Mueller Grand Jury Secrecy and White House Staff Legal Maneuvers Revealed in Internal Memo

4 MICHAEL WOLFF hear directly from the special counsel, who would send him a compre- hensive and even apologetic letter of exoneration. “Where” he kept demanding to know, “is my fucking letter?” + + The grand jury empanelled by Special Counsel Robert Mueller met on Thursdays and Fridays in federal district court in Washington. Its busi- ness was conducted on the fifth floor of an unremarkable building at 333 Constitution Avenue. The grand jurors gathered in a nondescript space that looked less like a courtroom than a classroom, with prosecutors at a podium and witnesses sitting at a desk in the front of the room. The Mueller grand jurors were more female than male, more white than black, older rather than younger; they were distinguished most of all by their focus and intensity. They listened to the proceedings with “a scary sort of atten- tion, as though they already know everything,” said one witness. In a grand jury inquiry, you fall into one of three categories. You are a “witness of fact.” meaning the prosecutor believes you have information about an investigation at hand. Or you are a “subject,” meaning you are regarded as having personal involvement with the crime under investiga- tion. Or, most worrisome, you are a “target,” meaning the prosecutor is seeking to have the grand jury indict you. Witnesses often became sub- jects, and subjects often became targets. In early 2018, with the Mueller investigation and its grand jury main- taining a historic level of secrecy, no one in the White House could be sure who was what. Or who was saying what to whom. Anyone and everyone working for the president or one of his senior aides could be talking to the special counsel. The investigation’s code of silence extended into the West Wing. Nobody knew, and nobody was saying, who was spilling the beans. Almost every White House senior staffer—the collection of advisers who had firsthand dealings with the president—had retained a lawyer. Indeed, from the president's first days in the White House, Trump’ tangled legal past and evident lack of legal concern had cast a shadow on those who worked for him. Senior people were looking for lawyers even as they were still learning how to navigate the rabbit warren that is the West Wing. In February 2017, mere weeks after the inauguration, and not long SIEGE $ after the FBI had first raised questions about National Security Adv Michael Flynn, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus had walked into Steve I nons office and said, “I'm going to do you a big favor. Give me your ci card. Don't ask me why, just give it to me. You'll be thanking me fo1 rest of your life.” Bannon opened his wallet and gave Priebus his American Ext card. Priebus shortly returned, handed the card back, and said, “You have legal insurance.” Over the next year, Bannon—a witness of fact—spent hundrec hours with his lawyers preparing for his testimony before the sp: counsel and before Congress. His lawyers in turn spent ever moun hours talking to Mueller’s team and to congressional committee coun Bannons legal costs at the end of the year came to $2 million. Every lawyer's first piece of advice to his or her client was blunt unequivocal: talk to no one, lest it become necessary to testify about 1 you said. Before long, a constant preoccupation of senior staffers in Trump White House was to know as little as possible. It was a wre side-up world: where being “in the room” was traditionally the r sought-after status, now you wanted to stay out of meetings. You wa: to avoid being a witness to conversations; you wanted to avoid b witnessed being a witness to conversations, at least if you were sn Certainly, nobody was your friend. It was impossible to know whe colleague stood in the investigation; hence, you had no way of knox how likely it was that they might need to offer testimony about some else—you, perhaps—as the bargaining chip to save themselves by cc erating with the special counsel, a.k.a. flipping. The White House, it rapidly dawned on almost everyone who wo: there—even as it became one more reason not to work there—was scene of an ongoing criminal investigation, one that could potent ensnare anyone who was anywhere near it. + + + The ultimate keeper of the secrets from the campaign, the transition, through the first year in the White House was Hope Hicks, the W House communications director. She had witnessed most everyth HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_021126