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The Trump Chronicles: Collusion, No. Conspiracy, Yes.

Let’s start with the fact, and praise be to the Times for finally using the right word, that there are too many people using the wrong word: “collusion.” The president and his odd PR attorney Rudy Giuliani insist there is no proof of capital “C” collusion.

So much in such a short time. On Jan. 10, 2019, we learned that Michael Cohen. President Trump’s lawyer, had agreed to testify in open session before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Feb. 7. While it is likely he will refrain from discussing matters concerning the special counsel’s Russia investigation, he will attempt “to give a full and credible account of the events which have transpired.”

On Jan. 11, 2019, the New York Times, in a mind-bending story, wrote: “In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.”

The Times continued: “The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, took over the inquiry into Mr. Trump when he was appointed, days after F.B.I. officials opened it. That inquiry is part of Mr. Mueller’s broader examination of how Russian operatives interfered in the 2016 election and whether any Trump associates conspired with them. It is unclear whether Mr. Mueller is still pursuing the counterintelligence matter, and some former law enforcement officials outside the investigation have questioned whether agents overstepped in opening it.”

President Trump and Vladimir Putin at the G20 meeting. Photo: Agence-Presse

On Jan. 12, 2019, Greg Miller of the Washington Post reported that: “President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said …

“As a result, U.S. officials said there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years. Such a gap would be unusual in any presidency, let alone one that Russia sought to install through what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as an unprecedented campaign of election interference.”

Politico reported that President Donald Trump said he would be willing to release the details of his private conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki last summer. “I would. I don’t care,” Trump told Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in a phone interview, adding: “I’m not keeping anything under wraps. I couldn’t care less.”

But, of course, he hasn’t. Politico continued: “Asked by Pirro if he’d ever worked on behalf of Russia, Trump did not directly answer the question, calling the Times’ report ‘insulting.’ Trump also evaded a question on whether the administration was seeking to keep special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report on the Russia probe from the public, stating only that the investigation was a ‘hoax’.”

The next day, in response to a question from NBC’s Kristin Welker, he indignantly responded: “I never worked for Russia, and you know that answer better than anybody,” Trump said, calling the entire investigation into possible collusion between his campaign and Moscow “a whole big fat hoax.”

Add this news to what we’ve learned recently from court proceedings against Paul Manafort and Natalya Veselnitskaya, and it is clearly time for an update.

Let’s start with the fact, and praise be to the Times for finally using the right word, that there are too many people using the wrong word: “collusion.” The president and his odd PR attorney Rudy Giuliani insist there is no proof of capital “C” collusion.

But all the while, Mueller and Department of Justice attorneys in other venues, like the Southern District of New York, successfully bring charges of conspiracy. So perhaps we can start reminding people: conspiracy, yes.

First, Mueller indicted some Russians. “Defendant INTERNET RESEARCH AGENCY LLC (“ORGANIZATION”) is a Russian organization engaged in operations to interfere with elections and political processes.” Russians who worked “in various capacities to carry out Defendant ORGANIZATION’s interference operations targeting the United States … Defendants knowingly and intentionally conspired with each other (and with persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury) to defraud the United States by impairing. obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the government through fraud and deceit for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016.” (Emphasis added.)

“Defendant YEVGENIY VIKTOROVICH PRIGOZHIN and companies he controlled, including Defendants CONCORD MANAGEMENT AND CONSULTING LLC and CONCORD CATERING (collectively “CONCORD … spent significant funds to further the ORGAZATION’s operations …”

Concord has denied these charges, challenging the legality of the Mueller investigation, claiming Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wasn’t directly appointed by President Trump, wasn’t a “principal officer” and so his decision to appoint Mueller was a violation of the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.

U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich, President Trump’s appointee, ruled against Concord’s claim.

Prigozhin, the Washington Post notes, is “an oligarch … a caterer who has been nicknamed ‘Putin’s chef’ because of his proximity to the Russian president … Prigozhin is linked to two of the three Russian businesses also named in the indictment, Concord Consulting and Concord Catering … [and] he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for robbery, fraud and involving minors in prostitution, Meduza reported. Prigozhin served nine years and was freed in 1990, just as the Soviet Union was collapsing.”

Prigozhin benefitted greatly once he came to Putin’s attention: “Prigozhin was awarded a two-year contract worth $1.6 billion to source more than 90 percent of all food orders for Russian soldiers [and] … signed several state contracts totaling at least $3.1 billion. He is linked to the oil industry as well, as Prigozhin’s companies are reported to have received a percentage of Syria’s oil revenue in exchange for protecting its oil fields from ISIS.” Prigozhin, Putin, Syria and meddling in an American election.

Supposedly, the Internet Research Agency “posing as U.S. persons and creating false U.S. personas, operated social media pages and groups designed to attract U.S. audiences. These groups and pages, which addressed divisive U.S. political and social issues, falsely claimed to be controlled by U.S. activists when, in fact, they were controlled by Defendants … Over time, these social media accounts became Defendants’ means to reach significant numbers of Americans for purposes of interfering with the U.S. political system, including the presidential election of 2016 … Defendants’ operations included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump (‘Trump Campaign’) and disparaging Hillary Clinton.” (Emphasis added.)

Paul Manafort. Photo: Carlo Allegri/Reuters

Keep all this in mind when we look at what Paul Manafort tried to hide from the Mueller investigation. Think of this as Part One of the Conspiracy to Defraud the United States “by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the Federal Election Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the U.S. Department of State in administering federal requirements for disclosure of foreign involvement in certain domestic activities.”

On July 13, 2018, Mueller indicted 12 Russian military intelligence officers for hacking the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and waging cyberattacks on the boards of elections of various American states and companies that supply technology and election software.

Rosenstein declared they were charged with “conspiring to access computers without authorization, and to cause damage to those computers, in connection with efforts to steal documents and release them in order to interfere with the election.” These GRU officers “knowingly and intentionally conspired with each other, and with persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury (collectively the ‘Conspirators’), to gain unauthorized access (to ‘hack’) into the computers of U.S. persons and entities involved in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, steal documents from those computers, and stage releases of the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”

And just as importantly, there are others—yet to be identified—involved in these conspiracies, “persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury.”

The July 13, 2018, indictment charges: “On or about August 15, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, wrote to a person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trnmp, ‘thank u for writing back … do u find anyt[h]ing interesting in the docs i posted?’ (Emphasis added.) Think of this as Part Two of the conspiracy.

On to the new developments that hint at critically important contacts/connections between Americans and Russians or Russian proxies in these conspiracies.

Paul Manafort pleaded guilty to failing to register as an agent of a foreign nation and not paying taxes on the millions he made lobbying for the pro-Russian Yanukovych regime in Ukraine. His work included spreading false information about Yanukovych’s political rival, Yulia Tymoshenko and advocating against U.S. sanctions for Russia’s interference in Ukraine.

The Washington Post reminds us of one of the first things Manafort did as campaign manager for the Trump campaign: “Manafort emailed his Russian employee Konstantin Kilimnik, who had managed his Kiev office and served as his liaison with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian aluminum magnate with whom he had done business. ‘I assume you have shown our friends my media coverage, right?’ Manafort asked, referring to the many stories in the news about his influential new job. ‘Absolutely,’ Kilimnik replied. ‘Every article.’ ‘How do we use to get whole?’ Manafort asked … The FBI has assessed that Kilimnik has ties to Russian intelligence, which Kilimnik has denied.”

Subsequently, Paul Manafort and Mueller negotiated a cooperation agreement. And many were surprised when the special counsel’s office claimed Manafort had violated that agreement, lyingto the FBI and his office about his interactions with Kilimnik and his contact with administration officials.

In Mueller’s court filing about Manafort’s breach, the details were often blacked out and redacted. For example:

We didn’t know what Manafort had withheld from the Mueller probe until Jan. 8, 2019, when Manafort’s legal team responded to Mueller’s charges. Manafort’s team argued: “that any alleged misstatements, to the extent they occurred at all, were not intentional.” But due to their improper use of an editing tool to blackout sections of their electronically submitted PDF response, we were able to retrieve those redacted selections.

Here’s an excerpt with its redactions:

Here is the same section without the redactions:

Let me highlight this sentence: “(After being shown documents, Mr. Manafort “conceded” that he discussed or may have discussed a Ukraine peace plan with Mr. Kilimnik on more than one occasion); id.at 6 … (Emphasis added.)

Part of the conspiracy puzzle is determining what the Russians hoped to accomplish by interfering in our election. We know Vladimir Putin was/is concerned with reestablishing Russia’s place in the world, restoring the power and influence the former Soviet Union exercised when it controlled a large swatch of Eastern Europe. David Corn and Michael Isikoff have written about Putin’s concern with Ukraine’s democracy movement, the opposition to “Viktor Yanukovych, the corrupt and Putin-friendly president of Ukraine” and Ukraine’s move away from Russian influence and toward trade with the European Union. They note: “Throughout the crisis, the Kremlin accused Washington of orchestrating the chaos and arming opposition rebels to undermine a Putin ally on Russia’s border.”

Putin especially blamed former President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for supporting the opposition to Yanukovych. When demonstrators were gunned down in Kiev and Yanulovych fled to Russia, Putin was convinced: “The United States had mounted a coup to overthrow his ally and impose an anti-Putin government on Russia’s border.”

Another critical piece of the puzzle was revealed when we compared another paragraph:

Here’s what we couldn’t see: “In fact, during a proffer meeting held with the Special Counsel on September 11, 2018, Mr. Manafort explained to the Government attorneys and investigators that he would have given the Ukraine peace plan more thought, had the issue not been raised during the period he was engaged with work related to the presidential campaign. Issues and communications related to Ukrainian political events were simply not at the forefront of Mr. Manafort’s mind during the period at issue and it is not surprising at all that Mr. Manafort was unable to recall specific details prior to having his recollection refreshed. The same is true with regard to the Government’s allegation that Mr. Manafort lied about sharing data with Mr. Kilimnik related to the 2016 presidential campaign, (See Doc, 460 at 6).” (Emphasis added.)

While Mr. Manafort claims he was too busy to concentrate on a Ukraine peace plan, it seems unlikely that Mr. Kilimnik failed to impress upon his Russian colleagues the added influence Trump’s campaign manager might have in effecting a profound change in U.S. Russian relations regarding Ukraine and sanctions.

Add in the successful efforts made by Mr. Manafort to revise a plank in the Republican platform that would have endorsed support for United States assistance to Ukraine.

But what’s most explosive is the news that Mr. Manafort was sharing Trump campaign data with Mr. Kilimnik. This fits with the first two prongs of the conspiracy. Investigators at New Knowledge working for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence called Prigozhin’s work at Internet Research Agency: “A sweeping and sustained social influence operation consisting of various coordinated disinformation tactics aimed directly at US citizens, designed to exert political influence and exacerbate social divisions in US culture.”

This effort was far more extensive than ordinary Americans appreciate: “… IRA’s campaign had touched all major platforms in the social network ecosystem. In March 2018, some of the social platform companies misused by the IRA (Twitter, Facebook, and Alphabet) provided the SSCI with data related to IRA influence operations. Facebook’s data submission includes Facebook page posts and Instagram account content. Alphabet’s data submission includes Google AdWords and YouTube video and channel data. The data set reveals that Alphabet’s subsidiaries YouTube, G+, Gmail, and Google Voice were each leveraged to support the creation and validation of false personas …

“The breadth of the attack included games, browser extensions, and music apps created by the IRA and pushed to targeted groups, including US teenagers. The popular game Pokémon Go was incorporated into the operation, illustrating the fluid, evolving, and innovative tactical approach the IRA leveraged to interfere in US politics and culture …

“The IRA employed and trained over a thousand people to engage in round-the-clock influence operations, first targeting Ukrainian and Russian citizens, and then, well before the 2016 US election, Americans. The scale of their operation was unprecedented — they reached 126 million people on Facebook, at least 20 million users on Instagram, 1.4 million users on Twitter, and uploaded over 1,000 videos to YouTube. As Department of Justice indictments have recently revealed, this manipulation of American political discourse had a budget that exceeded $25 million USD and continued well into 2018.”

For the moment, we don’t know what Trump campaign data was shared with Kilimnik. But remember Steve Betoni’s Nov. 22, 2016, article for Forbes titled“Jared Kushner Won Trump The White House.” Betoni wrote: “Kushner’s crew was able to tap into the Republican National Committee’s data machine, and it hired targeting partners like Cambridge Analytica to map voter universes and identify which parts of the Trump platform mattered most: trade, immigration or change Kushner built a custom geo-location tool that plotted the location density of about 20 voter types over a live Google Maps interface.

“Soon the data operation dictated every campaign decision: travel, fundraising, advertising, rally locations – even the topics of the speeches. ‘He put all the different pieces together,’ [Brad] Parscale says.” (Emphasis added.)

Did Paul Manafort share this data with Kilimnik? The New York Daily News reminds us: “The FBI says Kilimnik served in the Russian military and has extensive connections to GRU, the Kremlin’s top intelligence agency, which played a large part in its attack on the 2016 election, according to the U.S. intel community.” Did this data help the GRU and the Internet Research Agency refine its operations?

Emin Agalarov, Donald Trump and Aras Agalarov. Photo: Splash News/Newscom

Now onto Natalya Veselnitskaya, she of the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr. The meeting was prompted by an email message from Rob Goldstone, Emin Agalarov’s agent, on behalf of both Emin and Aras Agalarov, close to both the Trump family and Vladimir Putin.

When news of the meeting became public, Donald Trump Jr. told the New York Times: “It was a short introductory meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up.”

But emails released subsequently from Rob Goldstone to and from Donald Trump Jr. made clear the true purpose of the meeting. Goldstone had written: “The Crown prosecutor of Russia … offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.” It was “high level and sensitive information” that was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

Donald Trump Jr. enthusiastically agreed to meet with Veselnitskaya. The Times initially described Veselnitskaya as “best known for mounting a multipronged attack against the Magnitsky Act, an American law that blacklists suspected Russian human rights abusers. The law so enraged Mr. Putin that he retaliated by halting American adoptions of Russian children. The adoption impasse is a frequently used talking point for opponents of the Magnitsky Act …”

But there was always a bit of mystery about Veselnitskaya. According to CBS News: “In October 2015, Veselnitskaya represented Denis Katsyv in a money laundering suit against his company, Prevezon. The U.S. government had accused Katsyv of using $230 million in stolen funds to buy real estate …”

It was also alleged that Prevezon had stolen the identity and assets of Hermitage Capital, the firm that Sergei Magnitsky had represented. CBS News continued: “Days after the meeting in Trump Tower, Veselnitskaya traveled to Washington, where she attended a screening of a film decrying the Magnitsky Act, the 2012 law allowing sanctions against individual Russians suspected of human rights abuses. Veselnitskaya has been one of the foremost Russian nationals lobbying for repeal of the bill, named after Sergei Magnitsky, who was allegedly killed in custody after exposing the corruption at the heart of the Katsyv case. The federal government settled its case against Katsyv four months after Mr. Trump entered office.”

It was also unclear what Veselnitskaya’srelationship was exactly to the Crown Prosecutor Rob Goldstone had referred to. Until Jan. 8, 2019, when the Southern District of New York—the same court that indicted Michael Cohen—unsealed its indictment in United States of America vs. Natalya Vladimirovna Veselnitskaya for Obstruction of Justice during the time she was acting as an attorney advising the defendants in United States vs. Prevezon Holding, Ltd., et al. According to the Southern District, the U.S. government had “sought to recover several million dollars’ worth of property, mainly New York real estate, on the ground that that this property was involved in laundering a portion of the proceeds of a Russian tax fraud scheme … in which a criminal organization including Russian government officials defrauded Russian taxpayers out of approximately 4.5 billion rubles, or over 200 million dollars.”

Natalya Veselnitskaya. Photo: Yury Martyanov/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Those who reported on the fraud to “Russian authorities … were subject to retaliatory prosecutions by the Russian government.” In connection with the case, the U.S. government sent a request in March 2014 to the Russian government for their records about this case and relevant bank records.

Veselnitskaya had claimed in court that the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation had initially refused her efforts to get their official report on the case, that she then had made great efforts through the Russian legal system to obtain the Prosecutor General’s April report.

According to the Southern District of New York, the report consisted “of a number of supposed investigative findings purportedly from a Russian government investigation … and purported to exonerate all Russian government personnel” in the fraud. Instead, their investigation accused Sergei Magnitsky, ironically the person who had alerted the Russian government of the fraud and who was subsequently arrested and died in a Russian prison.

Veselnitskaya declared that the prosecutor general’s report was “a persuasive reason to find the Prevezon Action without merit.”

But the Southern District of New York had discovered emails that revealed that Veselnitskaya had had access to drafts of this report and “that Veselnitskaya in fact participated in drafting and editing” the report.

Veselnitskaya had lied to the court and obstructed justice for one purpose: to protect this Russian criminal enterprise. The role she played in this scheme, her access to and her influence with the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation suggests that when she attended the meeting with Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner at the Trump Tower, it is more than reasonable to imagine she was speaking on behalf of the Russian government, and most likely with the knowledge of Vladimir Putin.

Image courtesy New York Times

Andrew Weiss, vice president for Studies, Carnegie Endowment, Russia and Eurasia Program, puts several of these strands together—the critical meeting at Trump Tower, the Russian efforts to interfere in the election, and President Trump’s determination to keep the details of his interactions with Vladimir Putin from his staff and the American people:

“Consider the following timeline: on July 7–8, 2017, Trump attends the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany the site of his first face to face encounter with Putin. On the morning of July 7, 2017, the New York Times informs the White House–for the first time–that it has learned about the Trump Tower meeting between Don Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and a Russian lawyer with Russian government connections, Natalya Veselnitskaya.

“The New York Times asks the White House to comment.

“On the afternoon of July 7, 2017, Trump and Putin, accompanied only by Rex Tillerson, Sergei Lavrov and their interpreters, meet for 2 and 1/2 hours.

“We now know from @gregpmiller that after the meeting Trump seizes the US interpreter’s notes and tells her not to brief senior NSC or State Department aides about the conversation with Putin.

“Later that evening on July 7, 2017, during the formal G20 summit dinner, Trump seeks out Putin for another conversation. Putin’s interpreter is the only other participant.

“The fact of this meeting is not publicly revealed until more than a week later after @ianbremmer hears about it from other G20 attendees. (The White House doesn’t officially confirm it until July 18, 2017.) As Bremmer points out, Trump oddly doesn’t even inform his own staff afterwards that he’s had this second conversation with Putin.

“On the AF1 flight back to Washington the next day on July 8, 2017, Trump dictates the text of the now infamous, misleading statement (for Don Jr. to release) about the Trump Tower meeting.

“Don Jr.’s statement to @nytimes emphasizes: “We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children” at the meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya

“The New York Times story about the Trump Tower meeting appears later that same day … On July 11, 2017 the same @nytimes team breaks the story that Don Jr was told in advance that Veselnitskaya intended to provide dirt on the Hillary Clinton campaign at the behest of the Russian government. Don Jr. replies: “I love it.”

“On July 19, 2017 Trump repeats the false assertion that he talked to Putin about adoption in a conversation with @peterbakernyt, @nytmike and @maggieNYT.

“In the same interview, Trump also floats the idea that there was nothing inappropriate about his senior-most campaign officials meeting with foreign emissaries who wanted to help his campaign. “Who wouldn’t have taken a meeting like that?”

“All of this begs the question: What did Trump and Putin actually discuss at that impromptu one-on-one dinner meeting at the Hamburg G20 on July 7, 2017?

“Moreover, why did they huddle together by themselves within hours of the White House learning that the at-that-point-still-secret Trump Tower meeting between Trump, Jr. and the Russians was about to become public? 17/

“Put another way, shortly after the New York Times reached out to the White House to ask about a secret meeting with the Russians, Trump himself sought a secret meeting with the Russians.”

Finally, Ben Wittes analyzes the significance of former FBI General Counsel James Baker’s secret testimony before Congress, the basis of much of the New York Times’ story. Wittes concludes:The FBI’s counterintelligence investigation regarding the 2016 campaign fundamentally was not about Donald Trump but was about Russia. Full stop. It was always about Russia. It was about what Russia was, and is, doing and planning.”

Collusion, No. Conspiracy, Yes.

__________________________________

Sources

“Michael Cohen to testify before House Oversight Committee”
Grace Segers, Jan. 10, 2019, CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-cohen-to-testify-before-house-oversight-committee/

“Michael Cohen, Trump’s Former Lawyer, Agrees to Testify to Congress”
Maggie Haberman, Nicholas Fandos, Jan. 10, 2019, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/us/politics/michael-cohen-trump-testimony.html

“F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia”
Adam Goldman, Michael S. Schmidt, Nicholas Fandos, Jan. 11, 2019, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/us/politics/fbi-trump-russia-inquiry.html?

“Trump has concealed details of his face-to-face encounters with Putin from senior officials in administration”
Greg Miller, Jan. 12, 2019, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-has-concealed-details-of-his-face-to-face-encounters-with-putin-from-senior-officials-in-administration/2019/01/12/65f6686c-1434-11e9-b6ad-9cfd62dbb0a8_story.html?

“Trump: ‘I couldn’t care less’ if Putin conversation becomes public”
Quint Forgey, Jan. 12, 2019, Politico
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/12/trump-putin-conversations-release-helsinki-1098683

“Trump lashes out everywhere amid Russia scrutiny”
Kevin Liptak, Jan. 14, 2019, CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/14/politics/donald-trump-russia-fbi/index.html

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. INTERNET RESEARCH AGENCY LLC
https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download

“The rise of ‘Putin’s chef,’ the Russian oligarch accused of manipulating the U.S. election”
Marwa Eltagouri, Feb. 17, 2018, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/16/the-rise-of-putins-chef-yevgeniy-prigozhin-the-russian-accused-of-manipulating-the-u-s-election/?

“Mueller probe indicts 12 Russians with hacking of Democrats in 2016”
Devlin Barrett, Matt Zapotosky, July 13, 2018, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/rod-rosenstein-expected-to-announce-new-indictment-by-mueller/2018/07/13/bc565582-86a9-11e8-8553-a3ce89036c78_story.html?

Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein Delivers Remarks Announcing the Indictment of Twelve Russian Intelligence Officers for Conspiring to Interfere in the 2016 Presidential Election Through Computer Hacking and Related Offenses
July 13, 2018, Department of Justice
https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/deputy-attorney-general-rod-j-rosenstein-delivers-remarks-announcing-indictment-twelve

Grand Jury Indicts Thirteen Russian Individuals and Three Russian Companies for Scheme to Interfere in the United States Political System
Feb. 16, 2018
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/grand-jury-indicts-thirteen-russian-individuals-and-three-russian-companies-scheme-interfere

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4598892/DNC-Hack-Indictment.pdf

United States of America vs Paul J. Manafort, Jr. Violations: 18 U.S.C. §371 (Conspiracy Against the United States and Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice.
https://www.justice.gov/file/1094156/download

“The Manafort scramble: Raising millions for himself even as he ran Trump’s campaign”
Rosalind S. Helderman, Rachel Weiner and Marc Fisher, Aug. 10, 2018, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-manafort-scramble-raising-millions-for-himself-even-as-he-ran-trumps-campaign/2018/08/10/32bc76b6-9c1c-11e8-8d5e-c6c594024954_story.html?

United States of America v Paul Manafort Jr. –  Government’s Submission in Support of its Breach Determination
https://www.scribd.com/document/395183733/Manafort-Submission

Manafort Response Breach Mueller 01-08-19
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5677512/Manafort-20190108-Dc.pdf

Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump, Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hachette Book Group, 2018

“2016 RNC Delegate: Trump Directed Change To Party Platform On Ukraine Support”
Carrie Johnson, Dec. 4, 2017, NPR News
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/04/568310790/2016-rnc-delegate-trump-directed-change-to-party-platform-on-ukraine-support

“The Tactics & Tropes of the Internet Research Agency”
Upon request by the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), New Knowledge reviewed an expansive data set of social media posts and metadata provided to SSCI by Facebook, Twitter, and Alphabet, plus a set of related data from additional platforms. The data sets were provided by the three primary platforms to serve as evidence for an investigation into the Internet Research Agency (IRA) influence operations.
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/533-read-report-internet-research-agency/7871ea6d5b7bedafbf19/optimized/full.pdf

“How Jared Kushner Won Trump The White House”
Steven Betoni,Nov. 22, 2016, Forbes
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2016/11/22/exclusive-interview-how-jared-kushner-won-trump-the-white-house/ – 3820652e3af6

Goldstone – Donald J. Trump emails
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/donald-trumps-jrs-email-exchange/533244/

“Trump Team Met With Lawyer Linked to Kremlin During Campaign”
Jo Becker, Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, July 8, 2017, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/08/us/politics/trump-russia-kushner-manafort.html

“Why did Obama’s DOJ let Natalya Veselnitskaya into U.S.?”
Stefan Becket, July 16, 2017, CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/did-the-obama-doj-let-russian-lawyer-Natalya-veselnitskaya-into-the-u-s/

“How a British music publicist ended up in the middle of the Russia storm”
|Rosalind S. Helderman, Sept. 22, 2018, New York Times
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-a-british-music-publicist-ended-up-in-the-middle-of-the-russia-storm/2018/09/21/d1449a40-ba83-11e8-a8aa-860695e7f3fc_story.html?

Veselnitskaya Indictment
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/557-Natalya-veselnitskaya-indictment/883bce187bc76e9a97ec/optimized/full.pdf – page=1

Timeline
Andrew Weiss, Jan. 14, 2019
https://twitter.com/andrewsweiss/status/1084802080051736577

“What if the Obstruction Was the Collusion? On the New York Times’s Latest Bombshell”
Benjamin Wittes, Jan. 11, 2019, lawfareblog.com
https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-if-obstruction-was-collusion-new-york-timess-latest-bombshell

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Donald Trump is a zero-sum kind of a guy. He only feels that he has won if everyone else loses, and in order for everyone to lose, they have to be destroyed.

LEONARD QUART: Trying to survive Trump

Trump took office and brought a regime set on revenge and retribution and committed to the destruction of institutional norms. It is an administration much more nihilistic than conservative.

CONNECTIONS: I want to stop the meanness

Stay focused. We are not helpless. We can and should oppose the meanness.

The Edge Is Free To Read.

But Not To Produce.