Jesus wept

Former California Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher confirmed in a new interview that during a three-hour meeting at the Ecuadorian Embassy in August 2017, he told Julian Assange he would get President Trump to give him a pardon if he turned over information proving the Russians had not been the source of internal Democratic National Committee emails published by WikiLeaks.

In a phone interview with Yahoo News, Rohrabacher said his goal during the meeting was to find proof for a widely debunked conspiracy theory: that WikiLeaks’ real source for the DNC emails was not Russian intelligence agents, as U.S. officials have since concluded, but former DNC staffer Seth Rich, who was murdered on the streets of Washington in July 2016 in what police believe was a botched robbery.

  Yahoo

Why is Rohrabacher admitting it?  Did Assange have a recording?

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham immediately denounced the claim about a pardon discussion with Assange as a “complete fabrication,” adding that the president “barely knows Dana Rohrabacher” and has “never spoken to him on this subject or almost any subject.”

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. The barely knew him defense.

Rohrabacher said that not only did talk of a Trump pardon take place during his meeting, but he also followed up by calling then White House chief of staff John Kelly to discuss the proposal. He did not, however, ever speak to Trump about it, he said.

“I spoke to Julian Assange and told him if he would provide evidence about who gave WikiLeaks the emails I would petition the president to give him a pardon,” Rohrabacher said. “He knew I could get to the president.”

Oh, well, that's different.

When he spoke to Kelly, the then chief of staff was “courteous” but made no commitment that he would even raise the matter directly with the president. “He knew this had to be handled with care,” Rohrabacher said, and that it could be spun by the news media in ways that would be “harmful” to the president. In fact, Rohrabacher said he never heard anything further from Kelly about the matter, nor did he ever discuss the subject directly with Trump.

Any bets on whether Rohrabacher got a message from a Trump henchman after Assange made the claim of what to say to the press?

Or is the fact that Dana Rohrabacher is a total twit the simple answer?

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

A pardon before the charges?

Assuming this is true, and there's little reason to doubt it, the Trump cabal might be that blatant, but Assange is surely smarter than that.  After all, he hasn't been extradicted to the US (he has a hearing in England next week for the first part of a 2-part hearing that will be held over until May), and even if that eventually happens, Trump might not honor the deal, and he might not even be president by the time it comes around.  Rohrabacher and Trump were offering something that didn't exist.

And although Kevin McCarthy would hope for it, we haven't forgotten...

“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” Kevin McCarthy, the second-ranking House Republican, told his colleagues during [a 2016] meeting. Some of those colleagues then laughed, and McCarthy added: “Swear to God.”

  NYT

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

UPDATE:  The hilarity continues.

Mueller drilling down in the tangled web

The FBI is investigating whether a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump win the presidency, two sources familiar with the matter have told McClatchy.

FBI counterintelligence investigators have focused on the activities of Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank who is known for his close relationships with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA, the sources said.

It is illegal to use foreign money to influence federal elections.

  McClatchy

For now.

[T]he NRA reported spending a record $55 million on the 2016 elections, including $30 million to support Trump – triple what the group devoted to backing Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential race. Most of that was money was spent by an arm of the NRA that is not required to disclose its donors.

Two people with close connections to the powerful gun lobby said its total election spending actually approached or exceeded $70 million.

[...]

Torshin, a leading figure in Putin’s party, has been implicated in money laundering by judicial authorities in Spain, as Bloomberg News first revealed in 2016.

[...]

A summary obtained by McClatchy of the still-secret report links Torshin to Russian money laundering and describes him as a godfather in a major Russian criminal organization called Taganskaya.

[...]

Torshin is among a phalanx of Putin proxies to draw the close attention of U.S. investigators, who also have tracked the activities of several Russian billionaires and pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs that have come in contact with Trump or his surrogates.

[...]

Torshin was a senior member of the Russian Senate and in recent years helped set up a Moscow gun rights group called Right to Bear Arms. He not only spoke with Trump Jr. at the NRA convention, but he also tried unsuccessfully to broker a meeting between Putin and the presidential candidate in 2016, according to the Times.

[...]

Mueller’s investigation has been edging closer to Trump’s inner circle. This week, The New York Times reported that Mueller had negotiated an agreement under which Steve Bannon, who was recently ousted from his post as a senior White House adviser, would fully respond to questions about the Trump campaign. Bannon headed the campaign over its final weeks.

[...]

In their internal report, Spanish prosecutors revealed a web of covert financial and money-laundering dealings between Torshin and Alexander Romanov, a Russian who pleaded guilty to money-laundering charges in 2016 and was sentenced to nearly four years in prison.

[...]

In their internal report, Spanish prosecutors revealed a web of covert financial and money-laundering dealings between Torshin and Alexander Romanov, a Russian who pleaded guilty to money-laundering charges in 2016 and was sentenced to nearly four years in prison.

Always surrounding Trump is the specter of money laundering. I'm still waiting for Mueller to hand that charge over to some prosecutor.

And, the collusion...always the collusion:

[Veteran conservative operative Paul] Erickson has raised funds for the NRA and is a friend of Butina’s. Shortly before the NRA’s May 2016 convention, he emailed Trump campaign aide Rick Dearborn about the possibility of setting up a meeting between Putin and Trump during the campaign, according to the Times.

Erickson’s email to Dearborn bore the subject line “Kremlin Connection.” In it, Erickson solicited advice from Dearborn and his boss, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a top foreign policy adviser to Trump’s campaign, about the best way to connect Putin and Trump.

[...]

Bridges LLC, a company that Erickson and Butina established in February 2016 in Erickson’s home state of South Dakota, also is expected to draw scrutiny. Public records don’t reveal any financial transactions involving Bridges. In a phone interview last year, Erickson said the firm was established in case Butina needed any monetary assistance for her graduate studies — an unusual way to use an LLC.

Unusual - maybe unheard of?

On top of Torshin’s efforts to cozy up to the Trump campaign, the Moscow banker has forged ties with powerful conservatives, including Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, the Californian whom some have deemed Putin’s best friend in Washington.

[...]

Last February when Torshin visited Washington, Rockefeller heir and conservative patron George O’Neill Jr. hosted a fancy four-hour dinner for the banker on Capitol Hill, an event that drew Rohrabacher, Erickson and other big names on the right. Rohrabacher has labeled Torshin as “conservatives’ favorite Russian,” Torshin was in Washington at the time to lead his country’s delegation to the National Prayer Breakfast, where Trump spoke. The banker also was slated to see the president at a meet-and-greet event prior to a White House breakfast, but Torshin’s invitation was canceled after the White House learned of his alleged mob connections, Yahoo News reported.

[...]

[David Keene, a former NRA president] helped lead a high-level NRA delegation to Moscow in December 2015 for a week of lavish meals and meetings with Russian business and political leaders. The week’s festivities included a visit to a Russian gun company and a meeting with a senior Kremlin official and wealthy Russians, according to a member of the delegation, Arnold Goldschlager, a California doctor who has been active in NRA programs to raise large donations.

Others on the trip included Joe Gregory, who runs the NRA’s Ring of Freedom program for elite donors who chip in checks of $1 million and upwards, Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke and Pete Brownell, a chief executive of a gun company and longtime NRA board member.

In a phone interview, Goldschlager described the trip as a “people-to-people mission,” and said he was impressed with Torshin — who, he noted, hosted both a “welcoming” dinner for the NRA contingent and another one.

“They were killing us with vodka and the best Russian food,” Goldschlager said. “The trip exceeded my expectations by logarithmic levels.”

Or, perhaps more accurately, whichever White Houes staff member scheduled him to meet Trump didn't know about the connections.

I have a feeling we're going to see a fair number of Republicans caught in this net. Sooner than later, I hope.


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

Republicans defend tots with guns program

Unbelievable.

Gates charged in a deal with Mueller

Here's the superseding criminal information document pleading that was filed today in accordance with a guilty plea by Gates.  It's rough, but much less than that monster 32-count charge we were looking at yesterday.  This charge has two counts only: conspiracy against the United States and false statement.  I wonder what deal he got in return.  He must be giving up something very important to Mueller in order to avoid those bank fraud and money laundering charges in the 32-count document. 

And I wonder if this influences Manaforts ideas on whether to plead out.

The Gates charge also mentions, in conjunction with the false statement count, a meeting Manafort had with "a congressman" - which is a reference to Dana Rohrabacher.  Although it doesn't accuse Rohrabacher of anything yet, I assume we're going to see him keel-hauled one day.

It's kind of mind-blowing when you realize that Gates' false statement charge came from a lie he told as recently as this first of this month.  And why would he lie about what Manafort told him about a meeting with Rohrabacher and another lobbyist?  Missing some pieces of this puzzle.

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

UPDATE:



UPDATE:

Manafort's statement: he's not budging.  Yet.  Maybe he knows he's getting a pardon.

FURTHER UPDATE:








FURHTER UPDATE:

Gates to plead guilty

President Trump’s one-time campaign aide Richard Gates has told family and close friends in a letter sent this morning he plans to plead guilty Friday in the special counsel’s criminal case against him, setting up the potential for Gates to become the latest well-informed Trump insider to assist in the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential contest, according to sources close to the matter.

[...]

Despite speculation for weeks that Gates was close to or had made a deal, the source told ABC News, a deal with the special counsel’s team did not come together until the middle of this week, and prior to that deal it had looked unlikely.

[...]

Gates has for weeks been vacillating between fighting the charges and pleading guilty, and remained undecided through much of this week, according to the sources.

  ABC News

Plus he brought on new counsel and tried to dump the old ones. I wonder if he, himself, or Manafort (or Trump) held out hoping to resist or be pardoned, and Mueller finally got tired of the game.

In the letter obtained by ABC News, Gates writes to family and friends “despite my initial desire to vigorously defend myself, I have had a change of heart,” Gates explained. “The reality of how long this legal process will likely take, the cost, and the circus-like atmosphere of an anticipated trial are too much. I will better serve my family moving forward by exiting this process.”

Not to mention the evidence against him in some very serious charges of bank fraud and money laundering.

“The consequence is the public humiliation, which at this moment seems like a small price to pay for what our children would have to endure otherwise,” Gates said in his letter.

Haha. Public humiliation would be the least of their problems if daddy went to jail as a convicted money launderer.

The exact terms of the deal are still unclear. The special counsel’s office declined to comment.

They never do.

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

UPDATE:

Regarding the stuttering, confusing recent reports surrounding removal of Gates' lawyers, a Southpaw Twitter thread indicates that Gates apparently lied to Mueller's team on February 1.  If that's true, it would certainly explain why his lawyers would want out - maybe he wasn't trying to dump them.

Here's the superseding criminal information document pleading that was filed today in accordance with a guilty plea by Gates.  It's rough, but less than that monster 32-count charge we were looking at a couple of days ago.  This charge has two counts: conspiracy against the United States and false statement.  I wonder what deal he got in return.  And what information on Trump he has that he'll give to Mueller.  And whether Manafort will want to cooperate now to get some sort of deal for himself.

Here's the false statement count:




Fairly confusing, but I think it's saying in essence Manafort didn't tell Gates there was no discussion of Ukraine, but he did tell him that he told his FARA lawyer there had been no discussion of Ukraine, which I assume is admitting Manafort lied to his FARA lawyer.

I don't even know why I'm trying to figure this shit out.

The member of Congress mentioned is Dana Rohrabacher.  I assume he's going to get measured for an orange jumpsuit before all this is over. Former congressman John V. "Vin" Weber is also tangled in this Ukraine lobbying mess. I don't know where he falls into the criminality of it all, but it looks like he was also lobbying for Ukraine with Manafort, both of whom made a $1,000 campaign contribution to Rohrabacher "in connection with their lobbying."

There is no indication Rohrabacher is under investigation by the FBI or the House and Senate committees looking into what happened, but his name keeps popping up in connection to key figures and events in the investigation.

  LA Times

Which is a pretty fair hint that, if he's not under investigation, he will be.

He had this to say about that March 2013 meeting:

Rohrabacher said in an interview the meeting happened over dinner at the Capitol Hill Club, a popular Washington Republican social club. He said Manafort billed it as a chance to get reacquainted decades after they worked together in the 1970s on President Reagan’s campaign. Still, he assumed Manafort had an agenda.

“I assume when old friends call me up and are wanting to get reacquainted and stuff I always assume they are in some way under contract with somebody,” Rohrabacher said. “We discussed a myriad of things, a lot of personal stuff, a lot of different analysis of the politics of the day. It was a nice little dinner.”

Innocent.

Manafort didn’t file as a foreign agent with the Justice Department, or disclose the dinner, until he came under scrutiny during the Russia investigation.

[...]

During a congressional trip to Russia in 2016, Rohrabacher and his longtime friend and employee Paul Behrends met privately with high-ranking Russian justice officials.

At the time, Congress was considering expanding the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which prevented Russians believed to be involved in certain human rights abuses from traveling to the United States or spending money in the country.

[...]

They wanted Rohrabacher to cast doubt on what had happened to Magnitsky, and try to at least get Magnitsky’s name removed from the law.

Politico also reported that Rohrabacher huddled with Russian American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya while he was in Moscow, a meeting Rohrabacher hasn’t confirmed. The pair later went on to lead lobbying efforts against the expanded Magnitsky Act when Rohrabacher returned to Washington.

And the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Junior.

Rohrabacher has now been accused of violating the Russian sanctions he fought against by the man who convinced Congress to approve them.

In a complaint filed with the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, Browder alleged that by getting information from Grin — one of the Russians sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act — and using it to try to change U.S. law, “Rohrabacher’s and Behrends’ reported actions thus provided services to one of the central figures targeted by the Magnitsky Act.”

Such complaints are most commonly made about the actions of big banks or private citizens, not a sitting member of Congress.

In a statement responding to the complaint, Rohrabacher said, “anyone who knows me understands that I am the member of Congress least likely to take directions from government officials, especially foreign government officials.”

We're going to have to build a new prison to hold all these crooks. Or send them to Guantánamo.

UPDATE:






UPDATE 8/1:

Mueller has referred three cases of "possible illicit foreign lobbying" to the SDNY for investigation: Vin Weber, Tony Podesta and Greg Craig.

Veselnitskaya at the inauguration

According to the Post, the [Trump inauguration] attendees included Viktor Vekselberg, a businessman who is friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin; Boris Titov, a politician running for president of Russia and Natalia Veselnitskaya, a lawyer who attended a June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower.

Veselnitskaya, who Trump Jr. said claimed to have damaging information on Hillary Clinton, attended a party hosted by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), the newspaper reported.

  The Hill

That's funny. Junior, and subsequently, Senior, et al., talked about Veselnitskaya as though she were simply somebody who came to the Trump Tower meeting to talk about adoptions, and then was simply forgotten.

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

Rohrabacher striking back

That'll teach 'em to ignore and shun him in the Russia collusion phase of the Trump candidacy.  And then leave him to his own defense.

Yeah, Dana.  I think this might be too late to rehabilitate yourself with your constituents, too.  And you're probably worthless, used goods in the Russian handlers' eyes as well.

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

Squeezing out Rohrabacher

When [Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s (R-CA)] made a pilgrimage this summer to see Assange, who is holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, he had to do it on his own dime. A congressional source told The Daily Beast that Rohrabacher had requested committee funding for the trip but was denied. The congressman’s staff confirmed that he ended up using his own money.

[...]

Rohrabacher has drawn scrutiny for his longstanding links with Moscow, his closeness to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and his recent willingness to allow his subcommittee to be used for Kremlin propaganda purposes.

[...]

[T]he House Committee on Foreign Affairs has placed heightened restrictions on the trips abroad that he can take with committee money as well as the hearings he can hold through the subcommittee on Europe that he chairs.

[...]

Rohrabacher has long called for closer relations between the U.S. and Russia, to the point that the FBI warned him that he was being potentially recruited as a Russian spy.

[...]

Congressional leaders are often loathe to interject in each other’s jurisdictions, let alone level such an intra-party admonishment. But anxiety over Rohrabacher and his proximity to Moscow has been brewing within GOP circles for months, if not years.

  Daily Beast

It's not enoughto get the boot just for being a nutjob.

Sad!

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

These People Are Just Plain Nuts

Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said Monday that a "rendezvous" is being set up between him and President Donald Trump to relay information he received from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about the hack of the Democratic National Committee last year.

Rohrabacher [...] claims Assange told him that Russia was not involved in the hacking.

  CNN

Rohrabacher apparently doesn't yet understand that Mueller is going after the serious shit and the DNC hack is way, way down on the serious shit list.

Rohrabacher said after the meeting that he wanted to brief Trump on what Assange told him. Appearing on the Sean Hannity radio show Monday afternoon, the California congressman said that meeting was in the process of being set up.

"It is my understanding from other parties who are trying to arrange a rendezvous with myself and the President, it is being arranged for me to give him the firsthand information from (Assange)," Rohrabacher said.

How very cloak and dagger. WTF? A Congressman couldn't just call up the president and talk to him?

Earlier in the interview, Rohrabacher said evidence he saw painted the Democratic National Committee hack being an "inside job," a claim Rohrabacher has made before.

[...]

"If the information comes out, there will be an outrage among the American people that their time has been wasted," Rohrabacher said.

Or maybe they'll just be outraged that YOU'RE wasting their time.

"I'm trying to get this out in the public now where we can get this Julian Assange thing straightened out so that people know that it wasn't the Russians that hacked into the system, and that's not how this information was released," he said.

Jackass, Mueller is taking care of it. He's not going to stop the investigation because Dana Rohrabacher says Julian Assange told him who did the hacking. In fact, he's without a doubt got Rohrabacher on his list of people to investigate in the whole shebang.

Jesus Christ. What an idiot. And why, please why, would Julian Assange tell Dana Rohrabacher something he wouldn't tell anyone else?

The White House did not return a request for comment on Rohrabacher's comments. Rohrabacher hung up on a CNN reporter who inquired about his comments.

Nut jobs. Our nation is beset by nut jobs.

Oh, like THAT wouldn't be a problem for Trump! A pardon for information?! Why not just admit he's been rigging the game all along?  Rohrabacher better lay low.  He's caught up in that Junior - Magnitsky affair himself already.  Perhaps he's lately feeling the Mueller presence breathing down his neck and he's panicking.

Remember when the FBI warned Dana Rohrabacher that he was stupid enough that the Russians were trying to recruit him?

Marci Wheeler has some thoughts on the idiot's claims that "other parties" are "trying to arrange the rendezvous" with Trump:

Not only do these other parties not have names, but ultimately, this meeting “is being arranged” like a loveless marriage.

You’d almost think Rohrabacher recognizes the legal problems here.

One wonders whether those nameless non-agents do?

  Emptywheel

Harley Rouda, a Democrat running against Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) in 2018, has asked the FBI to probe the Republican congressman’s “political and financial ties to Russia” after Rohrabacher met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

  WaPo

Probably already being done. I'm sure the Mueller probe is doing it.

Dana Rohrabacher's Russia Connection

In an earlier post, I wondered if Rohrabacher would also be involved in this Russia collusion mess. Here's some more consideration.

[Republican Congressman Dana] Rohrabacher has reportedly been warned by the FBI in the past that Russian intelligence was attempting to recruit him.

[...]

Rohrabacher’s 2016 Moscow meeting has been revisited in recent days because of the document’s connection to the anti-Magnitsky campaign that formed part of the Trump Tower meeting.

[...]

According to two sources with close knowledge of the events, officials at the Embassy in Moscow expressed doubts about the people they were meeting with and had warned the delegation that FSB presence was constant while the members were in Moscow.

[...]

State was “really concerned” about whom Rohrabacher was meeting with, another source with knowledge of the trip said. “They were under the impression they were FSB agents.”

[...]

In April 2017, [Rinat] Akhmetshin, a former Soviet military counterintelligence officer, met with Rohrabacher in Berlin and discussed the Prevezon money-laundering case with him, according to CNN. [ed: this is the now infamous case that Jeff Sessions abruptly dismissed in May.]

[...]

House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ed Royce’s office signs off on trips such as Rohrabacher’s, but doesn’t always have the full picture of what he is doing.

[...]

An itinerary for the Rohrabacher trip that included the Berlin meeting, which has not yet been made public, details several agenda items for the Berlin leg, but makes no mention of a meeting with Akhmetshin. And the itinerary for the April 2016 trip to Moscow does not list a meeting with the prosecutors.

  The Atlantic

Why would he hide these meetings? Rhetorical question.

In response to a recent itinerary submitted by Rohrabacher for a trip to Spain, Royce told Rohrabacher that he could not take meetings in Barcelona on Catalonian separatism without also meeting with government officials in Madrid. Royce also nixed a trip Rohrabacher planned to take to Russia earlier this year.

I can see why he might.

Rohrabacher at one point had requested to screen the anti-Magnitsky film in Congress and was turned down by Royce.

The Daily Mail reported that an intern in Rohrabacher’s office sent out emailed invitations to a screening of the anti-Magnitsky film in June 2016 at the Newseum, where both Akhmetshin and Veselnitskaya were in attendance and which took place days after the Trump Tower meeting.

[...]

Veselnitskaya’s and Akhmetshin’s presence at last year’s House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing has been well-documented; less well-known is that Akhmetshin was also present at the bill markup in which Rohrabacher offered an amendment to strike Magnitsky’s name from the act.

[...]

Several sources pointed to Rohrabacher aide [Paul] Behrends, a controversial figure on the Hill, as part of the reason for the congressman’s idiosyncratic views on Russia. Other congressional staffers who have worked with or around Behrends see him as egging on Rohrabacher’s worst instincts.

[...]

Behrends reportedly took Akhmetshin around to other congressional offices, a move that raised eyebrows among other congressional staffers, who viewed it as more akin to what a lobbyist does, rather than a staffer.

[...]

Behrends “did not take me around different offices on the hill—this suggestion is false,” Akhmetshin said.

[...]

Behrends did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

He's probably lying low in hopes of escaping the Mueller machinery.

Jesus, there are a hell of a lot of people to harvest.

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

UPDATE:  Rohrabacher is going to be running to hold his seat in Congress in 2018.  This can't help.

UPDATE:  More info on Rohrabacher's ties to the Magnitsky affair.

Jaysus, This Story Grows Like Audrey II

The alleged former Soviet intelligence officer who attended the now-infamous meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and other top campaign officials last June was previously accused in federal and state courts of orchestrating an international hacking conspiracy.

[...]

The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. was told in July 2015 that Akhmetshin had arranged the hacking of a mining company’s private records—stealing internal documents and then disseminating them.

[...]

Akhmetshin had been hired by Veselnitskaya to help with pro-Russian lobbying efforts in Washington. He also met and lobbied Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee for Europe, in Berlin in April.

  Daily Beast

Is Dana Rohrabacher going to get caught in this shitstorm?  There could be a good legal reason those GOP asshats are still defending Trump.

Hacking could be part of a pro-Russian lobbying effort. Getting Trump into the White House could certainly be part of a pro-Russian lobbying effort.

I wonder why Junior left this guy's involvement in the meeting out of the various statements, email releases and defenses he's been proffering.

Akhmetshin denied the accusation, but admitted passing around a “hard drive” filled with data on IMR’s owners. He said the information was all open-source material that he’d gotten from the former prime minister of Kazakhstan, Akezhan Kazhegeldin. The private investigator, though, said he recovered a copy of the data on a thumb drive provided by an anonymous source, and found it consisted of gigabytes of private files stolen in the computer intrusion. A computer-forensics expert examined the thumb drive and found metadata indicating some of the files had last been opened by a user with the initials “RA.”

Hmmmmmm....RA....RA....?

Lawyers acting for Akhmetshin deny that he allegedly confessed to hacking. They did not deny that he had bragged about his investigatory techniques in a public place, but claimed that his methods did not involve computer intrusion.

Whatever.

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

UPDATE 7/19: More information concerning Rohrabacher.

UPDATE 8/29:  And more

That's a Joke, Son. That's a Joke.

According to audio accessed by the newspaper, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told his colleagues “There’s two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.”

McCarthy defended that comment as “a bad attempt of a joke.”

Rohrabacher said in a Friday interview with The Hill that McCarthy had apologized to him.

“He came up and said, ‘Dana, I’m really sorry, I told this joke and now people are trying to make it look like I was serious,'” Rohrabacher said. “I said, ‘Don’t worry about it.'”

For the record, an unnamed official told the Times there was no evidence that Rohrabacher had been paid by Russia.

[...]

Rohrabacher (R-CA) told the Times that the warning had focused on his meeting with a member of the Russian Foreign Ministry during a trip to Moscow in 2012.

“They were telling me he had something to do with some kind of Russian intelligence,” he said, referring to what an FBI agent had told him. Rohrabacher said he was told Russia “looked at me as someone who could be influenced.”

The California Republican told the Times he hadn’t needed the warning.

“Any time you meet a Russian member of their Foreign Ministry or the Russian government, you assume those people have something to do with Russian intelligence,” he told the paper.

  TPM

Has no one told Trump?

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

It's Not Getting Better for the GOP

A month before Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination, one of his closest allies in Congress — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy — made a politically explosive assertion in a private conversation on Capitol Hill with his fellow GOP leaders:

[...]

“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016 exchange.

[...]

Some of the lawmakers laughed at McCarthy’s comment. Then McCarthy quickly added: “Swear to God.”

[...]

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) immediately interjected, stopping the conversation from further exploring McCarthy’s assertion, and swore the Republicans present to secrecy.

[...]

“No leaks...This is how we know we’re a real family here.”

[...]

“What’s said in the family stays in the family,” Ryan added.

  WaPo

And how'd that work out?

Before the conversation, McCarthy and Ryan had emerged from separate talks at the U.S. Capitol with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, who had described a Kremlin tactic of financing populist politicians to undercut Eastern European democratic institutions.

[...]

In May 2016, McCarthy signed up to serve as a Trump delegate at the Republican National Convention, breaking ranks with Ryan who said he still wasn’t ready to endorse the candidate. McCarthy’s relationship with Trump became so close that the president would sometimes refer to him as “my Kevin.”

[...]

It is difficult to tell from the recording the extent to which the remarks were meant to be taken literally.

Seriously enough for Ryan to demand secrecy.

When initially asked to comment on the exchange, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Ryan, said: “That never happened,” and Matt Sparks, a spokesman for McCarthy, said: “The idea that McCarthy would assert this is absurd and false.”

[...]

Evan McMullin, who in his role as policy director to the House Republican Conference participated in the June 15 conversation, said: “It’s true that Majority Leader McCarthy said that he thought candidate Trump was on the Kremlin’s payroll. Speaker Ryan was concerned about that leaking.”

[...]

After being told that The Post would cite a recording of the exchange, Buck, speaking for the GOP House leadership, said: “This entire year-old exchange was clearly an attempt at humor."

[...]

“This was a failed attempt at humor,” Sparks said.

The exchange that never happened and the mention of which is absurd and false was clearly an attempt at humor.

I'm sure there are other things happening in the world beside the White House melt down, but they'll have to wait.

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

Some Might Call This a "Leak"

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