HoltesThoughts: Russia, Veselnitskaya, Cambridge Analytica and the Mercers

I started this post last year in August, 2017. I wrote this while reading the material on The Steele "Trump Dossier", and Bill Browder's testimony. Later the testimony of Glenn Simpson would corroborate and contextualize Bill Browder's testimony but at the time too much was happening too fast and too many writers were covering too much material for me to focus on finishing it and so I focused on reading the information and following the reporters. So this got buried behind other posts. I need this information in one place for my own future reference. This page will change as I get better information. I should have gone ahead and published it then. But because since then an entire cornocopia corpus of books, articles and Mueller Investigation reports has grown up around the subject. I'm remedying that now.

Anyway Browder was a businessman who invested in Russia, found his companies accounts in arrears and hired a Russian guy named Magnitsky to sort out what was happening. In the process he found out that officials were stealing from his company. Magnitsky, being an intrepid accountant filed a complaint and that led him to be arrested, beaten and tortured, and killed in jail for the crime of telling on the Prosecutor General of Russia. I wrote on that in another blog entry. I need to get straight whether his name is Bill or Ben... It's Bill, but I keep calling him Ben. Oopsy... I like Ben Browder too. Loved his roles on TV.... Wonder if they are related?

My post on Bill Browder:

If Trump gets his Chaika, no more investigations, except into those who dare criticize or investigate! And my rightie friends seem just fine with that. So this is alarming.

The Council For National Policy

From Source Watch:

“Sith Lords of the Ultra-Right” by the liberal blog DailyKos. Mark Crispin Miller called CNP a “highly secretive... theocratic organization -- what they want is basically religious rule” [Article]

CNP is kind of the Secretive Governmental organ of the Far Right.

Links:: http://cfnp.org/about-us/; https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/cnp_redacted_final.pdf; https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Council_for_National_Policy

The Mercer Family and Donald Trump's Election

There are lots of excellent reports on this subject, much of it amateur. So this post is intended to aggregate those reports so we can puzzle through the maze and so I can keep track of the story to date. For the Mercers:

"Data Drives All we Do"

And they aren't shy about it either! Targeted Advertising is their Thing!

What is Cambridge Analytica Who are the Mercers?

Cambridge Analytica

Alexander Nix	Mark Turnbull
Ben Shankle	Laquan Austion
Peter Hobson	Molly Schweikert

Apparently Cambridge Analytica is connected to the Russian Oligarchy, though it is also the product of Robert and his daughter Rebekah Mercer. Robert Mercer doesn't like to be out in public, but he's deeply involved in politics so he doesn't earn a pass for that behavior. He sponsored the propaganda film "Clinton Cash."

"the Mercers have exerted pressure on the political system by helping erect an alternative media ecosystem, whose storylines dominated the 2016 race." [WP on Mercer]

They "built a power base aimed at sowing distrust of big Government and eroding the dominance of the major news media." But their possible role in the Trump Russia affair is what concerns people the most.

From Supporting Cruz to Whole Hog to Trump

The Mercers initially supported Cruz, but when they went to supporting Trump, they not only gave him money and electronic support, they contributed half his administration, including Steve Bannon. The Merger of the so-called "Alt-right" Bannon, Priebus and the Trump family led to the use of targeted advertising to influence the election. The Mercers, who claim to support the power of the people over the government (at least they don't call it gubbornment) used the power of targeted propaganda to manipulate people to support Trump. I think, that like many wealthy folks, "people" meant "their people."

Prevezon, Denis Katsyv, Veselnitskaya

The primary goal of the FSB was to get the Magnitsky Act repealed (or de-enforced) so that the oligarchs and operatives of the Russian regime could get back to the business of looting, offshoring the loot, laundering the loot, and investing it where they could stay, or get even more, filthy rich. They seem to have charged leading Oligarchs such as Denis Katsyv with leading the fray. They needed Russians and Americans who were not directly targeted by the Magnitsky act to act as proxies:

"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

Veselnitskaya As Lawyer

Crucial to that would be the actions of lobbyists like Manafort, American assets and at least one Russian Lawyer to represent them in court. Thus Katsyv was:

"....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]

When I wrote this last year the cover story for Akhmetshin was:

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

But he is probably an FSB spy, specializing in active measures, dirty tricks and similar. A perfect counterpart for the Roger Stone's and Manaforts of the World!

“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.”

And if he is not still a spy, I'm a Monkey's Uncle.

"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

He is expert at gathering and using kompromat and his connections to Russian Intelligence:

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

And he and Konstantin Kilimnik, who is a similar, probable spy, for Russia, are central to the Mueller Investigation. Kilimnik is more tied to Manafort than the Trump Organization directly.

“Special prosecutor and former head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Robert Mueller has indicted Konstantin Kilimnik, the man believed to be identified as Person A, in the investigation, Bloomberg and other media outlets are reporting.”

Legally innocent til proven guilty. But not cleared til from suspicion, maybe ever.