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Jason Leopold Profile picture
@JasonLeopold
Sep 28, 2020 • 4 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
In 2018, @a_cormier_ & I wrote about a series of suspicious financial transactions that was reported to FinCEN involving Emin and Aras Agalarov that immediately preceded & followed the Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 #FinCENfiles

buzzfeednews.com/article/anthon…

buzzfeednews.com/article/anthon…
We followed that up with this story this week

A Russian Billionaire With Close Ties To Putin Made Suspicious Payments To Nobu

The high-end sushi empire received $600,000 as part of a deal with Aras Agalarov, a friend of Donald Trump's

buzzfeednews.com/article/johnte… #FinCENFiles
We now know that Mueller didn't really follow through on the revelations we disclosed in 2018
A month after @a_cormier_ & I reported about the suspicious financial transactions involving the Agalarovs, the US bank accounts used by their business, Crocus, were shut down

motherjones.com/politics/2018/…

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More from @JasonLeopold

Jason Leopold Profile picture
May 10
NEW FOIA Files🧵: The FBI just sent me a set of docs that’s directly related to Trump’s hush money trial. They're business records from First Republic Bank, where Trump’s former atty Michael Cohen opened an account to pay off adult film star Stormy Daniels.

1/
bloomberg.com/news/newslette…Image
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The details around the bank activity have been widely reported, but many of the underlying financial documents haven’t surfaced. And since cameras aren’t allowed in the courtroom, the public largely hasn’t seen the evidence at the center of the trial

2/
How I got these documents is kind of a long story. Five years ago, I filed a FOIA lawsuit against the FBI. It was for all the interview summaries – or ‘302s’ as they’re known – from key witnesses questioned during the Mueller probe

Since Cohen was a witness, I’m now in possession of 25-pages of his supplemental interview material

3/
Read 7 tweets
Jason Leopold Profile picture
Apr 7
A little backstory on this week's FOIA Files newsletter 🧵

Not long after Russia launched airstrikes in Ukraine in 2022, I started seeing tweets that said some of Russia’s targets were labs where Ukraine had secretly been developing bio weapons w/the help of the US govt
1/
The allegations seemed to be an obvious attempt to justify the invasion. They garnered thousands of retweets. Soon Fox News was amplifying the claims.

2/
The stories had a huge impact. One poll in late March of that year found that more than a quarter of Americans believed the US-Ukraine bioweapons theory.

3/
Read 9 tweets
Jason Leopold Profile picture
Apr 5
NEW FOIA Files newsletter is out with a SCOOP based on 2500 pages of docunents about how a Defense Dept office struggled to fend off a "Russian lie" related to biolabs in Ukraine after the February 2022 invasion

Read & subscribe!
🧵
bloomberg.com/news/newslette…
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The documents provide a rare behind-the-scenes look into an escalating disinformation war during a critical two-month period after the Ukraine invasion

It took me more than a year to liberate these records from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the division that was targeted by Russia's disinformation campaign

2/
One name that stands out prominently in the cache is Robert Pope, the director of DTRA’s Cooperative Threat Reduction program. Pope said he’d suspected that his agency would eventually wind up in Russia’s crosshairs.

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Read 13 tweets
Jason Leopold Profile picture
Mar 15
SCOOP: 2nd edition of my weekly newsletter, FOIA Files, is out (SUBSCRIBE!), based on FBI docs related to the classified docs Trump took to MAL & how the Aug 2022 search roiled some of FBI's rank & file

"Did this really just happen? Am I dreaming?
🧵
bloomberg.com/news/newslette…
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The FBI employee sent that email to the FBI ombudsman shortly after the MAL search. “If he took documents, give him a call and ask for them back. Like ...Seriously? My own agency .... A bunch of democrat political hacks up top…I've lost just about all faith in our leadership”
2/
Another FBI employee was even harsher, characterizing the bureau as a “Banana Republic” and an “embarrassment,” and demanding answers to a series of questions.

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Read 7 tweets
Jason Leopold Profile picture
Dec 29, 2023
#FOIAFriday 2023 year in review 🧵

Fighting for records continues to be painstaking, difficult work but my @business colleagues & I still managed to overcome the culture of secrecy & pry loose 1000s of pages of docs from state & federal agencies this year

The greatest hits
1/
The ultimate META FOIA: I FOIA'd Trump's FOIA to the IRS & then in Jan @laurapdavison & I landed this scoop: Trump used the FOIA to try and hinder IRS release of his tax returns

2/
 bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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@laurapdavison Also in Jan, a FOIA lawsuit @business & I filed against NARA resulted in the first release docs related to the retrieval of 15 boxes of presidential records Trump stored at Mar-a-Lago.

3/
 bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Read 23 tweets
Jason Leopold Profile picture
Nov 13, 2023
NEW: I obtained via #FOIA from Secret Service 100+ pages of the cocaine found inside a cubby near the West Wing of the WH this summer.

Good stuff!

Here's the full cache of docs
documentcloud.org/documents/2416…



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I refiled my request for these docs after Secret Service initially denied my request back in July citing an ongoing investigation

"If you want to hang out, you've gotta take her out, cocaine" Image
Read 11 tweets

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