Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 19:11 - May 3 with 3964 views | Highjack |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 22:15 - May 2 by StormyD | Hi. |
Call me | |
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 00:38 - May 5 with 3918 views | DJack |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 19:11 - May 3 by Highjack | Call me |
...Call you what, exactly? | |
| It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. - Carl Sagan |
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 12:09 - May 9 with 3830 views | Shaky | Michael Cohen Received Payments from Investment Firm Linked to Sanctioned Russian Oligarch By Jack Crowe National Review, May 8, 2018 8:56 PM President Trump’s embattled personal lawyer Michael Cohen received payments from an investment firm linked to a Russian oligarch through the same corporation he relied on to facilitate the infamous hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. The payments, which total $500,000, were made to Cohen’s shell company, Essential Consultants L.L.C., by the investment firm Columbus Nova, according to financial records reviewed by the New York Times. Columbus Nova’s biggest client is a company controlled by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, whose cousin, Andrew Intrater, runs Columbus Nova. Vekselberg was placed last month on a list of Russian oligarchs subject to sanctions due to Russian meddling in the 2016 election. His cousin, Andrew Intrater, donated $250,000 to the Trump inauguration fund, $29,600 to the Republican National Committee, and $35,000 to the Trump Victory Fund, in June 2017, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team has questioned Vekselberg about the payments from Columbus Nova and the campaign donations made by his cousin, according to CNN. In addition to the payments from Columbus Nova, which were described by its lawyer as a “consulting fee,” the shell corporation received an additional $3.4 million in payments from the time shortly before Trump’s election through January of this year. Those additional payments were made by various fortune 500 companies, many of which have business before the Trump administration. The transactions were first revealed on Twitter by Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti, who claims that Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Daniels, through Essential Consultants L.L.C., violated federal election law. Cohen used the same shell corporation to arrange payments from Elliot Broidy, a major Republican donor, to a former Playboy model who claims he impregnated her. Essential Consultants L.L.C. also received a $99,980 payment from a subsidiary of Novartis, a Swedish pharmaceutical company, which frequently seeks approval from drug regulators and spent more than $10 million on federal lobbying last year. AT&T, whose merger with Time Warned is pending before the Department of Justice, paid a total of $200,000 to the shell corporation from October 2017 to January 2018. AT&T acknowledged making the payments, which they characterized as consulting fees, in a statement issued Tuesday. “Essential Consulting was one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration,” the statement said. “They did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in December 2017.” https://www.nationalreview.com/news/report-michael-cohen-received-payments-from- | |
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 18:35 - May 9 with 3797 views | Shaky | Well looky here; pharmaceutical giant Novartis paid Michael Cohen more than $1 million for no work whatsoever. That's mighty white of them, and no doubt entirely unrelated to Trump's raft of big pharma friendly policies. #DrainTheSwamp +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Novartis paid Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen more than $1 million for advice on president's approach to Obamacare — work he was unable to do By Dan Mangan | @_DanMangan CNBC, 9 May 2018 Drug giant Novartis paid President Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen more than $1 million for health-care policy consulting work that he actually ended up being "unable" to do, the company said Wednesday. The company also said it has been questioned by special counsel Robert Mueller's team about the payments to Cohen. Novartis said it signed a one-year contract with Cohen's shell company, Essential Consultants, for $100,000 per month in February 2017, shortly after Trump was inaugurated as president. Novartis said it believed Cohen "could advise the company as to how the Trump administration might approach certain U.S. health-care policy matters, including the Affordable Care Act." But just a month after signing the deal, Novartis executives had their first meeting with Cohen, and afterward "determined that Michael Cohen and Essentials Consultants would be unable to provide the services that Novartis had anticipated." But Novartis kept on paying Cohen, despite that fact. "As the contract, unfortunately, could only be terminated for cause, payments continued to be made until the contract expired by its own terms in February 2018," Novartis said. That means that Cohen was paid up to $1.2 million for his work. Novartis did not immediately disclose the total amount paid. full story: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/09/novartis-paid-trumps-lawyer-michael-cohen-more-t | |
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 11:01 - May 10 with 3754 views | Shaky | How Michael Cohen personally went about draining the swamp of as much cash as he could carry: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Inside Michael Cohen's aggressive pitch promising access to Trump By MJ Lee, Javier De Diego, Sarah Westwood, Marshall Cohen, Gloria Borger, Sara Murray and Dana Bash, CNN Updated 2233 GMT (0633 HKT) May 9, 2018 (CNN)Michael Cohen served loyally as Donald Trump's right-hand man for more than a decade, taking care of anything and everything the New York real estate baron needed to get done. On November 8, 2016, Cohen's stock suddenly soared: He was now the personal attorney to the President-elect of the United States, with unique understanding of a man that everyone was scrambling to get access to. Cohen quickly got to work. According to multiple people familiar with Cohen's conduct following the election, he aggressively pitched himself to potential clients, reminding them of his proximity to the most powerful man in the world. Those efforts landed Cohen lucrative consulting deals. New reporting this week revealed that in the months following the 2016 election, Cohen received hundreds of thousands of dollars from powerful entities based in and outside of the United States. "I don't know who's been representing you, but you should fire them all. I'm the guy you should hire. I'm closest to the President. I'm his personal lawyer," was how one GOP strategist described Cohen's sales pitch. Full story: https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/09/politics/michael-cohen-trump-lobbying/index.html | |
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 11:06 - May 10 with 3751 views | omarjack | Typical CNN Fake News.. President Trump's lawyer Mr.Cohen has nothing to hide..and if he does..I can assure you that President Trump does not even know who Michael Cohen is. But crooked Hillary and her Emails..tsk tsk.. MAGA MAGA MAGA.. | |
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 11:18 - May 10 with 3736 views | Shaky |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 11:06 - May 10 by omarjack | Typical CNN Fake News.. President Trump's lawyer Mr.Cohen has nothing to hide..and if he does..I can assure you that President Trump does not even know who Michael Cohen is. But crooked Hillary and her Emails..tsk tsk.. MAGA MAGA MAGA.. |
Exactly. Robert Mueller's team have either indicted or obtained guilty pleas from 19 people in connection with the Trump investigation, and his personal lawyer has had his office and home raided by the FBI pursuant to a clearly wide-ranging criminal investigation. But whatabout crooked Hilary? She used her personal email for work. FOR WORK! [Post edited 10 May 2018 11:53]
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 11:24 - May 10 with 3730 views | omarjack |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 11:18 - May 10 by Shaky | Exactly. Robert Mueller's team have either indicted or obtained guilty pleas from 19 people in connection with the Trump investigation, and his personal lawyer has had his office and home raided by the FBI pursuant to a clearly wide-ranging criminal investigation. But whatabout crooked Hilary? She used her personal email for work. FOR WORK! [Post edited 10 May 2018 11:53]
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In a nutshell..The Far-Right in the west have lost their f*cking minds..And willing to stoop to the lowest of lowest standards of human decency to achieve their xenophobic supremacist dreams..what a sh!tty era to witness..and on top of all of that..WE'RE A CHAMPIONSHIP CLUB AGAIN! No bright side at all..thank you Huw Jenkins for ruining our last glimmer of hope left :) (P.S:sorry for the off-topic,but everything leads to the bitter disappointment of Saturday night) | |
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 11:27 - May 10 with 3726 views | swanjackal | I see TDS is still strong on here | |
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Hypocritically hypocritical ! |
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 12:12 - May 10 with 3703 views | londonlisa2001 |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 11:27 - May 10 by swanjackal | I see TDS is still strong on here |
Entirely from his own supporters. | | | |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 12:17 - May 10 with 3698 views | Shaky |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 11:24 - May 10 by omarjack | In a nutshell..The Far-Right in the west have lost their f*cking minds..And willing to stoop to the lowest of lowest standards of human decency to achieve their xenophobic supremacist dreams..what a sh!tty era to witness..and on top of all of that..WE'RE A CHAMPIONSHIP CLUB AGAIN! No bright side at all..thank you Huw Jenkins for ruining our last glimmer of hope left :) (P.S:sorry for the off-topic,but everything leads to the bitter disappointment of Saturday night) |
What a time to be alive! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ GOP lawmaker introduces bill requiring pictures of Trump, Pence at post offices By Morgan Gstalter - The Hill, 05/09/18 02:03 PM EDT Rep. Dan Donovan (R-N.Y.) introduced a bill on Tuesday that would require U.S Postal Service offices to hang pictures of President Trump and Vice President Pence, The Washington Examiner reported. Donovan said last month that he decided to draft the proposal after a Staten Island resident said photos of former President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden(were hung up for years but pictures of Trump and Pence never went up. There is a rule that prevents the U.S. Postal Service from displaying pictures of the administration. Donovan’s office confirmed to the Examiner that the rule existed during Obama’s presidency but was rarely enforced. "First of all, the USPS rule is ridiculous," Donovan said in April, according to the Examiner. "When people go to the post office or any federal building, they expect to see pictures of their government leaders displayed." "Second of all, it's disturbing to hear anecdotal evidence that this rule was ignored for a very long time, and is only being enforced now because of who occupies the Oval Office," he added. His bill would mandate that the official photographs released by the White House be displayed in every post office, The Examiner reported. Donovan is gearing up for a primary challenge against former Rep. Michael Grimm (R), who finished an eight-month prison sentence in 2016 for pleading guilty to tax fraud and famously once threatened to throw a reporter off a balcony. Trump won the district by 10 points in 2016 after Obama narrowly took it in 2012. Republicans are expecting a tough challenge from Democrats hoping to flip the seat back. The New York primary will be held on June 26. http://thehill.com/homenews/house/386938-gop-lawmaker-introduces-bill-requiring- | |
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 18:15 - May 11 with 3648 views | Shaky | How Michael Avenatti got Michael Cohen’s emails And why that's a big problem for Cohen. May 11, 2018, 10:55 am Over the past few days, Michael Avenatti, the attorney for Stormy Daniels, has been steadily releasing what appear to be private communications between Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s longtime attorney, and Keith Davidson, who represented Daniels when she inked a $130,000 hush-money agreement that was facilitated through a shell company set up by Cohen. These emails are evidence of questionable, if not unethical, collusion between Cohen and Davidson, who are ostensibly representing opposing sides of the dispute. One email, released by Avenatti on Twitter on Thursday, shows that Cohen was communicating with Davidson in the days after the FBI raided his home and office and seized his phones. This email suggests an ongoing collaboration between Davidson and Cohen, even though the two are not known to be involved in any current legal matter. On Friday, Avenatti posted another email between Davidson and Cohen, from February, in which Cohen argues that Davidson should not forward part of the hush money agreement to Davidson’s new lawyer. (This didn’t work, as Avenatti obtained the “Side Letter Agreement” and released it as part of Daniels lawsuit against Cohen and Trump, filed in March.) This second email is not actually new and was released to NBC News in March. But it raises the question: How is Avenatti getting these emails? As a matter of practice, lawyers maintain case files for the benefit of their clients. If the client decides to seek new representation, the information in the case file is generally deemed to belong to the client, and it’s then forwarded to the new attorney. In this case, it appears that Davidson turned over these communications to Avenatti as part of Daniels’ case file. Avenatti hinted as much during a hearing in New York in late April in which he sought to intervene in a dispute about how the materials seized in the raid of Michael Cohen’s office would be handled. Avenatti argued that Davidson and Cohen were continuing to discuss his client’s case and that those communications were part of her case file, which belongs to her. Of course, those communications, whether they be by email, text messages, or otherwise, would technically belong to my client because it would be part of her attorney-client file. In other words, Avenatti is concerned there are more materials that belong to his client that were among those seized in the raid. The judge has not yet ruled on his request. Either way, Avenatti’s stockpile of emails potentially presents big problems for Cohen, Davidson – and possibly President Donald Trump. The nature of Cohen’s relationship with Davidson is key. They were supposed to be on opposite sides of a number of disputes. But the emails are evidence that the relationship between the two was more collaborative. Davidson’s representation of Stormy Daniels began when Cohen heard that Daniels was shopping her story around to various media outlets. It was at this point that Cohen asked Davidson to reach out to her, Davidson revealed in an interview with CNN. Cohen has admitted to referring at least one other client to Davidson. Were they each sincerely representing the interests of their clients? Or were they working in tandem to purchase their silence of women at a reduced rate and under favorable terms? Avenatti also says the emails contain evidence that Cohen was seeking to use his relationship with Davidson to interfere with Daniels obtaining new counsel. The purpose, according to Avenatti, was to cover up the other activities of Essential Consultants, the shell company used to pay Daniels, which also received millions from corporations seeking access to Trump. https://thinkprogress.org/how-michael-avenatti-got-michael-cohens-emails-b37184b | |
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 12:14 - May 17 with 3568 views | Shaky | Missing Files Motivated the Leak of Michael Cohen’s Financial Records; A law-enforcement official released the documents after finding that additional suspicious transactions did not appear in a government database. By Ronan Farrow New Yorker, May 16, 2018 6:17 PM Last week, several news outlets obtained financial records showing that Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal attorney, had used a shell company to receive payments from various firms with business before the Trump Administration. In the days since, there has been much speculation about who leaked the confidential documents, and the Treasury Department’s inspector general has launched a probe to find the source. That source, a law-enforcement official, is speaking publicly for the first time, to The New Yorker, to explain the motivation: the official had grown alarmed after being unable to find two important reports on Cohen’s financial activity in a government database. The official, worried that the information was being withheld from law enforcement, released the remaining documents. The payments to Cohen that have emerged in the past week come primarily from a single document, a “suspicious-activity report” filed by First Republic Bank, where Cohen’s shell company, Essential Consultants, L.L.C., maintained an account. The document detailed sums in the hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to Cohen by the pharmaceutical company Novartis, the telecommunications giant A.T. & T., and an investment firm with ties to the Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. The report also refers to two previous suspicious-activity reports, or sars, that the bank had filed, which documented even larger flows of questionable money into Cohen’s account. Those two reports detail more than three million dollars in additional transactions–triple the amount in the report released last week. Which individuals or corporations were involved remains a mystery. But, according to the official who leaked the report, these sars were absent from the database maintained by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or fincen. The official, who has spent a career in law enforcement, told me, “I have never seen something pulled off the system. . . . That system is a safeguard for the bank. It’s a stockpile of information. When something’s not there that should be, I immediately became concerned.” The official added, “That’s why I came forward.” Seven former government officials and other experts familiar with the Treasury Department’s fincen database expressed varying levels of concern about the missing reports. Some speculated that fincen may have restricted access to the reports due to the sensitivity of their content, which they said would be nearly unprecedented. One called the possibility “explosive.” A record-retention policy on fincen’s Web site notes that false documents or those “deemed highly sensitive” and “requiring strict limitations on access” may be transferred out of its master file. Nevertheless, a former prosecutor who spent years working with the fincen database said that she knew of no mechanism for restricting access to sars. She speculated that fincen may have taken the extraordinary step of restricting access “because of the highly sensitive nature of a potential investigation. It may be that someone reached out to fincen to ask to limit disclosure of certain sars related to an investigation, whether it was the special counsel or the Southern District of New York.” (The special counsel, Robert Mueller, is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. The Southern District is investigating Cohen, and the F.B.I. raided his office and hotel room last month.) Whatever the explanation for the missing reports, the appearance that some, but not all, had been removed or restricted troubled the official who released the report last week. “Why just those two missing?” the official, who feared that the contents of those two reports might be permanently withheld, said. “That’s what alarms me the most.” fincen said in a statement that it protects the confidentiality of sars “in order to protect both filers and potentially named individuals.” The statement added, “FinCEN neither confirms nor denies the existence of purported SARs.” Spokespeople for the special counsel’s office and the Southern District of New York declined to comment. Michael Cohen and his lawyer did not respond to requests for comment. Banks are legally mandated to file suspicious-activity reports with the government in order to call attention to activity that resembles money laundering, fraud, and other criminal conduct. These reports are routed to a permanent database maintained by fincen, which can be searched by tens of thousands of law-enforcement and other federal government personnel. The reports are a routine response to any financial activity that appears suspicious. They are not proof of criminal activity, and often do not result in criminal charges, though the information in them can be used in law-enforcement proceedings. “This is a permanent record. They should be there,” the official, who described an exhaustive search for the reports, said. “And there is nothing there.” Cohen set up the First Republic account for Essential Consultants in October, 2016, shortly before the Presidential election, in order to pay the adult-film actress Stephanie Clifford, who performs under the name Stormy Daniels, a hundred and thirty thousand dollars in return for signing a nondisclosure agreement about her alleged affair with Donald Trump. First Republic’s compliance officers later began flagging Cohen’s transactions in the account as possible signs of money laundering. Among other potential violations, the documents cite “suspicion concerning the source of funds,” “suspicious EFT/ wire transfers,” “suspicious use of multiple accounts,” and “transaction with no apparent economic, business, or lawful purpose.” (A spokesperson for First Republic Bank declined to comment.) By January of this year, First Republic had filed the three suspicious-activity reports about Cohen’s account. The most recent report–the only one made public so far–examined Cohen’s transactions from September of 2017 to January of 2018, and included activity totalling almost a million dollars. It alludes to the two previous reports that the official could not find in the fincen database. The first report that the official was unable to locate, which covered almost seven months, appears to have listed a little over a million dollars in activity. The second report that the official was unable to locate, which investigated a three-month period between June and September of 2017, found suspect transfers totalling more than two million dollars. A substantial portion of this money seems to have ended up in Cohen’s personal accounts. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney filed a separate sar showing that, during that same three-month period, Cohen set up two accounts with the firm, into which he deposited three checks from his Essential Consultants account, two in the amount of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and one in the amount of five hundred and five thousand dollars. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney marked those transactions, which added up to more than a million dollars, as possible signs of “bribery or gratuity” and “suspicious use of third-party transactors (straw-man).” Cohen appears to have misled First Republic repeatedly regarding the purpose of the Essential Consultants account. In paperwork filed with the bank, he said that the company would be devoted to using “his experience in real estate to consult on commercial and residential” deals. Cohen told the bank that his transactions would be modest, and based within the United States. In fact, the compliance officers wrote, “a significant portion of the target account deposits continue to originate from entities that have no apparent connection to real estate or apparent need to engage Cohen as a real estate consultant.” Likewise, “a significant portion of the deposits continues to be derived from foreign entities.” David Murray, a former Treasury official focussed on illicit finance, told me, “There are a ton of red flags here. The pattern of activity has indicators that are inherently suspicious, and the volume and source of funds do not match the account profile that was built when the account was opened.” The report released last week highlights a payment from Cohen’s account to Demeter Direct, Inc. In publicly filed paperwork, Demeter Direct represents itself as a Korean food company. However, a Web site, since taken down, suggested that it was a global consulting firm. After the press began scrutinizing Cohen’s accounts, a man listed as Demeter Direct’s C.E.O., Mark Ko, told CNN that he served as an intermediary and translator in Cohen’s dealings with an aviation firm, majority-owned by South Korea’s government, called Korea Aerospace Industries. According to the First Republic report, the aerospace company paid Cohen a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in November of 2017, the same month President Trump visited South Korea. At the time, the company was lobbying for a controversial multibillion-dollar contract with the U.S. Air Force. The report also shows how Cohen apparently used the Essential Consultants account for personal expenses. He seems to have used it to pay his American Express, A.T. & T., and Mercedes Benz bills, marking account numbers on the memo lines of his checks. He paid initiation fees and dues to the Core Club, a social club that the Times once described as a “portal to power.” He also cut himself multiple personal checks from Essential Consultants, amounting to more than a hundred thousand dollars, on top of the million he had already deposited into his Morgan Stanley accounts. In many cases, the suspicious-activity reports highlight activity of potential interest to ongoing investigations, including that of the special counsel, Robert Mueller. Bank compliance officers noted eight payments from a company called Columbus Nova to Cohen’s account between January and August of 2017, totalling five hundred thousand dollars. The investigators wrote that Columbus Nova’s biggest client is a company controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, whom they described as “reputed to be a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.” The report also points out that Andrew Intrater, Vekselberg’s relative and the C.E.O. of Columbus Nova, donated more than three hundred thousand dollars to Trump-related causes. The report flagged the activity as suspicious “because the CEO’s company transferred substantial funds to the personal attorney of Trump at the same time the CEO reportedly donated substantial funds to Trump’s inauguration fund and joint fundraising committee for Trump’s reelection and the Republican National Committee.” Other banks also noticed Cohen’s suspicious transactions and filed their own sars about his activity. Some of those show the banks piecing together the reasons for the transactions from news reports, citing articles from publications including the Wall Street Journal and Vanity Fair about Trump, Russia, and secret election-season payments, including the payment to Clifford. One, filed by City National Bank, follows money paid to Cohen by Elliott Broidy, at the time the deputy finance chairman for the Republican National Committee. The report notes, “Broidy also owns a private security company, Circinus, which provides services to the U.S. and other governments. The company has hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts with the U.A.E.” Broidy has said that Cohen and another lawyer, Keith Davidson, worked out a deal in which Broidy would pay $1.6 million to a former Playboy model he had impregnated. Broidy appears to have paid both lawyers for arranging the deal. The City National report shows that Broidy funnelled the payments through Real Estate Attorneys’ Group, a legal corporation. Broidy seems to have paid Davidson two hundred thousand dollars, and to have sent three payments, of $62,500 each, to Cohen–one to the Essential Consultants account and two to the account of Michael D. Cohen and Associates. A representative for Broidy said that this description of the payments was “not correct,” and that “Mr. Broidy is not going to detail his payments for legal services to Mr. Cohen.” The representative added, “Mr. Broidy did not pay Mr. Davidson.” However, the City National report shows that on November 30, 2017, a wire of two hundred thousand dollars was received by the Real Estate Attorneys’ Group from Broidy. Then, on December 5, 2017, two hundred thousand dollars were transferred from Real Estate Attorneys’ Group to an account belonging to Keith M. Davidson and Associates. Michael Avenatti, an attorney representing Clifford, who has released summaries of Cohen’s transactions on social media, said, “The Treasury Department should release all of the sars immediately to the American public.” Suspicious-activity reports are kept strictly confidential, as a matter of law. “sars are secret, to protect the government and to protect financial institutions,” the former prosecutor told me. “I don’t think there’s a safe harbor for somebody who discloses it.” According to fincen, disclosing a sar is a federal offense, carrying penalties including fines of up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and imprisonment for up to five years. The official who released the suspicious-activity reports was aware of the risks, but said fears that the missing reports might be suppressed compelled the disclosure. “We’ve accepted this as normal, and this is not normal,” the official said. “Things that stand out as abnormal, like documents being removed from a system, are of grave concern to me.” Of the potential for legal consequences, the official said, “To say that I am terrified right now would be an understatement.” But, referring to the released report, as well as the potential contents of the missing reports, the official also added, “This is a terrifying time to be an American, to be in this situation, and to watch all of this unfold.” © Condé Nast 2018 https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/missing-files-motivated-the-leak-of-mic | |
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 17:37 - May 18 with 3467 views | Shaky | Meanwhile in related sex scandal news: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Donald Trump Can't Stop Discovery in 'Apprentice' Alum's Defamation Lawsuit By Eriq Gardner Hollywoord Reporter, May 17, 2018 New York appeals court has refused Donald Trump's bid to pause discovery in the defamation lawsuit brought by former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos. Zervos is suing Trump over comments during the 2016 presidential election. After tape was published of Trump boasting to Access Hollywood's Billy Bush about grabbing women's genitals, Trump denied ever assaulting women. As Trump came under fire for his comments, several women including Zervos came forward. She accuses him of kissing her twice in 2007 and attacking her in a hotel room. “I never met her at a hotel,” responded Trump, who would also attack allegations from his accusers as "100 percent fabricated and made-up charges, pushed strongly by the media and the Clinton campaign." In her lawsuit, Zervos claims she's been branded as a liar. Trump, in response, argued that the U.S. Constitution didn't allow this case to proceed right away thanks to the Supremacy Clause, which Trump's attorney, Marc Kasowitz, posited meant "that state governments, including their courts, refrain from interfering in the operations of the federal government." "No one is above the law," wrote New York Supreme Court Judge Jennifer Schecter in allowing a defamation lawsuit in March. "For the very same reasons articulated in Clinton v. Jones, a stay for the duration of the Trump presidency must be denied," the opinion stated. "Nothing in the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution even suggests that the President cannot be called to account for wrongful conduct that bears no relationship to any federal executive responsibility." Looking to take advantage of this decision, Zervos' lawyers have sent out subpoenas. Trump has been given to May 29 to respond to a demand that he be deposed. Trump hoped to delay everything by pushing New York's appeals court for a stay on the case while he continues to press his constitutional arguments to higher authorities. That won't happen. The appellate decision today also could be meaningful to third parties, in particular, MGM, which is facing a demand for Apprentice footage and documents showing any inappropriate comments from Trump towards women. It's possible that MGM may look to quash the subpoena or attempt to limit it in scope. Zervos' attorneys have also subpoenaed records from the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Zervos says Trump made unwelcome advances in 2007. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/donald-trump-cant-stop-discovery-summe | |
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 11:11 - May 19 with 3411 views | A_Fans_Dad | I love your totally one sided onslaught against President Trump. How about you telling the other side of the story, ie that the DOJ, CIA & FBI really were spying on him even before he became President. After total denial for 18 months they now admit to it, so you see he was right about that all along, as were the rest of us so called "conspiracy theorists". Assuming you accept the NYT as a reliable source that is. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/us/politics/crossfire-hurricane-trump-russia- | | | |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 17:07 - May 19 with 3379 views | Humpty |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 11:11 - May 19 by A_Fans_Dad | I love your totally one sided onslaught against President Trump. How about you telling the other side of the story, ie that the DOJ, CIA & FBI really were spying on him even before he became President. After total denial for 18 months they now admit to it, so you see he was right about that all along, as were the rest of us so called "conspiracy theorists". Assuming you accept the NYT as a reliable source that is. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/us/politics/crossfire-hurricane-trump-russia- |
They were investigating him for a reason i.e. how did a member of Trump's campaign team have knowledge of Russia hacking the DNC before it was announced? Any ideas Dad? | | | |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 20:32 - May 19 with 3345 views | A_Fans_Dad |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 17:07 - May 19 by Humpty | They were investigating him for a reason i.e. how did a member of Trump's campaign team have knowledge of Russia hacking the DNC before it was announced? Any ideas Dad? |
It wasn't "hacked". https://knowledgeisgood.net/2018/03/04/dnc-server-really-hacked/ | | | |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 20:55 - May 19 with 3325 views | Shaky |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 11:11 - May 19 by A_Fans_Dad | I love your totally one sided onslaught against President Trump. How about you telling the other side of the story, ie that the DOJ, CIA & FBI really were spying on him even before he became President. After total denial for 18 months they now admit to it, so you see he was right about that all along, as were the rest of us so called "conspiracy theorists". Assuming you accept the NYT as a reliable source that is. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/us/politics/crossfire-hurricane-trump-russia- |
No he wasn't; he's a compulsive liar. Here's the reveal from the Times: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ F.B.I. Used Informant to Investigate Russia Ties to Campaign, Not to Spy, as Trump Claims By Adam Goldman, Mark Mazzetti and Matthew Rosenberg NYT, May 18, 2018 WASHINGTON – President Trump accused the F.B.I. on Friday, without evidence, of sending a spy to secretly infiltrate his 2016 campaign “for political purposes” even before the bureau had any inkling of the “phony Russia hoax.” In fact, F.B.I. agents sent an informant to talk to two campaign advisers only after they received evidence that the pair had suspicious contacts linked to Russia during the campaign. The informant, an American academic who teaches in Britain, made contact late that summer with one campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, according to people familiar with the matter. He also met repeatedly in the ensuing months with the other aide, Carter Page, who was also under F.B.I. scrutiny for his ties to Russia. The role of the informant is at the heart of the newest battle between top law enforcement officials and Mr. Trump’s congressional allies over the F.B.I.’s most politically charged investigations in decades. The lawmakers, who say they are concerned that federal investigators are abusing their authority, have demanded documents from the Justice Department about the informant. Law enforcement officials have refused, saying that handing over the documents would imperil both the source’s anonymity and safety. The New York Times has learned the source’s identity but typically does not name informants to preserve their safety. Democrats say the Republicans’ real aim is to undermine the special counsel investigation. Senior law enforcement officials have also privately expressed concern that the Republicans are digging into F.B.I. files for information they can weaponize against the Russia inquiry. Over the past two days, Mr. Trump has used speculative news reports about the informant, mostly from conservative media, to repeatedly assail the Russia investigation. “Reports are there was indeed at least one FBI representative implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for president,” he wrote on Twitter on Friday. “It took place very early on, and long before the phony Russia Hoax became a ‘hot’ Fake News story. If true – all time biggest political scandal!” No evidence has emerged that the informant acted improperly when the F.B.I. asked for help in gathering information on the former campaign advisers, or that agents veered from the F.B.I.’s investigative guidelines and began a politically motivated inquiry, which would be illegal. But agents were leery of disrupting the presidential campaign again after the F.B.I. had announced in a high-profile news conference that it had closed the case involving Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, according to current and former law enforcement officials. After opening the Russia inquiry about a month later, they took steps, those officials said, to ensure that details of the inquiry were more closely held than even in a typical national security investigation, including the use of the informant to suss out information from the unsuspecting targets. Sending F.B.I. agents to interview them could have created additional risk that the investigation’s existence would seep into view in the final weeks of a heated presidential race. F.B.I. officials concluded they had the legal authority to open the investigation after receiving information that Mr. Papadopoulos was told that Moscow had compromising information on Mrs. Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails,” months before WikiLeaks released stolen messages from Democratic officials. As part of the operation, code-named Crossfire Hurricane, the F.B.I. also began investigating Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and his future national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn. Details about the informant’s relationship with the F.B.I. remain scant. It is not clear how long the relationship existed and whether the F.B.I. paid the source or assigned the person to other cases. Informants take great risks when working for intelligence services, Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, testified before Congress on Wednesday. Their identities must not be exposed, he said, hinting at congressional efforts to obtain the name of the source. “The day that we can’t protect human sources is the day the American people start becoming less safe.” One of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani, acknowledged on Friday that neither the president nor his legal team knew with certainty that the F.B.I. had implanted a spy in the Trump campaign, as he and the president had alleged. “I don’t know for sure, nor does the president, if there really was one,” Mr. Giuliani said on CNN. “For a long time, we’ve been told there was some kind of infiltration.” The informant is well known in Washington circles, having served in previous Republican administrations and as a source of information for the C.I.A. in past years, according to one person familiar with the source’s work. F.B.I. agents were seeking more details about what Mr. Papadopoulos knew about the hacked Democratic emails, and one month after their Russia investigation began, Mr. Papadopoulos received a curious message. The academic inquired about his interest in writing a research paper on a disputed gas field in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, a subject of Mr. Papadopoulos’s expertise. The informant offered a $3,000 honorarium for the paper and a paid trip to London, where the two could meet and discuss the research project. “I understand that this is rather sudden but thought that given your expertise it might be of interest to you,” the informant wrote in a message to Mr. Papadopoulos, sent on Sept. 2, 2016. Mr. Papadopoulos accepted the offer and arrived in London two weeks later, where he met for several days with the academic and one of his assistants, a young woman. Over drinks and dinner one evening at a high-end London hotel, the F.B.I. informant raised the subject of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails that had spilled into public view earlier that summer, according to a person familiar with the conversation. The source noted how helpful they had been to the Trump campaign, and asked Mr. Papadopoulos whether he knew anything about Russian attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election. Mr. Papadopoulos replied that he had no insight into the Russian campaign – despite being told months earlier that the Russians had dirt on Mrs. Clinton in the form of thousands of her emails. His response clearly annoyed the informant, who tried to press Mr. Papadopoulos about what he might know about the Russian effort, according to the person. The assistant also raised the subject of Russia and the Clinton emails during a separate conversation over drinks with Mr. Papadopoulos, and again he denied he knew anything about Russian attempts to disrupt the election. After the trip to London, Mr. Papadopoulos wrote the 1,500-word research paper and was paid for his work. He did not hear again from the informant. Mr. Page, a Navy veteran, served briefly as an adviser to Mr. Trump’s campaign until September 2016. He said that he first encountered the informant during a conference in mid-July of 2016 and that they stayed in touch. The two later met several times in the Washington area. Mr. Page said their interactions were benign. The two last exchanged emails in September 2017, about a month before a secret warrant to surveil Mr. Page expired after being repeatedly renewed by a federal judge. Mr. Trump’s congressional allies have also assailed the surveillance, accusing law enforcement officials, with little evidence, of abusing their authority and spying on the Trump campaign. The informant also had contacts with Mr. Flynn, the retired Army general who was Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser. The two met in February 2014, when Mr. Flynn was running the Defense Intelligence Agency and attended the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, an academic forum for former spies and researchers that meets a few times a year. According to people familiar with Mr. Flynn’s visit to the intelligence seminar, the source was alarmed by the general’s apparent closeness with a Russian woman who was also in attendance. The concern was strong enough that it prompted another person to pass on a warning to the American authorities that Mr. Flynn could be compromised by Russian intelligence, according to two people familiar with the matter. Two years later, in late 2016, the seminar itself was embroiled in a scandal about Russian spying. A number of its organizers resigned over what they said was a Kremlin-backed attempt to take control of the group. Reporting was contributed by Nicholas Fandos, Sharon LaFraniere, Katie Benner and Eileen Sullivan. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/us/politics/trump-fbi-informant-russia-invest | |
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 21:31 - May 19 with 3304 views | Humpty |
Heh! Righto. So every US intelligence agency says it was, a pro Trump, pro Russia website says it wasn't. It's hard to know who to believe isn't it? Anyway, the gobby pissed Trump aide in question, George Papadopoulos, has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russian links and is now cooperating with Mr Mueller. We'll have to wait and see what he's got to say. Should be interesting. | | | |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 22:00 - May 19 with 3286 views | Shaky |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 21:31 - May 19 by Humpty | Heh! Righto. So every US intelligence agency says it was, a pro Trump, pro Russia website says it wasn't. It's hard to know who to believe isn't it? Anyway, the gobby pissed Trump aide in question, George Papadopoulos, has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russian links and is now cooperating with Mr Mueller. We'll have to wait and see what he's got to say. Should be interesting. |
LOL, not sure whether to post this in the Iran thread but looks like Trump may have been in the Saudi's pockets as well! ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Trump Jr. and Other Aides Met With Gulf Emissary Offering Help to Win ElectionTrump Jr. and Other Aides Met With Gulf Emissary Offering Help to Win Election By Mark Mazzetti, Ronen Bergman and David D. Kirkpatrick NYT, May 19, 2018 WASHINGTON – Three months before the 2016 election, a small group gathered at Trump Tower to meet with Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son. One was an Israeli specialist in social media manipulation. Another was an emissary for two wealthy Arab princes. The third was a Republican donor with a controversial past in the Middle East as a private security contractor. The meeting was convened primarily to offer help to the Trump team, and it forged relationships between the men and Trump insiders that would develop over the coming months – past the election and well into President Trump’s first year in office, according to several people with knowledge of their encounters. Erik Prince, the private security contractor and the former head of Blackwater, arranged the meeting, which took place on Aug. 3, 2016. The emissary, George Nader, told Donald Trump Jr. that the crown princes who led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president. The social media specialist, Joel Zamel, extolled his company’s ability to give an edge to a political campaign; by that time, the firm had already drawn up a multimillion-dollar proposal for a social media manipulation effort to help elect Mr. Trump. The company, which employed several Israeli former intelligence officers, specialized in collecting information and shaping opinion through social media. Full story: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/us/politics/trump-jr-saudi-uae-nader-prince-z | |
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 22:20 - May 19 with 3279 views | A_Fans_Dad |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 20:55 - May 19 by Shaky | No he wasn't; he's a compulsive liar. Here's the reveal from the Times: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ F.B.I. Used Informant to Investigate Russia Ties to Campaign, Not to Spy, as Trump Claims By Adam Goldman, Mark Mazzetti and Matthew Rosenberg NYT, May 18, 2018 WASHINGTON – President Trump accused the F.B.I. on Friday, without evidence, of sending a spy to secretly infiltrate his 2016 campaign “for political purposes” even before the bureau had any inkling of the “phony Russia hoax.” In fact, F.B.I. agents sent an informant to talk to two campaign advisers only after they received evidence that the pair had suspicious contacts linked to Russia during the campaign. The informant, an American academic who teaches in Britain, made contact late that summer with one campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, according to people familiar with the matter. He also met repeatedly in the ensuing months with the other aide, Carter Page, who was also under F.B.I. scrutiny for his ties to Russia. The role of the informant is at the heart of the newest battle between top law enforcement officials and Mr. Trump’s congressional allies over the F.B.I.’s most politically charged investigations in decades. The lawmakers, who say they are concerned that federal investigators are abusing their authority, have demanded documents from the Justice Department about the informant. Law enforcement officials have refused, saying that handing over the documents would imperil both the source’s anonymity and safety. The New York Times has learned the source’s identity but typically does not name informants to preserve their safety. Democrats say the Republicans’ real aim is to undermine the special counsel investigation. Senior law enforcement officials have also privately expressed concern that the Republicans are digging into F.B.I. files for information they can weaponize against the Russia inquiry. Over the past two days, Mr. Trump has used speculative news reports about the informant, mostly from conservative media, to repeatedly assail the Russia investigation. “Reports are there was indeed at least one FBI representative implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for president,” he wrote on Twitter on Friday. “It took place very early on, and long before the phony Russia Hoax became a ‘hot’ Fake News story. If true – all time biggest political scandal!” No evidence has emerged that the informant acted improperly when the F.B.I. asked for help in gathering information on the former campaign advisers, or that agents veered from the F.B.I.’s investigative guidelines and began a politically motivated inquiry, which would be illegal. But agents were leery of disrupting the presidential campaign again after the F.B.I. had announced in a high-profile news conference that it had closed the case involving Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, according to current and former law enforcement officials. After opening the Russia inquiry about a month later, they took steps, those officials said, to ensure that details of the inquiry were more closely held than even in a typical national security investigation, including the use of the informant to suss out information from the unsuspecting targets. Sending F.B.I. agents to interview them could have created additional risk that the investigation’s existence would seep into view in the final weeks of a heated presidential race. F.B.I. officials concluded they had the legal authority to open the investigation after receiving information that Mr. Papadopoulos was told that Moscow had compromising information on Mrs. Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails,” months before WikiLeaks released stolen messages from Democratic officials. As part of the operation, code-named Crossfire Hurricane, the F.B.I. also began investigating Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and his future national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn. Details about the informant’s relationship with the F.B.I. remain scant. It is not clear how long the relationship existed and whether the F.B.I. paid the source or assigned the person to other cases. Informants take great risks when working for intelligence services, Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, testified before Congress on Wednesday. Their identities must not be exposed, he said, hinting at congressional efforts to obtain the name of the source. “The day that we can’t protect human sources is the day the American people start becoming less safe.” One of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani, acknowledged on Friday that neither the president nor his legal team knew with certainty that the F.B.I. had implanted a spy in the Trump campaign, as he and the president had alleged. “I don’t know for sure, nor does the president, if there really was one,” Mr. Giuliani said on CNN. “For a long time, we’ve been told there was some kind of infiltration.” The informant is well known in Washington circles, having served in previous Republican administrations and as a source of information for the C.I.A. in past years, according to one person familiar with the source’s work. F.B.I. agents were seeking more details about what Mr. Papadopoulos knew about the hacked Democratic emails, and one month after their Russia investigation began, Mr. Papadopoulos received a curious message. The academic inquired about his interest in writing a research paper on a disputed gas field in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, a subject of Mr. Papadopoulos’s expertise. The informant offered a $3,000 honorarium for the paper and a paid trip to London, where the two could meet and discuss the research project. “I understand that this is rather sudden but thought that given your expertise it might be of interest to you,” the informant wrote in a message to Mr. Papadopoulos, sent on Sept. 2, 2016. Mr. Papadopoulos accepted the offer and arrived in London two weeks later, where he met for several days with the academic and one of his assistants, a young woman. Over drinks and dinner one evening at a high-end London hotel, the F.B.I. informant raised the subject of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails that had spilled into public view earlier that summer, according to a person familiar with the conversation. The source noted how helpful they had been to the Trump campaign, and asked Mr. Papadopoulos whether he knew anything about Russian attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election. Mr. Papadopoulos replied that he had no insight into the Russian campaign – despite being told months earlier that the Russians had dirt on Mrs. Clinton in the form of thousands of her emails. His response clearly annoyed the informant, who tried to press Mr. Papadopoulos about what he might know about the Russian effort, according to the person. The assistant also raised the subject of Russia and the Clinton emails during a separate conversation over drinks with Mr. Papadopoulos, and again he denied he knew anything about Russian attempts to disrupt the election. After the trip to London, Mr. Papadopoulos wrote the 1,500-word research paper and was paid for his work. He did not hear again from the informant. Mr. Page, a Navy veteran, served briefly as an adviser to Mr. Trump’s campaign until September 2016. He said that he first encountered the informant during a conference in mid-July of 2016 and that they stayed in touch. The two later met several times in the Washington area. Mr. Page said their interactions were benign. The two last exchanged emails in September 2017, about a month before a secret warrant to surveil Mr. Page expired after being repeatedly renewed by a federal judge. Mr. Trump’s congressional allies have also assailed the surveillance, accusing law enforcement officials, with little evidence, of abusing their authority and spying on the Trump campaign. The informant also had contacts with Mr. Flynn, the retired Army general who was Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser. The two met in February 2014, when Mr. Flynn was running the Defense Intelligence Agency and attended the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, an academic forum for former spies and researchers that meets a few times a year. According to people familiar with Mr. Flynn’s visit to the intelligence seminar, the source was alarmed by the general’s apparent closeness with a Russian woman who was also in attendance. The concern was strong enough that it prompted another person to pass on a warning to the American authorities that Mr. Flynn could be compromised by Russian intelligence, according to two people familiar with the matter. Two years later, in late 2016, the seminar itself was embroiled in a scandal about Russian spying. A number of its organizers resigned over what they said was a Kremlin-backed attempt to take control of the group. Reporting was contributed by Nicholas Fandos, Sharon LaFraniere, Katie Benner and Eileen Sullivan. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/us/politics/trump-fbi-informant-russia-invest |
You do realise that Carter Page was an FBI informant in the 2015/16 Podobnyy case before joining Trumps team and before the FBI cited him as a Russian Contact. He declared this himself at the HPSCI hearing and it was previously leaked to the press. So he had already been working with & for the FBI prior to joining Trumps team back in 2016. | | | |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 22:26 - May 19 with 3274 views | Shaky |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 22:20 - May 19 by A_Fans_Dad | You do realise that Carter Page was an FBI informant in the 2015/16 Podobnyy case before joining Trumps team and before the FBI cited him as a Russian Contact. He declared this himself at the HPSCI hearing and it was previously leaked to the press. So he had already been working with & for the FBI prior to joining Trumps team back in 2016. |
I think you are a little confused. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ". . .In January 2013, Page met a Russian diplomat named Victor Podobnyy at an energy conference in New York City, according to court documents. The two exchanged contact information, sent each other documents on energy policy and met several more times to discuss the topic, the documents allege. Two years later, in January of 2015, Podobnyy was charged in absentia – along with two other Russians – with working as a Russian intelligence agent under diplomatic cover. Court records include a transcript of a conversation where Podobnyy talks about recruiting someone named “Male-1” by making “empty promises” about “connections in the [Russian] Trade Representation.” Page now acknowledges that he was “Male-1.” Podobnyy and one of the Russians had diplomatic immunity and left the U.S. The third Russian was arrested and eventually expelled from the U.S. in April 2017." http://time.com/5132126/carter-page-russia-2013-letter/ | |
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 22:29 - May 19 with 3267 views | Darran | This could possibly be the most boring fuçking thread in the history of Planetswans. Some sad twáts around aye. Get a fuçking life is it? | |
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Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 22:33 - May 19 with 3260 views | Humpty |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 22:29 - May 19 by Darran | This could possibly be the most boring fuçking thread in the history of Planetswans. Some sad twáts around aye. Get a fuçking life is it? |
Start a thread about you then. You like them. | | | |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 00:56 - May 20 with 3194 views | omarjack |
Breaking News: FBI Raid Trump's Lawyer on 22:29 - May 19 by Darran | This could possibly be the most boring fuçking thread in the history of Planetswans. Some sad twáts around aye. Get a fuçking life is it? |
Thread bump to piss you off :) | |
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