Mueller Said to Look into Democratic Email Hacking

the indictments, so the plea agreements. Something that seemed to have been missing was a connection between President Trump and the inquiry into whether his presidential campaign colluded with Russia during the election. There are indications now that Mueller is focusing his attention higher up the ladder to Trump and

that question. NBC News is reporting that Mueller's team is asking witnesses questions about whether Trump knew that democratic emails had been stolen before it was publicly known, and whether Trump was aware of plans for Wiki Leaks to published the emails. Joining me is Jimmy grule I, professor at Notre Dame University Law School. Jimmy this seems to be echoing that Watergate question. What did the president know and when did he know it? Or am I reading too

much into it? Now? I think you're absolutely right that there's a couple of facts here. One, I think it's been established that the Russians did attempt to interfere with the two thousand and sixteen presidential election. All seventeen of the federal intelligence agencies agree on that fact. Even the president's own National Security Advisor, General H. R. McMaster his stated as much, saying, it's now incontrovertible that there was

an attempt to interfere with the election. And uh, Then with respect to that, the other fact is we know that during the campaign, the president then then kendidate Trump made several statements alluding to the Russians, at one at one time encouraging them to hack into or find Hillary Clinton's emails, and then on several occasions praising wiki leagues

for systematically disclosing emails of Hillary Clinton. John Podesta, the chair of her presidential campaign, that we're benefiting, benefiting the president. And so those two facts that now the question is, with respect to those two facts, do we have a more direct link. Was the president actually aware of the the the hacking of the d n C and Podesta's emails, and was he or members of his campaign involved in assisting the Russians or assisting wiki leagues and systematically disclosing

those emails. In the indictment of thirteen Russians, laid out a very specific and elaborate conspiracy to interfere at the election. Those Russians will never be tried. But explain how that conspiracy could be the groundwork for charging Trump or others. Well, we know, again, we know a couple of things. We know that the interference by the Russians had had at

least two dimensions. One, they were they were using social media in a very sophisticated, very organized way to try to influence public opinion, uh in favor of president of candidate trumping against candidate Clinton. But but there's another important

dimension to the Russian interference, and that's the hacking. We know that the Russians were involved in Russian intelligence agencies were involved in hacking the d n C emails and then hacking John Podesta's emails and so uh so so as a results of that, Now, if there was collusion or conspiracy or cooperation or coordination between the Russians and Wiki Leak and members of the Trump campaign that could give rise to UH crimes, federal crimes, including a violation

of the Computer Fraud Act, which makes it an offense to access without a thor UH an individual's computer and then obtain information from those computer files and use those in an effort to perpetrate fraud. But as far as a conspiracy count, what would Mueller have to show what kind of act on the part of the president or those around him? And in reality, there doesn't have to be an act on on the part of the president.

There would need to be an agreement. So the the prosecutor, Mueller would have to prove that there was an agreement between perhaps members of the Russian Intelligence Agency Russian Operatives UH, members of Wiki Leaks, Julian Assange, and then members of the of the Trump campaign. So was there a meeting of the minds between any of those those parties to hack into the d n C and then to use those emails to distribute those emails in a way that

would damage Hillary Clinton and benefit Donald Trump. Let's learned to Trump's strain to say the least, relationship with his Attorney General Jeff Sessions. According to the Washington Post. Mueller's team has been questioning witnesses about Trump's private comments and his state of mind last summer about the time he belittled he was belittling Sessions in a series of tweets

talking about his beleaguered attorney general and the Post. The Post reports that that people familiar with the matters that a key area for the investigators is whether those efforts were part of a pattern of up tempted obstruction of justice. Explain more about what they may be looking for here. Well, again, obstruction of justice involves an attempt to undermine a pending judicial proceeding, and in this particular case, a grand jury proceeding.

The grand jury proceeding this ongoing with respect to the Russia investigation. And so the the issue here is, first, was an attempt to interfere with that grand jury investigation? And further, if there was, it was the defender was the president in this case acting with the corrupt intent?

And so the president certainly has the power of the authority to fire any of the members of his cabinet, but if he does so with the corrupt intent, meaning an improper purpose, that could potentially give rise to obstruction of Justice. So the question here is was the president attempting to pressure Attorney General Sessions to to leave his post in an effort to hamper or undermine the ongoing grandjury investigation involving Russian interference with the two thousand and

sixteen election. It gets very complicated when you start to talk about what actually what kind of proof is actually needed. But you always help us there. Thank you, Jimmy. That's Jimmy Garula. He's a professor Notre Dame University Law School. Also, of course, more than thirty aids to President Trump have been stripped of access to top secret intelligence. According to two people familiar with move, the college troops scandal led to a different kind of March madness in a New

York courtroom yesterday. Federal prosecutors are looking into bribery at the highest levels of college basketball, and they complained to a federal judge about leaks of court documents detailing payments to players, saying the premature disclosure of evidence could endanger their investigation. Defense attorneys denied that they were the source of the leaks. Judge Lewis Kaplan said this stops now wherever it came from. Joining me is Benjamin Levine, senior

counsel at Gordon and Reese. Benjamin tell us about the initial indictment of the ten assistant coaches, the show company executives and agents and where that stands, Hygen, Well, thank you so much for having me today. UM, this is an interesting case and it's been sort of perplexing in my eyes, and I think to a lot of observers since the indictment came down in September that the federal

government got involved with college basketball. Pretty much what happened was the FBI came out and they've been investigating college basketball and amateurism and the n A rules for the last couple of years and sort of an elaborate UM investigation if you look into three thousand hours of wire tapping, wire taps, undercover agents that were involved, and pretty much what they were doing is saying that federal law was

not violated. However, the n A rules, which um is the regulatory arm of college athletics, those rules were being violated, and the FBI had the FBI and the federal government had jurisdiction to get involved because schools, of course received a significant federal funding. So that's sort of how the FBI got involved here. So now the prosecutors were complaining about a Yahoo Sports report from last week that revealed details of the federal investigation. I believe there is also

an ESPN report. What did those reports disclosed that wasn't known before? Sure, Well, there's two different reports that are sort of the subject of the leaks and the judge being pretty aggravated with all sides yesterday at that hearing.

The first was a report from Yahoo which laid out documents that were most likely exchanged in discovery, but laid out pretty intricate records from Andy Miller a s M Sports, which is a uh he and he's a pretty big basketball agent and his office was implicated because one of his associates, Christian Dawkins, was indicted as part of the initial indictments. In September, um the daily indictments came down, it was reported that a s M the FBI, the FEDS came in and they gathered a ton of evidence.

They took their computers, their servers. In part on their servers were excelt sheets which allegedly laid out payments that were paid from a s M Sports, specifically Christian Dawkins. And a few other associates at a s M to high school athletes and their families too, theoretically get them to most likely eventually signed with them when they turned pro um and the league that was in Yahoo Sports.

It was pretty intricate in detail because they were actually at the actual documents and the spreadsheets which were disclosed

in UH the investigation. The ESPN report is actually even murkier because Sean Miller, who is the coach of UH the Arizona one of the best teams in the country, is reportedly on What's Caught on a wire tap with Christian Dawkins discussing how they could pay DeAndre Aton, who's most likely going to be the number one pick UM this year when he declares to the NBA Draft, how they were able to pay his family and him a

hundred thousand dollars to at ten Arizona. So the judge, obviously these are two, you know, UH, huge parts of the case, and you know, these are the smoking guns you always hear about, and somehow they've made their way into the press and for the public to consume. And obviously there's concerns from the judge because you do want to have a fair trial. When this eventually goes to trial, you don't want to have the jury pool polluted by evidence that gets out prior to being introduced to the jury.

It seems like the prosecutors were the ones that were complaining more. Does it hurt the prosecution more or the defense? You know what, It's always uh, it's always funny when it comes to leaks because this information always gets out. And you know, I always tell people when they're trying to figure out, what's the point of this getting out? Yet the point to who the source of the the leak was and tryside what they have to gain. And I can see it from both ends. I mean, the prosecutors

saying we didn't do it. They're pointing fingers at the defense. The defense is saying we didn't do it. We're pointing fingers at the prosecution. And both sides have an interest of can have their own interests to gain this stuff out.

On the point of the prosecutors, they could be releasing this information specifically as it pertains to Sean Miller, to sort to scare other people to come forward, saying, look, we have three thousand hours of wire tap conversations and you could be next so if you have any information, come to us now and get the best deal, and you know it will look more favorable if you come

in disclose what you know now. On the defense side, they could be saying, look, this is a which hunt towards just a few the ten people that are indicted. This actually goes a lot further than um just the defendants that are actually named. Sean Miller, for instance, he's not named in any indictment and hasn't been mentioned once

as being a part of this case. So Ben, one of the defense attorneys, said he'd already raised concerns with prosecutors that too many documents had been designated as confidential, and Judge Kaplan told both sides that they should expect a revised order on procedures for confidential documents in order not to jeopardize the fair trial. What kind of procedures for confidential documents? Can he can he really close the lead here? Can he can the judge stop the leaks

with new procedures? The judge could do everything he can in his power to try to prevent leaks, But unfortunately, um, unfortunately, it's really difficult to stop somebody from getting their narrative out there. I imagine that the new order will be a very tight gag order that will have significant penalties either side if it comes out that they're the ones

actually leaking the information. And we typically see this in a lot of high profile cases where UM attorneys are put under gag orders they can't speak to the press, and this can now encompass all the documents that are

being exchanged between both sides. But unfortunately, this case seems like it's, you know, bigger than what we already This case seems like it's a lot bigger than what's initially being reported, and a lot of other people are implicated, and when people are being interviewed by the FBI, it could be a lot more than just the ten defendants that are already named. Then we've seen a higher profile investigation where there seemed never to be any leaks, and

that's the Special Council Russia investigation. How do you account for that? Well, I am, I would disagree with you on one point. I think there have been some selective

leaks that have come out recently. UM. But from all from everything I've read and from everything I know about Robert Mueller, he is a straight by the book kind of guy and he doesn't play dirty, and you know that could be a big part of it too, is that his personality and the way he runs his operation and his investigation is to keep it a lot more close to the vest I think recently a few things have been uh coming out as it pertains to the

Russia investigation, because it might be coming to its close and they're trying to get certain people to flip and give out some information and maybe roll on a few people that are higher up that haven't been named yet or indicted. Yeah, the leaks are selective recently they seem to be coming for for specific reasons. Whereas these leaks were were they just we have about thirty seconds here. Were you shocked by these leaks? Um, I haven't been

shocked about anything as it pertains of this case. Because when you have an industry, Um, when you have an organization like the n c A that runs an industry that's multibillions of dollars and it has a labor force that doesn't get paid, unfortunately, there's going to be a black market. And you know they're labor force. These players that generally a lot of them come from low income families.

They can't afford to even buy a cup of coffee on campus, So if somebody's offering you some money, all right, We've got to end it there, but we will pick up this conversation again. That's Benjamin Levin's and your council a Board and Reese. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Grosso. This is Bloomberg