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Tag: sergey kislyak
GOP 'Unmasking Scandal’ Implodes — Because Flynn Was Never Masked

GOP 'Unmasking Scandal’ Implodes — Because Flynn Was Never Masked

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Another right wing conspiracy theory down the drain.

For days if not weeks the right has insisted various Obama administration officials had targeted former Lt. General Mike Flynn, trying to "unmask" his name from transcripts on intercepted calls with Russian officials.

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Trump Told Russians He Wasn’t Concerned About Kremlin’s 2016 Meddling

Trump Told Russians He Wasn’t Concerned About Kremlin’s 2016 Meddling

President Trump told Russian officials in May 2017 that he wasn’t concerned about Kremlin interference in the 2016 election because the United States had done the same thing in other countries, according to a new report in the Washington Post. He made the remarks during an Oval Office meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Sergey Kislyak, the Russian Ambassador to the United States.

That same meeting drew harsh criticism because Trump also told the Russians about a confidential US intelligence source on the Islamic State, and said he felt “great relief” after firing FBI director James Comey. But his specific comments about the election meddling had not been reported until now.

Alarmed White House officials immediately sought to conceal memoranda of the meeting that might reveal Trump’s remarks, according to the Post. The document was hidden on the same highly-classified stand-alone National Security Council computer system where officials had secretly stored the memorandum of Trump’s July 25 telephone conversation with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. That system’s misuse to store potentially embarrassing — but not highly classified — documents was revealed by the intelligence community whistleblower who filed a complaint about Trump’s Ukraine shakedown.

The abuse of that system by Trump aides is now central to the impeachment inquiry set in motion by House Democrats last week.

IMAGE: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President Donald Trump.

 

 

 

 

 

Judge Eases Order Requiring Justice Department To Release Flynn Records

Judge Eases Order Requiring Justice Department To Release Flynn Records

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan announced in a filing on Tuesday that he will not force the Justice Department to comply with his previous order to release records relating to Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser who was charged as a part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Last week, the Justice Department boldly defied Sullivan’s orders in a filing, saying that it was refusing to release the audio recordings of Flynn’s discussions with Russian officials, which would include his conversations with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn pleaded guilty in late 2017 for lying to the FBI about the content of these conversations during the Trump administration’s transition period.

The department did release a separate recording and transcript of a voicemail Flynn received from one of Trump’s lawyers, which was relevant to the obstruction of justice investigation. But it said the other materials were not relevant to Flynn’s sentencing, which is the matter before Sullivan.

Many observers saw the refusal as a brash defiance of a judge’s explicit order, and some suggested that it may be a part of Attorney General Bill Barr’s attempts to cover up damaging information for the president.

But Sullivan’s response on Tuesday makes those interpretations less likely.

“The government is not required to file any additional materials or information on the public docket pursuant to the Court’s Orders of May 16, 2019,” the judge’s filing said.

“It was surprising for the court to have asked for these transcripts to be publicly filed in the first place, but it’s even more surprising to see the court back down in the face of outright DOJ refusal,” said Lawfare Executive Editor Susan Hennessey in a tweet. “I’d imagine there was lots of back and forth behind the scenes here.”

She added that it’s possible Sullivan agreed to let the government file the materials under seal.

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti said: “I’m surprised by this move, because the information would appear to be relevant to the factors that he is required to consider at sentencing. He appears to be deferring to DOJ’s view of what is relevant.”

Report: Kushner Met Secretly With Russians, Proposed Covert Back Channel

Report: Kushner Met Secretly With Russians, Proposed Covert Back Channel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, Jared Kushner, had at least three previously undisclosed contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States during and after the 2016 presidential campaign, seven current and former U.S. officials told Reuters.

Those contacts included two phone calls between April and November last year, two of the sources said. By early this year, Kushner had become a focus of the FBI investigation into whether there was any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, said two other sources – one current and one former law enforcement official.

Kushner initially had come to the attention of FBI investigators last year as they began scrutinizing former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s connections with Russian officials, the two sources said.

While the FBI is investigating Kushner’s contacts with Russia, he is not currently a target of that investigation, the current law enforcement official said.

The new information about the two calls as well as other details uncovered by Reuters shed light on when and why Kushner first attracted FBI attention and show that his contacts with Russian envoy Sergei Kislyak were more extensive than the White House has acknowledged.

NBC News reported on Thursday that Kushner was under scrutiny by the FBI, in the first sign that the investigation, which began last July, has reached the president’s inner circle.

The FBI declined to comment, while the Russian embassy said it was policy not to comment on individual diplomatic contacts. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Kushner’s attorney, Jamie Gorelick, said Kushner did not remember any calls with Kislyak between April and November.

“Mr Kushner participated in thousands of calls in this time period. He has no recollection of the calls as described. We have asked (Reuters) for the dates of such alleged calls so we may look into it and respond, but we have not received such information,” she said.

In March, the White House said that Kushner and Flynn had met Kislyak at Trump Tower in December to establish “a line of communication.” Kislyak also attended a Trump campaign speech in Washington in April 2016 that Kushner attended. The White House did not acknowledge any other contacts between Kushner and Russian officials.

Before the election, Kislyak’s undisclosed discussions with Kushner and Flynn focused on fighting terrorism and improving U.S.-Russian economic relations, six of the sources said. Former President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Russia after it seized Crimea and started supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

After the Nov. 8 election, Kushner and Flynn also discussed with Kislyak the idea of creating a back channel between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that could have bypassed diplomats and intelligence agencies, two of the sources said. Reuters was unable to determine how those discussions were conducted or exactly when they took place.

Reuters was first to report last week that a proposal for a back channel was discussed between Flynn and Kislyak as Trump prepared to take office. The Washington Post was first to report on Friday that Kushner participated in that conversation.

Separately, there were at least 18 undisclosed calls and emails between Trump associates and Kremlin-linked people in the seven months before the Nov. 8 presidential election, including six calls with Kislyak, sources told Reuters earlier this month. . Two people familiar with those 18 contacts said Flynn and Kushner were among the Trump associates who spoke to the ambassador by telephone. Reuters previously reported only Flynn’s involvement in those discussions.

Six of the sources said there were multiple contacts between Kushner and Kislyak but declined to give details beyond the two phone calls between April and November and the post-election conversation about setting up a back channel. It is also not clear whether Kushner engaged with Kislyak on his own or with other Trump aides.

FBI scrutiny of Kushner began when intelligence reports of Flynn’s contacts with Russians included mentions of U.S. citizens, whose names were redacted because of U.S. privacy laws. This prompted investigators to ask U.S. intelligence agencies to reveal the names of the Americans, the current U.S. law enforcement official said.

Kushner’s was one of the names that was revealed, the official said, prompting a closer look at the president’s son-in-law’s dealings with Kislyak and other Russians.

May.26 -- Jared Kushner, according to reporting on Thursday from NBC and the Washington Post, is now front-and-center in the FBI's investigation of Russia's intersection with the Trump presidential campaign and, apparently, the Trump White House. Bloomberg View columnist Timothy O'Brien has more on

FBI investigators are examining whether Russians suggested to Kushner or other Trump aides that relaxing economic sanctions would allow Russian banks to offer financing to people with ties to Trump, said the current U.S. law enforcement official.

The head of Russian state-owned Vnesheconombank, Sergei Nikolaevich Gorkov, a trained intelligence officer whom Putin appointed, met Kushner at Trump Tower in December. The bank is under U.S. sanctions and was implicated in a 2015 espionage case in which one of its New York executives pleaded guilty to spying and was jailed.

The bank said in a statement in March that it had met with Kushner along with other representatives of U.S. banks and business as part of preparing a new corporate strategy.

Officials familiar with intelligence on contacts between the Russians and Trump advisers said that so far they have not seen evidence of any wrongdoing or collusion between the Trump camp and the Kremlin.  Moreover, they said, nothing found so far indicates that Trump authorized, or was even aware of, the contacts.

There may not have been anything improper about the contacts, the current law enforcement official stressed.

Kushner offered in March to be interviewed by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is also investigating Russia’s attempts to interfere in last year’s election.

The contacts between Trump campaign associates and Russian officials during the presidential campaign coincided with what U.S. intelligence agencies concluded was a Kremlin effort through computer hacking, fake news and propaganda to boost Trump’s chances of winning the White House and damage his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

(Reporting by Ned Parker and Jonathan Landay; Additional reporting by John Walcott, Warren Strobel and Phil Stewart in Washington; Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Ross Colvin)