Category: Russia
A Missing Piece of the Puzzle
The Guardian is out with a report that contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence occurred much earlier than previously reported:
GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added.
Looking at the Trump-Russian Timeline, this puts other events around that time into context. Beginning in late 2015, the following events occurred:
- December: Accounts associated with Russian propaganda “troll farm” called the Internet Research Agency begins supporting Donald Trump
- December 17: Vladimir Putin praises Donald Trump at his annual news conference. “He is a bright and talented person without any doubt. He is the absolute leader of the presidential race.”
- Feb. 2: Alexander Dugin, a conservative “philosopher” with close ties to the Kremlin, endorses Trump.
- March: Individuals linked to the Russian government begin openly supporting Donald Trump. Government-funded propaganda outlets RT and Sputnik cast Trump as the target of unfair coverage from mainstream media outlets.
- March: A hacking group known as “Fancy Bear” or “APT28” launches a spearfishing campaign targeting email addresses at hillaryclinton.com and dnc.org that gains them access to DNC network. The hacking group is run by the Russian foreign military intelligence service (GRU) and appears focused on a single target: the DNC’s opposition research files on Donald Trump.
What the publicly available information shows is a steady ramping up of Russian support for Trump.
Our man in Moscow
The GHCQ information fills in the missing piece. The contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence appear to be the catalyst for the covert and overt support from Moscow.
Michael Flynn’s December 10 trip to Moscow also emerges as a possible lynchpin in this story. Flynn, you will recall, attended RT’s 10th anniversary gala in Moscow, where was seated at the head table next to Vladimir Putin. It’s not clear what Flynn’s role in the campaign was in this time, if any. The two men first met in August; Flynn announced he was advising Trump in February 2016.
A website that tracked Trump’s evolving campaign team lists the following people as part of Trump’s inner circle in late 2015:
- Corey Lewandowski
- Michael Glassner
- Donald F. McGahn
- Michael Cohen
- Hope Hicks
- Roger Stone (resigned Aug. 8, 2015)
More TK.
Carter Page Timeline
Op-Ed: Trump’s $95 million home sale to Russian deserves scrutiny
Trump outside Maison de l’Aimitie, which he sold to a Russian billionaire.
Published online April 6, 2017 in The San Diego Union-Tribune
by Seth Hettena
When the FBI recently revealed that it was investigating the nature of any links between President Trump, his associates and the Russian government, I was reminded of another scandal involving disgraced San Diego County Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham.
The story, which began with a report published in the San Diego Union-Tribune, grew into one of the biggest political scandals in county history. In 2006, a federal judge sentenced Cunningham to 100 months in prison for accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors to whom he steered lucrative Pentagon contracts.
Duke Cunningham
While there are many differences between the two men — Cunningham, unlike Trump, served his country honorably during the Vietnam War and became a highly decorated Navy fighter pilot — there are similarities where their political careers are concerned.
Like Trump, Cunningham had a loose tongue that often got him in trouble. Like Trump, he mocked, taunted, bullied and insulted his political opponents. And like Trump, Cunningham was drawn into far-fetched conspiracies. Look in the Congressional Record, and you’ll find Cunningham denouncing President Bill Clinton as a traitor and a KGB dupe because of a visit to Moscow as a college-aged man.
At the center of Cunningham’s bribery scandal was a real estate deal. Cunningham sold his home in Del Mar to a defense contractor and campaign contributor named Mitchell Wade, one of the shady “friends” the congressman attracted. Wade paid $1.675 million for the congressman’s home in 2003, an eye-popping figure that attracted attention even in San Diego County’s red-hot housing market.
Wade bought the home without ever having set foot in it, and only later found out that it was in sorry shape, darkened by the bars Cunningham installed over every window and skylight to foil Del Mar’s burglars. Wade put the home up for sale a month later, but it languished for a year before he managed to unload it for a $700,000 loss. To prosecutors, it smelled like bribery. And it was.
President Trump also sold a home for more than it was worth — except the house itself and the sale price were both much, much bigger. The property was a sprawling, oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida that Trump sold for $95 million after purchasing it four years earlier for $41 million. At the time, it was the most expensive U.S. home sale ever.
Dmitry Rybolovlev
The buyer of the 6-acre property was a Russian fertilizer magnate named Dmitry Rybolovlev. The sale took place in July 2008, a time when the overheated U.S. real estate market was showing signs of distress and the supply of luxury homes exceeded demand.
Rybolovlev overpaid. Five years after the sale, Palm Beach County officials appraised the house at less than $60 million.
To be fair, no one has accused Trump or Rybolovlev of bribery, but the similarities between the sale of Cunningham’s property and Trump’s are striking. Not unlike the defense contractor who bought Cunningham’s Del Mar home, the Russian fertilizer king showed little interest in Trump’s mansion before or after he bought it. He never lived in it and is said to have visited it only once.
The home was plagued by mold, and, amazingly, a lawyer for Rybolovlev’s ex-wife told the Palm Beach Post he found no evidence that the Russian billionaire had hired anyone to inspect the property before he paid Trump a $50 million premium for it. In 2015, Rybolovlev got permission to demolish the 61,744-square-foot home, and is now selling off the land underneath it.
Other coincidences link Rybolovlev and Trump. Reporters have tracked the Russian billionaire’s private plane to cities where Trump was traveling during the 2016 presidential campaign and into his presidency. Both men say they have never met.
It could be that the sale of the Palm Beach mansion is an example of Trump’s ballyhooed deal-making skills. And it is also possible that it was something else: that the purchase of the mansion known as Maison de l’Aimitié (House of Friendship) was a covert form of payment from friends unknown in Russia or elsewhere.
The major difference between the two transactions is that at the time of the sale of the Palm Beach mansion, Trump was not a public official. But now that he occupies the most powerful office in the world, the FBI, Senate and House intelligence committees who are examining the president’s ties to Russia should learn the lessons of the Cunningham scandal and give the enormous premium paid for Trump’s moldering mansion — purchased sight unseen — the close scrutiny it deserves.
Hettena, a former military writer, is a freelance writer based in San Diego.
The Godfather Goes to Washington (Updated)
Reputed Russian mob “godfather” at the 2016 NRA convention in Louisville, Ky.
How did a suspected Russian mob “Godfather” (update: and Kremlin emissary) nearly make it to a private meeting in February with President Trump? With help from friends in the NRA.
Dramatis Personae
The “Godfather” Alexander Torshin
The Godfather: Spanish police investigating the Moscow-based Taganskaya crime syndicate laundering ill-gotten gains through banks and properties in Spain learn that Alexander Torshin, while serving as a deputy speaker of the upper house of parliament in Russia, instructed members how to launder criminal proceeds. Wiretaps recorded Torshin talking in 2012 and 2013 to the alleged Taganskaya leader in Spain, Alexander Romanov. An internal document from the Spanish Civil Guard Information Service, explains Torshin’s central role in the criminal plot.
“As a consequence of the phone tapping carried out in the aforementioned inquiries it has been ratified that, above Romanov, on a higher hierarchical level, is Alexander Torshin. In the numerous phone conversations and with different contact persons, Alexander Romanov himself recognized his subordination before someone who he describes as ‘the Godfather’ or ‘the boss’ … which in itself is telling when it comes to situating their relationship.”
Torshin also has longstanding ties to the FSB, successor agency to Russia’s KGB.
Maria Butina
The Honeypot: Maria Butina. In 2011, this tall redhead was involved in sales of appliances and furniture in the Altai region of Siberia, A year later, she was rubbing elbows with Torshin and putting together Право на Оружие (translated as “Right to Bear Arms”) in Moscow, an international gun rights organization.
David Keene
The Useful Idiot: David A. Keene is a political consultant, longtime director of the American Conservative Union, past president of the National Rifle Association, and currently the opinion editor of The Washington Times. Although not the power broker he once was, Keene still wields influence. He takes a liking to Torshin and Butina and opens doors for them in Washington and introduces them to influential people.
Our Story Begins
It’s election day in America, 2012. Barack Obama is running for a second term against Mitt Romney. Enter Torshin.
Nov. 6 2012: Torshin travels to Nashville, Tennessee where the NRA an American friend has granted him special status as an observer for the 2012 presidential election. Tweet below reads: “Standing in line at the polling place. As an ordinary American. 6:45 a.m.” At the time, Torshin is a senator in Putin’s United Russia in the upper house of Russia’s parliament.
Nov. 8, 2012: Torshin visits the Russian ambassador’s residence in Washington and NRA headquarters in Washington, DC.
May 2013: Torshin attends the NRA’s annual meeting in Houston, Texas.
Torshin photographed in 2013 with then NRA president David Keene at the NRA’s annual convention in Houston.
August 21, 2013: Torshin decides not to attend a birthday celebration for Taganskaya leader in Spain, Alexander Romanov, as planned. Spanish authorities believe he was warned by the Russian prosecutor that if he stepped onto Spanish soil he would be arrested.
November 2013: NRA president David Keene travels to Russia for a conference hosted by The Right to Bear Arms. Keene speaks at the conference, with Torshin in attendance.
David Keene and Maria Butina in Moscow. (Source: Facebook)
January 2, 2014: David Keene publishes an op-ed piece in the Washington Times by his friend, Alexander Torshin. “Last year, I had the pleasure of attending the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Houston,” he writes. Torshin says he has been a “life member” of the NRA for years.
April 2014: Torshin and Butina attend the NRA’s annual meeting in Indianapolis, where they are given the red carpet treatment. Butina attends the annual NRA Women’s Leadership Luncheon as a guest of former NRA President Sandy Froman and participates in general meetings over the weekend as a guest of former NRA President David Keene. She also presents the then-NRA president Jim Porter with a plaque. Butina is given the “rare privilege” of ringing a Liberty Bell replica.
May 5, 2014: Maria Butina visits NRA headquarters in Washington, DC. and meets with David Keene.
May 6, 2014: Butina and her organization are profiled by conservative website Townhall.
We are a young organization. We are three years old. And we invited David Keene. He made a speech at our annual meeting. And so it’s like an answer from one side. The next side is the life member of our organization. He is our Russian senator. His name is Senator Alexander Torshin. He is a life member of NRA too, and he’s usually a participant of such events, and every annual meeting of NRA. But now the situation between (our) two countries is very difficult. And we have to go here together with Senator Torshin. He is a great gun lover, he supports our organization and he’s a friend of the NRA.
September 3, 2014: Paul Erickson, NRA member, GOP operative, campaign manager for Pat Buchanan’s 1992 presidential run, attends an open forum in Moscow organized by Right to Bear Arms.
Butina and Erickson in Moscow
January, 20 2015: Torshin is named deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia, responsible for liaison with the Federal Assembly chambers, and also federal and regional state executive bodies. Torshin selects Maria Butina as his special assistant.
April 2015: Torshin and Butina both attend NRA’s annual meeting in Nashville.
April 10, 2015: Butina, Torshin and Keene meet future Republican presidential candidate and Wisconsin governor Scott Walker during an event in Tennessee.
July 11, 2015: Maria Butina attends Trump Freedom Fest rally in Las Vegas and poses a question to the Republican candidate: “I’m from Russia. My question will be about foreign politics. If you will be elected as president, what will be your foreign politics, especially in the relationships with my country? Do you want to continue the policy of sanctions that are damaging both economies? Or [do you] have any other ideas?”
Trump replies: “I know Putin, and I’ll tell you what, we’ll get along with Putin. … I would get along very nicely with Putin, I mean, where we have the strength. I don’t think you’d need the sanctions. I think we would get along very, very well.”
July 13, 2015: Butina attends the official launch of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s run for governor.
December 2015: An NRA delegation travels to Moscow to meet with Dmitry Rogozin, the deputy prime minister in charge of Russia’s defense industry who is a subject of US sanctions. The delegation consists of David Keene, Paul Erickson, and Milwaukee County, Wisconsin sheriff David A. Clarke. Right to Bear Arms pays $6,000 for Clarke’s meals, hotel, transportation, and entertainment. (Daily Beast story)
Feb. 7, 2016: Torshin attends National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.
February 10, 2016: Paul Erickson forms a limited liability corporation with Maria Butina called Bridges, LLC., based in South Dakota. What this company does is a mystery.
May 2016: According to The New York Times, Torshin tries to meet with Trump during the NRA comeeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin. Torshin Rick Clay, an advocate for conservative Christian causes, to Rick Dearborn, a Trump campaign aide.
May 2016: Paul Erickson, Marina Butina’s friend and business partner, writes an email to a Trump campaign aide, The New York Times reports.
Subject: “Kremlin Connection.”
Russia, Erickson writes, was “quietly but actively seeking a dialogue with the U.S.” and would use the NRA’s annual convention in Louisville, Kentucky, to make “first contact.”
“Putin is deadly serious about building a good relationship with Mr. Trump,” Erickson writes to Trump aide Rick Dearborn. “He wants to extend an invitation to Mr. Trump to visit him in the Kremlin before the election. Let’s talk through what has transpired and Senator Sessions’s advice on how to proceed.” Sessions says he does not recall the outreach.
“The Kremlin believes that the only possibility of a true reset in this relationship would be with a new Republican White House,” Erickson writes. “Ever since Hillary compared Putin to Hitler, all senior Russian leaders consider her beyond redemption.”
By “happenstance” and the reach of the NRA, Erickson says he had been put in position to “slowly begin cultivating a back-channel to President Putin’s Kremlin” in recent years.
“Russia is quietly but actively seeking a dialogue with the U.S. that isn’t forthcoming under the current administration.”
May 20, 2016: Torshin attends NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky. He shares a table with Donald Trump, Jr. at a private dinner. According to The New York Times, Torshin had tried and failed to meet with candidate Trump in Louisville to pitch a “backdoor meeting” with Putin. In the picture below, David Keene is in the background and Torshin is wearing a button that reads “I’m the NRA and I Voted.”
May 2016: Taganskaya mafia boss Alexander Romanov is sentenced to almost four years in a Spanish prison, after pleading guilty to illegal transactions totaling 1.65 million euros ($1.83 million) and $50,000.
August 8, 2016: Bloomberg reveals Torshin’s connections to organized crime.
Nov. 12, 2016: Butina celebrates her birthday with a costume party in Washington, DC. attended by several Trump’ campaign consultants.
January 15, 2017: Torshin tweets that he brought a gift for NRA President Allan D. Cors. President Cors loves tanks.
January 20, 2017: Maria Butina and Paul Erickson attended the invitation-only Freedom Ball to celebrate Donald Trump’s swearing in as President of the United States.
Feb. 2, 2017: Torshin and Butina are excited to meet newly-elected President Donald Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast. Their hopes are dashed at the last minute when a White House national security aide notices Torshin’s name and flags him as a figure who had “baggage,” a reference to his suspected ties to organized crime, according to Yahoo News.
Butina told Yahoo:
“Late the night before, we were told that all meet and greets were off,” Butina wrote in an email. “There were no specific questions or statements that Mr. Torshin had in mind during what we assumed to be a five-second handshake. We all hope for better relations between our two countries. I’m sure there will be other opportunities to express this hope.”
Fin.
Unwitting Agents, Useful Idiots, Donald Trump and other dupes
In his excellent testimony March 30 before the Senate intelligence committee, Thomas Rid, a professor in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, explains how Russia has perfected the art of exploiting unwitting agents.
Unwitting agents are fools who are doing the bidding of another person or country without realizing it. Another term for them is “useful idiot,” a phrase supposedly used by Lenin to describe liberals and Social Democrats who helped advance the Communist cause outside the Soviet Union.
Rid said three different types of unwitting agents stand out from the chaos of the 2016 election:
Unwitting agent #1: Wikileaks.
The US intelligence community concluded with a high degree of confidence that Russia’s foreign military intelligence service, the GRU, was the source for the reams of stolen Clinton campaign emails published by Wikileaks.
Wikileaks has repeatedly denied that Russia was the source for the leaked DNC emails, which shows why an unwitting agent is so useful.
Wikileaks clings to the moral high ground because it believes it acted in the name of justice or goodness, not in the name of a Russian intelligence agency.
So when Wikileaks insists that the emails were leaked to them by an insider, it does so with considerable conviction that has taken others such as the influential Fox commentator Sean Hannity.
Unwitting Agent #2: Twitter
Twitter was hugely influential among opinion leaders in the 2016 election, foremost among them the Twitterer-in-chief, Donald Trump. But it’s very hard to tell what on Twitter is real and what is fake.
A recent study by computer scientists at Indiana University and USC tried to tackle the question of how many Twitter accounts are bots. These are automated and semi-automated software applications that mimic human behavior and can be used to drive grassroots political support, spread rumors, or bully opponents.
The researchers conclude that as many as 15 percent of all Twitter accounts are bots, and given the increasing sophistication of bots, this may be a conservative estimate. Twitter claims it has 313 million “active” monthly users. If the study is correct, 47 million Twitter users are not human.
Twitter for its part could easily inform the public how many of its accounts are bots, whether influential accounts during the 2016 election were human or not, or how many Twitter trends began overseas.
But it is not in the company’s interest to do so. The inflated numbers make it appear that Twitter has active users than its published numbers claim it has. Pulling back the curtain on bots would depress Twitter’s value as a publicly-traded company.
Unwitting Agent #3: Journalists
The Soviet Union excelled at planting stories. Operation INFEKTION planted the devastatingly rumor that AIDS had been created by US scientists seeking new and potent biological weapons that still echoes around the globe.
But planting these stories was hard work, as this CIA history shows. It took time to craft believable forgeries and build relationships with newspapers. A CIA study estimated that the Soviets spent $3 billion annually influencing world perceptions through its “active measures” campaigns.
That was then. Now, Rid says, it’s much easier:
Cold War disinformation was artisanal; today it is outsourced at least in part — outsourced to the victim itself. American journalists would dig deep into large dumps, sifting gems, mining news, boosting ops.
The hours and reams of newsprint that reporters devoted to hacked emails — with little thought to the who, what or why of their appearance — made American journalism an unwitting agent of Russian intelligence.
Unwitting Agent #4: Donald Trump
Trump is not part of Rid’s testimony, but I felt the need to add him. Donald Trump is the biggest unwitting agent of them all.
He has professed his love for Wikileaks and for Twitter, as well as for rumors that originate with Russia. He has allowed himself to used and manipulated by people with questionable motives.
In an op-ed in The New York Times, former acting CIA Director Michael Morrell summed it up this way:
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was a career intelligence officer, trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them. That is exactly what he did early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump’s vulnerabilities by complimenting him. He responded just as Mr. Putin had calculated.
Mr. Putin is a great leader, Mr. Trump says, ignoring that he has killed and jailed journalists and political opponents, has invaded two of his neighbors and is driving his economy to ruin. Mr. Trump has also taken policy positions consistent with Russian, not American, interests — endorsing Russian espionage against the United States, supporting Russia’s annexation of Crimea and giving a green light to a possible Russian invasion of the Baltic States.
In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.
Trump / Russia 