501

Seth Abramson put together a very interesting and provocative thread suggesting that contrary to what Trump, Don Jr, and other loyalists say, the meeting did serve its intended purpose-giving the Trump campaign incriminating emails on Hillary Clinton.

Yes there is quite a timeline on the etymology of the Trump campaign seeking the emails. Also confusion: when Papadopoulos first told the Trump campaign in April, 2016 that the Russians claimed to have  thousands of incriminating emails on Clinton, it’s quite possible they initially thought that this was referring to Clinton’s deleted emails on her server while at State. We know of many attempts by the Trump campaign to obtain the deleted emails-as documented in Chapter A. 

Trump’s social media director, Dan Scavino, tweeted out in early May, 2016 that the Russians had Clinton’s emails-based on a link to a fake news Trump site. This baseless claim that the Russians had her deleted emails spread like wildfire among the Trump deplorables-like Scavino.

There are so many examples of Trump operatives attempting to find them. Here is a-far from comprehensive-list.

1. Scavino on May 11, of course.

2. Trump on July 27, of course.

FN: Per the Mueller Report we know a lot more about Trump’s efforts to obtain the emails that puts ‘Russia, if you’re listening’ in even more damning light-the same day Russian hackers attempted to hack Clinton’s office in the Hamptons and  Trump instructed Michael Flynn to get the emails . (Chapter A)

3. The late GOP operative Peter Smith’s efforts to uncover them-he was willing to work with Russian intelligence if that’s what it took and tried to reach out to Wikileaks. 

For much more Chapters A and B.

4. Alexander Nix of Cambridge Analytica also reached out to Wikileaks to find Clinton’s emails in August 2016

5. Then-Roger Stone naturally-who had multiple communications with both Wikileaks and Guccifer 2.0-that was actually Russian military intelligence-asked Assange to find them in September 2016-at the same time as Smith was trying to speak to Wikileaks on his own track.

UPDATE: As we went on to see in (Chapter A) it’s now quite plausible that Smith actually did have prior knowledge of the Podesta emails and may even have employed the Russian hackers who obtained them.

6.  DM messages from October between both Roger Stone and Donald Jr to Wikileaks later surfaced:

7. Finally, Julian Assange himself on an RT appearance  claimed to have Clinton’s emails.

Abramson argues that the Trump Tower meeting was the jumping off point.

UPDATE 2.0: As documented in (Chapter B) Michael Cohen later claimed to sources to know for a fact that Donald Jr told Trump about the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians on 6/7.

 

Yes and even Rob Goldstone found the news of Guccifer 2.0 eerily weird. 

Natasha Bertrand’s timeline on Trump associates . looking for the deleted emails.

Trump tweets about Clinton’s missing emails: At 4:40 p.m., 40 minutes after the Trump Tower meeting was scheduled to begin, Trump responds to Clinton’s tweet telling him to “delete your account” by asking Clinton about her “missing” emails. “How long did it take your staff of 823 people to think that up–and where are your 33,000 emails that you deleted?” Trump tweets.

Then on June 14, Rob Goldstone sends out what he calls ‘eerily weird news.’

Goldstone sends along ‘eerily weird’ news: Five days after the Trump Tower meeting, there were news reports that Russians were behind the hacks of the Democratic National Committee emails.

Goldstone sends a news article on the hacking to Emin Agalarov and Kaveladze, according to the Democratic report, and states: “Top story right now — seems eerily weird based on our Trump meeting last week with the Russian lawyers etc.”

As Abramson points out Peter Smith begun his search for Clinton’s emails not in September, 2016 but in June.

Abramson argues that to answer that you have to go back to the June 7 pre Trump Tower meeting-at Trump Tower.

He argues that Trump’s real advisers were Michael Flynn and Eric Prince.

So who were the other people at the pre meeting on June 7?

Wow can you imagine the headline if it is verified that Bannon or Flynn were the other two at that pre meeting?

UPDATE: As noted . in (Chapter A) even before Bannon’s being made the campaign manager in August, 2016 he was very much in the know via Erik Prince for starters. As for Flynn we know he was obsessed with finding Clinton’s deleted emails-Peter Smith emailed him about his search for them with the help of the Russian hackers.

UPDATE 2.0: In (Chapter B) we looked at the fact that Joseph Schmitz brought material his client had found on the dark web to the FBI in the Summer of 2016-Schmitz wanted the Bureau to analyze the material to ascertain if it was Clinton’s deleted emails. Abramson has plausibly conjectured Smith was actually Schmitz’s client, after all, Smith himself was employing Russian hackers to search the dark web to search for these same 33,000 deleted emails. If so, this further validates Abramson’s timeline.

Actually Giuliani himself seemed to have spilled the beans himself by mentioning Rick Gates-who’s name wasn’t in any way associated with the meeting previously. It’s become clear that Mueller’s interest in Gates goes way beyond him being able to corroborate the fact that Manafort’s a dirty tax cheat.

https://lastmenandovermen.com/2018/08/06/this-week-maybe-today-rich-gates-testifies-against-manafort-and-despite-appearances-big-picture-is-collusion/

Gates is privy to Manafort’s discussions with Konstantin Kilimnik and his attempts to ‘get whole’ with Russian oligarch Oleg Derispaska. Gates also stayed with Trump long after Manafort resigned-because of the scandal over his ties to Kilimnik. Gates  helped Trump’s billionaire friend Tom Barrack organize Trump’s inauguration.

But thanks to Rudy’s big mouth we now know Gates might have been in the know about the Trump Tower meeting too; something that Mueller may well have been aware of previously.

UPDATE: Reports certainly suggest that Gates is proving to be a very helpful source for Mueller in terms of getting to the bottom of collusion-unlike Manafort who apparently is still not as of this writing, giving Mueller what he wants (Chapter C).

In any case, Abramson argues that Peter Smith was an ideal cut-out.

UPDATE: As documented in Chapter C Dan Scavino actually tweeted that the Russians had Clinton’s emails a month prior to the Trump Tower Russia meeting. Then in (Chapter D) I conjecture wether Comey got his fake Russian document from Joseph Schmitz’s  materials he left with the FBI. But regarding timeline when exactly did Comey and the FBI receive that? Apparently in March, 2016 which suggests that the search by Trump associates-by GOP associates in general-for the deleted emails goes way back to the primary phase. The search for the 33,000 was something of a White Whale for GOP operatives in general in the 2016 campaign very early in the primary season.

Finally note that Smith stated the Russians approached him.

UPDATE: Yes, as seen in (Chapter E) it’s now emerged that Trump was involved in every step of the paying of the hush money to various women he had affairs with. We also saw in (Chapter F) that Trump was totally invovled in the push not to move FBI headquarters-to avoid competition with his own hotel. What I think it’s fair to extrapolate from these examples of Trump’s micromanagement, we can take it as axiomatic that Trump is in the know for all of this. It beggars belief and logic to suggest otherwise.

Of course, his flacks do what they can to give him plausible deniability-which is what makes an investigation tough-it’s how Reagan got away with Iran-Contra-to say nothing of the much larger scandal Iran-Contra was just one episode in: as documented in (Chapter F) the rigging of the 1980 election.

(End of UPDATE).

Abramson argues we should move beyond the question if Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting-it’s pretty clear he did-and ask how much he knew about the summer of collusion his campaign launched at this point?

Indeed-if Smith was telling the truth then Flynn has long since corroborated his story. From what Matt Tait says, it’s pretty clear Smith knew Flynn-and his son-well.

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