#George Nader linked to United Arab Emirates & Seychelles meetings

[malenipshadows]

  *** Special counsel Robert Mueller has been gathering evidence about the rendezvous, which took place less than two weeks before Trump’s inauguration. Mueller is reportedly looking to see if the meeting was meant to set up a secret back channel between Trump and Putin, the Russian president. ...    It’s not clear what Prince and the official talked about. But according to The New York Times, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, eventual national security adviser Michael Flynn and then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak discussed the possibility of setting up the communications channel in a December 2016 meeting. ***

[george--nader]

WASHINGTON — A witness who is cooperating in the special counsel investigation, George Nader, has connections to both the Persian Gulf states and Russia and may have information that links two important strands of the inquiry together, interviews and records show.

Continue reading the main story

Mr. Nader’s ties to the United Arab Emirates are well documented — he is an adviser to its leader — but the extent of his links to Russia had not been previously disclosed.

Mr. Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman, has a catalog of international connections that paved the way for numerous meetings with White House officials that have drawn the attention of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. For example, Mr. Nader used his longstanding ties to Kirill Dmitriev, the manager of a state-run Russian investment fund, to help set up a meeting in the Seychelles between Mr. Dmitriev and a Trump adviser days before Donald J. Trump took office.

Separately, investigators have asked witnesses about a meeting Mr. Nader attended in 2017 with a New York hedge fund manager, where he was joined by Jared Kushner and Stephen K. Bannon, who at the time were both senior advisers to Mr. Trump.

The investigative trail even led Mr. Mueller’s team to stop an Australian entrepreneur with ties to the U.A.E. after he landed at a Washington-area airport, according to people briefed on the matter. The investigators questioned the entrepreneur about Mr. Nader, including Mr. Nader’s relationship with Russia and his contacts with Mr. Trump’s advisers, as well as the movement of money from the U.A.E. into the United States.

Mr. Nader has received at least partial immunity for his cooperation, and it appears unlikely that Mr. Mueller is trying to build a case against him. Instead, it is common for prosecutors to interview as many people as possible to corroborate the testimony of a key witness like Mr. Nader.

Mr. Nader’s dealings with Russia date at least to 2012, when he helped broker a controversial $4.2 billion deal for the government of Iraq to buy Russian weapons. At the time, he was an informal adviser to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq, and he accompanied Mr. Maliki to Moscow in September 2012 to sign the arms deal at a meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Mr. Nader’s role in the deal was earlier reported by Al-Monitor.

The deal was canceled shortly after because of concerns about corruption, and a spokesman for the prime minister said it would be renegotiated.

Earlier that year, Mr. Nader also attended the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, an invitation-only conference organized by senior officials close to Mr. Putin that Russia presents as its answer to the World Economic Forum held annually in Davos, Switzerland. Mr. Nader is on a list of participants from 2012. Representatives of the St. Petersburg forum did not respond to inquiries about his attendance in subsequent years.

Since then, according to people familiar with his travels, Mr. Nader has returned frequently to Russia on behalf of the Emirati government. He even had his picture taken with Mr. Putin, according to one person who has seen the photograph, although it is unclear when the picture was taken.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, the de facto ruler of the U.A.E., is a close ally of the United States and a frequent visitor to the White House. He has also visited Moscow and met with Mr. Putin several times in recent years. One person briefed on the matter said Mr. Nader had accompanied the crown prince to Moscow on numerous occasions.

Last year, days before Mr. Trump took office, Mr. Nader helped set up a meeting at a Seychelles resort between Mr. Dmitriev, Emirati officials and Erik Prince, the former head of Blackwater Worldwide and an adviser to Mr. Trump’s transition team. The meeting, at the bar of a Four Seasons Hotel overlooking the Indian Ocean, was brokered in part to explore the possibility of a back channel for discussions between the Trump administration and the Kremlin, according to people familiar with the meeting.

Kirill Dmitriev, the manager of a state-run Russian investment fund, met with Mr. Nader and an adviser to the Trump campaign days before Donald J. Trump took office. Credit Ramil Sitdikov/Sputnik, via Associated Press

Such contacts are at the heart of Mr. Mueller’s investigation, and his investigators have repeatedly used aggressive tactics to press witnesses. About four weeks ago, F.B.I. agents working with Mr. Mueller’s team stopped a Russian oligarch at a New York-area airport, questioned him about his dealings with Mr. Trump and seized his electronics, according to a person familiar with the matter, which was first reported by CNN.

Mr. Mueller’s investigators have asked multiple witnesses about the Seychelles meeting, part of a broader line of inquiry surrounding contacts between Emirati advisers and Trump administration officials. They have also pressed for details about a meeting Mr. Nader attended in New York in early 2017 with Mr. Kushner and Mr. Bannon with the hedge fund manager Richard Gerson, a friend of Mr. Kushner’s and the founder of Falcon Edge Capital.

Mr. Mueller’s particular interest in that meeting is unclear, although Mr. Gerson has had business dealings with the court of the U.A.E.’s Prince Mohammed. Mr. Gerson has developed relations with several senior Emirati officials over the years, including with Prince Mohammed himself, and he has often sought investments from Emirati state funds.

Mr. Gerson’s family also has business and philanthropic ties to the Kushners. Mr. Kushner has been friends for more than a decade with Mr. Gerson’s brother Mark, a founder of the specialized research company Gerson Lehrman Group. Mark Gerson was also an early investor in Cadre, a real estate technology company founded by Mr. Kushner and his brother, Josh.

Jared Kushner’s family foundation has also donated tens of thousands of dollars to an Israeli medical aid group led by Mark Gerson.

A lawyer for Mr. Nader and a spokesman for Rick Gerson declined to comment. Mark Gerson did not reply to requests for comment.

Mr. Mueller’s investigators have also questioned Joel Zamel, an Australian entrepreneur who has an office in Tel Aviv and knows Mr. Nader, according to people briefed on the matter. Mr. Zamel has had contacts with senior U.A.E. officials close to its ruler since at least 2014.

In February, federal agents working for Mr. Mueller stopped Mr. Zamel at Reagan National Airport outside Washington and briefly seized his electronic devices, the people said. Mr. Zamel later appeared before a grand jury and was questioned about Mr. Nader, though it was unclear whether Mr. Zamel had any information about Mr. Nader’s ties to Russia.

Mr. Zamel is a witness in Mr. Mueller’s investigation and is not suspected of any wrongdoing, according to Marc Mukasey, a lawyer for Mr. Zamel and his crowdsourced consulting firm, Wikistrat. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Mr. Zamel informally met with Mr. Mueller’s team.

“Joel and Wikistrat have not been accused of anything, have done nothing wrong and are not the focus of the special counsel,” said Mr. Mukasey, a global chairman of Greenberg Traurig’s white-collar defense and special investigations practice. “Prosecutors like to question as many people as they can — even if they have tangential involvement and limited knowledge.”

Mr. Zamel briefly met last spring with Jared Kushner at the White House, another person said, though that meeting does not appear to be a focus of Mr. Mueller’s inquiry.

Wikistrat, which pays security experts around the world for their insights, has landed several government contracts, according to databases and news reports. Its website says the firm can draw from a group of more than 2,200 analysts worldwide who share their thinking on an interactive platform.

Some well-known experts serve on Wikistrat’s advisory council, including Michael V. Hayden, a former head of the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency, and Dennis Ross, a former United States diplomat with deep expertise in the Middle East.

By MARK MAZZETTI, DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, BEN PROTESS and SHARON LaFRANIEREAPRIL 4, 2018

Via New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/us/politics/george-nader-russia-uae-special-counsel-investigation.html

Witness in Mueller Inquiry Who Advises U.A.E. Ruler Also Has Ties to Russia WASHINGTON — A witness who is cooperating in the special counsel investigation, George Nader, has connections to both the Persian Gulf states and Russia and may have information that links two important strands of the inquiry together, interviews and records show.

[reneeacaseyfl]

In Mueller hearing, Democrats highlight Trump associates’ financial ties – ThinkProgress

During a hearing with former special counsel Robert Mueller on Wednesday, House Democrats highlighted the financial ties of President Donald Trump and some of his  closest associates — and their potential to open them up to blackmail by a hostile foreign power.

“In the case of Michael Flynn, he was secretly doing business with Turkey, correct?” House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) asked about Trump’s first national security adviser.

“Yes,” Mueller replied, confirming a covert business deal that led to the conviction of Flynn’s business partner, Bijan Rafiekian, on Tuesday.

“That could open him up to compromise that financial relationship?” Schiff continued.

“I presume,” the former special counsel replied.

Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, wasn’t the only one to come in for criticism by House Democrats on Wednesday for attempting to cash in during and immediately after the presidential campaign.

“Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, Erik Prince, and others in the Trump orbit all tried to use their connections with the Trump organization to profit from Russia, which was openly seeking relief from sanctions,” Rep. Denny Heck (D-WA) said, referring to a number of Trump associates. “Is that true, sir?” he asked Mueller.

Mueller declined to “adopt” Heck’s characterizations. But they point to a long line of public reporting that has highlighted various ways Trump and his associates allegedly tried to cash in during and after the 2016 election.

Michael Cohen

Michael Cohen, the president’s former lawyer and fixer, is currently serving a three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to financial crimes, campaign finance violations, and lying to Congress.

At his plea hearing last August, Cohen said he facilitated payments to women alleging they’d had affairs with Trump — payments that constituted illegal campaign contributions — “in coordination and at the direction of” Trump.

Cohen was also the point person for a deal to build a Trump-licensed high rise, dubbed Trump Tower Moscow, in the Russian capital. He has said that he lied to Congress to cover up how far into the 2016 presidential campaign those negotiations continued, after Trump publicly lied on several occasions during the campaign about having no business deals in Russia.

“I stated that we stopped negotiating in January 2016. That was false — our negotiations continued for months later during the campaign,” Cohen told the House Oversight Committee in February.

“Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress,” he added, saying the candidate nevertheless made it clear Cohen should lie on his behalf. “That’s not how he operates.”

Paul Manafort

Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chair, asked his longtime business partner Konstantin Kilimnik in April 2016 how he could use his position on the campaign to “get whole” — that is, to get money he was owed by former clients and clear his own debts.

Manafort later shared internal campaign polling data with Kilimnik, who reportedly has ties to Russian intelligence. Kilimnik has denied any wrongdoing.

Manafort was convicted on a host of charges, including financial crimes and obstruction of justice, last year. He is currently serving a seven-plus year prison sentence.

Jared Kushner

Several meetings that Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House aide, Jared Kushner, had during the presidential transition have come under scrutiny. But one in particular, on Dec. 13, 2016, raises questions about the real-estate magnate’s potential financial conflicts of interest.

The meeting involved Sergey Gorkov, chief executive of Russia’s state-owned Vnesheconombank and a graduate of the Federal Security Service academy. The bank has described the encounter as a business meeting, while Kushner and the White House have said it was a diplomatic meeting connected to the presidential transition.

At the time, Kushner’s company was looking for financing for an office building it owned at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Mueller’s team was not able to resolve those conflicting accounts, they said in their report.

Erik Prince

Erik Prince, founder of the infamous private-security firm Blackwater and an unofficial adviser to the Trump campaign, may be one of the most enigmatic figures in the Mueller report. While he did not figure prominently in Wednesday’s testimony, an entire section of the report was dedicated to a series of meetings Prince had at the Four Seasons resort in the Seychelles on Jan. 11, 2017.

Prince has said publicly, and in sworn congressional testimony, that it was a business meeting with leaders from the United Arab Emirates. While there, he says, he happened to have a short conversation with Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, at the hotel bar.

Mueller’s report told a different story. According to the report, which was based in large part on interviews Mueller’s team conducted with both Prince and his associate George Nader, the meetings centered on created a “back channel” between Russia and the Trump campaign and involved discussions of U.S. foreign policy positions.

ThinkProgress documented at least a dozen inconsistencies in April between Prince’s testimony in the Mueller report and what the told Congress. Days later, Schiff made a criminal referral to the Justice Department for Prince over possible perjury.

Asked about the inconsistencies earlier this year, Prince spokesman Marc Cohen declined to comment to ThinkProgress.

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from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/in-mueller-hearing-democrats-highlight-trump-associates-financial-ties-thinkprogress/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=in-mueller-hearing-democrats-highlight-trump-associates-financial-ties-thinkprogress from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.tumblr.com/post/186525074832

[velmaemyers88]

In Mueller hearing, Democrats highlight Trump associates’ financial ties – ThinkProgress

During a hearing with former special counsel Robert Mueller on Wednesday, House Democrats highlighted the financial ties of President Donald Trump and some of his  closest associates — and their potential to open them up to blackmail by a hostile foreign power.

“In the case of Michael Flynn, he was secretly doing business with Turkey, correct?” House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) asked about Trump’s first national security adviser.

“Yes,” Mueller replied, confirming a covert business deal that led to the conviction of Flynn’s business partner, Bijan Rafiekian, on Tuesday.

“That could open him up to compromise that financial relationship?” Schiff continued.

“I presume,” the former special counsel replied.

Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, wasn’t the only one to come in for criticism by House Democrats on Wednesday for attempting to cash in during and immediately after the presidential campaign.

“Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, Erik Prince, and others in the Trump orbit all tried to use their connections with the Trump organization to profit from Russia, which was openly seeking relief from sanctions,” Rep. Denny Heck (D-WA) said, referring to a number of Trump associates. “Is that true, sir?” he asked Mueller.

Mueller declined to “adopt” Heck’s characterizations. But they point to a long line of public reporting that has highlighted various ways Trump and his associates allegedly tried to cash in during and after the 2016 election.

Michael Cohen

Michael Cohen, the president’s former lawyer and fixer, is currently serving a three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to financial crimes, campaign finance violations, and lying to Congress.

At his plea hearing last August, Cohen said he facilitated payments to women alleging they’d had affairs with Trump — payments that constituted illegal campaign contributions — “in coordination and at the direction of” Trump.

Cohen was also the point person for a deal to build a Trump-licensed high rise, dubbed Trump Tower Moscow, in the Russian capital. He has said that he lied to Congress to cover up how far into the 2016 presidential campaign those negotiations continued, after Trump publicly lied on several occasions during the campaign about having no business deals in Russia.

“I stated that we stopped negotiating in January 2016. That was false — our negotiations continued for months later during the campaign,” Cohen told the House Oversight Committee in February.

“Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress,” he added, saying the candidate nevertheless made it clear Cohen should lie on his behalf. “That’s not how he operates.”

Paul Manafort

Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chair, asked his longtime business partner Konstantin Kilimnik in April 2016 how he could use his position on the campaign to “get whole” — that is, to get money he was owed by former clients and clear his own debts.

Manafort later shared internal campaign polling data with Kilimnik, who reportedly has ties to Russian intelligence. Kilimnik has denied any wrongdoing.

Manafort was convicted on a host of charges, including financial crimes and obstruction of justice, last year. He is currently serving a seven-plus year prison sentence.

Jared Kushner

Several meetings that Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House aide, Jared Kushner, had during the presidential transition have come under scrutiny. But one in particular, on Dec. 13, 2016, raises questions about the real-estate magnate’s potential financial conflicts of interest.

The meeting involved Sergey Gorkov, chief executive of Russia’s state-owned Vnesheconombank and a graduate of the Federal Security Service academy. The bank has described the encounter as a business meeting, while Kushner and the White House have said it was a diplomatic meeting connected to the presidential transition.

At the time, Kushner’s company was looking for financing for an office building it owned at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Mueller’s team was not able to resolve those conflicting accounts, they said in their report.

Erik Prince

Erik Prince, founder of the infamous private-security firm Blackwater and an unofficial adviser to the Trump campaign, may be one of the most enigmatic figures in the Mueller report. While he did not figure prominently in Wednesday’s testimony, an entire section of the report was dedicated to a series of meetings Prince had at the Four Seasons resort in the Seychelles on Jan. 11, 2017.

Prince has said publicly, and in sworn congressional testimony, that it was a business meeting with leaders from the United Arab Emirates. While there, he says, he happened to have a short conversation with Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, at the hotel bar.

Mueller’s report told a different story. According to the report, which was based in large part on interviews Mueller’s team conducted with both Prince and his associate George Nader, the meetings centered on created a “back channel” between Russia and the Trump campaign and involved discussions of U.S. foreign policy positions.

ThinkProgress documented at least a dozen inconsistencies in April between Prince’s testimony in the Mueller report and what the told Congress. Days later, Schiff made a criminal referral to the Justice Department for Prince over possible perjury.

Asked about the inconsistencies earlier this year, Prince spokesman Marc Cohen declined to comment to ThinkProgress.

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The post In Mueller hearing, Democrats highlight Trump associates’ financial ties – ThinkProgress appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/in-mueller-hearing-democrats-highlight-trump-associates-financial-ties-thinkprogress/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=in-mueller-hearing-democrats-highlight-trump-associates-financial-ties-thinkprogress from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.tumblr.com/post/186525074832

[weeklyreviewer]

In Mueller hearing, Democrats highlight Trump associates’ financial ties – ThinkProgress

During a hearing with former special counsel Robert Mueller on Wednesday, House Democrats highlighted the financial ties of President Donald Trump and some of his  closest associates — and their potential to open them up to blackmail by a hostile foreign power.

“In the case of Michael Flynn, he was secretly doing business with Turkey, correct?” House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) asked about Trump’s first national security adviser.

“Yes,” Mueller replied, confirming a covert business deal that led to the conviction of Flynn’s business partner, Bijan Rafiekian, on Tuesday.

“That could open him up to compromise that financial relationship?” Schiff continued.

“I presume,” the former special counsel replied.

Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, wasn’t the only one to come in for criticism by House Democrats on Wednesday for attempting to cash in during and immediately after the presidential campaign.

“Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, Erik Prince, and others in the Trump orbit all tried to use their connections with the Trump organization to profit from Russia, which was openly seeking relief from sanctions,” Rep. Denny Heck (D-WA) said, referring to a number of Trump associates. “Is that true, sir?” he asked Mueller.

Mueller declined to “adopt” Heck’s characterizations. But they point to a long line of public reporting that has highlighted various ways Trump and his associates allegedly tried to cash in during and after the 2016 election.

Michael Cohen

Michael Cohen, the president’s former lawyer and fixer, is currently serving a three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to financial crimes, campaign finance violations, and lying to Congress.

At his plea hearing last August, Cohen said he facilitated payments to women alleging they’d had affairs with Trump — payments that constituted illegal campaign contributions — “in coordination and at the direction of” Trump.

Cohen was also the point person for a deal to build a Trump-licensed high rise, dubbed Trump Tower Moscow, in the Russian capital. He has said that he lied to Congress to cover up how far into the 2016 presidential campaign those negotiations continued, after Trump publicly lied on several occasions during the campaign about having no business deals in Russia.

“I stated that we stopped negotiating in January 2016. That was false — our negotiations continued for months later during the campaign,” Cohen told the House Oversight Committee in February.

“Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress,” he added, saying the candidate nevertheless made it clear Cohen should lie on his behalf. “That’s not how he operates.”

Paul Manafort

Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chair, asked his longtime business partner Konstantin Kilimnik in April 2016 how he could use his position on the campaign to “get whole” — that is, to get money he was owed by former clients and clear his own debts.

Manafort later shared internal campaign polling data with Kilimnik, who reportedly has ties to Russian intelligence. Kilimnik has denied any wrongdoing.

Manafort was convicted on a host of charges, including financial crimes and obstruction of justice, last year. He is currently serving a seven-plus year prison sentence.

Jared Kushner

Several meetings that Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House aide, Jared Kushner, had during the presidential transition have come under scrutiny. But one in particular, on Dec. 13, 2016, raises questions about the real-estate magnate’s potential financial conflicts of interest.

The meeting involved Sergey Gorkov, chief executive of Russia’s state-owned Vnesheconombank and a graduate of the Federal Security Service academy. The bank has described the encounter as a business meeting, while Kushner and the White House have said it was a diplomatic meeting connected to the presidential transition.

At the time, Kushner’s company was looking for financing for an office building it owned at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Mueller’s team was not able to resolve those conflicting accounts, they said in their report.

Erik Prince

Erik Prince, founder of the infamous private-security firm Blackwater and an unofficial adviser to the Trump campaign, may be one of the most enigmatic figures in the Mueller report. While he did not figure prominently in Wednesday’s testimony, an entire section of the report was dedicated to a series of meetings Prince had at the Four Seasons resort in the Seychelles on Jan. 11, 2017.

Prince has said publicly, and in sworn congressional testimony, that it was a business meeting with leaders from the United Arab Emirates. While there, he says, he happened to have a short conversation with Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, at the hotel bar.

Mueller’s report told a different story. According to the report, which was based in large part on interviews Mueller’s team conducted with both Prince and his associate George Nader, the meetings centered on created a “back channel” between Russia and the Trump campaign and involved discussions of U.S. foreign policy positions.

ThinkProgress documented at least a dozen inconsistencies in April between Prince’s testimony in the Mueller report and what the told Congress. Days later, Schiff made a criminal referral to the Justice Department for Prince over possible perjury.

Asked about the inconsistencies earlier this year, Prince spokesman Marc Cohen declined to comment to ThinkProgress.

Credit: Source link

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[bountyofbeads]

Some background on pedophile George Nadar who was charged today with sex trafficking on top of child pornography charges. Once a pedophile always a pedophile. Trump surrounds himself with criminals, sexual predators and pedophiles. The stink rubs off. rub off.

Figure(George Nader) linked to Trump transition charged with transporting child pornography

By Devlin Barrett and Rachael Weiner | Published June 3, 2019 | Washington Post | Posted July 19, 2019 |

A key witness in former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian election interference has been charged with transporting child pornography last year, according to court documents.

George Nader, who has a previous conviction on such charges, was charged in federal court in Virginia and is expected to make an initial court appearance in New York.

Nader played an unusual role as a kind of liaison between Trump supporters, Middle East leaders and Russians interested in making contact with the incoming administration in early 2017.

Officials said Nader, 60, was charged by criminal complaint over material he was traveling with when he arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport on Jan. 17, 2018, from Dubai. At the time, he was carrying a cellphone containing visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, officials said. The charges were unsealed after his arrest Monday morning at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Lawyers for Nader did not return calls seeking comment. At a brief court appearance in New York, Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak ordered Nader to remain in custody, pending a further hearing Tuesday.

If convicted, Nader faces a minimum of 15 years in prison and a maximum of 40 years, officials said.

Nader was known to Trump associates as someone with political connections in the Middle East who could help them navigate the diplomacy of the region.

He helped arrange a meeting in the Seychelles in January 2017 between Erik Prince, a Trump supporter who founded the private security firm Blackwater, and a Russian official close to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin. The purpose of the meeting was of particular interest to Mueller’s investigators, and some questions about it remain unanswered, even after Mueller issued a 448-page report on his findings.

A Lebanese American businessman, Nader was stopped by federal agents when he arrived at Dulles in January 2018. Those FBI agents served him with a subpoena and wanted to question him as part of the Russia investigation, according to people, who like others familiar with the issue, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

According to the complaint, Nader was interviewed by FBI agents at the airport, and one of his three iPhones was searched for reasons unrelated to child pornography. But on the phone, authorities found 12 sexually explicit videos featuring boys approximately ranging in age from 2 to 14, according to the court documents.

Over the following weeks, Nader began to cooperate with authorities, providing grand jury testimony about his interactions with Trump supporters, according to people familiar with the matter.

Authorities said he was charged under seal on the alleged child pornography in April 2018, but he had left the country at that point.

Prince has insisted, publicly and to Congress, that his meeting in the Seychelles with Kirill Dmitriev, the head of a Russian government-controlled wealth fund, was a chance encounter that occurred because he happened to be meeting with United Arab Emirates officials at a luxury hotel in the Indian Ocean nation.

At the time, Nader had been working for years as an adviser to the UAE. Nader told investigators it was a meeting planned in advance, as an exploratory back channel between a Trump emissary and a Kremlin official, to allow for informal discussions of future relations between the two countries, according to people familiar with the investigation.

Nader also visited the White House several times after the Seychelles encounter, meeting with senior adviser Stephen K. Bannon and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, according to people familiar with his visits.

Nader was convicted 28 years ago of transporting child pornography, a case in which he received a reduced sentence after influential figures argued privately to the court that he was playing a valuable role in national security affairs — trying to free U.S. hostages then held in Lebanon.

Born in Lebanon, Nader came to the United States as a teen and later founded Middle East Insight, a magazine dedicated to coverage of the region — a role that led him to travel frequently and interview world leaders and top U.S. politicians.

In the 1980s, he developed a reputation as a back-channel negotiator with access to top officials in Israel, Syria and Iran, as well as leaders of the Hezbollah movement, according to people familiar with his work. In the past few years, he has worked as an adviser to senior officials in the UAE.

Amid his international work, Nader had repeatedly been investigated by law enforcement officials, according to court filings.

In 1985, he was indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., on two counts of mailing and importing child pornography. Court documents show those charges were dismissed before trial after Nader’s lawyers successfully argued that authorities had illegally seized evidence in the case. Records show that Nader became a U.S. citizen while awaiting trial in the case.

During two instances in 1988, Nader received sexually explicit material, featuring underage boys, sent to him via a post office box in Cleveland, according to court filings. He was not charged, although his home was searched, and prosecutors say child pornography was found in his toilet.

In the 1991 case, Nader pleaded guilty to one count of transporting child pornography and served about six months in federal custody in a facility on work release, court records show.

Nader had powerful supporters who appealed to the court on his behalf, arguing that he was engaged in high-stakes negotiations to assist the U.S. government in freeing hostages in Lebanon.

Nader was ultimately given consideration in his sentence because of what a federal judge termed his “extraordinary cooperation with the government in certain areas,” according to court documents.

More recently, the Associated Press has reported that Nader was convicted of 10 cases of sexually abusing minors in Prague in May 2003 and sentenced to one year in prison. His expulsion from the country was also ordered. ­Nader’s lawyers have previously declined to comment on the Prague case.

[theconservativebrief]

New reports over the past two days have brought new attention to three long-simmering subplots in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

First, the Wall Street Journal revealed new details about GOP operative Peter W. Smith’s quest to obtain Hillary Clinton’s emails from Russian hackers during the 2016 campaign — including that he raised at least $100,000 for the effort and then pitched in $50,000 of his own money. (Smith was found dead last year, and local authorities ruled his death a suicide.)

Second, the New Yorker revisited the question of mysterious online communications between a Russian bank and a domain tied to the Trump Organization. This topic came up during the campaign and was received skeptically, but now the New Yorker quotes experts who’ve reviewed the data and still suspect there’s something there.

Third, the New York Times revealed that an Israeli firm called Psy-Group pitched its “social media manipulation” services to Trump campaign aide Rick Gates in early 2016, but that Gates didn’t hire the firm. Mueller’s team has been investigating Psy-Group closely for months for reasons that are not entirely clear but seem to be about whether the firm did in fact do work on behalf of Trump’s campaign.

All three of these storylines could be quite consequential — or they could have relatively innocuous explanations — but as former Justice Department official Matthew Miller observed on Twitter, all this news should remind us of the staggering complexity of the Mueller investigation, and that there’s still so much we don’t know about what he’s found.

Michael Flynn. The Washington Post/Getty Images

What we already knew: During the 2016 campaign, 80-year-old GOP operative Peter W. Smith recruited a team to try to obtain Hillary Clinton’s 33,000 deleted emails from “dark web” hackers — including hackers he thought were “probably around the Russian government.” It’s not clear if Smith had any success, but we know we tried because he freely admitted all this to reporter Shane Harris in May 2017.

Then, 10 days after Smith told his story to Harris (but before it published), he was found dead in a Minnesota hotel, with a plastic bag over his head and a source of helium attached. Per the Chicago Tribune, an accompanying note said Smith was taking his life because of a “RECENT BAD TURN IN HEALTH SINCE JANUARY, 2017,” and because of “LIFE INSURANCE OF $5 MILLION EXPIRING.” The note stated that “NO FOUL PLAY WHATSOEVER” was involved in his death. Local authorities ruled his death a suicide.

Since Smith’s death, we’ve learned that he name-dropped Michael Flynn a lot during the email quest, and that Smith distributed a document suggesting “Trump campaign” involvement. Harris also reported that US intelligence reports describe Russian hackers talking about how to get Clinton emails to Flynn through an intermediary. Mueller’s team started looking into the matter last year.

What’s new: On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal’s Byron Tau, Dustin Volz, and Shelby Holliday reported several fascinating new details about Smith’s operation and investigators’ interest in it.

First off, they described how Smith communicated with some associates about the project. He and others had access to a Gmail account with the name “Robert Tyler.” Sometimes, rather than sending emails, they would simply type messages in the “drafts” folder to try to avoid a paper trail. (The other person could then log in and see the draft.)

Second, they revealed that a large amount of money was involved. They describe an October 11, 2016, email in the account from an unknown person called “ROB” to Smith, mentioning in an apparent code that “$150K” will “allow us to fund the Washington Scholarship for the Russian students.” The code is somewhat undercut by the subject line (“Wire Instructions — Clinton Email Reconnaissance Initiative”) and a mention that “the students are very pleased with the email releases they have seen” (WikiLeaks had begun posting John Podesta’s emails a few days earlier).

Finally, the Journal reporters say that Mueller’s team has remained quite focused on John Szobocsan, a business associate of Smith’s who was involved in the email operation, was interviewed by the special counsel’s team three times this year, and went before a grand jury in August.

The questions remaining: Did Smith’s operation come up with nothing in the end, as he claims? After all, Clinton’s deleted emails were never released. Was he operating independently (as he claimed to Harris), or was the Trump campaign involved somehow (as his document claimed)? And, uh, are local authorities correct that he killed himself?

Smith may be dead, but Flynn is alive and cooperating with Mueller, so he may have provided some answers. But the fact that a grand jury was hearing testimony about this as recently as August suggests it’s still very much under scrutiny.

Erik Prince, who met with Psy-Group owner Joel Zamel, George Nader, and Donald Trump Jr. Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty

What we already knew: This year, Mueller’s investigators have focused intently on a new set of non-Russian supporting characters in the scandal: a trio who met with Donald Trump Jr. in August 2016 to discuss how they could help the Trump campaign on social media.

There’s Joel Zamel, CEO of the Israeli “social media manipulation” company in question, Psy-Group. There’s George Nader, an adviser to the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates. And there’s Erik Prince, the American private security company CEO and brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who had a mysterious meeting with a Russian financier in Seychelles after the election. (Also shortly after the election, Nader paid Zamel about $2 million, for unclear reasons.)

Mueller has questioned both Zamel and Nader at US airports and called them in for grand jury testimony, and he’s even sent FBI agents to Israel to dig into Psy-Group. But we still haven’t gotten the full picture of why, and how it might relate to Russian interference.

What’s new: On Monday, the New York Times’s Mark Mazzetti, Ronen Bergman, David Kirkpatrick, and Maggie Haberman reported that Psy-Group actually pitched Trump campaign aide Rick Gates on their services back in March 2016.

At the time, the big question was whether Trump could hold on to enough delegates at the Republican convention to lock down the nomination. Psy-Group wrote a proposal that “veteran intelligence officers” would create psychological profiles of thousands of delegates and bombard them with “authentic looking” but fake online messages to encourage them to back Trump. However, Gates did not end up hiring Psy-Group, it seems.

The questions remaining: This has clearly been a major focus for Mueller this year, and the big question is why he’s so focused on Psy-Group and this cast of characters. Might it involve information provided by his cooperators, Michael Flynn and Rick Gates?

The answer is unclear, but reading between the lines, Mueller may suspect Psy-Group did in fact end up doing social media manipulation on Trump’s behalf, that George Nader (who paid Psy-Group $2 million after the election) and Erik Prince were involved, and that there may even have been a Russian angle.

A branch of Alfa Bank in Minsk. Viktor DrachevTASS via Getty Images

What we already knew: All the way back in October 2016, Franklin Foer asked in a reported piece: “Was a Trump server communicating with Russia?” He asked because computer scientists crawling the internet for signs of Russian hacking online had noticed something odd: that two servers owned by Russia’s Alfa Bank had repeatedly looked up a Trump Organization domain (mail1.trump-email.com) over several months. Then two days after New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau asked Alfa’s lobbyists for comment on the matter, the Trump domain was deleted, which seemed odd.

But Foer’s piece was received skeptically. For one, when Lichtblau’s Times piece finally ran, it was under the infamous headline “Investing Donald Trump, FBI sees no clear link to Russia,” and said the FBI had “ultimately concluded that there could be an innocuous explanation, like a marketing email or spam, for the computer contacts.” Other media outlets and commentators chimed in to opine that because the Trump domain was administered by a separate company handling the Trump Organization’s marketing emails, the “spam” explanation or some other mistake was more likely.

So the conventional wisdom became that Foer’s piece was probably wrong, and that’s remained the case even after Trump-Russia links started looking a lot less conspiratorial. Still, CNN reported in March 2017 that the FBI was still looking into the topic.

What’s new: On Monday, the New Yorker’s Dexter Filkins revisited the issue at length. He talked to members of the initial group of computer experts who first surfaced the matter, who reaffirmed their analysis that this was not a coincidence. He also revealed that a former FBI investigator and Democratic Senate staffer, Dan Jones, had assembled two separate teams of computer scientists to independently look over the server data.

They concluded that the domain lookups were deliberate and likely entailed some form of communication (perhaps use of an instant messaging service). “Is it possible there is an innocuous explanation for all this?” one told Filkins. “Yes, of course. And it’s also possible that space aliens did this. It’s possible — just not very likely.” In the article, they elaborate at length as to why they think so (and Alfa Bank continues to dispute their claims).

The questions remaining: I’m not equipped to judge the technical details of this argument, but if you do buy it, the questions of what this communication actually entailed and who was involved remain unanswered.

The piece notes that one of the only other companies to repeatedly look up the Trump domain was Spectrum Health, a Grand Rapids, Michigan, company owned by Dick DeVos — brother-in-law of the aforementioned Erik Prince. It also mentions that the curious server traffic mostly occurred within the time Paul Manafort chaired the Trump campaign, though it continued after he resigned in August 2016.

Now, of these three stories, Alfa Bank is the one with the weakest evidence that Mueller is still investigating it. (The FBI looked into the matter before Mueller’s appointment, but we don’t have a more recent report confirming continued interest.) Still, Manafort recently flipped, meaning if he does know anything nefarious about this, Mueller probably now knows too, so stay tuned.

Original Source -> The past 48 hours in Mueller investigation news, explained

via The Conservative Brief

[malenipshadows]

 ***  The meeting was convened primarily to offer help to the T-rump team, and it forged relationships between the men and T-rump insiders that would develop over the coming months — past the election and well into pres-ident T-rump’s first year in office, according to several people with knowledge of their encounters. ...    The interviews, some in recent weeks, are further evidence that special counsel’s investigation remains in an intense phase even as Mr. T-rump’s lawyers are publicly calling for Mr. Mueller to bring it to a close.    It is illegal for foreign governments or individuals to be involved in U.S. elections, and it is unclear what — if any — direct assistance Saudi Arabia and the Emirates may have provided. But two people familiar with the meetings said that T-rump campaign officials did not appear bothered by the idea of cooperation with foreigners. ***

[nishantwap]

Trump fundraiser sought to leverage access to Oval Office for fortune in contracts from Persian Gulf

New Post has been published on https://www.hsnews.us/trump-fundraiser-sought-to-leverage-access-to-oval-office-for-fortune-in-contracts-from-persian-gulf/

Trump fundraiser sought to leverage access to Oval Office for fortune in contracts from Persian Gulf

In a pursuit of money and influence that began at U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration, two American businessmen sought to leverage connections that stretched from Persian Gulf palaces to the Oval Office into more than a billion dollars in contracts.

Elliott Broidy, one of Trump’s top fundraisers, and George Nader, a Lebanese-American adviser to the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, advanced the agenda of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at the highest levels of the U.S. government. Their goal was to persuade Washington to crack down on Qatar, a small Gulf country that Saudi Arabia and the UAE accused of supporting terrorism — even though Qatar is a U.S. ally that hosts critical military assets.

At the same time, Broidy and Nader angled for lucrative intelligence and defence contracts from the UAE and the Saudis, passing messages purportedly from the crown princes in both countries to Trump, according to an Associated Press investigation.

The AP report is based on interviews with more than two dozen people and hundreds of pages of leaked emails between Broidy and Nader — including work summaries and contracting documents and proposals.

Saudi Arabia distances itself 

Last week, Saudi Arabia distanced itself from Nader and Broidy, saying it had signed no contracts with either of them — though it acknowledged there had been discussions with Nader. A senior Saudi official said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered an end to “engagement with these people.”

“We would not be surprised if they were telling people that they had our ear,” said the official, who was not authorized to comment by name.

The UAE Embassy did not respond to requests for comment.

The cache of emails also reveals a previously unreported meeting with the president and provides the most detailed account yet of the work of two Washington insiders who have been entangled in the turmoil surrounding the two criminal investigations closest to Trump — the special counsel’s Russia probe and federal prosecutors’ scrutiny of hush money payments by Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen.

Broidy lawyer says docs ‘fraudulent’

Chris Clark, an attorney for Broidy, said the AP’s report “is based on fraudulent and fabricated documents obtained from entities with a known agenda to harm Mr. Broidy.”

“The public education efforts conducted by Mr. Broidy involved no direction being taken by any foreign principal,” Clark said in a statement.

Elliott Broidy is seen in New York in 2008. Broidy, a top fundraiser for Trump, worked throughout 2017 with a senior adviser to the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to run a secretive campaign, trading lobbying against Qatar for hundreds of millions in defence contracts from the United Arab Emirates. (David Karp/Associated Press)

The AP provided 53 pages of leaked emails to Broidy’s lawyers. A second attorney, David Camel, listed one email as fraudulent and declined to elaborate. Neither lawyer provided evidence of fabrication.

Nader’s lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, declined comment.

The AP conducted an exhaustive review of the emails and documents, checking their content with dozens of sources, and determined that they tracked closely with real events, including efforts to cultivate the princes and lobby Congress and the White House against Qatar, which the partners called “the snake.”

Navigating ‘the swamp’

In Washington, lobbying in pursuit of personal gain is nothing new — Trump himself turned the incestuous culture into a rallying cry when he promised to “drain the swamp.” Broidy’s push to alter U.S. policy in the Middle East and reap a fortune for himself shows that one of the president’s top money men found the swamp as navigable as ever with Trump in office.

Broidy’s company ultimately won an intelligence contract with the UAE worth more than $200 million US that could be extended to $600 million, according to one email. Efforts to win an even larger contract from Saudi Arabia fell through.

Nader later drew the attention of special counsel Robert Mueller. His investigators confronted Nader in January hours after the plan with Broidy bore fruit — a $36-million wire transfer from the UAE. Nader is now co-operating with Mueller’s team.

While it is unclear if Mueller’s investigation is looking into the partners’ influence operation, Nader was a witness to a key moment of interest: a meeting in the Seychelles during Trump’s transition that included a Trump adviser and a businessman close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Broidy was ensnared in an investigation into Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer.

Trump, Broidy had same lawyer

After prosecutors in New York raided Cohen’s properties, it turned out that Cohen had represented Broidy as well as the president. He’d arranged for a $1.6-million payment to a Playboy Playmate who had an affair with Broidy.

The AP has previously reported that Broidy and Nader sought to get an anti-Qatar bill through Congress while obscuring the source of money behind their influence campaign — $2.5 million routed through an opaque Canadian company.

Neither Broidy nor Nader filed papers with the U.S. government under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a law intended to make lobbyists working for foreign governments disclose their ties and certain political activities.

George Nader poses backstage with Trump at a Republican fundraiser in Dallas Oct. 25, 2017. Nader’s business partner, Elliott Broidy, helped him secure this photo with the president. (Associated Press)

Broidy has maintained he was not required to register because his effort was not directed by a foreign client and came entirely at his own initiative. But documents show the lobbying was intertwined with the pursuit of contracts from the very start and involved specific political tasks for the crown princes — whose countries are listed as the “clients” for the lobbying campaign in a spreadsheet from Broidy’s company, Circinus, LLC.

Clark, one of Broidy’s attorneys, said his client had “complied with all relevant laws, including FARA.”

Passing messages from princes

Summaries written by Broidy of the two meetings he had with Trump report that he was passing Nader’s messages from the princes directly to the president.

By November, the Trump administration hadn’t swung as hard against Qatar as hoped. To pressure the White House and gin up more anti-Qatar opposition in Congress, Broidy claimed he’d arranged for a political operative to write a strategy memo to key Democrats attacking the Trump administration for being “soft” on Qatar’s alleged support of terrorist financing. That memo was leaked to the press.

“Strictly Confidential — I completely made this happen. Completely different tact to put the necessary pressure!” Broidy wrote Nader in an email dated Nov. 10.

“SUPER,” Nader replied.

“Just between principals and us,” wrote Broidy, referring to the crown princes. “We will crush the snake!”

Source link

[newssplashy]

World: Trump Jr. And other aides met with gulf emissary offering help to win election

WASHINGTON — Three months before the 2016 election, a small group gathered at Trump Tower to meet with Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son.

The meeting was convened primarily to offer help to the Trump team, and it forged relationships between the men and Trump insiders that would develop over the coming months.

Past the election and well into President Donald Trump’s first year in office, according to several people with knowledge of their encounters.

Erik Prince, the private security contractor and the former head of Blackwater, arranged the meeting, which took place on Aug. 3, 2016. The emissary, George Nader, told Trump Jr. that the crown princes who led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president. The social media specialist, Joel Zamel, extolled his company’s ability to give an edge to a political campaign; by that time, the firm had drawn up a multimillion-dollar proposal for a social media manipulation effort to help elect Trump.

The company, which employed several Israeli former intelligence officers, specialized in collecting information and shaping opinion through social media.

It is unclear whether such a proposal was executed, and the details of who commissioned it remain in dispute. But Trump Jr. responded approvingly, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting, and after those initial offers of help, Nader was quickly embraced as a close ally by Trump campaign advisers — meeting frequently with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Michael Flynn, who became the president’s first national security adviser. At the time, Nader was also promoting a secret plan to use private contractors to destabilize Iran, the regional nemesis of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

After Trump was elected, Nader paid Zamel a large sum of money, described by one associate as up to $2 million. There are conflicting accounts of the reason for the payment, but among other things, a company linked to Zamel provided Nader with an elaborate presentation about the significance of social media campaigning to Trump’s victory.

The meetings, which have not been reported previously, are the first indication that countries other than Russia may have offered assistance to the Trump campaign in the months before the presidential election.The interactions are a focus of the investigation by Robert Mueller, the special counsel, who was originally tasked with examining possible Trump campaign coordination with Russia in the election.

Nader is cooperating with the inquiry, and investigators have questioned numerous witnesses in Washington, New York, Atlanta, Tel Aviv and elsewhere about what foreign help may have been pledged or accepted, and about whether any such assistance was coordinated with Russia, according to witnesses and others with knowledge of the interviews.

The interviews, some in recent weeks, are further evidence that the special counsel’s investigation remains in an intense phase even as Trump’s lawyers are publicly calling for Mueller to bring it to a close.

It is illegal for foreign governments or individuals to be involved in U.S. elections, and it is unclear what — if any — direct assistance Saudi Arabia and the Emirates may have provided. But two people familiar with the meetings said Trump campaign officials did not appear bothered by the idea of cooperation with foreigners.

A lawyer for Trump Jr., Alan Futerfas, said in a statement that “prior to the 2016 election, Donald Trump Jr. recalls a meeting with Erik Prince, George Nader and another individual who may be Joel Zamel. They pitched Mr. Trump Jr. on a social media platform or marketing strategy. He was not interested and that was the end of it.”

The August 2016 meeting has echoes of another Trump Tower meeting two months earlier, also under scrutiny by the special counsel, when Trump Jr. and other top campaign aides met with a Russian lawyer after being promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton. No evidence has emerged suggesting that the August meeting was set up with a similar premise.

The revelations about the meetings come in the midst of new scrutiny about ties between Trump’s advisers and at least three wealthy Persian Gulf states. Besides his interest in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, Mueller has also been asking witnesses about meetings between White House advisers and representatives of Qatar, Saudi Arabia’s bitter rival.

A lawyer for Zamel denied that his client had carried out any campaign on Trump’s behalf. “Neither Joel Zamel, nor any of his related entities, had any involvement whatsoever in the U.S. election campaign,” said the lawyer, Marc L. Mukasey.

“The DOJ clarified from Day 1 that Joel and his companies have never been a target of the investigation. My client provided full cooperation to the government to assist with their investigation,” he said.

Kathryn Ruemmler, a lawyer for Nader, said, “Mr. Nader has fully cooperated with the special counsel’s investigation and will continue to do so.” A senior official in Saudi Arabia said it had never employed Nader in any capacity or authorized him to speak for the crown prince.

Prince, through a spokesman, declined to comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

— Advisers to the Court

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, the king’s main adviser, had long opposed many of the Obama administration’s policies toward the Middle East. They resented President Barack Obama’s agreement with Iran over its nuclear program, his statements of support for the Arab Spring uprisings and his hands-off approach to the Syrian civil war.

News outlets linked to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates fiercely criticized Clinton, Trump’s Democratic opponent, when she was secretary of state, and diplomats familiar with their thinking say both crown princes hoped for a president who would take a stronger hand in the region against both Iran and groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.

Nader had worked for years as a close adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed of Abu Dhabi, and Zamel had worked for the Emirati royal court as a consultant as well. When Trump locked up the Republican presidential nomination in early 2016, Nader began making inquiries on behalf of the Emirati prince about possible ways to directly support Trump, according to three people with whom Nader discussed his efforts.

Nader also visited Moscow at least twice during the presidential campaign as a confidential emissary from Crown Prince Mohammed of Abu Dhabi, according to people familiar with his travels. After the election, he worked with the crown prince to arrange a meeting in the Seychelles between Prince and a financier close to President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Companies connected to Zamel also have ties to Russia. One of his firms had previously worked for oligarchs linked to Putin, including Oleg V. Deripaska and Dmitry Rybolovlev, who hired the firm for online campaigns against their business rivals.

Deripaska, an aluminum magnate, was once in business with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who has pleaded not guilty in the special counsel investigation to charges of financial crimes and failing to disclose the lobbying work he did on behalf of a former president of Ukraine, an ally of Putin. Rybolovlev once purchased a Florida mansion from Trump.

Nader’s visits to Russia and the work Zamel’s companies did for the Russians have both been a subject of interest to the special counsel’s investigators, according to people familiar with witness interviews.

— A String of Meetings

Zamel and Nader were together at a midtown Manhattan hotel at about 4 p.m. on the afternoon of Aug. 3 when Nader received a call from Prince summoning them to Trump Tower. When they arrived, Stephen Miller, a top campaign aide who is now a White House adviser, was in Trump Jr.'s office as well, according to the people familiar with the meeting.

Prince is a longtime Republican donor and the brother of Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, and Prince and Nader had known each other since Nader had worked for Blackwater as a business agent in Iraq in the years after the U.S. invasion. Prince has long-standing ties to the Emirates, and has frequently done business with Emerati Crown Prince Mohammed.

Prince opened the meeting by telling Trump Jr. that “we are working hard for your father,” in reference to his family and other donors, according to a person familiar with the meeting. He then introduced Nader as an old friend with deep ties to Arab leaders.

Nader repeatedly referred to the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates as “my friends,” according to one person with knowledge of the conversation. To underscore the point, he would open his mobile phone to show off pictures of him posing with them, some of which The New York Times obtained.

Nader explained to Trump Jr. that the two crown princes saw the elder Trump as a strong leader who would fill the power vacuum that they believed Obama had left in the Middle East, and Nader went on to say that he and his friends would be glad to support Trump as much as they could, according to the person with knowledge of the conversation.

Zamel, for his part, laid out the capabilities of his online media company, although it is unclear whether he referred to the proposals his company had already prepared. One person familiar with the meeting said that Nader invited Trump Jr. to meet with a Saudi prince — an invitation the younger Trump declined. After about half an hour, everyone exchanged business cards.

“There was a brief meeting, nothing concrete was offered or pitched to anyone and nothing came of it,” said Mukasey, the lawyer for Zamel.

By then, a company connected to Zamel had been working on a proposal for a covert multimillion-dollar online manipulation campaign to help elect Trump, according to three people involved and a fourth briefed on the effort. The plan involved using thousands of fake social media accounts to promote Trump’s candidacy on platforms like Facebook.

There were concerns inside the company, Psy-Group, about the plan’s legality, according to one person familiar with the effort. The company, whose motto is “shape reality,” consulted a U.S. law firm, and was told that it would be illegal if any non-Americans were involved in the effort.

Zamel, the founder of Psy-Group and one of its owners, has been questioned about the August 2016 meeting by investigators for the special counsel, and at least two FBI agents working on the inquiry have traveled to Israel to interview employees of the company who worked on the proposal. According to one person, the special counsel’s team has worked with Israeli police to seize the computers of one of Zamel’s companies, which is in liquidation.

In the hectic final weeks of the campaign and during the presidential transition, several of Trump’s advisers drew Nader close. He met often with Kushner, Flynn and Stephen Bannon, who took over as campaign chairman after Manafort resigned amid revelations about his work in Ukraine.

In December 2016, Nader turned again to an internet company linked to Zamel — WhiteKnight, based in the Philippines — to purchase a presentation demonstrating the impact of social media campaigns on Trump’s electoral victory. Asked about the purchase, a representative of WhiteKnight said: “WhiteKnight delivers premium research and high-end business development services for prestigious clients around the world. WhiteKnight does not talk about any of its clients.”

After the inauguration, both Zamel and Nader visited the White House, meeting with Kushner and Bannon.

At that time, Nader was promoting a plan to use private contractors to carry out economic sabotage against Iran that, he hoped, might coerce it to permanently abandon its nuclear program. The plan included efforts to deter Western companies from investing in Iran, and operations to sow mistrust among Iranian officials. He advocated the project, which he estimated would cost about $300 million, to U.S., Emirati and Saudi officials.

Last spring, Nader traveled to Riyadh for meetings with senior Saudi military and intelligence officials to pitch his Iran sabotage plan. He was convinced, according to several people familiar with his plan, that economic warfare was the key to the overthrow of the government in Tehran. One person briefed on Nader’s activities said he tried to persuade Kushner to endorse the plan to Crown Prince Mohammed in person on a trip to Riyadh, although it was unclear whether the message was delivered.

Asked about Nader’s plans to attack Iran, the senior Saudi official said Nader had a habit of pitching proposals that went nowhere.

Nader was also in discussions with Prince, the former head of Blackwater, about a plan to get the Saudis to pay $2 billion to set up a private army to combat Iranian proxy forces in Yemen.

Since entering the White House, Trump has allied himself closely with Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. His first overseas trip was to Riyadh. He strongly backed Saudi and Emirati efforts to isolate their neighbor Qatar, another U.S. ally, even over apparent disagreement from the State and Defense departments.

This month, Trump also withdrew from an Obama administration nuclear deal with Iran that both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had campaigned against for years, delivering them their biggest victory yet from his administration.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

MARK MAZZETTI, RONEN BERGMAN and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK © 2018 The New York Times

source https://www.newssplashy.com/2018/05/world-trump-jr-and-other-aides-met-with.html

[thetrumpdebacle]

Russia isn’t the only country Donald Trump Jr. was open to meeting with about getting a boost for his father’s presidential campaign. According to a report from the New York Times on Saturday, the president’s son also met with an Israeli social media specialist and an emissary for the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia who said the countries wanted to help Donald Trump win.

On August 3, 2016, Trump Jr. took part in a meeting with Erik Prince, a Trump booster, founder of the private security firm Blackwater and brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos; George Nader, a business executive and emissary for the princes of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates; and Joel Zamel, an Israeli expert in social media manipulation. The men met at Trump Tower in New York, according to a report from Mark Mazzetti, Ronen Bergman, and David Kirkpatrick. Nader told Trump Jr. that the princes of Saudi Arabia and UAE were “eager” to help Trump win the White House, saying they believed he was a strong leader who would “fill the power vacuum” they thought President Barack Obama had left in the Middle East. Zamel’s company, Psy-Group, had put together a proposal for an online manipulation program to help elect Trump using thousands of fake accounts to promote him on Facebook.

According to the Times, it’s not clear whether the proposal was executed, and it’s not clear who commissioned it in the first place. But Trump Jr. “responded approvingly,” and Nader joined the Trump-world fold, meeting often with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and his former strategist, Steve Bannon.

After the election, Nader paid Zamel as much as $2 million, and what the money was for isn’t clear. White Night, a Philippines-based company linked to Zamel, reportedly provided Nader with an elaborate presentation about the importance of social media campaigning in Trump’s win.

It’s illegal for foreign governments or people to get involved in US elections. The Trump campaign seemed open to it.

There are multiple reasons the report matters. It indicates that it wasn’t just Russia that was offering to help the Trump campaign ahead of the 2016 election. It also raises questions about what sort of repayment the Middle East countries in question might have received for their help. And it demonstrates the Trump campaign’s reckless — if not nefarious — attitude toward campaign laws in the United States. Per the Times:

It is illegal for foreign governments or individuals to be involved in American elections, and it is unclear what — if any — direct assistance Saudi Arabia and the Emirates may have provided. But two people familiar with the meetings said that Trump campaign officials did not appear bothered by the idea of cooperation with foreigners.

Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for Trump Jr., told the Times that the younger Trump “recalls” a meeting with Prince, Nader, and someone who “may be” Zamel. “They pitched Mr. Trump Jr. on a social media platform or marketing strategy. He was not interested and that was the end of it,” Futerfas said.

Marc Mukasey, a lawyer for Zamel, said that he had “no involvement whatsoever in the US election campaign.” Kathryn Ruemmler, a lawyer for Nader, said he has “fully cooperated” with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Nader’s name has come up multiple times in the context of the Mueller investigation. According to the Times, his interactions with Zamel, Prince, and Trump Jr. are a focus of the probe.

During the 2016 campaign, Nader visited Moscow at least twice as a confidential emissary from Crown Prince Mohammed of Abu Dhabi, and he helped to arrange a meeting in the Seychelles between Prince and a Russian businessman close to Vladimir Putin that Mueller has also been probing. Companies tied to Zamel have connections to Russia as well.

And after Trump’s inauguration, Nader was reportedly promoting a proposal to use private contractors for an economic sabotage against Iran that might get it to abandon its nuclear program. He pitched it to Saudi officials last spring. And he was in discussions with Prince about a plan to convince Saudi Arabia to pay $2 billion to create a private army to fight against Iranian proxy forces in Yemen.

The Times’ report asks as many questions as it answers, especially in the final paragraphs, where the writers wonder what Nader’s, Prince’s and Zamel’s efforts may have gotten for Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Since entering the White House, Mr. Trump has allied himself closely with Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. His first overseas trip was to Riyadh. He strongly backed Saudi and Emirati efforts to isolate their neighbor Qatar, another American ally, even over apparent disagreement from the State and Defense Departments.

This month, Mr. Trump also withdrew from an Obama administration nuclear deal with Iran that both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had campaigned against for years, delivering them their biggest victory yet from his administration.

via The Trump Debacle

[bountyofbeads]

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/01/07/erik-prince-on-mueller-interview-would-rather-go-to-a-proctology-exam.html?__twitter_impression=true

Blackwater founder Erik Prince says Mueller asked about meeting Russian Putin pal in Seychelles: 'You probably would rather go to a proctology exam'

Dan Mangan | @_DanMangan |Published January 7, 2019 |CNBC.com | Posted January 7, 2019 |

Blackwater founder Erik Prince said he would have preferred getting a "proctology exam" to being interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller's team of investigators.

Prince was questioned by Mueller's team about his meeting in the Seychelles islands shortly before President Donald Trump's inauguration with Kirill Dmitriev, who was appointed by Russian leader Vladmir Putin to run a sovereign wealth fund.

A member of the delegation of the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed, who was meeting with Prince, suggested the former Navy SEAL speak with Dmitriev, according to Prince.

Blackwater founder Erik Prince said Monday that he would have preferred getting a "proctology exam" to being interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller's team of investigators about his meeting with a Russian investor linked to Vladimir Putin.

But the controversial security consultant told CNBC's "Squawk Box" that his previously reported sit-down with Mueller's team regarding that curious encounter in the Seychelles islands, which took place shortly before Donald Trump became president, was "much ado about nothing." Prince, whose sister Betsy DeVos is Trump's Education secretary, is a supporter of the president.

"I answered their questions, and they haven't talked to me since," said Prince, a former Navy SEAL.

Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, was reportedly looking into whether Prince's meeting with Putin pal Kirill Dmitriev was part of an effort to establish a secret line of communication between the Kremlin and the incoming Trump administration.

Prince, who formerly was an informal advisor to Trump, has said that his encounter with Dmitriev was "incidental," unplanned, brief and did not involve discussions of setting up a back channel.

"I went to see an old friend, leadership in the UAE [United Arab Emirates] after the election, and there was a Russian there," Prince told CNBC when asked why Mueller was interested in him. "So I had no contact with him before, no contact after."

Prince said Mueller's team asked him, "What I was doing there. And I explained and that was it."

Asked if there was anything he gleaned from his contact with the special counsel's office, Prince said: "Look, anytime you sit down for an interview like that it's — I think you probably would rather go to a proctology exam."

A secret meeting

The Washington Post reported in April 2017 that the United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting that Prince had met with Dmitriev on the island group in the Indian Ocean in January 2017, nine days before Trump was sworn in as president.

The Post, citing U.S., European and Arab officials, said that Prince's meeting with Dmitriev was "part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Trump."

Prince told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in November 2017 that he was invited to the Seychelles by representatives of Abu Dhabi's crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed, for a meeting at a luxury hotel that ended up being about "the problems of terrorism in the area," and "the price of bauxite," a type of rock used to make aluminum.

"I didn't fly there to meet any Russian guy," Prince told the committee.

But toward the end of the meeting, Prince said, a member of bin Zayed's delegation, possibly one of the prince's brothers, suggested he also meet Dmitriev, who was at the hotel bar.

"We talked about ... trade matters and how the United States and Russia should be working together to defeat Islamic terrorism," Prince told the committee.

However, ABC News reported last April that Lebanese-American businessman George Nader, who has been given immunity by Mueller, has told the special counsel's team that he arranged the meeting between Prince and Dmitriev. ABC also has reported that Mueller has obtained Prince's phones and computer as part of his inquiry into the Seychelles meeting.

Beyond Blackwater and into China

Prince sold Blackwater in 2010 after a string of controversies involving its security work in Iraq. The company is now known as Academi.

Prince now is executive director and deputy chairman of Frontier Services Group, a security, logistics and insurance services company that is backed by Citic, an investment fund owned by the government of China.

Prince appeared on CNBC to discuss his new effort to raise up to $500 million for a new fund to develop deposits of cobalt and other minerals used to make electric car batteries. Those minerals are often found in unstable parts of the world, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

When asked whether he had spoken to Trump about his mineral initiative, Prince said, "I haven't seen the president since before he was inaugurated."

Yet, when asked about America's rocky relationship with China, Prince said, "I know they're looking for ways to work with the United States."

"I know they would like the United States not to abandon Afghanistan, because they're very concerned about that becoming a major terrorist sanctuary again," Prince said. "And so hopefully we'll get the president to consider a proper alternative to the very conventional military approach where we've been wasting $62 billion per year as a country the past few years."

When Trump took office in early 2017, Prince had proposed privatizing the war effort in Afghanistan, which would involve contractors such as Prince conducting military actions. The Trump administration rejected that idea.

But Prince in recent months has revived that pitch by directly marketing it to influential Afghans.

However, in October, Afghanistan's president, Ashraf Ghani, said: "Foreign mercenaries will never be allowed in this country."

[malenipshadows]

  + A Russian plane with ties to the Kremlin flew to the Seychelles before a secret 2017 meeting between a Trump associate and a Putin ally, according to a report.   + The special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating a series of meetings in the Seychelles as part of the Trump-Russia probe.   + The plane was reportedly owned by Russian billionaire Andrei Skoch, who now serves as a deputy in the Russian State Duma.   + The new details have prompted speculation over whether the meeting was truly an impromptu encounter, as the Trump associate has claimed, or whether they were arranged deliberately to discuss US sanctions against Russia. ... Mueller was tipped off by a witness that the Seychelles meeting was arranged to establish a back-channel of communication between the US and Russia, The Washington Post reported in March. ***

[malenipshadows]

   *** Court filings unsealed Friday show that Nader was stopped trying to bring child pornography videos into the United States in 1990. He received a reduced sentence after influential figures argued privately to the court that he was playing an instrumental role at the time, trying to free U.S. hostages in Lebanon.    The new documents deepen the mystery around Nader, a shadowy figure who has served as a middleman to broker deals in the Middle East for three decades. ...    Nader could have knowledge of interactions between associates of T-rump and Russian officials during the presidential transition. He helped organize a January 2017 meeting in the Seychelles between Erik Prince, the founder of the private security firm Blackwater, and UAE officials, as well as a Russian banker close to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, The Washington Post previously reported. ***

[malenipshadows]

 *** The special counsel's questions about the Emiratis point to an investigation that has expanded beyond Russian meddling in the 2016 election to broader concerns about foreign influence during the presidential campaign and long after it concluded. The Washington Post reported last week that at least four countries, including the United Arab Emirates, have discussed ways they could compromise Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law. ***