Reuters: Trump, Clinton camps both offered slice of dossier firm's work: sources

Well this quite a stunning development. If the reporting is correct, the information that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya shared with Donald Trump Jr and others in the Trump Tower meeting, was the result of research done by Fusion GPS.

Tru mp, Clinton camps both offered slice of dossier firm's work: sources

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The same political research firm that prepared a dossier on Trump campaign ties to Russia had unrelated information on Clinton Foundation donors that a Russian lawyer obtained and offered to President Donald Trump’s eldest son last year, three sources familiar with the matter said.

The sources told Reuters that the negative information that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya wanted to give to Republican Trump’s campaign at a June 2016 meeting in New York had been dug up by Fusion GPS in an unrelated investigation.

In December, 2014, the sources said, Veselnitskaya, who then was involved in litigation pitting her Russian client against British-American financier William Browder, received a legal research memo reporting that the Ziff Brothers, two New York financiers allied with Browder, had made a large contribution to a Clinton charity.

The memo had been prepared by Fusion, which had been hired to conduct legal research on Browder by Baker and Hostetler law firm. The firm represented Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, who was engaged in disputes with Browder and U.S. prosecutors.

Two sources said the Fusion GPS work for Baker and Hostetler that produced the information Veselnitskaya offered Trump Jr. and his associates was unrelated to the firm’s work for Perkins Coie, a law firm that represented the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign

It's also reported in the article that in his 10 hours of testimony, Glenn Simpson claimed to not know about he Trump Tower meeting until it was revealed in the media.

According to previous reporting by the NY Times, the information in the memo brought to the meeting by Veselnitskaya was shared with Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika in October 2015 and found it's way into a similar document that was provided to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in Russia. The same information was also given to Rep. French Hill of Arkansas by Veselnitskaya.

Something that I admittedly missed from the NY Times story when I read it earlier was that according to Aras Agalarov's attorney, it was Veselnitskaya who approached the Agalarovs about setting up a meeting with the Trump campaign.

a reply to: theantediluvian

In an interview with Bloomberg on Monday, Veselnitskaya said she went to the Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr., his brother-in-law Jared Kushner, and top campaign adviser Paul Manafort to show them proof of tax evasion by major Democratic donors.

Any idea where this information is and the possible factual nature?

a reply to: JinMI

Here's a copy of Veselnitskaya's memo on DocumentCloud.

I had looked for it on Foreign Policy a couple weeks ago but the link to the document wasn't working so I'd only read a couple of quotes and some paraphrasing but now that I'm reading it, it makes perfect sense that this would have originated with the Fusion GPS research.

Fusion GPS was digging up dirt on Browder, Hermitage, etc and according to the memo, the Ziff brothers were investors and in a 1999-2006 scheme by Browder to use Russian shell companies to purchase Gazprom shares for foreign investors, bypassing Russian regulation. Also, according to the memo, the brothers invested $80 million from 1999 to 2004 which yielded a total income of $800 million by 2006.

No idea if it's true.

originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: JinMI

Here's a copy of Veselnitskaya's memo on DocumentCloud.

. Also, according to the memo, the brothers invested $80 million from 1999 to 2004 which yielded a total income of $800 million by 2006.

No idea if it's true.

Not a bad return on investment, especially when you consider the overhead in bribing all sides.
Follow the money is always a good investigative tactic.


I'm still waiting for some really good bombshells from the Paradise Papers. So far only firecrackers and sparklers.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Well this quite a stunning development. If the reporting is correct, the information that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya shared with Donald Trump Jr and others in the Trump Tower meeting, was the result of research done by Fusion GPS.

Something was "shared" at this meeting?
I thought trumps reps received nothing at this meeting.

So does this now make the meeting "set up"?

originally posted by: shooterbrody
a reply to: theantediluvian

Well this quite a stunning development. If the reporting is correct, the information that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya shared with Donald Trump Jr and others in the Trump Tower meeting, was the result of research done by Fusion GPS.

Something was "shared" at this meeting?
I thought trumps reps received nothing at this meeting.

So does this now make the meeting "set up"?

We found out a few days ago that Fusion set up the meeting. At this point, there's no avoiding the conclusion that they set up the meeting specifically to create the Russian Collusion narrative to use against Trump.

The info on Democratic tax evasion was the "dirt" that the Russian lady said she had. Trump Jr. claims she didn't have any such info. It might have just been bait to get some Trump people to attend the meeting.

originally posted by: AndyFromMichigan

originally posted by: shooterbrody
a reply to: theantediluvian

Well this quite a stunning development. If the reporting is correct, the information that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya shared with Donald Trump Jr and others in the Trump Tower meeting, was the result of research done by Fusion GPS.

Something was "shared" at this meeting?
I thought trumps reps received nothing at this meeting.

So does this now make the meeting "set up"?

We found out a few days ago that Fusion set up the meeting. At this point, there's no avoiding the conclusion that they set up the meeting specifically to create the Russian Collusion narrative to use against Trump.

The info on Democratic tax evasion was the "dirt" that the Russian lady said she had. Trump Jr. claims she didn't have any such info. It might have just been bait to get some Trump people to attend the meeting.

I had not heard that Fusion setup the meeting with Trump Jr and the Russians.

Do you have a link?

a reply to: shooterbrody

Something was "shared" at this meeting? I thought trumps reps received nothing at this meeting.

According to Rinat Akhmetshin, the former Soviet counterintelligence officer who immigrated to the US in 1994 and has since become a lobbyist, who from all appearances was Veselnitskaya's right-hand man in these anti-Magnitsky Act endeavors, she gave the document to Don Jr, Manafort and Kushner in a plastic file folder.

In an a new Bloomberg interview published Monday, she said that she'd also sent the memo to Goldstone so that he could pass it to Don Jr but apparently Goldstone had not done so.

The problem apparently, according to Veselnitskaya, is that she didn't have proof that the money went into the Clinton campaign.

In the interview, Veselnitskaya said she sent her memo to Goldstone in advance so Trump Jr. could familiarize himself with the issues, but he seemed not to have done so. When she began laying out the case against the Ziffs, she said that he asked: “This money the Ziffs got from Russia, do you have any financial documents showing that this money went to Clinton’s campaign?”

Then it seems that because she didn't have anything to prove that the Clinton campaign had received any of these illicit funds, the meeting hit a roadblock.

So does this now make the meeting "set up"?

No. To the contrary, the same info had been given to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in October of 2015 by Chaika's office and then in the Spring of 2016, during a trip to Moscow, Rohrabacher's aide Paul Behrends pulled Rep. French Hill (R-AR) aside and introduced him to Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin, who then presented the memo to him.

It's likely been shopped around elsewhere as well. The reporting has been that Behrends was taking the duo around the Hill, introducing them to members of Congress prior to the Don Jr meeting. BTW, Paul Behrends was axed from his job in the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that Rohrabacher chairs in July, reportedly by Rep. Ed Royce over his shady pro-Russian behavior.

No, I think that what's happened here is that the Trump campaign meeting was just one in a series of similar meetings where Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin (in coordination with Yuri Chaika and with the assistance of Behrends) were lobbying Republicans to get the Magnitsky Act repealed.

So no, not a setup but also not a meeting to provide information that was compiled specifically for the Trump campaign either.

What's been missing is the context which is something that could only be pieced together from the reporting over these last several months. Goldstone, Don Jr, etc wouldn't have known about the other meetings so they would have assumed it was info that was only being given to the Trump campaign which explains the lying by Don Jr.

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

We found out a few days ago that Fusion set up the meeting. At this point, there's no avoiding the conclusion that they set up the meeting specifically to create the Russian Collusion narrative to use against Trump.

No, that's incorrect. There's been no reporting that Fusion GPS setup the meeting. That doesn't even make sense if you understand what Fusion GPS is. They're a firm made up of former investigative reporters who are paid to dig up dirt.

We know how the meeting happened. According to the Agalarovs' lawyer, Veselnitskaya approached the Agalarovs because of their connection with the Trumps and asked them to setup a meeting for her. The Agalarovs had Goldstone reach out to Don Jr.

The info on Democratic tax evasion was the "dirt" that the Russian lady said she had. Trump Jr. claims she didn't have any such info. It might have just been bait to get some Trump people to attend the meeting.

She had info. She didn't have info that implicated Clinton or the campaign directly. The "setup" narrative doesn't make sense either. Veselnitskaya had similar meetings with others, including at least one and possibly several GOP members of Congress, prior to the Trump Tower meeting. She was shopping around the dirt that Fusion GPS had dug up, lobbying against the Magnitsky Act.

Basically, she was trying to lobby the Trump team and the idea was that the info would be damaging to the Democrats because the Ziffs are known to be Democratic donors.

As I've said previously, I would not at all be surprised to see both Akhmetshin and Behrends indicted for lobbying for Russia without being registered as foreign agents. Hopefully this all leads to Rohrabacher getting expelled from the House too. The guy is a straight up Russian shill.

a reply to: introvert

They didn't. From the NY Times article I linked above:

Precisely how Ms. Veselnitskaya ended up at the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting to present her findings remains in dispute. She asked Aras Agalarov, a well-connected Russian oligarch who knows the Trump family, to help her share her allegations with the Trump campaign, according to Mr. Agalarov’s attorney, Scott Balber.

She may have told Mr. Agalarov that she had previously conveyed the same information to Mr. Chaika, Mr. Balber said. Mr. Agalarov’s son then enlisted his publicist, Rob Goldstone, to broker the meeting.

In emails to Donald Trump Jr., Mr. Goldstone wrote that a Russian prosecutor — an apparent reference to Mr. Chaika — had met with Mr. Agalarov and wanted to offer the Trump campaign official documents that would incriminate Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Goldstone described the proposed meeting as part of the Russian government’s effort to help Mr. Trump’s candidacy, and said a “government lawyer” would fly to New York to deliver the documents.

a reply to: theantediluvian

According to Rinat Akhmetshin, the former Soviet counterintelligence officer who immigrated to the US in 1994 and has since become a lobbyist, who from all appearances was Veselnitskaya's right-hand man in these anti-Magnitsky Act endeavors, she gave the document to Don Jr, Manafort and Kushner in a plastic file folder.

Very interesting.

If true, this could be a serious game changer for those involved.

a reply to: introvert

I don't think so. Basically, the evidence points to the Trump Tower meeting being just one in a series of similar lobbying meetings. It's not illegal to be lobbied.

However, it is illegal to lobby for a foreign government without registering as a foreign agent so I do think that a couple people are possibly facing indictment for lobbying members of Congress for Russia without registering as foreign agents.

What I'm not sure of is whether or not foreign nationals lobbying for their government are required to register under FARA.

I do know that FARA only requires registration if the lobbying is being done for a foreign government or a foreign business in which a foreign government is a majority stakeholder. I think the involvement of Chaika (he's the Prosecutor General which is basically like the AG here) and the fact that several Russian officials are sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act might make a good case for this being lobbying for a foreign government even if the business she represented in her capacity as a lawyer had no government ownership.

a reply to: theantediluvian

so then no "collusion with agents of the russian government" at that meeting?

a reply to: theantediluvian

You don't think this may tread on to potential issues with campaign laws?

a reply to: theantediluvian

You were wrong my man.



FGPS did set up the meeting. The DNC and Clinton paid them to do so. Thats been proven without a shadow of a doubt. They paid for the fake dossier too.

Did you miss that?

I never see you make threads where you correct your prior incorrect arguments.

www.abovetopsecret.com...