Updates | The Week of November 20, 2017
Britany Riley // 11/26/17 //
Mueller sent a broad request to the Department of Justice for documents covering Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal decision and about the firing of then-FBI Director James Comey (ABC News).
- Mueller may have contacted Republican Congressional aides as part of an investigation into changes made to the 2016 Republican platform on Russia (Politico).
- Mueller is also probing Jared Kushner’s interactions with foreign leaders during the presidential transition (WSJ).
- Rob Goldstone, a British publicist who helped to arrange a meeting between Donald Trump, Jr. and individuals tied to the Russian government offering information on Hillary Clinton, will likely be interviewed by Special Counsel Mueller in the near future (NBC News).
Former Trump adviser Carter Page conducted high-level meetings with Hungarian officials during the 2016 presidential election(ABC).
Members of the Trump administration are increasingly divided in their assessment of the special counsel’s expanding investigation (WaPo).
Russia has no constitutional right to participate in a US election and the Trump campaign has no such right to solicit or receive the benefits of that participation; simply put, this is not your typical campaign finance case, writes Bob Bauer for Just Security.
Much of the Russian meddling in the 2016 election probably didn’t violate federal law, wouldn’t be covered by proposed “honest ads” legislation, and may soon be shielded by a conservative Supreme Court, writes Rick Hasen for his Election Law Blog.
Donna Brazile, who was interim chair of the Democratic National Committee for a portion of 2016, states that Russian hackers destroyed “critical data” ahead of the election (The Hill).
Harvard’s Digital Democracy Project released its first set of recommendations on how elections can be safeguarded against hacking attacks (Reuters, The Hill).
- The report can be found here.