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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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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23245

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3 hours ago, Chad Fuck said:

The collusion question has been answered in the public arena. 

It has not been answered in a court of law, and that is what I was basing my response upon.

With the way this thing has been framed, the public isn’t going to acknowledge the existence of collusion unless there is a criminal charge.  

Since there isn’t a crime called collusion, collusion can never be officially proven in the minds of many Americans.

We will be living with collusion deniers for decades. 

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz
Their/there Derp
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lemonlime

lemonlime 5482

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15 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

With the way this thing has been framed, the public isn’t going to acknowledge the existence of collusion unless there is a criminal charge.  

Since their isn’t a crime called collusion, collusion can never be officially proven in the minds of many Americans.

We will be living with collusion deniers for decades. 

We should stop focusing on "collusion."  Beyond the Russia investigation, trump has engaged in constant impeachable offenses, most of which have been done open and in public.  Offhand, the emoluments violations, witness tampering, falsely accusing people including a former president of crimes, threatening to use the DOJ to go after political opponents, using his inaugural committee to launder money, and I could go on.   There needs to be a focus on these things and investigations here, instead of framing this as waiting on Mueller/Russia. 

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NameAlreadyInUse

NameAlreadyInUse 5092

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On 1/28/2019 at 6:47 PM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

You really need to watch “Get me Roger Stone”

Stone is in a class by himself as far as horrible human beings.

Stone worked as a partner in the same firm where Manafort and Atwater were also partners, hell, Manafort and Stone were part of the company name.  I think its safe to say that is a trifecta of terrible human beings, and I'm not sure which of them is the worst.  And I watched that documentary.

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 30716

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1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

are those hair plugs?

Pretty sure it's a rug.  If you can't tell from the hairline (his is suspect), you can tell in the back where the rug hair joins up with the scalp hair.  You can see it in that pic.

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triplehorn

triplehorn 2664

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Deripaska is Putin's Manafort guy, who in part was associated with receiving Trump campaign polling data from Manafort.  Deripaska was sanctioned due to association with Russia's attack on our 2016 election.  Manafort is sitting in prison and Russia, per Dir FBI statements this week, actively interfered in the 2018 midterms and is relentlessly adapting their attacks in real time today.  

But Mitch McConnell leads the Senate to lift sanctions on Deripaska this month.  And now this.

 

 

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Anastasis

Anastasis 23191

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4 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

Deripaska is Putin's Manafort guy, who in part was associated with receiving Trump campaign polling data from Manafort. 

It was some Ukrainians, not Deripaska. 

ETA: NYT issued a correction to their initial reporting.

Correction: Jan. 9, 2019

A previous version of this article misidentified the people to whom Paul Manafort wanted a Russian associate to send polling data. Mr. Manafort wanted the data sent to two Ukrainian oligarchs, Serhiy Lyovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov, not to Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian oligarch close to the Kremlin.

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triplehorn

triplehorn 2664

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1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

It was some Ukrainians, not Deripaska. 

ETA: NYT issued a correction to their initial reporting.

Correction: Jan. 9, 2019

A previous version of this article misidentified the people to whom Paul Manafort wanted a Russian associate to send polling data. Mr. Manafort wanted the data sent to two Ukrainian oligarchs, Serhiy Lyovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov, not to Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian oligarch close to the Kremlin.

Got it.  As a separate matter, that's not any better.

 

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Francisco 2.0

Francisco 2.0 31568

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/nra-heavyweight-wanted-access-to-putin-leaked-email?ref=scroll

 

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A former NRA president hoped to win access to Vladimir Putin on a trip to Moscow, according to an email from one of the trip’s organizers. That organizer, Republican operative Paul Erickson, also said the trip could have “enormous diplomatic consequences.” The email, sent in November 2015 and reviewed by The Daily Beast, came just months before the Kremlin’s election meddling went into full gear. 

 

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In the email, Erickson wrote that an official with the Russian Central Bank had made a tantalizing, though tentative, offer to former NRA president David Keene: an interview for his newspaper with Russian President Vladimir Putin. At the time, Keene was the opinion editor for The Washington Times, a conservative newspaper. He had previously helmed the NRA, and he maintained close ties with its top officials. And he was one of the small group of people on the trip.

 

Spoiler

“mpressing the NRA’s Russian hosts is also the quickest way to secure a private interview with President Putin on behalf of David Keene and the Washington Times–a plum that was dangled in front of Keene by Torshin himself during a recent Torshin visit to Washington, DC,” Erickson wrote. “High stakes all around.”

The NRA’s Russian hosts were a powerful group. Alexander Torshin, who Erickson said had tentatively offered Keene a Putin interview, was a deputy governor at Russia’s powerful central bank at the time. Justice Department prosecutors later alluded to him when they charged Erickson’s girlfriend, Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina, with conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent in the U.S. Butina pleaded guilty to the charge last month. Her organization, called The Right to Bear Arms, had helped organize the trip Keene went on.

The NRA officials on the trip also met with Dmitry Rogozin, a Putin deputy and prominent figure in the Russian defense industry who is under U.S. sanctions. And they met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, according to The Washington Post. 

The Erickson email, which has not been previously quoted, indicates that the NRA officials on the Moscow trip believed they were meeting with Kremlin power players who could influence the country’s president. The existence of this email was first reported by The New York Times. 

Erickson’s email also said the trip could help ease relations between Russia and the U.S. by creating a way for the Kremlin to connect with a future Republican president.  

“As we discussed over lunch in Iowa, Russia believes that high level contacts with the NRA might be the BEST means of neutral introduction to either the next American President OR to a meaningful re-set in relations with the Congress under a (God forbid) President Clinton,” he wrote. “This simple good will trip would have enormous diplomatic consequences for a future U.S. / Russia bilateral relationship to the world.”

The email also described tensions that emerged before the trip between two NRA power-brokers: David Keene, the NRA’s president from 2011 to 2013; and Allan Cors, its president at the time of the trip. Cors initially planned to go on the trip, which Keene and Butina helped organize. But a few weeks before departure, he abruptly bowed out. In the email, Erickson said Cors cited health problems as the reason for his cancellation. According to Erickson, it enraged Keene. 

“As you know from your discussions with Maria Butina, she and Russian Central Bank Deputy Governor Alexander Torshin (but mostly Maria) have been slaving away for several months preparing a truly ‘Nixon goes to China’ itinerary for a senior NRA delegation to Moscow next month,” Erickson wrote. “This has been a dream and happy burden for David Keene for a couple of years. JUST as the agenda was being finalized this week, President Cors announces–VERY privately–to David that a chronic health issue must now force Cors to abandon the trip.”

According to Erickson, Keene felt betrayed by Cors’ claims of health problems. 

“This has caught Keene totally off guard and could have disastrous consequences for the trip—and for our young Maria and the future of her ‘The Right to Bear Arms’ organization,” Erickson continued. “Keene is so angry that he is close to ending his friendship with Cors over what Keene views as Cors’ duplicity in keeping this health information from the powers that be.”

But now, Cors contradicts the story Erickson described in that email. In a statement the NRA’s lawyer provided to The Daily Beast on his behalf, Cors said he pulled out of the trip because he was worried it would reflect poorly on the NRA. The statement, part of which was in the Times story, said nothing about any health problems.

“When we spoke, [NRA CEO] Wayne [LaPierre] expressed concerns about this trip and suggested that I not participate,” Cors said in the statement. “I was, at the time, president of the NRA and Wayne did not want any misconception that this was an official trip. Frankly, I had similar concerns. Therefore, I gracefully bowed out.”

The NRA lawyer also told The Daily Beast that the group did not formally sanction the trip and that its CEO expressed concerns about it. 

“When he became aware of the details of the trip, [NRA CEO] Wayne [LaPierre] was personally opposed to it,” William A. Brewer III, an attorney for the NRA, said in a statement provided to The Daily Beast. “In order that the group was not viewed as representing the NRA, Wayne spoke with several people about the excursion. As a result, Mr. Cors agreed not to make the trip. In addition, NRA staff members who were in Israel (for a trip that preceded the visit to Russia) returned home.”

An attorney for Butina declined to comment. Keene did not respond to requests for comment. Kors did not respond to requests for comment on Erickson’s email. A lawyer for Erickson noted that he did not go on the trip and declined to comment further.

That trip ran from Dec. 8 through 13 of 2015. According to a trip itinerary reviewed by The Daily Beast, Butina and her assistant arranged for attendees to see Yuri Grigorovich’s ballet “A Legend of Love” at the Bolshoi Theatre. They also arranged for a trip to “Stalin’s Bunker,” a secret soviet facility that is now open to visitors; the Armory Chamber and Diamond Treasury of the Kremlin; and Red Square. Also on the agenda: a meeting with Evgeny Lukyanov, at the time a member of the Kremlin’s national security council. Months before the trip, he announced Russia’s sale of S-300 missile systems to Iran. It was one of the trip’s little ironies; before arriving on Moscow on the same journey, the attendees stopped in Israel—whose government was appalled by the S-300 sale to Iran. 

David Clarke, the conspiratorial former Milwaukee County sheriff who once claimed Black Lives Matter would team up with ISIS, also went on the trip, along with other influential NRA donors and board members. 

The trip has drawn the attention of investigators. Federal prosecutors in Washington D.C. told Erickson’s attorney several months ago that they were considering charging him for illegally acting as a covert agent of a foreign government, under a statute Justice Department lawyers refer to as “espionage-lite.” Butina is in jail awaiting sentencing and has agreed to cooperate with federal investigators. Meanwhile, the Senate intelligence committee is scrutinizing the NRA’s Russia connections as part of a wide-ranging, bipartisan probe into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential elections in the U.S. And Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, is also scrutinizing the trip. 

“I can’t discuss what I’ve learned through my investigation at this point,” he told The Daily Beast when asked about the email. “Americans would rightly be outraged if they learned that officers of a powerful, taxpayer-subsidized organization were offered personal incentives by the Kremlin in exchange for access to elite Republican circles. That question is right at the heart of my inquiry.”

Butina’s outreach to the American gun rights community began years ago. She met Erickson in Moscow in 2013, her lawyer has said. The two began a romance. Erickson, who is in his late 50’s, had spent his adult life developing connections throughout the conservative movement. For a time, he was on the board of the American Conservative Union, which hosts the most prominent annual conference for conservatives. And he was particularly active in the gun rights space, developing close relationships with people at the upper echelons of the NRA. He also undertook a number of business endeavors—some ending with accusations of fraud—and even helped produce Dolph Lundgren’s anti-communist film Red Scorpion. Jack Abramoff, the disgraced ex-lobbyist who did time in prison for his illegal escapades during the Bush administration, was also involved in making the film. 

Butina, meanwhile, came to the United States on a student visa in 2016 and studied at American University in Washington D.C. Her effort to warm bilateral relations between the U.S. and Russia began with great success, as she charmed conservative power-brokers and questioned then-candidate Donald Trump about sanctions policy. 

She and Erickson were open about their relationship, and wore a couple’s costumeto one party: She as a Russian empress, he as Rasputin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Jack Straw

Jack Straw 2953

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15 hours ago, lemonlime said:

We should stop focusing on "collusion."  Beyond the Russia investigation, trump has engaged in constant impeachable offenses, most of which have been done open and in public.  Offhand, the emoluments violations, witness tampering, falsely accusing people including a former president of crimes, threatening to use the DOJ to go after political opponents, using his inaugural committee to launder money, and I could go on.   There needs to be a focus on these things and investigations here, instead of framing this as waiting on Mueller/Russia. 

nm

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Jack Straw

Jack Straw 2953

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15 hours ago, lemonlime said:

We should stop focusing on "collusion."  Beyond the Russia investigation, trump has engaged in constant impeachable offenses, most of which have been done open and in public.  Offhand, the emoluments violations, witness tampering, falsely accusing people including a former president of crimes, threatening to use the DOJ to go after political opponents, using his inaugural committee to launder money, and I could go on.   There needs to be a focus on these things and investigations here, instead of framing this as waiting on Mueller/Russia. 

It’s too late for that.  Those ships all sailed a long time ago. 

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Pig Bellmont

Pig Bellmont 8637

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Oh and there’s this:

Mystery company lost motion(s) at the DC Circuit to prevent attachment of its property/enforcement of civil penalty for refusing to comply with grand jury subpoena. Also filings seem to indicate the company has 22-27 characters in its name. Twitter speculation suggests: QATARI INVESTMENT AUTHORITY 

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Gap03

Gap03 3143

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31 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Oh and there’s this:

Mystery company lost motion(s) at the DC Circuit to prevent attachment of its property/enforcement of civil penalty for refusing to comply with grand jury subpoena. Also filings seem to indicate the company has 22-27 characters in its name. Twitter speculation suggests: QATARI INVESTMENT AUTHORITY 

QIA makes perfect sense.  Please, eight pound, six ounce, newborn baby Jesus, don't even know a word yet, just a little infant, so cuddly, but still omnipotent - let them track the Rosneft brokerage fee from the QIA back to Trump and co.  Would be so sweet if 95%+ of the Steele dossier ended up being true.

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shnsajax

shnsajax 3589

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16 minutes ago, Gap03 said:

QIA makes perfect sense.  Please, eight pound, six ounce, newborn baby Jesus, don't even know a word yet, just a little infant, so cuddly, but still omnipotent - let them track the Rosneft brokerage fee from the QIA back to Trump and co.  Would be so sweet if 95%+ of the Steele dossier ended up being true.

Isn't it pretty much on track to be?

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