Monday, Ari Melber sitting in for Chris Hayes @ All In, spoke with Julia Ioffe about the lobbying efforts by Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya. Julia Ioffe has been investigating the activities of Veselnitskaya and posted some of her work on that here:
Who is Natalia Veselnitskaya, and what does she want?
— by Julia Ioffe | July 15th, 2017
It’s very thorough and a damn good read to catch up on the history of the Magnitsky Act, the players involved and why Putin and his circle of Oligarchs under him, who were specifically targeted by the Act for Human rights violations, were/are dead set on overturning the law.
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Helping to fill out the picture is this later interview with Ari Melber that connects Natalia Veselnitskaya's lobbying efforts to repeal the Magnitsky Act to the avenues of influence she needed in America. The plausible connection to republican politicians once Donald Trump had secured the republican nomination. That would include U.S. republican speaker of the house of representatives Paul Ryan, Devin Nunes (R), Mike Pence, other republican politicians and republican operatives, with the Trump regime at the nexus.
What did Natalia Vselnitskaya want? Lift sanctions on Russian Mob (Putin’s cronies) and free up money laundering pipelines in a quid pro quo trade deal for dirt on Hillary Clinton and Dems, provided that republicans politicians and operatives helped in determining where to distribute the kompromat for maximum effect against Dems in 2016 elections
— ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES 7/17/17
How did a self-proclaimed adoption lawyer-lobbyist end up at the center of one of the biggest scandals in American political history?
Here is a partial transcript beginning @ minute 5:16:
Ari Melber:
“what is the significance of someone who is going to these levels to do whatever you want to call it, advocacy or lobbying, in the U.S.?”
Julia Ioffe:
“Well she [Natalia Veselnitskaya] didn't create this NGO, just to be clear, she was a representative of it. It’s strange that she was lobbying in the U.S. so hard for this given that she didn’t speak English.
“That said, let’s get the topic of adoptions off the table. This was not in any way about adoptions.
“The adoption ban was a retaliatory measure by Vladimir Putin, a very weird one, to punish his own people for something the U.S. did to Russia...so it’s like a double-whammy. What really upset Veselnitskaya and her client, and Vladimir Putin, and the Russian elite was the Magnitsky Act which was pushed through by Bill Browder, a not uncontroversial figure I must say, .. sanctioning a list of Russian officials who were allegedly involved in the death of his lawyer and auditor Sergei Magnitsky”
“and this gets at the very heart..the reason it angered them so much is that it gets at the very heart of what the Russian elite do. The government elite. The non-government elite. The gray area in between. They steal money at home and then they have to get it out of the country, because if they leave it in the country it’ll get stolen again by somebody else…
..”and the Magnitsky Act basically cut that pipeline that was crucial to them.” [Mob money laundering...and Trump/Kushner need for it @ the video link]
Ari Melber:
“ In carrot & stick diplomacy this was a stick designed to hurt Russia so as we say not only not about adoption...having learned all this;.. last question: ..
“What is your of view of the likelihood that she was connected to a real Kremlin operation here in this meeting?”
Julia Ioffe:
“I still think we need to know more facts about that. The one thing I want to add to what Malcom [Nance] and Matt [Miller] were talking about in the previous segment, the question all along for Russia watchers has been; when Russia stood accused of meddling in the American elections we were all puzzled because...if you look at the lobbying effort mounted by Natalia Veselnitskaya and her cohort.. it was laughable. They didn’t..they barely knew how the American political system worked..."
“They couldn’t prevent it from getting passed [the Magnitsky Act]. They certainly didn’t know what the DNC was, or the D triple C was. They didn't know how to, what Florida 17..what that district looked like in 2016, like.. how did they know where to aim their fire ? ..
“Did they have local help ? And I think that's the big red flag to people who know Russia. And maybe she was looking for guidance on where to guide ‘those missiles'
Ari Melber:
"you're saying.. this was a tour through very complex terrain and they landed in the exact right spot. The question is; Did they have a local guide?"
Julia Ioffe:
"that's right."
Ari Melber:
“ Julia Ioffe, thank you so much.."
(end of transcript)
from Julia Ioffe’s article; very informative, and well worth a read - imo:
The law froze the U.S. assets of and banned entry to a list that eventually had two dozen Russian officials allegedly involved in Magnitsky’s death.
It enraged the Kremlin, which retaliated with a law banning American adoptions of Russian children, and by launching a massive lobbying effort to get the bill repealed.
There has been a lot of very important investigative reporting both here @ Daily Kos and elsewhere covering many aspects of the Trump/GOP/Kremlin election interference (pdf) on a broad range of topics.
This one aspect covered by Julia Ioffe seemed like another.
The motive for republican politicians like Paul Ryan (R), Kevin McCarthy (R) et al. (who appeared to know, in real time, about election hacking before the depth of it hit the headlines) to help steer Natalia’s Veselnitskaya’s “missiles” (kompromat) in electoral precincts to do the most damage.
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Just for sort of a reminder. With so many moving parts and corruption so widespread, there are times that stories get buried that are not new but begin to take on an increased relevance that is made manifest by more recent discoveries that connect to facts previously unearthed in those less recent stories.
This report just may be one of those crucial stories that ties the corruption of the GOP leadership into a clearer perspective:
— by Travis Gettys | July 13th, 2017
a couple of excerpts:
Five days after the Trump Tower meeting, the Washington Post reported that the Democratic National Committee had been targeted by a massive cyberattack that U.S. intelligence services concluded had been ordered by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The attack, which lasted for months, resulted in the thefts of emails from the DNC and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta that were later dumped online — as well as the theft of the party’s Trump opposition research file.
The day after that news broke, Ryan and McCarthy were caught by a hidden microphone joking about the DNC hacks — although the conversation wasn’t reported until May 17, also by the Washington Post.
The recording drew a lot of attention when it was revealed, but it strongly suggests Republican leadership understood — in real time — what the hacks meant to the election, in general, and for the Trump campaign, in particular.
After these republicans were caught on tape laughing about the 2016 election hacking, Paul Ryan had to warn Kevin McCarthy to shut up..
But this tells me..
It’s impossible to know what classified information Ryan and McConnell learned during the campaign about Russian interference.
But it’s clear from that recording, in the context of what was then publicly known, that the House speaker and other GOP leaders had a good idea of what Putin was up to — and why.
..that the republican leadership may not be in such a laughing mood when, it is exposed, as I am now convinced, that they are tied directly into aiding and abetting the election interference cover-up and conspired to help in the spreading and targeting of the Kremlin directed hacked kompromat in the 2016 elections.
Republican politicians acting as ‘tour guides’ for the dissemination of hacked material ? — that seems more than plausible & probable, based on Julia Ioffe’s reporting
— imo — and despite the repeated claims (lies) by republicans that this attack on democracy and rampant corruption by the Trump regime is all a big “nothing burger", that too is another indication of republican guilt, and why most every republican politician is actively in denial and cover-up mode
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Let’s see what else the GOP is giving away to keep the current regime happy:
I ran out of steam to look up all of Rachel Maddow sources that make up the list of giveaways she and her team have been putting together since Trump began squatting in the White House - in the graphic above
Here are a couple important giveaways:
House Republicans are pressing to defund the sole federal agency that exclusively works to ensure the voting process is secure | By Erica Orden and Byron Tau July 17th, 2017
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Or this from Politico:
— by Tim Starks | July 18th, 2017
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is considering closing the cyber office or merging it with another office and downgrading the cyber coordinator’s rank, according to a source familiar with internal planning
Here is Rachel Maddow’s report:
— THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 7/18/17
Rachel Maddow updates the show's running list of what Russia would likely want to get out of a pliant U.S. leader, including weaker election security and cyber policy.
— So It may seem as though I’m reaching, by positing that republican leadership actively aided and abetted — colluded with Putin’s “interests”, including assisting in promulgating and identifying targets for the hacked opposition research (from the DNC, Dems, including Hillary Clinton) handed over by Natalia Veselnitskaya, and more likely than not, other sources too, but at this point, by looking beyond the lies too many to keep track of now, and instead by keeping track of what is actually happening tells me I’m not reaching at all.
These destructive actions are happening. Environmental protections. CFPB, Voting Rights, Women’s Rights. LGBTQ Rights, immigrants, PoC, workers, children’s issues, Healthcare, unions/collective bargaining, a free press; all being systematically zeroed out — crushed by the GOP and current Trump regime.
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— oof, the hours snuck up on me and I’m getting less coherent by the word - time to turn in - be back tomorrow sometime after this posts in the morning
:) Resist !