DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus IMPEACHMENT: James Madison warned us that Trump is dangerously un-American

j/c

Impeachment pressure: Trump says China should investigate Joe Biden, family

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is seeking to shift the nation's attention to health care Thursday, but likely gave critics a new target to attack him by calling on China to investigate Joe Biden.

Trump faced a litany of questions about the ongoing probe into whether he pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden. Trump blasted the former vice president and current Democratic presidential frontrunner, and suggested that China should also look into his son's business dealings.

"China should start an investigation into the Bidens," Trump said.

Asked if he had requested President Xi Jinping of China to help investigate the Biden family, Trump said: “I haven’t but clearly it’s something we should start thinking about."

“I think Biden is going down,” Trump said.

At the heart of Congress' probe into the president's actions is his claim that Biden strong-armed the Ukrainian government to fire its top prosecutor in order to thwart an investigation into a company tied to his son, Hunter Biden. But sources ranging from former Obama administration officials to an anti-corruption advocate in Ukraine say the official, Viktor Shokin, was ousted for the opposite reason Trump and his allies claim.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli...ily/3850191002/

He just keeps making this easier.....

Hardly ... His support troop don't care. Every day is a new low low for the country under Trump - new lows and new norms in low, debase standards are set. Standards that if it was Clinton or Obama - there would have been a riot out of the GOP/Right ... but with Trump and his supporters he has every chance of still winning the next election. Thinking otherwise is to deceive oneself.

The Truth doesn't matter, facts don't matter - Trump supporters support Trump above truth or country.

I just love this. Think about it libs, how many times did schiff claim he had documented proof that Trump colluded with Russia? Proof he never produced. How many times will you listen to the boy cry wolf?

Said as you drink the liar in chief’s koolaide daily.
Laughable.

This time Trump is providing the truth with his own words. And Guliani is doing the same thing. All the proof you need is on video this time.

That's what is making it so easy.

You do know that schiffs staff had contact with the "whistleblower" before the report was filed? Look it up in the nyt. Schiffs has said several times he had no contact.

So you're saying it was someone on his staff that had contact and not him.

That sounds like what he said.

So Trump said out loud what he wanted from Ukraine was an investigation into the Bidens, then added that he also wanted China to investigate the Bidens after talking about having great leverage in the trade negotiations with China... WOW! Oops, he did it again!

I got a little secret for you. There was no vote taken for an impeachment inquiry. That means this is not official house business. If it's not official house business, they have no subpoena power.

They must not really want this, other than for a political stunt.

They want to show the nation what he did without removing him from office. He's the perfect poster child for why everyone should vote him out of office.

He lies, rants, calls everyone names and is pretty much nothing more than a petulant child. (my apologies to any petulant child I may have offended)

Funny, they've all called for impeachment. Let's ignore all the polls but the real one. Trump is outraising all dem candidates combined. His fundraising had gone up since this "inquiry".

Oh yes, the liberal media is also lying to all of you about Pompeo ignoring a subpoena.

So you are trying to make a point that the party of the rich and big business is raising more money? What a surprise!

Trump has told several lies just today. I wish just a few of you would hold him to the same standard you try to hold everyone else to.

And you are obviously having a problem comprehending something....

in·quir·y
/ˈinkwərē,inˈkwī(ə)rē/
Learn to pronounce
noun
noun: inquiry; plural noun: inquiries; noun: enquiry; plural noun: enquiries

an act of asking for information.
"a reporter from New York makes inquiries"
h
Similar:
question
query
investigation
examination
exploration
probe
search
scrutiny
scrutinization
study
inspection
inquest
hearing
an official investigation.
"he was one of the State's star witnesses in the murder inquiry"

It's a process of gathering information to determine whether to move forward with impeachment.

Who did you say was lying again?

I could type it slower for you I'd that would help.

The liberal media.

As announced in Wilkinson v. United States,[7] a Congressional committee must meet three requirements for its subpoenas to be "legally sufficient." First, the committee's investigation of the broad subject area must be authorized by its chamber;

No vote, not authorized. No subpoena power.

Pelosi said they didn't need a vote to make it formal. I can't find anything that says otherwise. Link?

“Official impeachment inquiries are initiated by the adoption of a House resolution empowering or creating a committee or task force to undertake such activities,” McCaul continued. “In both the Nixon and Clinton cases, the Judiciary Committee debated and reported a resolution authorizing the Judiciary Committee to investigate whether there were sufficient grounds to impeach the President, which was then debated and voted on by the full House of Representatives. There have been no such debates or votes in this Congress.”

That's what they are doing now. First stage.

lol Erik reminds me of stephen miller, trying so hard but not making anything better.

It's sort of telling .... there isn't anything about how Trump DIDN'T try to coerce a foreign government and withhold support in order for them to dig dirt on a political opponent. . . . it's all claims about how the Whistle blower is biased, or heard all this (from 5 sources) second hand, or how the whistle blower contacted Schiff, or how the impeachment inquiry wasn't correct procedure ....

What a joke the Trump faithful are. Never mind the facts, never mind the new Low that Trump has taken the country to.... support their man, more important than the truth or Country.

Meanwhile Manafort - a schister who ripped off the USA with his double dealings and tax evasion .... and gets Trump's full backing as a great guy.

like i said bro, replace the name trump with obama, and we all know how Erik and the rest of them would react. replace the name trump with hillary, and we know how the GOP and fox news will react.

... but it sounds (to me) like they don't have subpoena power until a vote is taken.

FEC chairwoman reiterates illegality of soliciting campaign help from foreign governments

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/46...paign-help-from

Any republican/MAGA hatter trying to claim it wasnt to get dirt on a political rival for the upcoming election is a bold face liar.

like it was stated previously, Trump could've went to the FBI, CIA, pentagon, etc to investigate this, but he DIDN'T. he got his personal lawyer to dig up dirt, and then put the communication records into a top secret classified server for the sole intention of no one finding out about the call.

that isn't for corruption purposes. that IS corruption. Trump is a crook, and way worse than Nixon.

and then there's this:

Republicans Signed Letter Supporting The Ukraine Reforms Biden Was Pushing

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/joe-biden-republican-support-letter-ukraine-175523001.html

lol

hope he's better looking.




"Trump henchman and sociopathic hard-boiled egg Stephen Miller..."
-SColbert

Pelosi rebuts GOP call to end Trump impeachment inquiry

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) shot down House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) call for Democrats to suspend the impeachment inquiry, noting in a written response that President Trump hours earlier had publicly asked China to investigate one of his political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden.

“As you know, our Founders were specifically intent on ensuring that foreign entities did not undermine the integrity of our elections," Pelosi wrote to McCarthy.

"I received your letter this morning shortly after the world witnessed President Trump on national television asking yet another foreign power to interfere in the upcoming 2020 elections,” she continued. “We hope you and other Republicans share our commitment to following the facts, upholding the Constitution, protecting our national security, and defending the integrity of our elections at such a serious moment in our nation’s history.”

Pelosi also wrote in her letter that there is not a requirement under the Constitution or House rules, or under House precedent, that the House hold a vote before proceeding with an impeachment inquiry.

McCarthy earlier on Thursday had argued the inquiry should not move forward without members establishing “equitable rules and procedures.”

“I should hope that if such an extraordinary step were to be contemplated a fourth time it would be conducted with an eye towards fairness, objectivity, and impartiality. Unfortunately, you have given no clear indication as to how your impeachment inquiry will proceed — including whether key historical precedents or basic standards of due process will be observed,” he wrote.

The exchange comes a week after Pelosi announced her support for a formal impeachment inquiry to look into allegations from a whistleblower who submitted a complaint on Trump’s interactions with Ukraine.

The report accused Trump of pressuring Ukraine's president to investigate Biden, something underscored by a reconstructed transcript of the phone conversation released by the White House. It also alleged that administration officials sought to cover up the call.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/464276-pelosi-rebuts-gop-call-to-end-trump-impeachment-inquiry

Well that puts the 'no subpoena power' line to bed.

Trump mentioned Biden, Warren in June call with Chinese president: report

President Trump mentioned Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on a June call with China's president Xi Jinping, CNN reported Thursday, citing two people familiar.

Trump reportedly told Xi during the conversation that he would stay quiet about protests in Hong Kong while the U.S. and China pursued trade negotiations.

The record of the call was stored in a secure electronic system where his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was also kept, CNN reported.

Trump on Thursday publicly encouraged China to look into Biden.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administrat...inese-president

j/c

You know, I get it, Trump just doesn't know any better. Dude is a sleaze ball wanna be mob boss, all he knows how to do is fight dirty. It's not his fault that doing these things as POTUS are unethical, morally bankrupt and grounds for impeachment. If you aren't trying to cheat you aren't trying to win.

Former U.S. diplomat says he warned Giuliani about peddling Biden conspiracy theory

https://news.yahoo.com/giuliani-given-ba...-222831277.html

lord.....Giuliani and Trump are the epitome of a self-fulfilling prophecy. despite multiple people, most on their own team, telling them that their belief on biden is BS, they pursued it to the point that they themselves became the conspirators.

how poetic. cant wait to find out whats in those servers.

I respect how much time and effort you've put into this endless back & forth with multiple posters. It's pretty admirable. This latest post of yours is yet another great addition to a series of tangential rabbit holes, but it ultimately doesn't address the corrupt orange elephant in the room.

Lemme do this in the simplest of terms... not because I'm trying to insult your intelligence, but because it's the most direct way to get to the core of the story for all of us.

1. Donald Trump asked a foreign country to help him in his re-election efforts.
2. That is against the law.
3. Donald Trump admitted that his did this illegal thing.


Slam. Effing. Dunk.


Everything that happens after that phone call will happen because he did this illegal thing. Period.
The outcome of the proceedings are yet to be seen, but we already know he did this thing. Because he said he did it. He even produced documents that backed it up.

Have fun with all this tangential stuff all day long. It's your time/life to spend as you please. Just know that at day's end, Your Boy was accused of, and openly admitted to soliciting help from a foreign government to damage a domestic political rival in a national election.

Jesus, dude- this is the only story.
A sitting President actually did this. Right in front of us all. And then he said (in front of us all): "Yeah- I did it."

The second-worse Presidential Offender to ever face threat of impeachment merely spied on/stole from his political rival. That one kept his crimes within our shores, and resigned his post as President of the United States of America, rather than have the depths of his transgressions exposed. It took 2 decades for America to get the full story. He was America's worst, to date. His infamy is now immortalized with the scandal-implied suffix "-gate."

As corrupt and reprehensible as Richard Milhous Nixon was, he never solicited help from foreign countries to aid his election bid. Dolt45 has now done this with THREE foreign countries, to date- and counting. All of these communiques are on the record. Officially.

It really doesn't matter where these Palus Politicus threads lead. The standing POTUS leveraged a smaller, weaker country to engage in illegal activities to help him win election. He propositioned two other 1st world nations to help him achieve that same end.

These are facts.
Facts still matter to most of us.

American History will remember this man as worse than Nixon. Because daily facts are being recorded into the public record. You will be on record as actively supporting a man who placed our entire nation at risk for his own personal gain.

I'm OK with being on the public record where this man is concerned.
I'm also OK with how you will be remembered.

#criminalminds

"Lemme do this in the simplest of terms... not because I'm trying to insult your intelligence, but because it's the most direct way to get to the core of the story for all of us.

1. Donald Trump asked a foreign country to help him in his re-election efforts.
2. That is against the law.
3. Donald Trump admitted that his did this illegal thing."

Same as you said, but didn't want to quote the whole thing.

1. Trump asked an ally to assist in the criminal investigation of a US citizen who committed a crime in that country.
2. That person happened to be a duly elected executive officer of this country in the 2nd most senior position of the administration.
3. It appears this executive officer was involved in a bribery or pay to play type of crime, securing a large payout of money for his son, so the bribe did not go to the officer directly.
4. There is a pattern of this crime happening more than once in different countries.
5. One of those countries got a deal that greatly benefited them.
6. That officer appeared to threaten one of those countries with witholding promised funds unless they fire the prosecutor investigating that officer's son.
7. The formerly fired prosecutor has testified under oath under penalty of perjury in a European court that he was told by his superiors that he was fired due to that threat.
8. That officer is currently running for the top executive position in the country.
9. The US does not have jurisdiction to conduct investigations in these foreign countries, but does have a mutual cooperation treaty on judicial matters with one of them.
10. The former executive officer bragged willingly on tape that he got that prosecutor fired.
11. The prosecutor's coworkers have given sworn afidavids that the fired prosecutor was not corrupt.

Should we let Biden run and investigate later?

According to the former Ukrainian government. According to the new one, they assisted Hitlery in manufacturing dirt on Trump to help the dems. The new government has apologized to the Trump administration for the treatment of Trump under the former government.

fake news. And your boy just asked China to investigate Biden live on the tube. Sounds like he wants to be impeached because he can’t handle the heat for the stupid deplorable crap he says and does.

Yeah, ok.

We write to follow up on Senator Grassley’s July 20, 2017 letter, which highlighted brazen efforts by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign to use the government of Ukraine for the express purpose of finding negative information on then candidate Trump in order to undermine his campaign. That letter also highlighted news reports that, during the 2016 presidential election, “Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump” and did so by “disseminat[ing] documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggest[ing] they were investigating the matter[.]” Ukrainian officials also reportedly “helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers.”
The senators aren’t relying on reports from conservative bloggers. The quotations come from a 2017 story in Politico, hardly a pro-Trump outfit. “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire,” read the headline on the article by Kenneth P. Vogel and David Stern. “Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton,” said the subhead of the article, which was published shortly before Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

The authors reported that Ukrainian government officials “helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers” with the goal of “advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clinton-and-ukraine-11569881729

Texts show diplomats pressed Ukraine on Biden before Trump meeting

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/46433...cussing-ukraine

House Democrats late Thursday released text message exchanges between several Trump administration officials that they argued underscored the administration's efforts to pressure Ukraine to pursue investigations into President Trump's political rivals.

The text message exchanges show administration officials indicating that a meeting between the Ukrainian president and Trump was contingent on investigations requested by the U.S., and in one case raising concerns about the delay of military aid for Ukraine.

The exchanges broadly highlight the extent to which the Trump administration pushed for Ukraine to take up investigations related to the 2016 election and former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Democratic presidential contender. The issue is at the heart of House Democrats' impeachment inquiry against Trump.


"These text messages reflect serious concerns raised by a State Department official about the detrimental effects of withholding critical military assistance from Ukraine, and the importance of setting up a meeting between President Trump and the Ukrainian President without further delay," the Democratic chairs of three House panels wrote in a letter to colleagues.

“He also directly expressed concerns that this critical military assistance and the meeting between the two presidents were being withheld in order to place additional pressure on Ukraine to deliver on the President’s demand for Ukraine to launch politically motivated investigations,” they added.

House Intelligence Committee Chairmen Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) released the dozen text messages as part of their impeachment probe.

The messages were provided by Kurt Volker, who served as the special envoy to Ukraine until his resignation last Friday, and they were released after lawmakers conducted a joint deposition with Volker for nearly ten hours behind closed doors on Thursday.

The text exchanges involve Volker, top Ukrainian embassy official Bill Taylor, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and Ukrainian official Andriy Yermak.

A few of the exchanges show that Trump officials indicated to the Ukrainians that a meeting with Trump would be contingent on whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to look into matters related to the 2016 election and Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company that employed Joe Biden's son, Hunter.

“Heard from White House—assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate / ‘get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington,” Volker wrote to Yermak on the morning of July 25, just before Trump’s call with Zelensky.

On Aug. 9, Volker and Sondland discussed a possible White House visit and having Yermak draft a statement showing what Ukraine planned to cover, an apparent reference to the investigations Trump sought.

The next day, Yermak told Volker that he wanted confirmation of a date to visit the White House before making such a statement.

In another text message exchange on Sept. 9, Taylor and Sondland discussed the administration’s delay of military aid for Ukraine. Taylor warned that the move had “shaken [the Ukrainians’] faith in us.”

“As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” Taylor added.

Sondland replied that he believed Taylor was "incorrect about President Trump's intentions," saying he felt Trump had no intention of a "quid pro quo" and that he was merely trying to see if Zelensky would adopt the reforms he campaigned on.

The text messages highlight efforts across the U.S. government to get Ukraine to conduct investigations desired by Trump, efforts that involved multiple State Department officials and wrapping in the president’s personal attorney.

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has admitted he was on Trump's July 25 call with the Ukrainian president, and a rough White House transcript showed Trump brought up Attorney General William Barr during the conversation with Zelensky.

The July call was the subject of a whistleblower complaint released last week. The call and the complaint spurred the launch of the formal impeachment inquiry in the House.

Democrats have seized on Trump’s public acknowledgement that he wanted foreign governments to investigate one of his chief political rivals ahead of the 2020 election, arguing it is evidence the president has abused his office for personal gain.

Trump on Thursday morning told reporters that he felt Ukraine should launch a “major” investigation into the Bidens, and suggested China should also probe the former vice president.

Trump and his allies have defended the president’s conduct, arguing that he was merely interested in rooting out corruption and suggesting it was fair to investigate any impropriety involving the Bidens.

Biden as vice president had pushed for Ukraine to oust its then-prosecutor general for failing to properly investigate corruption in the country. The prosecutor general had at one time looked into the founder of Burisma, the gas company where Hunter Biden worked on the board.

There is no evidence either Biden committed any wrongdoing.

The chairmen of the three House committees leading the impeachment probe said they wanted to publicly release the text messages Thursday "in order to help correct the public record."

Schiff, Engel and Cummings said they hope to make public "the full body of the materials" after further review to remove any personally identifiable information.

Volker testified in a closed setting with House lawmakers for hours on Thursday, with the reception split along party lines.

Democrats felt the testimony from Trump's former Ukraine envoy underscored the need to press on with their impeachment inquiry, while Republicans dismissed the testimony as theatrics.

Earlier Thursday, Republicans who attended the deposition argued that the messages did not show that Trump was dangling military aid to pressure Ukraine.

“There are text messages that make it absolutely, crystal clear — without any shadow of a doubt — that there was no quid pro quo whatsoever, and it was known as a policy of the United States government,” said Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.).

Volker is the first of several witness depositions with current and former State Department officials that Democrats are seeking. They're currently scheduled to depose Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, next Friday.

They are also seeking depositions with Sondland, Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent and State Department counselor T. Ulrich Brechbuhl. But those interviews are in flux after Pompeo warned the committee chairmen earlier this week that they would not appear for the depositions due to insufficient time to prepare.

In the meantime, the House Intelligence Committee is scheduled to receive a briefing on Friday from the intelligence community inspector general about the preliminary review of a whistleblower complaint about Trump's efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Biden.

"Based on the first production of materials, it has become immediately apparent why Secretary Pompeo tried to block these officials from providing information," Schiff, Engel and Cummings wrote Thursday.

I’ll reply on Erik’s behalf... Whatabout Biden’s son’s Hillary email server Obama first?

Russia, Ukraine, and Jina....if you’re listening?

don't worry, i'm sure we'll get a link to some rush limbaugh book that tells us whats REALLY going on.

Email Leak Exposes Trump Tower Russian’s Dirty Lobbying Operations

https://news.yahoo.com/email-leak-exposes-trump-tower-100130290.html

hey guys, good read here. interesting stuff.

Talk about corruption...lol




LONDON—The identity of the U.S. government’s star witness in a high-profile trial—who subsequently fell out of a fifth-story Moscow window—was compromised in the course of a pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign run by Natalia Veselnitskaya, according to leaked emails.

The Russian lawyer who took part in the infamous Trump Tower meeting with senior Trump campaign officials was part of a secretive campaign on American soil that—according to the emails—may also have involved contempt of court and the violation of lobbying laws. She already has been indicted by the Southern District of New York on obstruction of justice charges.

A cache of emails obtained by the Dossier Center, which is a Russian opposition organization based in London, exposes the depth of foreign asset entanglement in Trump’s America at the precise moment that the president’s dealings with Ukrainian officials threaten to pull the Department of Justice and State Department into an unseemly impeachment fight.

The leaked emails offer an unprecedented look into the cynical world of Russia’s remorseless influence campaign within the U.S. Veselnitskaya was representing a company called Prevezon, which was facing an American trial over a $230 million fraud that began in Russia and implicated the Russian authorities.

An American law firm that had been working for Prevezon at the direction of Veselnitskaya was barred from the case by an extremely rare writ of mandamus handed down by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals because of conflict of interest with a former client. Emails suggest BakerHostetler, a major U.S. law firm that has also worked for The Daily Beast and its parent company IAC, continued to operate as a kind of shadow counsel in what would have been a clear breach of the court order.

Other emails suggest another court order was violated when the testimony given by a Russian witness leaked, endangering his life before he was due to return to New York to give evidence at the trial.

It was later reported in the Russian media that the witness—Nikolai Gorokhov—had fallen five floors from an apartment building in Moscow. He survived with a fractured skull. He said his fall was no accident, but could not remember exactly what happened.

Cristy Phillips, a former U.S. government prosecutor with the Southern District of New York (SDNY) who worked on the case, said she fears that the emails shared with The Daily Beast indicate deep corruption hidden within the American legal system.

“The integrity of our judicial system depends on lawyers upholding their obligations as officers of the court. Most fundamentally, if a court issues an order, lawyers have to follow it and make sure that others on their side follow it. There were numerous senior lawyers on these emails and they all clearly violated a Second Circuit court order. And these were not inexperienced lawyers, several of them are former Department of Justice attorneys,” she told The Daily Beast.

“We're talking about a case where witnesses had died and other witnesses' lives and safety had been threatened. These were not low-stakes decisions.”

A WITNESS AT RISK

The cache of emails that detail Veselnitskaya’s legal campaign and lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C., were shared with The Daily Beast by the Dossier Center, which is funded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of Putin’s most prominent exiled critics.

The emails cannot be independently verified by The Daily Beast via a digital signature but elements contained within them including cell phone numbers, bank details, planning, email addresses, and hearing dates can be confirmed by cross-checking with subsequent court papers, lobbyist filings and other reporting.

Emails from the same leak led to an indictment against Veselnitskaya, who has known Kremlin links, that was filed by prosecutors from the SDNY earlier this year. U.S. government officials obtained the emails—first published by the Dossier Center and NBC—which suggest that Veselnitskaya conspired directly with Russian officials to mislead an American court.

Line Between Trump Tower Meet Lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya and Moscow Gets Even Blurrier

When Veselnitskaya was confronted with some of the Dossier Center emails on camera by NBC, she confirmed that she recognized some of the documents. She later told Russia’s Interfax news agency that her emails had been hacked.

New emails from the same cache, which includes messages from and to Veselnitskya and her aide and translator Murat Glashev, shed light on Veselnitskaya’s lobbying and legal campaign against the Magnitsky Act and appear to suggest that it may have been carried out in breach of another U.S. law and court orders.

Some of the emails suggest the breaking of an order put in place by a New York court to protect the identity of Gorokhov, a Russian witness who testified in a sealed deposition. His evidence was hidden amid fears of reprisals back home.

According to the Dossier Center leak, Veselnitskaya’s lawyer, Mark Cymrot, wrote a series of emails concerned that his Russian client may have allowed details of Gorokhov’s testimony to be passed on after she was granted access to the testimony under U.S. discovery laws—but only under tight restrictions.

The emails suggest Gorokhov’s secret deposition was leaked to Andrei Nekrasov, a Russian filmmaker who was making a pro-Kremlin movie against the Magnitsky Act at the time.

According to an email dated April 17, 2016, Cymrot says to Veselnitskaya: “[Nekrasov] was using part of Gorokhov’s deposition and separately he said we showed him non-public information … we are under court order to keep [Gorokhov’s] deposition and name confidential.”

Nekrasov told The Daily Beast that he does not have this material in his possession. “Neither Mark nor myself have done anything illegal, or just wrong, professionally or morally,” he said. “I do not recall anyone sharing any confidential material from that case with me.”

Cymrot did not answer detailed questions put to him by The Daily Beast.

Preet Bharara, who was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York at the time, was so concerned about Gorokhov’s safety that he submitted a letter to the judge under seal in October 2015 requesting additional measures to protect him. Bharara informed the court that “Mr. Gorokhov and his family are temporarily staying in the United States due to well founded concerns that they could be endangered by individuals in Russia seeking to prevent Mr. Gorokhov from testifying.”

“It's totally unacceptable that that information got out,” Phillips said. “It is on the record that the government took extraordinary measures to protect him. But at the end of the day, we could only protect him insofar as the defense respected the court order that said the information was highly confidential and should be shared with no one.” It is not suggested that any leaked information from the case led to Gorokhov's fall.

The civil forfeiture case in question concerned allegations of money laundering by a company called Prevezon accused by American prosecutors of disposing of some of the proceeds of a $230 million dollar fraud in Russia. The defendant, Prevezon, eventually settled the case, paying $5.9 million.

The alleged fraud took on major geopolitical significance after the lawyer who uncovered it, Sergei Magnitsky, died in Russian custody amid allegations that the Russian state and its criminal accomplices had tried to cover it up. The Magnitsky Act, which sanctioned the individuals involved, was named in his honor after former client and fraud victim Bill Browder, a U.S.-born hedge-fund CEO, launched a global campaign for justice.

“THE ADOPTION ISSUE”

The emails also reveal new details about Veselnitskaya’s efforts to have America’s Magnitsky sanctions overturned on behalf of Moscow. The sanctions in question were targeted against corrupt Russian officials by the Magnitsky Act, which had infuriated President Vladimir Putin.

In retaliation for the Magnitsky Act, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2012, Putin banned American adoptions of Russian babies. It was supposedly to discuss the so-called “adoption issue” Veselnitskaya met in Trump Tower with Jared Kushner, Don Jr. and Paul Manafort, who was chairman of Trump’s presidential campaign at the time.

Overturning the Magnitsky Act was one of Putin’s top foreign policy goals at the time, and spawned an extensive lobbying and public relations effort.

Leaked emails between Veselnitskaya and her American lawyers raise a number of potential legal issues in their campaign.

BakerHostetler, a major firm that represents Major League Baseball and was briefly hired by House Republicans to sue President Barack Obama, never registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to cover the work for Veselnitskaya and Prevezon. FARA registration is required to operate on behalf of foreign principals and a leading lobbying expert said the emails appeared to show that Baker did provide strategic and communications advice to Veselnitskaya and her employer, Denis Katsyv, who owns Prevezon.

Russian Official Linked to Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Trump Tower Lawyer, Is Dead

On May 30, 2016, an email suggests Cymrot wrote to Veselnitskaya to prepare for an upcoming congressional hearing at which she would give evidence. “Do you want us to prepare your written statement or at least the first draft? We also should prepare you for the questions.”

After the hearing, which took place in June 2016 during the trip to the United States when Veselnitskaya went to Trump Tower, Cymrot reached out again according to a leaked email to say that one of his colleagues had written a draft of Veselnitskaya’s supplementary evidence to the committee. According to a leaked email dated July 27, he followed up to say that he had made some edits personally, and could deliver the document to Congress on her behalf.

“Here you have multiple pieces of evidence that would seem to trigger registration under FARA,” said Brendan Fischer, the director of federal reforms at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit that scrutinizes campaign finance and ethics. “These emails and documents certainly raise serious questions about whether Cymrot and BakerHostetler violated FARA by failing to register.”

BakerHostetler declined to comment.

Another part of the lobbying effort included an attempt to recruit Sen. Jeff Sessions, according to the leaked emails. Sessions had become the first senior Republican to formally endorse Trump in the presidential race in February. He would go on to be named U.S. Attorney General once Trump was elected.

Rinat Ahkmetshin, a former Soviet counterintelligence officer and Washington lobbyist, boasted that he had recruited the Alabama senator to launch an investigation into U.S. sanctions against Russia, according to a leaked email from Cymrot.

Akhmetshin reportedly was hired by Prevezon before he started to get paid by an ostensible human rights NGO, which BakerHostetler and Akhmetshin helped to set up.

THE JEFF SESSIONS CLAIM

The leaked emails suggest Cymrot wrote to Veselnitskaya on April 17, 2016 to outline their progress: “Rinat has told us that Senator Jeff Sessions is willing to start an investigation into how the Magnitsky Law came about.”

After denying any 2016 contact with Russian officials during his attorney general confirmation hearing, Sessions admitted that he had failed to disclose meetings with the Russian ambassador. His story about whether he discussed the election with Sergei Kislyak changed over the months but even by October 2017—when he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and confirmed his meetings with Kislyak—he was still adamant that he had not discussed the sanctions with anyone. “I don't believe I've ever had any discussion at any time about the Magnitsky Act,” he said, under oath.

Sessions, who was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time, never did publicly call for an investigation into the Magnitsky Act.

Sessions’ lawyer Charles Cooper told The Daily Beast that Sessions "has no recollection of the matters discussed in the emails that you referenced. Nor do any of the people who were the relevant members of his Senate staff in 2016. Neither he nor his Senate staff recall meeting any of the people referenced in the email you sent. And he certainly did not pursue any kind of hearings or other inquiry into the Magnitsky Act, which he cosponsored in 2011.”

Another arm of the pro-Kremlin lobbying effort was orchestrated by an ostensible NGO called the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation (HRAGIF).

At the end of April 2016, emails suggest a BakerHostetler invoice addressed to HRAGIF described professional services worth $111,387.45 which included issues relating to the Magnitsky list, which named the sanctioned individuals, “review and markup materials regarding issues with Magnitsky Act,” and “materials for Congressional committee.” It also included numerous line items on time spent discussing “lobbying registration requirements” and “review of … FARA requirements,” as well as drafting the “certificate of incorporation” to set up HRAGIF in the first place.

According to a leaked email dated July 14, 2016, Cymrot wrote to Veselnitskya to explain the invoices. “Natalia: I am attaching the HRAGIF and Prevezon matter,” the email says. “It now contains 5 months of Baker time, which is largely support for the public relations effort.”

“It seems that the purpose in creating this nonprofit was to avoid registration under FARA, and they would not be the first law firm to try and use that tactic to avoid registration,” Fischer, from the Campaign Legal Center, told The Daily Beast. “That's what Manafort did on behalf of the Ukrainian political party and it's also what helped lead to the charges against him because the evidence showed—and he knew—that the beneficiary of his activities was actually the Ukrainian political party not this innocuously named sham non-profit.”

Paul Manafort was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison on a raft of charges that stemmed from the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in U.S. politics.

BROWDER, FOR AND AGAINST

Before working with Veselnitskaya for Prevezon, BakerHostetler previously had been engaged by Browder, a major target of Veselnitskaya and the Kremlin. BakerHostetler’s John Moscow had signed up in September 2008 to help Browder bring a U.S. prosecution over the $230 million fraud even before Magnitsky was arrested in Russia. He met with the U.S. Department of Justice in December of that year to lay out the entire criminal enterprise.

Five years later, by the time the DOJ finally acted against the Russian fraud when the Southern District of New York (SDNY) filed a forfeiture and money laundering claim against Prevezon in September 2013, BakerHostetler was about to effectively switch sides.

In October 2013, John Moscow appeared in court on behalf of Prevezon, having previously advised Browder’s Hermitage, the alleged victim of the fraud implicating Prevezon. Crossing over to fight for the other side in a legal battle is not allowed under U.S. law. Browder’s lawyers filed a complaint, which would ricochet through the courts for the next three years until the Second Circuit Court of Appeals eventually disqualified BakerHostetler from serving as counsel to Prevezon in October 2016.

When handing down the disqualification, the judge explained why BakerHostetler must not be allowed to represent Prevezon after working so closely with Browder, who was now being accused of wrongdoing. “The danger here is not limited to BakerHostetler overtly using confidences in the litigation. There is a risk that BakerHostetler, while not explicitly using confidences, may use such confidences to guide its defense of Prevezon in other ways.”

Emails apparently sent to and from lawyers at BakerHostetler, however, suggest that the law firm continued to serve Prevezon as a kind of shadow counsel even after the disqualification.

Once that ruling had been handed down, leaked emails indicate that in November 2016 Cymrot at BakerHostetler suggested an alternative lawyer who could be hired by Veselnitskaya to work for Prevezon. In an email sent five months later, Cymrot said BakerHostetler had still discussed the case “on a regular basis” and would continue to hold “team” meetings with the new counsel.

Despite being disqualified from taking part in the case, the emails suggest BakerHostetler helped draft the settlement with the U.S. government in May 2017 and even acted as a go-between passing on messages and an invoice from the new lawyer, Mike Hess. Hess did not respond to questions from The Daily Beast. BakerHostetler was asked about this and other allegations, but did not respond.

A second new lawyer also joined the team. At the time, Faith Gay was working for Quinn Emanuel, the U.S. law firm that also replaced BakerHostetler in the Republican case against Obama when staff at Baker raised fears that the case was too heavily partisan.

Emails indicate that she also continued to work with the disqualified BakerHostetler firm. According to a leaked email dated May 1, 2017 she wrote to Veselnitskaya and her colleague Glashev, reassuring them that she was still working closely with BakerHostetler. “The judge removed Baker from the case. We have been trying to talk with them informally as much as possible.”

Gay declined to comment.

When faced with possible disclosure of emails later that year, one of Gay’s associates emailed Veselnitskaya on August 16, 2017 raising concerns that, “Disclosure could also result in a question being raised about Baker representing Prevezon’s interests well beyond the district court’s disqualification of them as Prevezon’s counsel.”

The issue could be particularly sensitive because Prevezon’s defense effectively accused Browder of committing the fraud.

Former prosecutor Phillips said: “They violated the very essence of the order.”