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The Russian Connection


fraurosena

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Oh goody! 

 

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Cummings is wonderful, but I wonder about this. How likely is it the intelligence community will share with congress? 

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"This new CNN scoop shows the drip-drip-drip of Trump’s Russia scandal will continue"

Spoiler

It is easy to lose track of all the ways in which congressional Republicans are enabling President Trump’s ongoing slow-motion erosion of our democracy. They mostly declined to correct Trump’s lie that millions voted illegally, undermining public confidence in our system. They refuse to prod Trump to show transparency about his business holdings, covering the tracks of his untold conflicts of interest. They are resisting an independent congressional inquiry into Russian efforts to swing the election.

Those last two enabling efforts meet in the refusal of Republicans to prod Trump to release his tax returns, which could shed light on his holdings and on his potential financial dealings with Russia. And the stakes of the GOP refusal to push for those tax returns have now been underscored by a new CNN report that Russians privately claimed to have potentially compromising information that may have come from Trump’s finances:

Russian government officials discussed having potentially “derogatory” information about then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and some of his top aides in conversations intercepted by US intelligence during the 2016 election, according to two former intelligence officials and a congressional source.

One source described the information as financial in nature and said the discussion centered on whether the Russians had leverage over Trump’s inner circle. The source said the intercepted communications suggested to US intelligence that Russians believed “they had the ability to influence the administration through the derogatory information.”

To be sure, this report is a bit sketchy. The sources refused to tell CNN which aides were discussed by Russian officials, and they also allowed that this claim having potential leverage over Trump may have been Russian bluster.

But nonetheless, this revelation provides Democrats with an opening — to renew the pressure on congressional Republicans to prod Trump into releasing his tax returns, or to get access to them via other means.

Norm Eisen, the ethics czar under former president Barack Obama, argued to me this morning that the CNN scoop reminds us of the importance of getting access to those tax returns. He also reiterated that Republicans have the power to see these returns if they want to.

“Trump’s taxes are an important first piece in the puzzle to determine whether or not he has financial ties to Russia,” Eisen told me. Eisen noted that Trump’s lawyers recently released a letter claiming Trump had only negligible income from (or debt to) Russian sources over the past 10 years. But as tax expert David Cay Johnston quickly pointed out, the letter was “artfully written” to elide an inquiry into what we really “need to know about Trump and Russian money,” which “involves transactions prior to 10 years ago.”

Eisen noted that without seeing the actual returns themselves, these assertions by Trump’s lawyers “are virtually meaningless,” and added that it is now on congressional Republicans to pick up the inquiry. “The tax committees of Congress have the legal right to demand from the IRS, to examine, and to share tax returns if a proper public purpose is met,” Eisen said.

Democrats have also zeroed in on this point. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, has repeatedly pressed the committee’s GOP chairman, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, to use his authority to secure an opportunity for committee members to privately view Trump’s tax returns. Hatch refused, citing limitations on his own authority to do this that Democrats say is bogus. Republicans have blocked other measures designed to access the tax returns.

The important point here is that broadly speaking, most Republicans are inclined against taking whatever steps are necessary to deepen their own (not to mention the public’s) understanding of the Russia affair. There are other measures Republicans could take to try to force access to the tax returns, either through legislation or simply by issuing more forceful calls on him to release them. Again: All we are talking about here is a baseline standard of transparency, one that Republican and Democratic presidential candidates have held themselves to for decades, because they recognized that the American people have a right to this transparency from their public officials, a right Trump does not recognize — and one congressional Republicans are now shrugging off.

Meanwhile, The Post reported over the weekend that top Trump adviser Jared Kushner sought to set up a secure line of communication between Trump’s transition and the Kremlin. Top Democrats are now calling for a congressional review of whether Kushner should have his security clearance revoked. But there is little indication of interest in this from Republicans, and even more remarkably, this comes even as Republicans are now defending Trump’s explicit undermining of the postwar system of Western alliances during his trip abroad.

While it is perfectly possible that all this could ultimately produce no evidence of serious wrongdoing by Trump and his team, this is also about establishing a full accounting of Russian efforts to sabotage our election, regardless of whether there was any collusion. Republicans are resisting even this. But, fortunately, the drip-drip-drip of revelations, as well as Trump’s own ham-handed efforts at interference, have made it incrementally less tenable for Republicans to hold out against such a full accounting. The increments are tiny, to be sure. But they are not non-existent, and Trump’s increasingly hollow and anguished shouts of “Fake News” will not stop them from continuing.

...

 

I wish it would start gushing and stop dripping. Many people in this administration need to be washed away.

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9 minutes ago, apple1 said:

What happens when Cohen continues to refuse?

I'm not sure. I think it depends on whether enough Repugs grow backbones, forcing the issue.

 

"Keeping Kushner would make Trump’s Russia nightmare permanent"

Spoiler

It’s hard to write about Jared Kushner without going straight to the Icarus cliche — hubris, flying too close to the sun, falling into the sea. I once wrote that he was the only one of President Trump’s close advisers who couldn’t be fired, but Kushner’s father-in-law would be smart to prove me wrong.

It is possible, of course, that Kushner was acting on Trump’s orders when he allegedly suggested setting up a secret communications channel with Moscow using Russia’s secure equipment. In that case, Trump’s reluctance to cut him loose would be understandable — and the Russia scandal would lead directly to the president himself. If not, are family ties keeping Kushner employed at the White House? Or is it Trump’s mounting sense of persecution and his reluctance to let an aggressive media push him around?

Whatever his motivation, Trump is allowing the Russia scandal to become not an extended nightmare but a permanent one. And all the Twitter tantrums in the world won’t make it go away.

It is, of course, ironic that Kushner was originally seen as the benign, socially acceptable face of Trumpism. He and his allies were supposed to constitute the reasonable and responsible faction in the West Wing, as opposed to the alt-right barbarians clustered around Stephen K. Bannon. But while Bannon’s name has not come up publicly in the Russia investigation, at least thus far, Kushner is now reportedly a focus of the FBI probe.

And with good reason. At a December meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Kushner reportedly suggested using secure equipment at the Russian Embassy or one of the Russian consulates to open a secret communications channel with the government of strongman Vladimir Putin. This is wrong on so many levels.

First, Barack Obama was still president at the time; while it is normal for an incoming administration to have informal meet-and-greets with foreign officials, Kushner’s proposal was so inappropriate that Kislyak was said to be stunned. Second, the idea of using only Russian communications equipment for the proposed dialogue suggests the Trump administration had something to hide from U.S. intelligence agencies. Third, there is the obvious question of what Kushner wanted to talk about that couldn’t be discussed through existing channels.

With someone so close to Trump in the crosshairs, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has every reason to examine any relationships between the Trump campaign and Russian officials or oligarchs in minute detail — and also to look closely at any Russia connections the Trump and Kushner family business empires might have.

The White House should thus be settling in for a long siege. The good news, from Trump’s point of view, is that his senior aides are discussing how to set up a “war room” to handle communications about the scandal, theoretically letting the rest of the administration get on with governing. The bad news is that Kushner has been involved in those discussions — when instead he should have been cleaning out his office.

Even setting the scandal aside, it is clear that Kushner gradually emerged as the most powerful of Trump’s senior advisers — and is not doing a very good job. His fingerprints were not on the health-care disaster; and while he hasn’t made relations between Israelis and Palestinians any better, he hasn’t made them any worse. But he has shown absolutely no sense of how to turn intention into legislation. And his instincts are so out of tune that he reportedly advised Trump that firing FBI Director James B. Comey would be a sure political win, rather than the equivalent of opening the gates of hell.

Trump is said to be angriest at Kushner about something else: Kushner’s sister, Nicole Meyer, was caught on video trying to lure Beijing investors into participating in a Kushner Companies condominium project in New Jersey by holding out the prospect of immigration visas that could lead to permanent residence in the United States.

Yet Kushner remains. And no communications strategy, however brilliant, has a chance of succeeding so long as Trump has access to his Twitter account.

“Whenever you see the words ‘sources say’ in the fake news media, and they don’t mention names,” Trump tweeted Sunday amid a morning rant, “it is very possible that those sources don’t exist but are made up by fake news writers. #FakeNews is the enemy!”

Wrong. We don’t fabricate sources and these days we don’t have to look hard to find them. Right now they’re talking about Jared Kushner — and have nothing nice to say.

It will be interesting to see if Jared gets thrown under the bus by the tangerine toddler.

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Keep on probing! 

 

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Ha-Haa!!

Let's hope these documents ('some' documents) will have 'explosive' evidence, or at the very least, lead to that evidence.

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I've got live rail web cams going and Pandora to calm me (Steve Goodman playing right now), refreshing JF because you all are great to read, and refreshing WoPo because I'm a glutton for punishment. Such is my life right now.

Forgot to add just took dinner out of the oven because I can bring home the salmon and cook it up in a pan..I'm a W O M A N..

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Yay: "House Russia investigators subpoena Flynn, Cohen"

Spoiler

Washington (CNN)The House intelligence committee issued subpoenas Wednesday to former national security adviser Michael Flynn and President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, as part of the probe into Russian activity during the 2016 election.

The subpoenas, the first from the House panel, seek their testimony, as well as documents from their businesses.

"As part of our ongoing investigation into Russian active measures during the 2016 campaign, today we approved subpoenas for several individuals for testimony, personal documents and business records," Reps. Michael Conaway, R-Texas, and Adam Schiff, D-California -- the co-leaders of the House investigation -- said Wednesday in a statement.

"We hope and expect that anyone called to testify or provide documents will comply with that request, so that we may gain all the information within the scope of our investigation. We will continue to pursue this investigation wherever the facts may lead," they added.

The subpoenas come a day after Cohen said he would not cooperate with congressional investigators and amid turmoil inside the House investigation itself, as lawmakers wrangle with the role of House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-California, in the probe.

A congressional source familiar with the committee's probe tells CNN that the House intelligence committee issued a total of seven subpoenas today. Four of the subpoenas were issued on the Russia probe and three others were issued seeking information on "unmasking."

A source close to Flynn said Tuesday that the former national security adviser would comply with a series of Senate subpoenas issued for documents from Flynn and his businesses.

 

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Ok, then. The interweaving threads are being unravelled, one by one by one.

Nigel Farage is 'person of interest' in FBI investigation into Trump and Russia

I've put the important part of this extremely lenghty article under a spoiler. The article itself has additional information on key-players in the Russia investigation (TT, Farage, Bannon, Stone and Assange).

Spoiler

Nigel Farage is a “person of interest” in the US counter-intelligence investigation that is looking into possible collusion between the Kremlin and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the Guardian has been told.

Sources with knowledge of the investigation said the former Ukip leader had raised the interest of FBI investigators because of his relationships with individuals connected to both the Trump campaign and Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder whom Farage visited in March. 

WikiLeaks published troves of hacked emails last year that damaged Hillary Clinton’s campaign and is suspected of having cooperated with Russia through third parties, according to recent congressional testimony by the former CIA director John Brennan, who also said the adamant denials of collusion by Assange and Russia were disingenuous.

Farage has not been accused of wrongdoing and is not a suspect or a target of the US investigation. But being a person of interest means investigators believe he may have information about the acts that are under investigation and he may therefore be subject to their scrutiny.

Sources who spoke to the Guardian said it was Farage’s proximity to people at the heart of the investigation that was being examined as an element in their broader inquiry into how Russia may have worked with Trump campaign officials to influence the US election.

“One of the things the intelligence investigators have been looking at is points of contact and persons involved,” one source said. “If you triangulate Russia, WikiLeaks, Assange and Trump associates the person who comes up with the most hits is Nigel Farage.

“He’s right in the middle of these relationships. He turns up over and over again. There’s a lot of attention being paid to him.”

The source mentioned Farage’s links with Roger Stone, Trump’s long-time political adviser who has admitted being in contact with Guccifer 2.0, a hacker whom US intelligence agencies believe to be a Kremlin agent.

Farage’s spokesman said he had never worked with Russian officials, and described the Guardian’s questions about Farage’s activities as “verging on the hysterical”.

“Nigel has never been to Russia, let alone worked with their authorities,” the spokesman said. But he did not respond to questions about whether Farage was aware of the FBI inquiry; had hired a lawyer in connection to the matter; or when Farage first met Trump.

The spokesman also declined to comment on whether Farage had received compensation from the Russian state-backed media group RT for his media appearances. RT, which has featured Farage about three times over the last 18 months, also declined to comment, citing confidentiality.

Farage has said he only met Assange once has but declined to say how long the two have known each other.

The FBI’s national press office said it had no comment on Farage.

The former Ukip leader has voiced his support for the Russian president, calling Vladimir Putin the leader he most admired, in a 2014 interview. Ukip also has history with Assange: Gerard Batten, a Ukip member of the European parliament (MEP), defended the Wikileaks founder in a speech in the European parliament in 2011.

One source familiar with the US investigation told the Guardian that the examination of Farage’s activities was considered especially delicate given his role as an MEP.

Neither Farage nor Trump have made a secret of their admiration for one another. They emerged as unlikely winners last year in contests that have reshaped the world order: Britain’s vote to leave the EU and Trump’s surprise ascendency to the White House.

Both men credited their ability to tap into the worries of struggling and neglected citizens for their victories. But at the heart of the US investigation lies a deeper question: whether Trump campaign officials and people close to the former reality TV star sought to work with state players in Russia to try to influence the US election result.

Last July, Farage attended the Republican national convention in Cleveland, Ohio, when Trump became the party’s nominee.

According to an account by the Ukip donor Arron Banks, Farage first met Trump at a campaign stop in Mississippi in August, where he spoke at a Trump campaign event.

But Farage’s relationships with people close to the US president began years earlier. Farage first met Steve Bannon, Trump’s strategist and former campaign chief executive, in the summer of 2012, when Bannon, who was interested in rightwing movements in Europe, invited the then Ukip leader to spend a few days in New York and Washington, according to an account in the New Yorker magazine.

There Farage was introduced to, among others, the staff of the then senator Jeff Sessions, who is now the US attorney general. Speaking of his longtime admiration for Bannon, Farage told the New Yorker last year: “I have got a very, very high regard for that man’s brain.”

Two years later, in 2014, Breitbart News, of which Bannon was executive chair, opened an office in London. A top editor, Raheem Kassam, later went on to work as Farage’s chief of staff.

In 2015, Breitbart News arranged a dinner in Farage’s honour at “the embassy”, the nickname for the house the news group rented in Washington. According to a report in Bloomberg, attendees were “blown away” by Farage’s speech at the event, which was also attended by Sessions.

Then, on 24 June last year, the day after the UK voted to leave the EU, Farage thanked Bannon during an interview for Breitbart News’s coverage of the leave campaign. Bannon, in turn, congratulated Farage on his victory, saying he had led an extraordinary “David v Goliath” campaign.

Farage’s ties to Stone are also under scrutiny, it is understood. Stone has frequently publicised his relationship with Assange and described him on Twitter as “my hero”. 

Stone publicly predicted the 2016 release of hacked emails from the Clinton campaign that now lie at the heart of the federal inquiry. Democrats on the House intelligence committee have named Stone in their hearings and, according to the New York Times, he is now under investigation.

Last summer, just a few weeks before Farage met Trump in Mississippi, Stone bragged about having a “mutual friend” who served as an intermediary between himself and Assange. He also mentioned in a separate tweet that he had dinner with Farage, though the date of the encounter is unclear. 

After Trump’s victory, Farage was one of the first foreign politicians to meet and celebrate with the Republican president-elect, and had his picture taken with Trump in front of a golden elevator in Trump Tower just days after the US election.

>Farage & Toddler tweets<

In November, Trump suggested in a tweet Farage should become the UK’s ambassador to the US.

The tweet prompted a curt response from Downing Street, which pointed out that there was “no vacancy”. A spokesman said: “We already have an excellent ambassador.”

The pair met again in February, when they had dinner together with Trump’s daughter and adviser, Ivanka, and her husband and White House adviser, Jared Kushner.

Farage was asked about his relationship with Assange in a recent interview with Die Zeit, the German newspaper, after he was seen on 9 March leaving the Ecuadorian embassy where Assange has lived for years. Farage, who declared he had “never received a penny from Russia”, said he met Assange for “journalistic reasons”.

Pressed on his meetings with Russian officials in the past, Farage initially denied having had any, but then acknowledged that he had met Alexander Yakovenko, the Russian ambassador to the UK, in 2013.

Asked by Die Zeit what he was doing now, and whether he saw himself as a politician or a journalist, Farage concluded: “Changing public opinion. That’s what I have been doing for 20 years. Using television, media. Shifting public opinion. That’s what I am good at.”

A spokesman for Farage told the Guardian he had only met Assange on that one occasion. “The meeting was organised by a broadcaster, they could have easily sent another presenter instead.”

 

I wasn't aware of Farage's ties to Bannon and Sessions. Man, this thing is really intertwined.

Slight sidenote:

To me, just a mere internet observer, it seems that if there was collusion between Russia /Wikileaks /TT Campaign and Farage is tied to all of them, then it is incredibly likely that there was Russian meddling in the Brexit referendum as well.

It is possible that this could also be exposed, maybe as a by-product of this investigation, maybe as a result of a British investigation (if there even is such a thing into this). If such meddling were to be conclusively and irrefutably proven, could Britain in any way nullify the results of that referendum? 

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Snort. He's trying so so so hard, is Carter Page. But he's no match for this reporter who keeps pressing him for an answer. 

 

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He is looking like a deer in the headlights in that video. He had a script and they wouldn't let him stay with it. 

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Trump tweeted:

So now it is reported that the Democrats, who have excoriated Carter Page about Russia, don't want him to testify. He blows away their....

...case against him & now wants to clear his name by showing "the false or misleading testimony by James Comey, John Brennan..." Witch Hunt!

 

I forget where I saw it but someone wrote that actually Brennan and Comey didn't give any testimony about Carter Page. One wasn't even asked and the other replied no comment to all questions about that. So not sure what exactly it is that Carter Page wants to clear his name of but isn't it interesting that now Trump apparently knows who Carter Page is.   How come Carter Page has any  information about what Comey and Brennan were testifying about if he was the sort of peripheral nobody that nobody in the campaign even remembers seeing (like they've portrayed him so far)

 

I think he has a lot of duper's delight expressions.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/carter-page-dodges-questions-on-russian-meddling-but-maintains-innocence/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=38242261

It seems very hard for him to pin down anything that he's done for the campaign.

 

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Sergei Gorkov isn't willing to answer questions, it seems. Hmmm. I wonder why?

 

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The date is set. First in open session, then afterwards will continue testifying in closed session. Interesting.

 

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@fraurosena said

Quote

To me, just a mere internet observer, it seems that if there was collusion between Russia /Wikileaks /TT Campaign and Farage is tied to all of them, then it is incredibly likely that there was Russian meddling in the Brexit referendum as well.

You said it, sister!

If there were any justice and honesty in politics, then the Brexit vote should be investigated.

The pro Brexit advocates admitted immediately after the vote that they had misled the public with their economic figures, particularly with regard to the NHS - which is the 'do not touch ' of British politics.

Brexit could lead to the break up of the UK into sovereign states - each much less strong than the UK. And who does that benefit? It ain't the UK, the EU or NATO.  Ooh, maybe Russia would like it?

I sometimes wish the internet had never been invented - politics would be very different in many countries without the misinformation disseminated through it. Newspapers, radio and television had to back up their claims with evidence - the internet just seems to spread opinion as fact.

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2 minutes ago, sawasdee said:

I sometimes wish the internet had never been invented - politics would be very different in many countries without the misinformation disseminated through it. Newspapers, radio and television had to back up their claims with evidence - the internet just seems to spread opinion as fact.

Yeah, it's sad, isn't it? However, even newspapers, radio and television nowadays don't back up their claims with evidence either. Just look at Faux News (and they're not the only ones).

It's all about the sensationalism: it's the money-maker. And that is all that counts, I'm afraid.

 

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@fraurosenaBut media before the internet was subject to libel laws, and all had lawyers to clear content for publication. It meant there was a measure of truth - opinion could slant it, but wholesale invention was financially dangerous.

There is no such halter on the internet.

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"Explanations for Kushner’s meeting with head of Kremlin-linked bank don’t match up"

Spoiler

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — The White House and a Russian state-owned bank have very different explanations for why the bank’s chief executive and Jared Kushner held a secret meeting during the presidential transition in December.

The bank maintained this week that the session was held as part of a new business strategy and was conducted with Kushner in his role as the head of his family’s real estate business. The White House says the meeting was unrelated to business and was one of many diplomatic encounters the soon-to-be presidential adviser was holding ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The contradiction is deepening confusion over Kushner’s interactions with the Russians as the president’s son-in-law emerges as a key figure in the FBI’s investigation into potential coordination between Moscow and the Trump team.

The discrepancy has thrust Vnesheconombank, known for advancing the strategic interests of Russian President Vladi­mir Putin and for its role in a past U.S. espionage case, into the center of the controversy enveloping the White House. And it has highlighted the role played by the bank’s 48-year-old chief executive, Sergey Gorkov, a graduate of the academy of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the domestic intelligence arm of the former Soviet KGB, who was appointed by Putin to the post less than a year before his encounter with Kushner.

Either account of the meeting could bring complications for a White House undergoing intensifying scrutiny from a special counsel and multiple congressional committees.

A diplomatic meeting would have provided the bank, which has been under U.S. sanctions since 2014, a chance to press for rolling back the penalties even as the Obama administration was weighing additional retaliations against Moscow for Russia’s interference in the U.S. election.

A business meeting between an international development bank and a real estate executive, coming as Kushner’s company had been seeking financing for its troubled $1.8 billion purchase of an office building on Fifth Avenue in New York, could raise questions about whether Kushner’s personal financial interests were colliding with his impending role as a public official.

VEB, as Vnesheconombank is known, did not respond to a list of questions about the Kushner meeting and the institution’s history and role in Russia. The bank declined to make Gorkov available for an interview.

Gorkov could draw new attention to the clashing story lines Friday, when he is scheduled to deliver public remarks to an economic conference in St. Petersburg. Gorkov, cornered Wednesday by a CNN reporter on the sidelines of the conference, responded “no comments” three times when asked about the Kushner meeting.

The Kushner-Gorkov meeting came after Kushner met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in early December. At the meeting, Kushner suggested establishing a secure communications line between Trump officials and the Kremlin at a Russian diplomatic facility, according to U.S. officials who reviewed intelligence reports describing Kislyak’s account.

The bank and the White House have declined to provide the exact date or location of the Kushner-Gorkov meeting, which was first reported in March by the New York Times.

Flight data reviewed by The Washington Post suggests the meeting may have taken place on Dec. 13 or 14, about two weeks after Kushner’s encounter with Kislyak.

A 19-seat twin-engine jet owned by a company linked to VEB flew from Moscow to the United States on Dec. 13 and departed from the Newark airport, outside New York City, at 5:01 p.m. Dec. 14, according to positional flight information provided by FlightAware, a company that tracks airplanes.

The Post could not confirm whether Gorkov was on the flight, but the plane’s previous flights closely mirror Gorkov’s publicly known travels in recent months, including his trip to St. Petersburg this week.

After leaving Newark on Dec. 14, the jet headed to Japan, where Putin was visiting on Dec. 15 and 16. The news media had reported that Gorkov would join the Russian president there.

White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks and Kushner’s attorney said Kushner intends to share with investigators the details of his meeting with Gorkov.

“Mr. Kushner was acting in his capacity as a transition official and had many similar discussions with foreign representatives after the election,” Hicks told The Post in a statement this week. “For example, he also started conversations with leaders from Saudi Arabia that led to the President’s recent successful international trip.”

The bank this week told The Post that it stood by a statement it issued in March that, as part of its new investment strategy, it had held meetings with “leading world financial institutions in Europe, Asia and America, as well as with the head of Kushner Companies.”

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that the bank’s activities “have nothing to do with the Kremlin.” Peskov, like Trump, has frequently dismissed revelations about the meetings as “fake news” and “a witch hunt.”

Officially, VEB is Russia’s state economic development bank, set up to make domestic and foreign investments that will boost the Russian economy.

Practically speaking, according to experts, the bank functions as an arm of the Kremlin, boosting Putin’s political priorities.

It funded the 2014 Sochi Olympics, a project used by Putin to signal that Russia holds a key role on the world stage.

VEB has also been used to promote the Kremlin’s strategic aims abroad, experts say, financing projects across the Eastern bloc.

“Basically, VEB operates like Putin’s slush fund,” said Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Center and a Russia expert who follows the bank’s activities. “It carries out major Kremlin operations that Putin does not want to do through the state budget.”

Before the U.S. imposed sanctions, VEB sought to extend its international reach to draw more investment to Russia. Among those named by the bank to an advisory board for a new global fund was Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of the Blackstone Group and now an outside adviser to the Trump White House. Schwarzman declined to comment through a spokeswoman, who said the fund’s advisory board has been inactive.

Gorkov was named to head VEB in February 2016, after eight years as a senior manager at Russia’s largest state-owned bank, Sberbank. While Gorkov was a deputy head of Sberbank, it was one of the sponsors of the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow produced by Trump, who owned the pageant.

Gorkov’s personal relationship with Putin is unclear.

Some Russia watchers described Gorkov, who was not seen as being especially close to the Kremlin before his appointment, as an unlikely diplomatic link between the Kremlin and the Trump administration.

“I can think of many back channels that one might cultivate to have close, discreet, indirect communications with Putin. VEB’s Gorkov would not make my list,” said Michael McFaul, who was U.S. ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama.

Other observers suggested that Gorkov, the recipient of a “service to the Fatherland” medal, may have earned Putin’s trust as a discreet go-between.

“He indeed is an FSB academy graduate, and for the Kremlin today it is a sign of trustworthiness,” said Andrey Movchan, who heads the economic program at the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank.

VEB has played a role in Russian espionage efforts in the past, serving as the cover for a Russian operative convicted last year of spying in New York.

According to court documents, Evgeny Buryakov posed as the second-in-command at the bank’s Manhattan office for at least three years while secretly meeting dozens of times with a Russian intelligence officer who tasked him with gathering intelligence on the U.S. economic system.

The court records show that Buryakov’s handlers were also recorded discussing attempts to recruit an American whom government officials have confirmed was Carter Page, an energy consultant who later served as an informal adviser to Trump’s campaign. Page has said he assisted the FBI with its investigation into the spy ring and provided the Russians no sensitive information.

The court documents show that the FBI recorded a conversation in which one of Buryakov’s handlers described hearing an intelligence officer tell Buryakov’s VEB boss that Buryakov worked for a Russian intelligence service.

VEB paid for Buryakov’s legal fees after his arrest, the court documents show. The Russian Foreign Ministry at the time blasted the charges and accused the U.S. government of “building up spy hysteria.”

Buryakov was sentenced to 30 months in prison but was released in April for good behavior. He was immediately deported to Moscow. Efforts by The Post to reach Buryakov through family members were unsuccessful.

VEB, along with other Russian state-owned institutions, has suffered financially since 2014, when the United States imposed economic sanctions following Russia’s incursion into Crimea.

Gorkov’s meeting with Kushner took place at a time of major changes within the bank.

On Dec. 21, VEB announced that its proposed 2021 development strategy — which Gorkov dubbed “VEB 2.0” — had been approved by its supervisory board, which is chaired by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

As a result of the sanctions, U.S. companies are prohibited from loaning the bank money or buying equity in the institution, an attempt to drain resources from the Russian economy.

The sanctions would not prohibit Kushner from conducting a business negotiation with VEB or even prevent the Russian bank from investing in a U.S. firm.

Experts on Russia’s security services said that it would have been unlikely for Gorkov to meet with Kushner and not discuss sanctions.

Gennady Gudkov, a reserve colonel in the FSB who is now a leader of a small opposition party, said that Russian business leaders are looking for ways to lobby for the softening of sanctions. “This activity is constant,” Gudkov said in an interview. “They are trying however they can, even informally, to lower the sanctions.”

In late December, Gorkov told Russian state television that he hoped “the situation with sanctions will change for the better.”

In February, Gorkov met with Putin to update him on the bank’s status. “We are confident of its future,” he told the Russian leader, according to a transcript released by Putin’s office, asserting the bank had many new deals in the works.

“Good,” Putin said.

Oh yeah, nothing to see here. <end sarcasm font>

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3 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The whole family is filthy. All the news today is giving me panic attacks and now I have a screaming head ache.  I'm going to go watch train videos on YouTube and pretend Obama is still in office. Type at you all tomorrow.

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This is an interesting analysis of Comey's upcoming appearance: "James Comey is jumping into the fire by testifying to Congress about Trump. What’s in it for him?"

Spoiler

James Comey just can't seem to stop haunting President Trump. Trump fired Comey as FBI director a few weeks ago, drawing criticism from Democrats and Republicans because the FBI is waist-deep into an investigation into Russia meddling in the U.S. election and whether Trump's campaign helped.

Then we learned Comey took “detailed” notes that outline potentially legally murky questions the president asked him about the FBI probe. And now, Comey is expected to testify before a Senate committee — as early as next week — about much of this.

Comey is known as a drama-averse guy, and this is as dramatic as it gets. Comey is likely very aware this sets him up for a major showdown with the president. So what's in it for him?

We tried our best to get inside Comey's head and run down the pros and cons of sharing what he knows with Congress.

Pro: His reputation is at stake

Trump said he fired Comey for doing a bad job, then called him a “nut job” to the Russians.

That is presumably not how Comey wanted to go out.

Comey spent more than a decade in high-profile public-service jobs cultivating a reputation as a competent, aggressively nonpartisan public servant. Two presidents from different parties appointed him to top law enforcement jobs. The Fix's Aaron Blake reports that Comey's reputation in law enforcement was as a guy who genuinely tried to do the right thing but occasionally made mistakes.

Trump's decision to fire Comey was controversial, but some Republicans in Congress said it was deserved. “Given the recent controversies surrounding the director,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), “I believe a fresh start will serve the FBI and the nation well.”

Now, Comey has a chance to tell his side of his story — and try to clear his name.

“The idea that [people like Comey] care about their reputations for public service and probity,” said Dartmouth College political-science professor Linda Fowler, “is maybe catching the administration by surprise.”

Con: It could turn into a Comey-vs.-Trump war of words

If we know one thing about how Trump reacts to controversy, it's that when he's poked by a stick, he swings back with the forest.

And Comey could soon represent the biggest confrontation to the president's reputation yet. According to “highly detailed” notes Comey made of his conversations with Trump, Trump asked him to lay off the FBI probe of Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

The New York Times reported that Trump sought a loyalty pledge from Comey. The Washington Post reported that Trump also asked other top intelligence officials to deny the existence of any evidence of Trump campaign collusion with Russia, to counter Comey's congressional testimony that there was enough of a suspicion to warrant an investigation. (They refused.)

Many of the existential threats to Trump's presidency can be traced back to Comey.

And Trump doesn't play nice with people he perceives as his enemies. Remember when he retweeted an unflattering picture of a primary opponent's wife during the campaign?

Pro: There are a lot of questions he can help clear up

Since Comey's firing, there are way more questions than answers. Such as:

  • Did the president try to interfere in an independent investigation into his campaign aides?
  • If so, did the president knowingly obstruct justice?
  • And what did the president's top advisers (such as Vice President Pence) know?

If, as Comey has testified in the past, the truth matters more than any one person's political fortunes, then sharing what he knows with Congress has its upsides on principle.

(The Post's Devlin Barrett reports Comey isn't expected to shed any new light on the ongoing FBI investigation but rather will focus on his personal conversations with the president.)

Con: Comey better have his facts straight, or else

The Trump administration is excellent at picking out a factual mistake and trying to discredit everything else that person — or the group that person belongs to — says or does.

And the last time Comey testified to Congress, he got at least one fact wrong. As part of his justification for resurfacing the FBI's Hillary Clinton email investigation 11 days before the election, Comey said investigators found “hundreds and thousands” of Clinton emails on disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner's computer. (Weiner is the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.)

The FBI had to amend the record of Comey's testimony the next day to say the number of Clinton emails on Weiner's computer was much smaller and it wasn't a “regular practice,” as Comey testified.

Pro: Comey is good at congressional testimony. Really good.

Before the 2016 campaign, Comey's most famous moment came in the hot seat in Congress.

In 2007, a Democratic Congress was investigating the George W. Bush Justice Department. Lawmakers called in Comey, who had recently finished a job as the No. 2 official in the department, for what they thought would be a routine testimony.

But Comey had a story up his sleeve.

It was 2004. Attorney General John Ashcroft was sick in the hospital. Comey, then Ashcroft's deputy, got a call that Bush officials were on their way to the hospital to persuade Ashcroft to sign on the dotted line and reauthorize Bush's controversial domestic surveillance program, which the Justice Department had just said was illegal.

Sirens blaring, Comey said he raced to Ashcroft's hospital room, arriving minutes before the White House officials did. Ashcroft didn't authorize the program.

The Post's Paul Kane said Comey's story was perhaps the most riveting 20 minutes of congressional testimony ever.

And it was completely unexpected for most in the room.

“Comey is pretty good at stage-managing congressional testimony,” said Cornell Law professor Josh Chafetz.

This time, we are fully expecting bombshells from Comey. If he wants to deliver them, well, he knows how. And by agreeing to testify, it looks as if he's decided it's to his benefit to do so.

 

I think this line says it perfectly: "If we know one thing about how Trump reacts to controversy, it's that when he's poked by a stick, he swings back with the forest."

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Keith Olbermann, always observant.

 

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9 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I think this line says it perfectly: "If we know one thing about how Trump reacts to controversy, it's that when he's poked by a stick, he swings back with the forest."

He does, but it seems that recently all his swinging back has come back to bite him in the ass, that is the only comfort I have right now. I hope Comey is being protected because if he can reveal damaging info about Trump, I have no doubt Trump would get desperate enough to try and have him eliminated. Trump is starting to react like a cornered wild animal and the more this closes in the more he will start lashing out and doing awful stuff. 

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4 hours ago, formergothardite said:

He does, but it seems that recently all his swinging back has come back to bite him in the ass, that is the only comfort I have right now. I hope Comey is being protected because if he can reveal damaging info about Trump, I have no doubt Trump would get desperate enough to try and have him eliminated. Trump is starting to react like a cornered wild animal and the more this closes in the more he will start lashing out and doing awful stuff. 

I'm not a Comey fan, but I think he is savvy enough to have covered his backside carefully. Drumpf is desperate, which is dangerous. Every day that I get up and log on to my computer, I'm half expecting to see that he's either completely snapped or has had a heart attack or stroke.

 

Interesting opinion piece: "What does Russia think about all this? ‘Washington has gone crazy.’"

Spoiler

When Russian officials and analysts here talk about the U.S. investigation of their alleged hacking of the 2016 campaign, two themes predominate: They’re flattered that their country is seen as such a powerful threat, and they’re amazed that the United States is so preoccupied with the scandal.

This is the official line, to be sure, but it was also expressed by several critics of the regime I interviewed this week. People can’t quite believe the sudden reversal of fortunes: Russia is back as a global force, after decades of humiliation. And the United States, so long the dominant superpower, is now divided, disoriented and, to Russian eyes, in retreat.

For the Kremlin version, here’s how Sergey Karaganov, the head of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, describes his reaction to the investigation: “It’s a mixture of disgust and sympathy. Disgust because 99 percent of that is lies or a concoction, maybe 100 percent. As for sympathy, it’s a desperate picture when a great democracy is killing itself, committing collective suicide.”

There’s an undisguised tone of schadenfreude here, even as officials talk about U.S. overreaction. “I would have been proud and happy if the authorities of my country would have used some hackers to penetrate [your system], and showed that you’re living in a crystal palace and should not interfere in the affairs of others,” said Karaganov, who’s an informal Kremlin adviser in addition to running the think tank.

Russian President Vladimir Putin wins either way, argues Andrei Kolesnikov, an independent analyst who’s a senior associate with the Carnegie Moscow Center. “If we did meddle in your elections, we show our might. If we didn’t, we’re pure.”

A similar assessment of the win-win dynamic for Putin comes from Andrei Soldatov, one of Moscow’s best investigative reporters and the author of many exposés about Russian intelligence. “What did Russia get [from the hacking] in terms of foreign policy? Almost nothing, except that Russia looks powerful,” he told me. “That’s why Putin is so popular. He gives people an identity: Once again, we’re a superpower.”

What surprises Russians is how quickly the U.S.-led order has been coming apart since the election of Donald Trump. Russian officials loathed Hillary Clinton and favored Trump. But it’s unlikely that, even in the darkest corridors of the Kremlin, Putin’s advisers imagined that President Trump would be so disruptive, or the reaction to him so volatile. Russians have grown up being intimidated by the United States; they didn’t imagine it was so fragile.

“We think Washington has gone crazy,” said Andranik Migranyan, a former Russian government official who has taught politics in the United States. “The American story was always one of self-sufficiency. Now, we see a sense of vulnerability.” He sees Trump’s election as a “paradigm shift” for an America that was much more polarized and overstretched than the elites realized. Now, in his view, it’s payback time.

You might expect that Russians would feel embarrassed by the charge that they tried to subvert U.S. and European campaigns, but it’s the opposite. Migranyan explained: “You are assuring us that Putin is all-powerful, that he can do anything he wants — fix elections, change Europe, do anything.”

The official media here are sardonic about each day’s revelations in the U.S. media and Congress. When Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said this week that Russia was more dangerous than the Islamic State, a Russian news site responded: “Somebody give this gentleman a sedative.” When a story broke about White House adviser Jared Kushner’s problems, the same site headlined: “Once again, those Russians!” Basically, they think it’s funny.

Trump is a familiar sort of political figure to Russians — big, affable, boorish, a bit like Boris Yeltsin. “I wouldn’t love him to run in Russia,” Karaganov said of Trump, “but if your system couldn’t provide better, why not?” He described Trump as “unbelievably brave” in challenging U.S. political orthodoxy, including his calls for better relations with Russia.

Trump’s chief virtue for the Kremlin is that he turned back Clinton, who embodied the aggressive, pro-democracy, interventionist policies that Russia viewed as a mortal threat. “We saw them as absolutely 100 percent dangerous,” Karaganov said. “My advice to the government if she wins was: Put your nuclear forces on alert, so they would know.”

Putin is hosting a celebration of Russia’s new power this week, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, a Davos-like gathering. It’s not a victory parade, but it might as well be. For Putin and his allies, America’s vaunted “liberal international order” is dissolving.

“That order we did not like, and we are doing away with it,” Karaganov said.

Sad, but true.

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