Rosenstein Announces Charges for 12 Russian Officials

Congressional Committee. Deputy Attorney General Ron Rosenstein announced the indictment this afternoon. One of those defendants and a twelve Russian military officer are charged with conspiring to infiltrate computers of organizations involved in administering elections, including state boards of election, secretaries of state, and companies that supply software used to administer elections. The Russian officers were also charged with stealing

the information of about five hundred thousand voters. Joining is joining me is Ellie Hannig of Rutgers University. He's a former federal prosecutor. Ellie. Today's indictments did not include the allegation that Russian efforts succeeded in influencing the election results of the election how important are they? Uh, yeah, I don't know that that conclusion really means much. I mean, it's it's really unknowable if you think about. What we

do know is that these emails were leaked. They were leaked in the months running up to the election, and that millions or tens of millions of United States voters saw those emails, and I think unquestionably they hurt the Democrats. Now, can you know how many people change their mind because of these emails? No, that's impossible to know. It's unknowable. I don't I don't think anyone would ever be able to look at anything and say that flipped the election.

But this had an impact. There's there's no question this impacted people, and it was it was a factor. Rosenstein brushed aside a question about the timing. But it seems glare drying that it comes two days before Trump's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the day after Congressional Republicans attacked the Special Counsel's investigation as biased during the testimony of the FBI agent Peter Struck. Is that timing just coincidence? Yeah, I mean that that is what Rosenstein

said today, Not not coincidence. You just said, Look, this is when we've concluded our factual investigation and when the grand juries come back with an indictment. But of course the timing matters, whether by design or not. Um. You know, Rosensight did say that he had briefed the president a few days ago. Um, you know, you could sort of look at that both ways. You could look at it as uh, you know, him sending a message to the president,

you know, don't get too cozy with Putin. Um, you could look at it as you know, an assurance that the president won't go in and declare that well, Prutin told me they had nothing to do with it, and then two days later the indictment comes out. But I do take Rosenstein at his word that this was just when the work got wrapped up. I mean, things happened so rapidly in this case that any day is going to be near some other day. So he did say that.

When asked about how he informed the president, he said, he needs to understand what information we've uncovered because he has to make very important decisions for the country, so he needs to understand what evidence we have a foreign election interference. He also said that this is about the corruption of elections. It's important to not see it as republicans or Democrats. So he seemed to be sending some kind of message there. Yeah, I think Rosen science right.

I mean, you know, it would be it would be really harmful to our democracy if the president when Anne had this meeting with Putin and and sort of cleared him and said that he said he didn't do it. I believe him, and then shortly after this came out. UM. And I think it's important to inform the way the president interacts with Putin and interacts with Russians. UM that we know now for sure who did this. We didn't

know who did this before today's insignment. We now know who did it, and it was not just Russians generally, it was Russian state actors, these intel officers from the g r U UM. So that's that's very important, and I think it's something that the president and our entire government needs to know in dealing with Russia moving forward.

There was something that I'm curious about. It could it could be nothing, but he said at one point that these uh the information was transferred to another organization not named in the indictment and time for release. Does that Does that indicate that another another indictment is coming about that organization or they said they used it as a pass through to release the documents. Yeah, there absolutely could be. And there's a number of indications in this indictment of

places where there could be further further indictments. I think I think that organization appears to be Wiki leaks. Um. That's just sort of informed speculation. But you know, the White House, if you've seen, has already announced a statement saying well, nobody, no, you, No Americans have been indicted and there's no connection to anything relating to the Trump campaign.

But if you look at this indictment, you can see areas, including the one you decided, where there could be American actors, American individuals, and American based companies or corporate entities that could be the next shoes to drop. You know, Ellie, what you said before sort of rings rings true because are we looking for too much from Robert Mueller's investigation? Are we looking for like a direct connection to some influence in the election or to someone and are we

perhaps not going to get that? Yeah, I mean, I think what Robert Muller is doing is what all good investigators doing. It's building a case blocked by block, piece by piece, and if you if you look at it inftality, and you know, we've seen the numbers. We now have over thirty indictments, five convictions. But you know this is another important block. And now this establishes there were two main ways the Russians tried to and did infiltrate our election.

The first one we already knew about from the MANI for uh and Papadopoulos and Flint indictments, which is they try to provide or sell their Hillary Clinton to directly to the Trump campaign. This is now the second way, This is the hacking into the DNC and this sort of slow release of emails in a drip uh by DC leaks and gucha for in the days leading up to the election. So uh so you know it's it's it's piece by piece, And I do think you're right. I don't think we're ever going to see one specific

document that says here's everything that ties everything alltogether. But he's building, and you can see him building. We keep on waiting for that though, any event, because these all seem you know, as you said, it's a dripped here or dripped there, and there's no response to allegations that come out in the public. Yeah, well, what where? I think we may see it all tied together as if in Windfeller uh files a report with the House of Representatives,

you know, whether it's recommending and teachment or not. But I think that's going to be the ultimate sort of uh, you know, opus that ties it all together. Well, thanks, thanks so much for being here. Ellie. That's Ellie home of Rutgers University. He's a former federal prosecutor. Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul has frequently voiced his firm views on privacy.

He spoke about the issue in a lengthy Senate speech in the bulk collection of all Americans phone records all of the time is a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment. So could Paul's firm views on privacy present a seemingly overlooked obstacle to Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court. Joining me is Corey Bret Schneider, a political science professor at Brown University. Corey, how different our Kavanaugh's views on privacy from Paul's? Are? Are they different enough to cause

a problem? We need to know. I mean, he's as a lower court judge said, uh, not that much. He has a dissent uh in a case about abortion, for instance, which is based on a broad right to privacy that the court's right into the Constitution, um, into a number of its provisions, including the Fourth Amendment. But we don't know what he would do as a Supreme Court judge or justice. Sorry, And so that's why it's so important to ask him questions. Unlike lower court judges, uh, Supreme

Court justices can overturn even longstanding precedent. So that's one of the central questions for him is what he thinks of the broad right to privacy in the Constitution, not just in the Fourth Amendment, but in the idea uh in Griswold versus Connecticut that there's a broad right of privacy in matters like choice and abortion. Uh, in the use of contraception. Uh. And so we just need to

know a lot more about that. In my reading, I came across some some literature that said that his past rulings backed the build up and intelligence gathering on Americans after the September e leventh attacks. Um, that's what I haven't come across enough to give you a definitive answer on that. I mean, the areas that we're starting to see are there's this descent in the abortion case. A lot of scrutiny has been paid to his his work

for um ken Starr uh. And originally he seemed to favor pretty broad terms of impeachment for a president and even indictment, and then more more and more he's favored increasing executive power. Uh. Now that could have implications for the issue that you raise. He also has, in an OpEd that's just been uncovered, seems to suggest that a

president is actually immune from indictment. So that would grant, if that's right, huge leeway to the executive in in all sorts of places, including possibly uh, immunity, even in the use of criminal uh criminal use of information or information gathering. How much can the senators press him on that? Uh,

it's a myth that they can't after the board curings Uh. There, the Heritage Foundation others suggested that there was a thing called the Ginsburg rule, which was supposed to be the idea that that UM nominees are not supposed to talk about their views about past cases. But if you look at Whatsbury actually did. She very was very forthcoming on her views on abortion. So this is kind of a made up thing. Under Article one, UH, the Senate is supposed to be an equal partner with the President in

vetting nominees on their constitutional views. So I think they not only can, but are obligated to directly ask about things like the right to privacy, the right to abortion, UH and UH Row versus Wade in particular. But they cannot ask for a binding commitment for future cases or ask about pending cases, specific cases before the court. That's a distinction if you look at the last justice to

be confirmed and to go to these hearings. Gorse he got He got by saying he wasn't going to give opinions on a variety host of topics, and they just refused to give. You know, he said, I can't give my opinion on what's going to be coming up, and I'll follow precedent. But you know, you didn't really hear what his what his opinions were. They seem to be able to slide. I think that was one of the

worst travesties that hearing, and instance of the Senate's dysfunction. UH. The fact that they let him get away with that. In fact, he didn't say that he would follow precedent when he was repeatedly asked to give his opinion about precedents like the one that I just mentioned, Grizzwold versus Connecticut, which how that broad right to privacy gave individuals the right to use contraception, including in their own bedrooms with their spouses. Uh. Do you agree with that precedent? Would

you uphold it? What he repeatedly said was Griswold versus Connecticut or other cases are precedents or is a precedent. He never said anything about whether he would or wouldn't uphold particular precedents. So it's very important to not allow this sort of very easy, UH legal trick to to UH suffice as an answer to fundamental questions before us. This is the swing vote, likely on cases like ro

versus Weight, UH, possibly on gay rights cases. Justice Kennedy was often the swing vote, sometimes voted with the liberals, sometimes with conservatives. So it's essential this time time, UH to not let him get away with non answers. What other areas do you see sharp differences between Kavanaugh and Kennedy? Uh? Justice Kennedy. Uh is goes down in history because he really led the court in recognizing a variety of gay rights.

In a case called Romer. Uh, he said that legislation based on animus courts UH towards gay individuals was unconstitutional. In that instance, it was a plebiscite that provoked many civil rights for gay gay people. Uh. He of course wrote the opinion about the right to gay marriage. Now that's based on what I think Judge Van Kavanaugh has said, or is a conception of unenumerated rights which is skeptical of, and he's sympathetic to Justice Scully and others who were

very critical of that jurisprudence. And so I don't know that he would respect these precedents. I think he probably thinks they're wrongly decided. And I think that there's a chance that we could see some retrenchment in the area of gay right. It's abortion, of course, and then that

executive power issue that I raised is fundamental. UH. This court might decide the question of whether or not a president can or cannot be indicted by the special prosecutor, or more radically, whether, as some have suggested, UH, the investigation is unconstitutional itself, because the president can't be subject to investigation by his own subordinate sets the theory that's currently been floated, and this nominee might decide that, So

we need to know what he thinks about it. And um, so what's facing the Democrats who want to stop this are not only the Republican votes, but also they have three Democratic senators running in red states that Trump won in sixteen and they have to hold those senators. And I've been looked at some of their voting patterns and

they vote the Republicans on a lot of these important issues. Uh. Yeah, I mean I think, you know, this shouldn't be a partisan issue when it comes to the most fundamental rights under our constitution, which include privacy, include the idea I think that a president is not above the law and can't get away with criminal activity. Uh. That was to me a principle at least, if not the specific question

that the principle was established and during the Nixon administration. Uh. And gay rights are such a part of the fabric of constitutional law now too, that I would think that really any not just party, but any senator that claims to believe in the Constitution needs to uh. Insist that this nominee answer questions about his views on these precedents, and that would include Democrats, Republicans, certainly people like Susan Collins,

uh and Ran Paul. If he's serious about the Constitution, I think i'd like to see him take a lead role in in questioning this nominee. We'll look forward to the questioning. Thanks so much, Corey. That's Corey bretch Schneider. He's a political science professor at Brown University. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple podcast US, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Grosso. This is Bloomberg. M mhm