4
See also: Senate Democratic Judiciary Committee Report
See also: DNC Lawsuit Against Wikileaks
Start on Pg. 14 in DNC case against Assange
Pg. 21-22: Others who have refused to testify are: Spicer, Priebus, and Trump’s lawyer, Mark Corallo.
Pg. 19: Due to the failure of these important witnesses to respond to requests for an interview-and the failure of the GOP majority to compel them to-a number of lines of inquiry remain unanswered.
Pg. 18: Hope Hicks refused to testify
Michael Cohen also refused to testify previously though based on what Lanny Davis now says, presumably that has changed.
Sam Clovis also refused to testify on the Trump Tower meeting. Notably he supervised the activities of both Papadopoulos and Carter Page.
Others who have not testified: Maria Butima, K.T. McFarland, and Steve Bannon.
Pg. 17: The minority has sought documents and testimony from 54 additional witnesses who have yet to testify
Pg. 18: FBI-perhaps directed by Trump failed to provide information on Kushner’s security clearance
His assertions of privilege were strikingly overbroad
Pg. 15: Manafort and Kushner never gave an interview-regarding Manafort the GOP used Mueller as a faux excuse.
Donald Jr’s own testimony remains incomplete, says his only communication with Wikileaks was ‘Hey, when am I going to receive the next leak?’ (!)
Pg. 14: the investigation into the Trump Tower Russia meeting remains incomplete
1. The June 9 Meeting demonstrated the campaign’s willingness to accept Russia’s assistance, and the subsequent misleading statements about the meeting indicated a willingness to deceive the public about contacts with Russia. Just over a month after the Trump campaign was told that Russia had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails,” 2 Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov, who was a friend of the Trump family, offered the campaign “information that would incriminate” Hillary Clinton as part of Russia’s ongoing support for then-candidate Trump.3 This was not the first offer of assistance from Mr. Agalarov, who, with his son Emin, had partnered with Donald Trump’s Miss Universe Pageant in 20134 and explored building a Trump Tower Moscow with the Trump Organization that same year. 5 The Agalarovs also offered in July 2015 to set up a meeting for candidate Trump with President Putin,6 and, on the eve of Super Tuesday, sent an email “offering [Aras Agalarov’s] support and that of many of his important Russian friends and colleagues— especially with reference to U.S./Russian relations.”7 When the Agalarovs reached out with another offer in early June 2016, the Trump campaign responded promptly. The campaign did not reject this offer, nor did anyone connected with the campaign report the offer to authorities.
2.
See also: Senate Judiciary Committee Transcripts
See also: House Intelligence Committee report
See also: DNC Lawsuit Against Wikileaks
Pg 7: Sater’s talk of linking Trump up with Putin and ultimately using the connection to get Trump elected has to be put next to the many other cases of Trump campaign associates talking about having a Putin-Trump meeting.
Rob Goldstone offered it in November 2015. Both Papadopoulos and Carter Page discussed it in the Spring of 2016.
See also: Carter Page’s House testimony
1 He compared testifying in the Senate to literal torture
The old adage that a man who represents himself has a fool for a client has seldom been demonstrated quite so colorfully as in the transcript of Carter Page’s testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on November 2.
“Page, a former foreign-policy adviser to the Trump campaign, does not have a lawyer. He agreed to testify on the condition that the transcript be made public, and while it’s hard to know what motivated him to make that deal—in fact, it’s often hard to figure out what motivates him—the result does not reflect kindly upon him.”
There develops a strange dichotomy, in which Page presents himself as an important and respected man in Russia, invited to give a commencement speech independent of his work for the Trump campaign, and yet also downplays his importance to the Trump team, calling himself a very junior staffer. (Gowdy, again: “Mr. Page, I wrote down: volunteer, unpaid, informal, unofficial. I’m still trying to figure out what the hell your role was with the Trump campaign.”)
Trump and his aides, as well as Page himself, have tried to argue that whatever Page did had no connection with the campaign—they were the rogue actions of a low-level figure. And while the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, from George Papadopoulos to Jeff Sessions to Jared Kushner to Michael Flynn to Paul Manafort, seem hard to comprehend as coincidences, it does seem plausible from Page’s marble-mouthed explanations that he was puffing up his role and importance and connections to Russian figures in order to enhance his status with the Trump campaign.
This conclusion, however, I totally disagree with. Page it seems clear is who ultimately went on the Russia trip Papadopoulos had been talking about for two months. Manafort had said Trump isn’t doing the trip; exactly, they needed a cutout and Page was it. Then there’s all the evidence connecting Page to the eventual sale of the 19.5% stake-just like the dossier had asserted.
There develops a strange dichotomy, in which Page presents himself as an important and respected man in Russia, invited to give a commencement speech independent of his work for the Trump campaign, and yet also downplays his importance to the Trump team, calling himself a very junior staffer. (Gowdy, again: “Mr. Page, I wrote down: volunteer, unpaid, informal, unofficial. I’m still trying to figure out what the hell your role was with the Trump campaign.”)
Trump and his aides, as well as Page himself, have tried to argue that whatever Page did had no connection with the campaign—they were the rogue actions of a low-level figure. And while the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, from George Papadopoulos to Jeff Sessions to Jared Kushner to Michael Flynn to Paul Manafort, seem hard to comprehend as coincidences, it does seem plausible from Page’s marble-mouthed explanations that he was puffing up his role and importance and connections to Russian figures in order to enhance his status with the Trump campaign.
According to Page, the list of Trump officials who were informed about the trip includes at the very least Sessions, Hicks, Gordon, Lewandowski, and Sam Clovis, who last week withdrew his nomination for a USDA chief scientist job. This is difficult to square with repeated campaign denials of any contacts with the Russians, no matter Page’s level on the campaign.
Despite Page’s repeated assertions that he made the trip outside of his campaign job, Representative Jackie Speier, a Democrat, pointed out that in an email to the campaign, Page wrote, “Please let me know if you have any reservations or thoughts on how you’d prefer me to focus these remarks.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Speier asked. “It would appear that you were soliciting from the campaign any messages you would like to have conveyed to those in attendance at the New Economic School.” Page called it merely a “courtesy.”
Sessions, of course, claimed he was unaware of any such trips, including in sworn testimony to the Senate. But it has since become clear that multiple Trump campaign officials had contacts with Russians, including Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty last month to lying to the FBI about them. In Page’s case, there was a paper record—not just his email request for comments, but also the memo he sent to J.D. Gordon afterwards.
“Now, this trip that was unrelated to the campaign, you wrote a memo in campaign format to debrief the campaign on your trip that was supposedly not about the campaign,” Schiff said. “Is that what we are to understand?”
Schiff comes across as Page’s most probing and aggressive questioner. In particular, they tangled over Page’s attempt to invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid complying with some requests for documents but not for others. “Is it your position that you have a Fifth Amendment right to provide nonincriminating emails or documents to the committee but withhold incriminating documents from the committee and selectively comply with the subpoena?”
Page said there was nothing incriminating. Schiff replied, “If nothing you have is incriminating, then on what basis are you invoking the Fifth Amendment right?”
Page’s answer was strange: He said that he was both concerned he might overlook some documents in his attempt to produce them, and that he was concerned that things he said might not “match up” with information obtained by law enforcement during surveillance that he claims is illegal. This is confusing, since any discrepancy would constitute lying under oath.
Page said he could not recall exactly how many times he had spoken to the FBI, much to Gowdy’s surprise. (“It is not difficult for me to remember the number of times that the FBI has interviewed me in 2016 because the answer would be zero.”) A portion of the transcript is redacted, but the context suggests that Page spoke to some other law-enforcement agency, and that the news came as a surprise to the panel.
2. NY Republican Ed Cox introduced Page to the Trump campaign
3. Vox on his ‘bizarre testimony’
Page testified that on the trip, he had no meetings or serious discussions with anyone high up in the Russian government. He said that he had just one brief interaction with one Russian government official (Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich), but that it lasted “well less than 10 seconds.”
But in a memo and an email sent to Trump campaign staffers at the time, Page painted a very different of his picture of his trip. He wrote that he’d had a “private conversation” with Dvorkovich, and that he had received “insights and outreach” from several other Russian politicians.
- Page wrote in a memo to the Trump campaign that “In a private conversation, Dvorkovich expressed strong support for Mr. Trump and a desire to work together toward devising better solutions in response to the vast range of current international problems.” (This suggests a much more substantive and lengthier interaction between Page and Dvorkovich.)
- And on July 8, Page wrote to two Trump campaign staffers from his trip, “I’ll send you guys a readout soon regarding some incredible insights and outreach I’ve received from a few Russian legislators and senior members of the Presidential administration here.” (This suggests Page had several other Russian political contacts while he was there.)
Pressed on these inconsistencies, Page struggled to explain them. He insisted again that his interaction with Dvorkovich was just a few seconds long, and that it was very “general.”
Most strangely of all, though, he said that when he described receiving “incredible insights and outreach” from several top Russian politicians during his trip, he in fact was only describing speeches he’d attended and articles he’d read.
Yes it got even worse as he further elaborated that much of the insight he gained was simply from watching Russian tv. Why would he possibly debrief the Trump campaign that?
A) Page says he traveled to Moscow on his own, but some emails raise questions about this
Then there’s the question of why Page went to Russia in the first place, and whether the Trump campaign had a role in planning the trip.
Eight days later, on May 24, 2016, Page sent another secretive-sounding email to Gordon:
FYI: At the Newark Sky Club, Delta has a private room where you can have a confidential conversation, but, unfortunately, no such luck at Third-World LaGuardia. So I’ll mostly be on receive mode, since there are a significant number of people in the lounge. Rather than saying too much, I’ll just refer to the seven points on my list which I sent last night.
So — does Page just have a heightened sense of self-importance and a weakness for cloak-and-dagger language? Or was the Trump campaign much more involved in planning for Page’s Russia trip than anyone’s admitting right now? (Gordon has insisted that he tried to discourage Page from making the trip, but some reports indicate that Page went around him and got approval to make the trip in his capacity as a private citizen from then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.)
B) In an email, Page praised Trump aides for their “excellent work” on the Ukraine plank of the Republican Party’s platform
Shortly before last year’s Republican convention, a controversy erupted over whether Trump aides had tried to block an amendment to the GOP platform that would call for arming Ukraine.
Asked about this during his testimony, Page was initially clear that he did not talk with anyone on the campaign about the platform. But then he hedged, saying, “I may have been on email chains.”
C) Page was outraged that the Steele dossier said he met the CEO of a Russian oil company … but admits meeting another official from that company
Throughout his testimony, Page repeatedly denounced the Steele dossier — the uncorroborated opposition research document on Trump-Russia ties that Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer paid for. Repeatedly calling it the “dodgy” dossier, Page asserted that “every word in that about me is completely false.” (“That’s a big statement, Dr. Page,” Rep. Trey Gowdy responded.)
In particular, the dossier claimed that Page met with two particular Russians during his trip, but Page insisted that he’s never met either.
One of those was Igor Sechin, the CEO of the Rosneft oil company, which is majority owned by the Russian government. According to the dossier, Sechin and Page had a secret meeting on Moscow on either July 7 or July 8, at which Sechin offered Trump associates a large stake in his company and Page said Trump would lift US sanctions on Rosneft if elected.
Page contemptuously denied all of this, straightforwardly asserting that he’s never met Sechin in a way that sounded more or less believable.
But then, under questioning, Page admitted that during that trip, he met with one of Sechin’s subordinates — Andrey Baranov, the head of investor relations at Rosneft, with whom he had a preexisting relationship.
Page went on to admit that they may have discussed sanctions in “general” terms, and that they might have discussed the planned sale of a large stake in Rosneft because it was “in the news.”
The specific allegations in the Steele dossier about Page remain unconfirmed. Still, there seems to have been a bit more to Page’s denial here than we might have thought at first glance.
4. BBC points out how Page has a story that doesn’t add up
“Mr Page’s involvement in the Trump campaign and his Russia connections drew the attention of the FBI, however, which reportedly obtained a warrant from the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to begin surveillance of Page in 2016 as a possible agent of a foreign government. The FBI had reportedly had previously investigated Page because of his 2013 ties to Russian bank executive Evgeny Buryakov, who was convicted in 2015 of spying on the US.”
Since Mr Trump’s election, Page has made several contentious appearances on US cable television, where he’s frustrated interviewers with his free-form, seemingly contradictory, sometimes confusing answers to their questions.
Last week, the House Intelligence Committee had its turn to talk to Page. Under-oath Page, it turns out, is a lot like cable-TV Page.
The Trump campaign approved Carter’s July 2016 trip to Russia
Page, at a June 2016 dinner in Washington with the Trump campaign’s national security team, says he informed Senator Jeff Sessions (now US attorney general) that he was traveling to Russia the following month.
This is also a problem for Jeff Sessions, yet one more case of him perjuring himself in before his old Senate colleagues.
This is noteworthy because the attorney general testified during a Senate hearing that he didn’t know if Page had met Russian officials “at any point during the campaign”.
When asked if he believed any campaign aides had connections to Russia, he said: “I did not, and I’m not aware of anyone else that did, and I don’t believe it happened.”
Page also emailed three Trump campaign officials – manager Lewandowski, communications director Hope Hicks and national security director JD Gordon – in case they had concerns.
“If you’d like to go on your own, not affiliated with the campaign, you know, that’s fine,” Page says Lewandowski replied.
Meanwhile, Gordon recently told CNN he discouraged the visit “because it was a bad idea” – but that Page bypassed him.
So why did Page decide to go to Moscow, even if some in the campaign had concerns that his trip could be viewed negatively by Mr Trump’s critics?
“Because I’m trying to live my life,” Page told the congressional committee.
A top Russian official praised Mr Trump when privately speaking to Page
During his congressional testimony, Page said that during his July 2016 Moscow visit he attended a speech by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich and subsequently exchanged pleasantries.
Was it a private meeting, asked California Congressman Schiff.
“Absolutely not,” Page replied.
Then Mr Schiff read from an email Page sent to the Trump campaign in which he wrote: “In a private conversation, Dvorkovich expressed strong support for Mr Trump and a desire to work together toward devising better solutions in response to a vast range of current international problems”.
When asked to explain the apparent discrepancy, Page said he based that email on what he heard from Dvorkovich’s speech.
D). Page received ‘insights and outreach’ from other Russian officials
In another email Page sent to campaign officials during his Moscow trip, he wrote that he had received “some incredible insights and outreach” from “a few Russian legislators and senior members of the presidential administration here”.
Page denied that he had met any other Russian government officials, however, and asserts that the insights he described were the result of observations in “public forums” and by reading the newspaper. As for outreach, he said that “if I had started my personal legal training previously, I probably would have used a different word”.
Mr Schiff didn’t seem to be buying that, however.
Page also says that he met Andrey Baranov, a high-level official from the state-run Russian energy firm Rosneft, but the conversation was not substantive and didn’t deal with repealing US sanctions on Russia or anything related to the Trump campaign.
“Beyond a shadow of a doubt, there was never any negotiations, or any quid pro quo, or any offer, or any request even, in any way related to sanctions,” Page said.
As Vox noted above, the dossier had asserted Page met with Igor Sechin, the CEO of Rosnet but then subsequently confirmed he met with Baranov, his deputy.
E.
The FBI has spoken to Page – a lot
According to Page, he has spoken to the FBI in connection to its Russia investigations “four or five times” in 2017.
He said he was unsure whether he had met FBI agents in 2016, however, prompting a wry response from Republican Gowdy.
“It is not difficult for me to remember the number of times that the FBI has interviewed me in 2016 because the answer would be zero,” the South Carolina congressman said.
Page also says he has been “in contact” with Mr Mueller’s independent counsel investigation, although he says he has not been told that he is in any legal jeopardy.
Page has an unconventional view of Fifth Amendment protections
In one of the more unusual portions of the interview, Congressman Schiff asks Page whether he’s exercising his right to avoid self-incrimination as set forth in the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution.
Page said yes – and no. He said he has withheld some documents that may be misinterpreted by investigators or, if they become public, could open him to “extrajudicial punishment” – which appears to be a reference to death threats and harassment he says he’s received since his name became associated with the Trump dossier.
Among the emails Page did not turn over to investigators were the ones he wrote to the campaign during his Moscow trip. They were acquired by the US government as a result of the FBI surveillance – “illegally hacked from my computer systems”, Page said.
Mr Schiff, a Harvard educated prosecutor, responded with incredulity.
“Is it your position that you have a Fifth Amendment right to provide nonincriminating emails or documents to the committee but withhold incriminating documents from the committee and selectively comply with the subpoena?” he asked.
Page said that none of the information he has is incriminating – which will make his case for withholding it from the committee based on Fifth Amendment protections a hard one to make.
e Simpson’s testimony about Browder kicked the Hornet’s Nest
A close reading of the testimony in the LA Times
Start on Pg:
Pg 233: Does cop to having ‘one brief conversation’ and exchanging texts with Bannon in January, 2017. What was topic of these conversations? Bannon recommended he not go on MSNBC.
Pg. 232: Says he sent an email to Eric Trump when he took his leave of absence-but not, for instance to Don Jr or Ivanka and claims this was literally his only contact with Eric ever… Why then would he have emailed precisely him at that point?
Pg. 231: Claims to know nothing about Peter Smith-though the fact that he knows Schmitz makes you wonder. Seth Abramson persuasively argues that Smith could be Schmitz’s agent paid to get the hackers to hack Clinton’s emails
Pg. 229: After a great deal of hairsplitting and quibbling he admits that he got the email chain from J.D. Gordon about the GOP platform change on Russia policy
Pg. 225: So Page does say that this Hungarian ambassador did drop the name of one person she knows from the Trump campaign: Joseph Schmitz. We already covered him in a previous chapter-he paid an agent to get Russian hackers to hack Clinton’s emails on her server.
Pg. 218: This Ambassador set up a few meetings for Page with Hungarian government officials
Pg. 217: Now it emerges that he had met the Budapest Ambassador at the RNC in July and then they arranged for the late August meeting-but he has a way of ‘forgetting’ many important details.
Pg. 216: Now it emerges Page mixed up Brussels with Budapest-which he actually did attend ‘at the end of August’
Pg. 214: Another email to Walid Phares and Jeff Gordon on July 7, 2016-which is weird as this was a personal trip supposedly-he sure kept the campaign in the loop on his every movement. He was giving them his entire itinerary while in England.
Pg. 204: a pretty interesting email from Page to Walid Phares and J.D. Gordon on May 16, 2018: he said his strategy was to keep his messages as ‘low key and apolitical as possible’ but if ‘the principal wants to raise temperature-presumably Trump is the principal-‘I’m more than happy to let him.’
Ie, Page was suggesting Trump go to Russia instead of him
Pg. 193: He ‘may have met’ Richard Gates
Pg. 185: Confirms he ‘probably’ told Sam Clovis he was going to Moscow
Pg. 181: Sam Clovis had Page sign the NDA.
Pg. 174:
Schiff: did you discuss with Baranov the potential sale of a significant part of Rosnet?
Page: I don’t recall
Schiff: So you might have, but you don’t recall…
Schiff: Did you discuss lifting sanctions
Page: We never discussed it directly
Schiff: Did you discuss it indirectly with him?
Pgs. 142:-144 Schiff picks up what Page told Quigley-that he arranged with Andrey Baranov to meet in Moscow. Barnaov is the head of Rosnet investor relations.
Pg. 132: Page was an adviser for Gazprom for many years
Pg. 131: You got to love Quigley’s style: Ok let’s pretend that’s important
Pg. 131: Rather bizarre conversation between Page and Podobynny based on how Page narrates it about Gazprom
Pg. 129: Mike Quigley asks him about Victor Podobnyy.
Pg. 127: Page asked the campaign to ‘please focus my remarks’ at the Moscow speech-New Economic School
Pg. 125: Jackie Spier points out that he wants it both ways-made a big show of wanting an open hearing and now complaining about leaks and wanting certain facts withheld.
Pg. 121: Ed Cox introduces him to Corey Lewandowski in December, 2015
Pg. 120: Page confirms it was Misfud’s name that ‘might have been in the email.’
Pg. 119: Did Page receive an email from Papadopoulos that made mention to the Russian professor-Mifsud?
Pg. 118: Schiff points out that his email to the campaign was much more than ‘I learned some valuable insights by watching Russian tv’
Pg. 116: As Schiff notes while he claims the trip was unrelated to Russia he gave a campaign debriefing when he returned.
Pg. 113: Page is doing what he didn’t want to do-making news regarding a conversation with Page that wasn’t part of the larger group as was the other more well known email chain.
Pg. 111-112: Page without knowing it seems to be making news in discussing an email chain from Papadopuolous regarding the Russian professor-Mifsud-in late March-prior to there was no knowledge of a Papadopoulos email chain in late March-though there was knowledge of one in late April. Schiff is confused and pushing for Page to tell him more.
Pg. 110: At that Republican dinner, besides Page and Jeff Sessions, J.D. Gordon and Papadopoulos were present
Pg. 107: Schiff gives the short version: the Russians paid for his trip and they knew he was a foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign
Pg. 104: As Schiff says it’s hard to buy that he’d use his limited time-even more if this was the first time they’d spoke-to tell him about a totally unnrelated trip.
Pg. 103: Ok so according to Page’s testimony he tells Sessions Hi Senator Sessions honor to finally speak to you. I wanted you to know I’m leaving in a couple days to give a speech in Moscow totally unrelated to the campaign…’
Pg. 102-103: Page discusses a dinner at a Congressional Republican meeting convened by Sessions-it emerges this meeting was three days before he went to the Moscow trip and he states he mentioned it ‘briefly to Jeff Sessions as I was walking out the door.’
Pg. 101-102: Jeff Sessions arranged a dinner attended by both Carter Page and George Papadopoulos
Pg. 96: Schiff asks Page to name as many of the 10 people he spoke to since Moscow as he can ‘remember’
Pg. 88: Schlomo Weber-the rector of the school-the New Economic School invited Carter Page.
Pg. 89: Schiff asks and he confirms that Weber did know about Page’s part in the Trump campaign. As Schiff pointed out, Weber knows many Russian officials
Pg. 81: Gowdy says he’s careful to though he’d remember how many times he was interviewed by the FBI; in 2016 it’s not hard to remember the number as it was zero
Pg. 80: Page states he’s been interviewed ‘either 4 or 5 times’ by the FBI in 2017 ‘doesn’t recall how many’ in 2016 because he’s ‘cautious’
Pgs. 72-73: Schiff just nails him here on claiming he had no private conversations with Russian government officials. He claimed he only greeted Arkady but Schiff presents an email Page sent back to the Trump campaign about a private meeting with Arkaday where he voiced strong support for Trump.
Not only does that totally put the lie to his claim of having not had any private meetings with Russian government officials, it also strongly calls into question his claim that he took this trip on a personal basis with no relationship to the campaign. Why did he email the campaign about the trip with the subject line: ‘Campaign Adviser Carter Page.’
64: Very interesting that he mentions exchanging emails with Gary Sick of all people-who wrote about the Reagan campaign’s collusion with the Iranian government in 1980 to delay release of the hostages.
Pgs 61-62: On the issue of the 5th he seems to be arguing that he’s pleading the 5th so as not to go down Papadopoulos’ road-ie, so as not to incriminate himself.
Pg. 41: Lots of false statements like the claim that ‘at no point in his life has he worked as an agent for a foreign government directly or indirectly.’
Actually he has admitted elsewhere that he was paid by Moscow as an ‘adviser’ in 2013.
Pg. His claim that somehow the real interference was the dossier makes little sense when you recall that the dossier wasn’t publicized until January, 2017
Pg. 34: He has no lawyer-what’s that about someone who represents himself?
Pg. 30: He wraps his refusal to provide documents in the alleged great civil rights abuse of the FISA warrant against him and he gets so worked up he ends up comparing himself to-yep, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Pg. 27: But after all that he pleaded the 5th on October 10, 2017: I thought he was going to tell the people the truth of how the real crime was the ‘dodgy dossier.’
Pg. 22: Now he’s actually lauding Igor Sechin and his company, Rosnet-when the dossier had Sechin offering Page a 19% stake in it in exchange for Trump doing away with Russian sanctions
Pg. 18: Now he’s asserting that Michael Flynn was a victim of the Deep State. He certainly knew the right things to ingratiate himself with Devin Nune’s Committee.
Pg. 16: the more you read of Carter Page the more you wonder if the GOP Congress took his ‘advice’ seriously. He stated that Trump’s claims of being wiretapped could be proved but to do so you’d have to obtain the FISA warrant. Lo and behold, the GOP badgered the DOJ until they received the FISA warrant but was this based on Page’s advice? Was this the basis for Devin Nunes’ bizarre trip to the WH to pick up classified information about ‘unmasking?’
Pg. 15-16: He seems to want to defend Trump’s claim his phone was wiretapped
It is interesting that Page has never been convicted of anything. He was questioned by Mueller for 10 hours in 2017
Pg. 13: He writes a letter to Comey. It was actually on 9/25/2016 and he calls on Comey to end this witch hunt. He was calling it a witch hunt before Trump… He asked Comey specifically to stop investigating his trip to Moscow in July, 2016.
I’m sure Comey didn’t realize he lacked Carter Page’s approval
Pg. 12: James Comey’s ‘extreme loyalty to the Clinton/Obama regime?!’ Sure he only cost her the election.
Pgs. 11-12: Now he goes after Harry Reid for promoting the ‘dodgy dossier’-did he mention he thinks it’s ‘dodgy?’ He never shows that it is though and he actually brings up the time Reid said Romey may have not paid a dime of taxes-not an unreasonable surmise as Romney refused to release them.
Pg. 11: Page himself engages in some active measures by claiming that Glencore bought the share of Rosnet post election that it was founded by: GOP bogeyman Marc Rich. He then quotes Bernie Sanders from the 2001 hearings about Rich’s pardon saying that Clinton’s pardon shows the influence of money in politics.
Pg 10: Dials it up even higher by claiming that he saw no active measures by Russia or any other foreign government to interfere in a political campaign either in 2016 or ever ‘at any point throughout my life’ which is something that no one claims. Many Trump loyalists attempt to relativize what happened in 2016 by pointing to earlier instances of Russian-or Chinese-meddling. But these comparisons don’t hold up and even they don’t make Page’s extravagant claim-far from it.
Pg. 9: Claims the only active measures was the ‘dodgy dossier’ courtesy of Obama-Clinton. That’s all he has
Pg. 7: He claims that the FISA warrant was aimed at silencing his free speech-which is not true-and that it was ‘the most unwarranted abuse of power that I and many Americans have witnesses in our lifetimes’ which doesn’t even pass the laugh test.
Pg. 6-7: Quotes Lindsay Graham saying that Congress ‘has been pretty much sidelined’ since the appointment of Mueller. This should not be the case-in truth Congressional Republicans deliberately used Mueller as an excuse to sideline themselves. Watergate had a strong Watergate Select Committee along side Leon Jaworski’s Independent Counsel.
Pg. 6: Claims that Comey’s testimony ‘severely defamatory in loyal support of the Clinton-Obama regime’
Again, he argues that if his testimony is public that will unmask the treachery of the Clinton-Obama regime and their phony ‘witch hunt’ yet somehow Devin Nunes seemed not to trust that transparency would do the trick as he steadfastly refused to allow public hearings; clearly he didn’t think transparency would be helpful to the illegitimate ‘President’
Pg. 5: Next he claims to want the hearings to have some form of public access. That I fully agree with though there’s reason to doubt Page’s sincerity.
Pg. 5: Now he actually paraphrases Robert Bork using his words for when the FISA warrant is released: ‘an intellectual feast’ at the time of their release.
Carter Page:
Pgs. 4-5: Next he launches into a missive about the FISA warrant.
Pg 4: In the initial letter Page sent back on May 22, 2017 in response to Congress’ May 9 request that he retain relevant documents and come and answer questions before Congress he declared that the Russia investigation was becoming ‘all encompassing and tangenital.’
He then goes on to extravagantly praise the House Committee’s own ‘four highly focused and analytic questions that reflect a high level of thoughtfulness and offer a constructive framework for analysis.’
Then he contrasts this highly focused, thoughtful, and constructive framework for analysis with the alleged disinformation of ‘Clinton and their international associates, in coordination with the Obama WH.’
Pg. 308: Mr. Foster is back to demanding if they did oppo work on Romney as if if that’s so this proves it’s a Democratic firm. It’s just like with the FBI investigations the rule seems to be that you have to prove your not a Democrat, take a loyalty oath that you’re not a Dem
Pg. 307: They learned that Cohen handled all the tough inquiries about Russia
306-307: This helped them figure out over time that Cohen had a role in the campaign-and not just Trump Organization.
Pgs. 305-306: Sergei Milan: according to the dossier Source D. According to Steele this is not his real name and they found a picture of him with Trump real estate investor in Florida, and that he was Facebook and/or Twitter friends with Michael Cohen. So Cohen is someone worse Mueller talking to to learn more about Source D.
Pg. 282: Mr. Levy: Summarizing testimony is dangerous after nine hours of it, if you want to ask him a question, ask him a question.
Pg. 280: He declines to answer what steps were taking to verify the sources for the dossier. His lawyer, Levy, argues that someone has already been killed over the dossier ‘and nobody else should die over this honest work.’
Also that: he’s answered your questions for nine hours and is declining to answer this one.
Pg. 274: Simpson denies Rinat is a source
Pg. 272:
Pg. 241: Regarding Carter Page, Simpson touches on something important: Trump’s allies and much of the press would get stuck on the idea that Page doesn’t look like the type at all-he sure doesn’t look like the part, it’s hard to believe that such a marginal looking character-a ‘lightweight’-could have had this important role and Simpson makes the point that’s why he’d be perfect as a cutout. This is something many people likewise failed to understand regarding Rob Goldstone; when you select a cutout you want someone who doesn’t look the part.
240: Igor Sechin is Putin’s ‘number one compadre in the kleptocracy.’
Speaking of Steele he just won a case in a DC court
The judge noted that Alfa’s cofounders could not, on the one hand, argue that Steele accused them of cooperating with Russia’s election interference, while on the other hand claim that such an explosive revelation would not be in the public interest. https://t.co/0eZ0EUGYro
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) August 21, 2018
Pgs. 232-233: The 2nd memo precipitated by the hacks and the fact that Simpson mentioned Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
Pg. 232: the FBI told them they don’t like media coverage? They do when the subject is the Clinton emails.
Pg. 228: Both Simpson and Steele were concerned with what was going on at the FBI based on the NYT article claiming the FBI had found nothing on Trump and Russia. The question remains-with this a deliberate misinformation campaign by the same Trump loyalists behind the leaks about Weiner’s laptop, etc?
Pg 223: In a point that also came up at Rinat’s hearings on the Trump Tower meeting, he was also present at the conference where Steele spoke to McCain and Kramer. Steele says that’s the first he’s been aware of the information
Pgs. 220-221: Steele asked Simpson about David Kramer, John McCain’s longterm policy adviser and Steele assured him that Kramer’s legit. Kramer had come across Sir Andrew Wood-who had been an important source of Steele’s for the dossier.
Pg. 180: Mr. Davis asks him if he knows Aras Agalarov-a very good question as Aras was central to the Trump Tower Russia meeting
Pg. 179: Steele worried that the FBI was being manipulated politically by the Trump people
Pg. 178: They got questions from the press about wether the FBI was also investigating Trump and they encouraged the media to ask the FBI-we know how that one worked out. The NYTimes wrote a story on October 31 stating that the FBI investigated Trump and Russia and found nothing there.
After that Steele severed his ties with the FBI.
Pg. 178: Simpson testifies that he and Steele were concerned about the Comey intervention on October 28-as Comey had refused to even discuss the issue of Russia’s interference on October 1 claiming it was too close to the election.
Simpson: ‘So it made a lot of people including us wonder ‘what the heck is going on at the FBI?’
Pg. 175: Simpson declines to answer question on identity of the informant on the basis of security pointing out that people who get on the wrong side of the Russians tend to get hurt. This informant was someone totally independent of Steele’s sources.
Pgs. 174-175: In late September, Steele told Simpson that he got a full debriefing from the FBI. Simpson got the idea based on what he said that the FBI had other sources that back up what the dossier said-including a human source within the Trump campaign-this became a new GOP obsession with the idea that the informant was actually a spy-aka spygate
Pg. 173: By then it was obvious a crime was being committed-political espionage, hacking into the computers of organizations and Democrats
Pg. 172: the FBI gets back to Steele in mid to late September
Pg. 172: Here is some stark irony-not Simpson’s thought but very start in its irony: there was no political angle to the reports as the DOJ has rules against doing things that impact a US election! Yes but there is the Hillary Clinton Exception.
Pg. 170: Now another question about is if Steele had a 2nd meeting with the FBI and Simpson confirms that he did. But why this focus? Why’s it so important?
Pg. 167: Next Ms. Sawyer pushes him on who he told about Steele going to the FBI-if anyone. Again what’s the relevance? Simpson refuses to answer.
Pg. 166: The allegedly Democratic lawyers push Simpson on who Steele spoke to at the FBI. He finally gave who he inferred and it was redacted. Why is that information releveant
Pg. 165: When incorrect stories came out he and Steele would discuss it.
Pg. 159: By this time, Steele had already met once with the FBI and the question was wether the research they’d done on Russia was related to the public information about the hack of the DNC. Simpson surmises that by then in Steele’s mind it was already a criminal matter.
Pg. 158: the second memo released on July 26, 2016 was in response to the public reporting about the hack.
Pg. 154: Simpson points out that the key line in the second paragraph reads: ‘However, he and his inner circle, accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals.’ Remember Manafort’s meeting with Kilimnik in early August where they discussed the political campaign including the hacking of the DNC, etc.
Then at the end of 154-start of 155 he explicitly ties this sentence of ‘a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin on his Democratic and other political rivals’ to the Trump campaign’s clear willingness to sit for a meeting with who they believed had ties to the Russian government regarding
Recall
Pg. 154: Asked about wether the alleged Russian dossier on Hillary Clinton really existed-he said ‘I’ll get to that in a moment’ then pushed back over a characterization of the first report by Steele as not dealing with Russia’s interference.
Pg. 151: According to him the Chinese government tried to swing the 1996 election to the Democrats. He also wrote about how McCain met with Oleg Deripaska just before the 2008 election and Manafort’s meetings with Oleg and other Russian oligarchs
Malcom Nance pointed out that after 9/11 Russia under Putin began to recruit the Western Right wing and bond over their common Islamophobia.
Pg. 150: He was very familiar with the Chinese government’s interference in the U.S. election of 1996
Pg. 149: Beyond that what Simpson looked at was his own knowledge of Russia’s animus towards Hillary Clinton and the long history of foreign interference in American elections.
Pg. 148: A large part of why Simpson says he took this seriously-when it might well have seemed like wild, outlandish ‘conspiracy theories’ is Steele’s reputation-he doesn’t make things up and he doesn’t sell baloney. This is the reputation he’s build over many years and it’s the view of many in the U.S. government to boot.
Pg. 147: Simpson notes that when he sent Christopher Steele to Russia to investigate he was expecting something ‘much less interesting’-just a normal business corruption case-which is what many in the MSM treated it like for the first year or so-until news of the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians in early June, 2016 broke
Pg. 143: While Simpson and GPS went in looking to research Trump’s business dealings in Russia, what they found was ‘a much broader set of issues’ indeed, a ‘political conspiracy.’
When the first memo arrived on June 20, 2016 it became clear that ‘something much bigger was going on’ that ‘the government of Russia or someone was doing some hacking’ and that ‘political espionage was going to be a component of the campaign.’
Pg. 133: So he ate with her on the 8th and the 10th and saw her in court and greeted her on the 9th but had no idea of the Trump Tower meeting-when it broke in July 2017 ‘I was stunned’
Pg. 117: He ate with NK in NY on June 8-day before the meeting-and in DC on June 10-the day after
Pg. 114: Doesn’t know first hand about any ties between Rinat and the Russian government but in light of the news of the Trump Tower meeting ‘I share everyone’s interest in the answer to the question.’
Pg. 111: Rinat showed up at meetings in 2016 and Ed Lieberman-an associate of Rinat’s that came up in Rinat’s testimony-showed up at a couple.
Pg. 107: Simpson DOES know the interpreter Samochornov. He also knows Rinat.
Pg. 99: GOP lawyer Foster asks if they billed on the hour and if they billed for talking to the press. Geez-who cares? This is such a juicy case but all they want to do is focus on process in the hope of protecting the illegitimate ‘President’
Pg. 94. Sawyer the allegedly Democratic lawyer keeps flogging why was Steele hired what was the nature of the relationship, who were the clients… WHO CARES? When the issue of Carter Page it was like ‘Ick! We don’t care what the research said. The GOP only cares about who commissioned it.’
Pg. 90: Ms Sawyer, lawyer for Feinstein sure spends a lot of time on the GOP worry over WHO was behind this research who the clients were what features about them can you give? Who cares? Let’s here more about what he found
Pg. 88: When Steele went to Moscow to ask about Trump’s relationship to the Kremlin people were talking about it freely.
Pg. 78: the investigation into Trump didn’t begin with a primary focus on Russia but as they amassed public information it begun to point in that particular direction so he brought in a specialist on Russian kleptocracy-Christopher Steele as a subcontractor
Pg. 73: When you investigate Donald Trump you want a record of every lawsuit he’s ever been in
Pg. 71: Simpson says they looked at Trump’s tax bills-but what about the tax returns?
Pg. 70: Wasn’t really a Russia focused investigation for the first half
Pg. 68-69: Semyon Mogilevich is leader of the dominant Russian crime family and was also totally connected with the Prevezon case as well.
Pg. 67-68: From early in researching Trump his ties to Felix Sater became an important frame of reference
Pg. 62: Research on Trump begun as a look at his business record-bankruptcies, associations, offshore accounts, but it quickly morphed into his relationship to organized crime figures
Pg. 51: Browder’s company Peter Star was involved with Red Notice the biggest deal for Salomon in history at the time. Peter Star later became the target of a massive pan-European corruption investigation that led to Putin’s telecom’s minister having to resign.
Pg. 50: Browder-who’s testimony is very informative and illuminating-unlike with basically all the witnesses in the Trump Tower meeting he seems not to be evasive and is interested in really giving you the full truth-as opposed to the truth in the most narrow legalistic sense. He actually has researched corruption and Putin’s authoritarianism in Russia for many years.
He wondered how Browder made $230 million dollars in Russia and linked him to a company called Peter Star. Browder did business with the mayor’s office in St. Petersburg-while Putin was the deputy mayor.
Pg 49: Considering his skepticism on Browder you’d wonder what Simpson would make of what Vesselntiskaya and Putin have said about him publicly?
Pg. 33: Why does Davis want to know the names of everyone-employees, subcontractors? Is there relevancy here or is it just a kind of enemies list being put together? Will these folks named now be targeted?
Pg. 32: Simpson calls out Davis’ tactic of lumping in so many different inferences into allegedly just one question.
Pg 27: Simpson is asked about GPS’ role in representing Prevezon Holdings during the DOJ’s case against it. Of course-Natalia Vesselntiskaya and Rinat also represent PH-which is another reason the GOP was interested in finding links between NV, Rinat and PH on the one hand and Glenn Simpson and GPS on the other.
Pg 25: It’s very early and Grassley’s lawyer is already much more aggressive than he was in the hearings on the Trump Tower meeting. He’s demanding Simpson say if any client every commissioned work with the express purpose of using it to start a government investigation-the idea seems to be that it’s all a witch hunt caused by Glenn Simpson
Davis again asks if GPS ever had a job where the client’s pay is dependent on GPS providing information that leads to the opening of a federal investigation
Pg. 19: Why is it necessary for Grassley’s attorney, Davis to know the names of the employees at Fusion? He also asked for the bank account and Simpson’s lawyer pushed back on that one
Pg. 235: Now they’re trying to link Rinat to the Clinton Foundation…
Pg. 231: Back to Glenn Simpson-did he ever speak to him about the Trump Tower Russia meeting prior to the story becoming public?
Pg. 228-229: ‘Almost certain’ that at no time while he was in the US did he violate any immigration laws
Pg. 227: Now asked about Lieberman-is he an agent of or does he do any work for the Russian government
Pg. 223: Has he ever worked as intelligence agent or officer for the Russian government, the previous Soviet government or GRU?
Pg. 212: He met Clinton through Ed Lieberman’s wife.
Pg. 211: Very next question after lengthy redactions was: Q: Do you know Hillary Clinton? A: I know her, yes.
Says he ‘probably met her first in the late 1990s.’
Pgs. end of page 209 to halfway down 211 redacted
Pg. 209:
The law firm in question? Baker Hostetler
After this revelation the next page and a half is redacted.
Pg. 208: Then he reveals there was other work he did prior to HRAGI that required FARA and that his attorney requested that he not have to file based on privilege. This was in relation to his work for the government of Kyrgzstan. Pg. 207: Is he registered under FARA? No and he was asked to do so in Spring of 2017 for his work for HRAGI.
Pg. 205-206: the order from the Treasury in March, 2014 to sanction Viktor Ivanov among other Russian oligarchs, etc. Among other things, Ivanov is a close ally of Putin. So did Rinat work with Ivanov after he was sanctioned? He insists he hasn’t worked with him in years.
Pg 204: Bring into evidence his First Declaration in the IMR case.
Pg 200-202: Mr. Davis discusses his work with Viktor Ivanov; he placed an op-end in the Washington Times
Pg. 200: Asked directly if he ever provided any information directly or indirectly to Wikileaks
Pg. 200: Another allegation of hacking the lawyers of Mr. Ashot against Rinat in the NYT is cited
Pg. 197: Insists to not ‘know any hackers’ and not remember the terms of a settlement in IMR’s lawsuit. Asked if as part of the settlement he admitted to any guilt in the hacking and distribution he insists ‘absolutely not.’ Better not be lying here as that can easily be checked.
Pg. 196: He claims that he ‘absolutely did not’ work with Russian hackers to hack IMR
Pg. 194: Judge rules that the emails between Rinat and ECVK’s counsel support IMR’s accusation that he had organized the hacking of their computers for specific information.
Pg. 193-194: Rinat withheld documents but asserting various privileges but the judge in the case ruled there was sufficient evidence for the crime fraud exception to apply
Pg. 192-193: Caught on tape handing over thumb drive of IMR. Explained that the head of security he was dealing from at EuroChem was a former KGB agent.
Pg. 182: Finally it gets a little good-he’s asked about being accused in a federal court of computer espionage while working at EuroChem
Pg. 171: Said he didn’t have Goldstone’s number and ‘I didn’t care about him’ but that he did help NV in preparing for the NBC interview
Pg. 168: another call between Rinat and Ike on July 14, 2017
Pg. 166-167: Get him Ms. Claflin! He claims to have had one 19 minute call with him in November and then just happens to call him July 8, 2017 of the next year the day the story of the Trump Tower meeting breaks in the NYT.
Pg. 166: She pushes him on the one hand claiming ‘I barely knew the guy’ but yet being close enough to text him for ‘a quick call.’
Pgs, 161-162: Asked about a phone call with Ike on November 14-did he remember anything about it-his answer: yes.
Didn’t he previously testify to never speaking to Ike again?
Pg. 159-160: Ms. Claflin calls Rinat on pronouncing the dossier ‘total rubbish’-what are his sources; he admits he has none just his personal opinion.’
Pg 158: Spoke too soon they’re still on Fusion GPS. Now they’re asking Rinat about this London club that provides info for certain connected folks-do intelligence agencies ever plant misinformation? What they’re obviously reaching for is the idea that the dossier was somehow itself Russian disinformation-the Russians themselves decided to put out a fake story that they helped the Trump campaign win.
Pg. 154: Finally, switching gears off the dossier and onto something very interesting-the accusation that Rinat was part of a worldwide hacking conspiracy against a mining company
Pg. 153: Still on the Glenn Simpson trail. His very name is somehow sinister. There’s no problem with colluding with the Russian government but putting together a dossier that documents it-now that’s just wrong.
Pg. 149-150: Back on the Glenn Simpson hobby horse. Rinat does say he heard rumors of the dossier’s existence in the summer of 2016
Pg 143: Q: Did he discuss Trump Tower meeting with Lieberman
A: By then he knew of it
Q: How did he come to know
A: I told him
Pg. 142: Claims that in Spring of 2017 he advised both NV and Ike to get ahead of the story of the Trump Tower meeting as he reasoned with the level of scrutiny on the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russians it was only a matter of time till the story of the June 9, 2016 meeting came out.
Pg. 140: Rinat basically slanders Weiss who wrote the CNN article by claiming that Browder paid him for the article he wrote. When Mr. Foster asks him for proof his lawyer says it’s attorney-client privilege. So the allegation isn’t privileged but backing it up is…
Pg. 139: Rinat responded that he never asked him to do anything specific on Prevezon as ‘there’s separation of powers here.’
Pg 139: It IS GOOD! Rinat admits that Rohrbacher asked about the Prevezon case and Browder
Pg. 138: Mr. Davis reads from CNN article: ‘U.S. Congressman Talks Money Laundering with alleged ex Spy in Berlin.’
This should be good! Note this meeting occurred before the Trump Tower meeting became public knowledge
Let’s submit this CNN article into evidence!
Pg. 137: Met with Rohrbacher in Berlin during April, 2017
Pg. 129: Rinat on Rohrbacher: He’s a very good guy and I have great respect for him
He admits to talking to Rohrbacher about the Magnitsky Act
Pg. 119: Rinat is shown the email chain of late June between Goldstone and Dan Scavino-Donald Jr and Rhona were CCed in.
Pg. 117: Rinat is asked if anyone asked that Trump fire Preet Bharara due to the DOJ lawsuit against Prevezon Holdings. He categorically denied it. What is a fact, however, is that Trump did fire Preet very soon into his ‘Presidency’ and that NV was complaining to Ike late in November when Trump first met with Preet and didn’t fire him.
Interesting testimony coming up but don’t want to kill the surprise.
Pg. 111: Claims not to know if the Katsyvs for the Agalarovs asked NV to set up the meeting.
Pg. 107: Under questioning Rinat admits he told a couple of friends from the AP press about the meeting but that they weren’t allowed to report on it-strictly off the record-but on the other hand he-allegedly-told Lieberman nothing about it.
Pgs. 103-104: Asks if they can ‘take Rinat back for a moment’ to his bumping into Ivanka in the lobby.
Pg. 103: Interviewer ‘helps’ Rinat recover his memory regarding that he knew all along Lieberman was a close confidant of Clinton. Next helps him on ‘forgetting’ the friend he met for a drink beforehand.
Pg. 103: Rinat states that he imagined Lieberman also knew Hillary Clinton well.
Pg 102: Ed Lieberman’s late wife- Rinat had dinner with Ed Lieberman the evening after the Trump Tower meeting-was a close confidant of Hillary Clinton.
Pg. 101: Asked if it was ‘a significant event’ to meet Don Jr Rinat says he was more amused than anything and that he’s ‘not a fan of the whole family.’
Pg. 96-97: NK was disappointed in the general lack of interest by Jr, Kushner, and Manafort on Ziff Brothers, Browder, etc. Amin comments: knowledge of the American political system is not her strength. Indeed, this is why it seemed very unlikely that Russia was able to do an email dump of the DNC or Podesta without American guidance. According to Mueller’s indictments, Wikileaks advised GRU on releasing the DNC emails as close to the start of the Dem convention as possible
Pg. 85-86: Donald Jr says ‘come back and see us again when we win’
Pgs. 77-78: Rinat says Don Jr was ‘definitely in charge’ which is strange in a way as the way many described the meeting, he didn’t say that much-NK did most of the actual talking.
She went into her usual spiel-evil Bowder, evil Ziff Brothers, $880 million dollars, ‘big contributors to the DNC.’
Jr then asks if she can explain ‘how this money goes to Hillary; is there paperwork, etc.’
Pg. 70: He denies ever knowing Manafort prior to the meeting but they note the NYT reported otherwise.
They had him being a long time associate of Manafort. So far no one has breathed a word that Rinat was also a suspect in a worldwide hacking conspiracy
More on Rinat and the worldwide hacking conspiracy
Pg. 67: Regarding why NV thought all this Bill Bowder-Ziff Brothers stuff would interest the Trump campaign Rinat responded because at the end of her memo it mentioned they were one of the biggest contributors to the DNC.
Pg. 61: Issue of NDAs again in VK’s notes she states that Rinat- and Samochurnov – singed NDAs
Pg 57: Rinat says he advised NV not to throw everything at Donald Jr and friends right away-do small talk, congratulate them on their primary win; he says Russians don’t tend to to small talk they cut right to it. It doesn’t sound as if VK listened to that advice.
Pg 50: Claims VK invited him to the Trump Tower meeting on June 9-the day of the meeting. Claims she didn’t tell him the exact reason for the meeting
Pg. 14 Things get interesting right off the bat as they quote from his testimony in a previous lawsuit where he stated: ‘some of my clients are national governments or high ranking officials of national governments.’
Basically this meeting seems to be a bait and switch: it was sold to the Russian contingent as being about the Magnitsky Act and the Trump contingent as being about negative information on ClintonNatalia Vesselnitskaya’s written testimony
Pg 51-52: Her conclusion-this is all because of a devious and massive conspiracy by Bill Browder-the issue of interference and collusion are his inventions in a bid to fight back against Neskrov’s film.
Pgl 50 Question 94: she again reiterates that it’s not a meeting with a campaign but rather a ‘meeting with the son of her good friend’-I thought she said she didn’t know Trump?
Kyle Parker is another boogeyman of her’s.
Pg 42. Around here-starting with question 86-the GOP highjacks the hearing into 200 questions about Glenn Simpson.
Pg. 41: At Rohrbacher’s Putin friendly committee, NV identifies Michael McFaul as one of Russia’s enemies. Just recently at Helsinki Putin had suggested Trump send McFaul to Russia to be questioned in exchange for letting us speak to those indicted in Mueller probe. Trump thought that was ‘a very generous offer..’
Pgs 39-40. She goes into considerable detail on how after being denied a number of times in the past she was finally able to obtain a Visa to enter the US. The fact that she was able to this time came to be pretty controversial as the DOJ had a case against her company.
Pg. 39: Number 83 is about the reason for her larger stay between June 8-10. According to her testimony, the Trump Tower meeting was just coincidental to the reason for her visit-her legal representation of Prevezon Holdings.
Pg. 38: Her response to question 82 in particular appears to be a blatant lie-both Goldstone and Ike testify that she DID seek a followup meeting in late November but that the interest was not reciprocated
Pg. 31: Interestingly NV dismisses Jr’s promise that if they do win, perhaps they’d revisit this ‘strange and confusing story.’
In Ike’s testimony he claimed that the Russian contingent took Jr’s promise to consider revisiting if they won the election a win. Yet, NV says she totally dismissed it. So why then try to set up another meeting in November? I’d thought perhaps she’d latch onto that rather contingent vow as reason but she testifies that she took it as a ‘an elegant and final farewell.’
Pg. 30: She indignantly insists she didn’t meet with the ‘Trump campaign’ just Donald Jr, but that she discovered Jr couldn’t help her. It’s pretty hard to believe she ever did think the best way to reach out to the Subcommittee on Europe was to talk to Donald Trump Jr.
Pg. 30: Her claim that she wanted Donald Jr to help her with some Congressional hearing about Neskaov’s film and regarding Magnitsky and Bowder isn’t very plausible. Why would this be a major interest for senior member of the Trump campaign at such an important moment in the campaign-the mad dash for delegates to lock down Trump’s nomination at the convention? She wants us to believe that talk of advising a Congressional Subcommittee on Europe and Magnistky would be entice Jr to take out time in the middle of such a busy moment in the campaign?
Pg 29: She continues to insist that she was totally agnostic about the US Presidential race. If so why meet with high ranking senior aides in the Trump campaign? If she wanted to lobby Congress why not-meet with members of Congress on the House Foreign Affairs Committee?
Here’s what makes no sense: she says there was mutual dissatisfaction with the meeting. Why then did she attempt to set up another one in November?
Pg. 28: NV blames ‘the roguish letters of Mr. Goldstone’ for a ‘mutual sense of disappointment’ between NK and Donald Jr-who was looking for Clinton dirt-possibly that Russia had the deleted emails as was a popular conspiracy in the fake news Trump sites of the time
Pg. 25: ‘I would be honored to be an attorney for the Russian government but I don’t work for the Russian government.’
Pg. 23: So NV claims that she received the email about the specifics of the meeting only on June 8-that she was already, conveniently enough, in the US on unrelated business. Of course, while she claims not to have set up the meeting it was totally her brainchild. Basically according to her telling, she told Aras Agalarov what she wanted to do and he did a lot of the execution and legwork to make it happen
Pg. 21: She entitles #5 very appropriately ‘Coming back to the events of May-June 2016’ as that was quite a long and winding detour she took us off on her long tangents about Bowder and Ziff.
She seems to be setting up to argue that the unfair banning of Nekraskov’s film led her to propose the Trump Tower meeting in an effort to get the truth about the fiendish Bowder to Congress. But why she chose to speak to the Trump campaign rather than members of the U.S. Congress is yet another interesting question.
Pg. 18: She goes into great detail cataloging Bowder-and the Ziff Brothers-alleged crimes and sins. She talks a lot about Gazrpom which, according to the Steele dossier Carter Page was offered a 19% stake in it if sanctions were removed.
Lo and behold after the election a 19.5% stake in Gazrpom was sold. The identity of the buyer was hidden but there’s plenty of reason to suspect it was Page and his company.
An anti Magnitsky film by Nekraskov who seems to have been recruited by NV
Literally the very next paragraph, she goes on a rant on the unfair reception of Nekraskov’s film. Seymour Hersh hostted it-he’s become a useful idiot… Putin’s favorite Congressman Dana Rohrbacher was there.
Pg. 11 She reveals Rinat was her former colleague on the Prevezon case.
Pg. 11 Yet she claims that after suggesting this to Aras, it was not her idea, and she never hears more about it until she is informed by Rob Goldstone on June 8 of the meeting for the next day.
Pg. 10: She testifies in writing that she spoke to Aras Agalarov about setting up the meeting which according to her was to educate Congress about Bill Bowder’s successfully conning them into passing the Magnitsky Act. For some reason she thought that the best way to influence Congressional opinion was talking to Donald Jr-rather than, .say, Congress.
Having finished fulminating and calumniating Bill Bowder, she moves on to her planning of the Trump Tower meeting that she dates ‘On or about May 31, 2016’
Pg. 5: She delves into the SDNY’s case against Prevezon Holdings-a company she represents. This is basis for why she wanted Trump to fire Preet. Was she and/or other Putin connected officials behind the firing of Preet?
Preet himself on why Trump fired him.
Her style-demonizing Bowder and making him responsible for every problem in the world or at least the entire Russia investigation reminds you of the way Stalin and his allies blamed Trotsky for every human evil and wrong in the world once he was excommunicated-everything at bottom was due to his fiendish machinations. Trotsky was THE bogeyman for many years after-ending only with the rise of Khrushchev
Pg. 3: Regarding the meeting ‘We had a very short conversation but Bill Bowder seems to be trying to prove the opposite.’
Pg. 2 Blames the hearings-the fact that both she and her associates and the Trump WH are under investigation for collusion all to a fiendishly clever plot by Bowder. Claims the only reason anyone knows her name and her part in the Trump Tower meeting was because of the ‘direct and indirect actions’ of Bowder.
Irakly “Ike” Kaveladze’s Testimony
Kaveladze:
Trump, the Agalarovs and the Crocus Group
Pg; 235-236: They call him on how he’s so sure NV is a private attorney as he said he didn’t know her very well. Then on Pg. 236 admits that he got some texts from her with the letters GP on them which he said could be the Prosecutor General’s office.
Pgs> 232-233: Interviewers point out that Ike had earlier said ‘If Magnistky Act was overturned WE would change the adoption policy.’
Pgs. 231-232: Ike agrees with Goldstone’s statement that meeting between V and Trump campaign was thanks to a ‘personal request by us and was in no was connected to the Russian government or any of its officials.’
Pg. 218: Look at documents that demonstrate Goldstone’s lie to Washington Post reporter that he rather than Emin originated the meeting
Pg. 203: Ike receives an email from Emin Agalarov with a picture of Trump and Putin with the message ‘we’re waiting on the draft from you-speed up.’
‘We’re already in Edinburgh and the person from PM is flying in as well.’
Pg. 189: An email he received from Roman Beniaminov is introduced into evidence. A conversation about a reporter that approached Agalarov’s residence. Ike forwards it to Beniaminov.
Pg. 188: On June 2, 2017 Ike received texts from Goldstone about the Trump Tower meeting of June 9, 2016. He called Goldstone back but claimed in testimony not to remember any details of what they actually discussed. He speculated it was because of the news reports of the June 9, 2016 meeting.
But the interviewer asks him if the story had broke yet at that time. Ike insists it had but, actually, it first broke on July 8, 2017 over a month subsequent to the phone call with Goldstone
Pg. 185: Text messages to Ike from Goldstone after story of Trump Tower meeting hits in June, 2017
Pg. 182: Ike asked about Natalia’s words ‘who to crush and not to crush…’
Ike insists this is mere ‘slang’ not to be taken seriously. Like Trump said ‘It’s just words, just locker room talk.’
Then she asks him: what stays behind his decision to keep that gentleman’-ie, Preet.
For more on Ms. Vesselnitskaya a ‘fearsome Moscow insider’
This line-and we’ll see how Ike explains away this is shocking on so many levels beginning with how was she so plugged into what transpired in Trump’s meeting with Preet and was she or any other Russian officials in on the ultimate decision to fire Bharara.
Pg. 180: back on the topic of Preet Bharara-and what Natalia said about him. Good question for Ike: as he didn’t even know who Preet was previously how did he know if as Natalia asked ‘this is a bad sign’ or not?
Pgs. 173-174:
He insists the ‘RF’ in the subject line of an email is not the Russian Federation despite what’s stated in the paragraph. He asserts all that was meant was ‘From Russia’
He’s asked if he has other people who email him with the subject line ‘From Russia’
Sort of like Goldstone’s claim that when he referenced ‘the Russian government’s support for your father’ he didn’t really mean the Russian government but just a lot of people who happen to be and live in Russia.
Pgs. 171-172: Ike had said he wasn’t sure where he was in June after the meeting but suggested it was Los Angelos. But finally under questioning and viewing his phone records he ‘remembers’ being in Russia at this time. He attempts to downplay that-he does it every two months for Crocus. So ie, he’s trying to suggest that his visiting Russia so soon subsequently to the meeting was wholly coincidental.
Pg. 173
Pg. 147: Emails between Ike and N regarding American attitudes on Russian interference and all that
Pg. 142-143: While the 2nd Trump Tower meeting falls through, Natalia then emails Ike about: ‘President-elect Trump’s meeting with: Preet Bharara.
Natalia seems to think Trump was playing a game with Preet-showing he has the power on who to crush and not to crush. Ike claims to have never heard of Preet before and that she’d never mentioned him in their conversations before.
In fact Preet was overseeing the Prevezon Holdings case-that Natalia represented
Pg 134-135: email chain on November 23, 2016 between Ike and Natalia planning another Trump Tower meeting. The subject line in N’s email to I is ‘Russian Federation Country’-and it’s been pointed out that the ‘Crown prosecutor’ Rob Goldstone evoked in his June 3 email to Don Jr was likely the federal prosecutor of the Russian Federation-Yuri Chaika
Pg. 136: email chain between Ike and Goldstone
When Goldstone emails Rhona about another meeting, she forwards it to: Steve Bannon saying ‘not sure how to proceed if at all’
Pg. 124: Interviewers present Ike with the email chain where Goldstone talked about the ‘eerily weird news’ of the Russian hacks of the DNC right after the Trump Tower meeting…
Pg. 125: Ike emails back to Goldstone ‘Very interesting…’
Ike says he didn’t understand what was ‘eerily weird’ as there was no connection between the Trump Tower meeting and the DNC hacks. What he found eerily weird was that Goldstone would draw that link-and also the word ‘eerily’
He said that when he said ‘very interesting’ that was the polite response rather than ‘You’re an eerily weird person…’
Pg. 115: Here’s something new: When leaving the meeting they were greeted by Ivanka Trump upstairs at the reception
So she’s also clearly a ‘person of interest’
She hasn’t been interviewed by Mueller but that’s not necessarily at all good news.
Democrats say she needs to be interviewed
Pg 99: Ike was concerned bout the ‘morality and ethics’ of the situation-being with a Russian government lawyer as she disseminates negative information on Clinton to the Trump campaign. He also stated that he and his family voted for Clinton
So by his testimony he was:
1. A Clinton supporter at a meeting that promised oppo against Clinton
2. A supporter of the Magnitsky Act working with a Kremlin linked lawyer seeking to overturn Magnitsky
Pg. 93-93: Ike reveals he spoke to both ‘FM 2’ and ‘FM 3’ about the fact that the meeting would be about the Magnitsky Act AND after learning from Roman Benaminov on June 7. that it would have incriminating information on Clinton.
He spoke to FM2 both on the 6th-before Roman B-and after, when he also knew about oppo on Clinton. This FM turns out to be a teenage FM but Ike says he was concerned after he learnt there would be oppo on Clinton at the meeting
FM2 is older than FM3.
Pg. 71: Ike reveals that he was the one negotiating the Trump Tower Moscow deal with Donald Jr.
Pg .72: Emin-who Ike calls his ‘coworker’ brought him into the project
Pg. 68: Crocus Group accounts are all with Sberbank-a sanctioned Russian bank
Pg. 41:
Ike does say that Manafort appeared to know Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin
Note he’s not just a lobbyist but a suspect in a worldwide hacking conspiracy
Pg. 18: Ike claims he first met Vesselnitskaya on June 6, 2016
Yet he claims that ‘to the best of my knowledge’ she is not a lawyer for the Russian government. Here he contradicts what Goldstone said in his testimony on page 239
Pg. 19 Looks like Ike’s lawyer saves him from what Rudy would call ‘a perjury trap.’ He was set to state that Vesselntiskaya doesn’t work for the Crocus Group but then his lawyer clarifies if the question also includes if she provided legal services for them.
Pg. 20: Ike is all over the place on Vesselnitskaya and his relationship to her. He claims that he met her for the first time on June 6, 2016 yet can categorically declare she’s never worked for the government. He tried to claim that she never worked for Crocus but his lawyer sort of saved him from perjury there.
Now he says he has very little relationship to her but by his own admission he works at a fairly high level for Crocus and she’s the company’s lawyer.
He also says he has no knowledge of her representing the Agalarovs but hasn’t he already testified that Crocus is actually the Agalarov’s company? So this seems like more nitpicking by Ike just like his ‘She doesn’t work for Crocus she just represents them as a lawyer’
Pg. 20: Ok now we’re getting somewhere: according to Ike, Aras told him it was going to be about the Magnitsky Act. This is not at all how Rob Goldstone sold the meeting to Donald Jr. Both Goldstone and Jr acted as if Vesselnitskaya discussing the Magnitsky Act at such length was a sort of bait and switch. But that’s what Ike claims Aras told him about it.
According to Goldstone Emin who told him about the meeting mentioned nothing about Magnitsky. So if this is correct then Ike is pivotal: why if he was told it was about Magnitsky did he mention nothing of this to Emin?
On Pg. 22 he claims to actually be a supporter of the Magnitsky Act. Huh? Yet he put together a meeting between the Russian government and the Trump POTUS campaign about putting an end to it? And he claims to had this knowledge of the MA solely through newspaper accounts-rather than it effected his business interests
Pg. 23: Says that Goldstone emailed him a list of of the Trump Tower meeting participants on June 7
Goldstone:
Pg. 241: Ms. Claflin asks an interesting question: how did Goldstone come to be the middleman between Rhona Graff and the Agalarovs? Why did Emin or his father never write her himself?
Pg. 239 Goldstone’s description of what Emin told him about the proposed Trump Tower meeting-and why he wrote what he did in his email to Jr-clearly seems to evolve. Now he says that Emin told him Vesselntiskaya was a ‘well connected Russian attorney’ who met with Aras in his office
Pg. 237: At Moscow Miss Universe, Trump himself discussed doing a Trump Tower Moscow with the Agalarovs
Goldstone’s interview-if ‘it’s what you say I love it!’
Goldstone, the Agalarovs and the use of cutouts
As I explained last week, Russian intelligence, and Putin in particular, thrive on using cutouts to conduct sensitive intelligence activities. In effective terms, one could replace “helped along by Aras and Emin” with “helped along by Igor and Sergey” (the heads of Russia’s GRU intelligence service).
Second, Goldstone’s clarification (“part of Russia and it’s government’s support for Mr. Trump”) is offered at face value. That strongly implies Goldstone already knew that Trump Jr. knew what the Russians were doing.
Yet Jr registers no surprise. In his testimony interviewers question him-why was he not at all surprised? He claims it’s because he didn’t believe Goldstone anyway. Then why go to the meeting? It turns out that Goldstone sent him an email on Feb 29 that year that expressed the same basic thought-Russia supported his father’s campaign.
There’s one final takeaway here: The nature of Agalarov publicist and former British journalist, Rob Goldstone. Why is he relevant? Again, for intelligence reasons.
As I’ve noted before, there are major differences between the U.S. intelligence relationship with the Five-Eyes intelligence alliance and, say, France. But because Goldstone has a sustaining relationship with Russian intelligence intermediaries (Agalarovs), he has almost certainly been under the attention of British intelligence services.
Based on his failure to secure his Facebook profile, I would assess that Goldstone is not a very operationally secure man. Correspondingly, it is very likely that every phone and email conversation Goldstone had was recorded by GCHQ, the British equivalent of the NSA. There is likely much more to this story than we currently know.
Currently at Pg. 221
Pgs 220-221. So Goldstone’s ideal statement had a lot more information that the actual statement he ended up giving
Pg. 203: They review Goldstone’s initial statement when the Trump Tower meeting breaks to the Washington Post where Goldstone left out his client’s name-Emin Agalarov, and says that the meeting was ‘set up by us and in no way connected to the Russian government or its officials.’
That statement certainly seems to wildly contradict Goldstone’s email to Donald Jr on June 3, 2016.
Pg 157: Goldstone testifies that he has been approached by Mueller
Pgl 154 Goldstone is like
Q: ‘Did you see Trump speak with any Russian government officials?
Goldstone: I saw him to talk to many Russian business officials.
Q: Did you see him talk to Peskov?
A: Yes I saw him talk to Peskov.
Q: And who is Peskov?
A: Putin’s spokesman
Pg 152 a letter from Scarmaucci telling Goldstone ‘If you ever need to pick my brains my door is always open.’
He obliquely refers to ‘pressure on all sides’ which must be a reference to the Trump Tower meeting and that ‘if we stay united we will be able to ride this out.’
Pg. 153 he claims not to have known Scaramucci when receiving this email
A Goldstone-Scarmucci connection was uncovered in May
On early pg 140s it occurs to me that Goldstone’s lawyer Futerfas is actually a Trump lawyer. That’s quite arguably NOT in Goldstone’s best interest-presumably his first loyalty is to Trump
Pg. 125: So after all that the Trump Tower meeting was allegedly so unproductive, such a waste of time, Goldstone and Ike tried to set up another meeting with Vesselnitskaya after the election.
Pg. 114: Goldstone is eager to clarify that Konstantin is who had him send the emails about VK-the Russian FB-doing a Vote Trump page. Which Konstantin is that?
It’s actually this one:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/russian-social-media-executive-sought-to-help-trump-campaign-in-2016-emails-show/2017/12/07/31ec8d90-db9a-11e7-b859-fb0995360725_story.html?utm_term=.1c862276c08a
Pg. 110: Goldstone defines collusion as literally using the words ‘collusion’ or ‘colluded with Russia’ anything short of that and ‘No collusion!’ a la Trump
Pg 53. Interestingly Mr. Davis presents an email to Goldstone-who described the Trump Tower meeting as one where no one said much of anything other than Vessennitskaya on the Magnitsky Act-he wrote to Don Jr on June 8 where he floats the Vote Trump Facebook page with VK, describing the owner of VK as ‘a personal friend.’
Then on Pg 54 Davis shows him his email from June 29 to Scavino. In this email he’d stated that he’d mentioned the idea to Manafort and Jr at the meeting; Goldstone had testified that he personally had zoned out and said nothing of consequence at the meeting. This is certainly of consequence.
Pg. 55: Goldstone tries to downplay it as a casual aside as they walked out of the room-he was apologizing for the meeting and mentioned the VK idea. What he doesn’t seem to realize here is that they have his email from January pitching the VK idea.
In Jr’s interview they had presented him with a similar such email from Goldstone but this was on June 29 and was addressed to social media director Dan Scavino where Jr and Rhona were cced in.
Pgs 22-23. Goldstone is clearly having a hard time explaining the plain words of the email where he said ‘it’s obviously very high level and sensitive information but it is part of Russia and its government support for Mr. Trump helped along by Aras and Emin.’
He had claimed to question Emin on what he meant by calling the Kremlin lawyer ‘well connected’ but by the time he emailed Jr he seemed to have no problem understanding what ‘well connected’ in Russia would mean-to Putin’s government.
He claims to have meant something much more vague than a clear reading of the words imply.
It’s also not as he claims the first time he said something like this in an email-in a February, 29, 2016 email he again implied that the Russian government supported Trump and passed along Aras’ congratulations on his Super Tuesday wins.
Pg. 16 claims to ‘have no idea’ about Emin Aglarov’s ties to the Russian government but his email to Donald Jr on June 3, 2016-or the one in January, or on February 29 or the one in July 2015 when he offered Trump a direct meeting with Putin might suggest otherwise-he was the messenger boy in this proposals for Emin-who was mostly his father Aras’ own mouthpiece.
Aras clearly has major ties to Putin’s government. How else could Goldstone in his June 3 pitch to Jr claim that Aras had a meeting with Russia’s’ ‘crown prosecutor’ and as a result the Russian government was providing dirt on Clinton as part of ‘the Russian government’s support for your father?’
For more on Goldstone:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/rob-goldstone-donald-trump-jr-meeting
Finished Senate Transcripts for Don Jr.
Pg. 184 Jr evokes the name Allen Weisselberg as the TO’s CFO
Pg. 192 Jr makes a show of not knowing who Lavrov is then asks if he’s ‘the gentleman in Michael Cohen’s email?’
Pg. 193 Jr claims not to know who Igor Sechin-who offered 19% of Rosnet to Carter Page in exchange for Trump changing US policy on Crimea.
Pg. 201: Jr claims to have learned of the hacks of the DNC through public sources like everyone else
Pg. 206: He’s asked if he talked to anyone-then he’s asked specifically about Dan Scavino- about the use of the Podesta emails or DNC hacks. As the tweet from Scavino from May 11, 2016 shows, this would be in character for Scavino-who handles Trump’s twitter feed.
Also denies knowing Konstantin Kilimnik
Jr’s lawyer, Abe Futeras, ‘helpfully’ chimes in that he thought Kisylank was the ‘NRA person.’ Not even close-and he may know that; actually Putin’s foreign minister
Pgs. 210-211: He admits to tweeting about Comey’s testimony but then denies speaking with Trump or anyone else in the WH or Trump Org about it.
Pgs. 213-214: Claims Trump never spoke to him of his frustrations with the Russia investigation-very hard to believe.
Pgs. 214-215: admits to going to Turkey in ‘mid November-early December’ on a hunting trip. The name of who he went with is redacted
Pgs. 216-217: Admits to ‘certainly having casual conversations with Manafort’ after he was fired in August 18, 2016. ‘Casual conversations’ that he doesn’t remember any details about.
Pg. 217: Claims he last saw Manafort when he came by Jr’s office-in Trump Tower-in around April, 2017.
Pg. 169: Jr keeps up his poise of total ignorance and lack of memory. He claims not to know if Trump Org allowed anonymous buyers of apartments-the answer is yes which is what first linked Trump with the Russian launderers. As for due diligence there was none.
Jr was then asked if buyers who wanted to pay all in cash was accepted-he pretended not to know this either but the correct answer is ‘Hell yes!’
On Pg. 122, Jr is asked about a speech he gave in October, 2016 at the Center for Political and Foreign Affairs
He admits to eating lunch with Fabian Baussert and his wife and spoke about ‘general political issues.’ Jr says less Russia than Syria as Baussert’s wife is Syrian. But as a Syria, she may well have had a particular interest in shaping US and Russian policy. Depending on her place in Syrian society-guessing she didn’t support the rebels…
Pg. 123-124 Jr is asked bluntly if he agreed to collude with Baussert and his wife.
Pgs. 124-125: a new email chain containing Jr and Jane Jones-an CPFA employee-in April 2017 about a proposed meeting with Fabien while at a G7 meeting in Sicily-the G7 she reasoned would be ‘the perfect cover’-and there’s be no media, no photos-‘everything discrete.’
Pg. 127-128: he’s asked about eating with Alexander Torshin-Butima’s friend-who were using the NRA for Russian infiltration .
Pg. 129: He’s asked about Felix Sater.
Asked if he traveled to Russia with Sater he stipulates that he didn’t ‘travel with him there’ he ‘met him there’ Was this a coinci-dink or was this a planned meeting…
Pg. 130: interviewer veers back to the issue of Goldstone’s proposal for VK and enters into evidence Exhibit 13
Pg. 131: Mr. Davis points introduces another email chain about a Vote Trump page with VK on January 19, 2016. This was over six months before Goldstone’s email to Scavino and shows Jr’s denials notwithstsanding was clearly in the loop on this early.
This I didn’t see coming: Jr claims to have no recollection of this email just like the one to Scavino on June 29 or that he spoke to Manafort prior to one on June 9 rescheduling the time or that he spoke to Emin Agalarov.
Pg. 136 Admits Wikileaks suggested to him Trump let them leak his tax return-for deniability-this would make it look like Wikileaks as NOT on Trump’s side though they clearly were.
Pg. 136-137: Asked about communicating with Wikileaks. Says he never spoke to Assange directly but spoke a female lawyer for Wikileaks-could that be Jennifer Robinson?
Pg. 141: Jr states that after the election ‘he believes’ he came back to his office at Trump Tower to come across an ongoing meeting between Trump transition officials and Kisylak.
Pg. 142: Sounds like the meeting that received a lot of public reporting: Kisylak, Michael Flynn, and Jared Kushner.
The Mercury News on 7 things we learned from the Trump Tower transcripts
In Goldstone’s email to Don Jr he had offered to send the Clinton oppo directly to Donald Sr. via Rhona.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4464209/Trump-Jr-Transcript-Redacted.pdf
Pg. 23-24\
Pg. 30: an email chain between Goldstone and Rhona in the summer of 2015 is presented to Don Jr. by ‘Mr. Davis.’
Pg. 31 quoting from the email: Goldstone offered to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin in November 2015
Pg. 34-35: email chain including Goldstone, Rhona, AND Donald Jr.
while Don Jr previously testified that Goldstone’s email of June 3, 2016 was the first he saw him claim the Russian govenrment supported the Trump campaign this email from Goldstone to Don Jr and Rhona in February, 29 2016-a leap year…-showed Goldstone speaking of the Russian govt’s alleged support already over 3 months earlier
Pgs. 45-46: Don Jr confirms Vesselnitskaya talked about people supporting the DNC who failed to pay taxes in the U.S. and/or Russia
Pg. 47-48: another email chain from Goldstone this time copying Jr/Rhona to Dan Scavino.
This one is a real bombshell-Goldstone, raises the idea of a Vote Trump 2016 promotion targeted directly at the 2 million strong Russian-American community many of which-about 1.6 million-use a Russian Facebook page called VK as their preferred news outlet and social media source.
In the letter, Goldstone indicates he pitched this idea to Manafort at the Trump Tower meeting. -who said ‘he’d welcome it’
Goldstone then stated that he was resending the proposal to Scavino for his approval
UPDATE:
It’s becoming increasingly clear that the Trump campaign was hoping to get these emails at the Trump Tower meeting.
This from the campaign’s social media director in May 2016, one month before the meeting: https://t.co/kGppIib2Kf— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) August 7, 2018
Then a month later in late June-after the Trump Tower #CollusionMeeting-Rob Goldstone emailed Scavino-and CCed both Jr and Rhona Graff about setting up a Vote Trump Facebook page with a Russian Facebook company
— Expand the Court (@ProChoiceMike) August 7, 2018
Pg. 52-53: Another email from Goldstone to Rhona. In this one, Goldstone again makes the case against the Magnitsky Act arguing it’s one of the biggest barriers to improved American-Russian relations
Pgs. 54-56: Mr. Davis nails him dead to rights here. Jr. in March had categorically denied to the NY Times any ‘campaign related meeting with Russian nationals.’
Don Jr attempts to explain it by saying he meant not Russian nationals but Russian govenrment officials, but, of course, Goldstone’s June 3, 2016 email to him clearly states part of the ‘Russian government’s support for your father.’
To be sure, it’s even worse than that as we also have the email chain identified by ‘Mr. Davis’ from February 29, 2016-on the leap year!-from Goldstone to Don Jr had again spoken of the support of the Russian government for ‘your father’s campaign.’
As Mr. Davis points out on Pgs 57-59, Jr also quite mischaracterized it by claiming that after Goldstone apologized that was the end of it. As we saw he got back to Jr in late June regarding a FB page targeting Russian Americans and after the election Goldstone was still talking to Rhona about overturning the Magnitsky Act
Pg 59: Junior falls back on Vesselnitskaya’s claim she’s not a government official, but this denial is quite dubious as we saw in chapter-
P.g 60 Jr argues that he didn’t initially mention the dirt on Clinton because the meeting was actually-mostly-about adoptions. But he misses that what matters is intent, in this context, his own intent.
Pg. Jr claims to know nothing about Sergei Millian but according to the Steele dossier he most certainly does
Pg 66 Don Jr sounds like his father’s son: ‘if you put me in a room with Carter Page today I probably wouldn’t be able to tell you who he is’
Pg. 88-89: Jr basically plays the Ollie North game like a champ-‘I don’t know’ ‘I don’t recall if I did or did not.’
But they clearly show he DID speak to Manafort on June 7 as the number is traced to him in Virginia.
He claims to only remember sending Manafort that one email stating that the time of the meeting had been rescheduled to 4 PM which makes no sense if they hadn’t had a prior conversation.
Pg 98-99: Who said Jr can’t do deductive logic? He reasons that it ‘was pretty clear they weren’t with the Russian government; because they were working on a case in the US-about overturning the Magnisky Act that Russia is totally opposed to…