 of a deaf man's capacity to speak, from Chapter 3 of Dittus Colocifus, or the Deaf and Dumb Man's Tudor, by George Del Garno. 1626-1687. Published in 1680. This is a LibriVox recording, or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. That a deaf man may be taught to speak is no more a doubt to me than that a blind man may be taught to write, both which I think not only possible, but also not very difficult. I will carry on the comparison in several particulars. First, both have the respective organs, the tongue and the hand, equally entire and in a capacity to act. Two, both are equally destitute of their proper guides, the eye and the ear, to direct them in acting, and therefore three, both must be equally obliged to the sense of feeling for direction. And yet so magisterial are the senses of hearing and seeing, that though the sense of feeling alone may guide the tongue and hand in speaking and writing after a habit is acquired, yet for introducing this habit directions from the eye and ear are necessary, and which is observable in this point of discipline. The eye and ear seem to act out of their own sphere and to exchange their stations and powers. For the blind man learns to write by the ear, and the deaf man to speak by the eye, from which to infer that immunity of senses, which some philosophers and physicians speak of, I think would be absurd, the external objects still remaining distinct. But the true inference from this will be that the soul can exert her powers by the ministry of any of the senses, and therefore when she is deprived of her principal secretaries, the eye and the ear, then she must be contented with the service of her lackeys and scolions, the other senses, which are no less true and faithful to their mistress than the eye and the ear, but not so quick for dispatch. But to go on with the comparison. For it will be hard to teach the deaf man to observe tone, accent, and emphasis in speaking, so will it be as hard to bring the blind man to write a fair hand, or diverse hands. Yet the one may speak, so as to be understood, and the other right, so as what he writes, may be read. Five. As there may be more simple, and therefore more easy characters to be written contrived for the use of the blind man, so may there be sounds of an easier pronunciation than any in common use be invented for the use of the deaf. Six. They are equally incapable, the one of singing, the other of flourishing, and painting. Seven. The deaf man has this advantage above the blind, that speaking in common commerce and business is to be more frequent and greater use than writing. So the blind man comes even again with him in this, that there is one way of writing, and that of great use too, to the deaf man, which the blind can learn both as soon and to as great a degree of perfection as the deaf. Whereas the deaf man cannot learn to speak without much time and pains, and yet can never come to perfection in speaking. This way of writing is by an alphabet upon the fingers. As to any direct tendency of improving either of them with knowledge or dispatch of business and converse in vita commune, I judge them both equally useless, or at least of no very great use, because I think scarce attainable to that degree of perfection as to be ready for use upon all occasions. That there may be cases wherein they may be of the great use I do not deny, and of several that offer themselves, I will single out that of a blind master and deaf servant, for stating of which the more clearly I premise, one, that to read and write is a commendation in a servant. Two, it recommends him the more if he be to serve a blind master. And three, if his blind master be a man of much business or learning, this enhances his service yet the more. These things premised let our case be this. Blind Homer, hearing of an ingenious but deaf slave, called Esop, who was trained up in all the aforementioned ways of semitology, and he himself being expert in dectotology, he resolved to purchase Esop at any rate. The first service he put him upon was to write out his Iliad Fair from his own blotted copy. And because Esop could scarcely read his hand he was always present himself, correcting the faults of his pen upon his fingers. And here I leave them for a while till I have resolved another material doubt. That which is my main design in this treatise, to teach how to come to understand a language by reading and writing, suggests to me here to resolve this question, how a blind person might communicate with a dumb. The cause of doubting being upon the dumb man's part, I answer. The defect of his tongue must be supplied with the musical instrument, having the letters equally distinguished upon the keys, or strings, both to the eye of the dumb and in the sounds to the ear of the blind, which I take for granted might produce the same effects with oral speech. And here it is observable that the same action would very properly be both writing and speaking, writing from the hand of the dumb touching the keys, or strings, speaking to the ears of the blind man from the sound of the instrument. After this short interlude let us bring Homer and Esop upon the stage again. The old man was mightily pleased with Esop, till, unfortunately, on a certain time, the fluttering of his tongue gave Homer occasion to suspect him of a lie, for which in a sudden passion he cuts out his tongue. But afterwards repenting what he had done resolved not to put him away, for he considered he was yet as capable of serving him as ever, and perhaps the other ways of interpretation that he was skilled in being more distinct than glossology could be in a deaf man. It happened soon after that Homer had invited some friends to dinner, commanding Esop to provide the greatest rarities the market could afford. Esop made a show of great preparation, but set nothing upon the table besides the tip of his own tongue in a large dish, upbraiding his master with his pipe, that he did not tear his blotted papers when he could not read them, but had patience till he himself corrected them upon his fingers. Homer, not enduring this affront before strangers, throws Esop's pipe in the fire. Esop, fearing worse to follow, throws himself at his master's feet, taking him by the hand, and by the rules of haptology, begs him pardon, promising if he would have patience to make amends for his fault. Homer startled at this to find both a tongue and a pipe in Esop's fingers was transported from wrath to fear and admiration, concluding for certain that Esop was a conjurer, and that he deserved to be thrown in the fire after his pipe, yet resolving once more to try his wit and honesty, and for making satisfaction to his friends who had lost their dinner, he invites them to return to moral, charging Esop to provide the oldest and leanest carry-on he could find. The night following, Esop serves his blind master with Lex Tellionis, tongue for tongue, and repeated the same dinner to his friends the next day, excusing the matter that he had from first to last obeyed his master's commands to the best of his judgment. Homer, taking it ill to be so often outwitted by a slave, by daquillology, begs to his provoked friends to revenge him upon Esop by plucking out his eyes, that his condition might not be more comfortable than his own. After his old age and a fit of sickness deprived Homer of his hearing, this reconciled him again to Esop, for he judged him the fittest companion he could find, with whom to bemoan his folly and misery. After this they lived good friends, passing the time in telling old stories, sometimes upon their fingers ends, and sometimes with hand in hand, traversing the alphabetical ilias. This drama, being acted according to the rules of art, if there be any certainty in art that the promised effects will follow, is no less true than it seems to be strange. And from this we may learn two things. One, that though hearing and seeing be the principal, yet they are not the only senses of knowledge. That the hand is, or at least is, or at least is capable of being made a more serviceable organ of interpretation to the soul than the tongue, for it has access to its mistresses' presence by the door of three senses. One, of hearing by autology. Two, of seeing by both the species of schematology, to wit typology and dacrology. Three, of feeling by haptology, whereas the tongue can only enter by the door of one sense, and do its message only by only one kind of interpretation, glossology. End of A Deaf Man's Capacity to Speak by George Dalgerno 1626-1687 The Plumber by Charles Dudley Warner From Humorous Masterpieces for American Literature This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Dale Grossman The Plumber by Charles Dudley Warner Speaking of the philosophical temper, there is no class of men whose society is to be more desired for its quality than that of plumbers. They are the most agreeable men I know, and the boys in the business begin to be agreeable very early. I suspect the secret of it is that they are agreeable by the hour. In the driest days my fountain became disabled. The pipe was stopped up. A couple of plumbers with the implements of their craft came out to view the situation. There was a good deal of difference of opinion about where the stoppage was. I found the plumbers perfectly willing to sit down and talk about it. Talk by the hour. Some of their guesses and remarks were exceedingly ingenious, and their general observations on other subjects were excellent in their way, and could hardly have been better if they had been made by the job. The work dragged a little, as it is apt to do by the hour. The plumbers had occasion to make me several visits. Sometimes they would find upon arrival that they had forgotten some indispensable tool, and one would go back to the shop a mile and a half after it, and his comrade would await his return with the most exemplary patience, and would sit down and talk always by the hour. I do not know, but it is a habit to have something wanted at the shop. They seemed to me very good workmen and always willing to stop and talk about the job or anything else whenever I went near them, nor had they any of that impetuous hurry that is said to be the bane of our American civilization, to their credit be it said that I never observed anything of it in them. They can afford to wait. Two of them will sometimes wait nearly half a day while a comrade goes for a tool. They are patient and philosophical. It is a great pleasure to meet such men. One only wishes that there were some work he could do for them by the hour. There ought to be reciprocity. I think they have very nearly solved the problem of life. It is to work for other people, never for yourself, and get your pay by the hour. You then have no anxiety and little work. If you do things by the job, you are perpetually driven. The hours are scourges. If you work by the hour, you gently sail on the stream of time, which is always bearing you on to the haven of pay, whether you make any effort or not. Working by the hour tends to make one moral. A plumber, working by the job, trying to unscrew a rusty refractory nut in a cramped position where the tongs continually slipped off, would swear. But I never heard one of them swear, or exhibit the least impatience at such vexation, working by the hour. Nothing can move a man who is paid by the hour. How sweet the flight of time seems to his calm mind. The End of The Plumber by Charles Dudley Warner Reply to some Texas newspapers about socialism, April 6, 1855, by Victor Considerant, 1808 to 1893, from European colonization in Texas, and addressed to the American people, published in 1855. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reply to some Texas newspapers. I had completed this document when my attention was directed to certain articles in some Texas newspapers concerning our projected establishment in that country. I here present one of those articles containing a most severe attack. Quote, This class is of that propaganda school which in France and in parts of the United States has and is seeking to sap the foundations of society. The socialist desires to destroy individual rights and property. And if he is not a very intelligent and moral man, a rare thing, we may have in him a neighbor who will rob and plunder us whenever he can get the chance. For he holds it as a primary principle in his creed that no individual has a right to accumulate property for himself, and all above what is necessary to sustain him belongs to the rest of society. Again, the socialist is an abolitionist everywhere. He would not be less opposed to slavery by living in Texas than in France or in Ohio. It is part of his creed. Now we are told that John Allen of Ohio and Montseer-Fichter-Considerant propose bringing out from France to western Texas a colony of socialists. This move for the purpose of building up a sect opposed to our political institutions may well be regarded with a jealousy, and the founders may rely upon it that they will not be suffered to tamper with our institutions. The whole principle of colonization, where men of a peculiar caste in religion or politics seek to array themselves together in particular sections of the country, both as landholders and factionalists, is at war with all the elements of society, and cannot be carried on without creating bitter and unrelenting prejudices and animosities among our native citizens. We note this advent of socialism in Texas as foreboding us no good, and we wish them to have a fair understanding before they reach our soil, that as a political sect our whole people are against them." Who could have thought us worthy of such amenities? Why are we so precipitately attacked by persons to whom we are entirely unknown, and who have been informed of our projects only by vague rumors? In regard to this I must confess my ignorance. I am only certain that I by no means anticipated such an expression. It is not in this tone that I supposed the Texas newspapers, which ought to represent the interests of the country, would celebrate our arrival. The mystery may be explained on different suppositions. I will consider only two. First, is it a crusade of private interests, the nature of which I cannot comprehend, for it seems to me that our establishment in Texas must be favorable to every class of persons whatever, organized to incite public opinion in Texas against us, and will it succeed in the attempt? In that case our course is clear. We do not leave the theater of European struggles to seek a theater for other struggles in Texas. We come into this country because we expect to find in it liberty and peace. And so far from wishing to call forth any opposition by meddling with the questions, which are agitated in the Union, we could have wished a remote and uncultivated locality for our establishment, which should enable us to devote ourselves entirely to the internal concerns, peaceable and inoffensive in their character of our colonization. If then we must encounter opposition in Texas, if we cannot be even received with a fraternal welcome, our course is already decided. We shall go elsewhere. Yet, to hear the Austin Gazette, would it not seem as if we intended to make an assault on Texas, but let it not be alarmed, we have neither the desire nor the power to do so. It outers a cry of alarm, as if the states were threatened with an invasion of barbarians. Nevertheless, I trust I shall give no offense by the remark. For it is true that if a comparison were instituted between a mass of the present population of Texas and the average of our immigration in point of civilization, of refinement of ideas and manners, of respect for the rights of others, the advantage, I doubt not, would be found decidedly with the latter. But, however this may be, the civilized population of Texas should not regard us as a herd of barbarians, nor tremble for their property, as if we were about to trespass on it, or for the very foundation of their society, which we have no wish to overthrow. We are too mild barbarians to wish to disturb anybody, and too little enamored of strife and controversy, to seek for occasion to quarrel on the soil of Texas. If, then, the inhabitants of Texas, led away by absurd fears, or impelled by secret interests, shall look upon us with an evil eye, we only ask for one thing, namely, that the question shall be promptly decided, so that we may be able, as promptly, to be take ourselves elsewhere. We shall not fail of a suitable locality or a kind reception, either in North America or in Central America. We should greatly regret to give up the idea of Texas, whose name had already become for us the name of our country, but we are not the persons to supplicate admission at the door, or to enter a dwelling against the will of its owner. Second, is the unfriendly reception which the Austin Journal and some others have attempted to force upon us merely the result of an error. I strongly inclined to this supposition, and in that case, as an old French journalist, I implore my Texan brothers to permit me to enlighten them. Paper may be written on, in America as in Europe, but I have always thought at the duty of an honest press, when ink has flowed in behalf of error, to make it flow in behalf of truth. Let us see then. You say in the first place that we are the enemies of the right of property, because we are socialists, and hence you conclude that the people among whom we settle will have thieves for their neighbors. Here are two heirs, one a fact, the other of logic. Air of fact. Suppose you read in a newspaper the following lines. A considerable importation of beasts from Europe into Texas is announced. Texans, be on your guard. These European beasts will devour you if you permit them to enter your territory. You would doubly reply. We had better know before arming ourselves what these beasts of Europe are. There are beasts in every country, but everywhere, some are good, as well as some bad. Oxen, sheep, horses, etc., are beasts, as well as lions, tigers, and rattlesnakes. This is what you might justly say to your compatriot. I reply to you with equal justice, that precisely as there are different kinds of beasts in Europe, so there are also on that continent different kinds of socialists. There are especially socialists who deny the right of property and those who recognize it as honestly as you can do yourselves. Now it is the fact that the socialists whom you attack in us are precisely of the class, which has always recognized the right of individual property, and who have even maintained long controversies both orally and by the pen against the socialists who deny this right in order to prove to the latter that they were in the wrong. So far, then, from being, as you assert, enemies of the right of property, we are not only the friends of that right, but we have been, and still are, its defenders and champions. I have thus clearly pointed out the air of fact, which you have committed through ignorance, very excusable, doubtless in Texas, of the history and the diversities of doctrine of the European socialists. Insane of us in Austin, they are socialists, therefore they are enemies of the right of property. You reason exactly as if a Paris journal should say of the inhabitants of Louisiana and Texas. They are Americans, therefore they are abolitionists. You would smile at this, permit us then to smile for the same reason, air of logic. You say in substance, the socialists do not allow to the individual the right of possessing and accumulating property, hence accepting cases of very rare morality their principles must lead them to rob and pillage their neighbors whenever they have the chance. Thus, from the fact that a man does not believe in the right of individual property, you conclude that he must necessarily vindicate that right for himself at the expense of others, seizing the property of his neighbors, even by the most outrageous means, robbery and pillage. This is thoroughly false, as is proved by the case of the communists, who are precisely the sect of socialists that deny the right of property, but who are yet to say the least as honest men as most of the world. Does the French colony established at Nauvoo inspire their neighbors with fear? Are its members regarded in the country as thieves and robbers? Everyone will tell you that although communists as a general thing, they are the most honest men in the world. The communists among themselves put their property in common. This is their right. If they please to do this, it is no concern of ours. In the United States, there are ten other communist establishments. Among them are found German communists, American communists, shakers, rapites, perfectionists, etc. These men are nowhere regarded as thieves. The communists preach community of goods, and freely practice it with each other. They do not preach that they have a right to the property of those who are not communists, and they respect this as grouplessly as anybody. But enough on this point. I believe that I have satisfactorily shown, one, that the socialists who condemn individual property, which is the opinion of the early Christians, are not necessarily thieves. Two, that the socialists of the Phalansterian school, so far from rejecting the right of an individual to possess and accumulate property, have always defended that right, inherent in man, as the principle of individual liberty and of social progress against those socialists by whom it is rejected. I can, with most perfect sincerity, assure the Austin Gazette that if we establish ourselves in Texas, we shall demand but a single thing, namely, that our property and rights be as grouplessly regarded by our neighbors as theirs will be respected by ourselves. You apply to us the epithet abolitionists, because we are socialists. I will even say that you hurl this word at us like a cannonball, knowing the offensive and irritating character of this appellation at the south, the use you hasten to make of it against us, before knowing us is hardly charitable. But have you not, perhaps, committed as great an error in applying to us the name of abolitionists, as in metamorphosing us into the adversaries of property? Nay, even into thieves? Let us look into this. If we had now to explain to you for the first time our principles in regard to abolitionism, you might suppose, not knowing that we are men of veracity, that we disguise our opinions in order to conciliate the favor of the southern people. But this is not the case. Although with a less degree of excitement than in America, and for obvious reasons, yet the question of abolition has been agitated in France. It was distressed in the time of Louis Philippe. On the one side were the colonies, slave colonies. On the other, the ideas of enfranchisement, current in Paris. Not only in the bosom of the most advanced parties, but even in the conservative and governmental party itself. Well, then, although we belonged to the party of progress, and had everything to gain, as regards our popularity, by loudly demanding the abolition of slavery, and using all the fine phrases that were suitable to the subject, we had no fear of compromising our reputation. Not only by refusing to join in the chorus of our abolitionists, but by showing in a hundred articles which we wrote on the question that the abolitionists were in the wrong path. In pursuing this chorus we are not only disinterested, but we even acted contrary to our interests. And why do you think that we took this side? Because we are men of sense and reason. Because we do not belong to that family of theorists who cry out. Parish society rather than a principle. Because if abstract principles have their rights in the human mind, social facts also have their rights in the practice of life. And because we think it better to make an abstract principle wait at the door of the practical, than to throw open the door at the risk of a great catastrophe. This discretion of judgment, this prudence, this spirit of conciliation between the demands of pure reason and the grave necessities of fact, is so characteristic of our school that Fourier, whose pregnant discoveries we have undertaken to develop without denying his ability to err, did not regard emancipation as a social good unless it proceeded from the will of the masters, and condemned nothing with more vehemence in the philosophers and political abolitionists of the First French Revolution than their conduct toward Saint Domingo and the terrible massacres which it occasioned. And certainly if the emancipation demanded by the abolitionists could be realized in the smaller colonies as Martinique and Guadeloupe, without leading to consequences as fatal as in Saint Domingo, we think that in a field so vast as that of the southern states the same question assumes formidable proportions. For my own part I do not hesitate to say that I should regard any great measures of abolition in the present state of American society, even if they could be introduced without dissolution of the Union and the most dreadful civil war, as the greatest calamity that could now fall upon the United States. I am here forced, in spite of myself, to do that from which I had wished to abstain, for reason stated in my address. I mean the speaking on a question purely American. I have friends both among the abolitionists and among the slaveholders. If they are at war on the question of slavery I am no more accountable for it than America is accountable for the introduction of slavery, this introduction having been affected contrary to the will of the Americans, by the will of the mother country. My friends of the North then will permit me not to join them in a league against those of the South, and those of the South will excuse me from taking sides against my friends of the North. I am perfectly aware that in itself slavery is a great evil. Every thinking man, as well at the South as at the North, sees in it a dangerous stumbling block to the Union and a sore spot in the social institutions of America. But there are many other evils and many other sore spots besides slavery in civilized society. For my part I have found in more respects than one the condition of the free black at the North and everywhere I may say in Europe and even in America that the white who is free only in pretense, but really the slave of ignorance, of degradation, of wretchedness, and vice, more deplorable, more painful, more completely at war with the abstract principles of pure human right than that of the black slave at the South. And I have often contended in Europe against our abolitionist philanthropists, who show so much anxiety for the fate of the black race, and so little for that of the pariahs of white civilization who die of hunger in the streets of our great industrial cities, and even in the country also. I am of opinion that with the scientific and peaceful progress of the age, with the development of the social relations of humanity, America may expect the improvement of her social institutions. But I do not think that she ought to demand this by violent, sudden, and revolutionary measures. In fine, I believe it desirable for the interests of the colored race and of its future that the evils of slavery should not be increased by an addition of peculiar gravity and danger, that of a war excited by this question between the North and the South. This war, for our part, we do not intend in any way to promote whether we establish ourselves at the North or the South. Such are the feelings which we cherish. If such feelings are dangerous to the tranquility of Texas and threatening to her constitution, we ought undoubtedly to abandon our purpose of settling in that country. But they never were regarded by us in that light, otherwise we should never have thought of taking up our residence in a state where slavery is sanctioned by law. I still hope that intelligent and reasonable men, of whom I wish to believe that there is a great majority in Texas, and among whom we must reckon the journalists whose function it is to diffuse light and truth in the community, will take the same view of the subject, which we have undertaken ourselves. We cheerfully appeal, therefore, from the rash judgments of the Austin writers and of their friends, to public opinion at large, and to the more correct information of those writers themselves. The Considerant, New York, April 6, 1855. And of, reply to some Texas newspapers about socialism, by Victor Considerant, 1808 to 1893. Executive Summary to Volume 1 Russian social media campaign. The Internet Research Agency, IRA, carried out the earliest Russian interference operations identified by the investigation, a social media campaign designed to provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States. The IRA was based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and received funding from Russian oligarch Evgeny Progosian and companies he controlled. Progosian is widely reported to have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reduction, harm to ongoing matter. In mid-2014, the IRA sent employees to the United States on an intelligence-gathering mission with instructions. Reduction, harm to ongoing matter. The IRA later used social media accounts and interest groups to sow discord in the U.S. political system through what it termed information warfare. The campaign evolved from a generalized program designed in 2014 and 2015 to undermine the U.S. electoral system to a targeted operation that by early 2016 favored candidate Trump and disparaged candidate Clinton. The IRA's operation also included the purchase of political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities, as well as the staging of political rallies inside the United States. To organize those rallies, IRA employees posed as U.S. grassroots entities and persons and made contact with Trump supporters and Trump campaign officials in the United States. The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons conspired or coordinated with the IRA. Section 2 of this report details the office's investigation of the Russian social media campaign. Russian hacking operations. At the same time that the IRA operation began to focus on supporting candidate Trump in early 2016, the Russian government employed a second form of interference, cyber intrusions, hacking, and releases of hacked materials damaging to the Clinton campaign. The Russian intelligence service known as the main intelligence directorate of the general staff of the Russian Army, GRU, carried out these operations. In March 2016, the GRU began hacking the email accounts of Clinton campaign volunteers and employees, including campaign chairman John Podesta. In April 2016, the GRU hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, DCCC, and the Democratic National Committee, DNC. The GRU stole hundreds of thousands of documents from the compromised email accounts and networks. Around the time that the DNC announced in mid-June 2016, the Russian government's role in hacking its network, the GRU began disseminating stolen materials through the fictitious online personas DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0. The GRU later released additional materials through the organization WikiLeaks. The presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump, Trump campaign, or campaign, showed interest in WikiLeaks releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton. Beginning in June 2016, redaction, harmed to ongoing matter. Forecast to senior campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release information damaging to candidate Clinton. WikiLeaks' first release came in July 2016. Around the same time, candidate Trump announced that he hoped Russia would recover emails described as missing from a private server used by Clinton when she was Secretary of State. He later said that he was speaking sarcastically. Redaction, harmed to ongoing matter. WikiLeaks began releasing Podesta's stolen emails on October 7, 2016, less than one hour after a U.S. media outlet released video considered damaging to candidate Trump. Section 3 of this report details the office's investigation into the Russian hacking operations, as well as other efforts by Trump campaign supporters to obtain Clinton-related emails. Russian Contacts with the Campaign The social media campaign and the GRU hacking operations coincided with a series of contacts between Trump campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government. The office investigated whether those contacts reflected or resulted in the campaign conspiring or coordinating with Russia in its election interference activities. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities. The Russian contacts consisted of business connections, offers of assistance to the campaign, invitations for candidate Trump and Putin to meet in person, invitations for campaign officials and representatives of the Russian government to meet, and policy positions seeking improved U.S.-Russian relations. Section 4 of this report details the contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign during the campaign and transition periods, the most salient of which are summarized below in chronological order. 2015 Some of the earliest contacts were made in connection with the Trump Organization Real Estate Project in Russia, known as Trump Tower Moscow. Candidate Trump signed a letter of intent for Trump Tower Moscow by November 2015, and in January 2016, Trump Organization Executive Michael Cohen emailed and spoke about the project with the office of Russian government press secretary Dmitry Peskov. The Trump Organization pursued the project through at least June 2016, including by considering travel to Russia by Cohen and candidate Trump. Spring 2016 Campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos made early contact with Joseph Mifsud, a London-based professor who had connections to Russia and traveled to Moscow in April 2016. Immediately upon his return to London from that trip, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that the Russian government had, quote, dirt on, quote, on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. One week later, in the first week of May 2016, Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton. Throughout that period of time and for several months thereafter, Papadopoulos worked with Mifsud and two Russian nationals to arrange a meeting between the campaign and the Russian government. No meeting took place. Summer 2016 Russian outreach to the Trump campaign continued into the summer of 2016, as candidate Trump was becoming the presumptive Republican nominee for president. On June 9, 2016, for example, a Russian lawyer met with senior Trump campaign officials Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and campaign chairman Paul Manafort to deliver what the email proposing the meeting had described as, quote, official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary, end of quote. The materials were offered to Trump Jr. as, quote, part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump, end of quote. The written communications setting up the meeting showed that the campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist candidate Trump's electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyer's presentation did not provide such information. Days after the June 9 meeting on June 14, 2016, a cybersecurity firm and the DNC announced that Russian government hackers had infiltrated the DNC and obtained access to opposition research on candidate Trump, among other documents. In July 2016, campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page traveled in his personal capacity to Moscow and gave the keynote address at the new economic school. Page had lived and worked in Russia between 2003 and 2007. After returning to the United States, Page became acquainted with at least two Russian intelligence officers, one of whom was later charged in 2015 with conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of Russia. Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow and his advocacy for pro-Russian foreign policy drew media attention. The campaign then distanced itself from Page and, by late September 2016, removed him from the campaign. July 2016 was also the month WikiLeaks first released emails stolen by the GRU from the DNC. On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks posted thousands of internal DNC documents revealing information about the Clinton campaign. Within days, there was public reporting that US intelligence agencies had, quote, high confidence, end of quote, that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the DNC. And within a week of the release, a foreign government informed the FBI about its May 2016 interaction with Papadopoulos and his statement that the Russian government could assist the Trump campaign. On July 31, 2016, based on the foreign government reporting, the FBI opened an investigation into potential coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign. Separately, on August 2, 2016, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort met in New York City with his longtime business associate, Konstantin Kalimnik, who the FBI assesses to have ties to Russian intelligence. Kalimnik requested the meeting to deliver in person a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort acknowledged to the special counsel's office was a quote, backdoor, end of quote, way for Russia to control part of Eastern Ukraine. Both men believed the plan would require candidate Trump's assent to succeed, were he to be elected president. They also discussed the status of the Trump campaign and Manafort's strategy for winning Democratic votes in Midwestern states. Months before that meeting, Manafort had caused internal polling data to be shared with Kalimnik, and the sharing continued for some period of time after their August meeting. Fall 2016 On October 7, 2016, the media released a video of candidate Trump speaking in graphic terms about women years earlier, which was considered damaging to his candidacy. Less than an hour later, WikiLeaks made its second release, thousands of John Podesta's emails that had been stolen by the GRU in late March 2016. The FBI and other U.S. government institutions were at that time continuing their investigation of suspected Russian government efforts to interfere in the presidential election. That same day, October 7, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint public statement, quote, that the Russian government directed the recent compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations, end of quote. Those, quote, thefts, unquote, and the, quote, disclosures, unquote, of the hacked materials through online platforms such as WikiLeaks, the statement continued, quote, are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process, end of quote. Post 2016 election. Immediately after the November 8 election, Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new administration. The most senior levels of the Russian government encouraged these efforts. The Russian embassy made contact hours after the election to congratulate the president-elect and to arrange a call with President Putin. Several Russian businessmen picked up the effort from there. Kirill Dmitriev, the chief executive officer of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, was among the Russians who tried to make contact with the incoming administration. In early December, a business associate steered Dmitriev to Eric Prince, a supporter of the Trump campaign and an associate of senior Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Dmitriev and Prince later met face-to-face in January 2017 in the Seychelles and discussed U.S.-Russia relations. During the same period, another business associate introduced Dmitriev to a friend of Jared Kushner, who had not served on the campaign or the transition team. Dmitriev and Kushner's friend collaborated on a short written reconciliation plan for the United States and Russia, which Dmitriev implied had been cleared through Putin. The friend gave that proposal to Kushner before the inauguration, and Kushner later gave copies to Bannon and incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. On December 29, 2016, then-President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia for having interfered in the election. Incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn called Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and asked Russia not to escalate the situation in response to the sanctions. The following day, Putin announced that Russia would not take retaliatory measures in response to the sanctions at that time. Hours later, President-Elect Trump tweeted, quote, great move on delay by V. Putin, end of quote. The next day, on December 31, 2016, Kislyak called Flynn and told him the request had been received at the highest levels, and Russia had chosen not to retaliate as a result of Flynn's request. On January 6, 2017, members of the intelligence community briefed President-Elect Trump on a joint assessment, drafted and coordinated among the Central Intelligence Agency, FBI, and National Security Agency that concluded with high confidence that Russia had intervened in the election through a variety of means to assist Trump's candidacy and harm Clinton's. A declassified version of the assessment was publicly released that same day. Between mid-January 2017 and early February 2017, three congressional committees, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, HPSCI, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, SSCI, and the Senate Judiciary Committee, SJC, announced that they would conduct inquiries, or had already been conducting inquiries, into Russian interference in the election. Then, FBI Director James Comey later confirmed to Congress the existence of the FBI's investigation into Russian interference that had begun before the election. On March 20, 2017, in open session testimony before HPSCI, Comey stated, quote, I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. And that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts. As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed, end of quote. The investigation continued under then-director Comey for the next seven weeks, until May 9, 2017, when President Trump fired Comey as FBI Director, an action which is analyzed in Volume 2 of this report. On May 17, 2017, acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed the special counsel and authorized him to conduct the investigation that Comey had confirmed in his congressional testimony, as well as matters arising directly from the investigation and any other matters within the scope of 28 CFR Section 600.4a, which generally covers efforts to interfere with or obstruct the investigation. President Trump reacted negatively to the special counsel's appointment. He told advisors that it was the end of his presidency, sought to have Attorney General Jefferson Jeff Sessions unrecuse from the Russia investigation, and to have the special counsel removed, and engaged in efforts to curtail the special counsel's investigation and prevent the disclosure of evidence to it, including through public and private contacts with potential witnesses. Those and related actions are described and analyzed in Volume 2 of the report. The special counsel's charging decisions. In reaching the charging decisions described in Volume 1 of the report, the office determined whether the conduct it found amounted to a violation of federal criminal law chargeable under the principles of federal prosecution. See Justice Manual Section 9-27.000 at SEC 2018. The standard set forth in the Justice Manual is whether the conduct constitutes a crime, if so whether admissible evidence would probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction, and whether prosecution would serve a substantial federal interest that could not be adequately served by prosecution elsewhere or through non-criminal alternatives. See Justice Manual Section 9-27.220. Section 5 of the report provides detailed explanations of the office's charging decisions, which contain three main components. First, the office determined that Russia's two principal interference operations in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The social media campaign and the hacking and dumping operations violated U.S. criminal law. Many of the individuals and entities involved in the social media campaign have been charged with participating in a conspiracy to defraud the United States by undermining through deceptive acts the work of federal agencies charged with regulating foreign influence in U.S. elections, as well as related counts of identity theft. See United States v. Internet Research Agency et al. 18-CR-32, D.D.C. Separately, Russian intelligence officers who carried out the hacking into Democratic Party computers and the personal email accounts of individuals affiliated with the Clinton campaign conspired to violate, among other federal laws, the Federal Computer Intrusion Statute and they have been so charged. See United States v. Natik Show et al. 18-CR-215, D.D.C. Reduction, harm to ongoing matter. Second, while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges. Among other things, the evidence was not sufficient to charge any campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principal. And our evidence about the June 9, 2016 meeting and WikiLeaks releases of hacked materials was not sufficient to charge a criminal campaign finance violation. Further, the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump campaign conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election. Third, the investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump campaign lied to the office and to Congress about their interactions with Russian affiliated individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference. The office charged some of those lies as violations of the Federal False Statements Statute. Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying about his interactions with Russian Ambassador Kislyak during the transition period. George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor during the campaign period, pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about interalia, the nature and timing of his interactions with Joseph Mifsud, the professor who told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Former Trump Organization Attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress about the Trump-Moscow Project. Redaction, harm to ongoing matter. And in February 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that Manafort lied to the office and the grand jury concerning his interactions and communications with Konstantin Kalimnik about Trump campaign polling data and a peace plan for Ukraine. The office investigated several other events that have been publicly reported to involve potential Russia-related contacts. For example, the investigation established that interactions between Russian Ambassador Kislyak and Trump campaign officials, both at the candidate's April 2016 foreign policy speech in Washington, D.C., and during the week of the Republican National Convention were brief, public and non-substantive. And the investigation did not establish that one campaign official's efforts to dilute a portion of the Republican Party platform on providing assistance to Ukraine were undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia. The investigation also did not establish that a meeting between Kislyak and Sessions in September 2016 at Sessions' Senate office included any more than a passing mention of the presidential campaign. The investigation did not always yield admissible information or testimony or a complete picture of the activities undertaken by subjects of the investigation. Some individuals invoked their Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination and were not in the office's judgment appropriate candidates for grants of immunity. The office limited its pursuit of other witnesses and information, such as information known to attorneys or individuals claiming to be members of the media in light of internal Department of Justice policies. See, for example, Justice Manual, Sections 9-13.400-13.410. Some of the information obtained via court process, moreover, was presumptively covered by legal privilege and was screened from investigators by a filter or, quote, taint, end of quote, team. Even when individuals testified or agreed to be interviewed, they sometimes provided information that was false or incomplete, leading to some of the false statements charges described above. And the office faced practical limits on its ability to access relevant evidence as well. Numerous witnesses and subjects lived abroad and documents were held outside the United States. Further, the office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated, including some associated with the Trump campaign, deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records. In such cases, the office was not able to corroborate witness statements through comparison to contemporaneous communications or fully question witnesses about statements that appeared inconsistent with other known facts. Accordingly, while this report embodies factual and legal determinations that the office believes to be accurate and complete to the greatest extent possible, given these identified gaps, the office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on or cast in a new light the events described in the report. End of Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election Executive Summary, Volume 1, March, 2019 by Special Counsel Robert S. Muller III read by Colleen McMahon Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election Executive Summary, Volume 2, March, 2019 by Robert S. Muller III This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Executive Summary to Volume 2 Our obstruction of justice inquiry focused on a series of actions by the President that related to the Russian interference investigations, including the President's conduct towards the law enforcement officials overseeing the investigations and the witnesses to relevant events. Factual results of the obstruction investigation The key issues and events we examined include the following The campaign's response to reports about Russian support for Trump During the 2016 presidential campaign, questions arose about the Russian government's apparent support for candidate Trump. After WikiLeaks released politically damaging Democratic Party emails that were reported to have been hacked by Russia, Trump publicly expressed skepticism that Russia was responsible for the hacks at the same time that he and other campaign officials privately sought information, redaction, harm to ongoing matter, about any further planned WikiLeaks releases. Trump also denied having any business in or connections to Russia, even though, as late as June 2016, the Trump Organization had been pursuing a licensing deal for a skyscraper to be built in Russia called Trump Tower Moscow. After the election, the President expressed concerns to advisors that reports of Russia's election interference might lead the public to question the legitimacy of his election. Conduct involving FBI Director Comey and Michael Flynn In mid-January 2017, incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn falsely denied to the Vice President, other administration officials and FBI agents that he had talked to Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak about Russia's response to U.S. sanctions on Russia for its election interference. On January 27th, the day after the President was told that Flynn had lied to the Vice President and had made similar statements to the FBI, the President invited FBI Director Comey to a private dinner at the White House and told Comey that he needed loyalty. On February 14th, the day after the President requested Flynn's resignation, the President told an outside advisor, Now that we fired Flynn, the Russia thing is over, the advisor disagreed and said the investigations would continue. Later that afternoon, the President cleared the Oval Office to have a one-on-one meeting with Comey. Referring to the FBI's investigation of Flynn, the President said, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go, he is a good guy, I hope you can let this go. Shortly after requesting Flynn's resignation and speaking privately to Comey, the President sought to have Deputy National Security Advisor KT McFarland draft an internal letter stating that the President had not directed Flynn to discuss sanctions with Kislyak. McFarland declined because she did not know whether that was true and a White House Counsel's office attorney thought that the request would look like a quid pro quo for an ambassador ship she had been offered. The President's reaction to the continuing Russia investigation. In February 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions began to assess whether he had to recuse himself from campaign-related investigations because of his role in the Trump campaign. In early March, the President told White House Counsel Don McGahn to stop Sessions from recusing and after Sessions announced his recusal on March 2nd, the President expressed anger at the decision and told advisors that he should have an Attorney General who would protect him. That weekend, the President took Sessions aside at an event and urged him to quote unrecuse end of quote. Later in March, Comey publicly disclosed at a congressional hearing that the FBI was investigating quote the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, end of quote, including any links or coordination between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. In the following days, the President reached out to the Director of National Intelligence and the leaders of the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, and the National Security Agency, NSA, to ask them what they could do to publicly dispel the suggestion that the President had any connection to the Russian election interference effort. The President also twice called Comey directly, notwithstanding guidance from McGahn to avoid direct contacts with the Department of Justice. Comey had previously assured the President that the FBI was not investigating him personally and the President asked Comey to quote lift the cloud, end of quote, of the Russia investigation by saying that publicly. The President's Termination of Comey On May 3, 2017, Comey testified in a congressional hearing, but declined to answer questions about whether the President was personally under investigation. Within days, the President decided to terminate Comey. The President insisted that the termination letter, which was written for public release, state that Comey had informed the President that he was not under investigation. The day of the firing, the White House maintained that Comey's termination resulted from independent recommendations from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General that Comey should be discharged for mishandling the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But the President had decided to fire Comey before hearing from the Department of Justice. The day after firing Comey, the President told Russian officials that he had, quote, faced great pressure because of Russia, end of quote, which had been, quote, taken off, end of quote, by Comey's firing. The next day, the President acknowledged in a television interview that he was going to fire Comey regardless of the Department of Justice's recommendation, and that when he, quote, decided to just do it, end of quote, he was thinking that, quote, this thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, end of quote. In response to a question about whether he was angry with Comey about the Russia investigation, the President said, quote, as far as I'm concerned, I want that thing to be absolutely done properly, end of quote, adding that firing Comey, quote, might even lengthen out the investigation, end of quote. The appointment of a special counsel and efforts to remove him. On May 17, 2017, the acting Attorney General for the Russia investigation appointed a special counsel to conduct the investigation and related matters. The President reacted to news that a special counsel had been appointed by telling advisors that it was, quote, the end of his presidency, end of quote, and demanding that Sessions resign. Sessions submitted his resignation, but the President ultimately did not accept it. The President told aides that the special counsel had conflicts of interest and suggested that the special counsel therefore could not serve. The President's advisors told him the asserted conflicts were meritless and had already been considered by the Department of Justice. On June 14, 2017, the media reported that the special counsel's office was investigating whether the President had obstructed justice. Press reports called this, quote, a major turning point, end of quote, in the investigation. While Comey had told the President he was not under investigation, following Comey's firing, the President now was under investigation. The President reacted to this news with a series of tweets criticizing the Department of Justice and the special counsel's investigation. On June 17, 2017, the President called McGahn at home and directed him to call the acting Attorney General and say that the special counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed. McGahn did not carry out the direction, however, deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday night massacre. Efforts to cartel the special counsel's investigation. Two days after directing McGahn to have the special counsel removed, the President made another attempt to affect the course of the Russia investigation. On June 19, 2017, the President met one-on-one in the Oval Office with his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, a trusted advisor outside the government, and dictated a message for Lewandowski to deliver to Sessions. The message said that Sessions should publicly announced that notwithstanding his recusal from the Russia investigation, the investigation was, quote, very unfair, end of quote, to the President. The President had done nothing wrong and Sessions planned to meet with the special counsel and, quote, let him move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections, end of quote. Lewandowski said he understood what the President wanted Sessions to do. One month later, in another private meeting with Lewandowski on July 19, 2017, the President asked about the status of his message for Sessions to limit the special counsel investigation to future election interference. Lewandowski told the President that the message would be delivered soon. Hours after that meeting, the President publicly criticized Sessions in an interview with the New York Times and then issued a series of tweets making it clear that Sessions' job was in jeopardy. Lewandowski did not want to deliver the President's message personally, so he asked senior White House official Rick Dearborn to deliver it to Sessions. Dearborn was uncomfortable with the task and did not follow through. Efforts to prevent public disclosure of evidence In the summer of 2017, the President learned that media outlets were asking questions about the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between senior campaign officials, including Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian lawyer who was said to be offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton as, quote, part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump, end of quote. On several occasions, the President directed aides not to publicly disclose the emails setting up the June 9 meeting, suggesting that the emails would not leak and that the number of lawyers with access to them should be limited. Before the emails became public, the President edited a press statement for Trump Jr. by deleting a line that acknowledged that the meeting was with, quote, an individual who Trump Jr. was told might have information helpful to the campaign, end of quote, and instead said only that the meeting was about adoptions of Russian children. When the press asked questions about the President's involvement in Trump Jr. statement, the President's personal lawyer repeatedly denied the President had played any role. Further efforts to have the Attorney General take control of the investigation. In early summer 2017, the President called Sessions at home and again asked him to reverse his recusal from the Russia investigation. Sessions did not reverse his recusal. In October 2017, the President met privately with Sessions in the Oval Office and asked him to, quote, take a look, end of quote, at investigating Clinton. In December 2017, shortly after Flynn pleaded guilty, pursuant to a cooperation agreement, the President met with Sessions in the Oval Office and suggested, according to notes taken by a senior advisor, that if Sessions unrecused and took back supervision of the Russian investigation, he would be a, quote, hero, end of quote. The President told Sessions, quote, I'm not going to do anything or direct you to do anything, I just want to be treated fairly, end of quote. In response, Sessions volunteered that he had never seen anything, quote, improper, end of quote, on the campaign and told the President there was a, quote, whole new leadership team, end of quote, in place. He did not unrecuse. Efforts to have McGahn deny that the President had ordered him to have the special counsel removed. In early 2018, the Press reported that the President had directed McGahn to have the special counsel removed in June 2017 and that McGahn had threatened to resign rather than carry out the order. The President reacted to the news stories by directing White House officials to tell McGahn to dispute the story and create a record stating he had not been ordered to have the special counsel removed. McGahn told those officials that the media reports were accurate in stating that the President had directed McGahn to have the special counsel removed. The President then met with McGahn in the Oval Office and again pressured him to deny the reports. In the same meeting, the President also asked McGahn why he had told the special counsel about the President's effort to remove the special counsel and why McGahn took notes of his conversations with the President. McGahn refused to back away from what he remembered happening and perceived the President to be testing his medal. Conduct toward Flynn, Manafort, redaction, harm to ongoing matter. After Flynn withdrew from a joint defense agreement with the President and began cooperating with the government, the President's personal counsel left a message for Flynn's attorneys reminding them of the President's warm feelings towards Flynn, which he said, quote, still remains, end of quote, and asking for a quote, heads up, end of quote, if Flynn knew, quote, information that implicates the President, end of quote. When Flynn's counsel reiterated that Flynn could no longer share information pursuant to a joint defense agreement, the President's personal counsel said he would make sure that the President knew that Flynn's actions reflected, quote, hostility, end of quote, towards the President. During Manafort's prosecution and when the jury in his criminal trial was deliberating, the President praised Manafort in public, said that Manafort was being treated unfairly, and declined to rule out a pardon. After Manafort was convicted, the President called Manafort, quote, a brave man, end of quote, for refusing to, quote, break, end of quote, and said that, quote, flipping, almost ought to be outlawed, end of quote, reduction, harm to ongoing matter. Conduct involving Michael Cohen. The President's conduct towards Michael Cohen, a former Trump organization executive, changed from praise for Cohen when he falsely minimized the President's involvement in the Trump Tower Moscow project to castigation of Cohen when he became a cooperating witness. From September 2015 to June 2016, Cohen had pursued the Trump Tower Moscow project on behalf of the Trump organization, and had briefed candidate Trump on the project numerous times, including discussing whether Trump should travel to Russia to advance the deal. In 2017, Cohen provided false testimony to Congress about the project, including stating that he had only briefed Trump on the project three times, and never discussed travel to Russia with him, in an effort to adhere to a, quote, party line, end of quote, that Cohen said was developed to minimize the President's connections to Russia. While preparing for his congressional testimony, Cohen had extensive discussions with the President's personal counsel, who, according to Cohen, said that Cohen should, quote, stay on message, end of quote, and not contradict the President. After the FBI searched Cohen's home and office in April 2018, the President publicly asserted that Cohen would not, quote, flip, end of quote, contacted him directly to tell him to, quote, stay strong, end of quote, and privately passed messages of support to him. Cohen also discussed pardons with the President's personal counsel, and believed that if he stayed on message, he would be taken care of. But after Cohen began cooperating with the government in the summer of 2018, the President publicly criticized him, called him a, quote, rat, end of quote, and suggested that his family members had committed crimes. Overarching Factual Issues We did not make a traditional prosecution decision about these facts, but the evidence we obtained supports several general statements about the President's conduct. Several features of the conduct we investigated distinguish it from typical obstruction of justice cases. First, the investigation concerns the President, and some of his actions, such as firing the FBI director, involved facially lawful acts within his Article 2 authority, which raises constitutional issues discussed below. At the same time, the President's position as the head of the executive branch provided him with unique and powerful means of influencing official proceedings, subordinate officers, and potential witnesses, all of which is relevant to a potential obstruction of justice analysis. Second, unlike cases in which a subject engages in obstruction of justice to cover up a crime, the evidence we obtained did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference. Although the obstruction statutes do not require proof of such a crime, the absence of that evidence affects the analysis of the President's intent and requires consideration of other possible motives for his conduct. Third, many of the President's acts directed at witnesses, including discouragement of cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons, took place in public view. That circumstance is unusual, but no principle of law excludes public acts from the reach of the obstruction laws. If the likely effect of public acts is to influence witnesses or alter their testimony, the harm to the justice system's integrity is the same. Although the series of events we investigated involved discrete acts, the overall pattern of the President's conduct towards the investigations can shed light on the nature of the President's acts and the inferences that can be drawn about his intent. In particular, the actions we investigated can be divided into two phases, reflecting a possible shift in the President's motives. The first phase covered the period from the President's first interactions with Comey through the President's firing of Comey. During that time, the President had been repeatedly told he was not personally under investigation. Soon after the firing of Comey and the appointment of the Special Counsel, however, the President became aware that his own conduct was being investigated in an obstruction of justice inquiry. At that point, the President engaged in a second phase of conduct involving public attacks on the investigation, non-public efforts to control it, and efforts in both public and private to encourage witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation. Judgments about the nature of the President's motives during each phase would be informed by the totality of the evidence. Statutory and Constitutional Defenses The President's counsel raised statutory and constitutional defenses to a possible obstruction of justice analysis of the conduct we investigated. We concluded that none of those legal defenses provided a basis for declining to investigate the facts. Statutory Defenses Consistent with precedent and the Department of Justice's general approach to interpreting obstruction statutes, we concluded that several statutes could apply here. C-18-USC Sections 1503-1505-1512-B3-1512-C2 Section 1512-C2 is an omnibus obstruction of justice provision that covers a range of obstructive acts directed at pending or contemplated official proceedings. No principle of statutory construction justifies narrowing the provision to cover only conduct that impairs the integrity or availability of evidence. Sections 1503 and 1505 also offer broad protection against obstructive acts directed at pending grand jury, judicial, administrative, and congressional proceedings, and they are supplemented by a provision in Section 1512-B aimed specifically at conduct intended to prevent or hinder the communication to law enforcement of information related to a federal crime. Constitutional Defenses As for constitutional defenses arising from the President's status as the head of the Executive Branch, we recognized that the Department of Justice and the courts have not definitively resolved these issues. We therefore examined those issues through the framework established by Supreme Court precedent governing separation of powers issues. The Department of Justice and the President's personal counsel have recognized that the President is subject to statutes that prohibit obstruction of justice by bribing a witness or suborning perjury because that conduct does not implicate his constitutional authority. With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice. Under applicable Supreme Court precedent, the Constitution does not categorically and permanently immunize a President for obstructing justice through the use of his Article II powers. The separation of powers doctrine authorizes Congress to protect official proceedings including those of courts and grand juries from corrupt obstructive acts regardless of their source. We also concluded that any inroad on presidential authority that would occur from prohibiting corrupt acts does not undermine the President's ability to fulfill his constitutional mission. The term, quote, corruptly, end of quote, sets a demanding standard. It requires a concrete showing that a person acted with an intent to obtain an improper advantage for himself or someone else, inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others. A preclusion of, quote, corrupt end of quote, official action does not diminish the President's ability to exercise Article II powers. For example, the proper supervision of criminal law does not demand freedom for the President to act with a corrupt intention of shielding himself from criminal punishment, avoiding financial liability or preventing personal embarrassment. To the contrary, a statute that prohibits official action undertaken for such corrupt purposes furthers rather than hinders the impartial and even-handed administration of the law. It also aligns with the President's constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws. Finally, we concluded that in the rare case in which a criminal investigation of the President's conduct is justified, inquiries to determine whether the President acted for a corrupt motive should not impermissibly chill his performance of his constitutionally assigned duties. The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President's corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law. Conclusion Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President's conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. End of Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election Executive Summary, Volume 2, March 2019 by Robert S. Muller III Read by Colleen McMahon