Russian spy poisoning: Yulia Skripal ‘getting stronger daily’
April 6, 2018 by admin
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Yulia Skripal/Facebook
Ms Skripal and her father are in hospital in Salisbury after the attack
UK police have issued a statement on behalf of Russian spy Sergei Skripal’s daughter, the first since the pair were poisoned by a nerve agent in March.
The statement quoted Yulia Skripal as saying her “strength is growing daily”.
The news came hours after Russia TV aired a recording of an alleged phone conversation, which it says took place between Ms Skripal and her cousin.
Ms Skripal, 33, and her father are in hospital in Salisbury, southern England, where the attack took place.
Mr Skripal, 66, remains critically ill but stable.
The UK government has accused Russia of being behind the 4 March attack, but Russia’s ambassador in the UK said Moscow had no nerve agent stockpile.
The incident has sparked an international diplomatic crisis.
‘Respect my privacy’
Ms Skripal said she was grateful for the many messages of goodwill she had received.
“I woke up over a week ago now and am glad to say my strength is growing daily,” the statement said.
“I have many people to thank for my recovery and would especially like to mention the people of Salisbury that came to my aid when my father and I were incapacitated,” it went on.
“Further than that, I would like to thank the staff at Salisbury District Hospital for their care and professionalism.
“I am sure you appreciate that the entire episode is somewhat disorientating, and I hope that you’ll respect my privacy and that of my family during the period of my convalescence.”
Earlier on Thursday Russian TV released a recorded phone call alleged to have taken place between Ms Skripal and her cousin Viktoria, who lives in Russia.
The alleged Yulia says: “Everything is ok. He [her father] is resting now, having a sleep. Everyone’s health is fine, there are no irreparable things. I will be discharged soon. Everything is ok.”
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Viktoria Skripal has said she hopes to travel to the UK to visit her relatives, if she can get a visa, but the alleged Yulia tells her that no-one will give her one.
Correspondents say that what the alleged Yulia says about her father “resting” does not chime with what we know of the Skripals’ health, and the conversation about the visa is strange.
However, Russian news agency Interfax also quoted the cousin as saying in an interview that they had spoken and that Yulia had told her that all was well.
She expressed surprise that the phone call had come a day after she had told media that she was not allowed to speak to Yulia, Interfax reported.
“Do you believe in coincidences? I don’t,” it quoted her as saying.
Viktoria is said to be one of their closest living relatives after a series of family deaths. Both Yulia and Viktoria are Russian citizens.
- Skripal poisoning: What we know so far
- Full coverage of the Russian spy poisoning
Transcript of recorded conversation
The hosts of the 60 Minute show on state-owned Rossiya 1 – Yevgeny Popov and Olga Skabeyeva – said they were unable to confirm the authenticity of the phone call.
Viktoria: Hello?
“Yulia”: Hello. Can you hear me?
Viktoria: Yes, I can hear you.
“Yulia”: It is Yulia Skripal.
Viktoria: Oh, Yulka [diminutive of Yulia] it’s you! I can tell it’s you from your voice but I don’t understand. So, they gave you a telephone, did they?
“Yulia”: Yes, yes.
Viktoria: Thanks God! Yulyasha [diminutive of Yulia], is everything okay?
“Yulia”: Everything’s ok, everything’s fine.
Viktoria: Look, if tomorrow I get a [British] visa, I’ll come to you on Monday.
“Yulia”: Vika, no-one will give you a visa.
Viktoria: Well I thought so too. Oh well.
“Yulia“: Most likely.
Viktoria: If they do, I need you to tell me whether I can visit you or not, tell me that I can.
“Yulia”: I don’t think so, that’s the situation at the moment, we’ll sort it out later.
Viktoria: I know, I know.
“Yulia”: Later, we’ll get it sorted later, everything’s fine, we’ll see later.
Viktoria: Is that your phone?
“Yulia”: It’s a temporary phone. Everything’s fine, but we’ll see how it goes, we’ll decide later. You know what the situation is here. Everything is fine, everything is solvable, everyone is recovering and is alive.
Viktoria: Understood. Is everything ok with your dad?
“Yulia”: Everything’s ok. He’s resting now, having a sleep. Everyone’s health is fine, there’s nothing that can’t be put right. I’ll be discharged soon. Everything is ok.
Viktoria: Kisses, babes.
“Yulia”: Bye.
The recording was reportedly made on the morning of 5 April
The incident, which the UK blames on Russia, has led to worsening relations between Moscow and many Western countries, with more than 150 diplomats expelled on each side.
Speaking shortly after the alleged conversation was released, Russian ambassador Alexander Yakovenko denied statements by UK officials that Russia did not respond to the poisoning allegations immediately.
He read out a letter which he said Russia had sent denying involvement, adding that claims that Russia had a nerve agent stockpile were not true.
The UK Foreign Office has said it is considering a request by the Russian embassy to visit Ms Skripal.
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Mueller’s assurances that Trump is not a ‘target’ don’t mean much
April 5, 2018 by admin
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The assurance that President Donald Trump is only a “subject” of the investigation and not officially a target may not be worth much. | Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
The office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller appears to be trying to entice President Donald Trump into an interview by assuring him last month that he is not a “target” of its investigation and is only a “subject” of the probe, at least for now, a source familiar with the discussions told POLITICO.
The recent assurance that Trump is not officially a target — first reported by the Washington Post — may not be worth much, since offering what prosecutors consider to be a false statement can easily tip someone over into the target category after an interview, lawyers said.
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More significant, some said, is Mueller’s intention to write a report on his findings about Trump’s potential obstruction of justice in the probe, according to the Post. Mueller has no obligation to submit a written report on any of his findings and it had not previously been known that he intends to write one. There is no assurance that such a report would be provided to Congress or become public.
When it comes to an interview, some formal and informal advisers to Trump have been urging him not to sit for an interview because of the legal peril it could create. Several of the guilty pleas Mueller has already netted in his investigation are for false statements made in interviews with FBI agents working for his office.
“As a practical matter, federal prosecutors typically don’t decide until late in an investigation whether they will charge a person who is under investigation,” former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti wrote on Twitter. “Usually prosecutors don’t make that judgement until they’ve interviewed witnesses and reviewed the relevant documents. … All today’s news tells us is that Mueller hasn’t decided to indict Trump at this time. If Trump’s lawyers know what they’re doing, they’ll tell him he’s still under great risk.”
In Trump’s case, Mueller’s reported concession that Trump isn’t a target of the investigation may mean even less than in a more typical probe. That’s because Justice Department legal opinions issued in 1973 and 2000 say a sitting president cannot be indicted criminally while in office.
Mueller appears to have little option but to follow that legal guidance since he is generally bound to obey Justice Department policies.
A more intriguing possibility mentioned by the Post is that Mueller has indicated he plans to draft a report on his investigation and wants Trump’s account for that purpose.
“The key isn’t that Trump is not (yet) a ‘target’ but that he IS a SUBJECT of Mueller’s investigation that Mueller will write a REPORT on what Trump did, why, and what it adds up to. That is HUGE,” Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe wrote on Twitter.
Such a report could be significant because it could serve as a trigger to impeachment proceedings, particularly if the House falls into Democratic control in November.
A private lawyer for Trump, Jay Sekulow, declined to say Tuesday whether Mueller’s office has raised the possibility of a report or offered an assurance about Trump’s status in the ongoing probe.
“We do not discuss real or alleged conversations between our legal team and the Office of Special Counsel,” Sekulow said. White House attorney Ty Cobb also declined to comment.
However, a source informed about the discussions said Mueller’s office had offered the assurance that Trump is not a target of the probe and solely a subject. The source could not immediately confirm that prosecutors had revealed plans for a report that could be made public.
A spokesman for Mueller’s office declined to comment on the reports of discussions with Trump’s legal team.
Legal experts have been divided in recent months over the feasibility of Mueller issuing a report on his findings about alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. While the laws used to appoint independent counsels in the 1980s and 1990s allowed for release of a report with the approval of a judicial panel, the statute expired in 1999.
Mueller was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last May under little-used Justice Department regulations that seem to limit the possibility of a far-ranging report on the special counsel’s findings. The rules do require reporting to Congress in the event that Rosenstein were to block a proposed prosecution by Mueller, but without such a disagreement it’s unclear that lawmakers would be automatically notified.
Congress might try to subpoena whatever written summary Mueller’s team gives to Rosenstein, but the regulations suggest that would only come at the end of the special counsel’s probe, which seems certain to continue until the end of this year and perhaps well into 2019. Indeed, the rules Mueller was appointed under appear to have been animated by the criticism of lengthy reports drafted by Whitewater Independent Counsel Ken Starr and others appointed under the old law.
“We think that the best reading of the special counsel regulations in their historical context rules out a Starr-like report to Congress that lays out hundreds of pages of factual allegations as well as legal analysis and conclusions,” Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith and student Maddie McMahon wrote on Lawfare last month. “The drafters of the regulations criticized that approach and took steps to preclude it, and on the whole, the regulations achieve that goal.”
However, a former Justice Department attorney who drafted the regulations, Neal Katyal, said the rules do allow for more detailed reports. Whether and how they could be made public is a more complicated question.
“The regs only discuss the mandatory final report, and yes, it is contemplated to be brief due to privacy and other interests. But interim reports to the AG could be very detailed (and in order for them to be effective), likely would be,” Katyal told POLITICO on Tuesday night.
One of the biggest obstacles to the Justice Department making public findings about the investigation is that Rosenstein has repeatedly said publicly that prosecutors should not discuss their reasons for not filing charges in a specific case, particularly when individuals are involved.
Indeed, the memo Rosenstein prepared last year that the White House initially seized upon to justify the firing of FBI Director James Comey sharply faulted him for publicly revealing and assessing the evidence found in the course of the probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account while secretary of state.
“Derogatory information sometimes is disclosed in the course of criminal investigations and prosecutions, but we never release it gratuitously,” Rosenstein wrote. “The Director laid out his version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial. It is a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do.”