U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes is demanding more transparency from Robert Mueller’s report than even many Democrats.
The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee called on Friday for the release of “all backup and source documentation” from the special counsel’s Russia investigation in order to reveal what a “fraud” it was.
Nunes tweeted his argument in response to a newly released transcript of a voicemail message from a former Trump lawyer which included content that was not part of Mueller’s report.
Complying with an order from a federal judge, Mueller’s team on Friday released the transcript of former Trump lawyer John Dowd’s phone message to Rob Kelner, the lawyer for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, Fox News reported.
While Mueller had highlighted parts of the message in his report, including Dowd asking for a “heads up” if there was any information that “implicates” Trump and noting Trump’s “feelings toward Flynn,” Mueller seemed to have left out other pertinent information which was revealed in Friday’s transcript release.
Nunes retweeted a comparison of the two versions of Dowd’s message from November 2017, showing clearly that Mueller had left out the parts in which the lawyer had said he wanted the heads up “not only for the president but for the country” and that he wasn’t asking for “any confidential information.”
“It’s all a fraud,” Nunes wrote, using the hashtag #muellerdossier.
This is why we need all backup and source documentation for the #muellerdossier released publicly. It’s all a fraud… https://t.co/wMjRkHJ5j4
— Devin Nunes (@DevinNunes) June 1, 2019
“I understand that you can’t join the joint defense; so that’s one thing,” Dowd had said, according to the transcript, following Flynn’s decision to begin working with Mueller and not be part of a joint defense with Trump. Flynn is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty last year to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with Russians.
“If, on the other hand, we have, there’s information that … implicates the president, then we’ve got a national security issue, or maybe a national security issue, I don’t know … some issue, we got to — we got to deal with, not only for the president, but for the country. So … uh … you know, then-then, you know, we need some kind of heads-up,” Dowd said, according to the transcript.
According to Politico:
Mueller highlighted Dowd’s voicemail as part of his evidence suggesting Trump or his allies may have attempted to influence Flynn’s willingness to cooperate with investigators. Mueller’s argument that Dowd had conveyed Trump’s continued warm feelings toward Flynn — combined with public and private efforts by Trump to encourage Flynn to stay strong — could have affected Flynn’s willingness to cooperate, or limited the extent of his willingness to help. But Mueller also noted that attorney-client privilege issues prevented him from learning whether Trump “was personally involved in or knew about” Dowd’s outreach.
Dowd, who resigned as the president’s lead attorney in March 2018, denied that there was any attempt in that call to affect Flynn’s cooperation with Mueller.
“During the joint defense relationship, counsel for the president provided to Flynn’s counsel documents, advice and encouragement to provide to SC [the special counsel] as part of his effort to cooperate with the SC,” he said in a statement on Friday, according to Fox News. “SC never raised or questioned the president’s counsel about these allegations despite numerous opportunities to do so.”
“This is clearly a baseless, political document designed to smear and damage the reputation of counsel and innocent people,” he said.
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