Trump & Putin. Yes, It's Really a Thing

[Splits]

Obvious now why hater (http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/member.php?u=7609) loves Trump

Point 7 is damning



By JOSH MARSHALL (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/profile/josh-m) Published JULY 23, 2016, 4:15 PM EDT


Over the last year there has been a recurrent refrain about the seeming bromance between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. More seriously, but relatedly, many believe Trump is an admirer and would-be emulator of Putin's increasingly autocratic and illiberal rule. But there's quite a bit more to the story. At a minimum, Trump appears to have a deep financial dependence on Russian money from persons close to Putin. And this is matched to a conspicuous solicitousness to Russian foreign policy interests where they come into conflict with US policies which go back decades through administrations of both parties. There is also something between a non-trivial and a substantial amount of evidence suggesting Putin-backed financial support for Trump or a non-tacit alliance between the two men.

Let me start by saying I'm no Russia hawk. I have long been skeptical of US efforts to extend security guarantees to countries within what the Russians consider their 'near abroad' or extend such guarantees and police Russian interactions with new states which for centuries were part of either the Russian Empire or the USSR. This isn't a matter of indifference to these countries. It is based on my belief in seriously thinking through the potential costs of such policies. In the case of the Baltics, those countries are now part of NATO. Security commitments have been made which absolutely must be kept. But there are many other areas where such commitments have not been made. My point in raising this is that I do not come to this question or these policies as someone looking for confrontation or cold relations with Russia.

Let's start with the basic facts. There is a lot of Russian money flowing into Trump's coffers and he is conspicuously solicitous of Russian foreign policy priorities.

I'll list off some facts.

1. All the other discussions of Trump's finances aside, his debt load has grown dramatically over the last year (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-07-19/trump-is-richer-in-property-and-deeper-in-debt-in-new-valuation), from $350 million to $630 million. This is in just one year while his liquid assets have also decreased. Trump has been blackballed by all major US banks.

2. Post-bankruptcy Trump has been highly reliant on money from Russia, most of which has over the years become increasingly concentrated among oligarchs and sub-garchs close to Vladimir Putin. Here's a good overview (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-financial-ties-to-russia-and-his-unusual-flattery-of-vladimir-putin/2016/06/17/dbdcaac8-31a6-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html) from The Washington Post, with one morsel for illustration ...
Since the 1980s, Trump and his family members have made numerous trips to Moscow in search of business opportunities, and they have relied on Russian investors to buy their properties around the world.“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website of eTurboNews, a trade publication. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”



3. One example of this is the Trump Soho development in Manhattan, one of Trump's largest recent endeavors. The project was the hit with a series of lawsuits in response to some typically Trumpian efforts to defraud investors by making fraudulent claims about the financial health of the project. Emerging out of that litigation however was news about secret financing for the project from Russia and Kazakhstan (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/us/politics/donald-trump-soho-settlement.html?_r=0). Most attention about the project has focused on the presence of a twice imprisoned Russian immigrant with extensive ties to the Russian criminal underworld. But that's not the most salient part of the story. As the Times put it,
"Mr. Lauria brokered a $50 million investment in Trump SoHo and three other Bayrock projects by an Icelandic firm preferred by wealthy Russians “in favor with” President Vladimir V. Putin, according to a lawsuit against Bayrock by one of its former executives. The Icelandic company, FL Group, was identified in a Bayrock investor presentation as a “strategic partner,” along with Alexander Mashkevich, a billionaire once charged in a corruption case involving fees paid by a Belgian company seeking business in Kazakhstan; that case was settled with no admission of guilt."



Another suit alleged the project "occasionally received unexplained infusions of cash from accounts in Kazakhstan and Russia."

Sounds completely legit.

Read both articles: After his bankruptcy and business failures roughly a decade ago Trump has had an increasingly difficult time finding sources of capital for new investments. As I noted above, Trump has been blackballed by all major US banks with the exception of Deutschebank, which is of course a foreign bank with a major US presence. He has steadied and rebuilt his financial empire with a heavy reliance on capital from Russia. At a minimum the Trump organization is receiving lots of investment capital from people close to Vladimir Putin.

Trump's tax returns would likely clarify the depth of his connections to and dependence on Russian capital aligned with Putin. And in case you're keeping score at home: no, that's not reassuring.

4. Then there's Paul Manafort, Trump's nominal 'campaign chair' who now functions as campaign manager and top advisor. Manafort spent most of the last decade as top campaign and communications advisor for Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian Ukrainian Prime Minister and then President whose ouster in 2014 led to the on-going crisis and proxy war in Ukraine. Yanukovych was and remains a close Putin ally. Manafort is running Trump's campaign.

5. Trump's foreign policy advisor on Russia and Europe is Carter Page (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-03-30/trump-russia-adviser-carter-page-interview), a man whose entire professional career has revolved around investments in Russia and who has deep and continuing financial and employment ties to Gazprom. If you're not familiar with Gazprom, imagine if most or all of the US energy industry were rolled up into a single company and it were personally controlled by the US President who used it as a source of revenue and patronage. That is Gazprom's role in the Russian political and economic system. It is no exaggeration to say that you cannot be involved with Gazprom at the very high level which Page has been without being wholly in alignment with Putin's policies. Those ties also allow Putin to put Page out of business at any time.

6. Over the course of the last year, Putin has aligned all Russian state controlled media behind Trump (http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/04/donald-trump-2016-russia-today-rt-kremlin-media-vladimir-putin-213833). As Frank Foer explains here (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/07/vladimir_putin_has_a_plan_for_destroying_the_west_ and_it_looks_a_lot_like.html), this fits a pattern with how Putin has sought to prop up rightist/nationalist politicians across Europe, often with direct or covert infusions of money. In some cases this is because they support Russia-backed policies; in others it is simply because they sow discord in Western aligned states. Of course, Trump has repeatedly praised Putin, not only in the abstract but often for the authoritarian policies and patterns of government which have most soured his reputation around the world.

7. Here's where it gets more interesting. This is one of a handful of developments that tipped me from seeing all this as just a part of Trump's larger shadiness to something more specific and ominous about the relationship between Putin and Trump. As TPM's Tierney Sneed explained in this article (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/kris-kobach-party-convention-platform), one of the most enduring dynamics of GOP conventions (there's a comparable dynamic on the Dem side) is more mainstream nominees battling conservative activists over the party platform, with activists trying to check all the hardline ideological boxes and the nominees trying to soften most or all of those edges. This is one thing that made the Trump convention very different. The Trump Camp was totally indifferent to the platform. So party activists were able to write one of the most conservative platforms in history. Not with Trump's backing but because he simply didn't care. With one big exception: Trump's team mobilized the nominee's traditional mix of cajoling and strong-arming on one point: changing the party platform on assistance to Ukraine against Russian military operations (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trump-campaign-guts-gops-anti-russia-stance-on-ukraine/2016/07/18/98adb3b0-4cf3-11e6-a7d8-13d06b37f256_story.html) in eastern Ukraine. For what it's worth (and it's not worth much) I am quite skeptical of most Republicans call for aggressively arming Ukraine to resist Russian aggression. But the single-mindedness of this focus on this one issue - in the context of total indifference to everything else in the platform - speaks volumes.

This does not mean Trump is controlled by or in the pay of Russia or Putin. It can just as easily be explained by having many of his top advisors having spent years working in Putin's orbit and being aligned with his thinking and agenda. But it is certainly no coincidence. Again, in the context of near total indifference to the platform and willingness to let party activists write it in any way they want, his team zeroed in on one fairly obscure plank to exert maximum force and it just happens to be the one most important to Putin in terms of US policy.

Add to this that his most conspicuous foreign policy statements track not only with Putin's positions but those in which Putin is most intensely interested. Aside from Ukraine, Trump's suggestion that the US and thus NATO might not come to the defense of NATO member states in the Baltics in the case of a Russian invasion is a case in point.

There are many other things people are alleging about hacking and all manner of other mysteries. But those points are highly speculative, some verging on conspiratorial in their thinking. I ignore them here because I've wanted to focus on unimpeachable, undisputed and publicly known facts. These alone paint a stark and highly troubling picture.

To put this all into perspective, if Vladimir Putin were simply the CEO of a major American corporation and there was this much money flowing in Trump's direction, combined with this much solicitousness of Putin's policy agenda, it would set off alarm bells galore. That is not hyperbole or exaggeration. And yet Putin is not the CEO of an American corporation. He's the autocrat who rules a foreign state, with an increasingly hostile posture towards the United States and a substantial stockpile of nuclear weapons. The stakes involved in finding out 'what's going on' as Trump might put it are quite a bit higher.

There is something between a non-trivial and a substantial amount of circumstantial evidence for a financial relationship between Trump and Putin or a non-tacit alliance between the two men. Even if you draw no adverse conclusions, Trump's financial empire is heavily leveraged and has a deep reliance on capital infusions from oligarchs and other sources of wealth aligned with Putin. That's simply not something that can be waved off or ignored.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing

[hater]

:lmao talkingpointsmemp.com :lol

Didnt Read btw. Too long

[Wild Cobra]

If Trump and Putin have a relationship of respect with each other, the rest doesn't really matter. Getting along with other large nations is a high priority for any president. Any facts supporting what the OP implies are probably just normal business practices.

[hater]

Trump will most likely ally with Russia and China and send Europe to the dustbin of history :lol

[boutons_deux]

If Trump and Putin have a relationship of respect with each other, the rest doesn't really matter. Getting along with other large nations is a high priority for any president. Any facts supporting what the OP implies are probably just normal business practices.

:lol

That's the problem, politics (WC's "business") is a make-myself-rich(er) scheme. Even voters "vote their pocketbook"


https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/panama-papers-money-hidden-offshore

[Pelicans78]

Apparently the Russians were responsible for the wikileaks. If true, it all adds up with a Trump/Putin coalition.

Trump speaking glowingly of Putin.

Trump talking about getting out of NATO.

Paul Manafort having strong ties with Pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine.

Trump mostly wearing red ties at his public appearances

Russians stealing emails from the DNC and releasing them on the eve of the DNC which would only hurt Hillary and help Trump.



So basically Comrade Trump is a Russian candidate for the U.S presidency. If he wins, we're fucked :lol

[CosmicCowboy]

:lmao at the conspiracy idiots.

Junior Cosmoreds :lmao

[Th'Pusher]

:lmao at the conspiracy idiots.

Junior Cosmoreds :lmao

This from the guy who thought "the only logical conclusion" for Melania's plagerisim was a Clinton plant.

[TheGreatYacht]

:lmao at the conspiracy idiots.

Junior Cosmoreds :lmao
Still not as bad as the inbred God fearing folk, tbh. :lmao

[TheGreatYacht]

This from the guy who thought "the only logical conclusion" for Melania's plagerisim was a Clinton plant.
He probably watches Alex Jones like the rest of the right wingers.

[Wild Cobra]

:lol

That's the problem, politics (WC's "business") is a make-myself-rich(er) scheme. Even voters "vote their pocketbook"


https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/panama-papers-money-hidden-offshore

Only jealous pathetic idiots vote like that.

[UNT Eagles 2016]

If Trump and Putin have a relationship of respect with each other, the rest doesn't really matter. Getting along with other large nations is a high priority for any president. Any facts supporting what the OP implies are probably just normal business practices.
Yep. And much wiser to befriend Russia than the backwards-culture jihadist terrorist regimes running Turkey, Saudi, Isis, etc...

[Warlord23]

At this point, the Trumpanzees would cheer their hero even if he read out the Communist manifesto at one of his rallies. What a time to be alive.

[DMX7]

Trump will most likely ally with Russia and China and send Europe to the dustbin of history :lol

Is that what we want?

[Pelicans78]

Is that what we want?

Hater does. He's a Sandinista.

[spankadelphia]

At this point, the Trumpanzees would cheer their hero even if he read out the Communist manifesto at one of his rallies. What a time to be alive.

Russia isn't a communist country anymore. Most of the Bolshevik's descendants immigrated to the United States in the mid 20th century. They're our problem now.

[Warlord23]

Russia isn't a communist country anymore. Most of the Bolshevik's descendants immigrated to the United States in the mid 20th century. They're our problem now.

I know they aren't. They are an authoritarian, semi-fascist, one-party-state which Trump appears to admire.

However, that doesn't detract from my point of Trump being able to say whatever he wants (and then change his mind multiple times) without losing the support of his brainless minions.

[Killakobe81]

At this point, the Trumpanzees would cheer their hero even if he read out the Communist manifesto at one of his rallies. What a time to be alive.

Yup. Sad thing is I think he is gonna win ...

[Winehole23]

Looks like a fairly obvious conflict of interest plausibly involving a foreign head of state. Tribalism trumps all, I guess.

cf. Johnny Chung and James Riady.

[boutons_deux]

Trash's campaign manager is well-connected to, and well paid by, Russians

The Quiet American

Paul Manafort made a career out of stealthily reinventing the world’s nastiest tyrants as noble defenders of freedom. Getting Donald Trump elected will be a cinch.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/paul_manafort_isn_t_a_gop_retread_he_s_made_a_care er_of_reinventing_tyrants.html

[Splits]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/25/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/



Is Donald Trump a Putin patsy?

What to make of allegations that Putin is assisting Donald Trump's campaign.


By Daniel W. Drezner (http://www.washingtonpost.com/people/daniel-w-drezner) July 25 at 9:17 AM Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a regular contributor to PostEverything (http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/).



https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_960w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/05/13/Foreign/Images/AFP_AK8RE.jpg&w=1484



David Sanger has quite the New York Times story (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/25/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-emails.html) this a.m.:



Proving the source of a cyberattack is notoriously difficult. But researchers have concluded that the [Democratic Party] national committee was breached by two Russian intelligence agencies, which were the same attackers behind previous Russian cyberoperations at the White House, the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff last year. And metadata from the released emails suggests that the documents passed through Russian computers. Though a hacker claimed responsibility for giving the emails to WikiLeaks, the same agencies are the prime suspects. Whether the thefts were ordered by Mr. Putin, or just carried out by apparatchiks who thought they might please him, is anyone’s guess. …It was a remarkable moment: Even at the height of the Cold War, it was hard to find a presidential campaign willing to charge that its rival was essentially secretly doing the bidding of a key American adversary. But the accusation is emerging as a theme of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, as part of an attempt to portray Mr. Trump not only as an isolationist, but also as one who would go soft on confronting Russia as it threatens nations that have shown too much independence from Moscow or, in the case of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, joined NATO.



Sanger’s story is simply the cherry on top of the suspicion sundae that has been building over the weekend. An awful lot (http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/06/guest-editorial-the-dnc-hack-and-dump-is-what-cyberwar-looks-like/) of security contractors (http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/07/how-putin-weaponized-wikileaks-influence-election-american-president/130163/) have reached this assessment. So have political writers. For example, as commentators, TPM’s Josh Marshall and Bloomberg’s Eli Lake do not agree on much. In recent days, however, both of them have written pieces suggesting that Vladimir Putin’s Russia was likely behind both the hack of Democratic National Committee emails and the sending of them to Wikileaks.

Lake’s column (http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-25/cybersecurity-experts-say-russia-hacked-the-democrats) contains a source that’s quite surprising:



Mike Flynn, who served as Defense Intelligence Agency director between 2012 and 2014 and is an adviser to the Trump campaign, told me he wouldn’t be surprised if the Russians were behind the DNC hack. “Both China and Russia have the full capability to do this,” he said. “If someone were to find out Russia did this I would not be surprised at all.”



Marshall’s column (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing) is more ambitious in its allegations:



At a minimum, Trump appears to have a deep financial dependence on Russian money from persons close to Putin. And this is matched to a conspicuous solicitousness to Russian foreign policy interests where they come into conflict with US policies which go back decades through administrations of both parties. There is also something between a non-trivial and a substantial amount of evidence suggesting Putin-backed financial support for Trump or a non-tacit alliance between the two men.



Indeed, as Cheryl Rofer (https://nucleardiner.wordpress.com/2016/07/24/trump-and-russia/#more-3108) and Franklin Foer (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/paul_manafort_isn_t_a_gop_retread_he_s_made_a_care er_of_reinventing_tyrants.html) have documented suggestive links between members of Donald Trump’s campaign and the Russian government. Then there are the financial interconnections (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/donald-trump-russia-moscow-miss-universe-223173#ixzz48l9TN9LE) between Trump’s business and Russia. Last month the Post wrote about the Trump family’s dependence on Russian finance (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-financial-ties-to-russia-and-his-unusual-flattery-of-vladimir-putin/2016/06/17/dbdcaac8-31a6-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html) and interest in Russian projects. And it is no secret that the Russian government has deployed a variety of tactics to influence Western democracies ranging from disinformation campaigns (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-danger-of-russian-disinformation/2016/05/06/b31d9718-12d5-11e6-8967-7ac733c56f12_story.html) to troll armies (https://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/documents-show-how-russias-troll-army-hit-america?utm_term=.yogDnyrLl#.ehQkyjD9X).


The smoke has gotten thick enough to require a dismissive Trump tweet:

The new joke in town is that Russia leaked the disastrous DNC e-mails, which should never have been written (stupid), because Putin likes me
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2016 (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/757538729170964481)


Indeed, this would be laughable on its face in a normal election cycle if it wasn’t for the fact that:


Donald Trump is the GOP nominee for president;
Trump also tweets stuff like this:


Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow – if so, will he become my new best friend?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2013 (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/347191326112112640)


So there’s a LOT of smoke. Is there any fire? That is to say, is there any proper causal evidence that Donald J. Trump is a patsy of Vladimir Putin?

First of all, let’s dismiss the part of this story that connects folks like Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Mike Flynn to Russia. Those links are there, but they are also irrelevant for the campaign. If there is anything we have learned about Donald Trump’s campaign to date, it’s that non-family underlings don’t matter. Foreign policy advisers like Page or Flynn certainly don’t matter. I’m not saying that these connections are not worth exploring, just that they are not part of some master grand plan.

Second of all, while the evidence for Russia being behind the DNC hack is certainly suggestive, it’s far from ironclad. Click here (https://medium.com/@jeffreycarr/the-dnc-breach-and-the-hijacking-of-common-sense-20e89dacfc2b#.xtwrzfe05), here (https://medium.com/@jeffreycarr/faith-based-attribution-30f4a658eabc#.shmzk7kc9) and here (http://fair.org/home/with-dnc-leaks-former-conspiracy-theory-is-now-true-and-no-big-deal/) for some critical pushback on these stories. I certainly think the link merits further investigation. But I’m uncomfortable with the ironclad casual assertion that “Russia was behind this” that is starting to form inside the Beltway.

The third and hardest part of this story to dismiss is the money trail. As Marshall noted, Trump has increased his debt load (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-07-19/trump-is-richer-in-property-and-deeper-in-debt-in-new-valuation) and the dirty little secret is that most U.S. banks don’t loan money to Trump (http://www.wsj.com/articles/when-donald-trump-needs-a-loan-he-chooses-deutsche-bank-1458379806) because they don’t trust him. And as Spoiler Alerts discussed last month (https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/06/02/my-crazy-conspiracy-theory-for-why-donald-trump-now-wants-to-be-president/), “I’m beginning to wonder if [Trump’s] motivation to win now is less about making America great again and more about avoiding yet another Trump bankruptcy.” Cozying up to Russia and Russian money would certainly be one way of bolstering his finances. And one wonders if the reason that Trump won’t release his tax returns is because it would expose Trump’s reliance on foreign money to prop up his companies.

This story is of a kind as stories that accuse Hilary Clinton of being compromised because of foreign sources of funding for the Clinton Global Initiative (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/foreign-governments-gave-millions-to-foundation-while-clinton-was-at-state-dept/2015/02/25/31937c1e-bc3f-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html). Correlation does not prove causation. Just because funders might want to influence powerful people doesn’t mean that they actually do. Indeed, in some cases the ideological affinity was preexisting. The evidence suggests, for example, that Trump had been enamored with Russia (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/donald-trump-russia-moscow-miss-universe-223173) for some time, probably because the plethora of plutocrats there jibe most closely with Trump’s view of how to navigate the world. It’s not like Putin needed to change Trump’s mind on anything — Trump’s headspace was already there.

All of this justifies further investigative journalism, but I’m queasy with immediately making the leap from “Russia is behind the DNC hack” to “Russia is trying to put a patsy in the White House.” But there are two conclusions I do draw from this ongoing story. The first is that I really wish those writers who have critiqued the Trump-Russia ties were as vigilant and careful when talking about whether Hillary Clinton has been compromised by foreign funding for the Clinton Global Initiative.

The second is that, even though I don’t buy this story yet, the damning thing about Donald Trump and his odd campaign is that one cannot dismiss the allegations out of hand, either. Which is probably why the Clinton campaign will be pushing this argument as hard as humanly possible.

[RandomGuy]

Obvious now why hater (http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/member.php?u=7609) loves Trump

Point 7 is damning



http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing


This does not mean Trump is controlled by or in the pay of Russia or Putin. It can just as easily be explained by having many of his top advisors having spent years working in Putin's orbit and being aligned with his thinking and agenda. But it is certainly no coincidence. Again, in the context of near total indifference to the platform and willingness to let party activists write it in any way they want, his team zeroed in on one fairly obscure plank to exert maximum force and it just happens to be the one most important to Putin in terms of US policy.

The "leaked emails" currently plaguing the Democratic party are thought to be the result of the Russian intelligence services' (yes there were more than one) break-in to the DNC servers.

Trump has further stated he would not live up to NATO obligations.

So, it would tantalizingly suggest Trump may have actually cut some sort of secret deal. Deal or no, it is now obvious who Putin is backing.

[clambake]

what did you expect. trump married a russian.

[Splits]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-hacked-emails-of-dnc-oppo-researcher-point-to-russians-and-wider-penetration-154121061.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma



Exclusive: Suspected Russian hack of DNC widens — includes personal email of staffer researching Manafort

https://www.yahoo.com/sy/ny/api/res/1.2/aTzf3Y6CL68Y07dWMfeG3g--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO2ZpPWZpbGw7dz04NDtoPT g0O2lsPXBsYW5l/http://l.yimg.com/cd/resizer/2.0/FIT_TO_WIDTH-w215/6ea7e3cf3db67689564cd82eb1b0365d60032b52.png.cf.jp g
Michael Isikoff (http://mikeisikoffyahoo.tumblr.com/)Chief Investigative Correspondent

July 25, 2016

Just weeks after she started preparing opposition research files on Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort last spring, Democratic National Committee consultant Alexandra Chalupa got an alarming message when she logged into her personal Yahoo email account.“Important action required,” read a pop-up box from a Yahoo security team that is informally known as “the Paranoids.” “We strongly suspect that your account has been the target of state-sponsored actors.”

Chalupa — who had been drafting memos and writing emails about Manafort’s connection to pro-Russian political leaders in Ukraine — quickly alerted top DNC officials. “Since I started digging into Manafort, these messages have been a daily oc****currence on my Yahoo account despite changing my p**a*ssword often,” she wrote in a May 3 email to Luis Miranda (https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/3962), the DNC’s communications director, which included an attached screengrab of the image of the Yahoo security warning.

“I was freaked out,” Chalupa, who serves as director of “ethnic engagement” for the DNC, told Yahoo News in an interview, noting that she had been in close touch with sources in Kiev, Ukraine, including a number of investigative journalists, who had been providing her with information about Manafort’s political and business dealings in that country and Russia (https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-campaign-chief-ducks-questions-about-214020365.html).

“This is really scary,” she said.

Chalupa’s message is among nearly 20,000 hacked internal DNC emails that were posted over the weekend by WikiLeaks as the Democratic Party gathered for its national convention in Philadelphia. Those emails have already provoked a convulsion in Democratic Party ranks, leading to the resignation of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the wake of posted messages in which she and other top DNC officials privately derided Bernie Sanders and plotted to undercut his insurgent campaign against Hillary Clinton.

But Chalupa’s message, which had not been previously reported, stands out: It is the first indication that the reach of the hackers who penetrated the DNC has extended beyond the official email accounts of committee officials to include their private email and potentially the content on their smartphones. After Chalupa sent the email to Miranda (which mentions that she had invited this reporter to a meeting with Ukrainian journalists in Washington), it triggered high-level concerns within the DNC, given the sensitive nature of her work. “That’s when we knew it was the Russians,” said a Democratic Party source who has knowledge of the internal probe into the hacked emails. In order to stem the damage, the source said, “we told her to stop her research.”

A Yahoo spokesman said the pop-up warning to Chalupa “appears to be one of our notifications” and said it was consistent with a new policy announced by Yahoo on its Tumblr page last December to notify customers when it has strong evidence of “state sponsored” cyberattacks. “Rest assured we only send these notifications of suspected attacks by state-sponsored actors when we have a high degree of confidence,” wrote Bob Lord, the company’s Chief Information Security Officer, in the Tumblr post (https://yahoo-security.tumblr.com/post/135674131435/notifying-our-users-of-attacks-by-suspected).

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/l8V6JtcIVphZU4LhRASR5g--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9ODAw/http://media.zenfs.com/en/homerun/feed_manager_auto_publish_494/0a3af9de8ea6242a8bf3545478646601View photos




Asked about charges by Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook that “Russian state actors” hacked the DNC in order to help Trump (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/robby-mook-russians-emails-trump-226084), who has made sympathetic comments about Russian President Vladimir Putin, Manafort on Sunday dismissed the charges in multiple television interviews as “absurd” and “crazy.” The claims are “pure obfuscation on the part of the Clinton campaign,” Manafort said on ABCs “This Week.” “What they don’t want to talk about is what’s in those emails.”

In mid-June, Democratic Party suspicions about the hackers seemed to be confirmed when CrowdStrike, an outside security firm retained by the DNC, reported that it traced the hackers to two separate units linked to Russia’s security services: the FSB, Russia’s equivalent of the FBI, and GRU, the country’s military intelligence agency. The company noted strong similarities between the attack on the DNC by the suspected GRU hackers and previous cyberintrusions of unclassified systems at the White House, the State Department and the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (After discovering the data breach, a DNC security source said its cyberexperts noted that the hackers’ exfiltration of files took place “9 to 5, Moscow time.”) An FBI official confirmed that the bureau has been investigating the breach for some time, and, according to one source familiar with the matter, Director James Comey has been personally briefed.

The extent of the damage was at first unclear. When they first authorized a public release of the CrowdStrike analysis, party officials said that the hackers had targeted oppo files on Donald Trump. But they told reporters that no personal information about donors had been penetrated. Party officials are no longer standing by those assurances. Two sources familiar with the breach said that the hackers’ reach was far more widespread than initially thought and includes personal data about big party contributors and internal “vetting” evaluations that include embarrassing comments about their business dealings (as well as gossipy internal emails about the private affairs of DNC staffers). One newly posted email discusses a prospective DNC donor’s offering to host a fundraiser with President Obama, noting that he had previously been convicted in a case involving allegations that he killed 50 horses, as part of an insurance fraud scheme. Party officials are bracing for more damaging document dumps after Labor Day. “They’re having to do serious damage control with the donors right now,” said a party official familiar with the matter.

There are also signs that the hackers have penetrated the personal email of some Clinton campaign staffers — at least those who were in communication with senior DNC staff members. On May 6, John McCarthy, a DNC consultant who has since joined the Clinton campaign to do outreach to religious groups, sent an email to Chalupa from his personal Gmail account that was then forwarded to other party officials. McCarthy proposed arranging for religious leaders who have “condemned Trump for bringing out the worst in America” to stage a protest at the Republican National Convention. “It would be great to try and engage them and get them to do something at convention, etc. Maybe do a vigil at the Cleveland convention?” McCarthy wrote in the email, which included his personal cellphone number and which has now been posted as part of the WikiLeaks data dump.

There is still much that is not known about the DNC hack and how, if the Russians are indeed behind it, the emails found their way to WikiLeaks. Some commentators have noted that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (https://www.rt.com/news/julian-assange-rt-exclusive-617/) has in the past hosted a talk show on RT, the Russian television network that serves as a propaganda arm for the Kremlin. (Assange, without providing specifics, recently claimed he will be posting more emails that will be damaging to Clinton and “provide enough evidence” to get her arrested (http://yournewswire.com/julian-assange-my-next-leak-will-ensure-hillarys-arrest/).)

There are also signs that the Obama administration is taking the matter more seriously. The Washington Post reported Monday that White House officials convened a high-level security meeting last Thursday, hours before WikiLeaks began posting the emails, to review information about the DNC attack. Party officials are privately pushing the White House to publicly blame the Russians in the same way it blamed North Korea for the cyberattack on Sony and China for intrusions into U.S. companies. “The last time somebody broke into the DNC, it led to the resignation of a president,” said the Democratic Party security source, referring to the Watergate scandal. In some ways, the source insisted, the current cyberheist — what some in party circles are already calling a “21st century Watergate” — is even more sinister, the source said. “This is the Russians screwing with the integrity of our election process.”



Side note: :lol named "Chalupa"

[TheGreatYacht]

Trump may have gotten a bounce in polls because of the leaks, but after the DNC is over.... The only thing Trump is going to bounce on is on Putin's tiny cock

[TheGreatYacht]

Trump sounds drunk as fuck during this speech he's giving in Virginia and he said this:

"Little did she know that China/Russia.. One of our many many friends. Came in and hacked the hell out of us"
757662337251749888
757662435516055552

He then caught himself and changed the subject to Hillary's middle name :lol

:downspin: This shit CosmicCowboy

:lmao at the conspiracy idiots.

Junior Cosmoreds :lmao

[SnakeBoy]

If Trump is elected the Russians are gonna getcha...excellent campaign strategy Dems.

[CosmicCowboy]

:lol Great Yachtmored

[TheGreatYacht]

:lol Cosmic Alex Jones fan

[CosmicCowboy]

:lol Cosmic Alex Jones fan

I have never listened to Alex Jones but you sound more idiotic than normal claiming Trump conspired with the Russians to hack the DNC.

Thats just goofy as shit.

[Reck]

I have never listened to Alex Jones but you sound more idiotic than normal claiming Trump conspired with the Russians to hack the DNC.

Thats just goofy as shit.

You better hope it isn't cosmicgayboy.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/25/politics/democratic-convention-dnc-emails-russia/

FBI is on it.

[TheGreatYacht]

I have never listened to Alex Jones but you sound more idiotic than normal claiming Trump conspired with the Russians to hack the DNC.

Thats just goofy as shit.
You just called the Orange cuck you've been jizz ragging for an idiot, since he said it himself :lol

[CosmicCowboy]

You just called the Orange cuck you've been jizz ragging for an idiot, since he said it himself :lol

you are so full of shit. He didn't say that, dumbass.

[TheGreatYacht]

you are so full of shit. He didn't say that, dumbass.
Turn your hearing aids up.

How did he know the Russians and Chinese were in on it?

[CosmicCowboy]

Turn your hearing aids up.

You either can't read, or you are intentionally lying.

Either one is pretty sad.

[TheGreatYacht]

You either can't read, or you are intentionally lying.

Either one is pretty sad.

How did he know the Russians and Chinese were in on it?

[DarrinS]

tinfoil alert

[CosmicCowboy]

tinfoil alert

:lmao

no shit

Great Yasmored

[RandomGuy]

:lmao at the conspiracy idiots.

Junior Cosmoreds :lmao

Here is what we know:

DNC is hacked by two russian Intelligence services.

Trump has expressed admiration for Putin, publicly.
Putin has expressed a public preference for Trump.
Trump has said that he would not live up to NATO's defense obligations.
It is fairly safe to assume that the op-ed appears accurate in this one detail.


Finally, Trump staffers wrote an amendment to Denman’s amendment that stripped out the platform’s call for “providing lethal defensive weapons” and replaced it with softer language calling for “appropriate assistance.”

So, what should we make of the fact that a foreign government is in possession of DNC emails, and suddenly embarassing DNC emails are leaked, benefitting the candidate that government seems to prefer?

I would not go so far as to say active collusion. That is a bit of a stretch. I do have to allow for the possibility, given what I do know. I view it as alarmingly possible, but unlikely.

What I think is likely true is that the Russian government was responsible for the leaks. I give this as more likely than not, but far from certain. The timing screams meddling.

I am the last person to buy into conspiracy theories, but there seems to be enough evidence to reach a modest conclusion here.

[CosmicCowboy]

Here is what we know:

DNC is hacked by two russian Intelligence services.

Trump has expressed admiration for Putin, publicly.
Putin has expressed a public preference for Trump.
Trump has said that he would not live up to NATO's defense obligations.
It is fairly safe to assume that the op-ed appears accurate in this one detail.



So, what should we make of the fact that a foreign government is in possession of DNC emails, and suddenly embarassing DNC emails are leaked, benefitting the candidate that government seems to prefer?

I would not go so far as to say active collusion. That is a bit of a stretch. I do have to allow for the possibility, given what I do know. I view it as alarmingly possible, but unlikely.

What I think is likely true is that the Russian government was responsible for the leaks. I give this as more likely than not, but far from certain. The timing screams meddling.

I am the last person to buy into conspiracy theories, but there seems to be enough evidence to reach a modest conclusion here.

We are certainly being told Russia did it. No denying that.

The rest is pure speculation/conspiracy theory.

[Reck]

We are certainly being told Russia did it. No denying that.

The rest is pure speculation/conspiracy theory.

Paul Manafort used to work for a Puting yes man and has ties to Russia. Trump's campaign has one-two many people who have Russia links. Stop being a faggot for a moment.

[SnakeBoy]

Ok so Trump has more influence with Russia & China than Hillary. So much for her foreign policy experience.

[CosmicCowboy]

Paul Manafort used to work for a Puting yes man and has ties to Russia. Trump's campaign has one-two many people who have Russia links. Stop being a faggot for a moment.

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=42704.0;attach=157 99;image

[TheGreatYacht]

Ok so Trump has more influence with Russia & China than Hillary. So much for her foreign policy experience.
If by influence you mean bending over for Putin, then yes, Trump does have more foreign policy experience.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Paul Manafort used to work for a Puting yes man and has ties to Russia. Trump's campaign has one-two many people who have Russia links. Stop being a faggot for a moment.
"First of all, let’s dismiss the part of this story that connects folks like Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Mike Flynn to Russia. Those links are there, but they are also irrelevant for the campaign. If there is anything we have learned about Donald Trump’s campaign to date, it’s that non-family underlings don’t matter. Foreign policy advisers like Page or Flynn certainly don’t matter. I’m not saying that these connections are not worth exploring, just that they are not part of some master grand plan."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poste...a-putin-patsy/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/25/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/)

[boutons_deux]

Trump just claimed his "many, many friends" in Russia "hacked the hell" out of the DNC

[Reck]

"First of all, let’s dismiss the part of this story that connects folks like Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Mike Flynn to Russia. Those links are there, but they are also irrelevant for the campaign. If there is anything we have learned about Donald Trump’s campaign to date, it’s that non-family underlings don’t matter. Foreign policy advisers like Page or Flynn certainly don’t matter. I’m not saying that these connections are not worth exploring, just that they are not part of some master grand plan."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poste...a-putin-patsy/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/25/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/)


"The links are there."

Need you say more?

[TheSanityAnnex]

"The links are there."

Need you say more?sure, the part you cut off... "they are also irrelevant for the campaign."

[Reck]

sure, the part you cut off... "they are also irrelevant for the campaign."

Not really giving that they actually worked or have linked to Russia.

As more of this comes to light, we will find out. The FBI has already opened up an investigation on this.

[TheSanityAnnex]

:lol today's FBI

[TheGreatYacht]

Not really giving that they actually worked or have linked to Russia.

As more of this comes to light, we will find out. The FBI has already opened up an investigation on this.
Cmon Reck , only cuckservatives can demand an FBI investigation

[Clipper Nation]

I have never listened to Alex Jones but you sound more idiotic than normal claiming Trump conspired with the Russians to hack the DNC.

Thats just goofy as shit.
His basketball takes are atrocious, it's not a surprise that he knows nothing about politics either.

[TheGreatYacht]

His basketball takes are atrocious, it's not a surprise that he knows nothing about politics either.
Showing up to a thread without holding Harlem's pocket. That's a first. Faggot.

[pgardn]

Trump may have gotten a bounce in polls because of the leaks, but after the DNC is over.... The only thing Trump is going to bounce on is on Putin's tiny cock

Right hook lands.

[spankadelphia]

The "it was the Russians/it wasn't" is a narrative trap from the left like calling someone racist. This whole election, the left has had to play into Trump's frame, don't let the shitlibs make the provenance of the leaks an issue. Not when the emails are so juicy. Twitter troll them back to the emails, mocking them for trying to distract from chaos and chicanery in the DNC.

[pgardn]

Hater does. He's a Sandinista.

I thought it was just basic brain trauma.

[hater]

:lmao Democraps blaming their degenerate scam on Russia

:lmao fucking imbeciles

Their party is finished :lol

The scam is out :lol

[boutons_deux]

George Will raises possible Trump link to Russian oligarchs
http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/289241-george-will-raises-possible-trump-link-to-russian-oligarchs

[boutons_deux]

Trump’s hidden tax returns take on new significance

“How has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns?” Ginsburg asked (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/ruth-bader-ginsburg-abandons-all-subtlety-towards-trump). “The press seems to be very gentle with him on that.”

The Atlantic’s James Fallows noted today (http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/07/trump-time-capsule-57-russia-and-taxes/493031/), for example, that Russia’s alleged intervention in the U.S. presidential election has changed the calculus.

These new developments underscore the importance of an old, familiar point: now, more than ever, Donald Trump must release his tax returns.

To put it differently, the press should no longer “normalize” his stonewalling on this issue. [emphasis in the original]

As another veteran figure in the defense world and political affairs wrote to me this morning:

“In normal times, this [the Russian hacking] would be the lead on all network news. But these are not normal times. I am having trouble getting through to some people that this is a real thing.

The very people who always say “follow the money” with regard to the Pentagon [or other boondoggle bureaucracies] don’t see that

(a) Trump has been kept afloat for about 15 years by Russian oligarchs; and

(b) Russia has a powerful incentive to see a US president who will end economic sanctions.


Trump’s business dealings in Russia certainly exist and have been the subject of scrutiny (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing).

Trump can make questions like these go away quickly by doing what every presidential candidate in the post-Watergate era has done. For reasons the Republican candidate hasn’t explained, he continues to stick to secrecy.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trumps-hidden-tax-returns-take-new-significance?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[Splits]

https://www.threatconnect.com/guccifer-2-all-roads-lead-russia/


JULY 26, 2016 Guccifer 2.0: All Roads Lead to Russia (https://www.threatconnect.com/guccifer-2-all-roads-lead-russia/)

IN FEATURED ARTICLE (https://www.threatconnect.com/category/featured-article/), THREAT RESEARCH (https://www.threatconnect.com/category/threat-research-tcirt/) BY THREATCONNECT RESEARCH TEAM (https://www.threatconnect.com/author/the-square/)

ThreatConnect follows Guccifer 2.0’s French breadcrumbs back to a Russian VPN Service

In our initial Guccifer 2.0 analysis (https://www.threatconnect.com/guccifer-2-0-dnc-breach/), ThreatConnect highlighted technical and non-technical inconsistencies in the purported DNC hacker’s story as well as a curious theme of French “connections” surrounding various Guccifer 2.0 interactions with the media. We called out these connections as they overlapped, albeit minimally, with FANCY BEAR infrastructure identified in CrowdStrike’s DNC report (https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/).

Now, after further investigation, we can confirm that Guccifer 2.0 is using the Russia-based Elite VPN service to communicate and leak documents directly with the media. We reached this conclusion by analyzing the infrastructure associated with an email exchange with Guccifer 2.0 shared with ThreatConnect by Vocativ’s Senior Privacy and Security reporter Kevin Collier (http://www.vocativ.com/authors/kevin-collier/). This discovery strengthens our ongoing assessment that Guccifer 2.0 is a Russian propaganda effort and not an independent actor.

[hater]

:cry forget our "democracy" scam operation. It's all Putins fault :cry

[hater]

"why all the drama about our 2 party dictatorship! Look, the Russians are coming!"

:lmao

[Dirk Oneanddoneski]

Trump-Putin World DOMINATION!

http://i.imgur.com/j9nmwPM.jpg

[IceColdBrewski]

OP meeting up with yacht and boots.

http://sportshoop.la/attachments/tinfoilhatclub-jpg.141135/

[Quetzal-X]

Trump-Putin World DOMINATION!

http://i.imgur.com/j9nmwPM.jpg




2 Esdras 6:9



“For Esau is the end of the world, and Jacob is the beginning of it that followeth.”

:claw
:fro

:smokin



:bobo



Fucking RED devils tbqfhimo

[TheGreatYacht]

Trump-Putin World DOMINATION!

http://i.imgur.com/j9nmwPM.jpg
• Trump is too white :lol
• Too skinny, he's shaped like a mini fridge irl :lol
• Not enough gobble neck :lol
• Trump would have his hand somewhere else :lol

[TheGreatYacht]

Holy shit this tweet perfectly describes the idiots jizzragging Cuckald :lmao

758347101575213057

Where are the :cry this is just a conspiracy :cry folks?

[hater]

So Russia is influencing our elections because Shillary rigged the democratic primary??

:lol that shit dont even make sense

[CosmicCowboy]

I still think it would be freaking hilarious if Russia released the 34,000 emails Hillary had professionally deleted/overwritten/destroyed.

[Winehole23]

CC is not only cool with foreign powers influencing US elections, he thinks it would be freaking hilarious.

His hatred of HRC trumps his patriotism, apparently.

[hater]

CC is not only cool with foreign powers influencing US elections, he thinks it would be freaking hilarious.

His hatred of HRC trumps his patriotism, apparently.

A. Nobody has proved Russia released the emails
B. Are you cool with Hillary rigging the primaries and ripping millions of Americans from their vote?

[Splits]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CobjOWzWAAAvDrx.jpg

[FuzzyLumpkins]

So Russia is influencing our elections because Shillary rigged the democratic primary??

:lol that shit dont even make sense

The DNC servers were reported hacked back in April. Had that come out then when they first got it then it would have given a huge boost to Bernie and actually address the party that was being wronged. Instead they held onto it for their own benefit.

In and of itself a Russian entity hacking a political party and publishing hacked material without consent is influential. It makes sense that you would say that but that is just because you intentionally try to mislead people.

[TheGreatYacht]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CobjOWzWAAAvDrx.jpg
:lmao

[Splits]

760263303734124544

[Winehole23]

A. Nobody has proved Russia released the emails
B. Are you cool with Hillary rigging the primaries and ripping millions of Americans from their vote?Agreed, and nope.

It's a bit of a stretch to blame Hilary for rigging the primaries: the DNC and the rules did that.

[Splits]

Damn, no wonder hater (http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/member.php?u=7609) loves Trump


Trump Foreign Policy Adviser Traveled To Russia Prior To Changes In GOP Platform (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/carter-page-trump-russia_us_57a0f329e4b0693164c2fb41)

Carter Page expressed a wish for a closer relationship between Washington and Moscow.

WASHINGTON ― Just days before Republicans adopted a new, more Russia-friendly plank into their party platform, one of Donald Trump (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/donald-trump/)’s top advisers visited Moscow in July to deliver speeches criticizing decades of U.S. foreign policy.

Global energy investor Carter Page joined Trump’s team in March. Since then, Page has criticized U.S.-Russia policy in a number of public speeches, and repeatedly expressed his hope that a closer relationship between the two nations might be possible with Trump in the White House.

“Washington and other Western capitals have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption, and regime change,” Page said last month during a commencement speech at a Moscow economics graduate school.

Page also suggested the United States should ease economic sanctions imposed on Russia following its 2014 incursion into Ukraine and Crimea, which was condemned in an overwhelming vote in the United Nations. In exchange for sanctions relief, Page said, American companies might be invited to partner with Russian firms to exploit Russia’s oil and gas fields.

[Splits]

sAKmtfTe2rc

[spurraider21]

Trump visited Russia?? :wow

Holy shit!


I can only imagine your reaction when you find out Obama went to Cuba :wow

[Splits]

765901261585670144

[pgardn]

It's still ALIVE:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/paul-manafort-ukraine-kiev-russia-konstantin-kilimnik-227181


The slime that Trump hires and fires.

[Reck]

It's still ALIVE:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/paul-manafort-ukraine-kiev-russia-konstantin-kilimnik-227181


The slime that Trump hires and fires.

I give this guy a week before he "steps down" from being the Trump's campaign chairman.

[pgardn]

I give this guy a week before he "steps down" from being the Trump's campaign chairman.

How about a day. Good call. The demotion and his slimy dealings sealed the deal. I thought he might just stay on and collect a pay check while working for Assad on the side.

[Reck]

How about a day. Good call. The demotion and his slimy dealings sealed the deal. I thought he might just stay on and collect a pay check while working for Assad on the side.

Holy shit. :lol

[boutons_deux]

Paul Manafort Resigns As Head Of Trump Campaign

:lol

The Russian/Ukrainian connection!

[hitmanyr2k]

I saw that resignation coming. I knew Manafort's demotion was about more than Trump feeling "boxed in and not able to be himself on the campaign trail" since he really hasn't changed much at all. That demotion was all about putting Manafort under the guillotine because they knew the damaging stories that were about to break.

[Pelicans78]

I saw that resignation coming. I knew Manafort's demotion was about more than Trump feeling "boxed in and not able to be himself on the campaign trail" since he really hasn't changed much at all. That demotion was all about putting Manafort under the guillotine because they knew the damaging stories that were about to break.

This election is a shitstorm on both sides. Trump just happens to be the bigger turd.

[boutons_deux]

This election is a shitstorm on both sides. Trump just happens to be the bigger turd.

what is the REAL shitstorm on Hillary's side? please exclude desperate Repug fabrications, lies, witch hunting.

[Pelicans78]

what is the REAL shitstorm on Hillary's side? please exclude desperate Repug fabrications, lies, witch hunting.

You're asking me when you criticize her all the time? You know her issues when it comes to foreign policy, corruption, etc. The same talking points when you were supporting Bernie over her. Don't ask so shocked when someone else is not a fan when you don't even like her yourself. Gimme a fucking break.

[boutons_deux]

You're asking me when you criticize her all the time?

You Lie.

I don't like her personally, I don't care about her gender, but my biggest objections are her policies of neocon "regime change".

I attack her attackers not in her defense but for the sheer pleasure of exposing her attackers as lying scumbags.

That she's owned by BigFinance isn't a distinguishing problem, since ALL politicians are whores to "money in politics".

Any corruption the Repugs are trying to stop her with is perfectly hypocritical cherry picking, since EVERY Repug is just as corrupt in pay-for-play bribery Washington.

The Hillary shitstorm is totally fabricated by Repugs, since Repugs don't GAF about policies and governing, only in fabricated shitstorms of "personal destruction", paranoia, hate, gods-guns-gays-abortion-knitters-immigrants-white-supremacy.

[Splits]

CBS This Morning: Paul Manafort May Be Guilty Of "Tax Evasion, Money Laundering, And Illegally Providing Funds For Lobbyists"


MARGARET BRENNAN (CO-HOST): This morning, a Ukrainian lawmaker is revealing new details about millions of dollars in cash possibly set aside for Donald Trump's campaign chairman by a pro-Russian political party he consulted for. Investigators are looking for the person who signed for that money. Paul Manafort says he never received any secret payments. Our Charlie D'Agata is in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, where he has seen the evidence. Charlie, good morning.

CHARLIE D'AGATA: Good morning. Well this is a copy of the statement that was released condensed from the black ledger. And yes, there are items like expenses and computer equipment, but in some cases the reason for payment is listed in just one word: "Manafort."

It details what appears to be undisclosed cash payments to Paul Manafort from his client's party at the time, Russian-backed former President Viktor Yanukovych, like never before. 22 items dating back from November 20th, 2007. The biggest entries -- $1.3 million, $1.15 million, and $3.5 million -- simply state "payment" or "Paul Manafort contract," in all, totaling to $12.8 million. The new details were brought to life by anti-corruption politician Serhiy Leshchenko. Do you believe that's enough to start pursuing criminal charges against Mr. Manafort?

SERHIY LESHCHENKO: There are some investigations in Ukraine based on these records. And I believe he has to be interrogated in this case too.
D'AGATA: Investigators are now trying to determine whether Manafort played a key role in secretly routing millions of dollars to U.S. lobbyists. Though none of the entries are signed by Manafort, it’s Vitaliy Kalyuzhny's signature that appears most. He was a senior member of Yanukovych's party who founded an organization that reportedly paid millions of dollars to Washington-based lobbyists in order to sway public opinion in favor of Russian-backed Yanukovych. And anti-corruption officials say another name popped up on that ledger, Larry King. The name of the former CNN host appears next to a payment of $225,000 just two months before this 2011 interview with then-Prime Minister Mykola Azarov. Just another bizarre twist in what has become an increasingly murky tale.

Well Larry King aside, as far as investigators here are concerned, Paul Manafort may be guilty of tax evasion, money laundering, and illegally providing funds for lobbyists in the United States, and he should face questioning here or in America.


http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/08/19/cbs-morning-paul-manafort-may-be-guilty-tax-evasion-money-laundering-and-illegally-providing-funds/212522

:lol damn, this dude is going down

[boutons_deux]

http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/08/19/cbs-morning-paul-manafort-may-be-guilty-tax-evasion-money-laundering-and-illegally-providing-funds/212522

:lol damn, this dude is going down

Looks like Trash should have "extremely vetted" his own staff. :lol

[boutons_deux]

More of Kremlin’s Opponents Are Ending Up Dead

While Mr. Kara-Murza survived, few others in his position have proved as lucky. He said he was certain he had been the target of a security service poisoning.

Used extensively in the Soviet era, political murders are again playing a prominent role in the Kremlin’s foreign policy, the most brutal instrument in an expanding repertoire of intimidation tactics intended to silence or otherwise intimidate critics at home and abroad.

Muckraking journalists, rights advocates, opposition politicians, government whistle-blowers and other Russians who threaten that image are treated harshly — imprisoned on trumped-up charges, smeared in the news media and, with increasing frequency, killed.

Political murders, particularly those accomplished with poisons, are nothing new in Russia, going back five centuries. Nor are they particularly subtle. While typically not traceable to any individuals and plausibly denied by government officials, poisonings leave little doubt of the state’s involvement — which may be precisely the point.

“Outside of popular culture, there are no highly skilled hit men for hire,” Mark Galeotti, a professor at New York University and an authority on the Russian security services, said in an interview. “If it’s a skilled job, that means it’s a state asset.”

Applied most notoriously in the case of Alexander V. Litvinenko (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/alexander_v_litvinenko/index.html?inline=nyt-per), a Putin opponent who died of polonium-210 poisoning in London in 2006, murders and deaths under mysterious circumstances are now seen as such a menace that Kremlin critics now often flee the country and keep their whereabouts secret.

“The government is using the special services to liquidate its enemies,” Gennadi V. Gudkov, a former member of Parliament and onetime lieutenant colonel in the K.G.B. (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/k/kgb/index.html?inline=nyt-org), said in an interview. “It was not just Litvinenko, but many others we don’t know about, classified as accidents or maybe semi-accidents.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/world/europe/moscow-kremlin-silence-critics-poison.html?action=click&contentCollection=Health&module=Trending&version=Full&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article

[boutons_deux]

Mikhail Baryshnikov: Trump's rhetoric reminds me of Soviet Union

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/17/politics/mikhail-baryshnikov-hillary-clinton-donald-trump/index.html?sr=fbpol081916mikhail-baryshnikov-hillary-clinton-donald-trump0402AMVODtopLink&linkId=27821396

[Splits]

Just in case anyone was still wondering, Donald Trump really, really loves Vladimir Putin


Updated by Yochi Dreazen (http://www.vox.com/authors/yochi-dreazen)
Sep 7, 2016, 10:43p

Vladimir Putin runs a kleptocracy that invades neighboring countries, stands accused of trying to interfere in the US election, and backs dictators around the globe. Donald Trump prefers to focus on a different aspect of Putin’s rule: the Russian strongman’s sky-high approval ratings.

Ignore the fact that Putin’s popularity at home has been boosted by his willingness to exile, jail, or kill both political opponents and journalists. To Trump, that simply makes Putin a strong leader, one whose praise the Republican nominee is happy to accept.

"When he calls me brilliant, I'll take the compliment," Trump said during a televised town hall meeting Wednesday.

The comment came during a slightly surreal exchange with moderator Matt Lauer, who pressed Trump about his past pro-Putin comments, which have included praising (http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/18/politics/donald-trump-praises-defends-vladimir-putin/) him as a "leader" and someone (http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/28/politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-quotes/) "highly respected within his own country and beyond" (the NBC anchor chose to ignore the fact that several close Trump aides — including the mogul’s recently ousted campaign manager, Paul Manafort — have extensive, and lucrative, businessrelationships (http://www.vox.com/2016/7/27/12271042/donald-trump-russia-putin-hack-explained) with Moscow).

"He does have an 82 percent approval rating according to the different pollsters," Trump said. "By the way, some of them are based here."

That’s not true — only one poll (https://sputniknews.com/russia/20160727/1043671581/putin-approve-poll.html) shows that level of support, and it was conducted by a Moscow-based nonprofit called the Levada Center — but those details are entirely beside the point. Given the chance to back away from his praise of Putin — a position that has alarmed many leading Republican national security figures — Trump chose to instead double down.

"If he says great things about me, I'm going to say great things about him," Trump said. "The man has very strong control over a country. It's a very different system and I don't happen to like the system, but certainly in that system, he's been a leader. Far more than our president has been a leader."

Beyond the rhetoric, Trump has taken positions — endorsing Moscow’s support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria, refusing to commit to defending NATO allies against a possible future Russian invasion — that are closely in line with the Russian leader’s long-held strategic goals.

The mogul has even encouraged (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-clinton-emails.html) Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s email and publicly release what it found, a comment that led a spokesperson for House Speaker Paul Ryan to write (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-russia-cyberattacks_us_5799338ee4b02d5d5ed43690) that "Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug. Putin should stay out of this election."

Trump later insisted he was joking.

Earlier in Wednesday’s exchange, Lauer ran through a laundry list of Putin’s sins.

"He's also a guy who annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine, supports Assad in Syria, supports Iran, is trying to undermine our influence in key regions of the world, and, according to our intelligence community, probably is the main suspect for the hacking of the DNC computers," the moderator said.

Trump responded by arguing, in effect, that Barack Obama was just as bad.

"Do you want me to start naming some of the things that President Obama does at the same time?" Trump asked.

Obama took office hoping to "reset" relations with Russia, but will leave the White House with the two countries further apart than at any point since the Cold War. Trump’s continued praise of Putin — and willingness to, with a straight face, argue that Obama is just as immoral as the Russian strongman — suggests that the GOP nominee might actually succeed in building a warm relationship with Moscow. He’d just shed decades of American commitments and principles to make it happen.


http://www.vox.com/2016/9/7/12843184/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-comments-town-hall

[boutons_deux]

Putin Becomes the Ultimate Test of GOP Loyalty to Trump

The curious case of the Trump campaign doubling down on Putin

One more point here: What's amazing about the Trump campaign's embrace of Putin, even from Pence, is that Putin is one of the more reviled figures among American voters. Here are the fav/unfav ratings from our May 2016 NBC/WSJ poll:



Barack Obama: 49% positive, 41% negative (+8)
Bernie Sanders: 43% positive, 36% negative (+7)
Paul Ryan: 29% positive, 29% negative (even)
Democratic Party: 38% positive, 41% negative (-3)
Hillary Clinton: 34% positive, 54% negative (-20)
Republican Party: 24% positive, 49% negative (-25)
Donald Trump: 29% positive, 58% negative (-29)
Vladimir Putin: 8% positive, 59% negative (-51)


http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/first-read-putin-becomes-ultimate-test-gop-loyalty-trump-n645421?cid=sm_fb_lastword

[hater]

Putin is a great leader and 100x the leader Odumbo is. That is a fact.

Pimp recognize pimp. So not surprised Mr Trump likes Putin. 2 great guys that will most likely bring years of peace and prosperity to this world.

[Splits]

784111795460014081

lol hater you da man

[Splits]

CBS This Morning: Paul Manafort May Be Guilty Of "Tax Evasion, Money Laundering, And Illegally Providing Funds For Lobbyists"


MARGARET BRENNAN (CO-HOST): This morning, a Ukrainian lawmaker is revealing new details about millions of dollars in cash possibly set aside for Donald Trump's campaign chairman by a pro-Russian political party he consulted for. Investigators are looking for the person who signed for that money. Paul Manafort says he never received any secret payments. Our Charlie D'Agata is in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, where he has seen the evidence. Charlie, good morning.

CHARLIE D'AGATA: Good morning. Well this is a copy of the statement that was released condensed from the black ledger. And yes, there are items like expenses and computer equipment, but in some cases the reason for payment is listed in just one word: "Manafort."

It details what appears to be undisclosed cash payments to Paul Manafort from his client's party at the time, Russian-backed former President Viktor Yanukovych, like never before. 22 items dating back from November 20th, 2007. The biggest entries -- $1.3 million, $1.15 million, and $3.5 million -- simply state "payment" or "Paul Manafort contract," in all, totaling to $12.8 million. The new details were brought to life by anti-corruption politician Serhiy Leshchenko. Do you believe that's enough to start pursuing criminal charges against Mr. Manafort?

SERHIY LESHCHENKO: There are some investigations in Ukraine based on these records. And I believe he has to be interrogated in this case too.
D'AGATA: Investigators are now trying to determine whether Manafort played a key role in secretly routing millions of dollars to U.S. lobbyists. Though none of the entries are signed by Manafort, it’s Vitaliy Kalyuzhny's signature that appears most. He was a senior member of Yanukovych's party who founded an organization that reportedly paid millions of dollars to Washington-based lobbyists in order to sway public opinion in favor of Russian-backed Yanukovych. And anti-corruption officials say another name popped up on that ledger, Larry King. The name of the former CNN host appears next to a payment of $225,000 just two months before this 2011 interview with then-Prime Minister Mykola Azarov. Just another bizarre twist in what has become an increasingly murky tale.

Well Larry King aside, as far as investigators here are concerned, Paul Manafort may be guilty of tax evasion, money laundering, and illegally providing funds for lobbyists in the United States, and he should face questioning here or in America.



http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/08/19/cbs-morning-paul-manafort-may-be-guilty-tax-evasion-money-laundering-and-illegally-providing-funds/212522

:lol damn, this dude is going down

Called it.

[boutons_deux]

Didn't PMs own daugher tweet that PM's money was "blood money"?

[RandomGuy]

Putin is a great leader and 100x the leader Odumbo is. That is a fact.

Pimp recognize pimp. So not surprised Mr Trump likes Putin. 2 great guys that will most likely bring years of peace and prosperity to this world.

Putin is a thug, and a criminal, who has stolen his people's fortune, quite literally.

[RandomGuy]

Called it.

Eyup.

Writing was on the wall. (the one with the seach warrant nailed to it...) :D