Russian Connection 5: In Which We Plan Sleepovers

[fraurosena]

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Good grief. At first I misread that and thought he had been sentenced to 14 years in prison, and thought that was pretty harsh for a plea deal. Then I saw it was 14 days, and had to do a 180. That is incredibly lenient, even if he was remorseful.

[fraurosena]

The presiduncial reaction. No collusion!

What’s that money he’s going on about?

[AmazonGrace]

The cost of Rigged Witch Hunt?

[AmazonGrace]

 

Edited September 8, 2018 by AmazonGrace

[AmazonGrace]

Randy Credico showed up with his dog 

 

[AmazonGrace]

Butina thread 

 

[AmazonGrace]

Did they tell Donald? 

 

[fraurosena]

43 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Did they tell Donald? 

Of course not. And if they did, he wasn't listening. And if he was listening, he didn't understand it. And if he did understand it, he forgot. 

[Howl]

From the Bloomberg article in the tweet posted by @AmazonGrace upthread: 

Quote

The Democratic National Committee, which is suing Russia, the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks for interfering in the 2016 election, said in a court filing Friday that it believes all the defendants in the case have been served with the complaint, “with the exception of Mifsud (who is missing and may be deceased).”

Mifsud has always been a murky character in the Russia drama, but holy crap if he's been disappeared......that sends a serious message. 

Also, did not realize that DNC was suing Russia for election interference. 

If you want to read about Mifsud's incredibly checkered and Byzantine past, go back to this BBC article from March.

Joseph Mifsud: The mystery professor behind Trump Russia inquiry

Peripatetic doesn't quite encompass his wanderings. And (IIRC) Mifsud's academic credentials are parallel to those of Carter Page and Seb Gorka -- lame and wouldn't stand up to close scrutiny. 

Mifsud has (had?) a fiancée "based in Ukraine" who gave birth to their daughter, but hasn't seen or heard from him for "months" (presumably less than 9). 

 

Edited September 8, 2018 by Howl

[fraurosena]

Oh dear, this can't be good for the DOJ's resident evil keebler elf...

 

[fraurosena]

Quelle surprise!

 

[AmazonGrace]

Aww I didn't realize it was a Georgeopoulos duet 

 

[Howl]

When is George due to start his onerous 14-day gig in the gray bar hotel?

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

Rick Perry surfaces in Moscow on 9/11

 

[Drala]

The Urgent Question of Trump and Money Laundering.  By David Leonhardt.  NYTimes.

Spoiler

Donald Trump has a long history of doing what he thinks is best for Donald Trump. If he needs to discard friends, allies or wives along the way, so be it. “I’m a greedy person,” he has explained.

It’s important to keep this trait in mind when trying to make sense of the Russia story. Trump’s affinity for Russia, after all, is causing problems for him. It has created tensions with his own staff and his Republican allies in Congress. Most voters now believe he has something to hide. And the constant talk of Russia on television clearly enrages Trump.

He could make his life easier if only he treated Vladimir Putin the way he treats most people who cause problems — and cast Putin aside. Yet Trump can’t bring himself to do so.

This odd refusal is arguably the biggest reason to believe that Putin really does have leverage over Trump. Maybe it’s something shocking, like a sex tape or evidence of campaign collusion by Trump himself. Or maybe it’s the scandal that’s been staring us in the face all along: Illicit financial dealings — money laundering — between Trump’s business and Russia.

The latest reason to be suspicious is Trump’s attacks on a formerly obscure Justice Department official named Bruce Ohr. Trump has repeatedly criticized Ohr and called for him to be fired. Ohr’s sin is that he appears to have been marginally involved in inquiries into Trump’s Russian links. But Ohr fits a larger pattern. In his highly respected three-decade career in law enforcement, he has specialized in going after Russian organized crime.

It just so happens that most of the once-obscure bureaucrats whom Trump has tried to discredit also are experts in some combination of Russia, organized crime and money laundering.

It’s true of Andrew McCabe (the former deputy F.B.I. director whose firing Trump successfully lobbied for), Andrew Weissmann (the only official working for Robert Mueller whom Trump singles out publicly) and others. They are all Trump bogeymen — and all among “the Kremlin’s biggest adversaries in the U.S. government,” as Natasha Bertrand wrote in The Atlantic. Trump, she explained, seems to be trying to rid the government of experts in Russian organized crime.

I realize that this evidence is only circumstantial and well short of proof. But it’s one of many suspicious patterns about Trump and Russia. When you look at them together, it’s hard to come away thinking that the most likely explanation is coincidence.

Consider: The financially rickety Trump Organization, shunned by most mainstream banks, long relied on less scrupulous Russian investors. “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Donald Trump Jr. said a decade ago. “We have all the funding we need out of Russia,” Eric Trump reportedly said in 2013. And what was the rare major bank to work with Trump? Deutsche Bank, which has a history of illegal Russian money laundering.

Trump also had a habit of selling real estate to Russians in all-cash deals. Money launderers like such deals, because they can turn illegally earned cash into a legitimate asset, usually at an inflated price that rewards the seller for the risk. One especially dubious deal was Trump’s $95 million sale of a Palm Beach house to a Russian magnate in 2008 — during the housing bust, only four years after Trump had bought the house for $41 million.

Then there is Trump’s paranoia about scrutiny of his businesses. He has refused to release his tax returns. He said that Mueller’s investigation would cross a red line by looking into his finances. When word leaked (incorrectly) that Mueller had subpoenaed Deutsche Bank’s records on Trump, he moved to fire Mueller (only to be dissuaded by aides). Trump is certainly acting as if his business history contains damaging information.

For months, Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has been trying to get Congress to pay attention to the possibility of money laundering. He points out that Mueller’s mandate does not necessarily include a full investigation of Trump’s businesses. But those businesses could still have behaved in ways that give Putin, a hostile foreign leader, leverage over the president of the United States.

“We need to find out whether that is the case and say so. Or we need to find out that is not the case and say so,” Schiff told me. “But to leave it as an unanswered question, I just think would be negligent to our national security.” So far, congressional Republicans have chosen negligence.

Which means that the November elections may determine whether we ever get answers. If Democrats win House control, Schiff will gain subpoena power. If Republicans keep control, just imagine how emboldened Trump will feel. He could mount a full-on assault on the rule of law by shutting down Mueller’s investigation and any other official scrutiny of the Trump Organization.

At this point, who can doubt that Trump wants to do so? Presumably, he has a good reason.

 

[Howl]

And now, a tweet from crazytown!   

I don't think the Mifsud thing is over; nobody knows if he's dead or alive, or if they do, they're not saying. 

Raise your hand if you think Mifsud is a western intelligence asset rather than a Russian asset.  Anyone?  Anyone?  Simona is working hard to rehabilitate George.  

[GreyhoundFan]

[AmazonGrace]

George is mad the Brits were on to him 

 

[Howl]

George is heading off the deep end in to deep state crazytown.  And the fiancée?  

Josh Marshall has good op-ed on the topic, addressing the tweets posted by @AmazonGrace above. 

Papadopoulos Back on Deep State Bandwagon

Final paragraph:

Quote

 I’ve spoken to various people who have spoken to one or both or them over the last year. None of them can figure the two out. Listen in his on-air interviews, George reads like either a complete dope or someone who is hiding something. Maybe it’s both. But I continue to believe that neither one of these people – George or Simona – is who they claim to be.

 

Edited September 11, 2018 by Howl

[AmazonGrace]

Simona has an Italian name but on TV her accent sounds pretty Russian to me.

What connections does George have to Sisi?

[AmazonGrace]

Georgeopoulos interviews Georgeopoulos 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

NO COLLUSION! 

 

[AmazonGrace]