No puppet!

A special message from @RepAdamSchiff & @HouseDemocrats as Americans celebrate the birth of our democracy. #ProtectOurDemocracy pic.twitter.com/GtKc9QNOIy

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) July 4, 2019

Демократы пользуется Днем Независимости, чтобы напомнить избирателям об отчете Мюллера и необходимости защиты от иностранного вмешательства.



Конгрессмен Джастин Амаш из Мичигана - единственный из республиканцев, который, внимательно прочитав отчет Мюллера, призвал к процедуре импичмента, в День Независимости вышел из партии. В своем заявлении Амаш цитирует Джорджа Вашингтона:

“The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty. <…> It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/justin-amash-our-politics-is-in-a-partisan-death-spiral-thats-why-im-leaving-the-gop/2019/07/04/afbe0480-9e3d-11e9-b27f-ed2942f73d70_story.html

“…he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed…”
—Constitution, Art. II, §3

Five threads on Mueller’s report & Pres. Trump’s impeachable conduct:https://t.co/J0LSZoWVtmhttps://t.co/804a1yA8RChttps://t.co/FLaFfpFUprhttps://t.co/kTFu9iOxIXhttps://t.co/dy2GTF3tZK

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) June 11, 2019

What do Republicans tell their kids? https://t.co/c50CmBpJLY

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) July 4, 2019

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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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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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(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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За месяц до событий в Шарлотсвилле политический комментатор Jamelle Bouie предсказал, что однажды Трамп перестанет стесняться и начнет транслировать нацистскую пропаганду.

Waiting for when Trump says some variation on "We must secure the existence of our people..." and these folks act like it's no big deal.

— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) July 7, 2017

Вчера это произошло достаточно явным образом.

The United States,
as we have known it,
is going to cease to exist.

My God. https://t.co/wM7cJcwr4d

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) January 14, 2019

Трамп цитирует заметку Пэта Бьюкенена, которого он сам раньше называл неонацистом и поклонником Гитлера.

Цитируемая заметка Бьюкенена достаточно прямым образом отсылает к нацистской теории "белого геноцида":

The only way to greater “diversity,” the golden calf of the Democratic Party, is to increase the number of women, African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics, and thereby reduce the number of white men.
https://buchanan.org/blog/memo-to-trump-declare-an-emergency-135677

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Прошлая неделя завершилась геройским поступком сенатора Джефа Флейка, который настоял на проведении расследования ФБР прежде голосования в Сенате за утверждение Бретта Кавано в Верховный суд.

Решение Флейк принимал сам и несет за него ответсвенность, но этот день стал также звездным часом для сенатора Криса Кунса.

Coons told CBS News' Nancy Cordes that he was surprised and disappointed when he learned Flake had released a statement saying he would vote to confirm Kavanaugh, unleashing an expletive in front of reporters when a reporter showed him the headline on a phone. Coons then reworked his planned speech to the committee, in part to appeal to Republicans like Flake who were on the fence about Kavanaugh's confirmation. In a measured speech to his colleagues on the committee, Coons condemned the rank partisanship that had infected Kavanaugh's confirmation process, and quoted his Senate predecessor and the former Judiciary Committee chairman, former Vice President Joe Biden.
"I want to share one thing he said to me when I began my service here, which was: 'It is always appropriate to question another senator's policies, it is always appropriate to question another senator's priorities, but it is never appropriate to question another senator's motives,'" Coons said. "And there has been far too much of that that's happened in this process, in a way that will frankly make it very difficult for us to take off our partisan jerseys and at some point get back to the important work of finding solutions to the real challenges facing this country."
He said that after he gave his speech to the committee, Flake called him to the anteroom outside the hearing room to talk about his decision.
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/jeff-flake-brett-kavanaugh-fbi-probe-today-elevator-protest-chris-coons-2018-09-28/

Следуя примеру своего предшественника Джо Байдена, Кунс долго и целенаправленно развивал дружеские и джентльменские отношения с республиканскими коллегами, особенно со своим сверстником Флейком.

Coons’ affinity for compromise doesn’t mesh with the combative posture Democrats have taken under Trump. But if Coons can survive a liberal base that has sometimes lashed him for his bipartisan tendencies, he has a chance to become one of the Senate’s historic deal-makers — a role once filled by the former vice president whose name is on the Amtrak station through which he often commutes home.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/08/chris-coons-senate-dealmaker-democrats-republicans-569144

Наконец настал день, когда это пригодилось.

Chris Coons gets emotional when discussing Flake's decision: "He and I do not share a lot of political views but we share a deep concern— Sorry. Senator Flake and I share a deep concern for the health of this institution and what it means to the rest of this world." (via CBS) pic.twitter.com/A33aoE2S1p

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 28, 2018

Senator Chris Coons tells the full story of what happened in the anteroom today with Jeff Flake to @nancycordes. Attempting my best @SopanDeb impression through @EllenUchimiya's legwork pic.twitter.com/dtNhWfQYYO

— Alan He (@alanhe) September 29, 2018

Примечательна роль Рода Розенштейна, хотя рассказы об ней различаются. New York Times сообщает, что Кунс и Флейк разговаривали с Розенштейнрм вдвоём.

Mr. Coons and Mr. Flake squeezed into an oversize phone booth — a few still exist on Capitol Hill — to make the call. They needed privacy rather than a landline, so held a cellphone on speaker between them. Mr. Rosenstein told them the F.B.I. could complete a background check in a week, although it was unlikely to unearth much more than was already known.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/us/politics/jeff-flake-kavanaugh-confirmation.html

В репортаже CBS (со слов Кунса) говорится, что Кунс отошёл в сторону, чтобы позволить Флейку переговорить с Розенштейном конфиденциально.

Soon afterward, Flake said he wanted to speak to FBI Director Christopher Wray. He ended up talking with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for what Coons estimated was about 10 minutes. Coons had left him alone for the conversation, but when he returned, Flake was no longer by himself.
"They had a long conversation. You know, by the time I got back 10 minutes later, there were three Republican senators and staff really beating on him, really leaning in and -- making their best arguments," Coons said.
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/jeff-flake-brett-kavanaugh-fbi-probe-today-elevator-protest-chris-coons-2018-09-28/

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В банковской комиссии Сената (Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs) прошли удивительно толковые слушания на тему российских санкций:
1. Outside Perspectives on Russia Sanctions: Current Effectiveness and Potential for Next Steps
https://www.banking.senate.gov/hearings/outside-perspectives-on-russia-sanctions_current-effectiveness-and-potential-for-next-steps
2. Countering Russia: Assessing New Tools
https://www.banking.senate.gov/hearings/countering-russia_assessing-new-tools
Показания давали эксперты по санкциям и по России, включая Майкла Макфола, Дэниела Фрида, Леона Арона и других.

План провести серию подобных слушаний возник в июле сразу после печальной известной встречи в Хельсинки:

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tasked Corker and Crapo with holding hearings on the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) and asked them to recommend to the Senate additional measures that could respond to or deter Russian malign behavior. Corker and Crapo, along with Senators Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), last summer authored CAATSA, which substantially expanded sanctions against the government of Russia in response to the regime’s violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, interference in elections, and current activities in Syria. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Banking Committee are responsible for the predominant share of sanctions legislation in the Senate.
https://www.crapo.senate.gov/media/newsreleases/crapo-corker-announce-series-of-hearings-on-russia



Из тех, кого называют вероятными кандидатами в президенты в 2020, в заседаниях принимала участие Элизабет Уоррен, сенатор из Массачусетса. Участие в банковской комиссии и в комиссии по вооруженным силам (куда ее привёл Джон Маккейн) даёт Уоррен возможность отточить зубы в международных отношениях.

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Если в Госдепе борьбой с российской организованной преступностью занимался знакомый Критсоферу Стилу Джонатан Винер, то в Министерстве юстиции этим занимался другой знакомый Стила, Брюс Ор, объект нынешних нападок со стороны Трампа и его «цепных псов» в Конгрессе.

Последние получили некоторый отпор со стороны демократов.

- Bruce Ohr has spent almost 30 years at the Department of Justice. He has proven himself to be a tireless fighter against organized crime at home and abroad. He has developed particular expertise in bringing cases against Russian oligarchs and other figures involved in Russian organized crime.
- Contrary to the allegations of several Republican members, Mr. Ohr’s testimony does not: (1) cast doubt on the credibility of the dossier; (2) cast doubt on the validity of any representation made to the FISA court; (3) suggest that Bruce or Nellie Ohr had any direct role in the Russia investigation; (4) suggest that he had anything other than a passing professional relationship with Peter Strzok or Lisa Page; or (5) suggest that Mr. Ohr was part of an imaginary cabal at the Department of Justice aimed at defeating President Trump.
https://democrats-oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/ranking-members-nadler-and-cummings-respond-to-republican-attacks-following



В письме демократов к руководителям комиссий Конгресса говорится, в частности, что выражение «наш любимый олигарх» в переписке Стила и Ора относилось не к Трампу, а к Дерипаске.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4806592-2018-08-31-EEC-Nadler-to-Gowdy-OGR-Goodlatte.html

The communications between Ohr and Steele were marked “law enforcement sensitive” because they related “to a confidential human source,” the Democratic lawmakers said.
In questioning Ohr, lawmakers Elijah Cummings and Jerrold Nadler said, Republicans were selective about his communications with Steele to create “a highly misleading narrative with factually inaccurate interpretations and conjecture” that they were discussing Trump.
As an example, they said, Republicans read a portion of an email in which Steele wrote that he wanted to speak with Ohr about “our favorite business tycoon.”
Republicans assumed they were discussing Trump, but Ohr answered that the “business tycoon” was Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, the two Democrats said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-ohr/republicans-cherry-picked-russia-probe-documents-to-quiz-us-official-democrats-idUSKCN1LG2NP

Вскоре стало известно, что Ор и Стил принимали участие в неудачной попытке склонить Дерипаску к сотрудничеству с ФБР во время его визитов в США в 2014-2016.

Two of the players in the effort were Bruce G. Ohr, the Justice Department official who has recently become a target of attacks by Mr. Trump, and Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled a dossier of purported links between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The systematic effort to win the cooperation of the oligarchs, which has not previously been revealed, does not appear to have scored any successes. And in Mr. Deripaska’s case, he told the American investigators that he disagreed with their theories about Russian organized crime and Kremlin collusion in the campaign, a person familiar with the exchanges said. The person added that Mr. Deripaska even notified the Kremlin about the American efforts to cultivate him.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/us/politics/deripaska-ohr-steele-fbi.html

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На прошлой неделе в комиссии Сената по международным отношениям без особых фанфар прошли слушания об отношениях с Россией. Показания давали Весс Митчелл из Госдепа, который сменил Викторию Нуланд на посту Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, и Маршалл Биллингслеа, который отвечает в Минфине за санкции против террористической активности. Биллингслеа был номинирован на пост Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights.
https://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/us_russia-relations-082118

Из вступительного слова главы комиссии Боба Коркера:

"Russia has annexed Crimea; occupied parts of Georgia; interfered with elections, including our own; violated the INF treaty – remains in violation; used chemical weapons to poison individuals in the United Kingdom; and even purportedly hacked U.S. utilities.
These offenses are bad enough, but they leave us wondering, ‘What’s next? What does the administration expect that they will next do?’
The past teaches us that even worse things may lay just over the horizon if we fail to push back now and make clear to President Putin that our nation is united – from the very top to the bottom – in standing against his destabilizing behavior, both in policy and in public posture."
https://www.corker.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2018/8/corker-convenes-second-in-series-of-hearings-on-us-russia-relations



Из вступительного слова Боба Менендеза:

"More than month after President Trump’s Helsinki meeting with President Putin, we remain in the dark as to what the two leaders discussed. We continue to hear more information - accurate or not - from the Russian government than from our own.
This is not only embarrassing, but I believe this lack of transparency has implications for our national security. I am not convinced that those who need to know in our own executive branch have a full understanding of what happened. After more than three hours with Secretary Pompeo a few weeks ago, this committee has little more insight than we did before the hearing.
Since the Administration has failed to answer Congressional requests or provide any information, I am today formally requesting Department provide all classified and unclassified cable traffic related to the Helsinki meeting, memorandums and policy directives."
https://www.menendez.senate.gov/news-and-events/press/menendez-remarks-at-senate-hearings-on-russia

Вскоре после заседания Менендез, совместно с Джин Шахин, послал письмо госсекретарю Помпео с требованием предоставить документы о встрече в Хельсинки.

"In view of the President’s comments and the inability of senior officials to provide a clear and complete description of any commitments that President Trump may have made during this two-hour conversation, we respectfully request that you provide the Senate Foreign Relations Committee members relevant materials including all classified and unclassified cable traffic, memoranda of conversations, interpreter’s notes and policy directives related to the meeting, and if no such documents exist, to confirm so.
The purpose of these requests would be to:
- Obtain an understanding of President Trump’s extended one-on-one meeting with President Putin in Helsinki and what, if any, commitments were made to the Russian Federation on behalf of the United States.
- Ascertain the veracity of the statements made by Russian officials since that meeting claiming that President Trump made various commitments to them, including on U.S. policy in Syria and Ukraine, and whether those commitments are consistent with current laws.
We make this request only as a direct result of the extraordinary and, to our knowledge, unprecedented circumstances of President Trump’s two hour, one-on-one meeting with a leader identified as a threat to the United States by President Trump’s own National Security Strategy. This situation requires urgent congressional oversight particularly in light of any potential U.S. commitments resulting from the meeting and to understand and address any Russian misinformation related to the meeting. In order to conduct the oversight responsibilities of this committee, it is appropriate we have access to these materials."
https://www.menendez.senate.gov/news-and-events/press/menendez-shaheen-formally-request-relevant-documents-and-interpreter-notes-for-trump-putin-summit-

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В 2015 Оскара за лучший фильм и лучший сценарий был удостоен Spotlight. В фильме рассказывается реальная история про команду репортеров Boston Globe, расследование которых вскрыло многочисленные случаи сексуальных домогательств детей в католической церкви.

Опубликованный на днях доклад большого жюри в Пенсильвании показывает, что проблема существовала не только в Бостоне: "We, the members of this grand jury, need you to hear this. We know some of you have heard some of it before. There have been other reports about child sex abuse within the Catholic Church. But never on this scale. For many of us, those earlier stories happened someplace else,
someplace away. Now we know the truth: it happened everywhere."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/us/catholic-church-sex-abuse-pennsylvania.html



Марти Бэрон, возглавлявший команду репортеров "Spotlight", роль которого в кино исполнял Лев Шрайбер, ныне работает главным редактором Washington Post и продолжает традицию бескомпромиссных расследований.

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