Paul Manafort

Former Campaign Manager And Registered Foreign Agent

P aul Manafort is a key player in this. Manafort was forced out as campaign manager after reports of his foreign ties began to overwhelm the Trump campaign. Manafort’s story is a long one. Although Manafort did indeed meet with Russian operatives during the campaign, most of his wrongdoings happened way before 2016. From his extensive dealings with pro-Russia parties in Ukraine to being paid millions to push Russian interests in the U.S., Manafort is in deep.

What Mueller Is Probing:  Communications with Russian operatives and financial crimes, including potential money laundering. Manafort has been subpoenaed by multiple congressional investigations and associates of his, including lobbying firms have also been subpoenaed. His son-in-law, Jeffrey Yohai, has  met  with federal investigators and provided documents related to Manafort’s possible money laundering or tax violations in his business dealings with pro-Russia parties in Ukraine. Mueller is examining these documents and is also  reportedly  cooperating with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to dig deeper into Manafort’s financial transactions.

Most notably, FBI agents conducted a pre-dawn raid on Manafort’s home, obtaining documents and other materials related to the Trump-Russia investigation. This was was a no-knock warrant, indicating a lack of trust on the part of the investigators. They may have believed Manafort would attempt to destroy evidence.

What Mueller May Find:

• Intercepted communications of Russians discussing their efforts to coordinate with Manafort regarding damaging information on Clinton
• Various conversations with Manafort and Russian operatives encouraging help from the Russians
• Manafort was also working on the Trump campaign as an unregistered foreign agent. He finally registered in June of this year
• Manafort  served  as a lobbyist and political consultant for pro-Russia Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych. He started in 2004 and helped Yanukovych reshape his political image. Manafort received $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments
• Manafort partnered with Yanukovych ally and Ukrainian billionaire, Dmytro Firtas, to redevelop a property in New York. Firtas was  sued  over the project, with the allegations being that it was a money laundering scheme. The project was canceled and the case was dismissed
• Manafort  reportedly  had a $10 million a year contract with Russian oligarch and close Putin ally, Oleg Deripaska. The contract was part of a plan to assert pro-Russia influence in U.S. politics and lasted from 2006–2009. Paul Manafort  moved  into Trump Tower in 2006
• Manafort  reportedly  met twice with his former Russian-Ukrainian aide, from his Ukraine lobbying days, Konstantin Kilimnik during the 2016 campaign. A Kiev operative suggests that Kilimnik may have played a role in the Trump campaign’s gutting of anti-Russian stances from the Republican Party platform
• Paul Manafort attended the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting with Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., and Russian operatives. Investigators are  reportedly  reviewing Manafort’s notes of the meeting which “contained the words ‘donations,’ and ‘RNC’ in close proximity.” According to  NBC News,  congressional   investigators who are examining the meeting are “focused on determining whether it included any discussion of donations from Russian sources to either the Trump campaign or the Republican Party.”  Foreigners donating to American elections is illegal.  Will detail more on this meeting in the later section on Trump Jr.
• In the 1980s, the Trump Organization  hired  Manafort’s lobbying firm. During this time, Trump also became close with Manafort and Roger Stone. But more on Stone in a bit…

 

Carter Page

Former Campaign Adviser

C arter Page was a former adviser to candidate Trump until the Trump campaign distanced themselves from him after his Russia ties were reported on. Page is the founder of Global Energy Capital, an investment firm in New York, where he partnered with Sergei Yatsenk. Yatsenk is a former  Gazprom  executive, a Kremlin-owned energy company Page did business with during the time he lived in Russia from 2004–2007. Page’s 2016 trip to Moscow, meeting with a Russian spy in 2013, and admitted communications with Russians during the campaign have made him a focus of this investigation.

What Mueller Is Probing:  Communications with Russian operatives. Page has long been a subject of FBI surveillance since 2014 and this year has undergone  repeated  FBI questioning.

What Mueller May Find:

• Page  met  with Victor Podobnyy, who turned out to be a Russian spy, in 2013
• Page communicated with Russian operatives during the campaign
• Russians have reportedly attempted to  cultivate  Page as a way to infiltrate the Trump campaign
• Page went on a  campaign  approved trip to Moscow in July of 2016 to meet with Igor Sechin ,  the chairman of the Russia State-owned oil company Rosneft, and may have discussed the prospect of lifting sanctions on Russia. This is important because the Christopher Steele dossier ( Glenn Simpson recently  testified  on Capitol Hill on the dossier ) mentioned the meeting with Page and “that the Rosneft President was so keen to lift personal and corporate Western sanctions imposed on the company, that he offered Page and his associates the brokerage of up to a 19 percent (privatized) stake in Rosneft.” This is very important because as  Business Insider  reports:
  

Rosneft…ultimately signed a deal that was similar to the one the dossier described: On December 7, the oil company sold 19.5% of shares, worth roughly $11 billion, to the multinational commodity trader Glencore Plc and Qatar’s state-owned wealth fund. Page was back in Moscow on December 8, one day after the deal was signed, to “meet with some of the top managers” of Rosneft, he told reporters at the time.

 

Roger Stone

Former Campaign Adviser

R oger Stone, former Trump campaign advisor, longtime confidante, and political operative who was a partner of Paul Manafort, is of interest due to his communications with Russian affiliated entities during the course of the 2016 election.

What Mueller Is Probing:  Communications with Russian operatives. Roger Stone confirmed to  CNN  that the Senate Intelligence Committee asked him to preserve any records that could be related to their investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election. He’s also  called  on Trump to fire Robert Mueller…wonder why.

What Mueller May Find:

• Stone has  admitted  to speaking to Guccifer 2.0, the online persona believed to be a front for Russian intelligence officials and behind the hacks on the DNC
• In October, Roger Stone  boasted about being in regular  contact with Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange, through “mutual friends.” This boast appeared to be validated by his eerie knowledge of upcoming Wikileaks concerning Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta’s emails. Several months before it occurred, Stone tweeted about an October surprise involving Podesta that would disrupt Clinton’s campaign

 

Jeff Sessions

Attorney General

J eff Sessions lied under oath when asked about his interactions with Russians during the 2016 campaign.

We’ve since discovered that Sessions did indeed meet with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on multiple occasions. This led to his recusal from the Trump-Russia investigation. A recusal President Trump directly blames for the appointment of Robert Mueller.

What Mueller Is Probing:  Communications with Russian operatives and obstruction of justice. As Mueller ramps up his investigation into whether or not President Trump obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey, it’s likely Sessions will be questioned, given the fact he was involved in the meetings with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Trump where the decision was made. Mueller has already  reached  out to the White House about speaking to former and current senior officials about the Russia investigation, including former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.

What Mueller May Find:

• Sessions reportedly met with Kislyak on three separate occasions, once in April 2016 at the Mayflower Hotel, once in July 2016 during the RNC, and a third time in September 2016 in his Senate office
• Kislyak reportedly discussed campaign-related topics with Sessions, including policy issues important to Moscow
• The April 2016 meeting is likely the April 27th Mayflower Hotel event where there was  potentially  a private meeting that occurred between Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions, Jared Kushner, and Kislyak
• Sessions acted out of the bounds of his recusal by being part of the decision to fire James Comey
• Sessions didn’t initially disclose meetings with Russians on his SF-86, which is a felony if it’s found to be a willful omission

 

Jared Kushner

The President’s Son-In-Law And Senior Adviser

J ared Kushner, influential White House adviser, and Ivanka Trump’s husband, is also a subject of this investigation. When the Trump-Russia investigation got to his campaign associates, Trump attempted to distance himself. But now, the investigation has begun close in on his family.

What Mueller Is Probing:  Communications with Russian operatives. Mueller’s grand jury has reportedly already issued  subpoenas  regarding the June 9, 2016, meeting that Kushner attended.

What Mueller May Find:  In his testimony (which was not under oath), Kushner outlined four meetings he had with Russians, all of which were not initially disclosed. Kushner confirmed:

• The Mayflower Hotel meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in April 2016 — The one Jeff Sessions attended but “didn’t recall”
• The Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Russian operatives on June 9, 2016, which was revealed to have been an attempt to obtain damaging opposition research on Hillary Clinton from the Russian Government (Kushner denied he was aware of the purpose of the meeting)
• The December Trump Tower meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Michael Flynn where a back channel line of communication with Russia was proposed
• The December meeting with Sergey N. Gorkov who runs VneshEconomBank (VEB), a Russia owned bank that is currently under U.S. sanctions that were put in place in 2014.   Gorkov is an FSB Academy graduate (essentially a trained spy) and known as a “Putin crony” in the intelligence community. Once VEB was sanctioned, Putin had to authorize $22 Billion in state funding to cover their debts

Other things Mueller may discover that Kushner didn’t speak on:

• Kushner has  had to amend  his SF-86 at least three times, adding over 100 meetings with officials from over 20 countries and over 100 foreign contacts
• Kushner and Ivanka Trump are close friends with Dasha Zhukova, wife of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich

 

Felix Sater

Longtime Trump Associate

F elix Sater, a Russian-born Mafia-linked figure, joined Bayrock in 1999. Trump  started  building Trump SoHo along with Sater and three Russian oligarchs under investigation for money laundering. The project would ultimately  start a criminal investigation  in 2011, which Trump and his partners settled by refunding over $3 million in down payments on the condos. Trump has repeatedly denied that he knows Sater despite the evidence via email and sworn depositions that he was a close family friend and lived in Trump Tower.

What Mueller Is Probing:  Felix Sater is back in the news cycle again and will likely be implicated in some form or another in Mueller’s probe into money laundering. Sater is already  reportedly  cooperating with an international investigation into a money laundering network.

What Mueller May Find:

The Washington Post  reported that in late 2015 and early 2016, while Donald Trump was running for president, the Trump Organization  sought  to develop a huge Trump Tower in Moscow. Felix Sater urged Trump to come to Moscow to tout the proposal and suggested he could get President Vladimir Putin to say ‘great things’ about Trump….

Sater wrote to then Trump Organization Executive Vice President ( now Trump’s personal lawyer ) Michael Cohen, something to the effect of, “Can you believe two guys from Brooklyn are going to elect a president?’” In the emails, Sater went on to  brag  about how this deal would help Trump get the presidency…

“Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it,” Mr. Sater wrote in an email. “I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process…” In another email, Mr. Sater envisioned a ribbon-cutting in Moscow. “I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected,” Mr. Sater wrote.

According to  The New York Times , the emails reportedly show that in the early days of the campaign, some Trump officials viewed close ties to Moscow as a political advantage. The deal fell through in January 2016 right before the presidential primaries. Cohen  reportedly  sought to revive the talks, sending an email that same month, seeking help from Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s top press aid. Cohen has said that he sent that email upon recommendation from Felix Sater.

• On January 27, 2017, Cohen, who is  also a subject  of the Trump-Russia investigation, and Sater met with Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Artemenko at a dinner in New York in an attempt to create a back-channel peace deal with Ukraine and Russia. A move many saw as a covert method to lift sanctions. Artemenko left the sealed plan with Cohen who was supposed to deliver it to former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Artemenko claims he “got confirmation” from Sater that his plan was delivered to the White House. Artemenko  confirmed  the dinner took place and that the intention was to create this deal. Cohen confirmed the dinner took place but denies this was the content discussed. Because of this deal with Cohen and Sater, Artemenko has since been  stripped  of his citizenship and accused of treason…

 

Donald Trump Jr.

The President’s Son

“And in terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets; say in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” —  Donald Trump Jr in 2008

J r.’s Russia connection goes all the way back to Trump Soho, where he along with Ivanka Trump, began scoping out real estate deals in Moscow with Felix Sater. But when it comes to Donald Trump Jr., most of the focus so far has been on the Trump Tower meeting where he was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton…he was explicitly told that the information being offered was part of the Russian government’s effort to aid Donald Trump Sr. and enthusiastically took the meeting anyway.

The Meeting Breakdown:

• Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, the Kremlin-connected lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, Rob Goldstone, Rinat Akhmetshin, Russian interpreter, and a representative for Aras Agalarov, Ike Kaveladze were at this June 9th meeting at Trump tower —  8 people
  
• Goldstone, publicist, and former British tabloid reporter, was the intermediary for setting up the meeting
• Trump Jr. was promised damaging info on Clinton before agreeing to attend
• Veselnitskaya was lobbying against Russian sanctions
• Trump Jr. was told via email it was part of Russia’s effort to support his father’s candidacy
• Goldstone was told to set up the meeting by the son of Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov, Emin Agalarov
• Trump Jr. didn’t appear surprised by Goldstone’s declaration that the Russian government supports his father
• There seemed to have been a phone call between Emin Agalarov and Donald Trump Jr.

 

Donald Trump

The President

P resident Donald Trump. The man himself. If you’ve made it this far in this article, I’m sure you’re thinking, what part did Trump play in this? Did he participate in, or was he aware of, any collusion? At this point, it’d be tough to claim that at the very least he was not aware of the Russian government’s efforts to aid his campaign. The email sent to Trump Jr. explicitly stated this fact, and it’s hard to believe that Trump Sr., a known micromanager, was not made aware of this email exchange or the Trump Tower meeting. Trump was at Trump Tower the day of the meeting and sent this tweet out about 40 minutes after it the meeting was set to begin.

We’ve since learned that the initial misleading account of the meeting that came from Donald Trump Jr. was personally  dictated  by President Trump while he was at the G20 summit.

But whether or not Trump was aware of, or participated in, the alleged collusion won’t be what leads to impeachment. Mueller’s investigation into obstruction of justice and financial crimes will be the most damaging.

So why is President Trump so quick to attack everyone, including Americans, but bends over backward to praise a foreign adversary like Vladimir Putin? The Kompromat (compromising material) that Putin has long been suspected of having most likely isn’t a pee-pee tape…It may be records of money laundering.

What Mueller May Find:

• “A  Reuters review  has found that at least 63 individuals with Russian passports or addresses have bought at least $98.4 million worth of property in seven Trump-branded luxury towers in southern Florida”
• In 2008, Russian oligarch and fertilizer magnate Dmitry Rybolovlev bought a Trump property for $95 million, double what it was worth, which is a classic money laundering technique meant to bake payments or bribes into what looks like a real estate deal
• The FBI  wiretapped  offices in Trump Tower, investigating a Russian money laundering group run out of apartment 63A, implicating 30 people and involving assets owned by Trump in New York and Florida
• In order to be guilty of obstruction of justice, one doesn’t have to successfully obstruct an investigation. The law clearly states that anyone who “endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice, shall be (guilty of an offense).” Comey’s testimony showed a detailed report of President Trump making multiple attempts to influence an investigation that is targeting his campaign. Trump himself  declared on multiple occasions that he fired Comey in an effort to end the Trump-Russia investigation
• Special Counsel Robert Mueller is looking into whether or not President Donald Trump  tried  to conceal the nature of Trump Jr.’s June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting

 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has his work cut out for him. It’s pretty clear which one of Trump’s associates will be facing criminal indictments. But the question remains, if charges were to be found against President Trump and his associates, will Trump simply pardon everyone?

When it comes to the question of pardons, it appears that may get tricky in the case of Paul Manafort. Given Mueller’s cooperation with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, this increases the likelihood that Manafort could be charged with a state crime. If that’s the case, Manafort can’t be pardoned since a president can’t pardon state-level crimes. If other Trump associates were to be implicated in state-level crimes, the same would apply to them. The lack of comfort that comes with the possibility for a pardon could make Trump associates more likely to cooperate with investigators.

And when it comes to President Trump, as the law currently stands, the Supreme Court hasn’t ruled that a president can be charged while in office, so in order for Trump to be removed from office, he’d have to either be impeached or the 25th Amendment would have to be invoked.

Given President Trump’s waning political capital and record low approval rating, it’s growing less likely that Republican representatives will protect him if Mueller finds criminal activity.

As Mueller’s investigation moves full speed ahead towards the truth, we can only hope that this truth will also lead to justice.