Unfinished Business

Last week on Daily Check-In 03/12/2018, the Republicans of the House Intelligence Committee ended their investigation into the Russian Interference in the 2016 election, saying that they found “no evidence of collusion” between the Russians and Donald Trump’s campaign.

The Democrats on the committed called Bullshit.

On Tuesday, Daily Check-In 03/13/2018, the Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), a.k.a. the House Intelligence Committee, released a 21 page memo describing everything the Republicans either refused to investigate, actively interfered with, or purposely stonewalled.  While in any normal universe, this would be front page news for a week and a half, it wasn’t even in the top 10 stories of the week.  Fuck, it wouldn’t even qualify as Top 5 of the weekend.

As I promised multiple times this week, here’s a breakdown of the Status of the Russian Investigation.

 

BREAKDOWN

• Appendix A:  Lines of inquiry that the Republicans shot down.
• Appendix B:  A list of more than 30 key witnesses that they didn’t interview
• Appendix C:  More than 20 entities that they haven’t request information from yet.
• Appendix D:  More than 15 people and entities that blew off the committee in one way, shape, or form.

 

APPENDIX A: UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

The Democrats feel there are unanswered questions concerning the following areas that the Republicans either wouldn’t follow up on, or refused to dig into.

• Hacking and dissemination of campaign emails.
• Campaign knowledge of the hack.
• Russia’s intermediaries.
• Elections security.
• Social media campaign.
• Financial leverage.
• Money laundering and foreign payments.
• Post-election efforts and Obstruction of Justice.

 

APPENDIX B: KEY WITNESSES THE MAJORITY REFUSED TO INTERVIEW

Here’s a list of witness that the Republicans on the HPSCI flat out refused to interview.

• Reince Preibus, Former RNC Head and White House Chief of Staff.
• Stephen Miller, Speechwriter and Policy Advisor, likely knew about the June 9 meeting.
• Kathleen (KT) McFarland, Member of the Trump Transition Team and Flynn’s Deputy National Security Advisor.  She was the go-between for the Transition Team and Mike Flynn when Flynn was on the phone with Sergei Kislyak.
• Sean Spicer, Former White House Press Secretary.
• Kellyanne Conway, White House Communications Advisor.  Worked with Peter Smith on his attempts to get HRC’s emails.
• Tera Dahl, Diplomatic Outreach Coordinator.  What did she know about Page and Papadopoulos?
• Daniel Scavino, Jr., Trump’s Social Media Director.
• Joseph “Keith” Kellogg Jr., National Security Council and original member of the Trump Foreign Policy Team, along with Page and Papadopoulos.
• Joseph E. Schmitz, member of the Trump Foreign Policy Team.
• Sam Nunberg, former member of the Trump Campaign, student of Steve Bannon and Roger Stone.  Recently testified before Mueller’s grand jury.
• George Nader, adviser to the Emirati Crown Prince and Erik Prince.  Recently became a cooperating witness.
• Marshall Billingsea, member of the Trump Transition Team who expressed worries about Flynn’s Russian contacts.
• Federal Bureau of Investigations staffers, past and present.
• Dimitri Simes, CEO of Center for the National Interest, the Conservative Think Tank that hosted the Mayflower Meeting.
• Clea Mitchell, former attorney for the NRA.  Introduced in Daily Check-In 03/15/2018.
• Maria Butina, Alexaner Torshin’s protegé, started the Russian group “Right to Bear Arms”.
• Johnny Yenason, member of RtBA, worked with Maria Butina and Alexander Torhsin.
• Sergei Millian, Check Out Daily Check-In 11/17/2017 for his background.  He was supposedly a source in the Steele Dossier and was a Russian contact with George Papadopoulos back in April 2016.
• Natalia Veselnitskaya, Russian Attorney and Spy from the June 9 Trump Tower Meeting.
• Roman Beniaminov, was at the June 9 meeting.
• Bijan Kian, worked with Flynn Intel Group and Turkey.  Daily Check-In 11/22/2017 has a link to him being a person of interest for Robert Mueller.
• Simona Mangiante, George Papadopoulos’s wife.  She claims to know what he was up to.
• John Szobocsan, worked with Peter Smith.
• Allen Garten, counsel for Trump Organization who likely knows abut the June 9 meeting.
• Alan Weisselberg, CFO of Trump Organization.
• Mark Corallo, former White House Counsel, quit over the cover-up of the June 9 meeting.
• Duetsche Bank, Trump’s ATM and chosen bank for Russians looking to launder money to the west.
• Trump Campaign Digital Operation, like Avi Berkowitz and Theresa Hong.
• Cambridge Analytica, including Rebekha Mercer, Alex Taylar, and Julian Wheatland.
• Darren Blanton, worked with Steve Bannon.
• Jon Iadonisi, did social media work for the Trump Campaign, as well work for Flynn and Turkey.
• Aaron Nevins, blogger who messaged Guccifer 2.0 (Russian Government Hackers) and received stolen mails from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
• National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS).
• CrowdStrike, specifically the two employees who supported the DNC and interfaced with the FBI.

 

APPENDIX C:  DOCUMENT REQUESTS

The following entities have documents that the Democrats would like to see, but the Republicans declined to ask for.

• Duetsche Bank
• General Services Administration (GSA)
• Snapchat
• Imgur
• Reddit
• Tumblr
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google
• Kushner Companies and Observer Media
• Bayrock Group
• Estate of Peter Smith
• KLS Research, LLC
• Colt Ventures
• VizSense Inc. and White Canvas Group
• Russian-American Chamber of Commerce in the USA
• DMP International LLC
• Cendyn
• Bridges LLC
• Right to Bear Arms
• Center for Political Affairs
• Ritz Carlton
• Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts
• ACU Strategic Partners

 

APPENDIX D:  COMPULSORY PROCESS

The following people and/or entities pulled everything from telling the HPSCI to fuck off to declining to work with them.  The Democrats want to force them to cooperate, which is well within their power.  The Republicans didn’t feel like it.

• Donald Trump, Jr.
• Michael Cohen
• Jared Kushner
• Corey Lewandowski
• Stephen Bannon
• Hope Hicks
• Jeff Sessions
• Erik Prince
• Randolph “Randy” Credico.  Daily Check-In 12/13/2017 has Roger Stone outing him as his go-between with Julian Assange.
• Lee Stranahan.  Employed by Sputnik.
• Twitter
• WhatsApp
• Apple
• White House
• Phone and other communications records.

 

CONCLUSION

Assuming the contents of this letter are true, then the Republican decision to end the investigation into an attack on the United States is either the grossest act of partisan in modern history, a coordinated effort with the White House to end the investigation prematurely, an act of sabotage to protect themselves from from uncovering uncomfortable truths, or all of the above.

Not only does this letter tell us what the Democrats wanted to investigate, but also what they will likely investigate if and when they come to power in the House.  The kind of obstruction at play here only lasts as long as the Republicans stay in power.  The Democrats would restart these investigations within 48 hours of obtaining a majority in the House.

Yet another reason to vote this November.