Thread: Russians followed up on Trump Tower meeting after election, Democrats say

Russians followed up on Trump Tower meeting after election, Democrats say

By Jeremy Herb, CNN
Updated 10:35 PM ET, Fri April 27, 2018

(CNN)The Russian oligarch and Russian lawyer who were key players in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting reached out to Trump's team after Donald Trump was elected President to try to lobby on the Russian sanctions they sought to overturn, according to Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee.

Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the intelligence panel, told CNN's Jim Sciutto on Friday that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya reached out to the Trump family after the election with a request to follow up on efforts to repeal the Magnitsky Act, the 2012 Russian sanctions the US enacted over human rights abuses.

Veselnitskaya was the Russian lawyer at the center of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, where Donald Trump Jr. expected to receive damaging information on Hillary Clinton but instead Veselnitskaya focused on the repeal of the sanctions.

"Clearly, there's an expectation there on the Russian side that they may now have success with the Magnitsky Act, given that the prior meeting and communications dealt with the offer of help," Schiff said. "It certainly seems like the Russians were ready for payback."

In addition, another effort to reach out to Trump's team after the election came from Aras Agalarov, the Azerbaijani-Russian oligarch who also has ties to the Trump Tower meeting. Agalarov, along with his pop-star son, Emin Agalarov, also worked with Trump to bring the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant to Moscow.

The outreach from the Russians after the 2016 election was one of the new details that stemmed from the release of the Republican report on the Russia investigation, as well as a lengthy Democratic dissent that disputed the Republican conclusion there was no evidence of collusion between Trump's team and Russia.

In the dissent, Democrats cite a November 28, 2016, email from publicist Rob Goldstone to Trump's assistant, Rhona Graff, which said that "Aras Agalarov has asked me to pass on this document in the hope it can be passed on to the appropriate team."

"Later that day, Graff forwarded to Steve Bannon the email with Agalarov's document regarding the Magnitsky Act as an attachment, explaining, 'The PE [President Elect] knows Aras well. Rob is his rep in the US and sent this on. Not sure how to proceed, if at all.'"

Trump's team has denied there was any follow up after the Trump Tower meeting.

It's not clear that there was any response from the Trump team to the request from Veselnitskaya, or Agalarov. The Trump administration has not moved to roll back the Russian sanctions, and, in fact, new sanctions against Russia have been enacted.

CNN has previously reported additional outreach that came after the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, in which Goldstone sent emails to Trump's team in the weeks following that meeting. But the overtures from Veselnitskaya and Agalarov are the first indication that the same Russians were still pushing to change the sanctions law after Trump was elected.

While the Democratic report released Friday does not mention Veselnitskaya's post-election outreach, a committee source said that she approached the Trump team following the election before the appeal from Aras Agalarov.

In the lead-up to the Trump Tower meeting, Goldstone told Trump Jr. that Veselnitskaya had damaging information about Clinton that he claimed came from the Russian government. At the meeting, however, Trump Jr. said she did not provide damaging information, and instead focused on the repeal of the sanctions law.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/27/polit...act/index.html

Okay, there's seems to be a lot of focus on this Magnitsky Act, which very few Americans know anything about. It's a sanctions act against Russia in 2012 by the Obama Administration, actually pushed by Congress when you look it up and study it a bit.

It's named after a Russian accountant who died in prison in Russia while working for Hermitage Capital Management, founded by a guy named Bill Browder, a former American who decided in 1998 to become a British citizen and avoid paying income taxes to the United States on his Russian investments. Magnitsky worked for Bill Browder's company in Russia. In 2009, Hermitage had tax problems with the Russian government and his Russian accountant was trying to expose corruption of the Russian tax officials who were allegedly causing Hermitage tax problems in Russia. Browder decides to go to the US Congress and lobby for sanctions against Russia to solve his tax problems after his tax accountant was arrested in Russia and died in prison while awaiting a trial.

Senator Cardin and Senator John McCain decide to introduce legislation to punish Russia for causing Browder his tax problems based on the death of his Russian tax accountant's death in prison. Apparently Congress who loves punishing Russia for anything they can hang their hat on, and Obama thought this was the right hing to do as well, so he signed the bill. In retaliation, Russia bans international adoptions of Russian children to people in the United States.

So who is Bill Browder? Well .... that's actually quite a story and one can only wonder why the United States Congress would pass legislation imposing sanctions on Russia for the benefit of a British citizen whose Russian investments went bad due to tax evasion in Russia and the death of his Russian tax accountant who died in prison awaiting his trial for his involvement in tax evasion. Bill Browder was an American, who gave up his American citizenship to become a British citizen to avoid American income taxes and claimed on his forms for citizenship in Britain that he no longer wanted to be an American because of his family suffering during the McCarthy era. His family was targeted by the McCarthy investigations because Browder's grandfather defected to the Soviet Union, married a Russian, lived there for 10 years, then returned to the US,became President of the Communist Party in the US, even ran for President of the US a couple of times. Russia booted him out of the Communist Party in the 1950's after WWII.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Browder

It's beyond belief that the United States Congress would pass legislative sanctions against Russia based on the lobbying of someone like this. Did they not know he had forfeited his US citizenship 11 years earlier to avoid US income taxes? Did they not know his company was charged with income tax violations in Russia? Did they not know that he was invested in energy companies in Russia and if we pass sanctions, that his energy companies in Russia benefit from that? Did they not know the ethnic history of Browder to Russia which is why he chose to invest all of his funds in Russia instead of the United States or other countries? Did they not know that Browder was blacklisted from Russia as a "national security threat", convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to 9 years in prison? Did they not realize that Bill Browder is the Russian oligarch robbing the Russian economy hauling his profits out to banks in the west and not paying his taxes owed to Russia?

House Intelligence Committee, you need to open an investigation into the role of Bill Browder in the Magitsky Act and the Russia Hoax, his connections to the British government and Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS and yes even the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

It wasn't the Russians meddling in the US election, it was Great Britain, where all roads end up, the Magnistsky Act, the dossier, Christopher Steele, the London pub conversation with George Papadopholous and the Australian diplomat, Facebook data ending up with a London University that handed over the data to Cambridge Analytica, the London professor's association with Carter Page, the Dutch guy living in London who communicated with Rick Gates, etc., etc., etc.

Is MI6 behind this Russia Hoax? Is that where the "intel" is coming from, and that's why our "intel" is empty-handed because it's all staged by the British? If so, why is MI6 doing this? To prevent Trump from pursuing good relations with Russia? Why would Great Britain be so desperately afraid of the US improving our relations with Russia to try to fix an election for Hillary or if that failed, use the dossier to blackmail Trump, or if that failed use the Russia Hoax to try and Sodestroy the Trump Presidency?!

Devin Nunes needs to think about why all these trails and dots of the Russia Hoax end up in London instead of Trump Tower. Oh and don't forget to investigate the US Attorney in Southern District of New York whose "money laundering" case against a Russian named Denis Katsyv was about Browder, yes, Bill Browder, yes, the former American turned British citizen Bill Browder, the Bill Browder responsible for the US passage of the Magnitsky Act, who was mad at Russia because they wouldn't let him get away with money-laundering his profits out of Russia to cheat on his Russian income taxes, etc., etc., etc.

Veselnitskaya represented Pyotr Katsyv's son, Denis, when Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, charged him with money laundering.[9] Federal prosecutors accused Katsyv of using Manhattan real estate deals to launder money stolen from Browder's Hermitage Capital Management.[21][22] The Russian government then banned Bharara from traveling there.[21]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalia_Veselnitskaya

So the US not only sanctions Russia for Bill Browder, we prosecute Russian investors in the US for Bill Browder??!!! Why?? Money coming in from Russians is good for the US, so why are we prosecuting Russians who invest in the United States as revenge for a British citizen who couldn't figure out how to operate in Russia and stay out of trouble??!! This is just so WRONG!!! I can see why Bill Browder was blacklisted from Russia as a "national security threat". He's a national security threat to the United States, too. We need to blacklist him seems to me so he stays in London and wreaks his havoc and chaos there.

Oh yeah, and you know the big tall tale about Putin, the one where he's the richest man in the world with castles all over Russia bought with money paid to him by the oligarchs? Well, guess where that lie came from, yep .... British citizen, Londoner, Bill Browder:

Browder testified that President Putin is "the biggest oligarch in Russia and the richest man in the world", building a fortune by threatening Russian oligarchs and getting a 50% cut of their profits:

I estimate that he has accumulated $200 billion of ill-gotten gains from these types of operations over his 17 years in power. He keeps his money in the West and all of his money in the West is potentially exposed to asset freezes and confiscation. Therefore, he has a significant and very personal interest in finding a way to get rid of the Magnitsky sanctions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Browder

Browder is Britain's Soros.

Trump weighs in on reports of Kremlin ties to Russian lawyer at Trump Tower meeting

By Clare Foran, CNN
Updated 12:11 AM ET, Sun April 29, 2018

(CNN)President Donald Trump suggested Saturday night that Russian President Vladimir Putin might have directed a Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign associates in 2016 to disclose ties to Moscow recently in order to sow chaos for him in retaliation for aggressive actions he has taken against Russia.

The Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, said in an NBC News interview that aired Friday that she is both a lawyer and "an informant" after newly surfaced emails indicated she once worked with Russia's chief legal office in an attempt to thwart a request from the Justice Department.

At a rally in Michigan on Saturday, Trump said, "I guarantee you, I'm tougher on Russia. Nobody ever thought. In fact, have you heard about the lawyer? For a year, a woman lawyer, she was like, 'Oh, I know nothing.' ... Now all of a sudden she supposedly is involved with government. You know why? If she did that, because Putin and the groups said, 'you know this Trump is killing us. Why don't you say that you're involved with government so that we could go and make their life in the United States even more chaotic.' Look at what's happened. Look at how these politicians have fallen for this junk. Russian collusion. Give me a break."

Veselnitskaya has previously denied having worked for the Russian government, and in a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee last year she said that she "operate(s) independently of any governmental bodies."

In June 2016, Veselnitskaya met at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr., then-campaign manager Paul Manafort, and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, among others. Emails released by Trump Jr. show that he agreed to a meeting with Veselnitskaya after being told the "crown prosecutor of Russia" wanted to give the Trump campaign incriminating information about Hillary Clinton. Instead, Veselnitskaya focused on the repeal of the Magnitsky Act, the 2012 Russian sanctions the US enacted over human rights abuses.

Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN's Jim Sciutto on Friday that Veselnitskaya reached out to the Trump family after the election with a request to follow up on efforts to repeal the Magnitsky Act.

Trump's team has denied there was any follow up after the Trump Tower meeting. It's not clear that there was any response from the Trump team to the request from Veselnitskaya. The Trump administration has not moved to roll back the Russian sanctions, and, in fact, new sanctions against Russia have been enacted.

Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the Trump Tower meeting as part of his probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Trump Jr., Kushner and Manafort, who has since been indicted in the special counsel investigation on charges that include money laundering and filing false foreign lobbying reports, all denied participating in any collusion with Russia. Trump himself has repeatedly said there was no collusion between his campaign and the Russian government and has repeatedly called the special counsel investigation a "witch hunt."

Bill Browder, a main proponent of the Magnitsky Act and Putin critic, told CNN's Erin Burnett on Friday that Veselnitskaya is "an agent of the Russian government. She's an agent of Vladimir Putin, and when she went to Trump Tower, she went there on behalf of Vladimir Putin."

The Kremlin has denied the allegations of ties between Veselnitskaya and the Russian government.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/28/polit...ing/index.html

Bill Browder, a main proponent of the Magnitsky Act and Putin critic, told CNN's Erin Burnett on Friday that Veselnitskaya is "an agent of the Russian government. She's an agent of Vladimir Putin, and when she went to Trump Tower, she went there on behalf of Vladimir Putin."

There he is again .... Bill Browder. A British Citizen, who invested in Russia, laundered profits out of Russia, and failed to pay Russian taxes.

WAKE UP REPUBLICANS in Congress ... you need to immediately investigate this crooked character who is behind this whole thing, from the Magnitsky Act to the Russia Hoax. Hell he mind even be behind the Uranium One deal, too. Browder is without question Britain's Soros ... or worse.