[News] Trump, Russia, and the 2016 Election

All news related to Donald Trump's alleged ties to Russia and to the Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. New details should be cited to reputable sources.

Russian troll farm financier also backs Russian mercenaries in Syria: Officials

The Kremlin ally indicted last week as a key figure in Russia's online election influence operation is also tied to a shadowy military contractor whose Russian mercenaries recently launched an attack on American forces in Syria, U.S. officials tell ABC News.

Yevgeny Prigozhin — a Russian businessman and restauranteur dubbed “Putin's chef" by the Russian media — is deeply involved in the Wagner Group, officials said, a paramilitary firm based in southern Russia. According to those officials, the firm deployed mercenaries in Syria who tried to strike U.S. special operations forces earlier this month. The attack failed, two intelligence officials told ABC News, as the mercenaries were decimated by U.S. airstrikes during their advance.

ABC: Special counsel files 32-count indictment against former Trump campaign officials

A federal grand jury in Virginia has handed up a new 32-count indictment against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his former top aide, Rick Gates.

In all, the two men face 16 counts related to filing false individual income tax returns, seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts, five counts of bank fraud conspiracy, and four counts of bank fraud.

Manafort and Gates are accused of hiding tens of millions income from lobbying work for the former government of Ukraine and failing to pay taxes on it in the U.S.

All told, special counsel Robert Mueller said more than $75 million was funneled through offshore accounts in Cyprus, the Grenadines, the Seychelles and the United Kingdom, and that Manafort, with the assistance of Gates, laundered more than $30 million to pay for personal expenses.

WP: Special counsel Mueller files new charges against Manafort, Gates

Paul Manafort was using fraudulently obtained loans and tax-cheating tricks to prop up his personal finances as he became chairman of the Trump campaign in 2016, according to a new 32-count indictment filed against him and his business partner Thursday.

I'm already hearing rumblings of "has nothing to do with Russia or the elections!" and "outside the scope of his investigation!"

NBC: Former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates set to plead guilty

WASHINGTON — Former campaign aide Rick Gates has agreed to plead guilty, becoming the third associate of President Donald Trump to make a deal with special counsel Robert Mueller, a source familiar with the proceedings told NBC News.

Gates, who was indicted with former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort in October on conspiracy and other charges related to their lobbying work in Ukraine, is expected to appear in federal court in Washington on Friday to enter the plea.

Wow, Mueller must have them cold as they are going down like bowling pins. Of course we're not dealing with even moderately intelligent individuals.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Further squeezing Manafort, Mueller lodged new charges in a superseding indictment Friday, alleging he secretly hired a group of former senior European politicians to promote positions favorable to Ukraine in the United States. He allegedly paid the ex-pols, dubbed the "Hapsburg Group," $2 million euros from offshore accounts, and they lobbied members of Congress and other U.S. officials.

An important thing to remember is the change in the Republican platform on Ukraine.

2016 RNC Delegate: Trump Directed Change To Party Platform On Ukraine Support

President Trump may have been involved with a change to the Republican Party campaign platform last year that watered down support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine, according to new information from someone who was involved.

Diana Denman, a Republican delegate who supported arming U.S. allies in Ukraine, has told people that Trump aide J.D. Gordon said at the Republican Convention in 2016 that Trump directed him to support weakening that position in the official platform.

Ultimately, the softer position was adopted.

We are getting closer to Trump being implicated himself. I’d still like to hear the story of how Manafort came into Trump’s orbit.

He was just, like, you know, bored. He wanted to keep himself busy so he took a demanding 80-hour-a-week job so he could keep himself busy, even though he owed $28 million to Oleg Deripaska and needed the money.

Also, Dana Rohrabacher was officially implicated today. This was a good Trump/Russia Friday.

DSGamer wrote:

Dana Rohrabacher was officially implicated today.

Finally!!!!!!!! As if he wasn't obvious enough. This guy is criminal.

So Rorabacher was the guy the GOP congressmen were joking about being paid by Russia, right? And then Paul Ryan told them all to shut up and never mention it?

If Rorabacher turns out to be taking money from the Russians, does that implicate Ryan as a co conspirator? I mean they'd need proof that he knew for sure, but I wonder if Mueller starts digging.

Chaz wrote:

So Rorabacher was the guy the GOP congressmen were joking about being paid by Russia, right? And then Paul Ryan told them all to shut up and never mention it?

If Rorabacher turns out to be taking money from the Russians, does that implicate Ryan as a co conspirator? I mean they'd need proof that he knew for sure, but I wonder if Mueller starts digging.

You know... there was another prominent politician Ryan himself said that about wasn't there? For the life of me, I just can't remember who.

Me either. It was about ten billion years ago.

Pretty sure I have no idea how to convert a PDF to Word. Anyone who send me PDFs should be fired anyway!
But... google exists?!

Also, he used email to send incriminating evidence AFTER the 'email scandals' (both Hillary and Podesta) had exploded? Would have thought most people had realized by then, that you probably should think about what you email.
Stupidity always wins.

Fwiw, Windows has a Print to PDF function built into it.

Edit: Oops, read that wrong. PDF to Word.

I am assuming the reason the original document was a PDF, is to provide confidentiality and integrity probably via a digital certificate and other mechanisms. Assuming the document was not protected and he did not have access to a PDF editor then this would just be as simple as a copy/paste of the text (content) into a word document, reformat, and save as PDF. Otherwise manipulation of the original PDF without detection would be difficult.

Nimcosi wrote:

I am assuming the reason the original document was a PDF, is to provide confidentiality and integrity probably via a digital certificate and other mechanisms. Assuming the document was not protected and he did not have access to a PDF editor then this would just be as simple as a copy/paste of the text (content) into a word document, reformat, and save as PDF. Otherwise manipulation of the original PDF without detection would be difficult.

And there are a ton of free sites out there that will remove that protection.

Vrikk wrote:

S T U P I D

W A T E R G A T E

C O N T I N U E S

It gets better:

Gates's false statement to FBI came during meeting over plea deal

Former Trump campaign aide Richard Gates admitted that even while he was in discussions with special counsel Robert Mueller's team of prosecutors about a plea deal, he made a false statement to investigators.

Gates made the false statement during a meeting with Mueller's team on Feb. 1, the same day his previous lawyers withdrew from the case citing "irreconcilable differences," NBC News reported Friday after Gates entered his guilty plea.

I think I know why his lawyers dropped him.

This makes it seem like he'd be an unreliable witness in any actual trial. "How can you believe his testimony, when he lied while making his plea??"

firesloth wrote:

This makes it seem like he'd be an unreliable witness in any actual trial. "How can you believe his testimony, when he lied while making his plea??"

Not sure the grand jury needs his testimony at this point, given the reams of documentary evidence that's been turning up. He can probably point the investigation toward where more (metaphorical) bodies are buried, but they'd be able to build the evidence from there just fine.

Am I the only seeing a marked difference in the coverage between the two memos? The Nunes memo was getting huge coverage by the lamestream ... or wait the fake news .... or wait the legacy ... or whatever we're calling the media now and the Democratic one seems to be getting next to nothing. C'mon Liberal NWO puppetmasters!! What gives?!?

And that's exactly what the R's wanted-- hold off on releasing the Democrats' rebuttal until people were tired of hearing about memos and the 24 hour news cycle was ready for the Next Big Thing, that way no one would hardly cover or care about the Dems' response.

I mean, honestly at this point, the Nunes Memo has been so covered to death and broken down point by point that I personally don't care to read the Democrat talking points anymore, myself. Had it been released even a week ago, it'd probably be a different story.

PissedYeti wrote:

Am I the only seeing a marked difference in the coverage between the two memos? The Nunes memo was getting huge coverage by the lamestream ... or wait the fake news .... or wait the legacy ... or whatever we're calling the media now and the Democratic one seems to be getting next to nothing. C'mon Liberal NWO puppetmasters!! What gives?!?

The few weeks delay did its job.

Florida and the Kelley staff abuse stuff took care if the memos.

A lie traveled around the world before the truth got its pants on

firesloth wrote:
PissedYeti wrote:

Am I the only seeing a marked difference in the coverage between the two memos? The Nunes memo was getting huge coverage by the lamestream ... or wait the fake news .... or wait the legacy ... or whatever we're calling the media now and the Democratic one seems to be getting next to nothing. C'mon Liberal NWO puppetmasters!! What gives?!?

The few weeks delay did its job.

As did releasing it on a Saturday.

Paleocon wrote:

A lie traveled around the world before the truth got its pants on

Ehhhhhhhh, I get the idea of that and that's certainly how it looked as it happened... but the Democratic version was done like a day after Nunes's was released, then 45 sat on it. It's less that the memo was trying to get dressed and out the door so much as 45 locked it in its room until it was too late to make a difference.

Demosthenes wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

A lie traveled around the world before the truth got its pants on

Ehhhhhhhh, I get the idea of that and that's certainly how it looked as it happened... but the Democratic version was done like a day after Nunes's was released, then 45 sat on it. It's less that the memo was trying to get dressed and out the door so much as 45 locked it in its room until it was too late to make a difference.

The Dem Memo is Cinderella, the Step-mom Trump, and the Nunes Memo the step-sisters.
Nailed It!