6:59 AM 7/24/2019
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The Roundup Begins! – 6:54 AM 7/24/2019
Last Update: 7.24.19
Investigate the possible violations of the U.S. Immigration Laws and bring the criminal charges of Sex Trafficking against Donald Trump, Melania Knauss Trump, and Jeffrey Epstein The Pimp For The Rich, who sold Melania to Donald.
How? For how much? Go find it out! Go figure it out!
Melania was brought to the U.S. on “The Einstein Visa“, which in fact was “The Epstein Visa“, on a special and higher level.
For how much? Ah, Donald?
How much did you pay for your Melania Delivery? $1M? $10 M? More? You should have given it to charity, you stupid fool!
Did you and your FBI cronies also arrange the investigations and the prosecutions of Epstein after this deal, to secure your hold on your trophy and possession, and to limit their communications?
Who paid for the private investigator of Epstein?
“Fisten was hired to investigate the case by attorney Brad Edwards, who was suing Epstein in civil court on behalf of many of his accusers. Edwards wanted Fisten to dig deeper.”
Who paid for the private investigator of Epstein?
“Fisten was hired to investigate the case by attorney Brad Edwards, who was suing Epstein in civil court on behalf of many of his accusers. Edwards wanted Fisten to dig deeper.”
Who was behind Brad Edwards in financing the private detective for 10 years?
Who arranged the publications in the “Miami Herald”?
Does this story have anything to do with Chris Cline and his death in a helicopter crash just hours before Epstein’s arrival from Paris to Teterboro airport?
Does this story have anything to do with Chris Cline and his death in a helicopter crash just hours before Epstein’s arrival from Paris to Teterboro airport?
Melania and Jeffrey were lovers, after all. He prepped her up for Donald. And Epstein counted on staying in the picture and continuing to manipulate her, for the ultimate benefit of those, whose agent he was, just like he did with the dozens of his other billionaire clients, whom he bugged, taped, and blackmailed also.
It looks like Jeffrey Epstein provided the most comprehensive, broad, and diverse package of services: tax-free investments, entertainment on one of his private Virgin Islands, and the blackmailing services, added for a spicy dash and market value. No wonder, his activities and his VIP clients tethered to him in so many intimate ways, were of the great interest to the various Intelligence Services, as was discussed on the Internet, along with the most intriguing question:
And I think, that Epstein employer and boss was the New Abwehr-Mob, which is confirmed byEpstein’s very special relationship with the Deutsche Bank, closely resembling its relationship with Donald Trump: practically unlimited credit line in billions of dollars.
Another curious fact supporting the Epstein – New Abwehr-Mob thesis and hypothesis is his particular closeness with Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of Robert Maxwell, both the very likely New Abwehr agents, posing as the Russian and Israeli agents for their covers, which apparently is quite the common tactic for the New Abwehr.
It looks like Jeffrey Epstein provided the most comprehensive, broad, and diverse package of services: tax-free investments, entertainment on one of his private Virgin Islands, and the blackmailing services, added for a spicy dash and market value. No wonder, his activities and his VIP clients tethered to him in so many intimate ways, were of the great interest to the various Intelligence Services, as was discussed on the Internet, along with the most intriguing question:
And I think, that Epstein employer and boss was the New Abwehr-Mob, which is confirmed byEpstein’s very special relationship with the Deutsche Bank, closely resembling its relationship with Donald Trump: practically unlimited credit line in billions of dollars.
Another curious fact supporting the Epstein – New Abwehr-Mob thesis and hypothesis is his particular closeness with Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of Robert Maxwell, both the very likely New Abwehr agents, posing as the Russian and Israeli agents for their covers, which apparently is quite the common tactic for the New Abwehr.
All this has to be investigated in depth and in details, but the structure and the functions of theDonald-Melania-Jeffrey “Love”-Spying Triangle, appears to be evident.
Sing, Epstein, sing! And sing well…
These are the questions, among many others of the similar kind, that should be asked of Mr. Mueller.
Donald Trump could not do anything in any project of his, without the FBI participation, overt, but mostly covert.
In fact, Donald Trump might be nothing less and nothing more, and nothing else, but The FBI Tool, used by the unofficial, secret, hidden but powerful FBI leadership to control and to rule this country.
In fact, Donald Trump might be nothing less and nothing more, and nothing else, but The FBI Tool, used by the unofficial, secret, hidden but powerful FBI leadership to control and to rule this country.
His connections with the FBI have to be investigated very carefully. It is quite possible that many FBI officials, officers, and agents, especially of the corrupt and rotten NYC Branch of FBI, were and are on Trump’s payroll.
Hopefully, the Barr – Durham Review will be able to shed some light on this and other, related issues.
Hopefully, the Barr – Durham Review will be able to shed some light on this and other, related issues.
Naturally, Mr. Mueller would be reluctant to go into these issues, Trump – FBI Collaboration and Complicity, to avoid self-incrimination of the responsibility for the FBI misconduct when he was a Director.
SDNY should investigate Trump and all the related issues aggressively, decisively, and fast.
Presently, the Broidy-Manafort corrupt wing of the Republican Party, with the U.S. Arms sales to Saudi Arabia and UAE, and the alternative deals, appear to be the structure and the focus of the hypothetical, suspected conspiracy to influence the U.S. Elections, and to install the preferred candidate.
The overall strategy, design, and operational management were supplied the courtesy of the New Abwehr-Mob, as was postulated previously. Jeffrey Epstein appeares to play one of the key roles, along with Broidy and Manafort, in this putative conspiracy, and this role appears to be unique and multifaceted, from sex therapist, to money manager, to investment adviser, to the high class and the high wire act pimp, to the voyeur, blackmailer, and finally, to the assumed “intelligence officer”, agent, or asset. Quite a pungent bouquet.
Presently, the Broidy-Manafort corrupt wing of the Republican Party, with the U.S. Arms sales to Saudi Arabia and UAE, and the alternative deals, appear to be the structure and the focus of the hypothetical, suspected conspiracy to influence the U.S. Elections, and to install the preferred candidate.
The overall strategy, design, and operational management were supplied the courtesy of the New Abwehr-Mob, as was postulated previously. Jeffrey Epstein appeares to play one of the key roles, along with Broidy and Manafort, in this putative conspiracy, and this role appears to be unique and multifaceted, from sex therapist, to money manager, to investment adviser, to the high class and the high wire act pimp, to the voyeur, blackmailer, and finally, to the assumed “intelligence officer”, agent, or asset. Quite a pungent bouquet.
Michael Novakhov
See also:
Michael Novakhov on Trump and Trumpism
Michael Novakhov on FBI
Michael Novakhov on Elections 2016
Michael Novakhov on the New Abwehr-Mob
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See also:
Michael Novakhov on Trump and Trumpism
Michael Novakhov on FBI
Michael Novakhov on Elections 2016
Michael Novakhov on the New Abwehr-Mob
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The study of history is in decline in Britain: As the country navigates a historic period, it is losing its skill at interpreting the past – <a href="http://economist.com" rel="nofollow">economist.com</a> – 1:49 PM · Jul 21, 2019 · SocialFlow
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THE ROUNDUP BEGINS… 6:57 AM 7/22/2019 – INVESTIGATE!
Melanias illegal as fuck
LoriO
Are we really sure that she and her parents had nothing to do with any of the drug trafficking? They need to go. #sendmelaniaback pic.twitter.com/PSTFAMld0t
Posted by 
Bella74357753 on Sunday, July 14th, 2019 3:53pm
Bella74357753 on Sunday, July 14th, 2019 3:53pm
Retweeted by 
mikenov on Sunday, July 21st, 2019 6:28pm
mikenov on Sunday, July 21st, 2019 6:28pm
43 likes, 31 retweets
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The Roundup Begins… 6:57 AM 7/22/2019 – Investigate the possible violations of the U.S. Immigration Laws and bring the criminal charges of Sex Trafficking against Donald Trump, Melania Knauss Trump, and Jeffrey Epstein The Pimp For The Rich, who sold Melania to Donald. For how much? Find it out! Melania was brought to the U.S. on “The Einstein Visa”, which in fact was “The Epstein Visa”! #SendMelaniaBack!
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by ProPublica Illinois ProPublica Illinois announced Wednesday that Haru Coryne will join the team as a data reporter. Coryne comes to ProPublica Illinois from The Real Deal, where he has covered the real estate industry in Chicago, Miam…
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by ProPublica Illinois ProPublica Illinois announced Wednesday that Haru Coryne will join the team as a data reporter. Coryne comes to ProPublica Illinois from The Real Deal, where he has covered the real estate industry in Chicago, Miam…
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Melania Trump obtained US citizenship on a visa reserved for immigrants with "extraordinary ability" and "sustained national and international acclaim", according to a report in the Washington Post.
Nicknamed the "Einstein Visa", the EB-1 is in theory reserved for people who are highly acclaimed in their field - the government cites Pulitzer, Oscar, and Olympic winners as examples - as well as respected academic researchers and multinational executives.
Mrs Trump began applying for the visa in 2000, when she was Melania Knauss, a Slovenian model working in New York and dating Donald Trump. She was approved in 2001, one of just five people from Slovenia to win the coveted visa that year, according to the Post.
Becoming a citizen in 2006 gave her the right to sponsor her parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, who are now in the US and in the process of applying for citizenship.
The reports of how Mrs Trump obtained her EB-1 visa will rankle with some, at a time when her husband is railing against immigrants and attempting to scrap the right of new citizens to sponsor family members. And questions have been raised about her suitability for the extraordinary ability category.
But just how hard is it to get an EB-1, and should she have made the cut?
Mrs Trump came to the US in 1996, first on a tourist visa then later a string of working visas for skilled immigrants, according to her lawyer. She was working as a model in New York when she met Mr Trump at a party in 1998, a relationship that considerably raised her celebrity profile.
Before applying for a green card - which grants permanent residency - she had worked as a runway model in Europe and featured to a limited extent in UK and US magazines. She appeared on the cover of British GQ on a fur rug in Mr Trump's private jet, and in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated in the US. She was not a top international model.
To obtain an EB-1 for extraordinary ability, an immigrant has to provide evidence of a major award or meet three of 10 criteria proving excellence in their field. The criteria include coverage of the applicant in major publications, original and significant contributions to a field, and work displayed at artistic exhibitions.
The government guidance for applicants cites Nobel prizes and international acclaim, but the reality is often more prosaic, said Susan McFadden, a specialist US visa lawyer at the Gudeon and McFadden law firm in London.
"You do not have to be a Nobel prize winner to get the extraordinary ability visa. I've gotten EB-1 visas for people you've never heard of and never will," she said.
"An experienced lawyer knows what the US citizenship and immigration services is looking for, and how to bring out of the client's background things that will be attractive to the agency."
Securing an EB-1 is often about defining a field, Ms McFadden said, in the hope of proving the client is outstanding in that field. Trying to prove your client is an outstanding businessman puts them up against Richard Branson. Proving they are outstanding within alternative asset commercial finance management? Not so tough.
Ms McFadden said she had secured EB-1s for a range of diverse specialities, from coaching a specific football position to scientific ballooning. The trick was to define a field narrow enough to excel in, she said, but not too narrow that immigration authorities won't take it seriously.
But where does that leave Mrs Trump? She does not appear at the time to have excelled in a niche area of modelling, nor won awards or had her work written about in significant publications.
Her lawyer has declined to publish details of her application, so we can't know what she submitted as evidence. But she may have been boosted by high-profile testimonial letters, said Nita Upadhye, a US immigration specialist at NNU Immigration Law.
Testimonials form part of the application, and the more high-profile the reference the more weight it carries. If Mrs Trump, already dating Mr Trump at the time she applied, secured letters from luminaries in fashion, that would be significant, Ms Upadhye said.
"If you're in the acting world, and Quentin Tarantino or Steven Spielberg writes a letter saying you're the next best thing, that can be very persuasive," she said.
"It's about getting testimonials from someone who is extraordinary in their own right and has some name recognition, but who can also attest to specific achievements of the applicant. And I'm sure she probably had some pretty significant letters, maybe from Donald Trump."
Ultimately though, lawyerly creativity aside, it comes down to the applicant, she said.
"You could get a letter from President Obama, and that certainly would look impressive with his letterhead. But if he can't say something significant about your achievements, it won't cut it."
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Elliott Broidy, a defense contractor and Republican fundraiser who had a top position on President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, is being investigated by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn.
The Associated Press reports that prosecutors are looking into whether Broidy used his position of influence as the vice chair of Trump’s inaugural committee to leverage business deals with foreign leaders, including the current president of Angola and two politicians in Romania.
The Eastern District of New York is conducting the probe, which appears to be separate from another investigation into the fundraising practices of Trump’s inaugural committee by the Southern District of New York in Manhattan.
The New York Times reported in February that EDNY prosecutors were also examining whether foreigners illegally contributed to Trump’s inaugural committee through straw donors — but this latest news focuses on whether Broidy himself tried to illegally gain from his connections to Trump and his inauguration.
Who is Elliott Broidy, and what does he have to do with Trump’s inauguration?
Broidy is 61-year-old Los Angeles investor, defense contractor, and Republican fundraiser whose security firm, Circinus, appears to be the target of scrutiny by federal prosecutors. (It’s also probably worth mentioning: In 2009, Broidy pleaded guilty to bribery charges after giving New York state officials$1 million in gifts before securing a $250 million investment deal with the state’s public pension fund.)
Authorities are reportedly examining whether Broidy advertised to his ties to Trump to attract clients to profit his business. The New York Times reported in March 2018 on Broidy’s somewhat sketchy ties:
Mr. Broidy offered tickets to V.I.P. inauguration events, including a candlelight dinner attended by Mr. Trump, to a Congolese strongman accused of funding a lavish lifestyle with public resources. He helped arrange a meeting with Republican senators and offered a trip to Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private Florida resort, for an Angolan politician. And he arranged an invitation to a party at Mr. Trump’s Washington hotel for a Romanian parliamentarian facing corruption charges, who posted a photograph with the president on Facebook.
Some of Broidy’s foreign connections emerged through a leak of emails last year. (Broidy has alleged Qatar was behind that hack, and that some of the emails were falsified.) But as the Associated Press points out, many of the names included in those emails are also part of the subpoena, including the former defense minister, and now president, of Angola and two Romanian politicians.
Broidy’s attorneys told the AP that Broidy’s firm never had a contract with Romanian officials, and that the agreement with Angola dates back to 2016, and doesn’t have any connection to Trump’s inauguration. “Any implication to the contrary is completely false,” the statement said.
And the plot thickens: Included on the subpoena, according to the AP, is George Nader, who also cooperated in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Nader — who acted as an advisor to the United Arab Emirates — reportedly worked with Broidy to influence the White House and other politicians on Middle East policy. As Vox’s Andrew Prokop previously explained, Broidy and Nader “discussed how Broidy could use his influence in Washington to lobby on behalf of Saudi and Emirati foreign policy objectives, like taking a hard line against Qatar and Iran.”
In exchange, Broidy and Nader expected to secure lucrative deals with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. As the New York Times reported last year, Nader did help bring about $200 million in contracts from the UAE to Broidy’s firm, Circinus.
If this all sounds extraordinarily complicated, it is — and so far, there are just glimpses of what prosecutors might be investigating, based on the AP’s latest report and past media reports on Broidy’s relationships and business dealings.
But it all goes back to a question that’s dogged Trump’s presidency in various forms — whether the business interests of Trump, and those he surrounds himself with, are influencing US policy.
Broidy’s name has come up before in Trumpian drama — specifically related to the hush money payments made by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. Cohen helped arrange approximately $1.6 million in payments to former Playboy model Shera Bechard to keep quiet about a 2017 affair with Broidy, including the fact that he allegedly impregnated her and she had an abortion as a result. In April 2018, Broidy was forced to resign from his position on the Republican National Committee.
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When former FBI chief Robert Mueller took on the role of special counsel and began his investigation into Russian meddling during the 2016 presidential election in May of 2017, there were warnings that the U.S. was about to embark on a years-long process and not to expect instant gratification. It turns out those warnings were right, as more than two years later and even though the investigation has been concluded and the report produced, Mueller, his findings and the meaning behind those findings still dominate the national conversation.
Here's everything you need to know to be up to date before Mueller's House testimony Wednesday morning.
May, 2017
President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey and, almost immediately after, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appoints former FBI director Robert Mueller as special counsel to take over the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections.
June 14, 2017
Mueller expands his investigation to include the possible obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump. The decision comes shortly after Comey testifies to the Senate Intelligence Committee that the president asked him to end his investigation into his former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The FBI had been investigating Flynn's contacts with Russian diplomats before the election and whether he had intentionally misled Vice President Mike Pence about those contacts.
October 30, 2017
Mueller's team serves its first indictment to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who was charged with 12 counts that included conspiracy against the United States, money laundering and fraud. His partner, Richard Gates, is also served with five counts. Meanwhile, it's revealed that Trump's former campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty to investigators about his contacts with Russia. He claimed to have lied to the FBI in order to protect the president.
December 1, 2017
Michael Flynn takes a plea deal with the FBI and agrees to cooperate with the special investigation. He becomes the first member of the Trump administration to plead guilty and admits to "willfully and knowingly [making] false, fictitious and fraudulent statements and representations" about his contacts with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S.
February 16, 2018
Mueller charges 13 Russian nationals and three groups for interfering in the U.S. election. The charges claim that beginning in 2014, the Russians took on different personas and began internet campaigns to influence Americans and sway the elections.
February 20, 2018
A dutch lawyer, Alex van der Zwaan, pleads guilty for lying to the FBI about his interactions with Richard Gates and a person who remains unidentified in filings, referred to as "Person A."
February 22, 2018
Mueller files 32 new financial charges against Manafort and Gates.
February 23, 2018
Gates pleads guilty to two counts: conspiracy against the U.S. and making a false statement to the special team investigating Russian meddling. The plea deal says that Gates will fully cooperate with Mueller's team.
April 3, 2018
Van der Zwaan is the first to be sentenced in the Mueller investigation. He gets 30 days in prison and must pay $20,000 in fines.
April 9, 2018
The FBI raids the home, office and hotel room of Michael Cohen, the president's personal lawyer and fixer.
June 8, 2018
Mueller files more charges against Manafort, this time for conspiracy and obstruction of justice, laundering money and acting as an unregistered foreign agent. Manafort's aide, Konstantin Kilimnik, is also charged.
July 13, 2018
Mueller indicts 12 Russians, all part of Russia's military intelligence agency, for hacking and releasing the emails of the Democratic National Committee.
August 21, 2018
Manafort is found guilty in a Virginia court on eight counts of bank and tax fraud. On that same day, Michael Cohen pleads guilty in New York to tax fraud and campaign finance violations. Over the next few months he reportedly spends multiple days speaking with the Mueller investigation.
September 7, 2018
Papadopoulos becomes the second to be sentenced in the Mueller investigation, this time to 14 days for lying to the FBI.
September 14, 2018
Manafort pleads guilty and agrees to cooperate with the Mueller investigation.
November 7, 2018
President Donald Trump fires his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and appoints Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general. Whitaker is a vocal critic of the Mueller probe. The change also means that Rod Rosenstein will no longer oversee the investigation.
November 20, 2018
Trump's lawyers claim they have submitted written answers to questions asked by the Mueller team.
November 29, 2018
Michael Cohen pleads guilty to lying to Congress about the details of negotiations around a Trump Tower project in Moscow.
December 4, 2018
Mueller recommends zero prison time for Flynn because of his "substantial contributions" to the case.
December 7, 2018
Even though Cohen is participating in the Mueller Investigation, federal prosecutors in New York recommend a "substantial term of imprisonment" for him. Mueller responds telling them they can do what they want and that he doesn't have an opinion.
December 12, 2018
Cohen is sentenced to three years in prison. He claims that the president told him to pay two women hush money for alleged affairs.
January 25, 2019
Roger Stone, a former campaign adviser and longtime friend of the president, is indicted and arrested in the Mueller investigation. The FBI raid of his home is dramatic and draws a lot of media attention.
Stone's trial will begin on November 5, 2019.
February 23, 2019
Mueller files an 800-page report on Paul Manafort, calling him a criminal who "repeatedly and brazenly" broke the law for decades. He recommends he spend 19.5 and 24.5 years in prison.
March 2019
Manafort is sentenced to 7.5 years prison time.
March 22, 2019
Mueller delivers his report to Attorney General William Barr, officially ending the investigation into Russian meddling and obstruction of justice after 22 months.
March 24, 2019
Barr reviews the report and sends a 4-page memo to Congress, which he says is a summary of the report's findings. The report did not find any collusion or conspiracy between members of the Trump administration and the Russian government to influence the election, said Barr. On obstruction of justice, he says that the report "does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
April 18, 2019
Faced with extreme pressure from Democratic lawmakers, Barr releases the full, albeit heavily-redacted version of the report.
April 30, 2019
A letter between Mueller and Barr is leaked where Mueller says Barr's summary did not "fully capture" the findings of the report. Barr testifies before Congress on May 1 about the findings.
May 29, 2019
Mueller declares "case closed" on the investigation and announces his intention to go back into retirement. He does add that "If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so."
June 25, 2019
Mueller agrees to testify in front of Congress. The date is pushed back a few times until July 24 is settled upon.
Read the whole story
· · · · · · · · · · ·
Two unofficial envoys reporting directly to Donald Trump’s personal lawyer have waged a remarkable back-channel campaign to discredit the president’s rivals and undermine the special counsel’s inquiry into Russian meddling in US elections.
In a whirlwind of private meetings, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman — who pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into Republican campaigns and dined with the president — gathered repeatedly with top officials in Ukraine and set up meetings for Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani as they turned up information that could be weaponized in the 2020 presidential race.
The two men urged prosecutors to investigate allegations against Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden. And they pushed for a probe into accusations that Ukrainian officials plotted to rig the 2016 election in Hillary Clinton’s favor by leaking evidence against Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chair, in what became a cornerstone of the special counsel’s inquiry.
They also waged an aggressive campaign in the United States, staying at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, and meeting with key members of Congress as they joined in a successful push that led to the removal of the ambassador to Ukraine after she angered their allies in Kiev.
Claire McCracken for BuzzFeed News
Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman
Meanwhile, the two men — both of whom have troubled financial histories — rose to prominence in Republican circles, meeting with party leaders while injecting hundreds of thousands of dollars into top Republican committees and dozens of candidates’ campaigns.
As they carried out their campaign, they used their proximity to the White House to tout a new business they set up to sell natural gas in Ukraine, with photos posted on Facebook showing Parnas posing with President Trump in the White House and top House members on Capitol Hill.
Their work proved influential. Prosecutors in Kiev announced in March that they would investigate the officials accused of trying to steer the election in Clinton’s favor — a month after meeting with Parnas, Fruman, and Giuliani — and Trump applauded the plan in an interview with Fox News, calling the allegations “big” and “incredible.” The next month, Attorney General William Barr announced he had appointed a federal prosecutor to lead a probe into the origins of the Mueller investigation.
Parnas said he expected the information that he and Fruman advanced to become an important focus of Barr’s inquiry, and to dominate the debate in the run-up to the 2020 election. “It’s all going to come out,” he said. “Something terrible happened and we’re finally going to get to the bottom of it.”
In an exclusive interview with BuzzFeed News at the Trump International Hotel, the 47-year-old former stockbroker insisted he and Fruman were not paid for acting as intermediaries between the Ukrainian officials and Giuliani. “All we were doing was passing along information,” he said. “Information was coming to us — either I bury it or I pass it on. I felt it was my duty to pass it on."
Got a tip? You can email <a href="mailto:tips@buzzfeed.com">tips@buzzfeed.com</a>. To learn how to reach us securely, go to <a href="http://tips.buzzfeed.com">tips.buzzfeed.com</a>.
He said the back channel was initiated by Ukrainian officials who wanted to meet US authorities and had trouble making the right connections. “They knew I was friends with the mayor,” he said, referring to Giuliani, who was previously mayor of New York City. That was what kick-started the campaign to dig up information on Democrats in Kiev — an effort that “is not going away,” Parnas added. “We’re American citizens, we love our country, we love our president.”
Fruman did not respond to detailed questions sent by BuzzFeed News; nor did Giuliani or the White House. Giuliani has previously said that the two men were his clients and that neither he nor they did anything improper in pushing prosecutors to pursue investigations into Trump’s rivals.
But Kenneth McCallion, a former federal prosecutor who once represented Ukraine’s former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, said Parnas and Fruman were “playing with fire” by carrying out their campaign in the US and Ukraine without registering as foreign agents or being vetted by the State Department.
“Trump has either authorized Giuliani to engage in private diplomacy and deal-making or, even worse, remains silent while Giuliani and his dodgy band of soldiers of fortune engage in activities that severely undermine US credibility and are contrary to fundamental US interests,” he said.
What’s clear is that, for Parnas and Fruman, the stakes were more than just political. While they launched a new energy company to operate in Ukraine, large sums of money were flowing into various bank accounts belonging to the men who are now the focus of legal complaints.
In one transaction in 2018, more than $1 million was wired to a bank account belonging to Parnas from the client trust account of a Florida lawyer specializing in real estate and foreign investments. Parnas and Fruman then redirected $325,000 to a Trump-supporting super PAC — without declaring the original source of the funds, records and interviews show.
The money is now the target of a complaint before the Federal Election Commission (FEC) by a nonprofit watchdog group.
The mission by the two men in Ukraine follows a tumultuous period when, at the height of the US presidential election in 2016, Manafort was forced to resign from Trump’s campaign after the leak of a “black ledger” detailing clandestine payments he had taken from the country’s recently toppled pro-Russian regime. Manafort’s work for the government of Viktor Yanukovych later became a focus of the special counsel’s inquiry into Russian election meddling, and the former campaign chair was convicted on tax and bank fraud in 2018.
Allies of Trump, including Giuliani, have since pushed the theory the ledger might have been faked by officials from the anti-Kremlin government that replaced Yanukovych in a bid to harm Trump and tilt the US election in Clinton’s favor.
The dispute over the black ledger has placed Ukraine’s diplomatic relations with the White House under strain at a time when the country is heavily reliant on US military aid in its ongoing conflict with Russia. The relationship has also been fraught with public clashes between US diplomats and prosecutors in Kiev over floundering attempts to root out rampant corruption in the country since the toppling of Yanukovych.
The president’s allies have seized on that tension, touting allegations that Biden intervened during the Obama administration to orchestrate the firing of a prosecutor who was probing corruption claims at a company where Biden’s son Hunter had earned $3 million as a board member.
The first public glimpse of Parnas and Fruman’s work emerged in May of this year, when Giuliani told the New York Times that Parnas had helped arrange a trip for him to Ukraine, where he hoped to meet with the newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, about matters that could help Trump. Critics said that amounted to evidence of foreign meddling in US elections, and Giuliani quickly announced that the meeting was off.
But the full extent to which the two unofficial envoys had inserted themselves into America’s diplomacy with Ukraine — a country both at war with and deeply compromised by Russia — has never previously been revealed.
BuzzFeed News and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project have examined scores of court filings and confidential financial records and interviewed dozens of people — including Parnas — to piece together the international maneuvers of the two men. The results raise questions about the origins of the money they were spending and whether their work should have been declared — as well as the impact of their efforts on the 2020 election.
On a balmy evening in May, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman hunkered down over a table on the terrace of the gleaming Hilton hotel tower in Kiev, a hookah pipe burning between them.
The gathering was one of their last stops on a tour of four countries to meet with Ukrainian authorities and unearth critical information on Trump’s potential 2020 challenger Joe Biden as well as Trump’s former opponent, Hillary Clinton, before the new president of Ukraine took office.
They were on familiar territory: Both men were born in the Soviet Union and had immigrated to the United States — Parnas in 1976, when he was 4, and Fruman as a young adult.
Both eventually settled in South Florida, where Parnas worked for three stockbrokerages that were later expelled by regulators for fraud and other violations — though he was never individually charged — and racked up nine court judgments for failing to pay loans and other debts. One of his businesses, Fraud Guarantee, set up to help people safeguard against fraud and other financial crimes, was evicted in 2015 for not paying the office rent, records show.
Fruman, 53, continued to make his money in Ukraine, running an export business that ships goods to and from the United States and a boutique hotel in Odessa — long known as a hub for both tourism and organized crime. One of his investments, a milk canning plant, was declared bankrupt seven years ago over debts that reached nearly $25 million.
But over the past year, their connections in Kiev had suddenly helped propel them to the highest echelons of American society.
They had shared a breakfast last year with Donald Trump Jr. and Tommy Hicks Jr., who is currently cochair of the Republican National Committee, at the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills as they collectively poured $576,500 into GOP campaigns — and dined with the president himself in Washington.
In their role as unofficial US envoys, Parnas and Fruman had met at least four times with top Ukrainian prosecutors — two of whom are steeped in corruption allegations of their own — as they pushed for investigations into Trump’s rivals. And they had jetted to Israel to meet with a powerful Ukrainian oligarch accused of stealing billions from one of the country's largest banks.
In one of a series of interviews with BuzzFeed News, near his home in Boca Raton, Florida, Parnas said the behind-the-scenes efforts started in late 2018 when Fruman received a call from “an acquaintance” in Ukraine who wanted to set up a meeting with the country’s most controversial prosecutor.
Viktor Shokin had been fired two years earlier, but he now wanted to unload on the man he held directly responsible for his fall from power: former vice president Biden. Parnas saw that the information about Biden, who was then eyeing a bid for the presidency, could eventually benefit the Trump campaign. He immediately turned to Giuliani, who had become a friend as Parnas rose to prominence as a GOP supporter.
“I don’t remember if we were having dinner or smoking a cigar, whenever we told him at the time,” Parnas said, but he viewed Giuliani as a “powerful, astute individual” who would make good use of the information. “I knew he would steer it in the right direction,” he said.
On a Skype meeting set up by Parnas and his partner, Shokin told Giuliani that he had overseen an investigation into a large energy company that was paying up to $50,000 a month to Biden’s son Hunter through a consulting firm that he cofounded, records show.
The now–former vice president had traveled to the country in 2016 as the White House’s point person on Ukraine to demand that Shokin be stripped of his job. If the government refused, he said, the US would withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees. The prosecutor was dismissed a week later.
Shokin had already been facing criticism that he was not doing enough to fight crime, and voices around the world had been calling for his removal. As for the company, there are multiple investigations into the owner, but he has never been charged.
Giuliani seized on the former prosecutor’s allegations, calling publicly for an investigation into whether Biden’s intervention had been calculated to protect his son.
Hunter Biden said in a statement that he had never discussed his work for the energy company with his father. "In this political climate, where my qualifications and work are being attacked by Rudy Giuliani and his minions for transparent political purposes, I have decided not to renew my directorship," he added.
Buoyed by the success of their first encounter, Parnas and Fruman soon helped set up meetings for Giuliani with Ukraine’s new prosecutor general — Yuriy Lutsenko — who had details on another heated issue.
Parnas and Fruman helped arrange meetings in New York between the prosecutor and Giuliani in January. Armed with documents from Ukraine, the prosecutor unloaded explosive evidence he claimed showed that Americans in the US Embassy in Ukraine had tried to rig the 2016 election in favor of Clinton. Lutsenko said officials at the US Embassy had pressured Ukrainian agents to leak entries from the ledger that showed the millions taken by Manafort.
No public records have emerged to support the charges that the embassy was steeped in a concerted effort to help either side. But Giuliani leaped on the allegation. Trump had long claimed the special counsel’s inquiry was a political hit job by Clinton’s allies, and Lutsenko’s evidence seemed to bolster that claim.
“Every day, we just got more involved,” said Parnas. Giuliani "was angry.”
In February, Giuliani and Parnas met privately again with Lutsenko, this time in Warsaw, on the sidelines of the US-led Middle East conference that included US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Russian President Vladimir Putin. The following month, the Ukrainian prosecutor general announced to the US-based news site the Hill that the allegations he had divulged in the meetings with Giuliani in New York were under investigation.
“As Russia Collusion fades, Ukrainian plot to help Clinton emerges,” Trump tweeted in response to the news, citing the headline in the Hill. Giuliani urged his own Twitter followers to “keep your eye on Ukraine.”
Parnas and Fruman had scored a victory. But their growing association with Lutsenko put the men on a collision course with America’s official ambassador in Kiev.
Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch inflamed tensions with Lutsenko in March when she publicly lambasted Ukraine’s efforts to root out corruption. The Obama appointee took the unusual step of calling for the firing of the country’s special anti-corruption prosecutor, Nazar Kholodnytsky, who was reprimanded last year after government agents found that he had shared investigative records with suspects.
Lutsenko, the top prosecutor, hit back against America’s official envoy to Ukraine by claiming, without evidence, that Yovanovitch had given him a list of people he should not prosecute during their first meeting two years earlier. His claim against Yovanovitch was dismissed as an “outright fabrication” by the US State Department — and Lutsenko himself retracted it the following month by saying he never actually saw a list. But the battle lines had been drawn.
Parnas and Fruman both shared the prosecutors’ antipathy toward the ambassador. The previous May, the pair had met with one of the most powerful Texas House members at the time on Capitol Hill, Republican Pete Sessions, and ripped into Yovanovitch. Parnas said he told Sessions that she was disloyal to Trump and had been “bad-mouthing our president about getting impeached.”
On the same date that Parnas posted a Facebook photo of the meeting, Sessions fired off a letter to Pompeo, saying he should consider firing her. “I have received notice from close companions that Ambassador Yovanovitch has spoken privately and repeatedly about her disdain for the current administration,” he wrote.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) requires anyone operating on behalf of a foreign entity in the United States to declare their work to the Department of Justice. Parnas and Fruman did not register.
Parnas said neither he nor his partner was acting at the behest of anyone. Sessions said in an interview that he raised the issue of Yovanovitch in the meeting — not Parnas and Fruman. “I sought their input,” he said.
But the partners’ briefing against the ambassador to a key lawmaker at a time when the federal government was picking up its enforcement of FARA raised “the thorniest red flag,” said Ron Oleynik, a Washington attorney and expert on anti-bribery laws. “That, to me, is clearly trying to influence an office of the United States toward Ukraine.”
Yovanovitch was recalled from Kiev in May 2019, months after clashing with the local prosecutors with whom Parnas and Fruman had been meeting, in a decision branded by Democrats as a “political hit job.” “It’s clear that this decision was politically motivated, as allies of President Trump had joined foreign actors in lobbying for the Ambassador’s dismissal,” Democratic Reps. Steny Hoyer, House majority leader, and Eliot Engel, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a joint statement.
The State Department said the ambassador’s rotation had ended after three years. But Yovanovitch’s removal left the US without an official representative in Ukraine at a critical juncture: A new administration was taking office after the country’s April elections.
By the spring of 2019, Parnas and Fruman’s efforts to curry favor with the authorities in Ukraine had hit a stumbling block. The president was ousted by the new administration of Volodymyr Zelensky — a comedian and political novice who rode a wave of anti-corruption fervor to sweep the board in the elections that April. They needed to find a way to reach Zelensky, and they set their sights on the Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky.
The 56-year-old billionaire was not just a major supporter of Zelensky’s. He owned the television channel that had broadcast the comedy shows in which the newcomer had once played the part of the president of Ukraine, which had made him a household name.
Parnas and Fruman jetted to Israel in late April to meet Kolomoisky, who was living in self-exile after the previous administration took over a bank he founded amid accusations of fraudulent loans and money laundering. (Kolomoisky has vehemently denied the allegations.)
The meeting went badly.
In an interview, Kolomoisky said he was led to believe Parnas and Fruman wanted to talk about their new export business. Instead, he said, they pushed to meet with Zelensky. “I told them I am not going to be a middleman in anybody’s meetings with Zelensky,” he said to reporters for BuzzFeed News and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. “I am not going to organize any meetings. Not for them, not for anybody else. They tried to say something like, ‘Hey, we are serious people here. Giuliani. Trump.’ They started throwing names at me.”
Kolomoisky called Parnas and Fruman “fraudsters” in an interview shortly after the meeting. Soon after, a lawyer for the two men filed a claim for damages and told police in Kiev that the oligarch had threatened their lives.
“It was a threat that we took seriously,” said Parnas.
Giuliani jumped into the dispute, denouncing Kolomoisky in tweets as a “notorious oligarch” who “must be held accountable for threats.”
Kolomoisky said that he did not threaten their lives and that he was in the process of filing a court response to fight their claim. “They have an opportunity to say there was a misunderstanding,” he said. “They misinformed their lawyer about the threats."
But the men continued their mission. In May they flew to Paris, where they joined Giuliani in talks with Kholodnytsky, the prosecutor who had been caught sharing investigative records with suspects. The prosecutor refused to say what he discussed with Giuliani when contacted by BuzzFeed News.
But Parnas said they managed to extract a key promise from him: If they needed someone to testify about the black ledger and the efforts to damage the Trump campaign, he would do so.
While they met with prosecutors abroad, the men faced challenges at home that threatened to place their activities under scrutiny and derail their efforts to help the Trump campaign.
It began with a court judgment against Parnas in a case brought by an investor in a Hollywood movie that was never produced. The backer had invested $350,000 in the film, which was promoted by Parnas, and now he was alleging fraud and demanding his money back.
Parnas was forced to turn over bank records that showed a company he owned had received a payment of $1.26 million from the client trust account of a lawyer specializing in real estate and foreign investments — and records further showed that he and Fruman then tapped into that money to give $325,000 to the super PAC supporting Trump candidates, America First Action, without disclosing its source in their filings.
The contribution prompted a campaign watchdog to file a complaint in 2018 alleging irregularities, while the investor’s lawyer began questioning where the money came from. “I have never seen anything like this,” said Tony Andre, a Miami-Dade attorney who represents the investor in the movie deal. “Someone takes a half million dollars from you and he’s hanging with the president and the president’s lawyer. In 12 years, I’ve never gone after anyone who is so tied to the president of the United States.”
Andre filed a series of demands with the court, including questions over whether the men were working on behalf of Giuliani or Trump. Those queries, he said, have yet to be answered.
Parnas said the money was from a Florida real estate deal involving Fruman and that neither he nor his partner received any favors from Trump or Giuliani. “It was our money,” he said.
As for Trump, Parnas said he has met with the president multiple times, in Washington and at Mar-a-Lago, but refused to say what they discussed.
He promoted his business, Global Energy Producers, to some US lawmakers last year, he said, including Pete Sessions, but he did not ask for anything from them.
Sessions, who received $2,700 from each partner, said he recalled talking to them about their native country. “They are Republicans. They have a strong interest in America not backing away from Ukraine,” said Sessions, who was defeated for reelection in November.
The Campaign Legal Center, the watchdog group challenging the contribution to America First Action PAC, said it sent its complaint to the FEC and the Department of Justice to review for civil and criminal violations.
Records show the money that funded the contribution was from the gas export business the two men had created just weeks earlier.
“It was not the true donor,” said Brendan Fischer, an attorney for the Campaign Legal Center. “We still don’t know where the money actually came from.” The FEC has yet to rule in the case.
In addition to the large contribution to the super PAC, both men individually gave money to candidates, with Fruman the biggest donor: $226,300 to GOP candidates and organizations like the House Majority Trust, records show.
Parnas said the contributions were designed to get the attention of key lawmakers at a time when he and Fruman were launching their gas export business. “We’ve got a business. We just want to get recognized,” he said. Both men continue to push for business in Ukraine, as well as more information from leaders in Kiev.
The new administration in Ukraine has so far proved unreceptive to their overtures. Giuliani announced angrily that he was calling off his planned trip to Kiev in May because he had learned of “enemies” of Trump on Zelensky’s team. But Parnas is confident the fruits of their work will come to the fore in the presidential campaign.
“Barr is going to get to the bottom of it,” he said. “So many people did so many bad things. And I don’t think it matters whether you support the president or not. I think it’s going to be a surprise to a lot of the American public, how explosive it’s going to be.” ●
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#PuertoRico:
#Jibaros: #GoHome and take all these pennies that #Trump threw to you and your leaders!
The #PeopleOfPuertoRico might be “#angry” but they are also #stupid, in this particular instance:
#STUPIDO!!!
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Puerto Rico News – #PuertoRicoNews
Jibaros: Go home and take all these pennies that Trump threw to you and your leaders, as the payment for these “demonstrations”!
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Puerto Rico News – #PuertoRicoNews
Jibaros: Go home and take all these pennies that Trump threw to you and your leaders, as the payment for these “demonstrations”!
@annesdy
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FINALLY, the amazing team at @cpipr is getting global attention they deserve. They’ve been doing this work for years. So flipping proud of them!
Puerto Rico’s mass protests were partly sparked by this news outlet’s publication of leaked texts – CNN
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