The AP has reported, and Rinat Akhmetshin, has confimred, that he was the “Sixth Man” that attended Donnie Jr’s little Pow-wow at Trump Tower with Russian Lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. It’s been widely reported that he is a lobbyist and an ex-FSB agent. But Brethern and sistern that ain’t nearly the half of it. The Gun? She smokes like an angry teenager on this one.
It seems Akhmetshin spent his time in the FSB “acquiring a very particular set of skills”. To wit : cyber hacking and running negative PR campaigns. Skills he hasn’t a hesitated to use on behalf of paying clients according to this profile of him written last July:
recently, Akhmetshin was caught up in a particularly nasty $1 billion legal fight concerning a potash-mining operation in central Russia. While a Dutch court was the main venue, the dispute spilled into U.S. courts when lawyers for one of the companies accused their counterparts of organizing a scheme to hack their computers and other communications.
The man who masterminded the scheme was Akhmetshin, according to a suit filed in November in New York state court that also accused him of being a former Soviet military intelligence officer who "developed a special expertise in running negative public-relations campaigns."
Well, well, well.. Doesn’t that seem...familiar? as Does, this, sadly:
Rinat Akhmetshin, the man at the back of the room who for nearly 20 years has worked the shadowy corners of the Washington lobbying scene on behalf of businessmen and politicians from around the former Soviet Union.
"I call him skilled because -- though I am certain that they exist -- I know of no Russian gun-for-hire who managed to run his campaigns so successfully, running circles around purportedly much more seasoned Washington hands,”
And wouldn’t it be just the most EXTRAORDINARY of coincidences that THIS is the guy Veselnitskaya brings with her to the meeting, which remember, was explicitly set up to offer Russian help to the Trump campaign if he WASN’T there to offer that expertise?
and speaking of improbable coincidences :
Akhmetshin has paid at least one visit to Congress in connection with new human rights legislation that builds on the earlier Magnitsky Act. Along with Ron Dellums, a former U.S. congressman from California and longtime Washington lobbyist, Akhmetshin visited House member offices on May 17 to meet with Dana Rohrabacher, another California congressman viewed as one of the most sympathetic U.S. officials to Russian causes.
Hey what was that thing GOP House Majority leader Kevin McCarthy said in June of last year when the didn’t know someone was secretly recording him? Oh Yeah:
“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016, exchange, which was listened to and verified by The Washington Post. ….
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) immediately interjected, stopping the conversation from further exploring McCarthy’s assertion, and swore the Republicans present to secrecy.
...
Some of the lawmakers laughed at McCarthy’s comment. Then McCarthy quickly added: “Swear to God.”
Now keep in mind the story quoted above is almost exactly a year old , so:
A) it was written without any possibility of “shading” things to support the current narrative, and
B) because it’s so old it might just get overlooked as the Media unspools this fast moving story. UNLESS of Course, there were people who were SURE to keep linking to it , dropping it in conversations, FB posts, online comments sections etc etc to make SURE it didn’t get buried.
What I’mma sayin’ here is : Fly My monkeys! Fly!