Firtash

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">promote primary 1119</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">apparently neglected; fighting extradition to US in austria</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">an 421 no twt lnx</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Devin Nunes is caught up in Giuliani’s 'Russian mob' scandal: Trump impeachment prosecutor</font></div><div>
</div><div>Bob Brigham and Raw Story April 29, 2021</div><div>&nbsp; &nbsp;</div><div>Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) has exposure in Rudy Giulian's legal scandal, according to former prosecutor Daniel Goldman, who served as majority counsel in Donald Trump's first impeachment trial.</div><div>
</div><div>Goldman offered his analysis after The New York Times reported that<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">&nbsp;FBI agents also executed a search warrant at the home of Giuliani ally Victoria Toensing.</span></div><div>
</div><div>"This makes sense because, during the Ukraine impeachment investigation, we obtained draft retainer agreements between a Ukrainian official and Toensing and diGenova that Giuliani brokered," Goldman tweeted.</div><div>
</div><div>Podcast host Eric Garland noticed Goldman's analysis and added his summary of the situation.</div><div>
</div><div>"UM. SO GIULIANI AND&nbsp;<b>TOENSING</b>&nbsp;AND&nbsp;<b>DIGENOVA</b>&nbsp;WERE SIMULTANEOUSLY UNREGISTERED AGENTS OF UKRAINE WHILE ON THE PAYROLL OF RUSSIAN MOB BOSS DMITRO FIRTASH - while working for Trump. When he was President. And they all were conspiring with Russian intelligence," he wrote.</div><div>
</div><div>"Correct," Goldman said.</div><div>
</div><div>"And don't forget Devin Nunes and his sidekick Derek Harvey were involved too," he added.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</div><div>Watch: Devin Nunes mocked for his fear of fictional cows while ... ›</div><div>'Completely unhinged': Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan try to blame ... ›</div><div>Devin Nunes Provokes an Angry Mob Against His Local Newspaper ... ›</div><div>RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><div>2 White House Officials Helped Give Nunes Intelligence Reports ... ›</div><div>The ridiculousness of Devin Nunes suing 'Devin Nunes' cow' — and ... ›</div><div>Devin Nunes: A Timeline of His White House Visits and Trump ... ›</div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div><div><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx vid twt pix</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Rudy Giuliani Flew Into Ukraine On A Budget Flight. He Left On A Private Jet.</b></font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The private jet used by Giuliani is connected to some of Ukraine’s most controversial figures — and costs $3,300 per hour.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Christopher Miller</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">BuzzFeed Contributor</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Posted on December 18, 2019</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Rudy Giuliani flew to Kyiv on a budget airline when he visited earlier this month — but he left in style, on a private jet.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">It was the afternoon of Dec. 4 when Giuliani flew to the Ukrainian capital from Hungary with low-cost commercial carrier WizzAir. He was there to film a three-part video series for the staunchly pro-Trump OAN channel, which framed the trip as a mission to “destroy” the Democrats’ impeachment narrative.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Flying WizzAir, which demands that customers pay for everything à la carte and forces them to fight for unassigned seats and overhead bin space, often feels like a particularly chaotic Black Friday at Best Buy.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">After experiencing that, it’s no wonder Giuliani wanted to fly out of Kyiv on a private jet.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">According to flight data, videos, and photographs analyzed by BuzzFeed News, and confirmed by a Giuliani associate who joined him, the former mayor of New York left on a flight from Kyiv to Vienna on the night of Dec. 6, aboard a Beechcraft Premier 1A light business aircraft with<b>&nbsp;tail number T7-UTS.</b></font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>That number ties the jet to ICS Aero, a company that’s registered in the tiny state of San Marino, famous for its corrupt business practices, but operates out of Kyiv</b>.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ukrainian media have reported that the company’s owner is Alexander Rovt, a Ukrainian American</span>. The logo of another Rovt company, IBE Trade Corp, which adorns the tails of the company’s jets, provides further evidence of Rovt’s ownership.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">OAN / Via youtube.com</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A screenshot from the OAN show about Ukraine.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Rovt has done business in the past with Dmytro <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Firtash,</span>&nbsp;</b>a Ukrainian oligarch with ties to organized crime and the Kremlin who is currently under house arrest in Vienna and is fighting extradition to the US, where he faces federal bribery charges. While those charges are unrelated to the House impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, Firtash has been at the nexus of Trump and Giuliani’s effort to undermine their enemies.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">On Tuesday, prosecutors said in court that a lawyer for Firtash paid $1 million to one of Giuliani’s Ukraine campaign cohorts, Lev Parnas, and Parnas’s wife. In an interview with Reuters published on Wednesday, the Firtash lawyer, Ralph Isenegger, said he loaned the Parnases the money to purchase a home in Florida.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Parnas and another Giuliani associate, <b>Igor Fruman, have been charged with funneling illegal contributions to a member of Congress, whose help they sought during their back-channel Ukraine campaign to remove former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch from her post in Kyiv.</b></font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Giuliani’s use of the private jet raises questions about how he is funding his back-channel Ukraine campaign to dig up dirt on Trump’s political rivals. And it is likely to come under scrutiny from congressional Democrats who back Trump’s impeachment and federal prosecutors in Manhattan who are reportedly investigating whether Giuliani broke lobbying laws in c<b>onducting his back-channel Ukraine campaign, including his efforts to undermine Yovanovitch</b>, who was recalled in April.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Neither Giuliani nor his spokesperson responded to BuzzFeed News’ requests for comments. Rovt didn’t respond to an emailed request, nor did the communications offices of ICS Aero and OAN.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Rovt, a towering New York real estate investor with Ukrainian roots, made his billions in producing and trading fertilizer. In 2011, he sold his overseas fertilizer assets to<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Firtash</span> in a deal that involved a Russian chemical conglomerate, according to Bloomberg.</b></font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But Rovt appears to have retained close ties to powerful elites in Ukraine. In 2016, then-president Petro Poroshenko awarded him the Order of Yaroslav the Wise for distinguished services to the state and the people of Ukraine, according to a decree published on the presidential website.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Rovt, a pro-Trumper, reportedly tried to donate $10,000 to the president’s campaign on Election Day but had all but the legal $2,700 maximum returned. He’s also connected to a $3.5 million mortgage loan to former Trump campaign chair and convicted financial fraudster Paul Manafort, through a real estate investment firm founded by a former Trump business partner.</b></font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Joining Giuliani was his spokesperson Allen,<b>&nbsp;OAN host Chanel Rion,</b>&nbsp;an OAN camera operator, and a&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">former Ukrainian diplomat by the name of Andriy&nbsp;<b>Telizhenko&nbsp;</b>whom Trumpworld has held up as a “whistleblower” of its own.</span></font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In Kyiv, the group met with several controversial Ukrainian political figures, including former prosecutors general Viktor Shokin and Yuriy Lutsenko, both of whom have peddled disinformation to Giuliani for months.<b>&nbsp;Giuliani’s visit sent Kyiv into a frenzy, with Zelensky’s office working hard to avoid and ignore the former New York mayor and journalists running around trying to find him.</b></font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Shortly after the visit, OAN released video footage of Giuliani’s trip. BuzzFeed News was able to identify the jet he flew out on by matching the one in the OAN video and a tweet from Allen when the group was on board with publicly available photographs that showed similar stripes, logos, and interior. Telizhenko then confirmed the plane information by phone from Kyiv.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Asked how the plane was booked for the group,&nbsp;<b>Telizhenko&nbsp;</b>said: “We had a company that we use book the flight and that’s it. The guy you’re talking about [Rovt], I didn’t even know who owned the plane. We got it through a third company. I heard about that guy before and he has a lot of planes all over Europe, so that’s why it’s convenient</span>."</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Telizhenko said that Vienna was the chosen destination because its airport offered more flight options to Washington than the alternative offered by the charter company, Warsaw.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>“It wasn’t Vienna because it was Vienna</b>,” Telizhenko said when asked if the destination had anything to do with possibly meeting Firtash in the Austrian capital. “It was a transfer. The next morning [Giuliani] flew out [to the US]. I can guarantee you that no meetings of that kind [with Firtash] happened.”</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“Plus it’s not expensive because it was a group of people with bags and everything else," he added. "It was the same price to use a charter as to buy tickets for everybody [on a commercial flight only a few hours in advance].”</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The Beechcraft appears to have been booked through VipSky, a Kyiv-based charter company. Its website lists the Beechcraft Premier 1A as costing $3,300 per hour.</b></font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">While it’s not clear who paid for the flight, Telizhenko said he believed that “Mr. Giuliani paid for [the flight] himself.”</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“If OAN reimbursed him or not, I don’t know. But I know he paid for himself and that’s it,” he added.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The jet departed from Kyiv at about 12 a.m. local time and landed in Vienna at 12:56 a.m. local time, according to publicly available flight trackers. That would mean the flight lasted around two hours, for a cost of at least $6,600.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">City Of Kharkiv / Via city.kharkov.ua</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Giuliani steps off a plane adorned with the IBE Trade logo in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in 2017.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>This appears to be the second time Giuliani has used a jet owned by Rovt’s ICS Aero. Giuliani flew on another one adorned with the IBE Trade logo from London to the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv in 2017,</b>&nbsp;flight data and photographs published by the city of Kharkiv show. Giuliani visited Kharkiv to consult with the city on security issues, according to a press release at the time.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Flying the luxurious private skies is indicative of the way Ukraine’s elite travel to and from Western Europe. ICS Aero planes adorned with Rovt’s IBE Trade logo have been used by several prominent Ukrainian figures, including former president Poroshenko, his scandal-plagued business partner, and a former Ukrainian lawmaker who once boasted about having his own private militia to assassinate an unarmed pro-Russian separatist.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Christopher Miller is a Kyiv-based American journalist and editor.</font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Contact Christopher Miller at christopher.miller@buzzfeed.com.</font></font></p><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/nunes-met-with-ukraine-collusion-conspiracy-nut-in-may-and-then-started-pushing-rumors-about-the-2016-election/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/nunes-met-with-ukraine-collusion-conspiracy-nut-in-may-and-then-started-pushing-rumors-about-the-2016-election/</a>
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</font></font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an interview with the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/andrii-telizhenko-source-for-ukraine-collusion-allegations-met-rep-devin-nunes?ref=home" target="blank" rel="noopener">Daily Beast</a>, a Ukraine diplomat who has been pushing conspiracy theories about the 2016 election involving Democrats admitted that he has spoken with Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) along with Rudy Giuliani.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>According to the report, Andrii Telizhenko — who is at center of allegations that Kyiv meddled in the 2016 elections — said he met Nunes to talk about Ukrainian and Russian politics.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Congressman Nunes had a really interesting and good impact on me as a very positive and influential politician who loves America and is interested in Ukraine and developments on fighting Russia,” Telizhenko told The Daily Beast. “We talked about how to fight Russian aggression in Ukraine and Russian propaganda.</span>”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Noting that Telizhenko worked at Kyiv’s embassy in Washington from December 2015 through June 2016, the Beast reports that he “he has played a key role in the promotion of the contentious narrative, popular on the political right, that the Ukrainian government worked with Democrats during the 2016 campaign to damage Trump.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the diplomat, he met with Nunes at a party in May of this year.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...
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</font></font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=91a4cb4122de0af505cbbe73314de12ff4a01553c54fdcfce3c50363f29e427e43db487e53f170404e838b0408cc8f35c70243c7a77a7ddd" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=91a4cb4122de0af505cbbe73314de12ff4a01553c54fdcfce3c50363f29e427e43db487e53f170404e838b0408cc8f35c70243c7a77a7ddd</a></font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/07/its-own-document-fox-news-rips-fox-news-host-sean-hannity/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/07/its-own-document-fox-news-rips-fox-news-host-sean-hannity/</a></font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="" /></font><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">Opinions</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">In its own document, Fox News rips Fox News host Sean Hannity</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">Sean Hannity on the set of his show on Aug. 7, 2019. (Frank Franklin II/AP)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">Erik Wemple&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">Media critic</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">Feb. 7, 2020 at 12:06 p.m. PST</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">Each night, Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity engage in some shallow blather during the “handoff” between their ratings-killing programs. In Thursday night’s version, Hannity told Carlson, “You know the deep-state story is even getting bigger. There’s a whole new one developing. I’ll tell you about it privately.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">Cute, Hannity....</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Democracy Dies in Darkness</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Opinions</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In its own document, Fox News rips Fox News host Sean Hannity</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sean Hannity on the set of his show on Aug. 7, 2019. (Frank Franklin II/AP)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Erik Wemple&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Media critic</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">February 7, 2020 at 3:06 PM EST</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Each night, Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity engage in some shallow blather during the “handoff” between their ratings-killing programs. In Thursday night’s version, Hannity told Carlson, “You know the deep-state story is even getting bigger. There’s a whole new one developing. I’ll tell you about it privately.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cute, Hannity.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Just what could this “new” deep-state story be? A clue emerged from a strange sequence of events on Twitter. Marcus DiPaola, who formerly worked at Fox News, posted some tweets about his experience with the network, as well as the front page of an interesting internal document:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp; &nbsp; Here's the front page of the internal Fox News Trump-Ukraine timeline. I'll start tweeting some of the highlights shortly. pic.twitter.com/HWGX5sZUh8</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp; &nbsp; — Marcus J. DiPaola (@marcusdipaola) February 6, 2020</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That’s the title page of a dossier from the so-called Brain Room of Fox News, a long-standing research hive at the network. The full Ukrainian report, obtained by the Erik Wemple Blog, is a document of great candor and thoroughness, 162 pages of events and statements and indictments and hearings that detail every last wrinkle in the Trump-Ukraine story. Its timeline starts in February 2014 — when former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych fled Kyiv for Russia — and concludes in December 2019 — when Trump declared that his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, would write up a report about the findings of his Ukrainian investigation. “I hear he has found plenty,” said the president.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Brain Room report bears the name of Bryan Murphy, a senior political affairs specialist at Fox News. It also bears this withering assessment of John Solomon, former opinion contributor for the Hill who is responsible for setting in motion faulty story lines regarding Ukraine: “John Solomon played an indispensable role in the collection and domestic publication of elements of this disinformation campaign.” Another part of the document provides this assessment of Solomon: “Focus on stories from disinformation campaign, non-disclosure of conflicts, use of unreliable sources, publishing false and misleading stories, misrepresentation of sources, and opaque coordination with involved parties.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That says it all. Even as it levels that critique, the Brain Room document discloses that Solomon is a “Fox News contributor.” Indeed, though Solomon appeared as a guest frequently on “Hannity” throughout the Ukraine story, he left the Hill in fall 2019 and was hired as a contributor at Fox News in October.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Not only does the research paper pummel Solomon, it cites a statistic that Solomon, over six months in 2019, “published 45 columns aimed at discrediting the Russia investigation, 12 of which focused primarily on Ukraine." Where did that statistic come from?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Media Matters for America! Yes, Media Matters for America, the organization essentially built to take down Fox News. Media Matters for America, the organization routinely slammed on Fox News’s air. Media Matters for America, the organization that essentially forced Glenn Beck from Fox News.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It’s a stunning juxtaposition — one that speaks to the integrity of the Brain Room report. Other faces of the Ukraine issue that surface in the report include Giuliani, the ringleader of Trump’s effort to secure an announcement by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of an investigation into the Bidens, who is described as having: “High susceptibility to disinformation” from key Ukrainian actors, according to the document. Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, a Trump-supporting husband-and-wife legal team, receive this evaluation: “Non-disclosure of financial motives and representation of [Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro] Firtash while spreading false and misleading stories.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Note: Giuliani, diGenova and Toensing appeared on “Hannity” with regularity to take the president’s side on Ukraine. All that explains, perhaps, why Hannity is making noises about a “new” deep state.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Though Fox News isn’t exactly forthcoming about its internal operations, the Brain Room isn’t a state secret. Occasionally network hosts will reference its work, as did Jesse Watters last fall, when he saw a Washington Post headline that he didn’t believe was real: “When I saw the headline afterwards, I forwarded it to our Brain Room because I thought it was an Onion” story, said Watters. There’s a great reverence among employees for the work of the room, as reflected in this comment from former host Kimberly Guilfoyle in June 2017: “Here are some doughnut facts from our Brain Room, so [they] must be true.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A 2011 story in Rolling Stone quoted a network insider as alleging that the Brain Room was where "the evil resides.” And a former network executive told Gabriel Sherman — for his biography of late Fox News chief Roger Ailes — that the room had a “Nixonian” air. That said, Sherman wrote that the “mystique” of the Brain Room faded over time as staffers realized that it was a professional operation designed to fact-check the news. It’s the Brain Room, for example, that feeds all those contextual facts that viewers see on their screens during congressional hearings and other political events.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There’s no absence of context in the Brain Room’s Ukraine magnum opus. It has everything, including key revelations and charges against Hannity. Here’s the timeline’s entry for March 26, 2019:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp; &nbsp; Melinda Haring, the editor of the UkraineAlert blog at the Atlantic Council and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, writes in the Washington Post: “The mechanics of the information operation that Poroshenko’s minions pulled off are obvious. Lutsenko used Solomon to get to Hannity to get to Trump, whose Twitter feed set thousands chattering about nonexistent collusion… If a bunch of obscure foreigners few Americans have ever heard of can play Trump so easily, and so obviously, what’s to stop others from doing the same?”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp; &nbsp; (387) David Holmes, Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, later said, “The barrage of allegations directed at Ambassador Yovanovitch, a career ambassador, is unlike any anything I have seen in my professional career.” (388)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Here’s another, absolutely devastating entry:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp; &nbsp; September 26, 2019: J</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">ohn Solomon, Toensing, and diGenova all appear on Hannity again to discuss Shokin’s affidavit, filed at the request of Firtash’s attorneys.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> At no time during the program does Hannity, Toensing, and diGenova mention who requested the statement nor do they discuss that they are Firtash’s attorneys. Solomon also doesn’t mention that he shares attorneys with Firtash. diGenova says “we’ve known from the very beginning that Mr. Shokin was not a corrupt prosecutor.” (856) Later that night, President Trump tweets a clip of diGenova from Hannity.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;(857)</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">More: In an entry for Oct. 9, 2019, the Brain Room document notes that Andriy Derkach, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, had made a specific allegation regarding corruption by former vice president Joe Biden. The Kyiv Post, notes the Brain Room report, called the charge “dubious.” “Hours later,<b> Giuliani appeared on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News and parroted Derkach’s claim</b>.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (897).”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In an entry that footnotes reporting from the Erik Wemple Blog, the document even tosses shade on how Hannity introduces Solomon on his program:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp; &nbsp; May 14, 2018: The Hill’s editor-in-chief sent out a memo to staff stating that “effective immediately” John Solomon would no longer publish stories under the banner of news but instead would be an “opinion contributor.” (218) Solomon said that the choice to have his writing classified as opinion was his. During his TV appearances, Hannity has often continued to announce Solomon as an “investigative reporter” at The Hill.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">What we have here is a journalistic blowout. It is a trouncing of Hannity and his treasured contributor, Solomon — written not by some mainstream media outlet or Media Matters for America, but by Fox News itself. Turns out the network is keeping its best reporting to itself.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In a statement to the Erik Wemple Blog, Mitchell Kweit, senior vice president of the Brain Room, said: “The research division of FOX News produces a briefing book for all major stories, which serves as a standing collection of extensive data on major topics for internal use by all those in editorial functions. The Ukraine briefing book is nothing more than a comprehensive chronological account of what every person involved in the Ukraine controversy was doing at any identifiable point in time, including tracking media appearances of major players who appeared on FOX News and in many other outlets. The 200 page document has thousands of data points and the vast majority have no relation to FOX News – instead it’s now being taken out of context and politicized to damage the network.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In an interview with the Erik Wemple Blog, DiPaola commended Fox News for the separation between opinion shows and the so-called straight-news side, where he worked as a freelancer for a few months. “It did feel a lot like church and state,” he says. “They separate news from opinion pretty well.” As for the Brain Room timeline, DiPaola says, “I mean, it’s a Brain Room product, it’s meant to be unbiased. It’s evidence that Fox News Channel isn’t all bad. It’s evidence that there are honorable people working at Fox News all day.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And it’s evidence that those honorable people understand the threat “Hannity” poses to any news organization.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Read more from Erik Wemple:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sean Hannity and Fox News have normalized media corruption</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The comical hypocrisy of Sean Hannity</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Impeachment report hammers the Hill and John Solomon</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">John Solomon leaves behind lasting damage at the Hill</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Giuliani goes full conspiracy theory in insane ‘Fox & Friends’ appearance</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" small="small" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/lev-parnas-spins-wild-crazy-stories-and-most-of-them-are-true/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/lev-parnas-spins-wild-crazy-stories-and-most-of-them-are-true/</font></a></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Lev Parnas spins wild, crazy stories — and most of them are true</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Heather Digby Parton / Salon January 17, 2020</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Following the rules of an anachronistic 18th-century ritual, the House managers walked in formation to the Senate to deliver the articles of impeachment on Thursday. The sergeant at arms informed the senators that if they speak during the trial they could be imprisoned, and then the chief justice arrived in his robes accompanied by four senators. He then administered the constitutionally prescribed oath to deliver impartial justice to the assembled senators, after which, one by one, they signed their names to a book. The only thing missing was the white wigs.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile,&nbsp; the president was shriek-tweeting in all caps, “I JUST GOT IMPEACHED FOR MAKING A PERFECT PHONE CALL!”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It was weird. But then, what isn’t weird in this administration?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Only in the Trump era would we have a bombshell witness appear on the night before the trial, loaded down with pictures and video and written evidence, much of it in Russian. I’m speaking of Lev Parnas, of course, who served as Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani’s bagman in the plot to extort a political smear job against Joe Biden from the Ukrainian government.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Parnas was arrested in October for campaign finance violations, along with his partner Igor Fruman. But until federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York returned records they had seized during the arrest, and a judge cleared them to be sent to the House Intelligence Committee last week, we didn’t know specifically what he’d been up to in the Ukraine scandal.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Monday, the House released some of the documents to the public, which included text messages — lots of text messages — between Parnas, Giuliani and any number of other players. The trial starts on Tuesday so presumably, the lawyers working for the House managers are pulling all-nighters to put together the timeline based upon all the records provided by their own witnesses, FOIA requests and Parnas to both corroborate his story and present an understandable narrative of what happened in Kyiv and in Washington.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They have not interviewed Parnas, as far as I know, but he’s been giving TV interviews so they should be able to determine some of what they can corroborate and what they can’t. He’s an accused criminal, but as TV prosecutors have been saying on a loop for the past few days, it’s usually criminals who give evidence against other criminals. They’re the ones who know where their fellow criminals buried the bodies.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Parnas revealed a lot of juicy details in his interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. It’s hard to know right now what was most important. There’s a ton of color about the Trump hotel in Washington being essentially like a mobsters’ “social club” where hangers-on gather in the lobby and the bar, while insiders get invited into the inner sanctums where the real deals are made. It’s a GOP power center that just happens to put money directly into the president’s personal bank account. Imagine that.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Parnas also claimed that the shocking texts between him and a fringe character named Robert Hyde, in which Hyde indicated that he had Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, under surveillance, were all just a joke. Apparently, both the U.S. government and the Ukrainian government weren’t entirely convinced, since the FBI “visited” Hyde on Thursday and the Ukrainians finally gave Trump his investigation, although not quite the one he wanted. They have also announced they are looking into this allegation.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The new information I find most interesting at first glance is that we now know the withholding of military aid and a White House visit in exchange for the announcement of an investigation into Biden and the 2016 election was only one of three different quid-pro-quos in this plot.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s been a puzzle from the very beginning as to why the administration was so determined to push Yovanovitch out of her post. She was something of an anti-corruption crusader, but it hasn’t been clear exactly why Giuliani and his henchmen pushed so hard to get her fired.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>According to text messages provided by Parnas, it was just another transaction. Getting rid of Yovanovitch was the price they had to pay to obtain the cooperation of one of the crooked Ukrainian prosecutors, Yuri Lutsenko,</b>&nbsp;who agreed to investigate Biden if they delivered. Despite all their hard work getting Yovanovitch fired — and it was really hard, according to Parnas — Lutsenko’s patron, then-President Petro Poroshenko, lost the election and was replaced last year by Volodymyr Zelensky. (Out of office, Lutsenko later pulled a Trump and reneged on the agreement, telling the press he never found anything on Biden.)</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The other quid pro quo is more sinister. Giuliani got word that Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian gas oligarch with ties to the Kremlin, had dirt on Burisma, the firm that had Joe Biden’s son Hunter on its board</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Naturally, Giuliani was excited. Firtash was being represented by Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, two long-time GOP legal operatives who had been involved in the Ukraine plot, along with a right-wing reporter John Solomon. Firtash wanted to avoid extradition from Austria to the U.S., where he is wanted on bribery and racketeering charges. According to Parnas, Firtash agreed to share his information in exchange for having his extradition order lifted. Giuliani, Toensing and diGenova all worked together to try to make that happen.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Elements of this story were already known, but Parnas suggested in his interview with Maddow that Attorney General Bill Barr was also “on the team.</b>” He didn’t offer any direct evidence of this and the Department of Justice denies knowing anything about it. But it once more raises the question of why Trump told Zelensky during the “perfect call” to cooperate with both Giuliani and Barr.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Parnas said he came forward because he’s afraid of Barr’s Justice Department, which is astonishing considering the lowlife elements he’s been palling around with. Since Parnas is under federal indictment that seems like a reckless thing to say. But he says everyone is running scared since Trump managed to consolidate power after naming Barr, so his only real hope lies in going public.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is a crazy story but we already knew that most of it is true. As tantalizing as these new details are, they don’t entirely fill in the picture of Rudy Giuliani’s scheme and how Trump’s Washington works. What was true a month ago remains true today: The president of the United States and his personal lawyer plotted to extort the leaders of a foreign country into interfering in the presidential election by smearing his political rival. New information comes out every day and none of it will ever change that fact.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heather Digby Parton, also known as “Digby,” is a contributing writer to Salon. She was the winner of the 2014 Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/bill-barr-has-been-covering-up-lev-parnas-explosive-evidence-for-the-past-three-months/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/bill-barr-has-been-covering-up-lev-parnas-explosive-evidence-for-the-past-three-months/</font></a></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Bill Barr has been covering up Lev Parnas’ explosive evidence for the past three months</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lev Parnas and his attorney appear on The Rachel Maddow show.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Joshua Holland January 16, 2020</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Among the eye-popping revelations from Lev Parnas, a low-level Republican hustler and associate of Rudy Giuliani who has been thrust into the spotlight of Trump’s impeachment, is that the president* “knew exactly what was going on” as his flunkies tried to coerce the Ukrainian government into opening a sham investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter–as did Vice President Mike Pence–and that&nbsp;<b>Attorney General Bill Barr “was basically on the team” along with Giuliani</b>, Parnas, his associates Igor Fruman and Semyon Kislin, and lawyers (and frequent Fox News guests) Victoria Toensing and Joseph diGenova, among others</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>It is important to understand that not only did Parnas implicate Barr in the corrupt scheme, but Barr’s Justice Department has been in possession of the trove of documents and recordings that Parnas just turned over to House investigators for several months. Parnas was arrested by federal agents back in October with six electronic devices, and authorities confiscated another eight from his Florida home shortly thereafter.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Democrats requested documents from Parnas, Fruman and Kislin back in September,&nbsp; prior to their arrests. Barr’s Justice Department has fought those efforts tooth-and-nail–including Congressional subpoenas of Giuliani and subsequently of Parnas himself–according to&nbsp;<b>Barr’s theory that the president and his advisors enjoy absolute immunity from Congressional probes. Parnas’s attorneys had to ask a federal judge to allow their client to comply with Congressional document requests.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">If Parnas’s allegations are true, then Barr was a participant in a conspiracy to violate the law and has been actively covering up evidence of that scheme. But it’s important to note here that while Parnas has documentary evidence to support much of what he has said on the record, the claim that Barr was personally “on the team” has yet to be corroborated.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A Justice Department spokesperson issued a denial, but there are some aspects of Parnas’s narrative that fit with what we know from previous reporting.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On Wednesday night, Parnas told Rachel Maddow that he and Giuliana had cut a deal with Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch who has been holed up in Vienna for six years fighting extradition to the US on corruption charges.&nbsp;</b>&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">According to Parnas’s account, they promised Firtash that the Justice Department would make the charges against him disappear in exchange for fodder to use against Biden.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We had to promise Firtash something,” he told the MSNBC host. “It was basically telling him we knew his case is worthless here and that he’s being prosecuted for no reason and basically it could get taken care of….It was all connected At the end of the day, the agenda was to make sure that the Ukrainians announced the Biden investigation.” He added that Barr was “in the loop” on this offer.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Last September, Firtash deposited $1 million into Parnas’s wife’s account for unknown purposes.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Parnas subsequently retained Rudy Giuliani’s firm despite the fact that he was working for Giuliani. This was just days before Parnas departed for Kyiv on his “secret mission” for Trump, and The New York Times reports that having Rudy represent both Trump and Parnas was “a move that might afford their shared mission the confidentiality of attorney-client privilege.” Giuliani denies this account but Firtash’s payment to Parnas was established when prosecutors asked a judge to revoke the latter’s bail for failing to disclose it.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Although Barr ultimately decided not to intervene in the case, The Washington Post reported that Victoria Toensing and Joseph diGenova “secured a rare face-to-face meeting with Attorney General William P. Barr and other Justice Department officials to argue against the charges” last summer.</b>&nbsp;The DOJ also refused to respond to repeated questions over an 18-month period by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) about why Firtash had not yet been extradited, according to NBC.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Of course, everything about Barr’s past would be consistent with his covering up Trump’s extortion scheme, if not actively participating in it. Recall that last September it was reported that “Barr has held private meetings overseas with foreign intelligence officials seeking their help in a Justice Department inquiry that President Trump hopes will discredit U.S. intelligence agencies’ examination of possible connections between Russia and members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">booktv 1119</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="title" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?465487-1/blowout" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rachel Maddow, "Blowout"</font></a></span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MSNBC's Rachel Maddow argued that the gas and oil industry are weakening…</font></span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">rachel bktv 11/19</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">
</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">putin solve for pattern; nat gas makes $ but also divides/disrupts; <b>Fitrash deal as middleman (not needed) 800m$ in one year 2007</b> [but can be siphoned and directed to diff purposes; gazprom itlself loses some $;</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">
</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">2006 Putin back Party of regions Manafort; ~ Orange Yulia Tymo; she undid sweetheart deal, got rid of middleman firtash 2009;&nbsp; she was arrested under anti-corruption by prosecutor [appt by Yut, charged by parl?]</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">
</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">Firtash gets new deal 4 bill$ profit one year?! w/ help of US PR firm?</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">
</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">Yanu 180 on camp pledge to get closer to EU, putin offers 15 bill$ ukr, ppl don'r fall for it; 9/21/12 small # ppl grows fast Maidan revo 100k ppl; pots for armor; Cops harass, putin thinks cold will drive them home but no, embaraa sochi olympics; 2/18/18? slingshots; KIa; ring of fire as defense; snipers, machine guns: we will give our lives to be free, not slaves; yano called off force (lost nerve?) and fled to east (regions safehouse?)&nbsp;</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">
</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">Biden had made mult visits, said wd protect ukr vs russia; said russia "withering" clinging to past, could not cope w/ new changing world; [150m ppl, biggerst geo, gdp less than s korea or italy;&nbsp;</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">
</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">Rudy says firtash a pal, client...</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">resource curse: decline democ, follow $; FF corps make "ownm weather"; saudi: bettee to discover water; OPEC devil's excrement"</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">
</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">Activ meas 2016 a wild pitch; why take huge risk (HC a russia hawk; she could easily find out]&nbsp;</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">
</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">putin desperate to get rid of sanction b.c petrostate; he and rex made deal for 1/4 billion$ (#1 in industry if not history)</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">
</span><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;">Rex hd no clue he wd be offered SoS (never met trump, thot they wanted advice on energy)</span></font></span></div></div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">trump inc pod</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-ukraine-scandal-follow-the-money" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-ukraine-scandal-follow-the-money</font></a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="1.0" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Ukraine scandal is mostly viewed through the prism of politics — an attempt by President Donald Trump to gain an advantage over a political opponent. But, as most things are, it’s also about money — and we found lots of it flowing between key players in the scandal.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="1.1" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On this week’s episode of “Trump, Inc.,” we follow the money.</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2.125rem 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">First, Let’s Meet Our Cast of Ukraine Players</font></h3><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="1.2" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richest among them is Dmitry Firtash, an oligarch who has been battling to avoid an extradition flight to Chicago, where he faces federal charges of bribery. The Department of Justice has&nbsp;<a href="http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/10/31/justice.department.filing.on.firtash.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(38, 142, 217); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">described</a>&nbsp;Firtash as an “upper-echelon” associate “of Russian organized crime.” (He denies the charges and says the prosecution is politically motivated.)</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="1.2" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Firtash made his fortune as a behind-the-scenes middleman selling heavily marked-up Russian gas to Europe. So he wasn’t happy when Vice President Joe Biden pushed Ukraine to roll back corruption. After Biden gave a speech in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2015 saying the energy sector “needs to be competitive, ruled by market principles — not sweetheart deals,” Firtash called it “repulsive.”</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="3.1" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Firtash hired attorneys Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova, who frequently appear on TV defending Trump over Ukraine. The two also represent journalist&nbsp;<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-a-veteran-reporter-worked-with-giuliani-associates-to-launch-the-ukraine-conspiracy" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(38, 142, 217); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">John Solomon</a>, whose stories ended up spreading Ukraine disinformation.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;" /><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="5.0" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And then there’s Lev Parnas, who translated for Firtash’s legal team and is an associate of Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. “I’m the best-paid interpreter in the world,” Parnas reportedly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/01/politics/parnas-firtash-giuliani-ties/index.html?utm_term=link&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twCNN&utm_content=2019-11-01T22%3A52%3A40" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(38, 142, 217); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">said</a>.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="5.1" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Parnas and his partner Igor Fruman were indicted in October over allegedly funneling foreign money into U.S. elections. (They deny the charges.)</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="5.2" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Firtash and the rest of the Ukraine players have all been busy with a flurry of intertwined business ventures. Let’s take a look:</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2.125rem 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Business Venture No. 1: Natural Gas and the Firing of an Ambassador</font></h3><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="5.3" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the same time Parnas and Fruman were suddenly becoming big Republican donors, they were trying to leverage those new political connections to advance their needs in the natural gas industry in Ukraine. Their goals would have been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/ukrainian-oligarch-firtash-linked-giuliani-pals-gas-deals-biden-dirt-n1067516" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(38, 142, 217); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">very profitable</a>&nbsp;for Firtash.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="5.4" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It didn’t work. But they did get something else they were pushing for, specifically, the firing of U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. “They were interested in having a different ambassador at post, I guess for — because they wanted to have business dealings in Ukraine, or additional business dealings,” Yovanovitch testified. “I didn’t understand that, because nobody at the embassy had ever met those two individuals."</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="5.4" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Business Venture No. 2: Submarines, Yachts, Real Estate and Other Things Rich People Like</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.0" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fruman, we’ve learned, has an interesting company,&nbsp;<a href="http://otrada-luxury.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(38, 142, 217); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Otrada Luxury Group</a>, that appears to be catering to those with lots of disposable income. A partial list of goods, according to the company’s brochure: jewelry and expensive watches, yachts, speedboats, private planes, high-end real estate and, of course, submarines and amphibious vehicles.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.1" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We went to the U.S. address listed on a brochure. It’s a rent-by-the-hour office. No one there seemed to know of Fruman or Otrada.</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2.125rem 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Business Venture No. 3: Cybersecurity Consulting Starring Giuliani</font></h3><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.2" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An intriguingly named company owned by Parnas, Fraud Guarantee, paid Giuliani $500,000 for consulting.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/giuliani-associate-left-trail-of-troubled-businesses-before-ukraine-probe-push-11572527608" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(38, 142, 217); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">The Wall Street Journal dug</a>&nbsp;into the company and could find no actual business or customers. Giuliani said the money came from a domestic source, but he declined to say from whom.</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2.125rem 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Business Ventures No. 4 and No. 5: Giuliani’s Podcasts</font></h3><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;" /><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="9.0" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
Although nothing came of that effort, Giuliani is still apparently looking to get into the podcast game. He was overheard during a recent lunch discussing a potential podcast focused on the impeachment. “He is considering several options,” a Giuliani spokeswoman&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/11/politics/rudy-giuliani-impeachment-podcast/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(38, 142, 217); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">told CNN</a>. “Many Americans want to hear directly from Rudy Giuliani.”As ProPublica has reported, Giuliani was also working on a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/giuliani-was-close-to-a-podcast-deal-with-the-news-outlet-that-spread-his-ukraine-conspiracies" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(38, 142, 217); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">podcast with The Hill</a>, the publication that ended up passing along Ukraine disinformation. Giuliani said he was “never paid” for the work and said it was a “perfectly legitimate situation.” The Hill said it had been planning a “podcast network with a multitude of political voices from all sides.”</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2.125rem 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And Then There Is the Jewish Refugee Charity</font></h3><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="9.2" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fruman is also at the helm of a U.S.-based nonprofit that raises money for a Jewish refugee settlement outside Kyiv. The nonprofit, American Friends of Anatevka,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/meet-the-florida-duo-helping-giuliani-dig-dirt-for-trump-in-ukraine" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(38, 142, 217); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">sponsored</a>&nbsp;a trip Giuliani was planning to take to Ukraine to dig up dirt on Trump’s opponents. Giuliani is also the settlement’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christopherm51/fiddlers-on-the-roof-ukraine-impeachment" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(38, 142, 217); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">honorary mayor</a>. American Friends of Anatevka is currently advertising a million-dollar match for donations. Its tax returns show it had less than $1,500 in income in 2017.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="9.3" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.625; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/trumpinc/episodes/trump-inc-diplomat-machers-oligarch" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(38, 142, 217); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Listen to it all unfold here.</font></a></p></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/republicans-have-become-a-cult-run-by-crooks-former-gop-congressional-staffer-explains-why-the-party-has-become-a-creepy-mashup-of-grade-b-totalitarianism-and-freudian-manias/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx many</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">‘Republicans have become a cult run by crooks’: Former GOP congressional staffer explains why the party ‘has become a creepy mashup of grade B totalitarianism’ and ‘Freudian manias’</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Mike Lofgren / Common Dreams November 3, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Item: Bob Livingston. Remember him? When last seen by the wider public in the waning, innocent years of the 20th century, he was the newly minted designee to succeed Newt Gingrich as Republican Speaker of the House.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But he abruptly resigned after it was revealed (thanks to the public service of Larry Flynt) that he had indulged in extramarital affairs. This was something of an inconvenience, given that he was tapped to lead the charge of the light brigade against incumbent president Bill Clinton, impeaching the latter because of his shocking dalliances outside matrimonial bonds.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unlike you or me in similar circumstances, Livingston, a cog in the great clockwork of Republican influence-peddling, landed on his feet. Founding a lobbying shop modestly named the Livingston Group, he developed a brisk business of green-washing dictators (such as Muammar al-Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak), fighting against formal recognition of the Turkish genocide of Armenians in World War I, and other worthy causes of clients with money.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Today’s GOP has become a creepy mashup of grade B totalitarianism and perverted Freudian manias disguised as family values.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Who could have imagined that Bob Livingston would link up with Giuliani and Associates to press the case that the United States needed to dump our career diplomatic personnel who actually knew something about Ukraine in favor of more transactional go-getters who would vigorously press the case that Kiev needed to get on board the Trump reelection campaign?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If you knew Livingston back in the day, you certainly could imagine it, because of course you could. Bob is the breed of Republican that Reagan inspired and Gingrich liberated, the breed that believes it’s all mine, the public be damned, accompanied by a hundred sermons from Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman. The breezy sunlit uplands of their dearest ideals are carpeted with money, soon to be whisked off to an offshore tax haven.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Will Bob end up at a witness table before the House intelligence committee, or in the stand at a grand jury proceeding? Who knows? He is just one element of the massive conservative infrastructure that weighs upon and dominates Washington like some monstrous stone idol. Future historians will boggle at the sheer numbers of the Republican establishment involved in covering up Trump’s illicit activities.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Item: By now, everyone who follows politics has heard of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Ukrainian “businessmen” (but only in the sense that Al Capone or Lucky Luciano were businessmen) who were arrested at Dulles airport while attempting to flee the country. Embarrassingly, they were business chums of Nosferatu-lookalike Rudy Giuliani, our very own president’s personal lawyer. They face charges of making illegal political campaign contributions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But thanks to a local Michigan political blog, we now know that Parnas also traveled the country campaigning on behalf of Republican candidates. Not only has he been photographed several times yukking it up with Giuliani and the local GOP Great White Hope, but the events he attended often coincided with contributions made by someone with a name that looks suspiciously like Fruman’s, with two letters transposed.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Proving what—aside from providing additional clues about illegal contributions by a foreign national? Parnas and Fruman also acted as agents of Dimitry Firtash, a Ukrainian billionaire described by federal prosecutors as an organized crime associate. He made most of his money extracting vigorish from the Russia-Ukraine natural gas trade.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It is difficult to imagine Firtash obtaining such a lucrative cash cow without being a de facto agent of the Kremlin; in fact, Putin advanced him an $11 billion credit line to buy influence in Ukrainian politics. Oh, he was also an associate of Paul Manafort. Remember him?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Firtash is currently in Vienna, fighting U.S. extradition charges that include bribery, racketeering, and money laundering. And, behold, Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing, the Nick and Nora Charles of GOP dirty operatives, have signed up to help defend this poor, friendless billionaire. Who could have imagined?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The tentacles of Russian organized crime, both the official kind emanating from the Kremlin and the more informal sort consisting of laundering hot cash into real estate, have slithered more deeply into the American heartland than most people realize, and it has colonized the Republican Party at the state and local level. The revelation that the National Rifle Association—variously described as an arm of the GOP or as the party’s master—was virtually taken over by Russian interests is just the tip of the iceberg.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The GOP, which loves to shriek from the housetops about its patriotism, is about as independent of hostile foreign influence as Vidkun Quisling’s Nasjonal Samling or Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. Or, for that matter, France’s Vichy Republic, ever subservient to Nazi Germany.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Item: The other day, I had lunch with the Washington correspondent of a respected overseas newspaper. He recounted that he recently had covered an event at which<b> Greg Murphy, a Republican member of Congress from North Carolina, was in attendance. The member was very loquacious in support of the imaginary “fact” that Republicans were totally shut out of the hearings pertaining to the impeachment inquiry.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The correspondent gently remonstrated that it was public knowledge that any Republican who was a member of the three committees making the inquiry could and did take part in the proceedings. The member then merely repeated, with greater emphasis, that the Republicans were “shut out.” The journalist described the congressman’s face as having changed to something like an android, with blank eyes and a fixed stare. On cue, he had transformed himself into a zombie.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It did not help that the event occurred in a NATO ally’s embassy, where the congressman pounded the table and announced to all and sundry that he was so ashamed of liberals in this country gleefully burning American flags. What?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The correspondent speculated to me that there were, in fact, recent televised scenes of flag burnings, but they were staged by Kurds in Syria disgusted at their betrayal by the president on whose behalf the congressman had lobotomized himself. In the congressman’s mind, facts and reality were infinitely fluid, and perhaps the Kurds might as well have been the liberals who haunt his dreams.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He was all too typical of today’s Republican politician: whether he was attempting to gaslight his audience or whether he actually believed what he said is impossible to determine and probably irrelevant anyway. Like a Scientologist, his ideas cannot be rationally debated. It is best simply to avoid the species: insanity is contagious.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What are we to make of all this? The notion, beloved by the press, that Trump holds Republicans in a kind of thrall, like the Klingons’ tractor beam, does not withstand scrutiny, because there is no evidence that the GOP will resume normal behavior once the beam is switched off. They have been getting crazier and crazier for years, which is why I departed Capitol Hill in 2011 to spread the news to all who would listen.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Republicans have now become seriously deranged, and even more cult-like. Louie Gohmert, once a comical outlier, but now the heart and soul of his party, is invoking civil war as a remedy to the potential impeachment of his beloved Führer.</b> And for sheer cringe-inducing weirdness, nothing matches the GOP’s fixation with abortion once they achieve power, which has now reached an almost unbelievable stage of sick obsession in Missouri. Today’s GOP has become a creepy mashup of grade B totalitarianism and perverted Freudian manias disguised as family values.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Once, I called them an apocalyptic cult, which they were and are. But in those relatively naïve days, even I underestimated their growing appetite for crime, betrayal, and certifiable lunacy.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/republicans-have-become-a-cult-run-by-crooks-former-gop-congressional-staffer-explains-why-the-party-has-become-a-creepy-mashup-of-grade-b-totalitarianism-and-freudian-manias/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/republicans-have-become-a-cult-run-by-crooks-former-gop-congressional-staffer-explains-why-the-party-has-become-a-creepy-mashup-of-grade-b-totalitarianism-and-freudian-manias/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://medium.com/textifire/a-special-relationship-the-birth-of-cambridge-analytica-97633129cb06"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://medium.com/textifire/a-special-relationship-the-birth-of-cambridge-analytica-97633129cb06</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">atl mo nat b</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A longtime Republican operative with ties to the controversial data firm hired by President Donald Trump’s campaign team also has a nearly two-decade-long friendship and business relationship with a suspected Russian intelligence agent, Konstantin Kilimnik, who has landed in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s crosshairs.</span></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Washington-based operative<b>, Sam Patten,&nbsp;</b>would not tell me whether he has been interviewed by Mueller’s team as part of their investigation into Russia’s election interference and potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow. But Patten said that his relationship with Kilimnik—a former officer in Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) who worked closely with Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, for over a decade—has “been thoroughly explored by relevant government entities.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>Patten’s long friendship with Kilimnik—which stems from their time working together at the International Republican Institute in Moscow between 2001 and 2003—would likely be enough to draw scrutiny from Mueller, who appears to have homed in on Kilimnik as a potentially significant link between the Trump campaign and Russia. The special counsel’s office alleged in a court filing late last month that Kilimnik still had ties to Russian intelligence services in 2016, and that his conversations with Gates in September of that year are relevant to the investigation. Manafort and Gates’s arrival to the campaign team coincided with the most pivotal Russia-related episode of the election: the release of emails that had been stolen from the Democratic National Committee by hackers working for the GRU, Russia’s premier military-intelligence unit.</div><div>
</div><div>MORE STORIES</div><div>
</div><div>The Shadowy Operative at the Center of the Russia Scandal</div><div>NATASHA BERTRAND</div><div>
</div><div>Paul Manafort, American Hustler</div><div>FRANKLIN FOER</div><div>
</div><div>How the House Intelligence Committee Broke</div><div>NATASHA BERTRAND</div><div>
</div><div>The 2020 U.S. Presidential Race: A Cheat Sheet</div><div>DAVID A. GRAHAM]</div><div>
</div><div>“We’ve known each other for more than 15 years, and we periodically look for places we can work together,” Patten told me of Kilimnik. Their relationship is also proof that Kilimnik’s ability to ingratiate himself with American political consultants went beyond Manafort and Gates—a fact that could serve as a new data point in examining Russia’s ties to Republican operatives in the U.S. By the spring of 2015—when, as my colleague Frank Foer wrote, Manafort’s “life had tipped into a deep trough”—Kilimnik was already working on a new venture with Patten that appeared to be focused on targeted messaging in foreign elections.</div><div>
</div><div>That venture, first reported by The Daily Beast this week, was a private LLC incorporated in February 2015 called Begemot Ventures International (BVI) with a mission to “build the right arguments before domestic and international audiences.” Kilimnik is listed as the firm’s principal and Patten is listed as an executive, according to company records, and the company is registered to Patten’s office address in Washington. A website for Begemot—which was built almost two years after the company was incorporated—links to Patten’s email for inquiries, but does not list the company’s clients.</div><div>
</div><div><b>It is not clear why Patten, who already had a consulting firm registered in D.C., decided to open a brand-new company with Kilimnik.&nbsp;</b>Asked whether any of the firm’s clients were in Russia or Ukraine, Patten replied, “It would be poor business to talk about our clients, but I can tell you declaratively that none of the clients have involvement in the particular circus in the U.S. that seems to have become a news industry in and of itself,” an apparent reference to the Russia investigation. He confirmed that the company, which he described as providing “strategic communications advice for clients outside the U.S.,” is still active, but said it has no projects ongoing at this time.</div><div>
</div><div>“BVI has only worked for clients outside U.S. in other countries,” Patten said. “As a result of all this, I regret it probably won’t be working for anyone anymore, but you never know. Life can be unpredictable.” Patten said that, “to the best of [his] knowledge,” Kilimnik “was no longer working for Manafort when BVI was formed.” But he acknowledged that Kilimnik and Manafort, who began working together in Kiev in 2005, “remained in touch, as is well-known.” Patten’s work in Ukraine dovetailed with Manafort’s. About eight months after BVI was incorporated, in October 2015, Patten was in Ukraine advising Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko on his reelection campaign. On his website, Patten writes that he “helped steer Mayor Klitschko to reelection in Ukraine’s capital and largest city in one of the toughest anti-government atmospheres in that country’s history.”</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Serhiy Lyovochkin—the former chief of staff to ousted Ukrainian President Viktor&nbsp;<b>Yanukovych</b>, who hired Manafort to rebrand the pro-Russia Party of Regions in 2014—brought Patten onto Klitschko’s team</span>, Ukrainian media reported at the time.&nbsp;<b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Dmitry Firtash,&nbsp;</span>a pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarch with ties to Manafort who is known for bankrolling pro-Russia candidates in Ukraine, also boasted in 2015 that he was involved in Klitschko’s campaign. Asked whether Manafort coordinated with Patten and/or Kilimnik on Klitschko’s reelection campaign, a spokesman for Manafort said he had “nothing to add.”&nbsp;&nbsp;</b></div><div>
</div><div>Patten describes himself as an “international political consultant” on his website, but he worked at the Oregon office of Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL Group, helping to fine-tune the firm’s voter targeting operations in the runup to the 2014 midterm elections, according to investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed, now a columnist for Middle East Eye. Patten alluded to this work on his website, writing that he worked with “one of London’s most innovative strategic communications companies” on “a beta run of a cutting-edge electoral approach” that “included taking micro-targeting to the next level” during the 2014 congressional cycle. Those technologies, he wrote, were “adopted by at least one major U.S. presidential candidate.”</div><div>
</div><div>Both Republican candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump employed Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 election. Mueller is now scrutinizing the Trump campaign’s ties to Cambridge Analytica, whose board included Trump’s campaign CEO and former chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Bannon interviewed Patten in July 2016 for his SiriusXM radio show, Breitbart News Daily, about a group Patten represents called the Committee to Destroy ISIS. There is no evidence that Patten did any work with Cambridge Analytica or the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. But his relationship with the data firm did not end with the 2014 midterm elections. According to The Guardian’s Carole Cadwalladr, Patten “played a central role” in the firm’s work in Nigeria in early 2015—work that included hiring Israeli computer hackers to search for “kompromat,” or compromising information, on the candidate challenging the incumbent president at the time, Goodluck Jonathan. Patten didn’t respond to a request for comment about the Nigeria campaign.</div><div>
</div><div>Patten said that he remains in touch with Kilimnik, who he believes has been unfairly scrutinized. “As you might imagine, the barrage of shade and innuendo that has been cast on him since Manafort had his time in Trump Tower has not been something he’d welcomed, nor anything that could objectively be called fair,” Patten said, referring to Manafort’s role on the campaign, which was headquartered at Trump Tower.</div><div>
</div><div>Gates and Manafort—who were indicted by Mueller in late October on charges including money laundering and tax evasion—remained in touch with Kilimnik during the campaign, according to court documents and emails, even though both knew about Kilimnik’s background in Russian intelligence. Kilimnik later acknowledged in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that he and Manafort emailed each other “about Trump and everything” during the campaign. “There were millions of emails,” Kilimnik told RFERL in a text message. “We worked for 11 years. And we discussed a lot of issues, from Putin to women.”</div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
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font-weight: bold; outline: none; cursor: pointer;" /><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/a-dc-operatives-long-relationship-with-a-suspected-russian-spy/557438/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/a-dc-operatives-long-relationship-with-a-suspected-russian-spy/557438/&ved=2ahUKEwjh4pqPpMrlAhVFCKwKHemyCfAQFjACegQIBhAB" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; cursor: pointer;" /><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/a-dc-operatives-long-relationship-with-a-suspected-russian-spy/557438/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/a-dc-operatives-long-relationship-with-a-suspected-russian-spy/557438/&ved=2ahUKEwjh4pqPpMrlAhVFCKwKHemyCfAQFjACegQIBhAB" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; cursor: pointer;" /><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/a-dc-operatives-long-relationship-with-a-suspected-russian-spy/557438/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/a-dc-operatives-long-relationship-with-a-suspected-russian-spy/557438/&ved=2ahUKEwjh4pqPpMrlAhVFCKwKHemyCfAQFjACegQIBhAB" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; cursor: pointer;">A Suspected Russian Spy, With Curious Ties to Washington ...</a></h3>
<div class="TbwUpd" style="display: inline-block; line-height: 1.57; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 1px;"><cite class="iUh30 bc" style="font-style: normal; padding-top: 1px; line-height: 1.5;">https://www.theatlantic.com › politics › archive › 2018/04 › a-dc-operative...</cite></div><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="GHDvEf ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?ei=js68Xaf9N8n2swXl3Kv4Bg&q=scl+cambridge+analytica+firtash&oq=scl+cambridge+analytica+firtash&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i160l3.95342.98095..98715...0.2..0.201.1363.0j7j1......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i71j0j0i22i30j33i299.aukAUG8CXfI&ved=0ahUKEwin_NC2o8rlAhVJ-6wKHWXuCm8Q4dUDCAs&uact=5#" id="am-b2" aria-label="Result Options" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="2ahUKEwjh4pqPpMrlAhVFCKwKHemyCfAQ7B0wAnoECAYQAw" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none 0s ease 0s; user-select: none; background-image: none; border: 0px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 0px; filter: none; width: 13px; display: inline-block;"><span class="mn-dwn-arw" style="border-color: rgb(0, 102, 33) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 5px 4px 0px; width: 0px; height: 0px; margin-left: 3px; top: 7.5px; margin-top: -4px; position: absolute; left: 0px;" /></a><div class="action-menu-panel ab_dropdown" role="menu" tabindex="-1" jsaction="keydown:m.hdke;mouseover:m.hdhne;mouseout:m.hdhue" data-ved="2ahUKEwjh4pqPpMrlAhVFCKwKHemyCfAQqR8wAnoECAYQBA" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; white-space: nowrap; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s ease 0s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nFH0Ii0LLrwJ:https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/a-dc-operatives-long-relationship-with-a-suspected-russian-spy/557438/+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:nFH0Ii0LLrwJ:https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/a-dc-operatives-long-relationship-with-a-suspected-russian-spy/557438/%2B%26cd%3D3%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwjh4pqPpMrlAhVFCKwKHemyCfAQIDACegQIBhAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 1.57;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nFH0Ii0LLrwJ:https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/a-dc-operatives-long-relationship-with-a-suspected-russian-spy/557438/+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:nFH0Ii0LLrwJ:https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/a-dc-operatives-long-relationship-with-a-suspected-russian-spy/557438/%2B%26cd%3D3%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwjh4pqPpMrlAhVFCKwKHemyCfAQIDACegQIBhAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.57; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span class="f" style="line-height: 1.57;">Apr 6, 2018 -&nbsp;</span>Dmitry&nbsp;Firtash, a pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarch with ties to Manafort ... the Oregon office of&nbsp;Cambridge Analytica's&nbsp;parent company,&nbsp;SCL Group,&nbsp;...</span></a></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 27px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="CAIQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwjh4pqPpMrlAhVFCKwKHemyCfAQFSgAMAN6BAgCEAA" style=""><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><div style=""><p><font face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/gop-sens-ron-johnson-and-marsha-blackburn-are-tied-to-russian-money-and-trump-conspiracy-theories-theyre-not-alone/"><font face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/gop-sens-ron-johnson-and-marsha-blackburn-are-tied-to-russian-money-and-trump-conspiracy-theories-theyre-not-alone/</font></a></p><p><font face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman"><b>GOP Sens. Ron Johnson and Marsha Blackburn are tied to Russian money and Trump conspiracy theories. They’re not alone</b></font></p><p>
</p><p><font face="Times New Roman">Written by Sophia Tesfaye / Salon October 30, 2019</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman">Nancy Pelosi has announced that the House will finally hold a formal vote dictating the rules for the impeachment inquiry, six weeks after it was launched by a whistleblower’s complaint mysteriously withheld from Congress. And on Tuesday, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman backed up both the initial whistleblower and U.S. diplomat Bill Taylor by testifying that he too was concerned about the Trump administration’s push to use congressionally-allocated military aid to Ukraine to coerce an investigation into Joe Biden.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman">Congressional Republicans have long since stopped defending Trump on the merits since shortly after the White House released a transcript of a July call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Instead, they’ve sought refuge in increasingly meaningless process arguments. So of course Pelosi agreeing to a formal vote on the rules of impeachment hasn’t stopped Republican complaints about the process. The goalposts will shift once again. No matter what the Democrats agree to, Republicans will complain about procedural unfairness and also refuse to concede the inquiry is legitimate. But how much of Republicans’ unwillingness to hold Trump accountable for his self-dealing is because they’re in on it?</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On Monday the Washington Post published an interview with a Ukrainian diplomat who claimed to have met with Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., this summer to discuss the baseless conspiracy theory promoted by President Trump that Ukrainian officials had interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Hillary Clinton.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Johnson reportedly met with Ukrainian diplomat Andrii Telizhenko&nbsp;</b>for at least 30 minutes on Capitol Hill in July, and Telizhenko then met with Johnson’s Senate staff for five additional hours.&nbsp;According to the report, “the discussions focused in part on ‘the DNC issue’ — a reference to his unsubstantiated claim that the Democratic National Committee worked with the Ukrainian government in 2016 to gather incriminating information about then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Telizhenko said he could not recall the date of the meeting, but a review of his Facebook page revealed a photo of him and Johnson posted on July 11.”</span></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman">Johnson is a vocal Trump defender who has hounded the inspector general of the intelligence community about investigating media leaks regarding the Ukraine call. He has previously admitted that he was told by Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, that Ukraine needed to “get to the bottom of what happened in 2016” in order to receive military aid.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As Johnson told the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, after Sondland told him that, he was assured “if President Trump has that confidence” that the Ukrainians would do his bidding, “then he’ll release the military spending.” Now, as the Post points out, Johnson’s “knowledge of key events” in the case may “complicate his role as a juror in a trial by the Senate.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman">Recall that when Johnson was asked about his defense of Trump’s actions, he snapped at the simple question from NBC News’ Chuck Todd and spun out the same deep state conspiracy theory pushed by the likes of Fox News’ Sean Hannity.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman"><b>Beyond his apparent involvement in Trump’s Ukraine dealings, Johnson is alleged to have benefited from campaign money illegally funneled from Russia via shell corporations owned by the National Rifle Association, which helped him win his tight 2016 race in Wisconsin.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Political action committees for Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham reportedly accepted $7.35 million in contributions from a Ukrainian-born oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the 2016 election.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> McConnell and Graham are co-sponsors of a new resolution condemning the House impeachment inquiry</span>. At least 50 Senate Republicans, several of whom have refused to publicly comment on the growing Ukraine scandal — citing a need to remain impartial for a likely Senate impeachment trial — have already signed onto that bill. The resolution is currently paused in the Senate Rules Committee until the House votes on impeachment rules later this week.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As House Democrats’ investigation has rapidly unveiled ever more damaging material regarding Trump’s Ukraine scandal, public support for impeachment has shot up. Reportedly nervous about his wall of defense in the Senate crumbling, the president recently hosted several GOP senators at the White House, including top Johnson, Graham, John Thune of South Dakota and John Kennedy of Louisiana, last week. A day earlier,&nbsp;<b>Thune and Kennedy, had blocked a Democratic bill to provide funding for states to shore up election security. The next day, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., quietly blocked three election-security bills for the second time this year.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“You know, it’s not a good sign if you’re doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result,” Blackburn said on the Senate floor late last week. She is among the Republican senators with close ties to a U.S.-sanctioned Russian politician who is accused of illegally channeling Russian funds through the NRA. Under Senate rules, any individual senator can block a vote on a bill.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman">When Senate Republicans are not prematurely dismissing an impeachment inquiry on which they will probably have to render judgment, they continue to protect Trump’s refusal to clamp down on potential election interference. If Republican charges of a “kangaroo court” are anything, they are a classic case of projection: How can Senate Republicans possibly serve as impartial jurors in a trial of the president, when they are implicated in the same pattern of political malfeasance?</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman">Sophia Tesfaye is Salon’s Deputy Politics Editor and resides in Washington, D.C. You can find her on Twitter at @SophiaTesfaye.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">2 guys arrested for launder foreign $ into superpac, prolly from firtash</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">thet and rudy booked a trip to vienna austria; trip cancelled b/c info came out?</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style=""><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman">omg this could finish djt? 10/18/19</font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/john-solomon/how-conservative-writer-john-solomon-served-conduit-rudy-giulianis-ukraine-conspiracy" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font face="Times New Roman">https://www.mediamatters.org/john-solomon/how-conservative-writer-john-solomon-served-conduit-rudy-giulianis-ukraine-conspiracy</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At the center of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump lies a disinformation campaign led by his personal attorney</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">&nbsp;Rudy Giuliani</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;that was aided and abetted by conservative writer John Solomon. Through Solomon, Giuliani injected his disinformation campaign straight into the heart of conservative media -- Fox News -- with seemingly full knowledge of at least some at Fox. And eventually, Solomon&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/john-solomon-to-join-fox-news-as-contributor" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">landed</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;a job at the network.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">It is now known that Trump&nbsp;<a href="https://www.axios.com/timeline-trump-ukraine-investigation-2e91c79c-d33e-45c4-b78f-6b34bf597e5d.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">blessed</a>&nbsp;Giuliani to run a shadow foreign policy campaign in Ukraine, in which he sought information that would undermine the intelligence community's findings that Russia interfered in our 2016 election to benefit Trump. Giuliani was also trying to dig up dirt to smear former Vice President Joe Biden, a front-runner to challenge Trump in the 2020 election.&nbsp;</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">Much attention has focused on Giuliani’s actions and the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/us/politics/rudy-giuliani-ukraine-associates.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">shady cast of characters</a>&nbsp;he worked with, but less has been paid to the right-wing media figures who colluded with the president’s lawyer to make his smear campaign public -- a plan that came dangerously close to succeeding.&nbsp;</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">What follows is a case study in how&nbsp;right-wing media work hand in hand with Trump cronies to smear his enemies, undermine democracy, and defend the president at all costs.&nbsp;</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">Here’s how it went down.</font></p></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font face="Times New Roman">Key Takeaways</font></h2></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;" /><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; clear: both; list-style: none; padding: 0px;"><li dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">Rudy Giuliani, working with con men and Trump cronies, pursued an “investigation” in Ukraine that he claimed showed both Ukrainian collusion with Democrats in 2016 and evidence that then-Vice President Joe Biden acted corruptly in Ukraine to benefit his son.</font></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">In March, Giuliani sent the results of his investigation to the State Department to be investigated and to conservative columnist John Solomon.&nbsp;</font></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">The same month, Solomon began publishing a series of columns that mirrored the sourcing and claims Giuliani made in his State Department dossier.</font></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">Over the next six months, Solomon published 45 columns aimed at discrediting the Russia investigation, 12 of which focused primarily on Ukraine.&nbsp;</font></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">During that same time period, Solomon appeared on Fox News or Fox Business at least 72 times.&nbsp;</font></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">Fifty-one of those appearances were on&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Hannity</em>, whose host dutifully promoted Solomon’s scoops and wove them into his ever-evolving conspiracy theory that deep state elements in the government have been plotting to overthrow Trump.</font></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">On October 5, John Solomon landed a job at Fox.</font></p></li></ul></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font face="Times New Roman">Key players</font></h2></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Rudy Giuliani</strong>&nbsp;-- the president’s personal attorney who has traveled around the globe attempting to dig up dirt on Democrats and discredit the Russia investigation on Trump’s behalf.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Lev Parnas</strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Igor Fruman</strong>&nbsp;-- two Soviet-born&nbsp;<a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article235626327.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">con men</a>&nbsp;with ties to Ukraine who worked with Giuliani to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mikesallah/rudy-giuliani-ukraine-trump-parnas-fruman" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">concoct</a>&nbsp;the disinformation campaign and to get the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-lev-parnas-worked-for-rudy-giuliani-and-donald-trump" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">fired</a>, reportedly in the hopes of advancing their business interests in the country. The two have since been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-foreign-born-men-who-helped-giuliani-on-ukraine-arrested-on-campaign-finance-charges-11570714188" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">arrested</a>&nbsp;for campaign finance violations related to making allegedly illegal campaign donations to Republican candidates and committees, as well as a pro-Trump super PAC. They also reportedly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-whistleblower-firtash/indicted-giuliani-associate-worked-on-behalf-of-ukrainian-oligarch-firtash-idUSKBN1WQ2H5" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">worked</a>&nbsp;for Dmitry Firtash.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><b id="docs-internal-guid-6be9c6ab-7fff-c298-54ef-65a76d55d209" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Dmitry Firtash</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;--</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> a Ukrainian pro-Russian oligarch and former&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/doj-ex-manafort-associate-firtash-top-tier-comrade-russian-mobsters-n786806" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">business&nbsp;</a>associate of Paul Manafort who is in Austria fighting extradition to the United States to face charges&nbsp;<a href="https://abc7chicago.com/politics/giuliani-aide-linked-to-rich-ukrainian-fighting-extradition-to-chicago-/5612232/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">related</a>&nbsp;to a bribery conspiracy. At the same time Parnas and Fruman were working with Giuliani, the two were&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/ukrainian-oligarch-firtash-linked-giuliani-pals-gas-deals-biden-dirt-n1067516" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">reportedly</a>&nbsp;also working on Firtash’s behalf to push for the removal of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine as part of a plan to install new leadership at Ukraine’s Naftogaz gas company. Part of this plan reportedly would have included&nbsp;<b style="">Naftogaz paying “Firtash a debt of more than $200 million that Firtash believes he is owed by the company</b>.” NBC reported that while this was happening, Firtash “was playing a key role in the effort by Parnas, Fruman, and Giuliani to hunt for dirt on Donald Trump's political opponents in Ukraine.”</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Victoria Toensing</strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Joe diGenova</strong></span>&nbsp;--<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;two attorneys closely tied to Trump who also worked with Giuliani to support his efforts in Ukraine. The duo are known for their role in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/donald-trumps-new-legal-team-comes-straight-sean-hannitys-greenroom" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">bolstering conspiracy theories</a>&nbsp;about the Russia investigation and at one point were considered to join Trump’s personal legal team. The two quietly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-23/trump-friendly-lawyers-join-legal-team-of-ukraine-s-firtash" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">represent</a>&nbsp;Dmitry Firtash in fighting his extradition to the United States. They&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-foreign-born-men-who-helped-giuliani-on-ukraine-arrested-on-campaign-finance-charges-11570714188" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">hired</a>&nbsp;Parnas as an “interpreter” to work with them on the Firtash case while Parnas was also working with Giuliani.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">John Solomon</strong>&nbsp;-- a conservative columnist who until recently was the executive vice president of The Hill. Solomon was the conduit through which Giuliani, Parnas, Toensing and diGenova planted their stories in order to spread their coordinated disinformation campaign through the media.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sean Hannity</strong>&nbsp;-- Fox News host who is close to Trump and worked with Giuliani to make his show an integral part of their media strategy, providing a place where they could sow the seeds of the smear campaign against Biden. Giuliani and Hannity discussed this strategy in January, and Solomon became a staple on Hannity’s prime-time programming.</font></p></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font face="Times New Roman">The plan</font></h2></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman"><b>According to Parnas, his friendship with Giuliani&nbsp;<a href="https://www.whqr.org/post/meet-businessman-helping-giuliani-find-dirt-democrats-ukraine#stream/0" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">began</a>&nbsp;two years ago as they were running in similar political circles and attending the same events. In late 2018, Parnas and Fruman began connecting Giuliani to a network of disgraced former and current Ukrainian officials and prosecutors to dig up dirt on Biden and the 2016 election.</b>&nbsp;</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The conspiracy theory they&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/rudys-big-plan-to-defend-trump-on-ukraine-play-the-george-soros-card?ref=author" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">concocted</a>&nbsp;went like this: Ukrainian officials worked with Democrats to find dirt on Trump’s one-time campaign manager Paul Manafort in order to damage Trump. They did so, Giuliani claimed, by fabricating the “black ledger” that showed that Manafort had received millions of dollars from the former pro-Russia Ukrainian ruling party that had been recently overthrown. The revelation of this ledger helped&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/us/politics/paul-manafort-resigns-donald-trump.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">force</a>&nbsp;Manafort’s resignation from Trump’s campaign, and Manafort was eventually&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apnews.com/7f967313552c4f7fb56c9c1a1cfbb97a" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">prosecuted and convicted</a>&nbsp;of a wide range of crimes as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian electoral interference in the 2016 election.&nbsp;</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In addition, according to Giuliani’s&nbsp;<a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1909/19/CPT.01.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">conspiracy theory</a>, the Ukrainian Embassy was working with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and in return, the American Embassy and the Obama administration actively blocked investigations in&nbsp;Ukraine that Giuliani claims targeted Democrats’ political allies.&nbsp;<b>As with most conspiracy theories on the right, George Soros is involved in this one too.</b>&nbsp;The theory posits that a Ukrainian good governance, anti-corruption group -- the Anticorruption Action Centre (AntAC) -- was involved in framing Manafort and was corruptly tied to an FBI agent who was investigating Manafort. Giuliani also claims that an investigation into the group was shut down due to U.S. pressure and that the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-state-department-official-expected-to-face-questions-about-ukraine-and-giuliani/2019/10/14/8ba23d18-eeca-11e9-b2da-606ba1ef30e3_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">provided</a>&nbsp;Ukrainian officials with a “do not prosecute” list that included people linked to AntAC. As a bonus, through the “investigation,” Giuliani claims to have been presented with evidence that then-Vice President Biden acted corruptly by withholding U.S. aid to force the resignation of a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating his son.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman"><b>Nothing about this conspiracy theory is true.</b>&nbsp;First, there’s no evidence that the infamous “black ledger” was fraudulent, and several payments listed in the document have been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/meet-the-florida-duo-helping-giuliani-dig-dirt-for-trump-in-ukraine" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">confirmed</a>&nbsp;to be accurate. The Intercept&nbsp;<a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/09/22/reporters-stop-helping-donald-trump-spread-lies-joe-biden-ukraine/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">reported</a>: “Sergii Leshchenko, a former investigative journalist and reformist member of parliament who helped publicize the off-the-books payments” said that “Giuliani ‘is a liar’ for saying that the black ledger was a forgery. ‘It is a real document, with real signatures,’ Leshchenko said in a telephone interview, explaining that it had been examined by Ukrainian law enforcement experts.” Giuliani seems to have adopted the false claim about the ledger from Manafort, whose legal team has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/giuliani-consulted-on-ukraine-with-imprisoned-paul-manafort-via-a-lawyer/2019/10/02/7a6dc542-e486-11e9-b7da-053c79b03db8_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">embraced</a>&nbsp;it since 2017 and whom Guiliani has been meeting with to discuss the materials.&nbsp;</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">As for Giuliani’s claims that investigations into AntAC were dropped due to political pressure,&nbsp; the State Department has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/giuliani-says-state-dept-vowed-investigate-after-he-gave-ukraine-n1061931" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">called</a>&nbsp;claims of a so-called “do not prosecute” list “complete poppycock.” And an investigation into the group’s handling of foreign aid money was widely believed to be&nbsp;<a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/09/22/reporters-stop-helping-donald-trump-spread-lies-joe-biden-ukraine/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">politically motivated</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/rudys-big-plan-to-defend-trump-on-ukraine-play-the-george-soros-card?ref=author" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">retaliation</a>&nbsp;for the group’s anti-corruption work. Finally, while Biden did pressure Ukraine to fire a prosecutor who was roundly criticized for blocking corruption investigations, there’s no evidence that he did so to benefit his son. In reality, the push to get the prosecutor in question, Viktor Shokin, fired was a part of an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/66101/trump-and-giulianis-quest-for-fake-ukraine-dirt-on-biden-an-explainer/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">anti-corruption effort</a>&nbsp;by advocates and international supporters of Ukraine. The United States’ well-established position was that ousting Shokin was a critical aspect of anti-corruption measures. The investigation into the energy company whose board included Hunter Biden was long dormant, and Hunter Biden was never the subject of the investigation.&nbsp;</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Nonetheless, Giuliani&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/giuliani-ukrainians-brought-me-substantial-evidence-of-collusion-with-hillary-clinton-other-top-democrats" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">says</a>&nbsp;he completed his “investigation” in March and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/giuliani-says-state-dept-vowed-investigate-after-he-gave-ukraine-n1061931" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">sent</a>&nbsp;his findings to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/02/politics/state-department-inspector-general-briefing-congress/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">understanding</a>&nbsp;that Pompeo would investigate. (NBCNews.com, however,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/giuliani-says-state-dept-vowed-investigate-after-he-gave-ukraine-n1061931" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">reported</a>: “A source with knowledge of the events said ...&nbsp;that Pompeo never promised Rudy Giuliani that he would investigate the contents of the envelope or anything related to Ukraine.”) Giuliani also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/11/us/politics/rudy-giuliani-investigation.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">sent</a>&nbsp;the materials to Solomon.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman"><b>NBCNews.com&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/giuliani-says-state-dept-vowed-investigate-after-he-gave-ukraine-n1061931" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">obtained</a>&nbsp;a copy of the documents that Giuliani sent to the State Department in March and reported that they contained “a glimpse of an intricate media strategy to spread the story including segments being placed on Fox News.</b>”<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;NBC said the “documents also show that Giuliani, through conservative writer John&nbsp;<b>Solomon’s columns in The Hill, attempted to tie former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch to the liberal donor George Soros</b>&nbsp;as part of a massive conspiracy to take down Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and help Hillary Clinton win the 2016 election.” The materials Giuliani sent included interview notes from interviews he conducted with then-current and former Ukrainian prosecutors that “paint the picture of the narrative that Giuliani has been pushing involving the Bidens.”</span></font></p></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font face="Times New Roman">The media strategy</font></h2></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font face="Times New Roman">Giuliani and associates feed story to Solomon</font></h4></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Around the same time Giuliani sent his packet of materials to the State Department, he also sent the materials to Solomon, who began reporting on its contents through the opinion pages of The Hill without identifying the materials as having originated with Giuliani</span>. Solomon’s writing for some time&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/leaked-memo-colleagues-unload-on-john-solomon-the-reporter-who-kicked-off-trumps-ukraine-conspiracy" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">had focused</a>&nbsp;heavily around trying to discredit the Mueller investigation and the notion that Russia meddled into the 2016 elections to help Trump. On March 20, he&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/435029-as-russia-collusion-fades-ukrainian-plot-to-help-clinton-emerges" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">published</a>&nbsp;the first of many scoops specifically related to Ukraine’s involvement in this effort. Over the next six months, Solomon published 45 columns aimed at discrediting the Russia investigation, 12 of which primarily focused on Ukraine.&nbsp;</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman"><b>In his reporting, Solomon spelled out Giuliani’s conspiracy theory in detail. For instance:</b></font></p></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; clear: both; list-style: none; padding: 0px;"><li dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">He reported that Ukrainian officials&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/437719-ukrainian-to-us-prosecutors-why-dont-you-want-our-evidence-on-democrats" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">claimed</a>&nbsp;to have “evidence of wrongdoing by American Democrats and their allies in Kiev, ranging from 2016 election interference to obstructing criminal probes,” at least some of it&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/436816-joe-bidens-2020-ukrainian-nightmare-a-closed-probe-is-revived" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">related</a>&nbsp;to Biden.&nbsp;</font></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">Solomon&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/437719-ukrainian-to-us-prosecutors-why-dont-you-want-our-evidence-on-democrats" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">reported</a>&nbsp;that these officials tried to “deliver their evidence to Washington” but were unable because the American ambassador (Yovanovitch) “blocked” them “from obtaining a visa” to the U.S.&nbsp;</font></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">He weaved an elaborate story about Americans working with Ukrainians to dig up dirt on Trump’s one-time 2016 campaign manager Manafort, in order to damage Trump.&nbsp;</font></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">He&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/449206-fbi-warned-early-and-often-that-manafort-file-might-be-fake-used-it-anyway" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">claimed</a>&nbsp;that the infamous “black ledger” that showed Manafort had received millions in undisclosed payments from Ukrainian officials was fabricated and<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/440730-how-the-obama-white-house-engaged-ukraine-to-give-russia-collusion" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">&nbsp;released</a>&nbsp;to damage Trump. He also&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/440730-how-the-obama-white-house-engaged-ukraine-to-give-russia-collusion" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">suggested</a>&nbsp;that in January 2016, Obama’s Department of Justice pressured Ukraine to help the department investigate Manafort in response to Trump’s rise in popularity in the Republican primary race (Manafort did not join the Trump campaign until March 2016).&nbsp;</font></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/456619-george-soross-secret-2016-access-to-state-exposes-big-money-hypocrisy-of-democrats" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">strongly suggested</a>&nbsp;that the Obama State Department pressured Ukrainian officials to drop an investigation into a Ukrainian good governance group linked to Soros because Soros backed Clinton.&nbsp;</font></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">He also&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/435906-us-embassy-pressed-ukraine-to-drop-probe-of-george-soros-group-during-2016" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">claimed</a>&nbsp;the U.S. ambassador’s “do not prosecute” list included people related to this organization, and he strained to&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/435906-us-embassy-pressed-ukraine-to-drop-probe-of-george-soros-group-during-2016" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">link</a>&nbsp;the group to the Manafort investigation by claiming that an FBI agent involved in the investigation is tied to the same group.</font></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">And, of course, he&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/436816-joe-bidens-2020-ukrainian-nightmare-a-closed-probe-is-revived" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">claimed&nbsp;</a>that Biden withheld a billion dollars worth of U.S. aid to shut down an investigation into Burisma Holdings and Biden’s son Hunter through his position on the company’s board.</font></p></li></ul></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman"><b>Solomon’s reporting relies heavily on the sources&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Giuliani</span>&nbsp;fed him.</b>&nbsp;In an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-gambit-for-trump-giuliani-engaged-parade-of-ukrainian-prosecutors/2019/09/26/4d3dc72e-e072-11e9-8fd3-d943b4ed57e0_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">interview</a>&nbsp;with The Washington Post, Giuliani named three current and former Ukrainian prosecutors as persons he interviewed, specifically&nbsp;<b>former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin</b>, then-Ukrainian&nbsp;<b>Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko,</b>&nbsp;and Nazar Kholodnytsky, head of Ukraine’s Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.<b>&nbsp;</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Giuliani is also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/giuliani-meets-with-former-diplomat-as-he-continues-to-press-ukraine-inquiries/2019/05/24/faf59e0c-7e64-11e9-a66c-d36e482aa873_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">known</a>&nbsp;to have met with a former Ukrainian diplomat named Andrii Telizhenko and is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/world/europe/ukraine-prosecutor-biden-trump.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">linked</a>&nbsp;to Kostiantyn Kulyk -- Lutsenko’s deputy who was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/09/27/giuliani-trump-ukraine-005098" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">indicted</a>&nbsp;on corruption charges in 2016.</b>&nbsp;Eight of the twelve columns Solomon wrote on the topic featured at least one of these five sources.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At least three of Solomon’s columns feature information meant to undermine the validity of the Russia investigation that may have been leaked from the Ukrainian pro-Russia oligarch</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Dmitry Firtash</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">’s legal team, which included&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">diGenova and Toensing.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Toensing and diGenova</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/03/ukraine-scandal-digenova-toensing-022049" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">have been working</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;with Firtash since at least July -- and indeed <b>Solomon published an&nbsp;</b></span><b><a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/454185-how-mueller-deputy-andrew-weissmanns-offer-to-an-oligarch-could-boomerang" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">entire column</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;in July based exclusively off material and anonymous sources from Firtash’s legal team. They appear to have been involved with his case much earlier than July, though.&nbsp;</span></b></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Included in the material Giuliani sent to the State Department is&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/biden-ukraine-dirt-file-has-private-email-between-john-solomon-and-rudy-allies" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">a March 26 email</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;from Solomon -- titled “Fwd: Outline of&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Soros</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;reporting, including embedded documents” -- in which&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Solomon forwarded a draft of his article before it was published to the same three people working with Giuliani who are also known to have been working with<b> Firtash</b> -- Parnas, Toensing, and diGenova</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;The&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/435906-us-embassy-pressed-ukraine-to-drop-probe-of-george-soros-group-during-2016" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">column</a>&nbsp;was the first of three that mentioned Firtash, and it attempted to tie AntAC -- and through it Soros -- “to highly visible U.S. actions against the oligarch </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Dmitri Firtash,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> a major target of the Soros group, and Manafort.” Solomon repeated the suggestion in his August 7&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/456619-george-soross-secret-2016-access-to-state-exposes-big-money-hypocrisy-of-democrats" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">column</a>&nbsp;on Soros’ “secret 2016 access” to State Department officials. In a fourth&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/463307-solomon-these-once-secret-memos-cast-doubt-on-joe-bidens-ukraine-story" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">column</a>, Solomon reported on an affidavit of a former Ukrainian prosecutor that he exclusively received. The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/427618359/Shokin-Statement" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">affidavit</a>&nbsp;was prepared “at the request of lawyers acting for Dmitry Firtash … for use in legal proceedings in Austria.”</span></font></p></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font face="Times New Roman">Solomon brings the conspiracy theory to Fox</font></h4></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The next stage in the plan involved Solomon taking his “scoop” to Fox News, specifically to Sean</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Hannity. From March 20 -- when Solomon published his first story on the Ukraine conspiracy theory -- through October 2, Solomon appeared on Fox News or Fox Business at least 72 times.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Fifty-one of those appearances were on&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Hannity</em>, whose host dutifully promoted Solomon’s scoops and wove them into his ever-evolving conspiracy theory that “deep state” elements in the government have been plotting to overthrow Trump. Giuliani also appeared on those networks frequently, clocking in at least 64 appearances on Fox News and Fox Business during that time period.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Toensing and diGenova appeared over 75 times on the two networks during this period.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The fact that they were working together on these stories, or -- in the case of Toensing and diGenova -- that they were legally representing Firtash, was certainly not transparent to viewers. In perhaps the most egregious example, on the September 26&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/nunes-compares-ukraine-call-hysteria-to-russia-hoax" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">episode</a>&nbsp;of&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Hannity</em>, Hannity hosted Solomon to report on an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/427618359/Shokin-Statement" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">affidavit</a>&nbsp;he obtained from the disgraced prosecutor Shokin, who claimed he was forced to resign to stop the investigation into the company connected to&nbsp; Hunter Biden. Hannity then hosted diGenova and Toensing to discuss it, and the two hailed the affidavit as proof of their conspiracy theory and declared it would “shoot a hole in” Biden’s defense.&nbsp;</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">However, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/427618359/Shokin-Statement" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">affidavit</a>&nbsp;states that it was prepared “at the request of lawyers acting for <b>Dmitry Firtash</b> … for use in legal proceedings in Austria.”<b> In other words, diGenova and Toensing were part of the legal team that&nbsp;produced the affidavit that Solomon later exclusively obtained, wrote up, and then took to Hannity -- a fact not mentioned by any of them.</b> Giuliani has since repeatedly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-rudy-giuliani-on-face-the-nation-september-29-2019/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">referenced</a>&nbsp;this affidavit in numerous media appearances to support his claims about Biden’s alleged corruption.&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hannity repeatedly gave clues suggesting he knew the full range of stories Solomon would be reporting.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;For instance, despite the fact that Solomon’s March 20 column did not mention Biden or corruption, Hannity teased on his radio show that day that “I just happen to have a little birdie telling me in my ear that, well, Joe Biden may have an issue here that is bigger than anything ever alleged about Donald Trump.” </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On September 23, Hannity and Giuliani&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/pence-calls-out-the-assume-the-worst-media-after-whistleblower-complaint" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">admitted</a>&nbsp;to having talked about the Biden Ukraine story as early as January.</span></font></p></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font face="Times New Roman">The payoff</font></h2></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Giuliani repeatedly touted and praised Solomon’s “blockbuster” reporting.</b>&nbsp;He has at least twice opined that Solomon should “get a Pulitzer Prize” and has taken to Twitter to sing Solomon’s praises:</font></p></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--twitter-tweet paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field field--name-field-twitter-tweet field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman">Hannity, too, repeatedly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/sen-graham-on-democrats-calls-for-trumps-impeachment" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">praised</a>&nbsp;Solomon’s “great reporting” as he hyped Solomon’s columns. He regularly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/philadelphia-residents-taunt-police-officers-during-standoff" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">described</a>&nbsp;Solomon as a “friend” of the program and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/lara-trump-biden-has-realized-he-needs-to-move-farther-left-to-fit-in-with-new-democrats" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">declared</a>&nbsp;that mainstream news outlets, like The New York Times, “peddled lies, conspiracy theories and hoax[es]” about the Russia investigation whereas Solomon “was right” all along. On April 25, Hannity asked Trump about Solomon’s and others' reporting around the Russia investigation, and the president&nbsp;<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-interview-sean-hannity-fox-telephone-april-25-2019" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">replied</a>: “These are great reporters. … These are people that should be getting Pulitzers.” Trump added, “These are the ones that should be winning. It sounds like big stuff. It sounds very interesting with Ukraine.”&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman"><b>Solomon’s efforts paid off. On October 5, Fox News&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/john-solomon-to-join-fox-news-as-contributor" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">confirmed</a>&nbsp;that John Solomon had joined the network as a contributor.</b>&nbsp;During his first appearance on Hannity as an official Fox News employee, Hannity&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/lara-trump-donald-trump-will-win-in-2020-because-american-people-are-winning" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">said</a>: “John Solomon, welcome to the family. It’s been a long time coming, sir.”</font></p></div></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div></div></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style="">=
</font><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style="">hmmn blog
</font><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style="" /><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style=""><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman">Follow the Russian Natural Gas</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="">If you want to understand Carter Page</div><div style="">Follow the Russian Natural Gas</div><div style="">WIB POLITICS February 14, 2018</div><div style="">&nbsp;Brian E. Frydenborg</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><b>To make sense of Carter Page — an American oil consultant and former foreign-policy adviser to Donald Trump — you have to look at his proximity to Ukraine, Russia and some seemingly bizarre natural-gas deals.</b></div><div style="">
</div><div style="">Back in the mid-2000s, future Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort set up shop in Ukraine to do some consulting work, bringing his protégé Richard “Rick” Gates to assist. Both have been hit with criminal charges by FBI special counsel Robert Mueller and his team.</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">On one level, the duo ran the politics for disgraced pro-Russia Ukrainian politician Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych won Ukraine’s presidency in 2010 in large part due to Manafort’s efforts and the scheme detailed below. He was driven out of power in 2014 by Ukraine’s Euromaidan revolution.</div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><b>On another level, Manafort and Gates worked with Putin-linked mobsters and oligarchs in one of the most elaborate and complex money-laundering schemes in history.</b></div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This plot involved massive natural gas deals between Russia and Ukraine and their main intermediary RosUkrEnergo. Russian oil giant Gazprom generally sold gas to Ukrainian businessman<b> Dmytro Vasylovych Firtash </b>via RUE at a significantly discounted price. Firtash would mark up the prices when selling the gas onward to Ukraine.</span></div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The profits — billions of dollars — were then allegedly laundered by the Russian mafia and used to bribe and control Ukrainian politicians to bend them to Putin’s will and increasingly make Ukraine’s political system subservient to Russian interests.</span></div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ukrainian politicians who were not in Putin’s pocket resisted this arrangement, leading to a major dispute over the gas deals in January 2006. Russia ended up shutting off Ukraine’s gas in the dead of winter. A new deal even more favorable to Putin resulted — one that made RUE the exclusive, direct supplier of all Russian and Central Asian gas imports.</span></div><div style="">
</div><div style="">Along with Gazprom, RUE sold to a new joint venture between RUE and Ukraine’s Naftogaz called UkrGazEnergo, which in turn marketed oil and gas to Ukraine’s industrial customers. RUE itself sold to Naftogaz for onward sale to Ukraine’s residential and municipal customers.</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">This only dramatically increased the corrupt markup opportunities involving Ukraine’s gas, further cheating and angering Ukrainians.</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">Another part of the deal involved the major Russian state-owned power company RAO UES, which paid for and imported Ukrainian electricity to sell in Russia. Ukraine generated this power from the gas UkrGazEnergo acquired to sell within Ukraine.</div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Obviously, this scheme gave Firtash additional points with which he could mark up prices and generate a profit. It’s telling that gas already being transported by Russia’s Gazprom pipelines into Ukraine through RUE — itself half-owned by Gazprom — was being used to generate electricity in Russia.</span></div><div style="">
</div><div style="">This confusing arrangement makes no logistical or logical sense, as it would have been easier for Russia to just ship gas from Gazprom to RAO through Russia. But for allegedly generating illicit funds in order to dominate Ukrainian politics, it all makes perfect sense.</div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Enter Page. </b>He moved to Moscow in 2004 to set up Merrill Lynch’s office there and remained until 2007. During this period — in which the complex gas deals were scouted, negotiated and put into effect — Page claims to have advised both Gazprom and RAO on major deals.</span></div><div style="">
</div><div style="">Despite his warped, very pro-Russian worldview, Page clearly possesses deep knowledge of the energy sector and regional geopolitics. The apparently informal meet-and-greet, wine-and-dine roles he often played offered him perfect opportunities to soak up gossip from drunken gas executives celebrating their blatant corruption.</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">Page was only too eager to trade in information. Even if he was hardly a major player, it’s hard to accept that he wasn’t aware of the Eurasian gas scheme. He advised not one but two major entities on opposite ends of the corrupt process. Thus it’s extremely likely he had some inkling of the improper nature of the RAO-Gazprom dealings and how they helped to undermine U.S. interests in the region by pushing Ukraine away from the United States.</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">For those arguing against Page’s importance, don’t forget that George Papadapolous also held a junior position with the Trump campaign, but still played a key role in linking the campaign to Russia and prompting the FBI’s ongoing Trump-Russia probe. Papadapolous has already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and has become a cooperating person of interest in Mueller’s probe.</div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After his stint in Russia, Page in 2008 founded — along with Sergey Yatsenko, Gazprom’s ex-deputy head of finance — investment firm Global Energy Capital LLC. Yatsenko was among a number of Russians and Russian officials with whom Page met during and after the time he was attached to Trump’s campaign. By 2013, Page was calling himself “an informal advisor to the staff of the Kremlin.”</span></div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Page’s pro-Kremlin views even convinced a three-man Russian spy ring to try to recruit him in 2013. That ring that was<b> busted by none other than U.S. attorney Preet Bharara, who was later fired by Trump. </b>The one member of the ring not protected by diplomatic immunity went to prison, while the man with whom Page interacted, Victor Podobnyy, avoided prosecution thanks to his diplomatic cover.</span></div><div style="">
</div><div style="">Page was under FBI surveillance in 2014. A second round of surveillance began in October 2016. The Trump campaign hired Page in 2016. Page is mentioned in the paid opposition-research effort that culminated in the dossier compiled by ex-intelligence official Christopher <b>Steele.</b></div><div style="">
</div><div style="">The dossier and the surveillance of Page have become the subject of blatant distortion by Trump’s allies, who accuse the FBI and Department of Justice of conspiring against the former reality T.V. star. But there’s no conspiracy. Page has ties to Russia.</div><div style=""><div style="line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman">salon manafort timeline:</font></div><div style="line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div style="line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="text text-54 parbase section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>2008:</strong>&nbsp;Rick Davis&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/manafort-offered-to-give-russian-billionaire-private-briefings-on-2016-campaign/2017/09/20/399bba1a-9d48-11e7-8ea1-ed975285475e_story.html?utm_term=.a353ccc8c93a" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">arranged</a>&nbsp;for&nbsp;<b>Deripaska&nbsp;</b>to meet then–presidential candidate John McCain at an international economic conference in Switzerland. At the time, Davis was McCain’s campaign manager, having taken a leave from his company with Manafort.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-55 section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman"><strong>June 2008:&nbsp;</strong>CMZ Ventures, described as “<a href="https://commercialobserver.com/2011/06/the-property-pretenders/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">one of the more bizarre development teams ever assembled in the city</a>,” forms and attempts to buy the Drake Hotel in Manhattan for $850 million.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">CMZ was made up of Manafort, Arthur G. Cohen, a former top developer in the city, and Brad Zackson, who had served as a right-hand man to Fred Trump Sr. Zackson had been “<a href="http://dynamicworldwidegroup.com/1_6_brad-zackson.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">the exclusive broker and manager for Fred Trump of the original Trump Organization</a>.”</span></font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-56 section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman">Zackson gained “<a href="https://commercialobserver.com/2011/06/the-property-pretenders/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">access to society’s inner circle through the Trumps</a>.” According to the&nbsp;<em>Commercial Observer</em>, Zackson had wanted to buy a property in the Bahamas, but needed help navigating the bureaucracy there, so he teamed up with Cohen and Manafort.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-57 section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;<em>Real Deal</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://therealdeal.com/2017/08/31/meet-paul-manaforts-real-estate-fixer/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">reported</a>:</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-58 section"><blockquote style="margin: 0px 40px 0px 0px; border-left: 2px solid rgb(102, 0, 51); padding-left: 18px; line-height: 2; padding-top: 8px; padding-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman">Manafort and Zackson were neighbors in the Hamptons, and soon became friends and business associates. Zackson says he invested in Manafort’s film production business, Manhattan Pictures, best known for the 2005 film&nbsp;<em>The Dying Gaul</em>.</font></blockquote></div><div class="text parbase section text-59"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman">Manafort had “an uncanny ability to conjure investors, such as Ukrainian billionaire gas king Dmitry Firtash, for projects,” the&nbsp;<em>Commercial Observer</em>reported in 2011.</font></p></div><div class="text-60 text parbase section"><blockquote style="margin: 0px 40px 0px 0px; border-left: 2px solid rgb(102, 0, 51); padding-left: 18px; line-height: 2; padding-top: 8px; padding-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mr. Manafort then met with<b>&nbsp;Ukranian billionaire Mr. Firtash,&nbsp;</b>a part owner of Eural Transgas, in Kiev, and secured the promise of an initial $112 million for the project, but that fell apart when Mr. Firtash became distracted by an investment in troubled Bank Nadra back home. Grasping, Mr. Zackson wrote in an email in March 2009: “I have an idea to bring [Donald] Trump in on the Drake. I think it solves a lot of issues right away.”</font></blockquote></div><div class="text-61 text parbase section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman">Court documents&nbsp;<a href="https://therealdeal.com/2017/08/31/meet-paul-manaforts-real-estate-fixer/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">show</a>&nbsp;Deripaska was also “set to make a $56 million investment in the Drake,” through the Pericles fund.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-62 section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman">But the company, designed to be a billion-dollar fund to buy distressed luxury real estate, never made a single purchase.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-63 section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko&nbsp;<a href="https://therealdeal.com/2017/08/31/meet-paul-manaforts-real-estate-fixer/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">alleged&nbsp;</a>in a lawsuit that “Firtash used CMZ as a front in order to hide income illegally skimmed from his natural gas company RosUkrEnergo,” but a judge ultimately dismissed the suit.</font></p></div><div class="text text-64 parbase section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman"><strong>2010:</strong>&nbsp;Manafort helps elect Yanukovych as president of Ukraine.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-65 section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>2014:&nbsp;</strong>Yanukovych is forced to flee Ukraine for Russia in the face of widespread public protests.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-66 section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman"><strong>2014:&nbsp;</strong>Deripaska dissolves the private equity fund being managed by Manafort. He accuses Manafort in a Cayman Islands court of taking nearly $19 million.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-67 section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>Feb. 29, 2016:&nbsp;</strong>Manafort&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/us/to-charm-trump-paul-manafort-sold-himself-as-an-affordable-outsider.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&r=2" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">reportedly</a>&nbsp;reaches out to Trump via their mutual friend Tom Barrack with two memos, which laid out the case for why he’d be a good fit for the campaign. These memos were reported on by the&nbsp;<em>New York Times</em>&nbsp;in April 2017. In one of them, Manafort “refers vaguely to work he performed, years ago, to clear noisy airspace over Mr. Trump’s Florida resort.” He stresses that he’ll work for free.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-68 section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hes-better-than-this-says-thomas-barrack-trumps-loyal-whisperer/2017/10/10/067fc776-a215-11e7-8cfe-d5b912fabc99_story.html?utm_term=.2ff3a62d1aa2" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">The<em>&nbsp;Washington Post</em></a><em>:</em>&nbsp;“ ‘I really need to get to’ Trump, Manafort said,</span>&nbsp;according to Barrack. He told Barrack he wanted to work as Trump’s convention manager, helping him navigate what they expected would be a contentious affair.”</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-69 section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman"><strong>March 2016:</strong>&nbsp;Manafort meets&nbsp;<b>Barrack&nbsp;</b>at the Montage hotel in Beverly Hills to talk about joining the Trump campaign.</font></p></div><div class="text-70 text parbase section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman"><strong>March 28, 2016:</strong>&nbsp;Trump campaign&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/03/28/donald-trump-hires-paul-manafort-to-lead-delegate-effort/?mcubz=3&r=0" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">hires</a>&nbsp;Manafort to work unpaid.</font></p></div><div class="text-71 text parbase section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman"><strong>May 2016:</strong>&nbsp;Konstantin Kilimnik, who worked for Manafort in his Kiev political consulting operation since 2005, and Manafort&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/manafort-offered-to-give-russian-billionaire-private-briefings-on-2016-campaign/2017/09/20/399bba1a-9d48-11e7-8ea1-ed975285475e_story.html?utm_term=.d74bbe4d3660" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">meet</a>.</font></p></div><div class="text text-72 parbase section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>May 19, 2016:</strong>&nbsp;Manafort is named chairman of the Trump campaign.</font></p></div><div class="text text-73 parbase section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>July 2016:&nbsp;</strong>Manafort reportedly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/manafort-offered-to-give-russian-billionaire-private-briefings-on-2016-campaign/2017/09/20/399bba1a-9d48-11e7-8ea1-ed975285475e_story.html?utm_term=.0b80872e0180" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">offers private briefings</a>&nbsp;on the campaign to Deripaska over email.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-74 section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman"><strong>Aug. 2, 2016:</strong>&nbsp;Manafort and Kilimnik&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/emails-suggest-manafort-sought-approval-from-putin-ally-deripaska/541677/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">meet&nbsp;</a>at the Grand Havana Club, an upscale cigar bar in Manhattan, to talk “caviar,” which is believed to be a reference to earlier payments made to Manafort by&nbsp;<b>Deripaska.</b></font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-75 section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>August 2016:</strong>&nbsp;A phone belonging to one of Manafort’s daughters is&nbsp;<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/manaforts-ukrainian-blood-money-caused-qualms-hack-suggests-235473" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">hacked</a>&nbsp;and hundreds of her text messages are eventually posted on a darknet website. The texts reveal Manafort’s&nbsp;<b>daughters were worried about the work he did in Ukraine and that someone had tried to blackmail him</b>, suggesting they could reveal a secret meeting Manafort had supposedly arranged for Trump in 2012 with a Yanukovych ally.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-76 section"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>Aug. 19, 2016:&nbsp;</strong>Manafort submits his resignation from the Trump campaign.</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman">...</font></p></div></div><div style="line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><div style="line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a53327/paul-manafort-ukraine/">http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a53327/paul-manafort-ukraine/</a></font></div><div style="line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="line-height: 19.2px;"><p class="dropcap body-el-text standard-body-el-text anim-in-view in-view" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.65; margin-left: 47.5938px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font face="Times New Roman">Dostoevsky novel in which we have plunged ourselves seems to be getting more tangled and inescapable by the day. As&nbsp;<a class="body-el-link standard-body-el-link" href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39043117" target="blank" data-tracking-id="recirc-text-link" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.3s ease-in-out;">the Beeb</a>&nbsp;reports, there's this dude in Austria who may be visiting one of America's finest courthouses fairly soon.</font></p><blockquote class="body-el-blockquote standard-body-el-blockquote anim-in-view in-view" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.4; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; padding: 20px; border-left: 6px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px auto 20px 47.5938px; width: 691.578px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr Firtash was first detained in 2014 in Vienna, but was released after posting a record Austrian bail of €125m (£102m). During the lower court hearing</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, Mr <b>Firtash'</b>s team raised the issue of political motive. At the time, Mr Yanukovych had just indicated he would not sign a deal bringing Ukraine closer to the EU, despite US pressure</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The judge said there may have been a US desire to remove his ally, Mr Firtash, from the scene. "The aim was clearly to prevent [Firtash] from undermining the political interests of the US," he wrote. Austrian police insisted the arrest was not related to political events and the US justice department appealed.</span></font></p></blockquote><div class="ad-gpt-breaker-container" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;"><p class="p2 body-el-text standard-body-el-text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.65; margin-left: 47.5938px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font face="Times New Roman">Do tell.</font></p><blockquote class="body-el-blockquote standard-body-el-blockquote anim-in-view" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.4; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; padding: 20px; border-left: 6px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px auto 20px 47.5938px; width: 691.578px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman">With the administration of Donald Trump coming to power, the Firtash case now falls into the realm of possible links between the new president's team and Russia. This has already claimed one scalp - national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was fired after misleading Vice-President Mike Pence about his talks with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition.&nbsp;<b>Mr Firtash gained much of his wealth through arrangements with Russian energy giant Gazprom.</b></font></p></blockquote><blockquote class="body-el-blockquote standard-body-el-blockquote anim-in-view" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.4; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; padding: 20px; border-left: 6px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px auto 20px 47.5938px; width: 691.578px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">His business flourished after Mr Yanukovych came to power. A key paid adviser in the president's campaign was Paul Manafort, who later became Mr Trump's election campaign adviser. Mr Manafort and Mr Firtash were linked in a real estate project to redevelop the Drake Hotel site in Manhattan. Mr Yanukovych's opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko, argued this was a money-laundering project to siphon huge amounts of cash out of Ukraine. Mr Firtash denies this,&nbsp;<a class="body-el-link standard-body-el-link" href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3Awww.bloomberg.com_news_features_2017-2D02-2D16_will-2Dtrump-2Drescue-2Dthe-2Doligarch-2Din-2Dthe-2Dgilded-2Dcage&d=DwMFaQ&c=B73tqXN8Ec0ocRmZHMCntw&r=C0G6Ae5N6o-49Sr-4B0ssYoInBjTRIEXRRb2OslIKxo&m=DIcnxt6hoP_ID82sRGtyiwHWjaq_zDXXsWoT4u4aQo&s=3HsMilE6uygvwf3XaxVlnIJsrj7PQkuKwXLlbfTdo7w&e=" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.3s ease-in-out;">telling Bloomberg</a>&nbsp;that although he was initially interested in the project, he changed his mind. He said he "always had clean money" and called Ms Tymoshenko a liar. Last August,&nbsp;<a class="body-el-link standard-body-el-link" href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3Awww.nytimes.com_2016_08_15_us_politics_paul-2Dmanafort-2Dukraine-2Ddonald-2Dtrump.html-3Fhp-26action-3Dclick-26pgtype-3DHomepage-26clickSource-3Dstory-2Dheading-26module-3Dfirst-2Dcolumn-2Dregion-26region-3Dtop-2Dnews-26WT.nav-3Dtop-2Dnews-26-5Fr-3D0&d=DwMFaQ&c=B73tqXN8Ec0ocRmZHMCntw&r=C0G6Ae5N6o-49Sr-4B0ssYoInBjTRIEXRRb2OslIKxo&m=DIcnxt6hoP_ID82sRGtyiwHWjaq_zDXXsWoT4u4aQo&s=jmWhyvFJv9FRv71lb-42BYweaimTT65hup0oA3QstQY&e=" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.3s ease-in-out;">the New York Times reported</a>&nbsp;finding ledgers pledging $12.7m (£9.8m) in undisclosed cash payments from the former Russian-backed Ukrainian government to Mr Manafort between 2007 and 2012.</font></p></blockquote><p class="p1 body-el-text standard-body-el-text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.65; margin-left: 47.5938px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font face="Times New Roman">The only through-line in the campaign and the administration of&nbsp;<em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor" style="box-sizing: inherit;">El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago&nbsp;</em>is its entanglement with the Russian kleptocrats, in and out of government. It's the only truly consistent element in his rise to power. It's the only thing that's been there, day in and day out, from the moment he came down the golden escalator.</font></p><p class="p1 body-el-text standard-body-el-text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.65; margin-left: 47.5938px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font face="Times New Roman">Then, as we move further into the dark and stormy night, there's this business with the Russian ambassador to the U.N. From&nbsp;<a class="body-el-link standard-body-el-link" href="http://www.winonadailynews.com/death-of-russian-ambassador-to-un-needs-to-be-studied/article_f86e469f-aeb9-5b42-8d68-daecdb4cbefc.html" target="blank" data-tracking-id="recirc-text-link" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.3s ease-in-out;">the&nbsp;<em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor" style="box-sizing: inherit;">AP</em></a>:</font></p><blockquote class="body-el-blockquote standard-body-el-blockquote anim-in-view" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.4; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; padding: 20px; border-left: 6px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px auto 20px 47.5938px; width: 691.578px;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman">Further study usually includes toxicology and other screenings, which can take weeks. The case was referred to the medical examiner's office by the hospital, spokeswoman Julie Bolcer said. Vitaly Churkin, who died a day before his 65th birthday, had been Russia's envoy at the United Nations since 2006. He was the longest-serving ambassador on the Security Council, the U.N.'s most powerful body. The medical examiner is responsible for investigating deaths that occur by criminal violence, accident, suicide, suddenly or when the person seemed healthy, or if someone died in any unusual or suspicious manner. Most of the deaths investigated by the office are not suspicious.</font></p></blockquote></div><div style="line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman">
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</font><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">guard no link</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">...=</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">Caught between Russia and the US? The curious case of Ukraine's Dmytro Firtash</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">Critics say the oligarch now living in exile pushed Putin’s agenda during Maidan revolution while a US arrest warrant appeared politically motivated</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Dmytro Firtash</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Firtash, long seen as pro-Russian, has lost considerable influence in his home country since the revolution. Photograph: Leonhard Foeger/Reuters</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">Shaun Walker in Vienna</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">Saturday 23 January 2016 02.00 EST Last modified on Friday 11 November 2016 07.20&nbsp;</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">In a suite of grand rooms inside a Habsburg-era building in Vienna that bristles with security, Dmytro Firtash sips a cup of tea and speaks quietly but deliberately about Ukraine, the country of his birth that he has not set foot in for nearly two years.</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">Critics claim Firtash personifies the country’s class of voracious oligarchs, who made their fortunes while preventing Ukraine’s economy from developing properly. He had myriad business interests, wide-ranging political influence, and was a close confidant of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted in the Maidan revolution in February 2014.</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">For years he was a key figure in the country’s murky gas industry, arranging and profiting from key contracts to import central Asian and Russian gas to Ukraine.</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">But details of an Austrian court case, and FBI emails seen by the Guardian, suggest that Firtash has also been a major player in the battle between the west and Russia over the future direction of Ukraine.</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">A fortnight after the Maidan revolution toppled Yanukovych, armed police burst into Firtash’s offices in Vienna and arrested him on a US warrant.</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">Ukraine oligarch claims US extradition request is political interference</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Read more</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">He was charged with bribing Indian officials to secure a titanium deal. However, Firtash’s aides claim the charges were politically motivated and aimed at removing the businessman from the Ukrainian political scene at a vital moment.</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">In a rare and surprising rebuff to Washington, an Austrian judge agreed, dismissing a US extradition request in April 2015 as politically motivated.</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">Emails from the FBI to Austrian authorities strongly support the theory that American moves against Firtash had been motivated by political concerns. Sidelining him at the moment the Maidan revolution succeeded may have been part of a hands-on strategy designed to birth a new pro-European government.</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">Firtash denies he was pushing Russian interests in Ukraine, but in an interview with the Guardian, he says he was a longtime sceptic of a free-trade agreement with the EU. The Maidan protests were triggered when Yanukovych pulled out of the deal and said he would turn towards Russia instead.</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">“I told everyone we should bring Russia to the table and discuss it all together,” says Firtash. “People say I want to swap democracy for cheap gas – I want to have both. I would like to have European values. But let’s be honest, if we turn one way or the other, we lose a lot. We can’t be without Russia, because for us it’s a huge market. But we don’t want to lose Europe either. Why do we have to choose?”</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;The Maidan in Kiev in January 2014</font></div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Tents and barricades erected by pro-EU demonstrators in Kiev’s Maidan square at the height of the protests in January 2014. Photograph: Vasily Maximov/AFP/Getty Images</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">Before Maidan, Russia and the west insisted Yanukovych had to choose one or the other, and Firtash’s position – borne of his contacts and business interests in Russia – perhaps made him an inconvenient influence in western eyes.</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">Firtash has long been linked with business interests in Russia. Born in 1965 in a small town in west Ukraine, Firtash moved to Moscow in 1988 and took up residence in the Rossiya hotel, just off Red Square. It functioned at the time as a kind of informal stock exchange, and Firtash met would-be businessmen from all over the Soviet Union, particularly from the central Asian republics.</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">“It all started with powdered milk. We sent [Uzbekistan] powdered milk but they didn’t have any money so they paid us in cotton. We sold the cotton in Europe and got our first money,” he recalls. The same thing happened in Turkmenistan, where Firtash was paid in gas – the start of what would become a long and controversial involvement in the trade.</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">A Wikileaks cable recounting a 2008 meeting between Firtash and the US ambassador to Ukraine claimed the businessman had ties with Semion Mogilevich, a notorious mafia don who was until late last year on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list.</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">Firtash fiercely disputes the contents of the cable and claims he never said this to the ambassador. “I knew Mogilevich, but so did half of Ukraine. I never had any dealings with him.”</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman"><b>Firtash’s gas contacts led to the establishment of RosUkrEnergo, a middle-man company that made huge profits while delivering central Asian and Russian gas to Ukraine. A Reuters investigation found Firtash had been extended credit lines of up to $11bn (£7.8bn) by bankers close to Vladimir Putin, which helped him expand his empire</b>.</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">The timing of US moves against Firtash align intriguingly with political developments in Ukraine. An initial request to arrest Firtash was sent in late October 2013, just after Yanukovych had met the Russian president in Sochi and suggested he might not sign the EU deal. A few days later, the US assistant secretary of state, Victoria Nuland, met Yanukovych in Kiev, and the Ukrainian president then promised he would sign the deal, Nuland said at the time.</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman" style="">
</font><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">IB</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px none; list-style: outside none none; margin: 0px 0px 28px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman"><b>s a business partner with a former Donald Trump campaign manager. He’s a wealthy Russian oligarch who made billions in natural gas—possibly with help from President Vladimir Putin—and he&nbsp;was also tied to Ukraine’s Russia-friendly former President Viktor Yanukovych. </b>&nbsp;</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px none; list-style: outside none none; margin: 0px 0px 28px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman">It’s also possible he might be a&nbsp;missing link to Trump and his campaign and administration’s alleged ties to Russia. It doesn't end there: He may be headed to the United States to face racketeering charges.</font></p><div id="Teads1" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px none; list-style: outside none none; margin: 0px 0px 28px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; max-width: 100%; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px none; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px 0px 28px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">His name is Dmitry Firtash and an Austrian appeals court ruled Tuesday that he could be extradited to the U.S., overturning a lower court’s ruling and flipping his fate over to Austria’s Ministry of Justice,&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-21/austrian-court-grants-u-s-bid-to-extradite-ukraine-s-firtash" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px none; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">Bloomberg reported</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px none; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px 0px 28px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman">“It wasn’t for us to judge whether Mr. Firtash was guilty, but only whether the extradition is allowed,”&nbsp;Judge Leo Levnaic-Iwanski said. “This decision only means that another country will make a decision whether he is guilty.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px none; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px 0px 28px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman">Firtash, 51, was originally detained by Austrian officials on an arrest warrant for money laundering charges in Spain, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ed715258-f856-11e6-9516-2d969e0d3b65" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px none; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">Financial Times</a>, and it will be up to the justice ministry to decide between the U.S. and Spain. There were also reports that Firtash reacted to the judge's verdict in "silent horror."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px none; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px 0px 28px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman">Firtash was arrested in Vienna in March 2014—shortly after Yanukovych was ousted from power by protesters—posted a $174 million bail and has remained in Austria ever since to await its courts’ ruling on his fate.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px none; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px 0px 28px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In April 2014, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/six-defendants-indicted-alleged-conspiracy-bribe-government-officials-india-mine-titanium" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px none; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">Justice Department handed down six indictments</a>, including one against the Ukrainian foreign national that alleged a conspiracy was undertaken to pay $18.5 million in bribes to Indian government officials to mine titanium along the country’s eastern coast. If it had been successful, the mine could have resulted in $500 million in sales of titanium products, including some sales to Chicago-based Boeing.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px none; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px 0px 28px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">What does this have to do with Trump, Putin and all the alleged ties to Russia? Well<b>, Firtash was a former business partner of Paul Manafort, who served as chairman for Trump’s campaign last year and was also a political consultant in Ukraine while helping get Yanukovych elected.</b></span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/us/politics/paul-manafort-ukraine-donald-trump.html" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" border="border" px="px" none="none" list-style="list-style" outside="outside" margin="margin" outline="outline" padding="padding" webkit-font-smoothing="webkit-font-smoothing" antialiased="antialiased">The New York Times</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">reported in August that secret ledgers showed Manafort was paid $12.7 million from Yanukovych’s political party between 2007 and 2012. Manafort left the Trump campaign, however, the payments have not been confirmed.</span><font face="Times New Roman">The charges in Spain stem from allegations of money laundering in Catalonia, where he possibly funneled more than $10.5 million through companies based in Cyprus and the Virgin&nbsp;Islands with two other unnamed men, according to FT.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px none; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px 0px 28px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And last week, anonymous sources with information regarding the U.S. intelligence community’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s “repeated” contact with Russian intelligence officials last year also included Manafort’s calls with the Russians,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/russia-intelligence-communications-trump.html" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px none; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">the Times reported.</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px none; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px 0px 28px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman">In a far-reaching and extensive report on Firtash’s fate and possible links to Trump and Putin,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-02-16/will-trump-rescue-the-oligarch-in-the-gilded-cage" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px none; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">Bloomberg last week detailed</a>&nbsp;Manafort’s ties to Firtash. Former Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko alleged in a lawsuit filed in a U.S. court in 2011 that the hotel and shopping mall Manafort and Firtash had planned to build in midtown Manhattan was nothing more than a means to launder money.</font></p></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style=""><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="27" data-ved="0ahUKEwipjby96-XSAhXowlQKHaGuCUkQFQgbKAAwAA" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-02-16/will-trump-rescue-the-oligarch-in-the-gilded-cage" style="cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman">Will Trump Rescue the Oligarch in the Gilded Cage? - Bloomberg</font></a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; 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cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span class="f">Feb 15, 2017 -&nbsp;</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dmitry Firtash's</span>&nbsp;extradition case will test the administration's ... Following the pattern of Russian oligarchs in&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Putin's</span>&nbsp;circle, Firtash also,&nbsp;...</font></span></a></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="33" data-ved="0ahUKEwipjby96-XSAhXowlQKHaGuCUkQFQghKAEwAQ" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://freebeacon.com/issues/lawsuit-trump-aide-ukraine/" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><font face="Times New Roman">Lawsuit: Trump Aide Funneled Mob-Linked Ukrainian Oligarch's ...</font></a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><font face="Times New Roman"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">freebeacon.com/issues/lawsuit-trump-aide-ukraine/</cite></font><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; 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cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span class="f">Mar 31, 2016 -&nbsp;</span>... impeding the business interests of Ukrainian gas tycoon&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Dmitry Firtash</span>. ... Trump's praise for Russian president Vladimir&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Putin</span>, who backed&nbsp;...</font></span></a></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="39" data-ved="0ahUKEwipjby96-XSAhXowlQKHaGuCUkQFQgnKAIwAg" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/how-donald-trump-linked-russia-dmitry-firtash-could-tie-us-president-vladimir-putin-2495444" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><font face="Times New Roman">How Is Donald Trump Linked To Russia? Dmitry Firtash Could Tie US ...</font></a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><font face="Times New Roman"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">www.ibtimes.com/how-donald-trump-linked-russia-<b>dmitry</b>-<b>firtash</b>-could-tie-us-presid...</cite></font><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><font face="Times New Roman"><a class="Fmb ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=dmitry+firtash+putin&oq=DMITRY+FIRTASH&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l5.5196j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b2" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwipjby96-XSAhXowlQKHaGuCUkQ7B0IKTAC" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; 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cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span class="f">Feb 21, 2017 -&nbsp;</span>Natural gas titan&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Dmitry Firtash</span>&nbsp;could be extradited to the U.S. to face ...&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Dmitry Firtash</span>Could Tie US President To Vladimir&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Putin</span>, Russian&nbsp;...</font></span></a></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="45" data-ved="0ahUKEwipjby96-XSAhXowlQKHaGuCUkQFQgtKAMwAw" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://us.blastingnews.com/news/2017/02/dmitry-firtash-is-the-man-who-could-possibly-link-trump-to-putin-s-russia-001494603.html" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><font face="Times New Roman">Dmitry Firtash is the man who could possibly link Trump to Putin's Russia</font></a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><font face="Times New Roman"><cite class="Rm bc" style="font-style: normal;">us.blastingnews.com › News › 2017 › 02</cite></font><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><font face="Times New Roman"><a class="Fmb ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=dmitry+firtash+putin&oq=DMITRY+FIRTASH&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l5.5196j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b3" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwipjby96-XSAhXowlQKHaGuCUkQ7B0IMDAD" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-weight: bold; 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cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span class="f">Feb 22, 2017 -&nbsp;</span>#<span style="font-weight: bold;">Dmitry Firtash</span>&nbsp;was once #Donald Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort's business partner. He made billions of dollars in natural gas,&nbsp;...</font></span></a></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="52" data-ved="0ahUKEwipjby96-XSAhXowlQKHaGuCUkQFQg0KAQwBA" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ed715258-f856-11e6-9516-2d969e0d3b65" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><font face="Times New Roman">Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash faces extradition to US</font></a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><font face="Times New Roman"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">https://www.ft.com/content/ed715258-f856-11e6-9516-2d969e0d3b65</cite></font><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; 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cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span class="f">Feb 21, 2017 -&nbsp;</span>Ukrainian oligarch&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Dmitry Firtash</span>&nbsp;faces extradition to US ... Russian businessman close to the inner circle of Russia's President Vladimir&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Putin</span>.</font></span></a></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="58" data-ved="0ahUKEwipjby96-XSAhXowlQKHaGuCUkQFQg6KAUwBQ" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/02/21/maddow_will_trump_prosecute_ukrainian_oligarch_firtash.html" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><font face="Times New Roman">Maddow: Will Trump Prosecute Ukrainian Oligarch Firtash? | Video ...</font></a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><font face="Times New Roman"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">www.realclearpolitics.com/.../maddow_will_trump_prosecute_ukrainian_oligarch<b>firt</b>...</cite></font><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; 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cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span class="f">Feb 21, 2017 -&nbsp;</span>MSNBC: Rachel Maddow reports on the murky overlap between Ukrainian oligarch&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Dmitry Firtash</span>, Vladimir&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Putin</span>, and the Donald Trump&nbsp;...</font></span></a></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="64" data-ved="0ahUKEwipjby96-XSAhXowlQKHaGuCUkQFQhAKAYwBg" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/russia-capitalism-gas-special-report-pix-idUSL3N0TF4QD20141126" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><font face="Times New Roman">SPECIAL REPORT-Putin's allies channelled billions to Ukraine ...</font></a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><font face="Times New Roman"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">www.reuters.com/.../russia-capitalism-gas-special-report-pix-idUSL3N0TF4QD20141...</cite></font><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><font face="Times New Roman"><a class="Fmb ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=dmitry+firtash+putin&oq=DMITRY+FIRTASH&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l5.5196j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b6" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwipjby96-XSAhXowlQKHaGuCUkQ7B0IQjAG" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none; user-select: none; 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cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=related:www.reuters.com/article/russia-capitalism-gas-special-report-pix-idUSL3N0TF4QD20141126+dmitry+firtash+putin&tbo=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwipjby96-XSAhXowlQKHaGuCUkQHwhFMAY" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span class="f">Nov 26, 2014 -&nbsp;</span>He is&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Dmitry Firtash</span>, a former fireman and soldier. In little more than a decade, the Ukrainian went from obscurity to wealth and renown, largely&nbsp;...</font></span></a></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="71" data-ved="0ahUKEwipjby96-XSAhXowlQKHaGuCUkQFQhHKAcwBw" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/211152/trump-data-analytics-russian-access" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><font face="Times New Roman">Will Donald Trump's Data Analytics Company Allow Russia to Access ...</font></a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><font face="Times New Roman"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/.../trump-data-analytics-russian-access</cite></font><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; 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cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span class="f">Aug 22, 2016 -&nbsp;</span>And because CA is linked to U.K. property mogul Vincent Tchenguiz, who himself has connections to Ukrainian oligarch&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Dmitry Firtash</span>, a&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Putin</span>&nbsp;...</font></span></a></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="77" data-ved="0ahUKEwipjby96-XSAhXowlQKHaGuCUkQFQhNKAgwCA" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/23/dmytro-firtash-ukraine-oligarch-exile-caught-between-russia-us" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><font face="Times New Roman">Caught between Russia and the US? The curious case of Ukraine's ...</font></a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="Rm bc" style="font-style: normal;"><font face="Times New Roman">https://www.theguardian.com › World › Ukraine</font></cite></div><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span class="f">Jan 23, 2016 -&nbsp;</span>Critics say the oligarch now living in exile pushed&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Putin's</span>&nbsp;agenda ...&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Firtash</span>&nbsp;denies he was pushing Russian interests in Ukraine, but in an&nbsp;...</font></span></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 28px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rc" data-hveid="81" data-ved="0ahUKEwipjby96-XSAhXowlQKHaGuCUkQFQhRKAkwCQ" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/pursuit-of-shady-oligarch-a-test-of-doj-integrity-under-trump-881324611851" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><font face="Times New Roman">Pursuit of shady oligarch a test of DoJ integrity under Trump | MSNBC</font></a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><font face="Times New Roman"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">www.msnbc.com/.../pursuit-of-shady-oligarch-a-test-of-doj-integrity-under-trump-88...</cite></font><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><font face="Times New Roman"><a class="_Fmb ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=dmitry+firtash+putin&oq=DMITRY+FIRTASH&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l5.5196j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b9" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwipjby96-XSAhXowlQKHaGuCUkQ7B0IUzAJ" style="border-radius: 0px; 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cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><font face="Times New Roman"><span class="f">Feb 20, 2017 -&nbsp;</span>Rachel Maddow reports on the murky overlap between Ukrainian oligarch&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Dmitry Firtash</span>, Vladimir&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Putin</span>, and the Donald Trump campaign and&nbsp;...</font></span></a></div></div></div></div><div style=""><a class="fl" href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rztBAv0BSEMJ:www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/pursuit-of-shady-oligarch-a-test-of-doj-integrity-under-trump-881324611851+&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="">=</font></a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>