Democracy is messy.
RUSSIA/РОССИЯ THREAD—ASSANGE CHRGD W/ SPYING—DJT IMPEACHED TWICE-US TREASURY SANCTS KILIMNIK AS RUSSIAN AGNT
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Democracy is messy.
Look, there were qualms about IP protection and what not...I didn't say it was perfect...but wackos like "The Senator from Vermont" and Donald Trump were both stoking flames of shyt neither one of them understood and push the needle on an issue that severely needed to be led by American interests.
NOW you see why trade deals are so important...
https://twitter.com/TheBeatWithAri/status/982020815586779136
@DonKnock @dza @88m3 @wire28 @smitty22 @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Blessed Is the Man @dtownreppin214 @JKFrazier @BigMoneyGrip @Soymuscle Mike @.r. @Dorian Breh @Dameon Farrow @TheNig @VR Tripper @re'up @Blackfyre_Berserker @Cali_livin
Will We Stop Trump Before It’s Too Late?
Fascism poses a more serious threat now than at any time since the end of World War II.
By MADELEINE ALBRIGHTAPRIL 6, 2018
President Trump. Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
On April 28, 1945 — 73 years ago — Italians hung the corpse of their former dictator Benito Mussolini upside down next to a gas station in Milan. Two days later, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his bunker beneath the streets of war-ravaged Berlin. Fascism, it appeared, was dead.
To guard against a recurrence, the survivors of war and the Holocaust joined forces to create the United Nations, forge global financial institutions and — through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — strengthen the rule of law. In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down and the honor roll of elected governments swelled not only in Central Europe, but also Latin America, Africa and Asia. Almost everywhere, it seemed, dictators were out and democrats were in. Freedom was ascendant.
Today, we are in a new era, testing whether the democratic banner can remain aloft amid terrorism, sectarian conflicts, vulnerable borders, rogue social media and the cynical schemes of ambitious men. The answer is not self-evident. We may be encouraged that most people in most countries still want to live freely and in peace, but there is no ignoring the storm clouds that have gathered. In fact, fascism — and the tendencies that lead toward fascism — pose a more serious threat now than at any time since the end of World War II.
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Warning signs include the relentless grab for more authority by governing parties in Hungary, the Philippines, Poland and Turkey — all United States allies. The raw anger that feeds fascism is evident across the Atlantic in the growth of nativist movements opposed to the idea of a united Europe, including in Germany, where the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland has emerged as the principal opposition party. The danger of despotism is on display in the Russia of Vladimir Putin — invader of Ukraine, meddler in foreign democracies, accused political assassin, brazen liar and proud son of the K.G.B. Putin has just been re-elected to a new six-year term, while in Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, a ruthless ideologue, is poised to triumph in sham balloting next month. In China, Xi Jinping has persuaded a docile National People’s Congress to lift the constitutional limit on his tenure in power.
Around the Mediterranean, the once bright promise of the Arab Spring has been betrayed by autocratic leaders, such as Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt (also just re-elected), who use security to justify the jailing of reporters and political opponents. Thanks to allies in Moscow and Tehran, the tyrant Bashar al-Assad retains his stranglehold over much of Syria. In Africa, the presidents who serve longest are often the most corrupt, multiplying the harm they inflict with each passing year. Meanwhile, the possibility that fascism will be accorded a fresh chance to strut around the world stage is enhanced by the volatile presidency of Donald Trump.
If freedom is to prevail over the many challenges to it, American leadership is urgently required. This was among the indelible lessons of the 20th century. But by what he has said, done and failed to do, Mr. Trump has steadily diminished America’s positive clout in global councils.
Instead of mobilizing international coalitions to take on world problems, he touts the doctrine of “every nation for itself” and has led America into isolated positions on trade, climate change and Middle East peace. Instead of engaging in creative diplomacy, he has insulted United States neighbors and allies, walked away from key international agreements, mocked multilateral organizations and stripped the State Department of its resources and role. Instead of standing up for the values of a free society, Mr. Trump, with his oft-vented scorn for democracy’s building blocks, has strengthened the hands of dictators. No longer need they fear United States criticism regarding human rights or civil liberties. On the contrary, they can and do point to Mr. Trump’s own words to justify their repressive actions.
At one time or another, Mr. Trump has attacked the judiciary, ridiculed the media, defended torture, condoned police brutality, urged supporters to rough up hecklers and — jokingly or not — equated mere policy disagreements with treason. He tried to undermine faith in America’s electoral process through a bogus advisory commission on voter integrity. He routinely vilifies federal law enforcement institutions. He libels immigrants and the countries from which they come. His words are so often at odds with the truth that they can appear ignorant, yet are in fact calculated to exacerbate religious, social and racial divisions. Overseas, rather than stand up to bullies, Mr. Trump appears to like bullies, and they are delighted to have him represent the American brand. If one were to draft a script chronicling fascism’s resurrection, the abdication of America’s moral leadership would make a credible first scene.
Equally alarming is the chance that Mr. Trump will set in motion events that neither he nor anyone else can control. His policy toward North Korea changes by the day and might quickly return to saber-rattling should Pyongyang prove stubborn before or during talks. His threat to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement could unravel a pact that has made the world safer and could undermine America’s reputation for trustworthiness at a critical moment. His support of protectionist tariffs invites retaliation from major trading partners — creating unnecessary conflicts and putting at risk millions of export-dependent jobs. The recent purge of his national security team raises new questions about the quality of advice he will receive. John Bolton starts work in the White House on Monday.
What is to be done? First, defend the truth. A free press, for example, is not the enemy of the American people; it is the protector of the American people. Second, we must reinforce the principle that no one, not even the president, is above the law. Third, we should each do our part to energize the democratic process by registering new voters, listening respectfully to those with whom we disagree, knocking on doors for favored candidates, and ignoring the cynical counsel: “There’s nothing to be done.”
I’m 80 years old, but I can still be inspired when I see young people coming together to demand the right to study without having to wear a flak jacket.
We should also reflect on the definition of greatness. Can a nation merit that label by aligning itself with dictators and autocrats, ignoring human rights, declaring open season on the environment, and disdaining the use of diplomacy at a time when virtually every serious problem requires international cooperation?
To me, greatness goes a little deeper than how much marble we put in our hotel lobbies and whether we have a Soviet-style military parade. America at its best is a place where people from a multitude of backgrounds work together to safeguard the rights and enrich the lives of all. That’s the example we have always aspired to set and the model people around the world hunger to see. And no politician, not even one in the Oval Office, should be allowed to tarnish that dream.
Be the President’s fixer for the better part of 20 years only for him to throw you under the bus brehs
Why Mueller Named a Russian Oligarch in Court
The Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury on Friday may not be the only ones who interest Mueller as he looks for ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast
This article was updated at 10:15 AM EDT, April 6, 2018
Famously discreet special counsel Robert Mueller, as he shows interest in the connections between Russia’s government and Donald Trump, often leaves clues behind for those trying to follow him, rather like a hunter blazing a trail—or perhaps like the boy who recently fell into the Los Angeles sewer system. They’re not obvious, just a handprint here or there, but they’re right in front of anyone who cares to look.
One of the most tantalizing of those clues may appear in Mueller’s memorandum to the court prior to the sentencing Tuesday of Alex van der Zwaan, a 33-year-old Dutch lawyer who pleaded guilty in February to charges that he lied to Mueller’s investigators. In the March 27 memo, Mueller sketched reasons for van der Zwaan to do at least a little jail time, citing a “scarcity of mitigating factors and several aggravating circumstances” (PDF).
On its face, the interest in van der Zwaan relates to his work with former Trump campaign managers Paul Manafort and Rick Gates in Ukraine. Van der Zwaan doubtless knows a lot about what the two were up to there, including their allegedly extensive illicit financial dealings and connections with a former agent of Russian military intelligence, the GRU, referred to as “Person A” in Mueller’s memorandum. It’s van der Zwaan’s lies about that latter connection, along with his refusal to cooperate with prosecutors, that landed him with a 30-day sentence.
But the Mueller team may have had another purpose in going after van der Zwaan: He is the son-in-law of Russian oligarch German Khan, a member of the powerful Russian Alfa Group consortium, about which many sensational allegations have been made over the years, some of them of great potential interest to the Mueller investigation looking at possible complicity between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
Khan and the other Alfa principals were noticeably absent from the list of Russians and Russian entities sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury on Friday. But that does not mean that they are off Mueller's radar, and at least one of their longtime associates is on the list.
Ilya Zaslavskiy, head of research at the Free Russia Foundation, noted that Mueller would have “multiple reasons” for a close look at the group, including its mention in the Steele dossier and the allegations (which Alfa denied) that it had secret internet communications with the Trump organization during the presidential campaign.
Mueller makes a direct reference to Khan in the van der Zwaan sentencing memorandum which, by itself, just might suggest Khan has caught his eye: “Van der Zwaan is a person of ample financial means—both personally and through his father-in-law, a prominent Russian oligarch, who has paid substantial sums to the defendant and his wife [that is, Khan’s daughter]. He [van der Zwaan] can pay any fine imposed.”
But the handprint on the sewer wall could be the court document cited as a reference for this statement, which actually has nothing to do directly with van der Zwaan, or with German Khan’s personal payments to his daughter and his son-in-law. The document (PDF) is in fact the complaint filed by Khan and his partners in the Alfa Group, fellow oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, against Glenn Simpson and his company, Fusion GPS, for commissioning and disseminating the so-called Trump Dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
The lawyers for van der Zwaan were wise to this ploy, with one telling the judge: “Frankly, I was stunned to see the gratuitous reference to his father-in-law in their papers as an oligarch, as if that has some bearing, or what their characterization is has some bearing on Mr. van der Zwaan. And a cite to a civil case involving his father-in-law; another gratuitous citation involving his father-in-law, a case that has nothing whatsoever to do with Alex.”
The judge responded, “I have no intention of sentencing his father-in-law.”
But Mueller would seem to be much more interested.
One of the 17 memos in “The Dossier” (not the one about urinating sex workers in the Moscow Ritz Carlton) makes allegations about the Alfa Group and its principals that could be of great interest to Mueller. But Mueller is careful to make no reference of his own to Steele’s handiwork. The alleged Justice Department reliance on “The Dossier,” or not, was the focus of dueling memos by the contentious members of the House Intelligence Committee a few weeks ago. No need to open that fetid debate again.
By citing the Alfa Group complaint, filed last October, Mueller lets the lawyers for Khan, Aven, and Fridman tell you what was alleged against them, which they say repeatedly is false and defamatory. Indeed, they claim “the Plaintiffs and Alfa are collateral damage in a U.S. political operation… that has nothing do with the the Plaintiffs.”
Steele’s memo labeled “Company Intelligence Report” or CIR 112, according to the Alfa complaint against Simpson, “specifically discusses the Plaintiffs. Its title, by itself, is defamatory: ‘RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: KREMIN-ALPHA [sic] GROUP CO-OPERATION.’ CIR 112 suggests that Alfa and its executives, including the Plaintiffs, ‘cooperated’ in an alleged Kremlin-orchestrated campaign to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
The Alfa complaint goes on to cite CIR 112 alleging the “‘current closeness’ of an ‘Alpha Group/PUTIN relationship,’ including that ‘ignificant favors continue to be done in both directions’ and that ‘FRIDMAN and AVEN [are] still giving informal advice to PUTIN, especially on the US.’”
The Dossier, as cited in the Alfa complaint, then went on to allege that in the 1990s a former employee of the group who now works closely with Putin got his start by delivering “large amounts of illicit cash to the Russian president, at that time deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg” and by 2016 was serving as an intermediary between Alfa and Putin.
“The allegations are false,” says the Alfa complaint. “And their defamatory nature is clear: CIR 112 alleges that, in the 1990s, Alfa (a member of ‘Alpha Group’) and three of its largest beneficial owners purportedly engaged in actions of criminal bribery of Vladimir Putin, a public official, to secure favorable business treatment.”
In fact, the alleged purveyor of cash to Putin, Oleg Govorun, did not join Alfa officially until after Putin left the St. Petersburg mayor’s office. But, interestingly, Govorun, currently head of Putin's directorate for social and economic cooperation with the Commonwealth of Independent States, is on the new sanctions list from the Treasury.
Why would Mueller include a reference to the complaint against Fusion GPS in the van der Zwaan sentencing memo?
Khan, who ranked number 11 on the 2017 Forbes list of Russian billionaires, makes an interesting contrast with the bookish, wholesome-looking van der Zwaan, who, according to his lawyers, is desperate to get home to his pregnant wife in Britain. A 2008 U.S. embassy memo from Moscow published by WikiLeaks provided a description of Khan, known as one of Russia’s most ruthless businessmen, by a British oil executive named Tim Summers, who went on a hunting trip with him:
“Khan had shown up for the trip with not just his girl friend (Khan is married) but also with six prostitutes. They had flown out to Khan’s hunting lodge, which Summers said was like a Four Seasons hotel in the middle of nowhere. At dinner that evening, Khan had told a stunned Summers that The Godfather was his favorite movie, that he watched it every few months, and that he considered it a ‘manual for life.’ Khan had also come to dinner armed with a chrome-plated pistol.”
Khan and Mikhail Fridman, both originally from Ukraine, created the Alfa Group in 1989, along with Alexei Kuzmichev, and were later joined by Petr Aven. The group included Alfa Bank, one of the largest private banks in Russia with branches worldwide, a 50 percent stake in the oil giant TNK-BP and Alfa-Eko, which exported oil and was headed by Khan. According to a report from the research firm Stratfor in 2007, available on WikiLeaks, Aven was known to be an especially close personal friend of Rosneft chief Igor Sechin, a key Putin ally (PDF).
And the Alfa Group and Sechin have worked closely in the oil business. In 2013, Rosneft purchased Alfa’s stake in TNK-BP for $27.7 billion, and Alfa invested the proceeds in a new consortium, LetterOne, an international investment business, focusing on energy, technology, and health.
Despite their well-established ties to Putin—Aven’s friendship with Putin, as he openly acknowledges, goes back to the early 1990s—the Alfa Group billionaires have thus far avoided Western sanctions by maintaining a careful balance between meeting Kremlin requirements and maintaining a favorable public image in the West. Alfa Bank notably pulled out of Crimea after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the region, which it publicly opposed, and it was the only large Russian bank to be exempted from sanctions.
When asked at a 2015 congressional hearing whether Fridman was a potential target for U.S. sanctions, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland emphasized that the measures were aimed at “Russian public government assets and entities. Mr. Fridman runs one of the few remaining private companies in Russia, and, as such, has had his own strong views as a private citizen about appropriate Russian-European relations.”
The Alfa Group has huge business interests around the world and runs an ambitious PR campaign to bolster its directors’ images as philanthropists and friends of the West. During the period 2004-2015, Alfa Bank reportedly paid the U.S. lobbying firm BGR close to $6 million to lobby on behalf of “bilateral US-Russian relations.” Aven, for one, received an award for corporate citizenship in 2015 from the Kennan Institute of the Wilson Center, which sponsors research on Russia. (That same year Putin bestowed a Kremlin award on Aven.) Aven also is a major funder and board member of Moscow’s New Economic School, which hosts many Western scholars. Aven’s daughter and son both attended Yale, as did Fridman’s daughter.
But the Alfa Group allegedly has a dark side, some of which emerged here in the United States during a civil suit filed by Fridman, Aven, and Alfa Bank in 2000 against the Center for Public Integrity, which had published a piece about the Alfa Group that they claimed was defamatory. The piece in question discussed allegations of organized crime and drug activities involving the group that had been made public in Russia. In a September 2005 opinion in favor of the defendants, Judge John Bates, citing reams of media articles about Alfa, as well as a Russian state security (FSB) report on the group, observed: “Aven and Fridman have been dogged by allegations of corruption and illegal conduct. Russian newspapers have published repeated claims that Aven and Fridman have rigged the auction of state assets through government connections, threatened the lives of government officials, ordered the assassination of a mobster and engaged in narcotics trafficking and money laundering.”
Although the allegations mentioned in 2005 decision were repeatedly and vehemently denied, it’s easy to see what Mueller would be interested in whether there’s any fire behind all that smoke.
It’s also of interest that after Manafort and Gates emerged to run the Trump campaign in March 2016, further connections to the Alfa Group’s shadowy influence crept in. On April 27, Richard Burt, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany, helped to craft Trump’s first major foreign policy speech. At the time Burt was a nonexecutive director of the Alfa Group’s LetterOne and a member of its 10-person supervisory board. In May 2010 and May 2011, Burt had accompanied Mikhail Fridman on a visit to the White House. And Burt’s lobbying firm, McLarty Associates, was hired in 2016 by LetterOne to promote the group’s business interests, in particular, its plans to get into the U.S. health care industry. Trump’s conciliatory tone toward Russia in his speech was evident: “I believe an easing of tensions and improved relations with Russia… Common sense says this cycle of hostility must end.”
With additional reporting by Christopher dikkey
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Chief of Staff Advised a Resistant Trump to Fire E.P.A. Chief
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and LISA FRIEDMANAPRIL 6, 2018
President Trump’s chief of staff urged him last week to fire Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. leader mired in ethics questions. Mr. Trump has resisted. Doug Mills/The New York Times
John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, told President Trump last week that Scott Pruitt, his embattled administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, needed to go, according to two officials briefed about the conversation, following damaging allegations of ethical infractions and spending irregularities by the E.P.A. chief.
But Mr. Trump, who is personally fond of Mr. Pruitt and sees him as a crucial ally in his effort to roll back environmental protections, has resisted firing him, disregarding warnings that the drumbeat of negative headlines has grown unsustainable, and that more embarrassing revelations could surface.
White House officials said on Friday that Mr. Trump continues to believe that Mr. Pruitt has been effective in his role, and stressed that it was up to him alone to decide his fate.
“No one other than the president has the authority to hire and fire,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders the White House press secretary, told reporters. “The president feels that the administrator has done a good job at E.P.A.”
She said the White House, which has been conducting an internal investigation into Mr. Pruitt’s conduct, was “continuing to review any of the concerns that we have.”
Earlier, in a brief interview, Ms. Sanders said that Mr. Pruitt’s success in achieving items on the president’s agenda — including rolling back a large number of environmental regulations — may weigh heavily as a counterbalance to allegations that he misused taxpayer dollars.
“He likes the work product,” she said of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Pruitt has been dogged by a series of scandals in recent weeks, including revelations that he rented a condominium co-owned by the wife of an energy lobbyist for $50 per night; that he spent more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded first-class travel, which the E.P.A. has argued was necessary because of security concerns; and that the agency sidelined or demoted at least five high-ranking agency employees who had raised questions about his spending.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on Mr. Kelly’s unheeded advice to Mr. Trump, which marked the escalation of a quiet but intense turn in the West Wing against Mr. Pruitt. Privately, many senior White House aides have become infuriated with the E.P.A. chief and exasperated with his ethical lapses, believing that it is only a matter of time before his special standing with the president wears off.
That does not seem to have happened yet.
“I think he’s done a fantastic job at E.P.A.,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Thursday as he returned to Washington from an event in West Virginia. “I think he’ll be fine.”
On Friday, Mr. Trump pushed back against news reports that he had considered replacing Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, with Mr. Pruitt, saying in a tweet that his E.P.A. chief “is doing a great job but is TOTALLY under siege.”
The president, who dislikes direct personal confrontations, has been known to change his mind and tone rapidly when it comes to dismissing underlings. But his aides also point out that Mr. Trump relishes doing things his own way and digging in against what he considers to be conventional thinking, even when it may mean enduring political fallout.
In interviews in recent days with conservative media outlets including Fox News and the Washington Examiner, Mr. Pruitt pushed back hard against accusations that his actions were unethical. In an interview with Fox News, he described his living arrangements as an “Airbnb situation,” and said E.P.A.’s ethics office had signed off on it.
The ethics office ruled that Mr. Pruitt’s condo rental did not violate the agency’s ethics rules. A later memo released this week said the office did not have all the facts about the rental when it made its initial ruling, including reports that Mr. Pruitt’s daughter, McKenna Pruitt, lived at the apartment when she was a White House intern.
Asked by Fox whether renting a room from a Washington lobbyist violated Mr. Trump’s credo of draining the swamp, Mr. Pruitt replied, “I don’t even think that’s even remotely fair to ask that question.”
Mr. Trump, an avid Fox viewer who puts great stock in TV performances, did not appear to think much of Mr. Pruitt’s appearance. Asked what he thought about it on Thursday on Air Force One, he paused, smiled wryly, and said: “It’s an interesting interview.”
But conservatives have rallied around Mr. Pruitt. The Wall Street Journal editorial page said the E.P.A. chief was being hounded because of his success in dismantling Obama-era environmental standards. Other conservative groups have accused the media of campaigning for Mr. Pruitt’s ouster.
@DonKnock @dza @88m3 @wire28 @smitty22 @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Blessed Is the Man @dtownreppin214 @JKFrazier @BigMoneyGrip @Soymuscle Mike @.r. @Dorian Breh @Dameon Farrow @TheNig @VR Tripper @re'up @Blackfyre_Berserker @Cali_livin
Cat piss martini
Veteran
GnauzBookOfRhymes
Superstar
try to think with the part of your brain that doesn't seek elite society validation....
You're trying to pass a bill that will be seen as the "Asian" version of NAFTA. A bill that would actually provide numerous benefits to various US constituencies/businesses, but at a time when there is some hesitation towards the benefits of free trade agreements etc. So you think the best way of ensuring passage is to demand that the bill be passed before it is publicized? It's to allow corporate lobbyists etc to see what is going to be in the bill but keeping it a secret from everyone else?
Now, who really doesn't understand politics???
A Suspected Russian Spy, With Curious Ties to Washington
A longtime Republican operative has been in contact with a suspected Russian intelligence agent for nearly two decades. What does it mean for Robert Mueller's investigation?
Natasha Bertrand3:10 PM ET
A longtime Republican operative with ties to the controversial data firm hired by President Donald Trump’s campaign team also has a nearly two-decade-long friendship and business relationship with a suspected Russian intelligence agent, Konstantin Kilimnik, who has landed in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s crosshairs.
The Washington-based operative, Sam Patten, would not tell me whether he has been interviewed by Mueller’s team as part of their investigation into Russia’s election interference and potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow. But Patten said that his relationship with Kilimnik—a former officer in Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) who worked closely with Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, for over a decade—has “been thoroughly explored by relevant government entities.”
Patten’s long friendship with Kilimnik—which stems from their time working together at the International Republican Institute between 2001 and 2003—would likely be enough to draw scrutiny from Mueller, who appears to have honed in on Kilimnik as a potentially significant link between the Trump campaign and Russia. The special counsel’s office alleged in a court filing late last month that Kilimnik still had ties to Russian intelligence services in 2016, and that his conversations with Gates in September of that year are relevant to the investigation. Manafort and Gates’s arrival to the campaign team coincided with the most pivotal Russia-related episode of the election: the release of emails that had been stolen from the Democratic National Committee by hackers working for the GRU, Russia’s premier military-intelligence unit.
“We’ve known each other for more than 15 years, and we periodically look for places we can work together,” Patten told me of Kilimnik. Their relationship is also proof that Kilimnik’s ability to ingratiate himself with American political consultants went beyond Manafort and Gates—a fact that could serve as a new data point in examining Russia’s ties to Republican operatives in the U.S. By the spring of 2015—when, as my colleague Frank Foer wrote, Manafort’s “life had tipped into a deep trough”—Kilimnik was already working on a new venture with Patten that appeared to be focused on targeted messaging in foreign elections.
That venture, first reported by The Daily Beast this week, was a private LLC incorporated in February 2015 called Begemot Ventures International (BVI) with a mission to “build the right arguments before domestic and international audiences.” Kilimnik is listed as the firm’s principal and Patten is listed as an executive, according to company records, and the company is registered to Patten’s office address in Washington. A website for Begemot—which was built almost two years after the company was incorporated—links to Patten’s email for inquiries, but does not list the company’s clients.
It is not clear why Patten, who already had a consulting firm registered in D.C., decided to open a brand-new company with Kilimnik. Asked whether any of the firm’s clients were in Russia or Ukraine, Patten replied, “It would be poor business to talk about our clients, but I can tell you declaratively that none of the clients have involvement in the particular circus in the U.S. that seems to have become a news industry in and of itself,” an apparent reference to the Russia investigation. He confirmed that the company, which he described as providing “strategic communications advice for clients outside the U.S.,” is still active, but said it has no projects ongoing at this time.
“BVI has only worked for clients outside U.S. in other countries,” Patten said. “As a result of all this, I regret it probably won’t be working for anyone anymore, but you never know. Life can be unpredictable.” Patten said that, “to the best of [his] knowledge,” Kilimnik “was no longer working for Manafort when BVI was formed.” But he acknowledged that Kilimnik and Manafort, who began working together in Kiev in 2005, “remained in touch, as is well-known.” Patten’s work in Ukraine dovetailed with Manafort’s. About eight months after BVI was incorporated, in October 2015, Patten was in Ukraine advising Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko on his reelection campaign. On his website, Patten writes that he “helped steer Mayor Klitschko to reelection in Ukraine’s capital and largest city in one of the toughest anti-government atmospheres in that country’s history.”
Serhiy Lyovochkin—the former chief of staff to ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who hired Manafort to rebrand the pro-Russia Party of Regions in 2014—brought Patten onto Klitschko’s team, Ukrainian media reported at the time. Dmitry Firtash, a pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarch with ties to Manafort who is known for bankrolling pro-Russia candidates in Ukraine, also boasted in 2015 that he was involved in Klitschko’s campaign. Asked whether Manafort coordinated with Patten and/or Kilimnik on Klitschko’s reelection campaign, a spokesman for Manafort said he had “nothing to add.”
Patten describes himself as an “international political consultant” on his website, but he worked at the Oregon office of Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL Group, helping to fine-tune the firm’s voter targeting operations in the runup to the 2014 midterm elections, according to investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed, now a columnist for Middle East Eye. Patten alluded to this work on his website, writing that he worked with “one of London’s most innovative strategic communications companies” on “a beta run of a cutting-edge electoral approach” that “included taking micro-targeting to the next level” during the 2014 congressional cycle. Those technologies, he wrote, were “adopted by at least one major U.S. presidential candidate.”
Both Republican candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump employed Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 election. Mueller is now scrutinizing the Trump campaign’s ties to Cambridge Analytica, whose board included Steve Bannon, Trump’s campaign CEO and former chief strategist. Bannon interviewed Patten in July 2016 for his SiriusXM radio show, Breitbart News Daily, about a group Patten represents called the Committee to Destroy ISIS. Mueller is now scrutinizing the Trump campaign’s ties to Cambridge Analytica, whose board included Trump’s campaign CEO and former chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Patten was interviewed by Bannon in July 2016, in the heat of the election, about a group he represents called the Committee to Destroy ISIS.
There is no evidence that Patten did any work with Cambridge Analytica or the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. But his relationship with the data firm did not end with the 2014 midterm elections. According to The Guardian’s Carole Cadwalladr, Patten “played a central role” in the firm’s work in Nigeria in early 2015—work that included hiring Israeli computer hackers to search for “kompromat,” or compromising information, on the candidate challenging the incumbent president at the time, Goodluck Jonathan. Patten didn’t respond to a request for comment about the Nigeria campaign.
Patten said that he remains in touch with Kilimnik, who he believes has been unfairly scrutinized. “As you might imagine, the barrage of shade and innuendo that has been cast on him since Manafort had his time in Trump Tower has not been something he’d welcomed, nor anything that could objectively be called fair,” Patten said, referring to Manafort’s role on the campaign, which was headquartered at Trump Tower.
Gates and Manafort—who were indicted by Mueller in late October on charges including money laundering and tax evasion—remained in touch with Kilimnik during the campaign, according to court documents and emails, even though both knew about Kilimnik’s background in Russian intelligence. Kilimnik later acknowledged in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that he and Manafort emailed each other “about Trump and everything” during the campaign. “There were millions of emails,” Kilimnik told RFERL in a text message. “We worked for 11 years. And we discussed a lot of issues, from Putin to women.”
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