California US Representative Devin Nunes shared on FOX News that Hillary Clinton’s campaign team, working with Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS, likely set up the entire Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr.and Jared Kushner as a way of entrapping the Trump campaign. The whole thing was a setup!
On FOX News, Nunes, who sat through hours of testimonies related to the Trump – Russia farce, said the following –… but something also probably important to note about the so called Trump Tower meeting. This is the meeting that actually Fusion GPS met with the people before and after that meeting.
Fusion GPS, once again, was a Clinton Campaign paid for operations outfit. They were clearly involved in the set up of the Trump Tower meeting. So if they want to bring Cohen in and talk to him, that’s great, we’ll participate. But the truth, if you really want to get to the truth behind the Trump Tower meeting, Fusion GPS and the Clinton campaign are all over it, and probably behind it.
The group that organized the meeting with Trump advisers and the Russian lawyers was the same Democratic group Fusion GPS that was behind the discredited Trump dossier.
The eight people who attended the Trump Tower meeting on June 9, 2016: — Donald Trump Jr. — Jared Kushner (left early) — Paul Manafort — Natalia Veselnitskaya (Fusion GPS) — Anatoli Samochornov (translator and Fusion GPS) — Rinat Akhmetshin (lobbyist – Fusion GPS) — Rob Goldstone — Rep. of the Agalarov Family
The lawyer who met with the Trump team in June 2016 was denied a U.S. visa to enter, however; she received special permission to enter the United States after filing an affidavit in a Federal case in New York.
And now this…
According to Senate testimony Russian lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin told the Senate Judiciary Committee he knew Hillary Clinton and had contacts with her associates.
Russian lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin received half-a-million dollars in suspicious payments before and after the Trump Tower meetings.
The entire Trump Tower meeting was likely set up by the Clintons as now we know all the characters involved are connected to the Clintons. When Americans shouted “Lock her up!” at Trump rallies, they knew she was a crook.
Hat tip D. Manny
The main takeaway from informal presidential adviser Roger Stone’s arraignment Tuesday is that the Russian collusion narrative has collapsed.
If there wereanything there, we’d know about it by now.
Stone was hauled in to federal court Friday morning after atheatrical, televised arrestthat should be the subject of a Justice Department investigation or congressional inquiry. Why the excessivethreat of force? ThoughCNN denies it, many still wonder whetherthe network was tipped off.The extreme intimidation tactic mighthave been intended to send a message,but it only tended to confirm the biases of those who see special counselRobert Mueller’s entire effort as a rogue operation.
The “process crimes” Stone is charged with, such as lying and witness tampering, are potentially serious. But he was not charged with facilitating Trump campaign collusion with Russian hackers, and theindictmentitself gives little reasonto believe there ever wereany.
A lobbyist who attended the 2016 Trump Tower meeting received half a million dollars in deposits linked to a Russian businessman before and after the time of the meeting, BuzzFeed reported Monday.
The outlet reports that Rinat Akhmetshin, a former Soviet military officer, deposited large sums of the cash in the months before and after the meeting. The deposits were flagged by bank investigators as suspicious.
It is not clear whether the payments were related to the meeting’s timing. Akhmetshin downplayed his participation in the meeting in testimony to Congress in 2017, saying he was actually in New York City to see a play.
Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort met at Trump Tower in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, who had promised compromising information on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Akhmetshin, who attended the meeting with Veselnitskaya, received several payments around the Trump Tower meeting that were flagged by bank investigators for being unexplained. One was a large payment directly from Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, according to BuzzFeed, as well as several others through a foundation funded by Katsyv and from the firm BakerHostetler, which was hired by Katsyv’s company Prevezon.
Katsyv’s company Prevezon Holdings was previously accused of laundering money in a Russian tax fraud scheme by the Department of Justice, BuzzFeed noted. That case was settled in 2017.
The documents BuzzFeed reviewed were also given to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team for its investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Special counsel spokesman Peter Carr declined to tell BuzzFeed whether Mueller is investigating the transactions.
Congressional investigators have also reportedly requested the financial information from the Treasury Department.
Akhmetshin and his lawyers did not respond to multiple requests for comment from BuzzFeed. Reached in person, the lobbyist told the outlet to “Get the f— out of here, okay?”
“Don’t bother with questions,” Veselnitskaya told BuzzFeed. “Your article is paid for and you have your text ready. Don’t be distracted from what you consider the meaning of life.”
The bank for Russian-born lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin flagged as suspicious hundreds of thousands of dollars into his account in 2016 and 2017.
Akhmetshin worked closely with Fusion GPS in 2016 and was also one of the attendees of the infamous Trump Tower meeting.
Akhmetshin worked for Fusion GPS to investigate the lobbyist behind the Magnitsky Act, which was discussed at the Trump Tower meeting.
Wells Fargo in 2017 flagged half a million dollars in wire transfers and bank deposits to the account of Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-born lobbyist who has worked closely with opposition research firm Fusion GPS and also attended the infamous Trump Tower meeting.
According to BuzzFeed News, Wells Fargo flagged the transactions for the Treasury Department upon the request of federal investigators looking into the Trump Tower meeting, which was held on June 9, 2016.
Wells Fargo deemed the deposits suspicious because of “overseas origin” and because of “a suspicion that they showed Akhmetshin had violated federal lobbying law,” according to BuzzFeed.
Akhmetshin has been interviewed by several congressional committees and testified to the grand jury being used by special counsel Robert Mueller.
BuzzFeed’s report focuses on Akhmetshin’s involvement in the Trump Tower meeting, while largely ignoring his connection to Fusion GPS, which commissioned the infamous Steele dossier on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC.
BuzzFeed, which was the first news outlet to publish the dossier, mentions Fusion GPS only once in its report, on the 24th paragraph.
The BuzzFeed report does not accuse Akhmetshin of wrongdoing, though the implication of the piece is that the payments to Akhmetshin are somehow linked to his visit to Trump Tower. The report does show that Akhmetshin received much more in wire payments and deposits from his lobbying client, the Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, than he reported on lobbying disclosure reports filed with Congress.
Akhmetshin’s lawyer responded to the story, telling NBC News that “it is appalling that BuzzFeed published this misleading article.”
“Mr. Akhmetshin categorically denies that he engaged in any form of unlawful activity, and BuzzFeed’s unsupported suggestions to the contrary are completely untrue.”
Akhmetshin gained national prominence when it was reported in July 2017 that he was part of the Russian delegation at the Trump Tower meeting, which was hosted by Donald Trump Jr. and attended by Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort. (RELATED: Russian-American Lobbyist At Trump Tower Meeting Described Meeting Hillary Clinton, Associates)
Akhmetshin accompanied Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya and several other associates to the meeting.
The meeting has drawn scrutiny because Trump Jr. accepted it after an associate said that a Russian lawyer — later identified as Veselnitskaya — sought to provide the campaign with dirt on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“If it is what you say, I love it,” Trump Jr. wrote in an email accepting the offer.
Most of the Trump Tower attendees, including Akhmetshin and Trump Jr., have testified that the meeting was a dud. They’ve all claimed that Veselnitskaya did not provide information on Clinton. Instead, she focused on the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 law that imposed sanctions on Russian human rights abusers.
Akhmetshin, Veselnitskaya and Fusion GPS all worked as part of a multi-faceted campaign aimed at undermining the Magnitsky Act. Fusion’s main task was investigating Bill Browder, the London-based financier whose lobbying efforts let to the law’s passage.
Browder claims that his former lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was killed in a Russian jail in 2009 while investigating a $230 million money laundering scheme involving a Russian organized crime syndicate.
