Volume V: Part 3, the Trump Tower Meeting

 

So, with Donald Trump under indictment and both Big Ones having dropped, it seems almost anti-climactic to go back to the Senate Intelligence Committee of Trump/Russia, but here we are.

The investigation is also rapidly declining in juiciness, moving now to Trump's business ties to Russia, and the to Trump Tower meeting, which has been examined in exhaustive detail and determined not to have gone anywhere.  Still, there are some redacted portions that have to make you wonder.

Volume V makes the point, not emphasized in the Mueller Report, that the people who approached Donald, Jr. about potential dirt from the Russian government were long-time business associates. Presumably this had a disarming effect on Junior and made it hard for him to think of the whole business as anything improper, let alone sinister.  The section goes on for over 140 pages, from 259 to 406, much of it decidedly dull.

Junior was approached by Emin Agalarov, son of Aras Agalarov, both associates of the Trumps who had done much to arrange the Miss Universe competition in Moscow and to make ultimately failed negotiations for a Trump Tower in Moscow.  

Aras Agalarov

The Agalarovs have significant ties to Russian organized crime including "individuals involved in murder, prostitution, weapons trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, narcotics trafficking, money laundering and significant other criminal enterprises," and also with the Russian government, including individuals who targeted the US elections (p. 261).  In other words, they are fairly typical Russian oligarchs. This is followed by three and a half pages redacted, so the usual caveat applies that whatever his hidden is never as juicy as you imagine.  They also know the individuals involved in the Trump Tower meeting, although neither father nor son attended (p. 267).  

The report gives all  back-and-forth about the negotiations for the Miss Universe contest in Moscow, the only part of which is any way interesting or significant is that Trump was very eager to meet with Putin while in Moscow for the pageant, although no such meeting ultimately took place.  

It also traces Trump's movements in Moscow in great detail, presumably to see if there was any possibility of a sex tape used for blackmail. Trump was only in Moscow for a day and a half, and one night, and was out in public for most of the time.  He arrived at 2:45 p.m. on November 8, 2013 and spent the afternoon and evening in public, retiring at 1:00 a.m.  He did spend the night at the Ritz Carlton, but not in the Presidential suite.  His bodyguard, Keith Schiller, said that they were approached by a man who offered to send five prostitutes to their room, and that they refused (p. 294).  Schiller made clear that he saw such an offer as dangerous and was firm in his refusal. Trump left a gap in his public schedule the next day in hopes of a meeting with Putin that did not materialize.  The gap was roughly from 4:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., when the pageant began. Trump attended the pageant and an after-party, staying till nearly 3:00 a.m. and then catching a plane back to New York.

So, there were two times during the visit that Trump was unsupervised -- during the night that he stayed, and the following afternoon before the pageant.  His bodyguard stepped in to block any prostitutes during the night, and the following afternoon was spent in anticipation of meeting with Putin.  It is not impossible that some prostitutes visited during one of those times, but it seems unlikely.

Emin Agalarov

Following the pageant, the Trumps and the Agalarovs attempted to negotiate building a Trump Tower in Moscow (described in painstaking detail), but it fell through by the end of 2014.  It is neither surprising nor sinister that the Agalarovs voiced support when Trump announced his campaign for President.  More interestingly, Emin Agalarov's agent Rob Goldstone (recall that Emin is a singer), approached VK, a Russian social media company, f about setting up an account for the Trump campaign.  As with any Russian company, VK is closely intertwined with the Russian government.  VK also has ties to the Russian intelligence services and the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a/k/a the Troll Farm.  Three mostly redacted pages follow, although ultimately the Committee did not find any significant interaction between the Trump campaign and Russian social media.

The Agalarovs arranged the Trump Tower meeting between the Trump campaign and government officials, although they did not attend.  It still seems a bit suspicious that Aras (Russian oligarch, probably target for NSA surveillance) passed the message through his son (oligarch's son, singer, less probable target), who sent the message through his agent Rob Goldstone (entertainment agent, British national, permanent US resident, not any sort of target).  Goldstone told the Committee that his alarming language ("This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government support for Mr. Trump") was based on his supposition and not on any direct information from Emin.  

Recall that at the time, the Trump campaign had no idea that the Russians had hacked the DNC or the Clinton campaign, or that they had plans to release the information in a damaging manner.  Their focus was primarily on the Clinton Foundation, which they had all manner of lurid speculation about.  Junior's immediate thought appears to have been that the Russians had some negative information on the Clinton Foundation.  One can imagine that Junior was thinking in terms of something the Russians learned in their direct dealings with Hillary as Secretary of State, and it may not have occurred to him that there was anything improper, let alone illegal, about accepting such information.  One person who did recognize the offer as potentially dangerous was Paul Manafort, who warned the others not to expect anything to come of the offer, and that the Russians had an agenda of their own and should not be trusted. Donald, Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort, met with the Russian delegation.

Natalia Veselnitskaya

Volume V sets forth the meeting, including the leadup and the aftermath, in excruciating detail, including where the Russians were waiting before the meeting, and where they went afterward to discuss it.  It also give information (much of it redacted) in the Russian delegation.  Its leader, Natalia Veselnitskaya, is a Russian lawyer most noted for her advocacy against Magnitsky sanctions and championship of sanctioned individuals.  The report details her connections to the Russian government and intelligence services, with over four pages redacted, except to comment that former FBI director Louis Freeh is now a lobbyist for the Russian government against the Magnitsky sanctions.  (I didn't know that!).  Accompanying Veselnitskaya was Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist with suspected ties to the Russian government and intelligence community, including a hacking and dumping history (four and a half pages blacked out). Akhnetshin knew Sam Patten, a Trump campaign official, but not Manafort.

As for the meeting itself, Volume V does not add anything that was not already known.  Veselnitskaya lobbied against the Magnitsky sanctions, denounced their author, Bill Browder, and attempted (not very successfully) to tie him to the Democrats and the Clinton campaign.  No one considered the meeting to have been productive.  Junior specifically asked about the Clinton Foundation and received nothing.  Five days later, the news of the Russian hack of the DNC came out.  Goldstone found the whole thing "eerily weird."

All of this was known before the Committee report.  The Committee released one "eerily weird" nugget not known before.  Paula Shugart, president of the Miss Universe organization, said that Goldstone had told her that he went to the meeting because the Russians "supposedly had emails from the Democrats and dirt on Hillary and then it turned out to be something about adoptions."  (p. 379). When the report of the hacks came out, Shugart thought it sounded like exactly what Goldstone was talking about (p. 380).  This is the only evidence anyone has found tying the Trump Tower meeting to the hack and leak -- an tenuous tie, and a questionable one, but there it is.

There does not appear to have been any follow-up, other than a few more attempts by Veselnitskaya to lobby against the sanctions after Trump was elected.  Maybe there was nothing more.  On the other hand, as was so often the case, the Committee had no access the the Russian side of things. We know that about five hours after Trump made his "Russia if you're listening" remark, but Russian intelligence really did escalate its attempts to hack Hillary Clinton directly.  We do not absolutely know that this was cause and effect, but the timing is suspicious.  It strongly implies that the Russians learned that Trump was open to their help and gave it.  

Could it be that this meeting showed the Russians that the Trump campaign was open to their help and influenced their future actions?  There is not way to tell.

The Steele Dossier and the Page Warrant

People arguing that the Steele Dossier was an elaborate Russia/Steele/Clinton campaign/Deep State plot to frame Trump run into the awkward question of why neither the Clinton campaign nor the Deep State ever published the information they allegedly went to such lengths to fabricate.  The usual counter is that even if none of these entities published the dossier before the election, but FBI did use it to obtain a warrant to spy on a member of the campaign.

Actually, Page had left the campaign at the time the FBI applied for the warrant.  This is significant because it means the FBI was not spying on an ongoing campaign.  Spying on a former campaign adviser could ultimately lead to incriminating information on the campaign, so the warrant was politically significant.  But it was not an attempt at real-time information on the political moves of an opposing campaign.

Still, regardless of whether he was part of an ongoing campaign, Carter Page should not have been wiretapped without probable cause, as properly established.  The Republican contention is that the warrant was improper because it was based on opposition research, and because the FISA court was not informed of the source's origins.

The Steele Dossier alleges three main incidents.

First and most notoriously, it alleges that during Donald Trump's November, 2013 visit to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant, he hired some Russian prostitutes to urinate on the Obamas' bed in the Moscow Ritz Carlton, and that the Russian intelligence filmed the incident and used the film to blackmail Trump.  The only part of this that has been established is that Trump was in Moscow in November, 2013 for the Miss Universe pageant, and that he stayed at the Ritz Carlton.

Second, it alleges that during Carter Page's July, 2016 trip to Moscow to address the New Economic School he met with Igor Sechin, CEO of Rosneft oil company to discuss lifting sanctions on Russia.  In return, Sechin offered, "the brokerage of up to a 19 per cent (privatised) stake in Rosneft."  Page showed interest but remained non-committal.  Page is also alleged to have met with Russian official Igor Divyenkin, who said that Russia had damaging information on Clinton, and broadly hinted that they had it on Trump as well.  This information allegedly came from "a trusted compatriot" of "a close associate" of Sechin.  In other words, it is a third-hand rumor.    (Memo 94, pp. 9-10 and Memo 134, pp. 30-31).  Nonetheless, there is at least some verification here.  Page's trip to Moscow at this time is a matter of public record.  Rosneft really did privatize a 19% interest.  And a close associate of Sechin turned up dead under suspicious circumstances.  (Nothing can be said of his "trusted compatriot.")

Finally, it alleges that Michael Cohen met with a Russian operative in Prague in August or September of 2016 to work on the coverup.  Cohen produced an apparent alibi to this meeting; Robert Mueller is working to break it.

The warrant against Page deals with this second alleged incident.

Republicans appear to be right about one thing at least.  The Steele Dossier really does appear to have been the primary source in applying for the warrant, as evidenced by the application (starting page 15) referring to Steele as "Source #1." 

Keep in mind this does not mean that the Steele Dossier was the primary source in the entire counterintelligence investigation, only that sub-portion of it that involved obtaining a FISA warrant against Page.  This is a distinction that Republicans like to blur, but it is real nonetheless.

Furthermore, the reference to Steele as "Source #1" implies that there are other sources as well, but does suggest that they are less important and are merely used as corroboration of the primary source.  Still, let's give at least part of a point to Republicans on that at least.

Republicans are outraged that the application does not say that the dossier was prepared as opposition research for the Democratic Party.  Democrats have essentially three responses.

First of all Steele was simply doing work for a dirt-digging firm.  He didn't know who the firm's client was.  Thus he didn't actually know that he was working for Trump's political opponents, although it seems most improbable that that Trump's allies would be funding the investigation.

Second, the application (page 16) makes clear that, although "Source #1" did not know who the client was, the FBI speculates that the research was probably being done to "discredit Candidate #1's campaign."  In other words, opposition research by Trump's political opponents.

Third (an rather caustically), although the FBI says that it believes Steele was doing opposition research for Trump's opponents, Republicans seem to be complaining that the application does not specifically name names.  This is remarkably hypocritical, given the uproar they made about inappropriate unmasking.  Apparently only Republicans should be shielded from unmasking.

Finally, although Republicans are outraged that the application relies on a hostile and biased sources, doing so is absolutely routine in warrant applications, and for obvious reasons.  Friends and allies of the target are usually not going to give the sort of information that can be used to establish probable cause.  Truly neutral and impartial parties generally just don't know that much.  Establishing probable cause generally means digging around in some sordid business because that is where the information is.  All of this really should draw a collective duh!

But so far as I understand it, Republicans' response is that if Steele didn't know who is ultimate employer was, then it was the FBI's responsibility to investigate and find out.  While acknowledging that the ultimate employer was most unlikely to be friendly to Trump, they maintain that it might have been a business rival, or a jilted ex-mistress (presumably with a new sugar daddy to pay for the research).  If the animosity had been purely personal or commercial, Steele's memos would have been fine, but knowing that the ultimate employer was a political rival hopelessly taints them.

I really don't see it.  The application goes on to say that Page and Sechin discussed "future bilateral energy cooperation" and lifting sanctions.  It also says that Divyekin discussed the possibility of releasing damaging information on "Candidate #2."  That does not sound like the sort of thing a business or romantic rival would be looking for.  It sounds very much like research for a political rival.  Just how much digging is the FBI expected to do into which political rival, and why does it matter?

What obviously is important is whether any of Steele's allegations have been verified. Milking the rumor mill is fine as the opening of an investigation.  It is not sufficient for a political ad -- or for a news article, or for a wiretap.  For any of these things there must be corroboration.  It was because of the lack of corroboration that the Clinton campaign did not use any of Steele's research during her campaign (must I reiterate again why it makes no sense at all to make such an elaborate fabrication and then not use it?), and why the press did not publish it until after the election and then with great controversy.  But the intelligence community has access to sources not available to the Clinton campaign or the news media.  Were these sources able to give sufficient verification to justify a warrant?

And the only reasonable answer, based on what has been made public so far, is that we simply do not know.  The application begins (pp. 1-2) with a pro forma explanation of who Carter Page and Russia (!) are.  Page 3 is a large, blacked out section of Russian's clandestine intelligence activities.  Page 4 says that Carter Page is foreign policy adviser to "Candidate #1" and is believed to be a target for recruitment by the Russian government to undermine and influence the US election.  This is, once again, a strong hit that it was probably not a commercial or romantic rival who underwrote the research.  And, really, it is appropriate to investigate attempts by a foreign power to undermine and influence an election, even if it is on behalf of the party out of power.

Pages 5-8 address Russian attempts to sway elections, in the US and other countries, in general, and in the 2016 election in particular.  Some chunks are blacked out that presumably deal with how they know Russia is meddling.  Pages 8 (toward the bottom) through 10 (near the top) say that George Papadopoulos and Carter Page are foreign policy advisers for "Candidate #1" and that the FBI believes the Russian government's efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with "Candidate #1's campaign."  Further information (a little more than a page) are blacked out.  Two things here are significant.  First, the application believes that Page, though no longer a member of the campaign, was still coordinating with the Russians, suggesting his association with the campaign had not entirely ended.  Second, the others doing the coordination were "associated with" rather than members of the campaign.  That probably refers to Roger Stone.

Pages 10 through halfway down 13 are about Page's business ties with Russia and are almost entirely blacked out.  Pages 13 through 15 is about Russian spying in 2015.  It is not quite clear why this is significant.  Page was a target for recruitment as a Russian spy in 2013, but the 2015 operation was separate.  What it may have to do with Page is blacked out.

Pages 15 through 18 are the sections dealing with the Steele Dossier and Christopher Steele as "Source #1."  It reports Page's trip to Moscow and address at the New Economic School as matters of open record and discusses Page's alleged meetings with Sechin and Divyekin according to Steele.  It also says that Steele has been a reliable source, that he was and doing dirt digging, and that he did not know who the client was but suspected "Candidate #1's" political rivals.  It also identifies who Sechin and Divyekin are and what "kompromat" is.  It also contains some blacked out information about Steele's ties to the FBI (presumably the work he and Bruce Ohr were doing seeking to flip Russian oligarchs), and on why Steele is considered reliable.  Pages 19 and 20 are blacked out and my contain corroboration.

Page 21 quotes July and August news articles about the Trump campaign's seeming openness to recognizing the Russian annexation of Crimea and lifting sanctions.  Pages 22-24 quote the September 23 Yahoo News article which made most the same allegations as Steele about Carter Page's trip to Moscow.  (Conspicuously absent:  Any talk about a 19% share of privatized Rosneft).  Republicans strongly condemn the FBI for using this article as corroboration of Steele's report, since Steele himself was the source.  Democrats defend it as not being offered as corroboration, but to show that Page denied the meetings.  Actually, the article is offered more as a setup for Page's denials.  There is also a footnote that acknowledges the remarkable similarities between the article and Steele's findings, but says the FBI does not believe Steele was the source of the article.  This mistake was never acknowledged, though later versions of the application mention that the FBI terminated relations with Steele after the October 31, 2016 Mother Jones article sourced to Steele came out.  (The first application dates to before the Mother Jones) article.  Pages 24 through 26 cite various new and other open source denials of the meeting by Carter Page and attempts by the Trump campaign to repudiate Page.

Pages 27 through 31 are blacked out but may contain corroboration of Steele.  Page 32 is boilerplate language saying there is probable cause to believe Page is the agent of a foreign power in violation of criminal statutes.  The rest of the application (total pages 67) is either boilerplate or blacked out.

Conclusion:  The Steele Dossier alleges real and serious crimes. Its origins as opposition research do not taint it and were revealed or at least strongly suggested in the application.  It is the product of milking the rumor mill.  Milking the rumor mill is fine as the starting point of an investigation, but not sufficient to justify a wiretap without further corroboration.  The publicly released portions of the dossier are not enough for a conclusion one way or the other whether there is enough corroboration.

And now Donald Trump has authorized further releases.  His authorized releases are specific -- pages 10 through 12 and 17 through 34.  Pages 10 through 12 appear to address Carter Page's business ties to Russia.  Pages 17 through 20 probably address corroboration or lack thereof of Steele's material.  Pages 26 through 31 follow Trump's and Page's denials of allegations.  I have no idea what they contain.  Pages 33 through 34 probably contain information about why the FBI suspects Page is the agent of a foreign power.

I will make two more comments.  First, I don't trust Trump as far as I can spit.  Presumably the releases he has authorized are selected to make him look good.  Nonetheless, it must be acknowledged that he is not disclosing the most dangerous parts of the warrant -- the early parts showing how the intelligence community knows that Russia is trying to sway the election and the later parts that presumably discuss how the surveillance would take place.

So, What is in the Steele Memos

So, what is in the now-infamous collection of memos on Donald Trump, gathered by British spy Christopher Steele and published by BuzzFeed?

Naturally the most salacious part has caught the public attention.  The first memo (No. 80, pp. 1-3) claims that Trump, while staying at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow, rented the same suite used by the Obamas and hired some Russian prostitutes to urinate on the Obamas' bed.  It further claims that the Russian intelligence bureau filmed the whole episode and used it to blackmail Trump into being their agent.  No date was given for this episode, except that it was probably in 2013.  And in fact Trump is known to have been in Moscow in November, 2013, attending the Miss Universe contest.  Some people have actually taken the accusation seriously enough to obtain floor plans for the suite showing that there was another room in the suite where Trump could have slept after rendering the bed used by the Obamas unfit for use.

The same memo also hints that there may be other such tapes, since Trump's "unorthodox behavior" in Russia "over the years" provided enough "embarrassing material" to give ample room for blackmail.  Apparently the intelligence agencies agree and believe that there is "more than one tape" on "more than one date" in "more than one place" that can be used for blackmail.

But really the salacious parts are only a small portion of the memos.  There are plenty of other allegations which are, if less titillating, even more explosive.  Now, just to be clear, I know nothing whatever about intelligence gathering and analysis, so what follows is purely an Enlightened Layperson's take on the contents.

After reading it through, what jumped out at me?

First of all, the first memo, besides being the most salacious, is also the most thoroughly sourced.  It lists no less than seven sources, identified by letter rather than number as (A) "a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure," (B) "a former top level Russian intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin, (C) "a Russian financial official," (D) "a close associate of Trump who had organized and managed his recent trips to Moscow," (E) so sensitive that the description is blacked out, (F) a female staffer at the hotel where Trump stayed, and (G) "a Kremlin official."  Steele does not appear to have had direct access to A, B or G, but rather to a source they confided in, the same source for A and B, presumably a different one for G.  So the information is second-hand at best.  But D, E and F all appear to have first-hand knowledge of the black mail tape, and B said that Trump's "unorthodox behavior" in Russia over the years gave the Russians plenty of blackmail material on him.  That three separate sources claimed first-hand knowledge of the episode gives it credibility to this Enlightened Layperson.  Also significant in the first memo -- allegations by both A and D that Russian intelligence had been feeding Trump information on his opponents for several years.  It also said that Trump had very little investment in Russia, even though the authorities offered him many lucrative deals.

The first memo is dated June 20.  It is numbered 80.  Steele was apparently first hired to research Trump in June.  He must have been busy!*  After the first, his sourcing becomes much sloppier, often citing to a single, second-hand source.  It may be that Steele produced his first 80 memos not expecting them to be made public and therefore was less cautious in giving possible identifying details about his sources (a female staffer at the Ritz Carlton when Trump stayed there in 2013 presumably is not all that large a group to choose from).  Once he started circulating his memos, Steele may have become conscious that they might some day see the light of day and therefore become more careful about concealing identifying details on his sources, at the expense of making his report less verifiable.

Memo 95 (pages 7-8), undated, although presumably between Memo 94 dated July 19 and Memo 97 dated July 30 says that Trump had been providing the Russians with information on Russian oligarchs living in the US for several years.  It also says that his investments in Russia were minimal although (contrary to Memo 80), he had been trying to get in for some time.  It says that there was a well-developed conspiracy between the Trump organization and Russian leadership, with campaign manager Paul Manafort (forced out August 19) managing the ties on Trump's side and using Carter Page as a go-between.  Source: an ethnic Russian close associate of Trump.

Two other things are significant about this memo.  One is that it refers to Russian hackers in the US and specifically that Russian intelligence made payments to them disguised through its pension system, through diplomatic staff in "key cities such as New York, Washington DC and Miami."  This has been taken as discrediting the memo because Russia apparently does not have a consulate in Miami.

Second, it says that in return for Russia's assistance in the election, Trump promised to sideline Russian intervention in the Ukraine as an issue and raise NATO defense commitments to the Baltics. Indeed, Trump is believed to have intervened at the Russian National Convention to ask the party to take its condemnation of Russia's invasion of the Ukraine off the party platform.  The Convention  took place on July 18-21, so this had already happened when the memo was prepared.  Trump also questioned the US commitment to defending the Baltics in the first presidential debate.  The debates did not take place until September, so to that extent the memo might be taken as correctly anticipating future events.  I do not know if Trump had raised the question of our commitment to the Baltics before then.  Make of it what you will.

Memo 97 (pages 11-12), dated July 30 says that there had been a mutual exchange of information between the Trump organization and Russian intelligence for eight years, i.e., since 2008.  The information Trump supplied was mostly about Russian oligarchs living in the US.  The source as "a Russian emigre close to the campaign."  This may be the same source cited in the previous memo, although that is not clear.

A good many memos deal with the panic in the Trump camp and in the Kremlin as their leaks of Hillary's e-mails proved less damaging than they anticipated and the anger over Russian influence in the campaign proved stronger than they had foreseen.  I find this part comforting, really.  Too often our side has shown signs of succumbing to paranoia, thinking of the Russian State as a vast, unstoppable colossus, and the rest of us as its mere puppets.  Hearing about Russian leaders fighting among themselves and believing they had failed is a good reminder that it is not so.

Memo 102 (page 17), dated August 10, says that Russia's leak of e-mails showing Democratic machinations against Bernie Sanders was Carter Page's idea.  He suggested it to the Russians, saying that it would split the Democratic voters by turning Sanders supporters against Clinton.  There is no direct evidence of this, but to me it does seem plausible, simply because I would expect an American to have a better understanding of the intricacies of US politics than a Russian would have.

Memo 112 (pages 25-26) dated September 14 is intriguing.  It discusses the Alfa Group (misspelled as the Alpha Group). which it describes as a group of businesses led by oligarchs Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan and discussed at some length their rather nebulous relationship with Putin.  No mention of Trump is made.  But remember that Slate article?  The one that mentioned some mysterious communications between the Trump organization and Alfa Bank?  It refers to its leaders as Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven, so clearly this is the same organization.  Admittedly the Steele memos (at least the ones made public) do not mention any ties between Trump and the Alfa Group.  But it is a tantalizing straw in the wind.

Memo 94 (pages 9-10) dated July 19 and Memo 134 (pages 30-31) dated October 18 may be the most explosive, both because they contain some of the most detailed, verifiable information, and because there appears to be at least some verification of them.  Memo 94 discusses a meeting between Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page and Igor Sechin, CEO of Rosneft, a Russian oil company that is publicly traded, but with a controlling interest in the hands of the Russian government.  According the the memo, a "source close" to Sechin said that Sechin and Page had a "recent" secret meeting to discuss future bilateral energy cooperation and the lifting of sanctions against Russia for its invasion of the Ukraine.  According to this memo, Page reacted positively, but Sechin was non-committal.  It also mentioned Page meeting with another Russian official who provided embarrassing information on Hillary Clinton, but warned that they had such information on Trump as well.

Memo 134 appears to be more details about the same meeting.  This memo says that the meeting took place on either July 7 or 8, the day of or the day after Page giving a public speech to the Higher Economic School in Moscow.  (This part should be verifiable, I would think).  The memo says that at the meeting Sechin offered Page or Trump's associates a 19% stake in Rosneft in return for lifting the sanctions.  Page appeared interested and confirmed that, if elected, Trump would lift the sanctions. Page did not expressly say that he was speaking for Trump, but he implied it.  The memo also says that by October 17 (one day before the memo was written), Sechin had come to believe that Trump would not be elected and started looking for another buyer.  The source give is a "trusted compatriot" of a "close associate" of Sechin.

While these memos contain a great deal of gossip and second hand information and no doubt much of them are false and (almost) all unverified, there just might be some confirmation of this part.  On December 26, Oleg Erovinkin, Sechin's chief-of-staff/treasurer/liaison to Putin turned up dead in his car.  It was first reported as a murder, later as a heart attack.  So we don't know whether Erovinkin was the "close associate" listed in Steele's account, or whether there was foul play involved.  But it looks suspicious.  If this isn't exactly confirmation, it may be grounds not to dismiss the story out of hand.

And another part of this story has been confirmed.  Rosneft really did sell a 19.5% stake on December 7 to a Singaporan investment vehicle on behalf of a joint Swiss-Qatari venture, fronting for a mystery offshore account in the Cayman Islands.  Obviously, now, there is no evidence that the mystery buyer(s) have anything to do with Donald Trump or any of his associates.  Since Memo 134 says that the Russian leadership was looking for another buyer it is possible that they were already looking for another buyer and considered Trump one of many possibilities.  And maybe everyone in the know was aware of the proposed sale, so it shows nothing special that Steele reported it.  And since I would expect agreements of this sort to have a level of trust somewhat below your average drug deal, it seems implausible that the Russians would transfer their interest in Rosneft to anyone associated with Trump before he lifted the sanctions.  Or could the sale be to an intermediary who will turn over the company upon actual lifting of the sanctions?  Who knows?

On the other hand, some of the memos have been decisively disproven.

Memo 134 cites the same source as saying that after Page and Manafort departed the Trump team, Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen took over as liaison, followed by several sections so sensitive that they have been blacked out.

Memo 135 (pages 32-33), dated October 19 reports the Cohen had met secretly with the Russians somewhere in the EU in August to discuss cover-up.  The Russians decided that it was now too dangerous to have any direct meetings between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and that contacts would have to take place through unofficial representatives of the Russian state.

Memo 136 (pages 18-19 (Don't ask)), dated October 20, presumably citing the same source, says that the meeting took place in Prague and that the unofficial Russian contacts would be the parastatal organization Rossotrudnichevsto and Duma member Konstantin Kosachev.

This part of the dossier, at least, has been proven false.  Cohen's US associates and Czech intelligence have established he was in the US at the time of the alleged crime.  Possible a different Michael Cohen with a non-US passport may have been in Prague at the time, presumably on an innocent errand.

There is one other, very strange memo, Memo 166 (pages 34-35).  What is so strange about it is that it is dated December 13, 2016, which is not only after the election, but after the memos appear to have been widely circulated in elite circles, and after John McCain brought the memo to the FBI on December 9, 2016.  All other memos in the collection pre-date the election predate David Corn's scoop on October 31, 2016.  This has led some to suspect that BuzzFeed got its copy from the intelligence community directly.  Whatever the story there, Memo 66 gives further details about Cohen's disproven visit to Prague.  It says that the meeting took place in the last week of August or the first week of September, that Cohen was accompanied by three associates, that he met with Rossotrudnischevsto official Oleg Solodukin, and that they discussed how to make but conceal cash payments to the hackers involved.  Details were given about how the hackers would be concealed. It also says that the Trump organization as well as the Kremlin paid the hackers, but that their ultimate loyalty was to the Kremlin.

So, clearly there is a lot more there than just the salacious parts.  There is the allegation that Trump has been a Russian intelligence asset since 2008; that he received tips from Russians about his political rivals; that there was extensive collaboration between Trump and the Russians on the leaks, with Trump associates suggesting strategy to the Russians; and that the Trump campaign offered the Russians specific policy concessions (dropping the Russian invasion of the Ukraine as a campaign subject, raising questions about US commitment to defend the Baltics) in exchange for support.  The point has been made a number of times that many if not most of these allegations are probably false.  But if any are true, that is grounds for impeachment, if not worse.

Some allegations, particularly the ones about alleged meetings between Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and Russian intermediaries Prague, have been proven false.  That would probably also disprove the allegation that that meeting specifically discussed direct payments to the hackers by the Trump organization.

On the other hand, there is possible collaboration of the allegations of a meeting between Carter Page and Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin.  Allegedly, Sechin offered Trump and his associates a very large bribe, specifically, a 19% stake in their parastatal oil company in exchange for lifting the sanctions.  Since then the possible source of this leak has turned up dead under mysterious circumstances and the 19% stake has been sold to a mystery buyer.

Is Trump a Russian spy?  There is not enough evidence to say.  But no one has even asked such a question about any earlier US President.

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*He does appear prolific, at least once prolific, at least once producing three memos on a single day (Nos. 111, 112 and 113 are all dated September 14).

The Steele Dossier Revisited: Why it May Matter

All of which is a sort of a lead-up to the real issue -- evidence that Michael Cohen really did visit Prague in August or September of 2016.

To recap:  We don't know what evidence the intelligence community has obtained through wiretaps, friendly intelligence services and the like about Trump and Russia.  The most damaging information against the Trump campaign that has gone public is the notorious Steele Dossier, which alleges extensive coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian intelligence hacking the Democrats and releasing their information through Wikileaks.  The Steele Dossier is the product of milking the rumor mill in Russia.  The rumor mill produces material of mixed reliability, possibly including some deliberate deceptions.  It should therefore not be believed without further verification. No open source, whether Steele, his employers, the Clinton campaign, or the news media have been able to verify the contents.  What the intelligence community may have verified is unlikely to see the light of day for fear of giving away vital sources and methods.

Of the many allegations in the Steele Dossier, three stand out as most sensational.

1. That when Trump was in Moscow for the 2013 Miss Universe competition, he was filmed hiring Russian prostitutes to urinate on the Obamas' bed, and that the tape was used to blackmail him.  
2. That when Carter Page traveled to Moscow in early July, 2016 to deliver an address to the Higher Economic School in Moscow he secretly met with two Russian officials.  Igor Sechin, chairman of Rosneft, a Russian oil company, offered the Trump gang "the brokerage of up to a 19 percent (privatised) stake in Rosneft" in exchange for relief on sanctions.  Page expressed an interest but did not commit.  Page also met with Igor Divekin, a Kremlin official of some sort, and mentioned that the Kremlin had damaging information on Hillary Clinton and discussed the possibility of sharing this information, while also broadly hinting that the Kremlin had damaging information on Trump if he did not cooperate.  
3. That Michael Cohen met with Russian officials in late August or early September, 2016 in Prague and arranged for the Trump organization to help pay and conceal the hackers that Russia had employed.

Of these three allegations, the first is the most publicized, but the least significant.  If Trump did, in fact, hire Russian prostitutes to pee on the Obamas' bed, that would be embarrassing but, at worst, a petty misdemeanor, and well outside of US jurisdiction.  It seems unlikely that mere fear of embarrassment could induce the sort of compliance that Trump seems to be showing.  It is, however, widely believed in intelligence circles that there may be some kind of sex tape used for blackmail, and perhaps more than one, and possibly showing something a good deal worse.

The second allegation is both the only one to appear in the press before the existence of the dossier was revealed by Mother Jones on October 31, 2016 and the basis of the FISA warrant on Carter Page.  The sequence of events here is interesting.  Page's trip to Russia is undisputed. 

On July 7-8, 2016 he appeared in Moscow and gave a public speech to the Higher Economic School in which he said that the US should mind its own business and not meddle in Russia's internal affairs. 

On July 19, 2016, Report 94 said that Page had met with Igor Sechin, the head of Rosneft to discuss lifting sanctions and "possible future bilateral energy cooperation."  Page reacted positively but made no promises.  It also alleges that Page met with Kremlin official Igor Divyekin, who told Page that the Kremlin had compromising material on Hillary Clinton and discussed possibly releasing it to the Trump campaign.  Divyekin also hinted that the Kremlin might also have damaging materials on Trump and that he should keep that in mind.  No mention is made of the possible Rosneft bribe, merely "bilateral energy cooperation."

On September 23, 2016, national security reporter Michael Isikoff ran an article in Yahoo News.  Much of the article dealt with public information, such as Page's background, his (somewhat nebulous) rule in the Trump campaign, and his July visit to Moscow.  However, the article also alleges that Page met with Sechin, an individual under sanctions, to discuss possible lifting of sanctions, and with Divyekin.  No mention is made of Divyekin either offering damaging information on Hillary or threatening Trump with release of other damaging material.  Isikoff's primary source for his article was, in fact, Michael Steele and the material he had gathered to date.  He takes care to disguise his sources, making the article sound as though it originated with members of the Congressional intelligence committee.  He does drop a few hints here and there, saying that "a well-placed Western intelligence source" says that Congress has been briefed on Page's meeting with Sechin, and that "U.S. intelligence agencies have also received reports" of the meeting with Divyekin. The disguise was apparently good enough to fool the FBI, which stated in its FISA application that, despite startling similarities, it did not believe that Steele was the source of Isikoff's information. 

On October 18, 2016, Report 134 gave further details about the meeting.  It confirmed that the date was July 7 or 8, during Page's trip to Moscow to address the Higher Economic School (no surprise there).  This memo also says that Sechin promised "the brokerage of up to a 19 percent (privatised) stake in Rosneft" in return for sanctions relief, that Page promised sanctions relief, and that Page did not expressly say that he had Trump's authority to promise, but he implied it.  The memo goes on to say that Sechin no longer believed Trump could be elected and that Michael Cohen was playing an important role in communications with the Kremlin, further details blacked out.

Some time in October, 2016 (the date is blacked out), the FBI applied for a FISA warrant on Page, using Steele's report as its primary source.  We do not know whether the application was made before or after Steele's second report on the meeting, or how long it took from the time Steele prepared the report until the FBI received it.  However, the second report does not appear to have influenced the application.  The report makes no mention of the Rosneft deal, but only of "future bilateral energy cooperation" and lifting sanctions.  It also mentions Divyekin and his proposal to give the Trump campaign damaging information on Hillary Clinton.  (Pages 15-18).  Significant portions of the footnotes confirming Steele as reliable are blacked out.  This information is followed by two pages that are blacked out and my contain corroboration. 

The FBI reviewed the application in January, 2017; April, 2017; and June, 2017.  (FISA warrants automatically expire after 90 days unless renewed).  These new applications contain further information, much of it blacked out.  None mentions anything about bribery with Rosneft stock.  All mention that after James Comey announced that the FBI was re-opening its investigation of the Clinton e-mails and her political fortunes tanked, Steele expressed frustration and made an unauthorized leak of his materials, and that the FBI severed relations as a result.  All continue to say they do not believe Steele was the source of the Yahoo article, long after it should have been apparent that he was.

Oh, yes and a 19% share of Rosneft really was privatized (though not sold to Trump and associates).  And Sechin's chief of staff (a possible source) really did turn up dead under mysterious circumstances.

So what are we to make of all this?  First of all, the Steele Dossier is not despite the impression sometimes given, the origin of the government's investigation of Trump's Russia ties, nor is it the central hub of their investigation.  Certainly Steele was not the source of information on the Russian hacks of the Democrats.  Nor was the the first or only source of information about Trump's ties to Russia.  Apparently the investigation began when Trump adviser George Papadopoulos made some drunken and offhand comments to the Australian ambassador about getting information from Russia.  People in the know also say that there was plenty of signals intelligence from allies indicating suspicious contacts between Trump and the Russians.  One claims that the investigation began when a Baltic intelligence service overheard a conversation about money going from the Kremlin to the Trump campaign.  Certainly Mueller's indictments make clear that we know a great deal about Russia's activities on behalf of the Trump campaign that have nothing to do with the Steele Dossier.

But there is evidence that the Steele Dossier was important as well.  It was important enough to be the primary source of information for a warrant to wiretap Page.  Based on the foregoing, I would guess that the intelligence community had enough information to know that Page really did meet with Sechin and Divyekin during his visit to Moscow and was lying when he denied it.  It may have known that Page and Sechin discussed lifting sanctions, or that may simply have been an educated guess given the context.  But it did not know the details of the conversation, including the Rosneft bribe and Divyekin's discussion of compromising materials.  Presumably Sechin and Divyekin know enough to be careful what they say over any sort of electronic communications because someone might be listening in.  Thus Steele's milking of the rumor mill may have been the best source available for what happened in those meetings.

But this is the mere speculation of an Enlightened Layperson.  In my next post I intend to discuss the Steele Dossier and Michael Cohen.  Spoiler alert:  My conclusions with Cohen are similar to the ones about Page.

Volume V: The Steele Dossier, at Last, Starting Page 846

 

So, after finding a "grave counter intelligence threat" from Paul Manafort's association with a Russian spy and secretly providing him information; after discussing Roger Stone acting as a conduit between the campaign and Wikileaks; after mentioning a strange suggestion by the Miss Universe president that the Trump Tower meeting with Russians was initiated when the Russians offered "emails from the Democrats and dirt on Hillary;" after finding evidence that George Papadopoulos was a useful idiot; and after finding what looks very much like evidence of criminal intent by the campaign when they told an informal agent scouring the dark web for e-mails:

I talked to Steve who will compel you to turn over to us all 30,000 emails you located and referred to Wikileaks. BB wants to publish them first. We do not give a rats ass what happens to you and will turn you over the the (sic) Feds for prosecution if you do not comply.

After all that, the Senate Intelligence Committee turns to the Steele Dossier on page 846 and finds it to be a total dud.  To be clear, just because the Committee found the Steele Dossier to be a dud does not mean that they considered it unimportant.  Volume V devotes about 84 pages to the Steele Dossier.  By way of comparison, that is less than the 142 pages devoted to Paul Manafort, less than the 140 pages devoted to the Trump Tower meeting, about the same as the 88 pages devoted to Roger Stone, more that the 62 pages devoted to George Papadopoulos, and much more than the 10 pages devoted to scouring the dark web.

 In general, the Committee found that the Steele Dossier contained dubious material, and that the FBI seriously exaggerated Steele's value as a source.*  Steele declined to be interviewed in person, but submitted written answers.  There is some discussion about the reliability of Steele's sub-sources, much of it (unsurprisingly) blacked out.  Discussion of possible disinformation is also largely blacked out. It also stressed (pp. 881-886) that Steele also did work for Oleg Deripaska, the oligarch who Manafort owed large amounts of money to, that Deripaska is likely to have become aware of what Steele was doing, and that may have been a source of disinformation.  There is no mention in the dossier of Deripaska's business ties to Manafort, or of Deripaska at all.  Steele and Fusion GPS also did work for Natalia Veselnitskaya, although they were apparently not aware that she met with the Trump campaign, nor did Veselnitskaya even know of Steele's existence.  

Most of what Volume V has to say about Steele's association with the FBI is old news, having already been discussed at length by the Office of Inspector General.  The Committee confirms that Steele was attempting to contact the FBI before it opened its investigation of the Trump campaign, but did not actually contact the investigating team until well after. It also confirms Steele's leak to Mother Jones and firing as a result.  Like the Inspector General, Volume V finds that Steele was not as reliable a source as claimed, that the FBI did not investigate him thoroughly enough before using his information to obtain a FISA warrant, and Steele continued to convey information to the FBI through the back door after he was fired, and other intelligence agencies distrust of Steele's materials.

What the Committee did reveal that was new was that Steele's reports, or at least notes summarizing the reports, were circulated in the upper echelons of the State Department, including to Secretary John Kerry.  The number of people in government who knew at least something about Steele's reports an did not leak them is a convincing refutation of any claims of a "deep state" plot against Trump.

Marc Elias

Also new were the report's discussion about Steele's relationship with the DNC.  I found the revelations rather disturbing -- not because the DNC as knowingly doing something improper, but because of the extraordinary lengths DNC personnel went to not to know what was going on.  It suggests that they knew the whole business was shady.  It is not news that Fusion GPS was originally hired by Trump's primary opponents to research his business background for shady dealings (pp 856-857). Owner Glenn Simpson apparently found enough to convince him that Trump should not be President.  When it became clear the Trump had the nomination secured, Simpson decided that, rather than let his services go to waste, he should offer them to the DNC, knowing that the DNC would pass any such information to the Clinton campaign (p. 857).  The DNC did not hire Fusion GPS directly but acted through its law firm, Perkins Coie, which acted through Marc Elias. This is apparently a routine practice and done to create an attorney-client privilege for any materials (pp. 857-858). Elias knows more about election law than anyone else in the country, and presumably knows how to stay within the letter of the law.  The whole business nonetheless feels profoundly sleazy.  Elias apparently thought so as well -- he hired a lawyer when the Committee wanted to interview him and answered only through counsel.

The original plan was simply to investigate Trump's business background and look for dishonest dealings (p. 858). When Simpson suggested looking into Russia ties, Elias was eager, not because he suspected any ties between the campaign and Russia, but simply because he assumed that all business dealings in Russia be thoroughly corrupt (p. 861). Simpson hired Steele in May or June, 2016 to look into Trump's business dealings (p. 862).  Recall that the first sign of any Russian involvement in the campaign was on June 14, 2016 when the Russians were found to have hacked the DNC.  Steele delivered his first memo on June 20, 2016 (pp. 864-864).  That was the one with the sex tape being used for blackmail.  Simpson said, first, that this came as a complete surprise, and that in the clear light of hindsight, maybe he should have discounted it (p. 864).

Then there is the whole disturbing issue of who knew what -- or rather, who was at pains not to know what.  Simpson did not tell Elias that he was passing information on to the FBI.  Elias knew that Fusion has hired an overseas contractor, he refrained from asking any details and denied knowing that the contractor was providing non-public information (pp. 859-860).  Fusion GPS gave Elias weekly briefings, sometime the original documents and sometimes summaries (p 860).  Elias gave the Clinton campaign oral briefings, but generally refrained from putting anything in writing (p. 860).  The Committee was unable to determine how much information in the dossier was passed on to the DNC and the Clinton campaign (p. 860).  The campaign definitely did not receive the memos, and did not learn about Steele or the dossier until Buzz Feed published it (pp. 858-859).  The media appear to have known more about the dossier than the campaign (and refrained from publishing).  DNC Chair Donna Brazile apparently received a call from the press in November asking if she knew M1-6 was on their payroll.  Brazile asked Elias, who said, "You don't have to know."  Brazile did not inquire further (p. 859).

All in all, one comes away with the impression that Elias' actions, though not illegal, were at least irregular, and that he was doing his best to protect the DNC, the Clinton campaign, and even himself from knowledge that could be damaging.

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*And now, given recent developments regarding Alexander Smirnov, maybe it is time for the FBI to reconsider how it assesses source reliability.  I recognize that they need to use disreputable people to get close the the disreputable organizations they are spying on, but there needs to be a way to take disreputability into account.

Volume V, Parts 8 and 9: Nothing of Any Importance

 

Volume V of the Senate Intelligence Committee continues to wander further and further afield in Parts 8 and 9, as it spends nearly 100 pages (pp. 586-662) to matters peripheral to the 2016 election.

Part 8

Part 8 (pages 568-635) addresses attempts by Alexander Torshin and Maria Butina to exercise influence on behalf of Russia with the NRA.  Torshin appears to have been a person of some importance in Russia -- vice chairman of the Russian Senate for a time, and a deputy governor of its central bank.  Butina (pronounced BOOTina, not BooTEENa), by contrast, does not appear to have had any particular influence in Russia.  She was born in Siberia and learned to hunt from her father.  She does appear to have done some gun advocacy in Russia, where private gun ownership is severely restricted.  

Butina, acting on behalf of Torshin, approached the NRA as a Russian gun rights activist.  The report gives a detailed chronological account of her activities from 2013 to 2016, none of which appear to have had any bearing on the 2016 election.  Butina attended NRA events, had an affair with one of its leaders, and attempted to establish an informal back channel between the NRA and the Russian government.  At least some of the NRA leaders understood what she was doing and accepted it.  Butina also wrote regular reports of her activities and observations on American politics and the influence of the NRA to Torshin.  On a number of occasions, she asked NRA leaders not to publicize their ties, giving as her reason the fear that she would be discredited in Russia for too strong American ties.  As is often the case, it is not always clear who is manipulating who. 

Maria Butina

Probably the most significant revelation in the report is that Russian intelligence targeted the NRA because it considered the NRA the most influential organization in the US and the key to any influence with the Republican Party.  (Not mentioned:  Whether Russian intelligence sought similar influence with the Democrats, and, if so, what organizations they considered important.  Also significant: NRA leaders appeared to understand that Butina was establishing a back channel to the Russian government and had no objections.  They seemed to value the influence this offered.  Butina's only contacts with the Trump campaign appear to have been meeting with Donald Trump, Jr. (an avid big game hunter) at an NRA dinner and various outreach to the campaign that went nowhere.

The obvious question is whether any of this was a crime.  After all, Butina did not seek out any classified information.  Her reports back on US politics do not appear to have been any more than a journalist might have written.  Her main role appears to have been establishing a back channel of communication with Russia.  She was charged as a spy.  Reports referred to her as a sexy siren whose beauty overbore men's judgment.  Looking at her picture, I could never see it.  Closer was someone's comment (don't remember where, can't find link) calling her the kind of sort-of pretty girl that men might think they had a chance with.  Even that seems generous.  I have included her picture.  Decide for yourself.

Part 9

Part 9 (pages 636-662) deals with whether there was any evidence that the Russians had a sex tape on Trump, apart from Christopher Steele's allegations.  Part 3 traces Trump's 2013 visit to Moscow for the Miss Universe contest in excruciating detail and finds only two gaps in which he could have held an orgy with local prostitutes -- one during the night he stayed, at which time his bodyguard turned away such offers, and during the afternoon the next day when he was waiting to see if he could get a visit with Putin.  It seems unlikely that Trump would have engaged in an orgy with Russian prostitutes while waiting by the phone for Putin to call -- what if Putin had actually called after all -- but I suppose with Donald Trump there is no telling.

In any event, even if nothing happened when Trump visited Russia in 2013, he also had visits in 1996 and one other occasion that Volume V does not identify.

The main evidence Volume V offers is that a Trump associate, David Geovanis, Trump had an affair with a Russian woman (name redacted).  Geovanis had contacts with the Russian intelligence services and loose lips, so the intelligence services might have found out.*  Geovanis also had ties to Oleg Deripaska, Manafort's sponsor.  Geovanis did not cooperate with the Committee, so information here is limited.

In addition, a former executive of Marriott International reported overhearing two employees with the Moscow Ritz Carlton discussing what to do with a video that showed Trump in an elevator "involved with several women who the discussant implied to be "hostesses.'"  Michael Cohen also said that following the 2013 visit, he got calls from six people claiming to have compromising tapes.  Trump denied that such tapes were real, and Cohen never received any verification.  The Committee also reported the existence of a realistic and well-sourced but fake tape.  

All this is nothing more than rumor, with nothing concrete to support it.

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*Geovanis, by the way, appears to have done the same sort of work as Hunter Biden -- offering contacts in the West and serving as a front man in dealing with the contacts, and getting paid vastly out of proportion to the actual work he did.

And the Children Shall Lead: The Children

And now for the part of And the Children Shall Lead that definitely did not work, but could have been made to work, but only with a major overhaul -- the children, and how the villain turns them against their parents. To understand how poorly And the Children Shall Lead meets this challenge, consider other attempts to take it on.

In the early 1990's, three movies came out in short succession, each featuring a villain who seeks revenge against an adult enemy by turning their victim's children against their parents.  In the 1991 film, Cape Fear, a former convict seeks revenge on his lawyer for intentionally botching his defense.  In the 1991 movie Hook, the villain is, indeed, Captain Hook, and the hero is Peter Pan, now grown up and with children of his own.  In the 1992 movie The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, an obstetrician's widow blames his suicide and her resultant miscarriage on the woman who exposed him as sexually abusing patients.

I am not saying that any of these movies were particularly good, but the flaws lay elsewhere than the villain manipulating children against their parents.  All managed to show that part reasonably well. None were generic. All were psychological pieces about how this particular villain manipulated these particular children against their particular parents.  All of them showed actual family dynamics and children's interactions with their living parents.  The characters were given actual individual personalities and their relationships with one another were addressed.  And in the end in all these cases, the children's love for their parents proved stronger than their resentments, and they rallied to their parents when it became clear that the villain meant the parents actual harm.

And the Children Shall Lead did none of these things. Clearly, there could be no serious exploration of the children's interaction with their parents, since their parents were dead.  Their overall family dynamics were never addressed.  Furthermore, all the movies about villains turning children against their parents limit themselves on one family and one or two children.  Star Trek is taking on five children and five different families here, which is perhaps an unsupportable challenge.  But the episode does not even attempt to meet it.  The children have no real characterization as individuals; they are simply shown as the Gorgan's puppets.  Nor do we ever get to know the parents at all.  So we never get to see how the Gorgan turned the children against their parents to the point of not even caring that they were lying dead all around them.

Admittedly, we do get some hints when Captain Kirk tries talking to the children about their parents. He asks them about Triacus and they make clear that they did not like it. He says their parents didn't like it either.  The children say that they did and one adds, "Parents like stupid things."  Nurse Chapel points out that parents like children and Mary says, "That's what you think."  Kirk takes up the theme by saying their parents took them to Triacus because they loved their children and would miss them if they were apart, and wouldn't the children miss their parents, too.   That is apparently Getting Too Close because Tommy abruptly starts them imitating a swarm of bees.  Then he asks for more ice cream and Kirk says it would spoil their dinner.  Tommy says, "See what I told you? They all say it."  Kirk sends the younger children away and talks to Tommy alone. Tommy admits that he saw his father earlier that day and he was very upset but Tommy doesn't know why.  Tommy also complains that the grownups were too busy and never had time for them.  All of this suggests that the villain is controlling them by manipulating their resentment of adults and their rules. This is reinforces when the "Friendly Angel" tells the children, "No one will tell us where to go, when to sleep, where to eat. The universe will be mine to command, yours to play in."  So it would appear that he entices them with promises of a world without rules or restraints, where they can play and eat ice cream to their heart's content and never have to worry about bedtime or school.

This may be reinforced in the one place where we get a hint of individualism, which is also one where I find a nit I just can't resist picking.  Nurse Chapel holds up a handful of cards to offer the children their favorite flavor of ice cream.  Four immediately grab their favorite card.  Three boys rush up to the replicator, followed by Mary.  The small white boy holds back.  Nurse Chapel gives him a random card and offers him a "surprise."  Much to his disappointment, it is coconut and vanilla, "both white."  She says that was an unpleasant surprise and offers to let him choose is "pleasant surprise."  He picks chocolate wobble and pistachio, so she hands him the chocolate wobble and pistachio card.  Then he adds peach, so she hands him the chocolate wobble pistachio and peach card!  And it isn't as if she had a huge catalog of cards; she had a number that she could reasonable hold in her hands.  And by an extraordinary coincidence, they included four children's favorite flavors, chocolate wobble and pistachio and chocolate wobble pistachio and peach!  I shouldn't dwell on this, really.  It doesn't go to the core premise here.  It could easily be remedied by having her push a few buttons.  But it annoys me, somehow.

Nonetheless, this scene is the only time we really get to see any of the children as themselves, instead of as tools of the Gorgan.  (It is also really the only time we see anything at all of any child other than Tommy or Mary).  It ain't much, but we learn a little more about the small white boy (apparently named Stevie).  We learn his favorite flavor of ice cream -- chocolate wobble, pistachio and peach. Unsurprisingly, it takes a large bowl to accommodate all that.  It seems most likely that his parents do not normally indulge his taste for chocolate wobble, pistachio and peach ice cream, let alone in such large quantities!  This is actually hinted at when he hesitates at grabbing any card at all, and then first asks only for chocolate wobble and pistachio, only adding the peaches as an afterthought.  Most likely his parents limit him to chocolate wobble and pistachio and he has never dared ask for peach, knowing that the answer would be no.  Showing all the others grab the cards while Stevie is left out, and the boys crowd in ahead of Mary also hints somewhat at the pecking order among the children. Add one or two more such incidents and work them into the conversation with the Gorgan and you may actually start to get a sense of how he turned the children against their parents.

All of which can make another point.  One piece of evidence that Stevie's parents do not indulge his taste in ice cream is that he is not morbidly obese.  And given the quantity and combination of ice cream he uses, I am surprised that he doesn't get a stomach ache!  Children may resent the restrictions their parents place on them, but often the restrictions are there for a good reason.  The best parents in the world still have to impose unpopular rules and make unpopular decisions sometimes.  Children resent these restrictions, even if they are absolutely necessary and in the children's best interests.  The Next Generation episode Imaginary Friend  explores this aspect by having an alien being see the Enterprise from the perspective of a child -- an unusually naive and free-spirited child.  She concludes that humans are so cruel and arbitrary that they should be destroyed.  Picard persuades her to spare them by explaining the necessity of such rules.

Still, it is an idealization to assume that adults always get it right.  Parents have adult responsibilities that keep them from giving children the attention children want.  Sometime legitimate and essential adult responsibilities sometimes to result in children being overlooked.  The best parents in the world still make mistakes sometimes.  And not all parents are the best in the world.  Sometimes parents get too caught up in their own problems and neglect their children or lash at at them unjustifiably.  Some families are flat-out dysfunctional.

The movies I mentioned acknowledge as much.  The villains do not only play on children's resentment of legitimate authority, they work on the parents' real failings. The Hand that Rocks the Cradle is the mildest example.  It deals with a happy marriage and good parents, nonetheless facing the disruptions that are inevitable when a new baby joins the family.  The others paint a darker picture.  Hook shows a grown-up Peter Pan neglecting his children for work and unable to deal with children's natural playfulness.  Cape Fear shows a seriously dysfunctional marriage and a teenage daughter acting out.  The villain is easily able to appeal to her simply by being forbidden and a form of defiance. Or consider the first season episode Miri.  All the parents are missing because of a disease that greatly slows the aging process in children, but causes them to go insane and die when they hit puberty.  Children do not cry for their parents because (1) their parents died 300 years earlier, and (2) before dying, they went mad and leave the children in terror of "grups," "burning, yelling, hurting."

The same dynamic can be at work here.  Even if we assume that the parents on Triacus were all good parents and the families all happy and healthy families, let's not forget that the parents, like the ones in Miri, were experiencing growing anxiety, moving from vague uneasiness to serious tension to a descent into madness.  It seems a reasonable assumption that this caused their parenting skills to deteriorate.  Growing edginess might lead parents to snap at their children for no good reason.  At first it would not be too common or severe, and they would apologize afterward.  But as the anxiety grew worse and worse so (we may assume) did the quality of parents' interaction with their children.  As they descended into madness, presumably the parents ignored their children altogether and reacted in wild, irrational ways if the the children approached them.  This would give the Gorgan ample (and justified) resentment to work on.  And consider the diabolical nature of what is happening here.  The Gorgan is provoking anxiety in the adults that cause their parenting skills to deteriorate and then plays on the resentment this breeds in the children to alienate them further.

Of course, there would have to be some indication of this in the program.  Besides showing a few normal childish resentments of grownup rules and restrictions (like Stevie and his ice cream), show the children start to warm up to the Enterprise crew and be relieved that they are not wild and irrational like their parents.  We actually see a few hints of this as well, particularly when the black boy knocks over their flag (placed over the parents' graves) and politely apologizes, or, on the Enterprise, Captain Kirk asks the children if he can join them and Mary politely says, "Please do." All of this suggests that they really are not bad children underneath, just being manipulated.  Instead of the vague, generic complaints about their parents, how about some specific complaints about their erratic behavior?  What about a little reluctance with the "Friendly Angel," saying that these "grups" are nice, not crazy like their parents.  And as the Gorgan starts to take ahold of them, the children start to see the Enterprise crew as being crazy, just like their own parent.

Finally, the way Tommy disrupts the conversation when Kirk seems to be Getting Too Close is theoretically well done, but needs further explanation.  It would require Tommy to have some special tie with the Gorgan and be responsible for keeping the younger kids in line, in a way that is never shown in the episode.

In short, a villain turning children against their parents is certainly doable, but it was not done at all plausibly in this episode.  I believe this element could be salvaged, but only with a lot of work and change.

And the Children Shall Lead: A Recap

My goal in reviewing And the Children Shall Lead is to downplay snark, i.e., mocking the episode for being so bad, and instead to emphasize analysis, i.e., how this admittedly bad episode might be salvaged.  With False Memories, I went through chronologically, emphasizing all the places clues were planted that never amounted to anything.  Here, I find that the best way to analyze the episode is by subject matter.  There are several topics or themes raised in the episode, some better than others, and I want to go through them one by one.  But to see them in context, it is necessary to first have an outline of the plot and know what happens and in what order.  So for this post I will give a simple plot outline, keeping both snark and analysis to a minimum.  The script is here.

The Enterprise responds to a distress call from the Federation colony on Triacus.  The arrive to find all the colonists dead in an apparent mass suicide by poison.  (Note:  This was ten years before the mass suicide by poison at Jonestown, so this was not one of Star Trek's annoying attempts to be topical.  It was an original).  The landing party arrives just in time to see Professor Starnes, the leader of the colony, drop dead.  His tricorder contains an incoherent rant about must destroy themselves to escape the enemy within.

But not all the colonists are dead.  The children are alive and well.  In fact, they are carefree, running and playing, acting just like normal children under ordinary circumstances, oblivious to the fact that their parents are lying dead all around them.  There are five children, led by Professor Starnes' 13-year-old son, Tommy.  The other four are around seven or eight.  One is a blonde, pig-tailed girl named Mary.  The other three are boys, one black, one Asian, and one white.  We hear their names, but none really make much impression.  In fact, the three smaller boys just sort of troop around and never do anything to mark themselves as individuals, with one or two exceptions I will discuss later.  (Commercial break).

The Enterprise crew bury the adults and take the children back to the ship with Dr. McCoy.  Kirk and Spock remain behind.  Spock believes the suicide was induced by an alien intelligence.  He gets a strange tricorder reading from a cave and goes in to investigate.  Nothing out of the ordinary is visible, but the closer Kirk gets to the source of the reading, the stronger his sense of anxiety, until he is overcome by panic and has to run out.  Very out of character!

Returning to the ship, the children are eating ice cream (more on that later) and continuing to act as if it were a perfectly normal occasion.  McCoy doesn't know what is the matter, but doesn't want to press them too directly about their parents being dead for fear of harming them.  Kirk delicately raises the subject with them.  They didn't like Triacus and are resentful of their parents and say they liked it.  When Kirk starts saying their parents brought them to Triacus because they loved them and would miss them and asks the children if they miss their parents too.  Apparently this is Getting Too Close, because Tommy immediately starts the children running around buzzing, saying "Busy, busy busy" and acting out a swarm of bees.  (Come to think of it, while the younger children's behavior would be normal except for their parents being dead, Tommy's behavior really isn't normal considering his age).  Mary gets hostile and starts to "sting" Kirk.  Kirk dismisses the others and tries to talk to Tommy alone.  Tommy admits that his father was upset the last time he saw him, but is generally dismissive of adults, saying they loved the planet and never had time for him.  The children seem resentful of adults and any attempt to impose any rules or limitations.  Tommy heads for his quarters.  Kirk posts a guard on the children,

Apparently posting a guard on the children means stationing him outside their door to see when and where they go and if anyone visits them.  Because the guard is not in the room to see them all put their hands into the center and go round in a circle, chanting:

Hail, hail, fire and snow
Call the angel we will go
Far away.  Far to see
Friendly Angel come to me.

Their "friendly angel" appears, a shimmering translucent being played by Melvin Belli, a celebrity trial lawyer of the day, but a lousy actor.  The Friendly Angel congratulates the children on a job well done and tells them to go to the Federation colony of Marcus XII, although Kirk will prefer a "closer station."  There are millions of people on Marcus XII.  Nearly a million will follow them.  With these they will go on to conquer the universe.  He promises them freedom from all adult rules, freedom to play all they want.  "And as you believe, so shall you do, so shall you do. As you believe, so shall you do, so shall you do."  The children pound the table with their fists.  (Commercial break).

When we return Kirk and Spock are on the bridge listening to some "unscientific" portions of Professor Starnes' logs.  First, he calmly mentions having feelings of anxiety, and that all the adult colonists are feeling them as well, but the children are unaffected.  Later, clearly quite jittery, he says the anxiety is getting worse.  Later still, he seems calmer and says that one of the scientists completed his excavation, and that whatever civilization was there before was destroyed in a natural catastrophe, but one of them took refuge in a cave.  (The same cave where Kirk had his strange panic attack!)  The apprehension is getting worse, as if some unseen force were influencing them.  Then Tommy shows up on the bridge and pounds his fist, sans table, to make the transmission cease.  Tommy demands to be taken to Marcus XII.  Kirk says Marcus XII is "not within our patrol area," and that he intends to take them to a star base instead.  Kirk may sense that Tommy has something to do with why they cannot play the log, so he has Spock and McCoy join him in his quarters to view it there.

On the bridge with the Captain absent, Tommy uses is table pounding to make Sulu change course to take them to Marcus XII, but to continue to see the planet on the screen.  Chekov also sees the planet. Uhura at first sees that it is missing, but a little table pounding soon makes her see it as well.  Mary joins Tommy on the bridge.  The black boy has taken over engineering.  The other two boys are presumably taking over other parts of the ship, but we do not get to see where.

In the privacy of Kirk's quarters, the trio view the rest of Starnes' log.  Starnes is now completely freaking out.  He says that he called Star Fleet to request a space ship to be used as a transport without knowing why, under an alien influence.  Then he descends into the mad rant we saw at the beginning.  Spock mentions that there are also films of family life, fun, games, and picnics with the children.  He says that whatever overwhelmed them must have done so with incredible speed or he would have provided the details, like the scientist that he was.  Kirk suggests that maybe he was destroyed to silence him.  Spock agrees, saying, "Evil does seek to maintain power by suppressing the truth."  "Or by misleading the innocent," says McCoy. Dum dum dah!  The children!  Kirk asks Spock about the lost civilization Starnes mentioned and Spock says that according to legend the planet was home to "a band of marauders who made constant war throughout the system of Epsilon Indi" who were eventually destroyed by their victims but (the legend says), the evil is awaiting a catalyst to set it again into motion and send it marauding across the galaxy.  Kirk fears that the children may be the catalyst it is seeking.  He also fears that the Enterprise may serve as the transport ship that Starnes was influenced into summoning.

And here I just have to resort to snark, with a little analysis thrown in.  Kirk realizes that there haven't been any red shirts killed so far this episode.  Clearly this oversight must be corrected!  So he summons to red shirts to beam down to the planet they are no longer orbiting and replace the ones apparently on patrol now.  Needless to say, when there is something to be investigated and Kirk sends red shirts instead of going himself, it is a sure sign that whatever it is will be instantly fatal.  In this case, whatever it is turns out to be beaming into space.  (That's fatal, all right!).  They don't realize their error until they try to beam up the red shirts on the planet and are unable to lock on.  Only then do they realize that they are no longer in orbit.  Apparently the point of this scene is reveal to Kirk that they are no longer in orbit.  But there are less lethal ways of conveying this information.  Like trying to beam up the team on the ground before beaming their replacements into space.  Or just hailing them and trying to communication, only to receive no answer.  I can only assume the real purpose here is to keep the red shirt body count up to quota.

So, the children have reached a crisis.  The Enterprise crew has found out that they are no longer in orbit and are going to attempt to return.  So they summon their Friendly Angel for guidance.  Except that the summon him on the bridge in the sight of everyone instead of going back to their quarters and summoning him in private.  He assures them that being discovered does not mean that they are defeated.  "If resistance mounts, call upon their beast. Their beast will serve us well. The fear in each one of them is the beast which will consume him. Remember how it was on Triacus. If they resist, so shall it be on the Enterprise."

And, indeed, they set out to control the crew by bringing up their greatest fears, which they can invoke by pounding their fists, sans table.  Sulu doesn't dare change course because he sees the Enterprise traveling through a tunnel of knives that will slice them to pieces if they move.  Scotty refuses to change course because he is hysterical about his engines (what is new?) and thinks the ship will blow up if they do.  A mirror unaccountably appears at Uhura's station reflecting her beautiful face, but when she goes to call Star Fleet, she sees herself as a hideous old woman and breaking into sobs.  Kirk orders the security guards to take his disobedience crew off the bridge, the the children shake their fists and his words come out garbled.  The guard just stands there, saying nothing.  Kirk's greatest fear is losing command, and he becomes hysterical and treats us to William Shatner hamminess at its worst.  Spock takes him off the bridge, where his panic attack continues in the elevator, but eventually he gets a grip on himself.  As a latch ditch effort, they send Chekov with two guards to arrest him on supposed orders from Star Fleet.  Checkov becomes hysterical at the thought of disobeying an order.  Kirk and Spock overpower the trio and head back for the bridge, Kirk's beast now gone.

On the bridge, Tommy is sitting in the captain's chair with Mary standing beside him.  The black boy has been sent to engineering and the other two boys to unspecified locations.  Kirk throws Tommy out of his chair and demands to see their Friendly Angel.  When they refuse, he orders Spock to play back a recording of the chant they used to summon the "Gorgan."  No explanation of the name, which has never been mentioned up to this point.  Apparently the linking hands in the middle and going in a circle is optional, because the Gorgan (or whatever) appears.  Apparently the children can sense his presence because the others also arrive.  Kirk tells the Gorgan, "My beast is gone. It lost its power in the light of reality."  The Gorgan tells Kirk he and his crew are two "gentle" to be of any uses.  "[Y]our strength is cancelled by your gentleness. You are full of goodness. Such as you cannot be changed. You are like the parents. You must be eliminated."  Kirk plays footage of the children and their parents playing on Triacus.  They smile at the memory.  Then he plays the dead parents and their gravestones.  The children cry.  Each surname on a tombstone is shown with the presumed child of the buried parents crying.  The Gorgan tries to convince the children of the need to kill their parents and his promises if they will join him.  They keep crying.  He starts breaking out in hideous sores and disappears saying, "Death to you all.  Death to you all."  The illusions he was creating cease.  McCoy comes onto the bridge, sees the children crying, and says that now they can be helped.  The episode ends just as they arrive at Marcus XII.