Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out

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Re: Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out

Postby JackRiddler » Thu Jan 17, 2019 7:26 pm

New Game, Let's Play!

Here is a Manafort-related story that won't have media legs.

Can you see what's missing?

Skadden Arps Settles With DOJ Over Manafort Ukraine Dealings

Source: Talking Points Memo

By Josh Kovensky

January 17, 2019 3:39 pm

The prominent law firm Skadden Arps reached a civil settlement with federal law enforcement today over work it performed in Ukraine on Paul Manafort’s request, the Justice Department announced in a statement.

The firm agreed to pay $4.6 million that it secretly received for the work that it performed on behalf of the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice, and agreed to retroactively register as a foreign agent of the Ukrainian government.

Skadden wrote a report in 2012 whitewashing the Ukrainian government’s prosecution of a main political opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko.

The press release says that the lead partner in the matter made “false and misleading statements” to the DOJ after its foreign agents registration unit contacted the firm in 2013 in connection with the case. The lead partner was former Obama White House Counsel Gregory Craig, who left the firm in April 2018. The lead partner told the FARA unit that he had only replied to media requests regarding the report, and did not actively attempt to disseminate it in the American press, according to the press release.

Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker ... e-dealings


Here's some criminal dealing by Cohen involving online manipulations designed to benefit the Trump campaign. Despite that highly promising start, this true story also will not dominate news cycles.

Can you see what's missing?

Cohen Hired IT Firm to Rig Early CNBC, Drudge Polls to Favor Trump

By Michael Rothfeld, Rob Barry and Joe Palazzolo
Updated Jan. 17, 2019 9:25 a.m. ET

In early 2015, a man who runs a small technology company showed up at Trump Tower to collect $50,000 for having helped Michael Cohen, then Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, try to rig online polls in his boss’s favor before the presidential campaign.

In his Trump Organization office, Mr. Cohen surprised the man, John Gauger, by giving him a blue Walmart bag containing between $12,000 and $13,000 in cash and, randomly, a boxing glove that Mr. Cohen said had been worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial arts fighter, Mr. Gauger said.

Mr. Cohen disputed that he handed over a bag of cash. “All monies paid to Mr. Gauger were by check,” he said, offering no further comment on his ties to the consultant.

Mr. Gauger owns RedFinch Solutions LLC and is chief information officer at Liberty University in Virginia, where Jerry Falwell Jr., an evangelical leader and fervent Trump supporter, is president.

Mr. Gauger said he never got the rest of what he claimed he was owed. But Mr. Cohen in early 2017 still asked for—and received—a $50,000 reimbursement from Mr. Trump and his company for the work by RedFinch, according to a government document and a person familiar with the matter. The reimbursement—made on the sole basis of a handwritten note from Mr. Cohen and paid largely out of Mr. Trump’s personal account—demonstrates the level of trust the lawyer once had within the Trump Organization, whose officials arranged the repayment.

After this story published Thursday morning, Mr. Cohen said in a tweet that he attempted to have the polls rigged with Mr. Trump’s knowledge.

“What I did was at the direction of and for the sole benefit of [Mr. Trump],” Mr. Cohen wrote. “I truly regret my blind loyalty to a man who doesn’t deserve it.”

The Trump Organization declined to comment. Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, said Mr. Cohen’s being reimbursed more money than he paid RedFinch showed the former Trump lawyer to be a thief. “If one thing has been established, it’s that Michael Cohen is completely untrustworthy,” he said.

[...]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/poll-riggi ... 1547722801
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Re: Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Jan 17, 2019 7:39 pm

Well I did post that story this morning

viewtopic.php?f=52&t=41531

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=40936&start=90

I see legs

Cohen is going to jail

Manafort is in jail for the rest of his life

And their good buddy partner in crime is a Russian asset.....that would be trump
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out

Postby JackRiddler » Thu Jan 17, 2019 7:48 pm

Cohen & Manafort are going to jail, deservedly.

(Even though for things that others will not be prosecuted for.)

Both of the above stories are true.

Yet neither is going to be a 24-hour news cycle hit.

Can you see what's missing?
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
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Re: Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Jan 17, 2019 7:54 pm

Missing?

Greg Craig?
Alex van der Zwaan?

Where did Cohen get the cash? Where did trump get the cash?

The Blue Walmart Bag?

Manafort’s Joint Defense Agreement with trump?

Skadden meaculpa ?
97609C55-508F-4569-AAF5-C3869DAFDD98.jpeg



Ukrainian President on trial for treason? Another good buddy of Manafort missing ....where is he? Russia! :D


Zoe Tillman
@ZoeTillman
·
3h
NEW: Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom — the law firm that Paul Manafort hired as part of his work for Ukraine — has reached a settlement with DOJ, agreeing to register retroactively as a foreign agent and pay $4.6M (the money it earned for that work)
5D0969D2-7F9E-4FDD-936D-72DC14D36ADE.jpeg


You may also remember Skadden as the law firm that Alex van der Zwaan (remember him? (link: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zo ... els-office) buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…)

Asked if former Skadden partner Greg Craig (who was involved in the Ukraine project that Skadden got in trouble for) is under investigation, Craig's lawyer Bill Taylor declines to comment


Skadden git’s off light cooperation with Mueller?

Obama’s lawyer still in trouble?


btw news cycle is about 4 hours these days



on edit.....boy was I right about that 4 hours......we are now on to trump told Cohen to lie to Congress... suborned perjury...I think that's a pretty big deal :)
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Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out

Postby JackRiddler » Sat Jan 26, 2019 2:39 am

.

(Stone indictment: This is post 1 of 2)

In case you haven't noticed, ha ha, original ratfucker and longtime political ax-man Roger Stone got indicted by Mueller. As you may remember, after the DNC leaks in June and July 2016, Stone scammed the Trump campaign -- which was first under Manafort's and then under Bannon's management -- by posing as an inside contact to Wikileaks, which he was not. The campaign apparently directed Stone to get Assange to release more Clinton dirt. Stone dutifully read the press for clues and also pressured poor Randy Credico, who actually knows and met with Assange, to help concoct the impression that Stone did, in fact, have influence with Assange. Which he did not. It was a show for the Trumpsters and also a bragging point in foolish public statements. When the Podesta leaks were first teased by Wikileaks publicly and then released on October 7, Stone played as if he, alone, had predicted it. Which he did not. The next year, he lied about his own earlier deceptions in testimony to a congressional committee, and to other investigators. That last part, finally, is the stuff of the indictment. All the other stuff has been known for many months. The priests and adepts of #Russiagate are all birthing holy burning triplets about this latest long-awaited revelation of their godhead. It's the beginning of the end, Trump is finished!tm

Here is Mueller's indictment, 24 pages:
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper ... pdf#page=1

Below is the first section, a very easy read that lays out the story, all of which you would already know if you've been following.

Key:
Company 1 = Crowdstrike
Person 1 = Corsi
Person 2 = Credico
Organization 1 = Wikileaks
Clinton Campaign chairman = Podesta

"senior Trump Campaign officials": Corey "Hapless" Lewandowski was the campaign chair until he was fired on June 20 and Manafort took the helm. Manafort had joined the campaign in March, having been referred by billionaire and long-time Trump friend Thomas Barrack. Manafort was demoted on August 17, immediately after Trump got his first security briefing from the FBI (which presumably included dirt or at least bad claims about Manafort). A couple of days later, he resigned altogether. The same day was fateful because it saw Bannon, apparently on the recommendation of the Mercers, was parachuted in to rescue the by-then moribund campaign. He became the major domo in a duo with Kellyanne Conway, who had been there throughout. Ivanka, Kushner, and Eric were always around, but wouldn't have been "officials of the campaign."

The Grand Jury for the District of Columbia charges:

Introduction

1. By in or around May 2016, the Democratic National Committee (“DNC”) and the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (“DCCC”) became aware that their computer systems had been compromised by unauthorized intrusions and hired a security company (“Company 1”) to identify the extent of the intrusions.

2. On or about June 14, 2016, the DNC—through Company 1—publicly announced that it
had been hacked by Russian government actors. [That's all you are going to get as evidence backing this central matter: DNC through Crowdstrike publicly announced.]

3. From in or around July 2016 through in or around November 2016, an organization
(“Organization 1”), which had previously posted documents stolen by others from U.S. persons, entities, and the U.S. government, released tens of thousands of documents stolen from the DNC and the personal email account of the chairman of the U.S. presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton (“Clinton Campaign”).

a. On or about July 22, 2016, Organization 1 released documents stolen from the
DNC.

b. Between on or about October 7, 2016 and on or about November 7, 2016,
Organization 1 released approximately 33 tranches of documents that had been
stolen from the personal email account of the Clinton Campaign chairman, totaling
over 50,000 stolen documents. [Remember, regardless of who did this, this one was not done through access to a server, but by a fishing e-mail sent to Podesta, who naively surrendered his Google password to a fake virus message.]

4. ROGER JASON STONE, JR. was a political consultant who worked for decades in U.S.
politics and on U.S. political campaigns. STONE was an official on the U.S. presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump (“Trump Campaign”) until in or around August 2015, and maintained regular contact with and publicly supported the Trump Campaign through the 2016 election.

5. During the summer of 2016, STONE spoke to senior Trump Campaign officials about
Organization 1 and information it might have had that would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign. STONE was contacted by senior Trump Campaign officials to inquire about future releases by Organization 1.

6. By in or around early August 2016, STONE was claiming both publicly and privately to
have communicated with Organization 1. By in or around mid-August 2016, Organization 1 made a public statement denying direct communication with STONE. Thereafter, STONE said that his communication with Organization 1 had occurred through a person STONE described as a “mutual friend,” “go-between,” and “intermediary.” STONE also continued to communicate with members
of the Trump Campaign about Organization 1 and its intended future releases.

7. After the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (“HPSCI”), the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (“SSCI”), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) opened or announced their respective investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which included investigating STONE’s claims of contact with Organization 1.

8. In response, STONE took steps to obstruct these investigations. Among other steps to
obstruct the investigations, STONE:

a. Made multiple false statements to HPSCI about his interactions regarding
Organization 1, and falsely denied possessing records that contained evidence of
these interactions; and

b. Attempted to persuade a witness to provide false testimony to and withhold
pertinent information from the investigations.


Note that in the English language, "his interactions regarding" is not synonymous with "his interactions with."

The witness in 8b would be Credico, Person 2. It is the story about Stone threatening him and his dog, which is covered in the indictment, Point 39.

Points 11-17 detail what would be the heart of the "collusion" action on the Stone side and has nothing that has not already been released here or there. It is basically a review of Stone's contacts with Credico in the run-up to the Oct. 7 Wikileaks release of the Podesta e-mails. Remember, Wikileaks teased this release repeatedly in the press before finally sending it out. According to Points 11-17, Stone never talks to Assange. Credico updates him occasionally about his contacts with Assange, even as Stone pretends to the Trumpsters that he "predicted" the Podesta release. None of these details are cited as actionable crimes in the indictment. Many of them are repeated in further sections so as to demonstrate that Stone lied about these details. i.e., Stone lied before Congress under oath about his attempts to contact Wikileaks. This does not change his apparent failure to actually sway Assange, or even talk to him.

So, finally, "the Trump campaign officials" who may have directed Stone to try getting Wikileaks to release more dirt on Clinton could be Manafort (suggested in Point 5) or, if it was after August 17, likely Bannon or Conway. Would such a request to Stone be illegal? Possibly, it's at least as bad as hiring non-US citizens who is not registered as a lobbyist to do the opposition research. It would be a lot worse, legally speaking, if Wikileaks actually were an unofficial "hostile foreign intelligence service" working wittingly for the Russian state, as Pompeo would have it, or for that matter as Clinton and the DNC allege. That, in turn, depends on the Crowdstrike claims (i.e., that it was "Russia" that "hacked" the DNC servers back in May 2016, so as to coordinate a release of the contents through Wikileaks as a witting co-conspirator).

Apropos of nothing, but worth a laugh, here is Hollywood executive producer Steve Bannon's IMDB page.
https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0052442/filmotype/producer
Last edited by JackRiddler on Sat Jan 26, 2019 6:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out

Postby JackRiddler » Sat Jan 26, 2019 3:08 am

(Stone indictment: This is post 2 of 2 - read the above first, thank you)

.

Wikileaks statements of January 25:

@wikileaks
Statement from Julian Assange's US lawyer Barry Pollack on Roger J. Stone: "The dawn military-style arrest of Mr. Stone, a 66 year old political consultant, was wholly unnecessary and served no purpose other than intimidation.” (1/3)

“The charges against Mr. Stone do not allege that Mr. Stone lied about his [lack of] contacts with Julian Assange, but rather about his contacts with others and about documents reflecting those communications.” (2/3)

@wikileaks
"The Office of Special Counsel has never spoken with Mr. Assange." (3/3)


And the indictment doesn't need any of that. They're just nailing Stone for lying to Congress by denying his earlier lying to the Trumpsters. O, what a tangled web we weave.

Aaron Maté 25 January:

@aaronjmate
As I’ve said before, Stone had no actual link to Wikileaks, he just trolled everyone into thinking that he did. He’s now being indicted for lying to Congress — not to Mueller btw — about his efforts to find out what Wikileaks had from two people who also had no real link either.

[citing]

@aaronjmate (1 November 2018)
The reason Mueller (or anyone) has not been able to find an "actual link to Wikileaks" yet is because Roger Stone has pulled off one of most successful trollings in recent memory. 2 years in, it still hasn't sunk in that Stone's "link" to WL is a combo of b.s. & reading the news:

[citing NYT reporter]

Maggie Haberman

Verified account

@maggieNYT
Follow Follow @maggieNYT
More
NEW: Mueller zeroing in on emails, other interactions between Stone and campaign officials in 2016 as he tries to find an actual link to Wikileaks, and to determine whether it's just puffery from the self-described dirty trickster.



NYT coverage of Stone raid and indictment.

Transcript of Stone press con after court.

Additionally:

Wikileaks filing in Democratic National Committee vs. Russian Federation et al.

I don't have time for this but: Wikileaks files motion with Inter-American Commission of Human Rights in attempt to get a ruling that the Trump administration must unseal or dismiss the indictments against Assange. (Sorry, Grauniad coverage). Apparently 1172 pages. The big surprise for me: The international coordinator of Assange’s legal team is none other than Baltasar Garzón.
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Re: Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out

Postby JackRiddler » Sat Jan 26, 2019 5:41 pm

.

Trigger warning: Jimmy Dore! Oh noes. He interviews Aaron Maté on the Buzzfeed story (that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress about Moscow tower deal) that Mueller's office itself in an unprecedented move stepped in to debunk. Then they have a grand time waltzing through the ever-longer list of debunked and retracted #Russiagate bombshell stories, most of them unrelated to Mueller but fabricating Russian attacks on everything in America from the Vermont electric grid to the dubious leftist press. Why so many of these? What does this tell us about the Russia panic?

Have complaints about Jimmy Dore? I may even share some of them. Spare us, if you can stand it. The real issue is, why isn't Aaron Maté also being asked to appear elsewhere? Maybe you should demand to see him, if not on MSNBC, then on Democracy Now! where he worked for years and rightly should be invited?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BypY9ELgVk
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Re: Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out

Postby JackRiddler » Mon Jan 28, 2019 1:51 pm

.

Regarding: Certain misconceptions about the super-powerful Paul Manafort of Summer 2016, who is often styled into Putin's intermediary string-puller over the puppet Trump.

Here is a recent sample of this meme, which can be found among many in the United States:

seemslikeadream » Thu Jan 24, 2019 11:49 am wrote:
Remember:Paul Manafort installed Yanukovych as Putin puppet in Ukraine, then did the same in 2016 with Trump.


Response:

JackRiddler » Mon Jan 28, 2019 12:30 pm wrote:Manafort did not "install" Yanukovych, he managed his 2010 campaign. Yanukovych came up as the hand-picked successor of the post-Soviet Ukrainian president from 1991 to 2004, Leonid Kutschma. Y. appeared to win the 2004 election. but was ousted after the Orange Revolution forced a second vote. Then he won the 2010 election, legitimately, and did some interesting things. He hired the opposition leader, Yulia Timoshenko, as a minister, and had her negotiate an energy deal with Russia. Then he imprisoned her on charges that the deal was too friendly to the Russians. She was condemned as "pro-Russian," which works well in (western) Ukrainian politics. He spent three years trying to arrange an economic association deal with the EU. Political consultant Paul Manafort, funded by oligarch Pinchuk (a funder of the Clinton Foundation), was the lobbyist and point-man in the dealings on that behind the scenes. Because the EU would have restricted trade with Russia, Moscow pressured Y. to join their customs union instead, and threatened to charge higher prices for fuel if Ukraine signed with the EU. The EU-IMF then came up with a horrible final offer of only $5 billion in loans, 2/3 of which would go straight into debt service, while Russia offered $15 billion in loans at far better conditions. With the state in dire financial straits, overnight, and against Manafort's advice, Y. rejected the EU deal and accepted Moscow's. Then, overnight, the Euro-Maidan protests began in November 2013, and were backed by three major opposition parties. It was from then that Y. came to be identified solely as "pro-Russian" in the Western corporate media. Eventually he would flee the country and seek asylum in Russia.

Manafort of course also did not "install" Trump. He was campaign chair for a couple of months until he was fired on August 17, when the campaign was at its low point. Bannon then took over and got the win. Of course, before Bannon and the Mercers, no one ever "ran" the Trump campaign other than the old guy rambling aggressive trash at various podiums around the country and deploying his Angry Thumbs on Twitter, and the corporate media that bestowed such generous free airtime continuously to his shows starting in 2015.

For a thorough view on the current political situation in (western) Ukraine as seen by an honest-to-god leftist sociologist in Kiev, follow the link.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=41098&p=669253#p669253

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Re: Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out

Postby JackRiddler » Thu Feb 07, 2019 12:02 pm

An interesting round-up posted on another thread today on Deripaska from a very #Russiagate perspective, but presenting facts in ways subject to multiple possible interpretations (as with the visits by none other than Steele to Deripaska, or the questions about his true status within Russia). That changes in the last section, which I have left out here (follow the link if you like). As soon as the name Assange is mentioned, the article turns into a hit job verging on hate speech, full of extreme speculations and proven lies, such as the debunked and baseless fabrication that Manafort ever met Assange, as fronted by Luke Harding.

seemslikeadream » Thu Feb 07, 2019 5:27 am wrote:
Deripaska

Posted on February 6, 2019 by Zev Shalev and Tracie McElroy
https://narativ.org/2019/02/06/deripaska/

After an in-depth investigation into the players on the Russian side of the Trump-Russia scandal, a key figure emerged who is at the center of the entire operation. But, is he Vladimir Putin’s secret agent, the mastermind of the conspiracy, or a confidential source?

Showdown at Pikalevo

The 2009 global liquidity crisis ground Russian manufacturing to a near-halt. In Pikalevo, Russia, workers at the local aluminum refinery had gone unpaid for weeks. Oleg Deripaska, the plant’s 41-year-old owner, was inside and expecting word of a guest. Just months earlier, the oligarch had been named Russia’s richest man by Forbes – worth $28 Billion. Now he was facing financial ruin and a visit from the (then) Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Putin strode into town, media in tow, and into a meeting with the owners. He accused them of “ambition, incompetence and pure greed,” in a dramatic dressing down that was later broadcast on national TV.

“These are real people, and if you can’t [reopen the factory], we’ll do it without you,” he continued.

Putin then passed around contracts which committed the owners to pay the late salaries from their own pockets. That’s when he noticed a hold-out.

“Deripaska, have you signed?” The then 56-year-old Prime Minister stared at the oligarch.

Deripaska must have known that his boss was in no mood for negotiation. Despite the pretense of private ownership, Russia remains an oligarchy. Deripaska may be the aluminum king but like all the owners of Russia’s biggest companies, Putin exerts ultimate control over him.

Deripaska made his way to where Putin was seated at the front of the room, leaned his 6-foot frame over the table and signed using Putin’s pen, only to be further humiliated when Putin asked for his pen back.

The showdown in Pikalevo makes clear how Deripaska has survived as Putin’s closest oligarch for over two decades. His is a loyalty forged out of expediency.



(hardly; the story is suggests that he is far from "Putin's closest" and this premise will not be established in the rest of the piece)

Deripaska should have gone broke over this crisis, but Putin was there to facilitate a $50 Billion loan from the state bank, Vneshtorgbank (VTB). Putin uses access to money and loans from VTB as a way to control his oligarchs.


If it were a US bank lending to a US oligarch with a state guarantee, the story would at least be framed as a matter of capitalist business as usual.



Contract negotiations, Kremlin-style

Putin’s secret agent

Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska has until recently run Russia’s global aluminum company ‘Rusal’ and the investment company ‘Basic Element.’ At 51 years old, he is still spectacularly wealthy (worth $3.5 Billion), Jewish and the father of two children. The oligarch is divorced and is dogged by rumours of a wild sex life. While his marriage didn’t fare so well, his loyalty to Putin seems unshakeable.


Second time asserted minus any backing as yet.

Deripaska is known as “Putin’s oligarch” and is often sent on state missions which exist outside the bounds of traditional diplomacy or legality – often on one of his private yachts or planes in order to ensure secrecy. “I don’t separate myself from the state,” he told the Financial Times in 2007.


Meaningless. "I'm a patriot, I support our government..." anyone could be saying stuff like this for any number of reasons, sincerely or otherwise.

The next year in 2008, Deripaska and his best friend, Nat Rothschild, were spotted on the deck of his yacht with British business secretary Lord Mandelson and shadow chancellor George Osbourne. The resulting scandal in the UK newspapers was huge and went on for years. What emerged was a pattern of buying influence through luxury vacations, which Deripaska continues until today.


Capitalist BAU. Also, this is the British state, duh.

The Russian magnate has a knack of turning politicians into puppets. Buying political influence abroad helps the oligarch in two ways. It gives him leverage against other oligarchs and Putin domestically, but it is mostly self-serving. In one 2012 trip with Rothschild and Lord Mandelson, Deripaska clinched a $500 million deal with Alcoa, America’s largest aluminum manufacturer.


What would change in this if the superfluous "Putin" was not inserted?

It’s hard to tell where business ends and organized crime begins in Russia.


Capitalist BAU, especially for billionaires.

They are one and the same thing, allowing the elite to get away with almost anything. Deripaska denies he has ties to organized crime but authorities have investigated him for money-laundering, murder, illegal wiretapping, bribery, extortion and racketeering. When the U.S. banned him from entering the country, Putin gave him a diplomatic passport to get around the travel ban. he has spent millions and lobbied the U.S. government for years to reverse the ban.


So if this was "the Russian government" rather than "Putin," what would it lose?

Deripaska, his companies or direct associates have been linked to intelligence operations which allegedly disrupted elections in at least four of Russia’s neighbouring states. In December, Russian intelligence agent Alekseyevich Boyarkin was linked to Deripaska in a plot to interfere in Montenegro’s 2016 election.


By the US Treasury Department. "Linked," "accused."

The oligarch is not a spy, nor does he work for Russia’s military intelligence, yet somehow wherever he goes, spies seem to follow.


How do we know that? And of how many other wandering oligarchs of all nations is this also true?

That could mean one of two things: He plays a role in state-run military intelligence operations or the GRU is freelancing for him.


Actually, it could mean many other possible things.

One exiled oil oligarch says both are possible if you think of the Kremlin as being run by mobsters.


No objections here. The name of the system is capitalism and one is quite familiar with it from the other capitalist oligarchies.

“The criminal gang in the Kremlin can sometimes call on the services of the GRU,” Mikhail Khodorkovsky told the BBC.


I'm sure they sometimes do.

Either way, Deripaska’s involvement with the GRU


(which has not really been established by the above, at least not its nature, but will henceforth be assumed)

and its political interference arm may have gained him inside knowledge of the operation to hack the DNC in 2016.


May have. Assuming there was one, it may have. Did you know this is a synonym for may have not?

Henceforth, the weasel words will be in red and interesting passages bolded.

The very crime for which Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 GRU officers last July.


gasp!

Deripaska’s proximity to power and his ties to military intelligence has also made him an attractive prospect for U.S. intelligence recruiting for over a decade.

Image

Flipping Oleg

In 2014, The Justice Department began a documented two-year effort to recruit Deripaska as an informant as part of “Operation Outreach”.


About time something was documented here.

Intriguingly, it was former MI-6 spy Christopher Steele – the famous author of the dossier that bears his name – who approached DOJ to suggest potentially flipping Deripaska.

It wasn’t the first time Deripaska worked with the FBI.
In 2009, the FBI enlisted the oligarch for an attempted rescue of Bob Levinson, the American held hostage in Iran. The mission didn’t succeed but Deripaska got enough information out of the Iranians to get what he wanted out of the deal: A legal U.S. visa.


Gasp! Issued to Putin's closest oligarch?!

The recent effort to flip Deripaska began in earnest in September 2015. The Justice Department’s Bruce Ohr met Deripaska to ask about Putin’s ties to organized crime. Deripaska reportedly rebuffed the advance but by the beginning of 2016, the oligarch’s rehabilitation was underway.

We know this because the FBI helped Deripaska get another U.S. visa in February 2016. The oligarch was “encouraged” by the “softening of the agency’s stance,” according to emails released by Republican lawmakers. “We reckon that the forthcoming OVD contact represents a good opportunity for the USG,” Steele texted Ohr. Deripaska’s initials are OVD.

Keep in mind, this was all happening at the same time Christopher Steele was writing his dossier. As it turns out, Steele had worked for Deripaska in 2012. While it’s unclear if the two men were in direct contact, Deripaska was sending Steele messages through his U.S. lobbyist, Adam Waldman. Was Steele working for Deripaska? No one can say for sure


After that paragraph, no one can say for sure, but it's hard not to think it.

but FBI Director Christopher Wray refused to discuss it in an unclassified setting when Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asked him at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in February last year.

Later in February 2016, Deripaska was the subject of a U.S. inter-agency meeting. Prior to the meeting, Steele shared sensitive documents which showed Putin was exerting pressure on the oligarchs and that “Deripaska was not a tool,” according to Steele.

Contacts between Steele, Deripaska, Waldman and Ohr, continued almost all the way up to the election. The last contact was in September 2016, when Ohr and Steele showed up unannounced at Deripaska’s New York apartment.

“We think Russia is colluding with the Trump campaign, and we think Manafort is the key guy,” a knowledgeable source told David Ignatius of the Washington Post.

According to the source, Deripaska responded: “I hate Manafort, and I’m suing him.”

That may have been true but it was also an artful dodge because we now know Deripaska was receiving regular updates from Manafort throughout 2016. It’s equally noteworthy Deripaska was in New York in September 2016, two months before the election, under a mile away from Donald Trump, his kids, Michael Cohen and Felix Sater on a visa provided to him because of the efforts of the FBI.


Gasp, within a mile of Trump in New York City? Uh oh, several hundred thousand people and I have been that more often than Deripaska!!!


Image

In Trump, Manafort saw a way out

Deripaska met Paul Manafort through Rothschild. The two billionaires hired Manafort in 2004 to help suppress a popular uprising in Ukraine. Deripaska teamed up his new American operative with Konstantin Kilimnik, a former Soviet soldier with ties to the GRU. The two men worked side-by-side for the next 11 years in Ukraine, Georgia, Kryzghstan and the U.S., always with a pro-Putin agenda.


A straight up untruth, as has been shown above from p. 1 forward. Up until November 2013 Manafort was arranging the EU deal for Yanukovych (which Putin opposed) and recommending until the end that Yanukovych sign an association agreement with the EU and not a customs union with Russia.

Manafort inked a lucrative a $10 million a year contract with the oligarch in 2005 to “influence politics, business dealings and news coverage to benefit President Vladimir Putin’s government.” That work allegedly continued through 2009. Deripaska’s spokespeople deny all these contacts and allegations.

Manafort’s directive was to get a president elected who would be more inclined to keep Ukraine out of NATO. Along with Kilimnik, Manafort’s American deputy Rick Gates and pollster Tony Fabrizio, Manafort remade the image of pro-Putin Victor Yanukovich and helped engineer his election as President in 2010.


Must we assign super-powers to these people? Yanukovych, one of the best-known politicians in the Ukraine since the turn of the century, almost won election in 2004, then did win in 2010.

Manafort and Kilimnik stayed on as Yanukovich’s advisers until he was ejected from power in 2014 by the Maidan revolution.

Barely two years later, this same cast of political tricksters would turn their attention to the US elections, and what would soon become the single biggest scandal of all time.


Woah! Single biggest! Ever!


After the revolution, Manafort faced an uncertain future. His work in Ukraine had rendered him unemployable, and his finances were in bad shape as the result of a court fight with Deripaska over a failed investment scheme worth $16 million. By 2015, Manafort was down and out. His wife had discovered he was cheating. He was broke and ended up in a rehab facility in Arizona. It may have been the desert air or group therapy, but Manafort left that rehab center with a clear focus: Donald Trump.

Manafort had known Trump for decades and owned an apartment in Trump Tower, yet the prevailing narrative is that he needed his friend Thomas Barack to get him in contact with the Republican candidate. Barack came through and Trump hired Manafort, for no pay.

Image

A rare photo of Konstantin Kilimnik (far left) and Paul Manafort (table center) from Ukraine in 2006

From the start, Deripaska was tracking Manafort

Manafort had barely been on the job at the Trump campaign for two weeks when he got word to his old patron Deripaska via Konstantin Kilimnik.

“I assume you have shown our friends my media coverage, right?” Manafort asked Kilimnik.

“Absolutely,” Kilimnik replied. “Every article.”

“How do we use to get whole,” Manafort asked. “Has OVD operation seen?

“Frankly the coverage has been much better than Trump’s,” Kilimnik quipped. “In any case, it will hugely enhance your reputation no matter what happens.”

Throughout those early days, Manafort kept Deripaska abreast of what was going on via Kilimnik. At one point Manafort shared internal campaign research with the oligarch via Kilimnik and at another time offered Deripaska regular briefings on the campaign.

In an interview with Radio Free Europe, Kilimnik confirmed Trump was a regular topic of their email correspondence. “We discussed a lot of issues, from Putin to women,” Kilimnik told Radio Free Europe. “Of course we discussed Trump and everything,” he said.

Kilimnik fled Kyiv as soon as he was indicted on Obstruction of Justice charges for attempting to convince witnesses to back Manafort’s cover-up story. He now lives in a gated community north of Moscow, out of the reach of the Special Counsel.

Deripaska’s involvement in Trump-Russia is no longer just conjecture.


Every detail about what any of this is supposed to mean is conjecture. Manafort communicating with Klimnik doesn't turn into the #Russiagate El Dorado of the Trump campaign back channel with Putin, and it doesn't put Oleg in charge of anything. This article has presented more (weak) evidence that Deripaska worked for ir with the FBI, Western agencies, or Steele, than it has (even weaker) evidence that he's always been a Putin or GRU man charged with managing Trump.

[unhinged and actionable defamations and slanders against Assange follow, deleted here]

Deripaska remains unindicted.


But he did pose for that villain photo in green light, for whatever reason.

.
Last edited by JackRiddler on Fri Feb 08, 2019 1:34 am, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Feb 07, 2019 12:06 pm

you need to fix that so it does not look like those are my words in my post...but thanks for the invite!


When Russian mafia boss Semion Mogilevich [linked to Manafort, Trump, Putin] tried to cut a deal with FBI/DOJ on his 2006 money laundering charges, Bruce Ohr refused. Ohr also helped revoke Oleg Deripaska's visa. Now he's a target of Trump.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40179&p=662382&hilit=Deripaska#p662382


THE OLIVER NORTH OF RUSSIAGATE
Oleg Deripaska is the Oliver North of Russiagate. He’s the one Russian oligarch whose name you need to know. Oleg The Oligarch. Vladimir Putin’s go-to guy.
Image
http://www.madcowprod.com/2018/03/27/th ... ussiagate/


Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who paid Manafort for his pro-Russia work in Ukraine, is seen in this picture with Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was one of the Russians indicted today by Robert Mueller & Rod Rosenstein.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40854&p=651210&hilit=Deripaska#p651210


Why A Powerful Russian Oligarch Was Furious With Paul Manafort
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40370&p=657264&hilit=Deripaska#p657264


That Thing They Have

Tuesday’s big-ticket convictions and Trump’s Mafia code

Russia, of course, has everything to do with both Cohen’s and Manafort’s current plight, for the riches of the former Soviet Union were the lodestar they followed that led them into Trump’s inner circle. According to former federal investigators, Cohen’s connection to Trump came through the intercession of his Ukrainian-born father-in-law, Fima Shusterman. It was well known among members of “Red Star,” an informal group of federal and local law enforcement agents investigating the Russian Mafia in New York in the 1990s, that Shusterman was funneling money into Trump ventures. Cohen was introduced to Trump as a thank you of sorts, and one reason why Cohen has not yet decided to cooperate with prosecutors is because it could imperil his family.

Moments after Cohen violated Trump’s law of omertà, the Mafia code of silence, the jury’s verdict in the trial of Paul Manafort was read out in Alexandria, Virginia. Trump’s former campaign chairman was found guilty in a case that showcased the riches he hid in overseas accounts to finance his lavish lifestyle back home. Manafort’s entree into the world of $15,000 ostrich jackets came through Oleg Deripaska, a wealthy and powerful Russian oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Deripaska would become Manafort’s patron, paying millions of dollars for consulting services as well as loaning him money and investing in his business deals, as well as introducing him to Ukrainian oligarchs. During the 2016 presidential election, while serving as Trump’s campaign chairman, he tried to offer Deripaska private briefings about the campaign. Often overlooked amid all the speculation over Robert Mueller’s Russia probe is the tantalizing hint last year that may or may not point to Deripaska: in an application to search Manafort’s home in Alexandria, Virginia, FBI agents said they were seeking records relating to contributions by an unnamed foreign national into a U.S. election.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40094&p=662244&hilit=Deripaska#p662244


House Democrat Targets Steven Mnuchin's Business Dealings In The Russian Sanctions Fight

Rep. Jackie Speier is seeking answers about Mnuchin’s reported business dealings with a Ukrainian-born billionaire with ties to Oleg Deripaska.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39115&p=669336&hilit=Deripaska#p669336


SPY VERSUS SPY: THE TWO ALLEGED AGENTS OF FOREIGN POWERS SITTING IN THE ALEXANDRIA JAIL, PART TWO (MARIIA)
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40179&p=662744&hilit=Deripaska#p662744


Manafort offered to give Russian billionaire ‘private briefings’ on 2016 campaign
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40370&start=165


Paul Manafort's ties to Russia mean he may have been blackmailed by the Kremlin
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40370&start=165


2014: Oleg Deripaska sues Paul Manafort for $18.9 million
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40370&start=165


Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian's financial backer Rinat Akhmetov and Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska propped up Manafort's alleged crimes
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40179&p=663451&hilit=Deripaska#p663451


Exclusive: Russian Ex-Spy Pressured Manafort Over Debts to an Oligarch
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40370&p=668148&hilit=Deripaska#p668148


While he was lining up investments from Firtash, Manafort proposed to Oleg Deripaska that they go into business together. The resulting company was Pericles Emerging Market Partners LP, a private equity fund in the Cayman Islands. Manafort described it to Deripaska as a vehicle to pursue investments that “leverage [our] business and political relationships” in Ukraine. Pericles sought to achieve an impressive compound annual return rate of 30 percent by investing in Ukraine, as well as other areas of interest to Deripaska — Russia, the former Soviet republics, Montenegro, and eastern and southern Europe. The offering memorandum touted Davis and Manafort’s experience with political campaigns “at the highest level.” The Russian oligarch gave Manafort a tentative commitment to invest $200 million in the fund
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40179&p=664698&hilit=Deripaska#p664698

The Mysterious Return of Manafort’s ‘Russian Brain’
Mueller says that the former Trump campaign chairman repeatedly lied about his interactions with Konstantin Kilimnik, a man with ties to Russian intelligence.

FRANKLIN FOER
DEC 9, 2018
Konstantin Kilimnik trained in Russian military intelligence as a linguist; he spent decades by Paul Manafort’s side, serving as a translator and then rising through the ranks of his organization. Eventually, Manafort would come to describe Kilimnik—also known as K.K. or Kostya—as “My Russian Brain.” He would travel with Manafort to Moscow to meet with their client, the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. When Kostya worked with Americans, they suspected him as some sort of spook. (Last June, I wrote this profile of him.)
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40370&p=667227&hilit=Deripaska#p667227


January 12, 2016: Steele writes Bruce Ohr to say Oleg Deripaska may obtain a visa for later that year

January 20: Michael Cohen speaks with Dmitry Peskov’s personal assistant for 20 minutes about Trump Tower deal

January 21: Putin’s office contacts Felix Sater about Trump Tower deal

February 21: Steele sends Ohr Orbis reporting claiming Deripaska was not a tool of the Kremlin

February 29: Manafort drafts proposal to work for “free” for Trump

March 19: GRU hacks John Podesta

March 29: After the intervention of Roger Stone and Tom Barrack, Manafort joins the Trump campaign, initially only as Convention Chair

April: Manafort asks Kilimnik,”How do we use to get whole?”

April 18: GRU hacks into DNC via DCCC

April 26: George Papadopoulos learns Russians are offering election assistance in form of leaked emails

April 27: In first foreign policy speech Papadopoulos includes signal to Russians to meet

May 4: Cohen tells Sater he’ll do a trip to Russia before the Convention; Trump will do one after

May 5: Sater passes on Peskov invite to Cohen to attend St. Petersburg Forum to meet Putin or Medvedev

May 19: Manafort formally named campaign chair

May 21: Manafort forwards request for Trump meeting to Rick Gates, warning against sending a signal

June 3: Rob Golstone starts arranging meeting with Don Jr.

June 7: Manafort meets with Trump and Trump announces he’ll have an announcement about Hillary

June 8: GRU releases first emails via dcleaks

June 9: Trump Tower meeting presents dirt for sanctions relief; Cohen makes plans for trip to St. Petersburg Forum

June 14: WaPo reveals Russia hacked DNC; Cohen cancels plan for St. Petersburg trip

June 15: Guccifer 2.0 created

June 16-19: St. Petersburg forum (Putin does attend)

June 20: First Steele report, allegedly relying on Millian as one source

July 7: Manafort tells Kilimnik he’s willing to provide Deripaska private briefings; Ohr call with Steele about Deripaska

Week of July 15: Trump campaign prevents change making platform more belligerent to Ukraine

July 21: Sater visits Trump Tower

July 22: George Papadopoulos asks Ivan Timofeev to help prep for a meeting with Sergei Millian; Millian would eventually pitch Papadopoulos on Trump Tower Moscow deal

August 3: Manafort and Kilimnik meet in New York

August 17: Manafort fired from campaign

August: Manafort and Tom Barrack take boat trip, meet Kilimnik

October 18: Steele and Ohr discuss dispute between Ukraine and RUSAL

January 11 or 12, 2017: Manafort contacts Reince Priebus to tell him how to use the Steele dossier to discredit Russian investigation (remember, Manafort insists he didn’t lie about meeting with Trump officials, because those meetings happened before inauguration)

January 27: Papadopoulos agrees to meet FBI without a lawyer, in part in hopes of sustaining possibility of a job with Trump Admin and possibly a deal with Millian

January or February 2017: Manafort meets Kilimnik in Madrid
https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/01/09/o ... met-putin/


Jail time Pauly and Roger

Image
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out

Postby JackRiddler » Thu Feb 07, 2019 1:22 pm

seemslikeadream » Thu Feb 07, 2019 11:06 am wrote:you need to fix that so it does not look like those are my words in my post.


Sorry! I fixed that.

.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

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Re: Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Feb 07, 2019 1:41 pm

thanks so much I will add this last and very interesting thing about Paulie's good friend and then I will leave your thread

Bob Levinson was kidnapped during his final hunt on the island of Kish, Iran. He is now the longest held American hostage in history.

There is much you can read on Bob’s capture, but we want to bring you this final stunning detail. Among the attempts to recover Bob, the CIA reached out to another notable name, OLEG DERIPASKA.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=35937&p=649397&hilit=Deripaska#p649397
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out

Postby Grizzly » Thu Feb 07, 2019 9:03 pm

Dore?!!!

“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

― Joseph mengele
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Re: Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out

Postby JackRiddler » Fri Mar 08, 2019 7:00 am

Judge must be Putin's man. (tweet restructured)

RocketMan » Fri Mar 08, 2019 4:39 am wrote:

https://twitter.com/ShimonPro/status/11 ... 1439870978

@ShimonPro

Judge tells the courtroom that Manafort is not being sentenced for anything related to the Special Counsel's investigation into Russian interference.

Ellis said "He is not before the court for anything having to do with colluding with the Russian government”
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

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Re: Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out

Postby JackRiddler » Fri Mar 08, 2019 7:22 am

.

here now is the kind of ACTUAL election meddling issue dating back decades -- voter suppression, vote rigging, potentials for hacking -- that is being SUPPRESSED (effectively, whether or not intentionally) in large part through the monopoly of attention given to the #Russiagate propaganda operation that projects all of the American corruption and democracy problems on to a designated foreign enemy.

Marionumber1 » Sat Feb 16, 2019 3:24 pm wrote:Cross-posting to show some links between Manafort and the voting machine industry:

Marionumber1 » Tue Feb 12, 2019 3:34 pm wrote:I find it disturbing that there's an overlap between gambling machine companies and voting machine companies. Back in the 1990s, Louisiana commissioner of elections Jerry Fowler was bribed by e-voting company Sequoia Pacific, at a time when election irregularities suddenly became quite common in the state. Many of the issues on the ballot were gambling-related, like whether Harrah's could build a new casino in New Orleans. Sources told Daniel Hopsicker that Fowler had gotten into gambling trouble at a Harrah's casino shortly before he started taking bribes, and the New Orleans election supervisor who managed access to the voting machines died of a "suicide" shortly before the election. All of this suggests that Sequoia was paying off Louisiana election officials to gain access to the machines and fix elections for gambling interests. The bagman for these bribes was Sequoia executive Pasquale Ricci, a man from New Jersey who owned multiple extravagant houses: one in New Jersey and one in Louisiana. His only punishment for bribing Fowler was a year of home detention.

Both Sequoia and Diebold Election Systems were ultimately swallowed up by the Canadian company Dominion Voting Systems. The connections, however, remain. On Dominion's board as executive vice president of operations is Nicole Nollette, who was formerly a Navy officer, Wall Street investment banker, and high-level staffer at International Game Technology (IGT), the largest slot machine company in the world. During her time at IGT, the company merged with GTECH. It happens that GTECH was once represented by Paul Manafort and Roger Stone's lobbying firm, and it was later also represented by Manafort's business partner Rick Davis. IGT itself had as chairman until 2018 Donald Sweitzer, a Democratic powerbroker who "worked for Paul Manafort in the 1990s". Sweitzer is the co-chairman of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) alongside Ken Blackwell, who is infamous for rigging the 2004 Ohio election for Bush.
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