Sarah Kendzior is right

It's an international crime syndicate running the world.

A charity run by Prince Charles received donations from an offshore company that was used to funnel vast amounts of cash from Russia in a scheme that is under investigation by prosecutors, the Guardian can reveal.

Money flowing through the network included cash that can be linked to some of the most notorious frauds committed during Vladimir Putin’s presidency.

In all, it is estimated that $4.6bn (£3.5bn) was sent to Europe and the US from a Russian-operated network of 70 offshore companies with accounts in Lithuania.

The details have emerged from 1.3m banking transactions obtained by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and the Lithuanian website 15min.lt.

[...]

There is no suggestion that end recipients of funds were aware of the original source of the money, which arrived via a disguised route. However, the documents indicate that criminal and legitimate money may have been mixed together, making it impossible to trace the original source, before passing through screen companies into the global banking system.

“This is the pipe through which the proceeds of kleptocracy flow from Russia to the west,” said the anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder.

[...]

The leak focuses on Troika Dialog, a leading Russian investment bank now merged with the country’s biggest high street bank. Emails reveal how certain managers at Troika kept money flowing through the pipeline for more than eight years, starting in 2004.

  The Guardian

In case you missed it, here's Gaslit Nation discussing how Brexit was connected to the Russians who are implicated in Trump's 2016 win.

The cash was then used legally to pay for private jets, custom-built yachts, luxury properties, holidays, football tickets and fees at top English private schools.

[...]

[M]oney went towards the rescue of Dumfries House, a stately home in Ayrshire with a priceless collection of Chippendale furniture. In 2007, the mansion and its collection were set to be auctioned off to private buyers. Charles came to the rescue, raising £45m at breakneck speed to save the property for the nation.

But the venture left his foundation in debt, and in his efforts to plug the hole, the heir to the throne went on a fundraising drive. Vardanyan raised a further £1.5m, from a group of Russian businessmen, and the prince thanked them with a black-tie dinner in 2014.

[...]

Two more cases suggest criminal funds flowed through the network: Companies named in the prosecution of a fuel price fixing scam at Moscow’s state-owned Sheremetyevo airport appear to have paid $37m into the Troika network.

A further $17m in transfers connects Troika-managed companies to a Moscow resident accused of laundering 50bn roubles using schemes that helped businesses evade tax and send money abroad.

A key component of the scheme using Troika companies was a Lithuanian bank, Ukio, which was shut down by regulators in February 2013 after being declared insolvent.

The bank is under investigation by Lithuanian prosecutors tasked with investigating the laundering of the Magnitsky money.

[...]

Documents show money moved in and out of the bank in deals made by apparently fictitious businesses, tax haven-registered entities with no offices, no staff, and no presence online or in the world of commerce.

[...]

There appear to have been a number of others unwittingly caught up in the network. Troika-linked entities were used to pay for expenses that open a window into the world of the super-rich.

This will go quiet, right along with the Panama Papers.

But, here's some more info if you're interested:  What is the "Troika Laundromat"?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Now hear this

Listen to this interview with Bill Browder, the man at the crux of the Magnitsky Act, to understand why the meeting at Trump Tower regarding "adoptions" is so important to the Mueller investigation, why repeal of the Magnitsky Act is so important to Vladimir Putin, and why it's so telling and so outrageous that Trump appeared to approve of Putin's "offer" to get Bill Browder in Russia.  (In iTunes) (FM Player) (Pastime)

NPR (you may have to scroll down at this site):

Russia opens a new case connected to the Magnitsky Act

The timing of this coming after that Helsinki embarrassment is no coincidence.  However, I don't have a good handle on the message here and will be interested in seeing how other people interpret this.  It makes the need to know what Trump offered Putin all the more urgent.  After all, he publicly said he thought Putin's "offer" in regard to the collusion charges and the Magnitsky Act was "interesting" and "fascinating". 

Impeach Trump now before things get even worse.

Another dark day in the dark ages of Trump

President Donald Trump just bragged that Vladimir Putin has offered to send Russian government investigators to look into Russian government meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

That is not a joke.

It’s the “interesting idea” Trump mentioned during the press conference after Monday’s closed-door meeting between the two leaders. An idea he said Putin proposed to address Russian involvement in America’s last election and its potential interference in future ones (including the 2018 midterm elections).

[...]

In other words, this is Putin’s “interesting idea” to address exhaustively documented allegations that employees of the Russian government tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential campaign by hacking into, and publishing, private emails from one major party in the campaign:

- Have Russian government officials ask other Russian government officials if the Russian government told them to commit a crime.

- Let US officials watch Russian officials ask other Russian officials if the Russian government told them to commit a crime.

- Send Russian officials into the US to investigate allegations against domestic critics of Vladimir Putin.

  Vox

Also, he wanted a quid pro quo:  Give him access to Bill Browder.  The guy whose Russian lawyer was jailed and assassinated in Russia - Sergei Magnitsky.  Remember Magnitsky?  Remember Junior's Trump Tower meeting?

And this is Trump's public response:

"What he did is an incredible offer. He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people. I think that’s an incredible offer."

It's an incredible offer, okay. As Charlie Pierce says, Jesus take the wheel.

UPDATE:



Indeed, we've had our dark moments.  But I can't say any surpass this.

Understanding Putin, the Magnitsky Act, and Trump Junior's tower meeting

This is the harrowing story intertwined with the Russian support of Donald Trump's campaign.

Make It Stop!

The following excerpted article looks to be saying that a private firm, Fusion GPS, was hired by various people to  1) get dope on what kompromat the Kremlin might have on Trump; and 2) get dope on a man named Bill Browder in an effort to help Russia neuter the Magnitsky Act which sanctions Russians accused of human rights abuses.  Or, as another article says:   Opposition Research Firm Behind Trump Dossier Worked On Pro-Kremlin Lobbying Effort

Fusion’s work on the two projects — one favorable to the Kremlin (Magnitsky) and the other unfavorable (the dossier) — has drawn attention from Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

  Daily Caller

I can see how it might.  It can also be argued that one project is favorable to Donald Trump and one unfavorable.  Apparently they are apolitical and will work for whoever pays them.  But it's interesting that their clients - with competing interests - are using the same company.  Is Fusion GPS the only game in town?*

The Republican has questioned why the FBI reportedly used an uncorroborated document financed by a Clinton ally as part of the basis for its investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.

Grassley has also asked the FBI about reports that the bureau informally agreed to pay Steele $50,000 to continue his research on Trump. That payment was reportedly never made, though it is unclear why. Both the FBI and Fusion GPS have avoided answering Grassley’s questions about the dossier.

I can see why they might.

In his letters to the FBI, Grassley has cited a complaint that [Bill] Browder [a  London-based businessman] filed with the Justice Department last July. In that document, Browder said that Fusion GPS was waging an opposition research campaign against him on behalf of a Russian businessman who was under investigation in the U.S. for money laundering [as part of an influence campaign aimed at neutering the Magnitsky Act].

[...]

Browder was the leading force behind the campaign to pass the Magnitsky Act, a move which angered Russian president Vladimir Putin.

[...]

Fusion GPS had been hired by the international law firm, BakerHostetler. The law firm was in turn was working for Denis Katsyv, the head of a Cyprus-based company called Prevezon Holdings.

Prevezon, Denis Katsyv’s company, was implicated in the money laundering scheme. Prevezon reached a $6 million settlement with the U.S. government in the case in May.

Browder tells TheDC that he will testify about Fusion GPS, Simpson, BakerHostetler lawyer Mark Cymrot, and Akhmetshin, the former Soviet agent who is now a Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist and consultant.

Akhmetshin was the lobbyist of record for a group formed last year called the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation (HRAGIF).

The organization’s official mission was to end the Russian adoption ban implemented by Putin. But in reality, HRAGIF used adoption as a dangle to compel U.S. lawmakers to revise the Magnitsky Act.

[...]

The anti-Magnitsky campaign took a new twist over the weekend after it was revealed that a Russian lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya met on June 9, 2016 with Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

[...]

After The New York Times reported the existence of the meeting on Saturday, Trump’s legal team pointed to Veselnitskaya’s work on Magnitsky and that lobbying campaign’s links to Fusion GPS. A spokesman for Trump’s legal team suggested that the Russian lawyer could have sought to compromise the campaign.

It has since emerged that Trump Jr. was approached for the meeting by Rob Goldstone, a music publicist who works for Emin Agalarov, a Kazakh musician whose billionaire father is close to the Russian government.

Stop! Stop! Stop! I need pictures!

There's more. I'm not even going to attempt to put it together. My brain hurts.

Read it yourself.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

*UPDATE: More on Fusion GPS