Dramatis Personae of potential indictments (or cooperating witnesses)

I’m keeping a list of all the people who could be indicted (or could be flipped into cooperating witnesses against others). It’s a long list, so I thought I’d start keeping track of them with handy links for background, highlights, and potential crimes.

Michael Flynn: So much trouble. Failure to disclose foreign contacts on SF-86. Failed to disclose payments from foreign governments. Failed to file as a foreign agent.

Carter Page: potentially a foreign agent for Russia while working for the Trump campaign as a foreign policy adviser.

Michael Cohen: The “Says who?” guy. One of Trump’s long-time lawyers, with alleged ties to Ukrainian and Russian organized crime. Emails surfaced between Sater and Cohen in 2015 about building a Trump Tower in Russia.  Talkingpointsmemo.com is all over this guy here and here. Update: “Donald Trump discussed a proposal to build a hotel and condominium tower in Moscow on three occasions with his company’s lawyer, who emailed the press secretary for Russian President Vladimir Putin to ask for assistance on the project. The Trump Organization weighed the “Trump Tower Moscow” proposal from September 2015 to January 2016, attorney Michael Cohen told the House intelligence committee.”

Felix Sater: shady business partner turned FBI informant, with ties to Ukrainian and Russian organized crime. Wrote to Michael Cohen in 2015: “Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it… I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”  Talkingpointsmemo.com was all over this guy in August 2016, while the mainstream media was talking Hillary’s emails, and has more now.

Jeff Sessions: perjury, false statement, probably more Russia trouble with Kislyak.

Paul Manafort: Money laundering, millions in corrupt deals, failed to file as a foreign agent. The pre-dawn FBI raid in July 2017 means a judge or magistrate already found probable cause for crimes.  There are so many damaging stories here, here, and more.

Jared Kushner: Shady June 2016 meeting with Russian lawyer and hacker. Tried to set up insane direct line from Russian embassy in DC to the Kremlin to avoid any American surveillance. In big trouble for a disastrous real estate purchase — the most expensive building purchase ever in the U.S. at the top of the market just before the 2008 crash — of 666 5th Ave in NY (that number is no joke), which threatens to destroy Javanka’s fortunes. I speculated that the secret direct line to the Kremlin was Jared’s bid to bargain an end of sanctions against Russia (worth billions to Russia) in return for getting bailed out by a sweet Russian loan in the multi-millions.

Don Trump, Jr.: Same shady June 2016 meeting. Keep in mind that he first said it was about Russian adoptions, and then the truth came out that it was about Kremlin assistance. The “Russian adoption” line was really a bumbling confession that the meeting may have been quid pro quo: American sanctions led to the Kremlin retaliating with ending Russian adoptions, so the adoption issue was probably part of a deal to lift sanctions in return for Kremlin campaign/hacking help.

 

Roger Stone: hacking conspiracy, direct contacts with Assange and WikiLeaks, and perhaps other hackers.

Chris Collins: former congressman turned Trump transition adviser, alleged insider trading.

Author: Jed Shugerman

Jed Handelsman Shugerman is a Professor and Joseph Lipsitt Scholar at Boston University School of Law. He was at Fordham Law School 2013-2022. He received his B.A., J.D., and Ph.D. (History) from Yale. His book, The People’s Courts (Harvard 2012), traces the rise of judicial elections, judicial review, and the influence of money and parties in American courts. It is based on his dissertation that won the 2009 ASLH’s Cromwell Prize. He is co-author of amicus briefs on the history of presidential power, the Emoluments Clauses, the Appointments Clause, the First Amendment rights of elected judges, and the due process problems of elected judges in death penalty cases. He is currently working on two books on the history of executive power and prosecution in America. The first is tentatively titled “A Faithful President: The Founders v. the Unitary Executive,” questioning the textual and historical evidence for the theory of unchecked and unbalanced presidential power. This book draws on his articles “Vesting” (Stanford Law Review forthcoming 2022), “Removal of Context” (Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 2022), a co-authored “Faithful Execution and Article II” (Harvard Law Review 2019 with Andrew Kent and Ethan Leib), “The Indecisions of 1789” (forthcoming Penn. Law Review), and “The Creation of the Department of Justice,” (Stanford Law Review 2014). The second book project is “The Rise of the Prosecutor Politicians: Race, War, and Mass Incarceration,” focusing on California Governor Earl Warren, his presidential running mate Thomas Dewey, the Kennedys, World War II and the Cold War, the war on crime, the growth of prosecutorial power, and its emergence as a stepping stone to electoral power for ambitious politicians in the mid-twentieth century.

Leave a comment