LDS Freedom Forum

Dave62 wrote: ↑August 10th, 2020, 7:39 am Wow! 92 pages of Trump! That's quite an achievement. I used to say I didn't care; I'm not American, etc. But the anti Trump hysteria has grown to such a crescendo, the media have never been fully truthful, and the Left has become so livid with rage, that it reminds of Shakespeare's line "She doth protest too much, methinks." Now, if I were an American I would vote for him for absolutely no other reason than to see the Paedo-wood (Hollywood) elites cry. I thought they were moving to Canada anyway! Now, I'm off to go drive around in my V8 that runs on baby dolphin fat and plays Dixie for the horn.

larsenb wrote: ↑August 10th, 2020, 9:15 pm If you want a clear understanding of what is going on, watch this video that contains many speakers from the Davos Summit, etc., including George Soros, who will tell you exactly why we have been seeing the intense attacks on Donald Trump this past 4 years; what they are going to do with the COVID-19 plandemic, and why they believe they HAVE to get DT out of office, preferably before the election. This just about says it all . . . . but doesn't get into the very high level controllers guiding everything.

We are well into the beginning of their planned grand reset.

Here: viewtopic.php?p=1053084#p1053084

• President Donald Trump was briefly escorted from his press conference
• A Secret Service agent came in the room, whispered to him and led him out
• President said there was shooting outside White House
• 'There was a shooting outside of the White House and it seems to be very well under control,' President Trump said after he returned to the room
• He thanked the Secret Service for keeping him safe
• He said the suspect was shot and taken to a local hospital

Jason wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 12:19 pm

larsenb wrote: ↑August 10th, 2020, 9:15 pm If you want a clear understanding of what is going on, watch this video that contains many speakers from the Davos Summit, etc., including George Soros, who will tell you exactly why we have been seeing the intense attacks on Donald Trump this past 4 years; what they are going to do with the COVID-19 plandemic, and why they believe they HAVE to get DT out of office, preferably before the election. This just about says it all . . . . but doesn't get into the very high level controllers guiding everything.

We are well into the beginning of their planned grand reset.

Here: viewtopic.php?p=1053084#p1053084

George Soros has been supporting Trump...providing the yin to the yang...

larsenb wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 1:36 pm

Jason wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 12:19 pm

larsenb wrote: ↑August 10th, 2020, 9:15 pm If you want a clear understanding of what is going on, watch this video that contains many speakers from the Davos Summit, etc., including George Soros, who will tell you exactly why we have been seeing the intense attacks on Donald Trump this past 4 years; what they are going to do with the COVID-19 plandemic, and why they believe they HAVE to get DT out of office, preferably before the election. This just about says it all . . . . but doesn't get into the very high level controllers guiding everything.

We are well into the beginning of their planned grand reset.

Here: viewtopic.php?p=1053084#p1053084

George Soros has been supporting Trump...providing the yin to the yang...

In your worldview, Jason, you can't believe anything differently.

The transnationalist US foreign‐policy elite in exile? A comparative network analysis of the Trump administration

Trumpian foreign‐policy elite is shown to display some very distinctive characteristics, particularly with respect to a lack of previous political affiliations, ties with a different kind of corporate elite, and a disconnect with the policy‐planning networks that have been so central to the previous administrations

Jason wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 2:38 pm

larsenb wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 1:36 pm

Jason wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 12:19 pm

larsenb wrote: ↑August 10th, 2020, 9:15 pm If you want a clear understanding of what is going on, watch this video that contains many speakers from the Davos Summit, etc., including George Soros, who will tell you exactly why we have been seeing the intense attacks on Donald Trump this past 4 years; what they are going to do with the COVID-19 plandemic, and why they believe they HAVE to get DT out of office, preferably before the election. This just about says it all . . . . but doesn't get into the very high level controllers guiding everything.

We are well into the beginning of their planned grand reset.

Here: viewtopic.php?p=1053084#p1053084

George Soros has been supporting Trump...providing the yin to the yang...

In your worldview, Jason, you can't believe anything differently.

And yours is so much more accurate by ignoring what's in plain sight...???

Will Trump Be Meeting With His Counterpart — Or His Handler?
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/07 ... usion.html

larsenb wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 2:52 pm

Jason wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 2:38 pm

larsenb wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 1:36 pm

Jason wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 12:19 pm

George Soros has been supporting Trump...providing the yin to the yang...

In your worldview, Jason, you can't believe anything differently.

And yours is so much more accurate by ignoring what's in plain sight...???

Will Trump Be Meeting With His Counterpart — Or His Handler?
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/07 ... usion.html

Still hung up on Trump's alleged collusion with Russia, eh? Mueller did really well with that, too. And from New York Magazine, yet.

As I mentioned, I'm focused on the really good and important things DT has done and is trying to do. I'll leave you to your black-and-white fantasies . . . . . which have you trapped.

Jason wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 2:57 pm

larsenb wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 2:52 pm

Jason wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 2:38 pm

larsenb wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 1:36 pm

In your worldview, Jason, you can't believe anything differently.

And yours is so much more accurate by ignoring what's in plain sight...???

Will Trump Be Meeting With His Counterpart — Or His Handler?
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/07 ... usion.html

Still hung up on Trump's alleged collusion with Russia, eh? Mueller did really well with that, too. And from New York Magazine, yet.

As I mentioned, I'm focused on the really good and important things DT has done and is trying to do. I'll leave you to your black-and-white fantasies . . . . . which have you trapped.

lol...I haven't gone to the corner with my hands in my ears chanting...see no evil...

It is black and white. The devil trys to paint the shades of gray....

larsenb wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 3:18 pm

Jason wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 2:57 pm

larsenb wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 2:52 pm

Jason wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 2:38 pm

And yours is so much more accurate by ignoring what's in plain sight...???

Will Trump Be Meeting With His Counterpart — Or His Handler?
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/07 ... usion.html

Still hung up on Trump's alleged collusion with Russia, eh? Mueller did really well with that, too. And from New York Magazine, yet.

As I mentioned, I'm focused on the really good and important things DT has done and is trying to do. I'll leave you to your black-and-white fantasies . . . . . which have you trapped.

lol...I haven't gone to the corner with my hands in my ears chanting...see no evil...

It is black and white. The devil trys to paint the shades of gray....

Certain things are black-and-white; e.g., deliberately murdering someone for gain. Also, the evil that Davos is trying to inflict on the world, despite their passionate belief that what they are doing is the right thing. They obviously don't have a good understanding of the issues of liberty.

It's also black-and-white to recognize that DT has been trying to fight the Davos agenda.

And wending your way in this world is fraught with paths that bring you into a gray, confusing maze where you may be forced to make ambiguous decisions. Now, your life may be an exception to this general rule; though, I doubt it.

The Oligarchs

Oleg Deripaska is said to be one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's favorite oligarchs, and he is founder and majority shareholder of Russia's Rusal, the second-largest aluminum company in the world. Blavatnik holds a stake in Rusal with a business partner.

Further, nearly 4 percent of Deripaska's stake in Rusal is owned by Putin's state-controlled bank, VTB, which is currently under U.S. sanctions. VTB was exposed in the Panama Papers in 2016 for facilitating the flow of billions of dollars to offshore companies linked to Putin.

Earlier this year, The Associated Press reported that Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, began collecting $10 million a year in 2006 from Deripaska to advance Putin's interests with Western governments. Deripaska's name turned up again in an email handed over to Mueller's team by Manafort's attorneys. According to The Washington Post, in the email dated July 7, 2016, just two weeks before Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president, Manafort asked an overseas intermediary to pass a message on to Deripaska: "If he [Deripaska] needs private briefings, tell him we can accommodate."

Viktor Vekselberg is one of the 10 richest men in Russia. He and long-time business partner Blavatnik hold a 20.5 percent stake in Rusal. (They met while attending university in Russia.)

In 1990, Blavatnik and Vekselberg co-founded the Renova Group for large-scale investments in energy, infrastructure, aluminum and other metals. One of their earliest investments was in Tyumen Oil Co. (TNK), founded in 1995. TNK is best known for its contentious partnership with British Petroleum after the two entities formed a joint venture in 2003. That rocky relationship ended 10 years later when they sold out to the state-controlled energy giant, Rosneft, under pressure from the Russian government.

As for BP, that pressure took the form of growing harassment and intimidation from Russian authorities who at one point, according to Forbes, refused to renew visas for BP employees, forcing BP's joint venture chief Robert Dudley (who is now chief executive of BP) to flee Russia and manage TNK-BP from a foreign outpost in a secret location.

Vekselberg has connections to at least two Americans who made significant GOP campaign contributions during the last cycle. They are among several Americans who also merit Mueller's scrutiny.

The Americans

Andrew Intrater, according to Mother Jones, is Vekselberg's cousin. He is also chief executive of Columbus Nova, Renova's U.S. investment arm located in New York. (FEC records list his employer as Renova US Management LLC.)

Intrater had no significant history of political contributions prior to the 2016 elections. But in January 2017 he contributed $250,000 to Trump's Inaugural Committee. His six-figure gift bought him special access to a dinner billed as "an intimate policy discussion with select cabinet appointees," according to a brochure obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.

Alexander Shustorovich, chief executive of IMG Artists, attempted to give the Republican Party $250,000 in 2000 to support the George W. Bush presidential campaign, but his money was rejected because of his ties to the Russian government, according to Quartz. So why didn't the Trump team reject Shustorovich's $1 million check to Trump's Inaugural Committee?

Simon Kukes is an oil magnate who has something in common with Intrater. From 1998 to 2003, he worked for Vekselberg and Blavatnik as chief executive of TNK. Redacted CIA documents released in 2003 under the Freedom of Information Act said "TNK president Kukes said that he bribed local officials." The CIA confirmed the authenticity of the reports to The Guardian newspaper but would not comment further. In 2016, Kukes contributed a total of $283,000, much of it to the Trump Victory Fund. He had no significant donor history before last year's election.

There is no doubt that Kukes has close ties to the Putin government. When he left his job as CEO of TNK in June 2003, he joined the board of Yukos Oil, which at the time was the largest oil company in Russia owned by the richest man in Russia, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Four months after Kukes joined the board, authorities arrested Khodorkovsky at gunpoint on his private plane in Siberia on trumped up charges of tax evasion and tapped Kukes to be CEO. This decision could only have been made at the highest levels in the Kremlin. The arrest of Khodorkovsky rattled the nerves of international investors and was the first tangible sign that Putin was not going to be the kind of leader that global executives and Western governments had expected him to be when he first took office in 2000.

Khodorkovksy was given a 13-year sentence in a Siberian prison and served 10 years before being released by Putin in December 2013, a month before the start of the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi, as a sign of goodwill. As for the fate of Khodorkovksy's company, its largest oil subsidiary was sold in a sealed bid auction to Baikal Financial Group, a shell company with an unpublished list of officers. Baikal was registered at an address that turned out to be a mobile phone store in Tver, Russia. Three days after the auction, all of Baikal's assets were acquired for an undisclosed sum by Rosneft, the Russian oil giant that went on to buy TNK-BP in 2013.

In total, Blavatnik, Intrater, Shustorovich and Kukes made $10.4 million in political contributions from the start of the 2015-16 election cycle through September 2017, and 99 percent of their contributions went to Republicans. With the exception of Shustorovich, the common denominator that connects the men is their association with Vekselberg. Experts who follow the activities of Russian oligarchs told ABC News that they believe the contributions from Blavatnik, Intrater and Kukes warrant intense scrutiny because they have worked closely with Vekselberg.

Even if the donations by the four men associated with Russia ultimately pass muster with Mueller, one still has to wonder: Why did GOP PACs and other Trump-controlled funds take their money? Why didn't the PACs say, "Thanks, but no thanks," like the Republicans said to Shustorovich in 2000? Yes, it was legal to accept their donations, but it was incredibly poor judgment.

McConnell surely knew as a participant in high level intelligence briefings in 2016 that our electoral process was under attack by the Russians. Two weeks after the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement in October 2016 that the Russian government had directed the effort to interfere in our electoral process, McConnell's PAC accepted a $1 million donation from Blavatnik's AI-Altep Holdings. The PAC took another $1 million from Blavatnik's AI-Altep Holdings on March 30, 2017, just 10 days after former FBI Director James Comey publicly testified before the House Intelligence Committee about Russia's interference in the election.

And consider Steve Mnuchin, Trump's campaign finance chairman. Could he have known that the Trump Victory Fund, jointly managed by the Republican National Committe and Trump's campaign, took contributions from Intrater and Kukes? Mnuchin owned Hollywood financing company RatPac-Dune with Blavatnik until he sold his stake to accept Trump's appointment as the Treasury secretary.

Which PAC officials are making the decisions to accept these donations?

Erik Prince, brother of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, contributed $150,000 to Mercer's Make America Number 1 PAC and another $100,000 to the Trump Victory Fund. Prince has recently testified to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence about his trip to the remote Seychelles for a secret meeting in December 2016 with a close ally of Putin, Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. The purpose of the meeting was allegedly to setup a back channel of communication between then president-elect Donald Trump and the Russians, though Prince has denied this allegation. Before the 2015-16 elections, Prince's political contributions totaled a mere $31,800 as far back as 2007, according to FEC records.

The hybrid super-PAC, The Committee to Defend the President, was formed in 2013 under the name Stop Hillary PAC. It is managed by Dan Backer, the lead attorney who won the McCutcheon vs. Federal Election Commission case in 2014. The Supreme Court decision eliminated the cap on how much wealthy individuals can donate to federal candidates, parties and PACs in a single, two-year election cycle.

Like Bossie, Dan Backer helped to open the floodgates to millions of dollars of influence brought to bear on incumbents and their political challengers who are now pressured to kowtow to their donors with the biggest bank accounts, even if their billions are earned in Russian rubles.

Backer was born in Russia and emigrated with his family to the U.S. in 1978.

Trump lawyer Michael Cohen got money from AT&T, firm tied to Russian oligarch

A shell company that Michael Cohen used to pay hush money to a pornographic film actress received payments totaling more than $1 million from Dallas-based AT&T and a company linked to a Russian oligarch, among others with business before the Trump administration, according to documents and interviews.

Financial records reviewed by The New York Times show that Cohen, President Trump's personal lawyer and longtime fixer, used the shell company, Essential Consultants L.L.C., for an array of business activities that went far beyond what was publicly known. Transactions adding up to at least $4.4 million flowed through Essential Consultants starting shortly before Trump was elected president and continuing to January of this year, the records show.

AT&T confirmed in a statement Tuesday that it had paid the consulting firm "to provide insights into understanding the new administration." AT&T said it made the payment or payments in early 2017. It did not disclose the amount it paid and said the contract ended in December 2017.

AT&T is in the middle of a merger battle with the Justice Department, which sued to block its acquisition of the media and entertainment company Time Warner. The deal is valued at nearly $109 billion, including debt. The trial ended April 30, and a ruling is expected in mid-June.

Time Warner owns valuable TV and movie content, including networks such as CNN. During his campaign, Trump was a vocal opponent of the merger. He has frequently criticized CNN in speeches and in tweets for its political coverage, which he says has been unfair to him.

Also among the previously unreported transactions were payments last year of about $500,000 from Columbus Nova, an investment firm in New York whose biggest client is a company controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, the Russian oligarch. A lawyer for Columbus Nova, in a statement on Tuesday, described the money as a consulting fee that had nothing to do with Vekselberg.

Other transactions described in the financial records include hundreds of thousands of dollars that Cohen received from Fortune 500 companies with business before the Trump administration, as well as smaller amounts that Cohen paid for luxury expenses such as a Mercedes-Benz and private club dues.

References to the transactions first appeared in a document posted to Twitter on Tuesday by Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for Stephanie Clifford, the adult film star who was paid $130,000 by Essential Consultants to keep quiet about her allegations of a tryst with Mr. Trump. The lawyer's six-page document, titled "Preliminary Report of Findings," does not give the source of his information but describes in detail dates, dollar amounts and parties involved in various dealings involving Cohen and his company. Most of the transactions involved two banks: First Republic Bank and City National Bank.

NEW YORK — A contrite Michael Cohen on Wednesday received three years in prison for a series of tax fraud and lying charges, sending another former Donald Trump associate to jail.

Cohen's sentence is not as large as the four-plus years that federal prosecutors in New York wanted, but it nonetheless stands out as the biggest punishment to date tied to special counsel Robert Mueller's sprawling investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The sentence also puts a coda on the dramatic downfall for the 52-year-old longtime Trump lawyer who served in the president's inner circle as recently as this spring but turned on the man he declared he'd "take a bullet for" soon after FBI agents raided his home, office and hotel room.

"Today is the day that I am getting my freedom back,” Cohen told U.S. District Court Judge William Pauley, a Bill Clinton appointee who minutes later handed down the prison sentence. "I have been living in a personal and mental incarceration ever since the day that I accepted the offer to work for a real estate mogul whose business acumen that I deeply admired."

In addition to the prison time, which is scheduled to begin with his surrender to federal authorities on March 6, Cohen will have to forfeit $500,000 in assets and pay $1.393 million in restitution to the IRS.

Cohen, who has had a relationship with Trump dating back a dozen years, used his time before the court to hit back at the president’s recent declaration that his former attorney was “weak.” Cohen said he agreed with Trump’s assessment but noted his "weakness was a blind loyalty to Donald Trump."

“Time and time again I felt it as my duty to cover up his dirty deeds,” Cohen said, standing before his whole family in the courtroom. Both his mother and father cried at points during the hearing.

Minutes after Cohen learned his fate in court, Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani took a swing at the president’s former attorney by noting the size of his sentence compared to others in the special counsel’s 19-month old investigation.

“This is the first real criminal sentence,” Giuliani told POLITICO. “I have no idea if it’s the right one or not, but I do know he’s proven to be a consummate liar who has lied at all stages of his situation.”