Trump campaign architects are involved in Albania’s upcoming election
Chris LaCivita (co-ran Trump 2024), pollster Tony Fabrizio, Paul Manafort are working for Sali Berisha who is challenging PM Edi Rama
Meanwhile Edi Rama's cabinet recently approved a deal with Jared Kushner for development of a $1.6 billion resort
#Albania #Trump #Manafort #LaCivita #Fabrizio #Berisha #Rama #Kushner
Albanian politician Sali Berisha is under US and UK travel sanctions due to allegations of corruption. His presidential campaign is getting a boost from Trump allies - including Trump 2024 campaign co-manager Chris LaCivita, Paul Manafort, Tony Fabrizio, Phil Griffin
#Albania #Trump #Manafort #SaliBerisha
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/albania-election-donald-trump-allies_n_67f94af5e4b060848e3e5f57
Manafort began working for Oleg Deripaska, a billionaire Russian oligarch… Deripaska’s alleged ties to the mafia meant that for some years he was unable to get an American visa. … Like all superrich Russians Deripaska perfectly understood Putin’s requirements. When called upon, you did what the president commanded.
—Luke Harding, Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win
#manafort #deripaska #putin #usa #russia #oligarchy
After the mass killing, Yanukovych was abandoned by the parliamentary deputies who had supported him and the policemen who had protected him. He fled his garish residence, leaving behind a trove of documents—including records of large cash payments to his advisor Paul Manafort, who two years later surfaced as the campaign manager of Donald Trump.
—Timothy Snyder, The Road To Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America
#russia #putin #yanukovych #ukraine #manafort #trump #usa
After this, #Yanukovych retreated from the spotlight for a while, but eventually made a political comeback. With support from #Trump associates like Paul #Manafort, he rebranded himself as a “moderate”, and, in 2010, narrowly won the presidency in a relatively fair #election.
5/22
Good example of how to cover the news accurately, by Casey Michel:
Paul Manafort Is Back to Wreck the World
Trump’s one-time aide-de-camp and bagman for corrupt foreign regimes is returning to his old stomping grounds, rolling back precious progress against a world of kleptocrats.
"Instead of the broken, chastened man Manafort once claimed to be, he’s cannonballed back into the world of cementing authoritarian forces around the globe."
https://newrepublic.com/article/190164/paul-manafort-trump-foreign-agents
Pardoned by Trump, Manafort Is Back and Looking for Foreign Work
Manafort is looking to advise campaigns for opposition and far-right political factions in Latin America and Europe
Manafort's team includes Trump's '24 campaign mgr Chris LaCivita and pollster Tony Fabrizio, Texan John Harkrider and digital advertising strategist Vincent Harris, who worked briefly for Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Manafort has also engaged with interests in Ukraine.
#PaulManafort #Manafort
The SEC has charged people/entities tied to Trump 2016 campaign mgr Paul Manafort (recently at UAE crypto event where Erik Trump spoke)
SEC charged Frederick Tayton Dencer, son Luke, Standard Holdings, Standard Huaxia Ltd. - with Fraud for misappropriating investor funds
https://www.sec.gov/enforcement-litigation/litigation-releases/lr-26192
In May the Washington Post reported Manafort was involved in a Chinese media deal approved by Chinese govt involving the Dencers and Standard Huaxia
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/10/paul-manafort-pardon-donald-trump-china/
Thread on Good Old USA #GOUSA
>> #Ukraine is the raison d'être for Russian #electionInterference in 2024
Ukraine is the reason #GOP chose #Trump in 2016.
Ukraine is the reason Trump hand-picked Paul #Manafort, who then hand-picked Mike #Pence.
Ukraine is the reason why #Trump was first impeached — He withheld military aid to Ukraine and #Zelenskyy's invitation to the White House, and spread false narratives that Ukraine, not Russia was behind 2016 #electionInterference
@KamalaHarrisWin
Via @emptywheel:
As I said, I asked myself about 5 times when reading the Doppelganger materials if Paul Manafort was back in the business of sharing campaign strategy with Russian spies.
Alex Finley:
You know what would really help Russians do such demographic targeting? Internal polling information. Maybe like the kind #Trump campaign chairman Paul #Manafort provided to his Russian intel buddy Konstantin Kilimnik back in 2015. Right Emptywheel? #Russia
#Republicans living inside glass houses launch a contrived probe into #TimWalz's "engagement" with #China
What could be a better opening for #Walz to drag #Trump & his son-in-law #Kushner for their #Saudi ties?
What could be a better opening for #Walz to reanimate evidence #Mueller uncovered in his investigation of #Manafort, whom Trump pardoned— only to resurface in his campaign?
#HarrisWalz should intensify focus on #GOP #Russia ties
Via #LindyLi @ 6:16am EDT on Aug 03, 2024
Don’t know about u but I think #Trump taking $10M #bribe from #Egypt should b a bigger story
& fact his crony fmr AG #BillBarr killed the investigation
& fact the bribe was in form o $100 bills in 2 lrge bags
Guys, this→shady AF
No one in Trump world actually works 4 #America
Trump works 4 #Russia, Egypt, #SaudiArabia
#Kushner works 4 Saudi Arabia, #Serbia, #Albania, UAE
#Manafort works 4 Russia
#ThomasBarrack works 4 UAE
From Russia With No Love: Meet the Russian operatives helping MAGA
https://thedemlabs.org/2024/07/21/russian-operatives-helping-maga/
#manafort #russia #putin
From Russia With No Love: Meet the Russian operatives helping MAGA
https://thedemlabs.org/2024/07/21/russian-operatives-helping-maga/
#manafort #russia #putin
On march 18, news broke that Donald Trump intended to restore the disgraced lobbyist #Paul #Manafort to the ranks of his campaign advisers.
In any other moral universe, this would have been an unimaginable rehabilitation.
Back in 2016, as revelations about Manafort’s work on behalf of #pro-#Kremlin politicians in Ukraine began appearing in the press, even Trump considered him a figure so toxic that he forced him to resign as chair of his campaign.
Two years later, Manafort was locked up in federal #prison on charges of tax evasion and money laundering, among other transgressions.
His was one of the most precipitous falls in the history of Washington.
But at this stage in that history, it’s not remotely shocking to learn that the revolving door continues to turn.
By the end of Trump’s term, Manafort had already won a presidential pardon.
His unwillingness to cooperate with Special Counsel #Robert #Mueller’s investigation had earned him Trump’s unstinting admiration:
“Such respect for a brave man,” he tweeted.
Now it seemed that Manafort’s loyalty would be rewarded with the lobbyist’s most valuable tool:
the perception of access, at an opportune moment.
In early May, under growing media scrutiny for international consulting work that he’d reportedly been involved in after his pardon,
Manafort said that he would “stick to the sidelines,”
playing a less visible role in supporting Trump.
(He’d recently been in Milwaukee, part of meetings about this summer’s Republican National Convention programming.)
But if Trump wins the election, Manafort won’t need 2024 campaign work officially on his résumé to convince corporations and foreign regimes that he can bend U.S. policy on their behalf
—and he and his ilk will be able to follow through on such pledges with unimpeded ease.
A second Trump term would mark the culmination of the story chronicled by the brothers Luke and Brody Mullins in their new book
"The Wolves of K Street"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/07/09/wolves-k-street-lobbyists-luke-brody-mullins-review/
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/07/wolves-of-k-street-book-review-lobbying/678523/
Convicted criminals take Republican stage despite focus on ‘law and order’
#Trump and Peter #Navarro
– fresh out of Florida jail
– both addressed convention with Paul #Manafort in attendance
“I went to prison so you won’t have to,” declared #Navarro
– who was convicted for refusing to comply with subpoenas from the House January 6 committee
– to a jubilant crowd that responded with a standing ovation. (I'm sure many were reassured by that promise)
Another former Trump aide turned convicted criminal in attendance was Paul #Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager in 2016.
Three years later he was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison on charges including
bank fraud,
tax fraud,
money laundering and
witness tampering, arising from the investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.
In 2020 Trump pardoned Manafort, who later wrote a memoir called Political Prisoner. At the convention, Manafort was briefly linked with an organising role before backing off, though he was still in Milwaukee to tell Fox News: “I’ve done 10 conventions. This is the best.”
Roger #Stone, who like Manafort is a longtime operative convicted on charges arising from the Russia investigation, was also at the convention in Milwaukee.
Stone was sentenced to more than three years in prison after being convicted of criminal charges including witness tampering and obstructing Congress. He never set foot in jail, as Trump commuted his sentence.
Rod #Blagojevich attended as well. In July 2011, the former Democratic governor of Illinois was convicted on 17 criminal charges, including bribery, fraud and extortion, arising from an attempt to sell Barack Obama’s US Senate seat.
Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years. In 2020, Trump commuted his sentence. This week, Blagojevich told NBC: “I think President Trump is the most demonised political figure in American history, and I know something about being demonised.”
Another former Trump aide jailed for criminal contempt of Congress over January 6 did not make it to the convention hall, but Steve #Bannon was getting updates via phone from his daughter in Wisconsin to his federal prison in Connecticut.
