Et Tu, Marc Elias? The Perkins Coie Partner and the Trump Russia Dossier
As a reporter, I fully expect lawyers to equivocate and fudge, to split hairs and misdirect when asked an uncomfortable question. But to flat-out lie? That's not how it's done.
October 25, 2017 at 08:19 PM
4 minute read
As a reporter who has spent almost 20 years interviewing and writing about Big Law partners, I fully expect them to equivocate and fudge, to split hairs and misdirect when asked an uncomfortable question.
But to flat-out lie to a reporter? To say “no way” when the answer is “yes”?
That's not how it's done.
Two New York Times reporters suggested Perkins Coie partner Marc Elias, general counsel to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, did just that when he initially denied involvement in funding the Steele dossier.
“When I tried to report this story, Clinton campaign lawyer @marceelias pushed back vigorously, saying 'You (or your sources) are wrong,'” investigative reporter Kenneth Vogel tweeted.
“Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year,” tweeted Maggie Haberman, the paper's White House correspondent.
On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that Elias and the DNC retained Fusion GPS to conduct research on Trump's ties to Russia, and that Fusion hired former British spy Christopher Steele to do the digging. Fusion had previously been doing research on Trump for an unnamed Republican.
“The Clinton campaign and the DNC, through [Perkins Coie], continued to fund Fusion GPS's research through the end of October 2016, days before Election Day. Fusion GPS gave Steele's reports and other research documents to Elias, the people familiar with the matter said.”
At this point, I'm not surprised by lies from President Donald 'My-crowds-are-the-biggest' Trump. But outright untruth doesn't seem like Elias's style.
He did not respond to a request for comment, but a source familiar with the situation denied Elias actually lied to Vogel.
The source pointed out that a key question was if Elias had a 'dossier' before the election and put together pitches to media outlets based on information in it. The source said he did not.
Nor according to the source did Elias have the dossier that was eventually published by Buzzfeed in his possession before the election, although he was familiar with some, but not all, of the information in it.
That's exactly what I would expect (and I actually mean that in a good way) from a Big Law partner. They parse questions, they answer carefully, and if the result is to convey a misleading impression, well, caveat emptor.
Still, Elias is taking flak. His Wikipedia bio on Wednesday morning was briefly changed to “Marc E. Elias was the woefully dishonest general counsel for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.”
What I still don't get is why anyone would be remotely surprised that Clinton's campaign paid for opposition research on Trump.
Politics is a nasty business. I have a friend currently running for city council. His opponent just unearthed a 17-year-old nude photo of him (it's black-and-white; very artistic) and is calling him “naked Kevin.” And this is in a race to be one of five city council members in a town of 50,000.
Of course the Clinton campaign would want to dig deep into Trump's background, and that includes collecting salacious rumors. If anything, they should be faulted for not making better use of the material.
But it's unhelpful if looks like the campaign lied about it. It's that familiar feeling of gratuitous dishonesty that has hurt Clinton again and again.
As White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted, “The real Russia scandal? Clinton campaign paid for the fake Russia dossier, then lied about it & covered it up.”
So no. That's not actually the real scandal. Not by a long shot.
And hopefully, any lawyerly obfuscation by Elias in the past won't change the conversation about Trump and Russia now.
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