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Mueller Subpoenas Cambridge Analytica Director In Mueller Probe

Mueller Subpoenas Cambridge Analytica Director In Mueller Probe

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Brittany Kaiser, a director of data company Cambridge Analytica, has been subpoenaed as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible ties between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, the Guardian reports.

A spokesman for Kaiser confirmed she is fully cooperating with Mueller, according to the Guardian, and that she is working with separate “US congressional and legal investigations into the company’s activities.”

Kaiser is the second person from Cambridge Analytica who has been subpoenaed by Mueller. As the Guardian notes:

In August, Sam Patten, a US political consultant who had worked for Cambridge Analytica on campaigns in the US and abroad, struck a plea deal with Mueller after admitting he had failed to register as a foreign agent for a Ukrainian oligarch.

Patten worked with Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman who Mueller on Friday recommended spend up to 24 years in prison for “serious, longstanding, and bold” financial crimes,” and with Russian oligarch Konstantin Kilimnik, is a subject of Mueller’s probe. The former Cambridge Analytica employee is awaiting sentencing.

“Kaiser, however, is the first person connected directly to both the Brexit and Trump campaigns known to have been questioned by Mueller,” the Guardian reports.

The Cambridge Analytica director claims she received her subpoena after the Guardian reported that she met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in February 2017. Kaiser’s lawyer claims the meeting lasted 20 minutes and that they did not discuss the 2016 presidential election. Investigators are looking into communications between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks before the 2017 election.

 

Bannon Denounces ‘Treasonous’ Trump Tower Meeting With Russians In New Book

Bannon Denounces ‘Treasonous’ Trump Tower Meeting With Russians In New Book

In a new book, former White House strategist Steve Bannon denounces the Trump campaign’s 2016 meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer as “treasonous,” “unpatriotic,” and “bad shit “. The Breitbart executive also says revelations about “money laundering” will emerge from ongoing investigations of Russian interference in the presidential race. And he warns of the fate of the president’s eldest son: “They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV.”

The Guardianextracted Bannon’s devastating remarks from Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, by media critic and author Michael Wolff that the British newspaper obtained before publication. Wolff was granted extensive access by the president and his associates, whom he interviewed for many hours.

According to the Guardian, Bannon derided Donald Trump, Jr., campaign manager Paul Manafort, and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner for meeting in July 2016 with a group of Russians led by lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who offered negative information about Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

After the New York Times revealed that meeting — and the series of emails that arranged it — Bannon told Wolff why he thought the invitation to the Russians was both wrong and stupid:

“The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor – with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers…

“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”

As for the FBI — and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian hacking and Trump campaign collusion — Bannon seems to have predicted disaster.

“You realize where this is going. This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose [federal prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to fucking Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr and Jared Kushner … It’s as plain as a hair on your face.”

“It goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner shit,” Bannon told Wolff. “The Kushner shit is greasy. They’re going to go right through that. They’re going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me,” evidently referring to Trump Jr. and Kushner. As the Guardian notes, Mueller’s probe has subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank, the German financial giant that has loaned hundreds of millions of dollars to both Kushner and Trump.

Bannon assured Wolff that he had no contact with any Russians and knows nothing of interest to investigators about Kremlin meddling. (That may or may not be true, although Mueller is reportedly investigating the role of Cambridge Analytica, a data-mining firm that aided the Trump campaign and is associated with Bannon and his funders and political allies in the billionaire Mercer family.)

Yet Bannon’s unbridled attack on his former campaign colleagues is stunning not only because he hints at serious crimes, but because his Breitbart websites have defended Trump and echoed the president’s claims that the Mueller probe is “Fake News,” even demanding that Trump dismiss the special counsel. He is reported to have urged Trump to curb Mueller by slashing the special counsel’s budget, refuse his document requests, and curtail cooperation with his office.

Such assaults on Mueller don’t fit Bannon’s claim to be a super-patriot — especially if he believes, as he reportedly told Wolff, that the Trump campaign’s conduct was “treasonous.”

Montana GOP House Candidate Gianforte Recorded Assaulting Guardian Reporter

Montana GOP House Candidate Gianforte Recorded Assaulting Guardian Reporter

MISSOULA, Mont. (Reuters) – Montana Republican congressional candidate Greg Gianforte was accused of physically assaulting a reporter on the campaign trail on Wednesday, the eve of a special election to fill the state’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Ben Jacobs, a political correspondent for the U.S. edition of The Guardian newspaper, said in a Twitter post and in a television interview on MSNBC that Gianforte “body slammed” him, breaking his eyeglasses, at a campaign event in Bozeman.

The incident occurred as Jacobs was trying to ask Gianforte about healthcare, according to an audio tape captured by Jacobs and played on cable television networks MSNBC and CNN.

In a statement issued a short time later, the Gianforte campaign did not deny Jacobs’ allegation but countered that he had instigated an altercation by barging into the candidate’s office, shoving a recording device in the politician’s face “and began asking badgering questions.”

“After asking Jacobs to lower the recorder, Jacobs declined,” the statement from campaign spokesman Shane Scanlon said. “Greg then attempted to grab the phone that was pushed in his face. Jacobs grabbed Greg’s wrist and spun away from Greg, pushing them both to the ground.”

“It’s unfortunate that this aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist created this scene at our campaign volunteer BBQ,” it said.

Interviewed later on cable television network MSNBC, Jacobs said he retreated to a parking lot after the confrontation to call his editor and the police. He said he was speaking to MSNBC from a hospital where he was getting his elbow X-rayed.

Greg Gianforte is running in a special congressional election. CBS 2's Audrina Bigos reports.

In Jacobs’ audio tape of the incident, Gianforte is heard shouting: “I’m sick and tired of you guys. The last guy who came here, you did the same thing.”

After loud scuffling noises are heard, Gianforte yells, “Get the hell out of here” and demands to know if Jacobs is with the Guardian.

“Yes, and you just broke my glasses,” Jacobs replies amid more shouting by Gianforte.

According to the audio tape, the confrontation began as Jacobs tried to ask Gianforte if he still supported a Republican healthcare overhaul bill after the Congressional Budget Office found the measure would cost 23 million Americans their medical insurance coverage by 2026.

Another political writer, Alexis Levinson, a reporter for BuzzFeed News, who was just outside the office, tweeted that Jacobs had walked into a room where a local TV crew was set up for an interview with the Republican candidate.

“All of a sudden I heard a giant crash and saw Ben’s feet fly in the air as he hit the floor,” Levinson tweeted. She said she then heard yelling that sounded like Gianforte.

She said Jacobs emerged from the room “holding his broken glasses in his hand and said, “He just bodyslammed me.”

Levinson said Gianforte then went into a room with an aide and closed the door.

Gianforte, a tech executive, is running against Democrat Rob Quist, a banjo-playing political novice who hopes to pull off a surprise victory in the Republican-leaning state.

A victory for Quist could signal trouble ahead for President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans as they defend their 24-seat House majority in next year’s mid-term elections.

Quist and Gianforte are vying for the House seat vacated when Trump named Ryan Zinke as U.S. interior secretary.

Republicans have held Montana’s House seat for two decades, and Gianforte was still favored in a state that Trump won by more than 20 percentage points in last year’s presidential election.

However, both sides say the House race was tightening as Quist focused on criticism of the Republican effort to repeal and replace former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

The Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement it “is currently investigating allegations of an assault involving Greg Gianforte. We will provide a press release with more information when appropriate. The investigation is ongoing.”

Quist, attending another campaign event in Missoula, declined to comment on early reports of the incident involving his Republican rival.

(Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Eric Walsh in Washington; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Peter Cooney and Paul Tait)

IMAGE: Screenshot from Greg for Montana television advertisement

Reports: Western Agencies Picked Up ‘Suspicious’ Contacts Between Russians And Trump Associates In 2016

Reports: Western Agencies Picked Up ‘Suspicious’ Contacts Between Russians And Trump Associates In 2016

Intelligence services of nations allied with the United States reported “suspicious” contacts between associates of Donald Trump and “known or suspected Russian agents” during the first six months of 2016, according to separate reports in the Guardian newspaper and CNN.

On Thursday, the Guardianreported that the CIA first learned of such contacts between Trump associates and Russians from its colleagues at Britain’s GCHQ spy agency no later than the end of 2015. During the months that followed, several other allied intelligence services in Europe and elsewhere reported similar contacts between Russians and figures connected with the Trump campaign, the Guardian said.

On Thursday evening, CNN broadcast its own version of the same findings.

Quoting a source “close to UK intelligence,” the Guardian described the information that was delivered to the US as initially part of a regular data exchange between agencies. Other countries that passed along information gleaned from electronic surveillance of Russian agents included Australia, Estonia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland, the newspaper’s sources said.

Contrary to what Trump and his spokesmen have claimed, the Guardian article emphasized that none of the intelligence was derived from “a targeted operation against Trump or his team.” Instead, conversations were reportedly picked up in routine surveillance of Russian agents and intelligence assets in those countries. During 2016, various intelligence agencies observing the activities of the same individuals saw “a pattern of connections” that were then disclosed to American intelligence officials.

The same sources told the Guardian that between late 2015 and the summer of 2016, several Western intelligence agencies transmitted additional information about contacts between “Trump’s inner circle and Russians.” Those sources described the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies as “slow” to understand the extent and gravity of the Russian “active measures” campaign and its apparent connections with the Trump campaign.

As the Washington Postreported on Tuesday, the FBI’s counter-intelligence division eventually obtained warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to conduct electronic surveillance of several individuals and entities — notably including Carter Page, a foreign policy consultant to the Trump campaign.

Page, a former investment banker and oil industry consultant known for his vociferous advocacy on behalf of the Kremlin, had previously surfaced in a counter-intelligence prosecution of a Russian spy ring in New York, which had sought to recruit him as a source. He was included in the FISA warrant because the FBI allegedly suspected him of acting as an “agent of influence” for the Russians. Page has complained that the investigation is abusive and “politically motivated.”

Quoting sources in Congress and U.S. law enforcement as well as American and European intelligence agencies, CNN published a report on its website that essentially confirmed the Guardian account (which the network duly credited):

The communications [of several Trump associates] were captured during routine surveillance of Russian officials and other Russians known to western intelligence. British and European intelligence agencies, including GCHQ, the British intelligence agency responsible for communications surveillance, were not proactively targeting members of the Trump team but rather picked up these communications during what’s known as “incidental collection,” these sources tell CNN.

The European intelligence agencies detected multiple communications over several months between the Trump associates and Russian individuals — and passed on that intelligence to the US.

It seems probable that this is the same surveillance data disclosed to Senate and House investigators, provoking cryptic public comments by committee members concerning the seriousness of the probes now underway — and, evidently, a rising sense of panic in both the White House and its stooge Devin Nunes, the House Intelligence Committee chair forced to remove himself from the Russia investigation last week.

IMAGE: President Donald Trump leaves the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters accompanied by then-national security adviser Michael Flynn (2nd L)  after delivering remarks during a visit in Langley, Virginia U.S., January 21, 2017. U.S. REUTERS/Carlos Barria