10:00 AM 1/24/2019 - Sara, Sara! Our boy wanz to be in zi movi-e-e-e-z-z-z!!!: "It was flattering when Felix Sater reached out to me to see if I would follow up on my idea to write a screenplay based on his life..." - Washington Monthly | A Connection Between the Moscow Tower and the Trump Tower Meeting

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Thursday January 24th, 2019 at 9:02 AM

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"It was flattering when Felix Sater reached out to me to see if I would follow up on my idea to write a screenplay based on his life..."

Sara, Sara! 

Our boy wanz to be in zi movi-e-e-e-z-z-z!!!

Washington Monthly | A Connection Between the Moscow Tower and the Trump Tower Meeting

Thursday January 24th, 2019 at 8:32 AM

Washington Monthly

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It was flattering when Felix Sater reached out to me to see if I would follow up on my idea to write a screenplay based on his life, but I’m really not very interested in getting mixed up in his business. The idea was actually a joke, but Sater took it seriously. In truth, I don’t think I’d be up to the challenge of trying to unravel his life for the big screen.

Sater is in the news again because of his central role in brokering a deal between IC Expert CEO Andrey Rozov and the Trump Organization to build a skyscraper in Moscow that would have been the tallest building in Europe. On Tuesday, Buzzfeed News published the detailed plans for that tower. I now have reason to believe that there’s a connection between the Moscow Tower deal, which was formalized in a letter of intent signed on October 28, 2015, and the infamous Trump Tower meeting that occurred on June 9, 2016. But fully explaining the link is not possible in a blog-length post. Instead, I will just point you in the right direction.

Back in October 2018, independent journalist Wendy Siegelman did some sleuthing and discovered that in December 2015 Felix Sater and Andrey Rozov had teamed up to sell a Manhattan property located at 22 West 38th Street. It’s not that surprising that Sater and Rozov were working on two distinct real estate deals at the same time, but the New York-based accountant, Ilya Bykov, who was involved in the West 38th Street transaction is the same accountant who helped Azerbaijani oligarch Aras Agalarov create a shell company in Delaware just prior to the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting. Agalarov, you will remember, was responsible for bringing Donald Trump’s beauty contest to Moscow in 2013, and it was his son Emil who reached out to Donald Trump Jr. to offer dirt on Hillary Clinton.

The shell company, called Silver Valley Consulting, has attracted the attention of investigators because eleven days before the June 9 meeting, Mr. Agalarov moved “$19.5 million from an offshore investment vehicle to a US bank account” for the newly established corporation.

A Russian billionaire who orchestrated the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting formed a new American shell company a month beforehand with an accountant who has had clients accused of money laundering and embezzlement.

The billionaire, Aras Agalarov, created the US company anonymously while preparing to move almost $20m into the country during the time of the presidential election campaign, according to interviews and corporate filings.

The company was set up for him in May 2016 by his Russian-born accountant, who has also managed the US finances of compatriots accused of mishandling millions of dollars. One of those clients has its own connection to the Trump Tower meeting.

As independent investigator Scott Stedman put it, “The intersection of Rozov, Sater, Bykov, Agalarov and the shell company that purchased 22 West 38th Street, resulting in an $8M profit for Rozov in the midst of negotiating Trump Tower Moscow will surely pique the interest of congressional and federal authorities.”

The reason these connections cannot be concisely explained in a blog post is because they sprawl into many different areas of interest. Much of this can be explored in Siegelman’s article from last October. The Cliff Notes version that I will give you here is that it centers around the Russians’ efforts to fight back against the Magnitsky Act. All the work that Natalia Veselnitskaya was doing in the United States centered around that effort, very much including her agenda in the Trump Tower meeting. In fact, the simplest way of understanding the Trump Tower meeting is that it was a proposed deal to provide the campaign with dirt on Clinton in exchange for a commitment to roll back the Magnitsky Act if Trump were elected.

Up until now, there has been no suggestion that there was a similar connection between the Moscow Tower proposal and the Magnitsky Act, but some of same players are emerging as having been involved in both of these negotiations. For example, the accountant Ilya Bykov connects both with Sater and Rozov’s real estate deal and with Agalarov’s shell company. In the latter case, the suspicion is that Agalarov was moving $20 million into an American account for some purpose related to the Trump Tower meeting.

Some of the best reporting on the Russia investigation has been done by independent journalists. Scott Stedman has been doing excellent work tracking down the financial shenanigans involved, and he reported in December that the Trump Organization had not done much due diligence before partnering with the IC Expert to build their Moscow skyscraper.

Andrey Rozov, the IC Expert Chairman and Trump LOI signatory, founded the company in 2005. The company’s first project was awarded in 2011 for a residential development project called Novokosino-2 in the city of Reutov, a suburb of Moscow. Sberbank appears to have provided the initial financing for the project, as well.

That same year, Rozov was involved in a fatal boating accident in the harbor of Crocus City. Rozov was charged with negligent homicide, yet the case stalled and it is unclear what became of the charges.

By the end of 2014, IC Expert had become mired in scandal over its failure to construct thousands of apartment units paid for by home buyers. The Novokosino project has required ongoing intervention by local and regional government officials to address the growing protests of co-investors. Even under this supposed government supervision, many of the buildings — first promised in July 2015 and then December 2015 — still remain under construction. Yet in 2015, Rozov’s scandal-plagued IC Expert was looking to expand into the luxury skyscrapers sector in Moscow City. The licensing deal with Trump was predicated on the firm’s ability to secure financing, land, and government permission. It included an initial $4 million dollar ‘upfront’ payment to ‘Trump Acquisition LLC and/or one or more of its affiliates’. It is unclear whether such a payment was ever made.

The project was deemed so “important” to Cohen that in January 2016, he reached out to Putin’s spokesperson Peskov for help. In that email, Cohen wrote, “without getting into lengthy specifics, the communication between our two sides has stalled.”

Trump’s lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, is the lead defense counsel for Sberbank in a Manhattan case. During Trump’s trip to Moscow in 2013, he met with the Sberbank CEO Herman Gref. “There was a good feeling from the meeting,” Gref said in an interview. “He’s a sensible person, very lively in his responses, with a positive energy and a good attitude toward Russia.”

The deal signed by Trump and his lawyer Michael Cohen offers no signs that they properly vetted IC Expert. Neither mystery offshore owners nor a homicide appears to have deterred them from signing the Letter of Intent. Doing business deals with shady characters in foreign countries open political candidates up to potentially being compromised. This material can be held against the political figure in order to ensure loyalty.

In that piece, Stedman does not mention Felix Sater. But, of course, it was Sater who took the lead in making these connections on Michael Cohen’s behalf. Whether by design or by accident, Sater could have compromised Donald Trump and the Trump Organization, leaving them vulnerable to exposure and blackmail. As with everything else in his life, it’s very hard to understand here who Sater was working for and what kind of game he was playing. In some ways, I’d enjoy writing a screenplay about his life, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand all of this well enough to do him justice.

As for the implications for the Russia investigation, there is clear evidence here that the Trump Organization was looking for ways to ingratiate itself with Vladimir Putin in furtherance of getting a deal to build a tower in Moscow. The Russians dangled a deal, got Trump to sign on the dotted line, and then held that over him as they attempted to get him to make commitments should he actually become president. The Magnitsky Act was one of their main targets, but so was undermining the European Union, breaking up NATO, getting America to leave Syria, getting a recognition of their right to Crimea, and sanctions relief. Trump has pursued all of these things and more since becoming president.

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Trump's approval rating sinks in new poll as he gets most of blame for shutdown

Thursday January 24th, 2019 at 8:31 AM

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A strong majority of Americans blame President Donald Trump for the record-long government shutdown and reject his primary rationale for a border wall, according to a new poll that shows the turmoil in Washington is dragging his approval rating to its lowest level in more than a year.

Overall, 34 percent of Americans approve of Trump's job performance in a survey conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That's down from 42 percent a month earlier and nears the lowest mark of his two-year presidency. The president's approval among Republicans remains close to 80 percent, but his standing with independents is among its lowest points of his time in office.

"Trump is responsible for this," said poll respondent Lloyd Rabalais, a federal contractor from Slidell, Louisiana, who's not affiliated with either political party.

The 47-year-old has been furloughed for more than a month. He said he'd need to start drawing on his retirement savings next week to pay his bills if the shutdown continues.

"I do support a wall, but not the way he's handling it," Rabalais added. "Trump guaranteed everybody that Mexico would pay for the wall. Now he's holding American workers like me hostage."

The drop in approval comes as Trump begins the third year of his presidency under the weight of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, an international trade war that's straining the global economy and new revelations about his push for a real estate deal in Russia during his 2016 campaign.

Compared with earlier presidents, Trump's approval rating has been relatively stable over the course of his presidency, ranging from the mid-30s to the mid-40s.

By contrast, President Barack Obama never fell below 40 percent in polling by Gallup. Still, five presidents since Gallup began measuring presidential approval have had their rating fall into the 20s at least once, including Harry S. Truman, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. Trump has never fallen into that range of historic lows, but he's also the only president never to have reached 50 percent in Gallup's polling.

The new AP-NORC poll shows most Americans see the shutdown as a major problem, and they blame Trump far more than congressional Democrats for the mess that has ensnared the lives of roughly 800,000 government workers who are going without pay.

Sixty percent of Americans say Trump bears a great deal of responsibility for the shutdown. About a third place the same amount of blame on congressional Democrats (31 percent) or Republicans (36 percent).

Sixty-five percent of Americans, including 86 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents and 33 percent of Republicans, call the shutdown a major problem.

Trump may be popular overall with Republicans, but a sizable share holds him responsible for the current situation. Almost 3 in 10 Republicans think Trump bears a great deal of responsibility, while 73 percent of his party says he's at least partly responsible.

"The large part of the responsibility belongs to the president because he made the decision," said poll respondent Sandra Olson, of Northwood, Iowa. The 76-year-old registered Republican said she voted for Trump once and likely will again.

"We have never in my lifetime seen a president who has been so maligned and attacked and vilified," Olson said.

Trump's demand for a $5.7 billion border wall is also unpopular.

Overall, 49 percent of Americans oppose the plan to build a massive wall along the Mexican border; 36 percent of the nation is in favor. Opinions fall largely along ideological lines, with 8 in 10 Democrats opposing the wall and nearly 8 in 10 Republicans supporting it.

About 7 in 10 supporters of the wall prefer to extend the shutdown than to reach a deal without funding it, while a nearly identical number on the other side would rather the shutdown continue than provide that funding.

The poll shows significant skepticism of the president's argument that a wall would significantly reduce crime, stem the flow of illegal drugs or help the U.S. economy. The poll was conducted the week after Trump used such factors to justify his demand for the wall during a primetime address from the Oval Office.

In the nationally televised speech, he highlighted the case of one immigrant in the country illegally accused of beheading and dismembering an American citizen.

About 6 in 10 Americans do say the wall would at least slightly decrease the number of people entering the U.S. illegally, though only 3 in 10 think the number would significantly decrease. Yet just 35 percent of Americans believe the wall would make the country safer, while a majority of Americans — 57 percent— believe it would make no difference to safety in the U.S. Only 21 percent believe the wall would significantly reduce the availability of illegal drugs in the nation, though 28 percent say access to illegal drugs would be slightly reduced; 49 percent say the wall would have no effect.

On the economy, about as many Americans say the border wall would do more to help — almost 3 in 10 — as say it would do more to hurt; 43 percent say the wall would not make much difference to the U.S. economy.

Poll respondent Kelley Thorson, of St. Robert, Missouri, who backed Trump in the 2016 election, says she supports the wall but largely disagrees with the president's rationale.

"I can't say it would make us safer," the 57-year-old said. "Criminals are going to get here no matter what."

While partisan opinions of Trump have remained relatively constant throughout his presidency, the poll shows that disapproval has grown particularly among independents who do not lean toward either party.

Just 28 percent of independents say they approve, compared with 71 percent who disapprove. In December, 37 percent of independents approved of Trump's job performance, while 58 percent disapproved.

Women also are more likely to disapprove today compared with a month ago — 71 percent to 58 percent. And 76 percent of college graduates disapprove today, compared with 65 percent who disapproved in December.

The president isn't doing anything well right now, said poll respondent J. Edwin Hixson, a 71-year-old retired truck driver from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who didn't vote for Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

"This isn't a reality show. We're in serious trouble," he said.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,062 adults was conducted Jan. 16 to 20 using a sample drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone.

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German Intelligence Chief Wilhelm Franz Canaris - The Operation Trump and The New Abwehr: A Study In Psychohistory by Michael Novakhov - Google Search

Thursday January 24th, 2019 at 7:42 AM

Trump Investigations

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Michael_Novakhov shared this story from Warfare History Network. Adolf Hitler’s spymaster, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, was actually a dedicated anti-Nazi who did everything he could to frustrate the Führer’s plans. by David...

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Michael_Novakhov shared this story . Canaris and Heydrich #1 Post by Ezboard » 29 Sep 2002, 21:37 GFM2001 Member Posts: 55 (8/20/01 12:32:55 pm) Reply Canaris and Heydrich ------------------------------------------------------------...

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