How US and Foreign Intel Agencies Interfered in a US Election
May 7, 2019
The evidence is plain—there was a broad, coordinated effort by the Obama
Administration, with the help of foreign governments, to target Donald Trump
and paint him as a Russian stooge, writes Larry Johnson
By Larry C. Johnson
Sic Semper Tyrannis
The preponderance of evidence makes this very simple–there was a broad,
coordinated effort by the Obama Administration, with the help of foreign
governments, to target Donald Trump and paint him as a stooge of Russia.
The Mueller Report provides irrefutable evidence that the so-called Russian
collusion case against Donald Trump was a deliberate fabrication by
intelligence and law enforcement organizations in the United States and the
United Kingdom and organizations aligned with the Clinton Campaign.
The New York Times reported that a man with a long history of working with the
CIA, and a female FBI informant, traveled to London in September of 2016 and
tried unsuccessfully to entrap George Papadopolous. The biggest curiosity is
that U.S. intelligence or law enforcement officials fully briefed British
intelligence on what they were up to. Quite understandable given what we now
know about British spying on the Trump Campaign.
The Mueller investigation of Trump “collusion” with Russia prior to the 2016
Presidential election focused on eight cases:
◦Proposed Trump Tower Project in Moscow
◦George Papadopolous
◦Carter Page
◦Dimitri Simes
◦Veselnetskya Meeting at Trump Tower (June 16, 2016)
◦Events at Republican Convention
◦Post-Convention Contacts with Russian Ambassador Kislyak
◦Paul Manafort
One simple fact emerges–of the eight cases or incidents of alleged Trump
Campaign interaction with the Russians investigated by the Mueller team, the
proposals to interact with the Russian Government or with Putin originated with
FBI informants, MI-6 assets or people paid by Fusion GPS, and not Trump or his
people.
There is not a single instance where Donald Trump or any member of his campaign
team initiated contact with the Russians for the purpose of gaining derogatory
information on Hillary or obtaining support to boost the Trump campaign. Not
one.
Simply put, Trump and his campaign were the target of an elaborate, wide
ranging covert action designed to entrap him and members of his team as an
agent of Russia.
Let’s look in detail at each of the cases.
THE PROPOSED TRUMP TOWER PROJECT IN MOSCOW, according to Mueller’s report,
originated with an FBI Informant–Felix Sater. Here’s what the Mueller Report
states:
“In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry
about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately September
2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen (i.e., Michael Cohen) on behalf of I.C.
Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert), a Russian real-estate development
corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov
since approximately 2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of
Rozov during Rozov’s purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later
contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow
project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the Trump
Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal
with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert.” (see page 69 of the Mueller
Report).
Sater: FBI informant
Mueller, as noted previously, is downright dishonest in failing to identify
Sater as an FBI informant. Sater was not just a private entrepreneur looking to
make some coin. He was a fully signed up FBI informant. Sater’s status as an
FBI snitch was first exposed in 2012. Sater also was a boyhood chum of Michael
Cohen, the target being baited in this operation. Another inconvenient fact
excluded from the Mueller report is that one of Mueller’s Chief Prosecutors,
Andrew Weissman, signed the deal with Felix Sater in December 1998 that put
Sater into the FBI Informant business.
All suggestions for meeting with the Russian Government, including Putin,
originated with Felix Sater. The use of Sater on this particular project
started in September 2015.
[For more on Sater please see my previous posts, Felix Sater–The Rosetta Stone
for the FBI/CIA Conspiracy Against Trump?, Felix Sater and the Steele Dossier.]
GEORGE PAPADOPOLOUS
Papadopolous
Papadopolous was targeted by British and U.S. intelligence starting in late
December 2015, when he is offered out of the blue a job with the London Centre
of International Law and Practice Limited (LCILP)?. The LCILP has all of the
hallmarks of an intelligence front company. LCILP began as an offshoot from
another company?—?EN Education Group Limited?—?which describes itself as “a
global education consultancy, facilitating links between students, education
providers and organisations with an interest in education worldwide”.
EN Education and LCILP are owned and run by Nagi Khalid Idris, a 48-year-old
British citizen of Sudanese origin. For no apparent reason Idris offers
Papadopolous a job as the Director of the LCILP’s International Energy and
Natural Resources Division. Then in March of 2016, Idris and Arvinder Sambei
(who acted as an attorney for the FBI on a 9-11 extradition case in the UK),
insist on introducing Joseph Mifsud to Papadopolous.
It is Joseph Mifsud who introduces the idea of meeting Putin following a lunch
in London (from Papadopolous’s book “Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the
Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump”):
“The lunch is booked for March 24 at the Grange Holborn Hotel,. . . . “When I
get there, Mifsud is waiting for me in the lobby with an attractive,
fashionably dressed young woman with dirty blonde hair at his side. He
introduces her as Olga Vinogradova.” (p. 76)
“Mifsud sells her hard. “Olga is going to be your inside woman to Moscow. She
knows everyone.” He tells me she was a former official at the Russian Ministry
of Trade. Then he waxes on about introducing me to the Russian ambassador in
London.” (p. 77)
“On April 12, “Olga” writes: “I have already alerted my personal links to our
conversation and your request. The embassy in London is very much aware of
this. As mentioned, we are all very excited by the possibility of a good
relationship with Mr. Trump. The Russian Federation would love to welcome him
once his candidature would be officially announced.”
And it is Mifsud who raises the possibility of getting dirt on Hillary:
“Then Mifsud returns from the Valdai conference. On April 26 we meet for
breakfast at the Andaz Hotel, near Liverpool Street Station, one of the busiest
train stations in London. He’s in an excellent mood and claims he met with
high-level Russian government officials. But once again, he’s very short on
specifics. This is becoming a real pattern with Mifsud. He hasn’t offered any
names besides Timofeev. Then, he leans across the table in a conspiratorial
manner. The Russians have “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, he tells me. “Emails of
Clinton,” he says. “They have thousands of emails.”
Here again we encounter the lying and obfuscation of the Mueller team. They
falsely characterize Mifsud as an agent of Russia. In fact, he has close and
longstanding ties to both British and U.S. intelligence (Disobedient Media lays
out the Mifsud mystery in detail).
Mifsud: Ties to UK intelligence. (Flickr)
Mifsud was not alone. The FBI and the CIA also were in the game of trying to
entrap Papadopolous. In September of 2016, Papadopolous was being wined and
dined by Halper (who has longstanding ties to the U.S. intelligence community)
and Azra Turk, an FBI Informant/researcher (see New York Times).
The FBI disingenuously claims they ran Azra Turk at Papadopolous because they
were alarmed ostensibly by Russia’s attempts to disrupt the 2016 election. But
Papadopolous was not seeking out Russian contacts. He was being baited. It was
Mifsud and others tied to British and U.S. intelligence who were bringing up
the “opportunity” to work with the Russians.
CARTER PAGE
The section of the Mueller report that deals with Carter Page is a total
travesty. Mueller and his team, for example, initially misrepresent Page’s
status with the Trump campaign—he is described as “working” for the campaign,
which implies a paid position, when he was in fact only a volunteer foreign
policy advisor. Mueller also paints Page’s prior experience and work in Russia
as evidence that Page was being used by Russian intelligence, but says nothing
about the fact that Page was being regularly debriefed by the CIA and the FBI
during the same period. In other words, Page was cooperating with U.S.
intelligence and law enforcement. But this fact is omitted in the Mueller
report.
Page: Cooperated with US intel.
Mueller eventually accurately describes Page’s role in the Trump campaign as
follows:
“In January 2016, Page began volunteering on an informal, unpaid basis for the
Trump Campaign after Ed Cox, a state Republican Party official, introduced Page
to Trump Campaign officials. Page told the Office that his goal in working on
the Campaign was to help candidate Trump improve relations with Russia. To that
end, Page emailed Campaign officials offering his thoughts on U.S.-Russia
relations, prepared talking points and briefing memos on Russia, and proposed
that candidate Trump meet with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
“In communications with Campaign officials, Page also repeatedly touted his
high-level contacts in Russia and his ability to forge connections between
candidate Trump and senior Russian governmental officials. For example, on
January 30, 2016, Page sent an email to senior Campaign officials stating that
he had “spent the past week in Europe and had been in discussions with some
individuals with close ties to the Kremlin” who recognized that Trump could
have a “game-changing effect . .. in bringing the end of the new Cold War. The
email stated that ” [t]hrough [his] discussions with these high level
contacts,” Page believed that “a direct meeting in Moscow between Mr. Trump and
Putin could be arranged.”
The Mueller presentation portrays Carter Page in a nefarious, negative light.
His contacts with Russia are characterized as inappropriate and unjustified.
Longstanding business experience in a particular country is not proof of wrong
doing. No consideration is given at all to Page’s legitimate concerns raising
about the dismal state of U.S./Russia relations following the U.S. backed coup
in the Ukraine and the subsequent annexation of Crimea by Russia.
Page’s association with the Trump campaign was quite brief—he lasted seven
months, being removed as a foreign policy advisor on Sept. 24. Page was not
identified publicly as a Trump foreign policy advisor until March of 2016, but
the evidence presented in the Mueller report clearly indicates that Page was
already a target of intelligence agencies, in the U.S. and abroad, long before
the FISA warrant of Oct. 2016.
While serving on the foreign policy team Page continued his business and social
contacts in Russia, but was never tasked by the Trump team to pursue or promote
contacts with Putin and his team. In fact, Page’s proposals, suggestions and
recommendations were either ignored or directly rebuffed.
The timeline reported in the Mueller report regarding Page’s trip to Russia in
early July raises questions about the intel collected on that trip and the
so-called “intel” revealed in the Steele Dossier with respect to Page. Carter
admits to meeting with individuals, such as Dmitry Peskov and Igor Sechin, who
appear in the Steele Dossier. Page’s meetings in Moscow turned out to be
innocuous and uneventful. Nothing he did resembled clandestine activity. Yet,
the Steele report on that visit suggested just the opposite and used the tactic
of guilt by association to imply that Page was up to something dirty.
The bottomline for Mueller is that Page did not do anything wrong and no one in
the Trump Campaign embraced his proposals for closer ties with Russia.
DMITRI SIMES
Dmitri Simes
The targeting and investigation of Dmitri Simes is disgusting and an abuse of
law enforcement authority. Full disclosure. I know Dmitri. For awhile, in the
2002-2003 time period, I was a regular participant at Nixon Center events. For
example, I was at a round table in December 2002 on the imminent invasion of
Iraq. Colonel Pat Lang sat on one side of me and Ambassador Joe Wilson on the
other. Directly across the table was Charles Krauthammer. Dmitri ran an honest
seminar.
The entire section on Dmitri Simes, under other circumstances, could be viewed
as something bizarre and amusing. But the mere idea that Simes was somehow an
agent of Putin and a vehicle for helping Trump work with the Russians to steal
the 2016 election is crazy and idiotic. Those in the FBI who were so stupid as
to buy into this nonsense should have their badges and guns taken away. They
are too dumb to work in law enforcement.
Dmitri’s only sin was to speak calmly, intelligently and rationally about
foreign policy dealings with Russia. We now know that in this new hysteria of
the 21st Century Russian scare that qualities such as reason and rationality
are proof of one’s willingness to act as a puppet of Vladimir Putin.
TRUMP TOWER MEETING (JUNE 9, 2016)
This is the clearest example of a plant designed to entrap the Trump team.
Mueller, once again, presents a very disingenuous account:
“On June 9, 2016, senior representatives of the Trump Campaign met in Trump
Tower with a Russian attorney expecting to receive derogatory information about
Hillary Clinton from the Russian government. The meeting was proposed to Donald
Trump Jr. in an email from Robert Goldstone, at the request of his then-client
Emin Agalarov, the son of Russian real-estate developer Aras Agalarov.
Goldstone relayed to Trump Jr. that the “Crown prosecutor of Russia … offered
to provide the Trump Campaign with some official documents and information that
would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia” as “part of Russia and
its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Trump Jr. immediately responded that
“if it’s what you say I love it,” and arranged the meeting through a series of
emails and telephone calls.” …
The Russian attorney who spoke at the meeting, Natalia Veselnitskaya, had
previously worked for the Russian government and maintained a relationship with
that government throughout this period oftime. She claimed that funds derived
from illegal activities in Russia were provided to Hillary Clinton and other
Democrats. Trump Jr. requested evidence to support those claims, but
Veselnitskaya did not provide such information.”
Natalia Veselnitskaya (Wikimedia)
Ignore for a moment that no information on Hillary was passed or provided (and
doing such a thing is not illegal). The real problem is with what Mueller does
not say and did not investigate. Mueller conveniently declines to mention the
fact that Veselnitskaya was working closely with the firm Hillary Clinton hired
to produce the Steele Dossier. NBC News reported on Veselnitskaya:
“The information that a Russian lawyer brought with her when she met Donald
Trump Jr. in June 2016 stemmed from research conducted by Fusion GPS, the same
firm that compiled the infamous Trump dossier, according to the lawyer and a
source familiar with the matter.
In an interview with NBC News, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya says she
first received the supposedly incriminating information she brought to Trump
Tower — describing alleged tax evasion and donations to Democrats — from Glenn
Simpson, the Fusion GPS owner, who had been hired to conduct research in a New
York federal court case.”
Even a mediocre investigator would recognize the problem of the relationship
between the lawyer claiming to have dirty, damning info on Hillary with the
firm Hillary hired to dig up dirt on Donald Trump. This was another botched set
up and the Trump folks did not take the bait.
EVENTS AT THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION
This portion of the Mueller report is a complete farce. Foreign ambassdors,
including the Russian (and the Chinese) attend Republican and Democrat
Conventions. Presidential candidates and their advisors speak to those
ambassadors. So, where is the beef? Answer. There isn’t any. That this “event”
was considered something worthy of a counter intelligence investigation is just
one more piece of evidence that law enforcement and intelligence were
weaponized against the Trump campaign.
POST-CONVENTION CONTACTS WITH RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR KISLYAK
Ditto. As noted in the previous paragraph, trying to criminalize normal
diplomatic contacts, especially with a country where we share important, vital
national security interests, is but further evidence of the crazy anti-Russian
hysteria that has infected the anti-Trumpers. Pathetic.
MANAFORT
Manafort at 2016 RNC Convention. (Wikimedia Commons)
If Paul Manafort had rebuffed Trump’s offer to run his campaign, he would be
walking free today and still buying expensive suits and evading taxes along
with his Clinton buddy, Greg Craig. Instead, he became another target for DOJ,
the intel community and the DNC, which were desperate to portray Trump as a
tool of the Kremlin. Thanks to John Solomon of The Hill, we now know the
impetus to target Manafort came from the DNC:
The boomerang from the Democratic Party’s failed attempt to connect Donald
Trump to Russia’s 2016 election meddling is picking up speed, and its flight
path crosses right through Moscow’s pesky neighbor, Ukraine. That is where
there is growing evidence a foreign power was asked, and in some cases tried,
to help Hillary Clinton.
In its most detailed account yet, Ukraine’s embassy in Washington says a
Democratic National Committee insider during the 2016 election solicited dirt
on Donald Trump’s campaign chairman and even tried to enlist the country’s
president to help.
In written answers to questions, Ambassador Valeriy Chaly’s office says DNC
contractor Alexandra Chalupa sought information from the Ukrainian government
on Paul Manafort’s dealings inside the country, in hopes of forcing the issue
before Congress.
Manafort was not colluding, but the Clinton campaign and the Obama
Administration most certainly were.
Take these eight events as a whole a very clear picture emerges—U.S. and
foreign intelligence (especially the UK) and U.S. law enforcement collaborated
in a broad effort to bait the Trump team with ostensible Russian entreaties in
order to paint Trump as a tool of the Kremlin. That effort is now being exposed
and those culpable will hopefully face justice. This should sicken and alarm
every American regardless of political party. Will justice be served?
Larry C. Johnson is a former CIA analyst and counterterrorism official at the
State Department. This article first appeared on Sic Semper Tyrannis.
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Tags: . Mueller Report Donald Trump George Papadopoulos Joseph Mifsud Larry
Johnson Paul Manafort Robert Mueller
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