Russian Connection 5: In Which We Plan Sleepovers

[fraurosena]

Oleg Deripaska. Remember him? He was named multiple times in the Mueller report.

This is his residence being raided.

Here's more under the spoiler:

Spoiler

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Giuliani associate Lev Parnas convicted in campaign finance fraud case"

Quote

NEW YORK — Lev Parnas, a Florida businessman who is an associate of Rudolph W. Giuliani, was found guilty on Friday of using funds from a foreign investor to try to influence political candidates through campaign donations.

It took the federal jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan less than a day to find that Parnas committed fraud through donations to several state and federal candidates that were bankrolled by a Russian financier. Parnas was also found guilty on counts related to a $325,000 donation in 2018 to a joint fundraising committee that supported then-president Donald Trump.

Prosecutors told the jury that the illegal fundraising efforts documented in text messages and other trial evidence gave Parnas access to elected officials and candidates. They showed photos of Parnas with Trump and Giuliani, who was the president’s personal lawyer, schmoozing at high-end political fundraisers.

Prosecutors also said Parnas lied to the Federal Elections Committee about the source of the hefty 2018 donation, which he said in filings was from his start-up company Global Energy Producers. The company was in fact not profitable and not functioning as a real business, prosecutors argued. The donation was actually sourced through a mortgage refinance loan obtained by Parnas’s business partner, Igor Fruman, the jury found.

Fruman — whose alleged role in the events was regularly discussed in testimony at the trial — pleaded guilty last month to one count of soliciting foreign campaign contributions. He’s due to be sentenced early next year.

While Parnas’s trial did not directly relate to Giuliani or Trump, the guilty verdict still provides a legal coda to a precarious moment in Trump’s presidency: his first impeachment trial. Parnas, a Ukrainian native, was recruited to help Giuliani seek damaging information on President Biden and his son Hunter prior to the 2020 election. Trump was accused of threatening to withhold badly-needed aid to Ukraine if officials there did not announce a criminal investigation into the Bidens.

Parnas and Fruman were arrested on the campaign-finance charges in October 2019, just as news broke of a phone call in which Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to open the investigation. Once a Trump fan, Parnas then turned on the president, offering documents and assistance to congressional Democrats and apologizing for his role in Giuliani’s scheme.

Parnas is also slated to face a second trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan for charges related to defrauding investors in what prosecutors say was another sham company — Fraud Guarantee.

The venture purported to offer a service to other companies that protected them from fraud. But prosecutors allege that Parnas and another man, David Correia, were actually stealing from their investors. Correia has pleaded guilty to charges related to his role in that case.

As of now, Parnas will not be sentenced until after that trial.

In the trial that wrapped up this week, prosecutors alleged that Parnas used money from Russian financier Andrey Muraviev to try to curry favor with candidates he believed could help him and Fruman win licenses to operate cannabis businesses.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Cordell Scotten noted that Parnas’s own former assistant, who testified under an immunity agreement with the Justice Department, said Parnas knew the laws he was skirting by concealing the true source of donations to candidates in several states where cannabis had recently been legalized.

“Parnas was told again and again that he couldn’t donate someone else’s money, and he couldn’t donate except from a citizen or a legal resident,” Scotten said.

One donation at issue in the trial was $10,000 in Fruman’s name that went to Adam Laxalt, the former attorney general in Nevada, who had ties to Trump and filed lawsuits on his behalf to try to overturn the election results in his state. Laxalt lost a race for Nevada governor in 2018.

Prosecutors say Muraviev sent two $500,000 payments that were meant to be infused into campaign coffers for people seeking offices like governor and state attorney general. Parnas and Fruman allegedly used some of the money to pay bills.

Parnas’s lawyer Joseph Bondy argued Thursday in summations that the case was “absurd” and that Parnas wasn’t hiding his activities.

Andrey Kukushkin, who was also on trial for allegedly conspiring to use Muraviev’s money to get licenses for marijuana businesses, was convicted on multiple counts.

His attorney Gerald Lefcourt argued in summations that his client was unaware of Parnas’s maneuvering in politics circles and that he “never intended to do anything illegal.”

Lefcourt said Parnas and Fruman thought Kukushkin was a “rube … someone they could get over on” to help them get to Muraviev’s money.

Parnas and Kukushkin are both naturalized U.S. citizens.

 

[Howl]

 

[fraurosena]

5 hours ago, Howl said:

 

I mean, that’s all great and all, but when your house is actively being burned down by some of the people living in it, focusing on keeping burglars out should not be your priority right now…

[Howl]

4 hours ago, fraurosena said:

I mean, that’s all great and all, but when your house is actively being burned down by some of the people living in it, focusing on keeping burglars out should not be your priority right now…

True, I wish that award was going toward finding the final absolute, indisputable link between Trump and Jan 6th. It may or may not be Patsy Baloney, ooops, I mean Pat Cippilone. 

Alternately, they are looking for one specific person or group of people they know are set up to rat fuck the 2022 and 2024 elections, because they (bad guys) have done all the ground work, know what works. Their footprints were found in 2016 and 2020 and they have to be sorted out before 2022 and 2024. 

Edited July 2, 2022 by Howl

[Xan]

4 hours ago, fraurosena said:

I mean, that’s all great and all, but when your house is actively being burned down by some of the people living in it, focusing on keeping burglars out should not be your priority right now…

The one plus that I can see with this is that it might further tarnish the right wing.  If more proof comes to light about the Russians' involvement in both 2016 and 2020, the less "patriotic" the right wing looks.  They're not good citizens.  They're just Putin's patsies.

[fraurosena]

1 minute ago, Xan said:

The one plus that I can see with this is that it might further tarnish the right wing.  If more proof comes to light about the Russians' involvement in both 2016 and 2020, the less "patriotic" the right wing looks.  They're not good citizens.  They're just Putin's patsies.

I agree with your point. However, finding that out will amount to absolutely nothing when there are no consequences. If states can simply overturn any election results they don't like (and you can bet that this SCOTUS will let them do it), then even if people wanted to throw them out and overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, it won't matter in the slightest. 

 

[47of74]

Figures 

Quote

The 'fake McDonald's' replacement that has recently opened up in Russia has come under fire for serving mouldy hamburgers. 

McDonald's closed all of their Russian stores in protest of the country's ongoing war with Ukraine, but the Russian people wanted hamburgers and the original stores were soon taken over.

However, it looks like the new company Vkusno & Tochka - or 'Tasty and that's it' - is struggling to maintain the standards that have made the real McDonald's a fast food favourite.

The newly rebranded stores were bought from the real McDonald's and reopened in June of this year, but disturbing photographs of the mouldy burgers are now in circulation.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[47of74]

Dubuque severed a sister city relationship 

Quote

A special committee recently voted to end Dubuque's sister city relationship with a Russian city. 

The Sister City Committee of Travel Dubuque has agreed to suspend Dubuque's sister city status with Pyatigorsk, Russia, according to a press release. The committee arrived at the decision following discussion in which members of Dubuque’s Ukrainian community shared concerns about Dubuque maintaining a relationship with Pyatigorsk as Russia wages war against Ukraine.

The release states that the sister city status suspension is indefinite and will include the ending of all communication with Pyatigorsk and removing any visual or digital presence of the Russian city in Dubuque. 

 

[fraurosena]

At this point in time, I can't really say I'm that surprised...

 

[fraurosena]

More on McGonigal.

More under spoiler:

Spoiler

The complete text of the above tweet:

t

 

The continuation of the tweet-thread:

 

 

[Becky]

3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

More on McGonigal.

More under spoiler:

  Reveal hidden contents

The complete text of the above tweet:

t

 

The continuation of the tweet-thread:

 

 

Why on earth is this not front page news in the USA?  

[Audrey2]

56 minutes ago, Becky said:

Why on earth is this not front page news in the USA?  

But Hunter Biden's laptop! But her emails!

[GreyhoundFan]

The whole McGonigal situation reminds me of Robert Hanssen. If you're interested, the film, "Breach", which is about Hanssen, is very interesting. Chris Cooper does a great job playing him in the film.

[CTRLZero]

Here is the DOJ link re McGonigal for future reference:  

DOJ link to McGonigal and Shestakov indictment info

[fraurosena]

8 hours ago, Becky said:

Why on earth is this not front page news in the USA?  

To be fair, Rachel Maddow had a whole section on him Monday night.

Edited January 24, 2023 by fraurosena
Stupid autocorrect fail

[fraurosena]

@Becky here's a link to the YouTube video. It starts where her story on McGonigal begins:

 

[CTRLZero]

44 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

a link to the YouTube video. It starts where her story on McGonigal begins:

Thanks for posting this.  As Mary McCord describes it, his actions may derail a number of other cases and investigations in which he had a presence.  This is really a complex and super-interesting case to monitor. 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

This is an interesting thread summarizing the Russian connections and meddling in American politics. It's lengthy so I'll put the rest under a spoiler. Sadly, no unrolled version available yet.

Spoiler

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Xan]

Marina Yankina, 58, a top Putin war official was found dead after falling 160 feet from a window in her apartment building.  It's yet another case of Russian window cancer.  Of course, the police are saying it was a suicide.  I wonder how many more insiders are going to be killed before Putin finally stops?

[fraurosena]

8 hours ago, Xan said:

I wonder how many more insiders are going to be killed before Putin finally stops?

Putin will never stop. He is too far gone for that.

The killing of real or perceived enemies will continue until Putin expires or someone forcibly and permanently removes him. 

[Dandruff]

8 hours ago, fraurosena said:

The killing of real or perceived enemies will continue until Putin expires or someone forcibly and permanently removes him.

Enemies...or scapegoats?  If the latter, then that's one potent employee incentive program he's got going on.  I'm imagine the staff all appreciate the gravity (sorry) of their situation but have few to no options once in it.