"FBI, 5 other agencies probe possible covert Kremlin aid to Trump"
Article written by Peter Stone and Greg Gordon.
Published on January 18, 2017.
mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-…
Article written by Peter Stone and Greg Gordon.
Published on January 18, 2017.
mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-…
"The FBI and five other law enforcement and intelligence agencies have collaborated for months in an investigation into Russian attempts to influence the November election, including whether money from the Kremlin covertly aided President-elect Donald Trump..."
"... two people familiar with the matter said."
"The agencies involved in the inquiry are the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Justice Department, the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and representatives of the director of national intelligence, the sources said."
"Investigators are examining how money may have moved from the Kremlin to covertly help Trump win, the two sources said. One of the allegations involves whether a system for routinely paying thousands of Russian-American pensioners may have..."
"... been used to pay some email hackers in the United States or to supply money to intermediaries who would then pay the hackers, the two sources said."
"The informal, inter-agency working group began to explore possible Russian interference last spring, long before the FBI received information from a former British spy hired to develop politically damaging and unverified research about Trump, according to the sources."
We will skip ahead slightly.
"A key mission of the six-agency group has been to examine who financed the email hacks of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The London-based transparency group WikiLeaks released the emails last summer and in October."
"The working group is scrutinising the activities of a few Americans who were affiliated with Trump's campaign or his business empire and of multiple individuals from Russia and other former Soviet unions who had similar connections, the sources said."
Skipping ahead again.
"Steele's information has been treated as unverified intelligence by the working group because most of it came from purported Kremlin leaks and virtually all of it is extremely difficult to corroborate, the people familiar with the investigation said."
"The BBC reported that the FBI had obtained a warrant on Oct. 15 from the highly secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing investigators access to bank records and other documents about potential payments and money transfers related to Russia."
Skipping ahead.
"One episode that Steele's reports described from multiple sources referred to a late-summer meeting in Prague between Russian government representatives and Michael Cohen, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, the president-elect's vast business operation."
"But the FBI has been unable to establish that Cohen was in Prague during that period, the two sources familiar with the working group said."
The end.
