With the Mooch's insanity taking over the news cycle, there has been a lot less Russia coverage the last two weeks. Regardless, things are still happening behind the scenes. Trump just found out Mueller's Special Counsel investigation has been looking into his finances, and he's not quite right to put it mildly.

Trump recently brought up his power to pardon family, staff, and even himself only 6 months into office. It seems like a good time to collect a bunch of Russia info in one place.

I will answer whatever Qs I can. Anyone else is welcome to as well.

There is still Russia news though. Today WH announced Trump will sign the sanctions bill. The level of chaos required to keep Russia out of the news completely is beyond even Trump.

*fingers crossed*

OK I'll play.

What financial ties, if any, does Trump and/or his administration have to Russian business, and government respectively?

Are we headed to another cold (hopefully) war?

Are you saying hopefully we are headed to another cold war, or are we headed to another war that is hopefully cold?

https://newrepublic.com/article/1435...rime-syndicate
That might give us some clues, but mueller is working on this q right now and it's a significant q so we won't know for some time

Off the top of my head...

1) Duesche Bank - loaned Trump hundreds of millions (reports vary from 120 to 320, though I forgot the exact amount on Trump's disclosure). The bank has also been implicated in the US for $10 billion in Russian money laundering. Mueller is into this connection, as papers have been subpoenaed.

2) Alfa Bank - created a large data spike (10x normal activity I think) on the Trump Tower server last year during the General election. Unless I'm mixing up banks, Alfa also had a connection to Trump's commerce secretary Willbur Ross, who used to be one of their executives. Lastly, a lawyer who represented Alfa just showed up as Trump's nominee for head of the Criminal Division at the DOJ. It's presumed that Mueller is working on Alfa too, and the Senate Democrats have been up in arms about it before the confirmation hearing.

3) VEB is the bank under US sanctions that Jared and the bank's head met about in Dec or Jan. I believe this is also when Kislyak and Jared met about creating that backchannel bypassing the US IC and ending at the Kremlin. Further meetings are in question because of an oddly worded statement on the subject in Jared's written testimony last Monday.

I don't know much about the financial dealings of cabinet members, other than they're all extremely wealthy. As for Manafort, I'll get to him if/when I have time later on.

Yes, but the REAL Russia news isn't often getting reported. For example, the cybersecurity partnership with Russia is progressing as of 2 weeks ago, and not a peep. 3 hours of Trump/Putin talks are unaccounted for, I had to dig pretty deep to find out about the data of 40 million voters being available on the black market, and there was ZERO mention by MSM or Dems on the damaging financial info and GOP legislation having security gaps favoring Russian activities. The Browder hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee was quite damning, not so much for individuals, but against groups like the Trump campaign and the GOP. Dems looked pretty frustrated with the information being revealed and they were asking some really implicating questions. I don't understand, but not even a single mention of this from Rachel is weird as hell.

I'm a citizen living in Alabama. In response to this article:

http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/...pinion_article

that appeared on the AL.com web site, I sent the following email to Mr. Cameron Smith, the author, who served as a former staffer to Jeff Sessions.

<begin>

Mr. Cameron Smith:

I have just read your excellent article: "Trump and Sessions: Unstoppable Force Meets Immovable Object" on the AL.com web site. I have never done this before, but I am giving very serious consideration to voting for Jeff Sessions (as an undeclared write-in candidate) in the upcoming August 15 Republican primary. I'm not knowledgeable concerning Alabama election law, so I have a question. Specifically, if I write in "Jeff Sessions" as my choice, will my vote be counted or will it be "spoiled", discarded and not counted? Even if my vote gets thrown out and not counted, I'll probably still vote for Jeff Sessions anyway - as a protest vote.

I have a theory - and it's only a theory - as to why President Trump is treating Mr. Sessions in such a shabby manner. Trump is between a rock and a hard place. He's not worried about [possibly] being impeached. He's worried about going to jail in the event that Mr. Mueller uncovers a boatload of charges for which he can be prosecuted after he leaves office. I'm thinking things like obstruction of justice, which has a five year toll on the statute of limitations, violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and income tax evasion - to name three [possible] charges. Getting into bed with the Russians, which former Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld referred to as "... the world's largest criminal organization" was a bad move for Trump; but he probably figured he had no choice once American banks refused to provide him capital.

Being tried and imprisoned would be the worst possible humiliation for an ego maniac narcissist like Trump - not even Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama have suffered that fate - so Trump will do anything to avoid that possibility, including throwing a loyal supporter [Jeff Sessions] under the bus.

Just a theory ...

Alan C. Lawhon
Huntsville, AL

<end>

This is the response I received back from Mr. Smith.

<begin>

Hi, Alan.

Thanks for reading. You should be able to write in anyone you want, but I'm going to ask the secretary of state to make sure. I don't think you're the only person thinking about voting for Jeff Sessions. As for Trump's motivation, I can't tell you. Just seems wild at the moment.

-Thanks, Cameron

<end>

if trump is innocent, his response to possible investigations are indeed "wild". if he's guilty, his actions make rational sense.

here's how you know trump's a childish moron: the morning after a big true unflattering news story hits, he'll tweet about it and swear it's fake. he'll even namecheck the newspaper so you know where to go read it.

son, call out the people saying you're a nazi and that you're gonna start rounding up people into camps fake news! score some easy points, stop bringing greater attention to these harmful true stories.

that kind of behavior, the highlighting of all the negative true stories about himself, makes me believe he's doing it on purpose to cause as much chaos and political instability as possible in the usa because that's his goal and putin could very well have promised to pay him by an incentive package for how much damage he does. in that case he's not a childish moron but a rational actor trying to get paid, and we know he wants to get paid

Screamin:

You've read my mind. I lived through Watergate and watching how Nixon responded to that ever worsening crisis. Trump is giving off that "I'm not a crook!" vibe. He's acting guilty as sin - just like Nixon. I've read transcripts of the Nixon White House tapes where Nixon is verbally advising his aides on how to commit perjury without getting caught. (That is suborning perjury - a felony - for which several of his aides wound up getting convicted and sent off to prison.) Nixon told them: "Perjury is a hard rap to prove. Just tell them 'I don't recall or I can't remember'".

I don't doubt for a minute that Trump's lawyers are reminding their client of Nixon's "wisdom" and keen knowledge of the law.

Jared and Flynn too, although we don't know nearly as much about those two.

1) Mike Flynn's known financial dealings are small but significant. Through staffers, he earned a minimum of $35,000 directly from Russian Television (RT) on behalf of Putin, who Flynn sat right next to at an RT dinner in 2015. As an aside, Jill Stein was there too, and there were later reports of Stein taking campaign contributions from Putin/Russia. Flynn also received $530,000 from the Turkish government, with semi-weak ties to Russia.

The reason these transactions are more significant than their relatively small amounts is because of the trouble Mike Flynn got himself into. He omitted the payments and never got permission in advance, as required by any former military officer. Additionally, he discussed sanctions with Sergey Kislyak in December, and lied about it to the FBI and the administration including putting VP Pence in an awkward public position. The acting AG Sally Yates warned the White House that Flynn was subject to Russian blackmail, and he was immediately fired 18 days later. In return for her solid performance, Sally Yates was fired 17 days before Flynn.

Once let go, Flynn's lawyers publicly requested immunity from the FBI investigation and all Congressional Committees. He was turned down by everyone but the FBI. Shortly after, Mike Flynn retroactively filed as a foreign agent, and we haven't heard much of anything from him since. Many seem to think the Feds (or Mueller) flipped him.

2) Jared Kushner has a much larger, complicated, and more secretive network of finances. Mueller may have a lot more insight since he's been following the money, but it seems like the committees and the general public didn't know much at all until he recently made some info available.

Jared owns the 666 building in NYC, which is worth around 3/4 of a billion, and to which he is rumored to be in debt over. Between the time Kushner was said to be a subject of Mueller's probe (~2 months ago) and his latest financial disclosure (~1 week ago), rumors were heard of a $1.2 billion Russian loan due in 2019. He supposedly vouched for 300 million of it personally. Up to another 3 billion in Russian loans were talked about, but never confirmed. When Jared updated his financial disclosure form, a 1.1 billion in loans were listed for the first time, although he listed them from 20 different lenders, rather than one or two Russians looking to collect in a year. Jared also revealed 77 previously undisclosed properties, and him and Ivanka each had to divest from 200 different business positions each.

When you hear about Jared's clearance form revisions and omissions, none of that is money related. At first, no meetings or contacts were admitted. Then, after some news stories, he revised his application to list 2 meetings and over 100 new contacts, followed by a 2nd revision with 2 more meetings. Then, after Jr's emails became public, we learned of 4 more participants that were never disclosed. When Jared went to be interviewed by Senate staffers, his written statement revealed a 4th undisclosed meeting. Of the 4 known meetings, only the one with Sergio Gorkov, the head of Russia's VEB (Bank), is known to be financial. Since the bank was under sanctions and future meetings with Gorkov could not clearly be ruled out by looking at Jared's Congressional statement, this particular link has been concerning.

Sorry, but this original question was really long and involved (no more like this pls) I'll get to Paul Manafort later on (again) if nobody else does. A lot more is known about him, so a Manafort report will take a while. The story also starts in the Ukraine almost 10 years ago, with lots of money moving through lots of offshore banks.

yeah we're on the same page unfortunately. what's very scary for me is that when nixon was in the position he was in, he didn't deny reality or facts when presented to him. trump will flatly say, and order his subordinates to say on tv, that out of 2 photographs, the one with less people actually has more people. and that adds a scary new level to this situation we're in right now. because i don't doubt that if anything unflattering comes out from the mueller investigation, trump will say it's fake. he's not gonna ever say "oh, well, you got me." that's not in his brain.

How many accounts does Alan "Former DJ" Lawhon have?

Ok, here's what I know about Paul Manafort without running to Google for help. Not going to pour a lot of time into it because the thread got hijacked. Here's a list of notable things:

- His political experience runs for decades in the US.

- In the late 2000s, Manafort struck a deal with pro-Russian Ukrainian efforts to "further the political interests of Vladimir Putin" as the reports from back then show.

- He reached an agreement with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripavska (sp?) for $10 million a year in return. We only find records for 2 years of payments, but have no indication of when this deal ended.

- During this period, Manafort helped stage a Russian political takeover of Ukraine, paving the way for an easier annexation of Crimea a few years later. By this point, many influential Ukrainian politicians had been compromised through Putin's standard methods of bribery, blackmail, and later on harsher methods including torture of political prisoners and/or families.

- Early methods used in the takeover mimic those we've seen used in the Trump campaign and current GOP. This doesn't mean our politicians are being physically tortured, but keeping an eye on the Ukraine situation is always good foreshadowing, especially in the area of cybersecurity. Ukraine is a proving ground of sorts. Pretty much all the election interference we witnessed in 2016 was already done years ago in the Ukraine. More recently, Russia has stepped up cyber attacks to include hitting their power grid, hospital machinery (keeping patients alive) and more. Self driving cars are a particular cybersecurity threat that we've been eyeballing in the near future.

- After reaching the 2010 deal, Manafort started funneling cash through offshore accounts, like the Bank of Cypress, where laundered money was put into legit real estate purchases in the US.

- I think he was up to 15 different offshore banks/accounts last I saw. The US Treasury was heavily into this recently, and the results were absorbed into Mueller's investigation.

- A really strange pattern we noticed come to a complete halt was influential Russians chasing Manafort around for years over 17 million in unpaid loans. Without a payment made, the collection efforts ended abruptly the day before he started on the Trump campaign. Furthermore, Manafort worked as an unpaid volunteer the whole time. And last, Manafort got over $10 million in brand new loans from several sources, the DAY AFTER he was fired by the campaign. Remember that, like everything else these Trump guys do, he was let go immediately after the public media reports came out showing his Russian backed links to Ukraine.

- As with Mike Flynn, Manafort never reported his Russian income and never registered as a foreign agent until long after being discovered, lawyering up, and being interviewed by the Feds. There is speculation that he has been turned as well.

- Also as with Flynn (and Stone, and Page, and Gordon, and others), there has been a coordinated effort by the Trump administration to distance themselves from Manafort. Everyone jokes about how Spicey claimed the former campaign manager played "a small role for a limited amount of time", etc.

- Manafort details are still dripping out. Most notable and most recent was his role in the hidden Don Jr quad-lateral Russian meeting.

- Manafort attended several other events with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that were previously undisclosed by other Trump team members until they were later discovered by the media and/or investigations. The effort to conceal was highly coordinated and included perjury in the Senate, FARA omissions & revisions, SF-86 security clearance application omissions & revisions, compounded perjury, obstruction of justice, and various recusal violations.

- The retroactive FARA process Manafort went through was pretty strange as well. Like Flynn, he registered as a foreign agent after being discovered, but in Manafort's case he teased the media for 2 months as if he did register when in actuality, he didn't. This also indicates cooperation with the Feds.

I'm sure some of the details are off and that I'm missing a whole bunch of other events, especially surrounding real estate deals and the years spent renting office space in Trump Tower. It's estimated that we know around 10% of the whole story. I'd love to know what % Mueller's team has locked down.

I asked if we're on a collision course to a war with Russia and I hoped if we were going to war, that war would be nuke free.

Our House, though it would be more work, thread would be much better with citations fwiw.

I was actually expecting a quick Q&A, but no worries either way because the thread got derailed. You know, one line question and easy answer with a source if needed.

But no way I'm digging through the interwebs to find links for everything I posted in a thread that will fall off page 1 by tomorrow.

How do you feel about their checkers variant? Answer for either 8x8 or 10x8 board tia.

Do you think this Russia stuff will ever take Trump down?

I actually don't have an opinion on that. Mueller is too secretive.

If Trump succeeds in removing Mueller without getting impeached, there's a decent chance non-Russia things will take him down at the state level. (with the exception of something like laundering that involves Russia)

There's also a non zero chance that the Mueller investigation takes a detour to go after Russian mob/criminal figures in the US if evidence shows a bigger imminent threat from somewhere else. It's unlikely, and would obviously suck balls.

One thing I have a strong opinion about is if Trump gets his way, Democracy is over in the US, and soon after, the world. We're in the middle of the biggest battle of our lives.

Our House:

You are so right.

It is a bedrock foundational belief of Marxist/Leninist philosophy that capitalism - and countries that espouse free market competition and democratic institutions - will eventually collapse. (Nikita Khrushchev famously declared: "We will bury you!" [the United States] as he pounded his shoe on the table at the UN.) True Marxist believers are convinced they have a sacred duty to help hasten the inevitable collapse of democracy.

If Trump prevails here, if he's able to break laws with impunity - and get away with it - then we are no longer a nation of laws. We will have become a nation of men. At that point we will be one step closer to dictatorship and losing our cherished freedoms, freedoms that a lot of good men have fought and died for face down in the mud.

Former Supreme Court Justice David Souter gave a talk in which he warned that democracy is fragile. It only takes one [unchecked] strongman - and a complacent citizenry - to lose this precious thing we have. This is not just a "Trump" thing - the continued viability of our democracy is at stake.

We've Seen This Movie Before - In Russia

http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...-russia-215448