Like all of us, I check around the web for a deeper understanding of the Mueller Probe and trying to pull pieces together.
I check twitter for breaking news, and also the main sources - NYT, WaPo, WSJ (headlines), Bloomberg, Business Insider, Politico, Axios, CNN, MSNBC etc. I also browse Committee to Investigate Russia (Rob Reiner’s pursuit of this complex investigation), as well as Marcy Wheeler’s Emptywheel.net.
I mention Marcy because while she is considered a well regarded National Security blogger, she found herself in the position of knowing information about some of the informants/leads that Steele may have used. I plugged her in July, 2018 Day 545 Marcy Wheeler mention See WaPo’s profile of her below which describes how she did testify for Mueller about this probe.
In today’s excerpt, she goes especially deep into connecting the whys and wherefore’s relating to how Deripaska could have been informing Steele via another known Steele informant Millian…she posts a picture of the two of them. And how Manafort is woven into the story as well.
It is just interesting to note and see dissected what various connections maybe behind the scenes and she rounds out the story in a plausible fashion.
Read thru some of this…and @Keaton_James and @anon95374541 weigh in on this too if you see some EYE-POPPING news which I am not highlighting.
I was critiqued for having used some news sources that were looked down upon here, but I think we now have a lot of verifiable facts to lead us to some conclusions. The big news yesterday of Manafort giving polling data to the two Ukrainians (Lyovochkin/Akhmetov) was as big as it gets.
The time MAY be near that Mueller may be near to the end…(Rod Rosenstein said he would leave when the Mueller Investigation is done, updated tonight via NBC) NBC Rosenstein’s departure 1.9.19
Read on…perhaps some revealing points made here.
Consider the timeline of some key events below.
It shows that the email hacks paralleled Manafort’s increased responsibility on the campaign.
But even as Russia’s operation to release dirt on Hillary was proceeding (and Russians were reaching out to George Papadopoulos to dangle emails as well), Michael Cohen was negotiating a Trump Tower deal, via Felix Sater, which was premised on a meeting between him — and then later, Trump — and Vladimir Putin. On June 9 — the same day that Don Jr told Aras Agalarov’s representatives that the Trumps would revisit sanctions if Trump was elected — Cohen even started to book his travel for that meeting. He canceled those plans, however, on the same day Russia’s role in hacking the DNC became public.
But two key figures in the operation did meet at the St. Petersburg Forum: Deripaska and Millian. And Millian would pick up the Trump Tower deal after the RNC Convention, laundering it, at that point, through a junior staffer who had proven to be a useful go-between for the Russians.
We don’t know whether Deripaska, whom Steele was pitching as a viable partner to counter Russian organized crime, was a source for Steele’s dossier. We do know that Manafort is the one who pushed Trump to discredit the Russian investigation by attacking the dossier.
Timeline
January 12, 2016: Steele writes Bruce Ohr to say Oleg Deripaska may obtain a visa for later that year
January 20: Michael Cohen speaks with Dmitry Peskov’s personal assistant for 20 minutes about Trump Tower deal
January 21: Putin’s office contacts Felix Sater about Trump Tower deal
February 21: Steele sends Ohr Orbis reporting claiming Deripaska was not a tool of the Kremlin
February 29: Manafort drafts proposal to work for “free” for Trump
March 19: GRU hacks John Podesta
March 29: After the intervention of Roger Stone and Tom Barrack, Manafort joins the Trump campaign, initially only as Convention Chair
April: Manafort asks Kilimnik,”How do we use to get whole?”
April 18: GRU hacks into DNC via DCCC
April 26: George Papadopoulos learns Russians are offering election assistance in form of leaked emails
April 27: In first foreign policy speech Papadopoulos includes signal to Russians to meet
May 4: Cohen tells Sater he’ll do a trip to Russia before the Convention; Trump will do one after
May 5: Sater passes on Peskov invite to Cohen to attend St. Petersburg Forum to meet Putin or Medvedev
May 19: Manafort formally named campaign chair
May 21: Manafort forwards request for Trump meeting to Rick Gates, warning against sending a signal
June 3: Rob Golstone starts arranging meeting with Don Jr.
June 7: Manafort meets with Trump and Trump announces he’ll have an announcement about Hillary
June 8: GRU releases first emails via dcleaks
June 9: Trump Tower meeting presents dirt for sanctions relief; Cohen makes plans for trip to St. Petersburg Forum
June 14: WaPo reveals Russia hacked DNC; Cohen cancels plan for St. Petersburg trip
June 15: Guccifer 2.0 created
June 16-19: St. Petersburg forum (Putin does attend)
June 20: First Steele report, allegedly relying on Millian as one source
July 7: Manafort tells Kilimnik he’s willing to provide Deripaska private briefings; Ohr call with Steele about Deripaska
Week of July 15: Trump campaign prevents change making platform more belligerent to Ukraine
July 21: Sater visits Trump Tower
July 22: George Papadopoulos asks Ivan Timofeev to help prep for a meeting with Sergei Millian; Millian would eventually pitch Papadopoulos on Trump Tower Moscow deal
August 3: Manafort and Kilimnik meet in New York
August 17: Manafort fired from campaign
August: Manafort and Tom Barrack take boat trip, meet Kilimnik
October 18: Steele and Ohr discuss dispute between Ukraine and RUSAL
January 11 or 12, 2017: Manafort contacts Reince Priebus to tell him how to use the Steele dossier to discredit Russian investigation (remember, Manafort insists he didn’t lie about meeting with Trump officials, because those meetings happened before inauguration)
January 27: Papadopoulos agrees to meet FBI without a lawyer, in part in hopes of sustaining possibility of a job with Trump Admin and possibly a deal with Millian
January or February 2017: Manafort meets Kilimnik in Madrid.