This morning Vladimir Putin stated when asked whether his country would cooperate with the Mueller probe and the various indictments which have been issued against a total of 25 Russian citizens he claimed that there is already an agreement from 1999 which allows for cooperation on legal issues which Mueller could use to file an official request, then Russian officials could interrogate the subjects with Mueller’s people in attendance.
But then, of course, there’s a catch.
He also said that essentially in exchange he would like to pursue so-called crime by U.S. intelligence against Russia, including charges that are outstanding against Bill Browder who he claimed has evaded taxes in the U.S. and Russia and he stated has had help from the U.S. Intelligence agencies.
So we get the hackers only if they also get Browder?
That’s a total load of crap because Russia has attempted to pull this shit before and were nearly thrown out of Interpol for it.
Before I get to the meat of this story let me quickly address the obvious: which is that Trump’s performance today was absolutely horrifying, but not at all surprising. When asked directly if he believes his own FBI and intelligence services who all unanimously stated that Russia attacked our elections, he again resorted to repeating ridiculous conspiracy theories about someone else had hacked into the DNC.
I want to see the server. What about the Pakistani gentlemen who worked for the DNC? It’s all a disgrace.
From the Mueller indictment released on Friday, it’s pretty clear that the FBI knows exactly what happened to the DNC server, and also the DCCC and Clinton Foundation email systems. They’ve have had all the access to data that they need without physically taking possession of a server that was providing all of the DNC email services during the middle of an election. I mean, you don’t think that would cause them a bit of a problem during the campaign, do you?
Peter Strzok’s text messages had nothing to do with any of that.
Trump’s response this morning was nothing short of insane, and worse as former CIA Director Brennan has stated it was practically treasonous.
Yeah, what he said.
Just as a primer Bill Browder is an American businessman who holds British citizenship who used to do business in Russia until they’re authorities came up with some trumped up B.S. charges to kick him out of the country and take over his companies, they then used his companies resources to pulls a $100 Million tax rebate scam which was uncovered by Browder’s attorney Sergei Magnitski. Russian Chief prosecutor Chayka then trumped up charges against Magnitski and had him jailed for months without a trial where he grew several sick and died after being viciously beaten by the guard.
In the U.S. this led to the passage of the Magnitski Act, which is a set of sanctions against the individual and companies that were involved in and benefited from the tax rebate scam.
Earlier this year Russia had Browder arrested on their phony charges while he was vacationing in Spain, but the paperwork was so sloppy he was almost immediately released and various members of parliament were outraged.
MPs will urge the Home Secretary to intervene over Russia's "abuse" of Interpol to target a prominent British critic of Vladimir Putin.
A cross-party group, including Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the influential Commons foreign affairs committee, is writing to Sajid Javid to urge him to demand the suspension of Moscow's access to the international body's databases.
They are expected to warn that its participation in Interpol systems has allowed it to repeatedly request the arrest of Bill Browder, a campaigner against Russian human rights abuses.
The call comes after Mr Browder was arrested by Spanish police last week while in Madrid preparing to give evidence about corrupt money flowing into the country.
The US-born financier, has led a worldwide campaign for sanctions against Russians guilty of human rights abuses, since his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was found dead in a Russian prison in 2009, in what the UK government labelled an "atrocious murder".
The arrest by Spanish police was made in response to a Russian "diffusion order" distributed to member states through Interpol databases.
It prompted Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, to warn: "Moscow should concentrate on bringing those responsible for the murder of Magnitsky to justice."
The people who killed Magnitsky haven’t been brought to justice, but Russia is still in “hot pursuit” of Bill Browder and from what Putin said this morning they would want Browder in exchange for allowing Mueller access to the GRU hackers who attacked our nation (on his orders)?
And in addition to Browder, they allege that U.S. intel agents may have aided him and they want access to them too?
Oh, Bullshit, that’s is not happening — and Putin knows it will never happen but then he can use that fact as an excuse not to give Mueller anything.
Stalemate.
Monday, Jul 16, 2018 · 4:56:55 PM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
Niel Cavuto on the Trump-Putin Press meeting:
During his Fox Business News show Monday, host Neil Cavuto called President Donald Trump’s failure to denounce Russian President Vladimir Putin for the Russian interference in the 2016 election “disgusting,” saying that the presser “set us back a lot.”
“That made it disgusting. That made his performance disgusting,” Cavuto said of Trump’s refusal to even criticize the Russian President. “Only way I feel. Not a right or left thing to me. It is wrong.”
“A U.S. President on foreign soil talking to our biggest enemy or adversary or competitor, I don’t know how we define them, essentially letting the guy get away with this, not even offering a mild, a mild criticism,” he continued. “That sets us back a lot.”
Monday, Jul 16, 2018 · 5:03:55 PM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
Darrel Issa says Trump criticism of the FBI and Intel investigation of the 2016 election is “Fair”
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) said Monday that it was “fair” for President Donald Trump “to cast doubt” on the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia meddled in the 2016 election while Trump stood next to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a joint press conference Monday.
Referencing FBI agent Peter Strzok’s recent congressional testimony, and the “downgrading of Hillary Clinton’s criminal activity,” Issa said “for the President to cast doubt is not unreasonable.”
At the same time, he said, “we take those charges seriously, and so I personally would neither rule in nor rule out the validity of a very interesting and odd-timed indictment of people who can never be brought to justice, and for whom there’s even a question of, how do we know? Did we use spy technique in order to find out? Did we hack them in order to find out who they were?”
It was downgraded as not criminal because it wasn't criminal behavior, they had no evidence of INTENT, no evidence that anyone linked to Clinton had deliberately tried to violate security rules — unlike those people in the Trump campaign who were warned that trying to reach out to Russia was illegal, yet they continued to do it anyway.
Monday, Jul 16, 2018 · 5:29:09 PM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
Sen. Ben Sasse:
“This is bizarre and flat-out wrong,” he said in a statement. “The United States is not to blame. America wants a good relationship with the Russian people but Vladimir Putin and his thugs are responsible for Soviet-style aggression. When the President plays these moral equivalence games, he gives Putin a propaganda win he desperately needs.”