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What We Learned in the Trump-Russia Investigation: Week of Oct 22 – 28, 2017

Biggest news of the week, of course: A Grand Jury has approved the first charges in Mueller’s probe. Arrests are expected as soon as Monday, Oct 30th. Source

Manafort’s realtor testified last week before the grand jury in Russia probe. The realtor helped Manafort buy the Virginia condo that was recently raided by the FBI. Source. Manafort also faces another money laundering probe out of Manhattan. Source

Ex-CIA Director, James Woolsey, spoke to Mueller about Flynn’s alleged Turkish Scheme. It is alleged that Mike Flynn discussed the potentially illegal removal of a Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gülen, from the U.S.. Fethullah Gülen is wanted by Turkey. Source

Cambridge Analytica:

  • The head of Cambridge A. tried to team up w/ Julian Assange to find Clinton’s 33,000 deleted emails. Source
  • Once that news broke, the Trump campaign scrambled to distance itself from Cambridge A., despite having paid them more than $5 million in September 2016 alone. Source
  • In Aug 2016 Trump donor, Rebekah Mercer, asked Cambridge A. to better organize Hillary Clinton-related emails Wikileaks released. Source

The memo Russian lawyer Natalia V. Veselnitskaya brought with her to the Trump Tower meeting was filled with Kremlin talking points, undercutting her claim of being an independent actor. Source 1. Little noticed that this was reported almost 2 weeks ago by Natasha Bertrand.

Trump associate Cohen sold four NY buildings for cash to mysterious buyers, netting as much as $20 million in profit. Experts say these sales are red flags for money laundering. Source

A Georgian voting server in the election security probe was mysteriously wiped, just days after a group of citizens filed a lawsuit asking for an independent review of the server. Source

The Senate Judiciary Committee has split along party lines: Dems are still pursuing the Trump-Russia investigation, while Republicans pursue the Clinton-Uranium “probe”. Source. In the House, Nunes and Gowdy similarly launched two Uranium deal probes. Source

Senate investigators have collected documents from the estate of Peter W. Smith, a GOP operative who was seeking Hillary’s deleted emails & committed suicide (reportedly). Source

The Steele Dossier:

  • Originally funded by conservative website the Free Beacon Source
  • Then funded by Marc Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Source

The Russian troll farm used Instagram to attempt to influence Native Americans, exploiting the Dakota Access Pipeline protests to sow discord. Source

Could be related: Dana Boente announces resignation as U.S. attorney for Eastern District of Virginia, where a Mueller Grand Jury is located. Source