https://www.scribd.com/doc/2895816/Frontline-response
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/interview/ty-cobb/
The FRONTLINE Interviews
Ty Cobb
Former Trump White House Lawyer
Ty
Cobb is an attorney who served as special counsel during the first
Trump administration, managing the White House response to the
investigation into Russian interference during the 2016 presidential
election. He previously served as assistant U.S. attorney for the
District of Maryland.
The following interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group's
Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on April 3, 2025. It has been annotated and
edited for accuracy and clarity as part of an editorial and legal
review. See a more complete description of our process here.
This interview appears in:
Jul 15, 2025
FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen. Support for “Trump’s Power & the Rule of Law” is provided by the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation.
Trump’s Speech at the DOJ
One
place we’re thinking of starting the film is the moment that President
[Donald] Trump goes to the Department of Justice and speaks at the Great
Hall.What do you see in that moment of him going there and talking for over an hour?
So
at 30,000 feet, given my experience as a former federal prosecutor in
the ‘80s and subsequently as an independent counsel and White House
counsel, I was sad to see that.I think it was clearly intended to make claim that the Department of Justice no longer is an independent part of the government.It’s now protective of him.That
was not news to anybody, given the appointments that he had made, the
fact that he had installed two of his criminal lawyers in senior
positions and picked Matt Gaetz to be the original nominee to be the
attorney general.It
was clear that he had no respect for the Justice Department and
intended to run it as an object of his fealty, but it punctuated all
those things in a way that I was very sad to see.…
When
he’s there, one of the things that he did was single out particular
people, like Norm Eisen, who he calls “scum” and “vicious,” Andrew
Weissmann.What
does it mean for the president of the United States, at the Justice
Department with the attorney general there and the director of the FBI,
to single out people and describe them as scum?1
It’s offensive.It’s un-American.It’s all the things that—everything about it is something that I wish I had never seen or heard.Rare has been the opportunity for a president to speak in the Great Hall of Justice.I
think typically when it’s been done—and I only really actually recall
[former President Barack] Obama having done it; perhaps others have—but
it’s usually ceremonial, to provide an award or congratulate somebody or
say something uplifting about the rule of law or some major success in
terms of moving civilized society forward.It’s rarely a campaign rally.Well, it’s never been a campaign rally before, and certainly it shouldn’t be the apparent call to vengeance that it was there.
I
think, even before you get to Trump’s remarks, I frankly thought the
most shocking thing I heard the whole day was not from Trump but was
from [U.S. Attorney General] Pam Bondi, when rather than saying that all
the Justice Department people there were assembled because of their
devotion to the Constitution, she said emphatically that “We are all
here for him.” That is a break of 240-plus years, I guess, in terms of
the independence of the Justice Department.You’re not there for an idol, and you’re not there to be idolaters.You’re there to preserve and protect the Constitution.That’s the oath you take.
Why was it so different?Because
I think it’s hard for people to understand why that would matter that
the attorney general would say something like that or the president
would present himself there in that way.
Well,
I think it goes back just to the rule of law, the “no man is above the
law” principle that most Americans think the country is founded upon.It’s
gotten a little confusing because of the immunity decision, which is, I
think, misrepresented, mostly by the mainstream media, because it does
get reported as though that the Supreme Court somehow gave him carte
blanche to do whatever he wanted, which is not what they did.2Had that been the case, they would have reversed the D.C. Circuit and dismissed the case,rather
than remanded the case to the district court for instructions to
determine which of the official acts, or—which of the acts in the
indictment—were official acts, and, of those official acts which have
presumptive immunity. Were any of them not entitled to immunity because
of circumstances that the judge found?
2
Oyez: Trump v. United States
So
I think the Trump takeaway from that opinion, and certainly his
advisers’ and the way they messaged it, is he’s free to do whatever he
wants.Now,
he’s always felt free to do whatever he wants and always thought that
it should be his approach, but only now, after four years to plan the
approach, Project 2025, and the full-scale assault that’s underway on
the rule of law, because the courts are there as an obstacle to the
lawlessness that he has attempted so far, and the only obstacle under
the Constitution, because Congress has neutered itself through its own
cowardice.I
think the cheerleading that went on there and, frankly, at the core of
where the rule of law gets exercised by the government was just shocking
and offensive.
You know him well.What did you see?Was he the same president that you saw?Was he more unbound in a moment like that than when you knew him?What did you see about him as a man?
So,
yeah, I have some ethical constraints because of the position that I
used to hold, and I worked closely with him and spent a lot of time with
him.I’m
not sure that I know him well, or I wouldn’t say that we were ever
buddies or anything like that, but I did spend a lot of time with him.I
think the man he is today, much different from the man I encountered,
not necessarily in terms of character approach or personality but in
terms of confidence and recklessness.
I think he was a little tentative during his first term in the sense of not acting out on every impulse.He
had advisers, from the initial, largely qualified Cabinet that he had
picked the first time around to his chief—the chief of staff who was
there then, the bulk of the time, Gen.[John]
Kelly, who would oftentimes try to counsel him, and others who would
oftentimes try to counsel him to restrain himself in some way or raise
the decorum issue or stature issue.I don’t think you see that anymore, not with the handlers that he currently has.
So
I think you see a man that is determined to get his own way, knows what
he wants to do, has people like Steve Bannon and others feeding him
agenda items on a constant basis, some of which he’s very interested in
and others of which he might toy with briefly and then discard, or toy
with briefly and then become obsessed with, like, for example, tariffs,
which I know is the issue of today, as we throw out several decades’
worth of prosperity and have seen stock markets around the world shake
and the dollar drop.So we’ll see how long he plays with that.
But
given the criticism that he’s taken on that today, I can assure you
that criticism only inspires him to double down, because it’s not like
they’re going to rethink the wisdom of this, these kind of things, and
that’s sort of the tragedy of the president’s personality, which is,
when attacked or criticized, his reaction tends to be very, very
defensive and very, very vengeful.
His conflicts with lawyers, with the Justice Department during the first term, was very much public.The
idea that [former U.S. Attorney General] Jeff Sessions would recuse
himself, that the Justice Department wouldn’t go along with him on
attempts to overturn the election or going after people who wanted him
to—what was his relationship with the Justice Department, with lawyers?Was he frustrated?
I think the relationship with the Justice Department was, again, it was a little uncertain.He wasn’t really sure how far to push.He would push as far as he thought he could and then maybe pull back but then vent again.Sessions
was a constant object of his ire, in part because of the recusal, in
which—in candor, I think the president did have a gripe, because keep in
mind that former Attorney General Sessions, a man who I have great
respect for, he announced his recusal … without consultation with the
White House.And
so that was a little abrupt, and that rubbed the president the wrong
way, and he has a right to react to that, but he never got over it.And
I think that from that point on, the attorney general didn’t have the
president’s confidence, and then when things would go badly there, it
would cause him to be even more irritated than he might have otherwise
been.
Because
what I’m wondering is if, as he goes into his second term, if it
changes the type of people he chooses; it changes what he’s looking for
in an attorney general and in the lawyers who are around him.
Well, certainly, something has changed.Is it all on the president?I’m not so sure.He’s got some very close advisers who have been planning—a polite word for scheming—for this moment.If
you look not just at the Justice Department in isolation but the whole
of government, the quality of appointed personnel has never been lower.It’s sort of shocking.You replaced a bunch of statesmen with juvenile delinquents.That’s the best example I can come up with.And
the theory that Matt Gaetz would have been an appropriate attorney
general or that some of the other appointments that we’ve seen and
endured to date with frustration I think demonstrate that he only—at
this stage of his presidency and what he wants to accomplish, he really
only values loyalty and virtually nothing else.
Because
that’s the heart of, I think, one of the questions about who he’s
choosing, is if it’s for loyalty, if it’s for—is he looking for his Roy
Cohn, for somebody who’s going to go to battle for him?And who’s the client?Is it the president of the United States?Is it Donald Trump?How do you see that?How do you see what Trump is looking for in a lawyer?
So it’s interesting that you mentioned Roy Cohn.Roy Cohn, I think, had a big effect on the president.The—not
because of anything philosophical so much as I think the president
found Roy Cohn’s approach to problem-solving liberating, which was to
learn that there really are no rules.Rules only matter if you care, and there’s no reason you should care about anything other than your self-interests.…
I’m not sure that he’s got any Roy Cohns, because Roy Cohn—Roy Cohn was somebody that Trump looked up to.I don’t think Trump looks up to any of these people.I’d be shocked.I think these are people that he thinks he can control and has great confidence that they’ll do what he wants.He’s not looking for them to tell him what to do; he’s looking for them to do what he tells them to do.
But
do you get that sense that—because a lot of lawyers will say, “We don’t
work for Donald Trump.” Government lawyers will say, “We don’t work for
Donald Trump,” whether it’s in the White House Counsel’s Office or the
Justice Department.“We work for the office.We
work for the United States.” Do you have the sense that he sees it
differently, that he sees them as working for him, personally?
Yes.Now, there are times where that distinction needs to be made.I
had to make that distinction multiple times because my position, as
special counsel to the president and in managing the [special counsel
Robert] Mueller investigation, there were a lot of ethical issues.The president had personal attorneys.There
were certain things that I could discuss and negotiate with Mueller on
behalf of the White House, but there were certain other things that had
to be negotiated by his personal attorneys.We would be in meetings.I
would have to withdraw from meetings so that they could have
discussions about his personal concerns or interests that were not White
House or constitutional issues of consequence at the White House, with
which I was entrusted.
So there are times that discussion makes some sense.And obviously, if I had been his personal attorney, I wouldn’t be here today, but I didn’t have that individual representation.I did represent the United States, and my oath was to preserve and protect the Constitution.I didn’t have a retainer agreement.He never paid me a dime, of course.
So there are nuances about those discussions.But when you talk about—so take Emil Bove and Todd Blanche.Take those two, for example.Pam Bondi’s a little bit of a different example, but take those two for example.They were both his personal attorneys.They
have the burden of carrying around a great deal of privileged
information about their client, and their devotion was to him, and I
think it sort of begs credulity to think that their devotion is to
anything other than him.…
And
then I think the example I cited earlier with regard to Pam Bondi, when
in her introductory comments at the Justice Department when Trump was
there, made plain that we’re all here for him.Those
words, a, should never be uttered, but they certainly should never be
uttered in the Great Hall in front of an assembled group of high-ranking
Justice Department officials, because that’s not their job.Their duty is to preserve and protect the Constitution.
Trump’s Executive Orders
…
The very first day starts with just a number of executive actions,
executive orders, starting in the Capital One Arena, going on to the
White House.What do you see in the actions that he takes that day?Because a lot of presidents start out by signing executive orders.Was there something different about what he was doing?
Oh, sure.Every president is different.This is round two of his presidency.He learned a lot the first time around, I think, in terms of how far he could go.He
had a plan to go further this time, and he went into his first day in
consultation with his core team, of course, with a plan.And a lot of it’s theater; a lot of it’s acting; a lot of it’s entertainment.But they’re not unrelated.This
is an orchestrated exercise to forcefully fuel the base, to “flood the
zone” in a way that Congress and businesses and individuals feel the
weight of his authority and respond accordingly in the way that he
desires, which is to cower, and to overwhelm the courts.
Now the courts, I think, were initially overwhelmed.That’s sort of by design, the way the Constitution does it.The
court sort of lags behind the president and Congress in terms of the
speed with which they respond, and I think that’s, as I said, by design.The
president has the freedom to act faster than the other two branches of
government in some regards, and Congress has the ability to forcefully
do things at a speed that sometimes the courts can’t sustain.But
ultimately, when it comes to the interpretation of the law, as we’re
dealing with in the Supreme Court this week, where I was just on an
amicus brief3with
one of your former guests on Frontline, Judge [J. Michael] Luttig, and
others, with regard to the Alien Enemies Act, making the point that
seems odd to be making, that since 1803, the law has dictated in Marbury
v. Madison that the courts determine what the law is and interpret the
law—not the president, not Congress.4
3
Who do you think it’s coming from, this idea of “flood the zone,” of overwhelm things?Is this Stephen Miller?Where is it coming from?
I have some thoughts, but I don’t have any real expertise on that.I
think I’d be a little bit arrogant to try to pin it down, but it is
definitely something that I’m sure that was put together by his
advisers.Trump is eager to act quickly at any time.He likes to make decisions.He
trusts his own judgment, right or wrong, and once he makes a decision,
the likelihood of him ever acknowledging a mistake is not high.But he does like to move quickly, and I think his advisers play to that.They’ve designed this in a way that appeals to him, and he’s certainly executing at a pace that I’m sure they’re happy with.
Can you help me understand Stephen Miller, what he’s like or what his role is?
So I only really had a professional relationship with Stephen, and he’s a very smart person.He—not
to denigrate anybody in the room—but he got his start as a journalist
at the Duke newspaper, where actually, to his credit, he was
instrumental in unraveling the Duke lacrosse case and the improper
conduct of the district attorney down there.5But
he’s very extremely conservative and very devoted to this president and
sees this president as a vehicle for the philosophical things that he
thinks should come about in America.I’m not sure that those are necessarily the things that all Americans agree should happen.
5
But Trump won the election, and Miller is one of his advisers, and he trusts him immensely.He has his public information.Miller
was the scribe and editor of the now-famous Comey firing letter that
the president had originally drafted when he terminated—when he was
intending to terminate James Comey at the FBI.6And at the time, he was eight years younger than he is now.
6
The New York Times: Mueller Has Early Draft of Trump Letter Giving Reasons for Firing Comey
…
Let me ask you about one other thing that happens the first day, which
is the pardons, the commutations for all of the people who were involved
in Jan.6.Do you think that that sent a message when he did that on his first [day]?It was something he had campaigned on and sort of promised to do, but it would also surprise even some of his supporters.
I do think it was surprising.My
recollection, which could be wrong, is that he keyed it up a couple
times during the campaign, sort of backed away from it the last six
weeks or so, not in a sense of disavowing it but just didn’t talk about
it, and then made a decision to not only pardon everybody, including
even the most violent offenders, but do it, and do it immediately.7I
think that was a message, and I don’t think it was the message that
actually people voted for him for, because while they wanted him to take
forceful action and make an abrupt turn from whatever difficulties they
perceived had hampered the Biden administration, I’m not sure that they
elected him to rewrite history.
7
And we’ve seen him spend 70-plus days actually rewriting history, trying to take Jan.6
out of the history books and fire the prosecutors who were involved in
the cases that emanated from what I think anybody who saw it on TV, or
even read remotely about it, recognized it to be one of the darkest days
in American history with many indignities, including violent crimes and
deaths.8The
theory that it was the bright, sunny, happy, glorious day to be revered
forever by the MAGA [Make America Great Again] world is just lunacy,
but that’s the narrative that they’re trying to sell now.
The Unitary Executive Theory
There’s
long been theories about executive power, going back to Watergate, and
the idea of the unitary executive and that the presidency had been
constrained and needed to be sort of reinvigorated.What do you make of that in this administration?And
is that the intellectual framework for the way that he’s approached the
law, or are they doing something different than the discussion that had
been going on for decades?
So I think—if I could parse that just slightly.So I think the power of the presidency was probably at its weakest in the post-Watergate few years.I
think [former President] Gerald Ford was very cautious, and
appropriately so, trying to calm the country down and give it a steady
hand after those things.[former President Richard] Nixon had been deposed.Nixon
had the character to listen to voices he trusted and do what they
suggested, and I think he came to believe was the right thing for the
country, which was to resign.I don’t think that had that been President Trump that anybody would have seen him leave the White House voluntarily.
[Former
President] Jimmy Carter was no threat to the—to impose a unitary
executive philosophy on things, so I think the country had some
breathing space.And then gradually since that time, you’ve seen—and sometimes in part because of events.9/11,
obviously, was a significant event that required strong executive
action, and there have been others where, as the world gets more and
more complicated, which it does every day, requiring a president to step
up from time to time.
But as a philosophical, intellectual matter, I don’t think it really picked up steam until the post-9/11 era.And
I think John Yoo may have been one of the initial legal minds to put
pen to paper and articulate it in a way that actually turned it into a
philosophy.9I
could be wrong about that, but that’s sort of the recollection I have
in terms of first reading about the creeping re-infusion of power into
the presidency over the other two branches.
I do think that there’s never been anybody as unbound by convention or civility or norms as this president.And
I think under this president, I think you see assertions of
presidential power that you’ve never seen before, and you see a little
bit of—well, you see a lot of gamesmanship behind it.I
think some of the things that have accompanied many of the actions of
the last 70 days really sort of diminish the unitary executive theory.
For
example, I think in the Venezuelan deportation case that Judge [James]
Boasberg has, where the Justice Department refuses to give really
perfunctory information about what is clearly their defiance of the
judge’s orders and playing games with, like, the State Secrets
[Protection] Act, where the rhetoric, not only from the president but
from the Justice Department, in pleadings, suggests that the reason they
have to do this is because of bleeding-heart liberal judges that favor
gang members and terrorists and those who would rob, rape and murder
people on our streets over a president’s desire to clean up the country.10
Well, that’s not the issue at all in these cases.The
only issue in the Alien Enemies Act case—now that it’s been resurrected
after having last been used in one of the darkest legal moments in the
history of America, in the Japanese internment case 80-plus years
ago—the only real issue is, were these people who the government said
they were, and did they have the associations that the government said
they did?And those are simple probable cause standard findings.
They’re not—they don’t require a lengthy trial.They
require a simple hearing and probable cause, not reasonable doubt or
any other higher standard than probable cause as the standard.And
people are, if determined to be who the government says they are and if
determined that there is probable cause to believe they did what the
government said they did, they’re whisked off.
Plus, none of those people were a threat to anybody.They’d all been detained.So
you see the rhetoric in these false choices that are thrown out there
as reasons to load the judiciary and delegitimize the judicial branch,
it’s all made up.The
judges, and particularly Judge Boasberg, had a simple task, and he, I
think, has done a good job of trying to make that plain, although it’s
not getting communicated very effectively within the current
administration.
ving
virtually ensures chaos and ensures a lot of erroneous decisions, not
unlike many of the other things that have happened in the chaos of the
early days, where the military was told to take down everything DEI
[Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion], and Jackie Robinson gets wiped out,
and they later come back and say, “Well, that was a mistake.16I’m sorry about that.” OK, well, what about the Navajo Code Talkers?“Oh, that was a mistake too.” But mistakes are happening, and it’s only if somebody calls them out do they get corrected.
There’s
not much that goes into the careful planning of these things,
highlighted again today by the revelations that have come out about the
way that the oddly configured tariffs, that the percentages were
calculated.It doesn’t make sense to economists.It doesn’t even make sense to mathematicians.
Can the courts deal with it?You were saying they were playing around with who’s running DOGE, for example.These things are being defunded.Can the courts deal with this?
Courts can deal with some of it, but they can’t deal with all of it.For
example, let’s take the example of the person that even the White House
has acknowledged should never have been deported to El Salvador, the
Venezuelan young man from Maryland who was arrested in the presence of
his 5-year-old....And
at least according to his lawyers and the other publicly available
information, he was not a member of a gang, or otherwise supposed to be
there.And
the administration has acknowledged that they shouldn’t have done it
and that it was a “administrative error.” I’m not sure what that means,
but it was a mistake of huge proportions when you look at it from the
perspective of … his family.
And they say, “Well, there’s nothing we can do.And by the way, he did have some traffic violations, and he has some tattoos.Bad, bad guy.” That’s the kind of thing, I think, that offends most right-thinking Americans.I don’t think—I know the evangelicals voted for Trump; 82% of the evangelicals voted for Trump.17But
I think that many of them, in their core, understand that that’s not
the kind of compassion that they’re talking about in church on Sundays.That’s not the kind of fairness that they have typically associated with America.And now the administration is saying, “There’s nothing we can do.” Of course there’s things you can do.18Bill
Richardson went to North Korea nine times to lobby to try to get people
back, and we’re not even picking up the phone and calling the country
of El Salvador and saying, “Hey, we made a mistake.Can you give us this one guy back?”
I
think the way that they’re playing fast and loose and unwilling to try
to address the mistakes that they make ultimately may be the downfall of
some of this aggressive and reckless conduct.
Do
you think that firing the inspector generals [sic]—The USAID inspector
general is let go, I think, right after he issues a report; he wasn’t in
the first group of inspector generals [sic] who were fired. But the
replacement—or the firing, really, and not replacing the inspector
generals [sic]—is that part of this same pattern that we’ve been talking
about?19
Oh, certainly, yeah.No,
so you’ve got Congress neutered from doing their oversight because
you’ve got Mike Johnson as the speaker, who takes his marching
instructions directly from the White House on a daily or
multiple-times-a-day basis, and then you’ve got the Senate, which is
almost evenly split.And
the message was made very crystal clear when [Sen.] Joni Ernst, a
sexual assault victim and a military veteran, was bullied into
supporting [Secretary of Defense Pete] Hegseth by threats that they were
going to run somebody against her and grossly overfund that person.20“This
is going to cost you your job if you resist this.” I think that kind of
transactional extortion, whatever you want to call it, response is what
you see, and purposely so.And
that’s what you see with the inspector generals [sic], because the
inspector generals [sic]—while Congress provides the oversight generally
for the executive branch, inspector generals [sic] provide it for
agencies on behalf of Congress, so they’re there to report back to
Congress about whether the agency is performing consistent with its
ethical and legal obligations.And that’s the kind of oversight this administration can’t afford and doesn’t tolerate.
Trump Takes on the Courts and Law Firms
So the inspector generals [sic] have been pushed to the side.The Congress is sort of to the side.The Justice Department, as we’ve talked about, is being brought under control of the White House.And
a lot of this has ended up in the courts, and it’s in that context that
the president starts signing executive orders about law firms.What do those executive orders do?Where do you think they fit into this story?
Well,
they are consistent with a picture that I think people are grudgingly
starting to recognize about what’s really going on here, which is this
is not only about immigration and the economy and other things that the
president campaigned on, but it’s—vengeance is at the front and center
of what many of the actions taken in the first 70 days have been about.
The
law firms involved, some of whom have just the most tangential
relationship to individuals that the president abhors or who crossed him
in the course of performing their duties historically, there’s never
been anything like it.Nobody’s ever done anything like this.It,
again, gets back to the authoritarian regimes that the United States
has long been distinguished from because of the rule of law.
The
legality of these orders has so far been crystal clear that the law
firms that have been courageous enough to contest him have prevailed, at
least with regard to the patently absurd order that they can no longer
go into federal buildings, thus keeping them out of federal courts and
federal agencies, where citizens of all faiths, all political parties,
and rich, poor, partisan, indifferent, whoever, who make an individual
choice consistent with the right to counsel in the United States—another
constitutionally time-honored concept—to represent them in those
matters.21And it’s a grotesque interference in that, and the courts have agreed that that’s inappropriate.
One of the aspects of those orders is the removal of the security clearances of lawyers in those firms.Now
that is something, when you were asking are the courts up to it, the
courts are up to the issue of unlawfully prohibiting them from entering
federal buildings, but the courts really actually aren’t up to
contesting the president’s ability to pull a security clearance.
Now, under certain evidentiary circumstances, they may ultimately be able to do it.But
in terms of an injunctive approach, they’re not going to be able to do
that, so those clearances will be gone, unless and until those cases are
tried and vindicated or resolved.But
I think the law firms, for the most part, who want to contest it will
certainly be able to stay in business and do their work at the EPA
[Environmental Protection Agency] or OSHA [Occupational Safety and
Health Administration] or FDA [Food and Drug Administration] or other
federal buildings, including federal courts.
But
it sounds like a lot of the firms, even if they know they might be able
to go to court and get an injunction, feel some kind of pressure
because they’re settling.22Why?
22
The New York Times: How a Major Democratic Law Firm Ended Up Bowing to Trump
Why did some of the media outlets and some of the tech companies settle?Part
of it’s sort of a sign of fealty to the president, not wanting to be at
war with the president because his vengeful extortion aside is easily
understood; that it’s not good business.It plays into the—as it should—the image of the president as a mob boss, and it’s sort of his way or the highway.If you get on the highway, you’d better be prepared to defend yourself vigorously, and it’ll be expensive.
It’s interesting you make that comparison.He says a lot of these law firms are bending to me.In the articles they say they’re “bending the knee.” What does that say to you?
It’s certainly the messianic way he sees himself and others portray him.
As what?What does it mean for a law firm to bend to him?
Well,
I think people generally would associate Skadden [Arps, Slate, Meagher
& Flom] with enormous power, as a titan of the law firm industry,
and firms that Trump historically, having been a New Yorker, looked up
to as one of the blueblood, tough, successful, forceful, powerful law
firms, and it certainly makes him feel good about himself that they’re
yielding to him.23
And what’s the challenge in that?Does that deny people who want to challenge the government?What’s the overall strategy or effect of some of these firms making these deals?
It’s so new that we can’t be sure.But
I think there’s certainly the danger that clients, judges, others will
have some questions about the vigorousness of arguments that are made
against the government by firms that have acquiesced to the president’s
demands.I
think it undermines, again, the confidence that many Americans have in
the legal system, and any anxieties that people develop or get seeded
about potential infirmities of the legal process or of Congress or other
institutions other than the presidency feed the power of the
presidency.
So
diminishing all these institutions and historically consequential
entities makes the presidency that much stronger and that much more
powerful and transforms the American democracy from three co-equal
branches to the situation where the presidency dominates in a way that
it wasn’t intended.
As
I’m listening to the way you’re describing him as transactional, as
almost a sort of a mob boss, and these other institutions being
marginalized, it almost sounds like that these are two sort of different
systems, what you’re calling the rule of law and this other system
that’s developed.What’s happening in the big picture?What are you describing?
So I don’t have an agenda or anything; I’m sort of trying to react to the circumstances.But
I think what we have seen is a conscious diminution of the power of the
courts, the integrity of the courts, the judges and the lawyers, many
of whom were there either to challenge the government when the
government is out of bounds, being unfair or overreaching, on the lawyer
side, and then on the judge side, to determine whether that’s the case
in a way that feeds the arguments that you hear from the White House
about any judge who disagrees with him is a liberal rogue—even if it’s
Judge Boasberg, who was the judge who refused to let the IRS share
Trump’s tax returns, ruled in Trump’s favor,24forced
the release of 14,000 emails that had been wrongfully withheld by
Hillary Clinton and has taken numerous other actions that benefited
Republicans and sometimes the president directly. But because he got
assigned a case where the government clearly overreached and raised
questions about it, not questions of his own frolic and detour but
questions raised about compliance with the statute, that are framed by
the statute itself, he’s under attack.25
24
Courthouse News Service: ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER v. INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE
So
I think what you see is this attack on the judiciary, the attack on law
firms, the attack on really all things other than the power of the
presidency are designed to inflate the presidency to a level where it
dominates the power structure of our government in a way that was never
intended by the Constitution or the framers.
Deportation of Venezuelan Migrants
When
the moment happens with Judge Boasberg and the flights, what do you
make of that, that there’s an injunction to turn the flights around, and
it doesn’t?What happens in that moment?What does it tell you?
… The fact that a judge would have been asked to rule on that should have been a foregone understanding.The
likelihood of doing something like that without having it contested in
court was zero to none, and the fact that a judge asked the questions
that this judge asked, those were questions that you should have
answered in advance anyway.But they didn’t care.They
were so determined to do this in a way that was “shock and awe” that
they had people in the air within an hour or so of the signing of the
executive order.
Now, again, that gets back to sort of being too cute by half because that’s not really the way America has worked in the past.Usually there are laws or proclamations that then are implemented in a careful, thoughtful way and consistent with due process.Careful, thoughtful and due process were considerations that never came up in this planning.
What you’re suggesting is that the White House wasn’t exercising good faith in carrying out the law?They didn’t have a lawyer before?Or what do you make of that?
So
I don’t know whether—I don’t know how lawyered it was, and we don’t
actually have much of an insight on that because of the Justice
Department’s impertinent and unprecedented refusal to share information
that the court has requested.But
given the speed with which the actual execution of the deportations
occurred following the signing of the executive order or the
proclamation, whatever, however they want to frame it, I think it’s
pretty clear that the due process, even the minimal due process required
by the Alien Enemies Act, did not take place.
So what are they doing?What are they doing on this, on other things?Are they just testing the law, or is there a bigger strategy?
So I think that’s an excellent question.I
think oftentimes the presumption that there is a grand strategy—and
this is somehow encapsulated in "[Trump:] The Art of the Deal" and the
myth of the businessman, notwithstanding the six bankruptcies—I think
this is a mistake that this is a grand scheme that’s all coming
together.26But
I do think portions of it are part of a grand scheme, which is to do as
much as possible, as quickly as possible, see where the chips fall and
seize the opportunities that seem to arise.
26
The Washington Post: Fact Check: Has Trump declared bankruptcy four or six times?
And
I think the administration has been relatively lucky so far, but their
track record over the last couple of weeks, has been abysmal in court,
where they lose sort of nine out of ten at this stage of the game, and
which is a slightly lower rate than they lost in the President’s first
term, when I think he was 63 for 64.27… You know, he’s won a few this time.And
frankly, the ones that he’s won probably he deserved to win in terms of
the Constitution, because, as we discussed earlier, the courts can’t
remedy every reckless move he makes.They can only remedy the ones that raise constitutional issues or are clearly in violation of statutes.
And
there are gray areas, and there are also areas that are exclusively
entrusted to him, like we discussed before, the security clearances, so
he’s going to win some.But
he has made very plain what his priorities are, and his priorities are
to do as much of what he wants as the courts will let him get away and
then to denigrate the courts with the hope that he will be able to
recapture even that territory.
I
don’t know if they planned it, to take on immigration to be the thing
that they were going to fight with the judge with, but they do seem to
relish it, the idea, right, that the judge is letting gang members who
they say are terrorists, and the comments that they make to reporters,
seem to sort of be “Bring it on if you want to have a fight over this
issue.”28
Well,
it’s interesting because their argument, one of the arguments that they
make and actually they said in court, which was, “A judge shouldn’t
prevent the president from doing what he was elected to do.” Well, what
does that mean?I mean, seriously.He
was elected to do a lot of things: fix immigration, fix the economy, do
some important things in both those fields, many of which probably
needed to be done.
But he wasn’t elected to do it lawlessly.It wasn’t that he was elected to do it by any means.Americans
have been raised on the principle that due process applies here, that
no man is above the law, and that we will do the right thing.It may be harsh in the end, but whatever that harsh result is will have been insulated from wrong by due process.
And
this administration has decided to remove the due process from the
analysis and just go straight from whatever their whim is to action.
A lot of presidents have had conflicts with the court or not liked Supreme Court decisions and have been critical of them.Is there something different that you see in the way that President Trump is approaching especially the judge in this case?
Sure.If
you go back in history, the [Chief Justice Earl] Warren court, for
example, in the ‘60s and ‘70s took on a lot of water from conservatives
primarily in terms of the expansion of the various freedoms under the
Bill of Rights, right to counsel among them, civil rights, other things
where the world changed quickly, as it should have.
And
there was a great deal of criticism and a great deal of political
rhetoric, not entirely dissimilar to what’s going on now, but it was
never in the sense of that—it was never to the extent that the entire
concept of three co-equal branches was threatened.
Here,
the difference, I think, is we’ve gone way beyond criticism of the
judicial process and liberal judges, conservative judges or conservative
principles, liberal principles beginning to dominate into whether the
judiciary should even be a restraint on the presidency.And
I think that’s the primary distinction I would draw from the last 70
days that we have never really had before in America, and that’s
something that’s a debate that we shouldn’t be having because without
the judiciary to restrain overreach by the executive branch, we have a
totalitarian, authoritarian system.
Do you know Judge Boasberg?29
I don’t.But I oddly am aware of him because of his time in the U.S.attorney’s office, where he tried a lot of homicide cases.When
I was a federal prosecutor—because I was in Maryland, where there were a
lot of government facilities and a lot of government property,
uncharacteristically for federal prosecutors, I ended up trying a number
of murder cases; he ended up trying a number of murder cases.So I did follow his career when he was in the U.S.attorney’s office, where he was a really highly regarded homicide prosecutor.So I don’t know him, but I’ve been aware of him since he was an assistant U.S.attorney.
And a “radical left lunatic”?
No,
this is somebody who, at least to my knowledge and certainly within the
circle of lawyers that I know, who know him well, find that sort of
laughable.As we know, Justice [Brett] Kavanaugh is one of his closest friends, former law school roommate.They have vacationed together.He
has made the rulings, I think I addressed earlier, where he ruled for
Trump against the IRS [Internal Revenue Service], ruled against [former
Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton in a matter of serious consequence
in the 2016 election, and has had other far-reaching significant rulings
that favored conservatives or Trump himself.
So
there’s nothing in his background, until he asked a couple of questions
that, frankly, the statute required him to ask, that would have ever
gotten his ire from a conservative.And
how he got labeled as a rogue leftist judge with TDS [“Trump
Derangement Syndrome”], I think, well, I don’t know, but it’s silly.Keep in mind, this is also, people—Trump always talks about how he was an Obama-appointed judge.That’s true.He was elevated from his initial judgeship by Obama to the current judgeship that he has,but his original judgeship was from [former President] George W. Bush.So
I think that the fallacies in terms of the attempt to stigmatize him
with the rhetoric from this White House, is—I just think it’s silly.
Trump
has said he would follow court order, but people around him, Tom Homan
said, “I don’t care what the judge thinks.” There’s this talk that has
begun that the judges can’t rein him in in this area, and talk has been,
“Will he not comply with a court order?” What do you make that that
discussion is going on?
I think the fact that we’re even having that discussion shows how far we’ve slipped as a nation just in a short period of time.It would have been unthinkable, even a year ago, that a president wouldn’t follow a court order.Now it’s being talked about as, “Oh, it’s a 50/50 ball.” I don’t think that the country would stand for it.I certainly hope they wouldn’t stand for it.Would he be impeached?Probably not, not in this environment, and certainly not with the current political makeup of the House of Representatives.
But could it bring about changes and maybe rally some more U.S.senators to vote, as they did yesterday on the committee on tariffs, with the Democrats against what’s obviously bad policy?Perhaps.
And is Trump capable of it, of not following the court order?Do you see that as a possibility?
Well, I don’t know how to answer that.I don’t have a crystal ball on that.… In terms of capability of lawlessness, yeah, perhaps.But ideally, ideally, he’ll find other fish to fry if thwarted by a court order and adhere to a court order.And ideally, somebody—I’m not sure who it would be in this White House, but somebody may urge him to follow the law.
Chief Justice Roberts and the Supreme Court
…
So all of the things that we’ve talked about, from the Justice
Department, from Congress, from inspector generals [sic], from these
attacks on the judge, how high are the stakes at this moment?
Never been higher in American history.
Explain why you say that.What is at stake?
What’s at stake is the structure of our democracy.We’ve gone 240-plus years or more in terms of the execution of this experiment with three co-equal branches of government.It’s out of balance now.The judiciary stands between Trump and Trump as president or Trump as king.And that’s what’s at risk.
Do you think that the judiciary can, on its own, handle that moment of crisis?
We don’t know.The judiciary doesn’t have an army.They don’t have an independent ability to enforce their orders.The judiciary is sort of alone in this battle because Congress is sidelined.And we’ll have to wait and see.
How
hard a position is somebody like [Chief Justice] John Roberts and the
Supreme Court in, in this moment, knowing that there’s this talk and
threat of maybe not complying, that there’s attempts to be very critical
of the judiciary.How difficult is the moment that he faces, that the Supreme Court faces?
So
that’s a very hard question to answer for a variety of reasons, and
foremost among the reasons that makes it difficult is for most of the
justices, and certainly for Chief Justice Roberts, these issues, while
weighty and more consequential than others in history, don’t get
analyzed that way.The
pressure of any one particular decision to the justices who do this
best is really no different than the easier decisions because they
follow their oath, they analyze the law, and they do what they think the
law requires or, to the extent that what the law requires is
inadequate, either enhance it or modify it in some way to fit the
circumstance in an ethical, deliberative—in a manner that is not
freelancing or imposing their own will.
And so is it a difficult position?Yes.Are the times unprecedented, urgent and consequential?Yes.Will that affect whether they do the right thing?I don’t think so.
And
when Justice Roberts issues the statement about Trump or the
president’s statements about impeachment, what does that tell you?30
So
if you look at the statement, I think it’s only two sentences, and it
didn’t single anybody out, and it wasn’t directed—it didn’t call out any
individual, but it made the simple point that since the inception of
our republic, that the appropriate response to a judicial order with
which you disagree is the appellate process.That’s a fact.That’s a given.That’s
at the cornerstone of—that’s one of the cornerstones of American
democracy and certainly the most appropriate description of what the
process should be.
So was it a pointed reminder?Sure it was.Was it necessary?Obviously
Chief Justice Roberts thought so, just as he did when it was early in
Trump’s first term, when there was a lot of rhetoric from the White
House about Obama judges and Clinton judges, and he issued a similar
statement about how we don’t have Obama judges, Clinton judges, Bush
judges; we have a bunch of people devoted to the Constitution, trying to
do the best job they can.31That’s like a paraphrase of what I’m sure he said more appropriately.
The
president’s supporters have said, sure, maybe impeachment would not
work, but just holding hearings, threatening to close the D.C.Circuit or replace it with something else sends a message to those judges.Do you think that that—and then there’s all the rhetoric around it.Do you think that kind of strategy works?Does it worry you?
Sure.Again, transactional, mob boss strategy.Yes,
it’s intended to intimidate, intended to undermine institutions other
than the presidency and intended to inflate the power of the presidency.
And it sounds like a real test for them, at this moment.
Yeah.And I apologize.I
just have this sort of intellectual resistance to that, because I had
the great privilege of being the chief justice’s partner for many, many
years, somebody I don’t always agree with but somebody who I respect
every day.And
knowing him and the love that he has for the country and the
seriousness over which he approaches his task and responsibilities, I
think he would be the first to tell you that these decisions are all
important.But
all the decisions that they make are important, and he has to bring the
same intellectual rigor and honesty and highest ethics imaginable to
each of those tasks individually.
Trump’s Lawyers
[Producer Vanessa Fica]: I have one follow-up, if you don’t mind.So we were talking at one point about what Trump looks for in a lawyer or how he views lawyers, right?
Right.
And you shared a story that you said says it all, explains it all.… Can you tell me what your personal experience revealed about what Trump sees in a lawyer, and that story specifically?
Sure.So the president has a lot of experience with lawyers.Roy
Cohn was the lawyer that he mentioned the most during our interactions
of his historical lawyers, and he admired Roy Cohn’s fearlessness, as
the president perceived it, and the results he was able to achieve by
largely ignoring the rules.You
got the impression from hearing him speak that Roy Cohn had no ethical
restraints, and I think that anybody who’s watched the McCarthy hearings
would probably share that view.
And it was also very clear that Trump admired the extent to which Roy Cohn would do anything for a client, anything.And that’s not a lawyer’s job.While it wasn’t intended as such, I did have an occasion at the White House when the president was frustrated with me.I’m sure he was frustrated on more than one occasion.But
on one occasion, he expressed his frustration by telling me that,
commenting to me that, “You’re no Roy Cohn.” I now have that phrase on a
placard above my home office desk.I think that was probably the highest praise I’ve ever gotten professionally in my career.
Trump and the DOJ
[Director
Michael Kirk] … This morning, we talked to Steve Bannon, who said that
the Justice Department was weaponized against Trump and that all he’s
doing now is just trying to balance the ledger.32Your thoughts about that?Do you think that the Justice Department was weaponized against Donald Trump when you were working with him?
… I think it’s very difficult, if you’re the target of that investigation, to view that as other than weaponization.… So I think there is a basis there to feel victimized if you’re the target.And
the president, I know, obviously did feel victimized, and certainly his
passionate supporters, like Steve Bannon, took it to an even greater
extreme.So that’s why it makes that a difficult question to answer.
I wouldn’t say that the Justice Department was weaponized, but I think the process was ugly.But the process is often ugly.And this is so much different than that, though.What’s
going on, what’s going on here in terms of suggesting that what Jack
Smith did was somehow the product of weaponization—it’s not like Jan.6 didn’t happen, and it’s not like it didn’t happen on TV.
…
So it’s very hard for me to equate the Russia investigation where I can
sort of understand how you would take that personally with these things
that he actually did, and it’s undeniable that he did, and then say
that, “Well, this was somehow the weaponization of the Justice
Department,” when they were just doing their job.
Was the Justice Department weaponized against Spiro Agnew and John Mitchell and [John] Erlichman and all of those guys?No.They did what they were charged with.They were found guilty.They went to trial or pled guilty.So yes, they were prosecuted.But
that’s being prosecuted, or being investigated and being charged, is
much different than suffering a weaponized Justice Department.And I think that the weaponization rhetoric is, again, that’s part of the rewriting of history.Rather
than see these uncontested factual allegations that constitute crimes
and have history remember that, they would prefer that history see this
as a Justice Department vendetta.But it wasn’t.
So when people complain about Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, Bannon says, “Wait a minute.Who was Bobby Kennedy?He was Jack Kennedy’s brother of all things.Who was Eric Holder?He was Barack Obama’s best friend.” Why are we so exercised about Bondi and Patel?What’s the difference?
Well,
so the difference, to me, is—I guess Holder came closer to this line
than I would have preferred when he described himself as Obama’s
“wingman.” And I know Eric, and I like him, and I think he did the best
job he could.But
I think that was a little too cavalier, I think, in terms of the
relationships that most Americans expect between an independent Justice
Department and attorney general and the White House, particularly in the
wake of Watergate.But
when Bondi introduced the president at the Great Hall of Justice and
made a point about how the Justice Department was “with him,” I think
that’s a line that shouldn’t exist.They’re not supposed to be with him.They’re supposed to preserve and protect the Constitution, and if he violates the law, he should suffer the consequences.And that’s not the impression that you have.
Now,
Kash Patel is very difficult to talk about rationally, because if you
compare him to Bobby Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy actually was a pretty good
lawyer, and his experience in government dwarfed Kash Patel’s, and the
respect with which he was held by his peers was real.…
I
guess the distinction I’m talking about there is Bondi, on paper and by
experience, is qualified to be the attorney general, and hopefully
she’ll get her footing.I was more optimistic when she was appointed than I am today.But ideally, she’ll find her footing and do better.Probably, I’m sure my feelings were complicated by how relieved I was that it would be anybody but Matt Gaetz.…
When you talk about what Bondi said, why does that matter to Americans?Help
us understand why that really matters to a lot of people who aren’t
following this every day and haven’t grown up with the law and don’t
understand even what you mean by “lawfare” and all of those phrases.What
does it mean when the attorney general and chief law enforcement
officer of the country says something like that to her staff?
Well,
I think it—for those of us with a little or no or gray hair, who
survived Watergate, it brings back the specter of those days, where John
Mitchell’s obvious loyalty was to Nixon.And that was, in large part, what provoked that constitutional crisis.I
think, certainly prior to that time and certainly definitely subsequent
to that time, Americans expected that the Justice Department would be
independent and that no man would be above the law.That’s not the philosophy of this administration, and it doesn’t appear to be the philosophy of the Justice Department.
Fear in Washington
This is my last question, sir.We’ve talked to maybe 20 people now about this in Washington, outside of Washington.They
talk about a feeling of fear in Washington among the lawyers, of all
people, and among many other people in the government right now.Do you feel that?Do you sense that, in all your experience coming in and out of Washington, right now?Is fear palpable, and why?
So yes, fear is palpable.Why?People
who have, only because of the nature of the duties imposed upon them by
the offices that they inhabited, crossed Trump or have been adversarial
to him, have been fired, ridiculed, endangered by the visceral,
vengeful rhetoric of the president and his supporters.I don’t think those are complicated questions.
Your
friend John Roberts is going to face a moment—it’s almost inevitable
they tell us—where one of them is going to have to blink.Is he the fearful type?
No.I don’t think I’ve ever met an intellectually more honest or dutiful lawyer, jurist, person than John Roberts.
… But having said that, he may not—he’s not going to—it will never be about him.It’s not—this isn’t going to be Russell Crowe and Commodus, or whatever it was in The Gladiator.That’s
not the way Roberts perceives himself or his role, and frankly, if he
ever had that thought, he’d probably resign on the spot.There’s
nothing easy about being the chief justice, and there’s certainly
nothing easy about being the chief justice in these times.
But he doesn’t see his role as to vanquish evil.He
sees his role as to properly interpret the Constitution consistent with
the trust that—with which the founders created the position that he
occupies.And
it may be that in so doing, he doesn’t go as far as some people would
wish, and it may be that it imposes an obligation upon him to … announce
results that he believes are dictated by the Constitution that aren’t
popular, as was the case in the immunity decision.
So it may not be a yes or no proposition in the future.
Well, I think it will be whatever the Constitution dictates in his honest view.I know that sounds like a hedge, but it’s not.That’s how he sees his task.I believe that’s how he sees his task.I haven’t talked to him in over a decade, I’m sure, and so I don’t have any unique recent insights on that.But there’s nobody I have greater respect for.
Ty Cobb Resigns from Hogan Lovells To Join Trump Legal Team
Ty Cobb's appointment to represent the president comes as other Hogan Lovells' partners' work to oppose the administration.
By
ALM Staff
Ty Cobb, a longtime Hogan Lovells partner based in Washington, D.C., has joined President Donald Trump's legal team as special counsel. His last day at Hogan Lovells will be July 30, the firm's chairman said in an all-firm email sent Friday afternoon.
The White House had not officially announced the appointment as of late Friday afternoon, and several leaders and a spokesman for Hogan Lovells did not respond to requests for comment.
Saturday, 22 July 2017
Attn Stephen Immelt I just called and left you a message perhaps you should have your friend Ty Cobb call me ASAP (902 800 0369)
https://twitter.com/DavidRayAmos/with_replies
David Raymond Amos @DavidRayAmos
Methinks the sneaky Yankee lawyer Ty Cobb should Google his name and mine if he wishes to review my many emails about him and Trump N'esy Pas?
Here is just one blog
http://davidraymondamos3.blogspot.com/2017/07/attn-stephen-imus-editor-at.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/former-white-house-lawyer-ty-cobb-calls-mueller-american-hero-n979331
Former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb calls Mueller 'American hero'
Cobb also disagreed with the president's assessment that the Russia investigation is a "witch hunt."
By Allan Smith
Ty Cobb, the White House attorney who served as President Donald Trump's lead counsel during the early stages of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe, called the former FBI director and federal prosecutor an "American hero" in an interview published Tuesday.
Speaking on ABC News' "The Investigation" podcast, Cobb also disagreed with the president's assessment that the Russian investigation is a “witch hunt.”
"I
think Bob Mueller's an American hero,” Cobb, who joined the White House
in the summer of 2017 and left in May 2018, said. "I think Bob
Mueller's a guy that, you know even though he came from an, arguably,
privileged background, you know, has a backbone of steel."
"I
think the world of Bob Mueller. He is a very deliberate guy. And but
he's also a class act. And a very justice-oriented person," Cobb added
"I don't feel the
investigation is a witch hunt," he said. “I wish it had happened on a
quicker timetable. But it didn't. And that's unfortunate. But at the
same time, it’s not a real criticism of the special counsel that on the
timing because there were a lot of surprises."
Shortly
after joining the White House in 2017, Cobb predicted in an interview
with Reuters that the investigation would be over by Thanksgiving of
that year.
"I’d
be embarrassed if this is still haunting the White House by
Thanksgiving, and worse if it's still haunting him by year end," Cobb
said, adding, "I think the relevant areas of inquiry by the special
counsel are narrow."
Cobb was replaced by Emmet Flood, who advised Bill Clinton during his impeachment proceedings.
NBC News reported at the time of his departure from the White House
that based on conversations with Cobb, he appeared largely in favor of
Trump granting an interview to Mueller under the right conditions —
which never did occur. He consistently encouraged the president and
legal team to cooperate fully with Mueller to bring about what Cobb had
hoped would be a swift end to the investigation.
In the
ABC News interview, Cobb said he believes Mueller has already revealed
most of his findings through sentencing memos and indictments against
defendants like former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who was
convicted of tax and bank fraud charges last year that were unrelated to
his 2016 work for the president, as well as a group of Russian hackers.
“But
it's never going to be over,” Cobb said. “I mean, this is going to go
through 2020. And if the president is re-elected, it'll go beyond that.”
---------- Original message ----------
From: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2017 15:06:58 -0400
Subject: Attn Robert Kelner and Robert Trout RE Rep. Elijah Cummings versus your clients
To: rkelner@cov.com, rtrout@troutcacheris.com
Cc: David Amos david.raymond.amos@gmail.com
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/ty-cobb-trump-russia-probe/2017/08/03/id/805706/
Trump Lawyer: No Reason to Think Trump's Under Investigation
"Ty Cobb, special counsel to the president, said he wasn't aware that
Mueller had started using a new grand jury.
"Grand jury matters are typically secret," Cobb said. "The White House
favors anything that accelerates the conclusion of his work fairly.
... The White House is committed to fully cooperating with Mr.
Mueller."
John Dowd, another lawyer for Trump, said in a statement to The
Associated Press, "With respect to the news of the federal grand jury,
I have no reason to believe that the president is under
investigation."
"Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said in a letter to businessman Bijan
Kian that he also wants Kian to produce documents relating to Flynn's
travels and ties to foreign businesses. Cummings said Kian told
military security clearance investigators in 2016 that Flynn had work
relationships with foreign businesses. But Cummings has said Flynn
failed to report those ties."
"Reached Thursday, Kian's attorney, Robert Trout, declined to comment
on the letter. Flynn attorney Robert Kelner also declined comment.
According to Cummings' letter, Flynn listed Kian in January 2016 as a
personal reference on his application for a renewed security
clearance, which would provide him with the ability to review
classified material even though he was no longer with the military. In
his interview with investigators, Kian said he had been friends with
Flynn since 2008 and he was aware of Flynn's business travels and
contacts".
http://www.troutcacheris.com/attorneys/robert-p-trout/
Robert P. Trout
1 202 464 3311
rtrout@troutcacheris.com
https://www.cov.com/en/professionals/k/robert-kelner
Robert K. Kelner
1 202 662 5503
rkelner@cov.com
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/13/bijan-kian-donald-trump-transition-aide-was-key-pl/
In this March 15, 2014, photo provided by Alfredo Flores, from left, Vice Admiral Michael Rogers; Paul Monteiro, vice chairman and co-Founder of Nowruz Commission; Bijan R. Kian and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn talk during the Fifth Annual Nowruz Commission Gala at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington. As Michael Flynn spent last fall campaigning as Donald Trump’s top national security adviser, Bijan Kian, his little-known business partner supervised much of the foreign political work for Turkish interests that has boomeranged back on Flynn, now the target of a federal criminal investigation and congressional inquiries. (Alfredo Flores via AP)
Trump transition aide was key player in Flynn’s Turkish work
By Stephen Braun and Chad Day - Associated Press - Tuesday, June 13, 2017
WASHINGTON (AP) — As Michael Flynn spent last fall campaigning as Donald Trump’s top national security adviser, his little-known business partner supervised much of the foreign political work for Turkish interests that has boomeranged back on Flynn, now the target of a federal criminal investigation and congressional inquiries.
Flynn’s partner, Bijan Kian, joined the former chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency on Trump’s national security transition team after the election. For Kian, who led most of Flynn Intel Group’s research and lobbying for a Turkish businessman, the Trump transition role offered influence in the selection of intelligence agency candidates and access to internal discussions of U.S. national security policy.
Flynn’s mishandling of his dealings with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. led to his firing by Trump from his post as national security adviser and is now a prime focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s wide-ranging investigation into Russian contacts with the Trump campaign. But inquiries spawned by Flynn Intel’s Turkish work pose added legal complications for both Flynn and his associates. Federal investigators are concentrating on possible criminal violations and a House oversight committee inquiry is examining Flynn’s records to determine whether he lied to federal officials about his foreign contacts and payments.
It is not clear whether Kian has been drawn into the expanding criminal probe, but he was deeply involved in Flynn Intel Group’s creation, financing and operations, according to the Turkish businessman, people familiar with Flynn’s company and records submitted to the Justice Department. And Kian’s participation in the Trump transition — following his management of work that Flynn Intel acknowledged may have benefited Turkey’s government — reinforces concerns about the adequacy of the administration’s vetting process.
A current Trump transition official said Monday night that Kian’s records did not show his foreign work for Flynn Intel or that he planned to file with the government as an agent for his work for a foreign interest. “He did not indicate that to us in his transition documents. We would have no reason to know,” said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss Kian’s role during the post-election period. Both Kian and Flynn filed in March as foreign agents for the Turkish firm.
Kian connected Flynn with his Turkish client, helped to negotiate their $600,000 contract and oversaw a documentary and an op-ed aimed at an opponent of Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said the client and several others who requested anonymity because of the ongoing criminal investigation. The client, Ekim Alptekin, also confirmed to The Associated Press that Kian worked for one of his Turkish companies at the same time he was working for Flynn Intel.
“Content-wise, it was Bijan handling the day-to-day details,” Alptekin told the AP during a recent interview in Washington.
An Iranian-American businessman whose full name is Bijan Rafiekian, Kian did not respond to repeated attempts over two months by the AP to contact him by phone, email and visits to properties listed for him in public records.
Alptekin told the AP he has not been contacted by federal authorities but has consulted with his U.S.-based legal team. “I’m very confident I engaged in a legal contract and was fully transparent from the beginning about what it entailed and what I was doing,” he said.
Flynn’s attorney, Robert Kelner, did not respond to detailed questions from the AP.
Kian’s interests repeatedly intersected with Flynn’s business ventures and political activities after Flynn, a former U.S. Army lieutenant general, left the government in 2014. Kian, a former director of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, shared Flynn’s strong public opposition to Iran’s theocratic government and a common interest in the development of secure communications systems.
Until Trump’s election, Flynn served with Kian on the board of GreenZone Systems Inc., a technology firm Kian headed until April. Flynn and Kian co-authored a 2015 op-ed about ISIS militants, and attended galas put on by the Nowruz Commission, a nonprofit run by Kian and his wife promoting the Iranian Nowruz holiday. Alptekin was named a board director of that group in 2011.
Soon after Flynn Intel ceased operations after Trump’s election, Flynn and Kian joined the president-elect’s transition team. Kian described his role on his LinkedIn profile as “deputy lead” assigned to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Kian said he provided “policy input, strategic guidance and operational counsel to prepare” candidates for the director of national intelligence, the CIA and other top officials.
Two former transition officials said Kian was clearly close with Flynn and served as the retired general’s sounding board. One official said Kian helped scrutinize then-Rep. Mike Pompeo before he was named Trump’s CIA director. Another official said Kian was involved in transition discussions for the National Security Council and the director of national intelligence. That official added that Kian did not expect to get an administration post. Both transition officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the transition’s work.
For the three months leading up to the election, Kian was Flynn Intel’s linchpin, lobbying and managing contractors in the Turkish work. Alptekin said Kian was the intermediary who brought Flynn’s firm together last summer with Alptekin’s Dutch-based company, Inovo BV. Kian was also the “main one” representing Flynn Intel in contract talks with him last fall, Alptekin said, adding Flynn “wasn’t involved at all” in the talks, though he signed the contract.
Inovo ended up paying Flynn Intel $530,000 for research and lobbying aimed at persuading authorities to file criminal charges against Fethullah Gulen, a political foe of Erdogan. Flynn Intel disclosed its contract and other details of its Turkish work last March to the Justice Department, which regulates lobbying and other political activities for foreign interests in the U.S. Flynn and Kian were the only individuals who personally registered as foreign agents for Inovo.
Kian and Alptekin had an existing business relationship when Flynn Intel began its foreign work. Alptekin confirmed Kian had been vice chairman of his Istanbul-based aviation company, EA Havacilik, since November 2011. Alptekin said he and Kian regularly strategized to build an aviation customer base.
Alptekin has denied that any of Inovo’s work was done at the direction of Turkey’s government, but he is a member of a foreign trade board managed by the country’s economic ministry.
Alptekin said he first met Kian during Kian’s stint on the Export-Import bank board for the Bush and Obama administrations between 2006 and 2011. Kian promoted U.S. business interests abroad for the bank, meeting officials in Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other nations, according to State Department cables released by WikiLeaks.
In his supervisory role for Flynn Intel, Kian was not always explicit about his ties to the firm, said several people who worked with him.
Kian led a lobbying meeting last October with a representative of the House Homeland Security committee on behalf of GreenZone’s secure communications products. But, as the AP previously reported , the session veered into a lobbying pitch for Flynn Intel, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the meeting. Kian and others involved pressed for congressional hearings to investigate Gulen but the request went nowhere, the official said. Kian never identified who he was working for, the official said.
Kian also recruited a freelance editor, Hank Cox, to fine-tune an opinion article in early November. The op-ed, praising Turkey’s government as America’s “strongest ally” against terrorism and pressing for Gulen’s extradition, listed no author, Cox said. After he edited the article, Cox said, he sent it back, listing Kian as the writer.
“I assumed since Bijan was the one who hired me, that he had written it,” said Cox.
Days later, Cox was baffled when he learned the op-ed had appeared under Flynn’s name.
“I was only vaguely aware of General Flynn at the time but I had no idea I was working for him or his company,” Cox said.
Flynn’s firm told the Justice Department that Flynn, Kian and Cox drafted the op-ed based on the firm’s research for Inovo. The firm said neither Inovo BV nor the Turkish government wrote or directed the op-ed, but Flynn Intel acknowledged it shared a draft with Inovo in advance of publication.
Flynn’s op-ed, published in The Hill newspaper on election day, drew scrutiny from the Justice Department’s foreign agent unit. Pressure from those officials forced Flynn and Kian to file as foreign agents and led in part to the federal investigation now targeting Flynn.
https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=1433812&privcapId=253063615
Hon. Bijan R. Kian serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of the GreenZone Sys, a telecommunications firm. Hon. Kian is a Senior Advisor for Gallup. He served as the Principal at Global Capital Markets. He also served as President of GLOBTEL. He formerly served as Vice President of Shearson Lehman/American Express and Senior Division Officer at Great American Savings Bank. He is a professional banker with over 17 years of experience ... in operations and management of financial institutions. With over three decades of experience in government, business, and academia, he has advised two President of the United States, members of Congress from both major parties, and has worked closely with senior leaders in the Department of State, Department of Defense, Department of Commerce, and the other government agencies and departments. In his role as a senior member of the administration, he represented the United States in meetings with heads of state and senior officials of foreign governments. He is known for his advocacy of effective strategies based on balanced strategies of security and prosperity, aimed at sustainability. His advocacy for exporting U.S. goods and services to Iraq helped re-open U.S. government export finance programs for the Republic of Iraq. With the same focus on Afghanistan, he worked closely with the Department of Defense, Department of State, Department of Treasury, USAID, Department of Commerce, and senior Afghan government officials, to develop strategies based on an Afghan funded, foreign-assisted modality of economic development for Afghanistan. Hon. Kian served as Chairman of National Asset Resources and Managing Director of Lenders Technology. He served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of iCelero. He serves as a Director of Z Advanced Computing, Inc. He served as a Director of Export-Import Bank of the United States from September 29, 2006 to June 2011. He was also on the board of the California Housing Finance Authority and a board member of a number of California companies, including Shearson/American Express and Great American First Savings Bank. He was first commissioned as a member of Wilson's Advisory Council on Economic Development. He served as a Director of White House Business Council since 2011. He was the first Iranian American to be appointed or elected to direct a statewide office in California. He served as Director of Foreign Investment for the State of California, where he led California's attraction, retention, and expansion of its $92 billion portfolio of foreign investment and California's international trade and investment offices in Europe, Asia, The Americas, and Africa. He was previously an adjunct professor and lecturer in Finance at California State University, Fullerton and was director of the California Center for Commercial Diplomacy at California State University, Dominguez Hills. He served two United States President from both major parties and was confirmed twice by the Senate of The United States. He is recognized around the world as a senior commercial diplomat, with a proven track record of success in the Middle East, Central Asia, The Caucasus, and Russia. He is a Fellow at Royal Society of Arts in the United Kingdom and a 2009 recipient of Ellis Island Medal of Honor. He is a Senior Fellow for Global Public Policy at the United States Naval Postgraduate School. Hon. Kian was educated at the Tehran Industrial College and holds a Graduate and Post Graduate degree in Management and Economics from Brighton University, Sussex, England. He has continued his education at Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Oxford University.
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Phone: 301-294-0434
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2017 08:48:22 -0400
Subject: Attn Stephen Immelt I just called and left you a message
perhaps you should have your friend Ty Cobb call me ASAP (902 800
0369)
To: stephen.immelt@hoganlovells.com, A.Buncombe@independent.co.uk,
mdcohen212@gmail.com, djtjr@trumporg.com
Cc: david.raymond.amos@gmail.com
https://www.hoganlovells.com/stephen-immelt
Stephen J. Immelt CEO
Washington, D.C.
Email stephen.immelt@hoganlovells.com
Phone +1 202 637 3660
https://twitter.com/DavidRayAmos/with_replies
http://davidraymondamos3.blogspot.ca/2017/07/attn-stephen-imus-editor-at.html
---------- Original message ----------
From: "Murphy, Steve" Steve.Murphy@bellmedia.ca
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2017 14:40:59 +0000
Subject: Automatic reply: Attn Stephen Immelt I just called and left you a message perhaps you should have your friend Ty Cobb call me ASAP (902 800 0369)
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Steve Murphy is away from the newsroom until July 24, 2017 but will be pleased to respond to your e-mail then. In the meantime, if you wish to contact CTV News please e-mail atlanticnews@bellmedia.ca or call (902) 454-3200.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1azdNWbF3A
Me,Myself and I
---------- Original message ----------
From: "Finance Public / Finance Publique (FIN)"
fin.financepublic-financepublique.fin@canada.ca
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2017 14:42:18 +0000
Subject: Automatic reply: Attn Stephen Immelt I just called and left you a message perhaps you should have your friend Ty Cobb call me ASAP (902 800 0369)
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
?The Department of Finance acknowledges receipt of your electronic correspondence. Please be assured that we appreciate receiving your comments.
Le minist?re des Finances accuse r?ception de votre correspondance ?lectronique. Soyez assur?(e) que nous appr?cions recevoir vos commentaires.
---------- Original message ----------
From: "Turnbull, Malcolm (MP)" Malcolm.Turnbull.MP@aph.gov.au
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2017 14:41:21 +0000
Subject: Automatic reply: Attn Stephen Immelt I just called and left you a message perhaps you should have your friend Ty Cobb call me ASAP (902 800 0369)
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
***Please be advised that this email address is no longer in use***
Thank you for taking the time to write to me. Feedback from the people we represent is always extremely valuable for members of parliament, and especially valuable to me as Prime Minister.
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If you are a Wentworth constituent, please make us aware of this and my electorate office team in Edgecliff will be in touch.
Regards,
Malcolm Turnbull
Prime Minister
---------- Original message ----------
From: PmInvites PmInvites@pmc.gov.au
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2017 14:43:18 +0000
Subject: PM Invites
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Thank you for your invitation/meeting request to the Prime Minister, the Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP.
Your invitation will be considered in light of the Prime Minister's existing commitments.
We will be in touch with you as soon as possible to formally advise the progress of your invitation/meeting request.
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---------- Original message ----------
From: "B English (MIN)" B.English@ministers.govt.nz
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2017 14:41:10 +0000
Subject: Automated response from the office of Hon Bill English
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Thank you for your email to the Prime Minister.
This is an automated response.
Please be assured that any matters you raise in your email will be noted; however, not all messages will receive an individual response.
Yours sincerely
The Office of the Prime Minister
---------- Original message ----------
From: Póstur FOR postur@for.is
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2017 14:43:23 +0000
Subject: Re: Attn Stephen Immelt I just called and left you a message perhaps you should have your friend Ty Cobb call me ASAP (902 800 0369)
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Erindi þitt hefur verið móttekið / Your request has been received
Kveðja / Best regards
Forsætisráðuneytið / Prime Minister's Office
---------- Original message ----------
From: "Eby.MLA, David" David.Eby.MLA@leg.bc.ca
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2017 15:11:07 +0000
Subject: Automatic reply: Attn Stephen Immelt I just called and left you a message perhaps you should have your friend Ty Cobb call me ASAP (902 800 0369)
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Thank you for contacting my Community Office.
This automated response is to assure you that your message has been received by my office and will be reviewed as soon as possible. Please note that constituents of Vancouver-Point Grey have priority. Please be sure to respond back and include your home address or postal code to confirm you are a resident of Vancouver-Point Grey.
If you are not a local resident, please contact your MLA's office for assistance. To find out which MLA represents your neighbourhood, you can enter your postal code here to get their contact information: https://www.leg.bc.ca/learn-about-us/members
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Thanks again for writing,
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---------- Original message ----------
From: "Office, Press" Press@bankofengland.co.uk
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2017 14:50:51 +0000
Subject: Automatic reply: Attn Stephen Immelt I just called and left you a message perhaps you should have your friend Ty Cobb call me ASAP (902 800 0369)
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
The Press Office mailbox is monitored from 08:30-18:00, Monday to Friday. Emails received outside of these hours will not be responded to until the next working day.
If your message is urgent, please ring 020 7601 4411 and you will be connected to the duty Press Officer.
Thanks
---------- Original message ----------
From: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2017 08:48:22 -0400
Subject: Attn Stephen Immelt I just called and left you a message perhaps you should have your friend Ty Cobb call me ASAP (902 800 0369)
To: stephen.immelt@hoganlovells.com, A.Buncombe@independent.co.uk, mdcohen212@gmail.com, djtjr@trumporg.com
Cc: David Amos david.raymond.amos@gmail.com
https://www.hoganlovells.com/stephen-immelt
Stephen J. Immelt CEO
Washington, D.C.
Email stephen.immelt@hoganlovells.com
Phone +1 202 637 3660
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ty-cobb-trump-lawyer-who-is-he-career-jobs-clients-corruption-life-explained-a7846086.html
Who is Ty Cobb? The top corruption lawyer just hired by Donald Trump
The experienced lawyer - with a controversial sporting relative - will be working as a White House employee
Mr Cobb has much experience defending white collar and corruption suspects Getty
The White House has hired a highly experienced lawyer who who has spent much of his career defending corruption cases and white-collar crime, to be in house counsel for Russia-related matters.
Ty Tobb, a close descendent of a celebrated but controversial baseball player, has left his job with the Washington DC law firm Hogan Lovells. Unlike the slew of other outside lawyers retained by either the White House or by Donald Trump personally, Mr Cobb will work from inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The decision to hire Mr Cobb came as administration officials seek someone to enforce discipline in the White House regarding Russia matters, including the President, who frequently vents his frustrations about the investigations on Twitter, according to Bloomberg News. And it has taken place amid fresh controversy about possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, after Mr Trump’s eldest son admitted he had met with a Russian lawyer after he was told she had incriminating information for him on Hillary Clinton.
Who is Ty Cobb?
Mr Cobb, a partner at Hogan Lovells, has a reputation as a no-nonsense, expensive, white collar criminal lawyer who has specialised in corruption and money laundering cases. A fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, Mr Cobb graduated from Harvard University and earned a law degree from Georgetown.
CNN said in the past Mr Cobb successfully defended beef processor Hudson Foods against charges that company officials lied to investigators after a massive recall of meat contaminated with E coli. The officials were acquitted of all charges.
He also defended Democratic Party fundraiser John Huang against charges of violating campaign finance laws, to which Huang ultimately pleaded guilty in 1999. In 2005, Mr Cobb defended CIA whistleblower Mary McCarthy, who was accused of leaking information to the Washington Post about CIA “black sites”. She was dismissed but Mr Cobb said she “categorically denied leaking classified information and having access to the information attributed to her”.
“Ty is a preeminent white collar defence lawyer who is celebrated for his ability to give creative and strategic advice, for his tireless work ethic, and for his unwavering commitment to the highest standards of professionalism and the rule of law,” said Hogan Lovells CEO Stephen Immelt.
What will he do?
Reports suggest Mr Cobb will act as the “traffic cop” and enforcer in the White House’s legal team handling the Russia controversy.
In recent days, there have been reports that Mr Trump’s outside legal team, headed by New York lawyer Marc Kasowitz, were becoming increasingly frustrated by the President’s lack of discipline - especially in regard to his remarks about his case on Twitter. (Mr Trump in turn is said to have become frustrated by Mr Kasowitz and his allegedly lukewarm defence of him and his top officials.)
Bloomberg said Mr Cobb will be the central figure in the coordinated actions from now on - a move that may have had its genesis in the desire of Mr Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, to set up a White House’s Russia war room, similar to that which operated in Bill Clinton’s White House when he the target of a special prosecutor, Kenneth Starr.)
“Mr Cobb, a long-time leader at Hogan Lovells, has been widely recognised as one of the premier white collar, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement, and congressional investigations lawyers in the world. Clients managing crises, allegations of corruption, and other critical matters turn to Ty to guide them,” reads the bio on the Hogan Lovells website.
Famous sporting connection
Cobb is said to have set at least 90 baseball records (Library of Congress)
Cobb was among a handful of players to be inducted into the first Hall of Fame, beating the likes of even Babe Ruth in popular votes. His reputation has been since tarnished by allegations of racism and violent behaviour, claims that others dispute. While Mr Cobb, the lawyer, says he is a distant relative of the sportsman, others have suggested he is one of his grandsons. Hogan Lovells failed to respond to inquiries.
Why is his appointment as White House counsel so important?
Donald Trump Jr on Fox News last week talking about his meeting with a Russian lawyer (AP)
Yet last’s weeks admission by Donald Trump Jr that he met with lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, in the expectation that he was to receive dirt on Hillary Clinton, has led many former Trump supporters to question just what really happened.
As figures such as Vice President Mike Pence seek to distance themselves from the meeting, which was also attended by Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, there are mounting calls for transparency. Fox News anchor Shep Smith summed how many conservatives are feeling, when he said on air: “The deception…is mind-boggling...why are we getting told all these lies?”
Everyone from the President down has retained their own lawyer, with Mr Trump Jr last week hiring Alan Futerfas to represent him.
They have done so while special prosecutor Robert Mueller is heading a federal probe into possible collusion with Russia’s alleged effort to influence the 2016 election. The decision to reach out to someone with such high-level experience as Mr Cobb may mean that Mr Trump - or at least those advisors he listens to - are finally understanding the scale of the problem the administration faces.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2017 08:15:19 -0400
Subject: Fwd: RE FATCA, NAFTA & TPP etc ATTN President Donald J. Trump
I just got off the phone with your lawyer Mr Cohen (646-853-0114) Why
does he lie to me after all this time???
To: currentyashar@gmail.com, lionel@lionelmedia.com,
elizabeththompson@ipolitics.ca
Cc: David Amos david.raymond.amos@gmail.com
https://twitter.com/yashar
https://www.facebook.com/pg/CurrentYashar/about/
http://davidraymondamos3.blogspot.ca/2017/06/re-us-special-counsels-and.html
---------- Original message ----------
From: "Finance Public / Finance Publique (FIN)"
fin.financepublic-financepublique.fin@canada.ca
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2017 02:13:22 +0000
Subject: RE: Many years ago Robert S Mueller III and his evil cohorts
were in charge of Extraordinary Renditions and even tried to pull that
malice on me after I won some judgements in the USA
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
The Department of Finance acknowledges receipt of your electronic
correspondence. Please be assured that we appreciate receiving your
comments.
Le ministère des Finances accuse réception de votre correspondance
électronique. Soyez assuré(e) que nous apprécions recevoir vos
commentaires.
---------- Original message ----------
From: "Mueller III, Robert S." Robert.Mueller@wilmerhale.com
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2017 21:44:39 +0000
Subject: Automatic reply: RE US Special Counsels and Whistleblowing
etc I just called all three of you fellas and some of Evil Mr
Meuller's friends as well
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
I am no longer with WilmerHale. Please contact Amy Szydlo on
212-230-8842 if you need assistance.
---------- Original message ----------
From: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2017 18:53:50 -0400
Subject: RE Trump and the Taxman Attn Brian Bixby and Mark Corallo 703
838 9705 l just called and left a voicemail say Hoka Hey to Trump,
Dowd, McCain, Ashcroft, Sullivan and Meuller and all the rest for for
me willya?
To: info@corallomediastrategies.com, msullivan@ashcroftlawfirm.com,
bleske@ashcroftlawfirm.com, abarry@ashcroftlawfirm.com,
sgoodnight@tagholdings.com, tory.newmyer@washpost.com,
lionel@lionelmedia.com, mdcohen212@gmail.com,
press@bankofengland.co.uk, Andrew.Bailey@fca.org.uk,
theresa.may.mp@parliament.uk, boris.johnson.mp@parliament.uk,
fin.financepublic-financepublique.fin@canada.ca,
Liliana.Longo@rcmp-grc.gc.ca, bob.paulson@rcmp-grc.gc.ca,
jan.jensen@justice.gc.ca
Cc: david.raymond.amos@gmail.com, Complaints@tigta.treas.gov,
j.Russell.George@tigta.treas.gov, mark.vespucci@ci.irs.gov,
dean.buzza@rcmp-grc.gc.ca, Diane.Lebouthillier@cra-arc.gc.ca,
Pierre-Luc.Dusseault@parl.gc.ca, Bill.Morneau@canada.ca,
MulcaT@parl.gc.ca, Gerald.Butts@pmo-cpm.gc.ca, postur@for.is,
birgittaj@althingi.is, andrew.scheer@parl.gc.ca,
maxime.bernier@parl.gc.ca, leader@greenparty.ca,
bbachrach@bachrachlaw.net, bbixby@burnslev.com
http://qslspolitics.blogspot.ca/2008/06/5-years-waiting-on-bank-fraud-payout.html
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 10:51:14 -0400
Subject: RE FATCA, NAFTA & TPP etc ATTN President Donald J. Trump I
just got off the phone with your lawyer Mr Cohen (646-853-0114) Why
does he lie to me after all this time???
To: president@whitehouse.gov, mdcohen212@gmail.com, pm@pm.gc.ca,
Pierre-Luc.Dusseault@parl.gc.ca, MulcaT@parl.gc.ca,
Jean-Yves.Duclos@parl.gc.ca, B.English@ministers.govt.nz, Malcolm.Turnbull.MP@aph.gov.au, pminvites@pmc.gov.au, mayt@parliament.uk, press@bankofengland.co.uk, Andrew.Bailey@fca.org.uk,
fin.financepublic-financepublique.fin@canada.ca, newsroom@globeandmail.ca,
CNN.Viewer.Communications.Management@cnn.com,
news-tips@nytimes.com, lionel@lionelmedia.com
Cc: david.raymond.amos@gmail.com, elizabeth.thompson@cbc.ca, justin.ling@vice.com, elizabeththompson@ipolitics.ca,djtjr@trumporg.com,
Bill.Morneau@canada.ca, postur@for.is, stephen.kimber@ukings.ca, steve.murphy@ctv.ca, Jacques.Poitras@cbc.ca, oldmaison@yahoo.com, andre@jafaust.com
---------- Original message ----------
From: Michael Cohen mcohen@trumporg.com
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 14:15:14 +0000
Subject: Automatic reply: RE FATCA ATTN Pierre-Luc.Dusseault I just
called and left a message for you
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Effective January 20, 2017, I have accepted the role as personal
counsel to President Donald J. Trump. All future emails should be
directed to mdcohen212@gmail.com and all future calls should be
directed to 646-853-0114.
________________________________
This communication is from The Trump Organization or an affiliate
thereof and is not sent on behalf of any other individual or entity.
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---------- Original message ----------
From: "Finance Public / Finance Publique (FIN)"
fin.financepublic-financepublique.fin@canada.ca
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2017 22:05:00 +0000
Subject: RE: Yo President Trump RE the Federal Court of Canada File No
T-1557-15 lets see how the media people do with news that is NOT FAKE
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
The Department of Finance acknowledges receipt of your electronic
correspondence. Please be assured that we appreciate receiving your
comments.
Le ministère des Finances accuse réception de votre correspondance
électronique. Soyez assuré(e) que nous apprécions recevoir vos
commentaires.
---------- Original message ----------
From: "Joly, Mélanie (PCH)" hon.melanie.joly@canada.ca
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 14:16:17 +0000
Subject: Accusé de réception / Acknowledge Receipt
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Merci d'avoir écrit à l'honorable Mélanie Joly, ministre du Patrimoine canadien.
La ministre est toujours heureuse de prendre connaissance des
commentaires de Canadiens sur des questions d'importance pour eux.
Votre courriel sera lu avec soin.
Si votre courriel porte sur une demande de rencontre ou une invitation
à une activité particulière, nous tenons à vous assurer que votre
demande a été notée et qu'elle recevra toute l'attention voulue.
**********************
Thank you for writing to the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of
Canadian Heritage.
The Minister is always pleased to hear the comments of Canadians on
subjects of importance to them. Your email will be read with care.
If your email relates to a meeting request or an invitation to a
specific event, please be assured that your request has been noted and
will be given every consideration.
---------- Original message ----------
From: "Hancox, Rick (FCNB)" rick.hancox@fcnb.ca
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 14:15:22 +0000
Subject: Automatic reply: RE FATCA ATTN Pierre-Luc.Dusseault I just
called and left a message for you
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
G'Day/Bonjour,
Thanks for your e-mail. I am out of the office until 24 February. If
you need more immediate assistance, please contact France Bouchard at
506 658-2696.
Je serai absent du bureau jusqu'au 24 fevrier Durant mon absence,
veuillez contacter France Bouchard au 506 658-2696 pour assistance
immédiate.
Thanks/Merci Rick
---------- Original message ----------
From: "B English (MIN)" B.English@ministers.govt.nz
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2017 04:46:16 +0000
Subject: Automated response from the office of Hon Bill English
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Thank you for your email to the Prime Minister.
This is an automated response.
Please be assured that any matters you raise in your email will be
noted; however, not all messages will receive an individual response.
Yours sincerely
The Office of the Prime Minister
---------- Original message ----------
From: Jean-Yves.Duclos@parl.gc.ca
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2017 15:48:00 +0000
Subject: Merci / Thank you
To: motomaniac333@gmail.com
Bonjour,
Nous vous remercions d'avoir communiqué avec le bureau de Jean-Yves
Duclos, député de Québec et Ministre de la Famille, des Enfants et du
Développement social.
Ce courriel confirme la réception de votre correspondance.
Veuillez prendre note que votre demande sera traitée dans les meilleurs délais.
Salutations distinguées,
Bureau de circonscription de Jean-Yves Duclos
Hello,
Thank you for contacting the office of Jean-Yves Duclos, M.P for
Québec and Minister of Families, Children and Social Development.
This email confirms the receipt of your message.
Please note that your request will be processed as soon as possible.
With our best regards,
The riding office of Jean-Yves Duclos
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2015 20:44:27 -0400
Subject: Fwd: Hey Elizabeth Tompson RE your concrens about the PCO and
the TPP We talked once again yesterday and as usual you were too busy
to listen to me but I also called many of your associates in the
Parliamentry Press Galllery and some did listen to me Correct?
To: gerry@marinerpartners.com, Stephen.Horsman@gnb.ca, customerservice@schiffradio.com, curtis@marinerpartners.com,
rick.hancox@nbsc-cvmnb.ca, rjgillis@gmglaw.com, rgfaloon@gmglaw.com,
sally.gomery@nortonrosefulbright.com, ahamilton@casselsbrock.com,
bruce.northrup@gnb.ca, bruce@brucehyer.ca, bruce.fitch@gnb.ca
Cc: David Amos david.raymond.amos@gmail.com
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Date: Sat, 24 Oct 2015 10:13:15 -0400
Subject: Hey Elizabeth Tompson RE your concerns about the PCO and the
TPP We talked once again yesterday and as usual you were too busy to
listen to me but I also called many of your associates in the
Parliamentry Press Galllery and some did listen to me Correct?
To: elizabeththompson@ipolitics.ca, david@openmedia.org, pm@pm.gc.ca, justin.trudeau.a1@parl.gc.ca, justin.ling@vice.com, rob.moore.a1@parl.gc.ca, jesse@jessebrown.ca, thomas.mulcair.a1@parl.gc.ca, leader@greenparty.ca, Jacques.Poitras@cbc.ca, editor@canadalandshow.com, editor@thetyee.ca, editor@frankmagazine.ca, peacock.kurt@telegraphjournal.com, news@kingscorecord.com, nbmilk@nbmilk.org, weekesj@bennettjones.com,
mclellana@bennettjones.com, votefast2015@gmail.com,
info@karenmccrimmon.ca, info@marthahallfindlay.ca
Cc: david.raymond.amos@gmail.com, ed.fast@parl.gc.ca, asiskind@newscorp.com, Rupert.Murdoch@fox.com,
shipshore44@gmail.com, investor@newscorp.com,
Claude.J.G.Levesque@inspection.gc.ca, maryann4peace@gmail.com, grant.mccool@thomsonreuters.com, newsroom@theguardian.pe.ca, Bob.Kerr@cbc.ca, Susan.J.Collins@bhpbilliton.com, J.Key@ministers.govt.nz,
bruce.northrup@gnb.ca, Andrew.Robb.MP@aph.gov.au, gopublic@cbc.ca, marylou.babineau@greenparty.ca, policy.karenforcanada@gmail.com,
ritzg@parl.gc.ca, ritzg@sasktel.net, mgeist@uottawa.ca, birgittaj@althingi.is,
birgittajoy@gmail.com
Here is a little proof to support what I said on the phone.
A debate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cFOKT6TlSE
and a lawsuit
https://www.scribd.com/doc/281544801/Federal-Court-Seal
https://www.scribd.com/doc/281442628/Me-Versus-the-Crown
FYI During my debates in Fundy Royal I made certain that Rob Moore
and his boss Harper and the Libranos knew within the emails found
below that I was not talking through my hat with reference to the TPP
false promises dairy farmers and my concerns about the Internet
As you journalists well know I made good on my promise to sue the
CROWN while running for a seat in Parliament one last time. As usual
CBC and most of the other very unethical "journlists" ignored the
obvious except Rogers TV and the local reporters employed by the
Irving billionaires
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yx8twtlgp4
Clearly Jesse Brown and his buddy Mean Mikey Geist were yapping about
the TPP before you revealed the PCO's point of view about Harper's
false promise. More importantly to Mean Old Me both those very snobby
and very unethical Upper Canadian spin doctors well aware I knew the
very sneaky Julian Assange long BEFORE he and Birgitta Jonsdotir made
Wikileaks. Hell I have been dicing with the bast Geist for over ten
years since he stuck his nose in Byron Prior's matters (Another matter
no journalist will report about) Anyone can scroll down or just Google
"Michael Geist" "David Amos" or "Julian Assange" "David Amos" to see
the proof of what I say is true.
http://canadalandshow.com/podcast/tpp-spying-blocking-and-internet
Katie Jensen • October 12, 2015
Show notes:
University of Ottawa's Michael Geist breaks down the TPP
(Trans-Pacific Partnership), a proposed trade agreement that Stephen
Harper has been toiling over in secret for the last five years - an
agreement that will have huge impacts on Canada's internet freedom and
copyright issues.
Michael Geist's Twitter: @mgeist
I am a law professor at the University of Ottawa where I hold the
Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law. My current
contact information is included below:
Address: University of Ottawa
Faculty of Law
Common Law Section
57 Louis Pasteur
Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5
Canada
Phone: (613) 562-5800 extension 3319
Fax: 613-562-5124
E-mail: mgeist@uottawa.ca
Full text of the TPP leak
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/10/13/pm-lacks-authority-for-promised-4-3b-tpp-farm-compensation-pco-admits/
Harper lacks authorities for promised $4.3B TPP farm compensation, PCO admits
By Elizabeth Thompson | Oct 13, 2015 4:20 am | 1 comment |
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-privy-council-office-transition-government-1.3269132
Privy Council Office tracks party promises to prepare for government transition
Senior public servants log and analyze every election promise on a
daily basis to prep briefing books
By Dean Beeby, CBC News Posted: Oct 14, 2015 5:00 AM ET|
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-trans-pacific-partnership-liberals-pco-1.3273342
Liberals, NDP decline PCO offer of confidential briefing on TPP trade deal
Offer to view trade deal just before election rejected as 'political ploy'
CBC News Posted: Oct 15, 2015 5:11 PM ET|
"Mulcair said Trade Minister Ed Fast broke a promise to make all
details of the accord public ahead of election day.
"Instead of openness and transparency, Canadians are learning details
through leaked information and the government's own self-serving
promotional efforts. That's not acceptable," Mulcair said.
The Privy Council Office is the department that provides non-partisan
support to the prime minister and cabinet. The Conservative campaign
told CBC News the government asked the PCO to offer the briefing to
the opposition parties.
But in a separate letter released Thursday, Liberal candidate John
McCallum accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of continuing a "lack
of transparency" over the deal's details.
"Despite a commitment by the minister of international trade, Mr. Ed
Fast, to release the text of the agreement so all Canadians can judge
it on its merits before election day, media reports this week state
that the details will remain secret," McCallum wrote.
"It is troubling that with just four days remaining until election
day, you continue to refuse to release the text of the agreement for
Canadians to see."
McCallum noted that a previous briefing attended by party
representatives on Oct. 4 "provided no actual details beyond the
limited information already released publicly."
"It is simply not possible to conduct a meaningful, in-depth analysis
of the 1,500-plus page agreement in 90 minutes," he wrote.
I am included in briefing. I was only leader to participate in the 1st
#TPP briefing. #GPC #elxn42 @CanadianGreens @Politicolnews @PnPCBC
— @ElizabethMay
Conservative campaign spokesman Kory Teneycke told CBC News the
Liberals initially agreed to attend the Friday briefing, while the NDP
declined. Teneycke said the briefing was to be based on the chapter
summaries, since the final text does not exist yet.
A Liberal campaign spokesman referred CBC News to McCallum's letter,
but said any suggestion the party had accepted the offer of the
briefing was false."
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Robb, Andrew (MP)" Andrew.Robb.MP@aph.gov.au
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2015 03:51:41 +0000
Subject: Automatic reply: RE TPP Trust that LOTS of Farmers in New
Brunswick and many Yankees, Icelanders and New Zealanders know exactly
who I am EH John Key. Birgitta Jonsdottir, Wayne Easter and Rob
Nicholson?
To: David Amos
Thank you for taking the time to contact me.
This is an automatically generated reply so that you know that your
email has arrived.
As you will appreciate given the large number of emails received each
day, a reply cannot be sent immediately, nor can a reply be sent to
every email received.
I will however read your correspondence.
I prioritise emails from my constituents and those relating to my
trade, investment and tourism portfolio.
If your email relates to my responsibilities as Minister for Trade and
Investment, I will consider your correspondence and respond if
appropriate.
If your email is part of an automatically generated campaign, I will
note your views.
For those interested, there is a significant amount of useful facts
regarding the China FTA and Trans Pacific Partnership on my
Department’s website:
http://dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/chafta/Pages/australia-china-fta.aspx
and
http://dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/tpp/Pages/trans-pacific-partnership-agreement-tpp.aspx
In the meantime, you may be interested in completing my community
survey by clicking
here. You
may also be interested in visiting my
website,
Facebook,
Twitter, or
YouTube pages.
Yours sincerely,
ANDREW ROBB
Minister for Trade & Investment
Federal Member for Goldstein
E: andrew.robb.mp@aph.gov.au
Electorate Office
368 Centre Road, Bentleigh VIC 3204
P 03 9557 4644 F 03 9557 2906
Parliament House
Suite M1-22
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
P (02) 6277 7420 F (02) 6273 4128
W: www.andrewrobb.com.au
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2015 23:47:53 -0400
Subject: Fwd: RE TPP Trust that LOTS of Farmers in New Brunswick and
many Yankees, Icelanders and New Zealanders know exactly who I am EH
John Key. Birgitta Jonsdottir, Wayne Easter and Rob Nicholson?
To: t.groser@ministers.govt.nz, m.mccully@ministers.govt.nz,
t.mcclay@ministers.govt.nz, reception@liberal.pe.ca, birgittaj@althingi.is, jamie_macphail@hotmail.com, nichor@parl.gc.ca, MMcalvanah@ustr.eop.gov,
Andrew.Robb.MP@aph.gov.au, peter.mackay@justice.gc.ca, rob.moore.a1@parl.gc.ca
Cc: David Amos david.raymond.amos@gmail.com,
sally.gomery@nortonrosefulbright.com, correspondence@ustr.eop.gov,
Timothy_Reif@ustr.eop.gov, Michael_Froman@ustr.eop.gov,
public.div@asean.org, sflynn@wcl.american.edu
https://www.whitehouse.gov/open/around/eop/ustr
https://ustr.gov/about-us/biographies-key-officials/timothy-reif-general-counsel
http://www.international.gc.ca/media/aff/photos/2012/07/16b.aspx?lang=eng
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/feds-fail-to-have-henk-tepper-court-case-tossed-1.2638251
http://thedavidamosrant.blogspot.ca/2013/10/re-glen-greenwald-and-brazilian.html
http://infojustice.org/archives/34482
http://www.liberal.ca/candidates/wayne-easter/
Riding President
Jamie MacPhail
jamie_macphail@hotmail.com
reception@liberal.pe.ca
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "J Key (MIN)" J.Key@ministers.govt.nz
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2015 01:38:56 +0000
Subject: Thank you for your email
To: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
On behalf of the Prime Minister, Rt Hon John Key, thank you for your email.
Please note that although email increases the speed of delivery, it
may not be possible to provide you with the rapid response users of
email may anticipate.
The fact that you have taken the time to write is appreciated. You
can be assured that your views will be noted.
Yours sincerely
The Office of the Prime Minister
________________________________
---------- Original message ----------
From: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2015 21:38:42 -0400
Subject: RE TPP Trust that LOTS of Dairy Farmers in New Brunswick and
many Yankee, Icelanders and New Zealanders know exactly who I am EH
John Key. Birgitta Jonsdottir, Wayne Easter and Rob Nicholson?
To: J.Key@ministers.govt.nz
Cc: David Amos david.raymond.amos@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/birgitta.jonsdottir.english
Birgitta Jonsdottir
September 23 at 10:52am ·
Transparency Tim: show us the text
The TPP Internet Censorship Plan is coming
We need you to tell your Trade Minister today: don't let the
Trans-Pacific Partnership destroy our laws and censor the Internet.
stopthesecrecy.net
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Paul Billingham, Marianne Hoynes, Birgitta Jonsdottir and 36
others like this.
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Comments
Gary Bonn
Gary Bonn Thank you Birgitta Jonsdottir
1 · September 24 at 5:30am
http://thedavidamosrant.blogspot.ca/2014/05/yo-birgitta-who-is-more-of-crook-julian.html
From: Birgitta Jonsdottir
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 07:14:02 +0000
Subject: Re: Bon Soir Birgitta according to my records this is the
first email I ever sent you
To: David Amos
dear Dave
i have got your email and will read through the links as soon as i
find some time keep up the good fight in the meantime
thank you for bearing with me
i am literary drowning in requests to look into all sorts of matters
and at the same time working 150% work at the parliament and
the creation of a political movement and being a responsible parent:)
plus all the matters in relation to immi
with oceans of joy
birgitta
Better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are
not.
Andre Gide
Birgitta Jonsdottir
Birkimelur 8, 107 Reykjavik, Iceland, tel: 354 692 8884
http://this.is/birgitta – http://joyb.blogspot.com -
http://www.facebook.com/birgitta.jonsdottir
>>> From: "Julian Assange)" editor@wikileaks.org
>>> To: david.raymond.amos@gmail.com
>>> Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2010 3:15 PM
>>> Subject: Al Jazeera on Iceland's plan for a press safe haven
>>>
>>> FYI: Al-Jazeera's take on Iceland's proposed media safe haven
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbGiPjIE1pE
>>>
>>> More info http://immi.is/
>>>
>>> Julian Assange Editor WikiLeaks http://wikileaks.org/
>>>
>>> From: "David Amos" david.raymond.amos@gmail.com
>>> To: "Julian Assange)" editor@wikileaks.org
>>> Cc: "Dan Fitzgerald" danf@danf.net; "Byrne. G" Byrne.G@parl.gc.ca
>>> Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2010 8:35 PM
>>> Subject: Re: Al Jazeera on Iceland's new plan Thanx Here is
>>> something
>>> about Iceland and Banksters Al Jazeera would enjoy
>>>
>>> Checkout this old pdf file from 2005 at about page two or three
>>>
>>> http://www.scribd.com/doc/4304560/Speaker-Iceland-etc
>>>
>>> Then read on and chuckle
>>>
>>> From: postur@fjr.stjr.is
>>> Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009
>>> Subject: Re: RE: Iceland and Bankers etc I must ask the obvious
>>> question. Why have you people ignored me for three years?
>>> To: David Amos david.raymond.amos@gmail.com
>>>
>>> Dear David Amos
>>>
>>> Unfortunately there has been a considerable delay in responding to
>>> incoming letters due to heavy workload and many inquiries to our
>>> office.
>>>
>>> We appreciate the issue raised in your letter. We have set up a web
>>> site www.iceland.org where we have gathered various practical
>>> information regarding the economic crisis in Iceland.
>>>
>>> Greetings from the Ministry of Finance.
>>>
>>> Tilvísun í mál: FJR08100024
>>>
>>> From: postur@for.stjr.is
>>> Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008
>>> Subject: Regarding your enquiry to the Prime Ministry of Iceland
>>> To: David Amos david.raymond.amos@gmail.com
>>>
>>> David Raymond Amos
>>>
>>> Your enquiry has been received by the Prime Ministry of Iceland and
>>> waits attendance.
>>>
>>> Thank you.
>>>
>>> From: David Amos david.raymond.amos@gmail.com
>>> Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008
>>> Subject: I just called to remind the Speaker, the Bankers and the
>>> Icelanders that I still exist EH Mrs Mrechant, Bob Rae and Iggy?
>>> To: Milliken.P@parl.gc.ca, sjs@althingi.is, emb.ottawa@mfa.is,
>>> rmellish@pattersonlaw.ca, irisbirgisdottir@yahoo.ca,
>>> marie@mariemorneau.com, dfranklin@franklinlegal.com,
>>> egilla@althingi.is, william.turner@exsultate.ca
>>> Cc: Rae.B@parl.gc.ca, Ignatieff.M@parl.gc.ca, lebrem@sen.parl.gc.ca,
>>> merchp@sen.parl.gc.ca, coolsa@sen.parl.gc.ca, olived@sen.parl.gc.ca
>>>
>>> All of you should review the documents and CD that came with this
>>> letter ASAP EH?
>>>
>>> http://www.scribd.com/doc/2718120/Integrity-Yea-Right
>>>
>>> http://www.scribd.com/doc/4304560/Speaker-Iceland-etc
>>>
>>> http://www.scribd.com/doc/5352095/Tony-Merchant-and-Yankees
>>>
>>> Perhaps Geir Haarde and Steingrimur Sigfusson should call me back
>>>
>>> Veritas Vincit
>>> David Raymond Amos
>>>
>>> The Reykjavík Grapevine
>>> Hafnarstræti 15
>>> 101 Reykjavík
>>> Iceland
>>> grapevine@grapevine.is
>>> +354-540-3600
>>
>>
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2015 21:21:42 -0400
Subject: FWD LOTS of Dairy Farmers in New Brunswick know exactly who I
am ask Wayne Easter why EH Rob Moore?
To: nbmilk@nbmilk.org, weekesj@bennettjones.com,
mclellana@bennettjones.com, votefast2015@gmail.com,
info@karenmccrimmon.ca, info@marthahallfindlay.ca
Cc: David Amos
https://mobile.twitter.com/wayneeaster
Wayne Easter @WayneEaster 15h
Heartwarming y'day on campaign trail as several non-farm households
stated "concerned for dairy farmers"(due 2 TPP)Support 4 fellow
citizens
http://wayneeaster.parl.liberal.ca/media-reports/media-releases/conservative-government-must-be-transparent-with-canadians-during-tpp-talks/
Conservative Government Must be Transparent with Canadians during TPP Talks
Posted on July 16, 2012
CHARLOTTETOWN— Liberal International Trade critic Wayne Easter made
the following statement today on Canada’s Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP) negotiations:
“According to a recent report, the US will be seeking ‘new market
access’ from Canada in the TPP negotiations. The report noted that a
major component of negotiations would be Canada’s supply management
system.
It is imperative that this Conservative government be completely
transparent on their TPP negotiations, especially in regards to what
Canada is conceding in order to be accepted into this partnership.
Canadian dairy and poultry producers depend on the supply management
system, just as Canadian consumers rely on its stable pricing, and
they all deserve assurance that their livelihoods and food safety will
not be compromised in these negotiations.”
http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/montreal-dairy-company-saputo-says-it-can-adapt-to-any-tpp-deal-1.2501466
"Saputo said some dairy farmers have good reason to be worried if
there are dramatic changes to Canada's protective supply management
system, as demanded by some of the 12 countries involved in
negotiating the trade deal. But he said other farmers are efficient,
can compete with anybody in the world and flourish in an unregulated
system.
The abolition of Canada's dairy supply management system would
threaten 4,500 to 6,000 farms and up to 24,000 direct jobs across the
country, according to a study released last week commissioned by dairy
co-operative and Saputo rival Agropur.
Up to 40 per cent of Canada's milk production would be at risk, said
the 56-page report from Boston Consulting Group."
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/tpp-trade-deal-is-now-close-and-for-canada-the-last-big-issue-is-dairy-1.2592586
"Fast used more guarded language on dairy. Of that, he said: "There's
still lots of work to be done."
The Canadian government faces domestic pressure from dairy-producing
provinces, who are not at the negotiating table but have provincial
representatives in Atlanta pushing against any opening to foreign milk
and cheese.
Canada isn't the only country with domestic pressure: the American
delegation has received a public letter from influential lawmakers
urging it to walk away unless it can secure certain gains for American
businesses.
But the biggest U.S. business lobby is urging a deal now.
It says the decade-long TPP project could be destroyed by domestic
politics if it doesn't happen immediately, with elections in Canada,
then the U.S., Japan and Peru next year and governments under pressure
to protect individual sectors.
"If we miss this opportunity I believe we may lose it forever," said
Tami Overby, vice-president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
"We have the Canadian election. No one knows what that outcome's going
to be. We also get closer to the U.S. 2016 (presidential race) -- that
gets harder. So from my perspective nothing gets better. But the risk
increases, and in some cases quite significantly as time goes by."
As if to underscore her point, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair announced Friday
that he wouldn't consider himself bound to ratify any deal reached
during the election campaign.
Overby encouraged all countries to put some of the proverbial water in
their wine.
For Canada, that wine comes with a little more foreign cheese.
She said New Zealand hasn't asked for much. But it helped spearhead
the TPP project years ago, with its one major demand being access to
dairy markets.
Other Canadian industries are thrilled at the prospect of a deal.
The head of Canada's pro-free-market agriculture group said he expects
a nine-per-cent increase in canola exports alone, with big gains for
other industries including pork, beef and barley.
"We're extremely optimistic for our sector," said Brian Innes of the
Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, and vice-president of the Canola
Council.
"We face significant trade barriers, this is the most ambitious deal
in decades, and it could have a major impact on our ability to
export."
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Amos motomaniac333@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 10:15:04 -0400
Subject: RE FATCA ATTN Pierre-Luc.Dusseault I just called and left a
message for you
To: Pierre-Luc.Dusseault@parl.gc.ca, david@lutz.nb.ca,
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/taxes-internal-revenue-service-fatca-united-states-1.3954789?__vfz=profile_comment%3D7320800006927
Transfer of Canadian banking records to U.S. tax agency doubled last year
Documents for thousands of Canadian residents transferred under
controversial FATCA legislation
By Elizabeth Thompson, CBC News Posted: Jan 29, 2017 5:00 AM ET
Banking records of more than 315,000 Canadian residents were turned
over to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service last year under a
controversial information sharing deal, CBC News has learned.
That is double the number transferred in the deal's first year.
The Canada Revenue Agency transmitted 315,160 banking records to the
IRS on Sept. 28, 2016 — a 104 per cent increase over the 154,667
records the agency sent in September 2015.
Lisa Damien, spokeswoman for the CRA, attributed the increase to the
fact it was the second year for the Canada-U.S. information sharing
deal that was sparked by the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act
(FATCA).
"The exchange in September 2015 was based on accounts identified by
financial institutions at the time," she said. "The number of reported
accounts was expected to increase in 2016, because the financial
institutions have had more time to complete their due diligence and
identify other reportable accounts."
Trudeau Nuclear Summit 20160331
Prior to coming to power, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau opposed the
agreement to share banking records of Canadian residents with the IRS.
He has since changed his position. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)
The transmission of banking records of Canadian residents is the
result of an agreement worked out in 2014 between Canada and the U.S.
after the American government adopted FATCA. The U.S. tax compliance
act requires financial institutions around the world to reveal
information about bank accounts in a bid to crack down on tax evasion
by U.S. taxpayers with foreign accounts.
Dual citizens, long-term visitors affected
The deal requires financial institutions to share the banking records
of those considered to be "U.S. persons" for tax purposes — regardless
of whether they are U.S. citizens.
Among the people who can be considered by the IRS as "U.S. persons"
are Canadians born in the U.S., dual citizens or even those who spend
more than a certain number of days in the United States each year.
Former prime minister Stephen Harper's government argued that given
the penalties the U.S. was threatening to impose, it had no choice but
to negotiate the information sharing deal. The former government said
it was able to exempt some types of accounts from the information
transfer.
CRA
The Canada Revenue Agency transfers banking records of people believed
to be 'U.S. persons' to the IRS. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)
The Canada Revenue Agency triggered controversy after it transferred
the first batch of Canadian banking records to the IRS in September
2015 in the midst of the election campaign, without waiting for an
assessment by Canada's privacy commissioner or the outcome of a legal
challenge to the agreement's constitutionality.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Treasury Board President Scott Brison
and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale have dropped calls to scrap
the deal, which they had made before the Liberals came to power.
Watchdog wants proactive notification
Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien has raised concerns about the
information sharing, questioning whether financial institutions are
reporting more accounts than necessary. Under the agreement, financial
institutions only have to report accounts belonging to those believed
to be U.S. persons if they contain more than $50,000.
Therrien has also suggested the CRA proactively notify individuals
that their financial records had been shared with the IRS. However,
the CRA has been reluctant to agree to Therrien's suggestion.
Racial Profiling 20160107
Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien has questioned whether the CRA is
transmitting more banking records to the IRS than is necessary.
(Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
NDP revenue critic Pierre-Luc Dusseault said the increase in the
number of files transferred was "surprising," and he questioned
whether financial institutions are only sharing records of accounts
worth more than $50,000.
"I don't see how there would be 150,000 more accounts reportable to
the IRS in one year. It is something I will look into."
Dusseault said the CRA should notify every Canadian resident whose
banking records are shared with the IRS.
Lynne Swanson, of the Alliance for the Defence of Canadian
Sovereignty, which is challenging the information sharing agreement in
Federal Court, said she has no idea why the number of banking records
shared with the IRS doubled.
Youngest MP 20110519
NDP revenue critic Pierre-Luc Dusseault says the CRA should notify
every Canadian resident whose banking records are shared with the IRS.
(Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
"It still seems low in comparison to the number of Canadians that are
affected by this," she said. "It is estimated that a million Canadians
are affected by this."
Hopes for repeal
Swanson hopes that U.S. President Donald Trump, or Congress — which is
now controlled by the Republican Party — will scrap FATCA. The
Republican platform pledged to do away with the information collecting
legislation.
"FATCA not only allows 'unreasonable search and seizures' but also
threatens the ability of overseas Americans to lead normal lives," the
platform reads. "We call for its repeal and for a change to
residency-based taxation for U.S. citizens overseas."
Swanson's group is also hoping the Federal Court of Canada will
intervene, although a date has not yet been set for a hearing.
"A foreign government is essentially telling the Canadian government
how Canadian citizens and Canadian residents should be treated. It is
a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms."
Elizabeth Thompson can be reached at elizabeth.thompson@cbc.ca
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