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see am 1st, and parscale

KUSHNER FLYNN SELL NUKE POWER SAUDI

coop witness mueller

zamel wikistrat

FEB 2019

Trump administration 'pushing Saudi nuclear deal' which could benefit company linked to Jared Kushner

Senior Trump administration officials pushed a project to share nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia over the objections of ethics officials, according to a congressional report, in a move that could have benefitted a company which has since provided financial relief to the family of Jared Kushner.

Citing whistleblowers within the US government, the report by the Democrat-led House oversight and reform committee alleges “abnormal acts” in the White House regarding the proposal to build dozens of nuclear reactors across the kingdom.

The committee on Tuesday opened an investigation into the allegations, which include concerns over whether White House officials in the early months of the Trump administration sought to work around national security procedures to push a Saudi deal that could have financially benefited close supporters of the US president.

According to the report, the nuclear effort was pushed by former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was fired in early 2017 and is awaiting sentencing for lying to the FBI in the Russia investigation.

Derek Harvey, a National Security Council official brought in by Flynn, continued work on the proposal, which has remained under consideration by the Trump administration.

Relying on the whistleblower accounts, email communications and other documents, the committee’s report details how National Security Council and ethics officials repeatedly warned the actions of Flynn and a senior aide could run afoul of federal conflicts of interest law and statutes governing the transfer of nuclear technology to foreign powers.

The report also notes one of the power plant manufacturers that could benefit from such a deal includes Westinghouse Electric, a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management, a company which struck a deal in August to rescue the Kushner family’s 666 Fifth Avenue tower in Manhattan from massive debts.

Detailing the White House’s continued efforts to promote the deal, the report highlights how in May, energy secretary Rick Perry told a congressional committee he “tried to really drive home” to Saudi Arabia how “you have to use Westinghouse” for “the best reactors in the world”.

It also notes Mr Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, allegedly remains “directly involved” with those efforts, and that he would be travelling to Saudi Arabia in late February to “share elements of the economic plan” of a US peace proposal in the Middle East.

The White House and Mr Kushner did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The report comes at a time when lawmakers are increasingly uneasy with the close relationship between the Trump administration and Saudi Arabia, which has raised alarms even among members of the president’s party in Congress.

Lawmakers from both parties have expressed concerns that Saudi Arabia could develop nuclear weapons if the US technology were transferred without proper safeguards.

Mr Trump has made the kingdom a centrepiece of his foreign policy in the Middle East as he tries to further isolate Iran. In the process, he has brushed off criticism over the killing of Washington Postcolumnist Jamal Khashoggi and the Saudis’ role in the war in Yemen.

IFrame Content

Former White House ethics chief, Richard Painter: Donald Trump is 'mentally unwell'

Congressional investigators are also probing the role of Tom Barrack, a proponent of the nuclear proposal who ran Trump’s presidential inaugural committee, which is under separate investigation by federal prosecutors in New York. Rick Gates, a former Barrack employee and cooperator in Mr Mueller’s investigation, was also involved in advocating for the nuclear proposal.

A spokesman for Mr Barrack said in a statement he will cooperate with the House probe.

“Mr Barrack’s engagement in investment and business development throughout the Middle East for the purpose of better aligned Middle East and US objectives are well known, as are his more than four decades of respected relationships throughout the region,” the statement said, noting that Mr Barrack never joined the Trump administration.

Mr Harvey did not immediately return a request for comment.

According to the report, the whistleblowers came to the committee because they had concerns “about efforts inside the White House to rush the transfer of highly sensitive US nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia in potential violation of the Atomic Energy Act and without review by Congress as required by law — efforts that may be ongoing to this day”.

A 2017 article by the nonprofit news outlet ProPublica detailed some of the concerns raised inside the National Security Council about the nuclear proposal — known as the “Marshall Plan for the Middle East” — advocated by a company called IP3 International.

IP3 is led by a group of retired US military officers and national security officials, including retired rear admiral Michael Hewitt, retired Army general Jack Keane and former Reagan national security adviser Bud McFarlane.

IP3 and other proponents of nuclear power in the Middle East argue the US needs to be involved because otherwise it will lose out to Russia, China and others on billions of dollars in business. They also say that US involvement - and the limits on nuclear fuel that come with it - are essential to stem an arms race in the region.

“The only way to address concerns over development of weapons of mass destruction is for the US to participate in the introduction and secure operation of international nuclear power plants,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday. It also said it “looks forward to sharing what we know” with the House committee.

Up until the month before he joined the Trump administration, Flynn listed himself on public documents as an adviser to an iteration of Mr Hewitt’s company advocating for the nuclear power proposal.

Last year, IP3 told the Washington Post that Flynn was offered a role in the company but never formally came aboard. On Tuesday, the company said Flynn “was never an advisor to IP3 or its affiliate, he had no stake in the company and was never compensated or reimbursed for expenses by IP3”.

Still, according to the report, Flynn served as a conduit for IP3 inside the White House.

Just days after Mr Trump’s inauguration, the company sent Flynn a draft memo for the president’s signature that would have appointed Mr Barrack as a “special representative” in charge of carrying out the nuclear power proposal and called on the director of the CIA and the secretaries of state, energy, treasury and defense to lend him support.

The report also quotes former deputy national security adviser KT McFarland as saying Mr Trump personally told Mr Barrack he could lead the plan’s implementation.

The report also catalogs the actions of Mr Harvey, the Flynn confidant who was put in charge of the NSC’s Middle East and North African affairs.

According to the report, upon entering the White House in January 2017, Mr Harvey saw his mission as getting Mr Trump to adopt the nuclear proposal despite the objections of ethics and national security officials.

Even when HR McMaster, who replaced Flynn as national security adviser, and NSC lawyer John Eisenberg directed that work stop on the proposal because of concerns about its legality, Mr Harvey continued pursuing the proposal, according to the report.

Mr Harvey was fired from the NSC in July 2017. He then joined the staff of Republican congressman Devin Nunes of California, a Trump ally and the former Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee.

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colony barrack baby doc duvalier; meese loan ok'd by inquiry; met manafort in beruit? lebanon; 47 checks for 1 mill$; target 50 riased 107

rick gates on campign, also inaug, also manafort co?

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extensive coop w/ investigators

Rick Gates Sentenced to 45 Days in Jail and $20,000 Fine

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/treasure-trove-of-mueller-memos-shows-trump-benefited-the-russians-beyond-their-wildest-expectations/

Sunday morning, an MSNBC “AM Joy” panel took up the release of a batch of memos from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that were released on Saturday that shed light on even more connections between aides to the president and Russian officials.

Reviewing the documents obtained by Buzzfeed News, conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin said Russia lucked out with Trump as a presidential candidate...

ref

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/mueller-report-secret-memos-1

no lnx many docs

THE MUELLER MEMOS

The Mueller Report’s Secret Memos

BuzzFeed News sued the US government to see all the work that Mueller’s team kept secret. We have published the first installment, with revelations about the Ukraine conspiracy theory, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, and more.

Posted on November 2, 2019, at 12:08 p.m. ET

Paul Manafort was pushing the unfounded conspiracy theory — now part of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump — that Ukraine hacked the Democratic National Committee's emails as early as 2016.

The president’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, "had to keep Trump out of the messaging related to Russia” in preparation for his testimony to Congress under oath and that the false testimony was "not his idea."

Top Trump campaign aideRick Gatessaid the campaign was “very happy” when a foreign government helped release the hacked DNC emails.

These are some of the revelations that BuzzFeed News pried loose after pursuing five separate Freedom of Information Act lawsuits for all the subpoenas and search warrants that then–special counsel Robert Mueller’s team executed, as well as all the emails, memos, letters, talking points, legal opinions, and interview transcripts it generated.

[Read the documents here.]

In response to a court order, the Justice Department released the first installment of documents: hundreds of pages of summaries of FBI interviews with witnesses, available here for the first time. Another installment will be released every month for at least the next eight years.

The documents revealed Saturday, known as “302 reports,” are summaries of interviews with former White House official and Trump campaign manager Stephen Bannon, Cohen, Gates, and more. They are some of the most important and highly sought-after documents from Mueller’s investigation. They reveal what key players in the campaign told FBI agents about Russia, Trump, the email hack during the 2016 presidential campaign, and Trump's associates’ handling of the special counsel’s investigation.

Mueller’s 448-page report last March was the most hotly anticipated prosecutorial document in a generation, laying out the evidence of Russia's interference in the 2016 election and the Trump administration’s efforts to obstruct the inquiry. The report, however, reflected only a small fraction of the billions of primary-source documents that the government claims Mueller’s team may have amassed over the course of its two-year investigation.

[We want your help! If you see something in these memos, you can email reporter Jason Leopold at jason.leopold@buzzfeed.com or reach us securely at tips.buzzfeed.com.]

Those documents are a crucial national legacy, a key to understanding this important chapter in American history. But the public has not been allowed to see any of them. Until now.

After years of speculation and accusation, these documents offer a chance for everyone to view a key function of American democracy. That opportunity — hard-won, but enshrined anew with each additional FOIA release — commences today. It will last long after all the players have departed.

Some takeaways from the memos:

Manafort was pushing the conspiracy theory that Ukraine hacked the DNC as early as 2016

In an April 2018 interview with the special counsel’s office, Rick Gates, who had served as deputy Trump campaign chair and had long been Paul Manafort’s right hand, told investigators that after the campaign learned the DNC had been hacked, Manafort pushed the theory that Ukraine, not Russia, had orchestrated the attack. It’s a conspiracy theory that’s persisted in right-wing circles, even after the US Intelligence Community concluded Russia was involved, and one that Trump brought up in his July 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

In a written memorandum of the July call released by the White House, Trump at one point says to Zelensky, “I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it.”

Related document:

FBI

A Trump associate sent Bannon a bizarre debate tactic

Trump supporter and associate Ted Malloch emailed Bannon before the first debate and said Trump should start by handing Hillary Clinton a "Writ of Indictment."

Trump and his associates by that time had led "lock her up" chants at his rallies at the Republican National Convention. And he told Clinton during the second debate she'd "be in jail" if he became president over her email controversy.

Relevant document on page 230:

lobbyist Pleads Guilty to Failing to Register as a Foreign Agent for Ukraine

September 5, 2018

Following closely behind a string of recent enforcement actions under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), on August 31, 2018, Samuel Patten, a former associate of Paul Manafort and prominent Washington, DC lobbyist, pleaded guilty for failing to register as a foreign agent under FARA and other counts, including causing and concealing foreign payments.

Mr. Patten’s plea and cooperation agreement stipulates that starting around 2014, he formed a lobbying and political consulting services company in the United States, which was retained to advise the Opposition Bloc (a Ukrainian political party) and members of that party, including a prominent Ukraine oligarch who had funded the party. Among other activities, the company performed political consulting services in the United States on behalf of its Ukrainian clients, including contacting members of the U.S. Legislative and Executive branches, as well as the media. The lobbying activity was undertaken to promote the interests of the Ukrainian oligarch and to influence U.S. public opinion. Mr. Patten also assisted the Ukrainian oligarch in drafting op-eds targeting the U.S. press, without disclosing that he was acting as an agent of the Opposition Bloc.

Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Patten acknowledged engaging in one or more FARA registerable activities, including political activities, within the United States, and although aware that these activities triggered a registration obligation under FARA, Mr. Patten chose not to register under the statute. In addition to FARA violations, Mr. Patten also pleaded guilty to assisting the Ukrainian oligarch with illegally purchasing tickets to President Trump’s inauguration. Mr. Patten now faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. A sentencing date has yet to be set.

Mr. Patten’s prosecution is yet another example of the U.S. Department of Justice’s increasing focus on FARA enforcement.In 2017, Paul Manafort and Richard Gates were charged with knowingly and willfully violating FARA by failing to register as foreign agents of the government of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Party of Regions, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, and the Opposition Bloc. Shortly thereafter, in May 2018, Nisar Ahmed Chaudhry, a U.S. permanent resident and Pakistani national, pleaded guilty to charges that he failed to register as a foreign agent in connection with lobbying work he did for the Pakistani government to shape U.S. foreign policy from 2012 through 2018.

These recent prosecutions reinforce the importance of ensuring compliance with the statute – from registering as a foreign agent within the 10-day window for doing so to timely filing and labeling all informational materials that are disseminated to two or more persons. Indeed, foreign agents who intentionally and willfully violate any provision of the statute may be subject to significant criminal and/or civil penalties, including fines up to $10,000 and imprisonment for up to five years. Foreign agents who willfully make false statements or intentionally fail to provide material information in support of their registration or supplemental statements are also subject to these penalties.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/why-a-shady-meeting-in-a-cigar-bar-could-provide-key-evidence-of-a-trump-russia-conspiracy/

Since the release of heavily redacted court documents on Feb. 7, another get-together has been vying to beat out the Trump Tower meeting as the most important face-to-face between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives. That meeting took place at the Grand Havana Room, a private cigar club that apparently also serves food, for those who can stand to eat in the presence of cigars. And while the meeting may have lacked the presence of Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner, it does seem to have what the House and Senate investigations into Trump have suggested was missing from their data—direct evidence of conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The Grand Havana gathering took place on Aug. 2, 2016, less than two weeks after the Republican convention. It featured Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, his deputy Rick Gates, and the Russian political operative who makes frequent appearances in other Manafort-related documents, Konstantin Kilimnik. Both Kilimnik and Manafort have maintained that the meeting was a “personal” meeting about “clients” they shared, but investigators are not buying it.

According to the *Washington Post*, prosecutors with the special counsel’s office believe that at that meeting, Manafort and Gates provided Kilimnik with “key information” in the form of internal polling data from the Trump campaign. That information could have been vital to assisting Russia in its social media attacks on the U.S. election.

Kilimnik also seems to have brought to the meeting a few topics of discussion that weren’t exactly client-related, including a resolution to the Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine—a topic that had just been debated at the Republican convention, where the Trump campaign insisted on a softer position toward Russia. It’s not clear if they also discussed the Magnitsky Act, which was a major topic at the Trump Tower meeting.

The information about the Grand Havana meeting is not appearing now because it’s emerged as part of a leak or a deliberate release by the special counsel. It’s because Manafort’s statements about the meeting are a key feature of charges that he continued to lie to investigators even after agreeing to provide evidence to the special counsel in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. And one of the things that Manafort appears to have lied about was just how much of a two-way street there was between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

Before, during, and after the campaign, Kilimnik acted as the go-between for Manafort and Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.There have been still-unconfirmed stories that Manafort met with Kilimnik in Europe for the same reason that they were in the Grand Havana: to exchange data. On multiple occasions, Manafort offered to “brief” Deripaska on behind-the-scenes aspects of the Trump campaign. He certainly briefed Kilimnik.

But even if he didn’t meet with Deripaska during the campaign, Manafort does seem to have deliberately given Russia information from the Trump campaign. And Manafort clearly thought that information had value, as he offered it to Kilimnik in recognition that he still owed millions to Deripaska.

Whatever information was exchanged at the Grand Havana Room, there’s a very good reason to believe that it wasn’t just “a personal meeting.” The attendees of the meeting knew they were doing something wrong at the time the meeting was held — because they all make a point of leaving the building alone, through separate entrances,

There’s also a very good reason why the special counsel’s office might be suspicious about this particular incident, and might have a firm basis to believe that Manafort lied. Rick Gates was there, and Gates has also agreed to provide information in return for a reduced sentence. If the story that Gates is telling disagrees with the story being shopped by Manafort they both could be lying, but one of them certainly is.

Russia timelines have noted that Deripaska’s private jet landed briefly at a New Jersey airport on Aug. 3, just one day after the cigar room meeting. It seems likely that Kilimnik left on this plane to make a swift return to Moscow with the data provided by Manafort. Or maybe Deripaska got his through an in-person briefing from Manafort after all.

===

no lnx

What Did Thomas Barrack Know, and When Did He Know It?

by Martin Longman October 31, 2017POLITICAL ANIMAL

Trump and Putin at G20 in Hamburg??????? ?/Flickr

Most of the media focus so far has been on the arrest of Paul Manafort and George Papadopoulos, with Rick Gates’s arrest getting much less attention. Within the administration, however, things are a bit different.

Some White House advisers are unhappy with Thomas J. Barrack Jr., Trump’s longtime friend and chair of his inauguration, whom they hold responsible for keeping Gates in the Trump orbit long after Manafort resigned as campaign chairman in August 2016, according to people familiar with the situation. Barrack has been Gates’s patron of late, steering political work to him and, until Monday, employing him as director of the Washington office of his real estate investment company.

Thomas J. Barrack Jr. is a key, and yet perhaps unwitting, character in the Trump-Russia story. To understand why, we’ll need to go back in time.

Forty years ago, in Beirut, Lebanon, Mr. Barrack became an acquaintance of Paul Manafort.It’s interesting to know how each of these men found their way there. For Barrack, it was a kind of homecoming. His grandparents had immigrated to the United States from a part of Syria that is now located in Lebanon. After getting undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Southern California, Barrack landed a job with President Nixon’s personal attorney Herbert K. Kalmbach. This was the first of Barrack’s unsavory connections, as Kalmbach would later be convicted and jailed for his work on Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President.

Barrack next landed a job with the Flour Corporation, which sent him to Saudi Arabia. There he had a fortuitous experience that paved the way for his great financial success in life.

Barrack became a lawyer, and his ability to speak Arabic led to an assignment in 1972 to go to Saudi Arabia to work on a gas deal. Barrack played squash with a local Saudi. Soon the Saudi brought his brothers. It turned out they were all sons of the king of Saudi Arabia. Barrack spent many hours listening to the Arabs discuss their world, which he said gave him “great respect for the society and community.”

The princes, in turn, hired him, and he became, as he put it, the American representative of “the boys.”

So, Barrack was in Beirut forty years ago working for the Saudi Royal Family.

Paul Manafort got there by a different route. His grandfather also immigrated to the United States, settling in Connecticut. His father served as the mayor of New Britain from 1965 to 1971. Manafort got his undergraduate and law degrees from Georgetown University. He soon landed a job with the law firm of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease in Washington, D.C., where he was assigned to work with a Saudi construction company.

A roommate at Barrack’s Beirut apartment introduced him to Manafort, who represented a firm doing business with a Saudi construction company. They became close friends and, four decades later, Barrack persuaded Trump to hire Manafort for his presidential campaign.

When they met, these two men were both quite a lot more connected than they might have seemed as young Americans living abroad. Barrack had worked for President Nixon’s attorney while Manafort had helped James Baker round up the delegates President Ford needed to fend off a primary challenge from Ronald Reagan.

The relationship they forged would become more important than either of them could have imagined at the time. Barrack went on to become a billionaire real estate developer who would befriend and mentor Donald Trump.When Trump needed to round up the delegates he needed to win the Republican nomination in the winter of 2016, Barrack would recommend the services of his old friend Manafort who had provided the same service to President Ford in 1976.

How precisely this came about could be the most important question that Bob Mueller needs to answer.

Here’s how the Washington Post described it in an October 10th profile of Barrack:

Barrack supported Trump’s campaign, and shortly after Trump lost the Iowa caucuses, he reconnected with his old friend Manafort, a longtime Republican consultant.

“I really need to get to” Trump, Manafort said, 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.

Barrack, who had long been friendly with Kushner, as well as Trump’s daughter Ivanka, said he wrote them an email urging Trump to hire Manafort.

The timeline there is almost uselessly vague, so let me clear it up. The Iowa caucuses took place on February 1st. A couple of weeks later, Barrack and Manafort had a meeting at the Montage hotel in Beverly Hills where they discussed a packet of memos Manafort had prepared to put forth his credentials to handle the delegate fight. On February 29th, Barrack forwarded the packet to Trump along with “an effusive cover letter” that “described Mr. Manafort in terms that Mr. Trump would like, calling him ‘the most experienced and lethal of managers’ and ‘a killer.’”

This must have seemed like a great idea to Barrack, as he could make two good friends happy at the same time. What he almost definitely didn’t then realize is that Manafort had an ulterior motive and was a desperate man.

It’s been known for some time that Manafort was deeply in debt when he approached Barrack about working for Donald Trump. Specifically, the New York Times reported in July thatManafort owed as much as $19 million to a Russian oligarch with mob connections named Oleg V. Deripaska.

When Barrack and Manafort made their pitch to Trump, Manafort wrote “I am not looking for a paid job,” and Barrack reiterated the point in his cover letter: “[Manafort] would do this in an unpaid capacity.” It wouldn’t become clear until later why a man who owes millions to a mobbed-up Putin connected Russian oligarch would be looking to work for free.

On March 28th, Trump hired Manafort without pay. Soon after, this happened:

On the evening of April 11, 2016, two weeks after Donald Trump hired the political consultant Paul Manafort to lead his campaign’s efforts to wrangle Republican delegates, Manafort emailed his old lieutenant Konstantin Kilimnik, who had worked for him for a decade in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.

“I assume you have shown our friends my media coverage, right?” Manafort wrote.

“Absolutely,” Kilimnik responded a few hours later from Kiev. “Every article.”

“How do we use to get whole,” Manafort asks. “Has OVD operation seen?”

The initials OVD obviously stand for Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska. What Manafort was hoping is that by landing his position with Trump, he could somehow free himself from the millions and millions of dollars of debt he owed to Deripaska.

By late summer, it became clear that Manifort was too close to Vladimir Putin and he was fired by the Trump campaign on August 19th. But Manafort’s partner Rick Gates stayed on and gained influence. On Election Night, Gates and Barrack hit it off and Barrack hired Gates to help him organize the inauguration. This is the point at which we have some right to question Barrack’s judgment.

He knew why Manafort had been fired and it must have been a source of some embarrassment since he had so enthusiastically recommended him. But he had no obvious reservations about working with Manafort’s partner. And Gates would run into quick problems after the inauguration. At first, he landed a job working for America FirstPolicies, a non-profit set up to help push Trump’s agenda. But he was quickly forced out because of his association with Manafort. Nonetheless, Barrack continued to befriend him, hiring him to work for his real estate business and dragging him to meetings in the White House. By June, the Daily Beast was picking up on the grumbling about Barrack’s decision-making:

After leaving the Trump-boosting nonprofit America First Policies in March—as former FBI Director James Comey officially announced an investigation into alleged ties between the Trump campaign team and Russian officials—Gates is now working directly for Tom Barrack, according to eight sources in and around the Trump White House…

…And when Barrack stops by to meet Trump in the West Wing, he has brought Gates with him, according to multiple sources familiar with the meeting. Late last week, Barrack was again at the White House, with Gates in tow, two White House officials confirmed.

In fact, it wasn’t until Gates was arrested yesterday that Barrack broke his ties with him:

Rick Gates, charged today with multiple counts of money laundering, tax fraud and illegal foreign lobbying, was fired by real estate company Colony NorthStar Inc., where he had been a consultant to Executive Chairman Tom Barrack.

Now, Barrack has been no stranger to scandal. In the Reagan White House, he worked for Interior Secretary James Watt who actually retreated to Barrack’s ranch after he was forced to resign in disgrace. He probably also arranged to have someone buy Edwin Meese’s house at an inflated price which cost him a promised job at the Commerce Department. More recently, he’s been accused in Italy of conducting a $190 million tax avoidance scheme. But it’s his decision to pitch Manafort to Trump that has cast the biggest pall over his career, and his almost inexplicable and unshakeable mentorship of Rick Gates is a close second that casts some suspicion on innocent explanations for his role in Manafort’s hiring.

Was he really an unwitting participant? Has he been as naive as he’d like us to believe? Why did he stick with Gates even after he’d been badly burned by Manafort?

I hope Robert Mueller can provide us the answers to these questions.

And then I want to know why Trump was seething when he saw Gates and Manafort had been arrested. Shouldn’t he have been happy considering all the legal problems they’ve caused him?

Maybe the president wasn’t an innocent victim here, either.

Martin Longman

Martin Longman is the web editor for the Washington Monthly and the main blogger at Booman Tribune.

===

wapo

Rick Gates forced to admit extramarital affair as Manafort’s defense team attacks his credibility

By Rachel Weiner, Matt Zapotosky, Rosalind S. Helderman and Devlin Barrett

August 7

The courtroom showdown between Paul Manafort and his former right-hand man, Rick Gates, grew painfully personal Tuesday as a defense lawyer forced Gates, the prosecution’s star witness, to admit he had a transatlantic extramarital affair and embezzled money to live beyond his means.

During his second day on the witness stand, Gates detailed the lies, phony documents and fake profits he claims to have engineered at Manafort’s direction. Manafort, seated at the defense table, at times stared intently at his former protege and business partner, who has assiduously avoided Manafort’s gaze despite their proximity inside the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Va.

Gates’s testimony is central to prosecutors’ case as they seek to prove that Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, committed bank fraud and tax crimes. Gates has testified that most of his crimes were committed on behalf of his former boss, while others were self-serving. He pleaded guilty in February as part of a deal with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

As the first trial to emerge from the special counsel’s investigation, the Manafort case is a critical public test of Mueller’s work. His team of prosecutors and agents continue to probe Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether any Trump associates conspired in those efforts.

[Rick Gates testifies he lied for Manafort and stole from him]

The most jarring testimony Tuesday came when Manafort’s lawyer Kevin Downing questioned Gates.

“There was another Richard Gates, isn’t that right? A secret Richard Gates?” Downing asked.

The witness, who seemed to immediately understand the lawyer’s hint, began speaking in a quiet, strained voice, saying that about 10 years ago, he had “another relationship” — an extramarital affair.

Asked whether that affair had taken place in London, Gates said it had occurred there and other places. For about two months, Gates said, he kept a separate apartment in London and admitted he had flown first class and stayed in luxury hotels as part of that relationship.

Gates also admitted he embezzled from Manafort. When Downing asked whether he stole as much as $3 million, Gates replied that he thought the figure was lower but agreed that he had taken money from Manafort without his permission.

In his testimony Monday, Gates said he embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars while working for Manafort.

[Rick Gates’s lies take center stage at Manafort trial]

Many of Downing’s questions sought to buttress Manafort’s central defense strategy: that Gates, not Manafort, is the real villain, a man who told so many lies and stole so much money he could not remember all of his illegal activity.

In one of the most heated exchanges, Gates compared himself favorably to Manafort, suggesting he had chosen a better path by cooperating with the FBI.

“After all the lies you’ve told and fraud you’ve committed, you expect this jury to believe you?” Downing asked.

“Yes,” Gates responded flatly.

“I’m here to tell the truth,” Gates said. “Mr. Manafort had the same path,” he said, adding later: “I’m trying to change.”

At other moments, Gates seemed reluctant to admit the extent of his wrongdoing.

When Gates called a payment an “an unauthorized transaction,” Downing asked him, “Why can’t you say embezzlement?”

Gates replied: “It was embezzlement from Mr. Manafort.”

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, as he has repeatedly through the trial, interjected during Gates’s cross-examination.

When Gates said Manafort “was very good at knowing where the money was and where it was going,” Ellis remarked, “He didn’t know about the money you were stealing, so he didn’t do it that closely.”

Downing presented Gates with a document showing money transfers conducted between 2010 and 2014, some of them large dollar amounts out of Cypriot accounts where Manafort kept his money. Gates acknowledged the list included “unauthorized transfers,” but he could not specify which ones.

At one point, Gates said the document lacked enough detail for him to offer better answers. But the line of questioning prompted him to say repeatedly that he did not recall the money transfers in question, transactions, Downing claimed, about which the special counsel had previously asked Gates. Downing said Gates’s memory appeared much clearer when it was a prosecutor asking questions.

“Have they confronted you with so many lies you can’t remember any of it?” Downing asked.

Downing accused Gates of swiping money from Manafort’s firm to make trips to Las Vegas, to buy sound equipment and toshop at a Whole Foods grocerystore in Richmond, where Gates lives with his family. Gates said that he did spend the firm’s money on those things but that he did not believe it came from offshore accounts. The Las Vegas trips were for a movie production venture, he said, not for fun.

Gates said he wrote a letter falsely claiming his company would invest a large sum of money in a friend’s movie project.

“I did it as a favor,” Gates said.

“You committed fraud as a favor?” Downing asked skeptically.

“I did; I admitted to that,” Gates responded.

At another point, Gates conceded he might have swindled the Trump inaugural committee as well. When Downing asked whether he submitted personal expenses for reimbursement, Gates replied, “It’s possible.”

Downing moved quickly from one topic to the next, and at times, the witness seemed confused as to which fraudulent activity they were discussing.

The strategy worked at least once, when Gates contradicted himself within a matter of minutes. Asked about a series of wire transfers, Gates testified that he submitted a false invoice for “professional services” to an offshore bank to initiate a transfer of $65,000 from the Manafort-controlled Global Endeavor Inc. to a different company, and from there into Gates’s account.

In another instance, Gates submitted a false invoice to cause Global Endeavor to transfer $125,000 into a different company Gates controlled.

Gates tripped up as he explained the reason for these transfers, repeatedly agreeing that some of the money was unauthorized but also saying the transfers were reimbursements for business expenses, while some were bonuses from Manafort.

Downing asked why Gates would call these transfers reimbursements.

“I was, in essence, living beyond my means,” Gates replied.

Gates worked for Manafort for more than a decade before the pair were indicted last year on bank fraud and tax charges. In February, Gates pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and conspiring against the United States. Under sentencing guidelines, he could get roughly five to six years in prison for those crimes, but he said he hopes his cooperation with the government will result in less time behind bars.

At the judge’s instruction, the trial has largely stayed away from mentioning the Trump campaign or Russian interference in the 2016 election, but prosecutor Greg Andres asked Gates questions about what happened after the election, when Gates went to work for Trump’s inaugural committee.

Andres showed Gates emails from Manafort requesting that Gates use his position in the Trump campaign to offer favors to Stephen Calk, the founder and CEO of Federal Savings Bank, one of the banks that extended Manafort a loan in 2016. Those loans are a key issue in the trial because Gates has testified that he helped engineer false statements inflating Manafort’s income to qualify for the loans.

First, Calk’s name was added to a list of national economic advisers to the campaign. Then, in November 2016, Manafort wrote to Gates: “We need to discuss Steve Calk for Sec[retary] of the Army. I hear the list is being considered this weekend,” indicating that he wanted Gates’s help getting Calk considered for the job.

Manafort, in a December 2016 email marked “urgent,” sent Gates a list of people he wanted invited to the inauguration. The list included Calk and Calk’s son.

Earlier Tuesday, Andres walked Gates through evidence of what prosecutors say were years of lies designed to hide much of Manafort’s money from the IRS — and then, when his money ran out, lies to banks to obtain loans to pay for his lavish lifestyle.

Prosecutors offered emails and other documents aimed at supporting Gates’s claims that Manafort was intimately involved with the fraudulent schemes.

One email illustrated that when shown what he might have to pay in taxes, Manafort wrote, “WTF,” a profane abbreviation expressing indignation.

To lower Manafort’s tax bill, Gates testified, they lied and claimed that $900,000 in income he had received was actually a loan.

Gates testified that Manafort personally falsified a 2016 company profit statement to get a loan. The original statement had shown the firm lost over $600,000 that year — during a time when Manafort took the job as Trump’s campaign chairman with no salary. The statement Manafort sent back claimed the firm showed a profit of about $3 million, Gates testified.

In his testimony, Gates has admitted to repeatedly telling lies and submitting false documents, but he insisted he was following his boss’s instructions.

Earlier that year, Gates said he doctored a 2015 profit statement after an unsuccessful attempt to get Manafort’s bookkeeper to do it for him. Gates eventually went around the bookkeeper to get a copy of the correct document, which he then edited, adding $6 million in fictional income to make the company look more profitable.

“Was it accurate?” Andres asked.

“It was not,” Gates replied.

“Was it false?” Andres continued.

“Yes,” Gates said.

Gates is expected to return to the witness stand Wednesday.

Justin Jouvenal contributed to this report.

leanings: Republican/Pro-President Trump

Spending target: Unknown

America First Policies is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit devoted to promoting the agenda of President Donald Trump. According to its website, the group’s main goals are repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, overhauling the U.S. tax system, securing the border with Mexico, building a strong national defense, rebuilding infrastructure, and providing choice in education.

America First Policies is allied with America First Action, a pro-Trump super PAC that plans to spend $100 million in 2018, according to Politico.

Six of Trump’s former campaign aides created America First Policies in January 2017. The group’s founders include: Brad Parscale, Trump’s digital and data director; David Bossie, Trump’s deputy campaign manager; Nick Ayers, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff; Marty Obst, who managed Pence’s gubernatorial reelection campaign in Indiana; and Katrina Pierson, Trump’s senior campaign communications adviser.

Rick Gates, Trump’s other deputy campaign manager, also helped create the nonprofit. However, Gates was forced to leave the group in March 2017 because of his ties to Paul Manafort, a former Trump campaign manager. As we have previously reported, both Manafort and Gates were indicted on charges of money laundering and tax evasion related to their work for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine.

America First Policies was mostly inactive during the first months of the Trump administration, according to Politico. Then, in late October, the organization’s officials met with Trump advisers at the White House to plan a multimillion-dollar campaign to sell Trump’s plan to overhaul the U.S. tax system.

As part of that effort, the group said it planned to spend $1 million on a TV and online ad campaign with former Trump campaign manager Cory Lewandowski calling on “fellow patriots and friends” to get behind Trump’s tax proposal.

As of April 20, America First Policies has spent more than $1.9 million on ads and other independent expenditures trying to get Republicans elected to Congress. Most of that amount, $1.5 million, was spent opposing Democrat Jon Ossoff, who lost to Republican Karen Handel in the race to fill Georgia’s 6th District House seat. The group also spent more than $452,000 supporting former Sen. Luther Strange, who lost to Roy Moore in the special GOP Senate primary runoff in Alabama.

America First Policies has not publicly disclosed its donors to the Federal Election Commission because 501(c)(4) organizations are not required to do so.

no link docs

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/28/us/politics/rick-gates-trump-campaign-russian-intelligence.html

A top Trump campaign official had repeated communications during the final weeks of the 2016 presidential race with a business associate tied to Russian intelligence, according to a document released on Tuesday by the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the election.

The campaign official, Rick Gates, had frequent phone calls in September and October 2016 with a person the F.B.I. believes had active links to Russian spy services at the time, the document said. Mr. Gates also told an associate the person “was a former Russian Intelligence Officer with the G.R.U.,” the Russian military intelligence agency.

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, is investigating numerous contacts between President Trump’s advisers and Russia-linked individuals and entities leading up to and after the November 2016 election. The document, filed in Mr. Mueller’s name, stated that the communications between Mr. Gates and the individual were “pertinent to the investigation.”

The individual is identified only as “Person A,” and the document describes him as someone who worked for Mr. Gates and Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, as part of their earlier representation of Russia-aligned parties and politicians in Ukraine, including the former president of Ukraine. A person with knowledge of the matter identified Person A as Konstantin V. Kilimnik, who for years was Mr. Manafort’s right-hand man in Ukraine.

According to a document released by the special counsel, Rick Gates had frequent phone calls in September and October 2016 with a person the F.B.I. believes had active links to Russian spy services at the time.

Mr. Manafort has told associates that he does not believe that Mr. Kilimnik has ties to Russian intelligence, but the document released on Tuesday shows that Mr. Gates told others of his history in the intelligence services. That history was widely discussed for years among people who worked with Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates in Ukraine.

At the time of the calls, Mr. Gates was the Trump campaign’s liaison to the Republican National Committee and, before that, he was the campaign’s deputy chairman. Mr. Manafort served as the campaign chairman until August 2016, when he resigned amid the growing controversy about his work in Ukraine.

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Both Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates were indicted last year for money laundering and other financial crimes committed while, the charges said, they tried to hide the money they received for their Ukraine work.Last month, Mr. Gates pleaded guilty to financial fraud and lying to investigators and has agreed to cooperate with Mr. Mueller’s investigation.

Mr. Manafort has vowed to fight the charges. In February 2017, he told The New York Times he had “never knowingly spoken to Russian intelligence officers, and I have never been involved with anything to do with the Russian government of the Putin administration or any other issues under investigation today.”

But, he added, “It’s not like these people wear badges that say, ‘I’m a Russian intelligence officer.’ ”

Mr. Kilimnik was born in Ukraine when it was still part of the Soviet Union, and he served in the Russian Army as a linguist. Last year, as scrutiny mounted of his work with Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates in Ukraine, he steadfastly denied any association with Russian intelligence. An investigation by Ukrainian prosecutors into Mr. Kilimnik’s possible links to Russian spy agencies was closed late last year without charges.

Mr. Kilimnik has maintained residences in Moscow and Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, and has traveled regularly between them during years of working for Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates on behalf of various Russia-aligned oligarchs and political parties.

The new document is a sentencing memorandum for Alex van der Zwaan, a lawyer who pleaded guilty in February to lying to federal investigators about his conversations with Mr. Gates in 2016 about work the two men did in Ukraine.

Mr. van der Zwaan was an attorney at a firm that worked with Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates to prepare a report used to defend Viktor F. Yanukovych, the former Ukrainian president, from international criticism over the prosecution and incarceration of one of his political rivals.

Mr. van der Zwaan “worked closely” on the report with Mr. Gates and Person A, according to a court filing submitted Tuesday night by Mr. van der Zwaan’s lawyers asking the judge for leniency in sentencing.

Mr. van der Zwaan originally told Mr. Mueller’s investigators that he had not spoken to Mr. Gates since August 2016, but subsequently admitted he had lied after prosecutors confronted him with evidence of conversations.

The sentencing document describes an observation by one unidentified witness in the investigation who said Mr. van der Zwaan had “gone native.”

“That is, he had grown too close to Manafort, Gates, and Person A,” the document stated.

According to the filing by his lawyers, Mr. van der Zwaan “had explored opportunities to leave Skadden to work directly for Gates and Manafort” in 2012 and 2013.

Kenneth P. Vogel

https://themoscowproject.org/players/rickgates

Democratic National Committee files a lawsuit against the Trump campaign, the Russian government and Wikileaks in the federal district court of Manhattan. The suit alleges that the Trump campaign coordinated with the Russian government and Wikileaks during the 2016 campaign, using cyberattacks to hurt Hillary Clinton and elect Donald Trump. Many Trump associates are named as defendants, including Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone and Rick Gates. Additionally, many Russia-linked individuals and entities are named, including Julian Assange, Emin Agalarov, Aras Agalarov, Wikileaks, and the Russian military intelligence service, the GRU. Donald Trump is not named as a defendant.

One of the first public signs that the Russian government was attempting to interfere in the 2016 election was the hacking and publication of emails from the servers of the Democratic National Committee, or DNC. The hacked emails, which WikiLeaks began to release on the eve of the Democratic National Convention in July 2016, led to, among other things, public protests outside of the convention in Philadelphia and the resignation of Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz as the head of the DNC.

According to The New York Times, a hacking group believed to be tied to the Russian government, known in the cybersecurity world as Cozy Bear,began “sending spear-phishing emails to a long list of American government agencies, Washington nonprofits and government contractors,” including the DNC, to steal vulnerable data. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reportedly firstcontacted employees at the DNC to inform them that the Russian hackers had “compromised at least one computer” in September 2015; however, The New York Times hasreported that the DNC did not immediately act on the information, and the FBI did not follow up on its initial warning. In April 2016, another Kremlin-linked hacking group, called Fancy Bear, alsosent phishing emails to the DNC as part of the attack that ultimately led to their acquisition of John Podesta’s emails. On April 29, the DNCdiscovered an unauthorized person accessing their servers, and subsequently contracted the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, whichdetermined within a day that the intrusion had been carried out from Russia.

Perhaps due to the lack of effective communication between the DNC and the FBI, the hack did not become public until well into 2016. On May 18, 2016, the Director of National Intelligence James Clapperreported that the U.S. intelligence community had found evidence of foreign spy services attempting to hack digital networks used by American presidential campaigns, including the DNC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC. Almost a month later, The Washington Post firstreported that Russian hackers had penetrated DNC databases, and had gained access to both internal email and chat traffic among employees and the opposition research the organization had compiled on Trump. The next day, after the online news outlets*Gawker* and*The Smoking Gun* published files purporting to be the DNC’s opposition research on Trump, a hacker using the pseudonym Guccifer 2.0claimed credit for the hack, saying that he had given the stolen emails to WikiLeaks and publishing some of the documents himself. Though Guccifer 2.0 claimed he was Romanian and neither understood Russian nor had connections to the country’s government, metadata from the hacked documents and his inability to write fluently in Romaniansuggested that he was in fact operating out of Russia. On March 22, 2018, Guccifer 2.0 was revealed as an officer in the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence directorate.

WikiLeaks beganpublishing emails hacked from the DNC on July 22, 2016, three days before the Democratic National Convention was set to begin in Philadelphia. On July 25, the FBI announced that it was investigating the DNC hack. The next day, intelligence officials reportedlytold the White House that they had “high confidence” that Russia had carried out the hack, although, according to The New York Times, they hadnot yet concluded whether the operation was intended as “fairly routine cyberespionage … or as part of an effort to manipulate the 2016 presidential election.” On July 29, the DCCCannounced that it had been hacked by the same Russian actors behind the DNC hack; Guccifer thenreleased documents from the DCCC regarding House races in several states, including Florida, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, and North Carolina.

Even after the intelligence community concluded that Russia had been behind the DNC and DCCC hacks, WikiLeaks continued to not only publish the emails butdeny that they had come from Russia, ultimatelyreleasing a final batch of emails on November 6, 2016, mere days before the election.

America First Policies is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, incorporated on January 27, 2017,^[1] to promote the policy agenda of the Donald Trump presidential campaign.^[2][3][4][5] On March 30, 2017, Katie Walsh, formerly White House Deputy Chief of Staff, left that position to join America First Policies.^[6]

Formation

America First Policies was founded by several people, including Nick Ayers, a Republican consultant who is regarded as Mike Pence's top political adviser,^[7] andRick Gates.

Trump Presidential Campaign donor Rebekah Mercer disagreed with Brad Parscale about the direction of America First Policies. Mercer wanted America First Policies' data engine to be Cambridge Analytica, which would have effectively given her organizational control and potentially influence over the Republican Party. If Mercer had control over the organization's database and the money, Mercer could have led the organization to sway President's supporters against the President.^[8]

Targeted campaigns

On June 23, 2017, Republican Senator Dean Heller was targeted with an advertising campaign over his opposition to the Obamacare repeal bill. Heller is considered vulnerable in the 2018 election.^[9]

References

:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "America First Policies - Initial File Number: N00005573092". Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. Government of the District of Columbia. Retrieved January 4, 2018.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Zarroli, Jim (January 31, 2017). "Trump Political Advisers Now Raising Money For His 'America First' Agenda". Npr.org. Retrieved 22 May2017.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Bykowicz, Julie (January 30, 2017). "Trump advisers start 'America First Policies' nonprofit". Usnews.com. Associated Press. Retrieved 22 May 2017.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Bykowicz, Julie (January 30, 2017). "Trump advisers start 'America First Policies' nonprofit". Businessinsider.com. Associated Press. Retrieved 22 May 2017.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Bykowicz, Julie (January 30, 2017). "Trump Advisers Start 'America First Policies' Nonprofit". Nbcnewyork.com. Associated Press. Retrieved 22 May 2017.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Miller, Zeke J.; Elliott, Philip (March 30, 2017). "White House Deputy Chief of Staff Leaves for Pro-Trump Group". time.com. Retrieved 30 March 2017.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Thrush, Glenn; Martin, Jonathan (June 27, 2017). "On Senate Health Bill, Trump Falters in the Closer's Role". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 December 2017.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Ward, Vicky (March 17, 2017). "The Blow-It-All-Up Billionaires". Huffington Post. Retrieved 22 May 2017.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Nussbaum, Matthew; Isenstadt, Alex (June 23, 2017). "Pro-Trump group to target GOP Sen. Heller over health care bill". Politico. Retrieved 23 December 2017.

External links

Official website

stub

Categories:

Mueller Witness' Team Gamed Out Russian Meddling … in 2015

https://www.thedailybeast.com/mueller-witness-team-gamed-out-russian-meddling-in-...

:{:(style="border-color:#0d652d;;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"):}:

:{:{8 hours ago - :(style="color:#808080;"):}:One former analyst at the :{Wikistrat:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: consulting firm called it 'disturbing.' ... In April 2016, senior :{Trump:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: campaign official Rick :{Gates:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: reviewed a pitch produced by a .... He pointed to :{Zamel's:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}:reported work with George :{Nader:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}:, ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Team Trump Had Many Ties to Israeli Intel Firm in Mueller's Crosshairs

https://www.thedailybeast.com/team-trump-had-many-ties-to-israeli-intel-firm-in-muel...

:{:(style="border-color:#0d652d;;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"):}:

:{:{Nov 28, 2018 - :(style="color:#808080;"):}:And several members of :{Trump's:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: inner circle were very, very interested. ... a senior:{Trump:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: campaign official, Rick :{Gates:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}:, sought plans from Psy Group, a firm ... Psy Group's owner is Joel :{Zamel:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}:, an Australian who also owns the private ... Donald :{Trump:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: Jr., and George :{Nader:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}:, a Lebanese-American political ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Report: Mueller Eyed Foreign Firm That Wargamed Election Meddling ...

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/.../wikistrat-psy-group-joel-zamel-rick-gates-trump-ca...

:{:(style="border-color:#0d652d;;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"):}:

:{:{2 hours ago - :(style="color:#808080;"):}:Another, more secretive firm owned by :{Zamel:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: – PsyGroup – later made a proposal to:{Trump:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: deputy campaign manager Rick :{Gates:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: on how to ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Understanding the New Trump Campaign Collusion Story

nymag.com/intelligencer/.../understanding-the-new-trump-campaign-collusion-story.ht...

May 20, 2018 - Another company in Zamel's portfolio, Wikistrat, “uses a network of ... According toNader, the crown princes thought Trump would be a .... (Manafort and Gates have both been indicted by Mueller, and Gates has been flipped.).

Why did at least three members of Donald Trump's campaign contact a ...

https://www.salon.com/.../three-different-trump-campaign-associates-sought-help-fro...

:{:(style="border-color:#0d652d;;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"):}:

:{:{Nov 29, 2018 - :(style="color:#808080;"):}:Rick :{Gates:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: reportedly reached out to the intelligence-gathering data firm Psy ... the private intelligence group :{Wikistrat:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: — and who was interviewed several ... Hannah, :{Nader:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: and :{Zamel:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}:reportedly met with a top Saudi general ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Who is Joel Zamel, the Australian-Israeli linked to Mueller's Trump ...

https://www.haaretz.com › Israel News

:{:(style="border-color:#0d652d;;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"):}:

:{:{May 21, 2018 - :(style="color:#808080;"):}:The Israeli social media expert, allegedly linked to the :{Trump:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: campaign ... :{Zamel:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}:, the Times reported, met Donald :{Trump:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}:, Jr. together with George :{Nader:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}:, .... Speaking for :{Zamel:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: and:{Wikistrat:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: in April, attorney Marc L. Mukasey, ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Missing: gates ‎| ‎Must include: ‎gates

Trump Jr. and Other Aides Met With Gulf Emissary Offering Help to Win ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/us/.../trump-jr-saudi-uae-nader-prince-zamel.html

May 19, 2018 - After Mr. Trump was elected, Mr. Nader paid Mr. Zamel a large sum of money, described by one associate as up to $2 million. There are ...

Missing: wikistrat ‎gates

Israeli Intelligence Firm's Election-Meddling Analysis Comes Under ...

https://www.wsj.com/.../israeli-intelligence-firms-election-meddling-analysis-comes-unde...

May 25, 2018 - Psy-Group presentation outlines ways Trump campaign was helped by fake social media accounts .... Zamel and Nader had pitched his client on “a social media platform or ... One of his companies, Wikistrat, did war games and analysis for the U.A.E. in ... Bill Gates on the Best Investment He Ever Made.

Mueller Probe Expands to Israeli Entrepreneur With U.A.E. Ties - WSJ

https://www.wsj.com › Politics › National Security

May 19, 2018 - Mr. Zamel met with Donald Trump Jr., Mr. Trump's eldest son, at Trump Tower in the ... Mr. Nader is also cooperating with the investigation; his lawyer didn't ... The work of two of Mr.Zamel's companies—Wikistrat and the Psy Group—has .... Bill Gates on Where China Stands in a Trade War With the U.S ...

Did Israeli spy firm help Trump win presidency? | The Electronic Intifada

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali.../did-israeli-spy-firm-help-trump-win-presidenc...

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:{:{Oct 9, 2018 - :(style="color:#808080;"):}:But the paper notes that :{Nader:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: and :{Zamel:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: “have given differing accounts over ... also cofounded a firm called :{Wikistrat:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: which has been hired by the government of ... According to the Times, :{Trump:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: campaign official Rick :{Gates:(style="font-weight:bold;color:#6a6a6a;"):}: ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}: