Handy Compilation of Trump's Russian Connections
Compilation of Trump's Russian Connections
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We should view all the stories about Russia and Trump as part of a whole. To facilitate that, I made an outline of the (1) evidence and (2) people/businesses linking Trump to Russia. Almost all this information comes from mainstream media sites. Almost every sentence is cited.
Extensive Russian Business Connections: Even before the 2000s, Trump rented posh apartments to Russians mobsters. [TAI]. But Trumps Russian connections were limited until he became a bad credit risk. [FT]. From 2004 to 2009, two Trump businesses entered bankruptcy and he was unable to pay off a $40 million bank loan. [Newsweek]. As banks stopped lending to Trump, he was forced to seek capital from billionaire kleptocrats and oligarchs in the former Soviet Union and Russia. [TAI]. These billionaires were eager investors in the Trump Organization, and as Trumps son asserted in 2008, a lot of money [was] pouring in from Russia. [CNN]. Recently, Reuters estimated that Russians have purchased, at the very least, $98 million worth of lots in Trump Towers in Florida alone. In addition, a one Russian oligarch bought a Trump mansion for $95 million in 2008. [FT]. Trumps business with some of these oligarchs and kleptocrats continued until he ran for president. [see e.g. WaPo (2013 Moscow Beauty Pageant); NYT (Moscow Tower plan for 2015)].
During the Campaign: Putin directed Russian intelligence to help the Trump campaign by hacking Democrats emails, leaking these emails via WikiLeaks, and flooding social media with anti-Hillary propaganda. [NYT]. Such influence by a foreign power was unprecedented in a US presidential election. [Reuters]. Perhaps coincidentally, Trumps campaign regularly communicated with Russian officials and, quite likely, senior Russian intelligence officials. [NYT; CNN]. Moreover, campaign members had suspicious connections with organizations tied to Russia. For example: (1) during the campaign, Roger Stone served as a back-channel to WikiLeaks and a Twitter account run likely run by Russian intelligence agencies, [Guardian(WikiLeaks); [WashTimes(Guccifer)]; (2) in 2015, Michael Flynn was paid at least $68,000 by Russian entities, including over $45,000 by RT and $11,250 by a Russian cybersecurity firm, [WaPo]; (3) in October 2016, Trump Jr. was paid at least $50,000 for attending private discussions hosted by a pro-Putin Syrian think tank, [WSJ]; and (4) years earlier, Manafort was paid 12 million dollars in off-the-books cash in exchange for working for a pro-Putin Ukrainian party, [NYT]. Also, during the campaign, a former British spy sent the FBI a dossier claiming Trump colluded with Russia, which allegedly had bribed and blackmailed him. [NYT; Buzzfeed (for dossier)].
Trumps Transition and Presidency: After Trump won the election, he picked nominees with ties to Putin and Russian oligarchs, such as Rex Tillerson and Wilbur Ross. [CBS; MotherJones]. He also picked Flynn for National Security Advisor, who during the transitions, infamously discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador over five phone calls on the day they were announced by Obama. [Reuters]. Trump shares Flynns concern with sanctions, and has persistently advocated removing them and working with Putin. [see e.g. Reuters, Politico]. However, Trump has been preemptively thwarted by Congress. [USAToday (many Republicans have voiced support for sanctions)].
US Intel Agencies and Allies: Officials in US intelligence agencies strongly suspect collusion between Trump and Russia, [Haaretz; WSJ], as do our Western European and Baltic allies, [Newsweek]. They have investigated Trumps associates and uncovered many suspicious contacts with Russian officials. [Newsweek; NYT; CNN].
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/3/3/1634738/-Evidence-of-Trump-s-Connections-with-Kremlin-Expanded-Now-with-Citations-Links
Faux pas
(14,657 posts)Rich fuckers, using money produced by the blood, sweat and tears of millions upon millions of lowly workers, bought themselves a bunch of politicians to keep us all poor so that they can stick their snouts into the public trough and siphon out as much money as possible.
Their kids all go to ivy league schools, ride horses and go on extravagant shopping trips all over the world, have fun at ski resorts, then take yachting trips to tropical islands. Occasionally they attend "charitable events", which are really just designed to network with other rich fuckers, gouging the shit out of millions of other lowly workers.
They all imagine that God must have wanted it this way. They believe they are doing God's work, and that all of us "takers" are undeserving at most, and worthy of an early grave at best. People like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are useful tools in bamboozling gerrymandered denizens of various "District 9's", or work gulags, into believing their guns are the only thing between them and the rampaging hoards of other gulag denizens. Oxycontin must be liberally applied!
So... where's Jennifer Lawrence wielding bow and arrow? She's vacationing in Aruba!