Of course Putin is pleased…
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Oh good golly, what the fork is this now?!!
US Treasury Department officials used a Gmail back channel with the Russian government as the Kremlin sought sensitive financial information on its enemies in America and across the globe, according to documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News.
The extraordinary unofficial line of communication arose in the final year of the Obama administration — in the midst of what multiple US intelligence agencies have said was a secret campaign by the Kremlin to interfere in the US election. Russian agents ostensibly trying to track ISIS instead pressed their American counterparts for private financial documents on at least two dozen dissidents, academics, private investigators, and American citizens.
Most startlingly, Russia requested sensitive documents on Dirk, Edward, and Daniel Ziff, billionaire investors who had run afoul of the Kremlin. That request was made weeks before a Russian lawyer showed up at Trump Tower offering top campaign aides “dirt” on Hillary Clinton — including her supposed connection to the Ziff brothers.
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In an astonishing departure from protocol, documents show that at the same time the requests were being made, Treasury officials were using their government email accounts to send messages back and forth with a network of private Hotmail and Gmail accounts set up by the Russians, rather than communicating through the secure network usually used to exchange information with other countries.
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More on Russian techniques going after social media with LA based Your Digital Face…on WSJ (paywall)
Small excerpt WSJ
Russian Operation Targeted U.S. Business Owners
Operatives posed as digital marketing startup to take control of businesses’ social-media accounts
By Shelby Holliday and
Rob Barry
Dec. 20, 2018 3:52 p.m. ETThe Russian operation to influence Americans through social media included an effort to persuade business owners to buy into a marketing campaign and turn over private information, an examination by The Wall Street Journal found.
The effort was fronted by Russian operatives posing as a savvy Los Angeles based start up called Your Digital Face. The group recruited American business owners as customers, and for a monthly fee, promised to post snappy marketing content on the businesss owner’s social media pages and score them thousands.
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Good resource on T and Russia - from the producers of Billmoyer.com and lawyer Steven Harper
Up-to-date articles/sources for all the people held within Mueller’s purview for the Russia Investigation.
Here’s an entry for what T’s file looks like.
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Here’s that Manafort doc that if you copy and paste into word processor, the redacted become readable. It’s been kicking around in a tab on my browser but I haven’t tried it. Have fun!
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Another good source for overviews on the Russian Investigation
It is supported by liberal groups Center for American Progress…and funded by G. Soros, and many more. So read it as a source with very liberal bent…It links to a lot of MSM news.
It looks to be chock full of information…
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Excellent Roger Stone Analysis piece from The NY Times.
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NY Times did a phenomenal job putting together an interactive map to give an overview of all the contacts that the Russians had with the Trump campaign and Roger Stone. It is very detailed and easy to read.
Trump and His Associates Had More Than 100 Contacts With Russians Before the Inauguration
By KAREN YOURISH and LARRY BUCHANAN JAN. 26, 2019
During the 2016 presidential campaign and transition, Donald J. Trump and at least 17 campaign officials and advisers had contacts with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries, a New York Times analysis has found. At least 10 other associates were told about interactions but did not have any themselves.
Knowledge of these interactions is based on New York Times reporting, documents submitted to Congress, and court records and accusations related to the special counsel investigating foreign interference in the election.
Benjamin Wittes gives THIS a 
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This could serve as a handy reference as the investigations into Trump’s finances ramp up. It’s a very deep dive into the much publicized loans that Trump received from Deutsche bank as well as lesser known loans from Ladder Capital Finance. The suitable-for-framing info-graphic alone makes it worth bookmarking.
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It is in Russia’s interest to hound the US Courts and hope to damage the system.
Not only was there the leaked and manipulated evidence from the Concord case, but there have been other situations as well.
Michelle Estlund, a criminal-defense attorney who focuses on international criminal prosecutions and politically motivated prosecutions, told me last year that the problem is that while the U.S. courts operate in good faith to assist Russian authorities, the Russian courts frequently do not. “Our courts act like, and think that, they are operating on the same type of playing field as the Russians,” Estlund said. “But they’re not. The system there is completely different from here. And when the courts are properly responding to what appears to be a legally authorized request for assistance with discovery, often what they’re doing is assisting with an extremely corrupt court proceeding.” Another lawyer who follows this phenomenon closely and requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press echoed Estlund’s assessment. “The Russians have figured out how to weaponize this,” he said. “We have this tremendous system of justice here, which isn’t equipped to address nonjudicial questions like ‘Is this litigant seeking to abuse our entire judicial system?’ ”
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Here are some more “legal explainers.”
Lately, I’ve been tossing around the term “money laundering,” but it suddenly occurred to me I only have a vague notion of what that crime actually entails. In looking for answers, I came across these awesome explainers, expertly and engagingly written by Randall Eliason, a law professor at George Washington University specializing in white collar crime. He is also a contributing columnist at The Washington Post and a former federal prosecutor.
While nailing down the legal definition of money laundering, Professor Eliason uses some examples from the Mueller probe – since these pieces were written last year, some of those examples are from the same time frame, but his explanations are as relevant as ever – in fact, you can immediately apply them to the recent Paul Erickson indictment.
Part 1 covers domestic money laundering:
Part 2 focuses on international money laundering:
And here’s a “bonus explainer” on RICO, the body of laws related to racketeering. Writing in January, 2018, Eliason explains that, knowing what we knew at the time, the RICO statutes would probably not apply in the Mueller investigation. However, after reading this, and knowing what we know now, it seems to me that we are much closer to a point where the RICO laws might come into play – especially in regards to David Pecker’s National Enquirer, considering the multiple allegations of extortion and blackmail that have been leveled against it (see @matt’s “The Showdown: Bezos vs A.M.I.” in Day 750).
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Thanks for all the legal explainers…very helpful @Keaton_James
Yes, this type of mob-like behavior could fall within the RICO guidelines, since pressure and graft/extortion vrs punishing photos would be the levers to be used to get Bezos to stop investigation on Saudi killings in Wapo (allegedly!)
But looking into RICO more, and hearing it being discussed particularly within the SDNY context, the statute of limitations for this crime is 4 years. So the Stormy/McDougal payment happened with in the final part of the campaign - Oct 2016, and prosecutors would have until Oct 2020 to file RICO charges looks like.
RICO Act itself does not contain a statute of limitations but the Supreme Court has held that civil RICO claims are subject to a four-year statute of limitations.
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Thanks for the post that explains money laundering. The more I read, the more I’m finding a lack of common definition of many terms. The textbook definition of socialism, progressivism, conservative, liberal, populism are not adhered to by everyone. How can we have a decent discussion if we don’t even agree what terms mean.
I’ll get off my soapbox now. I get tired of trying to figure out different people, including some of my friends.
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Lol…moving this to humor
'Lil misposting error and in wrong section…am deep in this WTF-ery. 
When you see the President’s shifting statements on the Russia investigation organized in a clearly documented list like this, you can’t help but say “damn, this guy acts guilty.”
One observation: The “Pardons” section lays out the President’s flip-flops on this topic. While reading this, I was reminded of one startling answer that Whitaker gave during his recent testimony (to me, this was a real bombshell yet it received scant media attention). Watch the moment here.
Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Tex.): Did you ever create, direct the creation of, see or become aware of the existence of any documents relating to pardons of any individual?
Whitaker: I am aware of documents relating to pardons of individuals, yes.
It’s a shame there was no follow up on this exchange (Escobar’s time expired and no one else returned to the subject). There’s a chance Whitaker was talking about pardon documents unrelated to the Russia investigation, but to me, the context strongly suggests his remarks did indeed refer to at least one of the cast of characters charged by Mueller.
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Court rules that Manafort breached his plea agreement. Court doc. 
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Judge Amy Jackson is going to throw the book at Manafort…
Defined now as a liar and time now for some jail.
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Manafort is 
fucked
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