Republicans Helped Russia Attack Our Country.
notes excerpts and links from January 19 2019 about 2016-2018
Much of this is direct excerpts from the news I was aggregating, I would do this to keep track of the links and which articles are which when I was on Twitter, due to the character limit and the chaining of smaller short form pieces
this has a few sections out of place and is an incomplete version of my notes for a thread I published in January 2019 based on what we had at the time. the parts in [ ] are me narrating now. Enjoy.
TRUMP_RUSSIA_GOP
SECTION 1.
3 Million Russian Troll Tweets
[538 (which now I’m curious if this was reporting or bragging… jk Nate) documented much of the hostile foreign activity online during the attacks on our information stream, the psyops on the American people to elect fascist fucks like Trump with clear troll activity by the IRA, which is run by Putin’s chef, Prighozian]
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-were-sharing-3-million-russian-troll-tweets
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it is oligarchs like Deripaska, wielding extraordinary wealth and global connections, who may have played the most important role in the Russian influence campaign. Putin himself has suggested as much. Onstage with Trump at a press conference in Helsinki on July 16, the Russian leader said he “can imagine” private Russian businessmen supported Trump’s bid for the presidency. “And so what?” Putin demanded. “They don’t represent the Russian state.” [They do, in fact, represent the Russian state, that’s what Oligarch’s are]
http://amp.timeinc.net/time/5401645/putins-oligarchs
WASHINGTON — A business associate of President Trump promised in 2015 to engineer a real estate deal with the aid of the president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin, that he said would help Mr. Trump win the presidency. The associate, Felix Sater, wrote a series of emails to Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, in which he boasted about his ties to Mr. Putin. He predicted that building a Trump Tower in Moscow would highlight Mr. Trump’s savvy negotiating skills and be a political boon to his candidacy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/us/politics/trump-tower-putin-felix-sater.html
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CIA hermitage complaint, Russian Lobbyists: (link no longer active, Chuck site updated or it’s in a newer archive, will update with image soon)
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/judiciary/upload/Russia%2C%2003-31-17%2C%20Magnitsky%20Act%20-%202016-%2007-15%20HCM%20Complaint%20to%20FARA%20%28003%29_Redacted.pdf
-image coming soon-
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Trump Jr. Meeting:
The politically connected Veselnitskaya is now front and center in the probes into potential Russian ties to the 2016 Trump campaign. Donald Trump Jr., along with his brother-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign chairman Paul Manafort, met with her in June 2016 after having been told she was a Russian government lawyer who would deliver dirt on Democrat Hillary Clinton, an offer to which Trump Jr. enthusiastically responded.
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article161330723.html
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“Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it,” wrote Sater. “I will get all of [Vladimir] Putins [sic] team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.… I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected.” -sater
https://www.thenation.com/article/who-is-felix-sater-and-why-is-donald-trump-so-afraid-of-him/
A former adviser to Donald Trump [Sater] said in 2015 that he once arranged for Ivanka Trump to sit in Vladimir Putin's chair in the Russian president's office in the Kremlin.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ivanka-trump-putin-chair-felix-sater-russia-2017-8
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August 2, 2018
U.S. senator Paul to meet Russian lawmakers in Moscow on Aug. 6
According to a new indictment of 13 Russian people and 3 Russian entities released by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team Friday, a Russian organization “created and controlled the Twitter account, ‘Tennessee GOP,’ which used the handle
@TEN_GOP.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/19/16504510/ten-gop-twitter-russia
A Russian politician claimed on TV that Russian intelligence “stole” the U.S. presidential election under the nose of U.S. intelligence.Vyacheslav Nikonov, a member of Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma, appeared Sunday night on a show hosted by presenter Vladimir Solovyov that focused on whether U.S. global influence was in decline.
“U.S. intelligence missed it when Russian intelligence stole the president of the United States," said Nikonov, before going on to extol the superior ability of Russian versus U.S. intelligence.
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-stole-us-presidency-claims-russian-politician-live-tv-663441
Russian firm indicted in special counsel probe cites Kavanaugh decision to argue that charge should be dismissed
(Reuters) - Russia's foreign minister told his U.S. counterpart on Saturday that a woman arrested in the United States on accusations she was a Russian agent had been detained on "fabricated charges" and should be released.
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1KB0JU
An aide wrote to Palin in May of 2009: "You had received a request to call the Russian Ambassador regarding a proposed visit by Mr. Alexander Torshin... Torshin will be visiting Alaska on June 6, 2009 and we have asked the Lt. Governor to meet with him." Neither the Russian Embassy nor Palin responded to a request for comment.
A riff by Donald Trump at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on Monday night about Hillary Clinton's culpability in the deaths of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, is raising questions about where exactly Trump got hisinformation and how. Trump spreads russian propaganda:
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SECTION 2.
Butina, Torshin protege and NRA/other GOP Donor orgs: The Las Vegas hotel ballroom was crowded, but the Russian redhead caught Donald Trump’s eye. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, inviting a question.
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/17/maria-butina-donald-trump-accused-spy-russia-charges
In March, Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California noted in a letter to NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre that an NRA delegation met with Rogozin and Rudov during a trip to Russia in December 2015. Even as the contacts took place, Kremlin cyber operatives were secretly hacking top Democrats’ emails and barraging Americans’ social media accounts with fake news stories aimed at damaging the image of Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton and boosting the prospects of Republican Donald Trump
https://amp.mcclatchydc.com/latest-news/article212756749.html
In November 2013, the president of the National Rifle Association, David Keene, was introduced as an honored guest at the conference of the Right to Bear Arms, a gun lobby in Moscow. “There are no peoples that are more alike than Americans and Russians,” Keene said. “We’re hunters. We’re shooters. We value the same kinds of things.” Keene underscored his friendship with Alexander Torshin, a top politician in the ruling party of Vladimir Putin; for the past three years, Keene said, “I’ve hosted your senator Alexander Torshin at the National Rifle Association’s annual meetings.” In words that now carry a darker connotation, Keene insisted, “We need to work together.”
The meetings with Fischer and Sheets were arranged by the Center for the National Interest, a Washington foreign policy think tank that is supportive of efforts to improve U.S.-Russia relations. Paul Saunders, its executive director, in December
2016 urged then President-elect Donald Trump to ease tensions with Russia. In articles in its magazine, The National Interest, members of the think tank have also warned of the costs to the United States of confronting Russia or getting involved in Eurasian conflicts.
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1KC0DC
According to the affidavit in support of the complaint, from as early as 2015 and continuing through at least February 2017, Butina worked at the direction of a high-level official in the Russian government who was previously a member of the legislature of the Russian Federation and later became a top official at the Russian Central Bank. This Russian official was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control in April 2018.
In a February 2017 email, the operative, Paul Erickson, proposed another “U.S./Russia friendship” dinner. He noted that the activist, Maria Butina, who now is accused of being a covert Russian agent, was making an “ever-expanding circle of influential friends.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/04/us/politics/maria-butina-nra-russia-influence.html
Butina's group, The Right to Bear Arms, covered $6,000 of Clarke's meal, hotel, and transportation expenses, according to the ex-sheriff's Milwaukee County financial disclosure form.
https://boingboing.net/2018/07/24/former-sheriff-david-clarke-ha.html/amp
Charges accusing a woman of trying to build bridges between the Russian government and American political leaders via the National Rifle Association have delivered a breakthrough in understanding one aspect of the attack on the 2016 election: "infiltration."
At one dinner, ABC News has learned, in February 2017 at the tony French eaterie, Bistro Bis, one guest who dined with the then-28-year-old Russian was a California Republican congressman on the House Foreign Relations committee, Dana Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher’s office confirmed he attended.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/russia-bistro-bis-calif-congressman-dined-accused-russian/story
According to the hearing transcript, one of two warrants the FBI used to search Butina’s Washington, D.C., apartment in April was “related to matters in South Dakota.” The man believed to be Erickson is called “U.S. Person 1” in the indictment against Butina. According to the court documents, U.S. Person 1 helped Butina choose a student visa as her cover in the U.S., lived with her and provided access to politically influential Americans.
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5b5a79f7e4b0de86f4953587
The US imposed sanctions on Rusal in April because of its ties to Deripaska. But the Treasury Department said a few weeks later that it was considering removing sanctions against the massive aluminum company after a surge in aluminum prices. In an interview with CNN, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the US government knew the impact sanctions would have on Rusal. The company's founder, Deripaska, has since stepped down from his role as a non-executive director on its board.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/07/27/politics/mnuchin-russia-sanctions-rusal/index.html
Since her arrest, there have been reports of large sums of money connecting Butina with conservative think tanks, GOP operatives, money laundering, and all sorts of criminal banking intrigue. Her work with Russian banker and politico Alexander Torshin, an NRA member, has led to questions about the potential Russian sourcing of Trump’s and the NRA’s money. While reports have been mostly speculative, the circumstantial evidence is clearly strong
Prosecutors have alleged Butina, 30, gathered intelligence on American officials and political organizations and worked to develop relationships with American politicians through her contacts with the National Rifle Association.
https://wtop.com/national/2018/12/in-possible-plea-deal-accused-russian-agent-case-resolved/
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SECTION 3.
GOP:
Biden said … Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stopped the Obama administration from speaking out about Russian interference in the 2016 campaign by refusing to sign on to a bipartisan statement of condemnation.
Manafort Handpicked Pence; Before the Paul Manafort's Destiny Party really gets rolling—Vodka and ostrich meat for everyone!—let's pause for a moment and consider Vice President Mike Pence. The Choirboy (pace Doghouse Riley) was going nowhere in the winter of 2016. He had screwed up eight ways from Sunday as governor of Indiana, and it was better than even money that he wouldn't be re-elected. His career had kicked the ye oaken bucket.Then, that summer, a miracle happened, and the miracle was named Paul Manafort.
“We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016. … We further assess (Russia) developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.” Is Sen. Collins not aware of this report? If she is aware, does she not trust it, or is she just choosing to ignore it for political expediency? Any of these options is a dismal indictment of her character and her ability to lead Maine and protect elections. Sen. Collins also boasts she sponsors the DETER Act, claiming Russia will be deterred from acting in 2018 elections if there are “severe consequences.” Should we believe this when the current administration repeatedly ignored the 2017 Russia Sanctions Review Act?
Kilimnik helped Manafort polish his anti-democratic, totalitarian message into a pitch that would catch the ear of Russian oligarchs like Oleg Deripaska. And Kilimnik began that work at the International Republican Institute—a nonprofit funded by the US government explicitly to support democracy and pro-Western positions.
September 13, 2018 - 05:05 PM EDT GOP rejects effort to force release of documents about private Trump-Putin meeting
Documents Show NRA and Republican Candidates Coordinated Ads in Key Senate Races
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/01/nra-republicans-campaign-ads-senate-josh-hawley/
Former Republican Sen. David Vitter is lobbying on behalf of companies linked to a Russian oligarch with ties to PresidentVladimir Putin
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/01/16/politics/david-vitter-lobbying-russia-sanctions/
on gop blocking election security bill: the amendment failed on a 50-49 vote, 10 votes shy of the 60 needed for it to pass. The votes fell almost entirely on party lines as only one Republican — Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.) — voted for the grant. "The integrity of our elections, which are the foundation of our democracy, should not be a partisan issue," Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who proposed the amendment, said in a statement. "It is unfortunate that the Senate has followed the same path as House Republicans in blocking the funding our states need to help upgrade their infrastructure and secure our elections." Last month House Republicans similarly blocked an effort for $380 million to bolster election security efforts.
https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/884438002
Devin Nunes asked Russian bots to help make an article discrediting the Russia investigation 'go viral'
December 15, 2017. New allegations about $500k in payments from a Russian oligarch made to Trump attorney Michael Cohen have placed it back in the news.
In 2015-16, everything changed. Blavatnik's political contributions soared and made a hard right turn as he pumped $6.35 million into GOP political action committees, with millions of dollars going to top Republican leaders including Sens. Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham.
Gov. Rick Scott's recently-filed 125-page federal financial disclosure statement listed at least $50,000 in income last year from the sale of corporate securities stock in Navigator Holdings, Ltd. Navigator Holdings is a shipping company that specializes in transporting liquefied petroleum gas for international energy companies, state-owned utilities and commodities traders, according to a corporate profile by the Reuters news service.One of Navigator's major clients is a Russian energy company with links to the Kremlin.
Updated with statement from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. Sen. John McCain accused fellow Republican Sen. Rand Paul of “working for Vladimir Putin”
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/john-mccain-says-rand-paul-is-working-for-vladimir-putin/
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SECTION 4
overall interference:
“As I have said consistently, Russia attempted to interfere with the last election and continues to engage in malign influence operations to this day. ” Aug. 2, 2018 »
Christopher A. Wray
F.B.I. director
Russian hackers are still probing America's critical power grid infrastructure
Hackers from the Dutch intelligence service AIVD have provided the FBI with crucial information about Russian interference with the American elections. For years, AIVD had access to the infamous Russian hacker group Cozy Bear. That's whatde Volkskrant and Nieuwsuur have uncovered in their investigation.
But in Knox County, Tenn., it wasn't the fact that Glenn Jacobs, also known to wrestling fans as Kane, was running for mayor that gained national attention on the county primary day, May 1 It was that the county's election website, at the time the site was supposed to begin posting election results, came under attack. Malicious cyber actors shut down the county website and broke into the web server, according to county officials and a report done by the cyber security firm Sword and Shield.
Russia Aims To Undermine NATO, Retired Lt. Gen. Hodges Says
“They got to the point where they could have thrown switches” and disrupted power flows, said Jonathan Homer, chief of industrial-control-system analysis for DHS.
Amid ongoing concern over continued efforts by Russian hackers to infiltrate U.S. election systems, Democratic Sen.
Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire says that her office has been the subject of at least one phishing attack targeting email accounts and social media profiles.
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/sen-shaheen-says-senators-targeted-in-widespread-hacking-attempts/
Dutch secret service provided crucial intelligence on Russian interference with American elections
Top Maryland lawmakers announced Friday they were informed by the FBI about links between a Russian oligarch and the software company that services parts of the state's voter registration systems.
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Special counsel outcomes and speculations: Special counsel website, best possible layout for gathering info on the evolution of the case so far.
https://www.justice.gov/sco (Link addressed changed but I’ve amended the new address to this link, which is in the FBI records vault)
Read Mueller’s full indictment against 12 Russian officers for election interference
How Trump’s Public and Private Acts Line Up in a Possible Obstruction Case
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/26/us/politics/trump-tweets-mueller.html
The great unanswered question is whether there are more indictments to come—and whether any associates of the Trump campaign will be charged the next time. While a handful of Americans, including Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos, have pleaded guilty in the Russia probe, Mueller has yet to accuse anyone of anything like “collusion”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/clues-in-muellers-indictment-point-to-collusion
‘Nude Selfie’ Obtained In Mueller Inquiry, Says Court Filing By Indicted Russian Firm (lol)
Supreme court rejects firm's request in mystery case with possible Mueller links
F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/us/politics/fbi-trump-russia-inquiry.html
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HPSCI FINDINGS.
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Trump interacting with Russia and obstruction of probe:
President Trump drew a direct connection between the special counsel investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election and his decision to revoke the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan and review the clearances of several other former officials.
For Americans to have confidence in the midterm elections three months away, and for Russia to get a blunt message that it should not interfere, the entire Trump administration needs to be on the same page — and that includes the president.
But so far, Donald Trump is the missing piece in any forceful counter to Russia's continuing attacks on the U.S. electoral process and democracy itself. Last month in Helsinki, the president all but sided with Vladimir Putin on whether Russia had interfered in the 2016 election. After a bipartisan outcry, Trump begrudgingly backtracked.
Two weeks before his inauguration, Donald J. Trump was shown highly classified intelligence indicating that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had personally ordered complex cyberattacks to sway the 2016 American election.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/world/europe/trump-intelligence-russian-election-meddling-.html
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he does not believe Russia is still targeting the U.S., day after he attempted to quell the backlash over his widely rebuked comments in Helsinki where he contradicted his intelligence community’s assessment that Moscow had interfered in the 2016 election.
CNN: Trump signed letter of intent to build Trump Tower in Moscow
José Grinda, who has spearheaded investigations into Spanish organized crime, said that bureau officials in recent months requested and were provided transcripts of wiretapped conversations between Torshin and Alexander Romanov, a convicted Russian money launderer. On the wiretaps, Romanov refers to Torshin as “El Padrino,” the godfather. “Just a few months ago, the wiretaps of these telephone conversations were given to the FBI,” Grinda said in response to a question from Yahoo News during a talk he gave at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington.
Asked if he was concerned about Torshin’s meetings with Donald Trump Jr. and other American political figures, Grinda replied: “Mr. Trump’s son should be concerned.”
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Trump campaign and WH staff:
He [Kushner] also met Dimitri Simes, the long-time president of the center and publisher of its magazine, The National Interest. Questions have recently been raised about the center for its board members’ ties to Russia," as well as Maria Butina in 2015.
After Trump was elected, but before he took office, Kushner asked Kislyak whether the transition team could use the Russian embassy to communicate privately with Moscow.
Paul Manafort shared 2016 presidential campaign polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, an associate the FBI has said has ties to Russian intelligence, according to a court filing. [Kilimnik was later sanctioned in 2021 for taking the campaign data from Manafort in 2016]
"Just so we're clear, is that a personal lawyer of General Flynn's contacted a transition lawyer and asked for guidance on what he should or should not do," Spicer said today. "The lawyer was instructed that at -- that that wasn't the role of the transition and that it was up to the personal lawyer to work with the appropriate authorities or subject matter experts to determine what was appropriate and what was not appropriate in terms of filing. This was a personal matter. It's a business matter."
The leaders of seven House committees are calling on Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to explain why the United States is easing sanctions on companies linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska
https://apnews.com/7eef88abcb51496390407796f2397800
Kushner’s first meeting with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian Ambassador to the United States, seems relatively innocuous. According to Kushner’s account, they met in April, 2016, at the Mayflower Hotel, in Washington, D.C., during a reception before a speech that Trump delivered on foreign policy. Dimitri Simes, the publisher of The National Interest and the organizer of the event, introduced Kushner to Kislyak and three other ambassadors.
Bannon, the former head of President Donald Trump's campaign, said he "doesn't remember" buying the data, even though he was serving on the firm's board at the time. He instead blamed "the Cambridge guy," referring to former Cambridge University professor Aleksandr Kogan, the researcher at the center of the scandal.
Here’s a timeline of Sessions’ interference in investigations he’s recused from.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/01/a-timeline-of-jeff-sessions-recusal-violations/
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Trump appointees:
Brian Benczkowski, Trump’s appointee to run the Justice Department’s criminal division, represented Russia’s Alfa Bank. Senate Democrats have questions about recusal
https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/565940/
Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as his commerce secretary, has been the top shareholder in a Cypriot bank with deep Russian ties and investors who made their fortunes under Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump allies:
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article121981624.html
Nunes answered when asked if Twitter was censoring conservatives, “I had no idea what shadow banning was. I had no clue. For several months people have been contacting me saying I tried to find you on Twitter. I couldn’t find your account, why is that. Then we had a report that came out where there were four people in the House of Representatives and four elected officials that were quote-unquote, shadowbanned. they don’t call it shadow banning. There was a trap were people couldn’t see our Twitter feed. That was Mr. Gaetz, Mr. Meadows, Mr. Jordan, and myself.
Brian Benczkowski, confirmed to a pivotal position as assistant attorney general had almost no relevant experience for the job, unless you count passing the bar. What he does have, as former staffer and close friend of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is the president’s ear from his prior spot on his transition team as well as ties to Russia’s Alfa Bank at a time when Russia’s assumed Most Favored Nation status in the White House
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The dossier is actually a series of reports—16 in all—that total 35 pages. Written in 2016, the dossier is a collection of raw intelligence. Steele neither evaluated nor synthesized the intelligence. He neither made nor rendered bottom-line judgments. The dossier is, quite simply and by design, raw reporting, not a finished intelligence product.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/steele-dossier-retrospective
Here is a pdf link to the actual Steele Dossier.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984/Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.pdf#page=34
MiNcE MEAt!!!1!
Which one are you?