Mueller's "pit pull" atty Weissman arranged secret "black ledger" meeting with AP reporters

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Tue, 10 Jul 2018 15:26 UTC

Documents released Friday by the Department of Justice confirm that a DOJ attorney known as Robert Mueller's "pit bull" arranged an April 11, 2017 meeting with journalists to discuss their investigation into Paul Manafort in which information may have been leaked back and forth concerning the case.

At question is the FBI's relationship with AP - and whether or not the FBI leaked information about the Manafort case to them or vice-versa.

According to memos written by FBI agents, Special Counsel attorney Andrew Weissmann, Mueller's #2 (who donated $6,600 to the DNC, Obama and Clinton campaigns and reportedly attended a Clinton election night party in NYC), arranged a meeting between DOJ/FBI officials and four reporters from the Associated Press - who told the FBI about a storage locker owned by Manafort and then gave the FBI a passcode to access it.

The memos also show that one of the AP journalists gave the FBI an unusual detail about a storage unit in Alexandria, Virginia that Manafort used to keep records of his worldwide business dealings. Both memos say the AP revealed a code number to access the unit, although one memo says the reporters declined to share the unit number of the locker or its street address. -Politico

Manafort's attorneys received the documents on June 29 and revealed them in a Virginia federal court filing as part of a push for a hearing into possible leaks of sealed grand jury information, false reports and potentially classified materials.

"The meeting raises serious concerns about whether a violation of grand jury secrecy occurred," wrote Manafort attorney Kevin Downing in a motion requesting the hearing. "Based on the FBI's own notes of the meeting, it is beyond question that a hearing is warranted."

One of the memos written by FBI Supervisory Special Agent Karen Greenaway reveals "The meeting was arranged by Andrew Weissmann," who goes on to note that Weissmann provided guidance to the reporters.

According to Greenaway, Weissmann suggested that the reporters ask the Cypriot Anti-Money Laundering Authority, a Cypriot government agency, if it had provided the Department of Treasury with all of the documents they were legally authorized to provide regarding Manafort. -Daily Caller

AP director of media relations Lauren Easton defended the FBI briefing in a statement toi the Daily Caller News Foundation:

"Associated Press journalists met with representatives from the Department of Justice in an effort to get information on stories they were reporting, as reporters do. During the course of the meeting, they asked DOJ representatives about a storage locker belonging to Paul Manafort, without sharing its name or location."

Originally reported by journalist Sara Carter in January, the meeting between AP and DOJ officials was confirmed for the first time on June 29 in a pre-trial hearing at which FBI special agent Jeffrey Pfeiffer admitted that the FBI may have conducted a May 2017 raid on a storage locker rented by Manafort.

The AP journalists, Chad Day, Ted Bridis, Jack Gillum and Eric Tucker, were conducting an extensive investigation of Manafort, including payments he received through various shell companies set up in Cyprus.

Day and Gillum published an article a day after the meeting laying out some of the allegations against Manafort, including that he was listed in a "black ledger" that documented illicit payments from a Ukrainian political party allied with the Russian government. -Daily Caller

Manafort will go on trial July 25 for a litany of bank fraud and money laundering charges connected to a 2012-2014 lobbying effort for a pro-Ukraine think tank tied to former president Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych fled from Ukraine to Russia after he was unseated in a 2014 coup.

Manafort's firm earned $17 million consulting for Yanukovych's centrist, pro-Russia 'Party of Regions.' During the same period, he oversaw a lobbying campaign for the pro-Russia "Centre for a Modern Ukraine," (ECMU) a Brussels based think tank linked to Yanukovych which was pushing for Ukraine's entry into the European Union.

Of note, the now defunct Podesta group, operating under Manafort, earned over $1.2 million as part of that effort.

While the Podesta group and Paul Manafort both failed to file paperwork related to the Pro-Russia Centre for a Modern Ukraine, retroactive disclosures filed by the Podesta group on August 17 revealed dozens of previously unreported communications with high level democrat officials related to the lobbying campaign - including Hillary Clinton's State Department and the office of former Vice President Joe Biden.

Read the motion by Manafort's attorneys here:

Comment: Sara Carter's take:

Weissmann allegedly improperly disclosed confidential grand jury information and potentially classified information

50,000 pages of new discovery materials were handed to the defense team just 19 days before the scheduled trial

Manafort now sits in solitary confinement in a Virginia jail to ensure his own safety

Manafort's lawyers are requesting a hearing based on Weissmann's alleged improper disclosure of confidential grand jury information, non-public information, false information and potentially classified materials, the court documents state. Weissmann met with AP journalists on April 11 after reporters informed him of their own investigation into Manafort's dealings with Ukrainian officials.

CourthouseNews.com points out that, according to Manafort's attorney, Jay Nanavati, "the government turned over roughly 50,000 pages of new discovery materials to the defense on Friday, 'a mere 19 days before the scheduled trial in this case.'"

According to sources with knowledge of the meeting, the reporters had reached out to Weissmann on a different story earlier in the year and it was during that conversation that the AP team told Weissmann of their investigation into Manafort. However, according to the recent documents, it was Weissmann that called for the meeting. On April 12-one day after the meeting - the AP published the explosive expose on Manafort.

"The meeting raises serious concerns about whether a violation of grand jury secrecy occurred," stated Kevin Downing, Manafort's lawyer, in a motion requesting a hearing. "Based on the FBI's own notes of the meeting, it is beyond question that a hearing is warranted."

At the time of the meeting, Weissmann was head of the Justice Department's fraud division. He was the most senior member of the Justice Department to join the special counsel in May 2016, one month after the meeting with reporters.

Weissmann, who is described by the New York Times as Mueller's "pit bull" is known for using unscrupulous tactics and has been reprimanded by the courts on several occasions for withholding exculpatory evidence in cases.

According to the court documents released Friday, Weissmann directed the AP reporters to "ask the Cypriot Anti-Money Laundering Authority if they had provided the U.S. Department of Treasury with everything to which they had access or only provided what they were legally required to provide."

Downing also noted in the court filing that the AP reporters "inquired about FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) violations" and DOJ attendees confirmed to the reporters that it was a prosecutable offense. More importantly, said Downing, the DOJ guided the reporters who wrote the original story on Manafort and noted that the reporters "appeared to have a good understanding of Manafort's business dealings in Ukraine.

According to the court documents, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Karen Greenaway and Special Agent Jeffery Pfeiffer also attended the April 11 meeting. Greenaway's notes were more detailed than Pfeiffer's and revealed detailed information not yet disclosed.

Details revealed in the court documents:

The meeting was arranged by Andrew Weissmann

Andrew Weissmann directed the AP reporters to ask the Cypriot Anti-Money Laundering Authority ("MOKAS") if they had provided the U.S. Department of Treasury with everything to which they had access or only provided what they were legally required to provide

When the AP reporters inquired about FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) violations, DOJ attendees confirmed that they were prosecutable

When the AP reporters asked if DOJ would tell them if they were off base or on the wrong track, government attendees confirmed that the AP reporters appeared to have a good understanding of Manafort's business dealings in Ukraine

In January, AP spokeswoman Lauren Easton said, "Associated Press journalists meet with a range of people in the course of reporting stories, and we refrain from discussing relationships with sources. However, the suggestion that AP would voluntarily serve as the source of information for a government agency is categorically untrue."

That meeting with the AP was attended by three different litigating offices. Two employees from the U.S. Justice Department and the other representative was from the U.S. Attorney's office, according to the sources. FBI agents also attended the meeting, as reported in January.

On June 15, a federal judge ordered Manafort to prison for alleged witness tampering while he was out on bail. He is currently at Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw, VA, where he has since been in solitary confinement for 23 hours every day. According to his attorneys, the jail determined that if Manafort was to be detained, solitary confinement was the only way to "ensure his security."