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…
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.
This one is interesting in that while on the surface it looks unrelated – it could explain not only how the Russians were able to mask their identities to American social media…
But how Russian money was laundered into the Trump Campaign. As well as to buy other Republicans.
This criminal stole bank account numbers by using real American’s information to set up new accounts, and then sold these new accounts to the Russians as a method to launder money, hide teir identities, and to channel dirty money into campaign coffers.
This guy squealing may have some far reaching consequences. The only way I see this guy gets a deal, is if he can bring down some BIG FISH.
The other important thing about today’s indictments – is it backs everything the Intelligence Agencies have been saying sine before the corrupted election.
Richard Pinedo has agreed to cooperate with Mueller.
Special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s office announced Friday it had reached a plea deal with a California man who committed identity fraud as part of the ongoing Russia probe. The deal was announced the same day as the blockbuster indictments of a dozen Russian nationals and three Russia-affiliated groups alleging interference with the 2016 presidential election.
The charges against Richard Pinedo of Santa Paula, California, state that he sold bank account numbers created using the stolen identities of US citizens to people or entities outside of the United States. The Russian groups indicted by Mueller used social media posts, online ads, and rallies in the US to create propaganda efforts “primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump,” according to Mueller’s other indictment released Friday. Pinedo’s charges appear related to that activity.
As part of his plea deal, Pinedo has agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation.
While the precise implications of Pinedo’s plea agreement were not immediately clear, the federal grand jury indictment against the Russians notably alleged that they had used the stolen identities of US citizens as part of their election interference campaign.
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.
Trey Gowdy a Tea Party political hack Benghazi freak is resigning.
Guess he finally got to read all the evidence of the Chumph-Russia collusion. This is two in a row quickly resigning from the House Oversight Committee.
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) announced his retirement from Congress shortly after some of his Republican colleagues were in a train wreck involving a garbage truck.
The South Carolina Republican abruptly announced Wednesday he will not seek re-election in November but will instead return to the justice system.
“Whatever skills I may have are better utilized in a courtroom than in Congress, and I enjoy our justice system more than our political system,” Gowdy said. “As I look back on my career, it is the jobs that both seek and reward fairness that are most rewarding.”
The 53-year-old Gowdy, a former district attorney and federal prosector, has represented South Carolina’s 4th congressional district since 2011, when he was elected as part of the Tea Party wave.
Gowdy chaired the United States House Select Committee on Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi from 2014 to 2016, and he called for the prosecution of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign.
He has chaired the House Oversight Committee since the abrupt resignation of former GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT).
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.”
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 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).
Lawyers for Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, notified the president’s legal team in recent days that they could no longer discuss the special counsel’s investigation, according to four people involved in the case — an indication that Mr. Flynn is cooperating with prosecutors or negotiating a deal.
Mr. Flynn’s lawyers had been sharing information with Mr. Trump’s lawyers about the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is examining whether anyone around Mr. Trump was involved in Russian efforts to undermine Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
That agreement has been terminated, the four people said. Defense lawyers frequently share information during investigations, but they must stop when doing so would pose a conflict of interest. It is unethical for lawyers to work together when one client is cooperating with prosecutors and another is still under investigation.
The notification alone does not prove that Mr. Flynn is cooperating with Mr. Mueller. Some lawyers withdraw from information-sharing arrangements as soon as they begin negotiating with prosecutors. And such negotiations sometimes fall apart.
Still, the notification led Mr. Trump’s lawyers to believe that Mr. Flynn — who, along with his son, is seen as having significant criminal exposure — has, at the least, begun discussions with Mr. Mueller about cooperating.
Lawyers for Mr. Flynn and Mr. Trump declined to comment. The four people briefed on the matter spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
A deal with Mr. Flynn would give Mr. Mueller a behind-the-scenes look at the Trump campaign and the early tumultuous weeks of the administration. Mr. Flynn was an early and important adviser to Mr. Trump, an architect of Mr. Trump’s populist “America first” platform and an advocate of closer ties with Russia.
His ties to Russia predated the campaign — he sat with President Vladimir V. Putin at a 2015 event in Moscow — and he was a point person on the transition team for dealing with Russia.
The White House had been bracing for charges against Mr. Flynn in recent weeks, particularly after charges were filed against three other former Trump associates: Paul Manafort, his campaign chairman; Rick Gates, a campaign aide; and George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser.
But none of those men match Mr. Flynn in stature, or in his significance to Mr. Trump. A retired three-star general, Mr. Flynn was an early supporter of Mr. Trump’s and a valued surrogate for a candidate who had no foreign policy experience. Mr. Trump named him national security adviser, he said, to help “restore America’s leadership position in the world.”
Among the interactions that Mr. Mueller is investigating is a private meeting that Mr. Flynn had with the Russian ambassador and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, during the presidential transition. In the past year, it has been revealed that people with ties to Russia repeatedly sought to meet with Trump campaign officials, sometimes dangling the promise of compromising information on Mrs. Clinton.
Mr. Flynn is regarded as loyal to Mr. Trump, but he has in recent weeks expressed serious concerns to friends that prosecutors will bring charges against his son, Michael Flynn Jr., who served as his father’s chief of staff and was a part of several financial deals involving the elder Mr. Flynn that Mr. Mueller is scrutinizing…..
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.
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)
The FBI is scrutinizing more than 60 money transfers sent by the Russian foreign ministry to its embassies across the globe, most of them bearing a note that said the money was to be used “to finance election campaign of 2016.”
I think I discussed a while ago that this whole thing of collusion with Russia goes a lot deeper than just the Chump and his merry band of misanthropes and traitors,
A bunch of Republicans in Congress received Russian help in their elections in exchange for…We don’t know what yet.
Putin’s favorite Bi&)*h in Congress is Republican Dana Rohrabacher, to takes orders directly from the Kremlin.
If he and Flynn were meeting during the election it opens up another path of communications between the Russians and the Chumph campaign.
Looks like lots more Republicans are going to be resigning…and/or going to jail.
I would not be surprised to learn of Flynn Indictments tomorrow.
The Washington Post reported in May that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, also a California Republican, was secretly recorded telling other party members, in what seemed to be a joke, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.”
In September, the Wall Street Journal reported that Rohrabacher offered Trump a deal that to protect Julian Assange, creator of WikiLeaks, which released emails damaging to Hillary Clinton ahead of the 2016 election, from legal peril. In return for not prosecuting him for his group’s 2010 leak of State Department emails, Assange would allegedly provide proof that Russia was not the source of the hacked Democratic emails. The intelligence community has pointed to Russia as the secret provider of the email trove to WikiLeaks.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of investigators is looking into a pre-election meeting that took place in 2016 between then-Trump campaign adviser Michael Flynn and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), who has often been described as “Putin’s favorite congressman.”
NBC News is reporting that “the meeting allegedly took place in Washington the evening of September 20” last year and “was arranged by his lobbying firm, the Flynn Intel Group.”
NBC News’ report does not have any information about the nature of the meeting, although it says that it is reviewing emails sent from Flynn’s firm to Rohrabacher’s staff thanking them for arranging the meeting.
Putin’s Congressman – Rorenbacher
Rohrabacher, a California Republican who has become notorious for his efforts to advance Russian interests as a member of the United States Congress, recently had his travel privileges restricted over fears that he has been compromised by Russian intelligence officials.
The Daily Beast reported earlier this year that Rohrabacher was given instructions by Russian intelligence officials on how to alter sanctions legislation and to set up “a virtual show trial on Capitol Hill” last June, right at around the time that Donald Trump Jr. and key members of the Trump campaign met with Russian nationals who claimed to be representatives of the Russian government’s efforts to undermine the candidacy of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Rohrabacher’s original plan was to have a show trial in Congress of anti-Putin campaigner Bill Browder in which he would “confront Browder with a feature-length pro-Kremlin propaganda movie that viciously attacks him—as well as at least two witnesses linked to the Russian authorities, including lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.”
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly probing whether former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was involved in an alleged scheme to essentially kidnap a Turkish Muslim cleric living in Pennsylvania and transport him to Turkey.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Flynn and his son, Michael Flynn Jr. stood to be paid up to $15 million for delivering Fethullah Gulen to the Erdogan administration. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blames Gulen for the attempted coup against him last year and has been pushing the U.S. to extradite him. Gulen has denied the accusation.
According to the WSJ, FBI agents have spoken to at least four people about a meeting in December — after the presidential election — in which Flynn and representatives of the Turkish government discussed removing Gulen, allegedly by private jet, to the Turkish prison island of Imrali.
The Journal also reported that there is no indication, however, that there was any money was exchanged regarding this plan. Apart from this, while Flynn was a top adviser to the Trump campaign, his firm, the Flynn Intel Group Inc. was paid $530,000 for lobbying for a Dutch company owned by a Turkish businessman, work that Flynn acknowledged could help the interests of the Turkish government. He made the disclosure in March, months after he had been ousted from the White House, in paperwork filed with the Justice Department that identified him as a foreign agent.
On Election Day, Flynn wrote an opinion piece in The Hill, in which he accused Gulen of being a “radical Islamist” and a potential terrorist.
“Gülen’s vast global network has all the right markings to fit the description of a dangerous sleeper terror network,” Flynn wrote. “From Turkey’s point of view, Washington is harboring Turkey’s Osama bin Laden.” He also criticized the Obama administration for keeping Erdogan at arm’s length, given that “Turkey is really our strongest ally against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), as well as a source of stability in the region.”
The Wall Street Journal also reported that in the discussions concerning Gulen, Flynn was ready to push for the extradition of Gulen from within the White House.
The reclusive Gulen has lived in the Poconos in a gated retreat for the last 17 years. His movement has founded charter schools throughout the U.S. He has never visited any of them and is never seen in public. Instead, he addresses his followers online.
Mueller has been investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, as well as any collusion between Trump associates and Russia.
If you can spare a few seconds, please sign the Change.Org -“impeach the Chump” petition. They ask for a donation of $3, but you can refuse and distribute the petition to friends and family.
The target is to reach 2 million signatures. I think we can do a little better than that.
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