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We’ve seen time and again that the best source of news on Trump isn’t the American press but the Russian press-RT, etc. So perhaps it’s not surprising that during the campaign a Russian tv station was reporting details of Trump’s reaction to his FBI briefing in August, 2016 that were not public-in what would normally have been a routine briefing but was actually much more because this was where he was first informed by the FBI about its concerns that Trump’s campaign was compromised by the Russians:

“On August 17, 2016, the Russian news channel Tsargrad TV reported that then-candidate Donald Trump had a meeting with the FBI to discuss national security issues. They added that Trump was “bored” and “learned nothing new” from the intelligence briefing.”

Bored and learned nothing new. That certainly sounds like Trump.

“US media reports at the time stated that Trump was set to receive his first intelligence briefing at the New York FBI field office. Governor Christie and General Flynn were also expected to attend. The full transcript of Trump’s remarks at his only public event on August 17 confirm that he did not publicly mention the FBI. It is unclear if the assertions by Tsargrad were simply bluster or if they were indeed privy to Trump’s reaction to the briefing.”

FN: Of course, Trump ended up ‘winning’ thanks to his campaign’s interference with that very same NY FBI office.

So it could be just a-very-educated guess. After all, presuming Trump was bored and learned nothing new is not exactly going out on a limb. On  the other hand see this claim came from Reshetnikov-his RISS group was responsible for drawing up the plan for Russia’s interference in 2016:

“The claim came from host Andrei Afanasyev tucked in the middle of an interview with Leonid Reshetnikov. Reshetnikov had a three decade career with Russian foreign intelligence and was the former head of the think tank Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISS). In April, Reuters reported that Reshetnikov’s RISS was the group responsible for drawing up the plan for the 2016 US election interference campaign. Reshetnikov retired in January and was received at the Kremlin by President Putin who thanked him for his service.”

Reshetnikov responded by saying,

Mr President, thank you very much for the attention you have given to the institute. I would like to say that we did our best for nearly eight years to implement your foreign policy concept. The policy of Russia and the policy of the President of Russia have been the cornerstone of our operation. I am sure that the institute staff, who worked hard these past years, will continue to provide analytical support for the implementation of the country’s foreign policy.

“This is not the first time that Reshetnikov has been tied to the Trump team. In 2014, RISS signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the think tank created by the Greek Defense Minister, Panos Kammenos. Kammenos met with George Papadopoulos multiple times throughout 2016 and early 2017, and seemed to develop a close relationship to the Trump adviser, noting how important Papadopoulos was by mentioning him in the tweet congratulating Trump on his election victory.”

Meanwhile the owner of Tsargard TV is Konstantin Malofeev who is: under U.S. and EU sanctions:

“The TV station Tsargrad is owned by a man named Konstantin Malofeev. He is under US and EU sanctions for his role in financing the Russian militias that annexed Crimea and continue to fight in eastern Ukraine. The EU and US claim that he sponsored terrorists to invade Ukraine and start a conflict. Over the years, Malofeev has been described as “Putin’s right-hand man” and, “Putin’s [George] Soros.” On a trip to Moscow in late 2015, Turkish intelligence agent Ismail Hakki Pekin (who also just happened to work with . the Flynn Intel Group) met leaders in the Russian capital, including Malofeev. ”

George Soros again… Maybe after he received pipe bombs from Trump’s rabid supporters it’s time to stop using him as the analogy for everything that sounds dodgy… Why not  ‘Putin’s Robert Mercer?’

FN- November 16, 2019:

Of course the idea that this would give the GOP co-conspirators pause was unfounded-any time you try to give them even the slightest benefit of the doubt it’s disappointed. Devin Nunes and Friends were out fomenting new anti semitic attacks on Soros at least week’s impeachment hearings-something about how the real collusion was from Ukraine as someone in their government criticized Trump’s campaign promise to let Russia keep Crimea and that Soros was somehow a point person on this imaginary conspiracy theory. 

Interestingly this fevered and baseless theory once again gives Alexandra Chalupa a starring role-she was also an alleged actor in Comey’s fake Russian doc back in 2016-Chapter A for more. In the GOP’s witness list they wanted-the whisteblower to publicly testify so Trump could execute reprisals against him as well as Hunter Biden-sure, Trump didn’t testify in the Mueller investigation and isn’t being required to do it here but by all means let’s pretend that this impeachment inquiry is into not Trump but Joe Biden’s son-beyond that they called for Chalupa. For Ms. Chalupa’s part she stated she wants to testify and correct the record. 

Chalupa has been a GOP obsession for years-just recently she was interviewed by her sister, Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendizor on Gaslit Nation:

Andrea Chalupa: Welcome to Gaslit Nation. I’m Andrea Chalupa, a writer and the screenwriter and producer of the upcoming journalistic thriller, Mr. Jones. My co-host, Sarah Kendzior, scholar of authoritarian states and the author of The View from Flyover Country, and I are back today with part two of our discussion with my sister Alexandra Chalupa, the former DNC contractor who blew the whistle on Russia’s attack on our 2016 election.”

It’s actually a fascinating interview, read the whole thing!-reading it’s clear why she argues that the GOP doesn’t want her to testify as she’d blow open the whole story-she already had Manafort on her radar in late 2015 and suspected that Russia was planning to interfere.

Andrea Chalupa: So how did it feel for you in March 2016 when Manafort was announced as joining the Trump campaign?

Alexandra Chalupa: Well, I had already had meeting with heads of Ukrainian-American organizations and leaders that are non-partisan, saying that I had a very bad feeling that Manafort was working with Trump. I alerted a friend of mine who was one of the executives of the DNC, and I said, “There’s this guy Paul Manafort, and I think he’s working with Donald Trump, and he basically influenced polls for Putin.”

And I told him, I said, “I’m concerned that Putin is targeting our elections, and that it’s through Trump, and if I’m correct, it’s going to be this guy Paul Manafort who is helping him.” And so I remember exactly where I was when the New York Times broke that. It broke online first, and I was standing in my kitchen, and I said, “Oh my God.” I was shocked that he was so public. That’s what threw me off, because he was so private and operating in the shadows until that moment. I immediately texted the executive who I talked to, as well. I texted her and the DNC CEO Amy Dacey, and said, “This is everything.”

And I posted on Facebook, and I said, “We need a congressional investigation immediately. This is who Paul Manafort is.” And I was pushing it out. And then the next morning, DNC CEO Amy Dacey said, “Ali, please touch base with our communications director, Louis Miranda.” Which I did. And he said, “Oh, yes, I saw your post on Facebook.” And I said, “No, but do you understand what this means?” He asked his team to just take a moment and just huddle very casually for me to brief them about what I knew about him.

Interestingly she also had some concerns about Bernie’s 2016 campaign strategist Tad Devine-who did testify at Manafort’s trial.

And I did, and then I also told him, I said, “I have some concerns, given we need to take a stronger look at Tad Devine.” Because he worked with Tad in Ukraine as well, and there’s a similar playbook here going on.

And he goes, “Oh Ali, you know Tad, you worked with him on the Kerry campaign. A lot of us go overseas in off years and work overseas.” And I said, “I don’t, and I don’t remember, I know Tad worked on the campaign, on that Kerry campaign, but I didn’t know him, and it doesn’t make it correct even if I did.” There were some concerns, I think, that needed to be looked into, but Manafort was really the one that I was the most concerned about, because he’s always been one to get his tentacles on both sides of the aisle. That’s how he’s operated in Ukraine and different political parties. He’s the guy that I believe Putin cares about the most, especially given the retaliation I’ve received by going after him.

Andrea Chalupa: Yeah, Manafort is Putin’s pollinator. Putin can’t show up at these places. Putin can’t take these meetings. So he’s got guys like Manafort doing that dirty work for him

Alexander Chalupa also was underwhelmed by the Obama Administration’s response.

And at the same time, that Ukrainian oligarchs and chief rabbi had reached out to say they were coming to Washington, and the American organization that was putting their trip together asked if I could help set up a meeting with the White House, which I did, and I attended. And they were talking about the human rights conditions that were going on, that they were worried about in the winter, and what was happening. And Putin came up not meeting, and I was surprised that the reaction of the administration when Putin came up was, “Well, Putin’s moved on to Syria, so that’s where his real focus is.” I emailed a friend of mine, my mentor Jim, and I said, “I think we have a problem here. The White House things that Putin is done with Ukraine and moved on to Syria.” As if he can’t multitask, you know?”

Putin’s moved on. There’s no denying that the Obama Administration was way too slow on the uptake-while Putin was going to war against Obama Administration, the Administration thought the Russian Dictator had moved on. Obama had many talents but knowing his enemy-wether Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin was never one of them.

Which kind of reminds us yet again that Hillary was right as usual in 2018 and while Obama’s celestial choirs who just do the right thing were more of a crowd pleaser the truth was with Hillary’s hardheaded real politics. In 2015 she received-what else-faux outrage from the MSM after in answer to a debate question said that her one of her three biggest enemies were-the Republican party. 

There’s an old African American saying-only the truth hurts and her answer had the inconvenient feature of being totally correct-or haven’t you noticed that they are still attacking her today-they still were at least week’s impeachment hearings-but then she is the one in the Oval Office right?

By the way, while her answer was much better than Obama’s PACE 2008 Biden’s faux outrage to her cheeky but none less accurate for it answer in the 2015 debate didn’t exactly age well. If there is a source of concern about the current front runner of the Democratic party it’s comments like this-where was he in the eight years of Obama?

Biden too is probably underpriced somewhat-he’s probably the favorite; as Nate Silver always puts it he’s the favorite though still and underdog relative to the entire field. Warren had been over 50% at one time which was likely overpriced. She’s been a very good candidate but at the end of the day this is the Democratic party and the Presidential candidate is chosen by the AA vote and at this point she hasn’t gotten enough of it yet. Neither she nor Bernie are looking great at present-as Silver points out there’s this illusion that they are doing better in the state polls but this is only true if you look at only Iowa and NH. 

Overall, the polls of Sanders-Warren actually trail their national polls-when you factor in South Carolina, Nevada, et al. Recently Warren sort of stepped in it in her answer on wether it’s fair that first two primaries are in Iowa and NH-very white states-she was like ‘I’m not going to criticize the great state of Iowa’-not the right answer if she wants to cut into Biden’s lead in the Black vote.

OTOH I give Warren credit for showing some flexibility on Medicare for All recently-that’s good we want principled leaders but not a leader so dug into to their position they simply ignore the sentiment of their own voters.

https://twitter.com/SandaBlue/status/1195540730439188485

End FN

As for Malofeev, he’s known as Putin’s right hand man.

[Aleksander] Dugin introduced Malofeev as Putin’s “right-hand man,” and the Turks came to learn the financier really can “knock on Putin’s door.”

“That’s how the trip became effective,” Pekin said. “We knew what we said went directly to Putin.”

“Malofeev, a devout Russian Orthodox Catholic, has extreme views, including advocating for the “cleansing” of Ukrainians by Russian forces. He founded the nationalist news channel that now has over 20 million viewers as a religious news organization. The 42-year-old oligarch has likened it to Russia’s version of Fox News.”

As it was meant to be Russia’s version of Fox, fittingly,  he brought in a Fox News producer:

“Soon after getting the idea to start his own news channel, Malofeev hired a man by the name of Jack Hanick, a former Fox News producer. According to Hanick’s LinkedIn page, he was a founding member of Fox News alongside Roger Ailes and worked there from 1996–2011. Hanick met Ailes in 1994 according to his own recollection, describing Ailes as his “mastermind” and “a real teacher.” Ailes went on to advise then-candidate Trump before the Presidential debates. At Fox News, Hanick’s list of duties was extensive: he created the pilots for the launch of Fox News, directed various specials, and directed Sean Hannity’s show.”

Sean Hannity-Trump’s real policy advisor.

“A former co-worker of Hanick’s, who declined to be named, told me that Hanick still occasionally communicates with his Fox News colleagues. Hanick, Fox News, and Sean Hannity all did not respond to requests for comment.”

Of course, to call it Fox News-is a misnomer: we know firsthand from journalists who have left that it’s more professional wrestling than news-there are certain programs that do contain a decent amount of news. But much of it is choreographed theater-the Right wing hosts of these shows would get what amounted to a script the day before when it was already decided that they’d wipe the floor with some ‘liberal’ flack, etc.

“In 2015, Hanick attempted to purchase TV7 in Bulgaria to further spread his extreme right-wing religious view of the world. Hanick’s, “mission… [was] to represent the interests of the Russian Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeev.” The sale was blocked after Bulgarian authorities learned that Malofeev was the man behind the money.”

Not to worry though.

“A Greek man named Giannis Karageorgis ended up buying TV7. Malofeev was the best man at Karageorgis’s wedding in 2015. The wedding was also attended by the Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos. Malofeev said that Kammenos was the “life and soul” of the party.”

“Karageorgis was arrested in Greece in 2016 after the Netherlands issued an international warrant for his arrest. He is currently facing charges of fraud, forgery and fraudulent bankruptcy.”

“In May 2016, Hanick and his family moved from New York to Moscow and converted to Russian Orthodoxy.”

“Hanick, who retains the title of Chief Director, has appeared on his Tsargrad network many times. In this clip, he’s denounces “globalists” and “elitists” (does this language sound familiar?).”

Guess who else has appeared on Tsargrad? That’s right, Alex Jones.

The True Mystery Man in the Trump Probe: Putin

Putin no doubt would appreciate the MSM’s tendency to presume absence of evidence is evidence of absence-as Putin is so good at erasing any fingerprints.