Tag: Confirmation

Daily Check-In 02/07/2019

Thursday, February 7, 2019

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Manafort

I may have missed something in the case but I find it odd they held a sealed hearing on Monday and releasing a redacted transcript so soon. Link to transcript

I may have missed something in the case but I find it odd they held a sealed hearing on Monday and… TRANCRIPT-of-SEALED-BREACH-of-PLEA-HEARING-USA-v timinhonolulu.com          

One thing I didn’t know was Manafort testified for two days before the grand jury. See Monday’s transcript: Pages 23-24.

Spot the Issue: What grand jury? Don’t think it could be Stone’s. But the issue is they would not have unsealed it if that grand jury had not handed down an indictment. It would violate Rule 6(e). Look;s like it’s . 😎

This says “Espionage” to me.

 

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

Bezos’s Pecker vs. Pecker

HOLY COW. In a medium post, says that David Pecker and AMI threatened to release embarrassing photos unless Bezos agreed to stop investigating them and released a statement saying he didn’t have anything on them! He included emails in the post.

2. Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest man in the world (who happens to be CEO of the 2nd most valuable company in the world), published an email from a top AMI exec noting that they had Bezos’ dick pics and threatening to publish them. I will never get over this.

3. I mean the fact that David Pecker and AMI were attempting to blackmail the richest man in the world while they are cooperating with the US Attorney on the Trump investigation is something else. I mean….I will truly never get over this post.

4. Congratulations

5. Oh Boy

6.

Yashar Ali: A source familiar with the matter tells me that Lavely & Singer, Marty Singer’s law firm, did not know in advance that Bezos would be posting this essay. Nor did they know that Bezos would be publishing the threatening emails that AMI sent them. They found out when we did..wow.

7. A reminder that and broke the story last week that Bezos had launched a private investigation into how his texts to Lauren Sanchez leaked. That investigation led to all of this…

Scumbags gonna scumbag.

Last summer, it came out that AMI, the publisher of the National Enquirer, and its chairman David Pecker were granted immunity from federal prosecution for their assistance in the Michael Cohen case.  AMI performed a catch and kill on Karen McDougal’s story, and they coordinated this with Trump through Cohen.  They were granted immunity.  Part of that deal includes them not engaging in any other illegal activity, or else they could risk losing their deal.

Enter Jeff Bezos.

For those not aware, Bezos is the founder/chairman/CEO/first employee of Amazon and is currently the richest person in the world.  He owns the Washington Post and bought Whole Foods with a spare $15 billion he had lying around.  I still think he made a screw up on Alexa and tried to order groceries from Whole Foods, but Alexa heard it as “Okay, buying Whole Foods.”  By the time he went to cancel the purchase, it already cleared the bank.

WaPo is supposedly doing an in-depth piece on the National Enquirer, Saudi Arabia, and how it all ties back to Trump and Kushner.  This may or may not include hard evidence of Jamal Khashoggi’s death.  At some point during this investigation, Jeff Bezos’s personal text messages and pictures ended up in the possession of the National Enquirer.  They ran with some of this information, and threatened Bezos that if he didn’t call of the investigators, they’d release his “below the belt selfies.”

In other words, they said “Tell the world we did nothing wrong, or we publish your dick pics.”

There’s a long list of things I’d rather do than try to extort and blackmail the world’s richest man with an IDGAF attitude, and that list would be even longer if I was involved in an immunity deal with the Federal Government.  Apparently David Pecker doesn’t agree with me.

Neither does Jeff Bezos.  The mother fucker wrote an essay on Medium explaining everything, telling how AMI and the National Enquirer tried to extort him, and then he PUBLISHED THE GODDAMNED EMAILS FROM AMI’S LEGAL TEAM!  Including the one that said that AMI would keep the pics and release them if he ever said that there was some shady shit going on between the National Enquirer and the Saudis ever again.

I don’t know what’s going to happen from here on out, but one thing I truly enjoy is that the lawyers for AMI found out about this letter when the press reached them for comment AFTER it was published.  That’s some scorched earth shit right there.

Full disclosure, I subscribe to the Washington Post.  It’s free for a while for new subscribers with Amazon Prime, and $3 a month after the trial.

 

 

SHUTDOWN & IMMIGRATION

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET A.K.A INDIVIDUAL-1

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Whitaker

How many gallons of flop sweat will come from his head?

 

CONGRESS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

VIRGINIA/RACE RELATIONS

 

SCOTUS & COURTS/#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

KHASHOGGI & SAUDI ARABIA

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR, HEALTH CARE, & ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

ELECTIONS

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Thursday.  I’m wrapping things up a little early on some sections.  I didn’t get a chance to read the Manafort stuff, and I’m running behind on a few other things.

Whitaker testifies on Friday before Congress.  And there’s some even weirder shit with Bezos.  Supposedly his mistress had connections to people in Trumpworld, including Roger Stone.

WHY THE FUCK DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO INTERCONNECT?! CAN’T WE HAVE ONE GODDAMNED PILE OF CRAZINESS THAT ISN’T TIED TO EVERYTHING ELSE LIKE SOME FUCKED UP GAME OF SIX DEGREES OF KEVIN BACON?

Sorry about that.  I should calm down more.  It’s not healthy for my Caps Lock key.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 02/06/2019

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

House Reopens Investigation

IT’S ON LIKE MOTHER FUCKING DONKEY KONG, BITCHES!!!

Not only did the Democrats reopen the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia, but they’re expanding to include other countries, and to include which Americans helped them, “including members of Congress.”

I hope that Adam Schiff stared right at Devin Nunes as he said that.

 

Transcripts

The first step that the new committee performed was authorizing the official transcripts of the interviews to Mueller’s team.  This follows up on their promise to make this the first order of business.

Mueller needs the official transcripts from Congress.  Without them, he can’t charge anyone with Lying to Congress or Perjury regarding their testimony.  It’ll take a few days for them to get the official transcripts, a little bit of time to compare the official ones with the unofficial ones they already have, then a few weeks to take the cases to the Grand Jury and get indictments.

Some people are going to have a VERY bad end to Winter.

 

Erickson Indicted

WhaaadddUP Our Russian Ginger Kitty’s Boo Paul Erikson totes Indicted cc ⁦⁩ ⁦⁩ Sioux Falls Man Charged with Wire Fraud and Money Laundering | USAO-SD | Department of Justice

Sioux Falls Man Charged with Wire Fraud and Money Laundering justice.gov          

Weird…yet oddly refreshing to see these entities listed in Erickson’s indictment Oh my I swear I’ve been a semi-good Spicy. 🌶👇🏻ENJOY👇🏻🌶

💥💥

oh Lordy this is super gross who defrauds geriatric people & in wheelchairs “Defendant, Compass Care, Inc., Investing with Dignity, LLC, and the unnamed venture to develop land in the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota” cc

Words you never want to see on an indictment: your own name, wire fraud and money laundering 1996 to AUGUST 2018 “Specifically, on or about the dates indicated, and in order to continue his scheme and artifice to defraud. Defendant caused interstate wire communications…”

Oh. My. God He paid Russian Kitty’s American University Tuition 1006/01/2017 $20,472.09 From Erickson 👉🏻Wells Fargo to American University cc this makes total sense in terms of the AU Subpoena from Butina In the Summer of 2018

Open Source Link via Paul Erickson SDSD Case 4:19-cr-40015-LLP

#1 in 4:19-cr-40015-1 USA v. Erickson (D.S.D., 4:19-cr-40015) – CourtListener.com Indictment courtlistener.com       

Legit Erickson already made his first appearance and Arraignment BUT I’m noticing something others will miss His arraignment is Document # 6 The indictment is # 1 so we are missing a few documents from the docket beyond seal & unseal order & arrest warrant…

Based on this Consent that Erickson is in fact in custody Attachment #1 of Indictment is restricted (sealed) is a plea deal. 👇🏻Also look at what I highlighted👇🏻 “In a multi-defendant case, access” cc

This is the most updated docket report (Paywall) Again don’t be like most people & ignore what I highlighted He already has a cooperating agreement that’s Exhbit #1 Doc #5 :” In a multi-defendant case” My bguess is the other defendants Kline Preston & NRA

Did it occur to you why I opted to attach a SS of the terminal? You wouldn’t know there was as attachment-unless- you clicked on Doc # 1 (1st pic) the docket report (2nd PIC) notice of coop info and further states there is or there isn’t a cooperation agreement…

You’re welcome. Sorry I am SO NOT sorry…also a Pierre S.D. affiliate reported Erickson was released after posting Bond (Document # 5) but that doc is restricted so no access… Sound UP

And now you can understand where I was going with this thread, trust read it especially the last three tweets I found two not that well known videos. The NRA delegation at Orsis December 11, 2015 is worth watching

Ya know @DrDenaGrayson called this months ago and today I finally made the “connection” 🇷🇺Heroes for Freedom and Liberty Dinner 🇷🇺 May 16, 2016…wait…for…it…so @senatemajldr I have a question for you…

 

It’s about time.  Paul Erickson, Maria Butina’s boyfriend, is indicted on multiple charges of money laundering and wire fraud.

He wasn’t indicted on being a spy for the Russians, but my guess is that these charges are place holders to get him to cop to a plea deal.

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

 

STATE OF THE UNION

2szkef

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET A.K.A. INDIVIDUAL-1

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

Epstein

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

CONGRESS

 

SHUTDOWN & IMMIGRATION

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

VIRGINIA

Here’s the hard truth on Virginia: 1- Virginia was the capital of the South not by accident 2- It has never, in any real way, dealt with this history 3- Since the 60s, it has struggled to rectify the glorification of the sacrifice of southern sons … /1

…(see: everything named for Robert E Lee, even now) with needing to confront the history of oppression, slavery, and cruelty this sacrifice was conducted to preserve (see: the Civil War was for “economic reasons”) 4- Decades of avoiding this confrontation is why we’re here…/2

…Charlottesville, battles over Confederate monuments, neo-Confederates running for Senate as Rs 5- It’s no mystery how a culture that has preserved this duality has projected racial bias onto younger generations, over and over 6- the best thing we can do is break the cycle /3

7- Which means leadership willing to confront their own bias, expose how engrained it is, including in elite culture, and willing to discuss it openly, condemning it in explicit terms so the younger generations learn something… /4

… And then doesn’t laugh all this off behind closed doors and continue on, promoting another generation with same bias. 8- this is not a problem of individuals. It is systemic. It is not just Virginia. But wouldn’t it be nice if they would be the seed for something better. /5

Like I mentioned on Daily Check-In 02/01/2019, Virginia has a pretty racist past.  I remember growing up in the 80’s and 90’s and hearing about some of the stuff happening down in Virginia, and it was … not surprising, really.  I grew up in the suburbs between Pittsburgh and Pennsyltucky.  Racism was a common thing in our neck of the woods.  My hometown was full of people who moved there from the city neighborhoods and inner suburbs because they were getting ‘too rough’ or ‘the schools were better’ or ‘there was less crime’.  All of these were euphemisms for fewer black people.

What I see with all of this stuff in Virginia now is what I saw growing up in the 80’s and 90’s in Pennsylvania.  There was a split between people who were so accustomed to racism they didn’t see a problem with it, and those that tried to do better.  I grew up in a very racist town, but some of us tried to do better.  Some parents had no problems with passing on their hatreds, while others worked their ass off to raise their kids better than they were raised.  My mom fell into the latter category, and did her damndest to make sure that we treated people based on how they deserved to be treated, not on the color of their skin.  But her generation had a lot to answer for.  Now, her generation is mostly dying off, and their kids look back at their actions with disgust.

That’s where Virginia is at.  The current leadership is the first generation that is truly trying to make a choice between letting go of past hatreds or hold onto the traditions of youth.  Meanwhile, most of the rest of the country had this conversation a long time ago.

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

This was uttered by Katrina Peirson.  If that name sounds familiar, she was the contemptuous waste of skin that was flashing White Power hand signs during Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing. (Daily Check-In 08/14/2018). I know that’s a weird thing to say, and as much as she deserves to be called something worse, but calling her a cunt is an insult to cunts.  She lacks both the depth and warmth that are typically associated with one.

She wasn’t the only one on the Right Wing to make a Klan comment, nor was she the only one with racist tendencies to do so.  It’s actually a little funny that the first thing they thought was Klan rally.  Maybe they feel a little nostalgic?

 

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR, HEALTH CARE, AND ECONOMY

 

STUDENT ISSUES

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

ELECTIONS

 

THINKING AHEAD

Gabbard

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

I know the focus right now is on Trump’s crimes and 2020 — and it should be — but I can’t wait to get back to having honest conversations about politics. I hope we can recover from the hyper-partisan environment we’re currently trapped in, but I honestly don’t know. 1/4

One thing I do — and that I strongly encourage everyone try — is spend time every day reading something, or talking to someone, that I disagree with. This should be intelligent material; I’m NOT encouraging anyone to go read Jacob Wohl or anything like that. 2/4

I’ve found when we drop the “keyboard courage” and actually engage with people who we might not agree, two things happen: 1. We understand them a little better 2. It’s harder to be hostile, because you realize different ideas don’t automatically make someone a bad person. 3/4

Take me for example: I started my Twitter journey as a disgruntled person who identified as Republican who was just here because Trump sucks. Two years on Twitter taught me that I align much more with moderate Democrats than I do anyone from what I *thought* was my party <fin>

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

Lanny and Susan Wiles

Keep an ear out for those names.  They were able to get Natalia Veselnitskaya a front row seat to a Congressional hearing featuring Russian Ambassador Michael McFaul.

 

That’s it for Wednesday.  Like I said earlier this week, it’s going to be nuts.

I was expecting the Erickson indictment to come in, but I wasn’t expecting it to be for money laundering and ripping off old people.  That is a bit of a surprise.  At least until I think about how much of a scumbag he truly is.  Then it makes perfect sense.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

Daily Check-In 02/05/2019

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Trump Tower Moscow

BuzzFeed News released almost three hundred pages of Felix Sater’s communications involving Trump Tower Moscow from 2015 until July 21, 2016.  This includes printouts of mails and text conversations with Michael Cohen, copies of the signed and unsigned Letter of Intent, and several in-depth pdf’s of the Tower project which included artist renderings and site surveys.  The last entry was July 21, 2016.  That was a week before the news of the Russians hacking the DNC broke.  According to Felix, that’s when he walked away from the Trump Tower Moscow project. However, that contradicts his earlier interviews where he said he stopped working on the project on June 14th of that year.  (Daily Check-In 11/30/2018)

I’m not sure what’s happening with this, or what BFN is looking to accomplish.  I’ll go into that more in the Coda.

 

Manafort

Mercury Public Affairs (former Rep. Vin Weber), Podesta Group (Democrat lobbyist Tony Podesta) and Skadden Arps (former Obama WH counsel Greg Craig) are under federal investigation in for their work with Paul Manafort.🔥

Manafort hired Skadden to produce a smear of Yulia Tymoshenko (the opponent of Ukraine’s pro-🇷🇺leader), and hired Vin Weber’s and Podesta’s lobbying shops to push the false smear of Tymoshenko. Manafort paid them MILLIONS via a bank in Cyprus. NO ONE filed .🙄

Skadden now admits they were a FOREIGN AGENT for pro-🇷🇺leaders in and recently settled with DOJ and agreed to cooperate FULLY. Gates (Manafort’s bagman) is cooperating, too. Meaning: the Feds have receipts and witnesses.😎

van der Zwaan (a Dutch/🇷🇺 who worked at Skadden, pleaded GUILTY to lying. And Lordy, there are tapes‼️🤣

Kilimnik—“former” GRU 🇷🇺intelligence officer/ Manafort partner—was intimately involved with the scheme. Kilimnik has close ties with Oleg Deripaska.🙄 The lawyers (Skadden), lobbyists (Podesta), and former congressman (Weber) did NOT file .

The 🇷🇺probe is spread over MULTIPLE juridictions, including Mueller/DC, EDVA, and , so firing one guy won’t stop this train.😎 Justice is coming for all of those who sold our country for cash‼️

 

Tax Returns

I hate to use the cliche “Why worry if you’ve got nothing to hide”, but the lengths that Trump is willing to go to just to prevent his income taxes from becoming public long passed the point of strange curiosity and is living in the land of the cover-up.

The question becomes what is he covering up?

Personally, I think he’s covering up three major areas in his taxes.

First, the existence of severe financial crimes including money laundering, tax fraud, and every other white-collar crime under the sun.  He’s worried that since this is how they “took down Capone” that the Feds will do the same to him.

Next, he’s covering up how much, or more precisely how little he actually makes and is worth.  His whole persona is built around being a billionaire deal maker, but he doesn’t act like an actual billionaire.  He’s a poor man’s idea of a rich man.  Releasing his taxes to the public would show that he’s a con man, and not worth anywhere near the $12-15 billion he claims he’s worth.  His income is nowhere near a billion dollars a year, he’s underwater on almost all of his properties, and his licensing deals barely keep the lights on.  He doesn’t own a billion dollars worth of assets outright, at least not legally.  And claiming that he’s a billionaire when he owes so much on his buildings is like a dentist in California making $200,000 a year claiming to be a millionaire because he lives in a $1.3 million dollar home but owes $900,000 on the mortgage.

Finally, he could be hiding some crazy secret that he doesn’t want to get out that is listed on his taxes but isn’t known, like that he’s paying child support on a couple dozen kids or that he secretly donates money to NAMBLA or some shit like that.

I’d put money down on the first two, but given this timeline I’m half expecting him to claim Steven Segal’s love child as a grandchild that he’s supporting.

 

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

Inauguration

Remember yesterday (Daily Check-In 02/04/2019) how I said that we should expect to hear within 2-3 days how this new investigation came from the work that SDNY did with Cohen.

I was wrong.  It took 2-3 hours.

Also, these subpoenas came after the Feds requested interviews with several executives at Trump Organization.  And let me remind everyone that Andrew Weisselberg, the Trump Org CFO, was granted immunity for becoming a cooperating witness. (2018 Retrospective, Daily Check-In 08/29/2018)

According to reports, the focus of the interviews was on how much Trump Org coordinated with the Trump Campaign.  That, combined with how wide of a net they’re casting for the inauguration, the foundation, and anything else with the Trump name on it leads me to believe that we might be looking at a RICO case later this year.

 

Scotland

 

Trips

 

SHUTDOWN & IMMIGRATION

 

STATE OF THE UNION

I’m not going into this now.  I didn’t watch it, haven’t read the speech, or done anything else about it yet.  I’ll go into the reactions and details more on Wednesday.

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET A.K.A. INDIVIDUAL-1

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

CONGRESS

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

A century ago, U.S. suffragists carefully chose the colors of their flag. Purple represented loyalty and was a nod to England’s suffragettes. White symbolized purity and contrasted with the flag’s darker colors. Gold paid homage to the sunflowers in Kansas, where Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had campaigned for the right to vote.

The suffragists’ outfits of purple and gold sashes over white dresses were intended to look appealing in newspaper photographs, Boggs Roberts said. The white was also intended to look nonthreatening so people would have a harder time criticizing the women’s appearance as aggressive or masculine.

“When the biggest publicity tool was newspapers and images were black and white, (if) you make a good photo, it gets reproduced everywhere,” Boggs Roberts said. “And there is nothing they did that they did not consider the visual element to.”

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

Tulsi Gabbard

 

Poll Dancing

 

SHS

 

Fact Checking

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR, HEALTH CARE, AND ECONOMY

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

ELECTIONS

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Tuesday.  Like I said yesterday, it’s going to be a crazy week.

So, what’s BuzzFeed News up to? Are they releasing all of their receipts to build credibility?  Are they trying to destroy a potential trial?  Or are they like Honey Badger, just not giving a fuck?

I’m not sure.  I don’t know.  And at this point, I’m not sure what direction they’re heading in.  The last couple days have seen them release more information about Trump Tower Moscow, and they’ve been ahead of the curve on that story.  At this point, I’m waiting for the White House to say “We didn’t do anything extensive on that building” only to find out that BFN has construction permits, vendor schedules, and the building is half constructed under a different name and will be renamed once Trump finds a way to get rid of the Magnitsky Act.

Also, I didn’t watch the SOTU.  I spent a long time reading the emails and texts from Felix Sater.  The bitchiness between him and Cohen reminded me of two wannabes acting like they’re harder than rock, but would cry like a little bitch the first time they get punched in the face.

In other words, the texts portrayed them perfectly.

A spoiler for Wednesday, there’s some secret shit going on in Mueller’s Cohen case, and Cohen has postponed his February 8th hearing with House Intel until February 28th.  Adam Schiff said it was done so that it wouldn’t interfere with any ongoing investigations.  Oh, and they also authorized the committee to send the official interview transcripts over to Mueller.

Expect some indictments in the next three weeks.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 02/04/2019

Monday, February 4, 2019

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Rinat Akhmetshin

A Russian-born lobbyist who attended the controversial Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 received a series of suspicious payments totaling half a million dollars before and after the encounter.

Documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News show that Rinat Akhmetshin, a Soviet military officer turned Washington lobbyist, deposited large, round-number amounts of cash in the months preceding and following the meeting, where a Russian lawyer offered senior Trump campaign officials dirt on Hillary Clinton.

The lobbyist also received a large payment that bank investigators deemed suspicious from Denis Katsyv, whose company Prevezon Holdings was accused by the US Justice Department of laundering the proceeds of a $230 million Russian tax fraud.

The Trump Tower meeting and those who attended it have become a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into whether the president’s campaign colluded with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election. As part of that inquiry, banks were asked to pull financial information on the meeting attendees, and investigators at Wells Fargo handed over documents on Akhmetshin to the US Treasury in 2017. Those records were passed to Mueller’s team, but Peter Carr, a spokesperson for the special counsel, declined to say whether the transactions are under investigation. Congressional investigators also requested the financial information from the Treasury Department.

Just last month, Natalya Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer with whom Akhmetshin attended the meeting, was accused by US authorities of secretly coordinating with the Russian government while defending Katsyv in a money laundering case in New York.

Katsyv, the son of a powerful Russian figure, backed a lobbying campaign by Akhmetshin and Veselnitskaya against the Magnitsky Act, a US law imposing sanctions on a group of Russians officials connected to the suspected $230 million fraud.

So, the “translator” brought in for  the June 9th meeting is also a Russian lobbyist working on the Magnitsky case with Veselnitskaya AND was paid some serious cash for his work.

There are few things that grab the attention of compliance officers and forensic accountants quite like round numbers.  This is because round numbers are pretty rare in the real world.  We have these things called taxes, which make the math on purchases and payroll a pain in the ass.  It also means that perfectly round and large deposits like $250,000 stick out like a sore thumb.  Very rarely does a large round number show up on its own in the real by chance.  But they are used constantly in large illegal or illegitimate transactions.  It would take the bank about 4 seconds to flag that transaction as suspicious and authorize an investigation.

We mentioned Rinat a few times before like on Daily Check-In 04/30/2018 & Daily Check-In 8/30/2017.

I’d go into more detail, but this isn’t the biggest story of the day.  Not by a long shot.

 

Manafort

The judge in Paul Manafort’s DC case is hearing sealed arguments starting at 10am on the special counsel’s claim that Manafort lied after signing his plea deal. They’ve covered the little windows on the doors so you can’t see in. A redacted transcript will come out after.

Latest dispatch from the exciting and glamorous world of legal journalism: Manafort’s lawyers walked out of the courtroom, but they were just taking a quick break

We’re now three hours into sealed arguments over whether Paul Manafort intentionally lied after signing his plea deal. The defense lawyers came out once early on for a quick break, and that’s it

Update: There is now a one-hour break for lunch in today’s Manafort sealed hearing. Manafort’s lawyer Kevin Downing confirms Manafort *is* at the hearing

Manafort’s lawyers and the special counsel office lawyers (Weissmann, Andres, and Rhee + AUSA Asonye) are back inside the courtroom now and they’ve locked the door, so we’re back on

The sealed hearing in Paul Manafort’s case ended just before 3:30pm. The lawyers politely nodded to the reporters waiting outside, but no info on what went down (there’s still a gag order in place, you may recall). So they were before the judge for roughly 4.5 hours

NEW: The judge in Paul Manafort’s DC case has rescheduled his sentencing to March 13 at 9:30 am (was previously March 5). The judge also: – ordered the parties to submit proposed redactions for releasing today’s transcript by 2/6 – set *another* sealed hearing for 2/13

Given the additional sealed hearing set for Feb. 13 (supplemental submissions are due Feb. 8), it appears the judge is pushing back Manafort’s scheduling so that she can deal with the plea deal breach issue first

 

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

Trump Inauguration Subpoenaed

Prosecutors in New York’s Southern District have subpoenaed documents from President Donald Trump’s inauguration committee, sources with direct knowledge told ABC News, indicating that even as the special counsel probe appears to be nearing an end, another investigation that could hamstring the president and his lawyers is widening.

The subpoena from the Southern District, which came from its public corruption section, is the latest activity focusing on Trump’s political fundraising both before and immediately after the 2016 election.

“We have just received a subpoena for documents. While we are still reviewing the subpoena, it is our intention to cooperate with the inquiry,” a spokesperson for the inauguration told ABC News.

Prosecutors are seeking documents and records related to the committee’s donors to the massive inauguration fund, according to sources familiar with the request. Prosecutors also are seeking information on attendees to the events surrounding the inauguration, including benefits to top-level donors such as photo opportunities with Trump, sources said.

SDNY has subpoenaed the Trump Inauguration Committee for their bank records, donations, donor lists, and any and all documents related to money.

Let the shitstorm begin.  But first, what does the Inaugural Committee do?

They’re supposed to organize the inaugural balls, parades, and parties. Think of it like organizing a couple dozen parties, a small town Memorial Day parade, and a concert in the park all for the same day. They also have to make sure that everyone has their hotel, security, and all that goes along with inviting a bunch of dignitaries and high rollers.

Where the problem lies with the Trump Inaugural Committee (TIC) is that they secured more than $100 million in donations, but didn’t spend nearly that much on the inauguration. They brought in twice as much as Obama did for 2009, but the Trump parties paled in comparison by size, cost, and number. Obama’s team spent almost all of their money and they had acts like Beyonce and Pre-Kardashian Kanye. Trump had a bunch of people who no one ever heard of, and even some of them got stiffed.

In total, Trump’s inauguration cost something like $16 million. They brought in around $107 million. That’s close to $90 million that went missing. Some of it was spent on a remodel of the Vice President’s residence, and approximately $26 million ended up with a friend of Melania. But the vast majority of it disappeared.

We’ve talked about the TIC more than a few times before (Where to Begin?, Daily Check-In 02/01/2019, 2018 Retrospective, The Indicted).  The chairman of the TIC was Tom Barrack, one of Trump’s billionaire friends.  He and Roger Stone recommended Paul Manafort join the campaign in early 2016.  Barrack’s Chief of Staff on the TIC was Rick Gates.

Yes, THAT Rick Gates from Cooperating Witnesses.  How many times do I have to say that Mueller knows EVERYTHING about what happened?

But wait, this was SDNY, not Mueller!  Good, you’ve been paying attention.  I’m going to make a not-so-bold prediction that over the next 2-3 days that we’ll hear that the SDNY’s actions were based at least in part from their investigations into Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen (Daily Check-In 12/12/2018) and a referral from Special Counselor Robert Mueller.  Considering that they started looking into Cohen from a similar referral, it almost sounds a little meta.

Why the referral?  Mueller is authorized to investigate the Russian Affair and anything that leads from that, but some things are little too cumbersome or slightly out of scope.  And it’s not like he hasn’t already looked into the inauguration.  Remember Sam Patten? (Daily Check-In 08/31/2018)  He pleaded guilty to FARA violations and helping to launder Russian money into the TIC by using a cutout to purchase tickets to the inauguration, then got reimbursed by a Ukranian oligarch friend of him, Manafort, and Kostya from the GRU.  And did I mention Rick Gates, the Chief of Staff of the TIC Chairman?

SDNY has likely been on this case for a long time, and if they’re issuing these subpoenas now, it sounds like they have one hell of a case to bring against anyone involved with the inauguration, including Ivanka and Melania.

Yep, even Kremlin Barbie is up to her neck in this shit.  She was ostensibly in charge of the inauguration, but that’s like saying I put my infant daughter in charge of making dinner.  She ‘helped’ by getting in the way and being… well, being a Trump.  Remember how we heard reports of Ivanka raising the prices of services at the Trump DC Hotel and then charging that to the TIC? (Daily Check-In 11/20/2018, Daily Check-In 10/08/2018, Daily Check-In 12/14/2018)  That’s fraud.  And self-dealing.  And a few dozen other crimes, just from this event.

As far as Melania, she might want to give her friend the heads-up that the feds are looking into that missing money. (Daily Check-In 02/15/2018).

Expect some serious indictments later this year.  As Donnie Jr. said “I love it… especially later in the Summer.”

 

Undocumented Workers

 

Scotland

 

SHUTDOWN & IMMIGRATION

 

STATE OF THE UNION

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET A.K.A. INDIVIDUAL-1

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

Medical Opinions

 

CONGRESS

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

NORTHAM AND VIRGINIA

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

Tulsi, Greenwald, and the Kremlin

Any and all doubt that Tulsi Gabbard wasn’t bought and paid for by Russia just flew out the window.  Over the weekend, NBC News does a report that shows that the same Russian bots and trolls that pushed Sanders, Stein, and Trump are now pushing Tulsi Gabbard, the only Democratic Presidential candidate who likes Syria’s President Assad, thinks the Kremlin is okay, and pushes a Nationalistic agenda. (Daily Check-In 02/01/2019)  Instead of saying “Hey, strange coincidence” or “Screw the Russians”, Tulsi goes after NBC, the reporters who wrote the story, and anyone who isn’t on the Kremlin’s payroll.

That’s when traitor extraordinaire Glenn Greenwald shows up.  You know, the reporter who worked with Julian Assange to get Edward Snowden to spill the NSA’s secrets, helped Snowden leave the United States and ultimately end up in Russia, and helped Reality Winner get several years in prison by helping her leak NSA documents after she was cultivated by the hostile non-state group WikiLeaks?  By the way, Glenn is hiding out somewhere in South America.

Glenn joins the fray and, as the script goes, proceeds to spout every talking point he’s ever been fed from RT and Sputnik.  Of course, where Glenn goes, the trolls and bots follow.

There’s a quote I’ve seen floating around for the last few weeks.  “I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.”  This quote is attributed to FDR.  He made some damn good enemies.  Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito.   Tulsi Gabbard’s enemies are anyone who isn’t a traitor to the United States or on the payroll of Russian state-run media.  That’s more than enough for me to judge her.

 

Media

 

Fact Checking

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR, HEALTH CARE, AND ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

MINI-THREAD on the Mueller Report 1) Folks are frettin’ because they’re afraid the Mueller Report will be hidden by the White House through Trump’s Attorney General and lackey, Bill Barr.

2) Remember this. This ain’t Mueller’s first rodeo. He’s rolled up mob bosses on more than one occasion and he’s clearly treatin’ Trump just like one. The only thing different about this probe is that this mob boss is the most powerful man on the planet.

3) Mueller ain’t stupid or naive in the least and there’s no way he’s gonna spend two years of his life on this investigation only to have it filed away in Bill Barr’s top drawer.

4) Mueller will ensure we see the entire report through the numerous indictments he is bringin’. The pleadings will grow in more detail as he unveils the conspiracy portion as we approach the end.

5) As a matter of fact, we’ve already seen the beginning of his report as he started at the bottom with the Russian hackers and is buildin’ up to the part where the Trump campaign gets involved with the dissemination of the hacked information.

6) Mueller is no fool and rest assured he will do everything possible to make sure the public has a full account of his findings. EOT.

Half the times, I’m not sure what the hell Ming is saying.  The other half, I’m not sure I want to know.  As far as the typos, I’m not going to jump down the rabbit hole of reading into each and every typo like we’re deciphering chicken entrails and reading tea leaves.

 

That’s it for Monday.  Damn.  If this is happening on Monday, then the rest of the week will be nuts.

Trump is supposed to deliver the State of the Union on Tuesday.  I’m half expecting a complete and total shitshow.  The other half is expecting a complete and total clusterfuck.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur