Today the first indictments by the Muller campaign were unsealed charging Trump’s former Campaign Chair Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates with multiple counts of false statements, money laundering as much as $75 Million through banks in the Cyprus Islands, tax evasion, and failure to register as foreign agents. Both men have plead “Not Guilty” and been placed on house arrest.
Already we’ve had Huckabee-Sanders attempt to blow these charges off as having nothing to do with the Trump campaign as they begin with transactions that started as far back as 2006 through 2014, however she fails to note that many of them not only involve Manafort’s former client ex-Ukrainian President Victor Yanakovych they also involve Russian Oligarch Oleg Derapaska who had retained Manafort as a “envoy of Putin’s interests” from 2009 to 2011 paying him a total of $30 Million for his services during that time, and the fact that Derapaska has funneled an additional $60 Million to Manafort through various loans, plus another $18 Million which was invested in a Ukranian telecom firm and that during the campaign Manafort attempted to “get whole” with Derapaska by offering to give him a personal briefing on the inner working of the Trump Campaign just days before the Republican Convention.
It was also revealed today that Trump National Security campaign advisor George Papadopoulos had been arrested back and June and agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation in exchange for a guilty plea for making false statements to the FBI. Both Huckabee-Sanders and Trump attorney Jay Sekolow have claimed that Papadopoulos was a ‘low level staffer” and that his lies to the FBI are irrelevant however what he lied about was the importance of his various contacts that he’d had in person, via email and via Skype with the Russian Ambassador to England, a Russian professors in London who connected him to a Moscow based official who had ties the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and a woman who claimed to be Putin’s Niece. Over the course of months he pass information about his contact along to senior campaign staff such as Corey Lowendowki and Paul Manafort who only encouraged him as doing a “Great Job”. The Professor apparently told Papadopoulos specifically that “Russia has thousand of emails” which included “dirt” on Hillary Clinton before the intrusion by the GRU into the DNC email servers were even detected by Crowdstrike in April, confirming that the professor had links to Russian intelligence services and that the Trump campaign was made aware of this long before it was public knowledge and that they should known that anything they offered to give Russia from this point forward would be helping PAY THEM for that crime. The MFA contact works with Papadopoulos to setup a direct meeting between Putin and Trump, and failling that to have Papadopoulos himself or other Trump staffer meet with senior Russians in Moscow.
in response to Papadopoulos efforts — which they are fully aware of and approve — Manafort emails Gates that “We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips. It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal.” In June Carter Page who Russia had already attempted to cultivate as an asset is approved by Lowendowki to travel to Moscow for various paid speeches, the Steele Dossier alleges that he met with Igor Sechin the head Russian Oil giant Rosneft who offerred him brokerage fees on the sale of 19% of Rosneft in exchange for his efforts to have Trump drop sanctions on Russia over Crimea and the Ukraine. Later we know that Manafort joined Kushner and Don jr. in a meeting with Veselnitskaya which was ultimately another offer for “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in exchange for again — making adjustments on Russian sanctions involving the Magnitski act. The White House has long claimed nothing happened after that meeting however intercepts of Russian officials capture them talking about the Trump campaign asking for “Help” in the election and mention Manafort in the discussion.
It was only after all this, after the Trump camp had been informed twice that Russian had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton and “thousands of her emails”, after Trump blocked an pro-Crimea plank in the RNC platform and Manafort reached out and asked for their “Help” that DCLeaks and Wikileaks begun dumping all their stolen DNC, DCCC, Clinton Foundation and Podesta emails. That would be Quid Pro and Quo.
Ultimately in August Papadopoulos was also given the green light for a trip to Moscow, but the indictment and affadivits do not discuss whether he made this trip, as only few days later Manafort left the Trump campaign after $12 Million in under the table payments to him from Yanakovych were disclosed. Later when he’s interviewed by the FBI — which happened on the same day that Trump allegedly tried to pressure James Comey into letting Michael Flynn go over his lies to the FBI and his failure to register as a foreign again — Papadopoulos repeatedly tried to downplay the importance and timing of his contacts with Russians including the professor as bind “no big deal', he was eventually arrested for this in June but this fact was hidden because "public disclosure of his status would make it his ability to proactively cooperate difficult", which sounds like he had been acting as a confidential informant for Meuller helping them gather current wire and/or email information on other targets for the last few months.
Also 19% of Rosneft was sold one day before the election.
Once he took Office Trump White House staff immediately attempted to have sanctions on Russia dropped unilaterally and without explanation, only to be thwated by the State Dept and Congress — this was also attempted by Michael Cohen and Felix Sater by trying to deliver a Ukrainian peace deal to Michael Flynn.
In short all of these points are connected and the charges against Manafort are exactly like the charges against Papadopoulos to get more information on exactly how these contacts worked their way up the campaign chain, the fact that he’s cooperating since June means there may be much more information that is being held back until it can be properly deployed. Stay Tuned.
This is a weekly incremental update on the Master Trump Russia Corruption Timeline Vol 4.
Here are this weeks latest details in order.
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October 26th —
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Sessions reveals he “might” not be recused from investigating the Steele dossier. Trump says it’s “complete discredited” — but that’s not even close to being true.
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AP reports that an election server and it’s 2 backups were wiped after Voting Rights advocates sued the Georgia Attorney General after a security hole found on the server had not been closed six months after it had been found.
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Sen. Tom Coburn — who is also a medical Doctor — says ‘We have a leader who has a personality disorder’
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Trump and Cambridge-Analytica mega-funder Rebekah Mercer tried to buy access to Clinton emails but ran into ‘major legal liabilities’, allegedly she also offered to have CA index the DNC emails on Wikieaks to make them easier to search and sort.
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Bill Browder goes on Fox & Friends to discuss the Steele dossier and says that he’s sure the FBI can tell bullshit from the truth.
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Deranged conspiracy theorist who believe the Vegas/Route 91 shooting is a “hoax” are sending death threats to survivors on the shooting and their families. “I hope someone shoots you in the head.”
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Twitter bans ads from Russian media outlets RT and Sputnik.
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Huckabee-Sanders gets busted for saying the Russia probe is ending by Fox’s Bill Hemmer — “No one at DOJ told you it’s wrapping up.” She wrongfully proclaims that no evidence of wrongdoing has been linked to Trump associates and that’s it getting “worse” for Democrats, which is nonsense.
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Ron Reagan Jr. wants Trump impeached.
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Reddit shuts down “alt-Right” forums after Trump loving user stabs his own father.
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Trump finally begins to implement the new Russia sanctions — 26 days late, but then Tillerson cuts the Obama-era office for overseeing foreign sanctions.
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The FBI files on JFK are released — almost, only 2,800 out of 35k are included because apparently all the national security redactions, which were the Trump admins responsibility, weren’t yet done.
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Gorka says Hillary is “guilty of Treason and Espionage” for the Uranium One deal and should be executed for it like the Goldbergs, which is really dumb because they weren’t tried for Treason since we weren’t at war with Russia at the time, she had nothing personally to do with the deal because it was the responsibility of her Deputy Jose Fernandez, and that Uranium is still in the U.S., because it was about ownership of the mines not who owned the Uranium, plus Rosatom doesn’t have an export license for it anyway however Trump Tower Moscow, the Veselnitskay meeting, the Mayflower Hotel Meeting over sancctions, blocking anti-Russian planks at the RNC, $100 Million to Manafort and his promising to “brief” Derapaska, the sale of 19% of Rosneft, trying to have sanctions lifted on Russia at least 5 times for no reason, then lying about it to the FBI, trying to demand loyalty and block the investigation into Flynn, lying about why Comey was fired, lying about why Don Jr. met with Russians, trying to setup a secure backchannel to the Kremlin inside the Russian embassy to avoid U.S. intel, secret meetings with the crown Prince of Bahrain, and trying to get ahold of Hillary’s deleted (and presumably stolen) emails at least 3 times — from foreign hackers, Julian Assange and the Dark Web — is all is just fine.
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Trump declares opiods a “National Health Crisis” — which doesn’t allow any funds to be appropriated to deal with it, unlike when he previously declared it a “National Emergency” which does include funds, but no one in the WH did any paper work on it back then.
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A car drove into a group of people who were protesting President Trump’s immigration policy, outside Congressman Ed Royce’s (R-CA) office in Brea, California.
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FEMA had a 100 page Emergency Plan for a Hurricane hitting Puerto Rico — but now refuse to release copies of it to the public.
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The GAO agrees to investigate Trump’s Voter Suppression Commission.
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October 27th —
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October 29th —
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October 30th —
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Mueller’s indictment are unsealed, they charge Paul Manafort and his associate Robert Gates for 12 counts of conspiracy, tax evasion, false statements, failure to register as a foreign agent and money laundering over $75 Million from the Ukraine and Russia which was funneled through offshore accounts largely in Cyprus. — Manafort and Gates are arranged and plead “Not Guilty”. Bail is set for $10 Million for Manafort and $5 Million for Gates, both are placed under house arrest.
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Former Trump National Security Advisor George Papadopoulos pleads guilty and reaches a plea deal regarding his lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians, including, the Russian Ambassador to Britain, a Professor in London who told him in March that Russia had “thousands of emails” detailing dirt on Hillary Clinton — which he states even before the GRU breached the DNC email system, but after the FSB intrusion and before either was publicly known — as well as meeting with Putin’s “Neice” and a contact with links to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs about setting up a meeting between Trump and Putin. This was communicated both to Lewandowski and Manafort who apparently discussed going forward with the meetings but only with low level staffers instead of Trump to not send the “wrong signal.” These communications go on until days before Manafort leaves that campaign due to the first inklings of his Ukrainian money scandal coming forward. Apparently Papadopoulos was arrested and began cooperating back in June.
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Coincidentally Papdapoulos interview with the FBI was just a few days after Flynn also lied to the FBI, and happened on the same day that Trump attempted to get Comey to drop the case against Flynn.
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Trump attorney Jay Sekolow claims that Papadopoulos was only convicted of lying and claims it has nothing to do with the campaign, except that he was lying about what he was doing with Russians on behalf of the campaign.
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Huckabee-Sanders claims that Papadopoulos “only attended one meeting” [although he announced at that meeting that he was working on establishing contacts and meetings Russians with links to the Kremlin] that none of his suggested meetings were approved [although they were fully supported and encouraged by high-level campaign staff including both Lewandowski & Manafort] and that’s he was essentially a nobody. She claims that all of the charges against Manafort & Gates relate to their actions before they were in the campaign, but that is untrue as his financial entanglements were with both Yanakovych and also Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska who paid him nearly $30 Million to represent Putin’s interests between 2009-2011, and whom Manafort tried to “pay back” by providing him a “personal briefing” on the Trump campaign just before the Republican Convention. There's also the potential issue that Manafort reportedly tried ask the Russians for “help in their campaign against Hillary” even after the June meeting with Veselnitskaya which Huckabee-Sanders still says resulted in “no action.”
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JIm Acosta blast Huckabee-Sanders diversions on Papadopoulos who clearly communicated with multiple Russians and was cleared to do so and meet with them asking “How is that not collusion?”
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Federal court blocks enforcement of Trump’s transgender military ban.
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Politico Reports that Jared Kushner made a secret trip to Saudi Arabia last week to push forward the $110 Million arms deal Trump announced earlier this year during his own trip to the region.
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Conway says Trump is not focused on the Russia investigation, meanwhile he generates six tweets complaining about it and asking why they aren't investigating Hillary Clinton and Fusion GPS.
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John Podesta’s brother Tony steps down from his lobbying firm amid allegations he's being looked at by Mueller.
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Manafort’s attorney Kevin Downey complains the FARA has only been charged 6 times and only obtained one conviction and he claims the charges of holding his money offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes as “ridiculous” then storms off
There are also previous incremental updates to the timeline which highlight and focus specific events at about one week intervals for Oct 25th, Oct 11th, Oct 4th, Sept 27, Sept 22, Sept. 17, Sept. 11th, Sept 4th, August 24th, August 17th, August 4th, July 28th, July 14th, July 10th, July 9th, July 4th, June 21st, June 18th, June 14th, June 12th, June 9th, June 6th, and June 2nd.]