The silence of Susan Rice

By letter to Susan Rice dated February 8, 2018, Senators Grassley and Graham posed 12 numbered questions. I posted the Graham/Grassley letter in “Rice papers the file.” By letter dated February 23, 2018, white collar criminal defense lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler has now responded to the Grassley/Graham letter on Rice’s behalf. I posted Ruemmler’s letter nearby this morning in “Susan Rice responds, sort of,” and am embedding it again at the bottom.

Let’s take an inventory of Rice’s response to the questions: answered, partially answered, answered narrowly, or not answered. I have italicized my accounting below, subject to further thought and analysis:

Question 1. Did you send the email attached to this letter to yourself? Do you have any reason to dispute the timestamp of the email?

Answered.

Question 2. When did you first become aware of the FBI’s investigation into allegations of collusion between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia?

Not answered.

Question 3. When did you become aware of any surveillance activities, including FISA applications, undertaken by the FBI in conducting that investigation? At the time you wrote this email to yourself, were you aware of either the October 2016 FISA application for surveillance of Carter Page or the January 2017 renewal?

Partially answered.

Question 4. Did anyone instruct, request, suggest, or imply that you should send yourself the aforementioned Inauguration Day email memorializing President Obama’s meeting with Mr. Comey about the Trump/Russia investigation? If so, who and why?

Partially answered.

Question 5. Is the account of the January 5, 2017 meeting presented in your email accurate? Did you omit any other portions of the conversation?

Not answered.

Question 6. Other than that email, did you document the January 5, 2017 meeting in any way, such as contemporaneous notes or a formal memo? To the best of your knowledge, did anyone else at that meeting take notes or otherwise memorialize the meeting?

Not answered.

Question 7. During the meeting, did Mr. Comey or Ms. Yates mention potential press coverage of the Steele dossier? If so, what did they say?

Answered narrowly (“In the conversation Ambassador Rice documented, there was no discussion of Christopher Steele or the Steele dossier, contrary to the suggestion in your letter”).

Question 8. During the meeting, did Mr. Comey describe the status of the FBI’s relationship with Mr. Steele, or the basis for that status?

Answered narrowly (see above).

Question 9. When and how did you first become aware of the allegations made by Christopher Steele?

Not answered.

Question 10. When and how did you first become aware that the Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded Mr. Steele’s efforts?

Not answered.

Question 11. You wrote that President Obama stressed that he was not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. Did President Obama ask about, initiate, or instruct anything from any other perspective relating to the FBI’s investigation?

Not answered.

Question 12. Did President Obama have any other meetings with Mr. Corney, Ms. Yates, or other government officials about the FBI’ s investigation of allegations of collusion between Trump associates and Russia? If so, when did these occur, who participated, and what was discussed?

Not answered.

Susan Rice has lawyered up. For some reason or other, with respect to several pointed and important questions, she is resting on her right to remain silent.

Susan Rice Response to Grassley-Graham by sonamsheth on Scribd

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