The Mueller Report lists the lies of the Trump team

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Yet the document has another purpose: a catalog of what was and was not true regarding the 2016 campaign and the Trump administration.

Many of them, however, have not been prosecuted, with the President or his communications staff having informed the US public at press conferences, interviews and official statements.

Others were false omissions or implied erroneous information initially given to investigators, then corrected, sometimes with consequences, sometimes without. Except with respect to the president's assertions, Mueller often failed to delve into a person's intentions, but simply exposed the facts that he had discovered.

One comment in particular seems to indicate how the president plans to give false statements to the press. Mueller notes that, during his efforts to lie about his involvement in the response to the news of the Trump Tower meeting in June 2016, Trump told a group of reporters outside the White House: " It's a statement in the New York Times … It's not a statement to a superior court composed of judges. "

How we analyzed the report

CNN's approach to analyzing the report was as follows: every time Mueller documented a false statement made to the public or to federal officials – Even though it was the same lie repeated over and over again – it was counted. This includes lies to investigators and Congress, who represent the public. CNN did not include the White House's efforts to lie to other administration officials, which Mueller notes on several occasions.

The final portrait by Mueller reveals eight main topics around which Trump and his associates spread false stories, ranging from his interactions with former FBI director James Comey to negotiations. about a project of the Trump Tower in Moscow, the categorical denial of the president, according to which US intelligence had discovered that the Russian government was involved in the piracy of the Democratic National Committee.

Sometimes, Mueller describes it coldly, saying that a person was saying something "falsely". At other times, Mueller describes a cascade of affirmations – often by the president – to withdraw later to say that "substantial evidence" contradicts the statements. On a few occasions, Mueller could not determine the truth, but explains how at least one person among a group had to give false information.

In his analysis, CNN counted cases where Mueller noted several people giving different versions of events in the form of one false assertion each.

CNN's analysis also took into account situations in which false information was shared, while Mueller did not always specify whether the person had the intention of giving bad information. In a few cases, Mueller documented how some people had explanations about shared information.

In all, although he rarely uses this term, Mueller's effort might be the first comprehensive discovery made by a federal investigator to document the lies to the American public told by the Trump campaign and administration.

Trump Tower Moscow Project

Donald Trump

What Donald Trump said:

Trump was confronted with a series of questions about Russia at the only press conference he gave during the presidential transition on January 11, 2017. Asked about his possible financial ties with Russia, Trump responded : "I do not have any relationship with Russia, I do not agree, it could happen in Russia because we have stayed away, and I have no borrowing with Russia. "This gave the false impression that Trump had never concluded a contract with Russia, even though he had done so in 2016.

What the report says:

"Trump answered questions (media) about possible connections with Russia by denying any commercial involvement in Russia – even as the Trump organization had pursued a commercial project in Russia until June 2016. "

Michael Cohen

What Michael Cohen said:

Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, repeatedly lied to Congress about Trump Tower Moscow and later pleaded guilty to making false statements. Specifically, Cohen lied about his attempts to reach Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in the hope of getting government approval for the real estate deal under the Trump brand. On August 28, 2017, Cohen sent a letter to the House Intelligence Committee, in which it was written: "I … do not remember any response to my email, or any other other contact from me with Mr. Peskov or other representatives of the Russian government about the murder. " proposal."

What the report says:

"Each of the previous statements in Cohen's two-page statement was false and misleading … Cohen is reminded that he had received an answer to the email that he had sent to the spokesman. from the Russian government Dmitry Peskov – in particular, that he had received an answer by e-mail – and had a follow-up telephone conversation with an English-speaking assistant from Peskov in mid-January 2016. "

Mueller has uncovered a systematic effort by Trump and his former lawyer, Cohen, to deceive the public about Trump's financial ties with Russia. The deception lasted for years and included lies for voters, the press, congressional committees and Mueller investigators. In all, Mueller cited at least 30 lies or misleading statements about Trump Tower Moscow.

Since the campaign, Trump has publicly denied trading links with Russia. He often repeated: "I have nothing to do with Russia" and said that he remained out of the Russian agreements.

But the Mueller report showed how the Trump organization had carried out a lucrative commercial proposal in Moscow. Cohen led the negotiations, which included direct contacts with Kremlin officials. Trump was aware of the efforts made and these lasted until June 2016, well before the end of the campaign.
The first details of the agreement were published mid-2017. But concealment continued until November 2018, when Cohen pleaded guilty to having lied to Congress regarding the end of the project and Trump's knowledge of it. For these crimes and others, Cohen will be heading to jail this spring.

The report also pointed out at least 15 times that Trump had misled the public on this crucial topic. Mueller even accused Trump of not having "directly" answered questions about the Moscow project in a written testimony that he had presented last year. Trump has never accepted an interview in person.

Comey shooting and fallout

Donald Trump

What Donald Trump said:

In an interview with the New York Times on July 19, 2017, President Donald Trump falsely denied pushing FBI director James Comey in a one-on-one conversation at the time. The Times asked him, "Did you drive others out of the room when you talked to Comey?
"No, no," Trump said.
"Did you have a face to face with Comey then?"
Trump replied, "Not much, not even that I remember."

What the report says:

Mueller concluded that "despite these denials, substantial evidence corroborates Comey's story".

Sarah Sanders

What Sarah Sanders said:

At a press conference held on May 10, 2017, the day after the dismissal of Comey, Sarah Sanders, deputy press secretary at the White House, announced the decision of the defendant wrongly, wrongly, by FBI agents who did not trust their leader. "The FBI base had lost confidence in its director," she told reporters. A journalist rebuffed, citing reports that a majority of FBI agents supported Comey, but Sanders still wrongly answered: "Look, countless FBI members have told us things very different, "said Mueller.

What the report says:

"After the press conference, Sanders spoke to the President, who told her that she had done a good job and that she had not found any inaccuracies in her comments. Sanders told this office that she had heard "countless FBI members" tongue slipping "."

The Mueller Report documents at least a dozen cases in which Trump and his associates lied or made false statements. on the facts surrounding the shooting of Comey. Sometimes these falsities have multiplied as a result of attempts to limit the damage, and the president and his staff have posted them on Twitter, in interviews and in official statements of the White House.

Mueller documents Trump's anger at the FBI's investigation of Russia and the issues he believes have been raised about the legitimacy of his electoral victory. At first, Trump asked Comey to lay off his national security advisor, Flynn, and then fired Comey, who had refused to swear allegiance to his loyalty.

In sum, Mueller has repeatedly documented the President and the White House on why he had fired Comey and the circumstances that led to his dismissal.

For example, Trump tweeted"I've never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn – just more fake news covering another Comey lie!"

In truth, Trump had invited Comey to dinner, asked the loyalty of the FBI director and asked Comey to "let Flynn go," his national security adviser being the subject of an investigation.

Mueller finally sided with Comey's version of the story, after corroborating it with many other sources – even the president's daily newspaper. "Despite these denials [from Trump]substantial evidence corroborates Comey's story, "Mueller wrote.

White House press secretaries Sarah Sanders and Sean Spicer, as well as Trump's lawyer Marc Kasowitz, also launched fake versions of the events involving Comey. Sanders She confessed to Mueller that her negative statements to the press about Comey as head of the FBI were a "slip of the tongue" and that she "said" in the heat of the moment ".

Trump Tower meeting

Trump's lawyer

Trump's lawyer said:

Donald Trump's personal attorney, Jay Sekulow, in July 2017, denied on Good Morning America, Meet the Press and CNN that the president was involved in drafting Donald Trump Jr.'s statement about the meeting. of the Trump tower, even though Trump dictated the delivered son.

What the report says:

After the statement was issued, "the president's personal advice repeatedly and incorrectly denied that the president played any role in drafting the Trump Jr. statement," Mueller wrote. Trump's legal team, including Sekulow, reversed what she had told the press when she had discussed what had happened with the special attorney's office.

"A few months later, the president's personal council said in a private communication with the special council office that" the president dictated a brief but accurate response to the New York Times article on behalf of his son, Donald Trump, Jr. "The President then told reporters that it was of little importance to know if he had dictated the statement and said," It's a statement to the New York Times. This is not a statement to a higher court. "

Mueller concluded that Donald Trump Jr.'s public statement about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting marked the beginning of a coordinated effort to misrepresent the nature of the meeting and protect the president. Campaigners were waiting for the meeting to include a discussion of information that could harm Hillary Clinton.

Trump's public reaction to the meeting was marked by early executive mistakes, including at least nine cases of lies.

A spokesman for Trump's personal legal team, Mark Corallo, worked with the conservative news site Circa News to create a story to determine whether the Trump Tower meeting was an installation orchestrated by Democratic agents, Muller said. That was not it.

Trump Jr. issued a statement in July 2017, incorrectly claiming that the meeting focused on Russian adoptions. Instead, the discussion focused on US sanctions against the Russians.

Jay Sekulow, Trump's personal attorney, also put forward a false story. In several interviews, he stated that Trump had not dictated the Trump Jr. statement. Trump's lawyers then confessed to Mueller that Trump had dictated it well. Sanders also falsely told the press that Trump had not dictated his statement.

And finally, Mueller reports one of those pesky "who was lying?" situations – leaving a major question of the investigation of Russia still unresolved. Trump, then candidate, was he aware of the meeting in advance?

Cohen told prosecutors that yes, and he attended the conversation between Trump Jr. and his father, but Cohen stated that he "did not remember that Trump Jr. had stated that the meeting was related to the Russia".

But Trump Jr. has said the opposite to the Senate Judiciary Committee. He said that he had not spoken to his father in advance. Trump Campaign Chair Manafort and stepson Jared Kushner, the other participants at the meeting, confirmed this story when they spoke to the investigators and told them that they did not remember anyone who informed Trump of the meeting. Trump, in his own written answers to Mueller's questions, said that he did not remember "the meeting" in advance.

Mueller could not determine the truth.

Flynn's calls with Kislyak

Michael Flynn

What Michael Flynn said:

On January 24, 2017, Trump's first National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, lied during an interview with FBI agents about his calls with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn falsely denied having asked Kislyak not to retaliate energetically against the new US sanctions. Flynn resigned after the press revealed the calls and then pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

What the report says:

"During the interview that took place at the White House, Flynn falsely stated that he had not asked Kislyak to refrain from making the situation worse. response to sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration. "

KT McFarland

What KT McFarland said:

Michael Flynn MP KT McFarland provided false information to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius about Flynn's calls with Sergey Kislyak. She stated that the appeals took place before the announcement of the new sanctions and that they had not been lifted. According to Mueller's report, McFarland was not quoted personally in the article that followed, but appeared as an "official Trump official".

What the report says:

"Flynn ordered McFarland to call the Washington Post columnist to inform him that no discussion of the sanctions had taken place." McFarland recalled that Flynn had delivered words saying: "I want to kill the story. "McFarland did the call as Flynn had asked her well that she knew that she was providing false information."

The report shed new light on one of the first episodes of the investigation: the fallout of Flynn's phone calls with the Russian ambassador. Mueller identified at least seven lies and misrepresentations of five senior White House officials about the incident.

The cover story was that Flynn had been in contact with the then Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, during the transition, without ever talking about sanctions. It soon became clear that Flynn had collaborated with Kislyak to neutralize the Russian response to the sanctions imposed by the Obama administration to punish the Kremlin for being ingested in the 2016 election.
The Mueller report detailed how Flynn repeatedly lied to FBI agents at the White House during his January 2017 interview. This ultimately led to his resignation and criminal conviction for making false statements. . He later became one of Mueller's renowned co-operators.
The report also explained how Flynn had lied to other people in the White House. Vice President Mike Pence, former chief of staff Reince Priebus and Spicer have repeated Flynn's lies on national television and "misled the American public wrongly," the report said.
While these officials were in the dark, Flynn MP KT McFarland knew the story more thoroughly. She still called a prominent journalist and falsely denied that Flynn had discussed sanctions.

Additional contacts with Russians

Additional contacts with Russians

Jared Kushner

What Jared Kushner and Avi Berkowitz said:

Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is now a senior adviser to the White House, met with a prominent Russian banker in December 2016. When Mueller investigators asked about the meeting, Kushner said that no one from the transition team had been prepared for the meeting.

What the report says:

"Kushner said in an interview that he was not prepared for the meeting and that no member of the transition team had even done a Google search for Finding the name of Gorkov … (Avi, Kushner's personal assistant), Berkowitz, told the office that he had googled Gorkov's name and told Kushner that Gorkov appeared to be a banker. "

The false story of Team Trump began two days after his election. Hope Hicks, his spokesperson for the transition who will later work at the White House, said in two press interviews that "there was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign ".
It only took a few weeks for this story to begin to unravel. Mueller's report reveals the extent of these contacts, with over 100 pages detailing the many meetings, phone calls, emails, text messages and other communications between Trump's associates and Russians.

The report looked at how several notable Trump allies had lied or made false statements to investigators about their contacts with Russians – in addition to the episodes already described above.

There is Kushner, who told Mueller that he had not prepared himself at all for a meeting with a Russian banker, while his personal assistant had testified he had used Google to find information about him.. There is also Erik Prince, the Trump donor and founder of Blackwater, whose statements to Congress and the press were distorted by the report, revealing that his meeting in Seychelles with another Russian banker was very choreographed and not by chance.

However, in the report, Mueller admits that some Trump campaign associates have hampered his efforts to wipe out all tracks in the investigation of a possible coordination with Russia, and that there could still be a lot to learn.

Attempts to fire Mueller

Referral of a special advocate

The White House

What the White House said:

In June 2017, President Donald Trump dictated a statement to press secretary, Sarah Sanders, to provide the press, claiming that Trump had "no intention" to fire special advocate, Robert Mueller . Yet the same day, his lawyers contacted Mueller's office to voice their concerns about ethics. Shortly after, Trump asked his White House lawyer to remove Mueller from office.

What the report says:

"The fundamental question is whether the president actually ordered McGahn to dismiss the special advocate." After news agencies reported that in June 2017, the president had ordered him to dismiss the lawyer. A special advocate, the president had publicly challenged these accounts … "The evidence, however, corroborates the conclusion that the president went further and actually ordered McGahn to call Rosenstein for the special counsel to be sacked. "

Twice, Mueller explained how Trump had tried to conceal the episode where he had told the White House lawyer, Don McGahn to rid him of Mueller's investigation.

In early 2018, news agencies reported that Trump had ordered McGahn to dismiss the special advocate. Mueller finally investigated the case as part of his investigation into whether the president was obstructing justice.

Once the story broke, Trump rejected it, calling it "false news", people. False news. "

McGahn told the truth to Mueller, the report found, and Mueller certified that McGahn had "no reason to lie or exaggerate given the position he held in the White House".

Presidential pardon

Donald Trump

What Donald Trump said:

Addressing reporters to the White House on June 8, 2018, Trump said he was not considering pardons for anyone with a connection to the investigation of Russia. "I did not even think about it," he says. "I did not think about it, it's certainly too early to think about it." Yet, Mueller documents how Cohen received the opposite impression in multiple conversations with lawyers surrounding the president.

What the report says:

The report does not clearly state what the president's conscience was about these conversations, but Mueller exposes a succession of evidence detailing the ways in which Cohen felt that forgiveness was possible. Mueller notes that Cohen "is reminded to have spoken of forgiveness with the President's personal advice after the searches of his home and office" in April 2018, two months before Trump's comments.

Mueller adds: "Based on this conversation and previous conversations about the rehabilitation with the president's personal attorney, Cohen understood that, as long as he would remain in communication, he would be supported by the president, whether by a grace or by the closing of the investigation. " . "

The prospect that Trump uses his presidential parity powers to protect his allies never became a reality during the two-year investigation, but she has always made bubbles near the surface.

In public and in private, Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, have repeatedly refused to exclude possible pardons from Flynn, Manafort and for a brief period, even from Cohen. The report identifies at least two instances where the White House has misinformed the public about the progress of these interviews, denying that the subject of pardons has already been mentioned.
These statements, as well as upstream discussions between lawyers, on how Trump would "take care of" those who did not cooperate with Mueller were taken into account in the investigation into the obstruction . Mueller concluded that Trump "intended to encourage Manafort not to cooperate with the government" and that he wanted Manafort "to believe that he could get a pardon".
All this happened at a critical moment. Manafort was thinking about an advocacy agreement that he eventually signed with Mueller's team. Manafort, while apparently participating in the investigation, lied about certain topics at the heart of the investigation into possible coordination with Russia, and prosecutors later said he would not help much.

Despite suggestions from the public, Trump has not granted any pardon to any of Mueller's defendants. Manafort arrived last week in a federal prison in Pennsylvania and his release is scheduled for 2024.

Russian Hacks and Wikileaks

Russian hacks and Wikileaks

Donald Trump

What Donald Trump said:

In an interview with Fox News on December 11, 2016, Trump falsely claimed that US intelligence agencies did not know who was responsible for the election-related hackers against the Democrats. He said: "They do not know whether it is Russia, China or anyone else." It could be someone sitting in a reads somewhere, I mean, they have no idea. " Trump said that even though US intelligence had already publicly blamed the Russian government for piracy.

What the report says:

The report describes how the US government publicly blamed Russia for some piracy two months before Trump's comments. The report also notes that Trump said that shortly after, "the press reported that US intelligence agencies had" concluded that Russia had intervened in the presidential election last month to strengthen the bid Donald Trump at the White House. "This article was quickly confirmed in January 2017. US intelligence agencies' public report on Russia's interference.

Despite overwhelming evidence, backed up by the report, Trump himself never unequivocally stated that he agreed that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 elections, hacked the Democrats and attempted to give a political impulse to his campaign.

Mueller called this in the report. He pointed out that despite public statements by US intelligence services, Trump asserted that they did not know "whether it is Russia" who would have committed the hacking. The report concludes, once and for all, that Russia has merged "in a radical and systematic way".
Trump has publicly questioned or dismissed these conclusions about Russian hacking, even at the Helsinki summit, alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The report also describes how Jerome Corsi, a conservative author and theoretician of the plot related to Trump's orbit, provided poor information during his interviews with investigators. (Mueller said that he "had little corroborated" Corsi's claims about what he had done on the day of the release of the tape "Access Hollywood", showing Trump speaking vulgarly about women.) Last year, Corsi stated that Mueller had offered him a plea contract for lying. Yet he claims to have rejected this agreement, maintained his innocence and was not charged by Mueller.
Trump and his allies have been dancing around the issue of Russian interference for more than two years. They downplayed and overshadowed the impact of the Russian operation and collaborated with WikiLeaks, the anti-secret group that published many hacked Democratic messages. The report eliminates any question about the major role played by Russia in the 2016 election.

Other odds and ends

The Mueller Report also documents a lie about secret payments made to women alleging that they had had a relationship with Trump, as well as a false statement to the public Carter Page, former Trump campaign advisor.

In one case cited by Mueller, Cohen told the public in February 2018 that Trump was not "a party" to the hidden money payments. Yet, Cohen had discussed it with Trump.
These misrepresentations were incorporated into Cohen's guilty plea in 2018 for related crimes in a case before federal prosecutors in New York.
In another example of a lie at the time of the review, Mueller wrote that the Trump campaign had told reporters that Carter Page had "no role" in their organization. The date was September 23, 2016 and Yahoo! News had reported that Page was under investigation for communicating with senior Russian officials about US policy. Le même jour, Jason Miller, Steve Bannon et Stephen Miller, membres du personnel de la campagne, ont discuté du projet de courrier électronique visant à retirer Page de la campagne, a précisé Mueller. Ce dernier a été retiré le lendemain.

Sam Fossum, Ellie Kaufman, Caroline Kelly, Holmes Lybrand, Nicky Robertson, Brian Rokus, Em Steck et Tal Yellin de CNN ont contribué à la rédaction de ce rapport.

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