No puppet!

Небольшой эпизод из избирательной кампании 2016.

11 октября 2016 Викиликс вывалили очередную порцию емайлов из взломанной почты Джона Подесты. Среди них был емайл 2011 года, в котором Дженифер Палмиери (Director of Communicationsв в кампании Хиллари Клинтон) обменивалась мнением с Джоном Халпиным, другим демократом и католиком, в то время когда они вместе с Подестой работали в Center for American Progress.

Халпин обсуждал статью про Руперта Мердока, в которой рассказывалось, как Мердок выращивает детей в католической вере: "Ken Auletta's latest piece on Murdoch in the New Yorker starts off with the aside that both Murdoch and Robert Thompson, managing editor of the WSJ, are raising their kids Catholic. Friggin' Murdoch baptized his kids in Jordan where John the Baptist baptized Jesus." На что Палмиери заметила: "I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn't understand if they became evangelicals."
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4364

Первым этот емайл высветил по свежим следам канал RT https://www.rt.com/usa/362358-wikileaks-third-podesta-emails/

На трампинге во Флориде Трамп и его спичрайтеры воспользовались шпаргалкой. В своей речи в этот день Трамп упомянул Викиликс 13 раз. Австралиец Руперт Мердок, обладатель состояния в $20 миллиардов, превратился у него в "everyday Americans".

"The Hillary Clinton documents released today by WikiLeaks make more clear than ever just how much is at stake in this election, so much corruption. This election will determine whether we remain a free country in the truest sense of the word or we become a corrupt banana republic controlled by large donors and foreign governments. <...> Тhese WikiLeaks e-mails confirm what those of us here today have known all along. Hillary Clinton is the vessel, a corrupt global establishment that's raiding our country and surrendering the sovereignty of our nation. <...> WikiLeaks has given us a window into the secret corridors of government power where we see a former secretary of state announcing her desire to end forever the American independence that our Founders gave to us and wanted us to have. <...> Not only have the Clintons ripped off Haiti, but the new e-mails show members of the Clinton team attacking Catholics. While this is offensive, it's just the latest evidence of the hatred that the Clinton campaign has really for everyday Americans. And you see it and you see so much from these WikiLeaks. You see so much, there's so much."
https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-panama-city-fl-october-11-2016



Карл Роув, руководитель избирательной кампании Буша, пришел на Fox News. Он говорил о важности голосов католических избирателей (четверти электората) и что кампании Трампа необходимо воспользоваться моментом, чтобы изобразить Клинтон врагом католиков и всех верующих вообще.

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Trump talks to Tucker Carlson about his desire to withdraw US troops and "get out of a lot of areas," complains:
"We're the policeman for the whole world. You know, if you look at Russia, Russia doesn't police the world. Russia has — you know, they police Russia."
h/t @MatBabiak pic.twitter.com/quSVnvlU0e

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) July 2, 2019

Группа экспертов подготовила по заказу Пентагона (Объединённого комитета начальников штабов) "белую книгу" на тему "Russian Strategic Intentions".
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/30/pentagon-russia-influence-putin-trump-1535243

Основной вывод: оставаясь в рамках "второй этической системы" и играя в игру с нулевой суммой, Путин стремится не просто утвердить себя в качестве мирового "игрока", но и нанести максимальный урон США.

There is broad consensus among the contributors that Russian President Vladimir Putin is indeed adhering to a global grand strategy, which aims to achieve the following goals:
• Reclaim and secure Russia’s influence over former Soviet nations
• Regain worldwide recognition as a “great power”
• Portray itself as a reliable actor, a key regional powerbroker, and a successful mediator in order to gain economic, military, and political influence over nations worldwide and to refine the liberalist rules and norms that currently govern the world order.
According to Dr. Robert Person, these goals are motivated by Russia’s deep-seated geopolitical insecurity. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has struggled to find its place in the global community, which has left the leadership with a lingering desire to regain the influence and power that it once had. In particular, Russia seeks to regain its influence over former Soviet states, which it claims are in its rightful “sphere of influence”. As a result, one of the United States’ core goals, namely promoting and protecting the international liberal order, comes into contention with the goals of Russia’s grand strategy. This underpins the Kremlin’s belief that it must contain and constrain US influence and activities in Europe and elsewhere across the globe. As Ms. Anna Borshchevskaya’s contribution suggests, the Russian leadership’s worldview is zero-sum; it believes that in order for Russia to win, the US must lose.



Анна Борщевская своими словами: "Putin’s worldview is zero-sum, so it’s hard to imagine a win-win scenario. For Putin to win—to look “great,” the US has to lose. Due to our fundamentally opposing values and worldviews, we are likely to have a hard time coming up with genuinely shared goals that both sides can truly work on together."

Другой эксперт, Джереми Ламоро (Lamoreaux), призывает противостоять путинской кампании влияния в Европе путем поддержки политического либерализма: "Economic and political liberalism both create strong states capable of providing the institutions necessary for societal liberalism. Societal liberalism, when it is upheld by the rule of law, helps create a more diverse, yet united, populace more committed to the state, to its basic institutions, and less likely to be influenced by outside sources (in this case, Russia)."

Роберт Персон пишет о том, что центральной темой путинской глобальной стратегии является ватная мечта о разделе сфер влияния (Ялте-2.0): "This paper argues that a deep-seated sense of geopolitical insecurity motivates Russia to pursue strategic objectives to establish an uncontested sphere of influence within the post-Soviet region, secure for Russia a seat at the table of other great powers in critical regions outside its sphere, and contain and constrain America’s unilateral and multilateral pursuit of its own interests globally. Since 2007, it has developed a sophisticated set of gray zone tactics of “asymmetric balancing” through which Russia pursues its strategic ends within relatively limited means."

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«Опа! Какие люди!» pic.twitter.com/UJJp5xOyNg

— Дмитрий Смирнов (@dimsmirnov175) June 28, 2019

Накануне встречи в Японии Путин разродился интервью про то, что "либеральная идея себя изжила" и таким образом настала радостная эпоха фашизма.

Just published: front page of the Financial Times international edition, Friday June 28 https://t.co/mCzD4yvNwH pic.twitter.com/lZgoFKbze4

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) June 27, 2019

"Потом есть современная так называемая либеральная идея, она, по‑моему, себя просто изжила окончательно. По некоторым её элементам – наши западные партнёры признались, что некоторые её элементы просто нереалистичны: мультикультурализм там и так далее. Вот когда началась проблема с миграцией, многие признали, что да, это, к сожалению, не работает, и надо бы вспомнить об интересах коренного населения."
http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/60842

На G-20 для иллюстрации этого интервью появились наглядные картинки.

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Интересные слушания в Конгрессе на тему Undermining Democracy: Kremlin Tools of Malign Political Influence: https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/2019/5/undermining-democracy-kremlin-tools

Докладывали представители различных аналитических центрoв (think tanks).



Сильный доклад Лоры Розенбергер, директора Alliance for Securing Democracy:

Vladimir Putin’s Russia uses a suite of low-cost, asymmetric tools to undermine democratic institutions as a means of weakening Europe, the United States, and transatlantic ties. This threat poses a unique national security challenge, as the attacks exploit democracies’ openness while weaponizing societal and institutional vulnerabilities. Putin and his proxies wage these operations using five primary, non-military tools – information operations, cyberattacks, malign financial influence, political and social subversion, and state economic coercion. These activities support Putin’s goals of discrediting democracy as a form of government, destabilizing and weakening Russia’s competitors, and gaining relative power on the world stage. <...>
To date, Putin’s Russia has faced little real consequence for its nefarious activities, and the damage is compounding. The need for action could not be more urgent. And as the United States has learned all too clearly, Russia’s use of these tools to undermine democracy are not confined to Europe’s borders, and have been used to attack the United States as well. There are a series of steps that the United States and our allies can take that would both make our systems more resistant to these tactics and strengthen our democracies, and make it more difficult for Putin and his cronies to enrich themselves at our expense. The bipartisan initiative I co-direct developed a comprehensive strategy to counter authoritarian interference in democracies, endorsed by a bipartisan and transatlantic group of former senior national security officials.
http://www.gmfus.org/publications/laura-rosenbergers-testimony-house-foreign-affairs-committee-undermining-democracy

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Публикация (с купюрами) отчета Мюллера - принципиальная веха Рашагейта: https://viewfromll2.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/mueller-report.pdf

Небольшой анализ того, что есть и чего нет в этом отчете.

Что в отчете есть:

1. В первом томе - факты о российских хакерах и троллях, соответсвующие предыдущим обвинительным заключениям.

2. Там же - информация о многочисленных связях между избирательной кампанией Трампа и путинскими представителями. Не удалось, однако, найти достаточно доказательств для установления криминального характера этих связей.

Не удалось, к примеру, установить, зачем Манафорт систематически передавал внутренние данные кампании через Килимника Дерипаске.

Manafort instructed Rick Gates, his deputy on the Campaign and a longtime employee, 839 to provide Kilimnik with updates on the Trump Campaign-including internal polling data, although Manafort claims not to recall that specific instruction. Manafort expected Kilimnik to share that information with others in Ukraine and with Deripaska. Gates periodically sent such polling data to Kilimnik during the campaign. <…> Because of questions about Manafort's credibility and our limited ability to gather evidence on what happened to the polling data after it was sent to Kilimnik, the Office could not assess what Kilimnik (or others he may have given it to) did with it.



Сергей Приходько, с которым Дерипаска встречался на яхте, в отчете упоминается - как организатор несостоявшейся поездки Трампа в Петербург.

In late December 2015, Mira Duma-a contact of lvanka Trump's from the fashion industry-first passed along invitations for Ivanka Trump and candidate Trump from Sergei Prikhodko, a Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. On January 14, 2016, Rhona Graff sent an email to Duma stating that Trump was "honored to be asked to participate in the highly prestigious" Forum event, but that he would "have to decline" the invitation given his "very grueling and full travel schedule" as a presidential candidate. <...>
According to written answers from President Trump, Graff received an email from Deputy Prime Minister Prikhodko on March 17, 2016, again inviting Trump to participate in the 2016 Forum in St. Petersburg. Two weeks later, on March 31, 2016, Graff prepared for Trump's signature a two-paragraph letter declining the invitation. The letter stated that Trump's "schedule has become extremely demanding" because of the presidential campaign, that he "already ha[ d] several commitments in the United States" for the time of the Forum, but that he otherwise "would have gladly given every consideration to attending such an important event." Graff forwarded the letter to another executive assistant at the Trump Organization with instructions to print the document on letterhead for Trump to sign.

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Из пяти угроз можно вычеркнуть третью - Мюллер завершает расследование, избежав увольнения. Пока неясно, что будет с пятой угрозой.

Сравнительно быстрое завершение расследования может быть связано с необходимостью принятия срочных мер. Но не будем спешить с выводами.

The average length of a special counsel investigation that resulted in at least one charge or conviction was about 5 years.

Mueller’s investigation has lasted less than two years.https://t.co/CPOtRk2W2T pic.twitter.com/WuBHo2ND4Q

— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) March 22, 2019

Палата представителей Конгресса проголосовала единогласно 420:0 за полную публикацию отчета Мюллера. Четыре республиканца голосовали “present” (Amash, Gaetz, Godard, Massie).

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress—
(1) calls for the public release of any report, including findings, Special Counsel Mueller provides to the Attorney General, except to the extent the public disclosure of any portion thereof is expressly prohibited by law; and
(2) calls for the full release to Congress of any report, including findings, Special Counsel Mueller provides to the Attorney General.
Passed the House of Representatives March 14, 2019.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-concurrent-resolution/24

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Комиссия Палаты представителей по разведке наняла Даниэла Голдмана для помощи в расследовании Рашагейта.

Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has hired a veteran prosecutor with experience fighting Russian organized crime to lead his investigation of the Trump Administration. Last month, according to a committee source, Daniel Goldman, who served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 2007 to 2017, joined the committee’s staff as a senior adviser and the director of investigations
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/adam-schiff-hires-a-former-prosecutor-to-lead-the-trump-investigation

В биографии Голдмана говорится:

From 2012 to 2014, Daniel served as Deputy Chief of the Organized Crime Unit and was responsible for overseeing a wide variety of prosecutions, including traditional organized crime, international organized crime, human trafficking, and white collar crime. As a supervisor, Daniel oversaw a significant international Russian Organized Crime prosecution against more than 30 defendants for racketeering, gambling, and money laundering. During his 10 years at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Daniel prosecuted a variety of cases, including a number of securities fraud cases; RICO, securities fraud and health care fraud convictions against a number of individuals associated with Russian Organized Crime; and a racketeering and murder conviction against the Acting Boss of the Genovese Crime Family and other members and associates of the Genovese Crime Family.
https://www.brennancenter.org/expert/daniel-goldman



Под "significant international Russian Organized Crime prosecution" по всей видимости имеется в виду дело Тринчера-Тайванчика, над которым Голдман работал под руководством Прита Бхарара.

На сайте Минюста имя Голдмана упоминается в 2014 в связи с делом Даниэла Пагано из семейства Дженовезе.

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, George Venizelos, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), James J. Hunt, the Acting Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Agency, James T. Hayes, Jr., the Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (“ICE”) Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”), Thomas Zugibe, the District Attorney of Rockland County, Joseph A. D'Amico, Superintendent of the New York State Police, and William J. Bratton, the Commissioner of the Police Department for the City of New York (“NYPD”) announced today the unsealing of an Indictment charging DANIEL PAGANO, an alleged Captain of the Genovese Organized Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra (the “Genovese Crime Family”), and MICHAEL PALAZZOLO, an associate of the Genovese Crime Family, with participating in a racketeering conspiracy by, among other crimes, committing extortion and loan sharking and operating an illegal gambling business. PAGANO was taken into custody today, and PALAZZOLO surrendered today. Both defendants were presented and arraigned in Manhattan federal court this afternoon before United States Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn. U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams has been assigned to the case.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/captain-genovese-crime-family-and-associate-charged-manhattan-federal-court

Пагано работал связным между итальянской и русской мафией и признался в том, что участвовал в подготовке заказного убийство Мони Эльсона, которое он, однако, отказался исполнить.

Palumbo enlisted Johnny Balls for the Elson job, the sources said. With help from Palumbo and Zilber, Johnny Balls used a pretext to lure Elson to a Bronx social club where the killing would be carried out. As a kind of practice exercise, Elson was brought up to the Bronx to see how it went. The Russian didn’t appear to suspect a thing.
“The dry run went smoothly; they joked, ‘We should have just done it,’” said one source familiar with debriefings that Leto, who has been a turncoat for two years now, has had about the Elson plot with prosecutors and FBI agents in the case. The reason they didn’t go through with the hit, the sources say, is that Palumbo was awaiting approval from his mob supervisor at the time, capo Daniel Pagano.
That didn’t go as well. When Pagano, who was earning a penny for every gallon of gasoline on which his Russian gangster partners were stealing the federal excise taxes, was told of the plot, he put a quick end to it. “What are you nuts?” Pagano is alleged to have responded. “No fucking way. If you do this, we’ll have a major problem with the Russians.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-capeci/feared-russian-hitman-sav_b_706892.html

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CNN рассказывает о живущем в Москве американце по имени Дэвид Джеованис.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, which is probing allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 elections, has been keen to speak with David Geovanis for several months, the sources say.
Geovanis helped organize a 1996 trip to Moscow by Trump, who was in the early stages of pursuing what would become a long-held goal of building a Trump Tower in the Russian capital, according to multiple media reports at the time.
Years later, Geovanis worked for the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, whose ties to Trump's 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort have also been of interest to investigators.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/21/politics/senate-trump-russia-david-geovanis-intl/index.html

В 80-е Дэвид Джеованис работал у знаменитого американского финансиста Майкла Милкена. В 90-е - у Джорджа Сороса. Затем на протяжении пяти лет управлял активами Олега Дерипаски в компании "Базовый элемент". Сейчас он вкладывает средства британских миллиардеров Яна и Ричарда Ливинстонов в российскую недвижимость.
https://salon.ru/article/devid-dzheovanis-7616



Во время приезда Трампа в Москву в 1996 Джеованис обеспечивал ему, так сказать, культурную программу, которая могла стать частью компромата сексуального характера. Как утверждает книга Trump / Russia: A Definitive History, об этом сообщалось в неопубликованном "досье Ширера":

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(2/7) According to the president, the Mueller investigation is "the single greatest witch hunt in political history" . . . https://t.co/vpFTRsLERF pic.twitter.com/SEOYwSwMcI

— Karen Yourish (@karenyourish) February 19, 2019

(7/7) But whom or what does he defend the most? President Vladimir V. Putin and Russia.https://t.co/vpFTRsLERF pic.twitter.com/pJ4fOqMH7n

— Karen Yourish (@karenyourish) February 19, 2019

New York Times публикует обзор нападок Трампа на расследование Рашагейта и попыток спустить его с рельс. Новая информация - о давлении на и.о. генрокурора Уитакера, чтобы тот поставил взявшего самоотвод федерального прокурора SDNY (Southern District of New York) Бермана во главе расследований, который ведутся в этом округе.

As the prosecutors closed in, Mr. Trump felt a more urgent need to gain control of the investigation.
He made the call to Mr. Whitaker to see if he could put Mr. Berman in charge of the New York investigation. The inquiry is run by Robert Khuzami, a career prosecutor who took over after Mr. Berman, whom Mr. Trump appointed, recused himself because of a routine conflict of interest.
What exactly Mr. Whitaker did after the call is unclear, but there is no evidence that he took any direct steps to intervene in the Manhattan investigation. He did, however, tell some associates at the Justice Department that the prosecutors in New York required “adult supervision.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/us/politics/trump-investigations.html



Джеффри Берман, бывший партнер Руди Джулиани, был лично отобран и проинтервьюирован Трампом на замену Приту Бхарара.

President Donald Trump has personally interviewed at least two potential candidates for U.S. attorney positions in New York, according to two sources familiar with the matter — a move that critics say raises questions about whether they can be sufficiently independent from the president.
Trump has interviewed Geoffrey Berman, who is currently at the law firm Greenberg Traurig for the job of U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Ed McNally of the firm Kasowitz Benson Torres for the Eastern District post, according to the sources.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/19/trump-us-attorney-interviews-243962

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В конце августа 2011 внимание диктаторов всего мира было приковано к Ливии, где, после взятия повстанцами Триполи, наступал конец режиму Каддафи. Ким Чен Ир совершил срочную поездку в Россию. В Америке между тем набирала обороты президентская предвыборная гонка. Дональд Трамп советовал прислушаться к Рону Полу.

@RonPaul has some serious ideas which deserve serious consideration. Wrong for media to ignore him.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2011

Пол выделялся из республиканских кандидатов тем, что решительно выступал против интервенции и поддержки смены режима в других странах. В чем-то его позиция была обоснована.

“The current situation in Libya may be a short term victory for Empire, but it is a loss for our American Republic. And, I fear it may be devastating to the Libyan people.
There is no doubt that Moammar Gadhafi is a bad guy, and that he has brought harm and misery to his country. However, our involvement in another country's civil war is costly and unconstitutional.”
http://presidency.proxied.lsit.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=98770



Неудивительно, что главную информационную поддержку ему оказывали не в американских СМИ, а на канале Russia Today. Рон Пол стал несомненным кремлевским фаворитом.

Several websites feature a series of videos from RT, not limited to the Kokesh program, that are extremely favorable to Paul’s campaign. The channel features attractive female anchors who speak flawless English and claim to have America’s best interests at heart. Many observers agree the channel is far more effective than the heavy-handed Soviet propaganda of the Cold War years.
https://www.aim.org/aim-column/why-is-russian-tv-backing-ron-paul/

They read The Nation, Alex Jones, WorldNetDaily. It can seem like the entire Internet was created to convince the paranoid reader that he's right—you can't trust the bastards. RT goes one step further: You can trust the Russians more than you can trust those bastards. If no one else wants to create a TV channel for the despondent, here it is.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2011/06/pravda_will_set_you_free.html

Неизвестно, повлияла ли эта поддержка, но дела у Пола пошли неплохо, и по опросу Gallup он вышел на третье место после Митта Ромни и Рика Перри.

A new Gallup poll shows Barack Obama losing by 2% to Mitt Romney in a hypothetical race held "today". Mr Obama is tied with Rick Perry. But the really interesting news is that the president wins by just 2% against Ron Paul, the guy most media gatekeepers assume too unelectable to be worth covering.
https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2011/08/23/an-anybody-better-than-bachmann

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