04/13/17

FBI Obtained FISA Warrant for Trump’s Adviser Carter Page for His Connections to the Russians

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton | Right Wing News

Carter Page is in hot water and it’s about to boil it would seem. This is a man I wrote on and warned about long ago. Trump’s team is claiming he was never connected to them, but that just isn’t true. He was an adviser to the Trump campaign early on. To be fair, Trump cut the guy off early on as well. And it would seem with good reason. It turns out the FBI did have a FISA warrant against Page. Why? Because he was approached in 2013 by the Russians to spy for them. He claims he turned them down… but he did meet with them. Please note that Page has not been charged with any crime, which indicates to me that they have nothing on him or he would have already been behind bars.

The FBI still strongly suspects that Page was acting as an agent for the Russians. I do too, just for the record. Page is heavy into investments in Russia… especially oil and gas. If I had to guess, I would bet he approached an intermediary for Trump’s team to ‘help’ them out. I also seriously suspect that Paul Manafort, who took millions every year from the Russians, was also compromised. This doesn’t make President Trump guilty of collusion with the Russians, but it does show his camp was vulnerable to penetration by the Russkies. I think it is pretty evident that Trump is not in bed with the Russians… but the Russians were definitely trying to crawl between the sheets with him.

From The Daily Caller:

The FBI gained approval from a secret federal court last summer to conduct communications surveillance against Carter Page, a former adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, The Washington Post is reporting.

The revelation confirms for the first time that a federal surveillance warrant, known as a FISA warrant, was issued for a member of the Trump campaign as part of a federal investigation of potential ties between the Republican’s associates and the Russian government.

In the application for the warrant, federal officials laid out what they said was evidence that there was probable cause showing that Page was acting as an agent of the Russian government, officials told The Post.

That evidence included contacts in 2013 with Russian spies who tried to recruit Page in New York City. The details of that recruitment attempt were laid out in a sealed FBI complaint filed in Jan. 2015. BuzzFeed News published the complaint earlier this month. Page denied that he was successfully recruited or that he shared any sensitive information with the agents.

I have written for years that you cannot trust the Russians. Just because we moronically cut back on our spies, it doesn’t mean they did. In fact, they have stepped up their intelligence. Individuals like Carter Page who have financial ties to Russia are prime candidates to be flipped to become spies for the Kremlin. Federal officials cited other contacts between Page and Russian operatives in the FISA application. Those contacts have not been made public… yet.

Page is an energy consultant who runs the Manhattan-based firm Global Energy Capital and he was brought on to the campaign in March as a foreign policy adviser. He served in a low-level role and is said to have never met Trump. The Democrats are trying to insinuate this means that Trump was doing the bidding of the Russians. I don’t believe so and there is no evidence of that. Page, whose offices are in a building adjacent to Trump Tower, drew national attention in July after he traveled to Moscow to give a speech at a university commencement ceremony. While in Moscow, Page met Arkady Dvorkovich, Russia’s deputy prime minister. Page officially left the Trump campaign in September.

Page is the only one who was actually surveilled it would seem. There’s nothing on Paul Manafort, Roger Stone or Michael Flynn. All of these men have had iffy contacts with the Russians at one point or another. All of them have been paid by the Russians as well. That doesn’t mean much… all have been under scrutiny and more will come out on them. Page is denying all wrong doing and says he will be proven innocent of connections to Putin. He cites false information on him in that cooked up dossier on Trump. We’ll see. The truth will eventually come out and this doesn’t make the Trump administration look good. But there has been no charges of wrong doing so far. Innocent until proven guilty… the media should remember that. And guilt by association won’t hold up here.

UPDATE: The Daily Caller is now reporting that Corey Lewandowski was the one who introduced Carter Page to President Trump, which I find very interesting because I heard him myself on Fox News when he claimed that he had never met Page and he’d never been part of Trump’s campaign. Obviously, that was a fib. Lewandowski told The Daily Caller he did not remember ever meeting Page. Right. “I’ve never met or spoken to Carter Page in my life,” Lewandowski insisted during a Fox News interview with Jeanine Pirro last month. “I was on the campaign for 18 months, I never met the guy, and for anybody to say otherwise is factually inaccurate. I don’t know who Carter Page is, I never had a conversation with Carter Page, I never met Carter Page, and anybody who says otherwise is not being truthful,” insisted Lewandowski, who was fired from the campaign on June 20th.

Sources are saying that Lewandowski introduced Page to Trump campaign policy director Sam Clovis sometime in late 2015 or early 2016. During the brief encounter, which occurred in New York City, Lewandowski suggested that the two get to know each other. Page, the managing partner of Global Energy Partners, an energy consulting firm, would join the campaign as an adviser several months later. They are reporting that Clovis brought Page onto the campaign team. Lewandowski has had at least one other documented interaction with Page. He was the campaign official who gave final approval to Page’s visit to Moscow.

08/17/16

Manafort Caught Secretly Routing at Least $2.2 Million in Payments to Lobbyists

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Trump

After documents surfaced implicating Paul Manafort in corrupt dealings in the Ukraine with ties to not only Vladimir Putin, but the Russian mob, now comes a new bombshell. It turns out that Manafort probably broke the law, secretly routing at least $2.2 million to two prominent Washington lobbying firms in 2012 from the pro-Russian governing party in the Ukraine. He did it in a way that hid those connections to influence foreign policy. Bad Russian plant… bad, bad.

Per the AP, under federal law, US lobbyists must declare publicly if they represent foreign leaders or their political parties and provide detailed reports about their actions to the Justice Department. A violation is a felony and can result in up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Manafort has some ‘splainin’ to do and federal charges may be forthcoming.

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The Trump campaign, now in panic mode, shuffled the deck quickly last night, saying that Trump doesn’t like to be ‘constrained’. I guess he’s not into handcuffs much. Go figure. Manafort is still on his team as campaign manager… wouldn’t want to sever that life or death connection to Putin, now would we?

Look carefully at who Trump brought up the ranks. Kellyanne Conway joined the Donald Trump campaign three weeks ago and she has appeared on television an average of three times daily, projecting titanic optimism: Trump will win over America’s women as his new campaign manager. That’s just laughable. But even more hilarious is the selection of Breitbart’s Steve Bannon as CEO… a vicious and predatory media hit man with leanings toward racist nationalism. He’s literally turned Breitbart into Pravda for Donald Trump. Which is apropos considering that BuzzFeed put out that he was accepting $500 per story at Breitbart in 2014 to favor Russia over the Ukraine. Think about that and then think about all of Trump’s nefarious Russian connections. Once again, Bannon sought Trump out just as Manafort did. Last but not least, former Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes has been hired to prepare Trump for the debates. Yeah, that ought to be great for PR and women love men who have sexually accosted other women. What a winner.

And don’t forget Donald Trump’s daughter and her husband, Jared Kushner, who spent some time on billionaire Democrat David Geffen’s yacht off the coast of Croatia on Friday. The couple were photographed jet skiing and sunbathing on the $200 million boat, named the Rising Sun. Geffen, a Hollywood executive and close friend of President Barack Obama, donated large sums of money to both Bernie Sanders’ and Hillary Clinton’s campaigns during the primaries, according to the Daily Mail.

Ivanka is said to be vacationing with Wendi Deng Murdoch – Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife and Vladimir Putin’s current rumored girlfriend. Cozy with Russia AND Progressive Marxists. It’s a twofer and all in the elite family, don’t ya know.

Wendi Deng Murdoch, left, is shown with Ivanka Trump in Dubrovnik, Croatia. (Ivanka Trump / Instagram)

Wendi Deng Murdoch, left, is shown with Ivanka Trump in Dubrovnik, Croatia. (Ivanka Trump / Instagram)

Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner are seen riding jet skis and sunbathing while enjoying a vacation on the Rising Sun yacht with a friend on the Adriatic Coast in Croatia. Featuring: Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner Where: Adriatic Coast, Croatia When: 12 Aug 2016 Credit: WENN.com **Only available for publication in UK, USA, Germany, Austria, Switzerland**

Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner are seen riding jet skis and sunbathing while enjoying a vacation on the Rising Sun yacht with a friend on the Adriatic Coast in Croatia.
Featuring: Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner
Where: Adriatic Coast, Croatia
When: 12 Aug 2016
Credit: WENN.com
**Only available for publication in UK, USA, Germany, Austria, Switzerland**

And we come back to Manafort, because he is key in all this. Manafort and business associate Rick Gates, another top strategist in Trump’s campaign, were working in 2012 on behalf of the political party of Ukraine’s then-president, Viktor Yanukovych. During the period when Gates and Manafort were consultants to the Ukraine president’s political party, Gates was also helping steer the advocacy work done by a pro-Yanukovych nonprofit that hired a pair of Washington lobbying firms, Podesta Group Inc. and Mercury LLC. That’s right… the freaking Podesta Group.

From the AP:

Gates told the AP that he and Manafort introduced the lobbying firms to the European Centre nonprofit and occasionally consulted with the firms on Ukrainian politics. He called the actions lawful, and said there was no attempt to circumvent the reporting requirements of the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The heads of both lobbying firms told AP they concluded there was no obligation to disclose their activities to the Justice Department. Manafort did not directly respond to AP’s requests to discuss the work, but he was copied on the AP’s questions and Gates said he spoke to Manafort before providing answers to them.

Political consultants are generally leery of registering under the foreign agents law, because their reputations can suffer once they are on record as accepting money to advocate the interests of foreign governments — especially if those interests conflict with America’s.

Ironically, one of the lobbying firms Manafort and Gates worked with has strong Democratic ties.

The founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, Tony Podesta, is the brother of longtime Democratic strategist John Podesta, who now is campaign chairman for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The head of Mercury, Vin Weber, is an influential Republican, former congressman and former special policy adviser to Mitt Romney. Weber announced earlier this month that he will not support Trump.

Whether Manafort and Gates will be prosecuted for this is unclear, but it would not surprise me. Prosecutions under the Foreign Agents Registration Act are generally rare, but they do happen. This looks extremely corrupt to me and it appears that Manafort was covering up where the money was coming from and why.

Then you add Carter Paige, who is heavily invested with Gazprom and living in Putin’s lap and Michael Flynn ― a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency who was paid by a Russian state-funded television network to speak at its 10th-anniversary gala ― who Trump brought to his first national security briefing on Wednesday. Flynn is strongly connected to Russia. And did I mention he’s a Democrat? All of these people might as well be living in the Kremlin and if they tried harder they couldn’t more obviously be plants.

They are all certainly national security threats, but here we go… bringing our biggest enemy into our election and possibly into the White House. SMH. With Hillary Clinton you get the Middle Eastern Islamists, the Russians and the Chinese. With Trump, you get the same, only more Russian seasoning with a hint of mob. #WorstElectionEver #NeitherOne2016

07/30/16

The U.S. has had a Russian Problem of Espionage for Decades

By: Denise Simon | FoundersCode.com

What is terrifying and pathetic is the Obama White House and both Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry have been stooges of Putin….groveling for normalcy just as they have with the regime of Iran. This is an administration that is normalizing relations with all terror regimes across the globe that include North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela. Hillary said thatBashir al Assad of Syria was a reformer when 400,000 Syrians are dead and 4-5 million have left their homes. Then, we all remember that the Obama White House negotiated with Qatar to released 5 Taliban commanders in exchange for one Army deserter. Talks have been ongoing with the Taliban for years until just recently.

But back to Russia….before the hacking, to sway and or interfere with U.S. elections.

Related reading: Hey FBI, the Investigation into the DNC Hacking is Over Here

No one is admitting that Russian in cadence with WikiLeaks has hacked Hillary’s campaign systems, DCC and the DNC as well as other government systems. Why? Perhaps diplomacy due to talks continued talks with Iran and ending the civil war in Syria. Remember that ‘red-line’ on chemical weapons use.

So, let’s go back a way, like over a decade and up to just a couple of years ago when it came to Russian spies in the United States, shall we? This is for perspective and how the Obama administration including his National Security Council and the State Department continue to ‘omit’ history…

Espionage continues and tactics have not changed for Russia where cyber intrusions have replaced in country operatives, however a look at those operatives’ skills and missions must not be overlooked or dismissed.

Image result for russian spies caught

Let’s begin with Anna Chapman, the Russian spy.

DailyNews: Sultry former Russian secret agent Anna Chapman ended an exchange with NBC News almost before it began when she was pressed about her playful Twitter marriage proposal to NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

Here is the official criminal complaint and summary of how the FBI tracked her actions filed in 2010. The file also includes an additional spy Mikhail Sememko. This actually began in 1990….yes 1990.

But actually there were 8 more Russian spies and this is the criminal complaint for that case. What is fascinating here is the many stopovers in Latin America…..

The spying spree finally came to its end in the summer of 2014, when the trio were propositioned by a self-described investor who wanted to develop casinos in Russia. The scheme immediately drew red flags among the group, with Sporyshev offering that the proposal felt “like some sort of set-up.”

But despite his misgivings, Sporyshev didn’t stop Buryakov from meeting with the supposed investor, who was, in fact, an FBI informant.

For six hours on Aug. 28, Buryakov and the informant met in the anemic gambling metropolis Atlantic City. The informant, who claimed he had a well-placed source in the U.S. government, handed Buryakov documents that were labeled “Internal Treasury Use Only” and contained a list of Russians who were essentially blacklisted from doing business with the United States.

The valuable document earned the informant another meeting that day, when he offered Buryakov another official document that contained “a list of Russian banks… on which to impose sanctions,” according to the criminal complaint. More from DailyBeast.

Then there was a dead Russian, Mikhail Lesin. found in a hotel in Dupont Circle, Washington DC. A story that came and went real fast.

Image result for russian Mikhail Lesin

Mr. Lesin was a major figure in Russian media after the fall of the Soviet Union, first as an advertising executive and later as a top government official and media executive.  

He had deep connections to the Russian state at the time Mr. Putin was reasserting his authority over the country’s rambunctious and freewheeling media. He was a crucial figure in that process, which began with the takeover of Russia’s first independent television channel, NTV, in the early 2000s, and was viewed with bitterness by many Russian journalists at that time.

07/12/16

Trump: The Russian Connection

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Carter1

America has now boxed herself into a corner and doesn’t even realize it. If Hillary Clinton is elected, you will retain the Muslim Brotherhood in the White House. If Trump is elected, you will have the Russians and the Chinese in the White House. Trump’s advisers are very connected to Vladimir Putin and Russia. Trump himself has many ties as well and is friends with Putin. This is why Putin will try to sabotage Clinton with leaked emails etc. He’s got WikiLeaks and Assange doing his dirty work, with Edward Snowden as backup.

Trump has surrounded himself with people connected in one way or another to Russia and mobsters.

Carter

Carter Page

Donald Trump’s foreign policy adviser, Carter Page, has deep ties to Russia and the Kremlin’s Gazprom. Page is a globe-trotting investment banker who has built his creds on deals with Russia and its state-run gas company. It would do George Soros proud. Page’s business suffered a major hit when sanctions were imposed on Russia because of the Ukraine encroachment. When Trump selected him as a foreign policy adviser, he was inundated by his Russian contacts who were thrilled. That should be your first warning sign.

Trump has been putting forth the Russian idea to reduce NATO or do away with them altogether. He does not support the Ukraine either. He has called Putin a ‘strong leader’ and both have talk glowingly about each other. Flexible doesn’t quite cover it this time around. Page portrays US policymakers as stuck in an outdated Cold War mindset, which is really laughable as the Cold War never ended… it shifted.

Page is a self-serving business shark. He has no political experience, but he’s killer when it comes to negotiating a deal. Trump calls it “real world” experience. I call it corruption. Page has a lifelong fascination with Russia and Central Asia, and a determination to drum up business there even in the face of political headwinds. He has no loyalty to America or her constitution… his loyalty lies in business and profits. In that, Trump and Page share a common viewpoint. After all, even if it smacks of mob tactics, it’s just business.

Page traveled to Moscow last week and criticized the United States and other Western powers for their “hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption and regime change” in other countries. He praised Russia and China for being ‘progressive’ and forward thinking, while nailing the US as interventionist and two-faced. Gee, he sounds more like Putin’s man than Trump’s. He praised Russia and China for embracing foreign policies built on “non-interference,” “tolerance” and “respect.” Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah! Barack Obama, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton.

From The Washington Free Beacon:

“The United States and other developed powers, including in the EU, have often criticized [China, Russia, and Central Asian nations] for continuing methods which were prevalent during the Cold War period,” Page said. “Yet ironically, Washington and other Western capitals have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption, and regime change.”

He also accused Western powers of approaching Russia and Central Asian nations with a “nearly universally critical tone” despite their “advancements.” This he said, may “understandably advance a certain level of insecurity.

The remarks, delivered at an event hosted by the New Economic School, were hardly out of character for Page, who has a history of criticizing US foreign policy and portraying Russia in a favorable light. In online writings, Page has defended Moscow’s involvement in the takeover of government buildings in Ukraine by pro-Russian forces in 2014 as “minor,” attributed the crisis in Ukraine to US policy, and accused NATO of “meddling in the affairs of Eastern Europe.”

Page has criticized NATO as “obsolete” and disparaged them for what he terms “illegal torture techniques.” He has long criticized US foreign policy.

He spent three years living in Moscow in the early 2000s, where he worked as an investment banker for Merrill Lynch and as an adviser on transactions for Gazprom and RAO UES, a Russian electric power company.

On Friday, Page also delivered remarks at the graduation for the New Economic School, whose board of directors includes Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich and Economic Minister Alexei Ulyukayev. Page blamed the United States for “mistakes” that have damaged US-Russian relations during that speech.

Back in 2014, Page criticized Obama’s decision to deny a visa application to Hamid Aboutalebi, who is an Iranian diplomat and a UN ambassador. He was a translator for Iranian militants who seized the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979, where American hostages were held for over a year until Ronald Reagan came along. It was one of the few things that Obama has made the right call on. Ted Cruz even praised Obama over the move. Yet, Trump’s man was all for that visa. “Avoiding the punishment of a distinguished diplomat whose most heinous charge is previous service as a translator would be an excellent step toward not remaining trapped in the past,” Page wrote in a blog post.

Just one month after that, Carter Page vigorously defended Russia’s military encroachment in the Ukraine. He compared it to the United States’ support for the ouster of Ukraine’s Russian-backed President Viktor Yanukovych. “While US officials have protested the Russian government’s influence in current events, Moscow’s impact remains minor when compared to Washington’s fundamentally important encouragement at the national level which started the crisis in the first place,” Page asserted. He even went so far as accusing the US of instigating the crisis in the first place.

More from the Free Beacon:

In September 2014, during a NATO summit where the alliance agreed to increase its presence in Eastern Europe after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Page accused Western powers of “meddling in the affairs of Eastern Europe” and characterized Russia’s actions as “defensive.” He suggested that NATO was “banging on Russia’s door” and, like Trump, characterized the alliance as unnecessary.

“As most vividly seen in Ukraine, recent results of the North Atlantic Alliance’s unsuccessful interventionist strategy may largely speak for themselves. But another benefit of reconsidering past precedents from the end of the first Cold War is that this historic context helps highlight the extent to which elements of the legacy NATO framework have become severely antiquated,” he wrote.

In February 2015, Page likened Western nations to “football team bullies” for their “condescending mistreatment” of Russia, Iran, China, and other emerging nations. He also compared their actions to slave owners’ treatment of slaves. Page asserted that Western policies had spurred “economic disaster” in Russia and Ukraine.

“From US policies toward Russia to Iran to China, sanctimonious expressions of moral superiority stand at the root of many problems seen worldwide today,” Page wrote.

Does that sound like someone who has our national security at heart? Does it even sound like someone who believes in American exceptionalism?

Page is infuriated over sanctions imposed and views it as the US bullying Russia. Not as a consequence of aggressiveness by the Russians and their land-grabbing, country seizing tactics. He has compared US policy to American slavery and high-profile police shootings.

Not even kidding here:

He has also compared US policy towards Russia to high-profile police killings of unarmed black men. “The deaths triggered by US government officials in both the former Soviet Union and the streets of America in 2014 share a range of close similarities,” he wrote.

“While the loss of Michael Brown and Eric Garner has received intense media coverage and perfunctory federal government investigations, the economic injustice unleashed upon the millions of people residing in Russia, Ukraine, and the former Soviet Union by misguided Western policies has met limited recognition.”

Page also has a soft spot for the communist Chinese. He favorably quoted a propaganda arm of the People’s Republic of China, which wrote “After examining America’s staggering racial disparity, one cannot help wondering whether the US accusation of the Chinese government this time was another political tactic of shunning criticism at itself.”

Bluntly put… Carter Page is a Russian agent in my viewpoint:

Page’s appointment drew fire from experts who said his work sounded more like Internet conspiracy theories or foreign government propaganda than the counsel one would expect of a US president’s top aides.

“The very fact that a senior adviser to the leading Republican candidate for president seems to truly believe that a few individuals in the US government are responsible for certain international events puts him firmly in the realm of conspiracy theorists,” said Hannah Thoburn, a Russia policy expert with the Hudson Institute.

“Many of [Page’s] public remarks on Russia and Ukraine seem as though they have been lifted directly from the broadcast scripts of Russia Today,” the Kremlin’s US propaganda arm, Thoburn said in an email.

Page has also been highly supportive of international climate talks in Paris this last year, despite Republican concerns about international agreements that they say could hike energy prices and force American taxpayers to foot the bill for fossil fuel restrictions abroad.

“The political gathering has substantially raised attention to climate, environmental and future energy issues while leveraging the growing levels of concern amongst societies worldwide,” Page wrote. “But for both citizens and leaders alike, real action in the future will be a far more essential driver to the future direction of progress in comparison to the many words which will be spoken and to a lesser extent heard over the coming weeks.”

He wants the US to more fully collaborate with Russia… sharing more technology and capital market access. His speeches given this last week are being used as propaganda on Russian media. Russia Today loves him… just as they love those such as Alex Jones, Edward Snowden and others who are less than stellar in the credibility department.

Page’s remarks come at a time of heightened tension between the United States and Russia. NATO members agreed on Friday to send four multinational battalions to the Baltic states and Poland on a rotational basis in the face of increased Russian provocations. As American diplomats are being beaten in Russia, in front of our embassy no less, and America is expelling Russian diplomats in return… Carter Page has nothing but praise for the Russkies and condemnation for his own country. I’m sure Trump will fix all that – he’s even more flexible than Barack Obama. FSB/KGB tactics/attacks on a US diplomat were employed – they broke his shoulder. They have also broke into homes of embassy staff, rearranged furniture and even killed a family pet. Is this Russian aggression that Page approves of? Where is Trump on this? Crickets, that’s where.

Manafort

Paul Manafort

Trump’s top adviser, Paul Manafort, has spent much of his recent career working for pro-Russian forces in the Ukraine and has negotiated complex deals for an oligarch with close ties to Putin. And while one senator has already charged Trump is not responsible enough to receive secret information, Manafort’s deep relationships with top pro-Russian figures raise special concerns.

Manafort managed the 2010 campaign of Viktor Yanukovych… you know, the Ukrainian politician who was ousted as president when Putin proceeded to invade the Ukraine. He has, according to court documents, managed tens of millions of dollars for Oleg Deripaska, an oligarch denied entry to the US reportedly for ties to organized crime, but so close to Vladimir Putin that top Russian officials fought (unsuccessfully) to get him a visa. Don’t you just love Russian mob ties?

None of these people with Trump have been subjected to background checks. And after Trump’s selection of advisers and cronies, it’s obvious he should be subjected to one as well. One former Republican national security official put it bluntly: “He’s an intelligence classification vetting nightmare scenario.”

I find it beyond convenient that Manafort has tied himself to Trump considering who his clients are. Once again, I would say that Manafort is a Russian agent. Sometimes, the simplest explanation is the correct one.

“We joke in Ukraine that it is a bad sign for Trump that he hired Manafort. Because his client Yanukovych was ousted and fled to Russia, to the city of Rostov. So Trump could also end up in Rostov. It is almost like an anecdote.” — Ukrainian political expert Oleg Kravchenko

Manafort was hired more than a decade ago by the Ukraine’s wealthiest businessman, Rinat Akhmetov. He’s a steel and iron ore magnate and is worth an estimated $2.8 billion, according to Forbes. Manafort was a protege of Oleg Deripaska, a Russian businessman with an estimated net worth of $3.5 billion.

Experts say Manafort was unofficially invited to consult on Yanukovych’s first presidential campaign in December 2004, in the days of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Yanukovych was competing with pro-Western opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, who was poisoned by dioxin during the campaign. Manafort was asked to save Yanukovych’s campaign.

He was kept around to help improve Yanukovych’s image and get him close to Obama. Manafort described his role in Ukraine as helping align Yanukovych and his administration with Western interests. “The role that I played in that administration was to help bring Ukraine into Europe, and we did,” Manafort said. “We succeeded.” Manafort worked in Ukraine under the umbrella of his lobbying firm, Davis Manafort & Freeman, Inc. He worked with a group of American political advisers in Ukraine, including expat Philip Griffin, top John McCain adviser Richard H. Davis, and former Ronald Reagan advance man Rick Ahearn. “I am not here just for the election,” Manafort said in 2007 in Ukraine. “I am trying to play a constructive role in developing a democracy. I am helping to build a political party.”

Flynn

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn

Now we come to Trump’s latest favorite, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. Rumors were swirling that he would be the VP pick, but that looks unlikely now. People started digging into his background and that didn’t go well.

First off, he’s a Democrat. On the good side, he was fired because he spoke out against radical Islam. But other than that, this guy is bad news.

Flynn, who is a former Defense Intelligence Agency chief, also favors Russia heavily and is advising Trump on foreign policy. Can I just ask, is there anyone that Trump has selected that isn’t pro-Russian? He’s not a supporter of Israel… he’s leaning pro-abortion and for same-sex marriage as well. Last time I looked, these were not conservative stances.

From FoundersCode.com:

Flynn raised eyebrows among some US foreign policy veterans when he was pictured sitting at the head table with Putin at a banquet in Moscow late last year celebrating Russia Today, an international broadcasting network funded by the Russian government. Flynn told Russia Today in an interview published on Dec. 10 that the United States and Russia should work together to resolve the Syrian civil war and defeat Islamic State.

The Obama administration has protested Russia’s military intervention on behalf of Syrian President Bashir al-Assad, accusing Moscow of hitting opposition forces rather than ISIS.

Flynn has been advising Trump on foreign policy issues since at least February and has previously hinted that he’d be open to taking the No. 2 job. And an early July Politico piece described him as “Trump’s favorite general.”

Flynn has an odd affection for Russia and its authoritarian government. He has spent much of his time since retirement cozying up to the Putin regime and he’s a frequent guest on its English-language propaganda channel, RT.

Flynn’s argument supporting Russia takes their claim that it is fighting “terrorists” in Syria at face value, when in reality Russia’s intervention is aimed at propping up dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Russian bombs have actually targeted US-aligned Syrian rebels and have directed a relatively small percentage of munitions toward ISIS.

From RT:

Americans must understand that Russia also has a foreign policy and a national security strategy, and that Moscow launched the campaign against ISIS in Syria after its “unstated red lines were crossed,” retired US Lieutenant General Michael Flynn told RT.

Russia and the US have to work together in their fight against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), and an international coalition needs to be brought together to facilitate this, said Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

In reality, what is going on here is that Russia is using ISIS to do its dirty work and the US is being used and played for a fool.

From Cliff Kincaid:

The term “military intelligence” is mostly a reference to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), whose former director, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, has come under fire for his close relationship with the Russia Today (RT) propaganda channel.

AIM was the first to report that Flynn, after stepping down from DIA, went to Moscow to participate in the 10th anniversary celebration of the Moscow-funded and English-language channel known to its critics as KGB-TV. He sat at a dinner table with Putin and RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan.

In a major embarrassment for Flynn, a recent article in Politico by Michael Crowley cited Flynn’s relationship with RT as “the most intriguing example of how the Russians have gone about recruiting disaffected members” of the Washington, D.C. foreign policy establishment.

The term “recruiting” suggests using Flynn for anti-American propaganda purposes.

Crowley, senior foreign policy writer at Politico, said that Flynn’s attendance at the RT gala, which also included remarks on world affairs, “appeared to inaugurate a relationship with the network—presumably a paid one, though neither Flynn nor RT answered queries on the subject. Flynn now makes semi-regular appearances on RT as an analyst, in which he often argues that the U.S. and Russia should be working more closely together on issues like fighting ISIL and ending Syria’s civil war.”

In addition to his relationship with RT, Flynn has described himself as an informal adviser to Trump, who already has several pro-Russian aides and advisers.

“We weren’t focused on Russia when I came in three years ago because we were still trying to cast a paradigm that brought Russia into the fold of Western values,” said Breedlove, in an attempt to explain why the Pentagon was caught off-guard by Russia. He said, “Russia chose a different path or they were on that path and we didn’t recognize it.”

What he is describing is a massive intelligence failure that could stem from the work of agents of influence for Russia, or actual Russian spies.

Trump, however, continues to preach cooperation with Russia.

The scope of the intelligence failure regarding Russia was addressed recently by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who admitted to CNN’s Jake Tapper on April 12 that the U.S. government has badly “misjudged” the intentions of Putin “for many, many years.” He declared, “The biggest intelligence failure that we have had since 9/11 has been the inability to predict the leadership plans and intentions of the Putin regime in Russia.”

After the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, Rep. Nunes noted, the U.S. continued to engage diplomatically with the Russians, and “we continued to talk to the Russians, and then they invaded Eastern Ukraine.” “We missed that,” he said. “And then we completely missed entirely when they put a new base, a new base with aircraft into the Mediterranean, into Syria. We just missed it. We were blind.”

While Trump’s speech was given to an audience of foreign policy experts, including Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak — who was sitting in the front row — the former DIA director’s pro-Moscow actions and statements are also generating controversy. The Politico article on Flynn’s visit to Moscow said, “At a moment of semi-hostility between the U.S. and Russia, the presence of such an important figure at Putin’s table startled current and former members of the Obama administration. “

Politico’s Michael Crowley quoted a former Pentagon official as saying about Flynn, “It was extremely odd that he showed up in a tuxedo to the Russian government propaganda arm’s party.”

Flynn is a strongman that Trump would use for law and order, not only abroad, but here at home. Not good.

Conclusion

In closing, I will just ask Americans this… do you really think someone so deeply tied to Russia, a stone-cold enemy, should be president? For eight years we have been led by an enemy within. With the choices we have from both parties currently, we are poised to elect an even greater enemy from within… and many so-called conservatives are cheering it.

All you have to do is connect the dots. Look at Trump’s connections. Putin is not our friend. He wants to bring us down. If he can do it from within the US, that would be his ideal scene. If he has to weaken us to the point of invasion, he’ll go for that as well. Trump’s Russian connections are beyond alarming… they are existential in nature. The failures in the intelligence community regarding Russia and the alleged penetration of the Washington, D.C. foreign policy establishment by Russian agents seem like topics that need to be addressed by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. They certainly should be addressed when selecting a candidate for the highest office in the land. Unless of course, you relish learning Russian or Chinese.

03/31/16

Trump’s Russia adviser Carter Page: Globalist entrepreneur with ties to Russian intelligence-dominated company

By: Trevor Loudon | New Zeal

Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has hired a Russian adviser with ties to a former Eastern Bloc oligarch and Russian intelligence infiltrated energy company, Gazprom.

Carter Page

Carter Page

The hire in question is a globe-trotting 44 year-old American investment banker Carter Page, who has built a career on deals with Russia and its state-run gas company.

Page’s resume includes a stint in the U.S. Naval Academy, working in arms control at the Pentagon and a fellowship at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Over his career, he’s earned three graduate degrees, including a PhD from SOAS University of London.

In 2000, Page moved into investment banking, getting a job at Merrill Lynch’s capital-markets group in London. After impressing a colleague with his relationship with Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian billionaire, Page was sent to help open the firm’s Moscow office in 2004.

One of the Ukraine’s richest men, Victor Pinchuk is the son-in-law of  former pro-Russian Ukrainian President and longtime Communist Party boss, Leonid Kuchma.

Read more here…