Published on Mar 25, 2019
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.
Ex-CIA Chief John Brennan Threatens Trump: Mueller Will Soon Likely Put Your Political and Financial Future in Jeopardy
March 20, 201
Former CIA Chief-turned-Twitter-troll John Brennan warned the President on Wednesday that Special Counsel Mueller will soon put Trump’s political and financial future in jeopardy.
The President fired off an incendiary tweet directed towards Kellyanne Conway’s cruel, Trump-hating “husband from hell,” George Conway on Wednesday.
“George Conway, often referred to as Mr. Kellyanne Conway by those who know him, is VERY jealous of his wife’s success & angry that I, with her help, didn’t give him the job he so desperately wanted. I barely know him but just take a look, a stone cold LOSER & husband from hell!” Trump said in a tweet Wednesday after a nasty exchange between the two took place on Tuesday.
In response to Trump’s tweets to George Conway, John Brennan, one of the architects of Russiagate, accused President Trump of throwing temper tantrums because he is panicking over Mueller’s impending report.
What does John Brennan know about Mueller’s report?
Brennan is admitting Mueller’s report will complicate Trump’s life and cripple him financially and politically in the future.
BRENNAN: Hmmm…your bizarre tweets and recent temper tantrums reveal your panic over the likelihood the Special Counsel will soon further complicate your life, putting your political & financial future in jeopardy. Fortunately, Lady Justice does not do NDAs.
Brennan often issues President Trump thinly veiled threats from his Twitter account.
Last year, John Brennan warned President Trump about Mueller’s investigation. “Stay tuned,” Brennan said in an ominous Twitter post.
A few months later, President Trump pulled John Brennan’s security clearance.
TWITTER ADMITS SHADOWBANNING LISA PAGE TWEET BY FEDERALIST CO-FOUNDER “TO KEEP PEOPLE SAFE”
Sorry citizen, some facts are just too dangerous for your own good
MARCH 19, 2019
Twitter has admitted to shadowbanning a tweet by The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis in order to “keep people safe.”
Tweeting a passage last week from former FBI attorney Lisa Page’s Congressional testimony discussing the FBI’s rush to find connections between the Trump campaign and Russia, Davis pointed out the irony of Hillary Clinton’s campaign employing former UK spy Christopher Steele, a foreign national, “working with Russians to obtain damaging information about Donald Trump.”
Of note, the dossier Steele compiled which was subsequently used to obtain a warrant to spy on a Trump adviser (and later smear Trump) relied on a “senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure” and “a former top level intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin,” according to Vanity Fair.
Following his March 12 tweet, Davis wondered if Twitter was experimenting with “shadow bans” – as he could only see his tweet if he was logged in, meaning nobody else could see it.
Six days later, Twitter confirmed with Davis that they had deliberately shadow-banned his tweet in order to “keep people safe.”
Twitter confirmed to me today via e-mail that it did shadowban one of my tweets about Lisa Page's congressional tes… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…—
Sean Davis (@seanmdav) March 18, 2019
“Twitter gave me no notice or explanation when it shadowbanned one of my Tweets about Russian interference in our elections,” wrote Davis, adding “But what’s worse is how Twitter apparently gives its users the fraudulent impression that their tweets, which Twitter secretly bans, are still public.”
Titter claimed in its e-mail to me that it "mistakenly remove[d]" a completely anodyne tweet about public congressi… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…—
Sean Davis (@seanmdav) March 18, 2019
In short, Twitter did not want the public to consider the irony of Hillary Clinton’s campaign paying for a foreign national to collude with Russians against Donald Trump, while the FBI scrambled to prove the Trump campaign did.
Unreal.
In other censorship news, ZeroHedge is now banned in New Zealand and much of Australiafollowing our reporting on the Christchurch terror attacks.
Sorry citizen, some facts are just too dangerous for your own good.
GOP Congressman Releasing Transcripts From Closed-Door Testimonies Of Russia Probe Investigators
By ASHE SCHOW
For the past two weeks, one GOP congressman has been on a mission to release transcripts of government officials who testified to Congress behind closed doors regarding the investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, began releasing transcripts into the congressional record on March 8, starting with the closed-door testimony of Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr. Collins took to the House floor to explain his decision to release the transcripts, asking, is “the only ‘collusion’ among agency personnel who hated the president and started this investigation?”
Collins said that the transcripts were “pertinent to a congressional investigation,” but the investigation was ended after Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives. Collins said further that the committee had given the DOJ time to review and redact information related to national security, but received little response from the department, so they made minor redactions and released the transcripts.
The 268-page transcript from Ohr’s testimony revealed that Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson and ex-British Spy Christopher Steele used Ohr to get their salacious claims about Russia collusion into the federal government. Ohr also revealed that, contrary to what House Intel Chairman Adam Schiff has said, the FBI had received reports from Steele as early as July 2016, not September 2016, as Schiff claimed.
Further, Ohr testified that Steele continued to feed him information after the ex-spy was no longer a credible source for the FBI. The FBI would interview Ohr as a backdoor to Steele’s intel.
Four days after releasing Ohr’s testimony, Collins returned to the House floor to publicly release former FBI lawyer Lisa Page’s testimony.
“The American people deserve to know what transpired in the highest echelons of the FBI during that tumultuous time for the bureau,” Collins said at the time.
The Page testimony was explosive, as she had not been publicly interviewed by the committee or anyone else after her text messages with then-fellow FBI agent Peter Strzok, with whom she was having an affair, were revealed.
In her testimony, Page revealed that the FBI’s Russia investigation really was an “insurance policy” in the unlikely event that Donald Trump was elected president, and that investigators had only a “paucity” of evidence in the beginning, which they still used to launch investigations into the president. Page also suggested that it was President Barack Obama’s Justice Department that essentially told the FBI not to find Hillary Clinton responsible for “gross negligence” in regard to classified information being sent over her unsecured, private email server.
Two days after releasing Page’s testimony, Collins released Strzok’s. In his testimony, Strzok revealed that he deleted communications between himself and his mistress, Page, prior to being removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, but did so for “personal” reasons. He claimed to have deleted personal communications regarding his affair, but some of those messages showed anti-Trump sentiments and discussed the “insurance policy” of investigating “collusion” if Trump won the election.
On Sunday, Collins told Fox News host Maria Baritomo that he was planning to release more transcripts. Baritomo asked if Jim Baker, the former FBI lawyer who is now under criminal investigation for leaking to the media, was on the list for future transcript releases.
“There will be more transcripts released. Baker will be one that we’re looking at releasing,” Collins responded.
Gabbard says calling Trump a Putin puppet is dangerous & stupid, Twitter calls her a Putin puppet
Democratic candidate for president and establishment-punching bag Tulsi Gabbard is taking heat on Twitter for daring to suggest that the Russiagate scandal could be pushing the US and Russia toward a dangerous new Cold War.
Gabbard tweeted that “short-sighted” politicians and media pundits who spend their time accusing Donald Trump of being in cahoots with Russia were helping bring about a new arms race because the accusations have led Trump to do“everything he can to prove he’s not [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s puppet — even if it brings us closer to nuclear war.”
In a sane world, journalists, pundits and even Gabbard’s fellow Democrats all understood exactly what she meant and took her point on board. Except, this is Twitter we’re talking about, so of course, she was eviscerated.
One of the first to pop in with a response was former CIA agent John Sipher who accused the Hawaii congresswoman of helping Russia and “playing their game.” Sipher himself once had his own moment of Twitter fame, back when he tweeted the classic question: “How can one not be a Russophobe?
Some media folk got in on the action, too. CNN National Security analyst Susan Hennessey bravely stepped up with the bold take that Gabbard’s call for calm and better relations was “absurd.”
Washington Post columnist and fellow CNN analyst Josh Rogin accused Gabbard of blaming only Democrats and journalists for bad relations with Russia, while Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake had an interesting spin on things, suggesting Trump was playing “seven dimensional collusion.”
Then there were those that questioned Gabbard’s status as a Democrat, because she “doesn’t sound like” one. Presumably, in the age of Russiagate, Democrats are all supposed to be advocating for nuclear war?
Some were interested in the candidate’s contact with Russian nationals, asking the all-important questions like, how many Russians has she met on her trips abroad — and crucially, how many does she “still maintain contact” with today?
Some tweeters did take Gabbard’s side, however. Journalist Glenn Greenwald took aim at the likes of Hennessey who“mock” those who want to avoid heightening tensions with Russia as “treasonous weaklings.”
Independent journalist Caitlin Johnstone tweeted that the negative reaction to Gabbard’s tweet was a good example of how “narrative supersedes fact” and that while it was “undeniable” that Trump has escalated Russia tensions, pundits and Democrats who cling to the collusion story are still unwilling to believe it.
In an ironic twist, Trump himself retweeted a comment which seemed to be in support of Gabbard’s point, suggesting that Russiagate was designed to “bait” the US into taking a tougher line against Russia and created “a more dangerous world as a consequence.”
‘Master spy’ Christopher Steele admits he used unverified internet post to create Trump dossier
President Donald Trump has once again lashed out at his political opponents after the ex-spy responsible for the infamous ‘Steele dossier’ admitted that he used an unverified internet post as a source while compiling the dubious document.
Christopher Steele, the ex-British spy who fueled Russiagate hysteria with his DNC-commissioned opposition research on Donald Trump, admitted during a lawsuit deposition that he relied on unverified information contained in a report publishedby CNN iReport – a now-defunct “user-generated” news site. Stories featured on iReport were submitted by citizen journalists and were not edited, fact-checked, or screened before being published.
Steele acknowledged under questioning that he had used a July 28, 2009 report published on iReport to substantiate claims he made about internet hosting company Webzilla and its alleged Kremlin ties. However, the former British intel officer insisted that he thought iReport boasted the same thorough journalistic standards as CNN.
When asked if he understood that content on the site was not generated by CNN reporters, he said, “I do not.” He was then asked: “Do you understand that they have no connection to any CNN reporters?” Steele replied, “I do not.”
He was pressed further: “Do you understand that CNN iReports are or were nothing more than any random individuals’ assertions on the Internet?” Steele replied: “No, I, obviously, presume that if it is on a CNN site that it has some kind of CNN status. Albeit that it may be an independent person posting on the site.”
Webzilla is among the list of plaintiffs suing Buzzfeed for defamation, after the media outlet published Steele’s findings in full in January 2017, with a disclaimer that they hadn’t verified it.
The president, who has long denied the salacious allegations contained in Steele’s report, mocked the former MI6 spy and his Democratic sponsors in a tweet.
“Report: Christopher Steele backed up his Democrat & Crooked Hillary paid for Fake & Unverified Dossier with information he got from ‘send in watchers’ of low ratings CNN. This is the info that got us the Witch Hunt!” Trump wrote.
While devout Russiagate disciples insist that the revelation changes nothing, many on social media expressed disbelief that anything in Steele’s dossier could still be taken seriously.
“Turns out Master Spy Christopher Steele was every bit as careful, conscientious, and meticulous as we thought he was,”Byron York, chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner, joked.
Steele’s admission comes amid growing skepticism over the dossier’s key allegations. In December, Michael Isikoff, one of the first journalists to report on the document, conceded that Steele’s central claims were “likely false.”
Coincidentally, Isikoff’s explosive report on alleged Trump-Russia links was cited extensively by the FBI to secure a warrant to spy on Trump adviser Carter Page.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is now fastest growing disorder in America – are you a sufferer?
If anyone you know is suffering from symptoms below, offer emotional support now. 2020 may be too late. If in the presence of Alyssa Milano or CNN staff, don’t mention the word “collusion,” speak no Russian, don’t carry an orange.
The following scientific taxonomy simply identifies those afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). Congress is currently investing in progressive research into a cure known as impeachment, but no permanent remedies are expected to be available for 18 months, at least.
Grandiose delusions
TDS sufferers are not Democrat supporters in temporary political opposition, they are the Resistance.
Compulsive revenge fantasies
Trump is not going to be beaten in an election. He is going to be impeached. He is going to be spending his last years in a jumpsuit as orange as his face. His heart will explode.
Victim mentality
The sufferer may be a multi-millionaire celebrity with views endorsed by nearly all of the media establishment. But they are in anguish. Do not be afraid to tell a TDS sufferer that they are one – they will readily agree with you, and blame President Donald Trump for a wide range of symptoms.
If not at a personal disadvantage, the sufferer may appropriate pain of other victim groups.
Denial
Trump is #notmypresident and must not be “normalized.” Reality: Donald Trump has been the US president since January 2017, for over two years.
Black-and-white thinking
There is still good in Darth Vader, but Donald Trump has no redeeming qualities. On the other hand, anyone who has ever opposed him – from Stormy Daniels to John McCain – is a hero.
Impaired judgement
Is this a routine government policy I disagree with, or IS IT THE WORST THING EVER?
Lack of emotional control
This.
Bonus fact: Janna DeVylder did not live in the United States at the time of the 2016 election. Expats often suffer the wildest cases of TDS.
Threats
Mostly of leaving the country. Can be safely ignored.
Conspiratorial tendencies
Wikileaks, Internet Research Agency, Cambridge Analytica, tax returns, Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen, Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels, Nastya Rybka, Oleg Deripaska, Paul Manafort’s ostrich jacket, Ivanka Trump spa in Moscow, the woman who owned the spa that Robert Kraft went to, who sold it six years ago, and was then photographed with Trump in 2019. Don’t you see how the puzzle fits?
Loss of moral compass
Michael Cohen was a no-good liar for Trump, but against Trump he never lies. Insinuation, omission, unproven claims and outright fabrications, are ‘fake news’, unless they are about Trump, in which case they serve a purpose. Uncontrolled immigration is bad, but if Trump wants to stop it, let them all in. Peace talks with nuclear rogue states are good, but if Trump is leading them, they are worse than bomb tests.
Apocalypticism
The patient believes that the economy will collapse, lynchings will return, World War III will start, the Pope’s robes will alight with blinding fire. In fact, all these things might already be happening (see: Impaired judgement).
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