HoltesThoughts: Drip Drip Drip And A Fraudulent Election is unmasked

Donald Trump is essentially admitting he worked with the Russians.

While the Russian Interference Affair is just the tip of a Vote Suppression, hacking, massive official fraud going on, this fraud is far more than just "opposition research." It threatens the survival of our republic's Democratic features. Increasingly, with the help of databases of personal information and unlimited money for buying politicians, We have people who think they can buy our elections with impunity.

Normalizing Hacking and Stealing Elections

There is a lot to say here. For more information on How the Right hacked our election, visit that page. The whole story has been growing over a period of years. But the Russian involvement has taken the corruption to a whole new level!

Trying to Normalize Treason and Racketeering

We now have virtually an entire party that is normalizing Russian Style (or Old Chicago Style) electioneering. "Winning" is now everything. And people who take silly things like integrity, virtue and rule of law are suddenly despised as "losers." We resist this, at considerable risk that we may find killings and extra-judicial lawlessness by officials will jail or kill us too. But we do it anyway, so that our children (or grandchildren) can inherit a system with integrity.

These things are as important as the Russians here. But what Donald Trump did with the help of the Russians crosses a legal line that is still in place. At least for now.

Timeline of the June 9th Meeting Emails reveal the Truth

The story about the release of the June 9th story is a story of an ever shifting pile of lies.

Meeting setup by Rob Goldstone June 3, 2016

He tells him Russian government is eager to provide "official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary" to the Trump campaign.

"This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump -- helped along by Aras and Emin," Goldstone said in the email.

Jr. Replied

"(I)f it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer."

Essentially he was doing something that normal people would go to jail for.

Meeting occured June 9th 2016. Trump & Co. Tried to keep it a secret.

Disclosed, on July 8th 2017:

Donald J. Trump Jr.,
Jared Kushner,
Paul Manafort met with:
Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya,

"To discuss Russian Adoptions

We found that, of course "Russian Adoptions was Code for talking about "The Magnitsky Act."

Then on July 11 [NY Times] Trump Jr. Releases Emails that raise even more questions.

Thursday July 13 Trump starts saying "nothing to see here."

July 14 2017 we find out that two more people attended the meeting.

bringing the count to 6

Rinat Akhmetshin and translator

They don't tell us who the translater and other two are, for a while. But the emails disclose who set up the meeting:

publicist Rob Goldstone, and it turns out he also attended. Bringing count to 7

And... we found the name of the tranlator on the thirteenth.

Translator: Anatoli Samochornov

Finally we find out an 8th person attended and he is named:

Ike Kaveladze's identity was confirmed by his attorney, Scott Balber.

He was identified today!

Randi Rhodes (listen to her if you want to figure it out!) covers this stuff. I wrote out the names because the story has been laid out in such bits and pieces I was having trouble keeping them strait.

She quips "there were more people at that meeting than the Bolshoi [Ballet]!

Denying the Obvious

This story came out in dribbles and drabs, but once the emails were released it was obvious.

The Emails Donald Trump Jr released Show an offer of Kompromat to the Trump Campaign, and a delighted acceptance of the material by Donald Trump Jr. Donald Trump Jr, as proxy for the campaign, was signaling an intent to break a number of laws and do something highly unethical, as he would have known that any kompromat the Russians had gained, would have come illegally. He essentially made a deal with the devil.

Everyone involved has a cover story.

"The lobbyist, first identified by the Associated Press as Rinat Akhmetshin, denies any current ties to Russian spy agencies. He accompanied the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, to the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower attended by Donald Trump Jr.; Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law; and Paul Manafort, former chairman of the Trump campaign." [change.org]

Part of a Covert Op against the Magnitsky Act

And an examination of context shows:

"He had been working with Veselnitskaya on a campaign against the Magnitsky Act, a set of sanctions against alleged Russian human rights violators. That issue, which is also related to a ban on American adoptions of Russian children, is what Veselnitskaya told NBC News she discussed with the Trump team." [change.org]

So when they said that the meeting was about "adoptions" that was obvious deflection. Obvious to anyone who knows that Russian sanctions on adopting Russian kids were imposed as retaliation for the Magnitsky Act.

The Cover Story is unbelievable

William Browder notes in Business Insider that:

"In the world of Russian intelligence, there is no such thing as a 'former intelligence officer,'" he said. "So in my opinion you had a member of Putin's secret police directly meeting with the son of the future next president of the United States asking to change US sanctions policy crucial to Putin." Business insider

"Denis Katsyv, the owner of Prevezon and the son of a senior Russian government official, Pyotr Katsyv, is represented by Veselnitskaya and has been at the center of efforts to overturn the adoption ban — which would start with the repeal of the Magnitsky Act. In February 2016, the younger Katsyv registered a nonprofit company in Delaware called the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation, the stated aim of which is to overturn the ban." Business insider

And her own words disclose she was doing this for Yuri Chaika. Being a private citizen working as a private lawyer is an obvious cover. As is the story for Akhmetshin:

"Records list Akhmetshin as the lead lobbyist for the foundation, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Business insider

A "former spy" lobbying in the United States? Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

Akhmetshin Has a Reputation

Before Veselnitskaya recruited Akhmetshin. He had been dealing with a lawsuit related to his alleged theft of kompromat from International Mineral Resources (IMR)

"A Russian mining company accused Akhmetshin of orchestrating a smear campaign against them in November 2015 that involved hacking into the company's private documents and disseminating them, The Daily Beast reported on Friday, citing court records." Business insider

In court papers filed with the New York Supreme Court in November 2015, Akhmetshin was described as “a former Soviet military counterintelligence officer” by lawyers for International Mineral Resources (IMR), a Russian mining company that alleged it had been hacked. According to the story he had acquired material off of one of their computers. When asked about it, he said that all the kompromat he'd gotten was from public sources. But allegedly, when a search warrant seized the drive it revealed material far in excess of anything that was in the public record.

The Uses of Kompromat

He was in trouble, until Veselniskaya, and probably Chaika, recruited him. However, once that happened, 'mysteriously':

"the company suddenly withdrew all allegations gainst Akhmetshin last year. Business insider

That is the way the Mafioso Russians do business.

You would think Republicans would Draw the line somewhere

The Republicans have driven off moderates and people with integrity. They've become increasingly ruthless. Their Pundits often openly so!

Even so, most Republicans up til recently, drew the line at working with a hostile foreign power:

As Chris Christie concedes:: "I think, quite frankly, it's probably against the law."
Yet Pundits like the execrable Judge Jeanine Pirro:: “As someone who’s run for office five times, if the devil called me and said he wanted to set up a meeting to give me opposition research on my opponent, I’d be on the first trolley to Hell to get it,” Fox

She and most of her party, admit they are willing to & seem to have already sold their souls for cash, attention and power. They'll do anything "to win." They'll lie to and steal from their voter base. They'll sabotage our institutions. They'll ignore or repeal rule of law and common decency. This is beyond sick and into evil. Anyone calling themselves an "evangelical Christian" and supporting this kind of evil is a hypocrite. Yet as Christopher Stroop has profiled and I blogged on before, that is exactly what they are doing! See:

Charlatans, Dominionists, Fanatics and Russians

Suddenly the Republican Party is fine with letting folks who want to destroy the democratic and popularist features of our Republic and subvert them or put them in the hands of oligarchs.

How they did it:: Both the Russians, the Republican National Committee and the Trump Campaign apparently gathered data by a mix of legal and illegal methods.; This data allowed them to target individuals in key districts and know what their concerns were.; The Russians hacked into emails and other sources to gather "kompromat" on Democrats, and specifically on Hillary Clinton, the DNC and Podesta. This he's referring to, euphemistically as "opposition research." But it was gathered illegally and the Russians broke the law to get it.; The Russians and Republicans both also sought demographic and usage data on ordinary voters, seeking to hack into databases to find info useful in targeting voters for individualized messaging.; This information was fed into databases along with legal information from facebook, google, etc...; Using database resources, experts, mostly US citizens could then weaponize the data from the kompromat hacks. Emails could be subtly altered. Stories were turned into mini-movies and cartoons. For example Hillary's defense of efforts to get dangerous criminals off the street were turned into a "Southpark" style cartoon and sent to African Americans who might otherwise have voted for her.; The Russians contributed an army of trolls and bots, some of them Americans, most posing as people they weren't, and pretending to live near their targets. These people were able to spread viral messages on group pages and among voters.; The Russian efforts combined with Republican and Election official voter suppression using tricks, some of them dating back to the original Jim Crow era, effectively sought to turn out voter turnout. Which skewed the election.; On top of that electronic votes could be flipped and tabulation machines hacked. Mostly by Republican Officials themselves. All these efforts were enough to change the vote in key areas so that Trump won the electoral college despite collapsing among sane people.

Who is Yuri Chaika

If you want to understand what we are up against with the Russian Government watch this video by the Russian Group Pussy Riot. It has subtitles:

Pussy Riot on Chaika (Seagull):: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VakUHHUSdf8
For Yuri, Paul Behrends and Dana Rohrbacher:: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/russian-anti-sanctions-campaign-turned-to-california-congressman/534102/

Ike Kaveladze

Turns out Ike Kaveladze is Russia's Money laundering expert in the United States. He's a dual citizen, which makes him effective at it back in the 90s when it was somewhat legal.

"Kaveladze was the president of International Business Creations, a Delaware corporation. Between 1991 and 2000, IBC and sister corporation Euro-American moved $1.4 billion from Eastern Europe through U.S. banks and back to Europe, the Government Accountability Office found in 2000. "

Of course if you asked him he'd deny it.