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The Robert Mueller Investigation

Hugo Stiglitz

By Hugo Stiglitz
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Goredho
Goredho

Just to make sure I have the alternative facts straight...  Our government -- but I'm guessing only the deep state part of it --- is now guilty of torturing a poor, naive Russian exchange student who

Incredulity
Incredulity

liberals suddenly being terrified of Russia and manic for election integrity is just pure comedy gold.

Chooky
Chooky

I don't believe for a moment that any of this is entertaining to you.  I think it gives you a bit of anxiety knowing that your best weapon against a group who you despise is a bumbling fraud as a busi

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J.R.

J.R. 150

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I would really like to see someone come out with a $30mm prize for the best report that concisely yet completely and accurately captures the full level of Russian subversion of our democracy and corruption.  The catch would be that judging will occur now and also 10 years from now on a blended basis of most complete and proven most accurate.  My money is on the information security companies.  The reporting to date on this has been extremely poor in terms of comprehensive, non-partisan, non-clickbait, technical summaries.

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23367

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5 minutes ago, J.R. said:

I would really like to see someone come out with a $30mm prize for the best report that concisely yet completely and accurately captures the full level of Russian subversion of our democracy and corruption.  The catch would be that judging will occur now and also 10 years from now on a blended basis of most complete and proven most accurate.  My money is on the information security companies.  The reporting to date on this has been extremely poor in terms of comprehensive, non-partisan, non-clickbait, technical summaries.

The documentary Active Measures does the best job I've seen so far of giving a comprehensive overview in two hours but it was still lacking in some areas like the NRA angle with Butina.  

It does a good job of illustrating how 2016 wasn't Russia first rodeo.  They ran identical playbooks in Georgia and Ukraine over the last 10 years. 

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J.R.

J.R. 150

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Just now, Hugo Stiglitz said:

The documentary Active Measures does the best job I've seen so far of giving a comprehensive overview in two hours but it was still lacking in some areas like the NRA angle with Butina.  

It does a good job of illustrating how 2016 wasn't Russia first rodeo.  They ran identical playbooks in Georgia and Ukraine over the last 10 years. 

no its watered down bullshit for public consumption.  

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23367

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12 minutes ago, J.R. said:

no its watered down bullshit for public consumption.  

Well yeah, if you can't package a story consumable for the public, what good is it? 

 FTR, I didn't say Active Measure was great, just that it''s the best I've seen so far.  And yeah, it's watered down but that's the only way to tell the story. 

It would take multiple Encyclopedia Britannica collections worth of documents based on the expertise of at least 100 scholars in different fields to do the Russia attack justice. 

Anyone claiming to be an expert on Trump-Russia is full of shit. 

 

 

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Pig Bellmont

Pig Bellmont 8725

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I don’t think so, the company admits it’s a witness. I’m all in on it being VTB Bank

Everyone in Moscow understood that VTB was more than a bank. It had ties to Russian intelligence. Putin’s Federal Security Service (FSB) spy chief, Nikolai Patrushev, and his successor, Alexander Bortnikov, both sent their sons to work at VTB. The bank’s deputy chief executive, Vasily Titov, chaired the FSB’s public council.

VTB may have also had contacts with Trump associates, according to The New York Times. In November 2015, a few months after Trump announced he was running for president, one of his business partners, Felix Sater, wrote an email to Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, saying VTB had agreed to bankroll a Trump Tower Moscow project. Trump signed a letter of intent for the deal. When the project stalled, Cohen tried reaching out to Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, to help jump-start it. But it ultimately failed.

https://www.newsweek.com/2017/12/29/donald-trump-russia-secret-deutsche-bank-753780.html

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Gap03

Gap03 3310

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31 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I’m guessing Alpha Bank

I haven't been following along closely, but I didn't think either of VTB Bank or Alfa Bank were wholly-owned by Russia.  Any chance this might actually be the Qatari Investment Authority - i.e., the one that bought the stake in Rosneft and which is definitely a a wholly owned agency or instrumentality of a foreign state?  

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Gap03

Gap03 3310

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28 minutes ago, Gap03 said:

I haven't been following along closely, but I didn't think either of VTB Bank or Alfa Bank were wholly-owned by Russia.  Any chance this might actually be the Qatari Investment Authority - i.e., the one that bought the stake in Rosneft and which is definitely a a wholly owned agency or instrumentality of a foreign state?  

Just a reminder about the QIA / Rosneft / Page episode:

https://medium.com/@gregolear/the-rosneft-commission-trumps-inevitable-downfall-will-involve-money-and-lots-of-it-81e87778288f

https://medium.com/@gregolear/rosneft-revisited-did-trump-do-a-deal-in-russia-b2dfda6ce310

Fingers crossed that Mueller has managed to substantiate some of the speculation around a Rosneft brokerage.  How sweet would it be if the Steele Dossier was spot on regarding Page's activities and they managed to track the money back to the Trump organization?

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89778

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4 hours ago, HenryJames said:

 

In the course of three years, Alex Jones went from interviewing Trump on his show, to watching Trump and other InoWars fans take the White House, to an expensive and messy (and revealing) divorce, losing an important and costly lawsuit to the Sandy Hook parents, being kicked off all of his major social media platforms, and now this.  

It’s like aggy’s Annual fall football rolleroaster spread out over three years.  

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Pig Bellmont

Pig Bellmont 8725

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1 hour ago, Gap03 said:

I haven't been following along closely, but I didn't think either of VTB Bank or Alfa Bank were wholly-owned by Russia.  Any chance this might actually be the Qatari Investment Authority - i.e., the one that bought the stake in Rosneft and which is definitely a a wholly owned agency or instrumentality of a foreign state?  

https://www.vtb.com/akcionery-i-investory/raskrytie-informacii/struktura-akcionernogo-kapitala/

Looks wholly Russian owned to me...

Also, Alston & Bird reps the company and they’ve rep’d several high profile Russian interests in the past

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Biff Tannen

Biff Tannen 45712

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1 minute ago, JimmyJames said:

It’s really not that hard. The Russians gave a bunch of money to the NRA. The NRA gave a bunch of money to the Trumplicans. Some, maybe most, of the trumplicans knew that. Now they’re all scared shitless running interference. 

This seems correct to me.  Is it more complicated?

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JimmyJames

JimmyJames 12271

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4 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

This seems correct to me.  Is it more complicated?

Only to the extent the Russians tried to hide the source. Nothing an experienced financial crimes prosecutor couldn’t figure out. 

The super duper secret subpoena battle currently raging before pj, squee and donkey dong Doug is almost assuredly an example of that, but probably even bigger than just the kind of big NRA. 

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triplehorn

triplehorn 2664

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10 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

So from this story, Mueller has been looking at the NRA for over a year.

I believe Mueller has been hot on RNC's trail since late spring of 2017.

This from last April:

The first tweet doesn't resonate with me because GOP investigating Trump was always going to be too late.  There would be no exoneration.

Tweet 2/ though. 💀

 

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23367

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Russians likely had a lot of influence and financial support in the NRA’s media operation.

The messaging the NRA was putting out a few years ago is where I saw the most aggressive Russian tropes. 

 

NRA going anti-media

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/the-fix/wp/2018/02/24/how-the-nra-came-to-demonize-the-media/

NRA’s TV Operation Lays Off Several Employees

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thetrace.org/rounds/nratv-layoffs-employees-ackerman-mcqueen/amp/

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Gap03

Gap03 3310

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26 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

https://www.vtb.com/akcionery-i-investory/raskrytie-informacii/struktura-akcionernogo-kapitala/

Looks wholly Russian owned to me...

Also, Alston & Bird reps the company and they’ve rep’d several high profile Russian interests in the past

That table only shows the >5% SHs.  Approximately 40% of the VTB ordinary shares aren't reflected there, many of which are held by non-state entities (based on the sources spoiler'd below).

 

Spoiler

 

Quote

Shareholders

The main shareholder of VTB is the Russian Government,[8] which owns 60.9% of the lender through its Federal Agency for State Property Management. The remaining shares are split between holders of its Global Depository Receipts and minority shareholders, both individuals and companies.

In February 2011, the Government floated an additional 10% minus two shares of VTB Bank. The private investors, who paid a total of 95.7 billion rubles ($3.1 billion) for the assets, included the investment funds Generali, TPG Capital, China Investment Corp, a sovereign wealth fund responsible for managing China's foreign exchange reserves, and companies affiliated with businessman Suleiman Kerimov.[47]

In May 2013 VTB completed a secondary public offering (SPO), issuing 2.5 trillion new additional shares by public subscription. All the shares have been placed on Moscow's primary stock exchange. The government has not participated in the SPO so its stake in the bank decreased to 60.9% after the subscription has been closed. The bank has raised 102.5 billion rubles worth of additional capital. Three sovereign wealth funds Norway's Norges Bank Investment Management, Qatar Holding LLC and the State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) and commercial bank China Construction Bank became the largest investors during the SPO after purchasing more than half of the additional share issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTB_Bank#Shareholders

 

Spoiler
Name Equities %
Federal Agency for State Property Management 6,093,477,999,999 60.9%
Qatar Holding LLC 236,000,000,000 2.36%
Future Private Pension Fund JSC 159,000,000,000 1.59%
BlackRock Advisors (UK) Ltd. 2,147,483,647 0.022%
Bessemer Investment Management LLC 2,147,483,647 0.022%
UBS Asset Management (UK) Ltd. 2,147,483,647 0.022%
Zürcher Kantonalbank (Investment Management) 2,147,483,647 0.022%
BlackRock Fund Advisors 2,147,483,647 0.022%
The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec 2,147,483,647 0.022%
BlackRock Japan Co., Ltd. 2,147,483,647 0.022%

https://www.marketscreener.com/BANK-VTB-PAO-6499155/company/

 

 

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23367

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Buzzfeed has been all over the Trump Tower Moscow project for over a year.  I’m still kinda bummed the SCO put out that ambiguous statement.  It was so unnecessary. 

From the journalists that are standing by the claim that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress, they’re saying they haven’t locked down the precise language Trump used but they believe evidence exists that can put them in the room.  

I imagine it was along the same mob boss talk Trump gave to Comey.

”Michael, I hope you stick to the script when you testify before Congress. We wouldn’t want anymore trouble right?”

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105275

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3 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

You guys got him yet?

Well, seems that there's a real-deal special prosecutor on the job.

Y'all convict Hillary after Trey Gowdy's years of Benghazi hearings?  I mean, if we wanted a script for "pissing up a rope," that'd be the one we oughta follow.

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triplehorn

triplehorn 2664

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2 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Russians likely had a lot of influence and financial support in the NRA’s media operation.

The messaging the NRA was putting out a few years ago is where I saw the most aggressive Russian tropes. 

Right.  This just cycled through the news in the last couple weeks - that Trump campaign was coordinating messaging w NRA for the election.  That’s illegal.

Also consider your observation about NRA/RU media/messaging.  People who took laundered rubles didn’t just take money they ‘thought’ was clean coming from legit donors.  It appears the cash was a bundled package that also included Cambridge Analytica and participation in coordinated use of the Russian influenced media campaign.  That also includes incorporating Russian-hacked content as we saw used in congressional races in FL.

What do Trump/RUS get in return for dirty cash and coordinated multilayered media campaign assistance for certain GOP’s in Congress to win their primaries and general ?  

A commitment to No oversight and No investigation of Trump.  That’s exactly what we’ve witnessed for two years.

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Atx71

Atx71 146

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Just now, Johnny Sack said:

You won’t see my tears.  It won’t affect my life.  How soon though?   You seem plugged in and should know.  

I have been waiting for Trump's huge splash since 1985. I dont want to see it rushed now, it is so spectacular. 

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