Here on FOX HeatStreet reporter Louise Mensch who wrote the original story that ultimately inspired Mark Levin to go on air and rail about “Trump Tower Wiretaps” which in turn caused the current White House Resident and popular vote loser Trump to tweet accusing his predecessor of a criminal conspiracy, points out that her story wasn’t about anyone being wiretapped in the U.S. at all.
This was all about communications by Russians with other Russians.
Mensch: For once I think it’s possible the President does not have a “fake news” problem. he may have a real news problem. Being that if there really is a wiretap of Trump Tower, the problem is I didn’t report that, neither did any other journalist. Which means that if he tweeted evidence in an ongoing top secret case, then he obstructed justice and that’s an impeachable offense. That’s why the White House is being very quiet, not because it’s phony, it’s because it’s real.
It’s was actually hilarious to be the subject of the White House putting out press releases, considering that they never got in touch with me. To say again and again that I had reported surveillance on Trump Tower, or a wiretap at Trump Tower, I certainly did not. I reported faithfully that the target of the warrant was two Russian banks Alfa Bank and SVB Bank and that permission was given to look at previously collected materials. That’s what we call incidental collection, so no American Citizen was targeted.
The server at Trump Tower [actually it’s in Philadelphia] provided as I reported fresh evidence for the claim to be brought back to the FiSA court. The targeting of the warrant wasn’t that server either. It was any communication what so ever between two Russian banks and it involved offense of money laundering and Russian money going into Trump’s campaign. So if there’s a real wiretap going into Trump Tower, then President Trump is in real trouble.
Assuming this is the case, and there really was a money laundering and illegal campaign investigation going on, guess who would have been the lead person on that case?
Preet Bharara, whom Trump just fired.
McClatchy has a report similar to what Mensch describes which specifically talks about money being funneled to help Trump by the Kremlin.
Investigators are examining how money may have moved from the Kremlin to covertly help Trump win, the two sources said. One of the allegations involves whether a system for routinely paying thousands of Russian-American pensioners may have been used to pay some email hackers in the United States or to supply money to intermediaries who would then pay the hackers, the two sources said.
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A key mission of the six-agency group has been to examine who financed the email hacks of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The London-based transparency group WikiLeaks released the emails last summer and in October.
The working group is scrutinizing the activities of a few Americans who were affiliated with Trump’s campaign or his business empire and of multiple individuals from Russia and other former Soviet nations who had similar connections, the sources said.
U.S. intelligence agencies not only have been unanimous in blaming Russia for the hacking of Democrats’ computers but also have concluded that the leaking and dissemination of thousands of emails of top Democrats, some of which caused headaches for the Clinton campaign, were done to help Trump win.
In fact former NY U.S. Attorney Bharara has previously investigated and prosecuted people in Trump Tower for corruption. And also,
they were Russians.
Trump may lose tenants by accusing the government of wire-tapping Trump Towers. It appears that the FBI probably did wiretap Trump Towers from 2011-2013 in relation to this case. So many questionable characters have lived in Trump Towers that the FBI may need to have all of them permanently tapped. They would save time. In fact, they had better be bugging Trump Towers! This is real life Monopoly, alright: “Go to Jail, Go Directly to Jail“. (The US Attorney in the case, Preet Bharara, was just asked to leave his position, along with 45 other attorneys, after being told that he could stay on:
According to Assistant US Attorney Harris Fischman, Vadim Trincher “directed much of the international racketeering enterprise from his $5 million apartment in Trump Tower…. Trincher’s apartment is located directly below one owned by Donald Trump, authorities said.” (Moscow Times, April 17 2013).
Some accounts made the gambling parties sound big. The New York Times spoke of all-night games with stakes as high as $ 2 million: “At one game, in an apartment in a glass condominium tower on Fifth Avenue, … its organizers suspected that a new player did not belong,… The new player was an undercover F.B.I. agent.” (NYT, May 18, 2013) This has to be Trump Tower 5th Ave.
And, yet, the same Trump who has complained about airplanes flying too close to his Florida Estate noticed nothing for almost a decade? The FBI has been described, by some, as raiding Trump Towers in April 2013, because of this case, as well.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “The sentences meted out to Anatoly Golubchik and Vadim Trincher are just and appropriate penalties for the roles the defendants played in this far-reaching, Russian-American organized crime ring. I’d like to thank the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the New York City Police Department, and the Internal Revenue Service for their tireless efforts in working to ensure that the members of this underground enterprise were held to account for their crimes… The Taiwanchik-Trincher Organization operated under the protection of Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, who is known as a “Vor,” a term translated as “Thief-in-Law,” that refers to a member of a select group of high-level criminals from the former Soviet Union. Tokhtakhounov used his status as a Vor to resolve disputes with clients of the high-stakes illegal gambling operation with implicit and sometimes explicit threats of violence and economic harm…” (US DOJ, April 30, 2014)
And now Mr. Bharara is out of a job even after Trump personally asked him to stay on. What a coincidence.