Paul Manafort, Who Once Ran Trump Campaign, Surrenders to F.B.I.

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The nature of kingship in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth follows the events that occur during Macbeth’s unlawful rise to the throne......The themes of greed, arrogance and excessive political ambition are still, very relevant to the world today. Shakespeare got it right - his story of Macbeth still applies to today's world....

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Paul Manafort, who served as President Trump's campaign manager last year, made more than $17 million in two years working for the pro-Russia political party that controlled Ukraine's government, according to documents filed late Tuesday.....Manafort, who resigned from Trump's campaign last August after his work for Ukrainian interests came under scrutiny

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Paul Manafort, Who Once Ran Trump Campaign, Surrenders to F.B.I.

Former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort To Surrender In Russia Probe Former Manafort business associate Rick Gates also is expected to be charged.

Paul Manafort, onetime campaign chairman to President Donald Trump, and former business associate Rick Gates have been told to surrender to federal authorities, multiple news outlets reported on Monday. Manafort was spotted by reporters leaving his condo in Virginia early on Monday.

Manafort and Gates are expected to be charged in an intensifying investigation into Russian meddling in the United States’ 2016 presidential election.

The office of special counsel Robert Mueller, which is conducting the probe, is expected to serve the indictment on Monday. The apparent forthcoming arrests come three days after news broke that a federal grand jury in Washington had filed the first charges stemming from Mueller’s investigation.

Mr. Gates is a longtime protégé and junior partner of Mr. Manafort. His name appears on documents linked to companies that Mr. Manafort’s firm set up in Cyprus to receive payments from politicians and businesspeople in Eastern Europe, records reviewed by The New York Times show.

Mr. Manafort had been under investigation for violations of federal tax law, money laundering and whether he appropriately disclosed his foreign lobbying.

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CIA: Kim Jong Un isn't crazy

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The nature of kingship in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth follows the events that occur during Macbeth’s unlawful rise to the throne......The themes of greed, arrogance and excessive political ambition are still, very relevant to the world today. Shakespeare got it right - his story of Macbeth still applies to today's world....

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"Between the ruthless executions of his own senior officers, bombastic threats of nuclear annihilation and defiant missile tests, it may be easy to agree with President Donald Trump's recent assessment that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is a "madman" who is "on a suicide mission for himself."

But top officials from the CIA said Wednesday that Kim's actions are not those of a maniacal provocateur but a "rational actor" who is motivated by clear, long-term goals that revolve around ensuring regime survival. "There's a clarity of purpose in what Kim Jong Un has done," according to Yong Suk Lee, deputy assistant director of the CIA's Korea Mission Center, who discussed the escalating tensions between North Korea and the US during a conference organized by the agency at George Washington University.

North Korea has long maintained it wants nuclear weapons and long-range missiles to deter the United States from attempting to overthrow the regime of Kim Jong Un. Pyongyang looks at states such as Iraq -- where Saddam Hussein was overthrown by the United States -- and Libya -- its late leader, Moammar Gadhafi, gave up his nuclear ambitions for sanctions relief and aid, only to be toppled and killed after the United States intervened in his country's civil unrest -- and believes that only being able to threaten the US mainland with a retaliatory nuclear strike can stop American military intervention.

Many experts say they believe North Korea would not use the weapons first. Kim values his regime's survival above all else and knows the use of a nuclear weapon would start a war he could not win, analysts say.... "Waking up one morning and deciding he wants to nuke" Los Angeles is not something Kim Jong Un is likely to do, Lee said. "He wants to rule for a long time and die peacefully in his own bed." And for CIA officers, diplomats and lawmakers tasked with utilizing intelligence to protect the US and its allies from the security threats posed by North Korea, understanding that purpose could prove to be key in avoiding a potentially devastating military conflict.

US-led efforts to apply additional diplomatic pressure on North Korea in recent months have been met with greater defiance as the Kim regime continues to march toward realizing its nuclear ambitions. Despite assurances from Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that the US continues to seek a peaceful resolution, neither side has overtly indicated that it is ready or willing to engage in serious negotiations.

The mixed-messages coming from the Trump administration also continue to raise questions about the US approach to North Korea. Trump has repeatedly undercut comments made by his top officials and publicly engaged in a war of words with Kim that has devolved into insults and name-calling -- only raising fears of an eventual military conflict.

"When they hear what's coming from the President, I think it resonates with them," said Ambassador Joseph R. DeTrani, who previously served at the Department of State as the Special Envoy for Six-Party Talks with North Korea. "But they also know we have a process and I think right now they're probing," he said. But while Trump continues to publicly paint Kim as an irrational dictator, CIA officials said the intelligence community views the North Korean leader's actions through a different lens.

"The last person who wants conflict on the peninsula is actually Kim Jong Un," Lee said. "We have a tendency in this country and elsewhere to underestimate the conservatism that runs in these authoritarian regimes." While Kim may not want a war with the US, he does view the strategy of perpetuating a confrontational relationship as a key to maintaining his grip on power, according to Lee and Michael Collins, deputy assistant director of the east Asia and Pacific mission center at the CIA.

"North Korea is a political organism that thrives on confrontation," Lee said. Since succeeding his father in 2011, Kim's rise from political novice to adept operator has stemmed from a calculated commitment to consolidating power within his own regime and transforming North Korea into a nuclear state. Internally, Kim has demonstrated a willingness to purge those who might pose a threat to his rule. One report from a South Korean think tank, the Institute for National Security Strategy, claims he has ordered the executions of at least 340 people since he came to power -- 140 of whom were senior officers in the country's government, military and ruling Korean Worker's Party.

In 2013 he executed his own uncle, Jang Song Thaek. By making it particularly visible, with state media declaring Jang a "traitor for all ages," Kim made sure there was no dissent to the decision.

'Sweating profusely' and clutching his head: Kim Jong Nam's last moments He is also accused of ordering the assassination of his half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, earlier this year in Malaysia but North Korea has repeatedly and vehemently denied any involvement. While ruthless and violent, Kim's behavior fits the profile of a leader acting out of his own self-interest, rather than emotion or impulse, Lee said -- a theme that is consistent in his dealings with the US as well.

"Kim's long-term goal is to come to some sort of big power agreement with the US and to remove US presence from the peninsula," Lee said, adding he wants to make North Korea relevant on the global stage again.

But Kim's efforts to develop a reliable long-range nuclear weapon have long conflicted with the security priorities of the US and its allies in the region -- a concern that has become more urgent in recent months in the wake of several successful missile and nuclear tests.

"North Korea is clearly testing the patience of the US and international community," Collins said. "With each increasing escalation, they're raising the threshold for the United States and others to accept or press back against that." But Kim seems undeterred by Trump's threats despite the US President telling the United Nations General Assembly last month that Kim is "on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime." Kim's actions indicate he is no longer constrained by fears that China might abandon its support for his regime or that the US will launch a military strike -- two major factors that have tempered Pyongyang's boldness in the past, according to Lee.

Unbounded by those fears, the situation "becomes a tolerance of wills," Lee said, adding now the question is "how far will Kim Jong Un go?" Collins and Lee both emphasized that China could still wield significant influence over North Korea but said Beijing would have to make the choice of prioritizing its relationship with the US over the strategic benefits of backing Pyongyang. "China's strategic goal is to frustrate US and maintain division of peninsula," Lee said, adding that the US must continue to demonstrate to both Beijing and Pyongyang that all options remain on the table through shows of military force.

"First and foremost, the situation with North Korea is a test of what China wants in its relationship with US," Collins added. According to Collins, the intelligence community is currently wrestling with questions related to North Korea's resolve and monitoring how major players in the region respond to Pyongyang's provocations in an effort to gauge how far the Kim regime is willing to push the envelope. Kim remains unlikely to intentionally start a war with the US or its allies like South Korea as that would almost certainly result in his own destruction, according to Collins and Lee, but both CIA officials said they anticipate tensions with North Korea will continue -- raising the risk of a miscalculation from both sides. "The South Korean and North Korean Navy's are going toe-to-toe every day ... there is potential for conflict at anytime," Lee said. "We could stumble into something," DeTrani said, noting a potential scenario in which the US shoots down a North Korean missile deemed to be an imminent threat and prompting a response from Pyongyang. And while the prospect of a North Korean preemptive strike on the US or one of its allies remains unlikely, DeTrani admitted that "there is a sense that North Korea is unpredictable if put into a corner."

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Text of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's response to Trump

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The nature of kingship in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth follows the events that occur during Macbeth’s unlawful rise to the throne......The themes of greed, arrogance and excessive political ambition are still, very relevant to the world today. Shakespeare got it right - his story of Macbeth still applies to today's world....

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Click Here to view the Index

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In a rare if not unprecedented move, North Korea released a statement directly from its leader in response to President Donald Trump's criticism in his speech to the United Nations earlier this week. The response, transmitted by North Korea's state news agency KCNA, reads as follows:

Respected Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK, released a statement on Thursday. The full text of the statement reads:

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The speech made by the U.S. president in his maiden address on the UN arena in the prevailing serious circumstances, in which the situation on the Korean peninsula has been rendered tense as never before and is inching closer to a touch-and-go state, is arousing worldwide concern.

Shaping the general idea of what he would say, I expected he would make stereo-typed, prepared remarks a little different from what he used to utter in his office on the spur of the moment as he had to speak on the world's biggest official diplomatic stage.

But, far from making remarks of any persuasive power that can be viewed to be helpful to defusing tension, he made unprecedented rude nonsense one has never heard from any of his predecessors.

A frightened dog barks louder.

I'd like to advise Trump to exercise prudence in selecting words and to be considerate of whom he speaks to when making a speech in front of the world.

The mentally deranged behavior of the U.S. president openly expressing on the UN arena the unethical will to "totally destroy" a sovereign state, beyond the boundary of threats of regime change or overturn of social system, makes even those with normal thinking faculty think about discretion and composure.

His remarks remind me of such words as "political layman" and "political heretic" which were in vogue in reference to Trump during his presidential election campaign.

After taking office Trump has rendered the world restless through threats and blackmail against all countries in the world. He is unfit to hold the prerogative of supreme command of a country, and he is surely a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire, rather than a politician.

His remarks which described the U.S. option through straightforward expression of his will have convinced me, rather than frightening or stopping me, that the path I chose is correct and that it is the one I have to follow to the last.

Now that Trump has denied the existence of and insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world and made the most ferocious declaration of a war in history that he would destroy the DPRK, we will consider with seriousness exercising of a corresponding, highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history.

Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say.

As a man representing the DPRK and on behalf of the dignity and honor of my state and people and on my own, I will make the man holding the prerogative of the supreme command in the U.S. pay dearly for his speech calling for totally destroying the DPRK.

This is not a rhetorical expression loved by Trump.

I am now thinking hard about what response he could have expected when he allowed such eccentric words to trip off his tongue.

Whatever Trump might have expected, he will face results beyond his expectation.

I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U. S. dotard with fire."

By the associated press.....Sep 21, 2017

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Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska

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The nature of kingship in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth follows the events that occur during Macbeth’s unlawful rise to the throne......The themes of greed, arrogance and excessive political ambition are still, very relevant to the world today. Shakespeare got it right - his story of Macbeth still applies to today's world....

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Click Here to view the Index

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"Paul Manafort offered a Russian billionaire private briefings on the presidential campaign -- while he was Donald Trump's campaign chairman -- the Washington Post reports........Citing people familiar with the discussions, the Post said that Manafort penned an email through an intermediary, offering briefings to Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, an industrial metals magnate with ties to the Kremlin........What Paul Manafort wiretapping could mean for Russia probe ......"If he needs private briefings we can accommodate," Manafort's email says, as quoted by the Post."

"Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska (Russian: born January 2, 1968) is a Russian oligarch and philanthropist. He is the founder and owner of one of the largest Russian industrial groups Basic Element. He is the president of En+ Group and United Company Rusal, the second largest aluminium company in the world......He was once Russia's richest man, worth $28 billion, but nearly lost everything due to mounting debts amid the 2007–08 financial crisis. As of May 2017, his wealth was estimated by Forbes at $5.2 billion. Deripaska is also known for his close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin, as well as his connection to American political consultant Paul Manafort, whom Deripaska employed from at least 2005 to 2009.....He is married to Polina Yumasheva, step-granddaughter of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin."

"In July 2006, whilst Deripaska was involved in a bid to buy the Daimler Chrysler Group, it was reported that the United States canceled his entry visa; the unnamed official declined to give a reason for the revoking of the visa. The Wall Street Journal reported that it could have been because Deripaska has been accused of having links to organized crime in Russia and cited as their sources two unnamed U.S. law enforcement officials."

"On 25 January 2010, the Financial Times published a story "Rusal: A lingering heat" exploring Deripaska's business relations with Sergei Popov and Anton Malevsky, alleged heads of Russian organized crime groups. Deripaska has accused Michael Chernoy of using Malevsky and the Izmailovskaya syndicate to extort US$250 million from him as part of a protection racket. However, Deripaska has himself been accused of having similar links to Malevsky, who, with his brother Andrei, owned a 10% stake in Deripaska's company. Deripaska denies the claims."

"Deripaska has been described as "Putin's favorite industrialist." Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables from 2006 described Deripaska as "among the 2-3 oligarchs Putin turns to on a regular basis" and "a more-or-less permanent fixture on Putin's trips abroad."

"Paul Manafort......On 22 March 2017, the Associated Press published a report alleging that Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's former presidential campaign manager, negotiated a $10 million annual contract with Deripaska to promote Russian interests in politics, business, and media coverage in Europe and the United States, starting in 2005.....During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Manafort, via Kiev-based operative Konstantin Kilimnik, offered to provide briefings on political developments to Deripaska, though there is no evidence that the briefings took place."

"Anton Malevski, born in 1967, was the head of the Izmailovskaya Bratva (Muscovite mafia), linked to certain segments of the Russian secret services. He was prosecuted in 1993 for illegal possession of weapons and expatriated himself with false documents in Israel where he was welcomed by his old friend Mikhail Chernoy named Micha. In the context of the wars of aluminum, it became the "armed arm" of the Tchernoï group. Malevski was twice the subject of an international arrest warrant issued by Russia, and was then cleared by the Russian interior minister Vladimir Rouchail. In November 2001, the criminal leader of Izmailovo died during a parachute jump in South Africa. Some doubt the reality of this death. His brother Andrei manages his affairs in Russia."

"According to Forbes, Moscow recently overtook NYC as the city with the most billionaires per square mile: Moscow had 74 people worth ten figures compared to New York, which had just 71. But those smarmy bazillionaires aren't staying put in Moscow or even in the de-facto Russian mogul ghetto of London. Many of them are spending time right here in New York: Real estate, oil, and metals scions from Russia and other former Soviet republics have been busy snatching up some of the most expensive apartments the city has to offer. Last month, a 42-year-old fertilizer kingpin named Dmitry Rybolovlev agreed to pay $100 million for Donald Trump's Palm Beach mansion, Maison de l'Amitié. The 59th richest man in the world, worth some $12.8 billion, his purchase includes a 33,000-square-foot home and 6.5 acres of land. But he isn't the only one. After the jump, a list of the novi Russki who spend time in New York—just who these Soviet oligarchs are, how they made their money, and what exactly they're up to in town."....http://gawker.com/500906/know-your-new-york-lovin-russian-oligarchs

"How Russia's mafia is taking over Israel's underworld.... The Israeli authorities grant citizenship to anyone who can prove Jewish ancestry The BBC's Kevin Connolly investigates the Russian mafia's covert invasion of Israeli society. There are alarming signs that the Russian mafia has taken over the Israeli underworld and is using the country to launder its vast profits.....A wave of mass immigration from the former Soviet Union has brought 750,000 newcomers to the Jewish state in the last decade.Amid the innocent exodus were Russian gangsters, many of whom are believed to have produced bogus proof of Jewish ancestry to enter the country.....Police in Israel have been keeping around 30 organised key crime suspects under surveillance......Former police chief Asaf Hefetz says £2.5bn ($4bn) of organised crime money from the former Soviet Union has been invested in Israeli real estate, businesses and banks in the past seven years......Gregory Lerner, who was arrested in 1997 for defrauding four Russian banks of £70m ($106m), was reputedly sent to Israel to head up one of the money laundering operations."....http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1998/03/98/russian_mafia/69521.stm

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Fired by Trump

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The nature of kingship in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth follows the events that occur during Macbeth’s unlawful rise to the throne......The themes of greed, arrogance and excessive political ambition are still, very relevant to the world today. Shakespeare got it right - his story of Macbeth still applies to today's world....

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Click Here to view the Index

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Here are the top-level people who've either been fired or forced out from the Trump administration:

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Steve Bannon.....White House officials confirmed that Trump had dismissed Steve Bannon, his chief strategist, on Friday after reports of clashes between Bannon and other members of the White House reached a fever pitch in recent days.....Bannon, who was instrumental in focusing the message of Trump's 2016 campaign, was considered the main conduit between Trump and his base of far-right voters. Bannon returned to his former job as executive chairman of Breitbart News.

"“In Kim, Trump has met his match,” I wrote. “The risk of two arrogant fools blundering into a nuclear exchange is more serious than at any time since October 1962.” Bannon told me, “It’s a great honor to finally track you down. I’ve followed your writing for years and I think you and I are in the same boat when it comes to China. You absolutely nailed it.....On Korea, they’re just tapping us along. It’s just a sideshow.” “There’s no military solution [to North Korea’s nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.”....“To me,” Bannon said, “the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. ”..... I’m getting Susan Thornton [acting head of East Asian and Pacific Affairs] out at State.”....“That’s a fight I fight every day here,” he said. “We’re still fighting. There’s Treasury and [National Economic Council chair] Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs lobbying.”.....Bannon was the architect of the strategy of using Breitbart to heat up white nationalism and then rely on the radical right as Trump’s base....“Ethno-nationalism—it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more.”.....“These guys are a collection of clowns,” ....

"The departure on Friday of Steve Bannon, the White House's top economic nationalist, will likely tip the trade policy scales in favor of the Trump administration's "globalist" faction, which could soften the stance toward two of Trump's favorite targets: China and the North American Free Trade Agreement. But after news that Trump had fired Bannon from his post as chief strategist, trade experts said it may take some time for National Economic Council Chairman Gary Cohn, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to start winning more debates on trade policy. He was to launch war against “globalists” in the White House.....The “globalists” include staff members like Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner who have more moderate political leanings."

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Anthony Scaramucci was hired as the White House communications director and then dismissed in less than two weeks. The decision came at the urging of John Kelly, the new White House chief of staff, according to a Times report......Scaramucci most notably made headlines for his interview with The New Yorker in which he unleashed an expletive-filled tirade against members of the Trump administration.

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Paul Manafort, who served as President Trump's campaign manager last year, made more than $17 million in two years working for the pro-Russia political party that controlled Ukraine's government, according to documents filed late Tuesday.....Manafort, who resigned from Trump's campaign last August after his work for Ukrainian interests came under scrutiny

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Reince Priebus resigned as White House chief of staff six months into his tenure after a public feud with Scaramucci......Trump announced in a tweet on June 28 that Kelly, the secretary of homeland security at the time, would take over for Priebus. Priebus resigned less than a week after Sean Spicer, the former press secretary, who was considered a Priebus ally in the White House.

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Sean Spicer, the embattled White House press secretary, resigned on July 21 after telling Trump he vehemently disagreed with the selection of Scaramucci as White House communications director.....Spicer's tenure was marred by controversy and a sometimes awkward relationship with the president. Spicer said at the time that he would stay in his role until August.

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Michael Dubke resigned as the White House communications director in May. Dubke was replaced by Scaramucci, the founder of a hedge fund and a top Trump donor.

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Walter Shaub resigned as the director of the Office of Government Ethics in July after clashing with the White House over Trump's complicated financial holdings.....Shaub called the Trump administration a "laughingstock" after his resignation, and he advocated strengthening the US's ethical and financial disclosure rules.

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James Comey......Trump fired James Comey as FBI director in May......At the time of his firing, Comey was handling the bureau's investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to meddle in the 2016 election, creating a firestorm of controversy for the Trump administration..

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Michael Flynn resigned in February after serving as national security adviser for less than a month......Flynn had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials about what he and Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the US, talked about in phone conversations during the transition — according to reports, they had discussed the Obama administration's sanctions against Russia....He registered retroactively as a foreign agent. Former national security adviser Michael Flynn has acknowledged lobbying for the government of Turkey in the months leading up to last year's election."

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Sally Yates......Trump fired Sally Yates, an appointee of President Barack Obama, as acting attorney general within his first 10 days in office. Yates had refused to uphold Trump's executive order on immigration and denounced it as unlawful......Yates was also instrumental in the events that led to Flynn's ouster, as she had informed Trump days after his inauguration that Flynn could be vulnerable to Russian blackmail.

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Preet Bharara.....Trump fired Preet Bharara as the US attorney for the Southern District of Manhattan in March after he refused to submit his resignation to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.......Bharara was fired along with several other Obama-era US attorneys, though Trump had initially asked Bharara during the transition to remain in his position.

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Katie Walsh, the former deputy chief of staff and close ally of Priebus, left the White House after nine weeks to run America First Policies, a pro-Trump group outside the government.

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Corey R. Lewandowski was campaign manager of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign for President of the United States from January 2015 to June 2016.....Lewandowski's motto as Trump's campaign manager was "Let Trump be Trump"...When Lewandowski was hired, Trump's political staff consisted of: his lawyer Michael D. Cohen, veteran operative Roger Stone, and aide Sam Nunberg.....veteran GOP operative, Paul Manafort....Michelle Fields, a reporter for Breitbart News, wrote that, after she asked Donald Trump a question when she approached him after a March 8, 2016, press conference in Jupiter, Florida, she was forcefully grabbed by Lewandowski....On June 20, 2016, Trump's campaign announced that it was parting ways with Lewandowski; according to reports, Lewandowski was fired."

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Sam Nunberg was fired in early August 2015....he believes that it was Lewandowski and campaign press secretary Hope Hicks who asked Trump for his ouster

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Roger Stone left the campaign a week later in September 2015

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Bill Browder’s Senate Judiciary Committee Testimony

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The nature of kingship in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth follows the events that occur during Macbeth’s unlawful rise to the throne......The themes of greed, arrogance and excessive political ambition are still, very relevant to the world today. Shakespeare got it right - his story of Macbeth still applies to today's world....

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Click Here to view the Index

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On Wednesday 26th July, financier Bill Browder was due to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee......Browder’s testimony, which received relatively little coverage, is extraordinary with a senator calling it one of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s “most important” hearings......In it he describes a Russian system of government that operates in the shadows using corruption, blackmail, torture and murder - all led by Vladimir Putin........Browder said: “Effectively the moment that you enter into their world, you become theirs.”

Bill Browder’s Senate Judiciary Committee Testimony....

"Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Feinstein, and members of the committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify today on the Russian government’s attempts to repeal the Magnitsky Act in Washington in 2016, and the enablers who conducted this campaign in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, by not disclosing their roles as agents for foreign interests.Before I get into the actions of the agents who conducted the anti-Magnitsky campaign in Washington for the benefit of the Russian state, let me share a bit of background about Sergei Magnitsky and myself.I am the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management. I grew up in Chicago, but for the last 28 years I’ve lived in Moscow and London, and am now a British citizen. From 1996 to 2005, my firm, Hermitage Capital, was one of the largest investment advisers in Russia with more than $4 billion invested in Russian stocks.Russia has a well-known reputation for corruption; unfortunately, I discovered that it was far worse than many had thought. While working in Moscow I learned that Russian oligarchs stole from shareholders, which included the fund I advised. Consequently, I had an interest in fighting this endemic corruption, so my firm started doing detailed research on exactly how the oligarchs stole the vast amounts of money that they did. When we were finished with our research we would share it with the domestic and international media."

in July 2003, Putin arrested Russia’s biggest oligarch and richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Putin grabbed Khodorkovsky off his private jet, took him back to Moscow, put him on trial, and allowed television cameras to film Khodorkovsky sitting in a cage right in the middle of the courtroom.......On November 13, 2005, as I was flying into Moscow from a weekend away, I was stopped at Sheremetyevo airport, detained for 15 hours, deported, and declared a threat to national security.....

Sergei Magnitsky was moved to a maximum security prison called Butyrka, which is considered to be one of the harshest prisons in Russia.....Sergei Magnitsky died on November 16, 2009, at the age of 37.....Sergei Magnitsky was murdered as my proxy. If Sergei had not been my lawyer, he would still be alive today...... the murder of Sergei Magnitsky was done to cover up the theft of $230 million from the Russian Treasury. I knew that the people who stole that money wouldn’t keep it in Russia.....In 2010, I traveled to Washington and told Sergei Magnitsky’s story to Senators Benjamin Cardin and John McCain. They were both shocked and appalled and proposed a new piece of legislation called The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act. This would freeze assets and ban visas for those who killed Sergei as well as other Russians involved in serious human rights abuse......

In November 2012 the Magnitsky Act passed the House of Representatives by 364 to 43 votes and later the Senate 92 to 4 votes. On December 14, 2012, President Obama signed the Sergei Magnitsky Act into law.......Putin was furious. Looking for ways to retaliate against American interests, he settled on the most sadistic and evil option of all: banning the adoption of Russian orphans by American families.

Since 2012 it’s emerged that Vladimir Putin was a beneficiary of the stolen $230 million that Sergei Magnitsky exposed. Recent revelations from the Panama Papers have shown that Putin’s closest childhood friend, Sergei Roldugin, a famous cellist, received $2 billion of funds from Russian oligarchs and the Russian state. It’s commonly understood that Mr. Roldugin received this money as an agent of Vladimir Putin....Based on the language of the Magnitsky Act, this would make Putin personally subject to Magnitsky sanctions....There are approximately ten thousand officials in Russia working for Putin who are given instructions to kill, torture, kidnap, extort money from people, and seize their property.

Since its passage in 2012, the Putin regime has gone after everybody who has been advocating for the Magnitsky Act./////One of my main partners in this effort was Boris Nemtsov......In 2015, Boris Nemtsov was murdered on the bridge in front of the Kremlin....The lawyer who represented Sergei Magnitsky’s mother was thrown off the fourth floor of his apartment building.....Vladimir Kara-Murza, also traveled to law-making bodies around the world to make a similar case.... in December of 2016, Vladimir was poisoned......Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2013 : “It’s too bad that Sergei Magnitsky is dead and Bill Browder is still alive and free.”.....

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/bill-browders-senate-judiciary-committee-hearing_uk_597ee55ce4b02a4ebb7675a6

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Trump Jr., Natalia Veselnitskaya and Rob Goldstone

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The nature of kingship in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth follows the events that occur during Macbeth’s unlawful rise to the throne......The themes of greed, arrogance and excessive political ambition are still, very relevant to the world today. Shakespeare got it right - his story of Macbeth still applies to today's world....

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Click Here to view the Index

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"At a critical juncture in Trump’s presidential campaign last year, his son Donald Trump Jr. met with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer who promised to share political dirt on Hillary Clinton. Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman at the time, and Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and a key strategist, also attended.

"Only six months in, Trump has compiled a record of dishonesty — ranging from casual misstatements to flat-out lies — without precedent in the modern presidency. Equally disheartening is his team’s willingness to share in his mendacity.......On Sunday, before Donald Trump Jr. acknowledged that there was a Clinton-related aspect to the meeting, Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, was on Fox News suggesting that the Veselnitskaya episode was “a big nothingburger” for the Trump campaign.

The June 9, 2016, meeting is of obvious interest to Robert Mueller III, the Justice Department special counsel investigating the Trump team’s potential involvement in Russia’s effort to influence the presidential election.

A meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya was set up at the request of Emin Agalarov, a Russian pop star whose Kremlin-connected family has done business with President Trump in the past, according to the person who arranged the meeting.

Rob Goldstone, a music publicist who represents Agalarov, confirmed on Monday that he requested the Trump Tower meeting at Agalarov’s request. Emin Agalarov and his father, Aras Agalarov, a wealthy Moscow real estate developer, helped sponsor the Trump-owned Miss Universe pageant in Russia in 2013.

After the pageant, the Agalarovs signed a preliminary deal with Trump to build a tower bearing his name in Moscow, though the deal has been on hold since Trump began running for president.

In Mueller’s office suite, though, I’m confident there was much more talk about Donald Trump Jr.’s stunning admission over the weekend: In June of last year, he summoned Trump’s then-campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to a meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer — described as having close connections with the Kremlin — in hopes of receiving derogatory information about Hillary Clinton.

In 2000, the Al Gore campaign was anonymously sent briefing books and a video that George W. Bush had used to prepare for an upcoming debate. Gore campaign officials immediately turned the material over to the FBI — which opened a criminal investigation.

Veselnitskaya is best known as a tireless crusader for repeal of the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 law blacklisting Russian officials believed responsible for the death of a well-known human rights activist. When President Barack Obama signed the law, Russian President Vladimir Putin was so vexed that he halted U.S. adoptions of Russian children in retaliation. It is safe to assume that if Veselnitskaya raised the subject of adoptions, as Trump Jr. says, it was part of an argument against the Magnitsky law.

Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it......The meeting was also attended by the president’s campaign chairman at the time, Paul J. Manafort, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner recently disclosed the meeting, though not its content, in confidential government documents described to The New York Times.

The Times reported the existence of the meeting on Saturday. But in subsequent interviews, the advisers and others revealed the motivation behind it......While Trump has been dogged by revelations of undisclosed meetings between his associates and the Russians, the episode at Trump Tower is the first such confirmed private meeting involving his inner circle during the campaign — as well as the first one known to have included his eldest son. It came at an inflection point in the campaign, when Donald Trump Jr., who served as an adviser and a surrogate, was ascendant and Mr. Manafort was consolidating power.

It is unclear whether the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, actually produced the promised compromising information about Mrs. Clinton. But the people interviewed by The Times about the meeting said the expectation was that she would do so......When he was first asked about the meeting on Saturday, Donald Trump Jr. said that it was primarily about adoptions and mentioned nothing about Mrs. Clinton......Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also attended the meeting last year at Trump Tower.

But on Sunday, presented with The Times’s findings, he offered a new account. In a statement, he said he had met with the Russian lawyer at the request of an acquaintance from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which his father took to Moscow. “After pleasantries were exchanged,” he said, “the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.”

The intermediary was Rob Goldstone, a former British tabloid journalist and the president of a company called Oui 2 Entertainment who has worked with the Miss Universe pageant. He did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment......Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the president’s lawyer, said on Sunday that “the president was not aware of and did not attend the meeting.”

American intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian hackers and propagandists worked to tip the election toward Donald J. Trump, in part by stealing and then providing to WikiLeaks internal Democratic Party and Clinton campaign emails that were embarrassing to Mrs. Clinton. WikiLeaks began releasing the material on July 22.

“There’s no reason for this Russian government advocate to be meeting with Paul Manafort or with Mr. Kushner or the president’s son if it wasn’t about the campaign and Russia policy,” Mr. Schiff said after the initial Times report.

Ms. Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer invited to the Trump Tower meeting, is best known for mounting a multipronged attack against the Magnitsky Act......The adoption impasse is a frequently used talking point for opponents of the act. Ms. Veselnitskaya’s campaign against the law has also included attempts to discredit the man after whom it was named, Sergei L. Magnitsky, a lawyer and auditor who died in 2009 in mysterious circumstances in a Russian prison after exposing one of the biggest corruption scandals during Mr. Putin’s rule........Ms. Veselnitskaya’s clients include state-owned businesses and a senior government official’s son, whose company was under investigation in the United States at the time of the meeting. Her activities and associations had previously drawn the attention of the F.B.I., according to a former senior law enforcement official.

Ms. Veselnitskaya said in a statement on Saturday that “nothing at all about the presidential campaign” was discussed at the Trump Tower meeting. She recalled that after about 10 minutes, either Mr. Kushner or Mr. Manafort left the room.........She said she had “never acted on behalf of the Russian government” and “never discussed any of these matters with any representative of the Russian government.”.........The Trump Tower meeting was disclosed to government officials in recent weeks, when Mr. Kushner, who is also a senior White House aide, filed a revised version of a confidential form required to obtain a security clearance..........The Times reported in April that he had not disclosed any foreign contacts, including meetings with the Russian ambassador to the United States and the head of a Russian state bank. Failure to report such contacts can result in a loss of access to classified information and even, if information is knowingly falsified or concealed, in imprisonment.

Mr. Kushner’s advisers said at the time that the omissions were an error, and that he had immediately notified the F.B.I. that he would be revising the filing..........Mr. Manafort, the former campaign chairman, also recently disclosed the meeting, and Donald Trump Jr.’s role in organizing it, to congressional investigators who had questions about his foreign contacts, according to people familiar with the events. Neither Mr. Manafort nor Mr. Kushner was required to disclose the content of the meeting.

Since Trump took office, Donald Trump Jr. and his brother Eric have assumed day-to-day control of their father’s real estate empire. Because he does not serve in the administration and does not have a security clearance, Donald Trump Jr. was not required to disclose his foreign contacts. Federal and congressional investigators have not publicly asked for any records that would require his disclosure of Russian contacts.

In addition to her campaign against the Magnitsky Act, Ms. Veselnitskaya represents powerful players in Russia. Among her clients is Denis Katsyv, the Russian owner of Prevezon Holdings, an investment company based in Cyprus. He is the son of Petr Katsyv, the vice president of the state-owned Russian Railways and a former deputy governor of the Moscow region. In a civil forfeiture case in New York, the Justice Department alleged that Prevezon had helped launder money linked to the $230 million corruption scheme exposed by Mr. Magnitsky by putting it in real estate and bank accounts. Prevezon recently settled the case for $6 million without admitting wrongdoing.

Ms. Veselnitskaya and her client also hired a team of political and legal operatives in the United States. The team included Rinat Akhmetshin, an émigré to the United States who once served as a Soviet military officer and who has been called a Russian political gun for hire. Fusion GPS, a consulting firm that produced an intelligence dossier that contained unverified allegations about Mr. Trump, was also hired to do research for Prevezon.

The F.B.I. began a counterintelligence investigation last year into Russian contacts with any Trump associates. Agents focused on Mr. Manafort and a pair of advisers, Carter Page and Roger J. Stone Jr......Among those now under investigation is Michael T. Flynn, who was forced to resign as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser after it became known that he had falsely denied speaking to the Russian ambassador about sanctions imposed by the Obama administration over the election hacking.

Congress later learned that Mr. Flynn had been paid more than $65,000 by companies linked to Russia, and that he had failed to disclose those payments when he renewed his security clearance and underwent an additional background check to join the White House staff."

Trump Jr. hired New York lawyer Alan Futerfas, who specializes in criminal defense and whose clients have included alleged organized crime figures, a Russian computer hacker and white-collar criminals."

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/opinion/donald-trump-jr-russian-lawyer.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-jrs-meeting-is-a-legal-game-changer/2017/07/10/bb2a39b0-65a0-11e7-9928-22d00a47778f_story.html?utm_term=.1fbd945443a8

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