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Secret Nixon 'Watergate Road Map,' newly unsealed, could provide guidance for Mueller probe, analysts say

Highly secretive documents finally released Wednesday, including a draft of a would-be criminal indictment against former President Richard Nixon, could provide guidance for Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into President Trump, according to a group of legal analysts that sued to unearth the materials.
Specifically, the materials from Nixon special prosecutor Leon Jaworski are strikingly sparse and predominately factual, which could counsel Mueller against issuing long-winded legal conclusions or opinions. And the documents have largely been kept out of the public eye for decades, avoiding the political spectacle of the report released by independent counsel Ken Starr decades later, after his investigation of former President Bill Clinton.
Stephen Bates, who worked for Starr, and legal bloggers Jack Goldsmith and Benjamin Wittes won their battle to force the National Archives to unseal the so-called "Watergate Road Map" and its related documents last month in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, as they argued that the materials had significant political implications today that overrode any government interest in keeping them secret.
"As Mueller reportedly contemplates writing a 'report' on possible presidential obstruction of justice, there are two models available to him to the extent that he is contemplating an impeachment referral of some kind," the three analysts wrote on their blog in September. "One of those, the Starr Report, is well-understood and regarded by many commentators in a negative light. The other, the Road Map, remains secret more than 40 years after its transmission to Congress. Few people have even heard of it."
The salacious Starr report, released in September 1998, became both a political football and wrecking ball upon its release, with critics charging that it was an overtly political document. The beginning of the report contained something of a disclaimer, noting that "many of the details" contained inside "reveal highly personal information; many are sexually explicit. This is unfortunate, but it is essential."

"The document is ... keenly relevant to current discussions of how Mueller should proceed."
— Stephen Bates, Jack Goldsmith and Benjamin Wittes

But unlike the Starr report, the low-key Watergate Road Map is "almost entirely non-argumentative," the writers posted on Lawfare late Wednesday. "In this regard it is a world away from the Starr Report, which laid out a lengthy narrative and then included a set of legal interpretations arguing that the facts reported might be grounds for impeachment. The Road Map entirely lacks a thesis."
The legal analysts argued that the Watergate Road Map could offer insight into the ongoing legal debate as to whether a president constitutionally could be charged with obstruction of justice at all, as well as whether it would be appropriate under the special counsel statutes for Mueller to issue a public or confidential report on his findings -- should he issue a report at all.
"The document is ... keenly relevant to current discussions of how Mueller should proceed," Bates, Goldsmith, and Wittes added. "It is possible that it is even relevant to discussions taking place within the Mueller investigation itself."
The key takeaways for Mueller, the three legal analysts wrote after reviewing the Watergate Road Map: "First, less really is more. The document is powerful because it is so spare; because it is trying to inform, not to persuade; because it utterly lacks rhetorical excess."
Next: The "Road Map is extremely careful not to do — or seem to do — Congress’s job for it," they added. "[T]he Road Map simply gave Congress information to use as members saw fit and assiduously avoided instruction or didactic messaging as to how to put that information to use."
And finally: "The Road Map teaches an important lesson about restraint. ... Leon Jaworski wrote a meticulous 55-page document that contains not a word of excess. He transmitted it to Congress, where it did not leak. It is powerful partly because it is so by-the-book. Kind of like Bob Mueller." (Unlike the Starr report, which was written from the prosecutor's perspective, the Watergate Road Map released Wednesday is not written in Jaworski's voice. Instead, it is a court document, like the indictment.)
The records in the Watergate Road Map initially were provided to Congress under seal 45 years ago, on the order of federal appellate Judge John Sirica, after special prosecutor Jaworski argued he theoretically had enough evidence for criminal charges again Nixon, even though the Constitution seemingly did not permit a sitting president to face a criminal indictment.
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Sirica authorized the documents' confidential release to Congress in March 1974, after Congress already had initiated impeachment proceedings. Nixon ultimately resigned on Aug. 8, 1974, facing almost-certain impeachment and removal.
The draft indictment against Nixon contained charges of bribery, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and obstruction of a criminal probe -- and seven Nixon aides who were charged later were similarly hit with obstruction counts.
The indictment, which included in the top-right corner a handwritten notation that it was a "draft," read: “[F]rom on or about March 21, 1973…Richard M. Nixon unlawfully, willfully and knowingly did combine, conspire, confederate and agree together and with co-conspirators... to commit bribery... obstruct justice... and obstruct a criminal investigation.”
However, prominent legal analysts, including Harvard professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, as well as the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, have long argued that a sitting president cannot be indicted -- even if he commits a crime.
"The grand jury was able to discern that Nixon himself was a criminal, and the only reason that they did not indict him is because there was a question of whether or not a sitting president could be indicted," University of Virginia Miller Center historian Ken Hughes said in an interview.
Speaking to Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle" exclusively on Monday, President Trump voiced his continued frustration with Mueller's probe, which he has long called a partisan "witch hunt" led by Democratic lawyers upset that he had won the 2016 presidential election. However, he also indicated that he might offer some cooperation as the investigation appears to wind down.
CLICK FOR FULL RECAP OF TRUMP-INGRAHAM INTERVIEW
"It’s ridiculous that I have to do anything, because I didn’t do anything, but yes, we will probably do something, yes we will respond to questions," Trump told host Laura Ingraham.

Kavanaugh turns down nearly $600G raised online for his defense: reports

The Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Associated Press)

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has reportedly turned down nearly $600,000 that had been raised in his name after sexual misconduct allegations were leveled against him during his confirmation process.
A GoFundMe page through which the funds were raised had a message saying Kavanaugh would not accept the money in order to avoid judicial ethics violations, the Washington Examiner reported.
“I've spoken to a former clerk for Judge Kavanaugh who told me that Kavanaugh’s supporters loved the outpouring of support from this GoFundMe," said conservative blogger John Hawkins, who launched the page Sept. 24. "Judicial ethics rules caution judges against permitting the use of the prestige of judicial office for fund-raising purposes. Justice Kavanaugh will not accept any proceeds from the campaign, nor will he direct that any proceeds from the campaign be provided to any third party."
The page launched one day after the New Yorker published allegations from Deborah Ramirez, who claimed Kavanaugh exposed himself to her while they were in college, and a week after Christine Blasey Ford accused him of trying to force himself on her, also decades ago.
Hawkins said he received a statement from the law clerk several days ago saying Kavanaugh was not able to accept the money and said Kavanaugh requested that Hawkins discontinue the use of his name for any fund-raising purposes.
Instead, Hawkins said he will donate the money to the Archdiocese of Washington, which operates the Catholic Youth Organization where Kavanaugh used to coach a girls’ basketball team.
The page is no longer accepting donations.
In an interview with Yahoo!, Hawkins said the idea for a Kavanaugh fundraiser page came from a conversation with a woman who noticed all the pages that had been launched on behalf of Ford.
“I was talking to a woman and … she was like, ‘Christine Blasey Ford has these GoFundMes up; I wish someone would do a GoFundMe for Brett Kavanaugh," Hawkins said.
President Trump nominated Kavanaugh for the nation's highest court in July, after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced plans to retire from his lifetime appointment. After a contentious confirmation process, the U.S. Senate voted to 50-48 on Oct. 6 to confirm Kavanaugh's nomination.

Pundits assume Democrats will win the House. Sound familiar?

Their faces peered out from the pages of The New York Times a couple of days ago, the Democrats who would become committee chairmen if their party wins the House.
These mini-profiles were followed by a Times interview published yesterday with Nancy Pelosi, who laid out her agenda if she becomes speaker again.
CNN's Chris Cillizza followed up with this piece: "Nancy Pelosi Is Right. The Democrats Should Win the House on Tuesday."
Sure sounds like the media are viewing a Democratic takeover as pretty close to a done deal. It's being baked into the cake of political coverage.
At Nate Silver's 538 site, the projection is that the Dems have 85.5 percent chance of being able to give Pelosi the gavel.
Sound familiar?
Didn't we go through this in 2016, when almost everyone in journalism, citing endless polls, believed or predicted that we were headed for a second Clinton presidency?
I'm not here to talk up the Republicans' chances in the House. The atmosphere favors the Democrats, the grass-roots energy seems to be on their side, the president's party usually loses seats in the midterms, and Donald Trump, who has made this a referendum on himself, is polling around 40 percent.
But who really knows for sure? It's a midterm, with 435 House races. Turnout is a question mark. Local personalities and issues are a factor, although less so in this Trump-dominated race. Whether these contests will turn more on health care, immigration, the economy, Kavanaugh, the recent terror attacks, or visceral feelings about the 45th president is not entirely clear.
While the odds are against the Republicans, they probably have a better shot at holding the House than Trump appeared to have two years ago in the Electoral College.
And if the Democrats do gain control, will it be by winning barely more than the 23 seats they need, or by the 30 or 40 seats that would constitute a blue wave?
The GOP, meanwhile, is widely expected to hold the Senate, perhaps gain a seat or two, in large measure because of a highly favorable map -- although there are a number of tight races there too.
It's obviously reasonable for the press to look into what the Trump presidency would look like with the opposition party running the House. But it's not a lock.
The Times piece, based on an interview with Pelosi, says "Democrats would use their first month in the House majority to advance sweeping changes to future campaign and ethics laws, requiring the disclosure of shadowy political donors, outlawing the gerrymandering of congressional districts and restoring key enforcement provisions to the Voting Rights Act."
The California congresswoman says her party "would then turn to infrastructure investment and the climbing costs of prescription drugs, answering voter demands and challenging President Trump's willingness to work on shared policy priorities with a party he has vilified." The idea, she says, would be to show that the Dems "are a governing party, not the leftist mob that Mr. Trump describes."
The more likely outcome is gridlock if Congress is divided. And keep in mind that Pelosi would be under great pressure from the party's left wing to go more forcefully in a Medicare-for-all direction, not to mention a flood of investigations and subpoenas for the Trump administration.
The Times story does contain this caveat in the seventh paragraph:
"Democrats, of course, may fall short of a majority on Tuesday."
Of course.

Trump, at Halloween rally, bashes 'far-left media' for trying to 'push people apart' after Pittsburgh slayings

Speaking Wednesday night at a rally in Fort Myers, Fla., President Trump condemned the "far-left media" for "once again using tragedy to sow anger and division" shortly after his visit to Pittsburgh in the wake of Saturday's deadly mass shooting at a synagogue there.
The approximately 8,500 supporters in the crowd at the Hertz Arena erupted in a chant of "CNN sucks" as Trump paused. He then accused the media of overblowing a protest in Pittsburgh during his visit, and "doing everything in their power to play it up and push people apart."
CNN host Don Lemon was fiercely criticized earlier in the day after an on-air rant in which he declared that “white men” are the biggest terror threat to the United States, adding that "there is no white-guy ban" and wondering aloud, "What do we do about that?" A CNN spokeswoman said neither Lemon nor CNN would have any further comment on his statement.
Trump's broadsides were unrelenting: "The far-left media has spread terrible lies and stories about the Trump administration, and the tens of millions of people who make up our movement -- the greatest political movement in the history of our country," the president continued, as the crowd cheered.
On-air personalities at CNN and other networks have hammered Trump for his fiery rhetoric in the wake of last week's mail bombs, which police say were directed at prominent liberals by a supporter of the president, as well as Saturday's shooting -- even though the alleged perpetrator in Pittsburgh, Robert Bowers, had posted anti-Trump and anti-Semitic messages online.
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Close to a thousand protesters, including some organized by the Jewish group IfNotNow, demonstrated against Trump's visit in Pittsburgh -- with many arguing that Trump's rhetoric has endorsed white supremacy. IfNotNow advocates for ending what it calls Israel's "occupation" of the Palestinian territories; Trump formally moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem earlier this year, enraging groups like IfNotNow.
Earlier in the day, Trump on Twitter took a shot at some Democrats in Pittsburgh, including the city's mayor, who refused to meet with him during his visit.
PACKAGES SENT TO TRUMP, PENTAGON CONTAINED POISON RICIN
Trump then turned to the migrant caravans making their way through Mexico to the U.S., saying, "They got a lot of rough people in those caravans -- they are not angels. They are not."
RAND PAUL, SHOT AT BY RADICAL FAR-LEFT GUNMAN LAST YEAR, WARNS OF ASSASSINATION PERIL
The White House has said that up to 15,000 U.S. troops could be deployed to the border if the caravan continues its approach. The Pentagon also said Wednesday afternoon that its initial estimate was for 7,000 troops at the border.
The president referred to birthright citizenship -- the process by which the children of illegal immigrants born on U.S. soil automatically become citizens -- as a "crazy policy," echoing remarks he has made throughout the week.
"Illegal aliens are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States," Trump said to applause at Wednesday's rally, to chants of "U-S-A!"
That comment was significant, because the 14th Amendment reads: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."
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Some Republicans are advancing the theory that illegal immigrants are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S. within the meaning of that provision, which would give Congress the legal daylight to pass a law codifying Trump's view, modifying the current Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) of 1952.
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The president was kicking off a final series of rallies, ahead of next week's pivotal midterm elections, and fans had streamed into the arena after lining up well before dawn, many wearing red shirts and tossing beach balls.

"They got a lot of rough people in those caravans -- they are not angels."
— President Trump

A few people wore Halloween attire — a man in an Uncle Sam hat, one in a red cape, another dressed as a Revolutionary War soldier. While the atmosphere was festive, the president's schedule appeared urgent: Trump has 10 more rallies planned in 8 other battleground states ahead of Election Day on Nov. 6, with two each in Indiana and Missouri, plus stops in Tennessee, Georgia, Ohio, Montana and West Virginia.
And, a new round of Fox News state polls Wednesday showed several of those states remain tight.
Florida, which Trump narrowly carried in the 2016 presidential election, is home to two major, neck-and-neck races that Fox News currently rates as toss-ups.
The Republican Senate candidate, incumbent Gov. Rick Scott, is facing off against Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson, who has held the office since 2000 and leads by 2 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average. Trump called Scott an "incredible asset" Wednesday night, saying he had handled Hurricane Michael effectively earlier this year.
"Together, we will ensure Florida comes back stronger than ever -- it's already happening," Trump said. "Rick and everybody in Florida did a phenomenal job."
Meanwhile, polls show GOP gubernatorial nominee Ron DeSantis, a Trump ally, slightly trailing Democratic nominee and current Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum, who has been besieged in recent days by a series of document releases that show he may have lied about potentially illegal campaign expenditures and donations.
The president frequently referred to Scott and DeSantis as "Rick and Ron" during Wednesday's rally, and said they had worked well together and, if elected, would both "keep the Florida boom in full swing."
NEW FOX NEWS POLLS SHOW TRUMP POPULARITY REMAINS HIGH IN KEY SENATE BATTLEGROUNDS
Trump already has taken public shots against Gillum, calling him a "stone-cold thief" in a Fox News interview on Monday, after the state ethics commission released documents that showed he accepted tickets to the Broadway musical "Hamilton" from an undercover FBI agent posing as a local developer in the summer of 2016. Gillum has maintained he assumed his brother bought the tickets.
Other disclosures from the investigation into possible corruption in the Tallahassee government appeared to show Gillum illegally using city funds for campaign trips that his office apparently misrepresented as official business.
Gillum struck back on Twitter, writing that it's never wise to "wrestle with a pig." He also has accused DeSantis of failing to be fully transparent about roughly $150,000 in taxpayer-funded travel expenses he has incurred during his six years in Congress. DeSantis is not legally required to provide detailed receipts for those expenses.
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All congresspeople receive an allowance for traveling during their time in office, including to attend interviews and answer questions, and DeSantis has said those funds were used for hotel stays and travel expenses. His spokeswoman has said the money went to "official office travel that included official media appearances."
While Trump is not on the ballot in November, both Democratic and Republican strategists have reported that Trump's rallies — the centerpiece of his unconventional and underestimated 2016 campaign — have been a boost for local candidates, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in free media and boosting Republicans in post-rally polls.
At least one local business allowed employees to take the day off if they attended the rally.
The atmosphere leading up to the speech was like a rock concert, with some people batting a large beach ball in the bleachers as the Village People's "Macho Man" blared over the sound system.
By Election Day, Trump will have held 30 rallies since Labor Day, according to the White House. He's been holding events in competitive House districts and in states with competitive Senate and gubernatorial races.
More than 3.4 million people already have voted in Florida, surpassing the number who voted early or by mail four years ago.