COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Obama Justice Department Enabled The Newest And Most Intriguing Figure In The Russia-Trump Investigation To Enter The Country Without A Visa

HILL

Exclusive: DOJ let Russian lawyer into US before she met with Trump team

The Russian lawyer who penetrated Donald Trump’s inner circle was initially cleared into the United States by the Justice Department under “extraordinary circumstances” before she embarked on a lobbying campaign last year that ensnared the president’s eldest son, members of Congress, journalists and State Department officials, according to court and Justice Department documents and interviews.

This revelation means it was the Obama Justice Department that enabled the newest and most intriguing figure in the Russia-Trump investigation to enter the country without a visa. 

Later, a series of events between an intermediary for the attorney and the Trump campaign ultimately led to the controversy surrounding the president's eldest son.
Just five days after meeting in June 2016 at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr., presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner and then Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Moscow attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya showed up in Washington  in the front row of a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Russia policy, video footage of the hearing shows.

She also engaged in a pro-Russia lobbying campaign and attended an event at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. where Russian supporters showed a movie that challenged the underpinnings of the U.S. human rights law known as the Magnitysky Act, which Russian leader Vladimir Putin has reviled and tried to reverse.

The Magnitsky Act imposed financial and other sanctions on Russia for alleged human rights violations connected to the death of a Russian lawyer who claimed to uncover fraud during Putin's reign. Russia retaliated after the law was passed in 2012 by suspending Americans' ability to adopt Russian children.

At least five congressional staffers and State Department officials attended that movie showing, according to a Foreign Agent Registration Act complaint filed with the Justice Department about Veselnitskaya’s efforts.

And Veselnitskaya also attended a dinner with the chairman of the House subcommittee overseeing Russia policy, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and roughly 20 other guests at a dinner club frequented by Republicans.

In an interview with The Hill on Wednesday, Rohrabacher said, “There was a dinner at the Capitol Hill Club here with about 20 people. I think I was the only congressman there. They were talking about the Magnitysky case. But that wasn’t just the topic. There was a lot of other things going on. So I think she was there but I don’t remember any type of conversation with her between us. But I understand she was at the table.”

Rohrabacher said he believed Veselnitskaya and her U.S. colleagues, which included former Democratic Congressman Ronald Dellums, were lobbying other lawmakers to reverse the Magnitysky Act and restore the ability of Americans to adopt Russian children that Moscow had suspended.

“I don’t think this was very heavily lobbied at all compared with the other issues we deal with,” he said.

As for his former congressional colleague Dellums, Rohrabacher said he recalled having a conversation about the Magnitsky Act and the adoption issue, “Ron and I like each other … I have to believe he was hired a lobbyist but I don’t know."

Veselnitskaya did not return a call seeking comment Wednesday at her Moscow office. Dellums also did not return a call to his office seeking comment.

But in an interview with NBC News earlier this week, Veselnitskaya acknowledged her contacts with Donald Trump Jr. and in Washington were part of a lobbying campaign to get members of Congress and American political figures to see "the real circumstances behind the Magnitsky Act.”

That work was a far cry from the narrow reason the U.S. government initially gave for allowing Veselnitskaya into the U.S. in late 2015, according to federal court records.

The Moscow lawyer had been turned down for a visa to enter the U.S. lawfully but then was granted special immigration parole by then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch for the limited purpose of helping a company owned by Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, her client, defend itself against a Justice Department asset forfeiture case in federal court in New York City.

During a court hearing in early January 2016 as Veselnitskaya’s permission to stay in the country was about to expire, federal prosecutors described how rare the grant of parole immigration was as Veselnitskaya pleaded for more time to remain in the United States.

“In October the government bypassed 
the normal visa process and gave a type of extraordinary 
permission to enter the country called immigration parole,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Monteleoni explained to the judge during a hearing Jan. 6, 2016.

“That's a discretionary act that the statute allows the Attorney 
General to do in extraordinary circumstances. In this case, we 
did that so that Mr. Katsyv could testify. And we made the 
further accommodation of allowing his Russian lawyer into the 
country to assist,” he added.

The prosecutor said Justice was willing to allow the Russian lawyer to enter the United States again as the trial in the case approached so she could help prepare and attend the proceedings.

The court record indicates the presiding judge asked the Justice Department to extend Veselnitskaya’s immigration parole another week until he decided motions in the case. There are no other records in the court file indicating what happened with that request or how Veselnitskaya appeared in the country later that spring.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in New York confirmed Wednesday to The Hill that it let Veselnitskaya into the country on a grant of immigration parole from October 2015 to early January 2016.

Justice Department and State Department officials could not immediately explain how the Russian lawyer was still in the country in June for the meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and the events in Washington D.C.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has demanded the U.S. government provide him all records on how Veselnitskaya entered and traveled in the U.S., a request that could shed additional light on her activities.

Interviews with a half dozen Americans who came in contact with Veselnitskaya or monitored her U.S. activities in 2016 make clear that one of her primary goals was to see if the Congress and/or other political leaders would be interested in repealing the 2012 Magnitsky Act punishing Russia or at least ensure the Magnitsky name would not be used on a new law working its way through Congress in 2016 to punish human rights violators across the globe.

“There’s zero doubt that she and her U.S. colleagues were lobbying to repeal Magnitsky or at least ensure his name was removed from the global law Congress was considering,” said U.S. businessman William Browder, who was the main proponent for the Magnitsky Act and who filed a FARA complaint against Veselnitskaya, Dellums and other U.S. officials claiming they should have registered as foreign agent lobbyists because of the work.

The 2012 law punished Russia for the prison death of Moscow lawyer/accountant Sergei Magnitsky, who U.S. authorities allege uncovered a massive $230 million money laundering scheme involving Russian government official that hurt U.S. companies.

Magnitsky became a cause celeb in the United States after his mysterious death in a Russian prison, but Russian officials have disputed his version of events and in 2011 posthumously convicted him of fraud in Russia.

It is that alternate theory of the Magnitsky fraud cause that Veselnitskaya and her U.S. allies tried to get into the hands of American officials, including Rohrabacher, the Trump team and other leaders.

Browder's complaint, which alleges that Washington lobbyists working with Veselnitskaya failed to register as foreign agents, is still pending at the Justice Department. It identified several events in Washington that Veselnitskaya and her allies attended or staged in June 2016.

All of them occurred in the days immediately after the Russian lawyer used a music promoter friend to get an audience June 9 with Trump’s eldest son promising dirt on Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton and instead using the meeting to talk about Magnitsky and the adoption issue, according to Trump Jr. and Veselnitskaya.

On June 13, Veselnitskaya attended the screening of an anti-Magnitsky movie at the Newseum, which drew a handful of congressional staffers and State Department officials, according to Browder’s complaint.

The next day, she appeared in the front row of a hearing chaired by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.), sitting right behind a former U.S. ambassador who testified on the future of U.S-Russia policy.

Rohrabacher said he recalled around the same time a conversation with Dellums about Magnitsky and the adoption issue and then attending a dinner that included Veselnitskaya at the Capitol Hill Club with about 20 people.

Sources close to the lobbying effort to rename the Magnisky Act, conducted over the summer of 2016, said it fizzled after only a month or two. They described Veselnitskaya, who does not speak English, as a mysterious and shadowy figure. They said they were confused as to whether she had an official role in the lobbying campaign, although she was present for several meetings.

The sources also described their interactions with Veselnitskaya in the same way that Trump Jr. did. They claimed not to know who she worked for or what her motives were.

“Natalia didn’t speak a word of English,” said one source. “Don’t let anyone tell you this was a sophisticated lobbying effort. It was the least professional campaign I’ve ever seen. If she’s the cream of the Moscow intelligence community then we have nothing to worry about.”

The sources added they met with Veselnitksaya only once or twice over the course of the lobbying campaign, which culminated with airing of a Russian documentary that challenged the notion that Magnitsky was beaten to death in a Russian prison

About 80 people, including congressional staffers and State Department employees attended the viewing at the Newseum.

36 comments:

  1. BOTTOM LINE

    The Obama Administration gave special consideration to allow a Russian agent to enter the US. Obama and the Democrat colluded with her and the US Media is deaf, dumb and blind over anything attached to a large "D"

    Trump Jr was setup.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Where the hell is
      Jeff Sessions and every Republican controlled committee in the House and the Senate?

      Is it AWOL or is it desertion?

      Delete
  2. OBAMA DOJ GAVE NATALIA SPECIAL ENTRY


    Exclusive: DOJ let Russian lawyer into US before she met with Trump team
    BY JOHN SOLOMON AND JONATHAN EASLEY - 07/12/17 09:23 PM EDT


    The Russian lawyer who penetrated Donald Trump’s inner circle was initially cleared into the United States by the Justice Department under “extraordinary circumstances” before she embarked on a lobbying campaign last year that ensnared the president’s eldest son, members of Congress, journalists and State Department officials, according to court and Justice Department documents and interviews.

    This revelation means it was the Obama Justice Department that enabled the newest and most intriguing figure in the Russia-Trump investigation to enter the country without a visa.

    Later, a series of events between an intermediary for the attorney and the Trump campaign ultimately led to the controversy surrounding the president's eldest son.


    Just five days after meeting in June 2016 at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr., presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner and then Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Moscow attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya showed up in Washington in the front row of a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Russia policy, video footage of the hearing shows....

    http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/341788-exclusive-doj-let-russian-lawyer-into-us-before-she-met-with-trump

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ukraine, the country which in which Washington is so enamored and the country that is an aspirant to NATO membership:

    Half of Ukraine’s men, and a fifth of its women, smoke; the national diet is heavy with animal fat; the national drink is vodka.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sources close to the lobbying effort to rename the Magnisky Act, conducted over the summer of 2016, said it fizzled after only a month or two. They described Veselnitskaya, who does not speak English, as a mysterious and shadowy figure. They said they were confused as to whether she had an official role in the lobbying campaign, although she was present for several meetings.

    The sources also described their interactions with Veselnitskaya in the same way that Trump Jr. did. They claimed not to know who she worked for or what her motives were.

    “Natalia didn’t speak a word of English,” said one source. “Don’t let anyone tell you this was a sophisticated lobbying effort. It was the least professional campaign I’ve ever seen. If she’s the cream of the Moscow intelligence community then we have nothing to worry about.”

    The sources added they met with Veselnitksaya only once or twice over the course of the lobbying campaign, which culminated with airing of a Russian documentary that challenged the notion that Magnitsky was beaten to death in a Russian prison

    About 80 people, including congressional staffers and State Department employees attended the viewing at the Newseum.

    ReplyDelete
  5. DAILY BEAST

    Was Donald Trump Jr.’s Russian Connect in U.S. Illegally?

    Prosecutors gave Natalia Veselnitskaya permission to come to NYC, but it expired months before she went to Trump Tower. The State Department won’t say if she got a visa, either.

    Katie Zavadski
    KATIE ZAVADSKI
    07.12.17 8:00 PM ET


    * Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met Donald Trump Jr. in New York last summer, said she was denied a U.S. visa in 2015.
    She then asked federal prosecutors for permission to enter the U.S. to work on behalf of a client in a Manhattan.

    * Prosecutors granted Veselnitskaya temporary “immigration parole” in late 2015 but it expired in early 2016, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York told The Daily Beast.

    * Veselnitskaya’s parole was not renewed, the U.S. Attorney’s Office added.

    * That raises the question of how Veselnitskaya was able to enter the U.S. in June 2016 when she visited Trump Tower.

    * The State Department would not confirm or deny whether Veselnitskaya applied again for a visa in 2016, let alone if a visa was granted. A spokesperson told The Daily Beast the State Department could not comment due to privacy considerations. Veselnitskaya also did not respond to requests for comment.

    Yet Veselnitskaya visited the U.S. at least once more after she met with Trump Jr.

    * In February 2017, Veselnitskaya appeared in a Manhattan federal courtroom with interpreters, according to a court transcript reviewed by The Daily Beast.

    * Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley demanded to know how Veselnitskaya was able to stay in the U.S. after her parole expired on Tuesday. “This raises serious questions about whether the Obama administration authorized her to remain in the country, and if so, why?” Grassley wrote.

    Veselnitskaya said in a court filing she was denied a visa to enter the U.S. in 2015. Veselnitskaya said she also requested visas for her children "so that they could be together with me over the Christmas holiday while I was working in New York on this lawsuit, but this was also denied."

    It is unclear why Veselnitskaya’s visa request was denied.

    ReplyDelete
  6. There is nothing as pleasurable as "Vilification" for an aperitif and a big fat-ass slice of "Being Right" for dessert.

    ReplyDelete
  7. MERKEL'S GERMANY

    BERLIN (Reuters) - German carmaker Daimler (DAIGn.DE) has been accused of selling over a million cars with excessive emissions in Europe and the United States, Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper said on Wednesday, citing a search warrant issued by a Stuttgart court.

    Two months ago Stuttgart prosecutors searched Daimler sites in Germany following allegations of false advertising and the possible wrongful manipulation of exhaust gas treatment systems in diesel cars.

    The Stuttgart local court's search warrant triggered the searches on May 23, Sueddeutsche Zeitung said.

    According to that document, more than 1 million cars with excessive emissions, including various luxury Mercedes-Benz models, were sold in Europe and the United States between 2008 and 2016, said Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which researched the matter with regional broadcasters WDR and NDR.

    ReplyDelete
  8. GERMANY

    The 20,000 heavily armed police officers who cracked down on violent protests at Hamburg’s G-20 meeting late last week with water cannons, tear gas and batons made the famous 1968 riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago look like a walk in the park.

    More than a dozen big blue water cannon trucks — “the latest in water cannon technology,” according to a report by Fox News’ Chris Wallace — rumbled through the streets of Hamburg dispersing an estimated 1,500 violent protesters.

    These highly organized groups wreaking havoc over a three-day period overshadowed the tens of thousands of peaceful demonstrators who turned up to protest the “cold and cruel world of global capitalism” represented by the government officials attending.

    Colossal misjudgment

    Aside from anything else, the decision to hold the G-20 meeting in Germany’s second-largest city was another colossal misjudgment by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, coming after her unilateral decision to invite a million immigrants into Europe’s open-border area and her callous policy of pretend-and-extend in the Greek debt crisis, among others.

    And for what? This meeting mostly aimed at isolating President Donald Trump after he took the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord. The other 18 countries and the European Union closed ranks against the U.S. and pledged once again to meet emission-reduction goals that are probably unrealistic and certainly unenforceable.

    Germany, which mustered this stand against the U.S., has failed to meet its NATO pledge on defense spending, ignored EU restrictions on deficit spending and continues to defy EU limits on its current account surplus. Why should Germany or any other G-20 participant — Russia, Turkey, Italy — be expected to honor its climate goals?

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-hypocritical-germany-has-the-gall-to-lecture-the-us-2017-07-11

    ReplyDelete
  9. Merkel is having a problem with her G-spot.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Achtung Assholes

    The US with 500,000 US Cold Warriors, stationed in Germany for 20 plus years, saved Germany from speaking Russian.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Please spare us your sanctimonyschloff.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Oh G

    The G20 riots saw protesters battling police, torching cars and looting shops. Some threw rocks from rooftops and set up burning street barricades, gaining control of one Hamburg district for several hours on Friday, before police moved in.

    A total of 476 officers were injured in the violence, while more than 200 demonstrators received treatment in local hospitals. Others received on-site care from volunteer medics after inhaling tear gas and pepper spray, or being hit with police batons.

    German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has lashed out at Chancellor Angela Merkel over the G20 riots, accusing her fellow Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politicians of “passing the buck” by calling on Hamburg’s mayor to resign.

    Following the reaction to the violent scenes in Hamburg during the July 7-8 G20 summit, Gabriel, of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) accused Merkel’s party of unfairly targeting Hamburg Mayor Olaf Scholz, also a Social Democrat.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Regarding Trump, Obama, the alt Left and laser pointers: as I stated earlier, if you want to know what the liberals are up to, just focus on what they are accusing the right of.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Heh, you guys are Trumpettes to the end. It is funny watching you squirm, obfuscate, and mis-direct - 'oh, oh, an ex-Hillary aide talked to a Ukrainian - the horror, the horror'

    Then there is all those Trump team denials laid to waste by the wayward sons honesty:

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/11/donald-trump-russia-timeline-campaign-denials#img-1

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Like I said, what you accuse us of is what you are doing.

      Delete
    2. Wasn't there some uranium deal, Ash, that Hillary and the Russkies put together ?

      Fill me in would you, Ash, on what that was all about. I never did understand it well.

      Delete
  15. Ash, in the corruption competition it's impossible to beat Hillary.

    She is in a class of her own.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Jimmy Carter got dehydrated working on a Habitat for Humanity house, and taken to the hospital.

    Going to be fine but tells the fellows to keep hydrated.

    ReplyDelete
  17. The Swamp will never be drained.

    It's bottomless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Until human nature changes, The Swamp shall remain.

      Delete
  18. I'm pissed off at the Republicans now, not The Donald.

    ReplyDelete
  19. July 13, 2017
    Trump’s biggest mistake – not going after Hillary
    By Keith Edwards

    When Donald Trump said he would not pursue legal action against Hillary Clinton after he won the election, the majority of his supporters were not happy. After all, what Hillary, her family. and the Clinton Foundation actually did, or were accused of doing through credible evidence, was obviously criminal.

    Fast forward to today and the onslaught of false Russian collusion accusations against President Trump and it is obvious why not going after Hillary was a huge mistake.....


    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/07/trumps_biggest_mistake__not_going_after_hillary.html#ixzz4mkRSejjC

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How about instead of using Hillary’s criminal activities as a defense against the fake news Russian Trump collusion narrative the Trump administration actually investigates her? If they are so certain she’s guilty then enforce the damn law! And maybe, just maybe, if President Trump urges AG Sessions to empanel a grand jury and re-open the investigation into Hillary Clinton right now, the facts concerning her criminal activity in the news might be enough to quell the Democrats and liberal media zealot’s agenda and get them to ease up on pushing fake news and begin covering news that matters to the forgotten men and women of this great country.

      Yeah, how about doing that !

      Delete
  20. July 13, 2017
    Bill Clinton: Mother of All Election Meddlers
    By Monica Showalter

    Dick Morris botches his Russian history royally when he claims in a Newsmax interview that President Putin held a grudge against Clinton for supporting Boris Yeltsin in Russia's 1996 election and meddling in it to make it happen. Fact is, Clinton did meddle, but Morris is wildly errant to claim Putin and Yeltsin were anything but always the best of political buddies. Yeltsin, after all, was key to Putin's rise to power.

    Morris's broader claim, that Clinton did meddle in the Russian election of 1996, which he cites through his own experience, however, was spot on. Fact is, Bill Clinton was always the mother of all election meddlers, leaving a long string of waste and resentment though much of the world because of his diddlings - done between trysts with Monica Lewinsky if you look at the timeline. So the next time the left cries foul and says Russia hacked the election and Hillary Clinton might have won, maybe the context of the Bill Clinton record would explain why it came back to bite them.


    Clinton's meddlings are part of a long questionable Wilsonian tradition propounded chiefly by Democrats. The U.S. has meddled in 81 foreign elections, according to Professor Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University. A significant number of the big ones were done on Clinton's watch.....



    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/07/bill_clinton_mother_of_all_election_meddlers.html#ixzz4mkTV8uT6

    ReplyDelete
  21. Kid Rock may run for the US Senate from Michigan.

    There's a Republican dude even Quirk could vote for.

    He's no dick, that Kid.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He copies great songs that shouldn't be touched. He's a dick.

      Delete
    2. And, I think he's running for the state senate, not US.

      Delete
    3. He sounds like a real dick.

      I'm not voting for him then.

      Delete
  22. The two leaders then visited the tombs of Napoleon Bonaparte and Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the French First World War general.

    At a summit in Paris before his talks with Mr Trump, Mr Macron and Mrs Merkel endorsed a new joint fighter jet as a symbol of the renewal of the Franco-German axis that the French leader has pursued since his election.

    Mr Macron called the project, which will supersede the French Rafale and the EU Eurofighter jets, “a profound revolution”. Mrs Merkel left Paris as Mr Trump arrived.

    ReplyDelete