RUSSIA/РОССИЯ THREAD—ASSANGE CHRGD W/ SPYING—DJT IMPEACHED TWICE-US TREASURY SANCTS KILIMNIK AS RUSSIAN AGNT

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SATER FLIPPED. WHY YOU THINK THIS CASE GETS DROPPED OUT OF NO WHERE?!?



New York court dismisses $250 million tax fraud case against Russia-born former Trump associate
Natasha Bertrand
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Stringer/Reuters

A Manhattan court dismissed a $250 million civil tax fraud case against Russian-American businessman Felix Sater on Wednesday, Business Insider has learned.

The civil tax-fraud case against Sater, a former associate of President Donald Trump, and the real-estate company he cofounded, Bayrock, was being prosecuted as a qui tam case, which allows a whistleblower to file on the state's behalf. The attorney general's office can then choose to intervene or not.

The purported whistleblower in this case was a lawyer named Fred Oberlander, who at one point represented Sater's former business partner Jody Kriss in a money-laundering suit against Bayrock.

Oberlander acknowledged Wednesday that he had filed his qui tam complaint based on information that had been stricken by federal judges from Kriss' original complaint, an attorney who attended the hearing on Wednesday told Business Insider.

The attorney said "the argument did not go well for Oberlander, and it seemed likely that the complaint would be dismissed based on Oberlander’s use of information that the federal judges had previously ordered removed from the federal complaint as confidential."

Sater and his lawyer, Robert Wolf, confirmed afterward that the case had been dismissed.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office declined to intervene in the case last year. He sent a letter in February 2016 notifying the New York Supreme Court of a "misleading" press release Oberlander had issued claiming that Schneiderman had green-lighted the case, "when in fact the State had expressly declined to intervene," Schneiderman wrote.

The attorney general's office said it would continue to monitor the case going forward to protect the state's rights and interest.

Wolf, Sater's lawyer, said the case was dismissed "on the merits," rather than on procedural grounds. He noted that Oberlander and another lawyer involved in the case against Sater, Richard Lerner, have twice been referred to the DOJ for criminal contempt "regarding their misconduct" in the proceedings against Sater.

Lerner told a reporter he plans to appeal the decision to toss the qui tam case.

The initial lawsuit brought against Sater and Bayrock in 2010 by Bayrock's former finance director Jody Kriss — who had no hand in the qui tam case brought later by Oberlander — alleged that "for most of its existence [Bayrock] was substantially and covertly mob-owned and operated," engaging "in a pattern of continuous, related crimes, including mail, wire, and bank fraud; tax evasion; money laundering; conspiracy; bribery; extortion; and embezzlement."

Kriss accused Sater and Bayrock's founder, Tevfik Arif, of cheating him out of millions of dollars via fraud, money laundering, and racketeering, among other misconduct. In December, a New York judge ruled that the lawsuit could move forward as a racketeering case.

According to that complaint filed by Kriss, Sater and Arif began negotiating with the Trump Organization in 2003 to market certain projects under the Trump brand but didn't tell Trump about Sater's criminal past.

In a 2007 deposition, Trump said his organization would never have agreed to partner with Bayrock on the development of Trump SoHo had he known about Sater's past. Trump also said he would not be able to identify Sater if they were in the same room.

Bayrock's office was once two floors below Trump's in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. A person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution by Sater or his associates, told Business Insider previously that Sater and Trump had standing meetings each week.

Sater has said in a deposition that he met with Trump "on a constant basis," Bloomberg previously reported, and Kriss told the publication that Trump valued Sater's loyalty — and his Russia connections.

"It's ridiculous that I wouldn't be investing in Russia," Trump said in the 2007 deposition. "Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment."
 
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VA chief took in Wimbledon, river cruise on European work trip; wife’s expenses covered

VA chief took in Wimbledon, river cruise on European work trip; wife’s expenses covered
Nearly three days into a trip to Europe this past July, Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin had attended a Wimbledon championship tennis match, toured Westminster Abbey and taken a cruise on the Thames.

The 10-day trip was not entirely a vacation. Shulkin was in Europe for meetings with Danish and British officials about veterans’ health issues.

Yet he and his wife spent about half their time sightseeing, including shopping and touring historic sites, according to an itinerary obtained by The Washington Post and confirmed by a U.S. official familiar with their activities.

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Shulkin’s six-person traveling party included his acting undersecretary of health and her husband, his chief of staff and another aide, the itinerary says. They were accompanied by a security detail of as many as six people.

The agency said Friday that the government paid airfare for Merle Bari, Shulkin’s wife, because she was traveling on “approved invitational orders.” The government also provided a per diem for her meals, the agency said.

While some Trump administration Cabinet members have faced scrutiny over their use of private and government jets, Shulkin traveled on a commercial flight, seated in coach on at least one leg.

The European visit, however, puts a focus on the mixing of business and leisure during these trips, which can come at great taxpayer expense. Shulkin’s immediate predecessor, Robert McDonald, took no foreign work trips, according to a former VA official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Shulkin’s trip came less than two weeks after he signed a memo instructing top VA staffers to determine whether “employee travel in their organization is essential.”

“I expect this will result in decreased employee travel and generate savings within the Department of Veterans Affairs,” Shulkin wrote.

In response to questions from The Post, VA announced Friday that the agency will begin posting details of the secretary’s travel online, including itineraries, and disclosing any use of government or private aircraft. That information had not previously been disclosed publicly.

All of Shulkin’s activities on the European trip, including his attendance at Wimbledon, “were reviewed and approved by ethics counsel,” VA press secretary Curt Cashour said in an emailed statement.

“These were important trips with our allies to discuss best practices for taking care of veterans,” Cashour said. “The secretary has been transparent on his down-time activities that were similar to what he would have done with his family over a weekend in the U.S.”

Cashour said the husband of Poonam Alaigh, the acting undersecretary for health, paid his own expenses.

Alaigh did not respond to several voice-mail messages since late Thursday seeking comment from The Post. VA declined to make her available for an interview.

Senior members of Congress, including two key Republicans, have also expressed concerns about travel by officials in the Trump Cabinet. The leaders of the House Oversight Committee, Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), wrote to the White House this week to demand records on air travel for executive officials since Donald Trump’s inauguration, saying that official travel “by no means should include personal use.”

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also wrote Trump a letter Thursday asking what steps the administration has taken to “ensure Cabinet secretaries use the most fiscally responsible travel in accordance with the public trust they hold.”

One ethics expert said the trip sends the wrong message to taxpayers, especially if the spouses’ expenses were paid by the government.

“That’s kind of a long trip for the secretary to be gone,” said Walter M. Shaub Jr., a vocal critic of the Trump administration who resigned in July as the federal government's top ethics watchdog. “The cost has got to be extravagant.”

Shulkin was invited to attend a July 19 conference in London with representatives of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In past years, the conference has regularly been attended by the VA secretary.

Also, he arranged to attend an earlier series of meetings in Denmark from July 12 to 14. Officials in Denmark said VA officials approached them about the meetings.

The bookend events left him with four days in between with no daytime business, according to his itinerary. He attended a ceremony one night at which a British veteran of the war in Afghanistan was honored, and a meeting the next night at the British prime minister’s residence.

It is not clear whether the London invitation came before or after the scheduling of the events in Copenhagen, which included speaking with several Danish health-care executives at a luncheon organized by a Danish business group. A spokesman for one company in attendance, Leo Pharma, said the CEOs were asked by the Danish Foreign Affairs Ministry to attend.

In any event, the Copenhagen meetings occurred at a time the business group said was inconvenient because it was a holiday period for Danes.

“It was quite difficult for us to accommodate,” said Kasper Ernest, a director at the Confederation of Danish Enterprise, noting that his group’s chief executive could not attend. “I was also on holiday.”

The Wimbledon event was one of the prized moments of the tennis year: In the ladies’ final, American Venus Williams would lose her chance at a sixth title to Spain’s Garbiñe Muguruza.

Shulkin and his entourage also visited four palaces — Copenhagen’s Christiansborg and Amalienborg and London’s Buckingham and Kensington — and included times for walks, self-guided tours and photo stops.

On one calendar item, a canal tour of Copenhagen, the itinerary specifically noted the group “Will See Little Mermaid Statue,” one of the city’s most iconic public artworks. During the London visit, Shulkin and his wife shared a meal at a restaurant overlooking a tennis court with Victoria Gosling, a British leader of the Invictus Games, a sports tournament for wounded veterans. Gosling posted a photo of the gathering on Twitter.

“Great honour and a pleasure to host US Secretary of the VA and his lovely family,” Gosling wrote.

Representatives at the Sage Foundation, where she is a director, said she was not available for comment.





Shulkin’s relationship with Danish government leaders has grown over the past year, Danish officials said, and Denmark’s military had been heavily involved in the war in Afghanistan.

In a statement, the Danish Embassy in Washington said it has had “a close dialogue with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for a couple of years based on the long-standing partnership between Denmark and the USA on global conflicts. Over this period, there has been a standing invitation to visit Denmark.”
 
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Black Lawmakers Pressure Facebook Over Racially Divisive Russian Ads
By YAMICHE ALCINDORSEPT. 28, 2017

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A protest after the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died of a severe spinal cord injury while in police custody, in Baltimore in April 2015. Russian ads on Facebook have targeted the Black Lives Matter movement. Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Members of the Congressional Black Caucus pressured Facebook this week to seriously examine how the site allowed Russian operatives to use advertising to target Black Lives Matter and sow racial divisions ahead of last year’s election.

In a letter Tuesday to the company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, Representative Robin Kelly, Democrat of Illinois, wrote that Russian-backed Facebook pages promoted “incendiary anti-immigrant rallies, targeted the Black Lives Matter movement and focused attentions on critical election swing states like Wisconsin and Michigan.”

Russian groups backed by the country’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, paid Facebook to influence voters last year by “purchasing ads designed to inflame and exploit racial, political and economic rifts in the U.S.,” Ms. Kelly wrote.

Ms. Kelly’s letter follows weeks of criticism of Facebook over its disclosure that Russians used fake pages and advertisements, designed to look like the work of American activists, to spread inflammatory messages during and since the presidential campaign. The company had long denied that Russians had exploited its system, before reversing course on Sept. 6.

Now, Ms. Kelly said, she wants insight into how Facebook examines prospective advertisers, how it vets ads placed by foreign authorities and the “true cost and scope of Russia advertisements placed during the 2016 election cycle.”

Document
Read the Letter a Democrat on an Oversight Subcommittee Sent to Mark Zuckerberg
Representative Robin L. Kelly, Democrat of Illinois, sent a letter on Tuesday to Mark Zuckerberg, the C.E.O. of Facebook, expressing concern about the advertising practices of the social media company.


OPEN Document
“It is my belief that Facebook cannot be the Trojan horse through which America’s vulnerabilities are exploited,” Ms. Kelly wrote in the letter. “With the information we now have in tow, you have a moral responsibility to rigorously assess your advertising policies and implement reforms that ensure that malicious actors — both foreign and domestic — do not pervert your site to promote a divisive and destabilizing agenda.”

A spokesman for Facebook confirmed that the company received Ms. Kelly’s letter and that it was in communication with her office.

Ms. Kelly, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee’s subcommittee on information technology, and several of her colleagues contacted Facebook seven days after President Trump’s win in November to express deep concerns about Facebook allowing advertisers to exclude and target ethnic groups.

Tuesday’s letter ratchets up their concerns as several social networking sites face scrutiny from Congress and as other Congressional Black Caucus members such as Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, say they worry about Facebook’s role in the election and in allowing users to discriminate online.

Representative Cedric L. Richmond, Democrat of Louisiana and chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, noted that for many African-Americans, the incident raised memories of past government-orchestrated espionage and intimidation efforts, such as the F.B.I.’s surveillance of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Historically, those in the struggle for civil rights have not only been forced to confront institutions of racism in our society, they have also been forced to confront attacks and espionage activity from individual actors and organizations in and outside of government,” he said. “It is my hope that our tech community takes this matter seriously, is forthright with the special counsel and Congress, and does everything it can to make sure it is not manipulated like this again.”

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Representative Robin Kelly, Democrat of Illinois, wrote a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, about Russian ads sowing racial division. Alex Wong/Getty Images
Last week, Facebook said it was turning over more than 3,000 Russia-linked advertisements to Congress. Many of those ads, like those on the National Football League protest issue, targeted divisions in American society, sending conflicting messages to different users segmented by political and racial characteristics.

Mr. Zuckerberg addressed his network of more than 2 billion people about the social network’s role in democracies this week and expressed regret for initially dismissing his company’s potential impact on the 2016 election.

“We will continue to work to build a community for all people,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. “We will do our part to defend against nation states attempting to spread misinformation and subvert elections. We’ll keep working to ensure the integrity of free and fair elections around the world, and to ensure our community is a platform for all ideas and force for good in democracy.”

Twitter, another social network targeted by Russian operatives, planned to brief staff members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees on Thursday for their investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The New York Times reported this month on evidence of Russian operators creating hundreds or thousands of fake Twitter accounts to flood the network with anti-Clinton messages during the campaign. The cybersecurity company FireEye identified what it called “warlists” of accounts linked to Russian intelligence that sometimes spewed messages like #WarAgainstDemocrats several times a minute.

The House Intelligence Committee also announced on Wednesday that it would hold a public hearing on the matter of Russian influence next month, and a Senate aide said Facebook, Twitter and Google officials have been invited to testify at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Nov. 1.
 
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Clapper: When I briefed Trump, he accepted DNC hacker wasn't 400-pound man

Clapper: When I briefed Trump, he accepted DNC hacker wasn't 400-pound man
Joe Uchill09/28/17 05:59 PM EDT
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said he felt President Trump accepted Russia's role in hacking the Democratic National Committee (DNC) when Clapper left a Trump Tower briefing on the incident in January.

"When we briefed the president he didn’t say anything about the 400-pound guy in New Jersey because the evidence was so overwhelming," Clapper said on Thursday at the CyberSci conference in Fairfax, Va., which is organized by the strategic group ICF.

Clapper was referring to comments made during a presidential debate with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

"She's saying Russia, Russia, Russia. Maybe it was. It could also be China. It could be someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. You don't know who broke into DNC," said Trump.
"I think it very well could be Russia, but I think it could very well have been other countries," Trump said of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Clapper said he wished the public could see the classified report shared with Trump in full, something he said would be impossible, lest the government expose sources and methods.

Nine months after Clapper's meeting with Trump in January, the president has not publicly accepted the intelligence community's assessment of Moscow's involvement in the hacking and frequently refers to investigations into Russian involvement in the hacking as a "hoax."
 
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