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The Robert Mueller Investigation


Hugo Stiglitz

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I can't remember if it's been discussed on here or not, but regarding the recent tampering charges against Manafort, in addition to material from volunteered devices, the feds also got copies of messages from Manafort's iCloud account. 

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One of the interesting characters in Trump's desire to build towers in former Soviet republics is Mikheil Saakashvili.  The dude has been President of Georgia (where he tried to get the tower built in 2011), but lost his election, was charged criminally, went to the US as a Tufts University lecturer, went to Ukraine to support their revolution in 2014, got his Georgian citizenship revoked, was appointed as Governor of Odessa, resigned (the day before Trump was elected), was charged with crimes, had his Ukrainian citizenship revoked, and his now living in the Netherlands. 

I don't know what to think of the guy, other than he is active.

Edit: ...and he survived an assassination attempt when he was sitting with George W. Bush. Grenade failed.

 

 

Edited by Tuco
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The giant timeline of everything Russia, Trump and the investigations

The investigation into Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election has grown dramatically in both size and scope. A complex probe from the start, it is now a nearly indiscernible blur of characters, charges and counter-charges.

This timeline is a tool aimed at understanding the growing number of dots and where they connect. Think of it as a map. We spent months checking and cross-checking sources of information for each item.

Dig in. There is a lot here.

 

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/features/russia-timeline/

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More details on the recent charge of tampering against Manafort. Looks like his house arrest is going to end in about a week. Judge has a hearing on this June 15. 

WASHINGTON — The special counsel’s accusation this week that Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, tried to tamper with potential witnesses originated with two veteran journalists who turned on Mr. Manafort after working closely with him to prop up the former Russia-aligned president of Ukraine, interviews and documents show.

The two journalists, who helped lead a project to which prosecutors say Mr. Manafort funneled more than $2 million from overseas accounts, are the latest in a series of onetime Manafort business partners who have provided damaging evidence to Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Their cooperation with the government has increasingly isolated Mr. Manafort as he awaits trial on charges of violating financial, tax and federal lobbying disclosure laws....

Prosecutors assert that Mr. Manafort’s fight included trying to shape the accounts that former business partners offered prosecutors. In court filings this week, they said that starting in late February, Mr. Manafort repeatedly tried to reach the two journalists — with whom he had fallen out of contact until recently — to coordinate their accounts about their work to tamp down international criticism of Mr. Yanukovych for corruption, persecuting rivals and pivoting toward Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin. The prosecutors did not name the journalists, but three people familiar with the project identified them as Alan Friedman and Eckart Sager.

 

Both men fended off the overtures, which included phone calls and encrypted text messages from Mr. Manafort and a longtime associate, whom prosecutors have not named but was identified by people close to Mr. Manafort as Konstantin V. Kilimnik, a former Russian Army linguist who prosecutors claim has ties to Russian intelligence.

 

You have 4 free articles remaining.

Subscribe to The Times
 
 

Instead of engaging, Mr. Friedman and Mr. Sager informed Mr. Mueller’s team of the efforts to reach them, according to prosecutors. Mr. Friedman accused Mr. Manafort of trying to “suborn perjury” by persuading him to lie to investigators, according to a declaration by an F.B.I. agent on the case. Neither Mr. Friedman nor Mr. Sager could be reached for comment.

 

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Robert Mueller has brought additional charges against President Donald Trump’s campaign chairman and a longtime associate, accusing them of obstructing justice.

The new charges were unsealed Friday against Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik.

They come after prosecutors accused Manafort of attempting to tamper with witnesses as he awaits trial of felony charges related to foreign lobbying work.

Prosecutors have accused Kilimnik of having ties to Russian intelligence, a charge he denies.

https://apnews.com/d0e364bcfa234729b88828e84ee437bf

 

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Alan Friedman:

https://www.politico.com/blogs/onmedia/0811/CNBC_drops_World_Business.html

Quote

CNBC has pulled its weekend international business show, “World Business,” after a blog edited by Gordon Brown’s sister-in-law found that the show’s production company was doubling as a PR firm for Malaysian politicians.

The blog, the Sarawak Report, named after one of the states on the island of Borneo, reported that the London-based television production-company, FBC Media, had a contract with Sarawak’s Chief Minister, Taib Mahmud, to improve his international image. It suggests FBC carried out this contract in part through puff pieces in the news shows it produced.

...

The company’s executive chairman is Alan Friedman, an American journalist who interned in the Carter White House and worked as a columnist for the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal. Last year, he wrote for The Atlantic as a special correspondent from Davos.

Although staffers were around to answer phones at FBC Media on Wednesday, messages left for Friedman were not returned.

On Friedman’s Wikipedia page, FBC Media is listed as as a “a London-based strategic communications, national branding and television and online content group with interests primarily in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.”

FBC Media is listed in lobbying reports as having paid tens of thousands of dollars to Washington-based lobbying firm Apco in recent years to lobby on behalf of the Malaysian government, the blog points out.

 

Eckart Sager

http://asbarez.com/166535/former-cnn-employee-received-2-6-million-through-azerbaijani-laundromat/

(Remember that Trump was trying to build a tower in Baku.)

Quote

BAKU– Additional revelations over Azerbaijan’s corruption scheme that have come about in the last couple of days have exposed a former CNN employee’s role in the scandal.

The report called “Azerbaijani Laundromat” by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) revealed that former CNN producer Eckart Sager received nearly $2.6 million from British companies including Hilux Services. The money was transferred to Sager’s account in the UAE.

The revelation notes that Sager, receiving money from Azerbaijan, published articles propagating the Azerbaijani visions on various issues or defended pro-Azerbaijani figures.

....

 

Sager also worked with Friedman at FBC Media.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/special-investigation-tv-company-takes-millions-from-malaysian-government-to-make-documentaries-for-2338813.html

 

Quote

Eckart Sager, president and head of production for FBC

 
 

German-born and educated in the US, Sager is a former senior producer for CNN, based in London. He previously worked for CNN in New York, travelling the world profiling leading business figures. He is the executive producer of many of FBC's documentaries and also "provides key strategic communications advice and support on behalf of FBC clients".

 

Edited by Tuco
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5 minutes ago, Party_Taco said:

Special counsel Robert Mueller filed new witness tampering criminal charges against ex-Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort as well as Russian citizen Konstantin Kilimnik as a defendant.

The superseding indictment lodged by a grand jury sitting in federal court in Washington, DC, came days after Mueller asked the judge in Manafort's case to revoke his bail and jail him because of an alleged effort to tamper with witnesses.

Manafort and Kilimnik were both hit with new charges accusing them of using intimidation or force against a witness to obstruct justice, and also with tampering with a witness, victim or informant.

 

Lawyers for Manafort did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

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4 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Boom!

New indictment on Mueller’s homepage ending the longest lull.  My prediction was a week off.

https://www.justice.gov/sco

https://www.justice.gov/file/1070326/download

Trump probably knew about this development two weeks ago.  Helps explain the Manafort tweets.

Yeah, I don't think another indictment against Manafort qualifies as a validation of your prediction that there would be a bunch of new indictments by June 1st. (God, imagine how you would've stroked yourself if that had actually happened.) Take a chill pill. Please.

I do appreciate your rare tweet-free post. 

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This is a weird thing.  Much like the Russian indictment, I don't think Kilimnik can be expected to be apprehended for appearance and trial, or voluntarily appear.  Thus, unless severance is requested, this will delay Manafort's trial on these counts indefinitely.

 

Even if a severance is moved for and granted, this will almost assuredly move the currently scheduled trial date.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

This is a weird thing.  Much like the Russian indictment, I don't think Kliminik can be expected to be apprehended for appearance and trial.  Thus, unless severance is requested, this will delay Manafort's trial on these counts indefinitely.

Maybe setting up a conspiracy charge for Manafort

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7 minutes ago, Tuco said:

Do you think that might be the intent?

The intent is to show Manafort is actively engaged in a conspiracy with a Russian intelligence operative, has been repeatedly violating the terms of his bail and to put his ass in jail, where he belongs. The US will probably never be able to actually prosecute Kilimnik, but he is a Russian GRU operative attempting to intimidate witnesses, along with Manafort. Exposing that is an important part of the process. 

Edited by Pods
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1 minute ago, Pods said:

The intent is to show Manafort is actively engaged in a conspiracy with a Russian intelligence operative, has been repeatedly violating the terms of his bail and to put his ass in jail, where he belongs. The US will probably never be able to actually prosecute Kilimnik, but he is a Russian GRU operative attempting to intimidate witnesses, along with Manafort. Exposing that is an important part of the processes. 

Traveling outside of Russia just became a bit more difficult for Kilmnik I suspect. 

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21 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Yeah, I don't think another indictment against Manafort qualifies as a validation of your prediction that there would be a bunch of new indictments by June 1st. (God, imagine how you would've stroked yourself if that had actually happened.) Take a chill pill. Please.

I do appreciate your rare tweet-free post. 

I was wrong, period.

However I could sense something was coming and this isn’t just another charge to Manafort.  

This is a new person charged with 18 USC 371 PLUS obstruction.

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^^^to Pods...

That's certainly the end game.  If there are good strategic reasons for pushing the trial back (like avoiding exposing what they know before they can finish the investigation with Trump) I'm good with Mueller doing anything ethical to accomplish it.

And, I think it's worth noting that Kilimnik has more of a stake in being able to come to the States than the 13 other Russians.  He did lobbying shit, including some stateside.  Akhmetshin testified that KK traveled with a Ukranian member of Parliament to attend the SOTU in 2014.  That's over.  He likely has to watch his ass going to US-friendly countries, including the Urkaine once Trump is out.  His world just got a whole lot smaller, and his business is based on operating in the world. 

Edited by Tuco
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37 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

This is a weird thing.  Much like the Russian indictment, I don't think Kilimnik can be expected to be apprehended for appearance and trial, or voluntarily appear.  Thus, unless severance is requested, this will delay Manafort's trial on these counts indefinitely.

 

Even if a severance is moved for and granted, this will almost assuredly move the currently scheduled trial date.

Seems like a necessary move to get Manafort behind bars next week with plenty of time to think about cooperating before his trial starts.

And as above, forcing those under indictment to choose to hole up in RUS instead of demonstrating accountability is its own form of confinement.

Edited by triplehorn
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1 minute ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Trump may have to pardon a real Russian spy now if he wanted to pardon Manafort

good observation, but considering he tried to pardon Ali who has nothing for which he can be pardoned, it won't stop marmalade mussolini from trying.

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15 minutes ago, TheStoicPaisano said:

Hugo makes Taylor “0-15” Hamm look like Negrodamus. 

Some of you are far more obsessed with Hugo than any aggy is with Texas. We get it, you don't like his posts. Attack the content, not the messenger. You can't do that, so you choose ad hominem. Ironically, you chose an aggy metaphor that far better describes your own actions. 

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Reposting this the Atlantic article from a few days ago about Konstantin Kilimnik and his ties to Russian intelligence.  

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/the-astonishing-tale-of-the-man-mueller-calls-person-a/562217/

What everyone close to Paul Manafort already knew, and what The New York Times and other outlets later confirmed, is that Mueller was pseudonymously describing none other than Konstantin Kilimnik. Or to put it even more bluntly than Mueller: Donald Trump’s campaign chairman had a pawn of Russian intelligence as his indispensable alter ego.

 

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20 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

Seems like a necessary move to get Manafort behind bars next week with plenty of time to think about cooperating before his trial starts.

And as above, forcing those under indictment to choose to hole up in RUS instead of demonstrating accountability is its own form of confinement.

It isn't necessary to indict to revoke his bail, especially not a Russian national. They could have indicted Kilimnik separately. 

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3 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

It isn't necessary to indict to revoke his bail, especially not a Russian national. They could have indicted Kilimnik separately. 

Mueller is navigating a minefield, with Trump and the GOP lapping at his heels trying to obstruct and fire him. He also has some of the best legal minds in the country working on his case and determining his strategy. We have only a bare minimum idea of the evidence Mueller has locked up. Until shown otherwise, I'm going to assume Mueller made the right call to indict Kilimnik along with Manafort. This is the biggest case of the century, I'm sure he has a reason, or he would have done it differently. 

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15 minutes ago, Pods said:

Mueller is navigating a minefield, with Trump and the GOP lapping at his heels trying to obstruct and fire him. He also has some of the best legal minds in the country working on his case and determining his strategy. We have only a bare minimum idea of the evidence Mueller has locked up. Until shown otherwise, I'm going to assume Mueller made the right call to indict Kilimnik along with Manafort. This is the biggest case of the century, I'm sure he has a reason, or he would have done it differently. 

Right there with you.  

I enjoy the comment from the lawyers on the board, but, none of us know the full story. 

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25 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

It isn't necessary to indict to revoke his bail, especially not a Russian national. They could have indicted Kilimnik separately. 

I fully trust your response that the word necessary was inapt.  Not a necessary path, but the indictments bring more pressure to cooperate, broaden the web, and the text of the indictments tell an easily understandable story.

Kilimnik brings the number of individuals indicted by Mueller to 20 and counting.

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5 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

I fully trust your response that the word necessary was inapt.  Not a necessary path, but the indictments bring more pressure to cooperate, broaden the web, and the text of the indictments tell an easily understandable story.

Kilimnik brings the number of individuals indicted by Mueller to 20 and counting.

I mean, indictment of Manafort for tampering shows that they seriously believe that a crime was committed and not just some half ass attempt. so to some extent, it bolsters the bail revocation, but it isn't strictly necessary.

I'm puzzled by joining the Kilimnik indictment with Manafort, though.  Never said it was wrong, just curious. 

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5 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I mean, indictment of Manafort for tampering shows that they seriously believe that a crime was committed and not just some half ass attempt. so to some extent, it bolsters the bail revocation, but it isn't strictly necessary.

I'm puzzled by joining the Kilimnik indictment with Manafort, though.  Never said it was wrong, just curious. 

Mueller is alleging a conspiracy between Manafort and Kilimnik to intimidate witnesses. It seems necessary to indict them both, or he'd be facing criticism for not doing so. He's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't and is making the best imperfect choice available. 

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1 hour ago, Pods said:

Some of you are far more obsessed with Hugo than any aggy is with Texas. We get it, you don't like his posts. Attack the content, not the messenger. You can't do that, so you choose ad hominem. Ironically, you chose an aggy metaphor that far better describes your own actions. 

You should read the posts about me INCLUDING YOURS!

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19 minutes ago, TahoeHorn said:

You should read the posts about me INCLUDING YOURS!

Not even close to the same thing. You have made a conscious and very public choice to be a shameless, partisan, self-buttfingering cheerleader. You are actually guilty of the things people accuse Hugo of. Unlike Hugo, you are also in a position to speak up, but chose to be an amoral coward while bringing donuts. 

I'd call you out far less too if you didn't have Horn in your name. Nothing about any of your posts represents the values of the University of Texas. You are far more Bug Tussle Tide than you are either Tahoe or Horn. 

Edited by Pods
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2 minutes ago, Pods said:

You guys ready to drop the "No Collusion" bit yet? Collusion and conspiracy are essentially synonyms. 



 

Just asking questions: Was any of the conspiring charged by Mueller described as being related to the 2016 election, or was it related to Manaforts past work in Ukraine?

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6 minutes ago, Pods said:

You guys ready to drop the "No Collusion" bit yet? Collusion and conspiracy are essentially synonyms. 

 

Dude.  Collusion/conspiracy to tamper with a witness in a pending criminal case may literally be "collusion," but it isn't at all within the original definition of the term as applied to Trump.

 

Don't go there.  That's Trumpkin level shit.

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Just now, TwiceHorn said:

Dude.  Collusion/conspiracy to tamper with a witness in a pending criminal case may literally be "collusion," but it isn't at all within the original definition of the term as applied to Trump.

 

Don't go there.  That's Trumpkin level shit.

More than that, maybe Manafort didn't know the dude was a Russian operative?  </trumpkin>

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Which raises another point.  Why indict for both consipiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice?  They aren't independent crimes, just a way of making conspirators liable for the acts of others or incomplete offenses.

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8 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Just asking questions: Was any of the conspiring charged by Mueller described as being related to the 2016 election, or was it related to Manaforts past work in Ukraine?

No, in indictment counts Six and Seven, the conspiracy and obstruction are alleged to have occurred between February and April 2018.  They are solely related to witness tampering in connection with Manafort's case.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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3 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Dude.  Collusion/conspiracy to tamper with a witness in a pending criminal case may literally be "collusion," but it isn't at all within the original definition of the term as applied to Trump.

 

Don't go there.  That's Trumpkin level shit.

My thesis is that Twitter is prone to make people say retarded things.  Trump first and foremost. 

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1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

My thesis is that Twitter is prone to make people say retarded things.  Trump first and foremost. 

I like your thesis.  I kind of enjoy some tweets for sports-related things, mostly Texas Baseball, but the rest of it drives me nuts.  Too many sound bites in society as it stands, without the 140 character sound bite machine.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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