Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Mueller begins Indictments in the Russian Investigation

Jennifer Abele
Editor


The head of the Special Counsel investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections Robert Mueller III began indicting members of the former Trump campaign beginning with Paul Manafort Jr. and Richard Gates III on Oct. 27.
 Paul Manafort pleaded not guilty to nine counts of money laundering. He used the money to fund a luxury lifestyle. He also failed to register as a foreign agent while working as a lobbyist overseas.
 Richard  Gates also pleaded not guilty to seven counts. Gates was a lobbyist and political consultant who worked with Paul Manafort with the Ukrainian political party “Party of Regions.”In the 1980’s Manafort co-founded the Washington D.C. based lobbying firm Black,Manafort, and Stone. Rick Gates had interned at that particular lobbying firm. Gates then continued to join Davis and Paul Manafort’s lobbying firm in 2006. Both men started their partnership in 2006 and ended in 2015 after generating over tens of  millions for their work on the Ukraine. Both failed to register as foreign agents, and according to the indictment also failed to report work and fees.  From 2006 to 2016 Gates and Manafort allegedly laundered their funds from the Ukraine through corporations, bank accounts, and partnerships.
 The U.S. government alleges Gates and Manafort continued the schemes by laundering money to foreign nominees, companies, and foreign countries. The money was laundered to these foreign countries that they currently work with; Cypress, Grenadines, Saint Vincent, and Seychelles. After the partners were asked by the U.S. Government about foreign bank accounts, companies, etc. the pair falsely said there weren’t any; to avoid paying taxes.Between 2008 and 2017 Gates and Manafort attempted to defraud the United States by providing false information to tax accountants, financial bookkeepers, and legal council by devising a scheme to obtain money and property.
 Michael Flynn Sr. is currently being investigated for money laundering and pleaded guilty to lying to the federal agents about his overseas contact with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak back in December 2016. There is a two-page list of false statements made to Mueller about his interactions and communication with  the Russian Ambassador filed on Nov. 30. Additionally, there is information that Flynn was offered a deal by Turkish officials to attempt to remove, Fethullah Gülen, a chief rival of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, from the U.S. to Turkey for $15 millions.
 Michael Flynn Jr. was part of the transition team staying close to his father Michael Flynn Sr. Michael Flynn Jr. could be arrested during or after Flynn Sr. is indicted.  Michael Flynn Jr. continues to be most known for the tweets he produced about the “pizzagate” conspiracy theory and defending his father on the Twitter platform.  
 George Papadopoulos pled guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his connections to Russia. Papadopoulos knew that the Russian services were holding thousands of emails on Hillary that were promised to provide the dirt on Hillary Clinton. Papadopoulos has continued to cooperate with the FBI. Through the English-based professor, Joseph Mifsud, he then attempted to arrange a meeting with the Russians and Trump campaign to collect dirt on Hillary Clinton.
 Jared Kushner is also being investigated currently under the Russian Probe. Howard Dean, Former DNC Chairman, predicts Kushner will be charged with money laundering. He has had four undisclosed meetings with Russians and Trump campaign members, and he stated it didn’t mean he colluded with the Russians. A single source told Andrea Mitchell, that the White House Staffers and former Trump transition team members have been deleting calls and texts in attempt to prevent themselves from being subpoenaed. After debating whether or not Kushner scrubbed his Twitter account. Kushner has not yet tweeted any tweets after joining in 2009. Kushner was also aware of Donald Trump Jr being in contact with Wikileaks. Kushner gave Mueller the documents of the conversations between WikiLeaks and Donald Trump Jr.
 Donald Trump Jr. was in contact for ten month with Wikileaks. Trump Jr. passed the WikiLeak messages to Kellyanne Conway, Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, and Brad Parscale. Trump Jr. began corresponding with WikiLeaks two weeks before Podesta’s emails were leaked. Donald Trump Jr. submitted the direct messages between himself and WikiLeaks to Mueller’s team. “Here is my entire chain of messages with wikileaks(with my whopping three responses) which is one of the congressional committees has chosen to selectively leak. How Ironic!” Donald Trump Jr. tweeted.   

 Mueller’s investigation team continues to discover new information everyday for the public. The committee describes their investigation as incomplete and continues to lay out their schedule. Mueller’s team has at least 25 interviews to go, 2 hearings; one with Trump’s lawyer, the other with social medias, and 100,000 more pages of documents. Chairman Burr and Vice Chairman Warner suggested that if there is a case against Trump’s obstruction of justice charge to fire FBI Director James Comey, that it would be more appropriate for Senate Judiciary Committee or  Department of Justice special counsel Mueller. The Mueller investigation has now topped over five million dollars since the investigation kicked off  in July 2016.