Tag: Confirmation

Daily Check-In 05/09/2018

Wednesday, May 9th.

 

FOLLOW THE MONEY: A STORMYGATE/COHEN/RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION CROSSOVER EVENT

“We’re in the shit, now.  Somebody’s gotta shovel it.”

– Hercules Mulligan, Hamilton

It’s 10PM, and I’m still organizing this post.  Today’s news is like one of those crossover TV shows for DC shows on the CW; every character has a part, it’s complete chaos, and the most annoying character from each show gets too much screen time.

I’m doing this a little different tonight.  I’ll describe what happened, and try to organize the news to make sense.

Last night, Michael Avenatti dropped a bomb claiming that multiple companies had paid Michael Cohen.  (Daily Check-In 05/08/2018) Among them are AT&T, Novartis, Korean Aerospace Industries, and Columbus Nova, a subsidiary of Renova.  Over a million dollars flowed into Essential Consultants, LLC., the same company that paid off Stormy Daniels and Shera Brechard.

So, what happened today?

First, we get the confirmations from each company.  Not only did Novartis, AT&T, and KAI all confirm that they paid Michael Cohen, but they each admitted to paying more than reported.  Avenatti only release 4 months of payments, but these companies each confirmed a year’s worth of payments.

But each of them claimed, eventually, that they hired Michael Cohen and Essential Consultants for different reasons.

Korean Air

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd (KAI) (047810.KS) said on Wednesday it had paid $150,000 for consulting services on accounting matters to a firm set up by U.S. President Donald Trump’s private lawyer Michael Cohen.

The arrangement came as the company, backed by state-owned Export-Import Bank of Korea, is competing to sell trainer jets to the U.S. Air Force in an auction that could be worth up to $16 billion.

So, a billion-dollar company says they’re looking for accounting advice from a real estate lawyer? Just as they’re competing for billions of dollars of government funds.

What’s the word I’m looking for? It rhymes with Mibery.

Oh, but the corruption goes even further.  From /u/charmed_im-sure

“In addition, Korea Aerospace Industries paid Mr. Cohen’s company $150,000 last November, according to the records. The company, an aircraft manufacturer, has partnered with the American defense contractor Lockheed Martin in competing for a multibillion-dollar contract to provide trainer jets for the United States Air Force that is expected to be awarded this year. A representative for Korea Aerospace declined to comment.”

KAI vice president found dead amid corruption scandal by Yeo Jun-suk Sept 21, 2017

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170921000259

Korea Aerospace CEO Resigns as Prosecutors Probe Chopper Project by Kyunghee Park July 19, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-20/korea-aerospace-ceo-resigns-as-prosecutors-probe-chopper-project

 

Novartis

Novartis said it believed Cohen “could advise the company as to how the Trump administration might approach certain U.S. health-care policy matters, including the Affordable Care Act.”

Health care policy.  Now Cohen’s an expert on Obamacare.  OBAMA WASN’T AN EXPERT ON OBAMACARE!

Novartis, the maker of drugs like Ritalin, paid Cohen 3 times what Avenatti released last night.

 

AT&T

Now Cohen’s an expert on regulatory reform?

 

Of course, Avenatti couldn’t help but poke fun at Cohen, and rightfully so.

I know a little bit about consulting, and one thing that you have to sell the client on is your expertise in the subject matter, and how your expertise can help them.  Cohen either has deep levels of experience that are previously unseen by a “real estate attorney”, or he’s being paid for access.

 

At some point throughout the day, Cohen’s lawyers filed paperwork in court disputing “some” of the findings.

Cohen’s lawyers are arguing that the small dollar amounts belong to different Michael Cohen’s, and dispute about $20,000 worth of charges, out of $4.4 million.  They don’t dispute the rest of it, just the tiny dollar amounts, like $675.00 to Taiwan.

Their argument, though, is that because the tiny amounts are incorrect, the whole report is inaccurate.

That’s like getting caught having an affair by a PI, and the PI lists the mistress, the restaurant you met up at, the car you drove to the hotel, the hotel you shagged at, what positions were tried, what you screamed out when you came, what you ordered from room service, and what brand of condom you wore each time, but claiming the report is wrong because you used Durex instead of Trojans.

Back to the events.  What did these companies get for their payments?

They got “access.”  This is also called pay-to-play.  There’s another word for that…

Bribery.

Of course, the calls for more information continue.  What else is there?  Where did this information come from?  Where did it go?

Remember, Trump doesn’t like it when people make money off of “his brand” without him getting a piece of the action, and Trump still refers to Cohen as his attorney.

Not everyone’s happy with this information getting out in the public domain…

Rich Delmar, counsel to the inspector general, said that in response to media reports the office is “inquiring into allegations” that Suspicious Activity Reports on Cohen’s banking transactions were “improperly disseminated.”

…

Federal law requires banks to file Suspicious Activity Report on any unusual transactions over $10,000. Experts say the information Avenatti published could have come from a Suspicious Activity Report filed by Cohen’s bank to Treasury.

…

It is not uncommon, of course, for journalists, lawyers and others in the public eye to receive unauthorized leaks of sensitive information. Stipano said hundreds if not thousands of officials in law enforcement and government have access to a database of Suspicious Activity Reports.

…

Among other things, banks are required to file SARs if the transaction “has no business or apparent lawful purpose or is not the type of transaction that the particular customer would normally be expected to engage in, and the bank knows of no reasonable explanation for the transaction after examining the available facts, including the background and possible purpose of the transaction.”

 

Collusion is real.  Cohen’s ties to Russia are real.  The Russians have leverage on Trump.

Ok, it’s just one of Trump’s lawyers connected to Columbus Nova, right?

Wait, what? Columbus Nova, a subsidiary of Renova Group, owned by Viktor Vekselberg, owns a bunch of Alt Right website domains?!  Now we’re tying in Horseshoe Theory, Trump vs. Bernie, and Racism And Politics Today, plus a lot of Russian interference in other realms.

These revelations are going to tie back to the Republican Party.  Remember, Michael Cohen is STILL the Deputy Finance Chair of the Republican Party. (Daily Check-In 04/13/2018)

Andrew Intrater, according to Mother Jones, is Vekselberg’s cousin. He is also chief executive of Columbus Nova, Renova’s U.S. investment arm located in New York. (FEC records list his employer as Renova US Management LLC.)

Intrater had no significant history of political contributions prior to the 2016 elections. But in January 2017 he contributed $250,000 to Trump’s Inaugural Committee. His six-figure gift bought him special access to a dinner billed as “an intimate policy discussion with select cabinet appointees,” according to a brochure obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.

Michael Cohen.  Russian Mafia.  La Cosa Nostra (what’s left of it).  Corporate Greed.  The Republican Party.  The Alt-Right.  The Internet attacks.  The only piece missing from this is the NRA, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out at this point that they wired money to Cohen for “access” and “insight” on gun rights issues.

By the way, why haven’t we heard about this mess with Cohen from Robert Mueller’s team?  The answer will surprise absolutely no one who’s been paying attention.

 

 

5. Is the special counsel Robert Mueller looking into these payments?

It appears that he is. Earlier this year, federal agents working for Mueller confronted Vekselberg after he got off a private plane at an airport in the New York area, according to a recent report in the Times. The article said the agents questioned Vekselberg and searched his electronic devices. It also said that members of Mueller’s team have interviewed Intrater, who is the chief executive of Columbus Nova.

 

Mueller knows.  He’s at least 6 months ahead of this story.  Mueller’s team interviewed ALL OF THE PARTIES, except Cohen and Trump, last year.  After interviewing and reviewing this information, two months later Stormy Daniels hires Michael Avenatti, and they begin their legal crusade against Michael Cohen.  A couple months ago, Mueller’s team referred the Cohen case to SDNY.  This was all part of the plan.

Trump’s supporters love to claim that he’s playing 4-D chess, or 12-D backgammon.  Mueller doesn’t play any fucking games.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Speaking of months ahead, Mueller interviewed Erik Prince sometime this year, after George Nader flipped.  My guess is this took place sometime between Daily Check-In 03/22/2018 and Daily Check-In 04/10/2018.  It had to take place after George Nader flipped, but not likely in the last week or two.  These sources run at least a month behind, and Erik was in the news a few times those weeks.  There seems to be a pattern with people showing up in the news while they’re interviewing Bobby Three Sticks.

IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL

Iranian hackers are legit.  They’re better than the Russians.  Last year, the Wannacry ransomware attack occurred across the world, first hitting Ukraine.  It was released by the Russians, likely one of the Bears, but there were several rumors at the time that it originated from Iran.  Given what we’ve found out about the elite Iranian hackers (Daily Check-In 03/23/2018), it makes a lot of sense that they built it, and the Russians released it.

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

This confirms what we’ve all known, Trump is a thin-skinned shit who attacks anyone who calls him out.  I, for one, am glad to be “fake news.”

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

The Handmaid’s Tale is supposed to be a cautionary story, not a blueprint for policy changes.

I’m curious, does this include an exclusion for their mistresses?

 

BLUE WAVE

 

RUMOR MILL

There was a ton of stuff on Twitter today, with a lot of it being directed at the Main Stream Media.  This information coming out about Cohen’s ties to the mob, Trump’s ties to the mob, Trump’s taste in young girls, and the blatant corruption at hand is nothing new, and was reported to outlets like the New York Times.  What did they do with these stories?

Not a god damn thing.

For one reason or another, which I’ll get to the rumored one in a minute, they didn’t run the truly salacious stories about Trump, and instead concentrated on the fluff, while trying to nail Hilary to the wall.  People that claim that Trump is corrupt AF got pushed aside as crackpots or dismissed like we were reporting on the color of the sky.

Why is that?  Why did so much of the MSM drop the ball on reporting this historical clusterfuck?

One hypothesis, the one floating around the Rumor Mill, is that all of the MSM was bought and paid for by foreign influence.  And this is right, to a point.  Many of the major media arms are owned by parties with foreign interests, and a lot of decisions on what to run comes from above.

Another hypothesis, the one I subscribe to, is that we are in truly historic times, and no one has any clue how to proceed.  There is no template for a foreign power manipulating the election of the President of the United States to encourage a world-wide crime syndicate to normalize their business functions at the expense of democracy.  That means there’s no template for fighting it or reporting about it.  All of the normal rules don’t apply.  It’s not just an organized crime case, or a political case, a sexual assault case, a white-collar crime case, or a national security case, but all of the above, and more.

Reporters are trying to make sense out of it, but they each have their own speciality.  It’s like with police work, they’re specialized into different areas.  Homicide, Sex, Robbery, Taxes, Cyber, Auto, etc.  There’s some overlap, like the Robbery Homicide Detectives of the LAPD, but it’s not common.  Each group of detectives looks at a crime from their angle, but to grasp the whole picture, they need help from all of the departments.

That’s where Twitter and the Rumor Mill come in.  Everyone has something they’re good at, but each of them is smart enough to know when it’s time for another person to step in.  LB has expertise in the entertainment world, while Louise Mensch has close ties to IC sources.  COB has a lifetime of experience in the Navy, while Dr. Kester can psychoanalyze a target in moments.  Eric Garland understands foreign policy and how things fit together in the big picture, while Countercheckist and Tea Pain offer IC insights and humor.  Me?  I make stupid jokes, write, and keep track of what’s going on.

But that’s what is missing from the MSM; they don’t have synergy.  Aside from Rachel Maddow or Anderson Cooper trying to bring experts from different fields together, each unit and reporter is acting on their own.  They’re working for their own papers, channels, or publishers.  Imaging what would happen if the best journalists, researchers, and reporters joined forces to crack this story.  Ronan Farrow working with Natasha Bertrand, Betsy Woodruff, Rick Wilson, Michael Beschloss, along with some of the staffs of the Washington Post, New York Times (not the editorial staff), BuzzFeed and TMZ (yes, TMZ) could make some real headlines.

 

That’s it for today.  I’ll see everyone tomorrow.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

Daily Check-In 05/08/2018

Tuesday, May 8th.

 

COHEN/STORMYGATE: TRUMP LAWYER RECEIVED $500K FROM VEKSELBERG, $400K FROM NOVARTIS, $200K FROM AT&T DAYS AFTER ELECTION TO SAME COMPANY, BANK ACCOUNT USED TO PAY OFF STORMY DANIELS

  • Chief among these suspicious financial transactions are approximately $500,000 in payments received from Mr. Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian Oligarch with an estimated net worth of nearly $13 Billion. Mr. Vekselberg and his cousin Mr. Andrew Intrater routed eight payments to Mr. Cohen through a company named Columbus Nova LLC (“Columbus”) beginning in January 2017 and continuing until at least August 2017.
  • Columbus Nova is a private equity firm founded in 2000 with over $2 billion in assets. Mr. Intrater is the CEO of Columbus Nova. Columbus Nova is the U.S. investment vehicle for Renova Group, a multi-national company controlled by Mr. Vekselberg. Renova group holds investments in various interests, including mining, oil, and telecommunications.

You know the definition of stupid?  Using the same LLC and bank account for accepting bribes and paying off witnesses.

Starting in the days following the election, Viktor Vekselberg paid Donald Trump’s personal lawyer half of a million dollars.  It’s very likely that Stormy Daniels’s payment was reimbursed by Russian money.

But it wasn’t just Russia.  Novartis, a pharmaceutical company that gained access to the White House, paid almost $400k to Essential Consultants, LLC.  $399,920 to be precise.  They made 4 monthly payments of $99,980.  That’s $20 shy of $100,000.  There are corporate regulations and legal requirements for wire transfers at certain thresholds.  One of the big thresholds is $100k.  At that level, there’s greater scrutiny over the nature of the wire transfer.  Structuring payments to avoid regulatory reporting is a felony.

The timelines are converging, the streams are crossed. Stormygate has now merged over with Team Mueller’s Investigation to form some kind of corruption-busing Voltron.  It’s just going to get more fucked from here on out.

Insights into the administration.  While AT&T was trying to merge with Time Warner.

This is pay to play.

This is Bribery.

On the lighter side of Cohen’s criminal activities, here’s a great breakdown of the hypothesis that it wasn’t Broidy that knocked up Playmate Shera Bechard, but Donald Trump.  I’ve covered this before (Daily Check-In 04/13/2018 , Daily Check-In 04/16/2018, Daily Check-In 04/26/2018), but this hypothesis is sounding more and more realistic every day. So much so that I might move it from hypothesis to theory.

I wonder if the Evangelicals will stand by Trump when they find out that his attorney fixer paid a Playboy Playmate to have an abortion with laundered Russian money originally earned from drug and human trafficking.

 

IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL:  DOTARD VIOLATES TREATY AGREEMENT BY WITHDRAWING, IRAN AND E3 (GERMANY, UK, FRANCE) TO CONTINUE TO HONOR TREATY

How much of this is undoing Obama’s legacy, priming the pump for a war in Iran, or forcing the Iranians to launder money through the Trump Hotel in Baku is up for debate, but I’d put money down that they’re all involved.

Yes, I really think that Trump would put the world at risk to make a few bucks.  He’s that fucking petty.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

4 hours for 2 questions.  Mueller interviewed Vekselberg weeks ago.  We’re just catching up now.

 

BLACK CUBE

I covered this in more detail yesterday. (Daily Check-In 05/07/2018). Still, it’s pretty fucked up.

RUDY

Rudy’s behavior is hard to explain.  Is it dementia, he flipped and is attacking Trump from the inside, or is he just a shitty human being and lawyer?  Most likely the last one, but this is 2018.  Hush money to pay off of a porn star came from the same bank account that AT&T used to bribe the President.

COLD WAR 2.0

Ricketts was one of five military wives who received death threats from the self-styled CyberCaliphate on the morning of Feb. 10, 2015. The warnings led to days of anguished media coverage of Islamic State militants’ online reach.

Except it wasn’t IS.

The Associated Press has found evidence that the women were targeted not by jihadists but by the same Russian hacking group that intervened in the American election and exposed the emails of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta.

The brazen false flag is a case study in the difficulty of assigning blame in a world where hackers routinely borrow one another’s identities to throw investigators off track. The operation’s attempt to hype the threat of radical Islam also presaged the inflammatory messages pushed by internet trolls during the U.S. presidential race.

Links between CyberCaliphate and the Russian hackers — typically nicknamed Fancy Bear or APT28 — have been documented previously. On both sides of the Atlantic, the consensus is that the two groups are closely related.

But that consensus never filtered through to the women involved, many of whom were convinced they had been targeted by Islamic State sympathizers right up until the AP contacted them.

“Never in a million years did I think that it was the Russians,” said Ricketts, an author and advocate for veterans and military families. She called the revelation “mind blowing.”

“It feels so hilarious and insidious at the same time.”

 

The report finds that Moscow conducted an “unprecedented, coordinated cyber campaign” against the nation’s voting infrastructure. Through its investigation, the committee found that Russia-linked hackers were in a position to “alter or delete voter registration data” in a small number of states before the 2016 vote.

We are at war with Russia, we just don’t know it yet.  It’s time for a regime change.

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

He finally found what he sees as a kind of Rosetta Stone into Assange’s thinking in a leaked email Assange wrote way back in 2007 while soliciting support for the nascent WikiLeaks concept. One of the goals for WikiLeaks, Assange wrote, “is total annihilation of the current U.S. regime and any other regime that holds its authority through mendacity alone.”

…

WikiLeaks baffled some supporters when it started seeding or promoting fake news about Hillary Clinton’s health, Pizzagate, and even Democrats engaging in satanic rituals at the same time it was releasing genuine material stolen from the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

This was not, as it might appear, a cynical bid to garner Donald Trump’s favor; nor was it simple pandering to a new funding base, argues Iain. It was part and parcel of Assange’s alignment with Russian President Vladimir Putin against their common adversary, the United States.

…

In retrospect, the shift was apparent way back in 2013, during Assange’s failed bid to win a Senate seat in Australia, Iain said. To that end Assange established the country’s WikiLeaks Party, with a platform built on government transparency and libertarianism. But just weeks before the election the party was roiled by a controversy over its ranking of other political parties in Australia’s ranked choice voting, preferencing, in two races, the white-nationalist Australia First Party and the right-wing Shooters and Fishers Party above the liberal favorite, the Australian Greens.

Wikileaks first attacked Australia back in 2013.  They followed that up with Ukraine and Syria in 2014, Brexit in 2015 and the United States in 2016.  Everywhere the Russians went, and always on their side.

Get the picture yet?

 

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND FACEBOOK

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

SCHNEIDERMAN

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

BLUE WAVE

 

TRUMP HATES BROWN PEOPLE

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

RUMOR MILL

The above likely aren’t rumors, but I don’t read Finnish, Swedish, or Russian.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s it for today.  We’re crossing the precipice today.  Things are going to accelerate, and get crazier from here on out.  As the scope, breadth, and volume of the corruption and scandals reach the populace, it will feel like everything has gone to shit and it’s falling apart.  Just stay frosty, and keep your head on swivel.

Like I said yesterday, I might need to take a night or two off soon.  I don’t know if it’ll be this week or next week, but sometime soon.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

Daily Check-In 05/07/2018

 

Monday, May 7th, and the weekend.

 

BLACK CUBE

“I didn’t think much more of it until I was informed over the weekend that the gentleman in question was not a journalist, but an operative of this Israeli intelligence firm. That’s upsetting enough, but the fact that this firm was hired by the Trump Administration to spy on and entrap US individuals and organizations, is beyond reprehensible.”

Just when I think that things can’t get any more fucked up, a story like this comes out.

In an effort to discredit the diplomats that worked on the Iran Nuclear Deal, Trump’s administration ordered a private investigator with ties to Israeli Intelligence to dig up dirt on the diplomats.  When details of this operation came out on Twitter, some people connected the dots and discovered that this was the same people behind Harvey Weinstein’s bullying and harassment campaign – Black Cube.

What are the odds that Trump and Weinstein both happened to pick the same shady PI company with ties to Mossad by sheer coincidence?  If you said between slim and none, and slim just caught an Uber, go get yourself a cookie.  Or celery.  Whatever floats your boat.

This wasn’t in 2015 or 2016, this was while Donald Trump was President of the United States.  Him, someone representing him from the White House, or someone from the private sector who would benefit from screwing Iran, hired spies to attack, threaten, and/or discredit private citizens.

 

SCHNEIDERMAN ACCUSED OF DOMESTIC ABUSE

I’m not sure what to make of this.  On one hand, this smells a hell of a lot like Al Franken, suspiciously like Roger Stone pulling shit to illicit the knee-jerk response from the left to call for resignations over allegations.

On the other hand, this is some pretty fucked up shit, and if the allegations are true, then he should resign.

Let’s see how this unfolds…

UPDATE.  Well that was quick.

This changes nothing in the investigations into the Trump family, the efforts to change New York law to allow the state to prosecute people protected by pardons as a way to avoid justice, and this doesn’t change the NYAG’s office cooperating with the Special Counselor’s Office.

I used to play football.  Badly.  I was the 6th string JV running back, and we only had 5 running backs.  But we had a phrase.  Next man up.  Everyone practices and prepares as though they have to play.  A lot of things could happen between the first practice of the week and game day.  Injuries, bad grades, pop a piss test, get arrested for attempted assault, get shot in the ass by an angry farmer after a cow tipping incident gone horribly wrong, or one of the coaches wants to play someone different.

It’s the same situation here.  Next man (or woman) up.

 

TRUMP ORG AND CORRUPTION, FROM THE WATER IS WET DEPARTMENT

The MSM is FINALLY looking into Trump’s money laundering, though they haven’t used the phrase yet.

Trump, who bragged for decades about financing his projects with other people’s money, then welching on the loans, suddenly pulled an about-face and used a crap ton of money to pay for projects.  Then, after construction, they took out loans for more than the value the properties.  That’s Money Laundering.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Tom Barrack was the chairman of the Trump Inauguration Committee.  His Chief of Staff… Rick Gates. Yes, that Rick Gates.

Remember Erik’s ties to Chinese Intelligence (Daily Check-In 03/22/2018)?  It’s nice to see the MSM starting to catch up.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is now on President Trump’s legal team, told CBS News correspondent Paula Reid Monday afternoon that special counsel Robert Mueller’s office has rejected proposals to allow Mr. Trump to answer questions from investigators in writing.

The president’s legal team has previously signaled that this would be their preferred format for a possible interview as it helps protect Mr. Trump from the possibility of lying or misleading investigators, which is a criminal offense.

It’s not that Mueller’s office won’t accept written answers from Donald Trump, but there are guidelines preventing legal documents being written in crayon.

 

COHEN/RUDY/STORMYGATE

When Daniels is asked if Trump’s hair stays still as he has sex, Daniels replies, “No, [his hair is] real. He chose that.” When the interviewer presses, “And it just fluffs around as he’s on top of you?” she replies, “Yeah, that’s real. Kind of like a drunken cockatoo.” How much is the Eternal Sunshine procedure?

Yeah, a cockatoo.  I’m afraid to guess how long it will take someone to make a pic of that.

 

COLD WAR 2.0

1600 Russians arrested in protests in Russia, many of them children.  Protesting is not protected speech in Russia, so even showing up is illegal.

As they were chanting, “Down with the Tsar!”

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

Holy Shit, we’ve got the trifecta of corrupt cabinet stories.  We’ve got a White House Advisor who can’t get a clearance, a Transportation Secretary connected to Human Trafficking, the EPA head paranoid AF and spending taxpayer money like he’s on a speed run and planing stories about other corrupt cabinet members like Ryan Zinke, Carl Icahn engaging in insider trading, and Ben Carson, a black man that says that attempts at desegregation are socialist.

Life is not an episode of 24.  Torture is bad, and has no place in an interrogation.  The return on investment is low.

Yeah.  Irony isn’t dead, it hung itself in the garage from the rafters.  It left a note that said “It’s all your fault.”

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND FACEBOOK

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

BLUE WAVE

 

#NEVERAGAIN

Oliver North came to infamy from the Iran-Contra Affair back in the 80’s for his role in Congressional testimony about a plot to… you know, I’m not exactly sure.  Out of all Presidential scandals, I know the least about this one.  I was a kid when this happened, and I remember one of my vacations spent watching this dick taco on television.

 

DOCTOR, DOCTOR

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

 

RUMOR MILL

Remember the speculation about what oligarchs were stopped at the airport from Daily Check-In 04/04/2018?  Looks like at least one of them was Viktor Vekselberg.

Ming is an interesting character on Twitter, and I’ve discussed Cassandra Fairbanks a few times before.  I’ve referenced her indirectly in a few posts, and mentioned her directly in Daily Check-In 9/11/2017 when I talked about meeting Claude Taylor.  She was a Leftist/Anarchist turned Bernie Bro turned Never Hilary turned Alt-Right/Team Trump, all while working for RT.  A true example of Horseshoe Theory.

According to this tweet, at some point she began working with the FBI…again.  I say again because there were rumors of her working with them to set up a lot of her old Leftist colleagues.

2018 has such sloppy writing and a low budget.  Reusing old sets and side characters like this?

Corruption isn’t just Russian or American.  It’s worldwide, and across many fields.  The scope will shock everyone.

That sounds like a clickbait article.  “43 ways that Corruption Infects the World.  #17 WILL SHOCK YOU!”

 

That’s it for today.  I might need to take a day off soon, but at the same time, I’m afraid that the one day I take off, everything will go to shit.  I know that’s not likely the case, but at the same time, in some weird way, writing and researching these entries are both stressful and stress-reducing at the same time.

By the way, the Pens lost tonight.  They’re out of the playoffs this year.  That means my hope for a Pens/Knights Stanley Cup final won’t happen this year.  Oh well.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

The Indicted

Here’s a list of everyone that has been indicted so far.

 

Paul Manafort – Former Campaign Manager to Donald Trump.  

Indictments first reported on Daily Check-In 10/30/2017

Paul Manafort has been indicted on about 30-40 charges of the following crimes, as of May 6, 2018:

  • Conspiracy Against the United States
  • Conspiracy to Launder Money
  • Failure to File Reports of of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts for several years (each year is a different charge)
  • Unregistered Agent of a Foreign Principal
  • False and Misleading FARA Statements
  • False Statements
  • Subscribing to False United States Individual Income Tax Returns, for multiple years
  • Assisting in the Preparation of False United States Individual Income
  • Bank Fraud Conspiracy, multiple counts
  • Bank Fraud, multiple counts

 

Paul Manafort is awaiting two trials, one in D.C. and the other in Eastern Virginia.  The trails are both scheduled for later 2018.

On June 8, 2018, Manafort was also indicted on the following charges, along with Kostantin Kilimnik

  • Conspiracy Against the United States
  • Conspiracy to Launder Money
  • Unregistered Agent of a Foreign Principal
  • False and Misleading FARA Statements
  • False Statements
  • Obstruction of Justice
  • Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice

On Daily Check-In 06/15/2018, Paul Manafort was remanded to prison, pending his trials.

On Daily Check-In 08/21/2018, Paul Manafort was found guilty on 8 felony counts from his trial in the Eastern District of Virginia.

On Daily Check-In 09/14/2018, Paul Manafort pleaded guilty to Conspiracy to Commit Witness Tampering and Conspiracy Against the United States.  He also pleaded guilty to the remaining charges from his EDVA trial.

On Daily Check-In 03/07/2019, Paul Manafort was sentenced to 47 months in prison for his EDVA conviction.

On Daily Check-In 03/13/2019, Paul Manafort was sentenced to 73 months in prison for his DC convictions.  He was also charged in New York for 16 felony counts. The State of New York charged Paul Manafort 3 counts of Residential Mortgage Fraud in the First Degree, Attempted Mortgage Fraud in the First Degree, 3 counts of Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree, 8 counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree, and 1 count of Scheme to Defraud in the First Degree.

 

Rick Gates – Former Deputy Campaign Manager to Donald Trump.

Indictments first reported on Daily Check-In 10/30/2017

Arrested in October 2017.  Rick was originally charted with close to 30 white-collar felonies.  After a few months of back and forth, Gates pled guilty to one charge of Making False Statements to the FBI and one charge of Conspiracy Against the United States, as reported on Daily Check-In 02/20/2018.  The remainder of his charges were dropped as he became a cooperating witness.  Sentencing is still pending as of May 6, 2018.

 

George Papadopoulos – Former member of Trump’s Foreign Policy team.

Indictments first reported on Daily Check-In 10/30/2017

Arrested in July 2017, pled guilty to 1 charge of Making False Statements to the FBI, and became a cooperating witness. Sentencing is still pending as of May 6, 2018.

 

Michael Flynn – Former National Security Advisor.

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-In 12/01/2017.

Mike Flynn pled guilty to 1 charge of Making False Statements to the FBI, and became a cooperating witness.  Sentencing is still pending as of May 6, 2018.

 

Alex Van Der Zwaan – Former attorney to Rick Gates.

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-In 02/20/2018, the same day that Rick Gates pled guilty.

Alex was sentenced on Daily Check-In 04/03/2018 to 30 days in prison, a $20,000 fine, and 3 months probation.

On Daily Check-In 05/08/2018, Alex reported to prison to serve his sentence.  He was released on Daily Check-In 06/04/2018Daily Check-In 06/04/2018, and deported shortly thereafter.

Fun fact: Alex is the son-in-law of German Khan, a Russian Oligarch.  The law firm he worked at, Skadden Arps, also worked with Michael Cohen on his BuzzFeed lawsuit, and I’m looking for the story, but I recall hearing an office at one of their locations that was loaned out to Cohen was raided.

 

Richard Pinedo – Identity Thief.

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-in 02/16/2018.

From California, Richard ran an online company on the Dark Web called Auction Essentials.  This company provided Russians from the Internet Research Agency with the means to spoof PayPal security.

Richard Pinedo pled guilty to one charge of Identity Theft, and become a cooperating witness.

Mr. Pinedo was sentenced to 6 months in jail on +Daily Check-In 10/10/2018Daily Check-In 10/10/2018.

 

The Russian Troll Farm

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-in 02/16/2018.

The following companies and people were indicted for Conspiracy to Defraud the United States.  Those marked with an * are also charged with Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud and Bank Fraud.  Those marked with a ^ are also charged with Aggravated Identity Theft.

  • INTERNET RESEARCH AGENCY LLC *^
  • CONCORD MANAGEMENT AND CONSULTING LLC
  • CONCORD CATERING
  • DZHEYKHUN NASIMI OGLY ASLANOV *^
  • GLEB IGOREVICH VASILCHENKO *^
  • IRINA VIKTOROVNA KAVERZINA ^
  • VLADIMIR VENKOV ^
  • MIKHAIL IVANOVICH BYSTROV
  • MIKHAIL LEONIDOVICH BURCHIK
  • ALEKSANDRA YURYEVNA KRYLOVA
  • ANNA VLADISLAVOVNA BOGACHEVA
  • SERGEY PAVLOVICH POLOZOV
  • MARIA ANATOLYEVNA BOVDA
  • ROBERT SERGEYEVICH BOVDA
  • VADIM VLADIMIROVICH PODKOPAEV

 

Konstantin Kilimnik – “Kostya from the GRU”

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-In 06/08/2018

Konstantin, also known as “Kostya from the GRU”, was Manafort’s man in Kiev.  He worked with Manafort for more than a decade, helping him execute many illegal activities.  On June 8, 2018, he was indicted on the following charges, along with Paul Manafort.

  • Conspiracy Against the United States
  • Conspiracy to Launder Money
  • Unregistered Agent of a Foreign Principal
  • False and Misleading FARA Statements
  • False Statements
  • Obstruction of Justice
  • Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice

 

The Russian Troll Farm

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-In 07/13/2018

The following people were indicted for Conspiracy to Commit an Offense Against the United States and Money Laundering.  Those marked with * were also charged with Aggravated Identity Theft.  Those with ^ were charged with an additional count of Conspiracy to Commit an Offense Against the United States.

  • Viktor Borisovich Netyksho *
  • Boris Alekseyevich Antonov *
  • Dmitry Sergeyevich Badin *
  • Ivan Sergeyevich Yermakov *
  • Aleksey Viktorovich Lukashev *
  • Sergey Aleksandrovich Morgachev *
  • Nikolay Yuryevich Kozachek *
  • Pavel Vyacheslavovich Yershov *
  • Artem Andreyevich Malyshev *
  • Aleksandr Vladimirovich Osadchuk * ^
  • Aleksey Aleksandrovich Potemkin *
  • Anatoly Sergeyevich Kovalev ^

 

Sam Patten – Lobbyist for the Opposition Bloc and former member of Cambridge Analytica 

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-In 08/31/2018

Sam Patten was indicted on one count of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). He worked alongside Paul Manafort representing the Opposition Bloc, a political party in Ukraine comprised of the remnants of the Party of Regions, which fell apart after former President Viktor Yanukovitch was forced from office and fled to Moscow.  Sam also served as a Straw Buyer, or middleman, to launder foreign money into Trump’s Inauguration Committee, and worked at SCL/Cambridge Analytica from 2014 to 2015.

He pled guilty to this charge, and is now a cooperating witness for the Mueller Investigation.

 

Michael Cohen – Trump’s Personal Lawyer, Fixer, and Deputy Chair of the Republican National Committee.

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-In 08/21/2018

Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, pled guilty to 5 counts of Tax Evasion, 1 count of Lying to a Bank, 1 count of Causing an Unlawful Corporate Contribution, and 1 count of Excessive Campaign Contribution.

Indicted on Daily Check-In 11/29/2018 for Lying to Congress.  This was part of his cooperation agreement with Mueller.

Cohen was sentenced to 3 years in prison on Daily Check-In 12/12/2018.

 

Roger Stone – Ratfucker Supreme, Campaign Advisor to Donald Trump.

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-In 01/25/2019

Roger Stone served at Trump’s dirty tricks man, or his ‘ratfucker.’  Roger coordinated the email drops between the Trump Campaign and WikiLeaks.  WikiLeaks received the stolen emails from the GRU.

Roger is charged with seven felonies.  One of them is Obstruction of Proceeding, since his lies impeded Congressional investigation.  Counts two through six are his various lies to Congress, and one count of Witness Tampering.

 

Gregory Craig – Lobbyist that worked for Ukraine, former Obama White House Counsel

Indictment first reported on The Last Few Days 04/14/2019

Craig was indicted for failing to register for FARA and making false statements to investigators on April 11, 2019.  He pleaded not guilty on April 12.

 

Not directly indicted by Mueller’s team, but indicted on a relevant investigation.  Case could have been sourced out to local U.S. Attorney’s Offices

Mariia Butina – Russian National and protege of Alexander Torshin

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-In 07/16/2018

Mariia, also known as Maria, was Alexander Torshin’s protege and served as a go-between or backchannel between Torshin, The Kremlin, the National Rifle Association, the Republican Party, and Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential Campaign.

Maria has been indicted on one count of Conspiracy to act as an Agent of the Russian Federation, and Acting as a Foreign Agent.

Maria was sentenced to 18 months in prison on The Last Few Days 04/26/2019.

 

Paul Erickson – GOP Lobbyist

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-In 02/06/2019

Paul Erickson was Mariia’s boyfriend and co-conspirator in the United States.  He used his connections with various Republican and Right Wing organizations to help Miss Butina infiltrate the party on behalf of the Russians.  This includes the National Rifle Association.

Paul was indicted on one count of Wire Fraud and ten counts of Money Laundering.

 

Julian Assange – WikiLeaks Founder

Indictment first reported on The Last Few Days 04/14/2019

Julian Assange was indicted with Conspiracy to Commit Computer Intrusion.  This indictment was unsealed on April 11, 2019, and he was arrested in London by British police while leaving the Ecuadorian embassy.

On Check-In 05/23/2019 Assange was charged with violating the Espionage Act.

 

Michael Avenatti – Lawyer

Indictment first reported on The Last Few Days 04/14/2019

Avenatti was indicted on 36 counts of wire fraud, bank fraud, and bankruptcy fraud on April 11, 2019.

Avenatti was also charged with defrauding Stormy Daniels and attempting to extort Nike on Check-In 05/23/2019.

 

Not directly indicted by Mueller’s team, but indicted on related crimes and now cooperating witnesses.

Jeffrey Yohai – Real Estate Entrepreneur and Former Son-in-law of Paul Manafort

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-In 05/18/2018

Details of his indictment and plea deal are under seal as of May 22, 2018.

Jeff pled guilty as part of a plea deal against his former father-in-law Paul Manafort, and became a cooperating witness.  Jeff worked with Paul on multiple real estate deals that are suspected of being involved in money laundering.

 

Evgeny Freidman – The Taxi King

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-In 05/21/2018 (May 22)

Evgeny, a former business partner of Michael Cohen, pled guilty to one count of Tax Evasion of $50,000.  He received 5 years probation, and became a cooperating witness against Michael Cohen.

 

Not directly indicted by Mueller’s team, but indicted on related crimes.

Chris Collins, Representative from New York.

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-In 08/08/2018

Collins, the first member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump, was indicted for 1 count of Conspiracy to Commit Securities Fraud, 7 counts of Securities Fraud, 1 count each of Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud, Wire Fraud, and False Statements.

 

Duncan Hunter, Representative from California.

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-In 08/21/2018

Hunter, the second member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump, was indicted for Conspiracy, 43 counts of Wire Fraud (Yes, 43), 18 counts of Falsification of Records Related to Campaign Finance, and 3 counts of Prohibited Use of Campaign Contributions.

 

Elena Alekseenvna Khusyaynova, Accountant from Project Lakhta.

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-In 10/19/2018

Elena was the accountant in charge of Project Lakhta, Russia’s project to influence the 2018 Election.  She received a Criminal Complaint for Conspiracy to Defraud the United States.

 

Bijan Kian and Kamil Ekim Alptekin, Turkish nationals.

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-In 12/17/2018.

Bijan Kian was the second in command of Flynn Intel Group.  Kamil Alptekin set up Inovo BV, a Dutch company designed to hide payments from Turkey’s government.  Kamil and Bijan were both indicted for FARA violations and Acting as a Foreign Agent.

 

Natalia Veselnitskaya, Russian Lawyer and Spy.

Indictment first reported on Daily Check-In 01/08/2019.

Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer and spy with very close ties to the Kremlin.  She represented Putin’s government in the June 9th meeting.  Ms. Veselnitskaya was indicted on a count of Obstruction of Justice for her role in a 2014 civil case where she represented Prevezon Holdings.  That company had purchased a large number of real estate ventures in New York City using laundered funds gained through a tax scam perpetrated by the Russian government against Hermitage Capital.  This scam was uncovered by a Russian tax attorney named Sergei Magnitsky.  For his role in uncovering this corruption, he was arrested, tried, convicted, and eventually tortured to death.

She allegedly created a false paper trail with the Russian Prosecutor-General to cover up Prevezon’s involvement in this case, as well as her own.  These false documents were entered into evidence into SDNY and were meant to deflect the case away from her client.

 

Stephen M. Calk, Banker.

Indictment first reported on Check-In 05/23/2019.

Stephen Calk was indicted for Financial Institution Bribery for approving loans to Paul Manafort in exchange for a position in the Trump Administration.

 

George Nader, Advisor and Consultant to Trump Campaign and Erik Prince

Indictment first reported on Check-In 06/04/2019.

George Nader was indicted for transporting child pornography into the United States.