Trumpublicons: Foreign Influence/Grifting in '16 US Election

[seemslikeadream]

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
The context and meaning of certain events gets more clear over time. Remember, shortly before Mike Flynn was fired, a pro-RUS Ukraine ...

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
2/ parliamentarian met with Trump 'lawyer' Michael Cohen and Trump associate Felix Sater. The meeting was to purportedly to discuss a ...

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
3/ peace plan for Ukraine. The parliamentarian gave Cohen a package of documents to hand deliver to Flynn. Cohen said he did hand ...

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
4/ deliver the dossier to Flynn at the White House. Then he quickly changed his story and said he hadn't delivered it to Flynn.

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
5/ Reading closely the Ukraine parliamentarian said the dossier contained the plan as well as incriminating info about the heads of the ...

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
6/ Ukraine government. The idea that the dossier contained a plan never made sense since the 'plan' was Russia leaves the East, US ...

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
7/ ends sanctions. It's short enough to deliver in a tweet and doesn't require much for security than tweeting it. Yet it was brought ...

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
8/ to the US by hand and handed off to the Presidents personal lawyer with instructions to hand deliver it to Mike Flynn at the ...

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
9/ White House. About 20 years ago, email became a widely available means of communication. There is also mail, diplomatic channels, etc.

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
10/ Hand delivery is one of the most cumbersome ways to share information in the early 21st century. But it is extremely secure.

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
11/ It now appears to be the case that members of the Trump team, including Mike Flynn were trying to set up other extremely secure modes...

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
12/ of communications with people in Russia. The main aim seems to have been to hide the contents of the communication from the US govt.

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
13/ That's interesting.

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
14/ What was in that dossier?

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
15/ What happened to the dossier?

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
16/ Remember this isn't an electronic but rather a package of paper documents. It doesn't just disappear. Was it thrown away?

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
17/ Does Mike Flynn have it? Is it still at the White House?

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
18/ Perhaps of course this was simply a loopy freelancing member of the Ukraine parliament whose documents had no more meaning than the ...

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
19/ nutball envelopes of conspiracy theories I sometimes get in the mail. But what is in this whole saga has been like that? And how ...

Josh Marshall‏Verified account @joshtpm 12h12 hours ago
20/ exactly did this loopy figure manage to get a package of documents hand delivered to Mike Flynn? Can you do that? I couldn't.

Josh Marshall‏Verified account
@joshtpm
21/ What was in that dossier? And where is it?

[seemslikeadream]

Oliver Darcy‏Verified account @oliverdarcy 2h2 hours ago

DRUDGE, who reportedly speaks with Kushner regularly, raining fire down on Bannon this afternoon. He just made this banner story on site pic.twitter.com/QzAo5jI1Kp

[seemslikeadream]

After meeting with Jared Kushner, head of Russian bank flew straight to meet with Vladimir Putin
By Bill Palmer
Updated: 5:17 pm EDT Fri Jun 2, 2017 | 0
Home » Politics

Donald Trump’s White House and Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin are providing conflicting explanations for why Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner secretly met with the head of a Russian bank during the transition period, meaning that at least one of them is lying. But it’s what happened right after the meeting that may signal what the meeting was really all about, and just how suspicious or illicit the discussion may have been.



According to flight tracker logs, a private plane arrived in New York City on December 13th and left on December 14th which the Washington Post is almost certain belongs to Russian VEB Bank head Sergey Gorkov(link). That serves to further narrow down the date of his mid December Trump Tower meeting with Jared Kushner. But buried all the way down in the fifteenth paragraph of that article is the real story.



When that same private plane departed New York on December 14th, it flew directly to Japan – where Russian President Vladimir Putin just happened to be at the time. In other words, whatever Kushner and Gorkov discussed in their meeting, Gorkov must have felt compelled to immediately share it with Putin in person, even if it meant flying halfway around the world. Discussing it with Putin over the phone could have been intercepted and eavesdropped.



It’s still not known whether the Kushner-Gorkov meeting was a continuation of Kushner’s earlier meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about setting up a secret backchannel, or if it was an attempt at securing Russian bank loans in exchange for sanctions relief, or some combination of all of the above. But it is clear that the discussion was important and suspicious enough that Korkov felt compelled to immediately deliver the news securely in person to Putin.
http://www.palmerreport.com/politics/fl ... utin/3245/

Russian officials caught bragging about the blackmail material they claim to have on Donald Trump
By Bill Palmer
Updated: 4:16 pm EDT Fri Jun 2, 2017 | 0
Home » Politics

Amid all the controversy this week surrounding Donald Trump’s predictable yet inexplicable decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord, a key development in the Trump-Russia scandal went almost unnoticed. Russian government officials have been caught bragging about the blackmail material they claim to have on Trump and some of his top aides.



It hasn’t (yet) been revealed what the blackmail material in question is, with CNN reporting that it’s merely “derogatory” in nature (link). As the report points out, it’s not a certainty that this material even exists, as the Russian officials could theoretically have been dishonestly bragging about material that they don’t actually have. But that feels like an unlikely scenario. Bragging internally about imaginary material would make no sense.



Instead, this represents near-confirmation that the Russian government does indeed have some sort of blackmail material on Donald Trump and some of own key people. Precisely what was this material? Does is align with the assertions made in former MI6 agent Christopher Steele’s infamous Trump-Russia dossier, or is this something different? Did the Russians actively use this blackmail material to steer Trump and/or his associates during the election? If not, did Trump and his team know that Russia had the material when they made their pro-Russia decisions?



For now, this brings more questions than answers. But it does lend credence to the long running unproven assertion that the Russian government was holding some kind of blackmail material on Donald Trump and his campaign – which would go a long way to explaining how things played out the way they ultimately did.
http://www.palmerreport.com/politics/br ... mail/3244/

Donald Trump really did use Kanye West to distract from Jared Kushner’s meeting with Russian banker
By Bill Palmer
Updated: 6:09 pm EDT Fri Jun 2, 2017 | 0
Home » Politics


Earlier this week, when it became clear that Jared Kushner’s meeting with Russian banker Sergey Gorkov in mid-December was the kind of thing that he and the Trump transition team wanted to keep secret, Palmer Report asked the following question: was Donald Trump’s own mid-December Trump Tower meeting with Kanye West intended as a distraction from the Kushner-Russia meeting? (link). Now, in light of new information, the answer is almost certainly yes.



Kushner’s first Russian meeting at Trump Tower, with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, is long known to have taken place at the start of December. Donald Trump’s meeting with Kanye West at Trump Tower took place on December 13th, so the dates for those meetings don’t line up. But Kushner’s second Russian meeting, with the head of Russia’s VEB Bank, was believed to have taken place in mid-December. And now that’s been narrowed down much further.



The Washington Post has learned from flight tracking information that the head of VEB Bank did indeed arrive in New York City on December 13th (link). That private plane turned around and left town the next day, so it means Jared Kushner really did meet with the Russian banker on the same day that Trump met with Kanye in the same building.



Throw in the longstanding reports that Kushner and the Russians were sneaking in through the back door of Trump Tower in order to hide from the media cameras positioned out front, and it becomes clear why Donald Trump made such a point of bringing Kanye West through the front door that day. Dnald Trump was using him to create a distraction and make sure the on-site reporters didn’t spot evidence of the concurrent Kushner-Russia meeting. Although there is nothing to suggest that Kanye was aware of the Russian subplot, it’s clear Trump was. And that means Trump knew full well that Kushner was meeting with the Russian bank that day.
http://www.palmerreport.com/politics/ka ... er-2/3248/

[Elvis]

Noam Chomsky: "Much of the world must be astonished — if they are not collapsing in laughter — while watching the performances in high places and in media concerning Russian efforts to influence an American election, a familiar US government specialty as far back as we choose to trace the practice. There is, however, merit in the claim that this case is different in character: By US standards, the Russian efforts are so meager as to barely elicit notice."

Noam Chomsky on the Long History of US Meddling in Foreign Elections
Noam Chomsky interviewed by C.J. Polychroniou
January 19, 2017, Truthout

A wide range of politicians and media outlets have described the alleged Russian interference in the last US presidential election (by way of hacking) as representing a direct threat to American democracy and even to national security itself. Of course, the irony behind these concerns about the interference of foreign nations in the domestic political affairs of the United States is that the US has blatantly interfered in the elections of many other nations, with methods that include not only financial support to preferred parties and the circulation of propaganda but also assassinations and overthrows of even democratically elected regimes. Indeed, the US has a long criminal history of meddling into the political affairs of other nations — a history that spans at least a century and, since the end of World War II, extends into all regions of the globe, including western parliamentary polities. This interview with Noam Chomsky reminds us that the United States is no stranger to election interference; in fact, it is an expert in this arena.

C. J. Polychroniou: Noam, the US intelligence agencies have accused Russia of interference in the US presidential election in order to boost Trump’s chances, and some leading Democrats have actually gone on record saying that the Kremlin’s canny operatives changed the election outcome. What’s your reaction to all this talk in Washington and among media pundits about Russian cyber and propaganda efforts to influence the outcome of the presidential election in Donald Trump’s favor?

Noam Chomsky: Much of the world must be astonished — if they are not collapsing in laughter — while watching the performances in high places and in media concerning Russian efforts to influence an American election, a familiar US government specialty as far back as we choose to trace the practice. There is, however, merit in the claim that this case is different in character: By US standards, the Russian efforts are so meager as to barely elicit notice.

Let’s talk about the long history of US meddling in foreign political affairs, which has always been morally and politically justified as the spread of American style-democracy throughout the world.

The history of US foreign policy, especially after World War II, is pretty much defined by the subversion and overthrow of foreign regimes, including parliamentary regimes, and the resort to violence to destroy popular organizations that might offer the majority of the population an opportunity to enter the political arena.

Following the Second World War, the United States was committed to restoring the traditional conservative order. To achieve this aim, it was necessary to destroy the anti-fascist resistance, often in favor of Nazi and fascist collaborators, to weaken unions and other popular organizations, and to block the threat of radical democracy and social reform, which were live options under the conditions of the time. These policies were pursued worldwide: in Asia, including South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Indochina and crucially, Japan; in Europe, including Greece, Italy, France and crucially, Germany; in Latin America, including what the CIA took to be the most severe threats at the time, “radical nationalism” in Guatemala and Bolivia.

Sometimes the task required considerable brutality. In South Korea, about 100,000 people were killed in the late 1940s by security forces installed and directed by the United States. This was before the Korean war, which Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings describe as “in essence” a phase — marked by massive outside intervention — in “a civil war fought between two domestic forces: a revolutionary nationalist movement, which had its roots in tough anti-colonial struggle, and a conservative movement tied to the status quo, especially to an unequal land system,” restored to power under the US occupation. In Greece in the same years, hundreds of thousands were killed, tortured, imprisoned or expelled in the course of a counterinsurgency operation, organized and directed by the United States, which restored traditional elites to power, including Nazi collaborators, and suppressed the peasant- and worker-based communist-led forces that had fought the Nazis. In the industrial societies, the same essential goals were realized, but by less violent means.

Yet it is true that there have been cases where the US was directly involved in organizing coups even in advanced industrial democracies, such as in Australia and Italy in the mid-1970s. Correct?

Yes, there is evidence of CIA involvement in a virtual coup that overturned the Whitlam Labor government in Australia in 1975, when it was feared that Whitlam might interfere with Washington’s military and intelligence bases in Australia. Large-scale CIA interference in Italian politics has been public knowledge since the congressional Pike Report was leaked in 1976, citing a figure of over $65 million to approved political parties and affiliates from 1948 through the early 1970s. In 1976, the Aldo Moro government fell in Italy after revelations that the CIA had spent $6 million to support anti-communist candidates. At the time, the European communist parties were moving towards independence of action with pluralistic and democratic tendencies (Eurocommunism), a development that in fact pleased neither Washington nor Moscow. For such reasons, both superpowers opposed the legalization of the Communist Party of Spain and the rising influence of the Communist Party in Italy, and both preferred center-right governments in France. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger described the “major problem” in the Western alliance as “the domestic evolution in many European countries,” which might make Western communist parties more attractive to the public, nurturing moves towards independence and threatening the NATO alliance.”

US interventions in the political affairs of other nations have always been morally and politically justified as part of the faith in the doctrine of spreading American-style democracy, but the actual reason was of course the spread of capitalism and the dominance of business rule. Was faith in the spread of democracy ever tenable?

No belief concerning US foreign policy is more deeply entrenched than the one regarding the spread of American-style democracy. The thesis is commonly not even expressed, merely presupposed as the basis for reasonable discourse on the US role in the world.

The faith in this doctrine may seem surprising. Nevertheless, there is a sense in which the conventional doctrine is tenable. If by “American-style democracy,” we mean a political system with regular elections but no serious challenge to business rule, then US policymakers doubtless yearn to see it established throughout the world. The doctrine is therefore not undermined by the fact that it is consistently violated under a different interpretation of the concept of democracy: as a system in which citizens may play some meaningful part in the management of public affairs.

So, what lessons can be drawn from all this about the concept of democracy as understood by US policy planners in their effort to create a new world order?

One problem that arose as areas were liberated from fascism [after World War II] was that traditional elites had been discredited, while prestige and influence had been gained by the resistance movement, based largely on groups responsive to the working class and poor, and often committed to some version of radical democracy. The basic quandary was articulated by Churchill’s trusted adviser, South African Prime Minister Jan Christiaan Smuts, in 1943, with regard to southern Europe: “With politics let loose among those peoples,” he said, “we might have a wave of disorder and wholesale Communism.” Here the term “disorder” is understood as threat to the interests of the privileged, and “Communism,” in accordance with usual convention, refers to failure to interpret “democracy” as elite dominance, whatever the other commitments of the “Communists” may be. With politics let loose, we face a “crisis of democracy,” as privileged sectors have always understood.

In brief, at that moment in history, the United States faced the classic dilemma of Third World intervention in large parts of the industrial world as well. The US position was “politically weak” though militarily and economically strong. Tactical choices are determined by an assessment of strengths and weaknesses. The preference has, quite naturally, been for the arena of force and for measures of economic warfare and strangulation, where the US has ruled supreme.

Wasn’t the Marshall Plan a tool for consolidating capitalism and spreading business rule throughout Europe after World War II?

Very much so. For example, the extension of Marshall Plan aid in countries like France and Italy was strictly contingent on exclusion of communists — including major elements of the anti-fascist resistance and labor — from the government; “democracy,” in the usual sense. US aid was critically important in early years for suffering people in Europe and was therefore a powerful lever of control, a matter of much significance for US business interests and longer term planning. The fear in Washington was that the communist left would emerge victorious in Italy and France without massive financial assistance.

On the eve of the announcement of the Marshall Plan, Ambassador to France Jefferson Caffery warned Secretary of State Marshall of grim consequences if the communists won the elections in France: “Soviet penetration of Western Europe, Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East would be greatly facilitated” (May 12, 1947). The dominoes were ready to fall. During May, the US pressured political leaders in France and Italy to form coalition governments excluding the communists. It was made clear and explicit that aid was contingent on preventing an open political competition, in which left and labor might dominate. Through 1948, Secretary of State Marshall and others publicly emphasized that if communists were voted into power, US aid would be terminated; no small threat, given the state of Europe at the time.

In France, the postwar destitution was exploited to undermine the French labor movement, along with direct violence. Desperately needed food supplies were withheld to coerce obedience, and gangsters were organized to provide goon squads and strike breakers, a matter that is described with some pride in semi-official US labor histories, which praise the AFL [American Federation of Labor] for its achievements in helping to save Europe by splitting and weakening the labor movement (thus frustrating alleged Soviet designs) and safeguarding the flow of arms to Indochina for the French war of re-conquest, another prime goal of the US labor bureaucracy. The CIA reconstituted the mafia for these purposes, in one of its early operations. The quid pro quo was restoration of the heroin trade. The US government connection to the drug boom continued for many decades.

US policies toward Italy basically picked up where they had been broken off by World War II. The United States had supported Mussolini’s Fascism from the 1922 takeover through the 1930s. Mussolini’s wartime alliance with Hitler terminated these friendly relations, but they were reconstituted as US forces liberated southern Italy in 1943, establishing the rule of Field Marshall [Pietro] Badoglio and the royal family that had collaborated with the Fascist government. As Allied forces drove towards the north, they dispersed the anti-fascist resistance along with local governing bodies it had formed in its attempt to establish a new democratic state in the zones it had liberated from Germany. Eventually, a center-right government was established with neo-fascist participation and the left soon excluded.

Here too, the plan was for the working classes and the poor to bear the burden of reconstruction, with lowered wages and extensive firing. Aid was contingent on removing communists and left socialists from office, because they defended workers’ interests and thus posed a barrier to the intended style of recovery, in the view of the State Department. The Communist Party was collaborationist; its position “fundamentally meant the subordination of all reforms to the liberation of Italy and effectively discouraged any attempt in northern areas to introduce irreversible political changes as well as changes in the ownership of the industrial companies … disavowing and discouraging those workers’ groups that wanted to expropriate some factories,” as Gianfranco Pasquino put it. But the Party did try to defend jobs, wages and living standards for the poor and thus “constituted a political and psychological barrier to a potential European recovery program,” historian John Harper comments, reviewing the insistence of Kennan and others that communists be excluded from government though agreeing that it would be “desirable” to include representatives of what Harper calls “the democratic working class.” The recovery, it was understood, was to be at the expense of the working class and the poor.

Because of its responsiveness to the needs of these social sectors, the Communist Party was labelled “extremist” and “undemocratic” by US propaganda, which also skillfully manipulated the alleged Soviet threat. Under US pressure, the Christian Democrats abandoned wartime promises about workplace democracy and the police, sometimes under the control of ex-fascists, were encouraged to suppress labor activities. The Vatican announced that anyone who voted for the communists in the 1948 election would be denied sacraments, and backed the conservative Christian Democrats under the slogan: “O con Cristo o contro Cristo” (“Either with Christ or against Christ”). A year later, Pope Pius excommunicated all Italian communists.

A combination of violence, manipulation of aid and other threats, and a huge propaganda campaign sufficed to determine the outcome of the critical 1948 election, essentially bought by US intervention and pressures.

The CIA operations to control the Italian elections, authorized by the National Security Council in December 1947, were the first major clandestine operation of the newly formed agency. CIA operations to subvert Italian democracy continued into the 1970s at a substantial scale.

In Italy, as well as elsewhere, US labor leaders, primarily from the AFL, played an active role in splitting and weakening the labor movement, and inducing workers to accept austerity measures while employers reaped rich profits. In France, the AFL had broken dock strikes by importing Italian scab labor paid by US businesses. The State Department called on the Federation’s leadership to exercise their talents in union-busting in Italy as well, and they were happy to oblige. The business sector, formerly discredited by its association with Italian fascism, undertook a vigorous class war with renewed confidence. The end result was the subordination of the working class and the poor to the traditional rulers.

Later commentators tend to see the US subversion of democracy in France and Italy as a defense of democracy. In a highly-regarded study of the CIA and American democracy, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones describes “the CIA’s Italian venture,” along with its similar efforts in France, as “a democracy-propping operation,” though he concedes that “the selection of Italy for special attention … was by no means a matter of democratic principle alone;” our passion for democracy was reinforced by the strategic importance of the country. But it was a commitment to “democratic principle” that inspired the US government to impose the social and political regimes of its choice, using the enormous power at its command and exploiting the privation and distress of the victims of the war, who must be taught not to raise their heads if we are to have true democracy.

A more nuanced position is taken by James Miller in his monograph on US policies towards Italy. Summarizing the record, he concludes that “in retrospect, American involvement in the stabilization of Italy was a significant, if troubling, achievement. American power assured Italians the right to choose their future form of government and also was employed to ensure that they chose democracy. In defense of that democracy against real but probably overestimated foreign and domestic threats, the United States used undemocratic tactics that tended to undermine the legitimacy of the Italian state.”

The “foreign threats,” as he had already discussed, were hardly real; the Soviet Union watched from a distance as the US subverted the 1948 election and restored the traditional conservative order, keeping to its wartime agreement with Churchill that left Italy in the Western zone. The “domestic threat” was the threat of democracy.

The idea that US intervention provided Italians with freedom of choice while ensuring that they chose “democracy” (in our special sense of the term) is reminiscent of the attitude of the extreme doves towards Latin America: that its people should choose freely and independently — as long as doing so did not impact US interests adversely.

The democratic ideal, at home and abroad, is simple and straightforward: You are free to do what you want, as long as it is what we want you to do.

Note: Some of the material for this interview was adapted from excerpts from Deterring Democracy (Verso).

https://chomsky.info/20170119/

[seemslikeadream]

been there....done that......know that as the truth....what's your point?


just ignore the treasonous bastard own by the Russian mob?


sorry if you do not like it but I am going to continue to follow this story to it's completion

and the title of this OP is outdated and has had nothing to do with the content for some time now

[Elvis]

No need for conspiracy theories. The truth about Trump and Putin is damning enough.
Dana Milbank
April 11, 2017



Maybe we should muzzle the wag-the-dog talk.

MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell led off his show Friday night with an alarming report: Russian President Vladimir Putin may have told Syria's Bashar al-Assad to launch last week's chemical attack to let President Donald Trump respond militarily — thereby boosting Trump's standing in the United States and dispelling the belief that he is too close to Putin.

“It's perfect,” O'Donnell said, telling viewers “what you won't hear is proof that that scenario that I have just outlined is impossible, because with Donald Trump anything is possible.”

I'm a fan of O'Donnell, and it is technically true that we can't prove that Putin didn't orchestrate the attack to boost Trump. But by that logic, we can never prove to everybody's satisfaction that there wasn't a second gunman on the grassy knoll, that Vincent Foster wasn't murdered, that there wasn't a controlled demolition inside Building 7, that former president Barack Obama didn't forge his birth certificate, or that the government isn't controlling our minds with fluoride.

But speculation without evidence is at best distraction, and at worst it allows Trump's defenders to discredit the whole story about Trump's contacts with Russia and Russia's attempts to tilt the election his way.

Certainly, Trump's behavior has shown that he's capable of anything. But we don't need to speculate. Putin did conspire to help Trump win the presidency. That's damning enough without letting allegations of a chemical-attack conspiracy cloud the whole thing in paranoia.

The chemical conspiracy, as The Washington Post's Avi Selk noted, debuted on a left-wing site called the Palmer Report. This is part of a larger phenomenon that has already taken root online, where in some quarters full-blown cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome have already broken out. Trump won the presidency and now governs by creating a parallel universe with alternative facts. There's a temptation among his opponents to respond in kind. But the way to counter Trump is to speak the truth, not to fight him with more fake news.

Trump's campaign, transition and nascent presidency have generated liberal conspiracy theories worthy of Glenn Beck and Alex Jones. Check these days with Snopes, the conspiracy-busting website, and, right there alongside the usual urban legends (“woman arrested for training squirrels to attack her ex-boyfriend,” “female mortuary worker was arrested after becoming pregnant by one of the corpses she was preparing for burial”), you'll find them confronting various products of the vast left-wing conspiracy:

“Senior White House officials ‘openly admitted that the chemical strike against Syria had no actual purpose.’”

“Donald Trump has vowed to reinstate the draft.”

“Devin Nunes' financial wealth is invested in a wine company with ‘strong ties' to Russia.”

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions is to be disbarred from the Alabama State Bar Association due to a letter of complaint filed by 2,000 attorneys from across the U.S.”

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) “ordered the exhumation of the body of Clinton associate Vince Foster.”

Some have gained considerable traction, such as Google engineer Yonatan Zunger's late January post on Medium that the travel ban was “the trial balloon for a coup d'état.” As BuzzFeed noted, Huffington Post contributor Alex Mohajer built a case that Trump was involved in the $11 billion sale of Russian oil giant Rosneft. One well-subscribed theory has it that Trump's early filing for reelection in 2020 was actually a conspiracy to silence his critics.

Robert Reich, the former Clinton cabinet member, has detected a “Trump plot to control American universities” in conjunction with chief strategist Steven K. Bannon and former Breitbart News provocateur Milos Yiannopoulos. And a dubious Twitter account claiming to be anti-Trump government officials, “@RoguePOTUSStaff” has amassed 850,000 followers by tweeting unsubstantiated news about the White House.

Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth government professor, explained in the New York Times in February why left-wing conspiracy theories appear to have gained since the election: “Political psychology research suggests that losing political control can make people more vulnerable to misinformation and conspiracy theories.” How else could people have fallen for the satirical report of a British outlet alleging that Queen Elizabeth II said she can legally kill Trump with a sword if he enters Buckingham Palace?

That would indeed be newsworthy, if true. But here's something even more newsworthy: The Putin regime meddled in U.S. elections to help secure the victory of a president to whom it has had extensive ties. And that one happens to be true.

Washington Post Writers Group

Dana Milbank is a Washington Post columnist.

[seemslikeadream]

Donald Trump 'tried to roll back Russia sanctions the moment he got into power'
The probe into the Trump campaign's Russia ties have been growing

Clark Mindock New York Saturday 3 June 2017 20:23 BST119 comments

Paul Manafort was forced to resign from his position as Trump campaign manager amid revelations over business deals in Ukraine Getty
Investigators are casting a wider net in their probe of alleged connections between Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign and the Russian government, reportedly taking over a separate criminal investigation into the President's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The revelations come amid reports that the Trump administration tried to end the Russian sanctions as soon as the President took office.

The special counsel investigating the ties – headed by highly respected former FBI director Robert Mueller – may also take a look into the roles of US Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in Mr Trump's decision to fire former FBI director James Comey.

The criminal investigation into Mr Manafort, who was forced to resign from his position within the Trump campaign amid revelations that he had lucrative business deals in Ukraine years ago, predates the probe into possible collusion between Russian officials and Trump associates. The counterintelligence probe into Moscow’s influence in the 2016 election began last July.

Mr Mueller’s special counsel hasn’t commented publicly on the investigations, and the actual range of the investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia is so far unknown. Reports have indicated that the scope has grown to include Mr Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner.

Mr Manafort’s connections to Ukraine are robust. He has received millions of dollars in payments from pro-Russia sources, and once worked closely with Russian politicians and a Russian billionaire. Those connections reportedly led some Russian officials during the 2016 campaign to discuss potential ways of influencing him, according to reports from US intelligence officials. Those discussions also focused on influencing former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

The drip of revelations about the extent of Mr Trump’s team connections with Russian officials – and allegations that the President himself sought to obstruct justice in asking Mr Comey to stop his bureau’s investigation into Mr Flynn – have rocked Washington in recent weeks and months. While far from a consensus, some members of Congress have called for Mr Trump’s impeachment, and a growing number of Americans say that he he should be impeached regardless of whether his actions meet the “high crimes and misdemeanours” standard for removal from office established in the US Constitution.

As things stand, impeachment seems unlikely. Even if allegations of collusion end up extending all the way to the Oval Office, Congress would still need to see it fit to act on those allegations. Mr Trump’s party currently controls both chambers of Congress, including the House of Representatives where impeachment proceedings would take place.

Mr Flynn was forced to resign from his White House post less than a month into the Trump presidency after it was discovered that he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about conversations with Russian officials during the transition period. He indicated to Mr Pence that he had not discussed US sanctions on Russia that were imposed for the Kremlin’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election. He had, in fact, done so.

But Mr Flynn was not the only member of the Trump team that discussed those sanctions in some form or another. The President himself sought to normalise relations between Washington and the Kremlin immediately after taking office, but encountered tough opposition from holdovers in government from former President Barack Obama’s administration. As soon as taking over the West Wing, Trump officials instructed the State Department to begin exploring ways to lift the Russian sanctions imposed by Mr Obama.

State Department officials, however, were alarmed by that effort, and began lobbying Congress to impose laws that would block Mr Trump’s administration from lifting those sanctions.

“There was serious consideration by the White House to unilaterally rescind the sanctions,” Dan Fried, who was serving as chief US coordinator for sanctions policy until he retired in late February, told Yahoo News. He said that he began receiving “panicky” phone calls from staffers in the State Department pleading with him to block Mr Trump’s efforts.

Mr Sessions was forced to recuse himself from a Justice Department probe into the Trump-Russia ties earlier this year after it was revealed after he misled Congress in failing to disclose that he had come in contact with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Mr Kushner, alongside several other campaign officials, also spoke with Mr Kislyak either during the campaign or during the transition period following the election.

The special counsel probe could look eventually look into memos written by Mr Sessions and Mr Rosenstein that appeared to support a decision by Mr Trump to fire Mr Comey. While Mr Rosenstein’s letter in particular was touted by the White House as having been the impetus behind the ouster, but Mr Trump himself later indicated that he had made up his mind to fire Mr Comey regardless of Mr Rosenstein’s opinion.

Following his firing, reports have surfaced indicating that Mr Comey had kept meticulous notes on his interactions with the President, including a description of a dinner with Mr Trump in which the President allegedly urged the former FBI director to end his investigation into Mr Flynn.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 71386.html

[seemslikeadream]

99 "coincidences" connecting Trump and Putin
Mar 27, 2017 5:00am CDT by Psimpsonuml


Check out my site for everything.
http://thegopwatchdog.com/

I started writing this because I thought it was important to have a clear understand of what the hell is going on with the Trump - Russia connections. Some of these are just rumors or probably mean nothing (1, 22, 25, 31) but the sheer number of Russian mobsters who have lived at Trump tower and the fact that 5 people have had to resign over connections to Putin is alarming.


Honestly the discovery that surprised me the most is the Abramoff connection. I'm beginning to think that the Russians partnered with the Republican party in the 1990s to build an alliance for reasons not yet known.

Trump's son in Law is Jared Kushner, the former owner of the Observer. The Observer received the DNC hacks from Guccifer 2.0 who is rumored to be a Russian agent.
Guccifer 2.0 and Roger Stone were apparently in contact up to 16 times during the 2016 campaign.
Jared Kushner's parents were friends with Netanyahu. He has forged an alliance with Putin.
His Chief Strategist is Steve Bannon. Bannon is the CEO of Breitbart, with the Mercer family having majority ownership. The Mercers, along with Bannon are heavily involved in Cambridge Analytica a data gathering firm. Cambridge Analytica’s parent company is SCL Group, which lists Dmitry Firtash as a board member. Breitbart and Bannon have extensive ties to the far right movement in Europe which is also funded by Putin.
His second campaign manager was Paul Manafort. He had to resign in August due to having questionable Russian ties like Dmitry Firtash and the former Ukrainian President. Manafort lives in Trump tower, along with Kellyanne Conway and her husband.
Hacked Texts reveal that it looks like Serhiy Leshchenko reached out to Manaforts daughter in an effort to blackmail him. She was not happy about the “blood money’
Mike McSherry, former Delegate strategist for the Trump campaign also lobbied for the same Ukrainian presidential candidate as Paul Manafort.
Rick Gates, Manaforts top aide also lobbied for Pro-Putin Ukrainian candidate.
Per Politico, Manafort met with Konstantin Kilimnik multiple times during the campaign. The first time appears to be in April, maybe when Trump gave that speech? Kilimnik is thought to be part of Russian intelligence.
They worked Oleg Deripaska on investment funds in Ukraine. Oleg paid Manafort 10 million dollars a year to lobby for Putin.
Oleg Deripaska obtained a VISA to enter this country, after previously being barred from entry due to the lobbying activities of Bob Dole.
Firtash worked with Russian Mob Semion Moglivech boss to help Gazprom oversee Natural Gas distribution to Ukraine.
Trump advisor J.D. Gordon is claiming that he was the advisor who had the Ukraine language softened at the Republican National Convention, at the request of Donald Trump
Kellyanne Conway's husband has business dealings with the Russian government and deleted tweets about it once Conway was chosen. (Conway, Bannon, and the Mercers are part of the "Council on National Policy" a secretive far right think tank group.
George Conway represented a firm that bribed the Russian government.
Trump sold his condo to Dmitry Rybolovev, whose private plane keeps showing up where Trump is. Rybolovev is a Russian billionaire with ties to Putin.
Rybolovev also had his Yacht placed in Croatia at the same time Ivanka and Jared were vacationing there, and his plane landed there around the same time too.
There is a Pro-Russian Think tank called the Center for the National Interest (CNI). CNI Board Member Henry Kissinger, former US Diplomat and current Putin confidante, has gotten close to Trump.
Kissinger suggested both Tillerson and KT McFarland to Trump.
Secretary of State Tillerson has many Russian business dealings through Exxon with Igor Sechin, head of Rosneft.
CNI Board Member Drew Guff runs a Russian Private Equity firm, attended the April Speech by Trump, and also sits on the International Council at the Belfour Center with Oleg Deripaska
The Dossier Christopher Steele created said that Igor Sechin along with Oleg Orovinkin were working on a deal to sell 19.5% of Rosneft to Trump in exchange for dropping sanctions. This deal relied on Carter Page, who resigned as a Trump advisor in September. After the election, a 19.5% deal went through, Oleg Orovkin was found dead in his car and the guy behind the Russian Hacking was arrested for treason in Russia.
Carter Page allegedly met with Igor Diveykin, a former Russian security official in charge of collecting US election information, when he went to Russia.
After the election, Kaspersky labs Ruslan Stoyanov was arrested for investigation of Treason. Once Michael Flynn was ousted as National Security advisor, it also came out that he was working for Kaspersky last year.
The Rosneft deal is linked to Trump through a vast network of holding companies. The 19.5% was through a Singapore company using Caymans offshore accounts. QHG shares was the holding company of the 19.5% sale. QHG's disclosure form stated that it used to be called CATALPO PTE, but no such company existed. Perhaps they did that to confuse people. Anyways, a company with the same information called CATALPA PTE did exist though. Catalpa shared an address with the Intertrust Group. Intertrust’s filing shows an affiliation with Walkers Global which is the affiliation used to incorporate QHG. Intertrust is owned by the Blackstone Group. If that name seems familiar, it is because Blackstone CEO is Stephen Schwarzman, one of Trump's senior economic advisors. Uncovered thanks to this amazing Twitter user
The Blackstone Group was cofounded by Stephen Schwarzman and CNI Board Member Peter Peterson.
The Dossier also claims Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen traveled to meet with Russians, which he denied. Recently, it came out that he was working with Felix Sater to broker a Ukrainian-Russia peace deal.
Cohen, Sater, and a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, Andreii Artemenko sat down for dinner to discuss Ukraine, Russia, and sanctions.
Alex Oronov, working with Cohen and Artemenko, developed the plan which they planned on leaving on Michael Flynn’s desk until he had to resign. Oronov mysteriously died at the beginning of March.
Felix Sater claimed to be a Senior Advisor to Trump , which Trump claimed not to remember. Sater had his own office in Trump Tower. Sater has been connected to organized crime and his father is in the Russian Mafia
To finance Trump SoHo, the Bayrock Group formed a tax evading partnership with Icelandic FL-Group. Trump had to sign off on this deal.
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross invested 500 million in the Bank of Cyprus and is on the board of directors. This is where Putin launders his money. Dmitry Rybolovev (7) is the largest shareholder at this bank, and another Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg is the second largest shareholder.
Deutsche Bank, under Ackerman was the only bank willing to loan money to Trump after he declared bankruptcy four times. Josef Ackerman left Deutche Bank to join the Bank of Cyprus after Wilber Ross engineered his takeover.
Putin's propaganda news station Russia Today has frequently had Michael Flynn, Carter Page, and Sebastian Gorka on it.
Carter Page was named as a foreign policy advisor because Jeff sessions Chief of Staff, Rick Dearborn found him.
Stephen Miller is Jeff Sessions former aide and is friends with Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer. Spencer has ties to European far right groups and was married to a Russian Propaganda mouthpiece with ties to Putin.
Trump friend Roger Stone is in contact with Julian Assange who runs WikiLeaks, who also hacked the DNC and provided leaks to Russia today. Stone is also partner in a lobbying firm with Paul Manafort
Secretary of Education Betsy Devos is the sister of mercenary Erik Prince. Erik Prince is running all over the world helping dictators suppress Muslims. He is a Breitbart contributor, a Pence supporter and a Trump advisor.
Prince also used to work for House Rep Dana Rohrabacker, also known as Putin's Favorite Congressman and one time considered to be Trumps secretary of State.
Prince is connected to John Ashcroft through Constellis Holdings, as Constellis owns Princes old company, Blackwater. Ashcroft has defended Lord of War Victor Bout, a Russian connected to Igor Sechin.
Vadim Trincher, who lived in Trump tower ran a gambling ring out of Trump tower on behalf of Russian mafia don Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov.
Preet Bhahara was fired by the President, along with the other U.S. Attorneys in what is a common move when a new party take power. The odd thing is that Trump had previously asked him stay on. Bhahara is the Attorney responsible for putting Victor Bout and the Russian gambling ring in jail. He also prosecuted one Russian for drug trafficking, a dozen Russian spies, and a Russian Banker. 3 days before being fired, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington requested that he investigate Trump Tower.
Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn violated the Logan Act by discussing lifting sanctions with The Russian Ambassador pre-inauguration.
He also met with Austrian Neo-Nazis working with Putin
Michael Flynn initially chose Monica Crowley to be on the national security council before she had to withdraw due to plagiarism scandal. She recently registered as a lobbyist for Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk, a Trump (and Clinton) foundation donor with ties to Carter Page.
Trump Tower housed an office of Alfa Bank which had a private server communicating with companies like Spectrum Health, which lists members of the Devos Family as Board Members.
Richard Burt, a Republican Lobbyist and CNI Board Member sat on the board of Alfa Bank. He worked for the Trump Campaign while lobbying for Russian State owned Gazprom
Burt was an advisor to Textron Inc, a financial company help finance some of Trump's international golf course deals.
In recent years, Gazprom has hired the lobbying firm Squire Patton Boggs to lobby for it. Lobbyist and Trump supporter Jack Kingston visited Russia the same week as former Gazprom lobbyist Carter page. Totally a coincidence.
Trump threw Miss Universe with Putin-Connected Oligarch Aras Agalorov and had Alex Sapir/Rotem Rosen as guests
Alex Sapir is the son of Tamir Sapir, and they own condos in Trump tower. Sapir and his organization partnered with Bayrock on plenty of Trump condo projects. Alex's sister married Rotem Rosen, a former lieutenant for Lev Leviev
The Bayrock Group was founded by Tevfik Araf, and housed in Trump Tower. Araf hired Felix Sater as his C.O.O.
Michael Caputo, who helped run Trump's NY primary, lived in Russia in the 90's and was Contracted by Gazprom to improve Russia’s image in the United States.
Michael Caputo works for Trump apologist Chris Collins now, and learned everything he knew from Roger Stone.
Ivanka Trump is close friends with Putin's rumored girlfriend Wendi Deng.
Ivanka is also close with Russian Oligarch Roman Abramovich and his wife. Here is a photo of them together (also with Wendi Deng)
Abramovich owns the steel company building the pipelines recently approved by the Trump administration
Abramovich's Millhouse Capital merged with Oleg Deripaska's aluminum holdings to form RUSAL
in 2007, Rusal merged with the Aluminum side of Glencore to form an even larger company. Glencore is one of the companies involved in the Dossier - Ross
The Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin died on 2/20. He invited Trump to Russia in 1986.
Lev Leviev is a Putin friend. Not only has he had multiple business dealings with Jared Kushner and the Bayrock group (Felix Sater and Tamir Kapir) but he also works with Netanyahu on settlements.
Russian-Canadian Alex Shnaider partnered with Trump on a building project in Toronto. Shnaider partnered with Ukrainian Billionaire Eduard Shifrin to form a holding company called the Midland Group. Shiftin was recently given Russian Citizenship by a Putin presidential decree. Alex's father in law Boris Birshtein is associated with the Russian Mafia.
Semion Mogilevich is the head of the Russian mafia. In the 1990's, he started a fake company with Jacob Bogatin as the CEO. Jacob's brother David owned 5 separate condos in Trump tower at one point and is well known as part of Mogilevich's key members.
Mogilevich key lieutenant Vyacheslav Ivankov also lived at Trump tower.
Jack Abramoff may be where it all starts. Russian Oil and Gas company NAFTAsib formed a shell company called Chelsea Commercial, which only listed Abramoff and Patrick Pizzella as lobbyists when it was created. The purpose of Chelsea was to promote Russian oil and trade interests in the United States. It also underwrote the trip Tom Delay and Ed Buckham made to Russia with Abramoff. Pizzella also happens to work for Trump. Buckham formed the Alexander Strategy Group to help the US Family Network funnel its money received from Naftasib. The US Family network was primarily a vehicle consisting of Buckham, Delay, Ralph Reed, CNI Board Member Grover Norquist and Abramoff. These people have been members of the Council on National Policy over the years.
In November 1998, Jack Abramoff organized a meeting between Sergei Kiriyenko and Republican lawmakers. Kiriyenko is the former prime minister, and is also featured in the Dossier as part of the Trump scandal.
Bob Ney had a young aide working for him during this time. When he was caught, his aide, some young unknown named Corey Lewandowski wrote a letter to the judge praising him as a father figure.
Don McGahn, White House Counsel defended Tom Delay on charges of a Russian Pay . Delay, along with Jack Abramoff, Buckham, and Ney met with Viktor Chernomyrdin, former head of Gazprom in the 1990s.
Mcgahn also happened to start working for Squire Patton Boggs, the lobbyists representing Gazprom in 2013. SPB, he moved on to Jones Day.
Jones Day opened a Moscow office in 2013 after it successfully worked with AlfaBank (MIkhail Fridman) and Renova Group (Viktor Vekselberg) to create an oil producer with BP, called TNK-BP. It has since been bought out by Rosneft. From there, Mcgahn signed on to work for the Trump Presidential Campaign.
Former Senator Conrad Burns was also taken down by the Abramoff Scandal, and he had positive things to say about Putin. Burns passed away weeks before Trump announced his presidential run.
Patrick Pizzella was recently named Acting President of the Federal Labor Relations Authority.
Pizzella and Abramoff organized many trips for conservatives to the Marianas. During one trip, Pizzella had Kellyanne Conway show up . If that is not enough, Conway and Pizzela are both on the Center for National Policy board
Alexander Strategy Group's main lobbyist was Paul Behrends, former National Security Advisor to Dana Rohrabacker and family friend of Erik Prince. He is the Current Staff Director for the House Foreign Affairs committee.
Dana Rohrabacker and Jack Abramoff are long time friends.
Abramoff partnered with Charlie Black (of the lobbying firm Black, (Paul) Manafort and (Roger) Stone) in the 80s to work with brutal African dictators.
Sebastian Gorka worked for Viktor Orban, a Hungarian authoritarian leader close to Putin, before moving to the United States to work for the Republicans. Now he works for the Trump White House.
Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, widely regarded as Russia's top spy, was revealed to have met with Attorney General Sessions twice last year in his capacity as a Senator. He also met with Jared Kushner and Michael Flynn in December. Also, when the Republicans removed anti-Russia language from the Platform at the convention? It was because Trump advisors Carter Page and JD Gordon met with Kislyak.
Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani lobbied for Rosneft
Jim Baker lobbied Trump to nominate Tillerson as Secretary of State, possibly because of the fact that his firm represents both Exxon and Gazprom/Rosneft
The Former head of Yukos is a Trump backer and campaign donor.
CNI Board Member David McCormick is an executive at Bridgewater Associates where James Comey served as General Counsel prior to joining the FBI. They also both worked Din the Bush administration, albeit in different cabinet departments.
CNI Board Member Jon Huntsman was tapped to be ambassador to Russia.
CNI Board Members Dmitri K. Simes and Paul Saunders have hosted events Trump has spoken at, and Simes has been referred to by Putin as his American Friend
Donald Trump met with Ambassador Kislyak during the Presidential Campaign, which looks like nothing until you remember he had previously denied any such meetings.
Trump ally David Clarke visited Moscow the same week as Michael Flynn. His trip was paid for by a Russian gun rights group headed by Maria Butina and included several NRA heads. Butina is close with long time Republican strategist Paul Erickson
Sergei Millian, a Russian born real estate developer has close ties to Trump and to Michael Cohen. It is also said that he may have been behind some of the dirty claims in the dossier.
Trump advisor Boris Epshteyn is a Russian born Pro-Putin immigrant, who has spent a lot of time talking about Crimea on television. He resigned on 3/25/17.
Secretary of the Air Force nominee Heather Wilson founded Keystone International in order to foster business relations Between the United States and Russia
Mark Burnett helped remake Trumps image into a successful reality star, ran his inauguration festivities and has worked with Putin on reality television. Grant Stern does a fantastic job laying out the case that Burnett could have been the guy in the middle of all of this.
Edward Lozansky is a controversial figure at the heart of US-Russia relations over the past 30 years. He openly advocates for a closer alliance in order to bring down Isis. Lozanky is the creator of the annual US-Russia Forum, and founder of American University in Moscow.
Lozansky fled here in 1986, and Bob Dole and Jack Kemp helped him undermine the Soviet Union in order to get his wife over to the United States.
Once the Soviet Union fell, Lozanky created the American University in Moscow, with offices right next door to Paul Weyrich’s heritage foundation new Moscow office.
Lozanky started the Sakharov Institute in Russia in order to fight for the activists freedom, while Richard Burt actively worked on the U.S side for Sakharov’s freedom. Both are now actively working to create a Trump-Putin alliance.
Paul Weyrich, founder of the Council for National Policy and the Free Congress Foundation helped organize the World Russia forum after the downfall of the Soviet Union. In 2003, a who's who of Republican Congressman favorable to Russia including Weldon, Delay, and Rohrabacker were in attendence.
Trump's former lawyer Marc E. Kasowitz has signed on to defend a Russian Bank with ties to Putin.
Trump Transition member and head of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes has his entire net worth sunk into part ownership of a winery in California, which happens to have Russian ties.
The Republican National Committee paid Hamilton Trading Group large sums of money to dig up information on Hillary during the election. Hamilton is co-owned by a former Soviet Spy, Gennady Vasilenko
Nigel Farage is close with Russia and possibly looked the other way while they helped fund Brexit. He is also an unofficial advisor to Donald Trump.
http://m.dailykos.com/story/2017/3/27/1 ... -and-Putin

[Mulligan]

RUSSIAN MILITARY INTELLIGENCE executed a cyberattack on at least one U.S. voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials just days before last November’s presidential election, according to a highly classified intelligence report obtained by The Intercept.

The top-secret National Security Agency document, which was provided anonymously to The Intercept and independently authenticated, analyzes intelligence very recently acquired by the agency about a months-long Russian intelligence cyber effort against elements of the U.S. election and voting infrastructure. The report, dated May 5, 2017, is the most detailed U.S. government account of Russian interference in the election that has yet come to light.

https://theintercept.com/2017/06/05/top ... -election/

Interesting reporting from The Intercept.

[seemslikeadream]

the 25 year old woman working for a private contractor who leaked that document was arrested 1 hour after the Intercept story was published

[seemslikeadream]

Was Kushner Seeking a Russian Bailout for Manhattan Building? Congress Will Ask
by KEN DILANIAN, LEIGH ANN CALDWELL and CORKY SIEMASZKO

A very expensive piece of New York City real estate with an ominous address could be Exhibit A when and if President Donald Trump's son-in-law and trusted adviser, Jared Kushner, appears before the Congressional committees probing Russian meddling in the presidential election.

One of the questions Kushner is expected to be asked is whether he tried to set up a secret back channel way of communicating with the Russians so he could find somebody in Moscow to take the 41-story tower at 666 Fifth Ave. off his family's hands, two Congressional sources with direct knowledge of the investigation confirmed to NBC News.

Play Trump stands by Jared Kushner amid Russia allegations Facebook Twitter Embed
Trump stands by Jared Kushner amid Russia allegations 2:46
Trump has repeatedly touted Kushner, who volunteered to testify before Congress, as a "very successful real estate person."

But Kushner and his family real estate firm took a bath when they bought the building back in January 2007 for what was then a record price for a Manhattan building — $1.8 billion.

RELATED: Did Trump, Kushner, Sessions Have Undisclosed Meeting With Russian?

Kushner Companies has been bleeding money ever since, according to numerous published reports.

So far no date has been set for Kushner to appear before the Senate and House Intelligence committees. Part of the questioning will likely be about a bombshell May 26 report in the Washington Post that Kushner in December allegedly proposed to the Russians setting up a secret communications channel using secure diplomatic facilities.

The White House has not explained why Kushner met in December with Sergey Gorkov — a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin and head of the Vnesheconombank, a bank that was hit with U.S. sanctions after Russia annexed Crimea.

Play Russian Banker Sergey Gorkov Dodges Kushner Questions From NBC News' Keir Simmons Facebook Twitter Embed
Russian Banker Sergey Gorkov Dodges Kushner Questions From NBC News' Keir Simmons 1:22
But Kushner's contacts with the Russians came as his family's real estate firm was already in talks with Anbang Insurance Group, a Chinese firm with murky ties to the country's government, to invest $4 billion into 666 Fifth Ave.

When Bloomberg News reported that a possible deal between Kushner and Anbang was in the works, the Chinese firm quickly put the kibosh on the story.

"The information about Anbang investment in 666 Fifth Avenue is not correct, there is no investment from Anbang for this deal," the company said in a statement.

NBC News reached out to a Kushner Companies spokesperson and asked point blank whether the purpose of the alleged back channel to Moscow was to find investors for 666 Fifth Ave. A spokesman there declined to comment.

Image: A building at 666 Fifth Avenue, owned by Kushner Companies
A building at 666 Fifth Avenue, owned by Kushner Companies, rises above the street in New York on March 30, 2017. Lucas Jackson / Reuters file
The same question was posed twice to Kushner's White House spokesman Joshua Raffel, a well-regarded former Hollywood publicist. He forwarded an earlier response from another White House flack, Hope Hicks, who said Kushner "was acting in his capacity as a transition official and had many similar discussions with foreign representatives after the election."

"For example, he also started conversations with leaders from Saudi Arabia that led to the President's recent successful international trip," Hicks's statement read.

RELATED: Kushner Asked to 'Lay Low' After Russia Reports

Earlier, when it was first revealed that Kushner had been in contact with the Russians, Trump said he had "total confidence" in him and defended his son-in-law as a "very good person."

National Security Adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster has told reporters he's "not concerned" about reports Kushner was in contact with the Russians. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly echoed that during an appearance on Meet the Press.

Play Kelly: 'I Don't See Any Big Issue' with Kushner's Russia Contacts Facebook Twitter Embed
Kelly: 'I Don't See Any Big Issue' with Kushner's Russia Contacts 4:13
"Just because you have a back channel, if indeed that's what Jared was after, doesn't mean that he then keeps everything secret," he said.

Kushner is married to Trump's daughter, Ivanka. He is also the son of New Jersey-based real estate tycoon Charles Kushner, who served 14 months in a federal prison camp for making illegal campaign contributions — and for retaliating against his brother-in-law by hiring a prostitute to seduce him.

When Charles Kushner was released, the family set its sights on Manhattan. Their first attempt at buying a marquee building at 1211 Sixth Avenue ended in failure. So in October 2006, they went after 666 Fifth Ave., which was owned at the time by the Tishman Speyer Properties.

RELATED: Kushner Met With Russian Banker Who Is Putin Crony

In the Book of Revelations and in popular culture, 666 is the "number of the beast."

It was young Kushner himself who placed the call to Rob Speyer, the son of Tishman Speyer co-founder Jerry Speyer, according to New York Magazine.

"This isn't the way we do deals in New York," an angry Scott Latham, the broker representing Tishman Speyer, reportedly said.

The deal was saved, according to the magazine, when Kushner and Speyer had a quiet word in the hallway.

Asked by email about the New York Magazine account, Latham wrote back, "There are multiple points in the story that are not true." He did not respond to a call and second email from NBC News asking for specifics.

Kushner, however, was clearly delighted by his purchase.

Image: A sign hangs on a building at 666 Fifth Avenue, owned by Kushner Companies
A sign hangs on a building at 666 Fifth Avenue, owned by Kushner Companies, in New York on March 30, 2017. Lucas Jackson / Reuters file
"In this particular transaction, we bought really the center of the world," Kushner told The Real Deal in October 2007. "It doesn't get any better than that."

Kushner Companies put $500 million of its own money into the purchase and took out a $1.2 billion mortgage and additional loans to cover the rest of the purchase. The company then moved its offices from Florham Park, New Jersey to the 15th floor of what was supposed to be their flagship building.

The timing could not have been worse.

In 2008, the markets melted down. With the recession dragging rents down, the Kushners were forced to sell off parts of the building to cover their debt and then renegotiate the deal to avoid foreclosure.

Then in 2011, the Vornado real estate company bought 49.5 percent of the building's office space for $80 million. But the building still wasn't covering its operating costs.

RELATED: Kushner Kin's China Sales Pitch Is 'Corruption, Pure and Simple'

Meanwhile, the Kushners commissioned architect Zaha Hadid to design a new 1,400-foot tower to replace the building on the site. Then they began looking for investors to kick in $3.3 billion of the projected $7.5 billion it will cost to demolish the old building and replace it with a new building, the New York Times reported.

Then in March, Bloomberg News reported Anbang was considering investing $4 billion in the tower — an apparent sweetheart deal that would have reduced the Kushners' mortgage "to about a fifth of its current amount" and give them a $400 million payout.

A company spokesman told Bloomberg that Kushner had sold his ownership stake in 666 Fifth Avenue to family members so the deal would pose no conflict of interest with his role as White House adviser.

But Anbang is believed to be so intertwined with the Chinese government that former President Barack Obama declined to stay at the Waldorf Astoria New York, which Anbang owns, for fear of being bugged
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/was ... d_nn_tw_ma

[Heaven Swan]

Quote from NYTimes article 6/6

The Justice Department announced the case against the contractor, Reality Leigh Winner, 25, about an hour after the national-security news outlet The Intercept published the apparent document, a May 5 intelligence report from the National Security Agency.

The report described two cyberattacks by Russia’s military intelligence unit, the G.R.U. — one in August against a company that sells voter registration-related software and another, a few days before the election, against 122 local election officials.

Reality Leigh Winner. Reality, what a great name. She's a hero.

[SonicG]

The awesome just writes itself...

There is also this Real Reality Winner...maybe just star... in the WH....



Omarosa!

What has she been up to lately?

“By the way, there is a Chicago-based leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan, who would meet with the president, I’m seeing this on our Facebook. People, they’re saying, that Louis Farrakhan would meet with you or the president. Would you guys be willing to meet with the Honorable Louis Farrakhan?” asked co-host Thomas.

“I think that any in your audience would know that I have never shied away from having an open and, I believe, a good relationship with Louis Farrakhan and so I would look forward to receiving that invitation and sitting down with him,” Omarosa responded.

“That is a revolutionary statement, my sister,” said Mr. Thomas.

“My history reflects that I have marched, walked, advocated and fought, even before I got into this office, for the rights of those who don’t have a voice and for those who can’t fight for themselves. I have a spiritual obligation to fight for those who Christ described as the least of these,” said the Trump White House representative, who is also an ordained minister.

About that time the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) went ballistic. Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO, declared with all the outrage of an old-time slave master, “Louis Farrakhan should not be made to feel welcome by anyone in the White House. Such an overture would only serve to legitimize his long record of conspiratorial and hateful views toward Jews. We hope that the administration will make it clear that Farrakhan and his anti-Semitic organization will find no supporters in the White House.”

http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish ... 3631.shtml

It all makes for a rather sprawling screenplay though doesn't it?

[seemslikeadream]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbKBWtoH93Q

“Reality Winner”

Today’s arrest of “Reality Winner” confirms Russia rigged the election for Donald Trump
By Bill Palmer
Updated: 7:23 pm EDT Mon Jun 5, 2017 | 0
Home » Opinion

The public seems to be having a hard time figuring out how to digest today’s news that the Donald Trump administration has arrested a government contractor for leaking classified intel to the media. The story is a complex one, further complicated by the fact that the woman arrested today is named “Reality Winner” of all things. But once you get past that novelty, the real upshot of the story is that this is bad news for Trump.


The arrest makes sense: Donald Trump has spent months demanding that his administration do something about the people in the intel community who have been leaking secrets to the media. In that sense, today’s arrest of Reality Winner should give him a bit of satisfaction in the short term. But here’s the problem: by arresting this woman, the Trump administration just confirmed that the story published by The Intercept really is based on legitimate classified intel, and therefore is true.


Here’s the relevant information from that classified intel published earlier today by The Intercept: “Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors … executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions. … The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to … launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations.” (link).


So now we have confirmation from the NSA that the Russian government really did hack voter registration databases to rig the election. Whatever your opinion of The Intercept as a news outlet, and whether you were inclined to believe that what it published earlier today really was classified NSA intel, this evening’s subsequent arrest means that the leaked intel is real for sure. So now we know that the NSA knows that Russia rigged the election for Donald Trump. And this comes just two days before NSA Director Mike Rogers is set to testify before Congress.

http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/rea ... rump/3326/

[JackRiddler]

Unfortunately the most important thing she may have revealed (that we could have should have known but did not) is that printers place invisible dots on the paper to identify the printer and dispatcher.

The impulse is heroic, the execution seems to have been hasty and sloppy. I feel very sad for her.

Now excuse the juvenile in-board baseball, but... Reality Winner?

HMW - himself hijacked! - now twirling in his cell, we can all imagine.