some unredactions from Mueller Report. epic.org/foia/doj/muell….
thus far, I haven't noticed anything startling.
2/ many of the redactions appear to be nothing more than bureaucratic obtuseness e.g. this redaction of footnote 187, which was nothing more than reference to a public DHS report.
3/ found something interesting. Will post up in an hour or two.
4/ many unredactions concern Appendix D, which discusses cases transferred or referred by Mueller. Mueller **transferred** nine cases, redacting identity and even transferee of only one case. Why? Identity revealed in new unredactions.
5/ but first, destination of 9 identified transfers (8 cases, Manafort sent to two places): 6 to DC, 2 to EDVA and one (the inactive Russian hackers case) to Western PA which specializes in hacking cases. Note that Manafort, Gates FARA was transferred to DC.
6/ the single transferred case in which identity was redacted pertained to Manafort and Gates activities in Ukraine, including FARA. But who was redacted (we can, of course, guess)? And why was transferee jurisdiction redacted?
7/ part of answer is obvious. Redacted targets are Podesta and Mercury Group (all of whom, from any external perspective, seem to have been involved same FARA violations as Manafort and Gates). Also redacted from commentary was former Obama official Greg Craig and FTI Consulting.
8/ but somewhat surprising is the redaction of Southern District of New York as the transferee of the Podesta FARA case, given that the facts are intimately connected to Manafort and Gates FARA case (transferred to DC). Plus Podesta and their company located in DC.
9/ given results, it's hard not to think that transfer of Podesta case to SDNY was part of the mechanism for deep-sixing the Podesta case (Democrat privilege) while prosecuting Manafort and Gates for more or less identical actions in regard to FARA.
10/ I wonder what Weissman and fellow thugs provided as the official rationalization for a separate destination for Podesta transfer.
11/ and what conceivable purpose would there be for redacting the transfer destination of the Podesta case, other than to prevent and deter public scrutiny of its burial?
12/ nearly all of the referrals were redacted. Exceptions were Cohen and Greg Craig/Skadden Arps (latter were collateral damage in Manafort-Ukraine). Two names unredacted.
13/ the two new referrals were Left Hand Enterprises, a supplier to Trump campaign, and Rebuilding America Now, a PAC that supported Trump. I presume that the other 10 still redacted referrals are also unidirectional colonoscopies of Trump campaign supporters, while
14/ leaving corresponding actions by Hillary campaign uninvestigated and uncolonoscopied.
15/ I'll bet that one of the redacted referrals from Mueller is Bannon's We Build the Wall.
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here is a thread from 2023 in which Eric Ciaramella's "yikes" is placed in a more detailed context.
In this thread, I suggested that the linkage was connected to Jan 21, 2016 meeting of Ukrainian prosecutors with State Dept officials, noting that Jamie Gusack (reporting to Bridget Brink) had distributing the first demand for Shokin's head (Nov 22 TPs)
as pointed out in that thread, Gusack (State Dept) had been coordinating with Ciaramella (NSC) prior to arrival of Ukr prosecutors in Jan 2016, referring to Shokin replacement.
State Dept cited "diamond prosecutors case" as big deal. But what happened to it next? A long story.
Bridget Brink, Jamie Gusack's boss, reported to Victoria Nuland. Brink was appointed Ambassador to Ukraine in April 2022. Unanimous approval by Senate in early days of war at the exact time that US and UK were sabotaging the peace deal negotiated in Istanbul
as observed yesterday, , after 2014 US coup, the tsunami of billion dollar US/IMF loans was associated with unprecedented embezzlement by Ukr oligarchs thru corrupt Ukr banking system. Rescues of failed banks (mostly unnoticed in west) were markers
in today's thread, I'll provide a short bibliography of articles (mostly Ukrainian language via google translate) on the Ukr banking corruption crisis that began and exploded after the 2014 US coup, while Biden, Blinken, Nuland et al were running Ukraine
once one searches specifically for the topic, there are interesting references, but the topic has received essentially next to zero coverage in the west. I'll take myself as an example. Despite following Ukr affairs quite closely, my prior knowledge was three vignettes.
May 25, 2021: US DOJ announced indictment & arrest of Austrian banker Peter Weinzierl
Mar 13, 2024: we learn that Alexander Smirnov was an FBI informant against Weinzierl and had lured Weinzierl to UK on behalf of FBI for arrest justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/t… archive.is/zO1rt
the DOJ charges against Austrian banker Weinzierl, filed during first six months of Biden admin, pertained to allegations that payments made via Meinl Bank in Austria by Brazilian construction company Odebrecht were connected to evasion of taxes in Brazil.
if the concern of US DOJ and FBI with administration of Brazilian tax collection seems somewhat quirky, there may be an ulterior motive: Meinl Bank had a central role in the looting of Ukrainian banks during the 2014-2016 Biden administration of Ukraine.
Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, named by NYT as architect of 2014 post-Maidan takeover of Ukrainian intelligence by CIA, is former head of Ukrainian SBU. His comments on Biden corruption deserve attention, but have been ignored.archive.is/zXXQV
on October 10, 2019, early in the Trump impeachment saga, Nalyvaichenko published an op ed in Wall St Journal saying "alliance with US depends on answering questions about Bidens and election interference" [by Ukraine] archive.is/wsrjP
in that editorial, Naluvaichenko, the former SBU hear, stated that Ukraine had responsibility to investigate allegations that Ukraine interfered in 2016 election (a separate issue from Russian interference) and whether Burisma hired Hunter Biden for "cynical purposes".
as Svetlana @RealSLokhova explained to us, intelligence fabricators (like Halper) begin by juxtaposing two targets in the same room and using that juxtaposition for their smear.
Smirnov had multiple Burisma contacts in 2017-Jan 2018, that are provable by email and travel records. See diagram below.
But, according to Weiss, instead of attaching narrative to provable meetings, Smirnov attached his narrative to non-existent contacts in 2015-16 and 2019.
Obvious question: why would Smirnov attach his narrative to fabricated meetings/telecons, when he had multiple real meetings/telecons to which he could have attached the narrative just as easily?
NYT () has major article on how CIA constructed "a network of spy bases [in Ukraine that] includes 12 secret locations along the Russian border", which @aaronjmate has drawn attention to. A couple of interesting chronology points in today's thread.archive.is/zXXQV
first NYT "hero" is Valentyn Nalyvaichenko who, despite Ukraine's constitutional neutrality, on Feb 24, 2014, on first evening of Maidan coup that had overthrown the democratically elected president of Ukraine, as incoming "spy chief", colluded with CIA and MI6 station chiefs
later in the article, NYT laconically stated that, in summer 2015, Ukr president Poroshenko "shook up the domestic service" and "installed an ally to replace Nalyvaichenko, the CIA's trusted partner".