Thread: Mueller's Russian Interference investigation

Do you think you know the real story?

The red menace and the hypocrisy of these morons.

Originally Posted by bsnub

The red menace and the hypocrisy of these morons.

I like the red menace...it's truly making a mockery of the us government....

If you take that article for its word, the firing of Manafort had more to do with the "low energy" style he had along with not really being a good fit for the job. He also did not warm up to Trump and had opposing views to what Trump was trying to convey to voters.

The Ukraine thing was not the sole reason Manafort was fired, in my opinion. It was his inability to do the job. I have fired many during my career for the same cause and always explained to the individual that they were not a good fit which would hinder their success.

Your second paragraph you said you were guessing, so I have no comment. Good try though.

Originally Posted by rickschoppers

The Ukraine thing was not the sole reason Manafort was fired, in my opinion.

LOL....

At the same time, the new accounts of Mr. Manafort’s ties to Ukraine quickly eroded the support that he had from Mr. Trump’s family during his earlier battles with Mr. Lewandowski.

According to people briefed on the matter, Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, expressed increasing concern after a Times article published on Sunday about allegations of cash payments made to Mr. Manafort’s firm for his work on behalf of his main client, Viktor F. Yanukovych, the former Ukranian president, who is an ally of Mr. Putin.

Frosting on the cake, but still not the sole purpose of his firing. It is called distancing and is seen often in politics.

Originally Posted by rickschoppers

Frosting on the cake,

Exactly Rick...the sweet stuff....

Originally Posted by rickschoppers

Frosting on the cake, but still not the sole purpose of his firing. It is called distancing and is seen often in politics.

FFS would you like some straws to clutch?

He was sacked because they found out he was taking the piss.

When a foreign government can buy your foreign policy, you're Ethiopia not the USA.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

When a foreign government can buy your foreign policy, you're Ethiopia not the USA.

Actually, that's apparently not true.....

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Originally Posted by rickschoppers

Frosting on the cake, but still not the sole purpose of his firing. It is called distancing and is seen often in politics.

FFS would you like some straws to clutch?

He was sacked because they found out he was taking the piss.

When a foreign government can buy your foreign policy, you're Ethiopia not the USA.

No such reason to fire someone in the rule books as "taking the piss" in the US Harry. Please try to speak Americanese when referring to the United States of America.

Originally Posted by Humbert

Originally Posted by Neverna

^ That video and the video of Schiff above, yes, decent speeches, but it's not difficult to sound good when you can speak without interruption and put over your political views (both Democrat). It's all one way, a monologue. Not really impressive.

Yeah, and his tie was terrible too. Any comments on his haircut?

Why do you ask about his looks? I never mentioned his looks at all.

Originally Posted by rickschoppers

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Originally Posted by rickschoppers

Frosting on the cake, but still not the sole purpose of his firing. It is called distancing and is seen often in politics.

FFS would you like some straws to clutch?

He was sacked because they found out he was taking the piss.

When a foreign government can buy your foreign policy, you're Ethiopia not the USA.

No such reason to fire someone in the rule books as "taking the piss" in the US Harry. Please try to speak Americanese when referring to the United States of America.

Mate they've got him bang to rights and no mistake. No wonder the orange-faced wankers team suddenly treated him like cancer.

Trump?s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was paid by Russia: report - Salon.com

Here are some reviews of your source Harry. Care to recant your post?

“Too liberal to take seriously”
9/16/16
Some news sites are liberal like CNN, some conservative like Fox News. Salon.com is way left of CNN, they don't report the news, they give their opinions. It's basically a left wing propaganda tabloid.

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izam2
Iza M.
1 review
1 helpful vote
“Way Too Biased!”
6/6/16
Had their app on my phone for months. Every time I read it, the stupidity and leftist spin was so obvious and thick. Objectivity and honesty seem to fly out the window with these guys. Finally, deleted it as it was not worth my time.

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johnh391
John H.
2 reviews
16 helpful votes
“Sophomoric at best”
11/8/15
You know those undergrad students who take a political science class and then go home for winter break and proceed to lecture everyone about how the world works? That's salon.com except perhaps more radical and fringe (and cringe) worthy.

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charlesp37
Charles P.
1 review
10 helpful votes
“Great for those who believe they are intelligent.”
7/17/15
Salon is a great website for those who believe they are intelligent and are left-leaning. The website is openly racist, unlike most liberal outlets that try to rely on coded language. In fact, one of the frequent contributors even published a book entitled "What is Wrong with White People?" They're the left-leaning version of Fox News, only with fewer facts... read more

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royl29
Roy L.
1 review
9 helpful votes
“Horribly Biased”
6/22/15
Spent a day reading the stories on here (and also Yahoo, which for some reason shares their stories.) So much for being partial. This is absolutely one of the worst and most racist and biased websites I've ever seen

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leod22
Leo D.
1 review
12 helpful votes
“Far too bias to be informative.”
5/23/15
Salon.com is bias. That much should be obvious the moment you read an article. Beyond the sheer weight of the site's partisan-pandering there is heavy amounts of haughtiness, cynicism, and really just rudeness. There is hardly any news, there are only partisan smears and over-generalizations. There is nothing objective about what is said on that site.

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tonyb60
Tony B.
41 reviews
124 helpful votes
“Salon used to have some good anti-war, pro-civil liberty...”
11/20/13
Salon used to have some good anti-war, pro-civil liberty stories in it. Now it is just a rag for social liberalism. It also has published pro-pedophile stories. I have absolutely no respect for them.

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michaeld62
Michael D.
3 reviews
18 helpful votes
“Straight up ultra liberal slant”
6/8/13
Straight up ultra liberal slant.
It's like MSNBC in print.
Don't waste your time.

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goodwinj
Goodwin J.
9 reviews
24 helpful votes
“If you want to a news update, this isn't the site for...”
3/13/11
If you want to a news update, this isn't the site for you. But if you want opinionated, intelligent coverage of everything that may interest an educated person, Salon is it.

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katiew
Katie W.
9 reviews
58 helpful votes
“Salon.com is just too liberal to be useful to anyone”
10/11/08
Salon.com is just too liberal to be useful to anyone - I'm all for a diversity of ideas in the press, but I think that <a href="salon.com" target="_blank">Salon.com</a> is sometimes too liberal to be useful. Now, I am a democrat, but I want to know the news and read analysis that is even-handed. Then I can make up my own mind.

For example, today's headline article is about <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/10/11/sarah_palin_alaska/" target="_blank">Sarah Palin killing wolf pups</a>. Don't get me wrong, I love the enviroment and animals, but right now our country is in financial crisis, shouldn't Salon be covering the candidates view on that?

I would like to hear more real citicism of democratic ideals, and more thoughtful analyses of polticians and policy. Then when I read a Salon article I can feel more comfortable that I'm not just hearing the democratic party line.

https://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.salon.com

Originally Posted by rickschoppers

Here are some reviews of your source Harry. Care to recant your post?

So when you can't refute the facts attack the source?

Is there a course from Trump university on this or something?

^
Ahhhh, Harry used a shit source, so you want me to refute bogus reporting? Now there is some very keen logic.

Originally Posted by Cujo

Originally Posted by rickschoppers

Here are some reviews of your source Harry. Care to recant your post?

So when you can't refute the facts attack the source?

Is there a course from Trump university on this or something?

Seen it done here a million times Cujo.

Originally Posted by rickschoppers

^
Ahhhh, Harry used a shit source, so you want me to refute bogus reporting? Now there is some very keen logic.

Well if it's a shit source and bogus reporting surely it's easy to refute, so go ahead.

Waste of my time Cujo refuting bogus reporting. Kind of like refuting a white horse's color when somebody says it's black. Needless and unnecessary and I find it a bit odd you are stuck on such a meaningless point.

Originally Posted by rickschoppers

Waste of my time Cujo refuting bogus reporting. Kind of like refuting a white horse's color when somebody says it's black. Needless and unnecessary and I find it a bit odd you are stuck on such a meaningless point.

Yes you fucking pussy. You quote a load of trumpkin comments but neglect completely to note that the information in the article is from places like AP and NBC.

You can't refute the information in that story, so you resort to a very trumpkin "many people said..." type argument.

Fucking hell ricky, give it up son.

This is just another example of how the orange-faced wanker is so easy to manipulate.

Anyway, since you don't trust Salon's precis, here's the original AP piece:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, secretly worked for a Russian billionaire to advance the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin a decade ago and proposed an ambitious political strategy to undermine anti-Russian opposition across former Soviet republics, The Associated Press has learned. The work appears to contradict assertions by the Trump administration and Manafort himself that he never worked for Russian interests.

Manafort proposed in a confidential strategy plan as early as June 2005 that he would influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and the former Soviet republics to benefit the Putin government, even as U.S.-Russia relations under Republican President George W. Bush grew worse.

Manafort pitched the plans to Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, a close Putin ally with whom Manafort eventually signed a $10 million annual contract beginning in 2006, according to interviews with several people familiar with payments to Manafort and business records obtained by the AP. Manafort and Deripaska maintained a business relationship until at least 2009, according to one person familiar with the work.

"We are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success," Manafort wrote in the 2005 memo to Deripaska. The effort, Manafort wrote, "will be offering a great service that can re-focus, both internally and externally, the policies of the Putin government."

Manafort's plans were laid out in documents obtained by the AP that included strategy memoranda and records showing international wire transfers for millions of dollars. How much work Manafort performed under the contract was unclear.

The disclosure comes as Trump campaign advisers are the subject of an FBI probe and two congressional investigations. Investigators are reviewing whether the Trump campaign and its associates coordinated with Moscow to meddle in the 2016 campaign. Manafort has dismissed the investigations as politically motivated and misguided. The documents obtained by AP show Manafort's ties to Russia were closer than previously revealed.

In a statement to the AP, Manafort confirmed that he worked for Deripaska in various countries but said the work was being unfairly cast as "inappropriate or nefarious" as part of a "smear campaign."

"I worked with Oleg Deripaska almost a decade ago representing him on business and personal matters in countries where he had investments," Manafort said. "My work for Mr. Deripaska did not involve representing Russia's political interests."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of Trump's critics in the Senate, called the disclosures about payments to Manafort from the Russian billionaire "very disturbing if true."

"That's basically taking money to stop the spread of democracy, and that would be very disturbing to me," he said Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

Democrats on the House intelligence committee said the new revelations will feature in the congressional investigations. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., said on MSNBC on Wednesday that Manafort should appear before the committee, and he raised the specter of a subpoena should Manafort not appear on his own.

Another member of the intelligence committee, Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., said the disclosure "undermines the groundless assertions that the administration has been making that there are no ties between President Trump and Russia. This is not a drip, drip, drip" situation, she said. "This is now dam-breaking with water flushing out with all kinds of entanglements."

Deripaska became one of Russia's wealthiest men under Putin, buying assets abroad in ways widely perceived to benefit the Kremlin's interests. U.S. diplomatic cables from 2006 described Deripaska as "among the 2-3 oligarchs Putin turns to on a regular basis" and "a more-or-less permanent fixture on Putin's trips abroad." In response to questions about Manafort's consulting firm, a spokesman for Deripaska in 2008 — at least three years after they began working together — said Deripaska had never hired the firm. Another Deripaska spokesman in Moscow last week declined to answer AP's questions.

When asked Wednesday about Manafort's work for Deripaska, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "We do not feel it's appropriate to comment on someone who is not an employee at the White House," although Press Secretary Sean Spicer discussed Manafort earlier this week during a televised news briefing.

Manafort worked as Trump's unpaid campaign chairman last year from March until August, a period that included the Republican National Convention that nominated Trump in July. Trump asked Manafort to resign after AP revealed that Manafort had orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation until 2014 on behalf of Ukraine's ruling pro-Russian political party.

The newly obtained business records link Manafort more directly to Putin's interests in the region. According to those records and people with direct knowledge of Manafort's work for Deripaska, Manafort made plans to open an office in Moscow, and at least some of his work in Ukraine was directed by Deripaska, not local political interests there. The Moscow office never opened.

Manafort has been a leading focus of the U.S. intelligence investigation of Trump's associates and Russia, according to a U.S. official. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the investigation are confidential. Meanwhile, federal criminal prosecutors became interested in Manafort's activities years ago as part of a broad investigation to recover stolen Ukraine assets after the ouster of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych there in early 2014. No U.S. criminal charges have ever been filed in the case.

FBI Director James Comey, in confirming to Congress the federal intelligence investigation this week, declined to say whether Manafort was a target. Manafort's name was mentioned 28 times during the hearing of the House intelligence committee, mostly about his work in Ukraine. No one mentioned Deripaska.

On Monday, Spicer had singled out Manafort when asked about possible campaign contacts with Russia. He said Manafort "played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time" in the campaign, even though as Trump's presidential campaign chairman he led it during the crucial run-up to the Republican National Convention.

Manafort and his associates remain in Trump's orbit. Manafort told a colleague this year that he continues to speak with Trump by telephone. Manafort's former business partner in eastern Europe, Rick Gates, has been seen inside the White House on a number of occasions. Gates has since helped plan Trump's inauguration and now runs a nonprofit organization, America First Policies, to back the White House agenda.

Gates, whose name does not appear in the documents, told the AP that he joined Manafort's firm in 2006 and was aware Manafort had a relationship with Deripaska but was not aware of the work described in the memos. Gates said his work was focused on domestic U.S. lobbying and political consulting in Ukraine at the time. He said he stopped working for Manafort's firm in March 2016 when he joined Trump's presidential campaign.

Manafort told Deripaska in 2005 that he was pushing policies as part of his work in Ukraine "at the highest levels of the U.S. government — the White House, Capitol Hill and the State Department," according to the documents. He also said he had hired a "leading international law firm with close ties to President Bush to support our client's interests," but he did not identify the firm. Manafort also said he was employing unidentified legal experts for the effort at leading universities and think tanks, including Duke University, New York University and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Manafort did not disclose details about the lobbying work to the Justice Department during the period the contract was in place.

Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, people who lobby in the U.S. on behalf of foreign political leaders or political parties must provide detailed reports about their actions to the department. Willfully failing to register is a felony and can result in up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, though the government rarely files criminal charges.

Deripaska owns Basic Element Co., which employs 200,000 people worldwide in the agriculture, aviation, construction, energy, financial services, insurance and manufacturing industries, and he runs one of the world's largest aluminum companies. Forbes estimated his net worth at $5.2 billion. How much Deripaska paid Manafort in total is not clear, but people familiar with the relationship said money transfers to Manafort amounted to tens of millions of dollars and continued through at least 2009. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the secret payments publicly.

In strategy memos, Manafort proposed that Deripaska and Putin would benefit from lobbying Western governments, especially the U.S., to allow oligarchs to keep possession of formerly state-owned assets in Ukraine. He proposed building "long term relationships" with Western journalists and a variety of measures to improve recruitment, communications and financial planning by pro-Russian parties in the region.

Manafort proposed extending his existing work in eastern Europe to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Georgia, where he pledged to bolster the legitimacy of governments friendly to Putin and undercut anti-Russian figures through political campaigns, nonprofit front groups and media operations.

For the $10 million annual contract, Manafort did not use his public-facing consulting firm, Davis Manafort. Instead, he used a company, LOAV Ltd., that he had registered in Delaware in 1992. He listed LOAV as having the same address as his lobbying and consulting firms in Alexandria, Virginia. In other records, LOAV's address was listed as Manafort's home, also in Alexandria. Manafort sold the home in July 2015 for $1.4 million. He now owns an apartment in Trump Tower in New York, as well as other properties in Florida and New York.

One strategy memo to Deripaska was written by Manafort and Rick Davis, his business partner at the time. In written responses to the AP, Davis said he did not know that his firm had proposed a plan to covertly promote the interests of the Russian government.

Davis said he believes Manafort used his name without his permission on the strategy memo. "My name was on every piece of stationery used by the company and in every memo prior to 2006. It does not mean I had anything to do with the memo described," Davis said. He took a leave of absence from the firm in late 2006 to work on John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign.

Manafort's work with Deripaska continued for years, though they had a falling out laid bare in 2014 in a Cayman Islands bankruptcy court. The billionaire gave Manafort nearly $19 million to invest in a Ukrainian TV company called Black Sea Cable, according to legal filings by Deripaska's representatives. It said that after taking the money, Manafort and his associates stopped responding to Deripaska's queries about how the funds had been used.

Early in the 2016 presidential campaign, Deripaska's representatives openly accused Manafort of fraud and pledged to recover the money from him. After Trump earned the nomination, Deripaska's representatives said they would no longer discuss the case.

___

Associated Press writers Jack Gillum, Eric Tucker, Julie Pace, Ted Bridis, Stephen Braun and Julie Bykowicz contributed to this report in Washington; Nataliya Vasilyeva contributed from Moscow and Kiev, Ukraine; and Jake Pearson contributed from New York.

https://www.apnews.com/122ae0b5848345faa88108a03de40c5a

Originally Posted by rickschoppers

Harry, you bombast members because their sources are crap, and here you are caught redhanded using a crap source and you dare to take the offense calling me schoolyard names. You take yourself too seriously and actually enjoy talking down to everyone who disagrees with your point of view. You need to grow up Harry.

^ So you admit your first source was crap and where did the AP "LEARN" this information Harry? You definitely need a class in reading comprehesion, and quit believing everything you read.

AP have the documents rick.

Can't you fucking read son.

Manafort's plans were laid out in documents obtained by the AP that included strategy memoranda and records showing international wire transfers for millions of dollars.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

AP have the documents rick.
Can't you fucking read son.

Schiff: There is now 'more than circumstantial evidence' of Trump-Russia collusion

Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday that there is “more than circumstantial evidence now” to suggest that President Donald Trump’s campaign may have colluded with Russia’s attempts to disrupt the election, but he would not offer details.

“I can tell you that the case is more than that,” Schiff told Chuck Todd on MSNBC. “And I can’t go into the particulars, but there is more than circumstantial evidence now.”

When Todd followed up, asking if he had “seen direct evidence of collusion,” Schiff would not say so directly, but insisted that he has seen some “evidence that is not circumstantial” and is worth investigating.

more Schiff: There is now &#39;more than circumstantial evidence&#39; of Trump-Russia collusion - POLITICO

The top Democrat on one of the congressional committees investigating ties between Donald Trump and Russia has raised “grave doubt” over the viability of the inquiry after its Republican chairman shared information with the White House and not their committee colleagues.

In the latest wild development surrounding the Russia inquiry that has created an air of scandal around Trump, Democrat Adam Schiff effectively called his GOP counterpart, Devin Nunes, a proxy for the White House, questioning his conduct.

“These actions raise enormous doubt about whether the committee can do its work,” Schiff said late Wednesday afternoon after speaking with Nunes, his fellow Californian, before telling MSNBC that evidence tying Trump to Russia now appeared “more than circumstantial”.


Two days after testimony from the directors of the FBI and NSA that dismissed any factual basis to Trump’s 4 March claim that Barack Obama had him placed under surveillance, Nunes publicly stated he was “alarmed” to learn that the intelligence agencies may have “incidentally” collected communications from Trump and his associates.

Nunes, who served on Trump’s national security transition team, said the surveillance “appears to be all legally collected” and masked the identities of Americans, but did so in such a way that Nunes could hazard a guess as to whom the intercepted communications discussed. Nunes added that the alleged intercepts did not actually concern Russia.

“Details about persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting,” said Nunes, who has shifted the focus of the inquiry onto leaks that Trump blames on the intelligence agencies.

Nunes went to the White House to brief the president, who seized on the chairman’s comments as vindication, even though there is little evidence even in Nunes’s vague and often conditional remarks that they revive Trump’s claim that Obama had Trump Tower wiretapped.


“I somewhat do. I must tell you I somewhat do. I very much appreciated the fact that they found what they found, I somewhat do,” Trump said Wednesday afternoon.

Nunes took whatever material he had acquired to Trump before sharing it with the committee – a decision that represented nearly a final straw for Schiff, who called for an independent commission to investigate ties between Trump and Russia.

In language that stripped away any pretense of cordiality remaining on the committee, Schiff said Nunes would have to decide whether to helm a credible inquiry or whether to operate as a White House adjunct, complicit in what Schiff intimated was a “campaign by the White House to deflect from the [FBI] director’s testimony”.

Asked if Schiff was considering pulling out of the inquiry, Schiff said he would have to “analyze what this development means”, suggesting a potential Democratic departure from one of the most internationally watched congressional investigations in recent history.

“If you have a chairman who is interacting with the White House, sharing information with the White House, when the people around the White House are the subject of the investigation and doing it before sharing it with the committee, it puts a profound doubt over whether that can be done credibly,” Schiff said.

Schiff reiterated that from what he had gleaned from his conversation with Nunes, “there is still no evidence that the president was wiretapped by his predecessor”.

Without receiving the actual intercept, Schiff said, it was “impossible” to evaluate the merits of Nunes’s claims.

Republicans in the House and Senate continue to resist Democratic demands for an independent commission modeled on the one comprised of retired eminences from both parties that investigated the 9/11 attacks. Schiff said he would raise the issue again with House speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican.


Incidental collection occurs when a communications intercept aimed at a foreign spy or proxy captures either an American in conversation with that foreign operative or discusses information about an American. An inevitability in an age of mass surveillance, and frequent even in targeted surveillance, the NSA has procedures in place to mask Americans’ identity, but Edward Snowden’s revelations have raised grave doubts about their robustness.

Given Nunes’s concerns about leaks of classified information, some questioned whether Nunes himself had confirmed the existence of a classified intercept under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

“Representative Nunes’s statements would appear to reveal classified information, which is a serious concern. With regard to the substance of his claims, I have no idea what he is talking about,” said Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, which is also investigating the Trump-Russia question.

The House committee is schedule to meet on 28 March to hear testimony on the Trump-Russia allegations from former director of national intelligence James Clapper and former CIA director John Brennan.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ee-white-house