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At least four national security officials raised alarms about Ukraine policy before and after Trump call with Ukrainian president

President Trump speaks to members of the media on the White House lawn Thursday before boarding Marine One for a short trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., and then on to Minneapolis, for a campaign rally. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

At least four national security officials were so alarmed by the Trump administration’s attempts to pressure Ukraine for political purposes that they raised concerns with a White House lawyer both before and immediately after President Trump’s July 25 call with that country’s president, according to U.S. officials and other people familiar with the matter.

The nature and timing of the previously undisclosed discussions with National Security Council legal adviser John Eisenberg indicate that officials were delivering warnings through official White House channels earlier than previously understood — including before the call that precipitated a whistleblower complaint and the impeachment inquiry of the president.

At the time, the officials were unnerved by the removal in May of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine; subsequent efforts by Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani to promote Ukraine-related conspiracies; as well as signals in meetings at the White House that Trump wanted the new government in Kiev to deliver material that might be politically damaging to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Those concerns soared in the call’s aftermath, officials said. Within minutes, senior officials including national security adviser John Bolton were being pinged by subordinates about problems with what the president had said to his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky. Bolton and others scrambled to obtain a rough transcript that was already being “locked down” on a highly classified computer network.

“When people were listening to this in real time there were significant concerns about what was going on — alarm bells were kind of ringing,” said one person familiar with the sequence of events inside the White House, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. “People were trying to figure out what to do, how to get a grasp on the situation.”

It is unclear whether some or all of the officials who complained to Eisenberg are also the ones who later spoke to the whistleblower.

Two Giuliani associates arrested at airport as they tried to leave U.S.

The accounts are sharply at odds with Trump’s depiction of the call as a “perfect” exchange in which he “did nothing wrong,” despite appearing to link U.S. support for Ukraine to that country’s willingness to investigate the family of the former vice president. On Thursday, Trump renewed his attacks on Twitter, describing the impeachment inquiry as a “Democrat Scam.”

But new details about the sequence inside the White House suggest that concerns about the call and events leading up to it were profound even among Trump’s top advisers, including Bolton and then-acting deputy national security adviser Charles Kupperman. Bolton and Kupperman did not respond to requests for comment.

Officials said that within hours of the 9 a.m. conversation, a rough transcript compiled by aides had been moved from a widely shared White House computer network to one normally reserved for highly classified intelligence operations. According to the whistleblower’s complaint, White House lawyers “directed” officials to move the transcript to the classified system. At the same time, officials were seeking ways to report what they had witnessed, an undertaking complicated by the lack of a White House equivalent to the inspector general positions found at other agencies.

As a result, one official who had listened on the call went “immediately” to Eisenberg. By the end of the next day, at least two others who had either heard the call or seen the rough transcript had also done so, said a person familiar with the matter.

It is not clear whether Eisenberg took any action either after the warnings he received earlier in July or after the Trump-Zelensky conversation. One official said Eisenberg vowed he would “follow-up,” a message interpreted to mean that he intended to investigate the matter and perhaps relay the dismay up the ranks to White House counsel Pat Cipollone.

If that occurred, it would help to explain how the White House was already aware of concerns about the July 25 call when contacted by the CIA general counsel weeks before a whistleblower complaint submitted by an agency employee had become public.

White House officials did not respond to questions about Eisenberg or a request for comment.

A former Justice Department official, Eisenberg has served as the top legal adviser to the National Security Council since the start of the administration, a tenure that encompasses numerous legal crises, including the FBI investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn and the special counsel probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Eisenberg likely would also have played a leading role in the White House efforts to prevent the nation’s intelligence director from turning over a whistleblower complaint about Trump’s Ukraine call to lawmakers.

Officials who have worked with Eisenberg described him as conscientious and cautious, but said he has an expansive view of executive-branch authorities. One former Justice Department colleague said he is an “honest broker” but has a “disdain” for Congress.

Cipollone delivered a blistering letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) this week, describing the impeachment probe as “unconstitutional” and vowing that the administration would not cooperate.

The absence of any clear action by Eisenberg or others may have contributed to decisions by White House insiders to relay their concerns to a CIA employee who assembled the information they supplied into a whistleblower complaint that he submitted Aug. 12 to the U.S. intelligence community’s inspector general.

A memo turned over to congressional investigators suggests that the whistleblower, who has not been publicly identified, was contacted by a White House official on the afternoon of the July 25 Trump-Zelensky conversation. The complaint lays out many of the concerns that White House officials had shared with Eisenberg and others in the weeks leading up to that phone call.

Those involved in sounding alarms “were not a swamp, not a deep state,” said a former senior official. Rather, they were White House officials “who got concerned about this because this is not the way they want to see the government run.”

Officials traced the origins of their initial concerns about Trump and Ukraine to the abrupt and unexplained removal of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, after she became the target of a right-wing smear campaign that accused her — with no apparent evidence — of undermining Trump and his policies.

NSC officials were alternately baffled and alarmed by the behavior of Giuliani, who had agitated for Yovanovitch’s removal and proceeded to declare on cable television interviews that he was pressing Ukraine to reopen a corruption probe of an energy company that had paid Hunter Biden, the former vice president’s son, as much as $100,000 a month to serve as a board member.

Biden has been criticized for taking that position while his father was serving as vice president and involved in Ukraine policy. But the younger Biden has never been accused of wrongdoing in his role as a board member for the company, Burisma, and there is no evidence to support the contentions by Giuliani and others that Joe Biden intervened inappropriately.

In his frequent meetings and conversations with Giuliani, Trump also became increasingly focused on Kiev-centered conspiracies, including a bizarre claim that the Democratic National Committee had not actually been hacked by Russian intelligence in 2016, and that the evidence — the infected machines — had been smuggled to Ukraine and kept there in hiding.

Concerns about the administration’s interactions with Ukraine ticked up further when the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, asserted that he had been put in charge of relations with Kiev by the president. Sondland, who had operated a hotel company, got the Brussels-based ambassadorship after donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.

Sondland’s agenda in Ukraine began to become clear during a meeting at the White House in early July with Bolton, then-U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker and a pair of advisers to Ukraine’s new president.

Amid a broader discussion in which White House officials were encouraging Ukraine to continue its work to eliminate corruption in the country’s energy sector, Sondland blurted out that there were also “investigations that were dropped that need to be started up again,” according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

Senior officials understood Sondland’s statement to be a reference to Burisma and Biden. “Bolton went ballistic” after the meeting, the official said. In the ensuing days, senior NSC officials including Bolton and Kupperman huddled over their concerns about Ukraine.

Those worries were also shared with Bill Taylor, who had been dispatched to Ukraine to serve as acting U.S. ambassador after Yovanovitch’s removal. Taylor pressed Sondland in a series of text messages before and after Trump’s call.

“President Zelenskyy is sensitive about Ukraine being taken seriously, not merely an instrument in Washington domestic, reelection politics,” Taylor wrote to Sondland in the days leading up to the call. Weeks later, Taylor’s tone grew more alarmed.

“As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” he wrote to Sondland.

Sondland backed out of a scheduled appearance before House impeachment investigators this week after being ordered not to participate by the administration. Hearings with other officials, however, appear to remain on track. Yovanovitch is scheduled to testify Friday, and Fiona Hill, who served as the top White House aide on Russia, is due to meet with congressional investigators Monday.

Paul Sonne and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

The Mystery of Rudy Giuliani’s Vienna Trip
President Trump’s personal lawyer told me he was planning to fly to Vienna roughly 24 hours after his business associates were arrested as they prepared to do the same.

Elaina Plott5:51 PM ET
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Last night, when Rudy Giuliani told me he couldn’t get together for an interview, his reason made sense: As with many nights of late, he was due to appear on Hannity. When I suggested this evening instead, his response was a bit more curious. We would have to aim for lunch, Giuliani told me, because he was planning to fly to Vienna, Austria, at night. He didn’t offer any details beyond that.

Giuliani called me at 6:22 p.m. last night—around the same time that two of his associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were arrested at Dulles Airport while waiting to board an international flight with one-way tickets. As The Wall Street Journal reported this afternoon, the two men were bound for Vienna. The Florida businessmen, who are reported to have assisted Giuliani in his alleged efforts to investigate Joe Biden and his family ahead of the 2020 election, were charged with campaign-finance violations, with prosecutors alleging that they had conspired to funnel money from a Russian donor into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

But Giuliani, when confirming today that Parnas and Fruman were heading to Vienna on matters “related to their business,” told the Journal that he himself only had plans to meet with them when they returned to Washington. By this logic, Giuliani was also planning to fly to Vienna within roughly 24 hours of his business associates, but do no business with them while all three were there.

Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, appears in a red-and-blue photo illustration with a picture of the White House behind him.

This morning, Giuliani told me he’d have to reschedule our lunch. I’ve tried to reach him since then, to discuss Parnas’s and Fruman’s arrests, among other things, to no avail. When I called at 3 p.m. ET to ask about his Vienna trip, a woman claiming to be his communications director answered the phone. I have called him more than 100 times over the past year, and this is the first time that has ever happened. She said she’d have to get back to me. As we spoke, I could hear a voice that resembled Giuliani’s shout “asshole” in the background. “Oh, sorry,” the woman told me. “He was talking to the TV.”

Why were Parnas and Fruman bound for Vienna? Why was Giuliani—if what he told me was true—planning to be in the same city a day later?

Giuliani finally sent me a text message at 4:18 p.m. ET: “I can’t comment on it at this time.”

Read: Rudy Giuliani: ‘You should be happy for your country that I uncovered this’

Parnas and Fruman, both Soviet-born, have been instrumental in helping Giuliani develop Ukrainian contacts in his quest to prove that Biden, while vice president, tried to curtail an investigation into a Ukrainian gas company for which his son Hunter Biden served on the board. Parnas told NPR, for example, that he was the one who had arranged a Skype call between Giuliani and former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin to discuss their corruption theory. Parnas was also present at meetings in New York and Warsaw earlier this year with Giuliani and Yuriy Lutsenko, another former prosecutor general for Ukraine.

I met Parnas and Fruman in March, when I joined Giuliani at Shelly’s Back Room, a cigar bar in D.C., to discuss Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s soon-to-be-released report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Sipping back-to-back glasses of Macallan—double, one large ice cube—and smoking a Nicaraguan cigar, Giuliani told me he’d known Parnas for two years. Parnas laughed and said he’d grown up “idolizing” Giuliani. They bantered about how the Mueller probe would likely amount to nothing, with Parnas adding that it was Trump’s “constitutional right” to fire former FBI Director James Comey. Save for introducing himself when I arrived, Fruman was quiet. Parnas told me they were all “great friends” and all “work together.”

Along with allegedly using a shell company to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates and a pro-Trump super PAC, Parnas and Fruman were also accused by federal prosectors of meddling in American political activities on behalf of one or more Ukrainian officials. In the 21-page indictment, prosecutors allege that Parnas and Fruman lobbied for the removal of the U.S. ambassador in Kiev, Marie Yovanovitch—something Giuliani sought as well, arguing that she was biased against the president. In May, Trump ordered Yovanovitch’s removal.

The White House has kept mum about the arrests. Jay Sekulow, Trump’s personal lawyer alongside Giuliani, told reporters that neither Trump nor his campaign has “anything to do with the scheme these guys were involved in.”

It’s difficult to know, however, precisely what Trump may or may not know about Parnas and Fruman, given that Giuliani and Trump are in constant contact and that Giuliani, at least broadly, has frequently kept Trump updated on his maneuverings in Ukraine. Presumably these are the kinds of questions that House Democrats had in mind when they subpoenaed Giuliani last month, and Parnas and Fruman today. Giuliani has said he refuses to testify or provide documents to the House Intelligence Committee. Parnas and Fruman, for their part, are being held in a Virginia jail on a $1 million bond each.

Trump is already seeking to distance himself from the controversy. “I don’t know those gentlemen,” the president told reporters before departing for a rally in Minnesota. “Now, it’s possible I have a picture with them, because I have a picture with everybody.” (He does, in fact, have a picture with Parnas.)

“Maybe they were clients of Rudy,” Trump added. “You’d have to ask Rudy.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... na/599833/

CAUGHT ON TAPE
Giuliani in 2018 video with embroiled associates: “Can’t wait to come back” to Ukraine

Rudy Giuliani
By
Ben Jacobs
Jacob Kornbluh
October 10, 2019

In a 2018 video obtained by Jewish Insider, Rudy Giuliani is seen with associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman expressing his hope to return to Ukraine. Parnas and Fruman were indicted Thursday on campaign finance charges related to their efforts to remove Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, from her job.

In the video, which appeared to be filmed at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Trump’s personal lawyer, says he “can’t wait to come back,” followed by Parnas saying, “See you in Ukraine soon.” The video was posted on the Facebook page of the Anatevka Jewish Refugee Community, the social media arm of a charity set up to help Ukrainian Jews fleeing violence in the eastern part of the country in 2018. Both Parnas and Fruman sit on the board of the charity. The three men also sent greetings to Rabbi Moshe Azman, the head of the organization.
Parnas and Fruman are accused of illegally funneling money to America First Action, a pro-Trump superPAC, as well as to the election campaign of former Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX). The two were arrested Wednesday evening at Dulles International Airport as they tried to leave the United States on one-way plane tickets to Vienna. Parnas and Fruman had been working with Giuliani and assisting in efforts to investigate Ukrainian business dealings by Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden
https://jewishinsider.com/2019/10/giuli ... o-ukraine/

Giuliani’s Ukraine Team: In Search of Influence, Dirt and Money
The president’s lawyer was paid by Lev Parnas, who with Igor Fruman worked on behalf of President Trump in Ukraine.
ImageRudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, pushed the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, pushed the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden.CreditCreditErin Schaff for The New York Times
Kenneth P. VogelBy Kenneth P. Vogel
Oct. 10, 2019

WASHINGTON — When Rudolph W. Giuliani set out to dredge up damaging information on President Trump’s rivals in Ukraine, he turned to a native of the former Soviet republic with whom he already had a lucrative business relationship.
Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-American businessman with a trail of debts and lawsuits, had known Mr. Giuliani casually for years through Republican political circles. Last year, their relationship deepened when a company he helped found retained Mr. Giuliani — associates of Mr. Parnas said he told them he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars — for what Mr. Giuliani said on Thursday was business and legal advice.
Even as he worked with Mr. Parnas’s company, Fraud Guarantee, Mr. Giuliani increasingly relied on Mr. Parnas to carry out Mr. Trump’s quest for evidence in Ukraine that would undercut the legitimacy of the special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference on his behalf in the 2016 election and help him heading into his 2020 re-election campaign.
Mr. Giuliani dispatched Mr. Parnas and an associate, Igor Fruman, a Belarusian-American businessman, to Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, where, despite fending off creditors at home, BuzzFeed reported, they ran up big charges at a strip club and the Hilton International hotel. Their mission was to find people and information that could be used to undermine the special counsel’s investigation, and also to damage former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a prospective Democratic challenger to Mr. Trump.
Over the past year, the two men connected Mr. Giuliani with Ukrainians who were willing to participate in efforts to push a largely unsubstantiated narrative about the Bidens. They played a key role in a campaign by pro-Trump forces to press for the removal of the United States ambassador to Ukraine on the grounds that she had not shown sufficient loyalty to the president as he pursued his agenda there.
They met regularly with Mr. Giuliani, often at the Trump International hotel in Washington. And all the while, they were pursuing their own business schemes and, according to an indictment unsealed on Thursday, illegally funneling campaign contributions in the United States in the service of both their political and business activities.
The indictment, along with interviews and other documents, show Mr. Parnas, Mr. Fruman and their associates as somewhat hapless operators, scrambling recklessly to use their new connections to the highest levels of American politics to seek financial gain while guiding Mr. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, into a Ukrainian political culture rife with self-dealing and ever-shifting alliances.
The indictment provided new details about the dealings of Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman, as well as a pair of associates, including David Correia, who with Mr. Parnas helped found Fraud Guarantee, the fraud prevention and mitigation company that retained Mr. Giuliani. The four men were charged with campaign finance violations related to their efforts to enlist public officials in their moneymaking efforts and their political efforts in Ukraine.
The indictment does not name or identify Mr. Giuliani or Mr. Trump. But it helps show how Mr. Giuliani, who was retained by Mr. Trump as a personal lawyer to fend off one challenge to his presidency — the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III — helped steer his client into another: dealings with Ukraine that are now at the heart of the impeachment inquiry by House Democrats.
The congressional committees overseeing the impeachment inquiry have subpoenaed Mr. Giuliani for records related to his efforts in Ukraine, including records related to Mr. Parnas, Mr. Fruman and Semyon Kislin, another Ukrainian-born businessman.
Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman had been asked to appear before House investigators this week, but declined to do so. And on Thursday, the congressional committees issued subpoenas demanding they produce documents by Wednesday, while signaling that the committees still expected the pair to testify to Congress.
The two men did get something useful for their Ukrainian efforts from Pete Sessions, then a Republican member of Congress from Texas, who is not identified in the indictment. It says that after making substantial campaign donations to him, Mr. Parnas asked Mr. Sessions for help last year in pressing the Trump administration to remove the United States ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch. Mr. Sessions subsequently wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticizing Ms. Yovanovitch and seeking to have her dismissed.
Mr. Parnas had told associates that she was not open to his proposals related to the lucrative gas business in Ukraine, where Mr. Parnas pitched a natural gas deal to the chief executive of Naftogaz, as The New York Times reported last month.
Ms. Yovanovitch had also come under fire from a Ukrainian prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, who was connected to Mr. Giuliani by Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman and played a key role in Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to promote investigations into Mr. Trump’s rivals.
While the indictment did not identify any officials by name, it said that Mr. Parnas, in his effort to oust Ms. Yovanovitch, acted, “at least in part, at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials.”
Mr. Giuliani also said he provided legal advice to Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman after their efforts in Ukraine brought them into conflict with a powerful oligarch, Ihor Kolomoisky.
Mr. Kolomoisky said in interviews in the Ukrainian news media that Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman traveled to see him in Israel in April, ostensibly to talk about their plans to sell gas to Ukraine. But, he said, the two men then pushed him to arrange a meeting between Mr. Giuliani and Ukraine’s newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Mr. Giuliani had been seeking to press Mr. Zelensky to agree to investigate the Bidens and Ukraine’s role in the 2016 election, and had been working with Mr. Parnas to lay the groundwork for the effort, as The Times first reported in May.
Upon returning to Ukraine, Mr. Kolomoisky threatened in May to expose Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman. Mr. Giuliani, in turn, posted on Twitter that the oligarch had “defamed” Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman, “and I have advised them to press charges.” He also warned Mr. Zelensky not to surround himself with allies of Mr. Kolomoisky.
Mr. Parnas, Mr. Fruman and Mr. Giuliani were frequently spotted together over the past year at the Trump International hotel in Washington, and were overheard discussing politics and energy projects, including a methane initiative in Uzbekistan. Mr. Giuliani and his associates were to be paid at least $100,000 for the project, on which Mr. Parnas offered advice.
The project did not pan out, Mr. Giuliani said.
Mr. Parnas said in an interview last month that he and Mr. Fruman were self-financing their efforts on behalf of Mr. Giuliani’s political work in Ukraine and that those “have nothing to do with our business.”
He added, “My only business with Giuliani was a long time ago,” and involved an insurance company that Mr. Parnas suggested he owned that Mr. Giuliani “offered some advice on.”
In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Giuliani at first seemed to acknowledge having advised Fraud Guarantee in 2018, then backtracked.
“I can’t acknowledge it’s Fraud Guarantee, I don’t think,” he said.
“I can acknowledge I gave them substantial business advice,” he said, adding that one of his companies trains institutional customers in security work, including “how to investigate crimes, from murder to terrorism to fraud.” He said that “most of it is subdivisions of government, but every once in a while it is a private enterprise.”
Last month, he seemed to minimize the campaign finance issues facing Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman, saying in an interview, “I referred them to a campaign finance expert, who pretty much resolved it.”
On Thursday, Mr. Giuliani said he did not regret working with Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman in Ukraine. “I have to presume they’re innocent,” he said, adding: “There are a lot of motives going on trying to smear people, so I wouldn’t say that I regret it, no. Who else would I have turned to?”
In April 2018, Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman incorporated a company called Global Energy Producers ostensibly as a vehicle to engage in the trade of liquefied natural gas — a commodity American officials have long urged Ukraine to buy from the United States.
In weeks, the company attracted notice in Republican finance circles with major donations to committees supporting Mr. Trump and his allies. It gave $325,000 to America First Action, a pro-Trump super PAC; $50,000 to a political action committee affiliated with the Trump-endorsed candidate for Florida governor in 2018, Ron DeSantis, and $15,000 to a super PAC supporting the 2018 Senate campaign of the West Virginia attorney general, Patrick Morrisey.
The donation spree prompted legal filings by a former business partner of Mr. Parnas who was trying to collect more than $510,000 from Mr. Parnas from a 2016 federal judgment.
http://archive.is/HwCet#selection-275.0-602.0

Ex-Ambassador To Ukraine Reveals Details Of Her Ouster By Trump
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch partakes in the Kyiv Security Forum Discussions: What to Expect from the 2018 NATO Summit, Kyiv, capital of Ukraine, July 10, 2018. Ukrinform.
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch partakes in the Kyiv Security Forum Discussions: What to Expect from the 2018 NATO Summit, Kyiv, capital of Uk... MORE
By Tierney Sneed and Josh Kovensky

October 11, 2019 12:29 pm

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch told Congress Friday, according to a prepared testimony obtained by the Washington Post, that she was recalled suddenly from her post in May, after previously being told by the State Department she’d stay there until at least next year.

Yovanovitch is currently being interviewed by House investigators behind closed doors as part of Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. She was removed by President Trump after months of prodding by his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who claimed that she was disloyal to Trump and that she was blocking the opening of a Ukraine probe into the Bidens.

In the statement, the ousted ambassador told the House that the State Department faces the prospect of being “irreparably” harmed under the current administration.

Yovanovitch’s prepared statement said that she was suddenly recalled from Kyiv at the end of April 2019, told to return to Washington “on the next plane.”

Upon her arrival in the United States, Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan told Yovanovitch that she was the victim of a “concerted campaign” and that the State Department “had been under pressure” from Trump to remove her since summer 2018, according to the statement.

“Although I understand that I served at the pleasure of the President, I was nevertheless incredulous that the U.S. government chose to remove an Ambassador based, as best as I can tell, on unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives,” Yovanovitch wrote.

The ousted ambassador described herself as targeted by unnamed associates of Rudy Giuliani’s who apparently “believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”

Though Yovanovitch did not refer to any associates of Giuliani’s by name, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman reportedly lobbied to change the management of a state-owned Ukrainian oil and gas company, part of a drive they were undertaking to engage in potentially lucrative energy deals with the Eastern European nation.

In the statement, Yovanovitch categorically denied a series of accusations that originated with the former general prosecutor of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko — an official who faced sharp criticism from Yovanovitch for his failure to fight corruption.

Lutsenko alleged — via The Hill opinion contributor John Solomon — that Yovanovitch had given him a “do not prosecute list.” He also claimed that an investigation needed to be conducted into former vice president Joe Biden’s activities in Ukraine with respect to his son Hunter’s position on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

Yovanovitch denied Lutsenko’s allegations as “completely false,” and added that separate allegations from Trumpworld of “disloyalty” to the President were “equally fictitious.”

Yovanovitch added that she had not been involved in discussions surrounding the Trump administration’s decision to withhold military aid to Kyiv. That, she noted, came after her departure.

“I must share the deep disappointment and dismay I have felt as these events have unfolded,” she wrote.

“Today, we see the State Department attacked and hollowed out from within,” she added. “State Department leadership, with Congress, needs to take action now to defend this great institution, and its thousands of loyal and effective employees.”

Yovanovitch went on to say that, under her tenure, the US Embassy in Kyiv put forth efforts that were “intended, and evidently succeeded, in thwarting corrupt interests in Ukraine, who fought back by selling baseless conspiracy theories to anyone who would listen.”

“Sadly, someone was listening, and our nation is the worse off for that,” she concluded.

Read the full written testimony, via the Post, below:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/marie- ... -testimony

Here’s The Latest On The Burgeoning Ukraine-Impeachment Story
Nicole Lafond

WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 03: U.S. President Donald Trump walks out of the White House to answer questions while departing the White House on October 03, 2019 in Washington, DC. Trump is scheduled to travel to Florida... MORE
It’s been a whirlwind week for the Ukraine pressure campaign, and as usual, quite a bit of news broke overnight. We’ve put together a run-down of several minor developments that might have slipped under your radar in the past 18 hours.

U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland confirmed through his attorney that he will appear to testify before House committees steering the impeachment inquiry after the State Department blocked his deposition earlier this week. Notably, his attorney made it clear that Sondland was bucking the State Department’s directive in order to “honor the committees’ subpoena.”
Bill Taylor, the longtime State Department official who mildly opposed U.S. diplomats’ efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden was asked to testify as part of the House impeachment inquiries. House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) hinted earlier this week that the committees were interested in hearing from Taylor, the U.S. charges d’affaires in Kyiv. It’s unclear if he’ll entertain the request.
The Washington Post reported Thursday evening that at least four national security officials raised concerns to White House lawyer John Eisenberg about President Trump’s pressure campaign both before and after the now-infamous July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. These officials were reportedly bothered by ex-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch’s abrupt removal, which allegedly came at Rudy Giuliani’s behest.
Former Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) held at least three meetings with Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, the Giuliani associates arrested for campaign finance violations on Wednesday. Sessions is not named in the indictment, but is believed to be “Congressman 1,” who is tied to the duo’s efforts to oust Yovanovitch from the State Department. According to the Texas Observer, Sessions reportedly believes he was approached by the two because of his role as chair of the Turkey caucus.
Former South Carolina congressman Trey Gowdy won’t be allowed to join Trump’s impeachment defense team until January because of “lobbying rules.”
CNN reported Wednesday evening that Giuliani’s financial dealings with Parnas and Fruman have been scrutinized by the FBI and Southern District of New York prosecutors who are overseeing the Parnas/Fruman campaign finance violation case. CNN’s source did indicate that Giuliani is a target in the investigation.
Marie Yovanovitch was apparently removed from her post as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine after she told Giuliani that he should use official governmental channels to relay his investigation requests, the Associated Press reported, citing an ex-diplomat who spoke to Yovanovitch about the issue.
A top adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has resigned, The Washington Post reported. Pompeo is expected to announce the departure Friday. The career diplomat and adviser Michael McKinley was reportedly bothered by Pompeo’s lackluster support for the diplomats embroiled in the ongoing Ukraine-impeachment scandal.
Former Trump aide Fiona Hill intends to testify before impeachment committees next week about Giuliani and Sondland’s efforts to skirt normal official procedures in order to pressure Ukraine. Hill was Trump’s adviser on Russia and Europe until recently and people close to Trump are growing increasingly anxious about her testimony, NBC News reported.
Giuliani had a fishy trip planned earlier this week. According to the Atlantic’s Elaina Plott, Trump’s attorney attempted to schedule an interview with Plott around his scheduled plan to fly to Vienna, Austria, on Thursday afternoon. The trip apparently didn’t happen, but the timing is suspicious given Giuliani was planning to fly to Vienna nearly 24 hours after Parnas and Fruman were arrested at Dulles Airport.
Giuliani has maintained that he works for Trump pro-bono for some time now. In a new Daily Beast piece on Democrats’ interest in tracking who paid Giuliani for his work for Trump, Giuliani said he was not paid for any of his pressure campaign work in Ukraine. Giuliani said only that the cost of his travel was covered by separate work for other clients that happened to correspond with his Ukraine schedule. He offered this one concrete example to the Daily Beast: “Speaking specifically about an August trip he made to Madrid to urge Andriy Yermak, a top Ukrainian official, to reinvestigate the Bidens, Giuliani said that he happened to be going to the Spanish capital already for ‘business and vacation.'”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/late ... mpeachment

CONSIDER HOW PAUL MANAFORT’S FATE MAY HAVE AFFECTED MARIE YOVANOVITCH

October 11, 2019/33 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, 2020 Presidential Election, Mueller Probe /by emptywheel
WaPo has published fired Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch’s prepared statement from her deposition today. It’s a powerful statement from a committed public servant — so go read it yourself.

But reporters have started focusing on a detail Yovanovitch included, but exclusively as it relates to yesterday’s events. When she asked Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan why she had been withdrawn with almost no notice, he told her Trump had been pressuring State to do so since Summer 2018.

Finally, after being asked by the Department in early March to extend my tour until 2020, I was then abruptly told in late April to come back to Washington from Ukraine “on the next plane.” You will understandably want to ask why my posting ended so suddenly. I wanted to learn that too, and I tried to find out. I met with the Deputy Secretary of State, who informed me of the curtailment of my term. He said that the President had lost confidence in me and no longer wished me to serve as his ambassador. He added that there had been a concerted campaign against me, and that the Department had been under pressure from the President to remove me since the Summer of 2018. He also said that I had done nothing wrong and that this was not like other situations where he had recalled ambassadors for cause.

It is true that these events would have shortly followed the first efforts from Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman to cultivate Trump and his “free” lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, whom Trump “hired” (for free) in April.

At almost precisely that time, in April 2018, Ukraine stopped cooperating with Mueller on the Manafort prosecution, possibly in response to the approval of an export license for Javelin missiles, one of the same things Trump used again this summer to extort Ukraine.

Nevertheless, Trump’s efforts to fire Yovanovitch took place even while — in spite of Ukraine’s halt to their cooperation — things started going south for the President’s former campaign manager.

The government first moved to revoke Manafort’s bail because he was tampering with witnesses on June 4. Amy Berman Jackson sent him to jail (first club fed, then after his lawyers got cute, Alexandria jail) on June 15. Jurors in EDVA returned a guilty verdict on August 21. And on September 14, Manafort entered into what purported to be a cooperation agreement with Mueller’s prosecutors (but what, instead, turned out to be an intelligence gathering effort on what they knew and wanted to know, intelligence he shared with Trump). Throughout that period, Trump expressed real worry that Manafort would really flip on him.

As I will show, virtually everything we know about Manafort’s purported cooperation effort connects, in some way, to this Ukraine affair. Plus, we know that Rudy Giuliani was consulting with Manafort as he pursued his schemes. And Manafort’s lawyer Kevin Downing — the same one coordinating on these issues with Rudy — represented Parnas and Fruman in their EDVA appearance yesterday.

This Ukraine story is nothing more than the continuation of the Russian story, and much of it goes through Paul Manafort. Thus, it’s not surprising that as it looked increasingly likely that Manafort would pay for his crimes, and might implicate Trump in them, Trump tried to shut down one area of pressure.

Parnas and Fruman are likely just facilitators to make that happen.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/10/11/c ... vanovitch/

Giuliani Is Said to Be Under Investigation for Ukraine Work
Prosecutors are investigating whether the president’s lawyer broke laws meant to prevent covert foreign influence on the government.

Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of President Trump’s personal lawyers, said his efforts to push for investigations in Ukraine originated with his legal defense of Mr. Trump.

By Michael S. Schmidt, Ben Protess, Kenneth P. Vogel and William K. Rashbaum
Oct. 11, 2019Updated 10:12 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani broke lobbying laws in his dealings in Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the inquiry.
The investigators are examining Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to undermine the American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch, one of the people said. She was recalled in the spring as part of Mr. Trump’s broader campaign to pressure Ukraine into helping his political prospects.
The investigation into Mr. Giuliani is tied to the case against two of his associates who were arrested this week on campaign finance-related charges, the people familiar with the inquiry said. The associates were charged with funneling illegal contributions to a congressman whose help they sought in removing Ms. Yovanovitch.
Mr. Giuliani has denied wrongdoing, but he acknowledged that he and the associates worked with Ukrainian prosecutors to collect potentially damaging information about Ms. Yovanovitch and other targets of Mr. Trump and his allies, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his younger son, Hunter Biden. Mr. Giuliani shared that material this year with American government officials and a Trump-friendly columnist in an effort to undermine the ambassador and other Trump targets.
Federal law requires American citizens to disclose to the Justice Department any contacts with the government or media in the United States at the direction or request of foreign politicians or government officials, regardless of whether they pay for the representation. Law enforcement officials have made clear in recent years that covert foreign influence is as great a threat to the country as spies trying to steal government secrets.
A criminal investigation of Mr. Giuliani raises the stakes of the Ukraine scandal for the president, whose dealings with the country are already the subject of an impeachment inquiry. It is also a stark turn for Mr. Giuliani, who now finds himself under scrutiny from the same United States attorney’s office he led in the 1980s, when he first rose to prominence as a tough-on-crime prosecutor and later ascended to two terms as mayor of New York.
It was unclear how far the investigation has progressed, and there was no indication that prosecutors in Manhattan have decided to file additional charges in the case. A spokeswoman for the United States attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey S. Berman, declined to comment.
Mr. Giuliani said that federal prosecutors had no grounds to charge him with foreign lobbying disclosure violations because he said he was acting on behalf of Mr. Trump, not the Ukrainian prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, when he collected the information on Ms. Yovanovitch and the others and relayed it to the American government and the news media.
“Look, you can try to contort anything into anything, but if they have any degree of objectivity or fairness, it would be kind of ridiculous to say I was doing it on Lutsenko’s behalf when I was representing the president of the United States,” Mr. Giuliani said. Mr. Lutsenko had chafed at Ms. Yovanovitch’s anticorruption efforts and wanted her recalled from Kiev.
Mr. Giuliani also said he was unaware of any investigation into him, and he defended the pressure campaign on Ukrainians, which he led, as legal and above board.
CNN and other news organizations reported that federal prosecutors were scrutinizing Mr. Giuliani’s financial dealings with his associates, but it has not been previously reported that federal prosecutors in Manhattan are specifically investigating whether he violated foreign lobbying laws in his work in Ukraine.
Ms. Yovanovitch told impeachment investigators on Friday that Mr. Trump had pressed for her removal for months even though the State Department believed she had “done nothing wrong.”
Mr. Giuliani had receded from the spotlight in recent years while he built a brisk international consulting business, including work in Ukraine. But he re-emerged in the center of the political stage last year, when Mr. Trump retained him for the special counsel’s investigation into Russian election interference.
Russia’s sabotage also ushered in a new focus at the Justice Department on enforcing the laws regulating foreign influence that had essentially sat dormant for a half-century and under which Mr. Giuliani is now being investigated.
Mr. Giuliani said that because Democrats had questioned his business consulting for foreign clients, his contracts explicitly say he does not lobby or act as an agent of foreigners.
Through his two associates who also worked to oust the ambassador, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, Mr. Giuliani connected early this year with Mr. Lutsenko, who served as Ukraine’s top prosecutor until August. Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman had previously connected Mr. Giuliani to Mr. Lutsenko’s predecessor, Viktor Shokin, late last year.
Mr. Parnas had told people that Ms. Yovanovitch was stymieing his efforts to pursue gas business in Ukraine. Mr. Parnas also told people that one of his companies had paid Mr. Giuliani hundreds of thousands of dollars for an unrelated American business venture, and Mr. Giuliani said he advised Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman on a Ukrainian dispute.
Mr. Lutsenko had sought to relay the information he had collected on Mr. Trump’s targets to American law enforcement agencies and saw Mr. Giuliani as someone who could make that happen. Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Lutsenko initially spoke over the phone and then met in person in New York in January.
Mr. Lutsenko initially asked Mr. Giuliani to represent him, according to the former mayor, who said he declined because it would have posed a conflict with his work for the president. Instead, Mr. Giuliani said, he interviewed Mr. Lutsenko for hours, then had one of his employees — a “professional investigator who works for my company” — write memos detailing the Ukrainian prosecutors’ claims about Ms. Yovanovitch, Mr. Biden and others.
Mr. Giuliani said he provided those memos to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this year and was told that the State Department passed the memos to the F.B.I. He did not say who told him.
Mr. Giuliani said he also gave the memos to the columnist, John Solomon, who worked at the time for The Hill newspaper and published articles and videos critical of Ms. Yovanovitch, the Bidens and other Trump targets. It was unclear to what degree Mr. Giuliani’s memos served as fodder for Mr. Solomon, who independently interviewed Mr. Lutsenko and other sources.
Mr. Solomon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lobbying disclosure law contains an exemption for legal work, and Mr. Giuliani said his efforts to unearth information and push both for investigations in Ukraine and for news coverage of his findings originated with his defense of Mr. Trump in the special counsel’s investigation.
He acknowledged that his work morphed into a more general dragnet for dirt on Mr. Trump’s targets but said that it was difficult to separate those lines of inquiry from his original mission of discrediting the origins of the special counsel’s investigation.
Mr. Giuliani said Mr. Lutsenko never specifically asked him to try to force Ms. Yovanovitch’s recall, saying he concluded himself that Mr. Lutsenko probably wanted her fired because he had complained that she was stifling his investigations.
“He didn’t say to me, ‘I came here to get Yovanovitch fired.’ He came here because he said he had been trying to transmit this information to your government for the past year, and had been unable to do it,” Mr. Giuliani said of his meeting in New York with Mr. Lutsenko. “I transmitted the information to the right people.”
The president sought to distance himself earlier on Friday from Mr. Giuliani, saying he was uncertain when asked whether Mr. Giuliani still represented him. “I haven’t spoken to Rudy,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “I spoke to him yesterday quickly. He is a very good attorney and he has been my attorney.”
Mr. Giuliani later said that he still represented Mr. Trump.
The recall of the ambassador and the efforts by Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani to push for investigations in Ukraine have emerged as the focus of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump.
The impeachment was prompted by a whistle-blower complaint about Mr. Trump pressing President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in a July phone call to pursue investigations that could help Mr. Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign. At the time, the Trump administration had frozen $391 million in military assistance to Ukraine for its fight against Russian-backed separatists.
The State Department’s inspector general has turned over to House impeachment investigators a packet of materials including the memos containing notes of Mr. Giuliani’s interviews with Mr. Lutsenko and Mr. Shokin.
The investigation into Mr. Giuliani is the latest to scrutinize one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers. His former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, implicated the president when he pleaded guilty last year to making hush payments during the 2016 campaign to women who claimed affairs with Mr. Trump, which he has denied.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan mentioned Mr. Trump as “Individual 1” in court papers but never formally accused him of wrongdoing.
Michael S. Schmidt and Kenneth P. Vogel reported from Washington, and Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum from New York.
http://archive.is/2qrIg#selection-277.0-682.0

Wendy Siegelman
‏

Wow - Lev Parnas was hired by DiGenova and Toensing as an interpreter for Dmitry Firtash
Wendy Siegelman added,

Casey Michel

Aaaand here's the confirmation that Parnas's trips to Vienna are officially connected to Firtash: https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-foreig ... _lead_pos1 …
Show this thread

‏

Dmitry Firtash has two new lawyers: Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova, both of whom are helping Giuliani in Ukraine.


Another person in Vienna: Firtash!

Rudy Giuliani tells @WSJ Parnas and Fruman were heading to VIENNA for business reasons. He says they've traveled there between three and six times in the last two months—and that he was scheduled to meet with them when they returned in the…

‘By this logic, Giuliani was also planning to fly to Vienna within roughly 24 hours of his business associates, but do no business with them while all three were there.’


Aaaand here's the confirmation that Parnas's trips to Vienna are officially connected to Firtash: https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-foreig ... _lead_pos1 …


From last week: 'A sworn statement by former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin for use in the case suggests that Firtash’s defense has, at least in part, relied on claims similar to those made by Giuliani.'


Giuliani ‘is being scrutinized by federal investigators for his financial dealings following the indictment of two of his associates for violating campaign finance laws, according to a law enforcement official.’


Hmm, I wonder who the unnamed foreign national funding Parnas's and Fruman's donations in today's indictment may be, or who may be potentially funding Giuliani's ventures, hmm.

Fwiw, Dmitryo Firtash really really does not like Joe Biden https://www.thedailybeast.com/indicted- ... ade-smarts …

This Firtash quote on Biden from earlier this year—didn't look great then, looks even worse now! https://www.thedailybeast.com/indicted- ... ade-smarts …

‏

The reason @jsolomonReports was directly emailing his articles before publication to Toensing, DiGenova, and Parnas now makes more sense.

Here’s the page from the packet that @ErinBanco shared yesterday (with emails blacked out by me) https://twitter.com/lachlan/status/1179564577845104640 …

'Giuliani said he did not regret working with Parnas and Fruman in Ukraine. “I have to presume they’re innocent,” he said. “There are a lot of motives going on trying to smear people so I wouldn’t say that I regret it, no. Who else would I have turned to?”

What wealthy political donor picks up work as a translator? Giuliani associate Lev Parnas apparently, who was hired as an interpreter for Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch who has…
Show this thread




Firtash is released on bail under house arrest, living in a mansion in Vienna
https://www.unian.info/multimedia/photo ... -vene.html …

‏


Austrian Justice Minister approved the extradition of Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash to the US

However, Firtash's lawyers have filed a motion for retrial and the court will rule on the motion by July 22 (if denied they may file an appeal)

https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politi ... to-us.html …

Wendy Siegelman

Plagued by corruption & govt dysfunction Ukraine is a magnet for foreign profiteers. At the center of the Naftogaz plan were 3 such businessmen: Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman & FL oil magnate Harry Sargeant III who claimed to have Trump's support for their plan

Harry Sargeant III is a new name in this story - but like everyone in Trumpworld, a few minutes of research and stories involving a U.S. government investigation, blackmail, revenge-porn, and bitter family feuds emerge...

In 2011 Harry Sargeant III claimed the king of Jordan’s brother-in-law tried to blackmail him

The king of Jordan's brother-in-law Mohammad Al-Saleh claimed Sargeant and a business partner cut him out of contracts for fuel in Iraq that grew to $2.7 billion

In 2011 a Pentagon audit found that the federal government overpaid billionaire oilman Harry Sargeant III by as much as $200 million on several military contracts worth nearly $2.7 billion to supply fuel to Iraq

A vicious family feud that spawned more than a dozen lawsuits involving companies around the globe was settled, with Gulf Stream billionaire and onetime formidable GOP fundraiser Harry Sargeant III walking away with a cool $56 million.

Mogul Accuses Brother of Snatching Business Docs, ‘Intimate’ Videos - Harry Sargeant III claims that industrial design plans and recordings of “private consensual relations” were stolen as part of a years-long smear campaign against him led by his brother

Burford faces threat of ‘revenge porn’ prosecution -
Woman who appears in video with billionaire Harry Sargeant III has hired lawyers for potential private prosecution

Exclusive: Meeting Maduro - Inside a U.S. businessman's oil deal with Venezuela - In November 2017, Harry Sargeant III flew to Venezuela to see about buying some oil


May 2018: Sargeant's company IOTC announced settlement related to delivery of fuel during the Iraq War & that they remain in good standing w/Dept of Defense & US Govt as Federal Contractors

and: "agreement repudiates baseless claims by Former Rep. Waxman"
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As Giuliani's pals Parnas, Furman, Sargeant pushed to change management at Naftogaz, allegedly with Trump's support - a reminder that the middleman between Naftogaz and Ukraine consumers, who owns most of Ukraine's gas distribution cos - is Dmitry Firtash

Why Is Ukraine Giving Fugitive Oligarch Dmytro Firtash a $1 Billion Windfall? On Aug. 1 $1bil in debts owed by Firtash's Regional Gas Company to state-owned Naftogaz will be forgiven, giving a huge windfall to Firash, by Oleksandr Kharchenko

Jumping around a bit in this thread - regarding Sargeant's claim against king of Jordan’s brother-in-law and his counter claim, in 2011 a jury decided Sargeant should pay brother-in-law of the king of Jordan $28.8mil + interest, Sargeant appealed & lost

As Giuliani's pals Parnas, Furman, Sargeant pushed to change management at Naftogaz, allegedly with Trump's support - a reminder that the middleman between Naftogaz and Ukraine consumers, who owns most of Ukraine's gas distribution cos - is Dmitry Firtash
https://twitter.com/WendySiegelman/stat ... 26560?s=20 …
Show this thread


I made this connection 3 days ago when news broke Parnas, Furman, Sargeant were meddling in Naftogaz that intermediary who gets a cut from Naftogaz sales to customers is Dmitry Firtash

Notably - apparently Trump supported proposed changes at Naftogaz


As Giuliani's pals Parnas, Furman, Sargeant pushed to change management at Naftogaz, allegedly with Trump's support - a reminder that the middleman between Naftogaz and Ukraine consumers, who owns most of Ukraine's gas distribution cos - is Dmitry Firtash
https://twitter.com/WendySiegelman/stat ... 26560?s=20 …
Show this thread


Giuliani specifically wanted to talk with Zelensky aide Yermak who had worked as copyright lawyer representing media cos including a tv channel Inter owned by Dmitry Firtash -Yermak also worked for lawmaker with Party of Regions, which Manafort worked for



Who is Zelensky’s chief US negotiator Andriy Yermak? Per @rferl Yermak was copyright lawyer for 20 years and represented media companies including tv channel Inter owned by Dmitry Firtash. And Yermak has several business ties to Russian Rahamim Emanuilov
https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politi ... ermak.html …
Show this thread

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Giuliani spoke w/Zelensky aide Andriy Yermak

2006-2014 Yermak was aide to Elbrus Tedeyev, a lawmaker for Yanukovych's Party of Regions…


Naftogaz is going to be a key part of Ukraine story

March 2018 Stockholm Arbitral Tribunal ruled that Russian Gazprom had to pay $2.5 billion to Ukraine's state-owned Naftogaz

Russia retaliated against the ruling by turning off gas in winter temperatures


In Shocking Turn Of Events, Russia Now Owes Ukraine Billions - the Stockholm Arbitral Tribunal ruled that Russian gas behemoth Gazprom pay $2.5 billion to Ukraine's state-owned gas company Naftogaz
…
Show this thread


A few months later Ukraine regulators announced plans that would give Dmytro Firtash a huge windfall by cancelling $1 billion in debts owed by Firtash's regional gas company to state-owned Naftogaz



Why Is Ukraine Giving Fugitive Oligarch Dmytro Firtash a $1 Billion Windfall? On Aug. 1 $1bil in debts owed by Firtash's Regional Gas Company to state-owned Naftogaz will be forgiven, giving a huge windfall to Firash, by Oleksandr Kharchenko
…



More in thread on one of the people Perry was pushing to join Naftogaz advisory committee - Robert Bensh, who has very close business ties with Frank Mermoud who was coordinator of diplomatic corps at the RNC when references to arming Ukraine were removed


Rick Perry had more extensive role in Ukraine than previously reported & pushed to add 2 Americans to Naftogaz supervisory board: Robert Bensh, Michael Bleyzer…
Show this thread
https://twitter.com/WendySiegelman/stat ... 8452808707

Who’s the Secret Russian in the Indictment of Giuliani’s Pals? We Found Some Clues.
One of the indicted men had worked with a Russian investor looking to get into the US pot business


Booking photos of Lev Parnas, left, and Igor Fruman./AP
When the US attorney for the Southern District of New York charged two associates of Rudy Giuliani and two other men on Wednesday with campaign finance violations, the indictment contained a big mystery.

Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman—who had been helping Giuliani search for dirt on Joe Biden and the Democrats in Ukraine—and David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin, who were each identified as businessmen, were charged in what seems to be overlapping capers. Parnas and Fruman allegedly made secret donations to Republicans in an effort to advance their business interests and promote the agenda of one or more Ukrainian officials (which included firing the US ambassador to Ukraine). And these two Giuliani confederates also teamed up with Correia, a business partner of Parnas, and Kukushkin and allegedly made donations secretly financed by a Russian national to Republican candidates for state offices in Nevada to buy influence they could use to set up a cannabis business there. This Russian, who would be part of their legal marijuana venture, sent $1 million from overseas accounts to Fruman that was to be used for contributions to federal and state candidates in Nevada and other states, according to the indictment. It’s illegal for a foreigner to funnel donations to US candidates.

The mystery: Who is this wealthy Russian who allegedly tried to make illegal contributions to US politicians in pursuit of launching a cannabis venture?

The indictment does not say. It refers to this individual only as “Foreign National-1.” And the question cannot be yet answered definitively. But California state records and emails obtained by Mother Jones indicate that a Russian businessman named Andrey Muraviev had previously worked with Kukushkin to develop a cannabis enterprise.

In 2016, Kukushkin and Muraviev joined with a Sacramento businessman named Garib Karapetyan, who has been involved in the recreational marijuana business, to create a corporation called Legacy Botanical Company LLC, which was listed at a Sacramento address, according to a filing with the secretary of state in California. (Two years earlier, Karapetyan lost an arbitration case filed by Philip Morris USA after he registered the domain name marijuanamarlboros.com.) In emails Kukushkin sent in 2016 and 2017, he described his desire to acquire medical cannabis dispensaries in California and engage in other legal pot projects. In one email, he cc’d Alexander Mikhalev, whose LinkedIn profile identifies him as the chief financial officer of Parus Capital, a fund that Muraviev established in 2008. In another email, Kukushkin expressed interest in developing cultivation facilities in Northern California’s Sonoma County and referenced “contributions” he was willing to make to win licenses to run cannabis businesses there.

One cannabis business consultant in California tells Mother Jones that Kukushkin, while he was seeking investment opportunities in the cannabis field in California and Oregon, said he was representing “a large agricultural and materials businessman from Russia” and identified him as Andrey Muraviev.

Muraviev does not have much of a public profile in the United States. His Wikipedia page says he was born in 1974. According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, he graduated from Kemerovo State Technical University in 1997 with an economics degree and also graduated from San Francisco State University in 1998 with a finance degree. He is the founder of Sibir Cement, one of Russia’s largest cement companies. It has facilities across Siberia. As of 2012, his Parus Capital, a Russia-dedicated investment fund, had $50 million to invest. The fund, according to his Wikipedia page, finances “food production, the IT industry, real estate, and in construction of new cement plants.” Muraviev has also been a director of QIWI, a publicly traded Russian electronic payment service provider that is headquartered in Cyprus. His names is sometimes spelled “Muravyev” or “Muravyov.”

In 2012, an investment group filed a complaint with the Russian government contending that Muraviev and others had engaged in wrongdoing related to a development company that had gone bankrupt; its claims included the accusation that Muraviev and associates had drawn funds out of the company for their own “illicit enrichment.” It could not be determined if this complaint was ever investigated or confirmed by the Russian government.

Mikhalev, the CFO of Parus Capital, did not respond to a request for comment.

The indictment states that in early September 2018, Parnas, Fruman, Correia, Kukushkin, and the Russian national met in Las Vegas to discuss their business venture and that “shortly after that” the four Americans “began to formalize” their deal with the Russian to “fund their lobbying efforts.” But, it adds, they “took steps to hide” the Russian’s involvement in the venture and in any “political contributions associated” with the project. That was due to, as Kukushkin supposedly put it, their backer’s “Russian roots and current political paranoia about it.” (On September 14, 2018, Kukushkin and Correia formed a company in Nevada called Strategic Investment Group.)

According to the indictment, the cannabis venture went nowhere. Kukushkin and his associates failed to apply for a recreational marijuana license in Nevada by September 2018, the then-deadline. At the end of October 2018, Kukushkin told the Russian they were “2 months too late to the game unless we change the rules,” but he added that contributions—covertly funded by the Russian—to a particular Nevada state official could lead to the “green light to implement this.” The indictment cites two $10,000 contributions this group made to Nevada candidates using the Russian’s money. And these donations appear to have gone to Adam Laxalt and Wesley Duncan, then the Republican candidates for governor and attorney general. They each lost in the election that year.

The indictment says that Parnas, Fruman, Correia, and the Russian continued to meet into the spring of 2019, but no project ever materialized.

It’s not clear if Muraviev is the Russian cited in the indictment. Perhaps Kukushkin has worked with more than one wealthy Russian businessman eager to enter the American pot market. For now, Kukushkin is not talking, according to his lawyer. Neither are Parnas, Fruman, and Correia. And so far, not a single Russian has come forward to claim credit for underwriting the alleged criminal activity of Giuliani’s dirt-digging pals and their comrades.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... ome-clues/

Indicted Giuliani associate worked on behalf of Ukrainian oligarch Firtash
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One of the two Florida businessmen who helped U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal attorney investigate his political rival, Democrat Joe Biden, also has been working for the legal team of a Ukrainian oligarch who faces bribery charges in the United States, according to attorneys for the businessmen and the oligarch.

FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash arrives at court in Vienna, Austria, February 21, 2017. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader/File Photo
Lev Parnas, one of the two associates of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, served as a translator for lawyers representing oligarch Dmytro Firtash. Parnas was arrested on Thursday along with the other Florida businessman, Igor Fruman, on unrelated charges that included illegally funneling $325,000 to a political action committee supporting pro-Trump candidates.

Both men had worked in an unspecified capacity for Firtash before Parnas joined the Ukrainian’s legal team, according to a person familiar with the Florida men’s business dealings with Firtash.

The Floridians’ connection to indicted oligarch Firtash injects an intriguing new character into the rapidly unfolding drama surrounding the effort to impeach Trump.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives launched the impeachment inquiry, the first step in unseating a U.S. president, over allegations that Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to help investigate Biden, a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Giuliani was probing discredited allegations that Biden, when he was vice president, sought the firing of Ukraine’s chief prosecutor to halt the investigation of a gas company on which his son, Hunter Biden, was a board member. The Bidens have denied the claims, and the Trump camp has produced no evidence to support the assertions.

Firtash, one of Ukraine’s wealthiest businessmen, is battling extradition by U.S. authorities on bribery charges from Vienna, where he has lived for five years.

Federal prosecutors in Illinois said in court papers in 2017 that Firtash was an “upper-echelon” associate of Russian organized crime. He was indicted in 2013 and charged with bribing Indian officials for access to titanium mines. Firtash has denied any wrongdoing.

Firtash was “financing” the activities of Parnas and Fruman, the source familiar with their business dealings said. The source did not detail their specific work for the oligarch or how much money he had paid them and over what period.

U.S. lawmakers have sought to question the pair about their involvement in Giuliani’s investigation as part of the impeachment inquiry. Giuliani told Reuters in an interview that Parnas and Fruman - U.S. citizens who were born in Ukraine and Belarus, respectively - had helped “find people for me in Ukraine.”

In recent months, Parnas was working for Firtash’s legal team, Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing. The firm worked on Firtash’s criminal and extradition cases.

“Mr. Parnas was retained by DiGenova & Toensing, LLP as an interpreter in order to communicate with their client Mr. Firtash, who does not speak English,” the Washington-based firm said in a statement.

A spokesman for the firm said Fruman was not retained in any capacity. DiGenova and Toensing did not comment further on Firtash’s business dealings with the two men in response to questions from Reuters.

John Dowd, the lawyer representing Parnas and Fruman, confirmed to Reuters that Parnas had worked for Firtash’s legal team as an interpreter. But Dowd also told the U.S. Congress that both men worked for DiGenova and Toensing.

On Oct. 3, Dowd wrote Congress to say the two men could not provide certain information about Ukraine because they were partially covered by attorney-client and other legal privileges. Dowd based the privilege claim on the fact that the two men assisted lawyers DiGenova and Toensing; that they had worked for Giuliani; and that Giuliani had previously represented them in their personal and business affairs.

Dowd’s letter did not mention Firtash. He declined to respond to a request to clarify whether one or both of his clients worked for Firtash’s legal team.

Parnas’s role as an interpreter for DiGenova and Toensing was reported on Thursday by the Wall Street Journal.

FLIGHTS TO VIENNA

The person familiar with Parnas and Fruman’s business affairs told Reuters that both men had been working for Firtash for several months before Parnas joined the Ukrainian mogul’s legal team, and that Firtash has paid their expenses in the past. Their costs include private jet charters in the United States and foreign travel to Vienna, according to the source, who is familiar with their finances.

Giuliani told Reuters the two men had been to Vienna - where Firtash lives - three to six times in the last two months. Giuliani declined to comment on the reasons for their travels. He said he did not know about any business relationship between Firtash and the two men that helped him investigate Biden.

“They could be involved in business with each other,” Giuliani said. “It’s possible. I don’t know. They may be involved in his defense.”

Firtash is a former supporter of Ukraine’s ousted pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich. He made a fortune selling Russian gas to the Kiev government. An Austrian court in June cleared the way for his extradition to the United States, but Firtash’s legal team continues to fight it.

In an interview with Reuters last month, well before his arrest, Parnas said Firtash had been framed by U.S. prosecutors and diplomats.

“They took an innocent man like Dmytro Firtash and they painted him out to be  this bad old Mafia  guy,  which he’s obviously not. He’s one of the most honest businessmen out there.  Incredible businessman.”

Parnas told Reuters that Firtash was the victim of a cabal that he alleges was involved in suppressing corruption by Joe Biden and his son in Ukraine. “Same people involved,” he said. “Same characters.”

Parnas declined to comment on the specific work he performed for Firtash, referring questions to the oligarch’s lawyers, Toensing and DiGenova.

Reporting by Aram Roston in Washington, Karen Freifeld in New York and Polina Ivanova in Kiev; Editing by Ross Colvin and Brian Thevenot
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKBN1WQ2H5

Ukrainian Andrey Kukushkin, Linked To Giuliani Associates, Arrested In San Francisco On Campaign Finance Violations
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – A Ukrainian-born California businessman who has been indicted in New York on charges of violating campaign finance law was arrested in San Francisco Thursday and appeared briefly in federal court in the city.

Andrey Kukushkin, 46, is one of four people named in a grand jury indictment announced Thursday by U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman of the Southern District of New York.


(OK.Ru/Andrey Kukushkin)
The others, all Florida residents, include two associates of presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Ukrainian-born Lev Parnas, 47, and Belarus-born Igor Fruman, 54, and a fourth defendant, David Correia, who was born in the United States. The four men are all U.S. citizens.

The indictment was unsealed after Parnas and Fruman were arrested Wednesday night as they prepared to board a flight to Europe at Dulles International Airport in Virginia. Berman said they had one-way tickets.

Kukushkin was arrested in San Francisco Thursday morning, according to William Sweeney, assistant chief of the FBI’s New York field office. He made an initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco and was ordered to be held in custody until a detention hearing on Friday, according to court records.

He is expected to be transferred to New York at a later date to face the charges there.

All four defendants are accused of conspiring in a scheme to disguise contributions of $10,000 each to two Nevada state office candidates from an unnamed Russian businessman who wanted to obtain licenses for marijuana businesses. Federal law prohibits campaign contributions from foreign nationals.

Parnas and Fruman, but not Kukushkin, are also charged in the indictment with an additional conspiracy to make disguised contributions to an unnamed member of Congress to promote the interests of at least one Ukrainian government official.

In one incident cited in the indictment, the two men allegedly sought the congressman’s assistance in advocating for the removal of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. The ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, was recalled by the State Department on May 20.

The House intelligence, foreign affairs and oversight committees on Thursday issued subpoenas to Parnas and Fruman for documents related to their activities in Ukraine, for use in Congress’s inquiry into the possible impeachment of President Donald Trump.

In a previous letter to the Intelligence Committee, John Dowd, a civil lawyer for Parnas and Fruman, said the two men have been represented by Giuliani in connection with their personal and business affairs, and also said they have assisted Giuliani in his representation of Trump. The indictment does not mention Giuliani.
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/ ... -giuliani/

Exclusive: Giuliani associate linked to Yanukovych's stolen cash

Semyon Kislin, friend of Trump's personal lawyer, tried to obtain millions of dollars stolen from the Ukrainian state.

Will Jordan4 hours ago
Semyon Kislin is a longtime friend of US President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Guiliani [Screenshot/ Semyon Kislin's YouTube channel]

Semyon Kislin, a business associate of Donald Trump who is due to give evidence at the US president's impeachment inquiry on October 14, tried to obtain millions of dollars that Ukrainian prosecutors deemed stolen, Al Jazeera can reveal.

Kislin is a long-time friend of Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. The Ukraine-born businessman donated to Giuliani's political campaigns in the 1990s.

In January last year, Kislin lobbied the former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, to help him unlock millions of dollars that had in fact been seized in a major criminal inquiry.

This comes as the New York Times reported that federal investigators are examining Giuliani's efforts to undermine Yovanovitch as part of a broader campaign to pressure Ukraine into helping Trump's political prospects.

A US congressional committee is considering impeachment proceedings against Trump after evidence emerged of the president's lobbying of Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden's position on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

Biden's father, Joe, is Trump's main Democratic rival in the 2020 US presidential election and was former US President Barack Obama's point man on Ukraine.

The Oligarchs

A plot to withdraw millions of dollars in frozen bank accounts was first exposed by Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit in 2018 and now Al Jazeera can reveal Kislin's role in a similar scheme.

Kislin, 83, purchased a Cypriot shell company holding part of a $1.5bn hoard of cash and bonds that the Ukrainian courts identified in 2015 as having been stolen by the disgraced former president, Viktor Yanukovich, before he fled Ukraine in 2014.

Al Jazeera's investigation, The Oligarchs, revealed how another Ukrainian businessman, Pavel Fuchs, had also purchased a Cypriot company holding assets deemed stolen from the state, and was involved in a scheme that aimed to 'unfreeze' these funds at a later date.

Fuchs and Kislin moved in similar circles. Fuchs also had business dealings with Giuliani and held repeated talks with Trump to build a Trump-branded tower in Moscow.

Pavel Fuchs with Donald Trump
US President Donald Trump with Ukrainian businessman Pavel Fuchs [Pavel Fuchs/Al Jazeera]
Quickpace and Opalcore

Kislin and Fuchs own two of the dozen Cypriot companies that held the $1.5bn found to be stolen by Yanukvoych's government.

Opalcore Limited, which Kislin bought in November 2016, held a total of $20m of frozen assets and Quickpace Limited, which documents show was owned by Fuchs, held another $160m.

The assets were mainly held in government bonds that were ruled to have been illegally issued by Ukraine's central bank during Yanukovych's presidency.

The money was frozen in 2015, one year after Yanukovych fled the country following mass protests. Prosecutors then worked to trace the assets, build a case, and return them to Ukraine's budget, which they did in March 2017.

Kislin denies collaborating with Fuchs but in each case the plan to release the funds is similar.

First they purchased Cypriot shell companies that according to Ukrainian authorities held Yanukovych's stolen assets. Then they would appeal to regain the funds, claiming that Ukrainian prosecutors had not followed the correct legal process when they seized the funds.

Finally, they hoped the asset seizure would be declared illegal and reversed, meaning they would have a court order allowing them to withdraw tens of millions of dollars.

After Al Jazeera exposed the plan in relation to Quickpace, Ukrainian prosecutors summoned Fuchs for questioning but have not taken further action.

Kislin confirms his company bought Opalcore, but said they were not aware at the time of purchase that the assets were frozen.

'Improper scheme'

Three days before Al Jazeera's investigation was released in January 2018, Kislin's lawyers wrote to Yovanovitch, the US ambassador, court documents show.

The letter, obtained by the Centre for Investigative Journalism, portrayed Kislin's company Trans Commodities NY (TCNY) as a victim of an "improper scheme" by Ukrainian officials. His advocates requested "assistance" in recovering the funds for the company arguing that the transfer of the bond proceeds was unlawful.

It is not clear if the ambassador or the US government agreed to help the American-Ukrainian businessman but Kislin's lawyers says he was "unaware…. of any efforts" made by the US embassy in Kiev.

Yovanovitch, who was removed from her post in May after heavy criticism from Trump, gave evidence in the president's impeachment hearings in Washington DC on Friday.

She said she believed her dismissal was linked to her anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.

Kislin's testimony before the inquiry on Monday could reveal exactly what lobbying he undertook to attempt to release the frozen Opalcore assets and whether he consulted Giuliani about the deal.

In a statement, Kislin's lawyer told Al Jazeera that "neither Mr Kislin nor anyone else on behalf of TCNY worked for, with, or on behalf of Mr Giuliani (or anyone else) …….to persuade prosecutors to investigate Joe Biden or Hunter Biden."

'It stinks'

Daria Kaleniuk, director of Ukraine's Anti-corruption Action Centre, told Al Jazeera: "If you know that you are purchasing a company whose assets are seized in a criminal investigation you will probably not buy this company unless you have an understanding about how you will unseize that (asset). To me it stinks."

Kislin confirmed to Al Jazeera he purchased Opalcore Ltd but, "not for the purpose of obtaining 'frozen assets'".

Fuchs did not respond to questions about his role in the seized assets scheme. US officials revoked Fuchs's visa in 2017 and banned him from the US, where he owns property, for five years.

It is not clear whether the US action was prompted by Fuchs's dealings with Yanukovych's money or because he was alleged to have made threats to US citizens in the days after Trump's inauguration.

He is currently suing a businessman who he alleges defrauded him of $200,000 paid for a "VIP inauguration package" that never materialised. Fuchs alleged he and his entourage watched the inauguration on television at a hotel bar instead.

Fuchs Giuliani
Fuchs and Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Guiliani [Al Jazeera]
In recent months, Fuchs has begun a media campaign in to improve his image.

During a recent interview, he described Giuliani as "the lobbyist for Kharkiv and Ukraine" and said that he had paid Guiliani for what he said was a lobbying contract to improve the city's business reputation.

Giuliani has repeatedly denied working as a foreign lobbyist, something he is not registered to do.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/ ... 33266.html

The Invention of the Conspiracy Theory on Biden and Ukraine
How a conservative dark-money group that targeted Hillary Clinton in 2016 spread the discredited story that may lead to Donald Trump’s impeachment.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-des ... nd-ukraine

How two Soviet-born emigres made it into elite Trump circles — and the center of the impeachment storm
Paul Sonne

Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, flanked by attorneys Kevin Downing, left, and Thomas Zehnle, right, appear before U.S. Judge Michael Nachmanoff in federal court in Alexandria on Thursday. (Dana Verkouteren/AP)
Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-born emigre, appeared at a dark time in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Less than a month before the election, major GOP donors had been spooked by the revelation that Trump boasted about grabbing women during a recording of the television show “Access Hollywood.”

Parnas had never been a player in national Republican politics. But the onetime stockbroker chose that moment to deliver a $50,000 donation to Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party, and it quickly opened doors.

The contribution helped propel Parnas and his business partner, Belarus-born Igor Fruman, on an extraordinarily rapid rise into the upper echelon of Trump allies — before they became central figures in the presidential impeachment inquiry.

By spring 2018, the two men had dined with Trump, breakfasted with his son and attended exclusive events at Mar-a-Lago and the White House, all while jetting around the world and spending lavishly, particularly at Trump hotels in New York and Washington. That May, a pro-Trump super PAC reported receiving a $325,000 donation from an energy company the duo had recently formed.

Where Parnas and Fruman got their money remains a mystery. When they were arrested Wednesday on allegations of campaign finance violations, prosecutors alleged that Parnas and Fruman were backed in part by an unnamed Russian national who used them to funnel donations to state and federal candidates.

[Two business associates of Trump’s personal attorney Giuliani have been arrested on campaign finance charges]

This summer, Parnas had begun working as a translator for the legal team of Dmytro Firtash, an Ukrainian gas tycoon who faces bribery charges in the United States, according to Victoria Toensing, one of Firtash’s lawyers. The energy magnate has been accused by federal prosecutors of having ties to Russian organized crime and has been fighting extradition to the United States from Austria. Firtash has denied wrongdoing.

As they scaled the ranks of Trump’s Washington, Parnas and Fruman demonstrated a remarkable facility for capitalizing on their newfound connections, according to people who observed them. They also appeared to be constantly in pursuit of new business ventures — “always hustling,” in the words of one Trump ally who interacted with them.

In 2018, they hired the president’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to serve as a consultant as they launched a security business — and then helped Giuliani, in turn, reach Ukrainian officials in his quest to find information damaging to Democrats.

During a visit to Israel last summer sponsored by a pro-Israel charity, Parnas and Fruman were “mega-dropping Rudy’s name” as they snapped photos with well-known figures, according to former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who was also on the trip.

“ ‘We’re best friends with Rudy Giuliani,’ ” Scaramucci said the two men told him. “ ‘We work with him on everything.’ ”

Giuliani’s ties to the duo are now under scrutiny by both federal prosecutors and congressional investigators seeking to unravel how two businessmen trailed by creditors and failed past ventures came to be at the center of an expanding international drama.

Giuliani has denied knowledge of any wrongdoing. He said Friday that he had seen the two men “quite often.”

“I have no reason to believe that they are anything other than decent guys,” he said.

Parnas and Fruman, who made a brief court appearance Thursday in Alexandria, have not entered a plea to the charges against them.

Their new lawyer, John Dowd — who also previously served as a personal attorney for Trump — declined to respond to a number of questions about the two men, writing only in an email, “You publish at your peril.”

Elite Trump circles

Parnas, 47, was born in Ukraine but moved with his family to the U.S. as a child and grew up in Brooklyn. He told The Washington Post in an interview conducted before his arrest that he got his start in real estate, selling Trump condos for Donald Trump’s father, Fred, then worked in shipping in the former Soviet Union before becoming a securities trader. He moved to Florida in the mid-1990s.

People who encountered the two men in recent years said that Parnas did most of the talking and seemed to be the public face of their U.S. partnership. But Parnas told The Post that Fruman was the one with especially deep connections in Ukraine.

Born in Belarus, Fruman, 53, owns a luxury jewelry business, a luxury car dealership and a hotel in Odessa, the port city on the Black Sea. He also owns an import-export business based in New York.

Both men have been trailed by financial problems, including a lawsuit filed against them earlier this year claiming they had failed to repay a $100,000 loan in 2018. The suit has been settled.

Parnas told The Post that he got involved in the Trump campaign because he admired the real estate developer, whom he said he had met several times before the election.

“I was really passionate about the president,” he said. “I started really believing that he could really make a change and make it happen. Then I jumped on the campaign, donated money and became a really big believer.”

Now, Parnas said, “I think he’s going to go down as one of the greatest presidents ever, even with all this negativity.”

As for Giuliani, Parnas said he had met the former New York mayor during the campaign but that the relationship “bonded and built over time.”

“We’re just very close,” he said, calling Giuliani “a very good friend.”

Giuliani said Friday that he recalls first meeting Parnas and Fruman in “mid-to-late 2018” after a lawyer who is a friend referred them to him.

At the time, Giuliani said, the men were ramping up a company called Fraud Guarantee, which would use specialized software to identify possible fraud in companies.

“I know a lot about cybersecurity,” he said. “So they wanted my advice.”

Giuliani said his security consulting firm did “intense” work for the two men in 2018 and 2019, providing paid advice on how to structure their company.

[Impeachment inquiry puts new focus on Giuliani’s work for prominent figures in Ukraine]

Around the same time, the two men began to appear regularly at elite Trump-related events and started to track their travels on Facebook and Instagram. Their posts have now been deleted, but were captured by BuzzFeed and other news organizations before they were taken down.

Fruman posted photos of himself at a Republican National Committee fundraiser at Trump’s estate Mar-a-Lago in March 2018. In one, he was standing in front of a Florida flag next to Trump, who offered two thumbs up for the camera.

That May, Parnas posted photos and videos on Facebook that he wrote were taken at the White House, including one of him beaming as he stood next to the president between two American flags, giving a thumbs-up. “Thank you President Trump !!!” he wrote, adding, “incredible dinner and even better conversation.”

Ten days later, Fruman told the Brooklyn-based Russian-language publication Jewish World that the two men had been part of a group of just eight people who met privately with the president and discussed the upcoming midterm elections. Fruman said he also had discussed Ukraine-U.S. relations at the dinner.

White House officials declined to comment on the event.

Later that month, Parnas posted a photo of himself and Fruman breakfasting at the Beverly Hills Hotel Polo Lounge with Donald Trump Jr. and Tommy Hicks Jr., a close friend of the president’s son and top RNC official. “#Trump2020,” he captioned the photo.

An attorney for Trump Jr. declined to comment. Hicks did not respond to requests for comment.

In an exchange with reporters outside the White House on Thursday, Trump said he doesn’t know Parnas and Fruman, dismissing the photos of himself with the two men.

“I don’t know those gentlemen,” Trump said. “Now, it’s possible I have a picture with them, because I have a picture with everybody. . . . I don’t know about them; I don’t know what they do. I don’t know, maybe they were clients of Rudy. You’d have to ask Rudy.”

Parnas and Fruman were also patrons of the president’s hotel.

In one five-week period between September 2018 and October 2018, the two men racked up more than $13,000 in charges at the Trump hotels in New York and Washington, according to a person familiar with their finances, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private information.

In December, they attended a White House Hanukkah party, posting a photo on social media that includes Giuliani, Trump and Vice President Pence. A White House aide said the event was attended by hundreds of people.

The two men also began donating liberally to federal and state political committees, including a $325,000 contribution in May 2018 to the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action.

All told, the two and their energy firm contributed at least $630,000 to federal GOP candidates and PACs since 2016, campaign finance filings show.

The money also flowed to candidates in Nevada, Texas, West Virginia and Florida. Prosecutors now allege the campaign contributions were part of an illegal scheme to funnel foreign money to “buy potential influence with candidates, campaigns and the candidates’ governments,” according to the indictment.

The two men, along with two other associates, are charged with laundering money through corporate bank accounts and using straw donors to obscure the source of their funds, including illegal foreign contributions.

Kelly Sadler, a spokeswoman for America First Action, said the super PAC is placing the contribution it received in a segregated bank account “until these matters are resolved. We take our legal obligations seriously and scrupulously comply with the law.”

Jay Sekulow, an attorney for Trump, said: “As the indictment states, neither the President nor the [Trump] campaign were aware of the allegations.”

Pitching a gas deal

Over the same period that they were cultivating political ties, Parnas and Fruman were involved with a dizzying array of business pursuits.

Apart from Fraud Guarantee, they planned to launch a recreational marijuana business in states such as Nevada with the Russian national, according to the indictment.

Parnas also received tens of thousands of dollars last year from the firm of Brian Ballard, a longtime Florida lobbyist who is close to Trump, according to a person familiar with Parnas’s finances. Another person familiar with the arrangement said Parnas was paid to refer possible clients, but none were connected to Ukraine.

In April 2018, the two men incorporated their new company, Global Energy Producers, which purportedly intended to sell liquefied natural gas. Quickly, the two began an effort to export American gas into Ukraine through Poland.

Efforts to bring more U.S. gas to Europe — particularly Ukraine, to reduce its dependence on Russian energy — have been a priority for the Trump administration.

Neither Parnas nor Fruman had any particular experience in the energy world, but at an energy conference in Houston in March, they made a pitch to Ukrainian state oil and gas giant Naftogaz.

Parnas and Fruman approached a top official at Naftogaz, Andrew Favorov, regarding their venture, according Dale W. Perry, an American businessman close to Favorov, as well as another a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition on anonymity to describe the private conversation.

Then, in a conversation first reported by the Associated Press, Parnas and Fruman pitched their LNG business and their hope to soon see new leadership at Naftogaz that would be receptive to their proposal. They asserted that U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who opposed replacing the company’s chief executive, would soon be gone.

By May, Yovanovitch had been abruptly recalled from her post on Trump’s orders.

[Ousted ambassador Marie Yovanovitch tells Congress Trump pressured State Dept. to remove her]

The implication, according to the person familiar with the meeting, was that the men would help Favorov take the top job at Naftogaz and then begin selling LNG to the Ukrainian state gas conglomerate.

Favorov declined the offer, Perry said. He said the Naftogaz official, a former business partner, contacted him soon afterward and described the encounter, which Favorov told Perry made him deeply uncomfortable.

Favorov and Perry were particularly concerned by the efforts of private businessmen with personal motivations to push for the ouster of Yovanovitch, who they view as a conscientious public servant, Perry said.

“If she can be removed, then anything is possible now,” Perry said. “Where is the rule of law? Where is the stability?” Favorov could not be reached for comment.

Parnas, speaking to The Post before his arrest, said nothing ultimately came of his efforts to launch the LNG venture in Ukraine, in part because of the attention he and Fruman received for their political activities with Giuliani.

“Now everybody is scared to do business with us,” Parnas said.

Backing Giuliani's efforts

The campaign against Yovanovitch was embraced by Giuliani as part of his broader effort to pressure Ukraine to launch investigations into Trump’s political rivals. Parnas and Fruman assisted him in that project.

“They were helping me a lot in Ukraine,” Giuliani said Friday.

According to Parnas, he was sitting at lunch with Giuliani in late 2018 when the former New York mayor was approached by an American with information about Ukraine. On learning of Giuliani’s interest in Ukraine, Parnas said he then worked to connect Giuliani with people in Ukraine who had information he believed could assist the effort.

“Me just being next to him, me being Russian speaking and having business there and knowing the culture and also knowing a lot of individuals and having a lot of relationships somehow just basically steamrolled into me taking an active role as a patriotic duty,” Parnas said. “And here we are now.”

Parnas has said he helped set up a call for Giuliani in January 2019 with Viktor Shokin, a former Ukrainian prosecutor who has alleged that he was fired in 2016 for investigating a company whose board included former vice president Biden’s son Hunter. Parnas said he and Fruman also connected Giuliani with Yuriy Lutsenko, who served as Ukraine’s top prosecutor until August.

“We took it upon ourselves as our patriotic duty, basically, whatever information we could get, to pass it on and to basically validate it as best as we could,” Parnas said.

[In gambit for Trump, Giuliani engaged parade of Ukrainian prosecutors]

Among other topics, Parnas has said he and Giuliani discussed Yovanovich, who was removed from her position in May on Trump’s orders after a whisper campaign that she was disloyal to the president.

Prosecutors said Thursday that Parnas’s efforts to remove Yovanovich came “at least in part at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials.”

In recent months, Parnas has become even more financially entangled with Giuliani and his allies.

In an interview, Toensing said she and her husband, attorney Joe diGenova, retained Parnas this summer to work as a translator as they represent Firtash, who has been charged in Illinois with bribing Indian officials related to mining interests in that country. He is fighting extradition to the U.S. from Austria.

Firtash, who U.S. prosecutors have alleged in court documents is an “upper-echelon” associate of Russian organized crime, has denied wrongdoing. Earlier this year, he hired Toensing and diGenova, who appear frequently on Fox News and are close to Giuliani.

Toensing said she was “outraged” by the Justice Department charges against her client, adding that “the Indian government has investigated” the bribery claim and filed no charges in the case. She said Firtash’s Austrian extradition case included testimony from investigators who found that he had “no ties to organized crime.”

Toensing said she met Parnas through Giuliani and tapped him “to be our translator to review documents and to help with Ukraine,” noting that “he speaks Russian and our client does not speak English.”

Parnas and Fruman’s myriad political and business ventures came to an abrupt halt Wednesday.

The duo had lunched that day with Giuliani at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Hours later, they were at Dulles Airport, about to board a plane to Europe, when authorities in the hallway stopped them and asked to see their passports, according to a person who saw the encounter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

Soon, the person said, about a dozen plainclothes investigators converged on the scene, and the two men were led away.

Alice Crites, Ashley Parker, Anu Narayanswamy and Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

Casey Michel
‏
NEW: My dive into John Solomon’s history of white-washing post-Soviet kleptocrats, journalistic malpractice, and how he fits into the unfurling Giuliani-Trump-Ukraine saga:

5:02 AM - 13 Oct 2019

SOLOMONIC...WISDOM?
Water Finds Its Level as Fox News Hires Dictator-Loving, Deep State-Loathing John Solomon

Journalism’s leading conspiracy theorist has finally found his natural home. But he was a fact-masseuse long before Trump came along.

Casey Michel
Updated 10.13.19 12:40PM ET
Published 10.13.19 5:17AM ET
OPINION

Over the weekend, Fox News announced that it had made a new hire: John Solomon, the self-proclaimed journalist at the heart of the unfolding scandal involving Ukraine, Rudy Giuliani, and the impending impeachment of Donald Trump. It’s not hard to see why Fox executives may have wanted to bring him aboard. Solomon’s work has underpinned the entire cascade of lies the White House and Trump in particular have pushed over the past few weeks.

Solomon’s writings—including those most recently at The Hill, where he worked until last month—are drenched in innuendo and mischaracterizations, all in service of attacking Trump’s political opponents. Solomon is already a regular Fox News fixture. He appeared on Fox News’s The Story show last week to claim that he was being victimized by “McCarthy-like” attacks. As Mother Jones noted on Solomon’s hiring—which coincided with Giuliani claiming that the man deserves a Pulitzer—Solomon’s “alliance with pro-Trump forces” is now “official.”

For many, Solomon remains far from a household name: a relatively obscure journalist who worked until recently at a relatively obscure outlet pushing relatively obscure stories about relatively obscure countries. But for those who’ve followed his work (which includes a long-ago stint at Newsweek and The Daily Beast), his role in the entire unfolding national nightmare—and the fact that he provided a willing platform to lies and half-truths coming out of Ukraine—wasn’t a surprise.

This is a man, after all, about whom the Columbia Journalism Review wrote not one, not two, but three separate takedowns. (One headline: “John Solomon Gives Us Less Than Meets the Eye — Again”). The most recent topped out at nearly 5,000 words, highlighting Solomon’s “history of bending the truth to his storyline,” as well as his “hyping [of] petty stories” and his outsized habit of “massaging facts to conjure phantom scandals.”

Complaints from colleagues tailed Solomon wherever he went; as one former co-worker said about Solomon’s work, “Facts be damned.” Small wonder that, as The Daily Beast reported last week, staffers at The Hill were “enraged” by his presence at the publication.

But there was one kind of friend on whom Solomon could always count, and who could always count on Solomon’s support in return: post-Soviet officials, oligarchs, and lobbyists looking to launder their image and spin their narrative.

We’ve seen this most clearly over the past few months, as Solomon’s coverage of Ukraine has gained a national audience—and completely fallen apart under the most basic scrutiny. To take one example, Solomon’s writing lent credence to the notion that the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, had given a Ukrainian prosecutor a “do-not-prosecute” list. One problem: there’s no evidence the list ever existed, and the prosecutor himself eventually walked back the claim entirely.

But the damage was already done: The White House this year canned the ambassador, who’s since been personally targeted by Trump as some kind of henchman in former Vice President Joe Biden’s machinations. (For good measure, Solomon this weekend described Ukraine’s successful 2014 revolution to oust corrupt strongman Viktor Yanukovych as a “coup.”)

But Ukraine was far from the only post-Soviet state where crooked actors and dirty money looked for, and found, help from Solomon.

A couple years ago, while I was a graduate student at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, focusing on post-Soviet affairs, I patched together a Master’s thesis on how post-Soviet kleptocrats whitewash their reputations for American audiences. And there, in the middle of a lobbyist-led campaign to clean up the image of Azerbaijan—one of the most heinous, most kleptocratic governments in the world—sat none other than John Solomon.

In 2015, Solomon was an editor at The Washington Times. His tenure there just so happened to coincide with the paper becoming one of the go-to outlets for Azerbaijan’s lobbyists to lie about the brutal Azeri regime’s supposed graces—including pieces that failed to disclose that the authors were on the Azeri dole, like one column by former GOP Congressman Dan Burton, written while he was lobbying for Azerbaijan.

“Solomon is still massaging facts, and he’s still conjuring phantom scandals.”
Solomon took some responsibility in that case when contacted by The Washington Post, claiming the lack of disclosure was just an oversight. And when I spoke with Solomon in the context of my research, telling him that one of the pieces—which claimed that “few places in the world… are as welcoming to Americans as Azerbaijan”—still didn’t note it was written by a pro-Azeri lobbyist, he told me that he’d add the disclaimer in. But four years later, the article remains unchanged—and anyone reading it would think the author was simply interested in the pleasures and pastimes of Azerbaijan, and not that he was a paid-off hack.

"Rudy Giuliani, Former Mayor of New York City speaks to the Organization of Iranian American Communities during their march to urge \"recognition of the Iranian people's right for regime change,\" outside the United Nations Headquarters in New York on September 24, 2019. - They urged recognition of the Iranian people's right for regime change and declared their support for the leader of democratic opposition, Maryam Rajavi. (Photo by Angela Weiss / AFP) (Photo credit should read ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images)"
Giuliani, diGenova Rage at Fox Bombshell on Ukraine Plan

Fox News: Frequent Guests Helped Giuliani on Ukraine-Biden
In the years since, I—like many familiar with his work—have looked askance at anything that Solomon has published, never taking it at face value. And rightfully so, as we’ve recently seen out of Ukraine. Solomon is still massaging facts, and he’s still conjuring phantom scandals. And now he’s been hired by Fox News for his efforts.

And federal filings may provide a hint of who Solomon might help whitewash next. According to documents filed with the Department of Justice’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) database, Solomon’s 2015 push to include a raft of pro-Azeri material in The Washington Times just so happened to coincide with his meetings with Azeri lobbyists. (The subject of those 2015 meetings: “Azerbaijan public relations.”) Fast-forward to 2019, and as FARA further outlines, Solomon was also in contact with Lanny Davis—a man who, until recently, was working on behalf of Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash.

Accused by American authorities of massive bribery and described by the DOJ as an alleged “upper-echelon [associate] of Russian organized crime,” Firtash is currently fighting extradition from Austria to the United States. For help, Firtash recently hired conspiratorial pro-Trump lawyers Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova – both of whom have joined Rudy Giuliani in working to dig up Ukrainian dirt on Biden. (Firtash also just so happens to publicly loathe Biden.)

There are no FARA filings yet listed on any communications between Toensing, diGenova, and Solomon. But we already know that Solomon was emailing at least some of his stories before publication at The Hill to Toensing and diGenova—as well as to Lev Parnas, the now-arrested bagman and associate of Giuliani, who also happens to be working for Firtash.

So if you see Solomon, whom Politico recently described as an “all[y]” of the two lawyers, beginning to spin Firtash as some kind of wronged businessman—someone unfairly targeted by the Obama administration, perhaps—don’t be surprised. After all, something like that would fit squarely within Solomon’s track record as a kleptocrat’s favorite spin-man, no matter the cost—and no matter the consequences.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/water-fin ... es&via=rss

Turns out John Solomon had been in touch with Dmitry Firtash's lawyers months ago—even before Toensing and diGenova, the conspiracy theorists tight with both Giuliani and Parnas, came aboard.

Honestly impressed that Soros is mentioned three different times in a single tweet here:

Victoria Toensing

@VicToensing
Hey @jaketapper. Ukrainian Pros Gen Shokin smeared by @georgesoros NGOs bcse Shokin investigating AntAC, Soros funded “anti-corruption” organization, which really investigates Soros competitors. Hunter’s lawyers apologized for false…

https://twitter.com/cjcmichel/status/11 ... 0136606720

THE CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION RELATED TO PAUL MANAFORT WAS (AND MAY STILL BE) ONGOING–AND LIKELY PERTAINS TO TRUMP’S UKRAINE EXTORTION

October 14, 2019

Robert Mueller was never able to determine whether Paul Manafort entered into a quid pro quo on August 2, 2016, trading — either on his own or with the approval of Trump — promises to help carve up Ukraine to Russia’s liking in exchange for help winning the election.

Mueller never made that determination, in part, because Manafort lied during the period he was purportedly cooperating with the investigation.

Here’s what Mueller did determine was reliable:

First, Manafort and Kilimnik discussed a plan to resolve the ongoing political problems in Ukraine by creating an autonomous republic in its more industrialized eastern region of Donbas,922 and having Yanukovych, the Ukrainian President ousted in 2014, elected to head that republic.923 That plan, Manafort later acknowledged, constituted a “backdoor” means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine.924 Manafort initially said that, if he had not cut off the discussion, Kilimnik would have asked Manafort in the August 2 meeting to convince Trump to come out in favor of the peace plan, and Yanukovych would have expected Manafort to use his connections in Europe and Ukraine to support the plan.925 Manafort also initially told the Office that he had said to Kilimnik that the plan was crazy, that the discussion ended, and that he did not recall Kilimnik asking Manafort to reconsider the plan after their August 2 meeting.926 Manafort said [redacted] that he reacted negatively to Yanukovych sending-years later-an “urgent” request when Yanukovych needed him.927 When confronted with an email written by Kilimnik on or about December 8, 2016, however, Manafort acknowledged Kilimnik raised the peace plan again in that email.928 Manafort ultimately acknowledged Kilimnik also raised the peace Ian in January 2017 meetings with Manafort [redacted — pertains to him admitting continuation of the plan into 2018] 929

Second, Manafort briefed Kilimnik on the state of the Trump Campaign and Manafort’s plan to win the election.930 That briefing encompassed the Campaign’s messaging and its internal polling data. According to Gates, it also included discussion of “battleground” states, which Manafort identified as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota.931 Manafort did not refer explicitly to “battleground” states in his telling of the August 2 discussion, [redacted]

Third, according to Gates and what Kilimnik told Patten, Manafort and Kilimnik discussed two sets of financial disputes related to Mana fort’s previous work in the region. Those consisted of the unresolved Deripaska lawsuit and the funds that the Opposition Bloc owed to Manafort for his political consulting work and how Manafort might be able to obtain payment.933

922 The Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, which are located in the Donbas region of Ukraine, declared themselves independent in response to the popular unrest in 2014 that removed President Yanukovych from power. Pro-Russian Ukrainian militia forces, with backing from the Russian military, have occupied the region since 2014. Under the Yanukovych-backed plan, Russia would assist in withdrawing the military, and Donbas would become an autonomous region within Ukraine with its own

Although Mueller included this significant summary of the issue in his Report (and a description of how Rick Gates kept sending polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik, to be shared with Ukrainian oligarchs and Oleg Deripaska’s GRU-linked aide, Viktor Boyarkin), the government nevertheless refused to release the details regarding this dispute that were laid out in court filings and exhibits regarding his breach of his plea deal when WaPo tried to liberate them starting in March. The government explained that, “a number of matters [related to his lies that were referred] to other offices in the Department of Justice … remain ongoing,” and asked for any further matters in WaPo’s challenge be deferred until six months later, which happens to be Tuesday. Judge Amy Berman Jackson never ruled differently, so that’s where things have stood, at least on the public docket, since April, shortly after the Mueller Report was released.

That’s interesting because the government accused Manafort of lying about five different topics. Some are definitely related to each other, and some (as well as his underlying guilty verdicts) are also definitely related to recent events relating to Ukraine and Russia. Which is why it’s worth looking back to learn what Manafort worked hardest to obscure in September and October 2018. Doing so suggests that Trump’s Ukraine call — including the demand for election help and Volodymyr Zelensky implementation of the Steinmeier Formula since — may simply be one step in paying off his campaign debts from 2016. As such, Rudy Giuliani’s involvement with Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman may just be the continuation of what Manafort was pursuing — also being paid by a cut-out system — even after he got sent to jail.

In this post, I’ll look specifically at how the lies Manafort told do and may relate to current events. In a follow-up, I hope to show how the issues for which he was prosecuted also relate to current events, well beyond Trump’s efforts to undermine Manafort’s prosecution to make a pardon easier. Taken together, such analysis will show that the Ukraine scandal is completely inseparable from the Russia one.

MANAFORT TOLD FIVE LIES

Altogether, the government tried to hold Manafort accountable for five lies. Those were:

How he got paid using a kick-back system involving a SuperPAC, Rebuilding America Now, which (on top of violating prohibitions on coordination with the campaign) may have accepted funds from foreigners. Mueller’s team never seemed to figure out how that scheme worked, in part because Manafort never settled on an explanation for the kickbacks. ABJ ruled that Manafort lied about this.

Whether he tried to dissociate Konstantin Kilimnik from his own witness tampering to hide the true role of the Hapsburg Group, some former European leaders Manafort used to lobby for Viktor Yanukovych’s party. Effectively, the government accused Manafort of trying to suggest that Kilimnik wasn’t willfully part of what he was doing during a period that spanned from February (when the actual witness tampering happened) through April 2018 (when Manafort tried to tamper again). ABJ agreed in principle that Manafort had lied about this, but ruled the government did not present a preponderance of the evidence, so didn’t count this against him in sentencing.

Whether he lied to adapt his story to a more exonerating one being told by a Trump flunkie — it’s not clear who — involved in doing something — it’s not clear what — to save Trump’s campaign in the last days during which Manafort managed the campaign. ABJ agreed he had.

What the fuck he was doing on August 2, 2016, and (though this is always unstated) whether his lies to hide repeated discussions to support a Ukrainian “peace” plan between then and April 2018 were an attempt to hide an effort to pay off a quid pro quo tied to assistance winning the election.

Whether Manafort spoke to the Administration after inauguration, either directly or indirectly. ABJ ruled that the government had not provided evidence that Manafort lied about his ongoing communications with the Administration.

Of these lies, the lies about another investigation (lie 3 above) seem to be unrelated to the rest. That’s because they involved, well before the Mueller investigation finished, another part of DOJ, and so almost certainly have nothing to do with Russia or Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, the Trump campaign may have been willing to cheat multiple ways to win the 2016.

The kickback system (lie 1 above) may or many not relate to the Russian and Ukraine questions. Mueller was never able to sort it out, so it’s not clear what to make of it. For my purposes, however, it’s relevant that Manafort’s claims of working for “free” may turn out to be false. Instead, Paul Manafort — who pled guilty a year ago to laundering money and refusing to register to hide how his influence campaigns in the US were being paid for by Ukrainian oligarchs — may have been paid to run Trump’s campaign by foreigners laundering those payments via various means. That’s significant because, last week, DOJ accused Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman of laundering money (from sources Russian, Ukrainian, and unknown) through various front companies, including one called Global Energy Production apparently created for the function, to engage in influence campaigns relating to Ukraine, effectively the same kind of scheme that Manafort engaged in for years. Particularly given that Rudy claims to be both working for and employing Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, it raises questions about whether his claims to be working for “free” are also bogus, just a lie to hide how the cut through works.

KILIMNIK AND MANAFORT’S EFFORTS TO PUSH A UKRAINE “PEACE” PLAN OVERLAP WITH THEIR WITNESS TAMPERING
Lies 2 and 4 are obviously related, because Konstantin Kilimnik — as Manafort’s tie to several Ukrainian oligarchs and Oleg Deripaska — is at the center of both of them. Manafort’s efforts to deny that Kiliminik was his co-conspirator may have been motivated by nothing more than a need to permit Kevin Downing to claim, falsely, that Manafort’s guilty plea affirmed no “collusion” between the President’s campaign manager and any Russians had occurred. Not only did ABJ affirmatively state that, whatever Kilimnik’s ties to GRU, his role did amount to a link to Russia.

So Manafort was both trying to lie that he had pled guilty to entering a conspiracy with a Russian suspected of ties to GRU, but he was lying to hide precisely what the nature of any conspiracy that may have tied assistance with the 2016 election to help implementing a Ukraine “peace” plan favored by Russia and Russian-aligned Ukrainian oligarchs.

Still, even within that context, there are details of the two Kilimnik lies that deserve more attention. Consider how the timeline of the two sets of lies intersect in 2018, months after Manafort was first charged, in the weeks and months after Trump had reportedly told allies that he was sure he would survive the Mueller investigation because Manafort would not flip on him.

In the weeks after that claim was published, from February 5 through 10, 2018, Manafort was still trying to deliver on his “New initiative for Peace” (PDF 82).




Later in February, after Mueller unveiled Rick Gates’ cooperation and made it clear he was pursuing another of the vehicles Manafort used to hide his influence operations, the Hapsburg Group, he and Kilimnik reached out to key players in that influence operation (who, unbeknownst to Manafort, had already been cooperating for some time) in an attempt to get them to lie about the influence operation. Those contacts, over Telegram and WhatsApp, took place between February 24 and 28.

But knowing that another part of his past influence operation was under scrutiny still didn’t dissuade Manafort from pursuing that “peace” plan Kilimnik first pitched him on August 2, 2016, amid a discussion of how to get Trump elected. On March 9, he was sending some unnamed person related documents from Kilimnik. (PDF 92ff) The breach hearing and other documents make it clear this was an effort to test the viability of a Ukrainian candidate, including his willingness to implement the “peace” plan.



He was doing it again on March 26. (PDF 97)



Manafort would try to dissociate this polling from the people who were really implementing, including, apparently, trying to pretend that Kilimnik didn’t know about it.

Then — included in the contacts that (the government says) were part of Manafort’s conspiracy to obstruct with Kilimnik, though it’s not clear how — there were more contacts with the Hapsburg Group flacks on April 4.



In fact, Manafort’s efforts to pursue this “peace” plan continued even further, with him hoping that some unnamed person would find documents valuable on May 4. (PDF 95)



There’s a lot more sealed evidence about how relentlessly Manafort pursued a Ukrainian “peace” plan between August 2, 2016 and at least the time he was jailed for bail violations in June 2018 (though remember, the government alleges he continued to communicate in incriminating ways even from jail, via laptops carried by his attorneys). Altogether, there are 38 exhibits documenting Manafort’s false denials of his actions on that front. Because the government says it has (or had) an ongoing investigation into such matters, we don’t get to see what the exhibits are. But Manafort’s lawyer, Kevin Downing (who filled in at Parnas and Fruman’s bail hearing the other day) has seen them. And Downing, reportedly, was sharing details of Manafort’s cooperation with other lawyers in Manafort’s Joint Defense Agreement with the President, including Rudy Giuliani.

Trump “hired” his “free” defense attorney Rudy Giuliani on April 19, 2018, after current Parnas and Fruman attorney John Dowd quit. And once Manafort could no longer pursue his Ukraine “peace” plan, Rudy got involved in efforts to press for certain concessions in Ukraine.

MANAFORT’S ATTEMPTS TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE ADMINISTRATION (EXCEPTING VIA COUNSEL)
Finally, there’s the last alleged lie, the one ABJ said prosecutors did not prove.

It’s not really clear what prosecutors believed Manafort was communicating about, beyond hires (like Steve Calk) in the Administration, because the topic of interest (which in some redactions appears to be too short to refer to Ukraine or Russia) is redacted in the documents released. They only submitted six exhibits to substantiate their claim. But the two unredacted exhibits presented in support of their case are notable.

On May 15, Manafort drew up a document that (the government’s declaration makes clear) included a section titled “Targets,” along with notes indicating Manafort would reach out to people about those targets. (PDF 152)



It might be a coincidence, but Manafort draws up this document right at the beginning of Parnas and Fruman’s efforts to donate big money to key Republicans through their shell company.

And on May 25, someone asked Manafort via WhatsApp whether it was cool to invoke his name if he or she met with Trump the following week, one-on-one. (PDF 156)



In the breach hearing, ABJ summarizes this:

You say that what he said was false because he did in fact agree to have messages sent to the administration on his behalf. And you point to evidence in which he offered to have other people contact the [redacted] on behalf of Mr. [redacted], for example, or to press buttons. But that outreach appears to have been two people outside the administration who themselves would have contacts within. There is some evidence that Mr. Gates said that Mr. Manafort said he still had connections, and that another individual asked Mr. Manafort if he, that individual, could tell [redacted (the President)] he was still close to Manafort.

And you have his involvement in lobbing with respect to [redacted], and Exhibit 404 is this memo summarizing the group’s plan that say, somewhat ambiguously, [redacted] will find out if [redacted] did her bit and get her to call [redacted] And it’s not even crystal clear that he was supposed do that by calling her.

In explaining the lie, Greg Andres makes it clear that Manafort was also representing in March that he had the ability to send messages to someone (probably Trump) in the Administration.

Significantly, Manafort lawyer Richard Westling dismisses that anyone would value Manafort’s advice or support at a time when he was already under indictment.

he was already under indictment at this point and, you know, the idea that he was going to pass a message and it would have some value, frankly, no offense to Mr. Manafort, but I can’t see that.

It’s notable that Downing did not make that claim because — as recent reports make clear — Rudy continued to consult Manafort on these Ukraine issues even after he went to prison, through Downing.

Especially since, in all its representations about these ongoing communications, the government makes clear,

for the purposes of proving the falsity of Manafort’s assertions in this section, the government is not relying on communications that may have taken place, with Manafort’s consent, through his legal counsel. We previously so advised the defense.

It’s clear the government knew Manafort continued to communicate with Trump via Downing and Rudy; they just weren’t going to reveal that they had pierced privilege or what they had learned.

We still don’t know how SDNY came to be investigating Parnas and Fruman (and Rudy) for their influence peddling, whether it stemmed from the Campaign Legal Center FEC complaint, whether SDNY found it on their own, or whether it was among the 14 referrals Mueller made. If it’s the latter, it would suggest last week’s indictment was the continuation of the effort to figure out if there was a tie between Manafort’s August 2, 2016 conversation and Trump’s policy choices on Ukraine.

THE UKRAINIAN GRIFTERS TIMELINE
Now consider how the timelines of Manafort’s relentless of a “peace” deal, his witness tampering with Kilimnik, and his efforts to communicate with Trump overlap with the known timeline of the Ukrainian grifters (I’ll continue to update this). It suggests that Parnas and Fruman kicked in their influence operations just as Manafort’s legal problems made him unable to do so.

February 5-10, 2018: Manafort working on “a new Peace initiative”

February 19, 2018: Manafort email pertaining to “peace” plan

February 21, 2018: Manfort emails document pertaining to “peace” plan to undisclosed recipients

February 23, 2018: Mueller reveals Rick Gates’ plea deal

February 24-28, 2018: Kilimnik and Manafort attempt to script testimony of Hapsburg Group flacks

March 2, 2018: Pentagon issues final approval to send Javelin missiles to Ukraine

March 3, 2018: Fruman participates in high donor meeting at Mar-a-Lago

March 9, 2018: Manafort working on polling regarding Ukraine “peace” plan for potential client

March 26, 2018: Manafort working on Ukraine “peace” plan

April 4, 2018: Kilimnik again attempts to witness tamper with Hapsburg Group flacks

Early April, 2018: Reported halt to Ukraine’s cooperation with Mueller

April 11, 2018: Parnas and Fruman form Global Energy Producers

April 19, 2018: Trump “hires” “free” defense attorney Rudy Giuliani

April 29, 2018: Someone first solicits help creating a website for GEP

May 2, 2018: NYT reports that Ukraine has stopped cooperating with Mueller probe

May 4, 2018: Manafort sends unnamed person information on Ukraine plan

May 8, 2018: Parnas and Fruman meet with Trump and seven other people “about preparations for victory in the midterm elections;” Fruman raises “America’s support for Israel and Ukraine,” topics about which “Trump … was absolutely positive”

May 15, 2018: Real estate lawyer Russell Jacobs deposits $1.26 million pass through funds into Aaron Investments LLC

May 15, 2018: Manafort document lists “Targets” and reflects commitment on his part to reach out to the Administration about them.

May 17, 2018: Parnas LLC Aaron Investments donates $325,000 to Trump PAC, America First Action in the name of GEP

May 21, 2018: Parnas has breakfast with Don Jr and Tommy Hicks Jr, head of America First

May 24, 2018: Someone again solicits help creating a website for GEP

June 8, 2018: Manafort charged with witness tampering; prosecutors more to revoke bail

June 21, 2018: GEP donates $50K to Ron DeSantis

September 14, 2018: Manafort enters into what would be a failed plea agreement, admitting he laundered money and influence on behalf of Ukrainian oligarchs, but entering into a five week process of learning what prosecutors know

Mid-to-late 2018: Rudy referred to Parnas and Fruman for work with “Fraud Guarantee”

Around November 2018: Rudy starts working for Parnas and Fruman

Late 2018: While Parnas and Rudy were eating together, “someone” approached Rudy and gave him information about Ukraine

January 8, 2019: Manafort lawyer’s redaction fail reveals that Manafort was asked about the Ukraine “peace” plan and that Manafort was lying about whether it got raised while working on the campaign and also that he was being asked about ongoing contacts with the Administration

BACKGROUND
I have laid out the structure of Manafort’s lies in these posts:

It’s Not So Much that Manafort Lied and Lied and Lied, It’s that His Truth Evolved (January 23)
A Primer on How to Read: So the NYT Can Stop Telling Paul Manafort’s Lies (February 11)
The Unseen Aspects of Paul Manafort’s Lies and Truth-Telling Are as Telling as the Ones We’ve Seen (February 14)
The primary sources for them are these documents:

December 7: Initial Government submission in support of breach determination
January 8: Manafort redaction fail response
January 15: Government’s declaration in support of breach determination with exhibits
January 23: Manafort reply to SCO declaration
February 4: Breach hearing
February 13: Breach judgement ruling
February 13: Breach judgement hearing
February 27: Government notice of Gates’ clarification and nationalities of oligarchs
April 17: Ruling denying reconsideration in light of exonerating testimony from Gates
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https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/10/14/t ... extortion/

Federal Prosecutors Scrutinize Rudy Giuliani’s Ukraine Business Dealings, Finances
Trump lawyer’s bank records have been examined; witnesses are questioned about work for a Ukraine mayor, efforts to oust U.S. ambassador

Updated Oct. 14, 2019 7:19 pm ET
Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, has been President Trump’s personal lawyer since 2018. Photo: carlos barria/Reuters
By
Rebecca Davis O’Brien and
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are examining Rudy Giuliani’s business dealings in Ukraine, including his finances, meetings and work for a city mayor there, according to people familiar with the matter.

Investigators also have examined Mr. Giuliani’s bank records, according to the people.

Witnesses have been questioned about Mr. Giuliani since at least August by investigators, who also want to know more about Mr. Giuliani’s role in an alleged conspiracy involving two of his business associates, the people said. The investigation is being led by the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York.
Mr. Giuliani has denied wrongdoing and on Monday said he hadn’t been informed of any investigation. “They can look at my Ukraine business all they want,” he said.

It couldn’t be determined how far along the investigation stands. The scope of the inquiry also isn’t known. Since April 2018, Mr. Giuliani has been President Trump’s personal lawyer, work for which he isn’t paid.

The investigation into the president’s lawyer comes as House Democrats are issuing subpoenas and deposing witnesses in the impeachment probe of Mr. Trump’s efforts with Mr. Giuliani to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, one of the front-runners for the Democratic presidential nomination.
President Trump's efforts to persuade Ukraine to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, have set off an impeachment inquiry by House Democrats. WSJ's Shelby Holliday lays out a timeline of interactions between the president's inner circle and Ukrainian officials. Photo Composite: Laura Kammermann/The Wall Street Journal
Mr. Giuliani’s associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were arrested last week on campaign-finance and conspiracy counts. The indictment accuses the two men of misrepresenting the sources of hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. campaign contributions they made, including to a former Republican congressman who was part of a lobbying effort to remove the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine that started in the spring of 2018.

Messrs. Parnas and Fruman were released on $1 million bonds and haven’t yet entered pleas. They are scheduled to appear in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday.

Messrs. Parnas and Fruman were also helping Mr. Giuliani investigate work in Ukraine by Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, on Mr. Trump’s behalf, and introduced Mr. Giuliani to several current and former senior Ukrainian prosecutors.
Hunter Biden was paid $50,000 a month to sit on the board of a Ukrainian gas company at a time when his father, President Obama’s vice president, was spearheading anticorruption efforts in Ukraine. Mr. Trump and his allies have described that as a corrupt arrangement. Ukrainian officials have produced no evidence of wrongdoing by either Biden, and they both deny they did anything wrong.

U.S. prosecutors announced charges against two Soviet-born donors to a pro-Trump fundraising committee who helped Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to investigate Democrat Joe Biden. Photo: Alexandria Sheriff's Office
Prosecutors’ interest in Mr. Giuliani has been previously reported by CNN and other news outlets, but the examination of Mr. Giuliani’s bank records and business dealings in Ukraine haven’t been reported.

Mr. Giuliani is best known for being mayor of New York during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Since then, he has built up an international consulting business. Investigators have asked questions about business Mr. Giuliani conducted in Ukraine, where the former mayor began working over a decade ago, say the people familiar with the matter.

That work began shortly after he folded his 2008 Republican presidential campaign, when he announced he would be a strategic adviser to help boxer Vitali Klitschko, known as “Dr. Iron Fist,” root out corruption and win election as the mayor of Kyiv. Mr. Klitschko lost that election but became mayor in 2014 and remains in that post.

After protests in Kyiv in 2014, Mr. Klitschko negotiated a potential contract for Giuliani Security & Safety to restore order in the city. Mr. Giuliani’s fee, roughly $300,000, was too steep, and the deal wasn’t completed, the Journal previously reported.

During visits to Ukraine in 2017, he met with then-President Petro Poroshenko and then-Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko and held meetings on behalf of his private security business in Kyiv and Kharkiv.

In May 2017, Giuliani Security & Safety inked a contract with the city administration of Kharkiv to streamline municipal emergency services, according to the company. A person familiar with the negotiations said Pavel Fuks, a Kharkiv native who had made a fortune in Russian real estate, paid the contract. Mr. Fuks didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Giuliani declined to comment on that arrangement.


valentyn ogirenko/Reuters

About a decade earlier, Mr. Fuks had negotiated with Mr. Trump to license the Trump brand for a tower that Mr. Fuks was building, with other partners, in the Russian capital’s Moscow City, Mr. Fuks said at the time. The deal didn’t come together.

Mr. Giuliani said in an interview last week that he met with the Kharkiv mayor and members of the city council on a December 2017 trip. He also met with Mr. Fuks during that trip.

Mr. Giuliani’s extensive effort to oust Ms. Yovanovitch was referenced in the indictment of Messrs. Parnas and Fruman. She was removed as ambassador after months of complaints from Mr. Giuliani and others that she was undermining Mr. Trump abroad and obstructing efforts to persuade Kyiv to investigate Mr. Biden, which she denies. She was removed three months before her customary three-year term was to end.

As part of that effort, Mr. Giuliani has said he spoke with the president, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and an unidentified White House official who asked him to recount the complaints he voiced to the president.

Mr. Giuliani has said that he spoke with Ukrainian prosecutors, including Mr. Lutsenko, as he targeted Ms. Yovanovitch, Mr. Biden and others. Mr. Lutsenko himself was dismissed in August.

—Brett Forrest and Sadie Gurman contributed to this article.
http://archive.is/0AdVA

Andrew S. Weiss
‏

THREAD: Have we reached the point where Giuliani’s role in Ukraine-gate no longer looks like an outtake from a bad Coen Brothers movie and is creating a far more serious legal situation that should be setting off alarm bells inside DOJ comparable to James Comey's firing? 1/

1:30 PM - 14 Oct 2019


Bear with me as I lay out some facts. They exceed the unreality of a Gary Shteyngart novel. Yet based on my reading of these facts, several questions readily jump out. I don’t have all of the answers to these questions but think it’s worth asking them. 2/

In reality ties betw Parnas/Fruman and Firtash run much deeper. They were “working for Firtash" before "Parnas joined [Firtash’s] legal team…Firtash has paid their expenses in the past. Their costs include private jet charters..& foreign travel to Vienna.”


Firtash acknowledged as much in a leaked 2008 conversation with then US Amb Bill Taylor (yes, the same Bill Taylor who wrote the famous text message lambasting Trump’s demand for a quid pro quo from Zelenskyy). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/ ... -mafia-gas … 13/

Screen Shot 2019-10-14 at 9.54.36 PM.png

It’s been all too easy to get a chuckle out of Parnas and Fruman’s bumbling hijinks after they joined the ranks of top GOP/Trump donors, despite having such a long trail of bad debts, evictions, and sketchy relationships back in Ukraine. 14/

But something about them doesn’t add up. Whose funds were they using to buy their way into the ranks of top GOP donors? Whose interests were best served by their efforts to mount attacks on US officials like Amb Yovanovitch? The Federal indictment is conspicuously silent. 15/

What then to make of the revelation that Parnas and Fruman were arrested at Dulles last Thursday while en route to Vienna? Or that Giuliani planned to leave for Vienna, Firtash’s home base, the following day? https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... na/599833/ … @elainaplott 16/


My hunch is that Parnas and Fruman may have been frontmen for Firtash, dangling info that was too good about Ukraine's role in 2016 to lure people close to Trump. Was Firtash trying to get himself out of a jam with DOJ? Did Giuliani, wittingly or unwittingly, play any role? 17/

Back to Elliot Broidy. The Feds are investigating a Malaysian financier who reportedly asked Broidy to provide similar help. Broidy requested a $75 million fee from Jho Low if he succeeded in getting DOJ to drop charges in the case. https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-ally ... 1519919321 … 19/

That brings us back to where I started. Does this scandal echo the circumstances that led to the naming of Robert Mueller? Was Giuliani ever involved in seeking special favors for Firtash? Did he or anyone else ( DiGenova? Toensing?) raise this case with Trump or others? 20/

Key question: who's the right person to investigate this? Surely the US Atty's office in Illinois, which indicted Firtasy, has been watching him like hawks. SDNY is now reportedly investigating Giuliani. Did any of Firtash's team touch people at even more senior levels? 21/

What is AG Barr’s involvement in the search for dirt on the Bidens and conspiracy theories about the 2016 election? Trump told Zelenskyy to contact Barr. Does Barr have a conflict of interest or at least the appearance of one? Does he need to recuse himself? 22/

Given the very real possibility that Trump’s personal lawyer (Giuliani) and others (DiGenova/Toensing) have clear connections to Firtash, is it conceivable they engaged w himon Firtash’s behalf to subvert the rule of law? If so, that sounds like a job for a special counsel END

ADDENDUM The Reuters team which broke the story about Firtash’s ties to Giuliani’s associates deserves a majorshoutout @AramRoston @karen_freifeld @polinaivanovva
https://twitter.com/andrewsweiss/status ... 6445807616

Bolton Objected to Ukraine Pressure Campaign, Calling Giuliani ‘a Hand Grenade’
Oct. 14, 2019
Fiona Hill, President Trump’s former adviser on Russia and Europe, arriving Monday on Capitol Hill.

WASHINGTON — The effort to pressure Ukraine for political help provoked a heated confrontation inside the White House last summer that so alarmed John R. Bolton, then the national security adviser, that he told an aide to alert White House lawyers, House investigators were told on Monday.

Mr. Bolton got into a sharp exchange on July 10 with Gordon D. Sondland, the Trump donor turned ambassador to the European Union, who was working with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, to press Ukraine to investigate Democrats, according to testimony provided to the investigators.

Mr. Bolton instructed Fiona Hill, the senior director for Russian and Eurasian affairs, to notify the chief lawyer for the National Security Council that Mr. Giuliani was working with Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, on a rogue operation with legal implications, Ms. Hill told the investigators, according to two people familiar with her closed-door testimony.

“I am not part of whatever drug deal Rudy and Mulvaney are cooking up,” Mr. Bolton, a Yale-trained lawyer, told Ms. Hill to tell White House lawyers, according to the testimony.

It was not the first time Mr. Bolton expressed grave concerns to Ms. Hill about Mr. Giuliani. “Giuliani’s a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up,” Ms. Hill quoted Mr. Bolton saying during an earlier conversation.

Sharon LaFraniere contributed reporting.
http://archive.is/RGjxO

emptywheel

Folks are missing several parts of the genius of Hill's testimony.

The headline quotes are her repeating Bolton.

So he will attract Trump's ire more than Hill. He will be forced to confirm or (if he's sure she doesn't have notes) deny. But he can't cower anymore.

And Eisenberg has very quietly been the key person in this cover-up (and a key player in the cover-up of Russia). He's the guy who decided to place the transcript onto the TS server to hide the crimes.

Also, Hill focused attention on Mulvaney. I'll get into why that's so important. But it's the detail that will lead Republicans to vote to convict.

Note: Bolton knows well how Cheney violated the law. He made sure the lawyers were involved (cf John Yoo).

So it's unclear whether he referred Hill to try to bury it (as Cheney would) or out of real concern.
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1 ... 7248423936

Though their interests have aligned in recent months, Firtash and Giuliani come from starkly different backgrounds. The former mayor built his reputation in the 1990s fighting the Italian mafia in New York City. At around the same time, the tycoon was coming up through a business environment in Eastern Europe plagued by organized crime.

By the time the Department of Justice publicly referred to him in 2017 as a senior associate of the Russian mob, Firtash had been under investigation in the U.S. for more than a decade, according to interviews with his investigators.

His alleged ties to the Russian mafia go back to the early 2000s, when his work in the gas trade brought him into contact with Semyon Mogilevich, one of the most notorious leaders in the world of Russian organized crime. As Firtash later told the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, “he needed, and received, permission from Mogilevich when he established various businesses,” according to a U.S. embassy cable published in 2010 by Wikileaks.

Exclusive: How a Ukrainian Oligarch Wanted by U.S. Authorities Helped Giuliani Attack Biden


Dmitry Firtash, photographed at his office in Vienna, in March 2017.
Peter Rigaud for TIME
In their effort to discredit President Donald Trump’s perceived enemies, close allies of the President have received key documents and information from a Ukrainian oligarch wanted in the U.S. on corruption charges, according to five people directly involved in this effort and two other people familiar with it.

The information came from the legal team of Dmitry Firtash, a wealthy industrialist with assets across Europe, who has spent the last five years in Vienna fighting extradition to the U.S. on bribery and racketeering charges. The U.S. Department of Justice said in 2017 he was among the “upper echelon associates of Russian organized crime”—something Firtash vigorously denies, along with all charges against him.

As part of his legal defense, Firtash’s lawyers have gathered documents that make controversial allegations against former special counsel Robert Mueller and former Vice President Joe Biden. Firtash’s lawyers have passed these documents and other information to associates of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

In his frequent appearances on cable news, Giuliani has presented some of these documents to the American public as evidence for his claims of wrongdoing by Mueller and Biden. The key document is an affidavit from a former Ukrainian prosecutor who accuses Biden of corruption. “The witness I’m relying on,” Giuliani told Fox News on Oct. 6, was the prosecutor Viktor Shokin. “That’s the affidavit I put out,” Giuliani added. He did not mention that the affidavit was obtained by the Firtash legal team. At the beginning of the document, Shokin writes that he is making the statement “at the request of lawyers acting for Dmitry Firtash.”

Asked about his ties to the Firtash legal team, Giuliani wrote in a text message to TIME on Tuesday: “I do not represent Mr. Firtash and I have never met him.” He did not reply to requests for further comment.

Over the last two months, a TIME investigation has traced some of Giuliani’s claims about Biden and Mueller to a troubling relationship, one in which a foreigner wanted by the U.S. government on corruption charges has taken steps, as part of his own legal strategy, that are helping the American President attack his most prominent critics.

This alignment of interests has taken shape at the same time, and with many of the same goals and actors, as the parallel effort by Trump and Giuliani to pressure Ukraine into investigating Biden’s family. The effort in Ukraine was brought to light in September in a complaint from an intelligence-community whistleblower. It is now the subject of an impeachment inquiry in Congress into alleged abuse of office by President Trump.

None of the inquiry’s public proceedings so far have mentioned the assistance that Firtash’s lawyers have provided to Giuliani. While they have said some documents from the Firtash case would be useful to Trump as a defense against his critics, the lawyers told TIME this summer that the purpose of the documents is to prove their client’s innocence. Firtash’s legal team has not responded since September to numerous requests for comment about their relationship with Giuliani.

Firtash has established close ties to the former mayor of New York City in part by recruiting several of Giuliani’s associates. In July the oligarch hired two lawyers who have been helping Giuliani in his campaign to discredit Trump’s critics: Victoria Toensing and Joseph DiGenova, a married couple Trump considered hiring in 2018 as part of his private legal team. Best known as diehard defenders of Trump on Fox News, the couple has combed through the oligarch’s case files and used some of them in the effort to defend Trump on television and in the press.

Toensing and DiGenova then hired another Giuliani associate, Lev Parnas, to serve as their interpreter in communications with Firtash in Vienna, according to a statement the lawyers sent TIME on Oct. 11. While on his way to Vienna on Oct. 9, Parnas was arrested at Dulles Airport in Washington and charged with violating campaign finance laws. The indictment against him alleges that Parnas and his business partners secretly channeled money from an unidentified Russian donor to various political causes and candidates. Parnas has not entered a plea. His colleagues in the Firtash legal team declined to comment on the arrest.

Attorney Kevin Downing, right, who is representing two associates of Rudy Giuliani, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, walks out of a federal courthouse after a hearing in Alexandria, Va., on Oct. 10, 2019.

Mark Wilson—Getty Images

In an interview with NBC News on Monday, Giuliani said he has “nothing to do with Firtash.” He also denied ever speaking to Trump about the Firtash case. “I’m not even sure the president is aware of him,” Giuliani told NBC. “I think if you asked the president ‘who is Dmitry Firtash?’ He would say ‘I don’t know.’ As far as I know, we’ve never discussed him.”

In acting for Firtash, Toensing and DiGenova’s stated aim has been to prevent their client’s extradition to the U.S. In a phone interview with TIME on July 31, soon after joining the legal team, they said he should never risk facing an American jury. “Trust me, it would be a disaster,” Toensing said. “That’s called a riverboat gamble,” added her husband.

But the lawyers spent much of the interview talking about one of their favorite topics: the alleged abuses of the special counsel’s office. They claimed that one of Mueller’s top deputies in the special counsel investigation, Andrew Weissmann, offered to drop the bribery case against Firtash in 2017 in exchange for testimony that could be damaging to President Trump. This, they claimed, would amount to suborning perjury.

They declined to provide documents to back up those claims. In a piece published on July 22, John Solomon, a columnist for the Hill, cited documents from the Firtash legal team to suggest that Weissmann’s attempts to turn Firtash were “wrapped with complexity and intrigue far beyond the normal federal case.”

Weissmann, now a fellow at New York University’s law school, did not respond to emails seeking comment. During his testimony before Congress in July, Mueller bristled at Republican attempts to question Weissmann’s integrity, saying he was “one of the more talented attorneys we have on board.”

Documents from the Firtash case have become even more useful to Giuliani and Trump as they roll out their response to the impeachment inquiry. At the center of Giuliani’s counterattack so far is the affidavit signed by Shokin, Ukraine’s former prosecutor general, which alleges that Biden caused Shokin’s dismissal in order to stop a corruption probe into Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company. Biden’s son Hunter sat on the board of that company for about five years, reportedly earning $50,000 a month.

“I was forced to leave office, under direct and intense pressure from Joe Biden and the U.S. Administration,” in order to stop that investigation, Shokin said in the affidavit, which was notarized in Kiev on Sept. 4.

These claims have not stood up to scrutiny. Officials in the U.S. and Ukraine, as well as independent experts and investigative journalists, have said Shokin was fired because of his lax approach to fighting corruption. Shokin’s successor as prosecutor general, Yuri Lutsenko, has also said there is no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine.

But Giuliani’s defense of Trump amid the impeachment inquiry has relied heavily on the statement that Firtash’s legal team obtained from Shokin. After reading some of its claims against Biden during an appearance on ABC in late September, Giuliani exclaimed, “That’s under oath!”

Though their interests have aligned in recent months, Firtash and Giuliani come from starkly different backgrounds. The former mayor built his reputation in the 1990s fighting the Italian mafia in New York City. At around the same time, the tycoon was coming up through a business environment in Eastern Europe plagued by organized crime.

By the time the Department of Justice publicly referred to him in 2017 as a senior associate of the Russian mob, Firtash had been under investigation in the U.S. for more than a decade, according to interviews with his investigators.

His alleged ties to the Russian mafia go back to the early 2000s, when his work in the gas trade brought him into contact with Semyon Mogilevich, one of the most notorious leaders in the world of Russian organized crime. As Firtash later told the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, “he needed, and received, permission from Mogilevich when he established various businesses,” according to a U.S. embassy cable published in 2010 by Wikileaks.

In an interview with TIME in 2017, Firtash confirmed that he knows Mogilevich, but denied ever doing business with him. “He was never my partner,” he said. “He’s Ukrainian… Half the country knows him. So what? Knowing him doesn’t mean answering for him.”

By the mid-2000s, Firtash had established himself as a partner to the Kremlin in the European gas trade. With the approval of Russian President Vladimir Putin, his company had won exclusive rights to buy natural gas from Russia and resell it in Ukraine. Firtash owned about half of the company, while Gazprom, the Russian state gas monopoly, owned the other half. The arrangement made Firtash a billionaire.

With additional loans from Russian state banks, Firtash then bought up factories across Ukraine, especially in the chemicals and fertilizer industries, which helped make him an important powerbroker. In the presidential elections of 2010, he backed the Kremlin’s preferred candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, and urged his factory bosses across the country to help get out the vote. “People weren’t voting for him,” Firtash recalled of those elections in his interview with TIME. “They were voting for us. They know that politicians come and go. But we are still there with our businesses.”

Working alongside Firtash in that campaign was the American political operative Paul Manafort, who helped engineer the Yanukovych victory. As the elections approached, Firtash and Manafort also pursued some business deals on the side. They discussed a plan in 2008 to buy the Drake Hotel in Manhattan in partnership with Brad Zackson, the real estate broker for Fred Trump, the President’s father. But the deal fell through, Firtash says, because it was too much of a distraction. “I thought, America is far away,” he says. “It’s not ours. We’re busy over here.”

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort leaves his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on June 27, 2019.

Yana Paskova—Getty Images

During the Yanukovych presidency, Firtash expanded his business empire, buying up control of lucrative gas distribution and storage companies in many parts of Ukraine. But his luck began to run out in February 2014, when violent street protests forced President Yanukovych to flee to Russia.

A month later, Firtash was arrested near his mansion in Vienna on an arrest warrant issued by the FBI. The warrant accused him of organizing a scheme to bribe officials in India for the right to mine titanium. Because some of the metal was to be sold to a Chicago-based company, the District Attorney in that city claimed jurisdiction in the case under a law known as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Firtash has insisted the charges are politically motivated, part of an American effort to keep him out of Ukrainian politics. Since he was released on bail in Vienna in 2014–after paying a bond of $174 million–Firtash hired a formidable team of lawyers to stop his extradition from Vienna to Chicago. Among them is Michael Chertoff, the former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, as well as a former Austrian Justice Minister. Perhaps the most outspoken member of the legal team has been Lanny Davis, the former counsel to President Bill Clinton.

Over the last five years, this team managed to slow the extradition process, but could not stop it. The case appeared to come to a head in early June, when Firtash’s chief attorney in Chicago, Dan Webb, filed a motion warning that his client could be extradited in a matter of weeks.

Firtash’s lawyers, who declined at the time to speak on the record about their legal strategy, told TIME in June that the extradition looked imminent, and they were preparing to defend Firtash before a jury in Chicago. They also said, however, that they were ready to produce evidence that would embarrass officials from the Obama Administration. “This will be very tough against the previous Administration,” one of Firtash’s lawyers said at the end of June. “With the current Administration, I think they will like it.”

At around the same time, Giuliani was busy with his global quest to find dirt on Trump’s opponents. Two of his allies in the effort have been Toensing and DiGenova, his former colleagues from the Justice Department under the Reagan Administration.

Since 2017, Toensing and DiGenova have been among Trump’s most avid defenders on cable news in the fight against the Mueller investigation and other probes. Most recently, DiGenova called the impeachment inquiry “regicide by another name” during a Fox News appearance on Oct. 8, and referred to the intelligence-community whistleblowers as “suicide bombers.”

The pair have also worked closely with Giuliani in recent months. In early May, Toensing was due to join Giuliani on a trip to Kiev, where the two lawyers intended to pressure the new government in Ukraine to investigate the Biden family, according to a May 9, 2019, report in the New York Times. But the reporting about their plans caused such an uproar among Congressional Democrats that the two decided to cancel their trip.

On July 24, Firtash’s lawyers in Vienna informed TIME of a dramatic change in his legal team: Davis, the former counsel to President Clinton, would no longer be working for Firtash. “Lanny is out,” one of the lawyers wrote TIME in a text message on the night of July 24.

President Donald Trump arrives at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 26, 2019.

Gabriella Demczuk for TIME

One of the reasons for his departure, according to two people close to Firtash, was that Davis had been representing Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, since July 2018. That relationship had made Davis an enemy of Trump. Advised by Davis, Cohen had agreed to cooperate with the Mueller investigation, and he gave damning testimony against the President before Congress.

It would have been difficult after that for Davis to get along with Firtash’s new lawyers, Toensing and DiGenova, who joined the legal team in late July, members of that team told TIME. (Davis did not respond to requests for comment.)

Alongside Toensing and DiGenova, another long-time Republican operative began representing Firtash in July: Mark Corallo, the former spokesman for Trump’s private defense team during the Mueller investigation.

Firtash’s representatives then began directing questions from journalists to Corallo. At the end of July, he arranged a phone interview for TIME with Toensing and DiGenova. During the conversation the lawyers seemed less interested in discussing their new client than they did attacking the Mueller investigation.

The Firtash case had given them plenty of talking points. “I’m almost done reading through the files,” Toensing said over the sound of shuffling papers. Among the most interesting things she said she had found was a set of memos written in the summer of 2017 by Webb, Firtash’s lawyer in Chicago.

The memos recounted a series of meetings that Webb had with Weissmann, the prosecutor from the special counsel’s office, Toensing said. During these meetings, Weissmann allegedly offered to drop the charges against Firtash in exchange for evidence that could link Trump’s campaign to the Kremlin, Toensing told TIME, citing the memos.

“They were willing to use anybody to do anything,” DiGenova added. Webb declined to comment.

Firtash’s legal team had been making such claims long before Toensing and DiGenova joined it. As early as December 2016, his lawyers had suggested to reporters in Vienna that the FBI was trying to turn Firtash into a cooperating witness against Trump. Firtash told TIME the following year that he had nothing to say to the FBI about the President’s alleged collusion with Russia.

“My problem is I don’t know Trump,” he said in the interview in Feb. 2017. “I know Manafort, and I’ve told you all I know about him. As for Putin, I’ve got nothing to do with him. So what can I tell them? If I knew something, maybe it would be itching to get out of me. But I don’t know these things.”

Contact us at editors@time.com.
https://time.com/5699201/exclusive-how- ... ack-biden/

Mulvaney emerges as a key facilitator of the campaign to pressure Ukraine
Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney listens in July as President Trump speaks in the Oval Office. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

In late May, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney organized a meeting that stripped control of the country’s relationship with Ukraine from those who had the most expertise at the National Security Council and the State Department.

Instead, Mulvaney put an unlikely trio in charge of managing the U.S.-Ukraine account amid worrisome signs of a new priority, congressional officials said Tuesday: pressuring the fledgling government in Kiev to deliver material that would be politically valuable to President Trump.

The work of those “three amigos,” as they came to call themselves — diplomats Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker, plus Energy Secretary Rick Perry — has come to light in recent days through newly disclosed text messages and the testimony of government witnesses appearing before an impeachment inquiry in Congress.

But Mulvaney’s connections to the administration’s troubled interactions with Ukraine are also beginning to surface. Mulvaney’s role in enlisting Sondland and the others to take over relations with Ukraine was revealed Tuesday in testimony by George Kent, the State Department’s Ukraine expert, according to Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), who participated in the closed-door hearing before the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees.

Mulvaney declined requests for comment. Some of his defenders have said he knew very little about the details of the trio’s efforts in Ukraine and was mainly orchestrating meetings for the president.

“I don’t remember any substantive conversation with Mick. I don’t remember him approving, disapproving, getting involved, having an interest,” said Rudolph W. Giuliani, who, as Trump’s personal lawyer, also served as the president’s emissary to Ukraine. “Mulvaney was not a big player in this. I dealt with Volker and Sondland.”

But current and former officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, said Mulvaney contributed substantially to the unfolding political crisis, both through his connection to key events related to the attempt to pressure Kiev and through his general approach to the chief of staff job, which was driven by a perceived reluctance to displease the president.

U.S. officials said Mulvaney met frequently with Sondland and that details of their discussions were kept from then-National Security Adviser John Bolton and other officials who were raising internal concerns about the hidden Ukraine agenda.

Mulvaney also tolerated meetings between Trump and Giuliani at a time when Giuliani was brazenly declaring in interviews his intent to enlist Kiev in efforts to substantiate conspiracy theories about the 2016 election and revive seemingly dormant probes that could prove damaging to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Perhaps most significantly, Mulvaney — at the direction of the president — placed a hold on nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine in the weeks before Trump used a July 25 phone call to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to pursue Giuliani’s agenda. The impeachment probe was triggered in August by a whistleblower complaint submitted by a CIA employee to the U.S. intelligence community’s inspector general; the complaint focused in part on the July 25 call.

When some in the White House questioned the legality of blocking funds to Ukraine — funds approved by Congress to help fend off Russian attacks on its sovereignty — U.S. officials said Mulvaney told staff that he had determined that the money could be turned on and off with no legal consequence.

During his call with Zelensky, Trump emphasized how much aid Ukraine received from the United States, noting that he didn’t believe America’s largesse had been reciprocated. He then asked for “a favor, though,” pushing Zelensky to revive an investigation of an energy company, Burisma, that had paid Biden’s son Hunter to serve on its board.

Trump also prodded Zelensky to dig into a conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine — not Russia — that had interfered in the 2016 presidential election, and that hacked computer hardware from the Democratic National Committee had been smuggled to Ukraine to hide the evidence.

Sondland, Volker and Giuliani had laid the groundwork for that call over months of meetings with Ukrainian officials, texting one another the need to secure a commitment to produce what Sondland described as Trump’s “deliverable.”

That largely off-the-books effort could not have proceeded, current and former administration officials said, without Mulvaney facilitating meetings, halting the flow of aid and circumventing the national security bureaucracy.

In a measure of the internal tension and suspicion, Fiona Hill, who served as Trump’s top Russia adviser until leaving the administration in August , testified this week that Bolton urged her to alert White House lawyers to troubling developments related to Ukraine. She said Bolton had vowed that he would not be “part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up.”

U.S. officials said the friction between Mulvaney and Bolton led to a series of ruptures, including one on the day of the July 25 phone call. The White House has launched a formal internal review of the call and the circumstances around it, according to a senior administration official. The move was first reported by the New York Times.

Bolton, already troubled by the administration’s interactions with Ukraine, insisted that he alone handle the pre-call briefing with the president. But Sondland, who as U.S. ambassador to the European Union is based in Brussels, demanded that he also participate in the prep session.

Mulvaney backed Sondland, urging that he be allowed on the call, according to a White House official. When Bolton refused, Mulvaney appears to have again found a way to bypass the national security adviser. Bolton proceeded to brief the president solo, but then Sondland was patched through on a separate call.

In a July 26 interview on an English-language Ukranian television program, Sondland said he “actually spoke with President Trump just a few minutes before he placed the call.”

Since he was thrust into the role of chief of staff early this year, officials said, Mulvaney has been more acquiescent to Trump than his predecessor, John Kelly, who sought to impose greater discipline in the White House and restrict access to the president.

Sondland “was talking to Mulvaney all the time,” said a former U.S. official familiar with their interactions. When confronted by Bolton or Hill, the official said, Sondland would rebuff them, saying he felt no obligation to coordinate with them because he had direct lines to Trump and Mulvaney.

“Mulvaney has really abdicated the most important duty of any White House chief of staff, and that’s to tell the president hard truths,” said Chris Whipple, author of “The Gatekeepers,” a book about previous White House chiefs of staff. “He really should have thrown his body in front of that phone call with Zelensky.”

One of Mulvaney’s top aides, Rob Blair, listened to the Trump-Zelensky call and briefed Mulvaney afterward, a White House official said. The official said that Mulvaney began inquiring more urgently about the call only weeks later, after the whistleblower report surfaced.

That complaint alleged that White House officials had taken the unusual step of moving a rough transcript of the Trump-Zelensky call into a highly classified database typically reserved for covert intelligence programs and operations.

Mulvaney asked John Eisenberg, the top lawyer for the National Security Council, about the decision to move the record of the phone call. Eisenberg replied that he had instructed NSC officials to restrict access to the rough transcript but did not specifically direct them to place it on the classified server — implying they had done so of their own volition, the official said.

A former South Carolina congressman who came to Washington as part of the 2010 tea party movement, Mulvaney was installed as acting chief of staff in January. His promotion followed the departure of an array of senior administration officials — including former defense secretary Jim Mattis — who seemed more inclined to challenge Trump’s decisions, especially on foreign policy.

“The fundamental issue . . . is that none of the president’s top advisers agree with his view of foreign policy. None of them,” said a former senior National Security Council official. “None of his principals share his views because they are so idiosyncratic.”

Mulvaney, by contrast, didn’t have strong opinions when it came to international affairs. He was more in sync with Trump, sharing the president’s “America First” view that the U.S. government should be doing far less abroad and that other countries should be doing far more.

Unlike Kelly, who often seemed to chafe at Trump’s impulsive decisions, officials said, Mulvaney’s primary goal often seemed to be pleasing the president.

Aaron C. Davis and Toluse Olorunnipa contributed to this report.

The Post has updated this story to make clear that Sondland says he spoke with President Trump shortly before the president’s July 25 call with Zelensky. A previous version of this story indicated otherwise based on information provided by a person familiar with Sondland’s planned testimony.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

FBI Arrests Fourth Man at JFK Airport in Probe of Rudy Giuliani Associates
Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, says he had no knowledge of illegal donations

By Joe ValiquettePublished 2 hours ago | Updated 56 minutes ago
FBI Arrests Fourth Man at JFK Airport in Probe of Rudy Giuliani Associates
A Florida man wanted in a campaign finance case involving associates of Rudy Giuliani is in federal custody.

Spokespersons for the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan and the FBI confirm that David Correia was arrested after flying Wednesday to JFK Airport in New York City to turn himself in.

Correia, 44, was named in an indictment with two Giuliani associates and another man arrested last week on charges they made illegal contributions to a congressman and a political action committee supporting President Donald Trump. The two associates were arrested last week. Andrey Kukushkin, a Ukrainian-born U.S. citizen, was also charged in the case. Kukushkin was arrested last week in San Francisco.

Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, says he had no knowledge of illegal donations.

Florida Men Tied to Giuliani, Ukraine Probe Arrested

[NATL] Florida Men Tied to Giuliani, Ukraine Probe Arrested
Two associates of President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Guiliani, involved in his efforts in Ukraine, were arrested Wednesday on charges of campaign finance violations. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were arrested at Dulles International Airport Wednesday evening while attempting to leave the country with one-way tickets. NBC's Alice Barr repor...
Read more

(Published Friday, Oct. 11, 2019)
Prosecutors said Correia, who owns a home with his wife in West Palm Beach, was part of efforts by co-defendants Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman to leverage outsized political donations to Republican candidates and committees as part of an effort to advance their business interests.

Both Parnas and Fruman have a history of business dealings with Giuliani. Prosecutors said that, among other things, the pair made campaign contributions with the intent of lobbying U.S. politicians to oust the country's ambassador to Ukraine. At the time, Giuliani was trying to get Ukrainian officials to investigate the son of Trump's potential Democratic challenger, Joe Biden.

Correia is accused of conspired with the other defendants to make political donations to local and federal politicians in New York, Nevada and other states with the aim of trying to get support for a new recreational marijuana business.

All of the defendants were expected to appear Thursday in federal court in Manhattan. A lawyer for Correia is not yet listed in court records.

Correia is listed as the registered agent for a Florida corporation tied to a series of wire transfers prosecutors allege was part of an elaborate effort to hide the true source of funds used to make the donations.

He posed with then-Rep. Pete Sessions in a 2018 photo taken inside the Texas Republican's Capitol Hill office that Parnas posted on social media with the caption "Hard at work !!"

Trump on Giuliani Associates: ‘I Don’t Know Those Gentlemen’

[NATL] Trump on Giuliani Associates: ‘I Don’t Know Those Gentlemen’
President Donald Trump said Thursday he does not know the two businessmen tied to his lawyer who were charged with federal campaign finance violations.

(Published Thursday, Oct. 10, 2019)
Copyright Associated Press / NBC New York
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/D ... 12841.html

Simon Shuster
‏
NEW report details how President Trump’s allies built ties to an indicted Ukrainian oligarch over last 3 months. https://time.com/5699201/exclusive-how- ... ack-biden/ … What struck me most while reporting it was the timing of the relationship. THREAD /1
‏
In late June, the legal team for Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian mogul wanted in Chicago on corruption charges, told me they had documents to share. This material, they said, would be “very tough” to Obama’s people, while Trump’s camp “would like it.” /2

Around same time, Rudy Giuliani and his associate, Victoria Toensing, were reportedly trying to get dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine. These aims seemed to align with the Firtash legal team in Vienna. 3/

Things moved fast from there. In July, Firtash hired Toensing and her husband, Joe DiGenova. Both lawyers are diehard defenders of Trump on TV and close Giuliani associates. The two teams were linked at that point. 4/

Firtash’s representatives, reliable contacts of mine for years, then began to channel my requests to someone new: Mark Corallo, a Republican PR man, who had recently been spokesman for Trump’s legal team. He was now speaking for Firtash legal team. /5

The first time I got wind of these changes in Firtash legal team was on July 24, the night before Trump had the now-infamous call with Ukraine’s President. The efforts to get dirt on Biden seemed to be intensifying on multiple fronts. /6

Corallo set up an interview for me with Toensing and DiGenova on July 31. I’d never heard of them. Quick search showed Trump had considered them for his legal team last year. Now these two were representing Firtash. /7

More surprising, Toensing and DiGenova then hired another Giuliani associate, the now-indicted Florida businessman Lev Parnas, to be their interpreter in talks with Firtash. /8

For details of what these people got from the Firtash legal team, and how Giuliani used it, read our full report @TIME https://time.com/5699201/exclusive-how- ... ack-biden/ … It leaves plenty of questions unanswered. /9

For one, how did the Firtash legal team get the documents that are now central to Giuliani’s defense of Trump? More important, what does Firtash stand to gain from all this? His legal team has declined to answer. /10 END

https://twitter.com/shustry/status/1184505456200486913

Zev Shalev

Tonight! A very special @NarativLive weeks in the making. I team up with @portlusglam, one of #Twitter's best citizen journalists on #RudyGiuliani and #Ukraine. What we found will blow your mind. With thanks to @LincolnsBible. Pt 1 "There's Something About Rudy." Tonight.

I believe Zev will tele-cast live via his account, so you should be able to watch it on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/ZevShalev/status/11 ... 1353097216

PortlusGlam

I’ll be on @zevshalev’s podcast tonight talking all things Rudy & Ukraine! Part 1 of a series to cut thru the fog of MSM reporting & give a clear view of Giuliani & the national security threat he poses.

Super grateful to get this info out to more folks - pls join us!
https://twitter.com/LincolnsBible?ref_s ... r%5Eauthor

Scott Stedman
‏
BREAKING: FBI *counterintelligence* agents have been probing Giuliani’s dealings for months

11:05 AM - 16 Oct 2019


This fits with my reporting from 2 days ago that federal investigators were tracking *the money* behind Parnas and tracked it back to Kremlin sources.

Two federal sources have told me that Parnas is paid by Russian businessmen close to the Kremlin and state-owned Russian institutions. The sources were tracking the money long before Giuliani popped up. “We know who pays Parnas and it isn’t pretty”
Show this thread

The Russian businessmen funding Parnas were identified as possible 2020 election interference agents.

Is the fact it’s “counterintelligence” agents significant?

Hugely significant
https://twitter.com/ScottMStedman/statu ... 3052740608

Federal investigation of Rudy Giuliani includes counterintelligence probe
Giuliani, Trump WH defy congressional subpoenas in impeachment inquiry
(CNN) — For months, investigators looking into Rudy Giuliani's business dealings in Ukraine have dug into everything from possible financial entanglements with alleged corrupt Ukrainian figures to counterintelligence concerns raised by some of those business ties, according to people briefed on the matter.

The counterintelligence part of the investigation indicates that FBI and criminal prosecutors in Manhattan are looking at a broader set of issues related to Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal attorney, than has been previously reported.

Kenneth McCallion, a New York attorney, says that investigators first approached him earlier this year to ask about Giuliani's ties to Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Giuliani associates indicted last week on campaign-finance related charges.

McCallion says FBI counterintelligence agents in February or March asked questions about some of Giuliani's Ukrainian business dealings.

The counterintelligence probe hinges in part on whether a foreign influence operation was trying to take advantage of Giuliani's business ties in Ukraine and with wealthy foreigners to make inroads with the White House, according to one person briefed on the matter.

"I was just asked whether I or any of my clients knew of any dealings that these two guys had with Giuliani," McCallion said. "They were on the radar with regard to possible counterintelligence issues."

The indictment announced last week centers on ties between the Giuliani associates and foreigners, including a Russian national with whom they did business. The indictment doesn't mention Giuliani.
Giuliani has said he is unaware of any criminal investigation into his business dealings.

McCallion, who first spoke to USA Today, has represented Ukrainian clients, including the former Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
The investigation


Some of the FBI agents and prosecutors handling the case come from the same public corruption unit that targeted Michael Cohen, the President's former personal lawyer, and it's clear the investigation could result in more charges.

Grand jury subpoenas former GOP Rep. Pete Sessions related to Giuliani and associates' Ukraine dealings, sources say
The investigators in the Southern District of New York appear to have largely operated separately from what Trump's appointees at the Justice Department headquarters in Washington, DC, have pursued in recent months, and the investigation dates back far longer than what's been previously reported.

Justice Department officials last month said criminal division prosecutors in Washington had examined Trump's July call with the Ukrainian president only for the narrow issue of potential campaign finance violations and determined there was no crime. But the issue was far from closed.

At the same time, federal prosecutors in New York were aggressively pursuing broader issues related to the Ukraine matters.

The first indication of the broader investigation emerged last week when Manhattan-based investigators pursuing the charges brought last week against four Giuliani associates, including Parnas and Fruman, who were indicted on campaign finance-related offenses.

Nicolas Roos, the top prosecutor from Manhattan who worked on Cohen's prosecution for tax evasion and campaign finance violations, took the lead in Virginia federal court last week when Parnas and Fruman made their initial court appearance.

When the Giuliani associates were first charged, the Justice Department's public integrity team based in Washington were consulted about the charges but were not involved further in the case, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Prosecutors are expected to bring additional charges against at least some of the men, people briefed on the matter say. A grand jury has already issued at least one subpoena, to former Texas Republican Rep. Pete Sessions, another indication that further charges could be in the works. Rules that govern grand juries say that prosecutors can't continue to subpoena witnesses to the secret proceedings unless they are pursuing additional targets or charges.
Sessions wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to raise concerns about the then-US ambassador to Ukraine, who was later removed by Trump following complaints by Giuliani and others.

Fourth man allegedly involved in Ukrainian campaign finance scheme in custody
The politically charged investigation is broadly examining the financial sources for the work that brought Giuliani to Ukraine, where he worked with Parnas and Fruman and where he previously lobbied the Ukraine government on behalf of a small town in the eastern part of the country. Parnas and Fruman were involved this year in helping find information that Giuliani sought to show alleged corruption by former Vice President Joe Biden and his family. No allegations against the Bidens have been corroborated.

Giuliani was not discussed in the allegations that Parnas and Fruman faced. Instead, the pair and two others, David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin are alleged to have funneled a Russian businessman's money into US campaigns and of a conspiracy to skirt campaign finance requirements as they pushed Ukrainian political interests in the US. They have not yet entered a plea, are being held in jail until they can each post $1 million bond, and are set to appear in court on Thursday afternoon.

CNN's Kara Scannell and Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/16/politics ... index.html

FLIPPED
Ambassador Sondland Throws Trump Under the Bus

The U.S. ambassador to the EU will tell Congress that he was effectively forced to work with Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine by the President.
Jamie Ross
Betsy Swan
Spencer Ackerman
Updated 10.17.19 11:51AM ET / Published 10.17.19 10:08AM ET

REUTERS
Gordon Sondland, the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, will tell Congress that President Trump told him to help his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani with his plan on Ukraine.

In his opening statement, which was obtained by The Daily Beast, Sondland wrote that any plot to encourage a foreign government to influence an American election would have been “wrong.”

“I did not understand, until much later, that Mr. Giuliani’s agenda might have also included an effort to prompt the Ukrainians to investigate Vice President Biden or his son or to involve Ukrainians, directly or indirectly, in the President’s 2020 reelection campaign,” he will say, according to the written version of his opening statement.

Sondland's role in the pressure campaign on the Ukrainian president was first revealed by The Daily Beast. He and Giuliani encouraged President Zelensky to publicly announce an investigation into the Bidens. It has been alleged that there was a quid pro quo whereby Zelensky would be rewarded by the White House with a meeting between the presidents in return for launching an investigation into one of Trump's potential 2020 rivals.

“Please know that I would not have recommended that Mr. Giuliani or any private citizen be involved in these foreign policy matters. However, given the President’s explicit direction, as well as the importance we attached to arranging a White House meeting between Presidents Trump and Zelensky, we agreed to do as President Trump directed,” Sondland wrote.

“Based on the President’s direction, we were faced with a choice: We could abandon the goal of a White House meeting for President Zelensky, which we all believed was crucial to strengthening U.S.-Ukrainian ties and furthering long-held U.S. foreign policy goals in the region; or we could do as President Trump directed and talk to Mr. Giuliani to address the President’s concerns.”


The testimony describes how Trump's obsession with investigating his political rival put on hold Sondland's efforts to strengthen U.S. ties with Ukraine. Sondland will say he was “disappointed” that Trump wouldn't commit to a meeting with Zelensky until he spoke to Giuliani.

“It was apparent to all of us that the key to changing the President’s mind on Ukraine was Mr. Giuliani,” the statement reads. “It is my understanding that Energy Secretary Perry and Special Envoy Volker took the lead on reaching out to Mr. Giuliani, as the President had directed.”

According to the testimony, when he spoke to Giuliani it was made clear that Trump wanted a public statement from Zelensky “committing Ukraine to look into anticorruption issues.” Sondland will say: “Mr. Giuliani specifically mentioned the 2016 election (including the DNC server) and Burisma as two anticorruption investigatory topics of importance for the President.”

Burisma was the the energy firm where, for five years, Hunter Biden served on the board. Trump has, with no evidence, repeatedly accused former Vice President Joe Biden of acting improperly to protect his son by urging the removal of Ukraine’s former general prosecutor, who was looking into money laundering allegations at the company at the time.

Aspects of Sondland’s opening statement raise questions about his candor. The former hotelier portrays Giuliani as the lever to moving Trump on Ukraine policy, something he describes in his statement as a priority of his ambassadorship. Yet he also claims not to “recall having met with Mr. Giuliani in person” and only communicating with him “a handful of times.”

Although Sondland describes an investigation of Burisma as important to Trump, as conveyed by Giuliani, Sondland claims not to have known about Hunter Biden’s place on the company’s board.

Similarly, Sondland presents his now-famous instruction, revealed in text messages provided by former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, to cease texting about a pressure campaign and to instead talk on the phone, as nothing more than a communications preference, rather than a belated reluctance to create a document of their conversation. “I simply prefer to talk rather than to text,” he says in his statement.

Sondland will testify that he was not on the Zelensky call and didn't see the transcript until September, when a truncated transcript was publicly released by the White House. Sondland will say that none of the summaries of the call he received before then mentioned Burisma or Biden, or suggested that Trump had made “any kind of request of President Zelensky.”

Sondland will say: “Let me state clearly: Inviting a foreign government to undertake investigations for the purpose of influencing an upcoming U.S. election would be wrong. Withholding foreign aid in order to pressure a foreign government to take such steps would be wrong.”

He'll add: “I did not and would not ever participate in such undertakings.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/sondland- ... er-the-bus

The Debunked Biden Allegations Are Incredibly Useful To Dmitry Firtash

Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash is pictured prior to a public hearing at the higher regional court in Vienna on February 21, 2017. - The Austrian appeals court authorised the extradition to the United States of Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash on bribery charges, overturning an earlier ruling. Firtash, 51, one of Ukraine's richest men and previously an ally of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych, was arrested in Austria in March 2014. (Photo by Georges SCHNEIDER / various sources / AFP) / Austria OUT (Photo credit should read GEORGES SCHNEIDER/AFP/Getty Images)
By Josh Kovensky

October 18, 2019 4:48 pm

It was one month after Ukraine’s bloody February 2014 revolution.

Federal prosecutors in Chicago unsealed a bizarre but pointed indictment against Dmitry Firtash, accusing the oligarch gas middleman of bribing Indian officials in a scheme to corner the market on material for the Boeing 787 supply chain.

At the same time, Hunter Biden had accepted an offer to take a seat on the board of a troubled Ukrainian gas firm called Burisma — raking in a hefty salary that, critics allege, was in exchange for his family name.

It wouldn’t have appeared so at the time, but these two disparate events — both sparked by Ukraine’s revolution — have come together in a way that may impact next year’s elections.

Firtash has been fighting a U.S. extradition request for five years, calling it politically motivated, and has begun to boost allegations against the Bidens as part of that campaign, hitching himself to the Trump train. He’s spent years wrapped up in his legal battles while stuck in the Austrian capital of Vienna, where he was located at the time the indictment dropped.

Bloomberg reported on Friday that Firtash had paid around $1 million for a dirt-digging project on the Bidens. American lawyers he hired with ties to Trumpworld reportedly hoped to transfer the information to Giuliani in exchange for the Justice Department dropping the case.

Firtash’s activities would appear to add another element to Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine: an indicted oligarch bankrolled at least part of the efforts to manufacture dirt on the Bidens, as Trump himself urged Ukraine’s president to investigate the same allegations.

Firtash — an oligarch who made his money as a middleman in the country’s gas trade with Russia — has long argued that the case was brought against him for political reasons, specifically saying that U.S. officials sought to wall him and his political influence off from Ukraine. Being extradited and tried in the U.S. could spell the end for his ability to maintain control over his business empire.

Thanks to his admitted association with Russian mafia grandaddy Semyon Mogilevich and to his lucrative position in the country’s gas trade with Russia, U.S. officials have long seen Firtash as a Russian cutout. (Firtash’s representatives denied the association with Mogilevich after it surfaced in U.S. diplomatic cables made public by Wikileaks.) Locking him down in Vienna, Firtash’s argument goes, limited his influence in Ukraine at a time when Kyiv was increasingly looking toward the West.

But Firtash’s fight to shut down extradition has not been straightforward.

The U.S. has won a number of court cases to secure his removal. Firtash’s main victory in the multi-year fight came when one Austrian judge in 2015 briefly agreed with Firtash’s argument, saying that the case was “politically motivated and therefore extradition is inadmissible.”

But over the past year, the oligarch appears to have run out of options, with successive court decisions bringing him closer to extradition.

Enter Trumpworld
That appears to be where the Joe and Hunter Biden story becomes wrapped up with Fitash’s.

Earlier this year, a pro-Trump pair of TV lawyers named Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing began to conduct “opposition research” on the younger Biden’s activities in Ukraine.

In July, they also began working for Firtash’s legal team, according to Bloomberg.

The two were also initially reported to have been working with Giuliani’s effort to get Ukraine to manufacture opposition research on the Bidens. They were reportedly aided in that by two recently indicted associates of Giuliani’s: Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas.

But according to a report in TIME and one Vienna-based research consultant who spoke to TPM, their work with Giuliani also came in support of Firtash’s legal defense.

The pair received a bevy of documents from Firtash’s legal team, which they then passed on to Giuliani. The Trump attorney then presented the information on Fox News, providing it with an entry route into the conservative news ecosystem.

One crucial document is an affidavit signed by Ukraine’s former general prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, in which he repeats a debunked allegation that Joe Biden pressured Kyiv to remove Shokin from office. This, the now-familiar story goes, would prevent an investigation into Hunter Biden.

Shokin also says in the sworn statement that Biden used similarly illicit channels of pressure to prevent Firtash from returning to Ukraine. This statement provided a new way for the oligarch’s legal team to argue that he is a victim of undue U.S. political influence.

Specifically, Shokin alleged that Biden intervened in Firtash’s case in 2015 — after the Austrian court decision in Firtash’s his favor — to pressure Shokin to prevent Firtash from returning to Ukraine.

Once again, the facts don’t add up: Firtash had not even gotten his passport back from the Austrian government. The government successfully appealed that 2015 court decision, and Firtash remained in Vienna, unable to obtain an exit visa and awaiting extradition to Chicago.

There appear to be other ties between Giuliani’s campaign and Firtash as well. DiGenova and Toensing reportedly hired Parnas “as an interpreter in order to communicate with their client Mr. Firtash, who does not speak English.”

That work fell under the $1 million that Firtash paid for the dirt-digging effort, according to Bloomberg.

And Parnas, along with his fellow indictee Fruman, presented themselves to Ukrainian officials as acting on Firtash’s behalf, Dale Perry, an American businessman with interests in Ukraine who was told about their plans, told TPM.

Perry said that he heard from a Ukrainian official approached by the pair that they had said they wanted a new CEO installed at Ukraine’s state-owned oil and gas company in part because they “wanted to see that Firtash got paid,” a reference to a $200 million debt that the company allegedly owed the oligarch.

It’s unclear whether Parnas and Fruman were really acting as agents of the oligarch, or if this was an example of puffery to serve their own interests.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker ... ry-firtash

To Win Giuliani’s Help, Oligarch’s Allies Pursued Biden Dirt
By Stephanie Baker and Irina Reznik
Updated on
Associates of Ukraine’s Firtash procured witness statement
U.S. law forbids foreign assistance in political campaigns


Associates of a Ukrainian oligarch fighting extradition to the U.S. were working to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden last summer in an effort to get Rudy Giuliani’s help in the oligarch’s legal case, according to three people familiar with the exchanges.
Dmitry Firtash, charged with conspiracy by the U.S. and living in Vienna, shuffled lawyers in July to add Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, vocal supporters of President Donald Trump who had worked with Giuliani. Around that time, some of Firtash’s associates began to use his broad network of Ukraine contacts to get damaging information on Biden, the people said.
Ukrainian Billionaire Dmitry Firtash Interview As He Seeks To End Exile
Dmitry Firtash speaks in Vienna in 2016.Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
DiGenova and Toensing have billed Firtash about $1 million for their work, one of the people said. That includes costs for Lev Parnas, a Giuliani associate, as a translator and important contact, the person said. Parnas was arrested last week along with several associates and accused of conspiring to violate campaign-finance laws.
People working on Firtash’s behalf collected a witness statement from Viktor Shokin, a former Ukrainian prosecutor-general. The statement, dated early September, helped Giuliani renew an assertion that he’d been advancing for months -- that Biden had tried in 2016 to sway Ukrainian politics to help his son. U.S. and Ukrainian officials have disputed Shokin’s account.
Shokin, though, had been promised his statement wouldn’t be made public, according to the people. Giuliani went on to cite it repeatedly, waving it around on cable news as evidence of Biden’s alleged corruption. The Hill and other media outlets provided links to it, with Giuliani later suggesting he had a role in making it public. “This is the affidavit I put out,” he said during a Fox News interview this month.
As a result of the publicity Giuliani generated with Shokin’s statement, two of the people said they believe the odds of the Justice Department dropping the case against Firtash have plummeted, because it would look like a quid pro quo. Others connected to the case agreed.
U.S. lawmakers conducting a presidential impeachment inquiry are bearing down on whether favors were traded for influence. They are examining Giuliani’s efforts to turn up evidence in Ukraine and allegations that the Trump administration withheld crucial aid until the country’s president agreed to investigate the Bidens.
Political Aid

If indeed Firtash’s camp aided the Trump political machine, that could be a problem. American politicians cannot accept foreign campaign contributions, and as Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has laid out, even non-monetary assistance can have a value.
In a statement from his spokesman, Firtash denied having contact with Giuliani.
Rudy Giuliani GETTY Sub
Rudy GiulianiPhotographer: Alex Wong/Getty Images
Giuliani, in a text message, wrote: “I have nothing to do with Firtash case. Never met him and don’t know him.”
Asked about whether Shokin’s statement may have harmed Firtash’s chances of getting the case dropped, Giuliani responded, “It would seem to me it should have nothing to do with it. It’s either a good case or not.”
Toensing and diGenova, a husband-and-wife law team, declined to comment through a spokesman. The Justice Department also declined to comment.
Giuliani was an attractive ally for Firtash. Once renowned for his work as a U.S. prosecutor and a New York mayor, he was a close adviser to Trump and became his personal lawyer in April 2018. He also brought extensive contacts in Republican-leaning legal circles.
A Ukrainian industrialist with natural gas interests, Firtash was looking to get out from under five years of legal headaches in the U.S. Federal prosecutors have accused him of corruption and racketeering conspiracy. He’s accused of participating in a scheme to bribe Indian officials to secure titanium that would be sold to Boeing Co.
Arrested in Vienna on the U.S. charges in March 2014, he posted $174 million in bail and pledged to remain in Austria during extradition proceedings. The Justice Department has described Firtash as an associate of “Russian organized crime.” He has denied all the charges.
His aides have argued the case is politically motivated, designed to keep him from influencing Ukraine after the country’s pro-Russian president was ousted in 2014. After joining the Firtash team, DiGenova and Toensing sought information related to Biden to bolster the idea that the case was political, the people familiar with the matter said.
In five years of court battles, Firtash’s legal team has successfully beaten back U.S. efforts to bring him to trial in Chicago. The tide appeared to turn over the summer when the Justice Department won a ruling in Austria securing his extradition. But his legal team there filed new evidence asserting that two key witnesses had recanted. His extradition is on hold.
Lawyer Lineup

On a separate track, his U.S. legal team continues to challenge the case’s legitimacy. By last summer, Firtash decided he needed reinforcements. In July, he parted ways with Lanny Davis, a longtime ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton, both Democrats. Within Firtash’s circle, those ties weren’t considered helpful in dealing with Trump’s Justice Department, according to the people.
Tapping pro-Trump lawyers like diGenova and Toensing looked like a useful way to help get his case thrown out, the people said. The legal duo had considered representing Trump during the Mueller probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. DiGenova has appeared on Fox News attacking Mueller’s investigation.
In late September, Fox News reported that the pair was working “off the books” with Giuliani to dig up dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine. That mission was shared by Parnas and Igor Fruman, associates of Giuliani who helped set up meetings with Ukrainian officials. Along with Parnas, Fruman was arrested last week and charged with campaign finance violations. Both men had one-way tickets to Vienna. Giuliani also had a trip scheduled to Vienna.
Efforts have already been made to shield some of the work by Parnas and Fruman. The pair assisted DiGenova and Toensing in their law practice, according to John Dowd, a former Trump lawyer now representing them. In a letter to lawmakers, Dowd also wrote that Parnas and Fruman assisted Giuliani in his legal work for Trump, arguing that the two should be protected under attorney-client privilege rules.
Toensing has said her firm hired Parnas as a paid translator, though people familiar with Firtash’s business say he has plenty of translators and key aides who speak fluent English.
A spokesman for Firtash said he had no contractual or other commercial relationship with Parnas or Fruman.
There was one additional connection that DiGenova and Toensing had that people in the Firtash camp considered potentially useful, according to one of the people. Their son Brady Toensing, the former head of the Vermont Republican Party, had joined the Justice Department as senior counsel in its Office of Legal Policy in June. In that position, Brady Toensing has no connection to the Firtash case.
Witness Statement

The witness statement from Shokin remains a curiosity. The ex-prosecutor said in his affidavit that he had no evidence of crimes committed by Firtash, a statement intended to help in Firtash’s Austrian legal proceedings. It also included Shokin’s unsupported allegation that Biden attempted to interfere with an investigation of Burisma Holdings, a private natural gas company that had the vice president’s son Hunter on the board.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials have said there was no active probe into Burisma at the time.
Biden had threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees unless Shokin was fired because of his failure to tackle corruption. Biden’s action was proposed by State Department officials and supported by the European Union.
— With assistance by Greg Farrell, David Voreacos, and Boris Groendahl
http://archive.is/ZKRgH#selection-3929.0-4415.70

Turkish Trolls Working For Erdogan Hijacked American Right-Wing Media — And Rudy Giuliani’s Brain

Here's how Turkish trolls infiltrated American conservative media, spread propaganda, and got Giuliani to fall for it.

Ryan Broderick
Last updated on October 18, 2019, at 2:48 p.m. ET


Chris Mcgrath / Getty Images
A doll representing the image of Fethullah Gülen is seen hanging from a light post on the first anniversary of the failed 2016 coup attempt in Istanbul.
Rudy Giuliani, the lawyer and former Republican mayor of New York who has been amplifying misinformation to Republican President Donald Trump, has more than just one favorite online conspiracy. His obsession with the utterly unfounded theory that Democrats colluded with Ukrainian nationals to delegitimize Trump's 2016 presidential win is only Giuliani's latest flight of fancy. It is predated by another that is equally ridiculous: that a 78-year-old Muslim cleric named Fethullah Gülen used a global network of followers to conspire with Hillary Clinton to influence the 2016 presidential campaign.

At one point in 2017, according to the Washington Post, senior administration officials asked Giuliani specifically not to bring up Turkish issues — like Gülen’s status in the US — when he met with Trump. Giuliani’s Turkish “hobby horse,” as one former official described it, is far from a random international political figure, though. Gülen is an important node in a tangled web of far-right paranoia. Giuliani told BuzzFeed News that he has never pushed for Gülen's extradition, even though the Washington Post reported otherwise. Nevertheless, understanding why Giuliani was so obsessed with him means understanding how state-sponsored Turkish trolls were able to hijack American right-wing media in 2016 — and may do so again this time around.

As we saw with the way doubts about a cybersecurity firm hired by Democrats in 2016 evolved into an unfounded global criminal conspiracy, these ideas can take form in strange ways, but typically follow a pattern. They start in an anonymous community, which may have been infiltrated by state actors, where the narrative develops in fits and starts. It’s then aggregated by viral news publishers, who transmit a refined version of the narrative back to the community (as well as amplifying it to a bigger audience), who mutates it further.

Here’s how, between 2016 and 2017, this all fell into place around an obscure Turkish cleric.


Bulent Kilic / AFP / Getty Images
A Turkish protester holds up a placard with pictures of Turkey's then–prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, reading, "We will cast them down," during a demonstration against corruption in the Kadikoy district of Istanbul on Dec. 25, 2013.
Gülen, born in 1941, is a moderate imam and longtime anti-communist. He’s the founder of the Gülen movement (or “hizmet,” which means “service” in Turkish), a volunteer network focused on a religiously tolerant form of Sunni Islam that follows the work of Said Nursi, a theologian and political opponent of the founder of the modern Turkish state Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Gülen’s followers have founded schools around the world, which are largely private and Muslim-run. Many of Gülen’s followers took jobs in the Turkish state’s security or civil services, despite their leader having lived in exile in Pennsylvania since 1999. Gülen and his followers were previously aligned with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had been elected to prime minister in 2003 promising a “clean hands" government dedicated to rooting out corruption. A 2013 corruption scandal, however, led to the split between Erdogan and Gülen, after Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party was embroiled in the investigation. Cabinet ministers resigned, Erdogan claimed the investigation was a coup attempt, ordered the removal of hundreds of police officers — many of which were Gülenites — and accused Gülen of orchestrating the whole plot to undermine the country.

Three years later, Erdogan’s government accused Gülen of working with the American intelligence community to foment the 2016 coup attempt. For those who want to look for reasons to think Gülen and the CIA have worked together in the past, examples abound. According to a memoir by a top former Turkish intelligence official, Gülen's schools in Central Asia provided cover for the CIA. When Gülen needed a green card in 1999, a former CIA official and the former American ambassador to Turkey helped him get one. And after the failed 2016 coup, Turkey issued an arrest warrant for that former CIA official who sponsored Gülen's green card on charges of attempting to overthrow the Turkish government.

Because of Gülen’s international influence, he has been a lesser-known right-wing bogeyman in the United States for years, but he — and his extremely tenuous connections to Bill and Hillary Clinton — didn’t really catch the eye of right-wing media until the lead-up to the 2016 election.

The most likely reason he was on Giuliani’s radar in 2017 was WikiLeaks.


4chan
Between June and July 2016, Russian hackers began releasing DNC email leaks under the name DNCLeaks, which were then collected and packaged by WikiLeaks. The emails quickly spread across websites like Reddit and 4chan. Gülen’s name first appeared in a July 7, 2016, 4chan thread titled “Clinton Foundation General — Money Talks Edition,” according to 4plebs, an incomplete archive of 4chan posts.

“Y'all niggas heard of Fethullah Gulen? The leader of a muslim movement in Turkey. He's living in a CIA-funded compound in Turkey, funds terrorist attacks in Turkey, has been extradited by Erdogan, oh and he's got a whole bunch of charter schools in the US — THAT THE FBI HAVE RAIDED,” a user writes in the thread. “I'll get to the Clinton part.”

The user then links to a 2012 article in City Journal, a publication of the right-wing Manhattan Institute think tank, which details how members of the Gülen movement run one of America’s largest charter school networks, and how the cleric had been praised by former Democratic president Bill Clinton.

“You are contributing to the promotion and the ideals of tolerance and interfaith dialogue, inspired by Fethullah Gülen and his transnational social movement,” the former president said at the Turkish Cultural Center’s Third Annual Friendship Dinner in 2008. “You are truly strengthening the fabric of our common humanity."

The user also links to a story on Glenn Beck’s right-wing news site the Blaze titled “How a Turkish Cleric’s Network Has Penetrated the Clinton Campaign and American Education,” which accused the Gülen movement of being “a combination of cult, cabal and corporation" that “appears to be busy buying, using and abusing political power.”

“Saved all of this holy fuck,” another user replies.

It’s likely that users would have forgotten about Gülen, except that on July 15, 2016 — a week after the cleric first seems to have appeared on 4chan — a faction within the Turkish armed forces attempted a coup. Erdogan defeated the uprising and blamed Gülen and his followers, demanding the US extradite the cleric. According to a European Council on Foreign Relations report, there was enough evidence to link Gülenites to the coup attempt, but little evidence pointing to Gülen himself. The US declined to turn over Gülen, who continues to live in a compound in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains.

News of the coup ignited 4chan: “Something just doesn't make sense here. If the military were supposed to be the good guy secularists, trying to take out Erdogan for making the country more Islamic and oppressing the people,” one user writes. “Why would the people fight against the military and why did the military kill civilians?”

Gülen is mentioned all over the thread. Users with Turkish IP addresses flooded the comments, directing people to an Erdogan “redpill" thread, which portrays Gülen as a Muslim fundamentalist scheming to overthrow the secular Erdogan government.

“Erdogan is Islam Lite. He sincerely gets votes in fair elections,” one user posting from a Turkish IP address writes in the thread. “Gulen is Islam Heavy. He is a fucking imam.”


4chan
At the time, it was extremely likely that AK-Trolls, a group of internet commenters directly funded by the Turkish state and working for the youth wing of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, were brigading 4chan, using anonymous communities to plant a false narrative that would later blossom at conservative news outlets like Breitbart. Following the 2016 coup, Gülen and his movement were one of their main targets. According to research on the Justice and Development Party’s troll program, their main focus is creating a personality cult of Erdogan as the “tall man under constant attack" by spreading the idea of a “New Turkey” that is under attack by supporters of “Old Turkey.”

So, in July 2016, as 4chan was swarming with AK-Trolls, WikiLeaks decided to collect DNCLeaks into two big drops, the first of which came on July 22, 2016, providing a traffic bonanza for conservative publishers popular on Facebook. Suddenly, all the rambling discourse online about Clinton and the Democrats was legitimized by the fact that a supposedly on-the-level organization like WikiLeaks had picked up the documents. Gülen’s name appears in an email from April 2016, included in the DNC email dump, which references “direct media outreach related to" Gülen. WikiLeaks tweeted four times about Gülen in July 2016, using the hashtag #TurkeyCoup and accusing Hillary Clinton and the CIA of organizing the coup.

All of this inspired conservative American media to zero in on the tightly anti-Gülen narrative, which was then bolstered in AK-troll-ridden spaces like 4chan and Twitter. The Daily Caller was particularly aggressive about reporting it, as was Breitbart, which went so far as to call his movement a cult.

Daily Caller reporter Chuck Ross started looking into the Gülen movement’s donations to the Clinton campaign a year before the coup attempt. He told BuzzFeed News it seemed like an interesting story.

“There were a lot of political donations from Gülenites,” Ross said. “It was kind of clear that all these donations and political activity there was something going on.”


Twitter
He said he didn't notice any troll activity or Twitter activity after his initial pieces, but it did pick up considerably afterwards. In July 2016, WikiLeaks dropped 294,548 emails it said were leaked from the AKP. Ross and his articles were named in some of the emails.

“In those emails a lot of these people close to Erdogan are linking to my articles about Gulen,” he said. “One of the guys made it sound like they were involved with the story.”

Erdogan’s advisors trying to pass off Ross’ genuine reporting on Gülen as propaganda — which it very much wasn't — set off a free-for-all on social media. He was praised by legions of AK-trolls on Twitter and viciously attacked by Gülenites who thought he was a pro-Erdogan plant.

"I was on both sides in a sense of that story,” he said.

Their point of view is roughly this: There’s a religious network running a huge predominantly Muslim charter school network across America, which drew the praise of Bill Clinton. An Istanbul college professor and Gülenite, Adil Öksüz, who was accused by the Turkish government of helping coordinate the 2016 failed coup attempt, donated $5,000 to the Ready for Hillary PAC in 2014. Another Gülenite, founder of the Turkish Cultural Center, Gökhan Özkök, served as national finance cochair of the pro-Clinton Ready PAC. A Gülen-aligned group called the Alliance for Shared Values hired the Podesta Group to lobby Congress on its behalf. It’s all supposed to add up to Gülen and his movement infiltrating the Democratic Party. All of that must mean something is going on.

Russian media was also obsessed with Gülen. Russian state broadcaster RT produced a five-part documentary series on the cleric and his movement, and wrote stories in 2016 linking both the Turkish coup and Gülen to the FBI, the CIA, and NATO. At the time of the failed coup, another Russian state news agency, Sputnik News, published a story calling Gülen the “White House's trump card against Turkey.”

By October 2016, taking the bait, Redditors were blaming both Hillary Clinton and Hungarian American investor and philanthropist George Soros for the Arab Spring and the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey. By November 2016, AK-Trolls had succeeded in rebranding Gülen as “Turkish Stalin" on 4chan.

On Election Day, Nov. 8, 2016, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who at the time was working for Trump’s presidential campaign, wrote an opinion piece for the Hill, accusing Gülen of running “a vast global network" that had “all the right markings to fit the description of a dangerous sleeper terror network." At the time, Flynn did not disclose that he was receiving funds from a private company to lobby for the interests of the Turkish government, according to lobbying forms Flynn filed retroactively. But Flynn went much further than just writing about Gülen. According to former CIA director James Woolsey, during the previous summer, Flynn had met with Turkish officials in a New York hotel and discussed abducting the cleric and spiriting him back to Turkey.

Flynn resigned from the Trump administration in February 2017, after it was discovered he had misled the FBI about his communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. A month after Flynn’s resignation, on March 11, 2017, then–attorney general Jeff Sessions fired Preet Bharara, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York. Bharara had just enough of a connection to Gülen to be exciting to Trump trolls.

A year before Bharara’s firing, in March 2016, an indictment was unsealed in the Southern District of New York against Iranian Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab. Bharara, the prosecutor for the case, became a hero to average Turks tired of corruption. Zarrab had been exonerated by Turkish officials in 2013 on charges of aiding in a scheme to use gold to buy Iranian oil and gas during the corruption scandal that created the schism between Erdogan and Gülen.


Nurphoto / Getty Images
Rudy Giuliani at a press briefing held prior to a rally of the Iranian community in Warsaw, Poland, on Feb. 13.
During the spring of 2017, Flynn’s resignation, Bharara’s firing, and lingering rumors about the Gülen movement drove right-wing media attention around Turkey. “Would like some anons to dig into Gülen and find out who he is with and why we allow him to operate here,” a user on 4chan wrote following Flynn’s resignation.

But 4chan users didn’t have to dig deeply into Gülen — because Giuliani appears to have done the shoveling for them. The country became a pet project for the former mayor. Giuliani, who legally represented Zarrab, was quoted by Fox News as looking for a "diplomatic solution" to resolving the charges against his client. Giuliani would then attempt to stop Bharara’s prosecution of Zarrab in the fall of 2017, by pressing former secretary of state Rex Tillerson. Tillerson refused.

First, Giuliani began publicly pushing pro-Erdogan policies on Fox News. As the year progressed, Giuliani began having private conversations with White House officials about Gülen. One White House official said that Giuliani was pushing the extradition of Gülen so aggressively, President Trump began to actually consider doing it.

Giuliani’s obsession with Gülen was apparently a genuine source of confusion for those around him. He reportedly began referring to the cleric as a “dangerous extremist,” language ripped straight from far-right message boards and hyperpartisan media.

Giuliani, as always, has denied any wrongdoing. In a conversation with BuzzFeed News, Giuliani called the claim that he advocated for Gülen's extradition ridiculous. He said in 2017 he was representing Zarrab, and attempting to negotiate a prisoner exchange with Turkey to free Andrew Brunson, an American pastor who was arrested during the 2016 coup.

“If I had been advocating for the extradition of Gülen, it would have taken the place my client was going to occupy. Let's call it the trade date for Pastor Brunson. That is absolutely nuts," Giuliani told BuzzFeed News.

And he’s told reporters he’s not a lobbyist and isn’t being paid by Turkey to push policy matters. That may be true. It’s much cheaper and much easier to anonymously spread bullshit across social media and wait for him to fall for it.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ry ... acy-theory

Laura Rozen

Laura Rozen Retweeted Kenneth P. Vogel
oh man. we are idiots.
the guy who is charged in US in bribery case is ...Firtash!

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/six-defe ... e-titanium …


SCOOP: @RudyGiuliani represented a client in a “very, very sensitive” foreign bribery case in a recent meeting with @TheJusticeDept, even as it was investigating him for possible FARA violations.

He says that didn't come up, & neither did TRUMP. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/us/p ... iness.html …
Show this thread

DOJ announcement on unsealed indictment of Firtash and others in bribery/racketeering case


Giuliani told NBC 10/14 he has nothing to do with Fortash


Bloomberg report Firtash associates got dirt on Biden to try to get Giuliani help to get Trump DOJ to drop his case https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/arti ... ssion=true …


and that Giuliani may have blown it by drawing attention to Firtash link to anti Biden campaign, making DOJ fear dropping case look like ...

a
quid
pro
quo:

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/arti ... ssion=true …


DOJ release of unsealed indictment said Firtash was charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act among other charges


what the NYT said Giuliani said the recent DOJ meeting was about (left); what DOJ release on unsealed Firtash indictment said (right)


https://twitter.com/lrozen/status/1185370640112652288

Evidence in case against Giuliani’s South Florida associates includes 50 bank accounts
By David Smiley and Kelsey Neubauer October 17, 2019 05:56 PM, Updated October 18, 2019 11:02 AM

House asks questions of South Florida businessmen tied to Giuliani's Ukraine work

House committees sent letters Monday requesting information from two South Florida businessmen named Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman as part of an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. By Pierre Taylor
NEW YORK CITY
A South Florida businessman accused of secretly working with clients of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney to funnel illegal foreign cash to U.S. political campaigns pleaded not guilty to a felony conspiracy charge Thursday during a brief court appearance in federal court in Manhattan.

David Correia, 44, denied allegations that he and three associates took hundreds of thousands of dollars from a foreign investor with “Russian roots” and doled it out to state and federal candidates and political committees.

Andrey Kukushkin, 46, also pleaded not guilty to one conspiracy charge.

South Florida loves PubSubs. Now you can flaunt your love with Publix-themed clothes.

During the hearing, federal prosecutors said they had reams of documents to help prove their case.

“We have approximately 10 search warrant applications for emails and other electronic communication ... and financial records for over 50 bank accounts,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos said.

Correia, from Palm Beach Gardens, and Kukushkin, from California, were charged last week in the Southern District of New York along with Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas in a grand jury indictment alleging that the four men conspired to purchase political influence by contributing illegal money to politicians running for office in Washington and around the country.

The case has received national attention due to the relationship between Fruman, Parnas and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who has relied on the Eastern European businessmen to help investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, in Ukraine. Fruman and Parnas, both South Florida residents, have been subpoenaed by three House committees leading an impeachment investigation into Trump’s efforts to dig up dirt on Biden in Ukraine.

Correia, who co-founded a Boca Raton business with Parnas called Fraud Guarantee, is accused of helping Fruman and Parnas obscure the foreign source of their campaign money by funneling it through other individuals and a Delaware corporation called Global Energy Producers. Kukushkin allegedly helped the men pursue a marijuana license in Nevada and other states.

Correia fruman trump.jpg
David Correia and Igor Fruman appear to have met President Donald Trump at a campaign event for America First Action, a pro-Trump super PAC, according to a photo posted on July 4, 2018, on the Facebook page of Ukraine’s chief rabbi. Facebook
Wearing dark blazers, the two men entered the courtroom in Manhattan with their lawyers shortly before their arraignment was set to begin at 3:30 p.m.

Fruman, Kukushkin and Parnas were arrested Oct. 10. Correia was arrested Wednesday morning at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, where he surrendered after returning from another country. Fruman and Parnas are set to be arraigned Wednesday in New York.

According to The New York Times, defense attorney Jeffrey Marcus said during a brief appearance in court Wednesday that Correia was traveling in the Middle East when the indictment against him was unsealed. Correia was released Wednesday on $250,000 bail, with his travel restricted to New York, South Florida and, with permission, Massachusetts.

He is to have no contact with Parnas or Fruman outside of the presence of their attorneys.

Kukushkin, a marijuana businessman in California where recreational weed is legal, was arrested in San Francisco last week and released on $1 million bail after surrendering his passports.

andreykukushkin2.jpg
A photo of Andrey Kukushkin posted to his OK.RU account
Prosecutors say Kukushkin and Correia met last year in Las Vegas with Fruman, Parnas and the foreign investor to plot out a series of political contributions in pursuit of marijuana business in Nevada and other states.

Florida is not mentioned in the indictment, but Fruman and Parnas were seeking to invest in one of the state’s marijuana licenses, and they gave $50,000 to the political committee of Gov. Ron DeSantis in June of 2018 when he was a congressman running in the Republican gubernatorial primary. DeSantis returned the money last week.

John Dowd, an attorney representing Fruman and Parnas before Congress, declined to comment.

Miami Herald reporter David Smiley reported from Miami. Kelsey Neubauer reported from New York.

Profile Image of David Smiley
David Smiley is a Florida native (yes, they exist) and veteran of South Florida journalism. He’s covered schools, cops and crime, and various city halls, earning awards for stories about municipal pensions and Miami Beach’s police department. He became the Miami Herald’s political reporter in 2018 and covered the midterm elections and recount.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politi ... 53143.html

The Missing Link: Getting Dirt on Biden Was Key Part of “Investigation into 2016 Election” Too
When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Rudy Giuliani were preparing for their appearances on Sunday morning shows on Sept. 22, the White House was more than a week deep into the Ukraine scandal. Nine days earlier, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Adam Schiff had revealed the existence of a whistleblower complaint, which news outlets soon reported involved President Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s leader. On late Friday afternoon two days before the Sunday morning news shows were set to begin, the country’s three major newspapers reported that President Trump had repeatedly pressed Ukraine’s President during the call to launch an investigation into matters involving Vice President Joe Biden’s son. But was President Trump and Giuliani’s pressure on Ukraine to open an investigation on the 2016 election also tied to Biden?

When Pompeo insinuated on CBS’s Face the Nation that the swirl of Ukraine-related accusations involved the former Vice President’s “interference” in the 2016 election, many were puzzled. Wasn’t the investigation of Biden supposed to relate to Burisma, and not the 2016 election? Was the reference to the 2016 election just a mental slip on Pompeo’s part or “made up on the spot”? It was hard to believe he lacked discipline in his delivery, and more likely that he prepared his responses in anticipation of such straightforward questions about Giuliani’s allegations. And Pompeo said it not once, not twice, but thrice in three separate Sunday news shows on the morning of Sept. 22. If one had studied Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s statements in right-wing media outlets and elsewhere, Pompeo’s statements would not have been so surprising.

Giuliani’s months-long effort to press Ukraine to open an investigation into the 2016 election was explicitly and repeatedly connected by Giuliani himself to allegations that the investigation into 2016–not just the one into the Hunter Biden firm–would provide derogatory information on the former Vice President. The probe into the 2016 election would also provide, according to Giuliani, politically damaging information about “the Democrats” and the Democratic National Committee (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) But let’s just focus for now on the connection to Biden, as it appears to have been a significant part of the plotline for Giuliani all along.

Why is it so important to uncover this part of plot? Giuiliani’s targeting Biden through Ukraine’s 2016 investigation would be especially significant because it would connect this clear political objective to the strongest evidence of a quid pro quo in the public record involving the withholding of US military aid to Ukraine. On Oct. 17, the President’s acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney unequivocally admitted that there was a direct quid pro quo between the suspension of military aid and the effort to get Ukraine to investigate the 2016 election (before he later wrote an unconvincing statement trying to undo the political damage). The Wall Street Journal had already reported that the Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland told Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc) of this same quid pro quo back in Aug. 30. Mulvaney’s statement came the same day that Sondland was testifying before the House’s impeachment inquiry.

So what did Giuliani say about the alleged connection to Biden and when did he say it?

On the same day that Pompeo appeared on the three Sunday news shows, Giuliani was also on Fox News Sunday, where the President’s private attorney laid out his theory of the case.

Giuliani’s (unfounded) conspiracy theory is that Biden removed Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin and approved the new prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko as part of an effort to “frame” Paul Manafort and the Trump Campaign in the 2016 election. Giuliani asserts (without evidence) that the new Prosecutor dropped a case against an organization that had produced information (in coordination with the Democrats and U.S. officials) to taint Manafort. This conspiracy theory fits in with the overall idea that Russia was not behind the 2016 election interference, but instead the real collusion involved Ukrainian and Democratic operatives. It is worth quoting Giuliani’s statement on Fox News in reference to Biden in full:

I went there as a lawyer defending his client. I — I have known about this for five months. I have been trying to get people to cover this for five months. So, I knew it would be very, very hard to get this out.

And what I’m talking about, this, it’s Ukrainian collusion, which was large, significant, and proven with Hillary Clinton, with the Democratic National Committee, a woman named Chalupa, with the ambassador, with an FBI agent who’s now been hired by George Soros who was funding a lot of it.

When Biden got the prosecutor fired, the new prosecutor, who Biden approved — you don’t get to approve a prosecutor in a foreign country, unless something fishy is going on.

The new prosecutor dropped the case, not just on Biden’s kid and the crooked company that Biden’s kid work for, Burisma. That was done as a matter of record in October of 2016, after the guy got tanked.

He also dropped the case on George Soros’ company called AntAC. AntAC is the company where there’s documentary evidence that they were producing false information about Trump, about Biden. Fusion GPS was there.

Go back and listen to Nellie Ohr’s testimony. Nellie Ohr says that there was a lot of contact between Democrats and the Ukraine.


FoxNewsSunday
✔
@FoxNewsSunday
On Fox News Sunday: Rudy Giuliani responds to reports that President Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden's son. #FNS
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Full video is here.

Giuliani had, in fact, been referencing this theory for months. Two days after Biden announced his candidacy to replace Trump as president, Giuliani attempted to call attention to “possible conspiracy(collusion)between DNC and Clinton operatives and Ukrainian officials to set up members of the Trump campaign.”


Rudy Giuliani
✔
@RudyGiuliani
The article below is one of a number showing a possible conspiracy(collusion)between DNC and Clinton operatives and Ukrainian officials to set up members of the Trump campaign. IGNORING IT SUPPORTS BELIEF OF PRESS CORRUPTION,even among those of us who still have hope for fairness

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A few weeks later, Giuliani followed up on Twitter, this time tying the alleged conspiracy explicitly to Biden. Giuliani wrote that attention should be paid to “some real collusion between Hillary, Kerry and Biden people colluding with Ukrainian operatives to make money and affect 2016 election.”

Giuliani would sometimes run two ideas together–a Ukrainian investigation into 2016 and Biden’s pressure to replace the prosecutor–because of the overlap between the two conspiracy theories. Giuliani also drove the specific idea that an investigation would show Biden was involved in the 2016 election interference coming out of Ukraine. On Oct. 1, Giuliani wrote in no uncertain terms, “Joe’s wide range of corruption included obstructing an investigation of Dem 2016 election interference.”


Rudy Giuliani
✔
@RudyGiuliani
· Oct 1, 2019
Replying to @RudyGiuliani
This is corruption at the highest levels of the Obama administration, which included illegal impact from Ukraine on the 2016 election. I was investigating this as an attorney to vindicate my client. It began and was largely done before Biden announced his run for President.

Rudy Giuliani
✔
@RudyGiuliani
Joe’s wide range of corruption included obstructing an investigation of Dem 2016 election interference. I needed that, as an attorney, for evidence to defend my client. Not to affect an election that was 2 years away. Between the two, I have a singular obligation to my client.

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In an accompanying tweet, a minute apart, Giuliani claimed the “illegal impact from Ukraine on the 2016 election” resulted from “corruption at the highest levels of the Obama administration. I was investigating this as an attorney to vindicate my client. It began and was largely done before Biden announced his run for President” (emphasis added).


Rudy Giuliani
✔
@RudyGiuliani
Replying to @RudyGiuliani
This is corruption at the highest levels of the Obama administration, which included illegal impact from Ukraine on the 2016 election. I was investigating this as an attorney to vindicate my client. It began and was largely done before Biden announced his run for President.

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On Sept. 19, Giuliani had a tumultuous interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo. In the rush of his delivery, Giuliani raised his conspiracy theory involving the 2016 election and Biden. “The prosecutor was removed because he was investigating the son, and he was investigating Soros’s charity or whatever the hell it was, AntAC. The new prosecutor that came in dismissed both cases,” Giuiliani said. “If you listen to Joe Biden’s tape, he convicts himself. He says, ‘I told the president of the Ukraine, if you don’t dismiss this guy, you’re not going to get your 1.2 billion dollars.”

Two days after the Sunday morning shows, Giuliani was back on Fox News, this time in an interview with Laura Ingraham, where he took another opportunity to spell out the investigation into the 2016 election investigation targeted Biden too.

INGRAHAM: But how are you defending him [Trump] by investigating Biden? How — please spell it out for us.

GIULIANI: Because one of the things that the prosecutor that Biden had fired and then the prosecutor that Biden helped to put in, one of the things they did was to dismiss a case against an organization that was collecting false information about Donald Trump, about Paul Manafort, and feeding it to the Democratic National Committee.

INGRAHAM: OK, that explains it to people. I don’t think people understood that.


Andrew Lawrence
@ndrew_lawrence
Please watch Rudy Giuliani try and explain why State Dept asked him to go to Ukraine (Spoiler: It was bc of Soros)
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Like his reference to “the highest levels of the Obama administration” in connection with Biden, Giuliani has also asserted (without evidence) that the “Obama White House” was involved in other aspects of 2016 election interference. On Sept.29, he told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos, “What the President’s talking about is — however, there is a — load of evidence that the Ukrainians created false information, that they were asked by the Obama White House to do it in January of 2016.” He later added, “This is not about getting Joe Biden in trouble. This is about proving that Donald Trump was framed by the Democrats.”


Aaron Rupar
✔
@atrupar
Rudy Giuliani tells George Stephanopoulos he's trying to prove that Democrats "framed Donald Trump" regarding Russia collusion, but he has no answer when Stephanopoulos asks him why domestic law enforcement agencies aren't equipped to investigate the charges he's making
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Giuliani again repeated aspects of the claims on Sean Hannity’s show on Oct. 2, claiming that Joe Biden was not the target of his search, but became a part of his investigation nonetheless: “I didn’t go looking for Joe Biden. The Ukrainians brought me substantial evidence of Ukrainian collusion with Hillary Clinton, the DNC, George Soros, George Soros’s company. They put it in my lap. They came and gave me a testimony.” How did that supposedly implicate Biden directly? Giuliani stated, “They – the Ukrainian oligarch, Zlochevskyi, didn’t pay millions for Hunter Biden’s non-existent skill. He paid millions to buy the Vice President’s office, and it was a good deal for Zlochevskyi. He got Hunter Biden off the hook. He got Soros’s company out of jeopardy. … If anybody would care to investigate, they could find everything I just said.”

Let’s then return to Secretary Pompeo’s own appearances on Sept. 22. His answer to Face the Nation’s Margaert Brennan about Giuliani’s push to investigate Biden for 2016 election interference was, after all, correct. Indeed, what Pompeo insinuated about Biden closely tracked what Giuliani had been saying and has been saying ever since.

“BRENNAN: I want to also ask you about Ukraine. The President’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is publicly calling for an investigation by the Ukrainian government into Joe Biden, who is, obviously, a– a political opponent of the President. Is it appropriate for the President’s personal attorney to be inserting himself in foreign affairs like this?

POMPEO: If there was election interference that took place by the vice president, I think the American people deserve to know. We– we know there was interference in the 2016 election and if it’s the case that there was something going on with the President or his family that caused a conflict of interest and Vice President Biden behaved in a way that was inconsistent with the way leaders ought to operate, I think the American people deserve to know that.”

Sec. Pompeo on CBS’s Face the Nation, Sept. 22, 2019

“We’re going to see President Zelensky this week. I do hope — I do hope that if Vice President Biden engaged in behavior that was inappropriate, if he had a conflict of interest or entered — or allowed something to take place in Ukraine which may have interfered in our elections in 2016, I do hope that we get to the bottom of that.”

Sec. Pompeo on Fox News Sunday, Sept. 22, 2019

“America cannot have our elections interfered with. And if that’s what took place there, if there was that kind of activity engaged in by Vice-President Biden, we need to know.”

Sec. Pompeo on ABC’s This Week, Sept. 22, 2019

It is widely understood that finding “dirt” on Biden, one of Trump’s main political opponents in the 2020 election, was a main objective of Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine. Most have presumed that the investigation into the Burisma firm was the sole means for doing so, and that the pressure on Ukraine to investigate the 2016 election was something separate, even if it was to damage the Democratic party more generally. But the trail left by Giuliani (and Pompeo) clearly shows that getting derogatory information on Biden was a key part of the “other” investigation that Trump and Giuliani pursued. The most egregious form of the quid pro quo involved pressure on Ukraine to open the “2016 investigation” in exchange for U.S. military aid. That Trump-Giuliani deal should be understood as directly linked to trying to interfere in the 2020 election by specifically damaging Biden too.
https://www.justsecurity.org/66658/the- ... ction-too/

Putin and Hungary’s Orban helped sour Trump on Ukraine
Ellen Nakashima
President Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine for information he could use against political rivals came as he was being urged to adopt a hostile view of that country by its regional adversaries, including Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, current and former U.S. officials said.

Trump’s conversations with Putin, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and others reinforced his perception of Ukraine as a hopelessly corrupt country — one that Trump now also appears to believe sought to undermine him in the 2016 U.S. election, the officials said.

Neither of those foreign leaders specifically encouraged Trump to see Ukraine as a potential source of damaging information about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, nor did they describe Kyiv as complicit in an unsubstantiated 2016 election conspiracy theory, officials said.

But their disparaging depictions of Ukraine reinforced Trump’s perceptions of the country and fed a dysfunctional dynamic in which White House officials struggled to persuade Trump to support the fledgling government in Kyiv instead of exploiting it for political purposes, officials said.

Inside Joe Biden’s brawling reform efforts in Ukraine — which won him successes and enemies

The role played by Putin and Orban, a hard-right leader who has often allied himself with the Kremlin’s positions, was described in closed-door testimony last week by George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state, before House impeachment investigators, U.S. officials said.

Kent cited the influence of those leaders as a factor that helped sour Trump on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the months leading up to their July 25 phone call — a conversation that triggered an extraordinary whistleblower complaint as well as a House impeachment inquiry.

U.S. officials emphasized that while Putin and Orban denigrated Ukraine, Trump’s decision to seek damaging material on Biden was more directly driven by Trump’s own impulses and Kyiv conspiracy theories promoted by his attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani.

In their early May phone call, Putin “did what he always does” in seeking to undercut the United States’ relationship with Ukraine, said a former U.S. official familiar with details of the conversation. “He has always said Ukraine is just a den of corruption.”

The efforts to poison Trump’s views toward Zelensky were anticipated by national security officials at the White House, officials said. But the voices of Putin and Orban took on added significance this year because of the departure or declining influence of those who had sought to blunt the influence of Putin and other authoritarian leaders over Trump.

Officials cited the departures of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, both of whom had backed U.S. military assistance to Ukraine but were no longer in position to protect that stream of funding when it was suspended in the weeks leading up to Trump’s July 25 phone call.

National security adviser John Bolton was also seen as a fervent backer of Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, but his relationship with Trump deteriorated rapidly this year before he was pushed out of the White House last month.

“Over time you just see a wearing down of the defenses,” a former White House official said, describing the struggle to contest the influence of Giuliani, Putin and Orban.

The House impeachment inquiry is centered on Trump’s alleged attempt to use the power of his office to coerce Ukraine into taking measures that the president hoped would help him in the 2020 election.

There is no evidence that Putin spoke about Biden or endorsed Giuliani’s unsubstantiated claims that it was Ukraine — and not Russia — that had interfered in the 2016 election. Still, officials said that treating Ukraine as a pawn is consistent with Putin’s approach toward the former Soviet republic.

American policy has for years been “built around containing malign Russian influence” in Eastern Europe, a U.S. official said. Trump’s apparent susceptibility to the arguments he hears from Putin and Orban is “an example of the president himself under malign influence — being steered by it.”

The official and others spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of internal discussions at the White House and the ongoing impeachment inquiry.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

In his testimony, Kent indicated that U.S. officials were encouraged by Trump’s initial phone call with Zelensky after his April election and hoped the president would see the new leader as a potential partner in long-standing U.S. efforts to help Ukraine fend off Russian aggression and battle internal corruption.

Instead, Kent testified, Trump’s view of Zelensky and Ukraine seemed to sour in the ensuing months, with Trump voicing disdain for Kyiv, ordering the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine removed, blocking Vice President Pence from attending Zelensky’s inauguration and suspending the flow of $391 million in military and other aid to the country.

Trump spoke with Putin by phone and met with Orban at the White House in the weeks between Zelensky’s April 21 election and his May 20 inauguration. Trump also spoke with Putin on June 28, during a global summit in Japan, and by phone on July 31, days after the call in which he solicited a “favor” from Zelensky.

Trump has consistently refused to accept evidence that Russia interfered on his behalf in the 2016 election. Last week, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney confirmed that Trump had ordered aid to Ukraine suspended in part to compel Kyiv to investigate a debunked conspiracy theory that a hacked Democratic National Committee computer server was taken to Ukraine in 2016 to hide evidence that it was that country, not Russia, that interfered in the presidential election.

In a heated exchange at the White House last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) confronted Trump by saying, “With you, all roads lead to Putin.”

Trump turned to Putin for guidance on the new leader of Ukraine within days of Zelensky’s election. In a May 3 call, Trump asked Putin about his impressions of Zelensky, according to a Western official familiar with the conversation. Putin said that he had not yet spoken with Zelensky but derided him as a comedian with ties to an oligarch despised by the Kremlin.

Before running for president, Zelensky starred in a television sitcom in which he portrayed the Ukrainian president.

The May conversation with Putin coincided with a White House visit by Orban that many in the administration had opposed because of the Hungarian leader’s moves to undercut democratic institutions in that country and his combative relations with U.S. allies in Europe.

“I can tell you, knowing the president for a good 25 or 30 years, that [Trump] would love to have the situation that Viktor Orban has, but he doesn’t,” David Cornstein, Trump’s ambassador to Hungary, said in an interview published by the Atlantic this spring.

The May visit from Orban began with an hour-long meeting between Trump and the Hungarian leader with no note-takers, officials said. Bolton and the Hungarian foreign minister joined afterward.

Senior U.S. diplomats said they had limited insight into the private conversation between Trump and Orban, let alone how Trump’s views of Ukraine have formed. But one official familiar with the encounter said that it became “clear that the meeting with Orban had solidified” Trump’s pessimistic view about Kyiv and Zelensky.

Orban’s grievances toward Ukraine are grounded in a historic border dispute and the claimed mistreatment of a Hungarian-speaking minority that resides in Ukraine. But Orban’s animosity toward Zelensky is also ideological, officials said, noting that Zelensky has positioned himself in opposition to Orban as a Western-leaning reformer.

White House and State Department officials had sought to block an Orban visit since the start of Trump’s presidency, concerned that it would legitimize a leader often ostracized in Europe. They also worried about Orban’s influence on the U.S. president.

“Basically, everyone agreed — no Orban meeting,” said a former White House official involved in internal discussions. “We were against it because [we] knew there was a good chance that Trump and Orban would bond and get along.”

The effort to keep distance between Trump and Orban began to fray earlier this year with the departures of senior officials and the emergence of new voices around the president. Among the most important was Mulvaney, who became acting chief of staff in January and was seen as sympathetic to Orban’s hard-right views and skepticism of European institutions. In Congress, Mulvaney’s former Freedom Caucus colleagues last year backed Orban’s efforts to kill a small U.S. grant designed to nurture independent media outlets in Hungary.

Mulvaney’s involvement in approving the Orban visit was one of several instances in which he overruled national security officials, officials said. At the same time, Mulvaney also facilitated an arrangement in which Trump directed other diplomats, including the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, to work with Giuliani on his Ukraine agenda.

Julie Tate and Shane Harris contributed to this report.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

U.S. envoy says he was told release of Ukraine aid was contingent on public declaration to investigate Bidens, 2016 election
John Wagner
The senior U.S. diplomat in Ukraine said Tuesday he was told release of military aid was contingent on public declarations from Ukraine that it would investigate the Bidens and the 2016 election, contradicting President Trump’s denial that he used the money as leverage for political gain.

Acting ambassador William B. Taylor Jr. testified behind closed doors in the House impeachment probe of Trump that he stands by his characterization that it was “crazy” to make the assistance contingent on investigations he found troubling.

Upon arriving in Kyiv last spring he became alarmed by secondary diplomatic channels involving U.S. officials that he called “weird,” Taylor said, according to a copy of his lengthy opening statement obtained by The Washington Post.

Taylor walked lawmakers through a series of conversations he had with other U.S. diplomats who were trying to obtain what one called the “deliverable” of Ukrainian help investigating Trump’s political rivals.

Taylor said he spoke to Ambassador Gordon Sondland, the U.S. envoy to the European Union.

“During that phone call, Amb. Sondland told me that President Trump had told him that he wants President [Volodymyr] Zelensky to state publicly that Ukraine will investigate Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election,” Taylor said in the statement.

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter had been a board member of Burisma, a large Ukrainian gas company. Joe Biden is a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.

Graphic: Who’s involved in the Trump impeachment inquiry

“Amb. Sondland also told me that he now recognized that he had made a mistake by earlier telling the Ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a White House meeting with President Zelensky was dependent on a public announcement of investigations — in fact, Amb. Sondland said, ‘everything’ was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance,’” Taylor told House investigators.

“He said that President Trump wanted President Zelensky ‘in a public box’ by making a public statement about ordering such investigations.’

Taylor was called to testify before committees considering whether to impeach Trump because he had raised alarms about Trump administration interactions with Zelensky.

“It was just the most damning testimony I’ve heard,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said in an interview partway into Taylor’s testimony.

Taylor’s testimony had been expected to fill in some blanks about the activities of U.S. officials who appear to have sought Ukrainian help at the behest of Trump and his personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani.

At issue is whether the White House conditioned military aid and a meeting between the two presidents on Zelensky’s cooperation.

“He drew a very specific direct line from President Trump to the withholding of foreign aid and the refusal of a meeting,” between Trump and the new Ukrainian leader, Wasserman Schultz said, “directly related to both insisting on Zelensky publicly say that he’ll have an investigation, that they will investigate.”

Taylor did not comment as he arrived on Capitol Hill for what was expected to be several hours of closed-door testimony.

An official working on the impeachment inquiry said Tuesday that Taylor is testifying under subpoena after the State Department attempted to block his appearance.

“The House Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena to compel his testimony this morning,” said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss the arrangements. “As is required of him, Ambassador Taylor is now complying with the subpoena and answering questions from both Democratic and Republican Members and staff.”

Taylor took the job on temporary assignment earlier this year after the sitting ambassador was removed, in what she told the committees was political retaliation by the Trump administration.

Taylor, a retired former ambassador to Ukraine and a foreign policy elder statesman, had exchanged text messages with two other diplomats in which he called it “crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign” and a “nightmare scenario.”

“It’s like if you have a 1,000 piece puzzle, which is what this is,” Wasserman Schultz said. “This filled in a ton of that puzzle.”

She and other Democratic lawmakers said Taylor’s morning testimony stood in contrast to the appearance last week of Sondland, a Trump donor and a key player in efforts to secure a statement from Zelensky committing to investigations.

“There were many things that Ambassador Sondland didn’t remember that Ambassador Taylor remembered in excruciating detail,” Wasserman Schultz said.

Hours before Taylor arrived, Trump called the impeachment inquiry a “lynching,” drawing swift condemnation from Democrats. Some accused the president of using race to attempt to distract from what Taylor may say.

Taylor agreed to go to Kyiv as a placeholder ambassador because he thought the U.S.-Ukraine relationship was at a critical moment following Zelensky’s election last spring, other diplomats said.

Taylor wanted to reinforce U.S. support for Zelensky’s anti-corruption agenda and his independence from Russia, people who know Taylor said.

He also told friends he worried that the relationship would drift after the forced recall of former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and he made it clear within the State Department that he objected to her treatment, current and former administration officials said.

Ousted ambassador Marie Yovanovitch tells Congress Trump pressured State Dept. to remove her

On July 21, four days before Trump and Zelensky had a phone call in which Trump asked Zelensky to conduct those investigations, Taylor exchanged text messages with Sondland.

Zelensky wants Ukraine to be “taken seriously” and not just serve as “an instrument in Washington domestic, reelection politics,” Taylor told Sondland, a key player in the effort to draw Ukraine into the election-related investigations.

And on Sept. 1, the day Vice President Pence was set to meet with Zelensky, Taylor again texted Sondland.

“Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?” Taylor asked.

“Call me,” Sondland replied, in what Democrats have said is probably an effort to prevent a paper trail.

On Sept. 8, Taylor and Sondland tried to get on the phone with Kurt Volker, then the special U.S. envoy for Ukraine, but Volker couldn’t hear the conversation.

“Gordon and I just spoke,” Taylor texted Volker. “I can brief you if you and Gordon don’t connect.” Taylor continued: “The nightmare is they give the interview and don’t get the security assistance. The Russians love it. (And I quit.)”

Taylor probably was referring to a potential statement to the press from the Zelensky government committing to the investigations. He was apparently worried that Zelensky would give in, but still not receive his promised aid, and that Russia would then use that opening to portray the new Ukrainian leader as a patsy.

Read the documents: House Democrats’ summary of State Department text messages

Volker turned over copies of the text messages when he testified voluntarily earlier this month.

“The message to the Ukrainians (and Russians) we send with the decision on security assistance is key,” Taylor texted the next day. “With the hold, we have already shaken their faith in us. Thus my nightmare scenario.”

Sondland replied, saying that “we have identified the best pathway forward.”

“As I said on the phone,” Taylor replied, “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”

Five hours went by before Sondland replied. Sondland later testified that he was relaying only what Trump had told him in an intervening phone call.

“Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions,” he wrote. “The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s of any kind. The President is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that President Zelensky promised during his campaign.”

Democrats have pointed to that message, which differs in tone and detail from the chatty earlier exchanges, as an effort to establish a cover story.

Taylor is a former Army officer and Vietnam War veteran who has served in government posts in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. He is expected to return to his senior position at the U.S. Institute for Peace sometime next year.

His is the first of two planned closed-door depositions this week.

Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense whose portfolio includes Russia and Ukraine, will testify in a closed session Wednesday, according to an official working on the process.

Several other closed-door depositions will be rescheduled this week due to events honoring the late congressman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), the official said.

House investigators were expected to hear from Ambassador Philip Reeker, acting assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, and Michael Duffey, associate director of national security programs at the Office of Management and Budget — but those depositions will no longer take place Wednesday, according to the official.

Neither party wins positive marks from Americans for their handling of the impeachment inquiry, according to a new poll, though Republicans fare worse.

Forty-three percent approve of how Democrats are handling the inquiry, while 49 percent disapprove, according to the poll released Tuesday by CNN that was conducted by SSRS.

By contrast, 30 percent of Americans approve of the way Republicans are handling the impeachment inquiry, while 57 percent disapprove.

In a Monday tweet, however, Office of Management and Budget acting director Russ Vought said he and Duffey would not comply with deposition requests. Reports indicating otherwise, he wrote, were “Fake News.” His tweet included the hashtag “#shamprocess.”

Trump urged his party on Monday to “get tougher and fight” against his impeachment as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) distributed a “fact sheet” outlining what her office called a gross abuse of presidential power, including a “shakedown,” “pressure campaign” and “cover up.”

Karoun Demirjian and John Hudson contributed to this report.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpos ... story.html