Tim Ferriss’s process and strategies for reading books and note-taking.
On Freedom
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in writing so here we have the piece I
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found interesting there’s freedom and
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being a writer and writing it is
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fulfilling your function I used to think
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freedom meant doing whatever you want
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and then I would say in parentheses but
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instead it means knowing who you are
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what you were supposed to be doing on
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this earth and then simply doing it but
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An annotated guide to the redacted Mueller report
Here’s POLITICO’s rolling analysis of the hotly anticipated document.
Trump’s former staff secretary Rob Porter spoke with Mueller — and he revealed that Trump mused about installing other senior DOJ officials like Rachel Brand to supervise Mueller.
.. Trump went to great lengths to encourage Sessions to investigate a political enemy: Hillary Clinton. But Sessions routinely did not commit to honoring such requests, which clearly irked the president. Mueller notes that Trump’s tweets in the following days reflected his ire.
This is also the first we’re learning that Porter took contemporaneous notes about things the president said in private. But he notes that Trump specifically told Sessions he wasn’t “telling you to do anything” — which might have given Barr and Rosenstein a reason to question whether Trump had corrupt intent to obstruct an investigation. ”
.. Here, Mueller reveals that Trump tried to get ex-White House Counsel Don McGahn to deny the New York Times story that Trump directed McGahn to fire Mueller. McGahn refused because he knew that the story was true. Meanwhile, Trump was publicly deriding the Times story as “fake news.”
.. In trying to determine Trump’s intent in directing McGahn to deny that he had sought to fire the special counsel, Mueller said Trump “likely contemplated the ongoing investigation and any proceedings arising from it.” In other words, Trump knew that the Times story could be part of an obstruction investigation when he tried to create a “record” stating that the Times story wasn’t true.
.. This section tells us that McGahn viewed Trump’s threats to fire him as completely empty. According to Porter, McGahn said the optics of a firing would be terrible, and he therefore refused to write such a letter denying the Times story.
.. Trump was clearly livid when he found out that his aides were taking notes to memorialize their conversations. The president also routinely referred to Roy Cohn as an example of someone who would protect him.
.. This section deals with the potential dangling of pardons, and the idea that Trump tried to obstruct the investigation by preventing Manafort and others from cooperating. According to Mueller, Manafort spoke with Trump’s attorneys and relayed to Gates that “we’ll be taken care of” — but Manafort said the word “pardons” was not used.
.. Mueller concluded that Trump sought to “encourage” Manafort not to cooperate with prosecutors through both public and private statements. Additionally, Mueller said Trump “intended Manafort to believe that he could receive a pardon,” which would make Manafort less likely to cooperate with the government.
.. From the beginning, Mueller and his team decided that it would not make a “traditional” judgment on obstruction of justice. But prosecutors said they could not say with confidence that Trump did not commit obstruction of justice. Much of this paragraph was summarized in Barr’s controversial four-page memo from last month.
.. Mueller indicates here that the special counsel’s team did not have confidence the president was innocent of obstruction.
.. Mueller reveals that he interviewed deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein on May 23, 2017, just six days after Mueller was appointed. Legal experts have questioned Rosenstein’s ability to oversee Mueller’s probe while also acting as a witness in the matter. Mueller indicated Rosenstein testified about his role in the firing of FBI Director Comey... Sanders acknowledged that she gave a false explanation for Comey’s firing in May 2017, when she told reporters that “the rank and file of the FBI had lost confidence in their director. Accordingly, the President accepted the recommendation of his Deputy Attorney General to remove James Corney from his position.” It’s a rare example of a senior Trump administration official admitting an inaccuracy, and could undermine her credibility with reporters... Trump’s initial reaction to the appointment of Mueller as special counsel was one of fury. Mueller, attempting to establish Trump’s state of mind, learned that Trump told allies “I’m fucked” after learning of Mueller’s appointment. He then told aides that a special counsel would affect his ability to govern... Senior White House advisers, including Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus, told the special counsel they were worried that Trump would use Sessions’ resignation letter to influence the Justice Department. “Priebus told Sessions it was not good for the President to have the letter because it would function as a kind of ‘shock collar’ that the President could use any time he wanted; Priebus said the President had “DOJ by the throat.” Trump eventually returned the letter almost two weeks later... Next: White House aides worried Trump would try to control DOJ
The Trump Lawyers’ Confidential Memo to Mueller, Explained
DELEGITIMIZING THE INVESTIGATION
The letter briefly shifts in tone to an attack on law enforcement institutions and the legitimacy of the investigation. The president and his allies routinely use such language in the public relations arena. But his lawyers’ use of it in a private missive to Mr. Mueller is striking: a reminder to the special counsel that he will face more than legal pushback if he subpoenas the president or accuses him of wrongdoing.
.. MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING
This is why defense lawyers have been so confident in saying that Mr. Mueller is not investigating Mr. Trump’s personal finances or his family’s real estate dealings.
.. LIMITS OF EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE
The president’s lawyers are arguing that because they have turned over so many documents and made other witnesses available for depositions, Mr. Mueller has already obtained the same information he would get from an interview with Mr. Trump. But if a subpoena fight does arise, Mr. Mueller will almost certainly argue that only by questioning Mr. Trump directly about what he was thinking can investigators determine his intent.
.. FULL COOPERATION MODE
The White House has been saying for months that it is in “full cooperation mode” with the special counsel. This is the payoff for that strategy. The president’s lawyers are signaling here that, if subpoenaed, Mr. Trump would argue that the many documents the White House has turned over and the hours of interviews with staff members have made his testimony unnecessary.
.. AN OUTDATED UNDERSTANDING OF THE LAW
Mr. Trump’s lawyers are making a legalistic argument that he could not have violated an obstruction statute because F.B.I. investigations are not considered to be covered by it. But a different obstruction statute is relevant here, legal experts say. Enacted in 2002, it criminalizes the corrupt impeding of proceedings even if they have not yet started — like the potential grand jury investigation an F.B.I. case can prompt. The president’s lawyers do not mention this statute, whose existence appears to render several of their arguments beside the point.
.. FLYNN’S INVESTIGATION
We learn here for the first time that Mr. Flynn told top White House officials that the F.B.I. investigation into him was nearly complete. Mr. Trump’s lawyers go on to say this is important because the president could not have tried to obstruct an investigation he believed was over.
.. DON’T THANK ME
Mr. Trump’s lawyers say he should get credit for his handling of Mr. Flynn’s case because he ultimately fired him.
.. MORE SHOTS AT COMEY
Mr. Comey’s contemporaneous memos paint an unflattering portrait of Mr. Trump and are key evidence in the case. Here, Mr. Trump’s lawyers assail their credibility, saying perhaps Mr. Comey misunderstood the president’s comments.
.. A HIGHER LOYALTY
Mr. Comey relishes his reputation as a fiercely independent lawman. But in this instance, he might have benefited from sharing his concerns about Mr. Trump with someone at the Justice Department.
.. WHAT ABOUT A BAD REASON?
For the most part, executive branch officials serve at the pleasure of the president, who can fire them at his discretion. But the Supreme Court has ruled that Congress can create limits, upholding statutes that forbid the firing of certain officials without good cause. The novel legal question, which this statement evades, is whether statutes outlawing obstruction of justice implicitly constitute such a limit on when a president can fire an F.B.I. director. If so, it would be unlawful to fire an F.B.I. director for a corrupt reason — even though it would still be legal to fire him or her for a good reason or even for no particular reason..
.. EVERYTHING IS UNPRECEDENTED
No president has ever faced criminal charges about anything. Under Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, the Justice Department opined that presidents are immune from prosecution while in office, and neither was prosecuted afterward because Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon and Mr. Clinton struck a deal with prosecutors on his last day in office. This is one of many ways that the Trump era is potentially taking the country into uncharted waters.
.. A BROAD VIEW OF POWER
This is the most sweeping legal claim in the letter: Even if Mr. Trump did order an investigation shut down and fire the F.B.I. director as part of a cover-up of wrongdoing, his lawyers say he still did not violate the law because he was exercising powers the Constitution has granted exclusively to him. Under this view, it would be unconstitutional to apply obstruction-of-justice statutes enacted by Congress to limit how a president chooses to use his power to supervise the executive branch.
.. ATTACKING COMEY’S CREDIBILITY
The president’s lawyers devote much of the letter to attacking Mr. Comey as a potential witness, suggesting here that his memo documenting his conversation with Mr. Trump about Mr. Flynn may not exist. Three months after this letter was written, the memo was made public. They also appear to suggest that Mr. Comey may have written the memo after Mr. Trump fired him, rather than documenting the conversation immediately after it happened, as Mr. Comey has said he did; there is no evidence no support that insinuation.
THE LESTER HOLT INTERVIEW
Mr. Trump’s lawyers are arguing that this excerpt from the interview has been misunderstood because of his meandering, stream-of-consciousness speaking style, and that the president got diverted but eventually came back to what he meant: not that he fired Mr. Comey because of the Russia investigation, but that he did so despite knowing that it would probably prolong the investigation.
.. PRESSURE’S OFF
Mr. Trump’s lawyers do not concede that he said this — though the Times’ account was based on an official document summarizing the meeting — but they say it does not matter even if he did. Most interesting is the reference to a confidential memo, suggesting a more expansive response could not be made in this letter without compromising classified information.
.. TRUMP’S CENTRAL ROLE IN A MISLEADING STATEMENT
This is the first time that representatives of Mr. Trump concede that he dictated a “short but accurate” statement issued by his son to The New York Times about a meeting in June 2016 the younger Mr. Trump had with a Russian lawyer who an intermediary claimed had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump’s advisers have tried to muddy this point, suggesting several people were involved, so the clarity of the sentence is striking. The response about the statement from Mr. Trump’s lawyers also quickly shifts to Mr. Trump’s son, saying he soon after made a “full public disclosure” about how the meeting was arranged.
.. LYING TO THE MEDIA IS NOT A CRIME
It is not a crime for a politician to lie to The Times and, by extension, to the public. But there are at least two reasons that Mr. Trump’s role in drafting a misleading statement may be of interest. First, it could be evidence of his mind-set when he undertook other actions that may have impeded the investigation. Secondly, a Watergate-era precedent exists for Congress to consider lies to the public to be obstruction of justice in the looser context of impeachment proceedings. An article of impeachment that lawmakers approved against Nixon before he resigned included “making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing” there had been no misconduct.
.. HAPPY TO HELP
The president’s lawyers say they will answer questions on the president’s behalf, a strategy that allows Mr. Trump the ability to say he has offered answers to every question — without the risk of actually having to sit for an interview. While prosecutors often take information (known as a proffer) from defense lawyers, most experienced investigators would say there is no substitute for having someone in the witness chair.
.. OUTDATED THEORIES
This footnote cites theories already debunked by the time this letter was sent. For example, the footnote cites a claim made on Jan. 23 by Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, that the F.B.I. had a “secret society” devoted to bringing Mr. Trump down, as an excerpt from a F.B.I. text message suggested. But by Jan. 25 — four days before Mr. Trump’s legal team sent the letter — it had become clear that phrase was a joke, and Mr. Johnson walked back his alarmist assertion. Similarly, the letter claims that the F.B.I. opened the investigation based on a politically funded dossier of alleged Trump-Russia ties. But The Times had reported in December that the F.B.I. instead opened the investigation based on information from an Australian diplomat.
Raising a Teenage Daughter*
Mother writes article about teenage daugher. Daughter annotates it.