The Russian Connection

June 22, 2017

3 hours ago, Childless said:

The Russians have made Trump look like an inept fool. Why does he continue to stand up for them? For the love of God, one of their jets played chicken with a military transport aircraft. That could have ended with military deaths if it had caused a crash. What is he thinking?

He's in too deep with the Russians to extricate himself, and he's scared of what they could do to him if he doesn't "play ball". If he wasn't such a complete jackass, I might have a tiny bit of sympathy for his current predicament. His greed and lust for power led him to play a dangerous game with people who operate at a much higher skill level than his own.

June 23, 2017

This is an extremely long article with many graphics and links, but worth a read: "Obama’s secret struggle to punish Russia for Putin’s election assault'

June 23, 2017

You have got to be kidding: "Trump says ‘we’ll have to see’ if Mueller should step down from Russia probe"

Spoiler

President Trump laid out his belief that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is biased in the expanding Russia investigation and suggested in an interview broadcast Friday morning that he may eventually need to step down.

Asked by Fox News Channel whether Mueller should "recuse himself from the investigation," Trump said three times "we'll have to see," and argued that Mueller's long friendship with fired FBI director James B. Comey and hiring of investigators with Democratic ties are "very bothersome" and "ridiculous."

"He's very, very good friends with Comey, which is very bothersome," Trump said. He added: "The people that have been hired are all Hillary Clinton supporters. Some of them worked for Hillary Clinton. I mean the whole thing is ridiculous, if you want to know the truth, from that standpoint."

Trump has talked privately with advisers and friends about the possibility of firing Mueller, something the president would have to do by ordering his Justice Department to remove him. But in the Fox interview, he seemed to want to give Mueller more time to continue the investigation before jumping to a conclusion.

"Robert Mueller is an honorable man, and hopefully he'll come up with an honorable solution," Trump said of the decorated former FBI director, criminal prosecutor and Marine.

With Mueller investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election and its potential collusion with the Trump campaign — as well as possible obstruction of justice by Trump himself — the president maintained his innocence.

"Look, there has been no obstruction," Trump told Fox. "There has been no collusion. There has been leaking by Comey. But that's been no collusion, no obstruction — and virtually everybody agrees to that."

The interview was conducted by Ainsley Earhardt, a favorite of the Trump White House and co-host of "Fox & Friends," the cable network's reliably favorable morning show that the president often cheers on Twitter. She interviewed Trump and his wife, Melania, at the White House during Thursday night's congressional picnic.

Trump expressed optimism that the Senate would pass the Republican health-care bill revealed Thursday, saying the four GOP senators who stated their opposition were "friends" of his and would "probably get there."

"We have four very good people that — it's not that they're opposed; they'd like to get certain changes," Trump said. "And we'll see if we can take care of that." He added that health care is "a very complicated situation from the standpoint, you do something that's good for one group but bad for another."

Earhardt asked Trump about his announcement earlier Thursday that he had no "tapes" of his private conversations with Comey, coming clean after five-and-a-half weeks of speculating publicly that he may have been recording their talks. Trump suggested that his threat of tapes may have intimidated Comey into being more honest in his recollection of events.

"I didn't tape," Trump said. "And I don't have any tape, and I didn't tape. But when he found out that I, you know, that there may be tapes out there, whether it's government tapes or anything else, and who knows, I think his story may have changed. I mean, you'll have to take a look at that, because then he has to tell what actually took place at the events."

Trump continued: "My story didn't change. My story was always a straight story. My story was always the truth. But you'll have to determine for yourself whether or not his story changed."

I.just.can't.

June 23, 2017

Excellent and sobering article: "Election Hackers Altered Voter Rolls, Stole Private Data, Officials Say"

Spoiler

The hacking of state and local election databases in 2016 was more extensive than previously reported, including at least one successful attempt to alter voter information, and the theft of thousands of voter records that contain private information like partial Social Security numbers, current and former officials tell TIME.

In one case, investigators found there had been a manipulation of voter data in a county database but the alterations were discovered and rectified, two sources familiar with the matter tell TIME. Investigators have not identified whether the hackers in that case were Russian agents.

The fact that private data was stolen from states is separately providing investigators a previously unreported line of inquiry in the probes into Russian attempts to influence the election. In Illinois, more than 90% of the nearly 90,000 records stolen by Russian state actors contained drivers license numbers, and a quarter contained the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, according to Ken Menzel, the General Counsel of the State Board of Elections.

Congressional investigators are probing whether any of this stolen private information made its way to the Trump campaign, two sources familiar with the investigations tell TIME.

“If any campaign, Trump or otherwise, used inappropriate data the questions are, How did they get it? From whom? And with what level of knowledge?” the former top Democratic staffer on the House Intelligence Committee, Michael Bahar, tells TIME. “That is a crux of the investigation."

Spokesmen for the House and Senate Intelligence committees declined to comment on the search for stolen data. No one contacted for this story said they had seen evidence that the stolen, private, data had actually made its way to the Trump campaign.

The House Intelligence Committee plans to seek testimony this summer from Brad Parscale, the digital director of the Trump campaign, CNN reported last week. Hill investigators in February asked the White House and law enforcement agencies to ensure that all materials relating to contacts between the Trump administration, transition team and campaign had with the Russians had been preserved. Parscale did not return messages requesting comment for this story. Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, referred questions regarding the investigations to Trump’s legal team, which did not respond to requests for comment.

Both intelligence committees are looking at whether and how the intrusions could have furthered Russia’s larger strategic goals of undermining U.S. democracy, hurting Hillary Clinton and helping Donald Trump. During the run up to the vote, Obama Administration cyber-security officials took steps to prepare for widespread voter registration manipulation, fearing Russia might seek to cause chaos at polling places to undermine the credibility of the election. Current and former law enforcement and intelligence officials say Russia could also have tried to use stolen voter data to gain leverage over witting or unwitting accomplices in the Trump camp, by involving them in a broader conspiracy.

The House and Senate Intelligence committees held hearings on June 22 to highlight the ongoing vulnerability of the U.S. election systems. “I’m deeply concerned,” said North Carolina Republican Senator Richard Burr who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, that “we could be here in two or four years talking about a much worse crisis.”

Cyber-security officials testifying at the Senate hearing acknowledged for the first time the extent of the Russian effort to interfere with the election. Twenty-one states saw such intrusions last year, a senior official from the Department of Homeland Security, Jeanette Manfra, said. None of the intrusions affected the vote count itself, all the officials testified.

That has not reassured some Hill leaders. “There’s no evidence they were able to affect the counting within the machines,” says the top Democrat on the House Intelligence committee, Congressman Adam Schiff of California. But, he added, “the effect on the election is quite a different matter.”

The Russian efforts against state and local databases were so widespread that top Obama administration cyber-security officials assumed that by Election Day Moscow’s agents had probed all 50 states. “At first it was one state, then three, then five, then a dozen,” says Anthony Ferrante, a former FBI cybersecurity official and member of the White House team charged with preparedness and response to the cyber intrusion. At that point, says Michael Daniel, who led the White House effort to secure the vote against the Russian intrusions, “We had to assume that they actually tried to at least rattle the doorknobs on all 50, and we just happened to find them in a few of them."

Many hackers, including state-sponsored ones, use automated programs to target hundreds or even thousands of computers to check for vulnerabilities. But confirming intrusions is hard. As far as officials have been able to determine, the number of actual successful intrusions, where Russian agents gained sufficient access to attempt to alter, delete or download any information, was “less than a dozen,” current and former officials say. But that wasn’t the only worry.

“In addition to the threat to the vote we were also very concerned about the public confidence in the integrity of the electoral system,” says Ferrante.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether any laws were broken in relation to the Russian attack. The Congressional intelligence probes also seek to determine the nature and scope of the Russian espionage operation in order to protect future elections.

“The integrity of the entire system is in question,” says Bahar, “So you need the system to push back and find out what happened and why, so it never happens again.”

June 24, 2017

I don't understand why more people aren't in an outrage over this whole disaster.

June 24, 2017

22 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Excellent and sobering article: "Election Hackers Altered Voter Rolls, Stole Private Data, Officials Say"

Reveal hidden contents

The hacking of state and local election databases in 2016 was more extensive than previously reported, including at least one successful attempt to alter voter information, and the theft of thousands of voter records that contain private information like partial Social Security numbers, current and former officials tell TIME.

In one case, investigators found there had been a manipulation of voter data in a county database but the alterations were discovered and rectified, two sources familiar with the matter tell TIME. Investigators have not identified whether the hackers in that case were Russian agents.

The fact that private data was stolen from states is separately providing investigators a previously unreported line of inquiry in the probes into Russian attempts to influence the election. In Illinois, more than 90% of the nearly 90,000 records stolen by Russian state actors contained drivers license numbers, and a quarter contained the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, according to Ken Menzel, the General Counsel of the State Board of Elections.

Congressional investigators are probing whether any of this stolen private information made its way to the Trump campaign, two sources familiar with the investigations tell TIME.

“If any campaign, Trump or otherwise, used inappropriate data the questions are, How did they get it? From whom? And with what level of knowledge?” the former top Democratic staffer on the House Intelligence Committee, Michael Bahar, tells TIME. “That is a crux of the investigation."

Spokesmen for the House and Senate Intelligence committees declined to comment on the search for stolen data. No one contacted for this story said they had seen evidence that the stolen, private, data had actually made its way to the Trump campaign.

The House Intelligence Committee plans to seek testimony this summer from Brad Parscale, the digital director of the Trump campaign, CNN reported last week. Hill investigators in February asked the White House and law enforcement agencies to ensure that all materials relating to contacts between the Trump administration, transition team and campaign had with the Russians had been preserved. Parscale did not return messages requesting comment for this story. Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, referred questions regarding the investigations to Trump’s legal team, which did not respond to requests for comment.

Both intelligence committees are looking at whether and how the intrusions could have furthered Russia’s larger strategic goals of undermining U.S. democracy, hurting Hillary Clinton and helping Donald Trump. During the run up to the vote, Obama Administration cyber-security officials took steps to prepare for widespread voter registration manipulation, fearing Russia might seek to cause chaos at polling places to undermine the credibility of the election. Current and former law enforcement and intelligence officials say Russia could also have tried to use stolen voter data to gain leverage over witting or unwitting accomplices in the Trump camp, by involving them in a broader conspiracy.

The House and Senate Intelligence committees held hearings on June 22 to highlight the ongoing vulnerability of the U.S. election systems. “I’m deeply concerned,” said North Carolina Republican Senator Richard Burr who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, that “we could be here in two or four years talking about a much worse crisis.”

Cyber-security officials testifying at the Senate hearing acknowledged for the first time the extent of the Russian effort to interfere with the election. Twenty-one states saw such intrusions last year, a senior official from the Department of Homeland Security, Jeanette Manfra, said. None of the intrusions affected the vote count itself, all the officials testified.

That has not reassured some Hill leaders. “There’s no evidence they were able to affect the counting within the machines,” says the top Democrat on the House Intelligence committee, Congressman Adam Schiff of California. But, he added, “the effect on the election is quite a different matter.”

The Russian efforts against state and local databases were so widespread that top Obama administration cyber-security officials assumed that by Election Day Moscow’s agents had probed all 50 states. “At first it was one state, then three, then five, then a dozen,” says Anthony Ferrante, a former FBI cybersecurity official and member of the White House team charged with preparedness and response to the cyber intrusion. At that point, says Michael Daniel, who led the White House effort to secure the vote against the Russian intrusions, “We had to assume that they actually tried to at least rattle the doorknobs on all 50, and we just happened to find them in a few of them."

Many hackers, including state-sponsored ones, use automated programs to target hundreds or even thousands of computers to check for vulnerabilities. But confirming intrusions is hard. As far as officials have been able to determine, the number of actual successful intrusions, where Russian agents gained sufficient access to attempt to alter, delete or download any information, was “less than a dozen,” current and former officials say. But that wasn’t the only worry.

“In addition to the threat to the vote we were also very concerned about the public confidence in the integrity of the electoral system,” says Ferrante.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether any laws were broken in relation to the Russian attack. The Congressional intelligence probes also seek to determine the nature and scope of the Russian espionage operation in order to protect future elections.

“The integrity of the entire system is in question,” says Bahar, “So you need the system to push back and find out what happened and why, so it never happens again.”

WUT? All these alt-right, anti-government, gun-toting, prepper, conspiracy theorist BT's aren't bothered by having their private data stolen? Or do they think it was only private data from democrats that was stolen?

June 24, 2017

2 hours ago, bashfulpixie said:

I don't understand why more people aren't in an outrage over this whole disaster.

Have been in a simmering state of outrage since the election. I don't for one second believe this was a "fair" election and nothing that has come out since is moving me in that direction. I'd like to see more information on how we're handling provisional and absentee ballots as well as early voting. If I fill out a provisional ballot at 6:30 how can I feel like my vote counted when you tell me who won at 10:00? So maybe I won't bother.

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

WUT? All these alt-right, anti-government, gun-toting, prepper, conspiracy theorist BT's aren't bothered by having their private data stolen? Or do they think it was only private data from democrats that was stolen?

Oh, and @fraurosena, of course their data was protected. Protected by God/Trump/NRA/FoxNews. Actually they are just too stupid to even understand the situation. When they get hacked to hell and back they'll just blame the DNC, Hillary and Obama.

June 25, 2017

Okay, I just posted (in the Congress thread) an article that was complementary of Trey "Benghazi" Gowdy. Lest anyone think he's actually being 100% reasonable: "Gowdy: Oversight panel won't pursue Russia, obstruction probes"

Spoiler

Newly-elected House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Trey Gowdy does not plan to investigate Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election or questions of whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice.

The South Carolina Republican told a gathering of reporters Friday that he instead wants to return the Oversight panel to its original “compulsory” jurisdiction, including overseeing more mundane issues like government procurement and the Census.

And while Oversight will likely pursue some investigations eventually, Gowdy was adamant that he does not want to infringe on the work of special counsel Robert Mueller.

Gowdy also argued that the Russia scandal and questions of obstruction fall more in the jurisdiction of other committees — including the the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, where he helps lead the investigation of Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election.

“No. 1: It’s in the jurisdiction of Bob Mueller. And secondarily, I would think Judiciary has jurisdiction over the Department of Justice and the FBI,” he said. “To the extent that any of those memos are classified, that would be [Intelligence]. And for those that think a third committee ought to look at it, Oversight would have secondary permissive jurisdiction but it would be secondary.”

What investigations Gowdy does pursue will likely be carried out behind closed doors with a hearing at the end of the probe to discuss findings — a break from Oversight’s previous use of hearings as fact-finding exercises.

“If I would devise an inefficient way to gather facts, I don’t know that I could devise anything better than five-minute increments alternating between Republicans and Democrats,” said Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor. “That is not conducive to gathering facts.”

In short: Gone are the days of high-profile Oversight hearings lambasting executive officials caught up in scandals. Reporters, lawmakers and the public have grown accustomed to aggressive Oversight chairmen pursuing public probes, including investigations on the IRS’s tea-party targeting or the “Fast and Furious” gunwalking controversy.

Gowdy is no stranger to explosive public hearings, having led the House Select Committee on Benghazi. But he argues those previous Oversight investigations were not the committee’s main duties under House rules.

Rather, to kick off his tenure, Gowdy plans to hold hearings on criminal justice reform and the decennial Census, which is coming up.

He’s also promising a light-handed approach to the District of Columbia, which falls into his panel’s jurisdiction. When Gowdy was previously subcommittee chairman for D.C. affairs, he said he “tried really hard not to meddle” with local issues and is good friends with Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.). He added of course he is “going to do things that she does not like,” but he expects to stick with his past approach.

On Russia, Gowdy argued that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte has more jurisdiction over the obstruction question. And he said he’ll continue his work helping probe the matter as one of the lawmakers leading the Intelligence investigation.

He said he doesn’t want to undermine Mueller’s work and has explicitly promised him not to do so: “I told Bob Mueller Tuesday that I would never do anything wittingly or unwittingly that veered over into his lane, and his lane is broad and undetermined at this point.”

Gowdy’s approach differs sharply from that of outgoing Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz, who is resigning at the end of June to pursue a career in television. Chaffetz asked for Comey’s memos detailing Trump’s alleged request to drop the FBI investigation of Michael Flynn, his ex-national security adviser. He even called a hearing with Comey, though that was cancelled.

Gowdy also seemed to downplay his panel’s role in looking into whether Trump went amiss of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which prohibits presidents from taking money from foreign governments. He said the panel would look into the matter, but he also said it’s a legal question first and probably falls into Judiciary’s jurisdiction.

“It is constitutional so therefore Judiciary leaps to mind first, but there are also ethics issues, and the office of government ethics is squarely within our lanes,” he said. “So the first challenge to me is understanding the parameters, how it’s historically been applied and then from that you can determine whether there’s been a breach.”

Gowdy’s committee may pursue some matters related to the Russia-Comey scandals. The committee, he said, could examine questions about who should or shouldn’t get security clearances, one of many questions that has arisen recently. That, Gowdy said, does fall into the panel’s jurisdiction.

But even on that matter, it would be a light tough. Case in point: His Democratic counterpart on the panel, Elijah Cummings (R-Md.), recently wrote to the administration asking why it had not revoked the security clearances of Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, who failed to disclose his interactions with Russian officials on his security clearance application.

Gowdy, however, said not to look to him to pursue Kushner since it could be a criminal issue.

“Allegations of criminal or quasi-criminal activity is squarely within Mueller’s jurisdiction,” Gowdy said. “So the process by which security clearances are granted, if that needs to be tightened, amended, changed, I’m all for it. The revocation of previously existing security clearances… we don’t investigate crime.”

You KNOW that if the president had a D after his or her name, Gowdy would hold 24/7 hearings about the most minute issues.

June 25, 2017

9 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

You KNOW that if the president had a D after his or her name, Gowdy would hold 24/7 hearings about the most minute issues.

Even if he was going to pursue the Russian interference and obstruction of justice I wouldn't trust it. Better that they not do anything then pretend to, and claim to come up with nothing. He and his fellow Repthuglicans would never be honest about it anyway and would lie when they find any thing incriminating.

Let Comey do his work and the Dems gather their own info and prepare for what happens after the 2018 election. Let the law suites against TT for the emoluments clause work their way courts. I feel like letting Gowdy and his crew conduct fake oversight could lead to double jeopardy. Coming up with weak evidence and being unable to bring charges will make it that much harder later on to bring Orange Shit Stain down.

June 25, 2017

June 27, 2017

"FBI has questioned Trump campaign adviser Carter Page at length in Russia probe"

Spoiler

FBI agents have repeatedly questioned former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page about his contacts with Russians and his interactions with the Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the investigation.

Over a series of five meetings in March, totaling about 10 hours of questioning, Page repeatedly denied wrongdoing when asked about allegations that he may have acted as a kind of go-between for Russia and the Trump campaign, according to a person familiar with Page’s account.

The interviews with the FBI are the most extensive known questioning of a potential suspect in the probe of possible Russian connections to associates of President Trump. The questioning of Page came more than a month before the Russian investigation was put under the direction of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

Page confirmed Monday that the interviews occurred, calling them “extensive discussions.” He declined to say if he’s spoken to investigators since the March interviews.

He said the FBI agents “acknowledged that I’m a loyal American veteran but indicated that their management was concerned that I did not believe the conclusions” of a Jan 6. U.S. intelligence report describing Russian government interference in the U.S. election. “Our frank and open conversations gave me confidence that there are still logical, honest individuals at the Bureau who respect civil rights and the Constitution,’’ he said.

As he has for months, Page said the accusations against him are lies spread by supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, aimed at weakening the Trump administration.

Because it is against the law for an individual to lie to FBI agents about a material issue under investigation, many lawyers recommend their clients not sit for interviews with the bureau without a lawyer present. Page said he spoke without a lawyer and wasn’t concerned about the risks because he told the truth.

...

The FBI’s questioning of Page came during a tumultuous time for Trump and the Russia probe. On March 20, Comey publicly confirmed that the FBI was investigating “the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.’’

A few days after that statement to Congress, Trump separately asked Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russians, according to officials. Coats and Rogers refused to comply with the requests, which they both deemed to be inappropriate, according to two current and two former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private communications with the president.

Over a four-week period in March, Page met repeatedly with FBI agents, who pressed him on claims made in a secret dossier compiled by a former British intelligence officer, according to people familiar with the probe.

The dossier includes accusations that Page was part of a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between (Trump associates) and the Russian leadership.’’ The dossier also claimed that in July 2016 Page met with Putin associate Igor Sechin and senior Kremlin official Igor Divyekin. Page has denied all the accusations, saying he did not meet with Sechin and never heard of Divyekin until the dossier surfaced in January.

Page was one of the first Americans to come under scrutiny in the FBI’s Russia investigation, and it’s unclear what, if any, new information was gleaned from the FBI interviews. He has called the government surveillance of his communications a violation of his civil rights. Page has been outspoken in denying the allegations, repeatedly calling the investigation a politically motivated witch hunt.

A decade ago, Page worked in Russia for Merrill Lynch, and in 2016 he raised eyebrows among U.S. foreign policy experts when he criticized U.S. sanctions on Russia, and urged better relations between the two countries. In March 2016, Trump named him as a foreign policy adviser to his campaign, but the campaign dropped him in September after questions arose about his ties to Russia. Trump officials have repeatedly said he was not an influential figure in the campaign. Page has said that while he spent many hours in Trump campaign headquarters, he never briefed Trump.

I'm sorry, he's just slimy.

June 28, 2017

"Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort files as foreign agent for Ukraine work"

Spoiler

A consulting firm led by Paul Manafort, who chaired Donald Trump’s presidential campaign for several months last year, retroactively filed forms Tuesday showing that his firm received $17.1 million over two years from a political party that dominated Ukraine before its leader fled to Russia in 2014.

Manafort disclosed the total payments his firm received between 2012 and 2014 in a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing late Tuesday that was submitted to the U.S. Justice Department. The report makes Manafort the second former senior Trump adviser to acknowledge the need to disclose work for foreign interests.

Manafort is one of a number of Trump associates whose campaign activities are being scrutinized by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as part of a probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Mueller’s team has been consolidating inquiries into matters unrelated to the election.

Michael Flynn, the former White House national security adviser, filed a disclosure in March saying he had provided assistance during 2016 to Turkish businessman active in that country’s politics.

Manafort and a former associate in his consulting business, Richard Gates, who also worked for the Trump campaign, disclosed their lobbying campaign on behalf of Ukraine’s Party of Regions in an 87-page document which described the gross receipts the firm received and some details of efforts undertaken to influence U.S. policy toward Ukraine. The filing shows the firm spent nearly $4 million to advance the party’s interests through polling and local salaries in Ukraine, activity that does not ordinarily require U.S. disclosure. The filing does not show how much Manafort made personally in Ukraine or how much his firm netted after expenses.

As part of the filing, Manafort disclosed he met in 2013 with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, an outspoken California Republican known for advocating closer ties between the U.S. and the Kremlin.

Disclosure is required under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) from anyone advocating in the U.S. on behalf of a foreign government or political party. The rules were part of legislation passed in 1938 to counter German propagandists operating in the United States before the start of World War II.

Manafort’s spokesman Jason Maloni said late Friday that the former campaign adviser began the process of preparing his filing in September “before the outcome of the election and well before any formal investigation of election interference began.

“Paul’s primary focus was always directed at domestic Ukrainian political campaign work, and that is reflected in today’s filing,” said Maloni.

Michael Dry, an attorney for Gates, declined to comment. Dry served as a federal prosecutor in the eastern district of Virginia until January, when he joined the Vinson & Elkins law firm. Gates is among the most recent former Trump campaign staffer to get legal counsel to help navigate the Russia probes.

Manafort announced last April that he was considering filing the form after receiving guidance from DOJ regarding work he and Gates had performed in recent years on behalf of the Party of Regions. He said the work with Ukrainian clients ended before Manafort joined the Trump campaign.

At the time, two Washington lobbying firms, including the Podesta Group, also filed registrations describing work they undertook with Manafort to improve Ukraine’s image in the U.S. between 2012 and 2014.

FARA requires so-called foreign agents to register within 10 days of agreeing to conduct work for the foreign entity and to provide updates every six months on political activities. The disclosures require more minute details than what is covered for domestic lobbyists.

For instance, foreign agents must disclose efforts to exert politically-related influence on think tanks and through the media, as well as to directly lobby government officials.

Deliberately failing to file as a foreign agent may result in a felony criminal charge accompanied by steep monetary civil penalties. In practice, however, the Department of Justice generally encourages voluntary compliance and prosecutions under the act are “quite rare,” said Joseph Sandler, an attorney who specializes in political law, including FARA. The Justice Department generally allows people to register retroactively if questions arise about their past activities and the law requires no late fees or other penalties.

“If it was genuinely inadvertent or negligent, if there’s nothing nefarious you want to hide, there’s no downside to retroactively registering,” Sandler said.

Criminal charges for violating FARA have typically been reserved for cases involving foreign agents whose conduct ran afoul of U.S. foreign policy interests. They often come as a package of other criminal charges, like espionage.

For years, Manafort advised an ambitious Ukrainian politician, Viktor Yanukovych, who was elected president in 2010 but fled to Moscow four years later after public demonstrations demanded his ouster. Manafort had worked previously for several political strongmen around the globe, including former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and Angolan military leader Jonas Savimbi.

Manafort joined the Trump campaign in the spring 2016, as Trump sought to bring more experienced political hands into his operation. Gates, a long time Manafort associate, joined him.

Manafort resigned from the campaign in August 2016, following reports by the New York Times that his name had appeared in a ledger found in Kiev detailing millions of dollars in under-the-table payments from the Party of Regions. Manafort has consistently denied wrongdoing and said that reports alleging that he received funds improperly from Ukrainian interests are false.

On Monday, the head of the anti-corruption unit of the Ukrainian’s general prosecutor’s office said in a television interview in Kiev that his office had “not discovered any evidence proving Manafort’s involvement” in ledger payments. He said his unit was handing the matter over to another office within the prosecutor’s office for further inquiry.

I just love how his associates are trying to push the "nothing to see here" idea. Yeah, right.

June 28, 2017

"Why the Russia investigation could be even bigger than you think"

Spoiler

Whenever he comments on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Russia scandal, President Trump seems consumed with refuting the accusation of “collusion” between himself or his campaign and the Russian government (if you can call “Nuh-uh, fake news!” a refutation). But while it would certainly be shocking to learn that Trump personally conspired with Vladimir Putin to coordinate the Russians’ efforts to undermine Hillary Clinton in 2016, collusion is only one sliver of the problem he could face.

There’s a good chance that there were many kinds of wrongdoing going on around Trump, and if there were, Mueller and his team will probably find them. Which is why this investigation could become much bigger than most people realize.

Over his career — before he ran for president but continuing once his campaign was underway — Trump managed to assemble around himself a group of shady characters worthy of the most notorious mob boss, and that has continued into his presidency. Today we learn this, courtesy of Tom Hamburger and Rosalind Helderman:

A consulting firm led by Paul Manafort, who chaired Donald Trump’s presidential campaign for several months last year, retroactively filed forms Tuesday showing that his firm received $17.1 million over two years from a political party that dominated Ukraine before its leader fled to Russia in 2014.

You may recall that last year a ledger emerged in Ukraine showing huge cash payments from the party to Manafort. At the time he claimed it was a fabrication, but payments noted in the ledger were later confirmed to have taken place. And now — just as former national security adviser Michael Flynn did with regard to his work for Turkey — Manafort is retroactively registering as a foreign agent, which is the kind of thing you do when your lawyer tells you that you’re in serious trouble.

Mueller is taking a good hard look at Flynn and Manafort, but they’re just two of the grifters and con artists who have always been drawn to Trump like iron filings to a magnet. To take one colorful new example, Trump recently hired Jay Sekulow to represent him in the Russia matter, even though Sekulow’s legal specialty is First Amendment religion cases. Sekulow, it turns out, presides over a network of “nonprofits” that gets tens of millions of dollars in small contributions from conservatives, then shovels much of that money to him and his family. As Aaron Davis and Shawn Boburg report, over five years,

$5.5 million was paid directly to Sekulow and five family members in salary or other compensation, tax records covering those years show. Another $7.5 million went to businesses owned by Sekulow and his sister-in-law for producing and consulting on TV, movie and radio shows, including his weekday program, “Jay Sekulow Live!” And $21 million went to a small law firm co-owned by Sekulow, records show.

That’s not to mention the private jet. Sekulow isn’t alleged to be part of the Russia scandal, and his grift is a common one in the conservative political world. But it’s an illustration of the kind of people Trump associates with.

Which is why you may not appreciate just how broad the special counsel’s investigation could get. You may be asking, “If Trump or people around him had committed crimes, wouldn’t we have known about it by now?” After all, there have been hundreds of journalists writing about him for a couple of years now. But here’s what’s different. In many cases, those journalists would investigate a story, write it up and then move on. So you as a reader might encounter one provocative tale of, say, Trump getting large amounts of funding for real estate projects from Russian oligarchs connected to alleged mobsters — but you probably wouldn’t hear about it again. You might see a story about a mid-level Russian bureaucrat with a $75,000-a-year salary who somehow managed to buy nearly $8 million in condos from Trump. “That sounds fishy,” you’d say, but then you’d become more worried (quite appropriately) about Republicans slashing Medicaid and causing 22 million people to lose their health coverage.

But Robert Mueller isn’t going to forget, or move on to another story he has to report, or give up when things get confusing. He and his team can investigate these connections, events and relationships until they figure out what’s really there. In many cases, it might amount to nothing. But if there were crimes committed, he has the resources and authority to find out.

And it’s important to remember that if Mueller does find evidence of crimes, he can and will pursue them whether or not they have any specific relationship to the 2016 campaign. Once he begins tugging on these strings, who knows what will be discovered — about Trump’s activities before becoming president, about what his associates have done, and about anything else. Mueller can go wherever the evidence leads. Which may be why one Trump associate after another, from his personal lawyer to his son-in-law, is lawyering up.

This investigation may start with questions specifically related to the 2016 campaign and obstruction of justice, but it will almost inevitably get wider and wider. For instance, the question “What was the nature of Jared Kushner’s contacts with Russia?” leads to “What are Jared’s financial connections to Russia?,” which leads to “What’s up with that $285 million loan Kushner’s company got just before Election Day?”

Again, it may all come to nothing. It may be that everyone around Trump, including the president himself, acted with only the highest ethical standards and respect for the law. But one question leading to another is why the investigation may end up uncovering a range of wrongdoing that doesn’t actually have anything to do with politics. The political matters — potential obstruction of justice on Trump’s part, communications between Trump associates and Russia during the campaign, the full scope of the Russian project to get Trump elected — could produce evidence of wrongdoing or even crimes. But that’s only the beginning.

I keep hoping that every member of the TT's circle ends up in orange jumpsuits. It's what they deserve.

June 28, 2017

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Why the Russia investigation could be even bigger than you think"

Reveal hidden contents

Whenever he comments on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Russia scandal, President Trump seems consumed with refuting the accusation of “collusion” between himself or his campaign and the Russian government (if you can call “Nuh-uh, fake news!” a refutation). But while it would certainly be shocking to learn that Trump personally conspired with Vladimir Putin to coordinate the Russians’ efforts to undermine Hillary Clinton in 2016, collusion is only one sliver of the problem he could face.

There’s a good chance that there were many kinds of wrongdoing going on around Trump, and if there were, Mueller and his team will probably find them. Which is why this investigation could become much bigger than most people realize.

Over his career — before he ran for president but continuing once his campaign was underway — Trump managed to assemble around himself a group of shady characters worthy of the most notorious mob boss, and that has continued into his presidency. Today we learn this, courtesy of Tom Hamburger and Rosalind Helderman:

A consulting firm led by Paul Manafort, who chaired Donald Trump’s presidential campaign for several months last year, retroactively filed forms Tuesday showing that his firm received $17.1 million over two years from a political party that dominated Ukraine before its leader fled to Russia in 2014.

You may recall that last year a ledger emerged in Ukraine showing huge cash payments from the party to Manafort. At the time he claimed it was a fabrication, but payments noted in the ledger were later confirmed to have taken place. And now — just as former national security adviser Michael Flynn did with regard to his work for Turkey — Manafort is retroactively registering as a foreign agent, which is the kind of thing you do when your lawyer tells you that you’re in serious trouble.

Mueller is taking a good hard look at Flynn and Manafort, but they’re just two of the grifters and con artists who have always been drawn to Trump like iron filings to a magnet. To take one colorful new example, Trump recently hired Jay Sekulow to represent him in the Russia matter, even though Sekulow’s legal specialty is First Amendment religion cases. Sekulow, it turns out, presides over a network of “nonprofits” that gets tens of millions of dollars in small contributions from conservatives, then shovels much of that money to him and his family. As Aaron Davis and Shawn Boburg report, over five years,

$5.5 million was paid directly to Sekulow and five family members in salary or other compensation, tax records covering those years show. Another $7.5 million went to businesses owned by Sekulow and his sister-in-law for producing and consulting on TV, movie and radio shows, including his weekday program, “Jay Sekulow Live!” And $21 million went to a small law firm co-owned by Sekulow, records show.

That’s not to mention the private jet. Sekulow isn’t alleged to be part of the Russia scandal, and his grift is a common one in the conservative political world. But it’s an illustration of the kind of people Trump associates with.

Which is why you may not appreciate just how broad the special counsel’s investigation could get. You may be asking, “If Trump or people around him had committed crimes, wouldn’t we have known about it by now?” After all, there have been hundreds of journalists writing about him for a couple of years now. But here’s what’s different. In many cases, those journalists would investigate a story, write it up and then move on. So you as a reader might encounter one provocative tale of, say, Trump getting large amounts of funding for real estate projects from Russian oligarchs connected to alleged mobsters — but you probably wouldn’t hear about it again. You might see a story about a mid-level Russian bureaucrat with a $75,000-a-year salary who somehow managed to buy nearly $8 million in condos from Trump. “That sounds fishy,” you’d say, but then you’d become more worried (quite appropriately) about Republicans slashing Medicaid and causing 22 million people to lose their health coverage.

But Robert Mueller isn’t going to forget, or move on to another story he has to report, or give up when things get confusing. He and his team can investigate these connections, events and relationships until they figure out what’s really there. In many cases, it might amount to nothing. But if there were crimes committed, he has the resources and authority to find out.

And it’s important to remember that if Mueller does find evidence of crimes, he can and will pursue them whether or not they have any specific relationship to the 2016 campaign. Once he begins tugging on these strings, who knows what will be discovered — about Trump’s activities before becoming president, about what his associates have done, and about anything else. Mueller can go wherever the evidence leads. Which may be why one Trump associate after another, from his personal lawyer to his son-in-law, is lawyering up.

This investigation may start with questions specifically related to the 2016 campaign and obstruction of justice, but it will almost inevitably get wider and wider. For instance, the question “What was the nature of Jared Kushner’s contacts with Russia?” leads to “What are Jared’s financial connections to Russia?,” which leads to “What’s up with that $285 million loan Kushner’s company got just before Election Day?”

Again, it may all come to nothing. It may be that everyone around Trump, including the president himself, acted with only the highest ethical standards and respect for the law. But one question leading to another is why the investigation may end up uncovering a range of wrongdoing that doesn’t actually have anything to do with politics. The political matters — potential obstruction of justice on Trump’s part, communications between Trump associates and Russia during the campaign, the full scope of the Russian project to get Trump elected — could produce evidence of wrongdoing or even crimes. But that’s only the beginning.

I keep hoping that every member of the TT's circle ends up in orange jumpsuits. It's what they deserve.

Please add Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell to this list. I want them to go to their own prison, where they're paid minimally then told they need to pay for their own healthcare. Charge them for all of their expenses too. Then tell them it's their choice not to eat when they run out of funds.

June 29, 2017

It's just embarrassing, the way the Cotton and Risch attempt to spin and divert attention away from the presidunces blatant inaction on this issue. I just love the way Nicolas Burns burns them with his responses.

Former NATO Ambassador Shoots Down Republican Attempts to Blame Obama for the Russian Election Hack

Quote

Two Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee tried Wednesday to pick up on President Donald Trump’s recent claim that former President Barack Obama failed to act against Russian interference in the 2016 election. But Nicholas Burns, a former top State Department official testifying at the committee’s hearing on Russian meddling in European elections, was having none of it. [...]

Cotton surrendered most of his time for questioning witnesses to instead deliver a statement arguing that Trump’s policies on Syria and Afghanistan, along with the president’s proposal to sharply increase the defense budget, makes him tougher on Russia than Obama—despite Trump’s flirtation with rolling back the Russia sanctions that Obama imposed.

In his prepared testimony, Burns, who served as ambassador to NATO and held other posts at the State Department under President George W. Bush, ripped Trump for denying “the undeniable fact that Russia interfered in our elections.”

“Given President Trump’s weak and ill-advised views toward Russia,” Burns said, “it is prudent for the Senate and House to insist on a process of congressional review of Russia sanctions so that President Trump cannot relax them.”

Despite that, Risch attempted to hone in on Burns’ more modest earlier statement,that “the Obama administration should have reacted more quickly and vigorously” to Russian hacking. Risch asked the former ambassador to confirm that Obama was president when Russian hacking efforts occurred and “was aware that this was going on.”

Burns responded that while Obama could have done more, “he did take action.” That included informing the eight top members of Congress about the interference efforts, Burns noted—an apparent reminder that resistance from top congressional Republicans, especially Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), was reportedly a key reason Obama avoided earlier action against Russian efforts.

“President Trump has taken no action whatsoever,” Burns said. “I think’s that irresponsible.”

Still, Risch persisted, inviting Burns to agree that “the Obama administration did not take the significant action that was necessary.”

“The Obama administration should have taken greater action,” Burns said, as Risch’s time expired, “but the more pertinent question today is what our current Commander-in-Chief is not doing.”

It seems McTurtle has much more to answer for than just that secretively contrived atrocity he has the gall to call a healthcare bill.

June 29, 2017

"Trump's longtime bodyguard-turned-White House aide Keith Schiller eyed in House's Russia probe, sources say"

Spoiler

Congressional investigators want to interview Keith Schiller, President Donald Trump's longtime bodyguard turned White House aide, as part of their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News.

Schiller, the former head of security for the Trump Organization who now serves as the White House director of Oval Office operations, is one of several Trump associates on the House Intelligence Committee's witness list in its investigation into Russian interference.

The committee's focus on Schiller and other Trump campaign officials and associates marks a new phase in the investigation, which is examining how Russia attempted to influence the election, the Obama administration's response and allegations of collusion between Trump associates and Russian officials.

It's the latest indication that the government's multiple investigations are touching Trump's inner circle. In late July, longtime Trump associate Roger Stone is expected to appear before congressional investigators for a closed-door interview. The growing list of other Trump associates the committee has said they want to meet includes former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Kushner, Stone, Flynn and Manafort have all volunteered to cooperate with the investigations and have denied any wrongdoing.

Committee aides declined to comment about the addition of Schiller to its list of witnesses for ABC News. He did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the investigation.

One White House official was unsurprised to learn that Schiller has been contacted. As the investigations have expanded, several White House aides expressed privately to ABC News that they are expecting to hear from Congress or the special counsel.

A former New York police officer, Schiller has been at Trump's side for nearly 20 years and is one of his closest advisers and aides — playing the role of a body man, confidant and gatekeeper.

When Trump made the decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, it was Schiller who hand-delivered the letter of termination from the president to FBI headquarters.

Schiller accompanied Kushner on an April visit to Iraq with Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Congressional investigators have interviewed dozens of witnesses as part of their probe, which continues as special counsel Robert Mueller leads a separate wide-ranging investigation at the Justice Department into Russian interference and whether there are any ties to the Trump campaign.

I can't fathom having to be the TT's "body man". Yuck.

June 29, 2017

I've been away for a bit but I didn't see this story posted while I was catching up today.

GOP Operative Sought Clinton Emails From Hackers, Implied a Connection to Flynn

Quote

WASHINGTON—Before the 2016 presidential election, a longtime Republican opposition researcher mounted an independent campaign to obtain emails he believed were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s private server, likely by Russian hackers.

In conversations with members of his circle and with others he tried to recruit to help him, the GOP operative, Peter W. Smith, implied he was working with retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, at the time a senior adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump.

“He said, ‘I’m talking to Michael Flynn about this—if you find anything, can you let me know?’” said Eric York, a computer-security expert from Atlanta who searched hacker forums on Mr. Smith’s behalf for people who might have access to the emails.

June 30, 2017

7 hours ago, nvmbr02 said:

I've been away for a bit but I didn't see this story posted while I was catching up today.

GOP Operative Sought Clinton Emails From Hackers, Implied a Connection to Flynn

Welcome back @nvmbr02!

MoJo has a follow-up article on this very subject:

Could GOP Operatives Be Prosecuted For Trying to Obtain Clinton Emails?

Quote

[...]

A person who encouraged the transmittal of information they knew to be illegally obtained through a hack could face felony charges for computer fraud and illegally transferring personal information, attorneys familiar with hacking cases told Mother Jones this week.

Federal law bars not only stealing, but transferring personally identifiable information. Federal prosecutors have used the statute to prosecute unauthorized sharing of emails as well as email addresses.

That means a request for stolen emails could still be prosecuted (assuming anyone besides the late Smith were implicated) even if the request came after the hack, said Tor Ekeland, an attorney who represents defendants in federal hacking cases.

“It’s a mistake to assume the only potential crime is the hacking,” Ekeland said. “If you know that there’s been an illegal hack, and then you reach out to someone and say ‘Give me that information,’ I want to disclose that,’ you’ve now got an attempt to transfer” personally identifiable information.

July 1, 2017

So this is really long and I'm about halfway through but:

The Time I Got Recruited to Collude with the Russians

I bolded what I thought was important, but Lord Jesus.

Quote

I read the Wall Street Journal’s article yesterday on attempts by a GOP operative to recover missing Hillary Clinton emails with more than usual interest. I was involved in the events that reporter Shane Harris described, and I was an unnamed source for the initial story. What’s more, I was named in, and provided the documents to Harris that formed the basis of, this evening’s follow-up story, which reported that “A longtime Republican activist who led an operation hoping to obtain Hillary Clinton emails from hackers listed senior members of the Trump campaign, including some who now serve as top aides in the White House, in a recruitment document for his effort”:

Officials identified in the document include Steve Bannon, now chief strategist for President Donald Trump; Kellyanne Conway, former campaign manager and now White House counselor; Sam Clovis, a policy adviser to the Trump campaign and now a senior adviser at the Agriculture Department; and retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, who was a campaign adviser and briefly was national security adviser in the Trump administration.

I’m writing this piece in the spirit of Benjamin Wittes’s account of his interactions with James Comey immediately following the New York Times story for which he acted as a source. The goal is to provide a fuller accounting of experiences which were thoroughly bizarre and which I did not fully understand until I read the Journal’s account of the episode yesterday. Indeed, I still do not fully understand the events I am going to describe, both what they reflected then or what they mean in retrospect. But I can lay out what happened, facts from which readers and investigators can draw their own conclusions.

For the purpose of what follows, I will assume readers are already familiar with the Wall Street Journal’s reporting on this matter.

My role in these events began last spring, when I spent a great deal of time studying the series of Freedom of Information disclosures by the State Department of Hillary Clinton’s emails, and posting the parts I found most interesting—especially those relevant to computer security—on my public Twitter account. I was doing this not because I am some particular foe of Clinton’s—I’m not—but because like everyone else, I assumed she was likely to become the next President of the United States, and I believed her emails might provide some insight into key cybersecurity and national security issues once she was elected in November.

A while later, on June 14, the Washington Post reported on a hack of the DNC ostensibly by Russian intelligence. When material from this hack began appearing online, courtesy of the “Guccifer 2” online persona, I turned my attention to looking at these stolen documents. This time, my purpose was to try and understand who broke into the DNC, and why.

A few weeks later, right around the time the DNC emails were dumped by Wikileaks—and curiously, around the same time Trump called for the Russians to get Hillary Clinton’s missing emails—I was contacted out the blue by a man named Peter Smith, who had seen my work going through these emails. Smith implied that he was a well-connected Republican political operative.

Initially, I assumed the query must have been about my work on the DNC hack; after all, few people followed my account prior to the DNC breach, whereas my analysis of the break-in at the DNC had received considerably more coverage. I assumed his query about the “Clinton emails” was therefore a mistake and that he meant instead to talk to me about the emails stolen from the DNC. So I agreed to talk to him, thinking that, whatever my views on then-candidate Trump, if a national campaign wanted an independent non-partisan view on the facts surrounding the case, I should provide it to the best of my ability.

Yet Smith had not contacted me about the DNC hack, but rather about his conviction that Clinton’s private email server had been hacked—in his view almost certainly both by the Russian government and likely by multiple other hackers too—and his desire to ensure that the fruits of those hacks were exposed prior to the election. Over the course of a long phone call, he mentioned that he had been contacted by someone on the “Dark Web” who claimed to have a copy of emails from Secretary Clinton’s private server, and this was why he had contacted me; he wanted me to help validate whether or not the emails were genuine.

Under other circumstances, I would have gone no further. After all, this was occurring in the final stretch of a U.S. presidential election, and I did not feel comfortable, and had no interest in, providing material help to either of the campaigns beyond merely answering questions on my already public analysis of Clinton’s emails, or of the DNC hack. (I’m not a U.S. citizen or resident, after all.) In any case, my suspicion then and now was that Hillary Clinton’s email server was likely never breached by Russia, and moreover that if Russia had a copy of Clinton’s emails, they would not waste them in the run-up to an election she was likely to win. I thus thought Smith’s search for her emails was in vain.

But following the DNC hack and watching the Russian influence campaign surrounding it unfold in near real-time, Smith’s comment about having been contacted by someone from the “Dark Web” claiming to have Clinton’s personal emails struck me as critically important. I wanted to find out whether this person was merely some fraudster wanting to take Smith for a ride or something more sinister: that is, whether Smith had been contacted by a Russian intelligence front with intent to use Smith as part of their scheme by laundering real or forged documents.

I never found out who Smith’s contact on the “Dark Web” was. It was never clear to me whether this person was merely someone trying to dupe Smith out of his money, or a Russian front, and it was never clear to me how they represented their own credentials to Smith.

Over the course of our conversations, one thing struck me as particularly disturbing. Smith and I talked several times about the DNC hack, and I expressed my view that the hack had likely been orchestrated by Russia and that the Kremlin was using the stolen documents as part of an influence campaign against the United States. I explained that if someone had contacted him via the “Dark Web” with Clinton’s personal emails, he should take very seriously the possibility that this may have been part of a wider Russian campaign against the United States. And I said he need not take my word for it, pointing to a number of occasions where US officials had made it clear that this was the view of the U.S. intelligence community as well.

Smith, however, didn’t seem to care. From his perspective it didn’t matter who had taken the emails, or their motives for doing so. He never expressed to me any discomfort with the possibility that the emails he was seeking were potentially from a Russian front, a likelihood he was happy to acknowledge. If they were genuine, they would hurt Clinton’s chances, and therefore help Trump.

When he first contacted me, I did not know who Smith was, but his legitimate connections within the Republican party were apparent. My motive for initially speaking to him was that I wondered if the campaign was trying to urgently establish whether the claims that Russia had hacked the DNC was merely “spin” from the Clinton campaign, or instead something they would need to address before Trump went too far down the road of denying it. My guess was that maybe they wanted to contact someone who could provide them with impartial advice to understand whether the claims were real or just rhetoric.

Although it wasn’t initially clear to me how independent Smith’s operation was from Flynn or the Trump campaign, it was immediately apparent that Smith was both well connected within the top echelons of the campaign and he seemed to know both Lt. Gen. Flynn and his son well. Smith routinely talked about the goings on at the top of the Trump team, offering deep insights into the bizarre world at the top of the Trump campaign. Smith told of Flynn’s deep dislike of DNI Clapper, whom Flynn blamed for his dismissal by President Obama. Smith told of Flynn’s moves to position himself to become CIA Director under Trump, but also that Flynn had been persuaded that the Senate confirmation process would be prohibitively difficult. He would instead therefore become National Security Advisor should Trump win the election, Smith said. He also told of a deep sense of angst even among Trump loyalists in the campaign, saying “Trump often just repeats whatever he’s heard from the last person who spoke to him,” and expressing the view that this was especially dangerous when Trump was away.

Over the course of a few phone calls, initially with Smith and later with Smith and one of his associates—a man named John Szobocsan—I was asked about my observations on technical details buried in the State Department’s release of Secretary Clinton’s emails (such as noting a hack attempt in 2011, or how Clinton’s emails might have been intercepted by Russia due to lack of encryption). I was also asked about aspects of the DNC hack, such as why I thought the “Guccifer 2” persona really was in all likelihood operated by the Russian government, and how it wasn’t necessary to rely on CrowdStrike’s attribution as blind faith; noting that I had come to the same conclusion independently based on entirely public evidence, having been initially doubtful of CrowdStrike’s conclusions.

Towards the end of one of our conversations, Smith made his pitch. He said that his team had been contacted by someone on the “dark web”; that this person had the emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email server (which she had subsequently deleted), and that Smith wanted to establish if the emails were genuine. If so, he wanted to ensure that they became public prior to the election. What he wanted from me was to determine if the emails were genuine or not.

It is no overstatement to say that my conversations with Smith shocked me. Given the amount of media attention given at the time to the likely involvement of the Russian government in the DNC hack, it seemed mind-boggling for the Trump campaign—or for this offshoot of it—to be actively seeking those emails. To me this felt really wrong.

In my conversations with Smith and his colleague, I tried to stress this point: if this dark web contact is a front for the Russian government, you really don’t want to play this game. But they were not discouraged. They appeared to be convinced of the need to obtain Clinton’s private emails and make them public, and they had a reckless lack of interest in whether the emails came from a Russian cut-out. Indeed, they made it quite clear to me that it made no difference to them who hacked the emails or why they did so, only that the emails be found and made public before the election.

In the end, I never saw the actual materials they’d been given, and to this day, I don’t know whether there were genuine emails, or whether Smith and his associates were deluding themselves.

By the middle of September, all contact between us ended. By this time, I had grown extremely uncomfortable with the situation, so when Smith and his colleague asked me to sign a non-disclosure agreement, I declined to do so. My suspicion was that the real purpose of the non-disclosure agreement was to retrospectively apply confidentiality to the conversations we had already had before that point. I refused to sign the non-disclosure and we went our separate ways.

As I mentioned above, Smith and his associates’ knowledge of the inner workings of the campaign were insightful beyond what could be obtained by merely attending Republican events or watching large amounts of news coverage. But one thing I could not place, at least initially, was whether Smith was working on behalf of the campaign, or whether he was acting independently to help the campaign in his personal capacity.

Then, a few weeks into my interactions with Smith, he sent me a document, ostensibly a cover page for a dossier of opposition research to be compiled by Smith’s group, and which purported to clear up who was involved. The document was entitled “A Demonstrative Pedagogical Summary to be Developed and Released Prior to November 8, 2016,” and dated September 7. It detailed a company Smith and his colleagues had set up as a vehicle to conduct the research: “KLS Research”, set up as a Delaware LLC “to avoid campaign reporting,” and listing four groups who were involved in one way or another.

The first group, entitled “Trump Campaign (in coordination to the extent permitted as an independent expenditure)” listed a number of senior campaign officials: Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Sam Clovis, Lt. Gen. Flynn and Lisa Nelson.

The largest group named a number of “independent groups / organizations / individuals / resources to be deployed.” My name appears on this list. At the time, I didn’t recognize most of the others; however, several made headlines in the weeks immediately prior to the election.

My perception then was that the inclusion of Trump campaign officials on this document was not merely a name-dropping exercise. This document was about establishing a company to conduct opposition research on behalf of the campaign, but operating at a distance so as to avoid campaign reporting. Indeed, the document says as much in black and white.

The combination of Smith’s deep knowledge of the inner workings of the campaign, this document naming him in the “Trump campaign” group, and the multiple references to needing to avoid campaign reporting suggested to me that the group was formed with the blessing of the Trump campaign. In the Journal’s story this evening, several of the individuals named in the document denied any connection to Smith, and it’s certainly possible that he was a big name-dropper and never really represented anyone other than himself. If that’s the case, Smith talked a very good game.

I’m sure readers are wondering: why did I keep quiet at the time? Actually, I didn’t. In the fall, prior to the election, I discussed the events of the story first with a friend, and secondly with a journalist. The trouble was that neither I nor the reporter in question knew what to make of the whole operation. It was certainly clear that the events were bizarre, and deeply unsettling. But it wasn’t reportable.

After all, Clinton’s private emails never materialized. We couldn’t show that Smith had been in contact with actual Russians. And while I believed—as I still do—that he was operating with some degree of coordination with the campaign, that was at least a little murky too. The story just didn’t make much sense—that is, until the Journal yesterday published the critical fact that U.S. intelligence has reported that Russian hackers were looking to get emails to Flynn through a cut-out during the Summer of 2016, and this was no idle speculation on my part.

Suddenly, my story seemed important—and ominous.

July 1, 2017

What's a recusal worth nowadays? Apparently nothing.

Despite recusal, Sessions offers advice on Trump-Russia probe

Spoiler

In a recent TV interview, Attorney General Jeff Sessions offered advice for Special Counsel Robert Mueller on hiring practices and the tempo of the Trump-Russia probe, despite indications from Sessions' top aide earlier this year that the attorney general would not field such media inquiries because of his recusal.

Sessions appeared for over eight minutes Friday on "Fox and Friends," a morning television program repeatedly praised by President Donald Trump, mostly to tout the implementation of Trump's travel ban executive order and progress on other measures aimed at cracking down on crimes committed by immigrants.

However, the latter portion of the interview was devoted to the ongoing investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race and any potential collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign. That probe is being conducted by former FBI Director Mueller, who was given a special counsel appointment in May by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

The Fox morning hosts asked Sessions a series of questions about Mueller's independence and alleged conflicts of interest on the part of his aides.

Sessions seemed a bit uncomfortable with the line of questioning, but responded to the queries anyway.

Asserting that Mueller and fired FBI Director James Comey are "very good friends," Fox host Ainsley Earhardt noted that Trump had called the relationship "bothersome." She then asked Sessions if he shared that view, given that examining Comey's firing appears to be part of the probe.

"Well, we need to have a — clear the air on this and let the system work its will. That’s all that can be done at this point. And we expect full integrity and good work from every part — every person involved in this investigation," the attorney general said.

Fox's Brian Kilmeade then asked if Sessions was troubled that Mueller has hired lawyers who have ties to Democratic politics or — as is the case with one Mueller deputy — previous legal work for the Clinton Foundation.

"Well, Mr. Mueller, is entitled, lawfully, I guess at this point, to hire who he desires, but I think he should look for people who have strength and credibility by all people," Sessions responded.

At that point, Fox's Steve Doocy chimed in, asking the attorney general if he has "full confidence" in Mueller.

"Mr. Mueller is someone I’ve known for a long time and I’ve had confidence in him over the years, yes," Sessions said.

"Over the years — but what about right now?" Doocy replied.

"Well, I feel confident what he’ll do. That’s all I can say to you about that. The man has a good reputation and knows his business. Hopefully, we can move forward and see this matter come to an end sooner, rather than later," Sessions added. He did not elaborate on just what he is confident Mueller will do.

The comments were curious because a March 2 memo from Sessions' chief of staff, Jody Hunt, said the attorney general's decision to recuse himself from all investigations related to the 2016 presidential race extended to media inquiries on that topic.

"The Attorney General's recusal is not only with respect to such investigations, if any, but also extends to Department responses to Congressional and media inquiries related to any such investigations," Hunt wrote in an email to top Justice officials, including Comey.

Some ethics experts said Sessions should not be opining publicly about Mueller's investigation.

"He should not be doing this," said Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush and now a law professor at the University of Minnesota and on the board of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

"Perhaps the [Hunt] memo should have been sent to Sessions as well, since his response to Fox and Friends seems to indicate that Sessions is not aware that his recusal extends to media statements about the Russia investigation," said Washington University law professor Kathleen Clark. "I believe that the White House and its allies are attempting to undermine Mueller's stellar reputation and his credibility. Sessions should not participate in this type of attempt to undermine Mueller's investigation."

However, another prominent expert said Sessions answers were bland enough that they were not worrisome.

"The interview doesn't trouble me. His answers are very general, not focused on the details or specifics of Mueller's activities," said New York University law professor Stephen Gillers.

Spokespeople for Sessions did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment on Sessions' remarks.

Although Sessions' answers on the Mueller topic seem innocent enough, it's the fact that he is willing to participate in the line of questioning, which was quite contentious to put it mildly, that is troubling. This way he can seemingly whipe his hands clean and say: "But I didn't really say anything one way or the other." However, it's common knowledge that one recieves the questions that are going to be asked before the inteview, to better formulate your answers. So it wasn't as if he didn't know they were going to ask these specific questions, in this specific and leading way. He should have stated he wouldn't answer any questions on this matter, or he wouldn't do the interview at all.

Sneaky way to influence public opinion.

July 1, 2017

Will Trump declare that all radios in the White House be tuned to this station?

Quote

The Russian state-sponsored news outlet Sputnik is entering the Washington, D.C., radio market in an effort to push back against what it called "constant attacks" by U.S. media companies.

Sputnik Radio announced Friday that it has taken over 105.5 FM, which previously aired bluegrass music.

In a statement, Mindia Gavasheli, the editor-in-chief of Sputnik's D.C. bureau, accused U.S. news organizations of unfairly attacking and criticizing the news outlet, which is funded by the Russian government.

"We're glad to finally be able to directly address our listeners in Washington. During the last few months Sputnik Radio has become the target of constant attacks in the US corporate media," Gavasheli said. "And often the people who wrote or spoke about us didn't even bother to listen to our broadcasts first."

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/340292-russian-radio-takes-over-local-dc-station?amp

July 1, 2017

4 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

Will Trump declare that all radios in the White House be tuned to this station?

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/340292-russian-radio-takes-over-local-dc-station?amp

This is really disconcerting.

'Unfairly attacking and criticizing'? Hmmmm, now where have we heard that before, not two days ago? Oh yeah, the White House...

July 2, 2017

"Michael Cohen Goes From Trump’s Inner Circle to Scrutiny in Russia Investigation"

Spoiler

Just over a decade ago, Donald J. Trump was locked in conflict with a group of apartment owners who had taken control of the condominium board at his new glass tower across from the United Nations. Faced with accusations of financial impropriety and an affront to his authority, Mr. Trump turned to Michael D. Cohen, a former personal injury lawyer who helped run a taxi fleet.

Mr. Cohen did not seem to have extensive expertise in the arcana of New York City condo rules. But he had something Mr. Trump seemed to value more: devotion to the Trump brand. He had already purchased a number of Trump properties and had persuaded his parents, in-laws and a business partner to buy apartments in Mr. Trump’s flashy new development, Trump World Tower.

Plus, he had read Mr. Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal.” Twice.

With Mr. Cohen’s help, Mr. Trump regained control of the board, orchestrating a coup that culminated in a standoff between his security detail and private guards hired by the disgruntled owners, according to people who were there. Details of the dispute’s resolution are secret because of a confidentiality agreement, but Mr. Cohen said that his task was “masterfully accomplished.”

He went on to serve as a key confidant for Mr. Trump, with an office near the boss at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. Officially, his title was special counsel, but he appears to have served more as a kind of personal arm-twister. If anyone crossed Mr. Trump or stood in his way, Mr. Cohen, who was known to sometimes carry a licensed pistol in an ankle holster, would cajole, bully or threaten a lawsuit, according to a half-dozen people who dealt with him over the years.

“If somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn’t like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump’s benefit,” Mr. Cohen once said during an interview with ABC News. “If you do something wrong, I’m going to come at you, grab you by the neck, and I’m not going to let you go until I’m finished.”

Since Mr. Trump became president, his need for loyal foot soldiers like Mr. Cohen has never been greater. But instead of helping his longtime employer navigate F.B.I. and congressional investigations into whether his campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 election, Mr. Cohen now appears to be outside the Trump inner circle, a man on the defensive.

The House Intelligence Committee has summoned him for questioning in its inquiry. (Mr. Cohen’s lawyer in Washington said his client was cooperating.) He is under scrutiny by the F.B.I., along with other Trump associates, in the Russia investigation. An unverified dossier prepared by a retired British spy and published this year said that Mr. Cohen had met overseas with Kremlin officials and other Russian operatives, which he has denied. (He once posted on Twitter, “The #RussianDossier is WRONG!”)

He has also attracted attention for playing a role in a failed effort to open a back channel for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, where his wife’s family is from.

After years of loyal service to Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen, 50, expected to be offered a senior administration post, according to four people who know him, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they feared angering Mr. Cohen.

He was given no such job.

On the networking site LinkedIn, Mr. Cohen refers to himself as the “personal attorney to President Donald J. Trump,” but his precise role and current relationship with the president is unclear, and he would not elaborate. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.In recent weeks, another lawyer, Marc E. Kasowitz, seems to have largely taken Mr. Cohen’s place as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer.

“Clearly my life has changed since Trump became POTUS and I accepted the role as personal attorney to the president,” Mr. Cohen wrote in a text message in response to a question from a New York Times reporter last week. “This change has come with both many pros and cons.”

And so Mr. Cohen has found himself increasingly relegated to the role of second-string defender. He has chastised critics, including Snoop Dogg (“There’s so much more that Snoop can do for this country”) and Johnny Depp (“Way to use your notoriety for good, Captain Jack-Ass!”).

Like Mr. Trump, he lashes out at critics on Twitter, where he also spends quite a bit of time fighting with anonymous critics, or trolls — calling them “haters” and “idiots,” sometimes within the comment threads of Mr. Trump’s tweets.

In one such exchange last week, a Twitter user named Corvetteman, who has 88 followers and a profile photograph of an orange cat, called Mr. Cohen “a joke.” Mr. Cohen replied: “Reminder...@realDonaldTrump won! Wake up #hater.”

Ascent to Trump Tower

Mr. Cohen was already a wealthy man with his own small real estate empire by the time he joined Mr. Trump’s orbit. Even so, his ascent from a lawyer handling personal injury cases out of an office shared with his taxi company — first in Manhattan, then in Queens — to the 26th floor of Trump Tower is a remarkable New York story.

Mr. Cohen comes from a long line of doctors and lawyers. His father survived the Holocaust in Poland and went on to become a physician on Long Island. An uncle close to the Cohen family, Morton W. Levine, is a doctor and businessman. He ran summer weight-loss and fitness camps for children decades ago and has long owned a Brooklyn catering hall, El Caribe, a popular site for weddings and retirement parties that was a meeting spot in the 1980s and 1990s for Italian and Russian mobsters. (Dr. Levine was never charged with any wrongdoing.)

In an interview, Mr. Cohen said he became a lawyer to appease one of his grandmothers, who threatened to leave him out of her will if he did not. “You don’t really have any money,” he said he replied, “to which she slapped me across my face.”

He saw himself as an entrepreneurial risk taker from an early age.

While a student at American University in Washington, he said he imported luxury cars into the United States. He also invested in a casino boat that went bust and helped his family organize an ethanol business in Ukraine that failed.

In 1992, he began working as a personal injury lawyer in New York and eventually opened his own practice. He and his family also began buying taxi medallions, purchased through companies with names like Sir Michael Hacking Corp and Mad Dog Cab Corp. He and his wife, Laura, acquired more than 30 New York City taxi medallions, once worth millions of dollars, and he owned 22 more in Chicago, according to public records.

He also once had his own political ambitions. He ran for the New York City Council as a Republican in 2003 and lost, and later flirted briefly with running for the New York State Senate, but dropped out after a month.

Several of the men he associated with in business dealings over the years faced legal problems of one sort or another. His boss at his first law firm, a personal injury practice, pleaded guilty to bribery in an insurance scheme. His father-in-law, who once also owned taxi medallions, pleaded guilty to tax-related charges more than two decades ago. Two of his partners in the taxi business have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and settlements for various violations. Mr. Cohen, though, has avoided legal troubles.

From 2011 to 2014, he purchased four small apartment buildings in Manhattan and sold them for a total of $32 million. In 2015, he paid $58 million for a seven-story apartment building on the Upper East Side.

Those who have known him for years said Mr. Cohen had a penchant for luxury, like Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen was married at the Pierre, a legacy luxury hotel overlooking Central Park, drove a Porsche in college and at one point owned a Bentley.

It was his purchase of blocks of apartments in Trump buildings starting around 2001 that seems to have caught Mr. Trump’s eye. At the time of the 2006 board dispute, Mr. Cohen was overseeing the finishing touches on his new apartment at Trump Park Avenue. Not long after the dispute was resolved, Mr. Cohen said, he was summoned to Trump Tower and offered a job.

At the time, he was a partner at the Phillips Nizer LLP law firm. He said that he immediately accepted Mr. Trump’s offer and never returned to his old office, where he had worked for about a year. Instead, he moved into an office previously used by Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump.

Explaining his relationship with Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen said in an interview last month with The Times, “When he finds someone who he considers capable, does a great job and accomplishes the task, he tends to go back to that person again and again and again.” He added, “He’s comfortable with people who he deems worthy.”

The scope of Mr. Cohen’s job with Mr. Trump is not clear. After a decade of working for the Trump Organization, he has left little public record of his accomplishments. An effort to develop Trump-branded golf communities in New Jersey and in Fresno, Calif., floundered, along with a mixed martial arts venture with a Russian fighter as the headliner. Mr. Cohen did some scouting and groundwork for possible Trump condominium towers in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Kazakhstan, but those deals never materialized.

He has declined to discuss the details of what he did at the company, and the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment. Some people who worked with him also declined to describe Mr. Cohen’s tenure, with several of them saying they feared being sued.

Mr. Cohen’s younger brother, Bryan Cohen, said he was a different person than his public appearances might suggest, describing him more as a father figure growing up in the Five Towns section of Long Island.

The man he became, Bryan Cohen surmised, would have made a good contestant on Mr. Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice.”

“I believe that my brother represents the type of person that the show depicted that Trump liked and appreciated,” Bryan Cohen said. “He had a combination of smarts, street smarts, and those things are not mutually exclusive. He’s successful, aggressive. That seemingly was a winning combination on the early seasons of ‘The Apprentice.’”

Throughout it all, Michael Cohen has clearly idolized his boss.

He has described Mr. Trump as “our patriarch” and “the greatest deal maker of this century.” He has said that he patterned his life after “The Art of the Deal,” and he shares Mr. Trump’s taste for boxy suits and long silk ties. He even sounds a bit like Mr. Trump, with a punchy edge to his New York accent.

Life on the Outside

Mr. Cohen said in January that he planned to leave his job with the Trump Organization to avoid any perception of a conflict of interest as one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers.

He has recently been spending time in Washington. The Republican National Committee named him to its finance leadership team this year, and in April, the international law firm and Washington lobbying powerhouse Squire Patton Boggs formed a “strategic alliance” with Mr. Cohen’s law practice.

Several people with knowledge of Mr. Cohen’s involvement with Squire Patton Boggs said he had been brought on as a sort of rainmaker because of his business contacts in the United States and abroad. He will operate out of the firm’s New York office and will be able to take advantage of its global reach to help his own clients.

He is also conferring with his lawyer, Stephen M. Ryan, of the firm McDermott, Will & Emery, to prepare for his appearance before the House committee. Its Senate counterpart is conducting its own Russia inquiry, with which Mr. Cohen is cooperating, the lawyer said, but that panel has not called Mr. Cohen for questioning.

Mr. Cohen is still working hard for Mr. Trump. In recent weeks, he was soliciting donations for the president’s victory fund, a joint fund-raising effort between Mr. Trump and the Republican National Committee. “Proud to say I raised over $500K today,” he said in a recent text message. He later said preliminary figures indicated that he had brought in about $2 million.

At a $35,000-a-plate fund-raiser last week at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, Mr. Trump acknowledged the efforts of his former employee, whom he said he had not seen in a month.

“Michael is a great lawyer, loyal, a wonderful person, talented, loves being on television,” Mr. Trump said, according to an audio recording of the event. “I miss you, man,” he added.

Another sycophant who needs to be escorted out in an orange jumpsuit.

July 5, 2017

"As Mueller builds his Russia special-counsel team, every hire is under scrutiny"

Spoiler

Robert S. Mueller III was greeted with near universal praise when he was appointed to lead the investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, but as he builds his special counsel team, his every hire is under scrutiny.

At least seven of the 15 lawyers Mueller has brought on to the special counsel team have donated to Democratic political candidates, five of them to Hillary Clinton — a fact that President Trump and his allies have eagerly highlighted. These critics also point to some of the lawyers’ history working with clients connected to the Clintons and Mueller’s long history with former FBI director James B. Comey as they question whether those assigned to the investigation can be impartial.

Many lawyers and ethics experts say they can see no significant legal or ethical concerns with the team’s political giving or past work, and they note that Trump often misstates the facts as he casts aspersions. But others say the optical problem is a real one that threatens to undermine public confidence in the probe.

“In my view, prosecutors who make political contributions are identifying fairly strongly with a political party,” said William P. Barr, who served as attorney general under George H.W. Bush. “I would have liked to see him have more balance on this group.”

Criticizing those conducting an investigation is not a new tactic: Democrats famously put Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr in the crosshairs during his examination of President Bill Clinton. And by raising questions about the investigators early, legal analysts said, Trump is laying the groundwork to question any results that are not to his liking.

“By staking out the position of partisanship through campaign contributions, the president simply is setting a stage for a public relations assault down the road,” said Jacob Frenkel, a defense lawyer at Dickinson Wright who previously worked in the now-defunct Office of the Independent Counsel.

Trump has called the special counsel’s investigation the “single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history,” adding that it was “led by some very bad and conflicted people!” In a more recent interview on Fox News, the president said that Mueller was “very, very good friends with Comey, which is very bothersome,” and that “the people that have been hired are all Hillary Clinton supporters, some of them worked for Hillary Clinton.”

“I mean the whole thing is ridiculous, if you want to know the truth from that standpoint,” Trump said. “But Robert Mueller’s an honorable man and hopefully he’ll come up with an honorable solution.”

Asked if Mueller would have to recuse himself, he said, “We’re going to have to see.”

Trump supporters have raised similar concerns. Former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich wrote on Twitter that Republicans were “delusional if they think the special counsel is going to be fair.” The pro-Trump group Great America Alliance released a video in which conservative commentator Tomi Lahren opined, “Only in Washington could a rigged game like this be called independent.”

But Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a strong Trump backer who has recused himself from the Russia probe, was more circumspect in an interview with “Fox & Friends” on Friday.

“Mr. Mueller is entitled lawfully, I guess at this point, to hire who he desires, but I think he should look for people who have strength and credibility by all people,” Sessions said.

Pressed on whether he had confidence in Mueller, Sessions said: “I feel confident in what he’ll do. That’s all I can say to you about that.”

Mueller has brought in 15 attorneys to work with him — among them former colleagues at the firm WilmerHale and veteran Justice Department lawyers, said Peter Carr, a spokesman for the Special Counsel’s Office. Only 13 have been publicly identified.

Put together, the team is a formidable collection of legal talent and expertise with experience prosecuting national security, fraud and public corruption cases, arguing matters before the Supreme Court and assessing complicated legal questions.

The team members include Michael Dreeben, a Justice Department deputy solicitor general who has argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court; Andrew Weissmann, the chief of the Justice Department’s fraud section; James Quarles, who worked as an assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force; and Jeannie Rhee, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel who also came from WilmerHale.

Rhee was on the team representing the Clinton Foundation, and another lawyer working with the special counsel, Aaron Zebley, once represented Clinton aide Justin Cooper. Zebley was Mueller’s chief of staff when Mueller served as FBI director.

Carr confirmed to The Washington Post that Brandon Van Grack, a Justice Department national security division prosecutor; Rush Atkinson, a trial attorney in the fraud section; and Andrew D. Goldstein, who had headed the public corruption unit in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York; and Zainab Ahmad, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York specializing in terrorism cases, also had been assigned to work with the group. Goldstein had worked in the office under U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who was fired by Trump after he refused to resign upon request and who has said publicly that he had unusual exchanges with the president. Ahmad was recently profiled by the New Yorker for having prosecuted 13 terrorism cases without a single loss.

Seven special counsel team members have donated to Democratic campaigns — five of those to Clinton’s — and their giving totals nearly $53,000. The other six that are publicly known to be on the team did not give any political contributions, records show.

Ethics experts said the giving should not preclude anyone’s participation. Justice Department policies and federal law actually prohibit discriminating based on political affiliation when it comes to hiring for nonpolitical positions — meaning Mueller might feel he cannot consider donation history when he makes hires.

“Bottom line is, I don’t see how donations are relevant,” said Richard Painter, who was the ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. “I’ve never heard of a single case where a prosecutor has been removed because of a political donation.”

Quarles’s donations were the most substantial. Over two decades, he gave more than $30,000 to various Democratic campaigns, including $2,700 to Clinton’s in 2016. But Quarles has also given to Republicans, contributing $2,500 in 2015 to Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and $250 to then-Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) in 2005.

Rhee donated nearly $12,000 to various Democratic campaigns, including President Barack Obama’s and Clinton’s, and Weissmann donated at least $6,600. Goldstein donated $3,300 to Obama’s campaigns. Three others — Van Grack, Atkinson and Elizabeth Prelogar, a lawyer in the Solicitor General’s office — donated less than $1,000 between them.

Some experts said Trump’s assertions — many of which misstate the facts — provide no real basis to question the team’s work.

“There’s a bipartisan consensus that the various, wild conflicts allegations that have been made by Trump and his allies are groundless,” said Norm Eisen, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as Obama’s ethics czar. “It just is not the case that lawyers or investigators are disqualified by political activity of this kind.”

Trump and his allies have also fixated on the longtime professional relationship between Mueller and Comey, but the president might be overstating their relationship.

The two men played central roles in a 2004 incident during the George W. Bush administration that has entered Washington lore, when both prepared to resign instead of go along with the reauthorization of a controversial surveillance program. The episode became particularly famous for Comey’s intervention at the hospital bed of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Comey could be a key figure in Mueller’s investigation. The special counsel’s probe includes a look at whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice in possibly trying to shut down the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Comey’s firing might be considered a piece of evidence in that case.

Ethics experts said they see no reason Mueller — who is registered as a Republican — would have a conflict. And David N. Kelley, Comey’s attorney, disputed Trump’s characterization of his client and Mueller’s connection.

“Bob and Jim have a congenial relationship as former colleagues. Both served long legal careers that involved overlapping time spent within the Department of Justice, and that’s pretty well documented. But beyond that, they’re not close, personal friends,” Kelley said. “They’re friends in the sense that co-workers are friends. They don’t really have a personal relationship.”

Kelley said Comey had never been to Mueller’s home, and Mueller had never been to Comey’s home. He said they had lunch together once and dinner together twice — once with their spouses and once after Comey became FBI director so Mueller could brief him on the job. Once, in 2004 with two others from the Justice Department, they played golf together, Kelley said.

Kelley said Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein knew of Mueller and Comey’s relationship before naming Mueller as the special counsel. Rosenstein himself was appointed by Trump.

“I don’t think Jim has given it a lot of thought, but why would Bob be conflicted?” Kelley said. “Bob’s not conducting an investigation where Jim is pitted against a target of the investigation. If anything, he’s a witness.”

Mueller also has professional connections, and some of those are allied with Trump.

Although he resigned to take the special counsel job, Mueller had worked for the law firm WilmerHale, whose lawyers represent Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; Trump’s daughter Ivanka; and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Justice Department ethics experts ultimately cleared him to lead the probe despite that, and Carr said they gave the same consideration and approval to others from his firm.

Of course the Agent Orange sycophants are going to whine about Mueller.

July 6, 2017

Well lookie here...

Broker, mobster, fraudster and Trump associate Felix Sater agrees to cooperate with investigation

Spoiler

This is news

that is likely to be heard wherever Donald Trump is staying tonight.

… Russia-born real estate dealmaker Felix Sater, who allegedly has organized crime links, had agreed to assist in an international probe into a Kazakh family’s real estate dealings in the U.S.— including one of Trump’s most famed properties, the Trump SoHo in downtown New York City.

Donald Trump’s relationship to former Bayrock executive Felix Sater is both complicated and deep. A decade ago, Trump was nursing a fresh bankruptcy and had burned so many bridges that legitimate sources wouldn’t lend him a dime.

By the 2000s, the property developer and casino owner with ready access to the capital markets and the biggest New York banks was no more.

Donald Trump, pretend real estate guy, did his pretending at the Trump Soho—a building actually constructed by a Kazkh oligarch and a company called Bayrock, where the number two guy was Felix Sater.

As a principal in the Bayrock Group, which worked with both Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump on a number of real estate deals between 2002 and roughly 2011, Sater worked to construct the Trump SoHo, Bloomberg reports. Sater has also previously claimed to have links to both the Kremlin and Russia’s KGB, the older version of Russia’s top security and intelligence services—now the FSB and SVR.

For Sater, the KGB isn’t even the most sordid part of his past—a past that features a stint as a mob informant.

He dropped out of college and began working as a stock broker. But in his late 20s he got into bar fight where he stabbed a fellow broker in the face with a shattered glass. He did time in prison for this attack. After he got out he got involved in a major securities fraud scheme (basically a ‘pump and dump’ operation) tied to the Genovese and Colombo crime families.

For Donald Trump, Sater’s agreement to roll over on Bayrock and its collection of former Soviet oligarchs is a very big deal. From the KGB, to the Mafia, to Donald Trump. Felix Sater has followed the money no matter what he had to do to find it. But he hasn’t been exactly mum about his former associates.

Mr. Sater pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering in the Wall Street case in 1998 as part of an agreement with US prosecutors to serve as a confidential informant in investigations involving organised crime and national security.

Now Sater seems set to protect himself again by describing his relationship to Trump.

In May, Trump told NBC that he has no property or investments in Russia. "I am not involved in Russia," he said.

But that doesn't address national security and other problems that might arise for the president if Russia is involved in Trump, either through potentially compromising U.S. business relationships or through funds that flowed into his wallet years ago. In that context, a troubling history of Trump's dealings with Russians exists outside of Russia: in a dormant real-estate development firm, the Bayrock Group, which once operated just two floors beneath the president's own office in Trump Tower.

Trump made efforts to disown Sater during the campaign, even saying that he had no idea who ran the Bayrock Group. He should expect a reminder. Including a refresher about this little incident:

Trump testified under oath in a 2007 deposition that Bayrock brought Russian investors to his Trump Tower office to discuss deals in Moscow, and said he was pondering investing there.

Trump didn’t buy any towers in Moscow. Why? Because in 2007, Donald Trump had no money. He was busy faking returns for the Taj Mahal Casino to make it look profitable to investors while hiding from tax collectors. It was the year that Trump was dragged into court and made to face that his “empire” was built on lies.

Trump had brought it on himself. He had sued a reporter, accusing him of being reckless and dishonest in a book that raised questions about Trump’s net worth. The reporter’s attorneys turned the tables and brought Trump in for a deposition. …

Trump had misstated sales at his condo buildings. Inflated the price of membership at one of his golf clubs. Overstated the depth of his past debts and the number of his employees.

Trump’s funds were disappearing. His ability to secure new finances was nonexistent. His visit from Russian investors wasn’t about bringing Trump to Moscow. It was about bringing Moscow to Trump.

… a series of very deep studies published in the [Financial Times] examined the structure and history of several major Trump real estate projects from the last decade—the period after his seventh bankruptcy and the cancellation of all his bank lines of credit. ...

The money to build these projects flowed almost entirely from Russian sources. In other words, after his business crashed, Trump was floated and made to appear to operate a successful business enterprise through the infusion of hundreds in millions of cash from dark Russian sources.

He was their man.

And now the man who delivered Trump to the Russian investors is ready to tell his story to investigators. A story that other people involved are already starting to spill.

In a series of interviews and a lawsuit, a former Bayrock insider, Jody Kriss, claims that he eventually departed from the firm because he became convinced that Bayrock was actually a front for money laundering.

This is a hunt that’s likely to find a whole cauldron full of witches. Let’s have one more description of Trump’s long-time partner.

One of Bayrock's principals was a career criminal named Felix Sater who had ties to Russian and American organized crime groups. Before linking up with the company and with Trump, he had worked as a mob informant for the U.S. government, fled to Moscow to avoid criminal charges while boasting of his KGB and Kremlin contacts there, and had gone to prison for slashing apart another man’s face with a broken cocktail glass.

Talk up a storm, Felix. Maybe Robert Mueller would like to hear from you, as well.

Sign In

The Russian Connection

Recommended Posts

Cartmann99

Link to comment

Share on other sites

GreyhoundFan

Link to comment

Share on other sites

GreyhoundFan

Link to comment

Share on other sites

GreyhoundFan

Link to comment

Share on other sites

bashfulpixie

Link to comment

Share on other sites

fraurosena

Link to comment

Share on other sites

GrumpyGran

Link to comment

Share on other sites

GreyhoundFan

Link to comment

Share on other sites

onekidanddone

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Cartmann99

Link to comment

Share on other sites

GreyhoundFan

Link to comment

Share on other sites

GreyhoundFan

Link to comment

Share on other sites

GreyhoundFan

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Audrey2

Link to comment

Share on other sites

fraurosena

Link to comment

Share on other sites

GreyhoundFan

Link to comment

Share on other sites

nvmbr02

Link to comment

Share on other sites

fraurosena

Link to comment

Share on other sites

candygirl200413

Link to comment

Share on other sites

fraurosena

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Cartmann99

Link to comment

Share on other sites

fraurosena

Link to comment

Share on other sites

GreyhoundFan

Link to comment

Share on other sites

GreyhoundFan

Link to comment

Share on other sites

fraurosena

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Archived

Topics