rightfultoefinger
All Star
Too fukking brazen for me. If this dude doesn’t go down, the next Trump that’s smarter than he is, can get away with so much more. Imagine if he wasn’t so stupid.
Trump IMPEACHED by the US House; US Senate Trial Allows No New Witnesses & Acquits Trump
- Thread starter Arithmetic
- Start date
Too fukking brazen for me. If this dude doesn’t go down, the next Trump that’s smarter than he is, can get away with so much more. Imagine if he wasn’t so stupid.
bloomberg.com
Oleg Deripaska-Linked Firm Was Raided for Undisclosed U.S. Inquiry
By Jonathan Browning
6-7 minutes
Oleg Deripaska
U.S. prosecutors aren’t done with Oleg Deripaska, the Russian billionaire who figured prominently in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s case against Donald Trump’s campaign chairman.
In what could be an offshoot of Mueller’s work, federal authorities are seeking records seized from a U.K. company associated with Deripaska, according to documents filed in a London court this week. As part of the previously undisclosed inquiry, U.S. authorities are seeking evidence of “money laundering, tax offenses and fraud offenses” from 18 individuals and companies including Terra Services Ltd., a real estate firm that until last year was controlled by Deripaska, the filings say.
The inquiry is “live and ongoing,” according to a U.K. government filing Thursday. Terra, in another filing, said the search request appears to have been made “in connection with the special counsel investigation being conducted in the U.S.” into Russian election interference.
The investigation came to light because Terra is challenging a search warrant that led to the December 2018 seizure of at least 25,000 electronic documents from a British storage unit it owned. Terra asked a London judge to prevent the documents from being handed over to the Americans.
Redacted Report
The presiding U.K. judge who granted the search warrant in December 2018 said that any seized materials could be helpful “in an ongoing U.S. investigation into a number of criminal offenses committed by two U.S. subjects, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates,” according to court documents. But by that time Manafort had been convicted and was awaiting sentencing. Gates had already pleaded guilty and was cooperating with prosecutors.
Mueller’s team ended its work earlier this year, referring several matters to other U.S. prosecutors. Many of those haven’t been made public. Parts of Mueller’s report dealing with Manafort and Gates are redacted to avoid interfering with unspecified ongoing investigations.
According to Mueller’s report, one-time Trump campaign chairman Manafort had a business dispute with Deripaska that he was looking to resolve, and he offered Deripaska briefings and internal polling data. Manafort was convicted of multiple crimes and is serving a sentence of more than seven years; Deripaska wasn’t accused of wrongdoing.
Cover page of the Mueller Report.
Source: DoJ
U.S. Request
The U.S. request named 18 entities including Terra Services and two U.K.-based lawyers. The documents available in the London case don’t include the U.S. request for a search, or the corresponding U.K. search warrant, but quote from parts of the warrant. The filings don’t say which U.S. authorities are currently handling the matter.
The U.K. National Crime Agency, which carried on the search, and the U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment.
Judges have so far denied requests by Terra and others to see the U.S. letter.
‘Degree of Confusion’
“There is a degree of confusion as to what exactly is being investigated,” Terra’s lawyer, Monica Carss-Frisk, said in court.
Deripaska’s office in Moscow referred queries to Terra Services. A lawyer for the U.K. firm declined to comment.
Deripaska, who grew rich in Russia’s aluminum business, is one of the highest-profile Russians caught up in waves of U.S. sanctions against the country since its 2014 annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. Some companies formerly controlled by Deripaska were removed from the blacklist in January, following an administration effort to lift the sanctions that was supported by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
One of Deripaska’s companies subsequently committed funds to a new aluminum plant to be built in McConnell’s home state, Kentucky.
The billionaire himself remains under U.S. sanction, which means American citizens and entities are prohibited from dealing with him.
The British warrant said that the owners would seek to destroy or conceal evidence if it wasn’t issued, according to filings in the London case.
Just days before the warrant was issued, the NCA conducted its own search of the storage unit to “assist a money laundering investigation.” The British search, authorized under legislation that allows for covert surveillance, should have been approved by a judge, Terra said in its filing. It’s unclear if the investigations are related.
Cable Deal
Manafort and Deripaska fell out in 2008 over a deal to buy a cable company in Ukraine. Lawsuits filed by Deripaska in 2014 describe how Gates, Manafort’s deputy, failed to respond to requests for information on the investment around the same time. In September 2010, Deripaska asked Gates to account for the $18.9 million he’d invested, but the report was never delivered, according to court documents.
Documents unsealed in June 2018 showed that Manafort and his wife acknowledged on a 2010 tax return that they owed $10 million to Deripaska.
Deripaska handed control of Terra Services in January 2018 to an individual named Pavel Ezubov, whose name matches that of the billionaire’s cousin, Russian media group RBC reported last year. The firm owns several properties in San Tropez and Paris, RBC said. It has just six employees, according to a U.K. corporate registry.
— With assistance by David Voreacos, and Yuliya Fedorinova
(Releads and updates with Deripaska firm’s commitment to Kentucky aluminum plant.)
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So he'll eventually fire him, then Mulvaney's bytch ass will fall in line afterwards.
Secure Da Bag
Veteran
If Mulvaney was smart, he'd start pushing his weight around now. He's holding all the cards. Trump can't say shyt to him.
Json
Superstar
Mulvaney is tired. Dude wants to go home and they won’t let him.
I KEPT TELLING YOU ALL.
WATCH THE FIRTASH ANGLE!!!!
THIS IS DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO THE RUSSIAN MAFIA!!!!
bloomberg.com
To Win Giuliani’s Help, Oligarch’s Allies Pursued Biden Dirt
By Stephanie Baker and Irina Reznik
8-10 minutes
Rudy Giuliani
Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty Images
Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty Images
Associates of a Ukrainian oligarch fighting extradition to the U.S. were working to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden last summer in an effort to get Rudy Giuliani’s help in the oligarch’s legal case, according to three people familiar with the exchanges.
Dmitry Firtash, charged with conspiracy by the U.S. and living in Vienna, shuffled lawyers in July to add Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, vocal supporters of President Donald Trump who had worked with Giuliani. Around that time, some of Firtash’s associates began to use his broad network of Ukraine contacts to get damaging information on Biden, the people said.
Dmitry Firtash speaks in Vienna in 2016.
Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
DiGenova and Toensing have billed Firtash about $1 million for their work, one of the people said. That includes costs for Lev Parnas, a Giuliani associate, as a translator and important contact, the person said. Parnas was arrested last week along with several associates and accused of conspiring to violate campaign-finance laws.
People working on Firtash’s behalf collected a witness statement from Viktor Shokin, a former Ukrainian prosecutor-general. The statement, dated early September, helped Giuliani renew an assertion that he’d been advancing for months -- that Biden had tried in 2016 to sway Ukrainian politics to help his son. U.S. and Ukrainian officials have disputed Shokin’s account.
Shokin, though, had been promised his statement wouldn’t be made public, according to the people. Giuliani went on to cite it repeatedly, waving it around on cable news as evidence of Biden’s alleged corruption. The Hill and other media outlets provided links to it, with Giuliani later suggesting he had a role in making it public. “This is the affidavit I put out,” he said during a Fox News interview this month.
As a result of the publicity Giuliani generated with Shokin’s statement, two of the people said they believe the odds of the Justice Department dropping the case against Firtash have plummeted, because it would look like a quid pro quo. Others connected to the case agreed.
U.S. lawmakers conducting a presidential impeachment inquiry are bearing down on whether favors were traded for influence. They are examining Giuliani’s efforts to turn up evidence in Ukraine and allegations that the Trump administration withheld crucial aid until the country’s president agreed to investigate the Bidens.
Political Aid
If indeed Firtash’s camp aided the Trump political machine, that could be a problem. American politicians cannot accept foreign campaign contributions, and as Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has laid out, even non-monetary assistance can have a value.
In a statement from his spokesman, Firtash denied having contact with Giuliani.
Rudy Giuliani
Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty Images
Giuliani, in a text message, wrote: “I have nothing to do with Firtash case. Never met him and don’t know him.”
Asked about whether Shokin’s statement may have harmed Firtash’s chances of getting the case dropped, Giuliani responded, “It would seem to me it should have nothing to do with it. It’s either a good case or not.”
Toensing and diGenova, a husband-and-wife law team, declined to comment through a spokesman. The Justice Department also declined to comment.
Giuliani was an attractive ally for Firtash. Once renowned for his work as a U.S. prosecutor and a New York mayor, he was a close adviser to Trump and became his personal lawyer in April 2018. He also brought extensive contacts in Republican-leaning legal circles.
A Ukrainian industrialist with natural gas interests, Firtash was looking to get out from under five years of legal headaches in the U.S. Federal prosecutors have accused him of corruption and racketeering conspiracy. He’s accused of participating in a scheme to bribe Indian officials to secure titanium that would be sold to Boeing Co.
Arrested in Vienna on the U.S. charges in March 2014, he posted $174 million in bail and pledged to remain in Austria during extradition proceedings. The Justice Department has described Firtash as an associate of “Russian organized crime.” He has denied all the charges.
His aides have argued the case is politically motivated, designed to keep him from influencing Ukraine after the country’s pro-Russian president was ousted in 2014. After joining the Firtash team, DiGenova and Toensing sought information related to Biden to bolster the idea that the case was political, the people familiar with the matter said.
In five years of court battles, Firtash’s legal team has successfully beaten back U.S. efforts to bring him to trial in Chicago. The tide appeared to turn over the summer when the Justice Department won a ruling in Austria securing his extradition. But his legal team there filed new evidence asserting that two key witnesses had recanted. His extradition is on hold.
Lawyer Lineup
On a separate track, his U.S. legal team continues to challenge the case’s legitimacy. By last summer, Firtash decided he needed reinforcements. In July, he parted ways with Lanny Davis, a longtime ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton, both Democrats. Within Firtash’s circle, those ties weren’t considered helpful in dealing with Trump’s Justice Department, according to the people.
Tapping pro-Trump lawyers like diGenova and Toensing looked like a useful way to help get his case thrown out, the people said. The legal duo had considered representing Trump during the Mueller probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. DiGenova has appeared on Fox News attacking Mueller’s investigation.
In late September, Fox News reported that the pair was working “off the books” with Giuliani to dig up dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine. That mission was shared by Parnas and Igor Fruman, associates of Giuliani who helped set up meetings with Ukrainian officials. Along with Parnas, Fruman was arrested last week and charged with campaign finance violations. Both men had one-way tickets to Vienna. Giuliani also had a trip scheduled to Vienna.
Efforts have already been made to shield some of the work by Parnas and Fruman. The pair assisted DiGenova and Toensing in their law practice, according to John Dowd, a former Trump lawyer now representing them. In a letter to lawmakers, Dowd also wrote that Parnas and Fruman assisted Giuliani in his legal work for Trump, arguing that the two should be protected under attorney-client privilege rules.
Toensing has said her firm hired Parnas as a paid translator, though people familiar with Firtash’s business say he has plenty of translators and key aides who speak fluent English.
A spokesman for Firtash said he had no contractual or other commercial relationship with Parnas or Fruman.
There was one additional connection that DiGenova and Toensing had that people in the Firtash camp considered potentially useful, according to one of the people. Their son Brady Toensing, the former head of the Vermont Republican Party, had joined the Justice Department as senior counsel in its Office of Legal Policy in June. In that position, Brady Toensing has no connection to the Firtash case.
Witness Statement
The witness statement from Shokin remains a curiosity. The ex-prosecutor said in his affidavit that he had no evidence of crimes committed by Firtash, a statement intended to help in Firtash’s Austrian legal proceedings. It also included Shokin’s unsupported allegation that Biden attempted to interfere with an investigation of Burisma Holdings, a private natural gas company that had the vice president’s son Hunter on the board.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials have said there was no active probe into Burisma at the time.
Biden had threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees unless Shokin was fired because of his failure to tackle corruption. Biden’s action was proposed by State Department officials and supported by the European Union.
— With assistance by Greg Farrell, David Voreacos, and Boris Groendahl
(Adds comment from Giuliani)
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I would love to see Trump get a chance to act tough with literally anyone that he's acting tough towards via twitter in ACTUAL REAL LIFE
G.O.A.T Squad Spokesman
Logic Is Absent Wherever Hate Is Present
Genius and an incredible athlete
