Russiagate diehards can’t let the collusion narrative go, come up with new theories instead
The conspiracy known as ‘Russiagate’ should have ended with the news that, after intense investigation, no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia was found — but die-hard collusion truthers are finding it hard to move on.
Attorney General William Barr sent a four-page letter summarizing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s findings to Congress on March 24. Quoting the report directly Barr wrote that the investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government” in 2016.
That unambiguous conclusion was reached with the help of 19 lawyers, 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts and forensic accountants, among other professionals. In pursuit of any evidence to prove Trump colluded with Moscow, Mueller issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses.
But none of that was enough to satisfy or dent the resolve of the Russiagate true believers (on social media or in the mainstream media) who are still convinced that they were right all along and are coming up with new theories in a last-ditch effort to prove it.
‘Barr is lying for Trump!’
Following the letter, the first instinct of the Russiagaters was to cast Barr as the new villain. It was too early to turn on Mueller (who had been held up for two years as a Messiah-like figure who would save them from the Trump presidency).
“Barr is a Trump appointee!” they shouted on Twitter, suggesting that the AG lied or misconstrued the contents of Mueller’s report while he sat by and said nothing. Former Hillary Clinton adviser Adam Parkhomenko even accused Barr of engineering a “coverup” of Mueller’s real evidence.
This was followed by demands for the release of the report in its entirety, which is a fair request. Trump himself in the past has said he would have “no problem” with the full report being released, so time will tell whether he’ll stick to that position or not. Regardless, what the Russiagaters are expecting to find in the full report is a bit of a mystery, since we already know there was no evidence of collusion established by Mueller.
‘Mueller didn’t investigate the right things!’
Perhaps realizing that accusing Barr of spinning the report in Trump’s favor wasn’t going to cut it, collusion enthusiasts finally began to set their sights on Mueller himself. A piece in the New York Times noted the “sense of mourning” that had set in among “disappointed Mueller fans” who were now beginning to “rethink the pedestal they built for him.”
“Mueller’s scope was too narrow!” the former fans insisted, after pledging their hopes on his investigative skills for two years and hanging on every “bombshell” and “turning point” the media — including the Times — had offered them. Some were so disillusioned that they decided the whole thing must have been “a setup” from day one.
‘Forget Mueller, the evidence is in plain sight!’
Others maintained that Mueller (“a Republican!”) was simply ignoring all the “evidence” of collusion that was in “plain sight.” The “plain sight” narrative was boosted by the unrelenting Rep. Adam Schiff, who led the Democrats’ collusion charge and even claimed that he seen the evidence of collusion himself. Yet, on Tuesday, Schiff told CNN that the problem was an inability to establish proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” and promised that Congress would continue its own investigations of Trump to prove that he was “compromised” by Russia.
Some did stick by Mueller, however, insisting that they trust him and will accept whatever is in the report. Whether they will stand by that assessment if they are disappointed by the contents of the full report remains to be seen.
‘But what about *insert theory*?’
Then there were those who went back to basics and dug up all the old theories. Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia Evelyn Farkas suggested that maybe Trump secretly owes buckets of money to Russians “close to Putin.”
What about that Trump Tower meeting? What about WikiLeaks? What about Trump saying nice things about Putin? Come on, there must be something they can catch him on.
Media madness
US media has taken two different approaches to the Mueller news. There are the ones who are eager to move on and forget Russiagate ever happened (no need to reflect on the role journalists played in hyping the conspiracy) — and there are those who are doubling down.
Preferring the ‘let’s all move on’ option, two CNN reporters penned an unintentionally funny article suggesting that the finding of no collusion was an opportunity to quickly “move past a dark period,” but worried that the president “isn’t prepared to let go.” One assumes they haven’t recently encountered any of the congressional Democrats who are insisting that investigations of Trump will continue indefinitely.
Coming as a surprise to no one, MSNBC’s chief Russiagate prophet Rachel Maddow is one who has opted to double down, barely acknowledging on her Monday night show that no collusion had been found and pouring ample skepticism on Barr’s letter. Poor, desperate Maddow was then unironically dubbed the “queen of collusion” in the Washington Post, which was hardly a beacon of reason and moderation over the last two years.
Anyway, best to stay tuned; who knows what new theories the Russiagate devotees will come up with next.
Danielle Ryan RT
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With Mueller done, is it time to investigate the FBI? (DEBATE)
THE FBI IS PART OF THE DEEP STATE
With the Mueller report finished and President Trump cleared of colluding with Russia, the spotlight is now on the FBI leadership that opened the investigation. RT’s Crosstalk guests think the agency has a lot to answer for.
After a two year media circus, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report cleared President Trump of colluding with Russia to rig the 2016 election, a conclusion that Trump says brings him “complete and total exoneration.”
However, constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz argued that Mueller should have never been appointed in the first place. “It was a mistake to appoint a special counsel because there was no evidence of a crime,” Dershowitz said. Rather, he argued, Mueller’s appointment by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was a knee-jerk reaction to the firing of former FBI Director James Comey.
Mueller’s probe was launched just over a week after Comey was unceremoniously fired in May 2017. Before then, the FBI had been conducting its own investigation into the supposed collusion. That investigation, Dershowitz continued, was based on lies.
A dossier of salacious gossip – gathered by former British spy Christopher Steele on behalf of the Clinton campaign – was presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as evidence to authorize the wiretapping of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, even though Comey later admitted he knew the dossier was unverifiable.
“I think the FISA court was defrauded,” the lawyer told RT. “You can show information to the FISA court which isn’t particularly compelling, as long as you tell the court what the source is, and alert it to the… conflicts of interest. You cannot provide material to the court, claiming it’s credible, when you yourself know that it lacks credibility.”
Troublingly, former National Security Agency leader William Binney added,
Among Republicans, talk of investigating the FBI and Department of Justice has risen above a chatter in recent days. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) told reporters on Monday that he will investigate the FBI’s alleged FISA abuse and subsequent investigation, an investigation that Trump called “an illegal takedown that failed.”
“What makes no sense to me is that all of the abuse by the Department of Justice and the FBI – the unprofessional conduct, the shady behavior – nobody seems to think that’s much important. Well that’s going to change, I hope,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) gave Graham his blessing on Tuesday, saying the issue of whether the FBI conspired to hinder Trump’s election is “a legitimate question.”
“We’re headed that way,”presidential historian Doug Wead noted.
Washington told Ukraine to end probe into George Soros-funded group during 2016 US election – report
An NGO co-funded by George Soros was spared prosecution in 2016 after the US urged Ukraine to drop a corruption probe targeting the group, the Hill reported, pointing to potential shenanigans during the US presidential election.
Bankrolled by the Obama administration and Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros, the Anti-Corruption Action Centre (AntAC) was under investigation as part of a larger probe by Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office into the misallocation of $4.4 million in US funds to fight corruption in the eastern European country.
As the 2016 presidential race heated up back in the United States, the US Embassy in Kiev gave Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko “a list of people whom we should not prosecute” as part of the probe, the Hill reported. Ultimately, no action was taken against AntAC.
Lutsenko told the paper that he believes the embassy wanted the probe nixed because it could have exposed the Democrats to a potential scandal during the 2016 election.
A State Department official who spoke with the Hill said that while the request to nix the probe was unusual, Washington feared that AntAC was being targeted as retribution for the group’s advocacy for anti-corruption reforms in Ukraine.
AntAC wasn’t just the benefactor of well-connected patrons – at the time it was also collaborating with FBI agents to uncover then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s business dealings in Ukraine. Manafort later became a high-profile target of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into alleged Russian collusion, and was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for tax fraud and other financial crimes.
Lutsenko divulged in an interview with the Hill last week that he has opened an investigation into whether Ukrainian officials leaked financial records during the 2016 US presidential campaign in an effort to sway the election in favor of Hillary Clinton.
While AntAC may have failed to help the FBI find the Russia collusion smoking gun, the group’s activities constitute yet another link between the anti-climactic Russiagate probe and Soros, a Democrat mega-donor who bet big on Hillary Clinton taking the White House in 2016.
In 2017, the billionaire philanthropist siphoned money into a new group, the Democracy Integrity Project, which later partnered with Fusion GPS to create the now-infamous Steele dossier.
Spokespersons for AntAC and the Soros umbrella group Open Society Foundations declined to comment on the Hill’s scoop.
Ironically, the prosecutor general who had preceded Lutsenko, Viktor Shokin, resigned under pressure from Washington – which accused Shokin of corruption.
Virtuous US officials continue to make similar demands of Ukraine’s justice system. Earlier this month, Washington urged the Ukrainian government to fire its special anti-corruption prosecutor, again over accusations of administrative abuse.
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PROSECUTE THE PROSECUTORS . . .
WHAT IS COLLUSION?
DEMS: PLAN B… TAX RETURNS!
By Billy House
(Bloomberg) — Robert Mueller’s final report robbed Democrats of what they hoped would be a devastating blow to President Donald Trump. And, after defending the special counsel’s integrity for more than a year, they have little room to challenge his conclusion there was no conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russia in the 2016 election.
Yet, even before the special counsel’s 22-month probe ended, Democrats were already working under a Plan B to undermine Trump going into the 2020 presidential race, through investigations led by House committees now under their control.
“We’re going to move forward with our investigations of obstruction of justice, abuses of power, corruption, to defend the rule of law, which is our job,” House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler said Sunday at a news conference in New York. “It’s a broader mandate than the special prosecutor had.”
The strategy poses risks for the Democrats, particularly if voters prove tired of talk of investigating Trump now that Mueller has completed his work. In addition, the probes could overshadow their agenda, particularly on issues like health care that helped the party take back the House in 2018.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the Mueller report a “two-year waste of taxpayer time and dollars” in an appearance Monday on NBC’s “Today” program. “We are all very glad it’s over and we can move forward and focus on things that really matter,” she said.
Within an hour of Attorney General William Barr delivering a summary of Mueller’s report to Congress, Nadler said his panel will call the attorney general to testify about “very concerning discrepancies and decisions at the department” in its interpretation of Mueller’s findings, particularly the decision not to pursue an obstruction of justice prosecution.
‘More Questions’
Barr’s “conclusions raise more questions than they answer given the fact that Mueller uncovered evidence that in his own words does not exonerate the president” on obstruction, Nadler said.
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said on Fox Monday morning that Americans should breathe a “sigh of relief” at Mueller’s report.
“It’s quite clear that this group was hardly a group of Trump fans,” Giuliani said during n appearance Monday on Fox News. “It was thorough and it was conducted by people who had a bias to get him.”
Another Trump lawyer, Jay Sekulow, said on MSNBC, “It’s very hard to complain when you’ve got this letter from the Department of Justice.”
Investigations in the Democratic-controlled House stretch across six committees, including Nadler’s Judiciary panel along with the Intelligence, Financial Services and Oversight Committees. The topics for investigation include alleged public corruption, presidential abuses of power, Trump’s banking relationships, his tax returns and efforts to quash embarrassing stories about the president in coordination with the National Enquirer.
One benefit for Democrats is that it may ease pressure for now from a faction of House members who’ve been pressing to begin impeachment proceedings. With polls showing most of the public didn’t support impeaching the president even before Mueller’s findings, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been trying to tamp down that talk. Barr’s description of Mueller’s report as finding no criminality makes her caution appear savvy.
Political Attack
Republicans dismiss the House investigations as a fall-back strategy long planned in case the Russian collusion narrative collapsed, as it did, under Mueller’s conclusions. They accuse Democrats of undertaking a wide-ranging congressional fishing expedition simply to wound Trump politically heading into the 2020 elections.
The House Judiciary panel’s top Republican, Doug Collins of Georgia, said Sunday he hopes Nadler “recognizes that what may be political fodder for Democrats may not be good for our country.”
Top Oversight Committee Republican Jim Jordan of Ohio added, “I hope this will put an end to the partisan and political investigations in Congress aimed at undermining President Trump.”
Democrats argue that oversight of the executive branch is a basic and important congressional role.
Previous Probes
“Apparently the Republican definition of oversight is harassment,” responded Representative Gerry Connolly of Virginia, chair of the Oversight subcommittee on government operations. “And that’s a brand new definition.”
Connolly pointed to multiple, sustained investigations undertaken by Republicans when they controlled the House and Senate and Democrat Barack Obama was in the White House.
Those cited by Connolly include the long-running probes of the deadly 2012 attacks on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, and scrutiny of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, as well as investigations into whether the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative or GOP-aligned political groups.
“If you’re going to be a phony, at least be sincere about it,” said Connolly of Republican complaints about politically motivated Democratic congressional oversight.
‘Fight and Win’
However, there was a political element to those investigations. Then-House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy boasted on Fox News in 2015 that the lengthy Benghazi investigation of Clinton, who went on to be the Democrats’ 2016 presidential nominee, was part of a “strategy to fight and win” by portraying her as untrustworthy. He said Clinton’s poll numbers dropped as a result.
Even before Barr’s letter on Sunday, Democrats were underscoring that they will fight — in court if necessary — to get Mueller’s full report, including its underlying documents. They say that material will help their probes.
“It will greatly facilitate our own investigation not to have to reinvent the wheel,”said Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, whose panel will be looking into any foreign influence over Trump. He said it would be “enormously time-consuming, and not entirely possible,” to retrace all of Mueller’s steps.
He, like other Democrats, called for public release of the entire Mueller report.
“I trust Mueller’s prosecutorial judgment, but the country must see the evidence,” Schiff said in a tweet.
Close Scrutiny
Schiff’s committee and other panels also are planning to hold public hearings to scrutinize Trump’s administration, and his personal business and finances, daring Trump to fight turning over documents and other material.
The House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over impeachment, has already sent out 81 requests for documents from the Trump administration, his family, associates, businesses and other entities. And that’s likely just the start of the demands for Trump-related materials.
Nadler said the focus won’t be limited to impeachable crimes and misdemeanors. Along with Intelligence and Judiciary, the Oversight and Reform, Financial Services, Foreign Affairs and Ways and Means committees also are pursuing Trump-related investigations and hearings.
For Trump’s allies and supporters, the continuing investigations may turn into a rallying point.
“Democrats took us on a frantic, chaotic, conspiracy-laden roller coaster for two years, alleging wrongdoing where there was none,” said Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale. “Their dirty tricks have not ended. Even today Democrats have picked up the disgraceful mantle of investigating, obstructing, and destroying the will of the American people at any cost.”
“They failed once and they will fail again,” he said.
(Updates with Sanders, Giuliani quotes starting in fifth paragraph.)
–With assistance from Erik Wasson and Terrence Dopp.
To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, Joshua Gallu
President Trump Bashes ‘Illegal Takedown That Failed,’ Hints That Republicans Will Investigate The Hoaxers
By
President Donald Trump was magnanimous in victory as the Robert Mueller investigation formally cleared him of Russia collusion and obstruction of justice, according to attorney general William Barr. Trump hinted that investigators will now look into “the other side,” as Rep. Devin Nunes prepares to probe the Democrats who cooked up the media hoax in an effort to divert attention from their Uranium One dealings with the Russian government.
Trump told reporters that the idea of Russia collusion is “the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” while White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said that Trump and his supporters are “vindicated” and Rudy Giuliani trolled Adam Schiff with a call for an apology.
“It’s a shame that the country had to go through this,” President Trump said.
The Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya who set up Don Trump Jr. for a meeting in Trump Tower as part of a Fusion GPS plot was operating out of the Washington offices of Cozen O’Connor, a law firm run by an anti-Trump former Obama administration official whose super PAC donated to Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush in the 2016 presidential election.
Veselnitskaya’s work from the Cozen O’Connor office provides more evidence of a Democrat and establishment Republican effort to set up the Trump campaign for a future Russian collusion case. Veselnitskaya was allowed into the United States by the Obama Department of Justice while the former Obama official who runs Cozen O’Connor publicly warned then-candidate Trump that if he became president he would be investigated by the DOJ for contacts with foreign leaders. Veselnitskaya reportedly had dinner meetings with Fusion GPS chief Glenn Simpson the day before she met in Trump Tower and also the day after she went inside Trump Tower.
Big League Politics has confirmed that a Cozen O’Connor partner who lives in the same apartment building as James Comey’s friend Daniel Richman — who leaked classified information to the press on Comey’s behalf — spoke with Richman during the period that Comey and the Fusion GPS team were trying to obtain FISA warrants on Trump Tower.
Let’s break down the facts of an Obama administration official’s involvement in the Trump Tower plot:
Russian and U.S. citizen Rinat Akhmetshin, a Soviet military veteran, was present at Veselnitskaya’s meeting with Don Jr. in Trump Tower after leading a lobbying push supposedly to repeal the Magnitsky Act. Akhmestshin is believed by insiders to be linked to Russian government intelligence, a fact that the Washington Post seized on when reporting that he met with Don Jr. and Jared Kushner in Trump Tower. A nonprofit group focused on promoting Akhmetshin and Veselnitskaya’s cause to lawmakers actually hired Cozen O’Connor, which the law firm confirms.
The Washington Post reported (emphasis added):
“In the spring of 2016, as the presidential race was heating up, Akhmetshin and lobbyists he hired sought meetings on Capitol Hill to make their case against the sanctions law. Akhmetshin hired former Democratic congressman Ron Dellums, along with a team of lobbyists from the law firm of Cozen O’Connor.
Steve Pruitt, a business colleague speaking on Dellums’s behalf, said his involvement was brief and ended when he determined that Congress was unlikely to change the law.
In June, after visiting Trump Tower in New York, Veselnitskaya came to Washington to lend a hand in the lobbying effort.
She attended a meeting of the team at the downtown offices of Cozen O’Connor, where she spoke at length in Russian about the issues but confused many in the room, who had not been told previously about her involvement, according to several participants.”
Washington Post passage ends
Cozen O’Connor managing partner Howard Schweitzer is listed here on a DOJ form from an investigation into the breaking of lobbying laws by Russians trying to repeal the Magnitsky Act — which was just a front to get Russians in the room with Don Jr. We know now that Natalia Veselnitskaya was actually operating out of the Cozen O’Connor offices.
Schweitzer worked as general counsel for the Export-Import Bank under George W. Bush and was chief operating officer of the TARP bailout program under both Bush and Obama from 2008-2009.
“In October 2008, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson appointed Howard as the first COO of TARP. In this position, Howard led program execution and built the TARP infrastructure. He served as a key point person regarding the financial crisis through the presidential transition and continued to serve as TARP COO under Secretary Timothy Geithner until August 2009,” reads Schweitzer’s Cozen O’Connor bio.
“He served as chief operating officer of the TARP in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations,” reads Schweitzer’s bio for a Politico piece he wrote in August 2016 headlined “7 Reasons Why Trump Would Hate Being President.”
Schweitzer’s virulently anti-Trump piece for Politico tries to make the case that Trump was “sabotaging his own bid for the White House.” Schweitzer said that if Trump became president then “He’ll be investigated to death” by Congress and the Justice Department for his business dealings and “relationships with foreign leaders.”
The narrative was being set.
The Philadelphia-based Cozen O’Connor law firm also has a political action committee that donated to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, in addition to Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Martin O’Malley. In the 2018 election cycle, the Cozen O’Connor PAC donated more money to Hillary Clinton’s dormant campaign.
Here is Veselnitskaya seated behind Obama ambassador to Russia Mike McFaul at a June 2016 congressional hearing focused on Russia.
Cozen O’Connor’s connections to the anti-Trump “Operation Crossfire Hurricane” plot are wide-ranging, and show up in unexpected places.
James Comey’s friend, Columbia University professor Daniel Richman, leaked classified information that Comey gave him. During this leaking period, Richman was apartment-building neighbors with a partner at the Cozen O’Connor law firm that strategized with Fusion GPS operative Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian plant who set up Don Jr. in Trump Tower.
Veselnitskaya and Fusion GPS, led by Glenn Simpson, were part of John Brennan and Peter Strzok’s CIA-led “Operation Crossfire Hurricane” plot aimed at President Donald Trump and the Trump campaign.
“Yes, he is my neighbor,” Amy Wenzel, a partner at Cozen O’Connor, confirmed in a phone conversation with Big League Politics, confirming that they spoke. They live near each other in a Brooklyn high-rise.
The Washington Post’s release of Trump Tower documents shows the crowd surrounding non-sexual honeypot Natalia Veselnitskaya. The crowd of conspirators knew they were damaging Trump by setting up the meeting.
The Post confirms British-citizen music promoter Rob Goldstone’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which he described the conspirators’ push to get the meeting despite the fact that they knew it would create trouble for the Trump campaign.
“Rob Goldstone told the committee that his client, the Russian pop star and developer Emin Agalarov, had insisted he help set up the meeting between President Trump’s son and the lawyer during the campaign to pass along material on Clinton, overriding Goldstone’s own warnings that the meeting would be a bad idea.
“He said, ‘it doesn’t matter. You just have to get the meeting,’ ” Goldstone, a British citizen, testified.
The intensity with which Agalarov and his father, the billionaire Aras Agalarov, sought the Trump Tower meeting, which has become a key point of scrutiny for congressional inquiries and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, was revealed in more than 2,500 pages of congressional testimony and exhibits released by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning.”
Washington Post passage ends
Natalia Veselnitskaya is also inextricably linked to the case against Paul Manafort.
The Russian attorney partner of Paul Manafort who was named as a defendant in new Robert Mueller charges is also linked to the Russian spy Natalia Vesenilskaya, who attended a meeting with Don Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner in Trump Tower.
According to Mueller’s new charges, Manafort’s Russian partner Konstantin Kilimnik tried to intimidate or coerce witnesses in Manafort’s upcoming money laundering trial. That puts Konstantin Kilimnik at the center of the Mueller effort to find obstruction of justice in Trump-World (Mueller is giving himself until September 1 to try to find obstruction of justice, after finding no Russian collusion involving Trump).
So who is Konstantine Kilimnik? It turns out that Kilimnik is linked to Veselnitskaya, the Fusion GPS agent, according to Senate documents.
Here is how ProPublica described Kilimnik: “Konstantin Kilimnik: Manafort, who worked for the pro-Russian party in Ukraine before running Trump’s campaign, had an employee in Kiev named Konstantin Kilimnik who U.S. and Ukrainian authorities have suspected of having ties to Russian intelligence, according to Politico. Kilimnik served in the Russian army and learned English at a school that experts say often trains spies. Kilimnik denied being a spy to The Washington Post. Manafort had dinner with Kilimnik last August in New York, just before he was forced out of the Trump campaign amid growing questions about his work in the Ukraine, the Post reported.”
Documents reveal Kilimnik’s ties to Veselniskaya. Let’s take a look at United States Senate Judiciary Committee documents questioning Veselniskaya in October. Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley and Ranking Member Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked Veselniskaya if she knew a handful of characters believed to be conspirators in the case.
Grassley and Feinstein specifically asked Veselnitskaya if she knew Konstantin Kilimnik.
Here is page 4 of the documents, naming Kilimnik:
Current Attorney General Jeff Sessions was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee as senator from Alabama.
Veselnitskaya’s meeting with Don Jr. in Trump Tower provided some of the basis for warrants to surveil Trump Tower and for other FBI surveillance measures on the Trump campaign.
The fact that Veselnitskaya, a lawyer herself, was in the meeting with Trump Jr. and Kushner opened the president’s son and son-in-law up to being qualified as “target associations” for law enforcement under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, passed during the Bush administration.
Veselniskaya’s link to suspected conspirator Kilimnik is now coming under scrutiny.
Tom's Blog 