The House Intelligence Committee announced Wednesday that it plans to hold an open hearing on Russia with representatives from tech companies in the “coming months,” although it is unclear when exactly the hearing will be, which tech firms have been invited and whether those firms will agree to appear voluntarily.
The hearing will be about “how Russia used online tools and platforms to sow discord in and influence our election,” according to a statement from Reps. Mike Conaway (R-TX) and Adam Schiff (D-CA), the top Republican and Democrat leading the committee’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) has recused himself from the probe.
“Congress and the American people need to hear this important information directly from these companies,” the statement read.
Scrutiny on how the Russians used social media to influence the 2016 campaign has increased since Facebook disclosed that about 3,000 ads were purchased by some 500 inauthentic Russian-linked accounts. Facebook has reportedly turned over information about the ads to special counsel Robert Mueller, and also is cooperating with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s efforts to understand more about Russia’s campaign-related activities on Facebook. Twitter, too, reportedly is meeting with Senate Intel investigators behind closed doors this week.
Think the big news of the last 24 hours are the articles about Mueller getting the IRS returns on Manafort and Flynn. What surprised me is that it looks as though the criminal division of the IRS had already been investigating both pre-election. Renato Mariotti has long speculated that Mueller already has Trump’s tax returns. So that is big. I think it means that both Manafort and Flynn will be indicted (if they haven’t been so already)
In addition, the investigation into the American based Russians who gave a lot of money to the Trump campaign is also noteworthy. Russia didn’t just aid Trump’s election. They might have paid for it. One of those characters is Len Blavatnik, Ukrainian born billionaire who is close to Putin. Blavatnik owned an oil co called TNK-BP, a joint venture w/British Petroleum. Blavatnik had been accused of undermining BP w/the cooperation of the Putin gov’t to drive them out of Russia. The TNK-BP entity was sold to Rosneft, the Russian state owned oil co for about US $55 billion in 2013. Blavatnik made $28 bn out of the sale. Rosneft is the company named in the Steele Dossier as the big carrot for Trump. Putin promised Trump some proceeds or a commission from the sale of 19.5% of Rosneft which went through in December of last year to a Swiss-Singaporean group for over 10 billion Euros.
Felix Sater and Michael Cohen pitched a Trump Tower Moscow as a link to Putin in the fall of 2015. Trump sought to build and capitalize on it through a licensing deal and make money. At some point that carrot trail went cold, and then the Steele Dossier suggests that Rosneft became that carrot. Rosneft was a much, much bigger deal than TT Moscow. While Trump would’ve made millions from TT Moscow, he stood to make hundreds o f millions, maybe even a couple of billion (and pay off his debts) with a piece of the Rosneft sale proceeds.
What role, if any, did Blavatnik have in helping Trump? He gave him a lot of money in the campaign. Was he directed to do so by Russia? Did Blavatnik have a role in the Rosneft transaction outlined in the Steele Dossier?Blavatnik would’ve known all the players, and could’ve sold Trump on the plan as he made a ton of money from his sale to Rosneft.
Also recall that Trump had no money until suddenly he did. Russians seemed to have aided that effort. We’re getting closer to establishing that the Trump campaign coordinated with the Russians in the digital campaign, that Trump and the GOP benefited and may have solicited financial help from the Russians (Manafort’s notes relate to long time GOP contributors, of which Blavatnik is one). We’re also learning that Russian financial support may have flowed through a bunch of Russian Americans. Having once lived in a condo building which had a lot of older Russians from the Soviet era (not Trump owned), I do not find that surprising in the least.
This article may not get as much coverage because it’s not from an American paper, but The Independent seems to all but confirm that Felix Sater is one of the sources for the Steele Dossier and is cooperating with the Mueller investigation.
Source D and Source E of the Steele Dossier state that Source D is a close associate of Trump’s who managed his trips to Moscow and Source E is an ethnic Russian who is a close associate of Trump.
The Independent has a source that believes that one of these two sources is Felix Sater.
And in yet another bombshell…this time from the Wall St. Journal, Robert Mueller is looking hard at Flynn’s role in trying to work with Russian hackers through intermediaries (Peter Smith and perhaps others) to find the holy grail of HRC’s missing 30,000 emails.
Another interesting tidbit from this article:
Those people would include KellyAnne Conway and Steve Bannon.
On a related note,
IS THE STEELE DOSSIER ABOUT TO HAVE ITS MOMENT OF TRUTH?
In a defamation suit, BuzzFeed is trying to compel testimony from James Comey or James Clapper to establish the document’s centrality to the Russia investigation.