides.
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