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Feb 9, 2018 - A German national appears prominently in the investigation into the possible Russian contacts made by Donald Trump's associates.
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| Spitfire List | FTR #982 Manafort and the Snipers: The Azov Battalion and the “Russia-Gate” Psy-Op | ||
Dave Emory’s entire lifetime of work is available on a flash drive that can be obtained HERE. The new drive is a 32-gigabyte drive that is current as of the programs and articles posted by the fall of 2017. The new drive (available for a tax-deductible contribution of $65.00 or more.)
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This broadcast was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Helmets of the Ukrainian Azov battalion
Introduction: Continuing and deepening analysis of the profound Ukrainian fascist connection to the “Russia-Gate” disinformation inundating the American political and journalistic landscapes, this program highlights circumstances surrounding the sniper shootings at the Maidan demonstrations.
CORRECTION: Snipers highlighted in the story, such as Skillt, became members of the Azov Battalion. The unit had not formally coalesced as of the time of the Maidan demonstrations.
Those sniper shootings were the key circumstance generating international outrage against the Yanukovich regime and precipitating the rise of the OUN/B Ukrainain fascist successor organizations. Recorded the day after former Yanukovuch adviser and Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was indicted by [VERY] special prosecutor Robert Mueller, this program supplements discussion from FTR #981.
Distilling information concerning the sniper attacks, we review the possibility that Manafort might have played an advisory role in the sniper shootings, that the shootings might have been a provocation and examine the role of the Nazi Azov battalion and its proponents and component figures in connection with the Maidan shootings and the “Russia-Gate” propaganda.
Emblem of the Ukrainian Azov Battalion
We wonder if recent attacks in Ukraine might be elements of a “sanitization” operation, aimed at eliminating participants in the Maidan shootings (provocation?), while blaming the violence (of course) on Russia.
Major considerations in the Azov Battalion/Maidan sniper/Manafort imbroglio include:
Program and Written Description Highlights Include:
1. Alleged “Russian agent” Paul Manafort–identified in FTR #919 as a probable “advance man” for regimes targeted for destabilization–may well have been the person who recommended to his “client” Yanukovich to fire on the Maidan demonstrators. It was that gunfire that signalled the end of Yanukovich’s government. This reinforces Mr. Emory’s take on Manafort. ” . . . . The lawyer’s demands for explanation spring from the hacking earlier this year of the iPhone of Mr Manafort’s daughter, [since confirmed as being genuine, at least in part–D.E.] Andrea, with around 300,000 messages published in the dark web. One of the texts sent to her sister Jessica said: ‘Don’t fool yourself. That money we have is blood money.’ It continued ‘You know he has killed people in Ukraine? Knowingly, as a tactic to outrage the world and get focus on Ukraine. Remember when there were all those deaths taking place. A while back. About a year ago. Revolts and what not. Do you know whose strategy that was to cause that, to send those people get them slaughtered.’ . . . .”
2. It’s worth noting that Paul Manafort has confirmed that some of the hacked texts are real. As the following article also notes, Andrea Manafort was actually with her dad in Florida during the sniper attacks. Might he have shared details of his behavior visa
3. Reinforcing the hypothesis that the Maidan shootings were a provocation is the disclosure by Ukraine’s chief prosecutor that the rifles allegedly used to fire on the Maidan demonstrators were recovered by an alleged Yanukovich operative and leader of the snipers who was one of the demonstrators on the Maidan! “ . . . Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko says that the man who helped the so-called “black hundred” of police task force Berkut, who had been shooting at protesters during the Revolution of Dignity, flee Kyiv and deliberately drowned their weapons to conceal evidence, was himself one of the participants of the Maidan protests.‘With the help of military counterintelligence, we have found weapons of the ‘black hundred,’ including a sniper rifle, which the entire country saw on footage showing the shooting at the protesters from outside the October Palace,” he told the 112 Ukraine TV channel. . . . ‘We found it with a large number of automatic rifles on the bottom of one of Kiev’s lakes. They were cut and drowned in one batch by a single group, whose leader is one of the targets of our investigation. Unfortunately, this man who, according to our version, upon the orders of [former Interior Minister Vitaliy] Zakharchenko helped the ‘black hundred’ flee Kyiv, destroyed and drowned their weapons, he, himself, was with us on the Maidan,’ Lutsenko said. . . . “
4a. Note the Ukrainian intelligence services’ apparent role in the “investigation” into Russia-Gate. Note the CIA’s role in this concatenation. (CIA is also deeply connected to Felix Sater, Trump’s point man for his dealings with Russia. ” . . . . . . . . While still politically influenced, Ukrainian law enforcement is no longer a swamp of incompetence and corruption. It has been able to monitor Mr. Manafort’s former business associates and turn up evidence of Russian hacking in the 2016 United States election, in part owing to American support. . . . [The “evidence” comes from Ukrainian security services–D.E.]”
4b. Next, we review an article about foreign neo-Nazis in the ranks of the Ukrainian military formations. The neo-Nazi Azov Battalion was formed and armed by the interior ministry. The battalion leader–Andrei Biletsky is also the leader of the “Social National Assembly.” The number two man in Azov is Ihor Mosiychuk, now in Ukraine’s parliament. Swedish army veteran, sniper and Nazi Mikael Skillt serves with Azov. Note Anton Geraschchenko’s relationship with Azov, as well as his statement that “foreign journalists” are serving with Azov. ” . . . . Mikael Skillt is a Swedish sniper, with seven years’ experience in the Swedish Army and the Swedish National Guard. He is currently fighting with the Azov Battalion, a pro-Ukrainian volunteer armed group in eastern Ukraine. . . . The key figures in the Azov Battalion are its commander, Andriy Biletsky, and his deputy, Ihor Mosiychuk. . . . Andriy Biletsky is also the leader of a Ukrainian organization called the Social National Assembly. . . . The Azov Battalion was formed and armed by Ukraine’s interior ministry. A ministerial adviser, Anton Gerashchenko [who is networking with Ukrainian hackers looming large in the ‘Russia-Gate’ investigation–D.E.], got angry when I asked him if the battalion had any neo-Nazi links through the Social National Assembly. ‘The Social National Assembly is not a neo-Nazi organization,’ he said. . . . Mr Gerashchenko was adamant, however, that there were no foreign citizens fighting in the Azov Battalion. ‘There are foreign journalists, from Sweden, Spain and Italy, who have come to report on the heroic achievements of the fighters in their struggle against terrorism,’ he said. . . .”
5. In numerous programs, we have highlighted the Azov Battalion, one of many Nazi/fascist combatant militias fighting as part of the Ukrainian military. Another useful post from <a href="http://german-foreign-policy.com" rel="nofollow">german-foreign-policy.com</a>highlights the fact that the Azov Battalion was formed by Oleh Lyashko, who also heads the Radical Party.
Mikael Skillt (whom we discussed in FTR #803), alleges that he spoke to two aparent members of the unit contained at two snipers, some of whom were present during the Maidan protests and appeared to have fired at Ukrainian police units. This reinforces the view that the violence that led to the ouster of Yanukovych was the outgrowth of a provocation.
Note that the Azov’s number two man–Ihor Mosiychuk–was sentenced to prison for a planned bombing in January 2014. His supporters demonstrated on his behalf on the Maidan, helping to create the turmoil that led to Yanukovich’s overthrow.
” . . . . He [Swedish army sniper Mikael Skillt] admits, however, to having spoken to at least two snipers, who, during the Maidan protests had shot at police from the Trade Union House in Kiev – at the time, the headquarters of the protestors. ‘Their mission was to take out Berkut’s snipers,’ explained Skillt.[7] The deadly shots from the Maidan, which in Western propaganda had been used to legitimize the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych, have never been investigated by the putsch regime, and Berlin has never applied pressure for an investigation. . . . [On] January 10, 2014, Mosiychuk and two other fascists had been found guilty and sentenced to several years in prison for a planned August 2011 bombing attack. On the evening of January 10, ultra-right-wingers staged demonstrations protesting the sentence. The demonstrations degenerated into violent confrontations with the police. These confrontations, in turn, were then used by Berlin, Brussels and Washington to accuse Yanukovych of excessive use of force on the ‘movement fighting for democracy.’ . . .”
6. Illustrating the direct line of institutional evolution from the OUN/B to the present, Pravy Sektor is the political arm of the UNA-UNSO, the latest iteration of the OUN/B’s military cadre, the UPA. It elected Yuriy Shukheyvch as its head. Shukheyvch is the son of OUN/B commander Roman Shukhevych, declared a “Hero of Ukraine” by the Yuschenko government. Roman also headed the Nachtigall Battalion in their liquidation of the Lvov Ghetto in 1941.
In FTR #967, we noted that the city of Lviv (Lvov) has initiated a festival in honor of Shukhevych on the anniversary of Nachtigall Battalion’s liquidation of the Lvov ghetto!
Note that the UNA/UNSO organization–the political parent of Pravy Sektor–has apparently been active in Chechnya as well. This is a precursor to the Chechnyan participation in the Ukraine conflict, discussed in–among other programs–FTR #862.
7. An interesting assassination of a Chechyan sniper fighting in Ukraine suggests the possibility that the Maidan sniper dynamic may be in the process of being sanitized, after Mr. Manafort‘s indictment, yesterday. Are the assassination of Ukrainian sniper Amina Okuyeva and the bombing attack on Ihor Mosiychuk linked? (Mosiychuk was Azov’s second in command, for whom Okuyeve worked as an advisor.) Was a previous alleged attempt on the live of Okuyeva and her husband by an assassin pretending to be a “foreign journalist” linked? Might the “foreign journalist” have been connected to the Azov Battalion? ” . . . . A Ukrainian veteran sniper was killed, and her husband, who allegedly tried to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin, was wounded in a shooting on Monday near Kyiv. . . . Amina Okuyeva and Adam Osmayev were riding in a car past a railroad crossing in the village of Hlevakha when their vehicle came under heavy fire from someone in the bushes on the side of the road. . . . Osmayev, who was also shot in the leg, has since blamed Russia for the attack and said that it was connected to a car-bombing last week that wounded Ukrainian lawmaker Ihor Mosiychuk . . . Okuyeva had once worked for Mosiychuk as an adviser, according to Reuters. . . . This wasn’t the first assassination attempt the couple had faced. On June 1, Osmayev and Okuyeva were in a car with a man, Artur Denisultanov-Kurmakayev, masquerading as a French journalist named Alex Werner. [Was this one of the “foreign journalists” Anton Gerashchenko claimed were coming to Ukraine?–D.E.] At one point, Denisultanov-Kurmakayev asked them to pull the car over so that he could give them a gift from his editors. ‘When he opened it I spotted a Glock pistol,’Okuyeva told RFERL after the June attack. ‘He immediately grabbed it and started shooting at Adam.’ . . . “
8a. Andrei Artemenko wasn’t the only Ukrainian politician to approach the Trump administration with a peace plan in early 2017. Yulia Tymoshenko did the same thing in February, saying Trump promised her that he would “not abandon Ukraine.”
Additionally, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, the former head of the Security Service of Ukraine and a political ally of Tymoshenko, claims he traveled to the US in December and January and delivered to the U.S. Department of Justice proof of “political corruption by (Ukraine’s) top officials.” And he apparently gave the same material to Artemenko in 2015. And while Nalyvaichenko says he doesn’t back Artemenko’s peace plan, he did admit to submit a peace plan of his own to the US government.
Nalyvaichenko is a direct heir to the OUN/B, having run Ukrainian intelligence (the SBU) along the lines of the OUN/B. Nalyvaichenko is very close to Pravy Sektor and Dimitry Yarosh.
Peace proposals by anti-Russian figues include one by Viktor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch who also a member of the anti-Russian Atlantic Council.
Of paramount significance, here, are the lustration law–a triple-faced entity. The law is “anti-corruption,” anti-Communist, and also criminalizes telling the truth about the collaboration between the OUN/B, its military wing the UPA and the Third Reich.
Elements of the Ukrainian fascist milieu have been attempting to oust Poroshenko in favor of elevating a fellow fascist to head of the government. The lustration law looms large in this context, as does the fact that Poroshenko was Yanukovych’s finance minister and, as such, undoubtedly involved with Mr. Manafort and whatever he did, or did not do in that benighted country.
“Artemenko Goes from Obscurity to Notoriety” by Melkorezeva, Oksana Grytsenko; Kyiv Post; 02/24/2017
8b. Pravy Sektor associate Valentyn Nalyvaichenko had been the head of the SBU (Ukrainian intelligence service) since the Maidan Coup, up until his ouster in June of 2015. Not surprisingly, he had operated the organization along the lines of the OUN/B.
Previously, he had served in that same capacity under Viktor Yuschenko, seeing the outfit as a vehicle for rewriting Ukraine’s history in accordance with the historical revisionism favored by the OUN/B.
Very close to Pravy Sektor head Dymitro Yarosh, Nalyvaichenko employed Yarosh while serving in the Ukrainian parliament. Yarosh claims that the two collaborated on “anti-terrorist” operations conducted against ethnic Russians.
Bear in mind that the SBU has been the “cognitive window” through which the events in Ukraine have been processed.
8c. Nalyvaichenko’s SBU has manifested a fundamentally revisionist stance with regard to the OUN/B’s World War II genocidal attacks on ethnic Poles in Ukraine–a bloody campaign that claimed up to 100,000 lives.
8d. Very close to Pravy Sektor head Dymitro Yarosh, Nalyvaichenko employed Yarosh while serving in the Ukrainian parliament. Yarosh claims that the two collaborated on “anti-terrorist” operations conducted against ethnic Russians.
Bear in mind that the SBU has been the “cognitive window” through which the events in Ukraine have been processed.
8e. Exemplary of the Nazification of Ukraine is the elevation of Pravy Sektor’s Yarosh to being an advisor to the chief of the Ukrainian general staff.
” . . . . Yarosh is now a member of parliament and an advisor to the chief of general staff of the Ukrainian army. In other words, Yarosh has been legitimized by the political establishment. . . .”
8f. It is not surprising that Kristofer Harrison (the author of an apologia for the Nazi Azov Battalion in Ukraine) is a former Defense Department and State Department advisor to George W. Bush. Noteworthy in his propaganda piece dismissing Representative John Conyers (D-MI) as “the Kremlin’s Man in Congress” and discounting anyone else discussing the ascension of the OUN/B fascists in Ukraine in a similar vein, is the identity of his source for assurances that Azov is not a Nazi unit.
The Azov’s spokesman is Roman Zvarych, the personal secretary to Jaroslav Stetsko in the 1980’s. Stetsko was the head of the World War II OUN/B government that collaborated with the Nazis!
After emigrating to Ukraine in the early ’90’s Zvarych and forming the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists with Slava Stetsko (Jaroslav’s widow) Zvarych became: Justice Minister (the equivalent of Attorney General of the United States) under the governments of Viktor Yuschenko and both Yulia Timoshenko governments. He has been serving as an adviser to president Poroshenko.
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| manafort, germany, ukraine, tymoshenko, merkel - Google Search | ||
Trump, Putin, Russia, DNC/Clinton Hack, & WikiLeaks: “There's ...
Real Context News-Jan 19, 2019
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Yahoo News-Dec 27, 2018
Trump signs red 'MAGA' caps during Germany stopover with U.S. service members .... Paul Manafort's unregistered lobbying effort in Ukraine has agreed to pay $4.6 ... the prosecution of former Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the .... Merkel's Bavarian allies elect new head, ushering in new era.
Manafort trial has Ukraine freshly nervous about Trump
POLITICO.eu-Aug 20, 2018
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| “There’s Something Going on” with Election 2016 & It’s Cyberwarfare & Maybe Worse – Real Context News (RCN) | ||
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I WROTE THIS DURING THE 2016 DNC BECAUSE I WAS HORRIFIED AT THE LACK OF ATTENTION THE RUSSIA ANGLE WAS GETTING. THE NAMES, DEALS, COMPANIES, EVENTS, AND ISSUES THAT I THEN WROTE DEMANDED ATTENTION—ATTENTION THEY SCARCELY GOT DURING THE 2016 ELECTION, SOMETHING FOR WHICH THE MAINSTREAM PRESS HAS YET TO TAKE ANY MEANINGFUL RESPONSIBILITY—HAVE NOW BEEN DOMINATING THE HEADLINES DURING THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, PARTICULARLY SINCE SPECIAL COUNSEL ROBERT MUELLER’S PROBE BEGAN AND EVEN MORE SO AS IT HAS PROGRESSED. MY CONCLUSION BELOW (AND IN THE IMAGE JUST UNDER THIS INTRO) FROM JULY, 2016 IS PARTICULARLY TELLING AND IS NOW THE EMERGING PUNDIT-CLASS ANALYSIS IN JANUARY 2019. BUT IN 2016, I WAS ONE OF ONLY A HANDFUL OF JOURNALISTS SCREAMING THAT THESE ISSUES WARRANTED FAR MORE COVERAGE, AND I WAS OBVIOUSLY FAR, FAR AHEAD OF MOST MAINSTREAM OUTLETS.
*****
A close look at the tangled web of relationships involving Trump, his Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, his campaign in general, Putin, Russia, and WikiLeaks in light of the DNC and Clinton-aimed related hacking is not reassuring. Trump is fond of using the phrase: “There’s something going on!” when he wants to imply a scandal without going into detail. Well, “There’s something going on” here and we will go into detail in this in-depth special report, more than any single article you will find anywhere, period. Here is the one article to read on Trump, Putin, the Russian hacks, and political cyberwarfare in election 2016.
Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse July 30/31, 2016, with major updates August 8 and 15, 2016
See major follow-up pieces: November 4, 2016 EXCLUSIVE: Top Trump Aides’ Deeper & Linked Roles in Putin Agenda Revealed; Russian Mafia Nexus With Trump & Aides Goes Back Years
March 28, 2017: Trump’s Russia & Mafia Dealings Expose Him As Fool or Criminal (Traitor?) or Both: Biggest Scandal in U.S. History, Too Many Ties to Be Nothing
July 27, 2017: Think You Know How Deep Trump-Russia Goes? Think Again: This Chart/Info Will Blow Your Mind
Also, see his related piece from December 7, 2016: The (First) Russo-American Cyberwar: How Obama Lost & Putin Won, Ensuring a Trump Victory
Andrew Harnik/AP; Reuters; The Washington Post
AMMAN — When it comes to President Obama, Donald Trump is very fond of saying“There’s something going on!”, often in relation to the president’s views on, responses to, and efforts to fight Islamic terrorism, and most recently, regarding his body language…
Well, we can return Donald the courtesy: there’s something going on with Trump, Putin, Russia, WikLeaks, the DNC/Clinton hack/reveal, and the 2016 election, up to an including the possibility of some kind of secret deal between Putin and Trump or between some of their people, though Putin acting without coordination with Trump’s campaign—trying to undermine America and weaken America’s global standing and its position with its allies, most notably NATO allies—is also very much a possibility; so is some sort of combination of these.
Maybe this sounds ridiculous, and it should. But the facts of Trump and his associates’ ties to Putin and Russia are what are most disturbing of all.
As with any complicated situation, the best place to begin is the beginning…
Trump’s Business History with Russia & Russians:There’s Something Going On!
Starting in the 1980s, Trump began both seeking business opportunities in Russia, including a 1987 trip to Moscow and Leningrad, and began taking money from Russian investors, to the degree that, by 2008 his, one of his sons, Donald Jr., was able to remark to a business conference that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our [the Trump Organization’s] assets,” and that “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” Trump made numerous other trips to Russia since his first in 1987, as did Donald Jr., to pursue business interests there, exploring a variety of ventures. Trump’s business partners in one deal went to Moscow to sell Russian investors condos in 2006, and in 2008 Trump sold Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev a Palm Beach mansion for $95 million. Donald Jr. alone made over a half-dozen trips during the financial and sub-prime mortgage crises that began in 2008, when Russia was on the Trump Organization’s “A-list” for potential real estate deals.
Around this time, Trump also went into a deal structured to deprive the U.S. government of tens of millions of dollars in legitimate tax revenue that involved the construction and financing of Trump’s marquee SoHo property in New York City. The main partner driving this project was Bayrock, a company run by Tevfik Arif, a man who in the Soviet-era was an economic official for the USSR. His point man for the deal, Felix Sater, was a convicted Russian mobster; financing involved money from an Iceland firm known for drawing money from Putin-linked Russians (FL Group), as well as from a financier hailing from the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan named Alexander Mashkevich, who had been charged in a corruption case but settled in exchange for not having to admit any wrongdoing. Trump recalled only light, possible interaction with Sater, but evidence shows that Sater worked closely with Trump on the deal, as did Arif, who personally set trump up with Russian investors. The other major partner in the deal was from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, one Tamir Sapir.
The deal did not go well. Trump was sued for defrauding buyers of condo units in the SoHo because he and his children Ivanka and Eric had falsely inflated the level of buyer interest, and settled late in 2011, refunding 90% of $3.16 million in deposits on condos, though not admitting that he or the Trump Organization had done anything wrong. Arif was later arrested in Turkey, charged with running a prostitution ring from a yacht in a situation that involved Mashkevich, but was later acquitted, though the details of the case remain murky. As for Sater, he was later brought into the Trump Organization, being given a business card that named him a “Senior Advisor to Donald Trump,” years after Trump is publicly said to have been aware of his earlier criminal record.
Perhaps most famously, in 2013, Trump even brought his Miss Universe beauty pageant to Moscow, invited Russian President Vladimir to the pageant, and publicly speculated on a new friendship between himself and the Russian president should Putin attend; a meeting was set up for the two men, and though Putin canceled just before the meeting, he sent a Trump a traditional Russian gift with a “warm” written message. In attendance of both the pageant an afterparty at a Moscow nightclub were many of Russia’s notorious business oligarchs, mingling with Trump, discussing potential future deals.
He Said, He Said: There’s Something Going On!
Fast forward two years later, to when Trump announced his candidacy for the U.S. presidency, and Putin and Trump have had something of a lovefest: neither has opted to criticize the other, instead choosing to hurl compliments at each other from opposite sides of the world:
Trump remarked last September that: “I will tell you that, in terms of leadership, he’s getting an “A” and our president is not doing so well.”
Trump also said: “I think that I would probably get along with him [Putin] very well. And I don’t think you’d be having the kind of problems that you’re having right now.”
Trump also released a statement praising Putin as “a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond” and that “I have always felt that Russia and the United States should be able to work well with each other towards defeating terrorism and restoring world peace, not to mention trade and all of the other benefits derived from mutual respect.”
When Putin said nice things about Trump, Trump said those compliments were an “honor.”
Trump also said he would not denounce Putin: “A guy calls me a genius, and I’m going to renounce?” and that “I’m not going to renounce him.”
Putin on Trump:
Putin recently said of Trump that “He is a bright and talented person without any doubt” and “an outstanding and talented personality.”
In response to Trump’s stated desire to improve U.S.-Russian relations, Putin remarked “What else can we do but to welcome it? Certainly, we welcome it.”
Putin also referred to Trump as “the absolute leader of the presidential race.”
When pushed on his compliments on Trump, Putin slyly doubled down and reiterated them.
The Russian Press on Trump
But it’s not just Putin saying nice things about Trump: Putin’s massive media propaganda machine now seems to have swung solidly behind Trump and his candidacy as well, lavishing praise on him across the boardwhile it clearly does not favor Clinton and demonizes her.
Putin’s choice in 2016 is clear: he dislikes Clinton and prefers Trump.
Trump’s Positions More Favorable to Russia than Any Other Candidate: There’s Something Going On!
In addition, Trump has put forward policies closer to the Kremlin’s policies than any other major candidate for the presidency. Notably:
Trump wants the U.S. to defer to Russia in Syria and let it “fight ISIS” there, and agreed with Putin’s backing of Syrian’s murderous President Bashar al-Assad.
Trump is against the U.S. taking a large role in helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression, and his campaign people also aggressively saw to it that language calling for the U.S. government to supply arms to the Ukrainian government to help it defend itself against “Russia’s ongoing military aggression in Ukraine” and expressing American “admiration and support” for Ukraine in this struggle was removed from the 2016 Republican Party platform, shortly before the Republican National Convention, removing stances that virtually all Republican national security and foreign policy leaders shared; factoring in that the Trump campaign was pretty agnostic when it came to the platform in general, this is indeed curious (Trump’s people have distinctly avoided going into detailed or adequate explanations for this decision). Trump also just recently said at a press conference that he is considering lifting sanctions on Russia and recognizing its annexation of Crimea.
Trump also doesn’t think that there is enough evidence to blame Russia for the downing of MH17.
Trump defended Putin against accusations that he was behind the murders of numerous Russian journalists critical of Putin.
Most recently, Trump signaled less-than-enthusiastic, vague, and conditional support for NATO and has calling it “obsolete,” while the weakening of NATO is a chief aim of Putin.
*****
But ties to Russia in the Trump campaign don’t end with Trump and his family.
How Paul Manafort, Agent of Despots, Gave Ukraine to Putin, & Manafort’s Other Russian Ties: There’s Something Going On!
The Daily Beast
Trump’s Campaign Chairman, Paul Manafort, is a notorious spin doctor for Third World dictators, a leader of the “torturer’s lobby” who represented and lobbied for a true rogue’s gallery, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (then Zaire’s) Mobutu Sese Seko, the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos, Somalia’s Siad Barre, Sani Abacha of Nigeria, and Kenya’s Daniel arap Moi; other clients include Jonas Savimbi, the leader of the Angolan human-rights-abusing rebel guerilla group UNITA, and the Kashmiri American Council: a front for the terrorist-dealing Pakistani government intelligence service ISI that had helped create the Taliban, among other nefarious dealings.
Manafort has also had dealings with Russian business oligarch and Putin ally Oleg Deripaska going back to 2005 on a project to help Montenegro secure independence from Serbia, a move that would help Deripaska economically but also advance Russian interests in extending Russian influence into Montenegro, which has coastline on the Mediterranean Sea. UPDATE 8/15: Another deal was later put together by Manafort and Deripaska using offshore accounts for almost $19 million, set up to launder money personally to Yanukovych’s and his closest associates to enable them to live like ostentatious royalty. This was the only deal the shell company they set up for it ever orchestrated. Later, Deripaska claimed in 2014 in a Cayman Islands court that Manafort, along with Manafort partner Richard (“Rick”) Gates, took that almost $19 million that was supposed to be invested jointly with Deripaska, but which disappeared without a trace, much like Manafort did at the time; Deripaska, even with the aid of private investigators, was unable to track down Manafort in the years before today, when Manafort emerged to work for Donald Trump. Deripaska is still seeking the money, which he has asked to be returned for eight years running now. Gates also works for Trump’s presidential campaign, and, incidentally, it was Gates whose ultimate responsibility it was to vet and approve Melania Trump’s now infamously plagiarized speech. UPDATE 8/15: Deripaska has also been denied a U.S. entry visa by the State Department on suspicion of being linked to the Russian mob.
Perhaps the most intense story of Manafort’s saga are his business dealings in Ukraine. Manfort’s Ukrainian career officially began over a decade ago when Manafort arrived to serve the interests of Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, then Ukraine’s richest businessman. Akhmetov was a close ally of Viktor Yanukovych, then the country’s prime minister, who was a close ally of Vladimir Putin in a Ukraine whose political fault lines very much ran (and still run) along the ethnic Ukrainian and ethnic Russian divide within Ukraine, with Yanukovych allying with the ethnic Russian camp that feels strongly tied to Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin in particular has a history of trying to manipulate, strong-arm, and dominate Ukrainian politics, with Yanukovych acting as key agent for advancing Russian interests in Ukraine.
Behind the scenes and unofficially, Manafort worked as a campaign consultant for Yanukovych, already surrounded by a cloud of corruption at this time, who was running for Ukraine’s presidency against Viktor Yushchenko in 2004; Yanukovych was running in part on a campaign to stay close with Russia, while Yushchenko was running in part on bringing Ukraine closer to the West. During the campaign, Yushchenko was even poisoned with dioxin and was incredibly lucky to live; the sitting president and Yanukovych colluded to falsify the election’s results, which in reality were a victory for Yushchenko, to hand the win to Yanukovych, who was quickly congratulated by Putin.
But the people roared to the street and independent observers cried fraud, and the Orange Revolution began, in which the Ukrainian Supreme Court sided with Yushchenko, a redo of the election was ordered, and Yushchenko rode a people-powered revolution over the course of about a month to victory (much to Putin’s chagrin). Paul Manafort had worked on behalf of Yanukovych, against democracy, against the overall will of the Ukrainian people.
But Manafort stuck around, helping to resurrect Yanukovych’s career over the course of the following years, sometimes working in direct opposition to express American interests and engineering Yanukovych’s 2010 comeback victory in Ukraine’s presidential election. Manafort even brought in Tad Devine, who would be one of the top senior staffers on Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign, to aid with Yanukovych’s 2010 election campaign, among other people. Manafort also helped to shape the strategy of Yanukovych’s political party, the pro-Russian Party of Regions. UPDATE 8/15: Evidence from Ukraine has emerged that the Party of Regions set aside unreported payments for Manafort for $12.7 million from 2007-2012. The evidence comes from a series of secret handwritten accounting ledgers (the “black ledger”) detailing illegal dealings with political overtones and include Ukrainian political officials. Just for one six-month period in 2012, the payments to all parties reached $66 million. Said one former leader in the Party: “This was our cash…They had it on the table, stacks of money, and they had lists of who to pay.” Overall, Manafort seems to have been one of the main driving forces behind the overall political reversal in Ukraine and return of Yanukovych to power.
Concurrent with much of his work for Yanukovych, Manafort also linked up closely with Ukranian power-broker Dmitry Firtash, who worked closely with Semion (or Seymon) Mogilevich, a godfather of the Russian mafia. But, even more importantly, Firtash was one of Putin’s top agents in Ukraine: Russia’s state-owned gas giant, Gazprom, would sell Firtash huge amounts of gas at a discounted rate, who would then sell that gas to Ukraine for a sizable profit, profit that Firtash funneled to pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine, including—yes—Yanukovych.
On top of this, Firtash used millions out of the billions he made from this scam to partner with Manafort and “a longtime Trump family aide” to hatch an elaborate business venture on prime real estate on New York’s Park Avenue, investing $25 million into the project in 2008; he also set up a $100 million investment fund, which Manafort and his associates were paid $1.5 million to run (that same year, Manafort was considered for the role of McCain’s campaign convention chair, but was not chosen because of these very relationships). This was at a time when Yulia Tymoshenko, who was a partner of Yushchenko during the Orange Revolution and was appointed as the Prime Minister under President Yushchenko, had herself recently returned to power again as Prime Minister, before Yanukovych’s 2010 comeback; Tymoshenko, who had first risen to prominence as a gas tycoon herself, moved to seize Firtash’s gas business assets and cut him out of the gas loop and thus cut off a source of Russian influence in Ukrainian politics. It should, thus, be no surprise that Firtash was suc enthusiastic a supporter of Yanukovych. Once Yanukovych came to power on the back of Manafort’s years of consulting and rehabilitating him, Tymoshenko was imprisoned as a result of a controversial, politically motivated trial (UPDATE 8/15: a trial and imprisonment that Manafort helped Yanukovych’s team publicly defend amid the controversy) while Firtash was awarded back $3 billion in gas assets, also reopening the Kremlin’s gas-scheme line to dominating Ukrainian politics at the expense of Ukrainian interests and sovereignty. In many ways, this set the stage for the 2014 Maidan protests that erupted into the current Ukrainian mess.
Tymoshenko could sense a money laundering scheme in that Park Avenue New York real estate deal, the end state of which never came to be and with much of the money going back to Ukraine, exactly what her government’s actions were trying to prevent; after she was imprisoned, she sued Firtash, Manafort, Mogilevich, and others in New York for racketeering whose proceeds had been used to persecute her, but the suit was dismissed on questions of procedure and jurisdiction; still, the U.S. District Court ruling acknowledged that foul play was indeed going on, that “the Court accepts as true the allegation that some of the money that passed through the U.S. Enterprise was ‘funneled back to Ukraine’ — albeit by unidentified actors — and somehow used as ‘financing’ for Tymoshenko’s ‘persecution.’” Manafort also helped Yanukovych’s team publicly defend its controversial prosecuction and imprisonment of Tymoshenko. (As for Firtash, there is currently a U.S. arrest warrant out for him on bribery charges, and as a result he is living in Austria in exile from Ukraine).
As Yanukovych became ever closer to Putin and tried to steer Ukraine closer to Russia, Manafort’s role was kept quiet and confidentiality agreements were signed, and he profited handsomely from this work (UPDATE 8/15), further made clear by this new New York Times story showing at least $12.7 million in authorized payments. His role in Ukrainian politics over the last few years is even cloudier. UPDATE 8/15: Some of Manafort’s subordinates were still operating in Ukraine even in 2016, and no evidence has come to light that Manafort has formally closed up shop there. But what is clear is that, fed up with the stagnation, corruption, and cronyism of President Yanukovych’s government, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians took to the streets early in 2014 after he went back on pledges to increase ties to the EU, culminating with Yanukovych fleeing the country with Russian help and a new, more pro-Western government being formed. In response, Yanukovych, in exile in Russia and facing charges in Ukraine, requested Putin intervene militarily in Ukraine. Russia soon invaded, annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region and directly and indirectly assisting separatist rebels in eastern parts of Ukraine, where a state of civil war still exists today.
None of the above lines up with Manafort’s terse explanations and contentions that he was working to push Ukraine to orient itself more democratically and more with Western interests.
Both before and after the seismic recent events in Ukraine, Manafort maintained minimal contacts with his American friends and colleagues and avoided responding to media inquiries; for years his location and activities were not known with specificity. One of these colleagues, Roger Stone, a former Nixon advisor and close confidante of Donald Trump, sent an email to other mutual colleagues in the midst Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea early in March 2014 titled “Where is Paul Manafort?” The e-mail then included some options for answers to this question: A.) “Was seen chauffeuring Yanukovych around Moscow,” B.) “Was seen loading gold bullion on an Army Transport plane from a remote airstrip outside Kiev and taking off seconds before a mob arrived at the site,” and C.) “Is playing Golf in Palm Beach.”
*****
If that was exhausting to go through, remember: that was just one person.
The Trump Campaign’s Additional Russian Relationships: There’s Something Going On!
Yes, there are others around Trump with ties to Russia.
Michael Caputo, a leader of Trump’s New York Republican primary campaign, lived in Russia and worked as political consultant there in 1990s, where he at least once butted heads with the U.S. State Department for working against U.S. interests there. When he came back to the U.S. at the end of the decade, he founded a PR firm and, through that firm, helped to lead an effort to improve the then-recently-newly-elected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s public image in the U.S. at a time when he was coming under criticism from the U.S. government for attacking free press in Russia. He has expressed regret for that work for Putin.
Then there is retired General and former Defense Intelligence Agency head Michael Flynn, a foreign policy advisor to Trump who gave an intense pep-rally-style speech at the recent Republican National Convention. In December 2015, he sat near Putin at a Moscow dinner celebrating Russia Today (RT), the international Russian TV network and website funded by the Russian government that is a notorious anti-U.S. propaganda machineadvancing Putin’s agenda. His appearance raised eyebrows, and he was invited to address the dinner, and both RT and Flynn at first declined to answer if he was paid for his speech, though Flynn later deflectively and evasively confirmed that he was. Gen. Flynn has also been a repeat guest on RT’s programming. He is a true hawk when it comes to ISIS and Islamic extremist terrorism, and has issued blistering criticism of the Obama Administration’s counterterrorism strategy for not emphasizing the Islamic nature of the threat (to do so would actually be a very counterproductive move), among other reasons. His strong stance against Islamic terrorism may be a posture that he feels he shares with Putin, and Gen. Flynn is on record advocating closer U.S. ties with Russia, in particular on the issues of Syria and terrorism. August 8th update: interestingly, the Green Party’s candidate for president for 2016, Dr. Jill Stein, also attended the RT gala dinner and proudly advertised this fact on her campaign website, addressed an RT-organized panel before the dinner (begging the question if she was paid by RT for this), and sat at Putin’s table along with Gen. Flynn. She recently suggested Clinton could be worse than Trump and has also been featured heavily on RT, and while in Moscow she very pointedlyand extensively criticized U.S. foreign policy, “American exceptionalism” (similar to Putin’s views on this subject), and U.S. human rights abuses while only offer relatively very muted criticism on the same issues of Russia, if at all.
On to Carter Page, who is another Trump foreign policy advisor. Page used to be the head of Merrill Lynch’s Moscow branch for three years, beginning in 2004, helping to advise the Russian state-run gas behemoth Gazprom. Gazprom was active at this time in Firtash’s political laundering scheme, funneling money to pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine, and throughout this period Firtash was working with Paul Manafort, raising the possibility that Manafort and Page might have connected during this period, even worked together on the Gazprom scheme (such a possibility surely deserves investigative scrutiny).
Today, Page is still an investor in Gazprom and attends its annual investor meeting, and seems to lament the effects of U.S. sanctions on Russia enacted in response to Putin’s invasive military moves in Ukraine. And just this month in Moscow, Page gave a speech heavily criticizing U.S. policy towards Russia that would have been completely in line with the editorial slant of RT, excoriating American “hypocrisy,” actions directed at regime change, and criticism of Russia for corruption, a corruption level that he opined was not any worse than corruption in the U.S. When asked by a Russian student if he really believed that America was a liberal democracy, Page noted with a smile that “I surround the word ‘liberal’ with quotes,” and that ”I tend to agree with you that it’s not always as liberal as it may seem,” concluding with an “I’m with you.”
Shortage of Big U.S. Investors for Trump = Opening for Russian Investment? There’s Something Going On!
Then there is the issue of Trump’s relationships with the banking industry.
Many major U.S. bank won’t lend to Trump anymore; after doing business with him throughout the 1980s and 1990s, today Wall St. banks have “pulled back in part due to frustration with his business practices but also because he moved away from real-estate projects that required financing, according to bank officials,” to quote The Wall Street Journal; these banks include Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley. Additionally, one Goldman Sachs executive noted that its people “know better than to pitch” any deals with the Trump name on them.
One of the banks with which Trump has one of his largest relationships is the German giant Deutsche Bank, which has loaned Trump billions ($2.5 billion in loans and $1 billion in loan guarantees to Trump/Trump-affiliated companies), but executives there, too, have found him difficult to deal with and the relationship has been rockier of late. Deutsche Bank, is, in fact, the only Wall Street bank of a larger scale that still loans to Trump, and overall, he owes “at least” $250 million to banks, mostly small banks.
But it should be noted that Deutsche Bank seems to have had a huge problem when it came to dealing with Russian transactions of an illegal or suspect nature: between 2012 and 2014, some $10 billion was found to have passed through Deutsche Bank from Russia fitting a “suspected money-laundering pattern” due to “systemic” failures of internal safeguards, and it was revealed that bank officials “ignored” or “dismissed” warning signs for a whole year. Included among the people whose money is being scrutinized are several close associates of Vladimir Putin, who, as the Panama Papers recently made abundantly clear (among other investigations), is hardly new to money laundering. The bank is currently under U.S. investigation. And, without access in recent years to major U.S. banks, the move by Trump to seek shadier investment from shadier sources, as with the SoHo deal, is not surprising, given Trump’s long history of flirting with and courting business with and in Russia and with Russians.
*****
Individually, these aspects might raise an eyebrow but not more. But all of this taken together? Is it possible “there’s something going on,” as Trump is fond of saying? It seem reasonable to believe that, yes, “there’s something going on.”
But wait, this is even without going into the hacking…
The Other Democratic E-mail Scandal: There’s Something Going On!
This mid-June, the Democratic National Committee (DNC)—the national leadership and braintrust of the Democratic Party—and the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike announced that two different groups of Russian hackers working for two different Russian government intelligence agencies had been successfully hacking the DNC’s servers. A week later, it was announced that the same Russians seemed to have penetrated the Clinton Foundation’s network.
The first group planted spying software on DNC servers last summer in June, giving it full access to DNC communication passing through DNC servers for almost a whole year. The DNC eventually suspected it had been hacked and called in CrowdStrike early in May of this year to assess the situation. Hillary Clinton’s campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, NY, also seemed to have been attacked but without a clear picture as to if data was stolen. Crowdstrike was able to drive out the hackers from the DNC servers earlier that June. The DNC only seems to have had “standard cyberprotections” wholly incapable of protecting against focused and persistent hackers acting with the support of foreign governments and intelligence agencies. This first hacking group has been nicknamed Cozy Bear by CrowdStrike and is also known as APT 29, and seems to be the one that had previously hacked into unclassified e-mail systems of the White House and State Department; the cleansing process for the State Department infection resulted in a few shutdowns throughout 2014 and 2015, at the height of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program and international sanctions. This group is tied to the F.S.B., the modern version of the K.G.B., from which Putin emerged years ago,and is thought to be the better of the two hacking groups. The other group, labeled Fancy Bear and also known as APT 28, apparently hacked the DNC this April; it is thought to be run by Russia’s military intelligence service, the G.R.U., and has hacked aerospace and military installations in the West (including in the U.S.), Japan, and South Korea. The two hacking groups do not appear to have coordinated their efforts. Among the many pieces of information stolen by the hackers was the DNC’s opposition research on Trump, stole in the second April hack.
The story basically faded from the public consciousness until a few days before the Democratic National Convention began and one day after the Republican National Convention ended; on that Friday, the quixotic activist organization known as WikiLeaks posted nearly 20,000 e-mails taken from the DNC servers. As is normal with WikiLeaks, the organization and its controversial founder and leader, Julian Assange, decline to offer any details on how they obtained the information, but experts suspect the Russian hackers were the ones who handed them over to WikiLeaks. The e-mails contained information that showed controversial hostility to Bernie Sanders and discussions as to how to put Sanders on the defensive on the part of seven DNC staffers, including some senior ones (one staffer whose comments were felt to be the most offensive offered an apology). While no evidence was found on the e-mails that demonstrated a concerted DNC policy of working actively against Sanders in a material way (as one old college friend summed up the incident on social media: “so, lemme get this straight: some staffers from a national political committee expressed personal political opinions on their work email? ok, gotcha.”), the revelations nevertheless led to a massive outrage, especially with Bernie Sanders’ supporters, a group already prone to conspiracy theories and victimized thinking and that often feeds off of outrage.
Almost lost in the scandal about the DNC’s impartiality coming into question was the issue of the timing of the leaks and who orchestrated then. Obviously, releasing this information the day after Trump’s Republican National Convention ended and just at the beginning of the weekend before Clinton’s Democratic National Convention is designed to provide maximum benefit to Donald Trump and the Republican Party while inflicting massive harm and embarrassment upon Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. Especially after the embarrassment and disorganization of the divided and divisive Republican National Convention, Clinton and the Democrats were poised to begin their convention in a particularly strong position; with the e-mail leak dominating the headlines all weekend and even Monday as the Democrats’ convention began, focus was driven away from Clinton’s announcement of Virginia Senator Tim Kaine and Bernie Sanders supporters began to stew in a rage that fomented and grew and boiled over the weekend and on Monday before the evening’s Convention proceedings.
Because of the leak, the Democratic Party’s raw wound was reopened and was in danger of becoming seriously infected at the very moment when it was the most important time to project Party unity. The scandal threatened to blow up and ruin the Democratic National Convention, and possibly Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the presidency, and only some furious and frantic last-minute scrambling on the part of both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, as well as their campaigns and the staff of the DNC, including the new interim DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile who had taken over only on Monday, averted what could have been a historic disaster for Clinton.
The first and only tangible casualty thus far was DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a congresswoman from Florida, who tenure of late was marred by difficulty; this DNC e-mail leak was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back, and Sunday, not even 48 hours after the WikiLeaks release and on the day before the Convention, it was announced that she would be stepping down from her position at the DNC, but only after the Convention. This did little to assuage the concerns of Democrats, the Clinton campaign, and especially Bernie Sanders supporters, especially as Wasserman Schultz made clear she still planned to gavel-in and gavel-out the Convention and publicly address it while in session.
Reality seemed to set in Monday, when both Rep. Wasserman Schultz and Sen. Bernie Sanders were booed loudly and continuously during dayime meetings, making clear the reality that more had to be done. Within a few hours, all talk of Rep. Wasserman Schultz gaveling and appearing at the convention disappeared and she agreed to stay away from the Convention; as a face-saving gesture for her long years of hard work on behalf of the Democratic Party, the Clinton campaign named her an honorary chair of the campaign’s “50-state program,” a move that failed to placate some and was seen by many in and of itself as a controversial mistake. Only deft political maneuvering, both behind the scenes and on the convention floor during the actual convention throughout the convention, up to and including Clinton’s culminating acceptance speech on Thursday, prevented far worse damage that might have resulted in a spectacle of sustained chaos and potentially ruined the Convention and Clinton’s candidacy, as the capacity of Bernie Sanders supporters for disruption had been well demonstrated several months earlier at Nevada’s Democratic Convention, which was closed out amid security forcing an end to the events as concerns for safety passed a red line.
Also on Monday as the Democratic National Convention’s first day unfolded, it was learned that government investigators had tried to warn the DNC of a possible intrusion months before the DNC took substantive action to address it, raising questions as to how competently the hacking problem was handled, and that the FBI was now investigating the hack.
In just a short period of time, WikiLeaks was able to do real damage to the Democratic Party, and nearly succeeded in doing far more damage. Was this all in the name transparency and fairness?
Questioning WikiLeaks’ Motives: There’s Something Going On!
As for WikiLeaks, its leader Julian Assange has made it abundantly clear that he harbors a great animus, both personal and professional, for Clinton, describing her and her policies in strident language—saying that a vote for Clinton is “a vote for endless, stupid war”—and making it clear that he deliberately timed the release of the DNC e-mails just before the Democratic National Convention to harm Clinton and her candidacy.
But beyond that, there are serious questions as to if WikiLeaks has a relationship with the Russian government. For starters, after Assange took up residence in the Ecuadorian Embassy to the UK in London to avoid arrest, the state-funded Russia Today (RT) network gave Assange a TV show for a time, which was extremely critical of the U.S. even as it praised the founder of Hezbollah. In one of this show’s episodes, Assange quite hypocritically supported the crackdown on Ecuador’s free media by the Ecuadorian president, who is increasing his ties to Russia. There was also an incident that saw documents in the possession of WikiLeaks given by a WikiLeaks staffer to the government of the pro-Putin dictator of Belarus, which it used to arrest and suppress Belarusian pro-democracy activists. Since Assange was close to that staffer, that staffer apparently was not criticized or reprimanded for this act.
It may very be that WikiLeaks is unwittingly playing into serving Russia’s interests, rather than in a spirit of collusion, but the picture is murky and either way, it does not look good; either way, it seems Russia has “weaponized” WikiLeaks for its own anti-American purposes. But this also fits what seems to be Assange’s agenda, which is more anti-American and anti-Western than anything else; Assange even criticized the Panama Papers leaks, which detailed a lot of embarrassing information about Putin’s private fortune and those of Russian elites, as serving American interests. Assange had promised to reveal information embarrassing for and damaging to Russia in 2010, but never did (perhaps because of thinly veiled F.S.B. threats from Russia? Perhaps he’s been intimidated and/or co-opted into serving Russian interests? We may never know for sure. Notably, he threatened to release that info before he was given his Russian TV show). Oh, and contrary to the many other sources agreeing that Russia is behind the DNC hacking, Assange claims there is “no proof” of that…
On a disturbing side note, the WikiLeaks DNC release was not very discriminating, including Social Security and credit card numbers of DNC donors, certainly violating their right to privacy, with even Edward Snowden (who has been helped greatly by WikiLeaks, especially in his getting asylum in Russia) criticizing this aspect of the leak.
The DNC Hacks: Putin Penetration? There’s Something Going On!
As the political drama around the hacks faded away with the fading away of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, more oxygen was given to the other aspects of the hack, which pundits seemed to miss the significance of at first, but slowly (at least in terms of a 2016 24-hour news cycle) it began to dawn on them: an outside force was trying to alter the outcome of a U.S. election, tipping the scales in favor of Donald Trump and against Hillary Clinton, in a clear, substantive, and indisputable way.
So people started caring again about who had hacked the DNC servers.
Wait, didn’t people say that it was the Russian government? Does that mean Russia and Putin are messing with an American election? Is this cyberwarfare??
At first, that suggestion seemed conspiratorial and the media and public seemed reluctant to embrace it, as if that narrative was perhaps mostly a plot by Democrats to divert attention away from their internal scandal, another “he said/she said” in a long war of words between Trump and Clinton. Maybe the delay was in part because the story broke over the weekend, maybe it just seemed too fantastical for people to take seriously. But as expert opinion began weighing in, and it seemed to be consistently unanimous when it came to those with direct knowledge of the hack, it became clear that it is very likely that Russia and Putin aremessing with the current U.S. election, with American intelligence reaching a consensus with “high confidence” that Russia was the culprit of the crime.
It could be that they are out “to stir the pot” and destabilize the U.S. political landscape; it could also be that they are trying to get Donald Trump elected (many would argue that that itself is tantamount to destabilization).
How are we almost certain it’s Russia?
The details pointing to Russia are numerous and clear. The initial findings by CrowdStrike, citing the Russian government-backed hacking groups APT 28 and APT 29, were later confirmed by two other private-sector cybersecurity firms. Relative to other similar cases, the evidence linking the hacking to these two groups was significantly more compelling. Apt 28 often uses a tactic of setting up a domain spelled very similarly to the actual domain in a bid to get users to unknowingly disclose their usernames and passwords. For the DNC hack, APT created <a href="http://misdepatrement.com" rel="nofollow">misdepatrement.com</a> (as opposed to <a href="http://misdepartment.com" rel="nofollow">misdepartment.com</a>), to confuse staff at MIS Department, which managed the DNC’s network. And previous hacks by the group has used the same IP address and malware software, a discovery that helped to point to patterns. This process “sometimes included unique security or encryption keys, a kind of digital fingerprint,” a fingerprint found in other significant attacks, which both government intelligence and private sector experts believe are also tied to APT 28.
Both hacking groups use also approaches and technology “consistent with nation-state level capabilities” and choose foreign military entities and military contractors in a way that “closely mirrors the strategic interests of the Russian government,” according to a CrowdStrike report and echoed by other reports. Another firm noted that the hackers seemed to operate during the Moscow and St. Petersburg time zone business hours and to take holidays during official Russian holidays.
Within on day of the DNC disclosing to The Washington Post in mid-June, a person styling himself Guccifer 2.0 began a WordPress blog and claimed that he, and only he, was behind the hack, and to back up his claim, he posted DNC documents on the blog and leaked others to the press and to WikiLeaks. He chose the name Guccifer to honor an imprisoned Romanian hacker of that same name, who earned; the original Guccifer claims to have hacked Clinton’s private e-mail server that has consumed American politics for the last year, but this claim has not been verified. However, we know Guccifer did hacked Clinton friend and confidante Sidney Blumenthal’s e-mail, which, in turn, revealed the existence of Clinton’s oft-criticized private e-mail server to congressional investigators in the first place.
Kind of crazy how all this ties together, right?
While Guccifer 2.0 claimed Russia had nothing to do with the hackings, his very actions provided investigators with evidence backing up the initial claims that Russia was behind the hackings: metadata from the information he posted had Russian digital signatures and showed that systems running on Russian language setups had accessed the files; one document had been modified by a user named Felix Edmundovich, the letters spelled out in Cyrillic and an obvious homage to Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet Union’s secret police. This information was exposed by a researcher on security issues operating under the Twitter handle @pwnallthethings, who also exposed the fact that error messages in the documents were in Russian; all these imprints were made before WikiLeaks obtained the files. The aforementioned points were echoed by another analystwriting for Ars Technica soon after.
Other telling evidence indicated that Guccifer 2.0 might be little more than a Russian public relations smoke-and-mirrors operation: Guccifer 2.0 made himself accessible to the media for interviews, a rarity for criminal hackers who tend to be paranoid of being caught and therefore reclusive; he strongly asserted that Russia had never penetrated the DNC, but that is something that he would be incapable of knowing as an independent hacker, as he claimed to be; he claimed to be Romanian, but then seemed unable to converse in Romanian without using only short statements and making repeated grammatical mistakes as noted by native Romanian speakers; metadata in his e-mails indicated he sent them from Russian networks, and some evidence even pointed to the use of the same or similar networks used by APT 28. It seems Guccifer 2.0 was concocted by Russian intelligence right after The Washington Post reported that DNC officials and investigators suspected Russia, a tactic of “deception and disinformation” or “denial and deception” that is standard operating procedure for Russia and codified officially in Russian military doctrine. A few such examples were noted in a just-released RAND report:
The Rand Report notes how incredibly common and prolific these propaganda efforts have become since at least Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia and how current, traditional counterpropaganda efforts are falling short in correcting this “firehose of falsehood.” All this just points even more strongly to the Russians being behind the DNC hack.
Hacking and Political Warfare: Russia’s Newest Weapons System, Eagerly Deployed: There’s Something Going On!
Hacking and cyberwarfare are also certainly part of the new Russian way of foreign policy and hybrid warfare, including (mis/dis)information and propaganda operations like those noted above. But another major aspect of Russian policy involves trying to meddle with foreign elections and politics, and the hackings of the DNC can be seen to be part of just such a larger effort. In fact, Paul Manafort can even be thought of as a (indirect?) mercenary general in this exact type of political warfare, where he was on the front lines of Putin’s operations in Ukraine from the Orange Revolution until (and possibly even after) Yanukovych’s 2014 overthrow.
But such operations were hardly limited to Ukraine, as there are other examples in Eastern Europe; lately, Putin has actually been funding right-wing, pro-Russian parties and demagogues all over Europe, helping to fuel an ongoing continental right-ward drift. Perhaps most notably, this Russian support has been a factor in France, which is lurching even more rightward in the wake of recent terrorist attacks like the one in Nice and where Putin’s chosen candidate, Marine Le Pen, may very well win France’s 2017 presidential election, but Putin has also been trying to destabilize German politics using the issue of refugees to weaken Chancellor Angela Merkel and empower German extremists.
Another factor that must be acknowledged is that Putin is still simmering over Western expansion of NATO, over two Western military interventions against Russian ally Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia in 1990s, against support for Kosovo’s independence from Serbia. Putin also seen the U.S. as having orchestrated the “color revolutions” of the last decade rather than viewing them a natural expression of post-Soviet peoples’ desires to be free from Russian domination and to not be ruled by Putin’s corrupt puppets; Putin similarly blames the U.S. for the 2014 overthrow of Yanukovych. The Russian president also in particular blames the U.S. for massive demonstrations in Russia in 2011 that erupted after fraudulent parliamentary elections. In fact, at the time, he specifically blamed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Seen in this context, the hacking of the DNC, the DCCC, and the voter database used by Clinton’s presidential campaign serve multiple purposes: in the eyes of Putin and many Russians, this is revenge for U.S. support for democracy in former Soviet republics and the continued post-Cold War expansion of NATO, for perceived U.S. aggressive roles in countering Russian interests, and against Hillary Clinton specifically, who enraged Putin when she called him out on Russian election fraud in 2011.
Conclusion: There’s Something Going On!
Arnau Busquets Guàrdia/POLITICO (Source images by Getty Images)
Interference in U.S. elections and politics would not be unprecedented: the UK intelligence at Churchill’s direction interfered to try to empower Roosevelt against Republican isolationists; South Vietnam played with peace talks to give Nixon an edge in 1968 after it negotiated secretly with Nixon’s campaign; Iran’s ayatollahs may have conspired with Reagan in 1980; and Israel worked to undercut the Obama Administration’s standing in the U.S in 2012 and 2015 over the Iran issue. Russia even seems to be supporting a secessionist movement in Texas that is still sizable while also only being a fringe minority.
Of course, Russia has categorically denied any involvement in the recent hacks.
As for Trump, he has a lot of questions to answer about Russia, both in terms of him and his family but also about his associates. Trump’s taxes may or may not yield information about his business ties to Russia, and for now, the Trump team denies it has any ties to Russia, but provides no evidence to support this, only repeated assertions.
Even now as I write some of this, Trump is baselessly speculating at a press conference that the entity behind the hacking is “probably not Russia, nobody knows if it’s Russia,” contrary to all the expert analysis given. At this same press conference, he seemed to actually invite Russia to hack Hillary Clinton, even tweeting that call in writing on his Twitter account soon after (and later unconvincingly claiming he was being “sarcastic” after massive shock and outrage ensued).
Since then, just yesterday, one week after the WikiLeaks DNC release, we learned that there were new hacks, likely by Fancy Bear/APT 28, of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, a congressional fundraising group for Democrats, and of a voter information database used by the Clinton campaign and other Democratic organizations. The U.S. is trying to determine how to respond to these cyberattacks as the FBI and Department of Justice investigate. And there are likely to be more hacks, with WikiLeaks’ Assange promising are more “a lot more” information on American politics coming from files he already has.
To be sure, hacking a U.S. political party’s central leadership organization at the height a presidential election cycle is dangerous, unsettling new territory for an already fraught American-Russian relationship. If Congress is to even retain an ounce of non-partisan credibility, a major investigation must be undertaken as soon as possible, and Republicans must put as much zeal into it as they put into their Benghazi “investigations.”
What we do know is that Trump and his family tried to do business for many years in Russia; that he sought to have a relationship with Putin; that both men have been publicly supporting each other as Trump seeks the American presidency; that Trump is by far the most pro-Russian, pro-Putin of the major presidential candidates of this entire election cycle; that he did business with Russian nationals (some of ill repute) and took massive amounts of money coming from Russia; that his Campaign Chairman has a sordid history of helping Putin allies of ill repute to the detriment both of Western interests and, more specifically, of democracy in Ukraine, help that helped precipitate bloodshed and war; that other Trump campaign staff and advisors have questionable links to Russia; that Russia has a pattern of hacking America and others for political purposes; that Russia has a pattern of interfering in elections; that Putin clearly prefers Trump over Clinton; that all the evidence points towards the hacks being committed by the Russian government; that the Russian government, along with WikiLeaks, had the means and motive to harm Clinton and the U.S. and have thus far acted to do so; and that Russia and WikiLeaks have a suspect relationship.
Thus, taken together, there does seem to be some sort of relationship between Trump, his confidantes, and his presidential campaign on one side, and Putin, Putin-linked Russian operatives, and key Putin-and/or-Russian-oriented business and political operatives on another. It remains to be seen how direct, conscious, and centralized these relationship are, and while the sheer number of connections all but rules out sheer coincidence, the likely relationship can range from direct coordination between Putin and Trump themselves at the top, to between low-level staffers working directly or indirectly for both parties with no knowledge of or approval on the part of higher ups; the intent, also, can range from conspiring to tilt an election and to work in the interests of Russia to simple personal enrichment on the part individuals.
More likely than not, none of these extremes are probably the case, and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Given everything I’ve discussed here, it’s possible there is some sort of coordinated effort going on between Trump or people in his campaign and Putin or people associated with him. But I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if we also have two groups of actors here acting mostly independently yet with common purpose. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some of Trump’s associates, especially Manafort, are part of some sort of deal (tacit or otherwise) to promote Putin’s agenda within Trump’s campaign between several staffers or just himself on one side and Putin’s agents on the other, given Manafort’s and several staffers’ histories. And it’s certainly believable—in fact, almost certain—that Putin would like to see Clinton defeated and Trump in the White House, since it would be hard to envision a leader that would or could play more into Putin’s hands than Trump.
This may yet backfire on and Trump and Putin, since the Russian interference is so obvious that it might cause more Americans to rally against Trump and for Clinton, riled up by an American presidential candidate being the target of Russian intelligence operations. But that remains to be seen, and for now, America is under attack from Russia in a way never seen before, something that is an objective, bi-partisan, national security issue that should concern all Americans. We may never know all the details, but one thing is for sure: this is one of the most disturbing, worrisome, and troubling developments in a year brimming with disturbing, worrisome, and troubling developments, and there must be both fierce consequences and fierce investigations because, clearly, there’s something going on, to quote Donald. Trump.
And one final thing: we haven’t even gotten into the possibility of voting machines being hacked by the Russians on Election Day…
© 2016 Brian E. Frydenborg all rights reserved, no republication without permission, attributed quotations welcome
If you appreciate Brian’s unique content, you can support him and his work by donating here.
Feel free to share and repost this article on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow him there at @bfry1981), and here are many more articles by Brian E. Frydenborg. If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content, or would like to have Brian generate content for you, your site, or your organization, please do not hesitate to reach out to him!
Related 10 Reasons for Liberals to Worry About Election Besides Trump / Clinton Debate
It's kinda time to panic for liberals; regardless of how the public reacts to the debate, here are 10 reasons why liberals should not be relaxed between now and November 8th. Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse September 26, 2016 By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) September 26th, 2016 (Edited/updated slightly September 27th)…
January 20, 2019
In "Featured"
 If You Think Trump’s Sex-Talk Recording Means This Election Is Over, Think Again
A lot of liberals are crowing that, with the revelations of Trump’s braggadocious sexual conversation from 2005 in which he brags about groping women and casting a wide and forceful sexual net, this election is over. Not so fast Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse October 8, 2016 By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981)…
January 20, 2019
In "U.S."
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| manafort, germany, ukraine, tymoshenko, merkel - Google Search | ||
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| Manafort and the Snipers: The Azov Battalion - manafort, germany, ukraine, tymoshenko, merkel - Google Search | Lady In Black: The German Woman at the Center of the Manafort Case - Monday January 21st, 2019 at 11:47 AM | ||
manafort, germany, ukraine, tymoshenko, merkel - Google SearchManafort and the Snipers: The Azov Battalion and the “Russia-Gate” Psy-Op: "Distilling information concerning the sniper attacks, we review the possibility that Manafort might have played an advisory role in the sniper shootings, that the shootings might have been a provocation and examine the role of the Nazi Azov battalion and its proponents and component figures in connection with the Maidan shootings and the “Russia-Gate” propaganda." Manafort and the Snipers: The Azov Battalion and the “Russia-Gate” Psy-Opmanafort, germany, ukraine, tymoshenko, merkel - Google Search | ||
| manafort, snipers, and Azov battalion - Google Search | ||
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| manafort, snipers, and Azov battalion - Google Search | ||
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| A peek into the world of Soviet secrets - Google Search | ||
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| Robert Mueller still knows what he's doing | ||
The saga of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s public statement about the BuzzFeed bombshell has taken yet another surreal turn, and it’s a big one. Rudy Giuliani is now claiming that Team Trump reached out to Mueller’s office before Mueller issued the statement, a clear cut attempt at tampering, which raises a number of questions about what’s really going on here.
The thing is, we don’t even know if this is true. Giuliani is making the claim to CNN, but he lies constantly, and often in inexplicable fashion. Did this really happen? Is Rudy simply making it up? Let’s assume for now that Trump’s people really did reach out to Mueller and ask him to publicly dispute the BuzzFeed report. Even if so, that doesn’t mean Mueller made the statement becauseTrump asked him to.
If there is a fundamentally incorrect detail in the BuzzFeed article, even a secondary one that doesn’t change the nature of the crimes involved, then Robert Mueller did the right thing by signaling to House Democrats that they shouldn’t immediately roll out impeachment charges like they had been planning to. Trump could have had a field day if the articles of impeachment against him had even one detail wrong.
There is a second, darker scenario: Robert Mueller issued the public statement because Donald Trump demanded as much. If so, it means Trump is even more out on a criminal limb than ever. But the bottom line here is that Mueller knows what he’s doing. He’s twice as smart as Trump, and he’s ten times more experienced at this kind of thing. If Mueller felt that his best shot at finishing the job of taking Trump down was to issue this (ostensibly technically true) statement in order to keep Trump placated for now, then so be it.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report
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| More proof FBI probe will likely reveal more than just leaks | ||
It was discovered by others last week that James Baker, the former chief attorney at the FBI, was the subject of an investigation for leaking information to the press. That tidbit accidentally came out when a letter between two Republican congressmen was made public.
Don’t be shocked if it turns out to be much more.
As I reported exclusively back in October 2016, Baker was one of the four people who were present during a meeting in July of that year when it was decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for mishandling her emails.
Ex-FBI director James Comey, former deputy director Andrew McCabe and a technology expert were the others.
That’s the group that Comey said “unanimously” agreed not to charge Hillary, despite the fact that the rest of the investigative team wasn’t consulted and the fact that the FBI isn’t supposed to make such decisions.
My point: As I’ve been saying all along, the investigation of what went on at the FBI is likely to be bigger than just about leaks made by Baker and others.
Trending Nowon <a href="http://NYPost.com" rel="nofollow">NYPost.com</a> More Stories | ||
| Barr’s first task as AG: Look at former FBI leaders’ conduct | TheHill – The Hill | ||
Barr’s first task as AG: Look at former FBI leaders’ conduct | TheHill The Hill
It’s important to know whether FBI leaders met agency obligations under the Attorney General Guidelines in the Trump-Russia investigation.
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| Depose the Deep State or a Wall Is Meaningless - American Greatness | ||
Depose the Deep State or a Wall Is Meaningless American Greatness
By Thomas Farnan| 2019-01-20T22:37:17+00:00 January 21st, 2019|. AddThis Sharing Buttons. Share to Facebook FacebookShare to Twitter TwitterShare to ...
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| EU imposes sanctions against Salisbury suspects - GOV.UK | ||
EU imposes sanctions against Salisbury suspects GOV.UK
EU foreign ministers agree to impose sanctions on the leadership of the GRU, and Salisbury suspects.
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| Yulia Tymoshenko: A ghost of Ukraine's past - New Eastern Europe | ||
Yulia Tymoshenko: A ghost of Ukraine's past New Eastern Europe
Is Ukraine in need of a comeback by the “Gas Princess” and her not so transparent connections? January 21, 2019 - Ariana Gic - Articles and ...
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| mueller - Google Search | ||
Debate builds over making Mueller report public
The Hill-3 hours ago
It's far from clear how close Mueller is to ending his investigation; the former FBI director has shown no signs of concluding his investigation.
Here's why Mueller's team reportedly made its unprecedented move to ...
Business Insider-Jan 20, 2019
The special counsel Robert Mueller's team released a rare statement disputing a bombshell report that said President Donald Trump ordered Michael Cohen to ...
Inside Mueller team's decision to dispute BuzzFeed's explosive Trump ...
The Sydney Morning Herald-Jan 20, 2019
President Trump said he 'appreciates' Mueller's response to BuzzFeed ...
<a href="http://NBCNews.com" rel="nofollow">NBCNews.com</a>-Jan 19, 2019
Trump thanks Mueller for disputing BuzzFeed report that claims ...
International-USA TODAY-Jan 19, 2019 President Trump Praises Robert Mueller for Disputing BuzzFeed Report
TIME-Jan 19, 2019
President Donald Trump, a frequent critic of Robert Mueller and his team, had nothing but praise after the special counsel took the unusual step ...
President Trump Directed His Attorney Michael Cohen To Lie To ...
Highly Cited-BuzzFeed News-Jan 18, 2019
What Mueller's extraordinarily unprecedented move to dispute ...
International-Business Insider-Jan 18, 2019  Here's how Mueller uses his power to gather evidence in the Russia ...
CNBC-Jan 18, 2019
As special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation grows increasingly damaging to President Donald Trump's close associates, and possibly the ...
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| deutsche bank - Google Search | ||
A Truly Terrible Idea for Deutsche Bank
Bloomberg-6 hours ago
The mooted merger between Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG would make a mockery of any notion that EU governments are serious ...
Deutsche Bank quietly promoted its 2019 managing directors - bad ...
eFinancialCareers-2 hours ago
Deutsche Bank has quietly promoted its new class of global managing directors (MDs). The German bank is understood to have informed ...
Deutsche Bank promotes four managing directors in Australia
The Australian Financial Review-Jan 20, 2019
German banking giant Deutsche Bank might be starting 2019 still mired in a level of "dreck" at home, but Down Under the year has kicked off on ...
 Deutsche Bank Deal Talks Bubble Up Again
Barron's-Jan 17, 2019
This story never seems to end: Talks about a possible merger between Deutsche Bank (DB), the biggest German lender, and its smaller ...
Barclays says talk of any Deutsche Bank merger is a red flag for ...
Highly Cited-Business Insider-Jan 17, 2019 
Channel NewsAsia
Trump-Deutsche Bank links in focus of House Reps: Reuters
Seeking Alpha-Jan 18, 2019
A 2017 financial disclosure showed liabilities for Trump of at least $130M to Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, Reuters says.
 Top Deutsche Bank executive drawn into tax loophole probe
Financial Times-Jan 18, 2019
Deutsche Bank's head of investment banking was sent an email in 2007 which discussed a design flaw in Germany's tax code that allowed its ...
 Deutsche Bank: Jetzt verdichten sich die Fusionsgerüchte
finews.ch-Jan 16, 2019
Das Deutsche Finanzmininsterium habe die Bafin angewiesen, Szenarien einer Fusion zwischen der Deutschen Bank und der Commerzbank ...
Spekulationen um die Deutsche Bank – 8 Prozent Kursplus
FAZ - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung-Jan 16, 2019  Democrats to investigate Trump ties to Deutsche Bank
The Globe and Mail-Jan 18, 2019
Democrats now in control of the U.S. House of Representatives are working out which House panels will take the lead in investigating ...
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| deutsche bank and trump investigations - Google Search | ||
Trump-Deutsche Bank links in sights of US House investigators
Channel NewsAsia-Jan 18, 2019
A 2017 financial disclosure form showed liabilities for Trump of at least US$130 million to Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, a unit of ...
Democrats to investigate Trump ties to Deutsche Bank
The Globe and Mail-Jan 18, 2019
Democrats now in control of the U.S. House of Representatives are working out which House panels will take the lead in investigating ...
Trump aides may be in legal jeopardy as Democrats give evidence to ...
The Guardian-Jan 6, 2019
He said last month he wanted to investigate finances of the Trump Organization, naming Deutsche Bank, which has a history of laundering ...
 Here are 18 reasons Trump could be a Russian asset
Washington Post-Jan 13, 2019
In 2010, the private-wealth division of Deutsche Bank also loaned him ... Once in office, Trump fired Comey to stop the investigation of the ...
 The 5 House chairs who are about to make life much harder for Trump
WLOS-Jan 6, 2019
President Donald Trump will face an intensified level of scrutiny in the .... pressed for an investigation into Deutsche Bank, a lender to Trump ...
 Here's What Could Be Ahead In The Russia Investigations In 2019
NPR-Jan 1, 2019
Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, first was .... to find out whether Deutsche Bankwas involved with any payments to Trump.
 The 10 new Democratic House committee chairs who are about to ...
Vox-Jan 3, 2019
The Trump administration's free ride from Congress is over. ... has also said that he plans to investigate Trump's financial ties to Saudi Arabia. .... Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) to subpoena information on his ties to Deutsche Bank.
New Congress: House votes to reopen government but no end in sight ...
International-CBS News-Jan 3, 2019  Democrats Start Investigative Gears, but Slowly
New York Times-Jan 9, 2019
The impasse over Mr. Trump's proposed border wall and the death late last ... Loans from Deutsche Bank — hundreds of millions of dollars ...
 A Look at Upcoming Investigations by House Committees
Voice of America-Jan 14, 2019
... multiple investigations into President Donald Trump's administration, ... information on loans from Deutsche Bank to the Trump Organization.
 Hire Robert Mueller, if Donald Trump fires him: Readers sound off
USA TODAY-Dec 23, 2018
From Mueller's investigation to reproductive rights in the Midwest to the ... laundered “yuge” sums of Russian money through Deutsche Bank.
 Top 10 Pretty Bad Trump Stories that Got Upstaged by Really Bad ...
<a href="http://Progressive.org" rel="nofollow">Progressive.org</a>-Dec 26, 2018
Despite Robert Mueller's investigations into Deutsche Bank's potential role as a monetary conduit between Russian oligarchs and Trump, the ...
 Trump's woes intensify with polls at a low and 2020 in sight
NEWS.com.au-Jan 15, 2019
Democrats have launched numerous investigations into Mr Trump's affairs ... of dollars in loans from Deutsche Bank to the Trump Organisation.
 New House Financial Services Chair Targets Mulvaney for Interim ...
Wall Street Journal-Jan 16, 2019
... Equifax Inc. And she has said the committee under her leadership would investigate Deutsche Bank AG over Trump family business dealings ...
 House Democrats scooping up staff, lawyers to power Trump ...
CNN-Dec 28, 2018
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee needs lawyers, too, posting jobs for "executive branch investigative counsel.".
Top Deutsche Bank executive drawn into tax loophole probe
Financial Times-Jan 18, 2019
Deutsche Bank's head of investment banking was sent an email in 2007 ... it was fully co-operating with the authorities investigating the matter.
 The top Democrats set to make Trump's life miserable in 2019
The Guardian-Dec 31, 2018
In January, Donald Trump will face a newly empowered House Democratic ... one of the Democrats' chief investigators into the Trump administration. ... power to demand answers from Trump'sbiggest lender, Deutsche Bank.
 Deutsche Bank's German office raids (apparently) have nothing to do ...
Vox-Nov 30, 2018
The investigation is focused on two Deutsche Bank employees, ... The German bank also has ties to President Donald Trump and is one of the ...
 Trump's Deutsche Bank ties just one of several issues for House, Rep ...
CNBC-Nov 8, 2018
California Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters said an investigation into President Donald Trump's personal financial dealings with Deutsche Bank ...
 Deutsche Bank, Trump's Sugar Daddy, Raided by Police on Suspicion ...
Vanity Fair-Nov 29, 2018
In a statement, Deutsche Bank confirmed that “police are currently investigating our bank at various locations in Germany,” that “the ...
Deutsche Bank Offices Are Searched in Money Laundering Investigation
In-Depth-New York Times-Nov 29, 2018  Risks the Banking Industry Faces in 2019
Knowledge@Wharton-Jan 15, 2019
The U.S. banking industry is in better shape since the 2008 financial crisis, thanks to ... it faces vulnerabilities on several fronts with the Trump administration ... fines and other penalties, including Deutsche Bank for facilitating money .... they're going to be using this to investigate not only bad practices from ...
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| Trump Investigations: Deutsche bank and Trump investigations - Google Se... trumpinvestigations.blogspot.com/2019/01/deutsc… | ||
Trump Investigations: Deutsche bank and Trump investigations - Google Se... trumpinvestigations.blogspot.com/2019/01/deutsc…
Posted by
 mikenov on Monday, January 21st, 2019 2:30pm | ||
| Deutsche bank and Trump investigations - Google Search Monday January 21st, 2019 at 9:19 AM | ||
 sergei gorkov jared kushner - Google SearchTrump-Deutsche Bank links in sights of US House investigators
Channel NewsAsia-Jan 18, 2019
A 2017 financial disclosure form showed liabilities for Trump of at least US$130 million to Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, a unit of ...
Democrats to investigate Trump ties to Deutsche Bank
The Globe and Mail-Jan 18, 2019
Democrats now in control of the U.S. House of Representatives are working out which House panels will take the lead in investigating ...
Trump aides may be in legal jeopardy as Democrats give evidence to ...
The Guardian-Jan 6, 2019
He said last month he wanted to investigate finances of the Trump Organization, naming Deutsche Bank, which has a history of laundering ...
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| Democrats Prepare To Subpoena Deutsche Bank - "History Of Laundering Russian Money" | Trump Investigations: Michael Novakhov on the New Abwehr Hypothesis of Operation Trump - Google Search - 2:27 AM 1/21/2019 | ||
 Trump Investigations: Michael Novakhov on the New Abwehr Hypothesis of Operation Trump - Google SearchDemocrats now in control of the U.S. House of Representatives are working out which House panels will take the lead in investigating President Trump’s business ties to Deutsche Bank.
As the new Democratic House of Representatives majority launches a range of investigations into the Republican president and his businesses, the Intelligence Committee and Financial Services Committee are poised to dig into his ties with Deutsche, one of the world’s largest financial institutions.
Democratic lawmakers’ aides are discussing how to divide up the investigative work among committees and prevent overlap on requesting documents, aides said.
Since U.S. voters on Nov. 6 shifted majority control of the House from the Republicans to the Democrats, the party has been promising to probe the first two years of Trump’s administration and possible conflicts of interest presented by his hotel, golf course and other ventures, as well as Trump family members.
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said that he plans to subpoena information on Trump’s transactions with the bank because of the German financial institution’s longtime relationship with Trump and its past ties to Russian money laundering.
Schiff, who Trump has referred to as “little Adam Schitt,” said the answer to whether Trump was involved with Russian money laundering could exist in the Deutsche Bank records.
“The concern about Deutsche Bank is that they have a history of laundering Russian money,” Schiff said. “And this, apparently, was the one bank that was willing to do business with the Trump Organization.”
“If this is a form of compromise, it needs to be exposed,” he added.
A Deutsche Bank spokesman said: “Deutsche Bank takes its legal obligations seriously and remains committed to cooperating with authorized investigations. Our recent record of cooperating with such investigations has been widely recognized by regulators. We intend to keep working in this spirit.”
The Financial Services Committee, chaired by Democrat Maxine Waters, has the broadest power to look into Trump’s relationship with Deutsche.
When the Republicans still controlled the House, Waters tried in 2017 to request documents from the bank on its dealings with Trump and his businesses, as well as information about potential Russian money laundering through the bank.
But the bank told Congress that privacy laws prevented it from handing over such information without a formal subpoena. Committee Republicans ignored Waters’ request. As chairwoman, Waters can now issue subpoenas herself.
In recent weeks, Waters has been publicly quiet about her plans.
In a speech on Monday on committee priorities, she made no mention of the bank.
A Waters spokesman declined to comment.
Democratic aides outside the committee said Waters plans to move quietly on the Deutsche inquiry.
She cannot begin formally issuing subpoenas until after the committee holds its first business meeting, expected by the end of January.
Trump has been associated with the German bank since the late 1990s, a time when the big Wall Street banks wouldn’t lend to him following a series of business mishaps.
Deutsche has extended millions of dollars in credit to the Trump Organization, making the bank one of few willing to lend extensively to Trump in the past decade.
A 2017 financial disclosure form showed liabilities for Trump of at least $130 million to Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, a unit of German-based Deutsche Bank AG.
House Intelligence Committee Democrats also want to investigate Trump and his Deutsche links, said three congressional officials familiar with committee discussions.
When Trump nearly went personally bankrupt in the early 1990s, he left a handful of major U.S. banks on the hook for about $3.4 billion in loans he couldn’t repay (and about $900 million of which he had personally guaranteed).
Hotels, casinos, real estate, an airline and other parts of his debt-ridden portfolio went into bankruptcy protection.
In the wake of that collapse, Trump became a pariah among major U.S. banks, and he had to find unique ways of lining up money for the infrequent and small-bore
deals he pursued thereafter.
That left him borrowing money from labor unions and small, local lenders. Deutsche, keen at the time to make a name for itself in U.S. investment banking and commercial lending, was less hesitant to do business with Trump.
Deutsche’s first transaction with Trump involved a modest renovation loan for 40 Wall Street, a Manhattan skyscraper Trump controls, in 1998.
Trump did little to merit Deutsche’s involvement after that until the early 2000s, when it agreed to loan him as much as $640 million for a Chicago project — the Trump International Hotel and Tower.
Others in Trump’s orbit have also benefited from a relationship with Deutsche Bank; his son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner’s floundering real-estate empire has also received massive loans from Deutsche Bank, including $285 million one month before the 2016 election.
After multiple outlets reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had subpoenaed Deutsche Bank’s records on Trump’s accounts, Trump reportedly attempted to fire Mueller, only to pull back when Mueller’s team told him those reporters were inaccurate.
A U.S. official has, however, told Reuters that Mueller is investigating whether Deutsche Bank may have sold Trump Organization debts to sanctioned Russian banks.
Trump once told The New York Times he considers investigating his and his family’s finances “a red line” and “a violation”, but Mueller has not stopped looking into the Trump Organization.
Related House Democrats Preparing To Put Trump Business & Financial Deals Under A Microscope
The House intelligence committee's incoming Democratic majority is taking its first steps to follow Donald Trump's money, planning to hire money-laundering and forensic accounting experts. Incoming chairman Adam Schiff, who Trump mocked this week as "little Adam Schitt", has said publicly that he’s interested in Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank,…
November 21, 2018
In "Headlines"
 Deutsche Bank About To Go Under House Microscope - Trump Owes German Bank Over $300 Million
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), incoming chair of the House Intelligence Committee, is looking into investigating President Trump's business records with Deutsche Bank, recently stating that there might be potential money laundering charges. “We are going to be looking at the issue of possible money laundering by the Trump Organization, and…
December 23, 2018
In "Headlines"
 Two Weeks To Go Until Midterm Election - Trump's Approval Rating "Up" To 44%
With two weeks to go until election day, President Trump's approval rating has almost reached Barack Obama's numbers in 2010, before Democrats lost 63 seats in Congress. Trump reached 44 percent in the latest Gallup poll. That's one point below his personal best and six points higher than his approval…
October 23, 2018
In "2018"
Read the whole story
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| M.N.: The Abwehr gave them (to the Trump and Kushner families) the robbed in WW2 money, for the investments in US Real Estate and for the safekeeping; and the New Abwehr took these money away from them in their brilliantly conceived, planned, and executed "OPERATION TRUMP" | Sberbank and Mueller's Investigation of Trump | ||
 M.N.: The Abwehr gave them (to the Trump and Kushner families) the robbed in WW2 money, for the investments in US Real Estate and for the safekeeping; and the New Abwehr took these money away from them in their brilliantly conceived, planned, and executed "OPERATION TRUMP". Deutsche Bank apparently bought all Trump's debt (about 3,5B) at a discount from the other banks and continued to lend him more (as a result of the Trump's blackmail), up to about 1B. And then apparently, as reported, Deutsche Bank sold Trump's debt to the Russian Sberbank, which might be Deutsche's actual branch or subsidiary or very close partner. A similar situation with the Kushner's family debt and the Russian VEBank-Gorshkov, probably somewhere in the range of 1-3B. So, now these two sanctioned Russian banks are in the position to collect about 5-6B in the US Real Estate, nominally owned by the POTUS (und ziz iz zi most piquant point, of course). Sberbank is likely the foreign entity which lost the Supreme Court bid and is hit with $50,000 daily penalties for refusing to comply with the Mueller's subpoena, which probably aims to look into this issue. All of the above are the entirely hypothetical interpretations, but it might explain the situation (it does help to look for money as the real engine and culprit), and this "Debt Collection Hypothesis by the New Abwehr" should be vigorously investigated. Abwehr giveth and the New Abwehr taketh away, in due time and with the proper interest accrued. The Smart Seagull lifts and drops red and pinky crabs, their tiny legs beating rhythmically, to and from the skies; and consumes fresh and delicious crabmeat for lunch, as the result of her Canarisian labors. But above and beyond any commercial considerations, the New Abwehr, in its Operation Trump (or the "Russland Affare", in German Interpretation), achieved its traditional historical Geopolitical goals: to drive the wedges between the US and Russia (and now between the US and Israel also), inciting the war between them, to enhance Germany's standing (via creeping Revanche) in the world affairs (read Merkel's New Year speech), especially in the year of Germany's chairmanship in the Security Council, and of course for the propaganda purposes, with the incredible daring and panache, which is the Abwehr's, and now the New Abwehr's signature style. Michael Novakhov 5:46 AM 1/21/2019 - Sberbank and Mueller's investigation of Trump
Dec 28, 2018 - But perhaps overshadowing them all is special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigationinto Russian interference in the 2016 US election, and links between the Trump campaign and Moscow. ... But the broadest possible question about what the next year might hold in store for Mueller...
Missing:
3 days ago - Michael Cohen's guilty plea in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation last November threatens to unveil an explosive possible reason ...
Missing:
May 13, 2018 - Ross's labyrinth of Russian bank ties may have paid off Trump's five ... Is Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Jr. in special counsel Robert Mueller's sights? ... The Bank of Cyprus has extensive dealings with Sberbank and is widely seen as ... is currently under FBI investigation for Russian money laundering.
Sep 20, 2018 - In the months before the 2016 elections, Manafort, then Trump's ... 14 to charges stemming from the Mueller investigation, Manafort agreed to ..... The state's largest lender,Sberbank, even agreed to finance around 70% of the ...
Dec 29, 2017 - The fed-up reproving parent was Deutsche Bank, Trump's New York creditor. .... Robert Mueller, the Justice Department's special counsel, in Washington in June. ... from Deutsche Bank Moscow in companies like Gazprom or Sberbank. ... of the Justice Department's ongoinginvestigation into mirror trades?
Jul 20, 2017 - Mueller expands probe to Trump's business transactions ... The U.S. special counselinvestigating possible ties between the ... At the event, Trump met Herman Gref, chief executive of Russia's biggest bank, Sberbank PJSC.
Jul 20, 2017 - The U.S. special counsel investigating possible ties between the Donald Trumpcampaign and Russia in last year's election is examining a ...
Dec 21, 2017 - Mueller Demands Trump Bank Details From Deutsche Bank ... The special counsel isinvestigating Russian interference—from the hacking of .... stocks from Deutsche Bank Moscow in companies like Gazprom or Sberbank.
Nov 2, 2017 - What's clear, reviewing the facts, is that Trump's claim he had “nothing to ... As theMueller investigation accelerated this week with the indictment of .... The co-host was Herman Gref, the chief executive of Sberbank, Russia's ...
Aug 28, 2017 - Meet the Russian developer Trump tapped for Moscow tower. IC Expert has ... At the time he was hired by Sberbank, Kasowitz was also working for Trump on matters related to RobertMueller's Russia investigation.
Mar 13, 2018 - President Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the ... includingSberbank, the bank that was going to finance the [Trump Tower] operation. ..... he's become a cooperating witness in the Mueller investigation.
Jul 12, 2017 - Since Donald Trump's election as president in November, the eldest son of the ... Those are now being looked at by Robert Mueller, the special counsel ... to expose corruption — and aninvestigation by opposition leader Alexei ... ally of Mr Putin's who is chief executive of Sberbank, Crocus' largest creditor.
Jul 20, 2017 - Meanwhile, Robert Mueller is quietly assembling a dream team of lawyers. ... the president in the ongoing investigation into whether the Trump campaign ... Two of the individuals involved in the Sberbank case, according to a ...
Dec 21, 2017 - Representatives attended meeting with Trump campaign officials. Mueller GivesTrump the Silent Treatment. SHARE THIS ARTICLE. Share.
Dec 5, 2017 - Trump lawyer: Deutsche Bank has not received subpoena for Trump records. Muelleris investigating alleged Russian attempts to influence the election, ... one been received,” responded a representative of Sberbank (SBER.
Dec 5, 2017 - Photo: Donald Trump and Deutsche Bank have not always been on good terms. ... MrMueller is investigating alleged Russian attempts to influence the ... A Sberbank representative said: "We would not comment on the ...
William Felix Browder (born 23 April 1964) is an American-born British financier and economist. .... Theinvestigation was to focus on whether Browder violated any Russian laws when Hermitage used Russian ... commissioned former MI6 staffer Christopher Steele to collect information on DonaldTrump's ties with Russia.
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33432. the special counsel investigating the Trump-Russia scandal, ... Mueller Subpoenas Deutsche Bank For Trump's Bank Records As His Russia ..... details for making copies of documents issued bySberbank of Russia OJSC to the ...
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| "roger stone" - Google News: Report: Senate Intel Committee Subpoenas Roger Stone Associate Corsi - TPM | ||
Report: Senate Intel Committee Subpoenas Roger Stone Associate Corsi TPM
The Senate Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, his attorney, Larry Klayman, told The Hill on Friday. The committee asked ...
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Trump Investigations.
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TRUMP INVESTIGATIONS NEWS REVIEW
Trump – from Huffington Post
| Trump – from Huffington Post from Michael_Novakhov (2 sites) |
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| Donald Trump: Saudi-Funded Lobbyists Paid For 500 Nights At Trump D.C. Hotel Right After Election |
Some military veterans interviewed by The Washington Post said they felt like they’d been used twice — once for Saudi Arabia, and again to pay Trump.   Donald Trump |
–Trump Investigations News Review
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