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The Russian Connection


fraurosena

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The ever expanding interconnecting web of Russian ties to the current administration and the GOP is so intricate that I thought it would be a good idea to start a separate thread where we can try and keep track of all the connections as we become aware of them.

To start things off, here's an AP news video posted on Paul Manafort and his connections to Russia via the Bank of Cyprus:

https://www.apnews.com/0ba225b500024057aa80fd9959462d8e/US-Probing-Offshore-Bank-Activity-of-Manafort?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

The Bank of Cyprus, of which Wilbur Ross (current secretary of commerce) was a vice-chairman, remember? The Bank of Cyprus, which is partly owned by Putin, and whose chairman Josef Ackermann (recruited as such by Ross) was formerly chief executive of Deutsche Bank (accused of money-laundering for the Russians). The very same Deutsche Bank,  to whom the Tangerine Toddler owes hundreds of millions of dollars (according to the Guardian).

Here's a link to a Politico article with all the parasitic presidunce's ties to Russia in 7 charts:

http://www.politico.eu/article/all-of-trumps-russia-ties-in-7-charts/

Note that these charts were last updated on the 15th, so the latest connections aren't included yet.  

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A separate thread is a good idea @fraurosena! I just about threw up watching Rachel Maddow last night. Paul Manafort getting $10 million a year from Russia, that's just insane. I hope they nail his ass for not registering as a foreign agent.

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Apparently, Paul Manafort has offered to appear before the investigative committee. With Numbscull Nunes presiding, I have absolutely zero confidence this will lead to anything at all.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/24/paul-manafort-volunteers-appear-committee-investigating-russian/

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Paul Manafort, former chairman of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, has volunteered to appear before the committee investigating alleged interference in by the Kremlin in last year's US election.

Congressman Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Mr Manafort's lawyer had contacted the committee to offer to appear. [...]

Mr Manafort [...] categorically denied ever working for the Russian government or "representing Russian political interests". He said he was a victim of "smear and innuendo".

Yeah, right. 

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Perhaps they'll ask some of the same probing questions they asked Gorsuch.  Favorite fishing hole?  Ducks or horses?

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10 minutes ago, mamallama said:

Perhaps they'll ask some of the same probing questions they asked Gorsuch.  Favorite fishing hole?  Ducks or horses?

Don't forget mutton busting.

 

"It’s time for the feds to follow the Russian money"

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...

Based upon what has come to light thus far, expect the FBI to be joined by Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the IRS. They are the agencies best equipped to conduct financial investigations into any possible crimes dealing with or motivated by money — as in money laundering.

Case in point: The Post’s March 21 article on a Ukrainian lawmaker’s release of financial documents allegedly showing that former Trump aide Paul Manafort laundered payments from the party of an ex-leader of Ukraine with ties to Russia using accounts in Belize and Kyrgyzstan.

If the financial documents are accurate and, as alleged by Ukrainian lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko, Manafort falsified an invoice to a Belize company to legitimize a $750,000 payment to himself, then the FBI and Treasury may come calling.

Manafort, according to the New York Times, denied the allegation, stating that the ledger is forged and that Leshchenko was part of an effort to blackmail him. However, Treasury agents, the Associated Press reported , have already obtained information about offshore transactions involving Manafort in connection with a federal anti-corruption investigation into his work in Eastern Europe.

If, during the investigation of links between Russians and Trump campaign associates, the feds come across financial transactions aimed at evading taxes on illegal income by concealing the source and amount of profit, those associated with such activities should prepare to hear the words: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury . . . ”

...

Trump may be correct when he says he has no money in Russia and has never invested there. He can’t say, however, that Russians haven’t invested in his real estate properties.

His son Donald Jr. said no less, claiming in 2008 that Russian investments were “pouring in” to Trump’s business ventures.

So the feds must “follow the money trail” wherever it leads. Check records, bank accounts and real estate files where laundered money can ooze like water through a sponge. Who gave it, who got it, and when? Where is it now? And what was received in return?

Unfortunately, the IRS, which investigates violations of the Internal Revenue Code, is despised by Republicans in Congress who remain outraged over its handling of tea party groups’ applications for tax-exempt status. Several in the House GOP even tried, but failed, to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

Can federal agents under Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin count on Mnuchin’s defense against outside interference?

Congress strongly protected the integrity of federal investigations into Watergate. What about now?

Yeah, not happening with Ryan and McConnell in charge.

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Interesting opinion piece from Clinton staffers: "The Clinton campaign warned you about Russia. But nobody listened to us."

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At the Democratic convention in Philadelphia last summer, Jake Sullivan and I took to our golf carts one afternoon to make the rounds of the television networks’ tents in the parking lot of the Wells Fargo Center. It is standard for presidential campaign staffers to brief networks on what to expect during that night’s session. But on this day, we were on a mission to get the press to focus on something even we found difficult to process: the prospect that Russia had not only hacked and stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee, but that it had done so to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton.

Sullivan was Clinton’s policy adviser. He had been Vice President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, a deputy to then-Secretary Clinton at the State Department and a lead negotiator of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran. He is a widely respected national security expert and, as he does every day, he spoke carefully, without hyperbole. All we had to go on then was what had been reported by the press. We weren’t sure if Russia was doing this to undermine Americans’ faith in our political process or if it was trying to make Trump the next president. But we wanted to raise the alarm.

We did not succeed. Reporters were focused on the many daily distractions, the horse race, the stories they were doing based on the stolen DNC emails and the many other Trump scandals that were easier to explain. Voters didn’t seem worried. Earlier that week, our campaign manager, Robby Mook, was mocked for telling CNN that the leak of stolen emails before our convention was an indication that Russia was trying to help Trump. We did not know, as FBI Director James B. Comey told Congress this past week, that the bureau had already opened an investigation into Russian interference — and into possible links between Trump’s associates and the Russian government, including whether they worked together on his behalf. At the time, it seemed far-fetched that Russia would meddle so openly, and reporters and voters alike seemed convinced that it didn’t matter anyway, because Clinton was going to win.

Now that Trump is president, though, the stakes are higher, because the Russian plot succeeded. The lessons we campaign officials learned in trying to turn the Russia story against Trump can help other Democrats  (and all Americans) figure out how to treat this interference no longer as a matter of electoral politics but as the threat to the republic that it really is.

For me, Comey’s disclosure on Monday brought nearly unfathomable frustration. I will never understand why he would send a letter to Congress 11 days before the election to let lawmakers know that the FBI had happened upon more emails — which they didn’t yet know the contents of — that may or may not have been relevant to Clinton, but he did not think the public should know that federal agents were also investigating Trump’s campaign.

...

All of us — the press, Congress, the public, the administration — are still guilty of the soft complicity of low expectations. As president, Trump does and says outrageous and false things every week, from ordering arbitrary travel bans to accusing President Obama of illegal wiretapping with no evidence. The Russia charges blend in, making it all too easy to treat them as just the latest thing the president has blustered his way through. I understand how difficult it is to put the threat in the right context. We trod lightly at times during the campaign because it sounded too fantastic to be credible, too complicated to absorb.

In another era, Americans would have been able to count on both Democrats and Republicans in Congress to stand up to this kind of threat. A lot of Democrats like to play the “If we were Republicans” game. I usually hate it; I don’t want to behave like the Republicans do. But it’s useful here. If Clinton had won with the help of the Russians, the Republicans would have impeachment proceedings underway for treason. No doubt. Instead, dealing with Russia falls nearly solely on Democrats’ shoulders.

...

The possibility of collusion between Trump’s allies and Russian intelligence is much more serious than Watergate. It is a constitutional crisis. It represents a violation of our republic’s most sacred trust.

The worst part about our lackluster collective response to Russia’s interference is that it represents exactly what the Russians were hoping to produce: apathy. Their goal, in addition to installing a president sympathetic to their views, was to undermine Americans’ belief in our democracy. For Americans to think that none of this really matters, that it’s all a game. That’s how they truly erode U.S. moral authority and strength over the long term. It’s what they have sought to do to European adversaries for many years, and now they have brought this seed of destruction here.

We all have a role to play in stopping it. Each of us should be judged by how we respond at this moment when the most fundamental precept of our democracy has been violated.

 

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MoJo has a great time-line of all Toddler - Russia connections, going way, way back:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/exhaustive-history-donald-trump-russia-scandal-timeline

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The Trump-Russia scandal—with all its bizarre and troubling twists and turns—has become a controversy that is defining the Trump presidency. The FBI recently disclosed that since July it has been conducting a counterintelligence investigation into possible coordination between Trump associates and Russia, as part of its probe of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 election. Citing "US officials," CNN reported that the bureau has gathered information suggesting coordination between Trump campaign officials and suspected Russian operatives. Each day seems to bring a new revelation—and a new Trump administration denial or deflection. It's tough to keep track of all the relevant events, pertinent ties, key statements, and unraveling claims. So we've compiled what we know so far into the timeline below, which covers Trump's 30-year history with Russia. 

 

And in BREAKING NEWS it seems that Michael Flynn may be flipping, and it's possible Manafort may be too. @formergothardite posted about it in the main Trump thread, and I added to it there with this mega-thread by Yonatan Zunger:

 

I'm posting it here too, as this is about the Russian Connection, possibly blowing wide open. 

Break out the popcorn! :popcorn2:

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3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

MoJo has a great time-line of all Toddler - Russia connections, going way, way back:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/exhaustive-history-donald-trump-russia-scandal-timeline

 

And in BREAKING NEWS it seems that Michael Flynn may be flipping, and it's possible Manafort may be too. @formergothardite posted about it in the main Trump thread, and I added to it there with this mega-thread by Yonatan Zunger:

 

I'm posting it here too, as this is about the Russian Connection, possibly blowing wide open. 

Break out the popcorn! :popcorn2:

Put them in protective custody. You know what Putin does to his opponents 

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@fraurosena, I freakin' love Mother Jones!  

The Nation, not so much.  They have actually published two fucking stupid editorials saying that people shouldn't get all up in arms about the Russia thing.  "We don't want to go all Joe McCarthy on this."   They published one of these editorials before  the election and one after.  The Nation only endorsed Hillary a week before the election.  Well, fuck you, The Nation!  Despite having some great columnists (Katha Pollitt), you are part of the problem.  I hope you enjoy the coup!

Since @GreyhoundFan posted that great thing about Hillary's staffers warning about the Russian connection, I'll post this link to a Daily Kos diary about Hillary herself warning about this before the election:

Hillary Clinton's Stunning Campaign Statement About Trumps Ties to Russia

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5 minutes ago, PennySycamore said:

@fraurosena, I freakin' love Mother Jones!  

The Nation, not so much.  They have actually published two fucking stupid editorials saying that people shouldn't get all up in arms about the Russia thing.  "We don't want to go all Joe McCarthy on this."   They published one of these editorials before  the election and one after.  The Nation only endorsed Hillary a week before the election.  Well, fuck you, The Nation!  Despite having some great columnists (Katha Pollitt), you are part of the problem.  I hope you enjoy the coup!

Since @GreyhoundFan posted that great thing about Hillary's staffers warning about the Russian connection, I'll post this link to a Daily Kos diary about Hillary herself warning about this before the election:

Hillary Clinton's Stunning Campaign Statement About Trumps Ties to Russia

Very interesting, thank you for posting that link.

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11 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

Put them in protective custody. You know what Putin does to his opponents 

That is exactly what I thought. If they are not heavily protected they might end up falling out a window or dying of a heart attack. 

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7 hours ago, RoseWilder said:

Well, of course they did. Is anyone even surprised by this latest fuckery from FoxNews: 

 

Ignore it all you want.  It won't make it go away.  

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Lalalalalala... I can't hear you!

 

fingers-in_-ears_.jpg

In other news:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKBN16X0RK?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=58d81eef04d30126a69f51cc&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

I'm not sure how to take Stone's offer though. This guy seems to be out for attention. Last week (at least, I think it was last week) he was in the news, claiming to have had contact with Assange about the Clinton email-leaks. And now he wants to testify? Hmmmm.

Quote

Roger Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, said on Sunday he has offered to testify before a congressional committee investigating possible Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and ties to the Trump campaign.

Stone, an informal adviser to Trump, told ABC's "This Week" he had not received a reply from the House of Representatives intelligence committee on his offer of public testimony. [...]

Stone said he was anxious to testify in public.

"I reiterate again, I have had no contacts or collusions with the Russians," he told ABC, adding later, "There is no collusion, none, at least none that I know about, in Donald Trump's campaign for president."  [...]

Stone said he had spoken to Assange through an intermediary and to Guccifer on Twitter in an exchange he made public. Stone also cast doubt on whether Guccifer was a Russian agent.

"Just because the intelligence services say something, as we know from history, does not make it true," he said, reflecting the doubts that Trump himself has sown about U.S. spy agencies.

This I do wonder about:

Quote

Carter Page, another Trump campaign adviser whose contacts with Russians were mentioned by Schiff at Monday's hearing, also has offered to appear before the committee, according to multiple media reports.

 

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Hmmm: "Senate Committee to Question Jared Kushner Over Meetings With Russians"

Quote

Senate investigators plan to question Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and a close adviser, as part of their broad inquiry into ties between Trump associates and Russian officials or others linked to the Kremlin, according to administration and congressional officials.

The White House Counsel’s Office was informed this month that the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, wanted to question Mr. Kushner about meetings he arranged with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, according to the government officials. The meetings included a previously unreported sit-down with the head of Russia’s state-owned development bank.

Until now, the White House had acknowledged only an early December meeting between Mr. Kislyak and Mr. Kushner, which occurred at Trump Tower and was also attended by Michael T. Flynn, who would briefly serve as the national security adviser.

Later that month, though, Mr. Kislyak requested a second meeting, which Mr. Kushner asked a deputy to attend in his stead, officials said. At Mr. Kislyak’s request, Mr. Kushner later met with Sergey N. Gorkov, the chief of Vnesheconombank, which the United States placed on its sanctions list after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia annexed Crimea and began meddling in Ukraine.

...

The Senate panel’s decision to question Mr. Kushner would make him the closest person to the president to be called upon in any of the investigations, and the only one currently serving in the White House. The officials who initially described that Senate inquiry to The New York Times did so on the condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly about Mr. Trump’s son-in-law.

The F.B.I. declined to comment. There are no indications that Mr. Kushner is a focus of its investigation, and Ms. Hicks said he had not been questioned by the bureau.

...

 

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hmmm... 

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nunes-met-source-trump-monitoring-claim-white-house-n738906

Quote

The day before he announced to reporters that Donald Trump may have been incidentally monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies during the transition, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes met with the source of that information at the White House, a Nunes spokesman told NBC News.

"Chairman Nunes met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source," said his spokesman, Jack Langer. "The Chairman is extremely concerned by the possible improper unmasking of names of U.S. citizens, and he began looking into this issue even before President Trump tweeted his assertion that Trump Tower had been wiretapped."

White House spokesman Sean Spicer refused to comment when asked why Nunes was on White House grounds, saying he only knew what Nunes had done based on public statements made to various media outlets.[...]

It's unclear why Nunes would have to go to the White House to seek a secure location to view classified material, since his own committee has a secure room in the Capitol where Nunes and his aides review secret documents on a daily basis.

Democrats believe the president wanted to release the information as a way of buttressing Trump's discredited claim that President Obama "wiretapped" him at Trump Tower during the transition. Moments after Nunes first made the announcement, Trump said he felt "somewhat" vindicated. [...]

Nunes has said he would share the information he reviewed with committee Democrats as early as Monday. House intelligence committee Democrats are slated to meet at 5 pm, according to Democratic aides, and Democrats are hoping to review some of the intelligence reports referencing Trump and his aides in their sensitive facility in the Capitol.

Though the White House has previously voiced concern over information leaks from anonymous sources regarding the Russia investigation in the media, Press Secretary Sean Spicer didn't have that concern about Nunes' unnamed source.

"I think there's a difference between a leak and someone pursuing a review of the situation that they have determined," Spicer said, adding that Nunes is cleared to receive classified information.

Asked if he could be sure that Nunes source was not someone in the White House or the administration, Spicer hedged - eventually conceding "anything's possible."

I thought it was blatantly obvious it was a deflection tactic.

Oh, and about that secrecy... 

Quote

Former White House officials said it would be easy for anyone working there to determine who signed Nunes into the facility.

:roll:

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17 hours ago, fraurosena said:

 

I'm not sure how to take Stone's offer though. This guy seems to be out for attention. Last week (at least, I think it was last week) he was in the news, claiming to have had contact with Assange about the Clinton email-leaks. And now he wants to testify? Hmmmm.

 

I think the people who are volunteering to testify are doing so in order to try to obstruct justice. They've no doubt all worked on some joint story they're all going to stick to that they think will get them all off the hook. The problem for them is that they're all of Trump's people who are involved with Russia are so bad at this that whenever they speak out publicly about Russia, they end up accidentally revealing information/implicating themselves. Case in point: 

http://www.palmerreport.com/politics/roger-stone-slips-up-and-reveals-personal-detail-about-trump-russia-hacker-guccifer-2-0/2083/

Quote

Donald Trump’s former campaign adviser and longtime personal friend Roger Stone has recently admitted that he had contact with Russian hacker Guccifer 2.0 during the the election – the same hacker who stole and released Democratic Party emails. But Stone still insists that the contact was limited and benign, and that he doesn’t even really know who the hacker is. However, Stone just slipped up and revealed a personal detail about the hacker that could only be known by someone who knows the hacker well.

During an on-air interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Roger Stone said the following: “Let’s finish with Grucifer. My communication with her is now entirely public.” Oops. Nevermind the fact that Stone referred to Guccifer as Grucifer; he’s made that mistake before, and that’s not the point. It’s what he said directly afterward. Stone referred to Guccifer as “her.”

And that’s a problem for Stone, because up to now he’s insisted that he’s only received a few incidental Twitter direct messages from Guccifer and that he has had no substantive contact. But there is no way that Stone could have known Guccifer is a woman unless he’s had the kind of personal conversations with her via Twitter direct messaging where that kind of detail would be shared, or he’s Facebook friends with her and saw her profile picture, or he’s had a video chat with her, or he’s met her in person, or social interaction along those lines.

In other words, Roger Stone just slipped up and admitted that he knows Guccifer 2.0 far better than he’s been letting on. 

 

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Republicans are such hypocrites: 

And Newt is smirking while saying that because he knows that Republicans can be that big of hypocrites and get away with it. It's repulsive. But good for Chris Wallace for pointing out the hypocrisy. 

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Good grief: "Trump pressures House Intelligence Committee to probe the Clintons’ ties to Russia, not his"

Quote

President Trump sought Monday to pressure the House committee investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election, arguing that the panel should be probing Bill and Hillary Clinton’s alleged ties to the country instead of those of his own campaign advisers.

In a pair of evening tweets, Trump wrote that the “Trump Russia story is a hoax” and listed a string of alleged financial and other connections the Clintons have had over the years with Russia. He asked why the House Intelligence Committee is not investigating the former president and former secretary of state.

...

Trump’s tweets come just hours after the White House announced that Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, had agreed to be questioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which also is conducting a broad inquiry into Russian election interference. The committee is expected to ask Kushner about his communications with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak as well as with the chief executive of a Russian state-owned bank.

The House panel is chaired by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), a close Trump ally and a leader of his presidential transition team. Democrats are calling on Nunes to be recused from overseeing what is supposed to be an independent congressional investigation into Russian interference in the election, though Nunes on Monday denied any wrongdoing and said he would not step down.

Trump's tweets about the Clintons revived some of the attacks he leveled against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, on the campaign trail last year. The Washington Post Fact Checker reviewed Trump's claims about her role in a Russian uranium deal and found no evidence to support his assertion that she was involved in the deal personally.

...

 

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4 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

@GreyhoundFan: I'm sure Devin Nunes will have an investigation into Hillary up and running by the end of the day. 

 

I bet his tombstone will read:"Benghazi...and her emails".

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