#Rob Goldstone a music promoter with Russian ties

[malenipshadows]

   *** Rob Goldstone told the committee that his client, the Russian pop star and developer Emin Agalarov, had insisted he help set up the meeting between pres-ident T-rump’s son and the lawyer during the campaign to pass along material on Clinton, overriding Goldstone’s own warnings that the meeting would be a bad idea.“He said, ‘it doesn’t matter. You just have to get the meeting,’ ” Goldstone, a British citizen, testified.    The intensity with which Agalarov and his father, the billionaire Aras Agalarov, sought the T-rump Tower meeting, which has become a key point of scrutiny for congressional inquiries and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, was revealed in more than 2,500 pages of congressional testimony and exhibits released by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning. ...    The testimony also sheds light on the anxiety that rippled through pres-ident T-rump’s orbit a year later, as news of the meeting became public and his aides and lawyers tried to manage the story.    The testimony also includes new details about T-rump’s long interest in building business ties to Russia and a relationship with President Vladi­mir Putin. ***

[micdotcom]

Robert Mueller is now investigating the Donald Trump Jr. Russia meeting

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who was appointed special counsel to investigate alleged ties between Russia and President Donald Trump’s campaign after Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey in May, is looking into a July 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Kremlin-linked lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

Present at the meeting were Trump Jr.; Veselnitskaya; Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and now-senior adviser; Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager at the time; Anatoli Samochornov, a former State Department employee and translator; and Rinat Akhmetshin, a former Soviet spy and lobbyist who opposes the Magnitsky Act.

An eighth person, Ike Kaveladze, also attended the meeting, the Post first reported Tuesday. Kaveladze represented Aras Agalarov, a Russian real estate mogul who hosted the Trump-owned Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013. His son, Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, was also present at the meeting arranged by music promoter Rob Goldstone. Read more. (7/18/2017 3:00 PM)

[opedguy]

Republicans Ask Adam Schiff to Step Down

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), March 28, 2019.--Since Special Counsel Robert Mueller finished his 2-year-old investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and alleged Trump collusion, 58-year-old Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, continues to insist he has evidence of Russian collusion.  Schiff, one of 72-year-old President Donald Trump’s biggest critics on Capitol Hill, can’t stop the politics, even after Mueller rendered his verdict of no collusion, and insufficient evidence for obstruction.  Schiff claims he has something that Mueller didn’t have in the way of evidence of collusion, insisting that the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in N.Y.C. with Russian lawyer Natalia Veseinnitskya, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and former Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort was a Kremlin sponsored event.  No one has ever established that Natalia had ties to the Kremlin.        

          Since Mueller’s report, Schiff has refused to accept the findings, considering Mueller’s investigation a “legal matter,” not his ethical and moral inquiry regarding the propriety of the Trump campaign seeking information on former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Schiff mentions nothing of Hillary’s campaign consulting with former MI6 agent Christopher Steele who claimed to have close ties to the Kremlin.  Schiff’s unbridled partisanship can’t accept the fact that Mueller has not charged Trump or his inner circle with collusion or obstruction, something he insists he knows best.  Accusing Schiff of peddling as false narrative contradicting the Mueller Report, nine Intelligence Committee Republicans called on Schiff to resign.  Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Tx.) said Schiff brings disgrace upon the committee, peddling his false narrative despite the March 25 Mueller Report.     

        Confronted today on the Intelligence Committee, Schiff went into a defensive tirade, blurting out his personal views on Trump and his campaign’s collusion.  “You might think it’s OK,” Schiff said.  “I don’t,” referring to the Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and Valerie Veseinnitsya, whom Schiff insists works for the Kremlin.  Music publicist Rob Goldstone arranged the meeting with his Russian client Emim Agalarov, who apparently knew Veseinnitskya. Veselniitskya wanted to talk about how the 2012 Magnitsky Act preventing Russian adoptions.  But Schiff leaps to the conclusion that Vesseinnitskya worked for the Kremlin, claiming to have dirt on Hillary.  Schiff ranted today in the committee, insisting he knows best, when Mueller concluded that Trump, his campaign and inner circle did not collude with Russia to help win the 2016 presidential election.   

          Since Mueller’s report, Schiff can’t accept the findings because it runs counter to his political agenda to either (a) impeach Trump or (b) defeat him in the 2020 election.  “Your willingness to continue to promote a demonstrably false narrative is alarming,” Conaway said in a letter signed by all nine Republicans on the Committee asking for Schiff to resign as Committee Chairman.  “The findings of the Special Counsel conclusively refute your past and present assertion and have exposed you as having abused you position to knowingly promote false information, having damaged the integrity of this Committee and undermined faith in U.S. government institutions.”  Schiff reacted harshly with his same old talking points, having zero validity after Mueller filed his final report.  While Schiff said he respects Mueller, he’s morphed the process away from crimes to Trump ethical and more breaches.  

           Committee Republicans said they have “no faith in your ability to discharge your duties in a manner consistent with your Constitutional responsibility and urge you immediate resignation as Chairman of the Committee.” Instead of admitting that Democrats and his friends in the press went overboard accusing Trump, his campaign and inner circle of Russia collusion and obstruction of justice, Schiff built his case 100% around Trump’s May 9, 2017 firing of former FBI Director James Comey. Schiff never refers to Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein’s three-page letter May 10, 2017, detailing all the reasons behind Comey’s firing.  Yet Schiff insists firing Comey was not justified, amounting to obstruction of justice.  Barking out old talking points in the Committee, Schiff showed why his extreme partisanship prevents him from faithfully exercising his Constitutional duties in the Intel Committee.   

          Unable to accept Mueller’s findings, the House Intelligence Committee must find a new Chairman to conduct the people’s business. “We need to restore the trust of the Intelligence Committee,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), asking for  Schiff to step down. Schiff hasn’t figured out that he was not appointed as Special Counsel to ascertain, with the greatest nonpartisan certainty as possible, whether or not Russia meddled in the 2016 election and whether or not Trump, his campaign or inner circle colluded with Russia.  Mueller’s conclusion, as summarized by Atty. Gen. William Barr March 27, was that Trump did not collude with Russia and did not legally obstruct justice.  Whatever Schiff’s personal and political agenda, it has no place in discharging his Constitutional duties as Intel Committee Chairman.  Without Schiff resigning, the Committee cannot perform its work. 

About the Author 

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.              

[thetrumpdebacle]

 A federal grand jury in Washington DC has indicted 13 Russian nationals and a Kremlin-linked internet firm on charges that they meddled in the 2016 US presidential election.

The US government said Russian entities began interfering in US political processes as early as 2014, according to a court document. 

The Internet Research Agency allegedly served as a hub from which the defendants and other co-conspirators used social media to “sow discord in the US political system”. Some of the defendants, posing as US citizens, also communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign and other political activists, the indictment said.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the indictment is “a reminder that people are not always who they appear on the Internet. The indictment alleges that the Russian conspirators want to promote social discord in the United States and undermine public confidence in democracy. We must not allow them to succeed.”

Mr Rosenstein said there is no indication in the indictment that an American was knowingly involved in US election meddling. There is also no allegation that meddling affected the election outcome, he said. 

The charges – which include conspiracy, wire fraud, bank fraud and aggravated identity theft – are the most direct allegations to date of illegal Russian meddling in the election. 

They were brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. His probe is also looking into whether members of Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with the Russian government. Mr Trump has denied there was any collusion. 

President Trump has frequently cast doubt on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, saying “this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story” by the Democrats to explain away Hillary Clinton’s loss. 

In a statement, the White House said Mr Trump is “glad to see the Special Counsel’s investigation further indicates – that there was NO COLLUSION between the Trump campaign and Russia and that the outcome of the election was not changed or affected.”

The US President again expressed the need for American unity. 

“We cannot allow those seeking to sow confusion, discord, and rancour to be successful,” the statement said. “It’s time we stop the outlandish partisan attacks, wild and false allegations, and far-fetched theories, which only serve to further the agendas of bad actors, like Russia, and do nothing to protect the principles of our institutions. We must unite as Americans to protect the integrity of our democracy and our elections.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement that Mr Mueller’s indictment shows that Russians “engaged in a sinister and systematic attack on our political system”. The Democrat leader of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, called on Mr Trump to present a plan to confront the Russians. 

The 37-page indictment lays out an elaborate effort by the Russians to encourage voters to support Mr Trump over his opponent, Hillary Clinton. 

Posing as Americans, the defendants allegedly operated social media pages and groups that discussed divisive US political and social issues. 

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation

1/17 Paul Manafort

Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests.

Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.

Getty

2/17 Rick Gates

Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.

Mr Gates’ had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio.

Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.

AP

3/17 George Papadopoulos

George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016.

Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team.

Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the “niece” to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Twitter

4/17 Donald Trump Jr

The President’s eldest son met with a Russian lawyer – Natalia Veselnitskaya – on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton’s alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard “opposition research” in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting.

Getty Images

5/17 Jared Kushner

Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak.

Getty Images

6/17 Rob Goldstone

Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government’s support of Donald Trump’s campaign.

AP images

7/17 Aras and Emin Agalarov

Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone.

Getty Images

8/17 Natalia Veselnitskaya

Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton’s alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers.

Getty Images

9/17 Mike Flynn

Mr Flynn was named as Trump’s national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian.

Getty Images

10/17 Sergey Kislyak

Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump’s campaign with Russia.

Reuters

11/17 Roger Stone

Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton – which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services.

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12/17 Jeff Sessions

The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak.

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13/17 Carter Page

Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line.

Reuters

14/17 Jeffrey “JD” Gorden

Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia.

Creative Commons

15/17 James Comey

Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey’s firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision.

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16/17 Preet Bharara

Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney’s across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump’s favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump’s campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump’s assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor.

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17/17 Sally Yates

Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump’s first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia.

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“Over time, these social media accounts became defendants’ means to reach significant numbers of Americans for purposes of interfering with the US political system,” the indictment said. “Defendants posted derogatory information about a number of candidates, and by early to mid-2016, defendants’ operations included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J Trump (”Trump Campaign”) and disparaging Hillary Clinton.” 

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, one of the congressional panels also conducting a Russia probe, pledged to press social media companies “to be far more aggressive and proactive in responding to this threat”. 

“While platforms like Facebook and Twitter are allowing Americans to communicate and share ideas in ways unimaginable just a decade ago, we’re also learning that we each bear some responsibility for exercising good judgment and a healthy amount of scepticism when it comes to the things we read and share on social media,” Senator Mark Warner said in a statement.  

One of those indicted is a businessman with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Yevgeny Prigozhin is an entrepreneur from St Petersburg who has been called “Putin’s chef” by Russian media. His restaurants and catering businesses have hosted the Kremlin leader’s dinners with foreign dignitaries.

Mr Prigozhin said on Friday he was not upset about his indictment for alleged election meddling in the US, the RIA news agency reported.

“The Americans are very emotional people, they see what they want to see. I have great respect for them. I am not at all upset that I am on this list. If they want to see the devil, let them,” Prigozhin is quoted as saying.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters he was not yet familiar with the US indictments of Russian nationals. “We have not yet familiarised ourselves (with the indictments),” Mr Peskov told the news agency. 

Before Friday, four people, including Mr Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, had been charged in Mr Mueller’s investigation. Mr Flynn pleaded guilty for lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador. Meanwhile, Mr Manafort has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him in the Russia probe. 

Also on Friday, a California man pleaded guilty to identity fraud as part of Mr Mueller’s probe, according to court documents released on Friday.

Richard Pinedo pleaded guilty to buying and selling bank account numbers knowingly to circumvent online payment security systems between 2014 and 2017, the court filing said. The plea deal was separate from the indictment of the 13 Russians.  

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[michaelwalshblog-blog]

A brief history of Manafort’s relationship with Trump

Then-Trump Campaign manager Paul Manafort stands between the then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka Trump during a walk through at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, July 21, 2016. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

President Trump distanced himself from Paul Manafort on Monday morning, insisting that his former campaign chairman had committed alleged misdeeds “years ago.”

But Trump, who has a history of trying distance himself from controversial figures, may have a harder time doing so with Manafort, someone deeply tied to Trump’s world.

Manafort was indicted Monday morning along with former business partner Richard Gates on 12 counts, including conspiracy against the United States and conspiracy to launder money. These were the first charges issued by special counsel Robert Mueller, who in May took control of a federal investigation into Russia’s multifaceted campaign to influence last year’s presidential election.

After Manafort and Gates surrendered to FBI custody, Trump tweeted that these charges stem from alleged actions years before his presidential campaign. The commander in chief also questioned why his former rival Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party have not been the focus of the Russia probe — reiterating that his team did not collude with Moscow.

Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren't Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 30, 2017

….Also, there is NO COLLUSION!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 30, 2017

Here is a brief history of Manafort’s ties with Trump and his world.

Manafort buys property in Trump Tower

In 2006, Manafort purchased a condominium through an LCC called John Hannah in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. He transferred the deed to the apartment to Paul and Kathleen Manafort in 2015.

NBC News reported that Manafort’s middle name is John and his then-business partner Rick Davis’ middle name is Hannah.

Business dealings with Roger Stone

Manafort and political strategist and informal Trump adviser Roger J. Stone Jr. co-founded the Washington, D.C.-lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly in the early 1980s. The firm lobbied Congress on behalf of foreign governments and worked closely with former Presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Bill Clinton.

Stone, who has been denounced for promoting conspiracy theories and falsehoods over the course of his career, briefly served as an adviser on Trump’s presidential campaign and continues to talk to Trump. He reportedly recommended Manafort to Trump.

Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Lee Atwater were young Republican political operatives who have set up lobbying firms. (Photo: Harry Naltchayan/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Convention manager

Manafort joined Trump’s campaign as the convention manager in March 2016. He was responsible for transitioning the campaign’s activities toward the Republican National Committee in Cleveland. There was concern at the time about whether Republican delegates would support Trump, who ran a scorched-earth campaign during the primary.

Manafort had a wealth of experience working on U.S. presidential campaigns that spanned decades. He contributed to the campaign for Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, as well as Republican presidential nominee, Bob Dole.

Trump said at the time that Manafort was “a great asset and an important addition” as the campaign consolidated its support from the primaries and caucuses.

“Paul Manafort, and the team I am building, bring the needed skill sets to ensure that the will of the Republican voters, not the Washington political establishment, determines who will be the nominee for the Republican Party,” Trump said in a statement. “I look forward to winning the nomination, and ultimately the presidency in order to Make America Great Again.”

Campaign chairman

Manafort was promoted to campaign manager on May 19, replacing Corey Lewanowski. With Manafort at the helm, Trump secured enough delegates for the party’s nomination, chose Mike Pence for his running mate and accepted the party’s nomination at the convention.

Paul Manafort, advisor to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign, checks the teleprompters before Trump’s speech at the Mayflower Hotel on April 27, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Infamous meeting with Russian lawyer

Manafort joined Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for the highly publicized and controversial meeting on June 9, 2016, at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, who promised to provide damaging information about Clinton.

The younger Trump repeatedly shifted his story about the meeting, which he initially claimed was about Russian adoption policy.

But in July of this year, Trump Jr. released a series of emails with music publicist Rob Goldstone coordinating the meeting, which was advertised as being about Kremlin dirt on Clinton.

“This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” Goldstone wrote in one email.

Manafort resigns

He served on Trump’s campaign until resigning in August of last year. In another since-deleted statement, Trump said, “This morning Paul Manafort offered, and I accepted, his resignation from the campaign. I am very appreciative for his great work in helping to get us where we are today, and in particular his work guiding us through the delegate and convention process. Paul is a true professional and I wish him the greatest success.”

The days leading to Manafort’s resignation were riddled with questions about his ties to Ukraine, where he provided consulting service for former President Viktor Yanukovych, a Russian ally. The New York Times reported Aug. 14, 2016, that the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Bureau was investigating ledgers that appeared to show Manafort receiving $12.7 million in “off-the-book cash” payments from 2007 to 2012. Yahoo News reported Aug. 17, 2016 that Manafort had recruited a prominent lobbyist to help change U.S. policy toward Ukraine.

On the day of his resignation, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Fox News pundit Sean Hannity that Manafort’s contributions to Trump’s political success should not be underestimated.

.@newtgingrich: "Nobody should underestimate how much Paul Manafort did to really help get this [Trump] campaign to where it is right now."

— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) August 20, 2016

Unofficial adviser for Cabinet picks

A former campaign official who worked with Manafort told the Daily Beast — in an article published November 20, 2016 — that Trump and Pence continued to consult with Manafort after his resignation.

“When they’re picking a cabinet, unless he contacts me, I don’t bother him,” the former official said. “It’s a heady time for everyone.”

“I think he’s weighing in on everything,” the source continued, “I think he still talks to Trump every day. I mean, Pence? That was all Manafort. Pence is on the phone with Manafort regularly.”

Rick Gates looks on as GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump checks the podium early Thursday afternoon in preparation for accepting the GOP nomination to be President at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio on Wednesday July 20, 2016. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images)

Gates helped plan inauguration

Four Republican sources told Yahoo News in November that Gates was serving as the chief deputy to private equity investor Thomas Barrack, a close friend of Trump’s who was his inaugural chairman. Gates had not been named in the public announcement of Trump’s transition team on November 15, 2016. Another source, a top Republican fundraiser, said Gates was playing a critical role in planning and overseeing inaugural events.

“And when Barrack stops by to meet Trump in the West Wing, he has brought Gates with him,” the Daily Beast reported in June of this year.

Spicer downplays Manfort’s importance

Trump’s tweets on Monday morning are only the White House’s most recent attempt to distance itself from Manafort. On March 20, 2017, for instance, then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Manafort “played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time.”

Trump surprised by FBI raid of Manfort’s home

The FBI raided Manafort’s home in Virginia on July 26, 2017.

On August 10, 2017, Trump told reporters at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., that he had not spoken to Manafort in a long time and downplayed his role in his campaign.

“I thought it was a very, very strong signal or whatever. I know Mr. Manafort. I haven’t spoken to him in a long time, but I know him. He was with the campaign, as you know, for a very short period of time — relatively short period of time. But I’ve always known him to be a good man,” Trump said, according to pool reports.

When asked if the raid was appropriate, Trump responded, “I thought it was a very, very strong signal or whatever. I know Mr. Manafort. I haven’t spoken to him in a long time, but I know him. He was with the campaign, as you know, for a very short period of time — relatively short period of time. But I’ve always known him to be a good man.”

Manafort, Gates, the White House and the Trump campaign have not responded to requests from Yahoo News for comment.

Read more from Yahoo News:

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San Juan mayor calls for canceling ‘alarming’ contract for Puerto Rican power repairs

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[ultrahotmouth-blog]

New details emerge on Moscow real estate deal that led to the Trump-Kremlin alliance

Michael IsikoffChief Investigative Correspondent

Yahoo News

July 11, 2017

While in Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant in November 2013, Donald Trump entered into a formal business deal with Aras Agalarov, a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, to construct a Trump Tower in the Russian capital. He later assigned his son, Donald Trump Jr., to oversee the project, according to Rob Goldstone, the British publicist who arranged the controversial 2016 meeting between the younger Trump and a Kremlin-linked lawyer.

Trump has dismissed the idea he had any business deals in Russia, saying at one point last October, “I have nothing to do with Russia.”

But Goldstone’s account, provided in an extensive interview in March in New York, offers new details of the proposed Trump project that appears to have been further along than most previous reports have suggested, and even included a trip by Ivanka Trump to Moscow to identify potential sites.

According to the publicist, the project — structured as a licensing deal in which Agalarov would build the tower with Trump’s name on it — was only abandoned after the Russian economy floundered. The economic downturn resulted in part from sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the European Union following Russia’s intervention in Ukraine.

Goldstone’s version of events implies a possible explanation for Trump’s interest in lifting sanctions on Russia — a policy move his administration quietly pursued in its first few weeks until it ran into strong opposition from members of Congress and officials within the State Department.

Goldstone placed Donald Trump Jr. at the center of the Trump Tower deal, saying that his father assigned his eldest son the job of moving the project to fruition after the signing of a “letter of intent” between the Trump Organization and Agalarov’s company, the Crocus Group. It is not clear if the future president personally signed the “letter of intent,” but Michael Cohen, a longtime lawyer for Trump, told Yahoo News Tuesday that it would have been standard practice for Trump, as president of the Trump Organization, to do so.

Goldstone also said that Ivanka Trump flew to Moscow in 2014 and met with Emin Agalarov, the oligarch’s son, a pop singer and a vice president of the Crocus Group, to identify sites for the project. Confirming Goldstone’s account, Mother Jones late Tuesday published a photo of Ivanka Trump and Emin Agalarov in Moscow in Feb. 2014.

Trump “put Donald Jr. in charge and then Ivanka went to Moscow to look around for what the location would be,” Goldstone said. But the plans for a Trump Tower fell apart because “the economy tanked in Russia’’ after the imposition of Western sanctions, he said.

Goldstone, a British-born publicist who once did worked for Michael Jackson, represents Emin Agalarov in his music career and was present in Moscow during the Miss Universe pageant when the Trump Tower project was discussed by Trump and Aras Agalarov. His role has gotten new attention this week after the New York Times disclosed that Goldstone emailed Donald Trump Jr. in June 2016 urging him to meet with a Russian lawyer to receive damaging information from the Russian government about Hillary Clinton.

Trump Jr. released his email exchange with Goldstone on Tuesday, confirming the key role of the publicist and, more significantly, the Agalarovs, in offering negative information about Clinton on behalf of the Kremlin. “Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting,” Goldstone wrote Trump Jr. on June 3, 2016.

A chief prosecutor in Russia “offered to provide the Trump campaign some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and would be very useful to your father. This is very high-level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support of Mr. Trump — helped along by Aras and Emin.”

Alan Garten, the chief lawyer for the Trump Organization, did not respond to requests for comment. In a telephone interview, Cohen, who is Trump’s personal lawyer, did not dispute any specific details of Goldstone’s account but offered to check them. He did not later respond. But Cohen adamantly rejected the idea there was anything improper about meeting with the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, given that Trump Jr. was told she might have information helpful to Trump’s campaign. “The purpose of the election is to win,” said Cohen, adding, “Why is this any different?” than the unverified “dossier” on Trump’s ties to Russia prepared by a former British spy working for a Washington research firm hired by his political opponents.

Trump Jr., accompanied by then campaign chief Paul Manafort and senior adviser Jared Kushner, met with the Russian lawyer at Goldstone’s request to review the information she purported to have. “He met with her face-to-face to determine” the validity of the advertised documents and “no information was provided.”

Goldstone had played a key role in helping to broker the initial decision by the Miss Universe pageant — then owned by the Trump Organization and NBC — to hold its 2013 contest in Moscow.

According to Goldstone, he pitched the idea to Paula Schugart, then chief executive of Miss Universe, as a way to promote the music career of Emin Agalarov. Schugart was initially hesitant because of concerns about red tape in Moscow. “What if you had a  partner who owns the biggest venue in Moscow?” Emin Agalarov responded, according to Goldstone’s account. “Between myself and my father, we can cut through the red tape. You have a new partner.”

The plans to bring Miss Universe to Moscow was announced by Trump in Las Vegas in June 2013 during the Miss USA contest. Trump at the time quickly expressed hope that it would lead to a meeting with Putin. “Do you think Putin will be going to the Miss Universe pageant in November in Moscow — if so, will he become my new best friend?” Trump had tweeted at the time.

A meeting with Putin never came off during Trump’s Moscow trip; the Kremlin expressed regret that the Russian president wouldn’t be able to fit it into his schedule on the day in question because he had a meeting with the King of Holland. But the trip gave Trump an opportunity to discuss the plans for the Trump Tower in Moscow with Agalarov, a billionaire who has been called “the Trump of Russia” and “Putin’s builder” because of massive construction projects he has done on behalf of the Kremlin. Just 10 days before the Miss Universe pageant, Putin had given Agalarov a prestigious award at a ceremony at the Kremlin: Order of Honor of the Russian Federation.

In an interview with Forbes this March, Emin Agalarov confirmed the plans for Trump Tower in Moscow. “We thought that building a Trump Tower next to an Agalarov tower — having the two big names — could be a really cool project to execute,” Emin Agalarov told the magazine. Agalarov blamed the abandonment of the project on Trump’s decision to run for president, rather than the imposition of sanctions. “He ran for president, so we dropped the idea,” Agalarov said. “But if he hadn’t run, we would probably be in the construction phase today.”

But Emin Agalarov said he and the now president have continued to stay in touch, saying that Trump sent a handwritten note to the Agalaovs in November after they congratulated him on his victory. “Now that he ran and was elected, he does not forget his friends.”

Read more from Yahoo News:

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Photos: Deadly military plane crash in rural Mississippi

[victoryliononline]

Shep Smith tries so, so hard to convince Fox News viewers that this Trump Jr. thing is a big deal

This Donald Trump Jr. story is something that time won’t cease, and Shep Smith continued to prove himself as Fox News ‘ articulate of reason today when he got air of an eighth corroborate those participating in Trump Jr.’s 2016 gratifies with a Russian lawyer.

SEE ALSO: Stephen Colbert foresees Donald Trump Jr.’s future applying genius representation

The news of the eighth (!!!) person came from CNN, after the Associated Pressreported Friday that a Russian-American lobbyist specified Rinat Akhmetshin had also attended the meeting, fetching the roll of known participation in: Trump Jr ., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, Akhmetshin, music publicist Rob Goldstone( who helped set up the satisfy) plus a translator and a representative of the Russian lineage who had asked Goldstone to set up the meeting.

Smith was visibly fomented by the word, to say the least, and he basically statement upchuck a repetition of the Trump administration’s denial that anything unfavorable or illegal has just taken place TAGEND

Breaking News: @ShepNewsTeam: Eighth person confirmed in @DonaldJTrumpJr fit pic.twitter.com/ Qtjx3Yzl 2V

Fox News (@ FoxNews) July 14, 2017

“If there’s nothing there and that’s what they tell us; they tell us there’s good-for-nothing to this, and good-for-nothing find of it, there’s a nothing burger, it wasn’t even memorable, didn’t write it down, didn’t talk to you about it, cause it wasn’t anything, so I didn’t even remember it! “

Wowza.

While all we can do is promote our hands in a silent “amen” to Smith’s reaction, Fox ‘s steadfast following did not feel the same way. Numerous even called for Smith to be fired.

Hey shepherd you need to be fired and go over to CNN word .. you sitting there speak about lying none lied. MoveOn .!

Daniel R O’Connell (@ DROConnell3rd) July 14, 2017

@FoxNews needs to fire shep smith. he’s frightful, adherent& mistaken. ie, #fakenews. Keep fox truthful!

MissQ1 (@ MissQ1) July 10, 2017

When will Shep Sheppard tell the American beings how the Clinton campaign exercised a phony dossier that had REAL ties to Putin. #Hypocrisy

Ben Meyer (@ MeyerBen2 7) July 14, 2017

@FoxNews FIRE SHEP SMITH! HE IS BIASED AGAINST TRUMP .! NOT FAIR AND BALANCED. @ShepNewsTeam

Mike (@ mvm7 2448) July 12, 2017

Smith has is an element of the lone voices of difference against the Trump administration at Fox News . Smith famously explained what “fake news” actually was to Trump on-air, defended CNN ‘s Jim Acosta, and counteredTrump’s bogus Obama wiretapping affirm earlier this year.

Thanks for( sometimes) trying to draw Fox News sane, Shep.

WATCH: Pete Souza’s perfectly day Insta-shade exclusively retains getting better and better

Read more: http :// mashable.com/ 2017/07/ 14/ shep-smith-donald-trump-junior-russia-meeting /

The post Shep Smith tries so, so hard to convince Fox News viewers that this Trump Jr. thing is a big deal appeared first on Victory Lion.

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[malenipshadows]

  *** If it walks like Illicit Collusion, and talks like Illicit Collusion--.***

[malenipshadows]

“Sources: Trump lawyers knew of Russia emails three weeks ago,”

By Michael Isikoff, chief investigative correspondent; Yahoo News. Published online 7-13-2017.

 WASHINGTON — President Trump’s legal team was informed more than three weeks ago about the email chain arranging a June 2016 meeting between his son Donald Jr. and a Kremlin-connected lawyer, two sources familiar with the handling of the matter told Yahoo News.    Trump told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday (7-12-2017) that he learned just “a couple of days ago” that Donald Jr. had met with the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, hoping to receive information that “would incriminate Hillary” and was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”  A day earlier, on Tuesday (7-11-2017), Donald Jr. released the email exchanges himself, after learning they would be published by the New York Times.

Trump repeated that assertion in a talk with reporters on Air Force One on his way to Paris Wednesday night (7-12-2017).  “I only heard about it two or three days ago,” he said, according to a transcript of his talk, when asked about the meeting with Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in June 2016 attended by Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, then Trump’s campaign chief, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

But the sources told Yahoo News that Marc Kasowitz, the president’s chief lawyer in the Russia investigation, and Alan Garten, executive vice president and chief legal officer of the Trump Organization, were both informed about the emails in the third week of June, after they were discovered by lawyers for Kushner, who is now a senior White House official.

The exchange apparently was initiated on June 3, 2016, when a Trump family associate, publicist Rob Goldstone, emailed Donald Jr. with an offer of something “very interesting” . . . “official documents and information” that “would be very useful to your father.”  On June 8, 2016, Trump Jr. forwarded an email to Kushner and Manafort about the upcoming meeting with the subject line: “FW: Russia-Clinton-private & confidential.”  Trump Jr. wrote back later that day, telling Goldstone ���if it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”

The discovery of the emails prompted Kushner to amend his security clearance form to reflect the meeting, which he had failed to report when he originally sought clearance for his White House job.  That revision — his second — to the so-called SF-86, was done on June 21 (2017).  Kushner made the change, even though there were questions among his lawyers whether the meeting had to be reported, given that there was no clear evidence that Veselnitskaya was a government official.  The change to the security form prompted the FBI to question Kushner on June 23 (2017), the second time he was interviewed by agents about his security clearance, the sources said.

But the information that Trump’s lawyers were told about the emails in June raises questions about why they would not have immediately informed the president.  Trump’s campaign is under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into possible collusion with Russian government officials.  The emails appear to be the first hard evidence of contacts between top campaign officials and someone connected to the Kremlin.

A spokesman for Kasowitz declined to comment, saying the matter involved “privileged information.”  Garten did not respond to an email request for comment.

Richard Painter, the former chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush told Yahoo News on Thursday night (7-13-2017) that he finds it “weird” and “unbelievable” that Trump’s lawyers would not have informed the president about a matter so sensitive, relating to the Russia investigation.  “You have a professional obligation to inform the client about information that he needs to make informed decisions,” he said.  That would be especially true for a client “who feels the need to comment on every last thing in the world,” he added.

Pushing back the discovery of the emails to the third week in June also raises additional questions about the initial public statements made by the White House after the existence of the meeting was first reported by the New York Times on July 8.  At that time, Trump Jr. issued a public statement describing the session as a “short introductory meeting” in which the primary topic of discussion was “the adoption of Russian children” by American families.  The actual purpose of the meeting, to obtain damaging information about Hillary Clinton ostensibly collected by the Russian government, wasn’t mentioned in Trump’s initial statement.

The next day, Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, said in an interview that the meeting was a “big nothing burger.”

The president himself repeatedly described the Russia investigation as “fake news” and ridiculed television networks’ reports about it.  “With four months looking at Russia . . . under a magnifying glass, they have ‘zero tapes’ of T people colluding.  There is no collusion & no obstruction.  I should be given apology!” the president wrote in two tweets on June 26:

     *** The real story is that President Obama did NOTHING after being informed in August about Russian meddling. With 4 months looking at Russia . .— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 26, 2017.

     ***  . . . under a magnifying glass, they have zero "tapes" of T people colluding.  There is no collusion & no obstruction.  I should be given apology!   — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 26, 2017.***

   But questions were raised about President Trump’s account of when he learned about the meeting, in light of a statement he made on June 7, 2016 — before the meeting, but after the email exchanges with Donald Jr.  On that day, Trump promised a major address the following week that he said would describe Clinton’s “corrupt dealings” to give “favorable treatment” to foreign governments, including “the Russians.”  White House officials have said the timing of Trump’s statement was a coincidence and that his promised address about the Clintons was postponed when, a few days later, an Islamic State-inspired security guard went on a rampage at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., killing 49 people.

Aside from questions about the credibility of White House statements, the disclosure of the emails potentially has raised new questions about Kushner’s security clearance.  He initially filed his SF-86 on Jan. 18 (2017), leaving out any mention of meetings with foreign government officials during the transition and the campaign.  His lawyers have said this was inadvertent and that a member of his staff had prematurely hit the “send” button for the firm before it was completed.  Within twelve hours, they have said, Kushner notified the FBI that he would make amendments and disclose his meetings with foreign officials.

This was followed by a revised security clearance submission on May 11 (2017) in which Kushner reported more than 100 meetings with officials from over 20 countries, including a meeting with the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and another with Sergey Gorkov, head of a Russian state-owned bank.

The revised security clearance led to Kushner’s first FBI interview about the matter in mid-May, the sources said.  The bureau now is reviewing Kushner’s second amended form, following the new disclosure about his meeting with the Russian lawyer.  His lawyers are confident that it won’t raise any additional problems since, as they have asserted, Kushner had forgotten the meeting — he was only briefly present — and had no intent to conceal it.  In the meantime, he has an interim security clearance, sources said.

  ** Hyperlink: https://www.yahoo.com/news/sources-trump-lawyers-knew-russia-emails-back-june-000320831.html.

[malenipshadows]

Outlook: Perspective, “Trump Jr.’s Russia meeting sure sounds like a Russian intelligence operation,”

By Rolf Mowatt-Larssen. Published online 7-14-2017.  

(Perspective: a discussion of news topics with a point of view, including narratives by individuals regarding their own experiences.)

  Donald Trump Jr. is seeking to write off as a nonevent his meeting last year with a Russian lawyer who was said to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton. “It was such a nothing,” he told Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Tuesday (7-11-2017).  “There was nothing to tell.”    But everything we know about the meeting — from whom it involved to how it was set up to how it unfolded — is in line with what intelligence analysts would expect an overture in a Russian influence operation to look like.  It bears all the hallmarks of a professionally planned, carefully orchestrated intelligence soft pitch designed to gauge receptivity, while leaving room for plausible deniability in case the approach is rejected.  And the Trump campaign’s willingness to take the meeting — and, more important, its failure to report the episode to U.S. authorities — may have been exactly the green light Russia was looking for to launch a more aggressive phase of intervention in the U.S. election.

  Let’s start with the interlocutor: Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.  When arranging the meeting, music promoter and Trump family acquaintance Rob Goldstone referred to a “Russian government attorney.”  Both Veselnitskaya and the Kremlin have subsequently denied any association.  What’s beyond dispute is that she has lobbied for the United States to repeal Magnitsky Act sanctions against Russian officials, that she regularly represents the interests of the Moscow regional government and that her clients include the vice president of state-owned Russian Railways.    My read, as someone who has been part of the U.S. intelligence community for more than four decades, is that Veselnitskaya is probably too well-connected to have independently initiated such a high-level and sensitive encounter.  If she had, her use of known Trump and Kremlin associates (Aras and Emin Agalarov) to help make introductions and the suggestion, in Goldstone’s account, that she wanted to share “official documents and information” as “part of Russia and its government’s support” for Trump could have gotten her into significant trouble. Her efforts to meet Trump associates would have surely come to the attention of Russian authorities at some point, given Russian government email monitoring and other means of surveillance.  The Kremlin would look harshly on someone going rogue in a manner that would surely damage ongoing Russian intelligence efforts related to the campaign.    A better explanation is that Veselnitskaya is far enough removed from Moscow’s halls of power to make her a good fit as an intermediary in an intelligence operation — as a “cut-out” with limited knowledge of the larger scheme and as an “access agent” sent to assess and test a high-priority target’s interest in cooperation.  She may have had her own agenda going into the meeting: to lobby against the Magnitsky Act, which happens to affect some of her clients.  But her agenda dovetailed with Kremlin interests — and it would have added another layer of plausible deniability. Russian intelligence practice is to co-opt such a person.  News on Friday (7-14-2017) that she was accompanied by Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist who is reportedly suspected of having ties to Russian intelligence (which he denies), further bolsters this reading.    Trump Jr.’s assertion that Veselnitskaya did not deliver the promised dirt in that meeting is also consistent with how Russian intelligence operates.  So, too, is Akhmetshin’s account that Veselnitskaya presented a document that she said suggested illegal payments to the Democratic National Committee, but told Trump Jr. that supporting evidence would require more research.  Russia would have wanted to feel out the campaign before sharing its most prized material.  Intelligence officers prefer to dip their toes in the water before taking a plunge.  And it’s too risky to attempt a blunt approach to an extremely sensitive target (such as the son of the Republican front-runner for president), especially on hostile (in this case, American) soil.    Moreover, Russian intelligence presumably would not have risked passing high-value information through Veselnitskaya.  As an untrained asset or co-optee — not a professional intelligence officer by any account — she would not have been entrusted with making a direct intelligence recruitment approach, including the passage of compromising information.  Formalizing a relationship with the Trump campaign would be left for another day.  If and when that day came, the pitch would be carried out by an experienced intelligence officer in favorable circumstances, with the right Trump associate and on friendly turf.    But even at the soft-pitch stage, standard Russian intelligence practice would require making clear what was on offer.  The point is to test the target.  Are they open to entering into a compromising relationship? Will they rebuff the mere suggestion of such impropriety?  Will they alert authorities and thus stand in the way of Russian efforts?    And here, the deal should have been obvious to everyone.  Moscow intended to discredit Clinton and help get Trump elected, and in exchange it hoped the Republican would consider its interests — in sanctions relief and otherwise.  The Russian government appears to have signaled its direct involvement and real intention in advance of the meeting, presumably to avoid the possibility that its offer might be misconstrued, perhaps naively, as an innocent gesture of support and nothing more.    From the Russian perspective, the fact that Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting would have been the first promising sign.  That veteran political operative Paul Manafort and senior adviser Jared Kushner showed up with him would have furthered the impression that there was strong interest in Russian assistance (and vulnerability to compromise) on the part of the campaign.  But, according to standard espionage tradecraft, the most notable achievement of this encounter lay in the campaign’s failure to report it to the appropriate U.S. authorities — as Russia would have realized when there was no immediate, dramatic increase in U.S. counterintelligence scrutiny of its election-related operations.    We should be cautious about overestimating the significance of this episode in isolation.  Russia may have extended other feelers to other Trump associates at other points in time.  Indeed, the Steele dossier suggests that the Kremlin was trying to cultivate the Trumps as far back as 2011.  But, based on the publicly available information, the June 2016 overture seems to have been a win for Russia.  It helped set the stage for the possibility of subsequent contacts between Trump associates and witting agents of the Russian government.  (Some of these contacts are now known; others, perhaps not.)  And it would have allowed Russian intelligence to be comfortable initiating the next phase of its operation — systematically leaking information on Clinton and trying to penetrate the U.S. voting process — with the knowledge that the Trump campaign was interested in such Russian government assistance.    Although the Kremlin could have meddled without active or tacit approval from the campaign, having the campaign on board would have made the meddling more effective.  For example, Russia could be sure that its actions would fit with Trump campaign strategy.  Even Trump Jr.’s initial thought to drop the Clinton information later in the summer would be valuable for the Kremlin to know in terms of best timing.    Russia also would have wanted an implicit if not explicit agreement that intelligence assistance would be rewarded by a grateful Trump administration willing to relieve sanctions and embark on a more constructive relationship.  The president presumably would not be nearly as willing to shift the long-standing, hard-line U.S. approach toward Russia — or its position on Ukraine, NATO and other issues — if he didn’t have a full appreciation for the Russian contribution to his election victory.    And after Russia’s overtures to the Trump campaign and the Trump campaign’s public denials that it had ever interacted with Russians, Vladi­mir Putin may have had the kompromat he needed to indirectly influence the Republican Party (such as the GOP platform on Ukraine) and Trump if he made it to the White House.  The worst outcome would be that Trump would lose the election and, as a billionaire with global interests, still be a very useful ally for Putin.    Had this Russian overture been rejected or promptly reported by the Trump campaign to U.S. authorities, Russian intelligence would have been forced to recalculate the risk vs. gain of continuing its aggressive operation to influence U.S. domestic politics.  Russian meddling might have been compromised in its early stages and stopped in its tracks by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies before it reached fruition by the late fall.    So the suggestion that this was a nothing meeting without consequence is, in all likelihood, badly mistaken.   --------    (Rolf Mowatt-Larssen is the director of the Intelligence and Defense Project at Harvard’s Belfer Center.  He served for three years as director of intelligence and counterintelligence at the Department of Energy and for 23 years as a CIA intelligence officer in domestic and international posts. )    (Ryan Goodman, a professor at New York University School of Law, an editor at Just Security and a former special counsel to the general counsel of the Department of Defense, contributed to this essay. )

  *** Hyperlink: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/trump-jrs-russia-meeting-sure-sounds-like-a-russian-intelligence-operation/2017/07/14/5f7f3dfe-6762-11e7-9928-22d00a47778f_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-cards_hp-posteverything%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.7fa478c5b83f.

[ultrahotmouth-blog]

New details emerge on Moscow real estate deal that led to the Trump-Kremlin alliance

Michael Isikoff 1 hour 14 minutes ago

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While in Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant in November 2013, Donald Trump entered into a formal business deal with Aras Agalarov, a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, to construct a Trump Tower in the Russian capital. He later assigned his son, Donald Trump Jr., to oversee the project, according to Rob Goldstone, the British publicist who arranged the controversial 2016 meeting between the younger Trump and a Kremlin-linked lawyer.

Trump has dismissed the idea he had any business deals in Russia, saying at one point last October, “I have nothing to do with Russia.”

But Goldstone’s account, provided in an extensive interview in March in New York, offers new details of the proposed Trump project that appears to have been further along than most previous reports have suggested, and even included a trip by Ivanka Trump to Moscow to identify potential sites.

According to the publicist, the project — structured as a licensing deal in which Agalarov would build the tower with Trump’s name on it — was only abandoned after the Russian economy floundered. The economic downturn resulted in part from sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the European Union following Russia’s intervention in Ukraine.

Goldstone’s version of events implies a possible explanation for Trump’s interest in lifting sanctions on Russia — a policy move his administration quietly pursued in its first few weeks until it ran into strong opposition from members of Congress and officials within the State Department.

Goldstone placed Donald Trump Jr. at the center of the Trump Tower deal, saying that his father assigned his eldest son the job of moving the project to fruition after the signing of a “letter of intent” between the Trump Organization and Agalarov’s company, the Crocus Group. It is not clear if the future president personally signed the “letter of intent,” but Michael Cohen, a longtime lawyer for Trump, told Yahoo News Tuesday that it would have been standard practice for Trump, as president of the Trump Organization, to do so.

Goldstone also said that Ivanka Trump flew to Moscow in 2014 and met with Emin Agalarov, the oligarch’s son, a pop singer and a vice president of the Crocus Group, to identify sites for the project.

Trump “put Donald Jr. in charge and then Ivanka went to Moscow to look around for what the location would be,” Goldstone said. But the plans for a Trump Tower fell apart because “the economy tanked in Russia’’ after the imposition of Western sanctions, he said.

Goldstone, a British-born publicist who once did worked for Michael Jackson, represents Emin Agalarov in his music career and was present in Moscow during the Miss Universe pageant when the Trump Tower project was discussed by Trump and Aras Agalarov. His role has gotten new attention this week after the New York Times disclosed that Goldstone emailed Donald Trump Jr. in June 2016 urging him to meet with a Russian lawyer to receive damaging information from the Russian government about Hillary Clinton.

Trump Jr. released his email exchange with Goldstone on Tuesday, confirming the key role of the publicist and, more significantly, the Agalarovs, in offering negative information about Clinton on behalf of the Kremlin. “Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting,” Goldstone wrote Trump Jr. on June 3, 2016.

A chief prosecutor in Russia “offered to provide the Trump campaign some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and would be very useful to your father. This is very high-level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support of Mr. Trump — helped along by Aras and Emin.”

Alan Garten, the chief lawyer for the Trump Organization, did not respond to requests for comment. In a telephone interview, Cohen, who is Trump’s personal lawyer, did not dispute any specific details of Goldstone’s account but offered to check them. He did not later respond. But Cohen adamantly rejected the idea there was anything improper about meeting with the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, given that Trump Jr. was told she might have information helpful to Trump’s campaign. “The purpose of the election is to win,” said Cohen, adding, “Why is this any different?” than the unverified “dossier” on Trump’s ties to Russia prepared by a former British spy working for a Washington research firm hired by his political opponents.

Trump Jr., accompanied by then campaign manager Paul Manafort and senior adviser Jared Kushner, met with the Russian lawyer at Goldstone’s request to review the information she purported to have. “He met with her face-to-face to determine” the validity of the advertised documents and “no information was provided.”

Goldstone had played a key role in helping to broker the initial decision by the Miss Universe pageant — then owned by the Trump Organization and NBC — to hold its 2013 contest in Moscow.

According to Goldstone, he pitched the idea to Paula Schugart, then chief executive of Miss Universe, as a way to promote the music career of Emin Agalarov. Schugart was initially hesitant because of concerns about red tape in Moscow. “What if you had a  partner who owns the biggest venue in Moscow?” Emin Agalarov responded, according to Goldstone’s account. “Between myself and my father, we can cut through the red tape. You have a new partner.”

The plans to bring Miss Universe to Moscow was announced by Trump in Las Vegas in June 2013 during the Miss USA contest. Trump at the time quickly expressed hope that it would lead to a meeting with Putin. “Do you think Putin will be going to the Miss Universe pageant in November in Moscow — if so, will he become my new best friend?” Trump had tweeted at the time.

A meeting with Putin never came off during Trump’s Moscow trip; the Kremlin expressed regret that the Russian president wouldn’t be able to fit it into his schedule on the day in question because he had a meeting with the King of Holland. But the trip gave Trump an opportunity to discuss the plans for the Trump Tower in Moscow with Agalarov, a billionaire who has been called “the Trump of Russia” and “Putin’s builder” because of massive construction projects he has done on behalf of the Kremlin. Just 10 days before the Miss Universe pageant, Putin had given Agalarov a prestigious award at a ceremony at the Kremlin: Order of Honor of the Russian Federation.

In an interview with Forbes this March, Emin Agalarov confirmed the plans for Trump Tower in Moscow. “We thought that building a Trump Tower next to an Agalarov tower — having the two big names — could be a really cool project to execute,” Emin Agalarov told the magazine. Agalarov blamed the abandonment of the project on Trump’s decision to run for president, rather than the imposition of sanctions. “He ran for president, so we dropped the idea,” Agalarov said. “But if he hadn’t run, we would probably be in the construction phase today.”

But Emin Agalarov said he and the now president have continued to stay in touch, saying that Trump sent a handwritten note to the Agalaovs in November after they congratulated him on his victory. “Now that he ran and was elected, he does not forget his friends.”

Read more from Yahoo News:

Pence distances himself from Trump Jr. revelations

White House, Congress point fingers at each other over nominee delays

Trump Jr. releases emails saying he’d ‘love’ Russian dirt on Clinton

Chris Christie’s turn as WFAN host goes exactly as you’d expect

Photos: Deadly military plane crash in rural Mississippi

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