The special counsel is looking at how a number of Ukrainian politicians secured seats at the Trump inauguration, the New York Times reported Thursday.
The report comes amid indications that probes into the Trump inauguration — and what it did with the record $107 million it raised — are heating up. At the same time, peace plans that various Ukrainians were ferrying to Washington have also become a focus of the investigation.
The Ukrainian politicos who attended Trump’s inauguration were happy to boast about the event on social media, posting photos of their tickets to Facebook and writing lengthy posts about meeting Senators and congressmen, according to the Times.
But the question of how they managed to pay for access to an event that legally could not take money from foreigners is reportedly at the center of investigator’s sights. Sam Patten, a lobbyist, pleaded guilty in August to one count of failing to register as a foreign lobbyist as part of a scheme to use a straw donor to pay the inaugural committee $50,000 so that a Ukrainian politician — Serhiy Lyovochkin — could attend.
The New York Times report chronicles how others like Odessa powerbroker Serhiy Kivalov made it to the inaugural bash. Kivalov posted photos of his tickets on Facebook:
One Ukrainian parliamentarian — Yevhen Deidei — wrote in the caption to a picture of him in a crowd at the inauguration that “we will hope that [Trump]’s management strategy will be no less successful and effective than the management strategy of his multi-million dollar business.”
“P.S.” he added, “now we’re trying to break through the sea of people to our designated seats.”
Go get 'em. The stink of corruption from that inauguration alone would knock a vulture off a garbage scow.
A race against time…
Yall know what I mean.
The fun bit is going to be if we ever get to know whether the Manafort Ukraine branch operated all on its own, or if there’s a link back through Cohen’s wife’s family into that…
Oh, the delightful possibilities of just how interconnected this intrigue might be.
Also, it’s important to note that these weren’t “peace plans”, but “surrender to Russia” plans…
“It was the largest audience of Ukrainian mobsters and Russian spies to attend an inauguration – period!”
Aww, c’mon Mr Mueller. It’s perfectly normal for dozens of Russians and Russisn-allied Ukrainians to attend a US presidential inauguration and funnel money for the tickets through straw donors. Nothing to see here. Happens all the time.
Imagine what that picture of the half.full National Mall would have looked like if the Russians and their puppets hadn’t attended the inaugural.