Iâm sorry. This âregistering as a foreign agentâ isnât something that just became a law. You canât plead ignorance. You canât say, âOops.â What is it with these people? How many more are out there?
Given Russian interests in the Ukraine we may see a bit of where this is going.
I suspect a fair number of lobbyists have been âcasualâ about FARA. I hope a lot of them will be spending money on bad lawyers and sizable finesâŚ
Pleading guilty. To what his buddy Paulie is on trial for soon.
Lovely.
How many offices are there on K street?
Am I the only one that thinks he looks like an evil Michael Palin?
The received wisdom is that Mueller and proxies will refrain from initiating major developments from now until the midterms, out of deference to FBI protocol. Iâm skeptical about that, but if itâs true I see no reason why Mueller could not carry out a massive round of arrests on the first day after. Given that Trump has signaled that he will fire Sessions after the elections, Mueller will effectively be in a race with the GOP with the rule of law hinging on the outcome.
Lots of actual witches in this little town, it would appear.
Dear Mr. Manafort,
This guy already told us everything youâre planning on lying about in your new trial.
Regards,
Robert Mueller
There are so many frickinâ Russian agents operating out of DeLayâs K Street that you might think you were on a street in Moscow not America. Who allowed them in and why are they still there?
WASHINGTON (AP) â A senior Justice Department lawyer says a former British spy told him at a breakfast meeting two years ago that Russian intelligence believed it had Donald Trump âover a barrel,â according to multiple people familiar with the encounter.
The lawyer, Bruce Ohr, also says he learned that a Trump campaign aide had met with higher-level Russian officials than the aide had acknowledged, the people said.
The previously unreported details of the July 30, 2016, breakfast with Christopher Steele, which Ohr described to lawmakers this week in a private interview, reveal an exchange of potentially explosive information about Trump between two men the president has relentlessly sought to discredit.
The biggest piece is that he is now cooperating with the prosecution.
Mueller is once again turning the screws on Manafort in ways the Dotard canât touch.
Happy Friday
Good to see that Nathan Thurm has given up smoking.
Wow. This is definitely Friday material.
No mercy. No moral hazard.
Welp, trump did promise to be a great job creator. He just didnât realize his efforts would be so localized in the legal profession.
This was probably not the Friday bombshell that most were expecting (the day is still young), but I view it as quite interesting to unlock more of the #trumprussia connections. Patten has pleaded guilty to a FARA violation for representing Ukrainian political groups and purposely avoided registering with the DOJ as a foreign agent. This looks like a flip deal, where he will be in a position to testify against Manafort, and perhaps others involved in the DOJâs crosshairs, namely, Dmitry Firtash. This case was farmed out by the Office of Special Counsel to the USAO for DC and the National Security Division of DOJ.
UPDATE:
Pattenâs plea deal is out. Not only is he pleading guilty to FARA claims, but his plea deal requires full cooperation (e.g., must appear before GJs, must allow himself to be interviewed by investigators w/o an attorney) in exchange for a decision by DOJ not to prosecute him for the following charges:
- False statements to the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Burr/Warner)
- Obstruction of the USSCI
- Causing foreign money to be paid to the 2016-17 Presidential Inaugural Committee
Burr/Warner made a criminal referral to DOJ, which they used as leverage to get this dude to flip. It has been my long-held theory that part of what Manafort and Gates did was to open the floodgates of Russian money into the Trump/GOP campaigns, including the inaugural committee. This is the first sign that the DOJ has hard evidence that this happened (w/respect to the inaugural committee). To say this is a huge development is an understatement. A lot of dirty money is now going to be traced into GOP campaigns. The people who funneled it will go to jail or become cooperators.
This could be he start of a major unwinding of the illegal foreign money trail that made it into the 2016 campaign.
In addition, that Mueller/DOJ now have a FARA conviction on the books helps from the standpoint of precedent and in terms of alerting other fake lobbyists that they will go to jail for cavorting with corrupt foreign influence peddlers if they donât come clean to the Special Counsel. This is a bfd!
So who is Sam Patten? He is yet another GOP operative with curious links to Russia and pro-Russian Ukrainians. He is a close partner of Konstantin Kilimnick, that omnipresent Ukranian associated w/RU military intel who was Manafortâs right hand in his Ukrainian campaigns for Viktor Yanukovych. Kilimnick has been indicted with Manafort for witness tampering. Manafort could not have run any of his campaigns without Kilimnick because he was the only prominent person on the team who spoke fluent Ukrainian. Patten and Kilimnick have known each other for nearly 2 decades and they first got to know each other inâŚguess whereâŚMoscow!
Sam Patten and Kilimnick (identified as Foreigner A in the indictment) formed a company in 2015 called Begemot Ventures International (BVI) (identified as Company A in the indictment). Kilimnick did this just as Manafortâs fortunes had started to fall with the overthrow of Yanukovych through a widespread public revolt. Patten, unlike Manafort, had spread his political clout a bit more broadly in the Ukrainian political spectrum so he still had credibility with certain political groups that were still considered within the acceptable range of politics in Ukraine and not discredited folks like Yanukovych and his Party of Regions. Patten/Kilimnick began advising the Opposition Bloc, a successor political party to the discredited Party of Regions (read: akin to GOP rebranding itself as a Tea Party movement (as promoted by the American oligarchs, the Koch Brothers) following the discrediting of George W. Bush. Mostly the same people, but different business cards and marketing materials). In fact, Manafort is credited in part as the brain child of the Opposition Bloc - to get all the parties that opposed the Ukrainian revolution to overthrow Yanukovych (Maidan Revolution) together in one voting bloc in parliament to oppose anything done by the anti-Yanukovych/Putin majority.
The indictment also mentions that as part of the consulting relationship with the Opposition Bloc they specifically worked with âForeigner Bâ a âprominent Ukraine oligarchâ. It has been said on Twitter that this person is Serhiy Lyovochkin, Yanukovychâs former chief of staff, a current member of parliament and a leader in the Opposition Bloc. Lyovochkin, to my quick research, doesnât appear to have the level of wealth befitting an oligarch. However, he is closely associated with a much more well known oligarch who has been in the DOJâs cross hairs for a long time, Dmitry Firtash.
Patten/Kilimnick took in at least $1 million from the Opposition Bloc. They lobbied members of Congress, including members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, staff, the State Department and published op-eds to promote the political interests of Foreigner B (whom I suspect is Firtash but could be someone else) and the Ukraine Opposition Bloc. Keep in mind that the interests of the Opposition Bloc tend to align with Russia as they generally have a pro-Russian policy orientation and are corrupted by Russian money, spies and influence. This appears to be a continuing part of pro-Russian aligned groups to change the political orientation of the Republican Party to a more pro-Russian tilt. Whatâs also interesting is that prosecutors have evidence of communications between Patten/Kilimnick and Foreigner B in which Patten asked whether he could register under FARA but Foreigner B said no. Thatâs why Patten is likely going to jail now.
Patten will be able to testify against Manafort on a number of the charges relating to Ukraine work in the upcoming trial. He was involved and knew all the players. He may also be able to testify against Ukrainian oligarch Foreigner B. If itâs Dmitry Firtash, this could open up more angles to the Russian mafia connection to this scandal.
Firtash has been tight with the pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians like Yanukovych. He has been a middleman for Russiaâs state owned natural gas firm, Gazprom, through an intermediary known as RosUkrEnergo and has made himself rich from that relationship (taking his cut in various ways) and funneled some of his wealth into the campaigns of pro-Russian Ukrainian political parties. He also has large interests in the Ukrainian titanium industry. He has been suspected of working with Russian mobster Semion Mogilevich as part of his management of the RU-UKR natural gas relationship.
Yulia Tymoshenko, former UKR Prime Minister, drew the ire of Firtash when she cut him out of UKR/RU gas negotiations in 2009. He responded by supporting Yanukovych, Manafort, paying bribes to dislodge her from power and supported a campaign to smear her reputation and have her locked up. Manafort spearheaded a successful âlock her upâ campaign before it became a fantasy for Trump
Firtash was indicted in Austria for a bribery scandal related to India. US DOJ have wanted to extradite him for years, but Austrian judges have essentially refused. Firtash was indicted by a US grand jury for violations of the foreign corrupt practices act relating to bribery and money laundering for bribes offered to Indian govât officials for titanium mining licenses, which minerals were to be sold in Chicago. He still remains in Austria as far as I know. He cannot return to Ukraine as it looks like he would be arrested and tried. He canât leave Austria as other countries like the US and Spain would try him as well.
LOTS of witches!!