„… answering to the best of his recollection.“<\/b>
\nWill the collusion probe come down to a memory test? CNN got some inside skinny from \u201ctwo sources familiar with the matter\u201d about Donald Trump\u2019s written answers to special counsel Robert Mueller. They report that Trump has denied knowing anything in advance about Wikileaks\u2019 release of e-mails from the DNC and John Podesta, nor about the infamous Trump Tower meeting between Natalia Veselnitskaya and three top Trump campaign officials.
That is, Trump denies it to the best of his recollection:
President Donald Trump told special counsel Robert Mueller in writing that Roger Stone did not tell him about WikiLeaks, nor was he told about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his son, campaign officials and a Russian lawyer promising dirt on Hillary Clinton, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
One source described the President\u2019s answers without providing any direct quotes and said the President made clear he was answering to the best of his recollection.\u2026
The President\u2019s lawyers previously told CNN the answers would match his public statements. Still, these written answers could be subject to criminal charges if false.
In case you\u2019re wondering, \u201cto the best of my recollection\u201d isn\u2019t a complete defense against a perjury or obstruction charge. CNN notes that attorneys will counsel clients to preface answers as subject to perhaps fallible memory as a means of dealing with challenges to such statements. It\u2019s a little more cooperative than \u201cI don\u2019t remember,\u201d an answer which would hardly help Trump in this context. It does give some room for maneuvering if a client gets caught in a perjury trap, but if a prosecutor can establish that the subject did have proper recall or should have, a jury might well conclude that \u201cto the best of my recollection\u201d is a lie in itself.
This is one reason not to provide such answers in the first place. The second-best option is to have your attorney answer for you, which is apparently what Trump did with his written responses to Mueller. If these statements hold up, it makes it tougher to construct a collusion case around Wikileaks, Manafort, and the Trump Tower meeting.
But do they hold up? Soon-to-be House intel chair Adam Schiff isn\u2019t persuaded, and hinted that it might contradict testimony given to the committee:
Adam Schiff told me that Trump\u2019s written responses to Mueller are \u201cnot adequate\u201d and his panel would be pursuing phone records to learn the identity of the blocked number of the individual Don Jr spoke with potentially about the Trump Tower meeting.
\u2014 Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 28,2018
Schiff on Corsi: \u201cIt also suggest that Roger Stone\u2019s testimony before our committee may have been far less than truthful, it\u2019s important to provide that testimony to the special counsel so that a determination can be made about whether any witness committed perjury fraud.\u201d
\u2014 Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 28,2018
That refers a separate issue emerging this week about e-mails between Stone and Corsi, one that so far has no connection to Trump himself. Corsi e-mailed Stone about a pair of upcoming Wikileaks releases that would be \u201cvery damaging\u201d to Hillary Clinton\u2019s candidacy. Mueller\u2019s office has taken a keen interest in these communications:
The correspondence forms part of Mr Mueller\u2019s broader investigation into Russian election meddling and any possible collusion with Trump campaign officials.
\u201cWord is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps,\u201d one email written on 2 August says. \u201cOne shortly after I\u2019m back. 2nd in Oct.\u201d
He added, \u201cImpact planned to be very damaging.\u201d
Mr Stone has denied any involvement in the release of the emails.
By August 2nd, however, the DNC e-mails had been out in the open for nearly two months. It was a very common assumption over the summer that they would have more to release. Corsi may have had sources with this information, but that doesn\u2019t necessarily connect dots to a collusion case, with or without Trump. (Corsi says he was merely passing along speculation to Stone, who ignored him.)
One has to wonder about the strategy behind this leak. It\u2019s almost certainly not coming from Mueller, which means it\u2019s almost certainly coming from Trump\u2019s legal and\/or political team. It comes as Trump\u2019s ramping up his attacks on Mueller again, both in his own words and in, ah, questionable choices in retweets. Perhaps the idea was to emphasize the \u201cwitch hunt\u201d from the \u201cAngry Mueller Gang of Dems\u201d by releasing Trump\u2019s denials, but the watered-down aspect of best recollection hardly sounds like a position of strength.
And it prompts the question: why aren\u2019t they discussing the other answers?<\/p>\n