Republicans Prepare to Accuse Hillary of Russian Ties
In Monday’s hearing, Devin Nunes asked Jim Comey for reassurances that if anyone — including a member of the public — brought allegations of Russian attempts to infiltrate the Hillary campaign to the FBI, the FBI would expand the investigation to include those efforts as well.
NUNES:Director Comey, you announced this morning that there’ll be an investigation into Trump associates possible and President Trump and anyone around the campaign and any association with the Russian government.
If this committee or anyone else for that matter, someone from the public, comes with information to you about the Hillary Clinton campaign or their associates or someone from the Clinton Foundation, will you add that to your investigation? They have ties to Russian intelligence services, Russian agents, would that be something of interest to you?
COMEY: People bring us information about what they think is improper unlawful activity of any kind, we will evaluate it. Not just in — not just in this context. Folks send us stuff all the time. They should keep going that.
NUNES: Do you think it’s possible that the Russians would not be trying to infiltrate Hillary Clinton’s campaign, get information on Hillary Clinton and try to get to people that are around that campaign or the Clinton Foundation?
COMEY: I’m not prepared to comment about the particular campaigns but the Russians in general are always trying to understand who the future leaders might be and what levers of influence there might be on them.
NUNES: I just hope that if — if information does surface about the other campaigns, not even just Hillary Clinton’s but any other campaigns, that you would take that serious also if the Russians were trying to infiltrate those campaigns around them.
COMEY: Of course we would.
Yesterday, Politico reported that the RNC paid an intelligence firm that employs a former KGB officer dig up dirt on Hillary.
The payments attracted attention in political and intelligence circles, largely because the Virginia-based firm, Hamilton Trading Group, had particular expertise in Russia, which was emerging as a major campaign issue at the time.
RNC officials and the president and co-founder of Hamilton Trading Group, an ex-CIA officer named Ben Wickham, insisted the payments, which eventually totaled $41,500, had nothing to do with Russia.
[snip]
But RNC officials now acknowledge that most of the cash — $34,100 — went towards intelligence-style reports that sought to prove conflicts of interest between Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State and her family’s foundation.
The firm produced two dossiers that tried to make the case that Clinton intervened in Bulgaria and Israel, respectively, on behalf of energy companies that had donated to the Clinton Foundation, according to people briefed on the reports.
The oppo firm’s story has been evolving, but thus far, it seems that the former KGB officer, Gennady Vasilenko, did not work on the Hillary project. That said, remember that the Christopher Steele dossier (which is effectively the Clinton counterpart to this oppo project) indicated that Russia held compromising information on Hillary. We don’t know if that was included in the earlier reports shared with Steele’s first, Republican client. If it was, I could imagine the RNC trying to replicate the same information via a different source.
Meanwhile, serial fabulist oppo hit man Jerome Corsi has a piece at Infowars purporting to explain Roger Stone’s August 21, 2016 tweet stating “it would soon be Podesta’s time in the barrel.” Corsi includes two reports from last summer — one done by Government Accountability Institute and another by himself in response to the Paul Manafort allegations — alleging ties between Hillary and Podesta and Russia.
When this article was published, I suggested to Roger Stone that the attack over Manafort’s ties to Russia needed to be countered.
My plan was to publicize the Government Accountability Institute’s report, “From Russia With Money,” that documented how Putin paid substantial sums of money to both Hillary Clinton and John Podesta.
Putin must have wanted Hillary to win in 2016, if only because Russian under-the-table cash payments to the Clintons and to Podesta would have made blackmailing her as president easy.
On Aug. 14, 2016, I began researching for Roger Stone a memo that I entitled “Podesta.”
I completed that memo on Aug. 31, 2016, and is embedded here in its entirety.
It’s not clear Corsi’s explanation works to absolve Stone: while the earlier (July 31) report does focus on John Podesta, Corsi’s August 31 report focuses primarily on John’s brother Tony.
But it does dig out these Russian allegations just after Nunes raised the possibility private citizens might provide FBI with evidence implicating the Hillary campaign.
I’d say this is all ridiculous, and within the counterintelligence department it probably is, but remember that similar allegations from Steve Bannon got the NY office of the FBI chasing after the Clinton Foundation for months and months.
I think Nunes is responding to Larry Klayman’s “evidence” that Larry handed to him in person…!
http://tinyurl.com/whistle-blower-doc
ZeroHedge… http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-24/nunes-calls-comey-rogers-closed-session-after-finding-concerning-info-intel-reports
Larry Klayman and Dennis Montgomery, Yah right, Just looked at the top of that rabbit hole earlier today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_L._Montgomery . Charles, both wikipedia and snopes have been hacked in the past, so be careful out there.
I’d like to note that I give little credence to Freedom Watch and/or ZeroHedge, but, it should be recognized as a possibility…!
An unfounded, yet desirable possibility, yes.
Government Accountability Institute
PETER SCHWEIZER PRESIDENT
Board of Directors:
REBEKAH MERCER, CHAIRWOMAN
OWEN T. SMITH, ESQ.
RON ROBINSON
HUNTER LEWIS
According to SourceWatch, Steve Bannon was a co-founder and Executive Chairman
I don’t know who in Russia Hillary was dealing with when she sold US Uranium mines to Russian parties, but evidently she has ties. I was appalled that the Secretary of State could do that without knowledge of the populace. I also do not know what governance allows a Secretary of State to wheel and deal with our resources. I just know she has connections, especially the rat lines throughout all those ME countries we are fighting, dealing with, and making promises too. It is the same old, guns, drugs, etc.
Snopes is your friend.
As is not swallowing random fecal matter that you find.
Snopes is using the usual pretext that because the Secretary of State does not have absolute power, Clinton was not responsible.
Charles,
Snopes is nobody’s friend. Which random fecal matter are you talking about? I didn’t post any, ZERO, NADDA.
PeasantParty says: March 24, 2017 at 4:47 pm
That whole uranium-mine story is bovine excrement. It was discredited long ago – but the GOP-T and their RWNJ buddies keep raising it from the dead as if it were vitally important truth.
PeasantParty,
MULTIPLE Federal agencies had to sign off on that uranium deal you referenced. State was only one of many with input. Actual payments didn’t go to Hillary or state. Stop trolling and start googling!
Pure misdirection ploy.
Panic is setting in.
Completely contradicts earlier spin: ‘Russia did not like HC. Wanted Trump instead’.
Rather than focusing on potential Clinton campaign ties to Russia, her personal ties to a Ukrainian oligarch might be more useful, not to mention a possible explanation for why she suddenly became so determined to start a new cold war against all common sense and reason:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/23/cybersecurity-firm-that-attributed-dnc-hacks-to-russia-may-have-fabricated-russia-hacking-in-ukraine/
“…CrowdStrike’s bias has been cited as undependable in its own assessment, in addition to its skeptical methods and conclusions. The firm’s CTO and co-founder, Dmitri Alperovitch, is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank with openly anti-Russian sentiments that is funded by Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk, who also happened to donate at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation.
In 2013, the Atlantic Council awarded Hillary Clinton it’s Distinguished International Leadership Award. “
Karl, do you know of evidence that exonerates Sec. Clinton’s campaign from ties to Russia?
Since the Clinton campaign was accepting funds from Ukrainian oligarchs, isn’t it reasonable that it would accept funds from Russian oligarchs?
Karl,
Yes. I could share lots of links but this recent one is a good one:
Iris Mack is interviewed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNjj8NfLl7k
Karl, thanks for those links. Pinchuk donated a token amount to Trump also. .\http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3963204/Trump-foundation-received-150-000-donation-Ukrainian-oligarch-exchange-Donald-s-2015-Ukraine-speech.html
Pinchuk as founder of the 1961 Atlantic Council is fake news that passed through Max Keiser’s column today. Probably a (purposeful?) misread of Mr. Victor Pinchuk, Founder, East One Ltd. on the AC website.
My take on the Atlantic Council is deep state, neo con, neo liberal ground zero. Hillary DNC hired Chalupa of the anti-Russian Ukrainian side at which point Chalupa almost immediately complained about being hacked. Kuchner’s observer.com was agitprop about Hillary in January. but then Schindler gets his paycheck there also. I can’t figure that out.
@GG at 10:21 pm
@PP 9:26 pm
Appreciate the background.
Interestingly, leading “#RussiaGate” proponent John Schindler had a previous career as a Clinton/Kremlin connection chronicler via his column at observer.com – this google search finds his main talking points.
Still waiting for someone to open the Davis-Manaford-John McCain can. Davis-Manaford worked for Yanukovich but were also paid by the Russian billionaire Deripaska, a friend of Putin.
Davis introduced McCain to Deripaska and received a thank-you letter for it. This was of course all before Clinton’s reset and the Yanukovich party at that time was seen as pro-western, not pro-Russia (which it never really was). McCain as well as the Clinton gang now lamenting about “Russian ties” is hypocrisy squared. They should be called out over it.
b,
WRT Rick Davis, Paul Manafort, and John McCain; the 2008 WaPo link has your “thank-you note” nugget
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/24/AR2008012403383.html
Did Wednesday’s “AP: Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, worked to advance Putin’s interests” begin to “open the can?”
http://fox59.com/2017/03/22/ap-paul-manafort-donald-trumps-former-campaign-manager-worked-to-advance-putins-interests/
Did you intend to omit Mr. Obama from “the Clinton gang?”
Why isn’t POTUS ordering the IC to investigate? Is that incompetence “squared?”
Reply to PeasantParty;
“Hillary was dealing with when she sold US Uranium mines to Russian parties”
Random fecal matter it is.
I don’t believe there was a time Yanukovich was considered pro-Western since the tainted 2004 election led to the orange revolution.
Please note, I’ve used tainted for sake of argument to avoid using an adjective that projects certainty. Not interested in an argument about how much vote fraud took place on either side. But it’s very clear that Yanukovich has never been a pro-Western candidate.
Reply to Bardi:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=0
http://www.business2community.com/government-politics/hillary-clinton-exchanging-20-percent-u-s-uranium-russia-foundation-donations-unproven-01781849#C2fTiVOFqfzEmld8.97
http://www.globalresearch.ca/is-russia-bribing-clinton/5447240
Reply to Bardi and Charles:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/wikileaks-says-they-have-1700-emails-proving-hillary-clinton-knew-about-u-s-military-weapons-shipments-to-al-qaeda-and-isis/5541014
Before you accuse someone of spouting Fecal Matter, you might need to read many different places. Not just the regular Mainstream Media outlets. I could pull up and post links for you all day long, but I won’t waste my time. Yes, they are trusted sources. As trusted as you can find outside Emptywheel and a few others.
I’ll give you 2–(two more)
https://geospatialstream.com/geoint-keynote-james-r-clapper-director-of-national-intelligence/
https://www.nga.mil/About/Pages/Default.aspx
So yes, they can see everything you do. They can monitor your appliances, listen to you, and even see where you have walked HOURS later. It is not fecal matter being spewed. Please refrain from attacking someone until you take time to find out.
You are not reading your own links. Many of us have known about appliance monitoring, etc. and so on, ever since Snowden. Many of us in the dark side have known about it before.
You seem to have taken what seems to be “related” issues and fabricated, well, random fecal matter. Sorry.
I would say that any SOS would know of shipments to terrorist organizations, especially if they were in line with a “fast and furious” R-type operation. You may wish to start with Rs like Rohrbacker, Issa and Hunter, all who had pictures taken with rebel “friends” after “ensuring shipped arms got to those who turned out to be al queda. I blame Hillary/Obama for not having those clowns hung.
The Uranium deal was pretty straightforward, if you get past the fake news employed by some. My friends in State as well as the IC call it random fecal matter (poop).
I would be focusing on reports of Nunes taking an Uber and ditching his assistant…going to Trump…Doing his faithful bidding…coming back and apologizing to the committeee. Then some Russians die and take some falls…and now Stone and Manafort are offering to give testimony…Not to forget the behind the scenes story of Cohen.