None of this happens without @BikiniRobotArmy - whose father was a senior DB exec that took his own life in 2014 - and who has been jerked around by various journalists for years. We're grateful that one of his docs was a big piece of this story.
We've had the DB "breach report" for over a year. We did articles on it in January and then set it aside for a bit. With fresh eyes, we examined every entry and did meticulous background research when we acquired the internal Yugra Bank docs. Boom.
With documents in hand, we began to dig into the back story of Yugra Bank, doing open-source research on its history. Then, we talked to people who knew its elusive oligarch owner, Alexey Khotin.
It became clear to us that, at its core, this is a spy story.
Russia's top spy, Nikolai Patrushev, supported this oligarch for years. The oligarch is neck-deep in ties to FSB leadership.
Something that didn't make it into the story: Khotin's offices circle 2012-ish had underground tunnels, iron doors, and 24/7 armed guards.
Forbes had Khotin as Russia 95th richest man in 2016 but it couldn't find ONE picture of the man. He owned over 2,000,000 square feet of Moscow real estate. Not one picture.
Every aspect of him/his bank drips with Russian spycraft.
At best, we have a Russian-intelligence-backed shadow businessman who embezzled a third of a billion dollars from his bank thru Deutsche Bank in NY when his bank was reporting $22M in cash.
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Hostile takeover + selective leaking + emotionally charged rhetoric with little substance. It’s the same, boring playbook. #twitterfiles
Musk and the people with whom he’s surrounded himself are copy-pasting the faux rage machine (see: WikiLeaks, the laptop, masks, etc etc etc etc)
This isn’t an adult discussion about the limitations of online speech. It’s just clickbait for the dying platform.
Make conservatives think it’s an existential crisis to the world, make liberals rage quote tweet = Engagement. It’s such an easy formula for bad actors. It’s tired.
I know people are tired of "collusion" talk, but it doesn't mean that this isn't a huge five-alarm fire still.
Trump received millions (I've heard 8 figures) from Saudi to host the LIV Golf nonsense and now a big real estate deal. He's running for President tomorrow.
All the while, Trump had top secret code word documents in his office at his house.
Operative questions I've yet to see asked of either the Trump or Saudi sides: When and where did the LIV Golf negotiations take place?
Democrats lead in 214 House races. They have to take the lead and win 4 of these for the majority.
CA13, AZ6 look plausible. Maybe CA41? Maybe OR5?
CA22 isn't out of the question either. I think the Democrats best chance is to sweep CA13, CA41, and CA22 and pick up maybe the AZ6 seat or a Boebert recount?
The House is going to be at MOST a 7-seat lead for the GOP. If *everything* goes right for the Democrats, they could hold the House with 219 seats.
Imagine a 218-217 House... It's going to be a long 2 years.