Thread by @SethAbramson

(THREAD) Yulya Alferova—ex-wife of Russian oligarch Artem Klyushin and a member of Trump's entourage in Moscow in 2013—is yet another witness who confirms, albeit inadvertently, Trump lied about what happened at the Ritz Moscow. The list of such witnesses is now very, very long.

2/ With new evidence Trump can be successfully blackmailed over sexual exploits—just as the Steele dossier says he's being blackmailed right now by the Kremlin—and with Trump's recent Twitter lie that no one knew he'd run for president until mid-'15, Alferova is back in the news.

3/ Alferova is significant for several reasons, among them tweets she sent to Trump before he announced his candidacy for POTUS. In the first one, she confirms what Trump has long denied but what her ex-boss Emin Agalarov admitted to Forbes: Trump struck a deal in Moscow in 2013.

4/ That picture includes Alferova, Trump entourage member Phil Ruffin, Trump's bodyguard Keith Schiller, and another unidentified person. But Alferova also tweeted Trump in January 2014 in a way that suggested she already knew, post-hanging with him in Moscow, he'd run for POTUS.

5/ That Trump spent time in Moscow talking politics with Alferova is also confirmed by Alferova. Given that Trump has often couched his desire to run for POTUS—and, more particularly, his Russia policy—in terms that revolve around Barack Obama, this Alferova tweet is significant.

6/ So Alferova was part of Trump's entourage in Moscow in 2013; confirms that he struck a deal with the Agalarovs while there; confirms that he discussed politics "again and again" with the Russians while there; and after he left, expressed certainty he was running for president.

7/ So now we have Trump telling America—via tweet—that because no one knew that he was running for president until June 2015, there's no way a Russian information warfare campaign initiated in 2014 could have had anything to do with him. Alferova gives the lie to that statement.

8/ But Alferova was also with Trump for almost the entirety of what he once called his "weekend in Moscow"—a statement he dishonestly amended as soon as the trip became controversial, calling it a quick, businesslike "there-and-back." Alferova knows the truth about what happened.

9/ So the fact Alferova lied through her teeth the moment U.S. media got to her in January 2017 to ask about the Steele dossier is incredibly significant.

Let's look first at this article in The Daily Beast that asked her a number of questions about Trump's "weekend in Moscow."

10/ The article ignores that Alferova was then married to Artem Klyushin, a Russian oligarch close to the Agalarovs and a good friend of Konstantin Rykov, known as Moscow's biggest pimp and "the Kremlin's chief propagandist." Klyushin was part of Trump's Moscow entourage, too.

11/ Per the article, the Agalarovs "asked the then-26-year-old Alferova, a quick-thinking Moscow entrepreneur, to help organize Trump’s Miss Universe contest."

Well, no—she was a blogger who they asked to take pictures, a gig she got because of Klyushin. thedailybeast.com/she-met-donald…

12/ Alferova, talking to The Daily Beast after Buzzfeed dropped the Dossier in January '17, said “I'm confident nobody has any video of Trump with prostitutes."

Schiller would later tell Congress a Russian businessman—believed to be Alferova's husband—offered Trump prostitutes.

13/ She also said, "I'm not even sure if he spent the night at the Ritz." Again, Schiller has confirmed he did, so one wonders why Alferova—who either had no info on the subject or knew the truth—would try to put into the jetstream that Trump might not even have been at the Ritz.

14/ If that sort of disinformation sounds like what we hear from Kremlin mouthpieces, it *should*: Alferova worked for the Agalarovs, who are among the Kremlin's no-bid real estate developers.

They would later be the ones to set up the infamous Trump Tower meeting in June 2016.

15/ Moreover, The Daily Beast skates over the fact that, just as Rykov—pal to her then-husband—did social media for the Kremlin, so did Alferova at a lower level: "[She] develops social-media pages for Russian governors and regional officials, organizing federal/regional events."

16/ It's a pattern one notices with the very small number of people Trump was allowed to hang out with during the weekend the Kremlin got kompromat on him: they're all either Russian oligarchs beholden—as such oligarchs are—to Putin, or, far more often, *directly* Kremlin-linked.

17/ But kudos to The Daily Beast for finding out that the word on the street in Moscow was that Trump was indeed being blackmailed: "Stanislav Belkovsky—a host at the independent Russian network Rain TV—said 'Prostitutes around the city say the golden-shower orgy story is true.'"

18/ Alferova told The Daily Beast "the allegations make no sense," defending against claims Trump acted overly familiar with her by noting her husband was present. Again, we've since learned from Schiller that her husband fits the profile of the man who offered Trump prostitutes.

19/ So you have someone connected to the Russian government who—before it was known the trip was controversial—tweeted only *inculpatory* things about Trump's actions there. Once it became controversial, everything she said about the trip was *exculpatory* and seemingly *untrue*.

20/ In mid-2017, Alferova appeared again to reassure Americans that Trump met with no one important in Moscow—though he met Putin's banker and permits man before cutting a deal (funded by Putin's banker and permitted by Putin's permits man) with Agalarov. theguardian.com/us-news/2017/s…

CONCLUSION/ This is the sort of pattern of deceit investigators look for when investigating a coverup.

And as I've discussed in other threads, there are 10+ other witnesses who directly/indirectly confirm the Dossier's Ritz Moscow claims. All suggest Trump is being blackmailed.