Once the wealthiest man in Russia, former oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky spent ten years in Russian prison after the Russian government under Vladimir Putin charged him with fraud and tax evasion in 2003. After his release from prison in late 2013, he was exiled and was granted residency in Switzerland where he has since become …
Tag: 2016 Election
Aug 31 2017
The Russian Connection: Teaming Up
Last night Politico reported Special Counsel Robert Mueller has teamed up with New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on the case of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Part of the reason for the duel investigation is the possibility that Trump will pardon Manafort and others of federal charges involving the Trump campaign’s conspiring …
Aug 29 2017
The Russian Connection: Trump’s Tower In Moscow
The New York Times uncovered an e-mail from a Trump associate that boasted about a deal in Russia that would “get Trump elected” president. The business associate? None other than then guy with the margarita glass, convicted felon Felix Slater, the Russian immigrant from Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. A business associate of President Trump promised in …
Jul 27 2017
The Russian Connection: The Russian Mob
Update 16:24: This just dropped at TPM: Felix Sater, who worked obtaining financing for Trump projects including the Trump SoHo, told TPM that the “peace plan” came up in the course of his attempts to broker an agreement to sell energy abroad from Ukraine’s nuclear power plants with Andrii Artemenko, at the time a Ukrainian …
Jul 21 2017
The Russian Connection: Sessions Lied. No Kidding
It’s Friday night. It’s late July and really hot n Washington DC and the Trump administration is getting really desperate to find a way to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller. But, he has to fire Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. After Trump’s interview with the New York Times where he trashed Sessions, it looks …
Jul 19 2017
The Russian Connection: The Eighth Man
Now there are eight. The Washington Post identified the eighth person in the room with Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner as Ike Kaveladze, a Russian born US citizen who was implicated in a money laundering scheme in 2000, and is now a senior vice president at Russian real estate developer Aras Agalarov’s …
Jul 14 2017
The Russian Connection: Junior And Jared Excellent Adventure
One of the worst ways to handles a political scandal is to not put it all out on the table from the start. It’s the “drip, drip, drip” that’ll will get you. While Donald the Lesser dropped the e-mails that led up to the meeting with a Russian lawyer who has dubious connections to the …
Jul 11 2017
The Russian Connection: Worse Than Collusion
Update: 7/11/2017 18:00 CET Donald Jr. released the e-mails before seeing his lawyer and before the NYT. Russian Dirt on Clinton? ‘I Love It,’ Donald Trump Jr. Said By Matt Apuzzo, Jo Becker, and Adam Goldman The June 3, 2016, email sent to Donald Trump Jr. could hardly have been more explicit: One of his …
Jun 30 2017
The Russian Connection: Republican Disruption
Whatever are they up to? Grassley, Graham want the FBI’s Russia surveillance warrants By Austin Wright, Politico Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and panel member Lindsey Graham are asking the FBI to turn over some closely guarded secrets: its applications for warrants to spy on people suspected of helping Russia meddle in last year’s …
Jun 06 2017
The Russian Connection: Deeper Than Was Thought
Another document has emerged that link the Russian government to the charges of hacking the 2016 election. The Intercept posted documents that were given to them anonymously and were verified that show the Russian military hackers attempted a cyberattack on at least one U.S. voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 …
Jun 02 2017
The Russian Connection: “Moscow On The Potomac”
Things have slowed down a little in the continuing saga of “Moscow on the Potomac” as Charlie Pierce has dubbed Trump’s Russian woes but it’s not going away. Trump had hoped that his “Ugly American” tour of the Middle east and Europe would distract the media. It didn’t. Even while he was on foreign soil, …
May 26 2017
The Russian Connection: Friday Night News Dump
It’s getting really hard to keep up with all the news that keeps pouring out of this investigation into the Trump campaign collusion with Russia. It’s beginning to look like more than just tampering with the election. The evidence is just piling up and there are more questions, hopefully, to be soon followed by some …