• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Reports on Russian connections to Trump [Summaries in OP] #GoldenShowers

Status
Not open for further replies.

RulkezX

Member
What the hell are you guys using for news sources? Im asking genuinely. I know that 4chan tried to discredit it by faking images and claiming it was a prank, but Ive been through no less than 10 different news sites today and NONE of them are claiming/posting the bolded. Yet Gaffer after gaffer keeps coming in asking if its a hoax? How the fuck does 4chan spread this shit so fast?

Is it reddit or something?

Nothing to do with 4chan, that image of the faked text that was meant to be on the end of the report poving it was fake had been all over social media some the story broke.

I'd imagine people with certain leanings see the image and tag line , have their bias confirmed then go on to share or retweet wI thought giving it anymore thought.
 

*Splinter

Member
yeah all this talk about the passport and it's like, surely there are other ways to prove he was there?
I think the interesting thing is just that he's denied it. So either he wasn't in Prague or he's extremely confident there's no evidence of him being there.

The latter seems more likely tbh, especially if the other guy with the same name led to a mix up somehow.

Edit: I mean, can you imagine if proof of him being in Prague emerged now? It would confirm the weakest part of the report, and his denial would strongly suggest he wasn't supposed to be there.
 

*Splinter

Member
That's not the latest update. I read that yesterday morning. Since then, I'm now hearing 4chan are involved and/or it was some sort of misinformation or prank gone nuts.
The fake "leaked image" isn't the only rumour to come out of 4chan yes, but do you think that fake rumour came out, was disproved, and then totally coincidentally the "real" 4chan hoax was revealed totally legit this time guys we swear?

The OP is up to date
 

Alx

Member
That's not the latest update. I read that yesterday morning. Since then, I'm now hearing 4chan are involved and/or it was some sort of misinformation or prank gone nuts.

Well, that's why information need sources. "I'm now hearing" is... well, hearsay, which is unreliable since it propagates all kinds of info (real and fake) without any proof or ground.
Unless you have specific new sources, what you're hearing may very well be the same thing you read yesterday, propagated (and distorted) by word of mouth.
 
The fake "leaked image" isn't the only rumour to come out of 4chan yes, but do you think that fake rumour came out, was disproved, and then totally coincidentally the "real" 4chan hoax was revealed totally legit this time guys we swear?

The OP is up to date

Well, that's why information need sources. "I'm now hearing" is... well, hearsay, which is unreliable since it propagates all kinds of info (real and fake) without any proof or ground.
Unless you have specific new sources, what you're hearing may very well be the same thing you read yesterday, propagated (and distorted) by word of mouth.

Right, so no update since yesterday afternoon? That's all I needed thanks.

Oh and I only read about 4chan from here. Nowhere else.
 

SomTervo

Member
Gerald Ford took over the presidency after Nixon stepped down. He is the only U.S. president to have never been elected into office directly by the people. He wasn't even on the ticket for Nixon's re-election campaign in '72. Spiro Agnew was still vice-president at the time. Ford was the House Minority Leader before being appointed as VP for the year before Nixon resigned.

Trump wasn't either, amirite?

In the st petersburg "troll factory" they're paid 400-650 € per month lol

Finnish broadcasting company has done some interesting articles on the issue

http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/jessikka-aros-prize-winning-stories-on-russian-propaganda

The Independent (UK) did some good stuff, too, IIRC.
 

BowieZ

Banned
So I'm going through Michael Cohen's twitter feed trying to dig up the truth regarding the potential for him to have travelled to Russia through the Schengen nations. Not sure when he was apparently in Rome(?) (supposedly on holiday in Europe in July?) but his feed is interesting in that it's basically a stream of about 20 tweets and retweets per day, but during July and August there are a few "gaps" (where there's only one or two tweets a day and he isn't making any media appearances).

One of those gaps is August 5 to August 10, 2016. He tweets only a couple of times -- meanwhile on August 10 the '44 new Hillary emails leak' story comes out.

Can anyone help plot out his movements around this time?

Edit: the Atlantic reported on his whereabouts -- https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...is-fake-news-meant-to-malign-mr-trump/512762/

So he admits to being in Italy in July, and his whereabouts is supposedly spotless from very late August through September.

But the report suggests he was in Prague in "August/September," which is obviously vague enough for it to still be true.
 

m3k

Member
Yoooo this shit is crazy... I think I've caught up

I can't believe he upstaged this report ... With his plan to disentangle himself from his business which means he promises not to talk to his sons about the business

Like what.... The way he tries to sell it

My two sons over there... They will run the business very professionally... I don't even have to do this, I could run the business and the country at the same time but I don't like the sound of it

And then there's the table of documents he was presenting... Wtf this shit is surreal

Unfortunately I think he'll get away with shit for a long time... The people who voted for him will only care when there are no jobs and nothing being done
 

weekev

Banned
I think the interesting thing is just that he's denied it. So either he wasn't in Prague or he's extremely confident there's no evidence of him being there.

The latter seems more likely tbh, especially if the other guy with the same name led to a mix up somehow.

Edit: I mean, can you imagine if proof of him being in Prague emerged now? It would confirm the weakest part of the report, and his denial would strongly suggest he wasn't supposed to be there.

I pity the US intelligence officers that are now poring over the footage from security cameras from any major transport hub in or out of Prague attempting to positively ID him.
 

Zereta

Member
So, catching up on my news reading for today, came across this:

Politico: Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire

This is a very long article. I'll be quoting parts of this story.

A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

Merkel, who has served as an election observer in Ukrainian presidential elections dating back to 1993, noted there's some irony in Ukraine and Russia taking opposite sides in the 2016 presidential race, given that past Ukrainian elections were widely viewed in Washington's foreign policy community as proxy wars between the U.S. and Russia.

A daughter of Ukrainian immigrants who maintains strong ties to the Ukrainian-American diaspora and the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, Chalupa, a lawyer by training, in 2014 was doing pro bono work for another client interested in the Ukrainian crisis and began researching Manafort's role in Yanukovych's rise, as well as his ties to the pro-Russian oligarchs who funded Yanukovych's political party.

In January 2016 — months before Manafort had taken any role in Trump's campaign — Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump's campaign, ”I felt there was a Russia connection," Chalupa recalled. ”And that, if there was, that we can expect Paul Manafort to be involved in this election," said Chalupa, who at the time also was warning leaders in the Ukrainian-American community that Manafort was ”Putin's political brain for manipulating U.S. foreign policy and elections."

That was not an uncommon view at the time, and, perhaps as a result, Trump's ties to Russia — let alone Manafort's — were not the subject of much attention.
That all started to change just four days after Chalupa's meeting at the embassy, when it was reported that Trump had in fact hired Manafort, suggesting that Chalupa may have been on to something.

Telizhenko recalled that Chalupa told him and Shulyar that, ”If we can get enough information on Paul [Manafort] or Trump's involvement with Russia, she can get a hearing in Congress by September."

Chalupa confirmed that, a week after Manafort's hiring was announced, she discussed the possibility of a congressional investigation with a foreign policy legislative assistant in the office of Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who co-chairs the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus. But, Chalupa said, ”It didn't go anywhere."

Within a few weeks of her initial meeting at the embassy with Shulyar and Chaly, Chalupa on April 20 received the first of what became a series of messages from the administrators of her private Yahoo email account, warning her that ”state-sponsored actors" were trying to hack into her emails.

Chalupa further indicated in her hacked May email to the DNC that she had additional sensitive information about Manafort that she intended to share ”offline" with Miranda and DNC research director Lauren Dillon, including ”a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I'm working on you should be aware of." Explaining that she didn't feel comfortable sharing the intel over email, Chalupa attached a screenshot of a warning from Yahoo administrators about ”state-sponsored" hacking on her account, explaining, ”Since I started digging into Manafort these messages have been a daily occurrence on my yahoo account despite changing my password often."

About a month-and-a-half after Chalupa first started receiving hacking alerts, someone broke into her car outside the Northwest Washington home where she lives with her husband and three young daughters, she said. They ”rampaged it, basically, but didn't take anything valuable — left money, sunglasses, $1,200 worth of golf clubs," she said, explaining she didn't file a police report after that incident because she didn't connect it to her research and the hacking.

But by the time a similar vehicle break-in occurred involving two family cars, she was convinced that it was a Russia-linked intimidation campaign. The police report on the latter break-in noted that ”both vehicles were unlocked by an unknown person and the interior was ransacked, with papers and the garage openers scattered throughout the cars. Nothing was taken from the vehicles."

Then, early in the morning on another day, a woman ”wearing white flowers in her hair" tried to break into her family's home at 1:30 a.m., Chalupa said. Shulyar told Chalupa that the mysterious incident bore some of the hallmarks of intimidation campaigns used against foreigners in Russia, according to Chalupa.

So all this eventually led to the eventual NYT article exposing Manafort's cash ties and the Pro-Russian connection and this led to Manafort's quick resignation, allegedly not working with the campaign anymore. Instead, Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway became the campaign heads.

Back to Politico's story:

Clinton's campaign seized on the story to advance Democrats' argument that Trump's campaign was closely linked to Russia. The ledger represented ”more troubling connections between Donald Trump's team and pro-Kremlin elements in Ukraine," Robby Mook, Clinton's campaign manager, said in a statement.

According to a series of memos reportedly compiled for Trump's opponents by a former British intelligence agent, Yanukovych, in a secret meeting with Putin on the day after the Times published its report, admitted that he had authorized ”substantial kickback payments to Manafort." But according to the report, which was published Tuesday by BuzzFeed but remains unverified. Yanukovych assured Putin ”that there was no documentary trail left behind which could provide clear evidence of this" — an alleged statement that seemed to implicitly question the authenticity of the ledger.

And in an interview this week, Manafort, who re-emerged as an informal advisor to Trump after Election Day, suggested that the ledgers were inauthentic and called their publication ”a politically motivated false attack on me. My role as a paid consultant was public. There was nothing off the books, but the way that this was presented tried to make it look shady."

True enough, Manafort and Corey Lewandowski were both seen in Trump Tower soon after Trump won the presidency.

Back to Politico:

Yet Russia seemed to come to the defense of Manafort and Trump last month, when a spokeswoman for Russia's Foreign Ministry charged that the Ukrainian government used the ledgers as a political weapon.

Ukraine seriously complicated the work of Trump's election campaign headquarters by planting information according to which Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign chairman, allegedly accepted money from Ukrainian oligarchs," Maria Zakharova said at a news briefing, according to a transcript of her remarks posted on the Foreign Ministry's website. ”All of you have heard this remarkable story," she told assembled reporters.

And she pointed out that Chaly traveled to the GOP convention in Cleveland in late July and met with members of Trump's foreign policy team ”to highlight the importance of Ukraine and the support of it by the U.S."

Despite the outreach, Trump's campaign in Cleveland gutted a proposed amendment to the Republican Party platform that called for the U.S. to provide ”lethal defensive weapons" for Ukraine to defend itself against Russian incursion, backers of the measure charged.

We all remember this happening. It was a big thing that was quickly forgotten.

And a final bit from the Politico article:

The Poroshenko regime's standing with Trump is considered so dire that the president's allies after the election actually reached out to make amends with — and even seek assistance from — Manafort, according to two operatives familiar with Ukraine's efforts to make inroads with Trump.

Meanwhile, Poroshenko's rivals are seeking to capitalize on his dicey relationship with Trump's team. Some are pressuring him to replace Chaly, a close ally of Poroshenko's who is being blamed by critics in Kiev and Washington for implementing — if not engineering — the country's anti-Trump efforts, according to Ukrainian and U.S. politicians and operatives interviewed for this story. They say that several potential Poroshenko opponents have been through Washington since the election seeking audiences of their own with Trump allies, though most have failed to do do so.

”None of the Ukrainians have any access to Trump — they are all desperate to get it, and are willing to pay big for it," said one American consultant whose company recently met in Washington with Yuriy Boyko, a former vice prime minister under Yanukovych. Boyko, who like Yanukovych has a pro-Russian worldview, is considering a presidential campaign of his own, and his representatives offered ”to pay a shit-ton of money" to get access to Trump and his inaugural events, according to the consultant.

As we search for evidence to verify that Trump, his campaign and the Kremlin were in contact during the campaign, stuff like this, with content impacted by material in the dossier are out here sitting in the open, as clear , potentially serious evidence that Trump has been working with Russia all along. Manafort is one big part of this puzzle it seems, to re-quote Politico:

In January 2016 — months before Manafort had taken any role in Trump's campaign — Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump's campaign, ”I felt there was a Russia connection," Chalupa recalled. ”And that, if there was, that we can expect Paul Manafort to be involved in this election," said Chalupa, who at the time also was warning leaders in the Ukrainian-American community that Manafort was ”Putin's political brain for manipulating U.S. foreign policy and elections."

Dig harder, IC and press. We gotta nail these guys.
 
So I'm going through Michael Cohen's twitter feed trying to dig up the truth regarding the potential for him to have travelled to Russia through the Schengen nations. Not sure when he was apparently in Rome(?) (supposedly on holiday in Europe in July?) but his feed is interesting in that it's basically a stream of about 20 tweets and retweets per day, but during July and August there are a few "gaps" (where there's only one or two tweets a day and he isn't making any media appearances).

One of those gaps is August 5 to August 10, 2016. He tweets only a couple of times -- meanwhile on August 10 the '44 new Hillary emails leak' story comes out.

Can anyone help plot out his movements around this time?

look for gaps where he can't tweet because he was on an international flight. How many hours from the US to EU?
 

STEaMkb

Member
Is this the next eight years? Unverified reports of Trump and Russia, Trump crying on twitter, dodging allegations?

The solution is simple. Trump needs to take a hard-line stance against Russian interference. Prevaricating and praising Putin just gives credence to the story.
 

BowieZ

Banned
look for gaps where he can't tweet because he was on an international flight. How many hours from the US to EU?

Shortest route from US to EU would be East Coast to UK, which is about 6 hours
Either way, he could have easily met up with an operative in Rome (or wherever he is supposed to have been) who travelled there to meet him, and Steele's sources confused that city with the movements of another Michael Cohen in Prague.
 

BowieZ

Banned
So, catching up on my news reading for today, came across this:

Politico: Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire


So all this eventually led to the eventual NYT article exposing Manafort's cash ties and the Pro-Russian connection and this led to Manafort's quick resignation, allegedly not working with the campaign anymore. Instead, Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway became the campaign heads.

Back to Politico's story:

True enough, Manafort and Corey Lewandowski were both seen in Trump Tower soon after Trump won the presidency.

Back to Politico:

We all remember this happening. It was a big thing that was quickly forgotten.

And a final bit from the Politico article:

As we search for evidence to verify that Trump, his campaign and the Kremlin were in contact during the campaign, stuff like this, with content impacted by material in the dossier are out here sitting in the open, as clear , potentially serious evidence that Trump has been working with Russia all along. Manafort is one big part of this puzzle it seems, to re-quote Politico:

Dig harder, IC and press. We gotta nail these guys.
Oh shit. Chalupa predicting Manafort's involvement...
 
I'm watching Kellyanne Conway spin this news from last night to Andersoon Cooper.
Jesus Christ.

Don't know if I can make it through all 27 mins.

Can we now go with saying the entire dossier is true?
Including the golden shower? lmao
 

Koodo

Banned
If a smoking gun is found, will the entire campaign team go down with Trump? I wouldn't be surprised if Trump is a treasonous rat, but dozens of others being complicit knowing this is the worst federal offence you can commit is just... yikes.
 

beelzebozo

Jealous Bastard
OléGunner;228138257 said:
I'm watching Kellyanne Conway spin this news from last night to Andersoon Cooper.
Jesus Christ.

Don't know if I can make it through all 27 mins.

Can we now go with saying the entire dossier is true?
Including the golden shower? lmao

wasn't it sweet watching her smug disposition reveal a person grasping for an absent rope as she fell from a cliff?
 

jelly

Member
If a smoking gun is found, will the entire campaign team go down with Trump? I wouldn't be surprised if Trump is a treasonous rat, but dozens of others being complicit knowing this is the worst federal offence you can commit is just... yikes.

Do rich people go to jail?

Would be nice if there is treason and illegal activity that they would face the consequences and go to prison.
 
kellayne conway and trump surrgotates do a great job of always putting their opponent on DEFENSE. Is this some kind of tactic to hide lying? Trump did it with Hillary in the debates as well. It works too well
 

Ollie Pooch

In a perfect world, we'd all be homersexual
kellayne conway and trump surrgotates do a great job of always putting their opponent on DEFENSE. Is this some kind of tactic to hide lying? Trump did it with Hillary in the debates as well. It works too well
Yep. Gas lighting. Make them question their own beliefs or what they've even said. Super manipulative.
 
Do rich people go to jail?

Would be nice if there is treason and illegal activity that they would face the consequences and go to prison.

L24cy.gif
 

BowieZ

Banned
kellayne conway and trump surrgotates do a great job of always putting their opponent on DEFENSE. Is this some kind of tactic to hide lying? Trump did it with Hillary in the debates as well. It works too well
It's a super common technique. Scientology has it nailed, too, for example.
 

Polarbear

Banned
MSNBC Morning Joe is going all in on calling the Buzzfeed report a total lie, and saying Trump was never briefed on it. Oh, and parroting the Trump line "I'm a germaphobe" even though if you have basic reading comprehension skills you'd have seen the bit about the prostitutes was them peeing as he watched, not peeing on him.
 

Zereta

Member
Question: Why is this story not being talked about? From November 10:

The Russian government was in touch with members of President-elect Donald Trump's political team during the U.S. election campaign and knows most of his entourage, one of Russia's most senior diplomats told the Interfax news agency on Thursday.

But in comments that could prove politically awkward for the president-elect, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said there had indeed been some communications.

"There were contacts," Interfax cited Ryabkov as saying. "We are doing this and have been doing this during the election campaign."

Such contacts would continue, he added, saying the Russian government knew and had been in touch with many of Trump's closest allies. He did not name names.

Ryabkov says that the reasons for communication were to "consider how to go about setting up more formal channels to communicate with the future Trump administration," even though they were communicating before anything was a sure thing.
 
MSNBC Morning Joe is going all in on calling the Buzzfeed report a total lie, and saying Trump was never briefed on it. Oh, and parroting the Trump line "I'm a germaphobe" even though if you have basic reading comprehension skills you'd have seen the bit about the prostitutes was them peeing as he watched, not peeing on him.

I wish I could find that quote of him saying he's NOT a germaphobe awhile back.

Edit: Hollywood Reporter interview:
It's said you are a germophobe. Will you kiss babies and shake hands on the trail?

I'm not germophobic. I do it. I want to make the country great, I'm going to win, I think I have a very good chance of winning. You probably are starting to feel that, too. I go through and shake hands and do what I have to do, and people like me and I like them. In Iowa, I must have shaken 2,000 hands — and those were only the ones that were next to me.
 
Question: Why is this story not being talked about? From November 10:





Ryabkov says that the reasons for communication were to "consider how to go about setting up more formal channels to communicate with the future Trump administration," even though they were communicating before anything was a sure thing.

Yeah and when the RNC happened, and they were building the Republican platform, Trump only had one piece of input.
 

Rebel Leader

THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump
James Clapper called me yesterday to denounce the false and fictitious report that was illegally circulated. Made up, phony facts.Too bad!

Excuse me? It was not illegally circulated because it wasw a us report
 

Zereta

Member
MSNBC Morning Joe is going all in on calling the Buzzfeed report a total lie, and saying Trump was never briefed on it. Oh, and parroting the Trump line "I'm a germaphobe" even though if you have basic reading comprehension skills you'd have seen the bit about the prostitutes was them peeing as he watched, not peeing on him.

MSNBC has nothing right now, Clapper basically proved their Russian source/plagiarism wrong and in an ideal world, when the House sees the classified report, we'll get leaks as to whether that memo is there.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom