EXTRY! EXTRY! IMPEACHMENT IMMINENT!

The focus on the U.S. presidential campaign continued throughout 2016. In REDACTED 2016 internal REDACTED reviewing the IRA-controlled Facebook group "Secured Borders, " the author criticized the "lower number of posts dedicated to criticizing Hillary Clinton" and reminded the Facebook specialist "it is imperative to intensify criticizing Hillary Clinton."

The IRA organized and promoted political rallies inside the United States while posing as U.S . grassroots activists. First, the IRA used one of its preexisting social media personas (Facebook groups and Twitter accounts, for example) to announce and promote the event. The IRA then sent a large number of direct messages to followers of its social media account asking them to attend the event. From those who responded with interest in attending , the IRA then sought a U.S. person to serve as the event's coordinator. In most cases, the IRA account operator would tell the U.S . person that they personally could not attend the event due to some preexisting conflict or because they were somewhere else in the United States. 82 The IRA then further promoted the event by contacting U.S. media about the event and directing them to speak with the coordinator. 83 After the event, the IRA posted videos and photographs of the event to the IRA 's social media accounts. 84

The Office identified dozens of U.S. rallies organized by the IRA. The earliest evidence of a rally was a "confederate rally" in November 2015. 85 The IRA continued to organize rallies even after the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The attendance at rallies varied. Some rallies appear to have drawn few (if any) pa1ticipants while others drew hundreds The reach and success of these rallies was closely monitored

As reports attributing the DNC and DCCC hacks to the Russian government emerged, WikiLeaks and Assange made several public statements apparently designed to obscure the source of the materials that WikiLeaks was releasing. The file-transfer evidence described above and other information uncovered during the investigation discredit WikiLeaks's claims about the source of material that it posted.

Beginning in the summer of 2016 , Assange and WikiLeaks made a number of statements about Seth Rich , a former DNC staff member who was killed in July 2016. The statements about Rich implied falsely that he had been the source of the stolen DNC emails . On August 9, 2016, the @WikiLeaks Twitter account posted: "ANNOUNCE: WikiLeaks has decided to issue a US$20k reward for information leading to conviction for the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich. "

On July 27 2016, Unit 26165 targeted email accounts connected to candidate Clinton's personal office REDACTED . Earlier that day, candidate Trump made public statements that included the following: "Russia , if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press." 183 The "30,000 emails" were apparently a reference to emails described in media accounts as having been stored on a personal server that candidate Clinton had used while serving as Secretary of State.

Within approximately five hours of Trump's statement, GRU officers targeted for the first time Clinton's personal office. After candidate Trump's remarks, Unit 26165 created and sent malicious links targeting 15 email accounts at the domain REDACTED including an email account belonging to Clinton aide REDACTED.The investigation did not find evidence of earlier GRU attempts to compromise accounts hosted on this domain. It is unclear how the GRU was able to identify these email accounts, which were not public. 184

Gates also reported that Manafort instructed him in April 2016 or early May 2016 to send Kilimnik Campaign internal polling data and other updates so that Kilimnik, in turn, could share it with Ukrainian oligarchs. 888 Gates understood that the information would also be shared with Deripaska REDACTED. 889 Gates reported to the Office that he did not know why Manafort wanted him to send polling information , but Gates thought it was a way to showcase Manafort 's work, and Manafort wanted to open doors to jobs after the Trump Campaign ended. 890 Gates said that Manafort 's instruction included sending internal polling data prepared for the Trump Campaign by pollster Tony Fabrizio. 891 Fabrizio had worked with Manafort for years and was brought into the Campaign by Manafort . Gates stated that, in accordance with Manafort's instruction , he periodically sent Kilimnik polling data via WhatsApp ; Gates then deleted the communications on a daily basis. 892

Manafort met with Kilimnik a second time at the Grand Havana Club in New York City on the evening of August 2, 2016 . The events leading to the meeting are as follows. On July 28, 2016, Kilimnik flew from Kiev to Moscow. 912 The next day, Kilimnik wrote to Manafort requesting that they meet, using coded language about a conversation he had that day.913 In an email with a subject line "Black Caviar," Kilimnik wrote:

I met today with the guy who gave you your biggest black caviar jar several years ago. We spent about 5 hours talking about his story , and I have several important messages from
him to you. He asked me to go and brief you on our conversation. I said I have to run it by you first, but in principle I am prepared to do it. ... It has to do about the future of his country, and is quite interesting. 914

Manafort identified "the guy who gave you your biggest black caviar jar" as Yanukovych. He explained that, in 2010, he and Yanukovych had lunch to celebrate the recent presidential election. Yanukovych gave Manafort a large jar of black caviar that was worth approximately $30,000 to $40,000.915 Manafort's identification of Yanukovych as "the guy who gave you your biggest black caviar jar" is consistent with Kilimnik being in Moscow-where Yanukovych resided-when Kilimnik wrote "I met today with~ a December 2016 email in which Kilimnik referred to Yanukovych as "BG,"- 916 Manafort replied to Kilimnik's July 29 email, "Tuesday [August 2] is best . .. Tues or weds in NYC." 9 17

Three days later, on July 31, 2016, Kilimnik flew back to Kiev from Moscow, and on that same day, wrote to Manafort that he needed "about 2 hours" for their meeting "because it is a long caviar story to tell." 918 Kilimnik wrote that he would arrive at JFK on August 2 at 7:30 p.m., and he and Manafort agreed to a late dinner that night.919 Documentary evidence- including flight, phone, and hotel records, and the timing of text messages exchanged 920-confirms the dinner took place as planned on August 2.921

As to the contents of the meeting itself, the accounts of Manafort and Gates-who arrived late to the dinner-differ in certain respects. But their versions of events, when assessed alongside available documentary evidence and what Kilimnik told business associate Sam Patten, indicate that at least three principal topics were discussed. First, Manafort and Kilimnik discussed a plan to resolve the ongoing political problems in Ukraine by creating an autonomous republic in its more industrialized eastern region ofDonbas, 922 and having Yanukovych, the Ukrainian President ousted in 2014, elected to head that republic. 923

That plan, Manafort later acknowledged, constituted a "backdoor" means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine. 924

Manafort initially said that, if he had not cut off the discussion, Kilimnik would have asked Manafort in the August 2 meeting to convince Trump to come out in favor of the peace
plan, and Yanukovych would have expected Manafort to use his connections in Europe and Ukraine to support the plan. 925 Manafort also initially told the Office that he had said to Kilimnik that the plan was crazy, that the discussion ended, and that he did not recall Kilimnik asking Manafort to reconsider the Ian after their August 2 meeting. 926 Manafort said REDACTED that he reacted negatively to Yanukovych sending-years later-an "urgent" request when Yanukovych needed him. 927 When confronted with an email written by Kilimnik on or about December 8, 2016, however, Manafort acknowledged Kilimnik raised the peace plan again in that email. 928 Manafort ultimately acknowled ed Kilimnik also raised the peace plan in January 2017 meetings with Manafort REDACTED 929

Second, Manafort briefed Kilimnik on the state of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's plan to win the election. 930 That briefing encompassed the Campaign's messaging and its internal polling data . According to Gates, it also included discussion of "battleground" states, which Manafort identified as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. 931 Manafort did not refer explicitly to "battle ground " states in his telling of the August 2 discussion, REDACTED.

Third, according to Gates and what Kilimnik told Patten, Manafort and Kilimnik discussed two sets of financial disputes related to Mana fort's previous work in the region. Those consisted of the unresolved Deripaska lawsuit and the funds that the Opposition Bloc owed to Manafort for his political consulting work and how Manafort might be able to obtain payment. 933

After the meeting, Gates and Manafort both stated that they left separately from Kilimnik because they knew the media was tracking Manafort and wanted to avoid media reporting on his connections to Kilimnik. 934

smr wrote:This Mueller report is interesting especially Part 2. Part 2 lays out a plan for Obstruction . I am sometimes cheap where it comes to money. For this exercise I printed out the report and howled at the cost. At dinner, my family goes and discusses one point of the obstruction. One the 3rd point my son pointed out a pattern. The Mueller team lays out a case for obstruction and then destroys the case with a couple of sentences.

Mueller laid out at least a half-dozen crimes of obstruction committed by Trump -- from asking former Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland to write an untruthful letter about the reason for Flynn's chat with Kislyak, to asking Corey Lewandowski and then-former White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller and McGahn to lie about it, to firing Comey to impede the FBI's investigations, to dangling a pardon in front of Michael Cohen to stay silent, to ordering his aides to hide and delete records.

...

The president's job is to enforce federal law. If he had ordered its violation to save innocent life or preserve human freedom, he would have a moral defense. But ordering obstruction to save himself from the consequences of his own behavior is unlawful, defenseless and condemnable.

smr wrote:Gcomeau, Keep grasping for the straws eventually you will run out of straws! You bought the Demoncrats and their media allies story hook, line, and sinker.

gcomeau wrote:

smr wrote:Gcomeau, Keep grasping for the straws eventually you will run out of straws! You bought the Demoncrats and their media allies story hook, line, and sinker.

So to be clear, in your frantic need to squeeze your eyes shut and clamp your hands firmly over your ears to deny what is spelled out in absolutely clear terms in the report, you are now characterizing Andrew Napolitano of FOX NEWS as "a Demoncrat media ally"?

You're getting more transparently desperate by the day.