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antoine-roquentin · 6 years ago

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The operation against Mayo — which was reported at the time but until now was not known to have been carried out by American mercenaries — marked a pivot point in the war in Yemen, a brutal conflict that has seen children starved, villages bombed, and epidemics of cholera roll through the civilian population. The bombing was the first salvo in a string of unsolved assassinations that killed more than two dozen of the group’s leaders.

The company that hired the soldiers and carried out the attack is Spear Operations Group, incorporated in Delaware and founded by Abraham Golan, a charismatic Hungarian Israeli security contractor who lives outside of Pittsburgh. He led the team’s strike against Mayo.

“There was a targeted assassination program in Yemen,” he told BuzzFeed News. “I was running it. We did it. It was sanctioned by the UAE within the coalition.”

The UAE and Saudi Arabia lead an alliance of nine countries in Yemen, fighting what is largely a proxy war against Iran. The US is helping the Saudi-UAE side by providing weapons, intelligence, and other support.

The press office of the UAE’s US Embassy, as well as its US public affairs company, Harbour Group, did not respond to multiple phone calls and emails.

The revelations that a Middle East monarchy hired Americans to carry out assassinations comes at a moment when the world is focused on the alleged murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Arabia, an autocratic regime that has close ties to both the US and the UAE. (The Saudi Embassy in the US did not respond to a request for comment. Riyadh has denied it killed Khashoggi, though news reports suggest it is considering blaming his death on a botched interrogation.)

Golan said that during his company’s months-long engagement in Yemen, his team was responsible for a number of the war’s high-profile assassinations, though he declined to specify which ones. He argued that the US needs an assassination program similar to the model he deployed. “I just want there to be a debate,” he said. “Maybe I’m a monster. Maybe I should be in jail. Maybe I’m a bad guy. But I’m right.”

Spear Operations Group’s private assassination mission marks the confluence of three developments transforming the way war is conducted worldwide:

Modern counterterrorism combat has shifted away from traditional military objectives — such as destroying airfields, gun emplacements, or barracks — to killing specific individuals, largely reshaping war into organized assassinations.

War has become increasingly privatized, with many nations outsourcing most military support services to private contractors, leaving frontline combat as virtually the only function that the US and many other militaries have not contracted out to for-profit ventures.

The long US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have relied heavily on elite special forces, producing tens of thousands of highly trained American commandos who can demand high private-sector salaries for defense contracting or outright mercenary work.

With Spear Operations Group’s mission in Yemen, these trends converged into a new and incendiary business: militarized contract killing, carried out by skilled American fighters.

Experts said it is almost inconceivable that the United States would not have known that the UAE — whose military the US has trained and armed at virtually every level — had hired an American company staffed by American veterans to conduct an assassination program in a war it closely monitors.

One of the mercenaries, according to three sources familiar with the operation, used to work with the CIA’s “ground branch,” the agency’s equivalent of the military’s special forces. Another was a special forces sergeant in the Maryland Army National Guard. And yet another, according to four people who knew him, was still in the Navy Reserve as a SEAL and had a top-secret clearance. He was a veteran of SEAL Team 6, or DEVGRU, the sources told BuzzFeed News. The New York Times once described that elite unit, famous for killing Osama bin Laden, as a “global manhunting machine with limited outside oversight.”

The CIA said it had no information about the mercenary assassination program, and the Navy's Special Warfare Command declined to comment. A former CIA official who has worked in the UAE initially told BuzzFeed News there was no way that Americans would be allowed to participate in such a program. But after checking, he called back: “There were guys that were basically doing what you said.” He was astonished, he said, by what he learned: “What vetting procedures are there to make sure the guy you just smoked is really a bad guy?” The mercenaries, he said, were “almost like a murder squad.”

Whether Spear’s mercenary operation violates US law is surprisingly unclear. On the one hand, US law makes it illegal to “conspire to kill, kidnap, maim” someone in another country. Companies that provide military services to foreign nations are supposed to be regulated by the State Department, which says it has never granted any company the authority to supply combat troops or mercenaries to another country.

Yet, as BuzzFeed News has previously reported, the US doesn’t ban mercenaries. And with some exceptions, it is perfectly legal to serve in foreign militaries, whether one is motivated by idealism or money. With no legal consequences, Americans have served in the Israel Defense Forces, the French Foreign Legion, and even a militia fighting ISIS in Syria. Spear Operations Group, according to three sources, arranged for the UAE to give military rank to the Americans involved in the mission, which might provide them legal cover.

Despite operating in a legal and political gray zone, Golan heralds his brand of targeted assassinations as a precision counterterrorism strategy with fewer civilian casualties. But the Mayo operation shows that this new form of warfare carries many of the same old problems. The commandos’ plans went awry, and the intelligence proved flawed. And their strike was far from surgical: The explosive they attached to the door was designed to kill not one person but everyone in the office.

Aside from moral objections, for-profit targeted assassinations add new dilemmas to modern warfare. Private mercenaries operate outside the US military’s chain of command, so if they make mistakes or commit war crimes, there is no clear system for holding them accountable. If the mercenaries had killed a civilian in the street, who would have even investigated?

The Mayo mission exposes an even more central problem: the choice of targets. Golan insists that he killed only terrorists identified by the government of the UAE, an ally of the US. But who is a terrorist and who is a politician? What is a new form of warfare and what is just old-fashioned murder for hire? Who has the right to choose who lives and who dies — not only in the wars of a secretive monarchy like the UAE, but also those of a democracy such as the US?

BuzzFeed News has pieced together the inside story of the company’s attack on Al-Islah’s headquarters, revealing what mercenary warfare looks like now — and what it could become.

The deal that brought American mercenaries to the streets of Aden was hashed out over a lunch in Abu Dhabi, at an Italian restaurant in the officers’ club of a UAE military base. Golan and a chiseled former US Navy SEAL named Isaac Gilmore had flown in from the US to make their pitch. It did not, as Gilmore recalled, begin well.

Their host was Mohammed Dahlan, the fearsome former security chief for the Palestinian Authority. In a well-tailored suit, he eyed his mercenary guests coldly and told Golan that in another context they’d be trying to kill each other.

Indeed, they made an unlikely pair. Golan, who says he was born in Hungary to Jewish parents, maintains long-standing connections in Israel for his security business, according to several sources, and he says he lived there for several years. Golan once partied in London with former Mossad chief Danny Yatom, according to a 2008 Mother Jones article, and his specialty was “providing security for energy clients in Africa.” One of his contracts, according to three sources, was to protect ships drilling in Nigeria’s offshore oil fields from sabotage and terrorism.

Golan, who sports a full beard and smokes Marlboro Red cigarettes, radiates enthusiasm. A good salesman is how one former CIA official described him. Golan himself, who is well-read and often cites philosophers and novelists, quotes André Malraux: “Man is not what he thinks he is but what he hides.”

Golan says he was educated in France, joined the French Foreign Legion, and has traveled around the world, often fighting or carrying out security contracts. In Belgrade, he says, he got to know the infamous paramilitary fighter and gangster Željko Ražnatović, better known as Arkan, who was assassinated in 2001. “I have a lot of respect for Arkan,” he told BuzzFeed News.

BuzzFeed News was unable to verify parts of Golan’s biography, including his military service, but Gilmore and another US special operations veteran who has been with him in the field said it’s clear he has soldiering experience. He is considered competent, ruthless, and calculating, said the former CIA official. He’s “prone to exaggeration,” said another former CIA officer, but “for crazy shit he’s the kind of guy you hire.”

Dahlan, who did not respond to multiple messages sent through associates, grew up in a refugee camp in Gaza, and during the 1980s intifada he became a major political player. In the ’90s he was named the Palestinian Authority’s head of security in Gaza, overseeing a harsh crackdown on Hamas in 1995 and 1996. He later met President George W. Bush and developed strong ties to the CIA, meeting the agency’s director, George Tenet, several times. Dahlan was once touted as a possible leader of the Palestinian Authority, but in 2007 he fell from grace, accused by the Palestinian Authority of corruption and by Hamas of cooperating with the CIA and Israel.

A man without a country, he fled to the UAE. There he reportedly remade himself as a key adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, or MBZ, known as the true ruler of Abu Dhabi. The former CIA officer who knows Dahlan said, “The UAE took him in as their pit bull.”

Now, over lunch in the officers’ club, the pit bull challenged his visitors to tell him what was so special about fighters from America. Why were they any better than Emirati soldiers?

Golan replied with bravado. Wanting Dahlan to know that he could shoot, train, run, and fight better than anyone in the UAE’s military, Golan said: Give me your best man and I’ll beat him. Anyone.

The Palestinian gestured to an attentive young female aide sitting nearby. She’s my best man, Dahlan said.

The joke released the tension, and the men settled down. Get the spaghetti, recommended Dahlan.

The UAE, with vast wealth but only about 1 million citizens, relies on migrant workers from all over the world to do everything from cleaning its toilets to teaching its university students. Its military is no different, paying lavish sums to eager US defense companies and former generals. The US Department of Defense has approved at least $27 billion in arms sales and defense services to the UAE since 2009.

Retired US Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal once signed up to sit on the board of a UAE military company. Former Navy SEAL and Vice Admiral Robert Harward runs the UAE division of Lockheed Martin. The security executive Erik Prince, now entangled in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference, set up shop there for a time, helping the UAE hire Colombian mercenaries.

And as BuzzFeed News reported earlier this year, the country embeds foreigners in its military and gave the rank of major general to an American lieutenant colonel, Stephen Toumajan, placing him in command of a branch of its armed forces.

The UAE is hardly alone in using defense contractors; in fact, it is the US that helped pioneer the worldwide move toward privatizing the military. The Pentagon pays companies to carry out many traditional functions, from feeding soldiers to maintaining weapons to guarding convoys.

The US draws the line at combat; it does not hire mercenaries to carry out attacks or engage directly in warfare. But that line can get blurry. Private firms provide heavily armed security details to protect diplomats in war zones or intelligence officers in the field. Such contractors can engage in firefights, as they did in Benghazi, Libya, when two contractors died in 2012 defending a CIA post. But, officially, the mission was protection, not warfare.

Outside the US, hiring mercenaries to conduct combat missions is rare, though it has happened. In Nigeria, a strike force reportedly led by longtime South African mercenary Eeben Barlow moved successfully against the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in 2015. A company Barlow founded, Executive Outcomes, was credited with crushing the bloody RUF rebel force in war-torn Sierra Leone in the 1990s.

But over spaghetti with Dahlan, Golan and Gilmore were offering an extraordinary form of mercenary service. This was not providing security details, nor was it even traditional military fighting or counterinsurgency warfare. It was, both Golan and Gilmore say, targeted killing.

Gilmore said he doesn’t remember anyone using the word “assassinations” specifically. But it was clear from that first meeting, he said, that this was not about capturing or detaining Al-Islah’s leadership. “It was very specific that we were targeting,” said Gilmore. Golan said he was explicitly told to help “disrupt and destruct” Al-Islah, which he calls a “political branch of a terrorist organization.”

He and Gilmore promised they could pull together a team with the right skillset, and quickly.

In the weeks after that lunch, they settled on terms. The team would receive $1.5 million a month, Golan and Gilmore told BuzzFeed News. They’d earn bonuses for successful kills — Golan and Gilmore declined to say how much — but they would carry out their first operation at half price to prove what they could do. Later, Spear would also train UAE soldiers in commando tactics.

Golan and Gilmore had another condition: They wanted to be incorporated into the UAE Armed Forces. And they wanted their weapons — and their target list — to come from uniformed military officers. That was “for juridical reasons,” Golan said. “Because if the shit hits the fan,” he explained, the UAE uniform and dog tags would mark “the difference between a mercenary and a military man.”

Dahlan and the UAE government signed off on the deal, Golan and Gilmore said, and Spear Operations Group got to work.

Back in the US, Golan and Gilmore started rounding up ex-soldiers for the first, proof-of-concept job. Spear Operations Group is a small company — nothing like the security behemoths such as Garda World Security or Constellis — but it had a huge supply of talent to choose from.

A little-known consequence of the war on terror, and in particular the 17 combined years of US warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that the number of special operations forces has more than doubled since 9/11, from 33,000 to 70,000. That’s a vast pool of crack soldiers selected, trained, and combat-tested by the most elite units of the US military, such as the Navy SEALs and Army Rangers. Some special operations reservists are known to engage in for-profit soldiering, said a high-level SEAL officer who asked not to be named. “I know a number of them who do this sort of thing,” he said. If the soldiers are not on active duty, he added, they are not obligated to report what they’re doing.

But the options for special operations veterans and reservists aren’t what they were in the early years of the Iraq War. Private security work, mostly protecting US government officials in hostile environments, lacks the excitement of actual combat and is more “like driving Miss Daisy with an M4” rifle, as one former contractor put it. It also doesn’t pay what it used to. While starting rates for elite veterans on high-end security jobs used to be $700 or $800 a day, contractors said, now those rates have dropped to about $500 a day. Golan and Gilmore said they were offering their American fighters $25,000 a month — about $830 a day — plus bonuses, a generous sum in almost any market.

dahlan is a real slick fucker. last i read he was going to replace abbas as head of the PLO under MBS’ decision-making, cause he’s beloved by the gulf states. apparently that didn’t work out. murdering people is what he does best though, so of course he’s pick up work in his area of expertise.

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senakim22-blog · 4 years ago

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nigeiadigitalmarketingcompany · 5 years ago

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Links 8/9/19

Digital Elixir Links 8/9/19

DOT says Delta’s ban on pit bulls as service animals is not allowed Atlanta Journal-Constitution (J-LS)

Washington woman sent to hospital after posing with octopus on face Boston 25 News (J-LS). Darwin Award wannabe.

Endangered Killer Whale Pods Lose Three More Members Courthouse News (furzy)

Climate Crisis May Be Increasing Jet Stream Turbulence, Study Finds Guardian

Company Uses NASA Tech to Make Healthy Food ‘Out of Thin Air’ Using Only CO2, Water, and Solar Electricity Good News Network (Chuck L)

China?

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says alliance needs to address the rise of China South China Morning Post. Kevin W: “‘This is not about moving NATO into the Pacific’ said NATO’s Secretary General while in Australia.”

US Holds Off On Huawei Licenses As China Halts Crop-Buying Bloomberg

Japan steps back from South Korean trade war Asia Times (Kevin W)

Berlin’s Popular Shopping Streets Will Go Car-Free CityLab

The South Asian women trafficked to Kenya’s Bollywood-style bars Al Jazeera (resilc)

Kashmir

In Kashmir, Clampdown on Movement and Communication Fuels Anxieties The Wire (J-LS)

No policy change on Kashmir, says U.S. The Hindu (J-LS)

To Stave off Potential Global Concern, India Accuses Pakistan of Being ‘Alarmist’ The Wire (J-LS)

woahh – Centrelink contractors were ranked on a big board in their offices based on how many debts they could rack up. What the hell??https://t.co/s98HC0Jp8c

— Angus Livingston (@anguslivingston) August 9, 2019

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Facebook Loses Facial Recognition Technology Appeal, Must Face Class Action Euronews

Imperial Collapse Watch

Mom Of Four Goes To SERE School, Gets Amazing Sleep Duffle Blog (Kevin W)

U.S. Foreign Policy: This Is Us LobeLog (resilc)

Trump Transition

The last few weeks of the Trump Show have been more awful than usual but also inadvertently revelatory @ Trump’s coalition.If you’ve paid attention, you’ve suspected this stuff for a long time,but bc T says the quiet parts out loud,a lot of GOP masks have definitively dropped: /1

— Robert E Kelly (@Robert_E_Kelly) August 8, 2019

Trump: El Paso shooting patients being treated at hospital ‘refused to meet with president’ Independent. Resilc: “I would have met with him so I could have spit on him, but that’s me, retired US diplomat.”

Trump plays the victim while visiting victims MSNBC (furzy)

Trump Hurt, Confused Over Insufficient Praise For El Paso Trip Vanity Fair. Resilc: “IF he loses we’ll have a 24/7 shadow president burning up the twitterverse all day, every day with a review of the next president’s daily actions. It only stops when he’s dead.”

Andrew McCabe sues FBI over firing, alleges plot by Trump to oust those disloyal to the president MSN (furzy)

The Persistent Myth That Trump Opposes War Caitlin Johnstone

Trump Hamptons Fundraisers Put Donors Like Stephen Ross in Bind Bloomberg (Kevin W)

Six charts on the immigrants who call the US home BBC (resilc)

“Don’t Look Away”: Videos and Images of Weeping Children and Loved Ones Spread as ICE Arrests 680 in Mississippi Common Dreams (Kevin W)

US immigration: ICE releases 300 people after Mississippi raids BBC

A Navarro Recession? Wall Street Journal and White House economic adviser calls Wall Street Journal a communist paper after it names next recession for him Raw Story (furzy). Accountability is Communist?

Ivanka Trump’s mask slips: What her Chicago canard reveals Salon (furzy)

Why New Laws Against White Supremacist Violence Are Not the Answer Intercept. Resilc: “You can bet if they were black guys killing white golfers at a Trump course they would be ISIS-like terrorists.”

A Term of Change on the Supreme Court National Conference of State Legislatures (UserFriendly)

Police State Watch

An Open Invitation to Tyranny Paul Craig Roberts. Pre-crime is here.

2020

Joe Biden Is Coming for Your Legal Weed Vice

Black Injustice Tipping Point

How a criminal investigation in Georgia set an ominous tone for African-American voters Yahoo (UserFriendly)

Gunz

Global Human Rights Movement Issues Travel Warning for the U.S. Due to Rampant Gun Violence – Amnesty International USA (J-LS)

What Americas gun fanatics wont tell you MarketWatch (David L)

Document Shows NRA Money Helped Its Chief Search for a Personal Mansion ProPublica (UserFriendly)

Domestic Terrorism and the Trump Defense Vanity Fair. (resilc)

Our Fabulously Free Press

An offer they can’t refuse? Facebook offers mainstream news millions in licensing fees RT (Kevin W). As we’ve said, if your business depends on a platform, you don’t have a business.

The Harvard Professor Scam Gets Even Weirder New York Magazine (J-LS)

The Worst Is Still To Come In Energy Markets OilPrice (Kevin W)

Uber Investors Expected to Shrug Off Estimated $5 Billion Loss Bloomberg. Um, so much for that take….

Uber lost over $5 billion in one quarter, but don’t worry, it gets worse The Verge (David L)

Exponential growth is a pipe dream Financial Times (David L). Ya think?

Class Warfare

‘It’s crazy’: Chase Bank forgiving all debt owed by its Canadian credit card customers CBC (resilc)

Can’t Afford a Vacation? Get Another Credit Card! FAIR (UserFriendly)

Amazon Under Fire Again as China Factory Hires Teenage Interns Bloomberg (UserFriendly)

Antidote du jour (furzy):

And a bonus (guurst):

9 kittens born. I was taking pictures, trying to capture them all. Decided to make a video instead pic.twitter.com/PMpJRQQyfr

— Awwwww (@AwwwwCats) June 6, 2019

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

Links 8/9/19

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newssplashy · 6 years ago

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Robert Mueller has charged a total of four Americans, 25 Russians, and 3 Russian companies.

Paul Manafort, former chairman of the Trump campaign, was found guilty on eight federal charges of bank and tax fraud in a Virginia court on Tuesday. The jury failed to reach unanimous verdicts on 10 other charges. The judge in the case declared a mistrial on those.

This ends the first of two trials Manafort is facing as part of the special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

Since taking over the investigation last May, Mueller's team has charged four Americans once affiliated with Trump's campaign or administration, 13 Russian nationals, 12 Russian intelligence officers, three Russian companies, and two other people.

Here's everyone who's been charged in the Mueller probe so far:

Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign chairman

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was found guilty on eight federal counts of bank and tax fraud on Tuesday. Manafort was convicted on five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failure to report foreign bank accounts.

He was facing a total of 18 counts, but the jury failed to reach unanimous verdicts on 10 of them. The judge in the case declared a mistrial on those 10 counts. Manafort could face years in prison when he's sentenced.

Manafort surrendered to federal authorities on October 30, 2017, after he was indicted, along with his business associate Rick Gates, on 12 counts, including conspiracy against the US and money laundering.

He was forced to step down as Trump's campaign chairman in May 2016 after coming under fire for his connections to Russian oligarchs and his past lobbying efforts abroad.

Manafort was also associated with at least 15 bank accounts and 10 companies in Cyprus, dating back to 2007, NBC News reported in March, and the FBI has issued grand-jury subpoenas to several banks for Manafort's records.

Trump's former campaign chairman is accused of committing crimes while working as an unregistered lobbyist in the US for the Ukrainian government and pro-Russia interests beginning in 2006.

His second trial begins in Washington on September 17.

Rick Gates, one of Manafort's business partners

In October 2017, Gates was indicted along with Manafort on 12 counts, including conspiracy against the US, making false statements, and failing to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. He at first pleaded not guilty on all counts.

Gates joined Trump election efforts in the spring of 2016, working as Manafort's deputy. He traveled with Trump and grew close with many top campaign officials.

After Manafort was ousted as Trump's campaign chief in August 2016, Gates continued working on behalf of the soon-to-be president, helping fundraise $25 million for the pro-Trump nonprofit America First Policies and working on Trump's inaugural committee. As Mueller's probe intensified in the early months of the Trump administration, Gates left the nonprofit altogether.

But as recently as June 2017, The Daily Beast reported that Gates was still visiting the White House and working under Tom Barrack, who has remained one of Trump's most trusted advisers.

Gates opted to take a plea deal in late February, pleading guilty to one charge of lying to investigators and one charge of conspiracy in exchange for becoming a cooperating witness in the Mueller probe. He testified against Manafort as the prosecution's star witness in its case in Virginia.

Gates confessed to committing crimes with Manafort, and also stealing millions of dollars from his longtime business partner to finance an extramartial affair.

Defense attorneys sought to paint Gates as the mastermind of his and Manafort's tax and bank fraud.

George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser

On the same day Mueller's office announced the indictments of Manafort and Gates, it was revealed that George Papadopoulos, a 30-year-old former Trump adviser, had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia.

According to documents that were unsealed by the Mueller investigation, Papadopoulos had made at least six attempts to set up a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russian representatives throughout the course of the 2016 presidential campaign, using a London-based professor named Joseph Mifsud and a female Russian national as conduits.

He was arrested October 5, 2017, and subsequently cooperated with Mueller's team.

Trump has described Papadopoulos as a low-level volunteer.

"Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar," Trump tweeted following news of the guilty plea. "Check the DEMS!"

Special counsel Robert Mueller last week recommended that Papadopoulos be sentenced to as many as six months in prison.

Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser

Flynn, who has reportedly been at the center of Mueller's investigation for months, is perhaps the most high-profile person to be indicted to date.

On December 1, 2017, he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations last December with Russia's ambassador to the US at the time, Sergey Kislyak.

An indictment filed by Mueller's office said Flynn "falsely stated" on December 29, 2016 that he did not ask Kislyak "to refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day," and that Flynn did not recall Kislyak "subsequently telling him that Russia had chosen to moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of his request."

Trump fired Flynn in February 2016, citing an "evolving and eroding level of trust" after the former national security adviser lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his interactions with Kislyak.

The firing was "not based on a legal issue, but based on a trust issue," Sean Spicer, who was then the White House press secretary, said at the time.

Flynn had been on the job for just 25 days.

13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies

On February 16, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the indictments of 13 Russian citizens and three companies allegedly involved in meddling in the US political system.

"The defendants allegedly conducted what they called 'information warfare against the United States' with the stated goal of spreading distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general," Rosenstein said.

The charges focused on the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a notorious Russian "troll factory" that focused on sowing political discord during the 2016 US election by using internet bots to spread fake news and pro-Trump propaganda on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, a prominent businessman and associate of President Vladimir Putin who helped fund the IRA, was charged along with two of his businesses.

The defendants included 12 other Russian citizens, all of whom were identified as former IRA employees who played a role in Russian influence operations before, during, and after the 2016 election.

They are: Mikhail Bystrov, Mikhail Burchik, Aleksandra Krylova, Sergey Polozov, Anna Bogacheva, Maria Bovda, Robert Bovda, Dzheykhun Aslanov, Vadim Podkopaev, Gleb Vasilchenko, Irina Kaverzina, and Vladimir Venkov.

California businessman Richard Pinedo

California resident Richard Pinedo pleaded guilty to one count of identity fraud on February 12, according to court documents.

The plea deal's release came immediately after Mueller's office announced charges against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities accused of interfering in the 2016 US election by mounting an elaborate and multi-faceted social media influence operation meant to sow political discord during and after the race.

According to the statement of offense, Pinedo ran a company called "Auction Essistance," which offered services meant to get around the security requirements set by online payment companies like eBay, PayPal, and Amazon. Auction Essistance was shut down in December.

To help customers circumvent the security protocols set up by online payment websites, Pinedo created bank accounts on the internet using fraudulent identities and then sold those account numbers to Auction Essistance customers, the statement of offense said.

It added that although Pinedo was not directly involved in registering the accounts while using fake identities, "he willfully and intentionally avoided learning about the use of stolen identities."

Alex van der Zwaan, a Dutch lawyer tied to Manafort and Gates

Alex van der Zwaan pleaded guilty on February 20 to one count of making false statements to federal investigators.

Van der Zwaan represents the interests of numerous Russian oligarchs. He is also the son-in-law of German Khan, the Ukrainian-Russian billionaire who controls Russia's Alfa Bank.

The institution attracted scrutiny last year, when a dossier published by former British spy Christopher Steele alleged that Alfa Bank had played a role in meddling in the 2016 US election.

Van der Zwaan was charged with "willfully and knowingly" making "false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements and representations" to federal investigators about his work for the law firm Skadden, Arps, Meagher, & Flom LLP and Affiliates in 2012.

He was also accused of misleading federal investigators about his communications with Gates.

12 Russian intelligence officers

On July 13, Rosenstein announced the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for the hacking of the Democratic National Committee before the 2016 US presidential election.

All 12 indicted are members of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence unit. The accusations against them include conspiring to interfere with the election by hacking computers, stealing documents, and releasing those documents with intent to interfere.

In early 2017, US intelligence identified the hacking of the DNC and the spreading of emails intended to hurt Democrats and the party's 2016 presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, as the main pillar of Russia's election interference campaign.

These charges represented the first time Mueller's office directly pointed a finger at the Russian government for interfering in the election.

Announced three days before Trump met with Putin in Helsinki, the indictments were a main point of contention between the press, lawmakers, and Trump, who did not directly confront Putin over the charges.

Originally stating that he didn't "see any reason why" Russia would be responsible for the election meddling, Trump corrected himself a day later, adding he has "full faith" in US intelligence.

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newssplashy · 6 years ago

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Politics: Here's everyone who has been charged and convicted in Mueller's Russia probe so far

Robert Mueller has charged a total of four Americans, 25 Russians, and 3 Russian companies.

This ends the first of two trials Manafort is facing as part of the special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

Here's everyone who's been charged in the Mueller probe so far:

Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign chairman

He was forced to step down as Trump's campaign chairman in May 2016 after coming under fire for his connections to Russian oligarchs and his past lobbying efforts abroad.

Trump's former campaign chairman is accused of committing crimes while working as an unregistered lobbyist in the US for the Ukrainian government and pro-Russia interests beginning in 2006.

His second trial begins in Washington on September 17.

Rick Gates, one of Manafort's business partners

Gates joined Trump election efforts in the spring of 2016, working as Manafort's deputy. He traveled with Trump and grew close with many top campaign officials.

But as recently as June 2017, The Daily Beast reported that Gates was still visiting the White House and working under Tom Barrack, who has remained one of Trump's most trusted advisers.

Gates confessed to committing crimes with Manafort, and also stealing millions of dollars from his longtime business partner to finance an extramartial affair.

Defense attorneys sought to paint Gates as the mastermind of his and Manafort's tax and bank fraud.

George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser

He was arrested October 5, 2017, and subsequently cooperated with Mueller's team.

Trump has described Papadopoulos as a low-level volunteer.

"Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar," Trump tweeted following news of the guilty plea. "Check the DEMS!"

Special counsel Robert Mueller last week recommended that Papadopoulos be sentenced to as many as six months in prison.

Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser

Flynn, who has reportedly been at the center of Mueller's investigation for months, is perhaps the most high-profile person to be indicted to date.

On December 1, 2017, he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations last December with Russia's ambassador to the US at the time, Sergey Kislyak.

Trump fired Flynn in February 2016, citing an "evolving and eroding level of trust" after the former national security adviser lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his interactions with Kislyak.

The firing was "not based on a legal issue, but based on a trust issue," Sean Spicer, who was then the White House press secretary, said at the time.

Flynn had been on the job for just 25 days.

13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies

On February 16, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the indictments of 13 Russian citizens and three companies allegedly involved in meddling in the US political system.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, a prominent businessman and associate of President Vladimir Putin who helped fund the IRA, was charged along with two of his businesses.

The defendants included 12 other Russian citizens, all of whom were identified as former IRA employees who played a role in Russian influence operations before, during, and after the 2016 election.

California businessman Richard Pinedo

California resident Richard Pinedo pleaded guilty to one count of identity fraud on February 12, according to court documents.

It added that although Pinedo was not directly involved in registering the accounts while using fake identities, "he willfully and intentionally avoided learning about the use of stolen identities."

Alex van der Zwaan, a Dutch lawyer tied to Manafort and Gates

Alex van der Zwaan pleaded guilty on February 20 to one count of making false statements to federal investigators.

Van der Zwaan represents the interests of numerous Russian oligarchs. He is also the son-in-law of German Khan, the Ukrainian-Russian billionaire who controls Russia's Alfa Bank.

The institution attracted scrutiny last year, when a dossier published by former British spy Christopher Steele alleged that Alfa Bank had played a role in meddling in the 2016 US election.

He was also accused of misleading federal investigators about his communications with Gates.

12 Russian intelligence officers

On July 13, Rosenstein announced the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for the hacking of the Democratic National Committee before the 2016 US presidential election.

These charges represented the first time Mueller's office directly pointed a finger at the Russian government for interfering in the election.

Originally stating that he didn't "see any reason why" Russia would be responsible for the election meddling, Trump corrected himself a day later, adding he has "full faith" in US intelligence.

source http://www.newssplashy.com/2018/08/politics-heres-everyone-who-has-been.html

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