Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump's International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy

by Seth Abramson

Yet even as Trump is repeatedly tweeting about and speaking in interviews of fairness—at one point saying, “I do want to see people [like Manafort] treated fairly. That’s what it’s all about”—he is privately, according to the Mueller Report, expressing a very different concern, “discuss[ing] with aides whether and in what way Manafort might be cooperating with the Special Counsel’s investigation, and whether Manafort knew any information that would be harmful to [him]”; Trump attorney John Dowd’s November 2017 phone call to Flynn’s counsel expresses the very same anxiety, with Dowd telling Flynn attorney Robert Kelner in a voicemail, “If … there’s information [that Flynn has] that implicates the president, then we’ve got a national security issue … we got to deal with, not only for the president, but for the country. So … then, you know, we need some kind of heads up. Just for the sake of … protecting all our interests, if we can … remember what we’ve always said about the president and his feelings toward Flynn and, that still remains.”