First Member of Chumph Cartel Goes to Jail

With the profligate racism of the Chumph Cartel, I don’t imagine any of them convicted and jailed is going to do too much better than your run of the mill white wing child molester…

Dutch attorney gets 30 days in first sentence for Mueller probe

Alex van der Zwaan had admitted to lying to investigators.

Special counsel Robert Mueller obtained the first sentence in his high-profile investigation Tuesday, as a Dutch attorney who admitted to lying to investigators was ordered into federal custody for 30 days.

Former Skadden Arps associate Alex van der Zwaan, 33, pleaded guilty in February to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with former Trump campaign official Rick Gates and Konstantin Kilimnik, a suspected Russian intelligence operative who worked closely with Gates and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Lawyers for van der Zwaan had asked U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson to give him a fine and pleaded with the court to let him return to his London home by August, when his wife is due to give birth.

However, the judge said some time in jail was appropriate given his offense and the fact that he is an attorney.

“We’re not talking about a traffic ticket,” she said. “This was lying to a federal officer in the course of a criminal investigation.”

In addition to the 30-day sentence, Jackson also gave van der Zwaan a $20,000 fine and two months of probation, but she said she would permit him to reclaim his passport and leave the country as soon as his month in custody is completed. It’s not immediately clear where or in what type of facility he will serve the 30 days.

Van der Zwaan was drawn into the saga in 2012 as his law firm prepared to release a report commissioned by Manafort and Gates for Ukraine’s Justice Ministry in a bid to defend then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who had jailed one of his most prominent political opponents, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Manafort and Gates’ work on behalf of Yanukovych’s political party has drawn Mueller’s scrutiny. Gates has pleaded guilty to lying to investigators, and Manafort is awaiting trial.

 

The Chumph-Russia Cartel Crumbles – Gates to Plead Guilty, Squeal

Yet another of the Chumph Crime Cartel boss, with heavy ties to Putin’s Mob goes down, and will testify against his former co-conspirator, Paul Manafort. Rick Gates if the 5th Chumph cohort to take the lea.

How bad is it for the Chumph Cartel? You know you are in deep, deep isht when they indict your Lawyer too…Along with an “unnamed individual” –

Mueller is not only going to lock up Gates and Manafort…But their lawyers!

Getting closer to nailing the Chumph…Every single day.

 

Mueller Announces Multiple Indictments Against Russians

Whoops! There goes that leg out from under the rickety Chumph table.

Now, the next step is actually to arrest these guys. If any of them are not in Russia, they may be arrested in any US ally country, or country with which the US has extradition agreement, The US may also seize any properties and bank accounts held outside of Russia – which may be even more devastating.

Of course, Putin will refuse to turn them over.

Special counsel issues indictment against 13 Russian nationals over 2016 election interference

Special counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for allegedly meddling in the 2016 presidential election, charging them with conspiracy to defraud the United States, the Department of Justice has announced.

In addition, three defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and five defendants with aggravated identity theft.

Mueller has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election as well as any connections between Russia and Trump campaign associates.

Beginning as early as 2014, the Russian organization Internet Research Agency began operations to interfere with the US political system, including the 2016 elections, according to the indictment, which was released by Mueller’s office Friday.

The defendants allegedly posed as US persons, created false US personas, and operated social media pages and groups designed to attract US audiences, the indictment reads.

The Internet Research Agency had a “strategic goal to sow discord in the US political system” including the election, according to the indictment.

Russians posted “derogatory information about a number of candidates,” and by mid-2016 they supported Trump and disparaged Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. They bought ads and communicated with “unwitting” people tied to Trump campaign and others to coordinate political activities.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will announce the multiple indictments against Russian nationals and entities Friday afternoon, according to a Justice Department source.

 

Another Chumph Lackey Agrees to Talk – Gates Squeals

Another Chumph insider takes the deal….

Think Gates need to do a bit better than just squealing on Manafort. So I would have to believe this deal includes the dirt on the Chumph traitor.

Especially since this comes at a time when additional charges are being filed.

Report: Former Trump Adviser Rick Gates Finalizing Plea Deal With Mueller

Rick Gates, one of a handful of former advisers to Donald Trump indicted amid the ongoing Russia probe, is reportedly finalizing a plea deal with investigators. Citing sources close to the investigation, CNN reports that Gates has been in talks with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team about a potential plea deal for about a month. During that time, he reportedly provided prosecutors with information, though it’s unclear whether it concerned Trump’s campaign or financial dealings not connected to the White House. The news comes as investigators are reportedly preparing new charges against Gates and his longtime business partner, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Both Manafort and Gates pleaded not guilty to financial crimes in late October. Gates’ potential plea deal is expected to turn the tide of the Russia investigation and put more pressure on Manafort to cooperate. The White House has shrugged off Gates’ negotiations with investigators, however. “If Gates cooperates against Manafort that’s nothing to us,” a White House official was quoted as saying by CNN. Gates would be the third known former Trump aide cooperating in Mueller’s investigation. Former Trump aides George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn have also reportedly made plea deals after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI.

 

FBI Investigating Second Dossier Backing Chumph’s “Golden Shower”

A second Dossier has emerged, claiming that the Chumph was compromised by the new KGB in a visit to Moscow in 2013.

No word at the moment about what else is in the document collected by British spies.

REVEALED: The FBI is assessing a second Trump-Russia dossier

The FBI is reportedly reviewing a second dossier alleging collusion between President Donald Trump and the Kremlin.

The Guardian reported Monday that the second dossier was written by former journalist and political activist Cody Shearer, and despite being viewed skeptically by media organizations he shared it with prior to the election, the bureau is still investigating its veracity.

The memo was given to the FBI in 2016 by former British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the controversial”golden showers” dossier. The ex-M16 agent gave it to the bureau when they asked him to “provide any documents or evidence that could be useful in its investigation,” multiple sources confirmed to The Guardian.

Steele reportedly told the bureau he couldn’t vouch for the credibility of Shearer’s memo, “but that he was providing a copy because it corresponded with what he had separately heard from his own independent sources.” Shearer cited an unnamed source within the FSB, Russia’s state security service.

The authors of both documents claimed Trump was “compromised” during a 2013 trip to Moscow “that involved lewd acts in a five-star hotel.”

 

Evidence Proving Russian KGB Hacks of Election Emerges Publically

What the folks in the US Intelligence Agencies knew all along about Russia and Trump collusion but never exposed publicly, has been released by the Dutch…Who actually hacked the Russian hackers.

This is just part of the information gathered by US and foreign Intelligence Services on Trump/Putin collusion, and the Russian effort to destabilize the US 2016 election in favor of their boy , the Chumph.

We also know that there are recordings of conversations between Chumph co-conspirators and Russian Intelligence are in the NSA’s hands. While the contents of such recordings are still classified, and as such we don’t know their contents – they are also likely in Mueller’s hands.And thanks to the criminal activity of Nunes, head of the House Investigation Committee in suborning information to protect the Chumph…None of that will be released to Congress.

This revelation comes from a Dutch Newspaper… Here is your “Smoking Gun”

With the release of information by the Dutch, several of the other countries’ Intelligence Services may step forward to release the information they collected.

Dutch agencies provide crucial intel about Russia’s interference in US-elections

Hackers from the Dutch intelligence service AIVD have provided the FBI with crucial information about Russian interference with the American elections. For years, AIVD had access to the infamous Russian hacker group Cozy Bear. That’s what de Volkskrant and Nieuwsuur have uncovered in their investigation.

It’s the summer of 2014. A hacker from the Dutch intelligence agency AIVD has penetrated the computer network of a university building next to the Red Square in Moscow, oblivious to the implications. One year later, from the AIVD headquarters in Zoetermeer, he and his colleagues witness Russian hackers launching an attack on the Democratic Party in the United States. The AIVD hackers had not infiltrated just any building; they were in the computer network of the infamous Russian hacker group Cozy Bear. And unbeknownst to the Russians, they could see everything.

That’s how the AIVD becomes witness to the Russian hackers harassing and penetrating the leaders of the Democratic Party, transferring thousands of emails and documents. It won’t be the last time they alert their American counterparts. And yet, it will be months before the United States realize what this warning means: that with these hacks the Russians have interfered with the American elections. And the AIVD hackers have seen it happening before their very eyes.

The Dutch access provides crucial evidence of the Russian involvement in the hacking of the Democratic Party, according to six American and Dutch sources who are familiar with the material, but wish to remain anonymous. It’s also grounds for the FBI to start an investigation into the influence of the Russian interference on the election race between the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and the Republican candidate Donald Trump.

‘High confidence’

After Trump’s election in May 2017, this investigation was taken over by special prosecutor Robert Mueller. While it also aims to uncover contacts between Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian government, the prime objective is bringing to light the Russian interference with the elections. An attempt to undermine the democratic process, and an act that caused tensions between the two superpowers to rise to new heights, bringing about a string of diplomatic acts of revenge.

Three American intelligence services state with ‘high confidence’ that the Kremlin was behind the attack on the Democratic Party. That certainty, sources say, is derived from the AIVD hackers having had access to the office-like space in the center of Moscow for years. This is so exceptional that the directors of the foremost American intelligence services are all too happy to receive the Dutchmen. They provide technical evidence for the attack on the Democratic Party, and it becomes apparent that they know a lot more.

Cozy Bear

It’s somewhat of a ‘fluke’ that the AIVD hackers were able to acquire such useful information in 2014. The team uses a CNA, which stands for Computer Network Attack. These hackers are permitted to perform offensive operations: to penetrate and attack hostile networks. It’s a relatively small team within a larger digital business unit of about 80-100 people. All cyberoperations converge here. Part of the unit is focused on intercepting or managing sources, while another team is dedicated to Computer Network Defence. In turn, this team is part of the Joint Sigint Cyber Unit, a collaborative unit of the AIVD and the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service MIVD, of about 300 people.

It’s unknown what exact information the hackers acquire about the Russians, but it is clear that it contains a clue as to the whereabouts of one of the most well-known hacker groups in the world: Cozy Bear, also referred to as APT29. Since 2010, this group has attacked governments, energy corporations and telecom companies around the world, including Dutch companies and ministries. Specialists from the best intelligence services, among them the British, the Israelis and the Americans, have been hunting Cozy Bear for years, as have analysts from major cybersecurity companies.

Vital information

The Dutch hacker team spends weeks preparing itself. Then, in the summer of 2014, the attack takes place, most likely before the tragic crash of flight MH17. With some effort and patience, the team manages to penetrate the internal computer network. The AIVD can now trace the Russian hackers’ every step. But that’s not all.

The Cozy Bear hackers are in a space in a university building near the Red Square. The group’s composition varies, usually about ten people are active. The entrance is in a curved hallway. A security camera records who enters and who exits the room. The AIVD hackers manage to gain access to that camera. Not only can the intelligence service now see what the Russians are doing, they can also see who’s doing it. Pictures are taken of every visitor. In Zoetermeer, these pictures are analyzed and compared to known Russian spies. Again, they’ve acquired information that will later prove to be vital.

Rare battle

The Dutch access to the Russian hackers’ network soon pays off. In November, the Russians prepare for an attack on one of their prime targets: the American State Department. By now, they’ve obtained e-mail addresses and the login credentials of several civil servants. They manage to enter the non-classified part of the computer network.

The AIVD and her military counterpart MIVD inform the NSA-liaison at the American embassy in The Hague. He immediately alerts the different American intelligence services.

What follows is a rare battle between the attackers, who are attempting to further infiltrate the State Department, and its defenders, FBI and NSA teams – with clues and intelligence provided by the Dutch. This battle lasts 24 hours, according to American media.

The Russians are extremely aggressive but do not know they’re being spied on. Thanks to the Dutch spies, the NSA and FBI are able to counter the enemy with enormous speed. The Dutch intel is so crucial that the NSA opens a direct line with Zoetermeer, to get the information to the United States as soon as possible.

Back and forth

Using so-called command and control servers, digital command centres, the Russians attempt to establish a connection to the malware in the Department, in order to request and transfer information. The Americans, having been told by the Dutch where the servers are, repeatedly and swiftly cut off access to these servers, followed each time by another attempt by the Russians. It goes back and forth like this for 24 hours. Afterwards, sources tell CNN that this was ‘the worst hack attack ever’ on the American government. The Department has to cut off access to the e-mail system for a whole weekend in order to upgrade the security.

Luckily, the NSA was able to find out the means and tactics of their attackers, deputy director of the NSA Richard Ledgett states at a discussion forum in Aspen in March 2017. ‘So we could see how they were changing their methods. That’s very useful information.’ On the authority of intelligence services, American media write that this was thanks to a ‘western ally’. Eventually, the Americans manage to dispel the Russians from the Department, but not before Russian attackers use their access to send an e-mail to a person in the White House.

Fake e-mail

He thinks he’s received an e-mail from the State Department – the e-mail address is similar – and clicks a link in the message. The link opens a website where the White House employee then enters his login credentials, now obtained by the Russians. And that is how the Russians infiltrate the White House.

They even gain access to the email servers containing the sent and received emails of president Barack Obama, but fail to penetrate the servers that control the message traffic from his personal BlackBerry, which holds state secrets, sources tell The New York Times. They do, however, manage to access e-mail traffic with embassies and diplomats, agendas, notes on policy and legislation. And again, it’s the Dutch intelligence agencies who alert the Americans about this.

Goldmine

Access to Cozy Bear turns out to be a goldmine for the Dutch hackers. For years, it supplies them with valuable intelligence about targets, methods and the interests of the highest ranking officials of the Russian security service. From the pictures taken of visitors, the AIVD deduces that the hacker group is led by Russia’s external intelligence agency SVR.

There’s a reason the AIVD writes in its annual report about 2014 that many Russian government officials, including president Putin, use secret services to obtain information. Recently, the head of the AIVD, Rob Bertholee, said on the Dutch TV program CollegeTour that there is ‘no question’ that the Kremlin is behind the Russian hacking activities.

Unprepared

The Americans were taken completely by surprise by the Russian aggression, says Chris Painter in Washington. For years, Painter was responsible for America’s cyber policy. He resigned last August. ‘We’d never expected that the Russians would do this, attacking our vital infrastructure and undermining our democracy.’

The American intelligence services were unprepared for that, he says. That is one of the reasons the Dutch access is so appreciated. The Americans even sent ‘cake’ and ‘flowers’ to Zoetermeer, sources tell. And not just that. Intelligence is a commodity: it can be traded. In 2016, the heads of the AIVD and MIVD, Rob Bertholee and Pieter Bindt, personally discuss the access to the Russian hacker group with James Clapper, then the highest ranking official of the American intelligence services, and Michael Rogers, head of the NSA.

In return, the Dutch are given knowledge, technology and intelligence. According to one American source, in late 2015, the NSA hackers manage to penetrate the mobile devices of several high ranking Russian intelligence officers. They learn that right before a hacking attack, the Russians search the internet for any news about the oncoming attack. According to the Americans, this indirectly proves that the Russian government is involved in the hacks. Another source says it’s ‘highly likely’ that in return for the intelligence, the Dutch were given access to this specific American information. Whether any intelligence about MH17 was exchanged, is unknown.

 

Bannon Agrees to Squeal!

Looks like Mueller’s Lining them up to squeal on the Chumph!

Steve Bannon hired the same lawyer as Reince Priebus — and that should scare Donald Trump

Steve Bannon will reportedly cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump campaign ties to Russia.

The former White House chief strategist has hired the same attorney — Bill Burck, of the firm Quinn Emanuel — as White House counsel Don McGahn and former chief of staff Reince Priebus in the Russia probe, reported The Daily Beast.

That arrangement isn’t unusual, but it could signal bad news for the president as Mueller examines possible efforts to obstruct investigations into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives.

Bannon left the White House in August, and he fell out of favor with Trump and the Republican Party after serving as a major source in the Michael Wolff book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.

Since the falling out last week, Bannon has signaled he’s willing to help Mueller investigate the White House.

Bannon could be an incredibly valuable witness for the special counsel, especially if his testimony matches up with McGahn and Priebus — who took the highly unusual step of keeping contemporaneous notes throughout his six months as chief of staff.

McGahn received the initial warning Jan. 26 from acting attorney general Sally Yates that national security adviser Mike Flynn may have been “compromised” by Russia.

Two days later, Bannon, Priebus and Flynn all took part in a phone call between Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

The following day, Trump signed an executive order elevating Bannon to the National Security Council and while downgrading the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence, a move that most observers considered baffling.

Bannon was removed in early April from the National Security Council, about six weeks after Flynn was forced out of the administration.

His allies said at the time that Bannon had been placed on the principals committee to keep an eye on Flynn, who has since pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents in late January about his conversations a month before with the Russian ambassador to the U.S.

“We all knew Flynn had issues,” a senior White House official said at the time.

Flynn has agreed to cooperate with Mueller under the terms of his guilty plea signed last month.

Bannon could help investigators understand when Trump learned Flynn had lied to the FBI, and what steps he might have taken to cover up the crime to which his close ally later pleaded guilty.

The former chief strategist, who was ousted as Breitbart News chief over his feud with Trump, could also potentially tell investigators whether Trump fired FBI director James Comey in hopes of stopping or stalling the Justice Department investigation later taken up by Mueller.

Comey has said the president asked for his loyalty and urged him to let go of the Flynn investigation, and Priebus reportedly has notes backing up those accounts.

Sean Spicer, who served as White House press secretary until July, also reportedly kept“notebook after notebook” during his time with the Trump campaign and at administration.

Officials in previous White House administrations have expressed surprise that either man would keep notes, saying that past investigations have shown that those detailed accounts can serve as potentially damaging evidence.

Bannon told Wolff a June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort was “unpatriotic” and even “treasonous,” and Mueller will no doubt ask what he meant by those remarks.

Manafort, who served as campaign manager before Bannon joined the Trump team, has been indicted on money laundering and other charges in the Mueller probe.

Stool Pigeon…

 

The Long Knives Come Out – Bannon on Trump/Russia Meeting….”Treason!”

My, my, my…Steve Bannon, one of the bigots who propelled the Chumph into office, and Godfather of the racist alt-right – has turned.

He has his sharp knives out and is looking to use them on the Chumph.

Worse than a “woman scorned”, Guess we will have ti replace the old adage with “Hell hath no fury like a conservabigot scorned”

Et Tu Brute?

‘He Lost His Mind,’ Trump Says After Bannon Reportedly Slammed Russian Meeting

Steve Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist and campaign CEO, once called a now-famous meeting among Donald Trump Jr., campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and a group of Russians “treasonous,” according to accounts of an upcoming book.

Bannon is being quoted making the remarks in Fire and Fury, a book about the Trump White House by journalist Michael Wolff. After The Guardian cited an advance copy of the book (which is being released next week), news of Bannon’s comments quickly spread.

The meeting took place in June 2016, but it wasn’t publicly revealed until last summer. Discussing it with Wolff, Bannon reportedly said, “Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad s***, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”

Wolff quotes Bannon as saying, “The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor — with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers,” according to The Guardian.

The members of Trump’s inner circle were drawn to the meeting by the promise of damaging information about Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. They were joined at Trump Tower by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, British-born businessman Rob Goldstone, Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, and Soviet-born American businessman Irakly “Ike” Kaveladze.

The Trump Tower meeting has been a focal point in reports about the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is looking into Russia’s attempts to influence last year’s U.S. election.

Discussing the president’s son and the investigation’s potential path, Bannon reportedly told Wolff, “They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV.”

When Goldstone contacted Donald Trump Jr. about the potential for dirt on Clinton, Trump Jr. replied, “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”

After news of the meeting became public, Trump Jr. said the Russians had not produced any “meaningful information.”

Rather than having a high-profile sit-down, Bannon said, according to The Guardian, the Trump group should have restricted it to “a Holiday Inn in Manchester, New Hampshire, with your lawyers who meet with these people.”

The Justice Department has produced evidence that Russian agents “began reaching out to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign as early as March 2016,” as NPR reported in October.

The figures from Trump’s campaign or administration who have been accused of federal crimes as a result of Mueller’s investigation range from Manafort (on money-laundering charges) to former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos (both of whom pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents).

 

Russian Hacker Admits Orders From KGB

Yeah, it was ordered by Putin in his deal with the Chumph…

Russian hacker admits to breaking into DNC servers under direction of Kremlin intelligence: report

A Russian news website is reporting that a hacker has confessed to being ordered by a major general in the FSB to hack the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential election — and it has links to audio of the testimony as proof.

Fortune reports that Russian website The Bell has posted links to both a written transcript and an audio recording of testimony given by Konstantin Kozlovsky, who was on trial earlier this year for his role in a hacking scheme that stole $50 million from Russian bank accounts.

During his testimony, Kozlovsky claimed that he was ordered by Russian intelligence agency FSB to attack the DNC’s servers under the direction of Dmitry Dokuchayev, a major-general in the FSB. Kozlovsky also said that the hacking was done with the explicit purpose of manipulating the American electoral process.

“Dokuchayev is himself now in prison on charges of treason, accused of passing similar information to U.S. agencies,” reports Fortune. “In other words, Dokuchayev appears to be one of the main sources for the information on which joint U.S. agencies, in a report released by the director of national intelligence in January, argued that the Russian state had directed a campaign designed to polarize public opinion and broadly discredit the campaign of Hillary Clinton.”

The publication does note, however, that it has not been able to independently verify the authenticity of the Kozlovsky testimony.

 

Evidence of Russia collusion damning

I think it is indictable at this point. I think there is substantially more evidence than Mueller will make public yet.

 

CHumph Lackey Manafort in Collusion With Russian Spies During Bail Hearings

Once a commie crook…

Looks like Mr Manafort will be spending his time in lockup, instead of his multi-million dollar condo in Alexandria, Va.

Can’t wait for him to find the bath fixtures in jail aren’t covered in 24 karat gold.

 

Michael Flynn Charged With Lying – Pleads Guilty

Joining Manafort and Gates, the third person in the Chumph criminal cartel has been charged. Michael Flynn with lying about contacts with the Russians, and will plead guilty today.

Looks like Mueller has Flynn in his pocket to testify against the Chumph. This is the first of many charges that Flynn can be indicted for.

Flynn is the first Trump administration official and the fourth connected to the campaign to be charged as part of Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between the Russian government and members of Trump’s team, as well as potential obstruction of justice and financial crimes.

Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates were indicted last month; they pleaded not guilty. And Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty for making a false statement to the FBI over contacts with officials connected to the Russian government.

The charge against Flynn is the first in Mueller’s probe that has reached someone in the Trump White House and is the latest sign that the special counsel’s investigation is intensifying.

Here is a Copy of the Criminal Charge against Flynn.

Michael Flynn charged with making false statement to the FBI

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was charged Friday with making a false statement to the FBI about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, marking another monumental development in the wide-ranging probe of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

Flynn was expected to enter a plea at 10:30, according to the special counsel’s office. The charge relates to false statements Flynn made to the FBI on January 24, four days after President Trump was inaugurated, about his meeting with Kislyak during the transition.

Flynn is accused of making false statements to the FBI about asking the ambassador in late December to “refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day.” Flynn also told authorities he did not recall the ambassador saying the Russians would moderate their response to Obama administration sanctions after the conversation.

Separately, authorities say Flynn lied about asking the ambassador to delay a vote on United Nations Security Council resolutions.

 

Clinton Goes There – Questions About Trump’s Legitimacy

Yook long enough. Many of us see the Chumph’s election as illegitimate, not just because of voter suppression and Russian meddling.

About time someone comes out and says it.

It is also true the election never should have been that close. And that failure sits squarely on Hillary and her campaign staff’s lap.

Hillary Clinton on Trump’s Election: “There Are Lots of Questions About Its Legitimacy”

In an exclusive interview with Mother Jones, Clinton says Russian interference and GOP voter suppression efforts may have cost her the presidency.

A year after her defeat by Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton says “there are lots of questions about its legitimacy” due to Russian interference and widespread voter suppression efforts.

In an interview with Mother Jones in downtown Manhattan, Clinton said Russian meddling in the election “was one of the major contributors to the outcome.” The Russians used “weaponized false information,” she said, in “a very successful disinformation campaign” that “wasn’t just influencing voters—it was determining the outcome.”

Republican efforts to make it harder to vote—through measures such as voter ID laws, shortened early voting periods, and new obstacles to registration—likewise “contributed to the outcome,” Clinton said. These moves received far less attention than Russian interference but arguably had a more demonstrable impact on the election result. According to an MIT study, more than 1 million people did not vote in 2016 because they encountered problems registering or at the polls. Clinton lost the election by a total of 78,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

“In a couple of places, most notably Wisconsin, I think it had a dramatic impact on the outcome,” Clinton said of voter suppression.

Wisconsin’s new voter ID law required a Wisconsin driver’s license or one of several other types of ID to cast a ballot. It blocked or deterred up to 23,000 people from voting in reliably Democratic Milwaukee and Madison, and potentially 45,000 people statewide, according to a University of Wisconsin study. Clinton lost the state by fewer than 23,000 votes. African Americans, who overwhelmingly supported Clinton, were more than three times as likely as whites not to vote because of the law.

“It seems likely that it cost me the election [in Wisconsin] because of the tens of thousands of people who were turned away and the margin being so small,” Clinton said.

Clinton says of voter suppression that in at least one state, “It seems likely that it cost me the election.”

She noted that this was the first presidential election in more than 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act after the Supreme Court gutted the law in a 2013 ruling, and 14 states had new voting restrictions in effect for the first time. “So many places have really tried to make it as difficult as they possibly could for young people, for African Americans, the elderly, to vote,” she said.

For Clinton and others who question the legitimacy of the election results, particularly due to Russian interference, there’s not an obvious next step. “We don’t have a method for contesting that in our system,” she said. “That’s why I’ve long advocated for an independent commission to get to the bottom of what happened.” On Wednesday, Democrats in Congress introduced articles of impeachment against Trump, but Clinton thinks that’s the wrong approach. “I think we need the investigations to continue,” she said, “and I think that it’s premature.”

But Clinton stood by a claim she made during a presidential debate last year, that if Trump were elected president, he would be Putin’s “puppet.” Asked if she still felt that way, Clinton said, “I do.”

“I don’t know how the president of the United States, with all of the concerns about the integrity of our elections, could meet with Putin just recently and basically say, ‘Well, you know, he told me again he didn’t do it,’” she said. “I can’t believe that he’s so naïve. I think that he hopes or expects the rest of us to be naïve, or at least the people who support him to be naïve. But this is a serious cyberattack on America.”…More Here…

 

 

British publicist who arranged Don Jr’s Trump Tower meeting with Russian Agents set to Squeal to Mueller

Another of the Chumph Family crime syndicate is in Mueller’s sights. Chumph Junior is under investigation for meeting with Russian “KGB” Agents to discuss their help in the election.

Publisher Rob Goldstone is set to testify before Mueller’s investigators.

Rob Goldstone ready to come to U.S. and talk to Mueller

Trump meeting with Emin Agalarov and Goldstone (left)

The Russian pop star identified as having arranged a meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer is the son of an oligarch (Russian mob?) with ties to Vladimir Putin.

The British publicist who helped set up the fateful meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a group of Russians at Trump Tower in June 2016 is ready to meet with Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s office, according to several people familiar with the matter.

Rob Goldstone has been living in Bangkok, Thailand, but has been communicating with Mueller’s office through his lawyer, said a source close to Goldstone.

Goldstone’s New York lawyer, G. Robert Gage, declined to comment other than to say, “nothing is presently scheduled.”

However, sources close to Goldstone and familiar with the investigation say they expect he will travel to the United States at some point “in the near future,” as one put it.

Goldstone helped set up — and attended — the June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower at which Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya says she presented information to Donald Trump Jr. and other key Trump aides. The meeting has emerged as a focus of Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump team colluded with the Russian effort to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.

In an email that later became public, Goldstone wrote to Trump Jr. that “the Crown prosecutor of Russia … offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.”

There is no office of crown prosecutor, but Goldstone appeared to be referring to the Russian prosecutor general.

He added that “this is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump — helped along by Aras and Emin,” a reference to his long-time clients, oligarch Aras Agalarov and his son, Emin, a Russian pop singer. Much of Goldstone’s publicity business involves music promotion. He also represented the Miss Universe pageant, at one time owned by President Trump.

In reply to Goldstone’s email, Trump Jr. wrote, “if it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”

Trump Jr. hosted the Russians alongside Paul Manafort, then Trump’s campaign chairman, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser. Along with Veselnitskaya, the Russian delegation included Irakly “Ike” Kaveladze, who works for the Agalarov family in the U.S., and Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist engaged in trying to lift Obama administration sanctions on Russia and Russian entities.

Also in the room was Russian-American translator Anatoli Samochornov, who had done work for the State Department and had translated previously for Veselnitskaya.

Investigators are trying to determine whether the promised assistance from the Russian government was provided, and whether it was part of what a dossier compiled by a former British intelligence officer called “a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Veselnitskaya told NBC News she first received the supposedly incriminating information she brought to Trump Tower — describing alleged tax evasion and donations to Democrats — from Glenn Simpson, the Fusion GPS owner, who had been hired to conduct research in a New York federal court case.

A source with firsthand knowledge of the matter confirmed that the firm’s research had been provided to Veselnitskaya as part of the case, which involved alleging money-laundering by a Russian company called Prevezon.

Veselnitskaya said she turned Simpson’s research over to the Russian prosecutor.

A spokesman for Mueller’s office declined to comment.

Chumph with Russian Mobster, money launderer, and felon Felix Slater (r)

 

How Jared Kushner Committed Perjury and His Newspaper Colluded With Russian Spies

Probably slated for the third round of Mueller indictments (After the Flynn family), Chumph son-in-law Jared Kushner is being investigated for back door deals with Wikileaks and Putin’s KGB.

Kushner perjured himself in testimony before Congress, declaring the he, and non of the Chumph staff ever had contact with Wikileaks or the Russians,

That’s bald faced lie.

How Jared Kushner’s Newspaper Became a Favorite Outlet for WikiLeaks Election Hacks

The New York Observer, owned by Trump’s son-in-law, was a friendly outlet for the 2016 Russian hackers.

In the fall of 2014, Julian Assange, the embattled head of WikiLeaks, was meeting with a steady stream of supportive journalists in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had taken refuge to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges. Among those seeking an audience with Assange was a freelancer working for the New York Observer, the newspaper owned and published by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and key advisor, Jared Kushner.

Ken Kurson, the newspaper’s editor in chief — along with a freelance writer he’d hired — helped arrange a “no-holds-barred” interview with Assange that October.

“My editor Ken Kurson (kkurson@observer.com) and I are very interested in an interview with Julian Assange. This would be a cover story.… We will be in London the first week of October,” wrote Jacques Hyzagi, a freelance reporter for the Observer, to a press consultant who arranged interviews for WikiLeaks.

Kurson, when contacted by Foreign Policy, said he did not attend that meeting and has never communicated with Assange; he insists that the profile was Hyzagi’s idea. “We ran an interview pitched to us by a freelancer,” he wrote in an email.

“I have never communicated in any way with Julian Assange and this sort of fact-free, evidenceless charge is analogous to pizzagate and other totally ludicrous conspiracies,” he added.

Hyzagi did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.

Yet a series of exchanges between Hyzagi and the WikiLeaks representative indicated that a meeting involving Kurson and Assange was in the works; at one point Leonardo DiCaprio was invited to tag along, according to emails obtained by FP. (DiCaprio did not end up attending.)

After that, the plan was to travel to Moscow to meet with Edward Snowden, the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor. Snowden’s team declined a request for an interview from Hyzagi, according to Ben Wizner, Snowden’s attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Hyzagi’s meeting with Assange resulted in a friendly feature in the Observer and kicked off a long-running series of laudatory articles about the WikiLeaks founder — many of those stories including exclusive details about the Australian transparency advocate. Later, the Observer also became a favored outlet of Guccifer 2.0, a suspected Russian hacker, who along with WikiLeaks released troves of emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC). WikiLeaks tweeted some of the Observer’s coverage, including stories expressing doubt that the Russians had meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Kushner has long denied any collusion with the Russian government, which is suspected of targeting the 2016 election, but his newspaper proved a favored conduit for hacks, which the U.S. intelligence community says were carried out on Kremlin orders. The Observer was not the only outlet that received exclusive access to Guccifer 2.0 documents — or those from other outlets such as DC Leaks, widely believed to be part of the same campaign — but it was the only one owned by someone who was part of the Trump campaign.

“This would be of significant interest to law enforcement and investigators,” John Sipher, a former CIA officer who worked in Russia, wrote in an email to FP.