2018 Mid-Term Election Archives

In Lev Parnas Investigation, SDNY Decided that Ivana Trump Is Not Political

I really should be writing a responsible article describing, in detail, the three phases of the Lev Parnas investigation. But instead, I need to obsess about Ivana Trump.

There were, roughly speaking, three phases of the investigation into Parnas:

January through August 2019: Campaign Finance crimes

The first — which I laid out here — focused primarily on the campaign finance crimes. SDNY obtained two warrants in this period:

January 18, 2019, 19 MJ 1729: For Yahoo and Google content
May 16, 2019, 19 MJ 4784: For iCloud content

When DOJ did a search of Parnas and Fruman’s residences the day they were arrested, the only crime listed on the warrants were the campaign finance crimes; they did this to hide the scope of the ongoing investigation. SDNY only unsealed the Fruman warrant, not the Parnas one (nor warrants in other districts targeting their co-defendants).

October 9, 2019, SDFL 19-8415: Igor Fruman’s residence

August through December 2019: Foreign Agent suspicions

After the firing of Marie Yovanovitch, SDNY investigated whether all Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman’s influence-peddling served the interests of foreign principals — chiefly Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko, but also other Ukrainians and maybe some Russians too.

SDNY obtained at least 8 warrants in this period (there are at least two, 19 MJ 7594 and 19 MJ 9830, which must be related — perhaps targeting their Russian backer, Andrey Muraviev? — but which SDNY withheld). And SDNY also withheld the November 2019 warrants targeting Rudy Giuliani.

August 14, 2019, 19 MJ 7593: Yahoo and Google content since January, with expanded focus
August 14, 2019, 19 MJ 7595: Existing Yahoo and Google content, with expanded focus
October 17, 2019, 19 MJ 7595: Actual authorization of the warrant approved in August
October 21, 2019, 19 MJ 9829: iCloud content since May
October 21, 2019, 19 MJ 9831: Devices from Dulles
October 21, 2019, 19 MJ 9832: Existing iCloud content for expanded focus
November 4, 2019: Warrants targeting Rudy
December 10, 2019, 19 MJ 11500: Stuff seized from residences for foreign agent focus
December 10, 2019, 19 MJ 11501: Instagram

As I’ll return to, it looks like Bill Barr intervened to halt SDNY’s expanding investigation even earlier than previously disclosed, in December 2019 rather than January 2020.

The only additional warrants SDNY served after December 10, 2019 in the foreign agent investigation was a warrant obtained in March 2020 because Fruman had not synced his iCloud with his phone until after SDNY obtained the May 2019 warrants, meaning some of the texts and chats he had already sent were not in the earlier warrant return.

March 20, 2020, 20 MJ 3074: iCloud content obtained with October 21, 2019 to cover earlier periods

Effectively, SDNY discovered that they had obtained content in October 2019 pertaining to events in 2018 and earlier in 2019 that hadn’t been available when they first got Fruman’s iCloud in May 2019, so they asked to use the October 2019 warrant for the earlier periods.

This may mean that Fruman, like Parnas, deleted some of his content on his phones.

December 2019 through March 2020: Fraud Guarantee fraud

Starting on December 12, 2019 — two days after the foreign agent investigation halted — SDNY spent several months trying to figure out what Fraud Guarantee actually was.

December 12, 2019, 19 MJ 11651: Google for longer period and expanded focus
January 21, 2020, 20 MJ 740: Existing email content for expanded focus
February 28, 2020, 20 MJ 2240: Google from creation date for Fraud Guarantee
February 28, 2020, 20 MJ 2241: Parnas iCloud for expanded focus

SDNY originally had believed, in 2018, that Fraud Guarantee was a recent creation, one serving as another means to launder political donations. But they had to keep digging further and further back, to 2012, to try to figure out what Fraud Guarantee really was.

The Instagram pivot

I’m still triple checking my own work, but SDNY appears not to have complied with SDNY’s order to release all this backup. In addition to withholding the warrant for the search of Lev Parnas’ residence on October 9, 2019 (though that’s likely to be nearly indistinguishable from the one used to search Fruman’s residence, which was obtained in the same docket), I don’t think they released the affidavit for the December 10, 2019 search of the devices seized at the residences for foreign agent crimes.

That’s the one that should have the most expansive description of the foreign agent investigation (and, I suspect, of the financing behind the effort to fire Marie Yovanovitch and obtain dirt on Hunter Biden, which I’ll return to). I suspect the affidavit is closer in content to the one used to seize Rudy’s email in November 2019 than what was unsealed the other day.

The Instagram warrant obtained that same day necessarily used a different affidavit, partly because it included all the crimes under investigation (broadly, the campaign finance crimes and the suspected foreign agent crimes), but also because it was looking for a different kind of information: mostly, but not entirely, photos that Parnas had posted.

But there’s something really weird about it, which has made me obsess about Ivana Trump.

The warrant suggests SDNY learned about the Instagram account from this WSJ video.

As you’ll note, WSJ describes that the oldest thing on the account was an April 2015 photo of a dog, then this photo, showing Parnas and co-defendant David Correia with Ivana Trump, at what he billed as a “Fraud Guarantee pow wow.”

As WSJ notes, the next things in Parnas’ Instagram account are photos showing him getting access to Trump from very early on in Trump’s campaign, in 2015 (as I’ll return to, Parnas’ 2016 access peddling is something that the warrants focus on more than the coverage of Parnas ever did). Then there’s a break in the Instagram account until summer 2018, when it returns to its focus on political access. The Instagram shows Parnas’ work with Rudy to dig up dirt on Hunter Biden and the 2016 election. It ends (again, per WSJ), with their trip days after the Perfect Phone Call to Madrid, to continue that effort.

SDNY obtained this warrant just two days before the investigation shifted focus to Fraud Guarantee. When they obtained the warrant, they undoubtedly had all the questions they spent the next two months pursuing.

Yet SDNY limited the temporal scope of this warrant to postings starting on October 1, 2015 — effectively excluding only the photo of the dog and some event with Ivana trump six months before Parnas started insinuating himself into Trump’s political orbit, one pertaining to Fraud Guarantee.

To the extent materials are dated, this warrant is limited to materials created between October 1, 2015, which is the month in which it appears Parnas first posted a photo related to a political event, to the present.

Did Ivana have some pre-existing relationship with Lev Parnas, one that dates to months before Lev started serially insinuating himself into Donald Trump’s orbit?

And if she did, why didn’t SDNY want that photo?

NYT Covers Up the Still-Ongoing Trump-Russian Effort to Frame Joe Biden

December 4, 2023/65 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, 2018 Mid-Term Election, 2020 Presidential Election, 2024 Presidential Election, Hunter Biden, Impeachment, Mueller Probe /by emptywheel

The reason I have so little patience for NYT’s decision to dedicate the resources of three senior reporters to warn about the dangers of a second Trump term is not that I disagree about the second term. They’re right that it would be far worse.

It’s that the same reporters continue to downplay Trump’s past corruption — some of which Maggie Haberman specifically enabled — and outright ignore the ongoing effects of it.

Imagine how much healthier American democracy would be if the NYT dedicated just half of the time and space that went into the eight, often repetitive stories on this topic to instead lay out how the ongoing effort to impeach Biden is a continuation of Trump’s efforts, made with the assistance of men now deemed to be Russian spies by both the US and Ukraine, to frame Joe Biden?

December 4: Why a Second Trump Presidency May Be More Radical Than His First
November 15/December 2: How Trump and His Allies Plan to Wield Power in 2025
November 11: Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans
November 1: Some of the Lawyers Who May Fill a Second Trump Administration
October 31: If Trump Wins, His Allies Want Lawyers Who Will Bless a More Radical Agenda
July 17: Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025
June 21: Few of Trump’s G.O.P. Rivals Defend Justice Dept. Independence
June 15: The Radical Strategy Behind Trump’s Promise to ‘Go After’ Biden

NYT appears not to have assigned a single reporter to chase down the following allegations that have come out of the GOP impeachment effort:

Bill Barr’s DOJ shut down a corruption investigation into Mykola Zlochevsky — which had been opened in January 2016, while Biden was VP and Hunter was on the board of Burisma — in December 2019, right in the middle of an impeachment defense claiming to prioritize the investigation of Burisma’s corruption.
Days later, Barr set up a rickety effort to ingest the dirt Rudy Giuliani had obtained, including from known Russian agent Andrii Derkach and possibly from Burisma itself, without being forced to prosecute Rudy for soliciting dirt from known Russian agents. One of several details we’ve learned since NYT’s superb past reporting on this effort (besides that Scott Brady’s testimony completely conflicts with that past NYT report), is that Brady mined information from the newly closed Zlochevsky investigation to obtain an FD-1023 recording Zlochevksy making new claims about Joe Biden around the same time in 2019 as Barr shut down the investigation into Zlochevsky, claims that were utterly inconsistent with what he had said months earlier.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer claims, backed by newly disclosed communications, that Tony Bobulinski falsely told the FBI on October 23, 2020 that he had personally attended a February 2017 meeting at which he saw CEFC’s Chair hand Hunter Biden an enormous diamond. That meeting with the FBI took place one day after attending the October 22, 2020 debate with Donald Trump. Weeks later, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, Bobulinski and Mark Meadows had a covert meeting at a campaign stop; she claims she saw Trump’s chief of staff hand Bobulinski, “what appeared to be a folded sheet of paper or a small envelope.”
Separately, Hunter Biden partner Rob Walker described the concerns he and Hunter had about Bobulinski’s business ties to Russians, possibly including Viktor Vekselberg.
In addition to the informant report on Zlochevsky’s changed claims about Biden, there were three other dodgy informant reports shared with the Hunter Biden team: from two Ukrainians that seem tied to the Rudy effort, from Gal Luft at meetings where — he has since been accused — he lied about his ties to CEFC, and from Bannon associate Peter Schweizer (the latter of which this important NYT story on Tim Thibault did address).
Throughout this period, the IRS supervisor on the investigation documented repeated examples of improper influence on the investigation. In a recent subpoena request, Hunter’s attorney noted that Trump’s improper effort to influence the investigation continues to this day.

In short, basic reporting on Republican efforts to impeach Biden show that it, along with key parts (though not necessarily all) of the investigation into Hunter Biden, are simply a continuation of an effort Trump started in 2018 to frame Joe Biden. That is an effort that involved people that both the US and Ukraine have labeled as Russian spies.

Aside from some key articles (linked above), NYT has covered none of this.

Instead, NYT claims the exact opposite. It claims that the effort to gin up a criminal investigation into Joe Biden didn’t succeed.

And neither effort for which he was impeached succeeded. Mr. Trump tried to coerce Ukraine into opening a criminal investigation into Mr. Biden by withholding military aid, but it did not cooperate.

It’s right there, the full-time pursuit of three different House committees, ongoing, with an FD-1023 about Zlochevsky’s changed claims about Biden and Bobulinksi’s FBI report that seems to have close ties to Trump (in which Bobulinski was represented by a known Maggie Haberman source).

NYT tells you the first term wasn’t that bad, because Trump’s efforts failed. Yet what failed was NYT’s reporting on ongoing events.

NYT tells this fairy tale even as they continue to whitewash Bill Barr’s efforts. In a recent 4,000-word story, in which they claimed that the commutation of Jonathan Braun’s sentence “stood out” more than the pre-trial pardon of Steve Bannon issued the same day, NYT gives Barr two paragraphs to claim he tried to clean up pardons.

William P. Barr, a Trump attorney general who had left by the time of the Braun commutation, said when he took over the Justice Department he discovered that “there were pardons being given without any vetting by the department.”

Mr. Barr added that he told Trump aides they should at least send over names of those being considered so the department could thoroughly examine their records. While the White House Counsel’s Office tried to do so, the effort fell apart under the crush of pardon requests that poured in during the final weeks before Mr. Trump left office, according to people with direct knowledge of the process.

It is true that of the eight pardons given before he arrived, there were some doozies, including Joe Arpaio, Dinesh D’Souza, Scooter Libby, and the ranchers whose arson cases sparked the Malheur occupation.

But Barr was utterly complicit in the most abusive pardons Trump gave. Less than two months after he was confirmed based off repeated assurances that giving a pardon in exchange for false testimony was obstruction, Bill Barr wrote a memo declining to prosecute a crime in process, the effort to use pardons to ensure that Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Mike Flynn, and others continued to lie to cover up Trump’s ties to Russia in the 2016 campaign. The Barr memo did not once mention pardons, even though that was a key thrust of the second volume of the Mueller Report (something Charlie Savage has also noted).

Of course, NYT joins Barr in that complicity. This story finally mentions one of those pardons in its discussion of Trump’s abuse.

His lawyers floated a pardon at his campaign chairman, whom Mr. Trump praised for not “flipping” as prosecutors tried unsuccessfully to get him to cooperate as a witness in the Russia inquiry; Mr. Trump later did pardon him.

But it does not mention that Manafort specifically lied about why he briefed Konstantin Kilimnik campaign information, an act that the Intelligence Community later stated as fact resulted in the sharing of campaign information with Russian intelligence. This is a topic about which NYT has a still uncorrected story, hiding the tie to Oleg Deripaska.

It’s not that Trump pardoned Manafort for “not flipping.” It’s that he pardoned Manafort after he lied about why the campaign manager shared information that Russian spies could use in their attack on US democracy.

And the very link NYT relies on here mentions the Stone pardon, a commutation and then pardon that halted a still ongoing CFAA conspiracy investigation between Trump’s rat-fucker and the Russians (another detail NYT has never reported).

Yes, I absolutely agree. A second Trump term would be worse.

But repeating that, over and over, even while misinforming readers about the ongoing five year effort to frame Joe Biden is not the best way to prevent a second term.

The Sordid Second Season of the Robert Menendez Bribery Series

September 23, 2023/170 Comments/in 2018 Mid-Term Election, Financial Fraud, Foreign Influence /by emptywheel

There’s a really sordid aspect regarding the timing of the indictment of Robert Menendez unveiled yesterday. Its timeline starts in February 2018, when Nadine Arslanian first starts dating the senior Senator from New Jersey. That was just weeks — possibly days! — after the last bribery case against Menendez ended.

So weeks after DOJ decided not to retry Menendez on his first bribery case, a then-unemployed woman, Nadine Arslanian, started dating the disgraced Senator and, within weeks of that, she alerted an Egyptian friend, Wael Hana, that she was dating him. That set off the most alarming — but probably not the stongest — part of the case: that Menendez was feeding Egypt information and ultimately set up a back channel with an Egyptian intelligence official, meeting at his home in Egypt in October 2021. Those are alarming allegations, but not allegations as clearly tied to financial payoffs to Menendez as some other things.

It’s like some TV producer decided to renew a series for a second season based off an entirely new story line slapped on the older story. “I know! We’ll throw a woman in the mix!”

Aside from that 2021 trip, much of the Egyptian influence operation happened before Nadine and Menendez were married in October 2020. For much of the period, Nadine complained she wasn’t being paid (in a no-work job at Hana’s Halal company). And some of the meetings between Menendez and the Egyptians would not be that far outside the norm for a Senate Foreign Relations Member, much less the Chair. The trip to Egypt, probably accidentally, was made official, giving Menendez legal cover for it. And the seeming bribery immediately upon his return — like a lot of the other payments in this period — came from a long-time Menendez fundraiser, Fred Daibes, or from a Hana associate, Jose Uribe, not directly from Hana.

In other words, this story appears to start with Nadine’s friends exploiting the access she got through her relationship with Menendez. That, as alleged, is largely her corruption. And to prove the corruption, DOJ will need to prove that the payments she only belatedly got were not part of a legitimate job. It’s sketchy as hell. It raises questions about Foreign Agent laws (especially for Hana). But at least as presented in the indictment, that’s not the strongest evidence, certainly not against Menendez.

The stuff that more directly implicates Menendez is his intervention in several criminal investigations, first in the case of an Uribe associate, then in the case of Daibes, Menendez’ longtime fundraiser. Menendez allegedly tried to intervene with prosecutors to help an Uribe associate beat a state charge, and Daibes beat a federal charge, but as described, both cases resolved in probation plea deals without his interference having any effect.

The items DOJ claims must be forfeited as fruits of the crime provide a sense of how much more Daibes allegedly paid Menendez than Hana:

The Menendez’ residence in Englewood Cliffs (this may have originally belonged to Nadine, in which case the forfeiture stems from mortgage payments of $23,000 IS EG Halal made on the residence in July 2019)
The $75,000 2019 Mercedes C300 José Uribe paid for starting in 2019, which the Menendez’ tried to make look like a loan retroactively in July 2022; it’s not clear — and DOJ doesn’t say — whether the Mercedes was payoff for the Egyptian influence or for Menendez’ attempt to influence the prosecution of Uribe’s associate
$486,461 in cash, some of which bore Daibes’ DNA or fingerprints, one envelope of which had Menendez’ DNA, some of which was stashed in a Menendez jacket
$79,760 in cash seized in Nadine’s safe deposit box
2 1-KG bars of gold seized on June 16, 2022; these — and at least two others that Nadine sold for around $120,000 in March 2022 — likely came from Daibes
11 1-ounce bars of gold seized on June 16, 2022; these were likely what remained of 22 ounces total, originally valued at around $39,600, purchased by Hana after some meetings with Egyptian officials on June 23, 2021
An account tied to Strategic International Business Consultants, which Nadine formed in June 2019 after IS EG Halal got its monopoly and to which IS EG Halal paid three $10,000 payments in August, September, and November 2019

So the Mercedes (worth $75,000) at least appears to be payoff for Menendez’ efforts to help an Uribe associate beat a state case. As noted, the indictment says prosecutors shielded the investigative team from Menendez’ interference, but Uribe and the associate nevertheless had a celebratory dinner with Menendez attributing his legal good fortune to Menendez.

Because the roughly $100,000 in payments from Hana — with the exception of the one-ounce gold bars — came through IS EG Halal, DOJ will need to prove that Nadine’s no-work job really wasn’t a job or at least not a legal one.

The bulk of the payments, around $720,000 in cash and gold (the indictment also references checks not itemized here), came from Daibes. While he had financial ties to Hana, he also had a long-lasting relationship as a fundraiser for Menendez, and DOJ doesn’t lay out when the money came in. Given the extent of that relationship, Menendez’ intervention with the US Attorney’s office (and his equivocations about supporting Phil Sellinger’s appointment) are corrupt as hell but not unusual for Washington.

After all, Attorney General Garland only got confirmed after assuring Lindsey Graham and other Senators that he would continue the politically influenced criminal investigations into Hunter Biden and (by John Durham) of Hillary Clinton and her associates. And the entire House GOP is continuing such demands to this day, in part because their Sugar Daddy, Donald Trump, demands it.

There has to be something more to the Daibes’ money, something not laid out in this indictment. Particularly given that there are no campaign finance allegations, DOJ has not ruled out that Menendez was just on a regular take from Daibes. It simply doesn’t account for the amount of money Daibes allegedly gave Menendez, nor does it tie that money to specific quid pro quos.

(Daily Beast reports that Daibes has or had ties with the Italian mafia.)

Similarly, there must be more explanation to the Daibes’ plea deal. This indictment suggests that Sellinger’s First AUSA, Vikas Khanna, rebuffed Menendez’ efforts to intervene in the Daibes case, just like NJ state prosecutors rebuffed his efforts to intervene in the case of the Uribe associate who nevertheless attributed his plea to Menendez. The NJ USAO only belatedly clarified that Sellinger was recused and the plea had been approved by Khanna on the day of the indictment. And it’s hard to explain the repeated continuances of Daibes’ sentencing, first in September 2022, then in December 2022, then in March 2023, then in July 2023; sentencing for Daibes and his co-defendant is currently set for October 23, 2023. The sentencing submissions submitted in August 2022 remain sealed. If Daibes started cooperating in this case after the June 2022 searches of the other co-defendants, it might make sense, but there’s no hint of that.

Likewise, there’s no ready explanation for why SDNY is prosecuting this instead of NJ USAO. Rather than any mention that this got referred from one of those NJ offices, which is what you would hope happened if a politician attempted to influence a prosecution, the indictment establishes venue in fairly tangential acts (marked in blue in the timeline below): Two dinners Menendez and Nadine had in Manhattan, the loan payments Uribe arranged through a bank in the Bronx, and a text Nadine sent on September 5, 2019.

Finally, it’s not clear whether this investigation arose out of an investigation — perhaps for being a foreign agent, which inexplicably is not included in this indictment — into Hana, which led up to the search of his phone in November 2019 but which doesn’t appear to have alarmed anyone, or out of further scrutiny of Daibes.

Or maybe, after the prosecution failed the last time, DOJ Public Integrity (which was heavily involved in the first prosecution of Menendez) just kept watching, knowing he’d stumble again.

Some of the overt acts in this indictment — most notably when Menendez provided sensitive information about embassy staffing to the Egyptians — happened more than five years ago, so they’re only included as part of a conspiracy that continued for years after that. But I wouldn’t rule out that we get more clarity about all this money in a superseding indictment.

Update: Added the detail that the June 21, 2021 meeting with Egypt’s Intelligence head pertained to Egypt’s role in the Jamal Khashoggi assassination.

Timeline

Below, I’ve bolded key payments (there are other payments that DOJ does not date in the indictment). I’ve marked in pink the engagement and marriage of Nadine and Menendez, which may change the legal import of Nadine’s actions with Menendez. I’ve marked the acts that SDNY uses to establish venue in blue.

April 1, 2015: DOJ indicts Menendez and longterm associate, Salomen Melgen.

June 27, 2016: US v McDonnell decision.

July 17, 2017: Menendez moves to dismiss in light of US v McDonnell decision.

August 2017: State Department withholds $195 million in military support for Egypt and cancels $65.7 million in other financing.

November 16, 2017: Jury hangs in Salomon Melgen trial.

January 19, 2018: DOJ notices intent to retry case.

January 24, 2018: Judge William Walls grants Menendez’ Rule 29 motion on 7 of 18 counts.

January 31, 2018: DOJ moves to dismiss first bribery case.

February 2018: Nadine Arslanian, at the time unemployed, starts dating Menendez.

Early 2018: Nadine tells Hana she is dating Menendez.

March 2018: Menendez meets with Egyptian Official-1, Nadine, and Hana, without his professional staffers, in his DC Senate office and discusses foreign military funding.

April 2018: Uribe tells Hana that “the deal is to kill and stop all investigation”‘ of associate investigated for insurance fraud.

May 6, 2018: After meeting with Nadine and Hana (location uncertain), Menendez seeks out number and nationality of peoeple working at US Embassy in Cairo.

May 7, 2018: Menendez texts details of Embassy staffing to Nadine, who forwarded it to Hana, who forwarded it to Egyptian Official-2.

May 2018: Menendez has fancy dinner with Hana after which Hana texts Egyptian Official-1 that “the ban on small arms and ammunition to Egypt has been lifted.”

May 2018: Nadine gets Menendez to ghost write letter asking other Senators to release $300 million hold. He sends ghost-written letter to her via personal email; she sends it to Hana. Both delete the email.

Several months after March 2018: Nadine expresses hope that Egypt “replace him,” meaning Hana.

June 30, 2018: Menendez, Nadine, and Hana meeting in Manhattan restaurant.

July 2018: After meeting with Egyptian Official-1 set up by Nadine and Hana, Menendez tells Nadine he will sign off on $99 million sale to Egypt, stating that they have had such arms for many years and use them for counterterrorism in the Sinai.

October 30, 2018: Fred Daibes charged by US Attorney for obtaining loans under false pretenses.

December 2018: Nadine has car accident and starts complaining to Hana that she does not have a car.

January 27, 2019: Menendez, Nadine, and Hana meet at dinner (Uribe was invited but did not attend), after which Hana starts sending Nadine texts about Uribe associate’s criminal case. Nadine deleted those messages.

January 29, 2019: After reviewing texts with Nadine (which both deleted), Menendez attempts to pressure Official-2 to resolve the prosecution of Uribe’s associate. Official-2 does not intervene.

February 3, 2019: Nadine texts Hana, “I’m so excited to get a car next week !!”

2018 to 2019: Hana’s halal firm, which had no revenue, did not deliver on payments promised to Nadine.

March 12, 2019: Nadine and Uribe speak for 21 minutes, after which Uribe texts, “I am real. I will stand by my word.”

March 27, 2019: Uribe directs Nadine to a Mercedes dealer, after which she sends Menendez pictures to help pick a color.

April 2019: Uribe associate resolves case with guilty plea that was more favorable than prosecutors’ initial plea offer.

April 3, 2019: Nadine texts dealer saying Uribe told her to pick up car on April 5.

April 3, 2019: Uribe tells associate, “I need 15k cash this afternoon.”

April 4, 2019: Nadine texts Menendez that she’s going “to meet Jose for five minutes;” in the parking lot of a restaurant, he hands her $15,000 in cash.

April 5, 2019: Nadine uses the $15,0000 as a down payment to get the Mercedes, paying the rest with a loan based on false financing claims.

April 7, 2019: Egyptian government official informs Hana he’ll become sole certifier for halal imports.

April 8, 2019: Nadine texts Menendez, “seems like halal went through. It might be a fantastic 2019 all the way around.”

Spring 2019: Egypt grants Hana’s halal company, IS EG Halal, exclusive monopoly on certifiying meat exported from the US to Egypt as halal.

April and May 2019: USDA complains to Egypt about monopoly grant to IS EG Halal.

May 2019: Uribe starts paying off Nadine’s loan, via an associate’s Bronx business account, keeping his name out of it.

May 3, 2019: Uribe causes associate to pay off Nadine’s loan through bank in the Bronx.

May 21, 2019: Menendez, Hana, and Egyptian Official-3 meet twice, the second time at steakhouse in DC. They discuss human rights issue. Hana requests Menendez’ intervention on USDA objections to IS EG Halal monopoly.

May 22 and 23, 2019: Hana provides Nadine information on USDA objections. She texts them to Menendez, and later deletes them.

May 23, 2019: Menendez intervenes with USDA Official-1, asking him to stop interfering with IS EG Halal’s monopoly. Official-1 did not accede to demand, but IS EG Halal kept monopoly.

June 2019: Nadine forms Strategic International Business Consultants, LLC, explaining to a relative she would use it to get paid. “Every time I’m in a middle person for a deal I am asking to get paid and this is my consulting company.”

July 2019: After mortgage company moves to foreclose on Nadine, IS EG Halal pays $23,000 to bring Nadine’s mortgage current. As part of those discussions, Nadine said, “When I feel comfortable and plan the trip to Egypt [Hana] will be more powerful than the president of Egypt.” [DOJ does not allege Menendez was part of this discussion.]

July 2019: A New Jersey detective asks to interview Uribe’s associate, leading Menendez to attempt to intervene again.

July 31, 2019: Uribe contacts Nadine saying “We need to move fast” … “We can stop this.” Nadine responds that she will “address itfirst thing tomorrow morning or tonight depending on when he is home.” Menendez does Google search on State agency employing insurance fraud investigator.

August 30, 2019: IS EG Halal pays Nadine $10,000.

September 3, 2019: Uribe texts Nadine saying, “Please don’t forget about me. I will never forget about you” … “I need peace.”

September 4, 2019: Menendez sets up meeting with NJ prosecutor for September 6.

September 5, 2019: Menendez, Nadine, and Uribe meet at Nadine’s house.

September 5, 2019: Nadine sends Uribe a text sent through cell tower in Manhattan.

September 6, 2019: Prosecutor meets with Menendez, Menendez informs Uribe the meeting was “very positive.”

September 9, 2019: Egyptian Official-3 texts Hana relaying that a State Department official told an Egyptian diplomatic official that “Senator Menendize put a hold on a billion $ of usaid to Egypt before the recess !!!!” Hana attempted to contact Nadine, then forwarded the Egyptian text to Daibes, who called Menendez and then responded that it wasn’t true.

September 2019: Menendez offered to provide assistance to Hana and Egypt during official trip to India, then later meets with Daibes, Hana, and Egyptian Official-3.

September 2019: Nadine complains to Daibes that Hana had not paid her. Daibes responds, “Nadine I personally gave Bob a check for September.”

September 2019: Nadine texts Menendez complaining that Hana has not left her an envelope, referencing a meeting Menendez had with senior Egyptian officials “last Saturday.” Nadine called Daibes.

September 21, 2019: Menendez, Hana, Daibes, and Egyptian Official-4 meet at restaurant in Manahattan.

September 28, 2019: IS EG Halal pays Nadine $10,000.

October 2019: Menendez and Nadine get engaged.

October 29, 2019: Uribe texts Nadine for an update. Menendez calls Uribe, after which he tells Nadine he is “a very happy person.”

After October 29, 2019: Menendez, Nadine, Uribe, and associate have celebratory dinner.

November 5, 2019: Uribe texts Nadine about automatic payments for Mercedes Benz.

November 5, 2019: IS EG Halal pays Nadine $10,000.

November 9, 2019: Uribe sets up automatic payments through another trucking company, ultimately paying $30,000 in addition to the cash down payment.

November 2019: Search of Hana’s cell phone reveals thousands of text messages with Nadine, many of which she had deleted.

March 2020: Nadine texts Egyptian Official-3 and offers to help, then setting up meeting with “the general,” after which Menendez intervenes to pressure State to increase its engagement on Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

October 2020: Menendez, Nadine, Egyptian Official-3 ,and Egyptian Official-4 meet for dinner in Edgewater, NJ.

October 2020: Menendez and Nadine get married.

December 2020: Menendez and Nadine have dinner meeting with Egyptian Official-3.

December 2020: Menendez meets with US Attorney candidate and complains about prosecution of Fred Daibes. US Attorney candidate tells Menedez he might have to recuse. Menendez told US Attorney candidate he would not recommend him.

Early 2021: IS EG Halal delivers two exercise machines and air purifier to Menendez home.

May 2, 2021: Advisor intervenes with US Attorney candidate about recusing, tells Menendez “you’ll be comfortable with what he says.” Menendez recommends candidate. After confirmation, he recuses.

June 21, 2021: Nadine and Egyptian Official-4 organized meeting between Menendez and Egyptian Intelligence Head Abbas Kamel, in advance of meeting with other Senators that day. Both Nadine and Menendez alert Egyptian Official-4 that other Senators were going to raise a human rights issue. Per this thread (ThreadReader is down right now but it’s here) and this Isikoff story, the human rights issue was Egypt’s involvement in the execution of Jamal Khashoggi.

June 23, 2021: Hana purchases 22 one ounce gold bars, each worth $1,800. Two were found at Menendez residence in June 2022 search.

October 2021: Nadine arranges trip for her and Menendez to Egypt, originally planned as unofficial visit. When a SFRC took steps that made it an official visit, Egyptian Official-4 said he might lose his job. During the trip, Menendez had meeting at home of Egyptian Official-5 (the intelligence official).

October 17, 2021: Driver for Fred Daibes picks up the Menendezes from trip to Egypt; the next day Menendez searches, “how much is one kilo of gold worth.”

December 23, 2021: Daibes’ trial adjourned. Daibes asks about Menendez’ shoulder injury. Nadine responds that Menendez is fixated on trial date. Daibes sent recliner to Menendez.

December 2021 through February 2022: Menendez asks Advisor to ask why US Attorney recused himself.

January 2022: Menendez sends Nadine a link about military sales to Egypt totally $2.5 billion; Nadine forwards ot Hana, saying that Menendez had to sign off on it.

January 21, 2022: Menendez called NJ US Attorney and asked for First AUSA name.

January 22, 2022: Menendez complains to Daibes that his attorney has not been aggressive enough.

January 24, 2022: Nadine has two calls with Daibes’ driver. “Christmas in January.” Thousands in cash with Daibes’ DNA later found at residence.

January 29, 2022: Menendez searches for “kilo of gold price.”

January 31, 2022; Menendez calls First AUSA, then calls Daibes.

March 2022: Menendez asks Advisor to bring up Daibes at lunch with US Attorney, Advisor declines to do so.

March 30, 2022: Nadine thanks Daibes, then sells 2 1-KG gold bars to jeweler, each worth $60,000.

March 31, 2022: Two 1-KG gold bars Nadine provided to jeweler sold in Manhattan.

April 2022: Daibes pleads guilty to plea agreement providing probationary sentence. Sentencing has been continued repeatedly since plea.

June 2022: Federal agents approach Menendez, Nadine, and Uribe, after which Menendez pays Nadine $23,000 and Nadine pays Uribe $21,000.

June 16, 2022: Search discovers:

2 1-KG gold bars
9 1-ounce gold bars
10 envelopes of cash, each with 10s of 1000s of dollars, bearing Daibes’ fingerprints, one which included fingerprints of Menendez

July 14, 2023: Sentencing for Daibes and co-defendant reset, for fourth time, for October 23, 2023.

September 21, 2023: DOJ amends sentencing agreement to note that Phil Sellinger was recused and Vikas Khanna oversaw the Daibes prosecution.

September 21, 2023: Indictment

“An Entire Universe of Malfeasance, Corruption, and Depravity:” Joel Greenberg Promotes the Value of His Snitching

November 16, 2022/29 Comments/in 2018 Mid-Term Election, Informants, January 6 Insurrection /by emptywheel

Joel Greenberg — the Roger Stone and Matt Gaetz associate who pled guilty in May 2021 to trafficking a minor, identity theft, wire fraud, stalking, and conspiracy — will be sentenced on December 1.

(h/t to Sandi Bachom for the screen cap of Gaetz’s tweet)

In accordance with a schedule set in July, when Greenberg last extended his sentencing date to expand the time he could cooperate with the government, DOJ submitted its 5K letter (in which it tells the judge how much credit Greenberg should get for his cooperation) on November 10. The government submitted its sentencing memorandum yesterday.

Greenberg’s sentencing memorandum was initially due yesterday as well, but his attorney, Fritz Scheller, got an extension until next Monday, in part so he could submit this response to the 5K letter.

Judge Gregory Presnell set a pre-sentencing hearing for November 30 to hear arguments about the proper guidelines to apply.

The government sentencing memorandum — which repeatedly seems to express amazement at how Greenberg kept criming even as he realized the government was hot on his trail — is worth reading on its own. Here are some highlights:

Greenberg had only just gotten started in his efforts to defraud the Tax Collector’s Office to fund his personal cryptocurrency purchases.

[snip]

In January 2019, Greenberg told one of his family members that he was in “big trouble” and asked for $200,000. Id. at ¶ 102. Rather than repay the Tax Collector’s Office what he had obtained through his fraud, however, Greenberg used those funds to purchase more cryptocurrency for himself.

[snip]

The one thing that Greenberg did not do, however, was stop his fraud. Greenberg continued to defraud the Tax Collector’s Office to obtain funds to purchase cryptocurrency for himself. His only reaction to the federal investigation was to alter his scheme.

[snip]

As part of this scheme, Greenberg continued to sell the cryptocurrency machines that he had purchased with Tax Collector’s Office funds. In addition, Greenberg used some of the machines to mine cryptocurrency for himself. As part of those efforts, Greenberg used Tax Collector’s Office funds to build a server room in his personal office, and he operated some of the machines at the Lake Mary branch. Id. at ¶ 134. Because of how those machines were daisy chained together at the Lake Mary branch, they started a fire that damaged the machines and the branch office.

[snip]

After he was released on pretrial supervision, Greenberg continued with his scheme, executing an SBA loan agreement for $133,000 only a day after he was ordered by a United States Magistrate Judge not to commit any new offenses.

It all feels like a Coen Brothers movie. Sex with minors, ecstasy, rat-fucking, and flaming cryptocurrency servers.

With regards to Greenberg’s cooperation, one of his crimes — stalking — deserves particular attention. When someone filed to run against him as tax collector, Greenberg manufactured a claim that his opponent was sleeping with a student.

In the midst of defrauding the Tax Collector’s Office, Greenberg added stalking to his repertoire of criminal activity. See id. at ¶¶ 138-147. On October 4, 2019, an individual who was a teacher at a school, filed to run for the elected office of Seminole County Tax Collector in 2020, against Greenberg. Id. at ¶ 138. In retaliation, Greenberg caused nine letters to be sent to the teacher’s school. The letters falsely represented that they were being sent by an anonymous “very concerned student” who had information that the teacher had engaged in sexual misconduct with a particular student. Id. at ¶ 139. The following month, in November 2019, Greenberg set up a Facebook account that falsely claimed to belong to a “very concerned teacher” at the school. Using that account, Greenberg made similar false allegations to the ones previously made in his letters. Id. at ¶¶ 143-145. Further, he created an imposter Twitter account, using the name and photograph of his political opponent, without the teacher’s knowledge or consent. Greenberg then published, using that account, a series of racially motivated posts that he falsely represented were being made by the teacher, and representing that the teacher was a racist. Id. at ¶ 142.

This is classic Republican projection and rat-fuckery. But it is also a really damaging confession for anyone who might want to turn snitch in the future.

I’m sure Greenberg knows all sorts of things about what his sleazeball buddies have done and shared some of it with prosecutors. But the fact that Greenberg manufactured false allegations against someone would make him really easy to discredit as a witness about anything for which there wasn’t a whole bunch of independent documentation. Prosecutors use fraudsters as cooperating witnesses all the time, but to do so they need a bunch of corroboration, because otherwise jurors aren’t going to believe the claims of someone who confessed to manufacturing false claims for personal gain in the past.

With that said, I wanted to look closer at the sentencing dispute. Greenberg thinks his cooperation has been more valuable than the government has given him credit for. Partly, that’s because he thinks he should get a 4-level reduction for each of what he says are seven prosecutions he has been a part of (or will be as downstream conspiracy prosecutions progress or would have been had the defendant not died), rather than the 10-level reduction the government says he should get for all his cooperation. Partly, he thinks the mandatory 2-year minimum for the identity theft he pled to, which would be consecutive to his other sentence, should be set aside given his cooperation.

But as Greenberg’s and all other plea agreements make clear, he doesn’t get to decide.

[T]he defendant understands that the determination as to whether “substantial assistance” has been provided or what type of motion related thereto will be filed, if any, rests solely with the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, and the defendant agrees that defendant cannot and will not challenge that determination, whether by appeal, collateral attack, or otherwise.

It’s solely up to the government to decide. And here’s what the government thinks of Greenberg’s cooperation:

In summary, the defendant has provided truthful and timely information to the United States which, in part, resulted in the charging of: two individuals involved in a conspiracy to provide bribes and kickbacks to the defendant,2 one individual involved in a conspiracy to submit false claims to the SBA and to bribe an SBA employee,3 and one individual involved in a conspiracy to defraud the Tax Collector’s Office.4 In addition, the defendant has provided substantial assistance on other matters discussed in the sealed Supplemental Memorandum Regarding Defendant’s Cooperation.

The United States has acknowledged the value added as a result of the defendant’s cooperation, and to reflect the significance of his assistance, the United States has moved for a 10-level reduction in his offense level. This is however, where his mitigation and reasons for any type of reduction in offense level should end. Considering all of the above referenced information including (1) the nature and circumstances of the instant offenses, (2) the defendant’s history and characteristics, and (3) the need for the sentence imposed to provide just punishment, adequate deterrence, respect for the law, and protection of the public, the United States respectfully submits that no downward variance is warranted.

It’s the “substantial assistance on other matters discussed in the sealed Supplemental Memorandum Regarding Defendant’s Cooperation” we’re all particularly interested in, what, in Greenberg’s response, he calls “an entire universe of malfeasance, corruption, and depravity.”

I’m sure it is.

This is the stuff, including the Gaetz sex trafficking allegations, that has shown up in the press.

Most recently, it showed up — with an on the record quote from Scheller boosting the import of Greenberg’s cooperation — in a NYT story on multiple January 6 prosecutors’ investigation of the ties between January 6 and the 2018 Stop the Steal effort.

In recent months, prosecutors overseeing the seditious conspiracy case of five members of the Proud Boys have expanded their investigation to examine the role that Jacob Engels — a Florida Proud Boy who accompanied Mr. Stone to Washington for Jan. 6 — played in the 2018 protests, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The prosecutors want to know whether Mr. Engels received any payments or drew up any plans for the Florida demonstration, and whether he has ties to other people connected to the Proud Boys’ activities in the run-up to the storming of the Capitol.

Different prosecutors connected to the Jan. 6 investigation have also been asking questions about efforts by Mr. Stone — a longtime adviser to Mr. Trump — to stave off a recount in the 2018 Senate race in Florida, according to other people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Gaetz, Republican of Florida, participated in the 2018 demonstration, but the extent and nature of his involvement remain unclear.

Fritz Scheller, a lawyer for Joel Greenberg, a local Florida tax collector who is cooperating with the government in an investigation into Mr. Gaetz, declined in response to questions to discuss the specifics of what his client told the authorities about the 2018 incident. Still, Mr. Scheller said, “A significant aspect of Mr. Greenberg’s cooperation has been his assistance in matters involving efforts to subvert the democratic process.” [my emphasis]

What is going on overtly in this sentencing dispute, with Greenberg arguing for the value of his cooperation, likely parallels what has generated a lot of press coverage (particularly about any sex trafficking case against Gaetz) in recent years. We likely got stories about “an entire universe of malfeasance, corruption, and depravity,” including the expectation that Gaetz would be indicted, because those close to Greenberg were trying to raise the value of his cooperation in the public sphere and pressure prosecutors for an indictment of Gaetz, which would have increased the credit he’d get for cooperating, another 4-level sentencing reduction, Greenberg says it would have gotten him.

None of that’s to say that Greenberg’s cooperation hasn’t been corroborated (on some points) or valuable: The government explicitly says he was “truthful” and uses the phrase, “substantial assistance,” that prosecutors use to describe real meat, often meat that they expect will lead to indictments.

It’s just that at this moment, the first time the government has been able to say publicly how valuable they think Greenberg’s cooperation is in the face of all the sex, ecstasy, rat-fucking, and flaming cryptocurrency servers that Greenberg pled guilty to, they say all that truthful and substantial assistance doesn’t outweigh the fraud as much as Greenberg would like it to.

None of that says Gaetz is in the clear, though the report that federal prosecutors won’t charge him for the sex trafficking because, “a conviction is unlikely in part because of credibility questions with the two central witnesses,” accords with what we see in the sentencing memo. Greenberg would have particular credibility problems on that count because Greenberg manufactured a claim of sex crimes in the past.

That said, I find it interesting that Gaetz decided, at the last minute, not to attend Trump’s rally in Florida last night, purportedly because of rain that wasn’t affecting travel in the least. And in Scheller’s motion for an extension, he described five hours of work with federal and state prosecutors (which may or may not relate to Greenberg), but also resolving an unexpected issue that might impact Greenberg’s sentence.

Because of the recent tropical storm (Nicole) and associated federal and state court closures on November 9 and November 10, as well as the federal holiday on November 11, 2022, the undersigned has had multiple case matters continued to this week. Indeed, today the undersigned has already spent five hours in both state court and in an extensive proffer with the Government.

[snip]

Additionally, the undersigned is currently in the process of resolving an unexpected issue (both today and tomorrow) that could impact Mr. Greenberg’s sentence.

So there may be recent developments of interest, developments that had to wait until courthouses could be opened after rain that was affecting travel.

I hope we’ll get a slew of new titillating new stories about Joel Greenberg’s universe of malfeasance, corruption, and depravity when that sealed cooperation memo is unsealed (or, better yet, if it leads to indictments). But for now, the advent of this sentencing dispute is a helpful reminder that the motives that drive reporting often require overselling the value of the testimony of an admitted fraudster.

Yes, DOJ Is Reportedly Investigating the 2018 Election that Trump Just Invoked with Ron DeSantis

November 11, 2022/87 Comments/in 2018 Mid-Term Election, 2020 Presidential Election, 2022 Mid-Term Election, emptywheel /by emptywheel

In the wake of Tuesday’s shellacking of Democrats in Florida and the losses of winnable seats by Trump endorsees, Republicans are explicitly discussing Ron DeSantis as if he is the head of the party, in lieu of Trump. That set off a temper tantrum on the second shittiest social media site run by a narcissistic billionaire [sic] in which Trump:

Accused Fox of fighting him and likened the focus on DeSantis to the 2016 election
Claimed his endorsement of DeSantis in 2018 was a “nuclear weapon” that took out Adam Putnam
Took credit for DeSantis’s victory over Andrew Gillum
Claimed he “sent in the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys, and the ballot theft immediately ended, just prior to them running out of the votes necessary to win”

This last bullet, which seems to claim that Trump deployed DOJ resources to help DeSantis win, has attracted a great of attention.

It would be utterly corrupt to imagine that Trump used DOJ resources to help in an election — though there is evidence he did in 2020: when Bill Barr’s efforts to undermine the Mike Flynn prosecution released altered Peter Strzok notes that Trump used in an attack on Joe Biden. He of course tried to do far more, going so far as attempting to replace Jay Rosen with Jeffrey Clark to give DOJ sanction to frivolous lawsuits.

Plus, people are far too quickly suggesting this claim is made up entirely, and that there’s no evidence of misconduct in 2018. That’s true not just because Trump’s lies generally have some basis, albeit really tenuous, in reality.

Just ten days ago, after all, the NYT reported that prosecutors on at least two investigative teams (which might actually be prosecutors bringing together networked conspiracies as seemed likely for 14 months), implicitly boosted by cooperation from Joel Greenberg, are investigating the 2018 Stop the Steal effort in Broward County.

The NYT article focused on efforts by Trump’s rat-fucker and friends to shut down challenges to the vote count: a Jacob Engels/Proud Boy mob in Broward County.

President Donald J. Trump and other top Republicans were stoking claims that the election had been stolen, and their supporters were protesting in the streets. Members of the far-right group the Proud Boys and people close to Roger J. Stone Jr., including Representative Matt Gaetz, took part in the action as the crowd was chanting “Stop the Steal.”

The time was 2018, the setting was southern Florida, and the election in question was for governor and a hotly contested race that would help determine who controlled the United States Senate.

Now, four years later, the Justice Department is examining whether the tactics used then served as a model for the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

In recent months, prosecutors overseeing the seditious conspiracy case of five members of the Proud Boys have expanded their investigation to examine the role that Jacob Engels — a Florida Proud Boy who accompanied Mr. Stone to Washington for Jan. 6 — played in the 2018 protests, according to a person briefed on the matter.

[snip]

The 2018 protests were triggered by the tight outcome of the races for United States Senate and Florida governor. On election night, the Republican Senate candidate, Rick Scott, declared victory over the Democrat, Bill Nelson, but the race was close enough that local officials were set to hold recounts in key locations like Broward County.

Prominent Republicans, including Mr. Trump and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, suggested on social media that the Democrats were trying to steal the election. Mr. Engels promoted an event in Broward County, writing on Twitter that he was headed there “to handle this situation” and was going to “STOP THE STEAL.”

On Nov. 9, a group of about 100 angry protesters, including members of the Proud Boys, descended on the Broward County elections office, carrying pro-Scott and pro-Trump signs and protesting the recount.

The event drew support from several far-right activists in Florida linked to Mr. Stone — among them, Ali Alexander, who later organized Stop the Steal events around the 2020 election, and Joseph Biggs, a leader of the Proud Boys who has since been charged alongside Mr. Tarrio in the Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy case.

Undoubtedly, the Proud Boys are not the FBI (though the FBI in this phase was far too credulous of the Proud Boys). But given the NYT report, it is nevertheless the case that Trump-related Broward County rat-fuckery in 2018 not only happened but is already under investigation.

It may even be the case that DOJ collected information about such things in near real time. DOJ obtained renewed warrants on three Roger Stone accounts on August 3, 2018. It continued to investigate Stone and associates at least through October 2018. And an investigation into the rat-fucker remained ongoing through his November 2019 trial and into at least April 2020.

Again, that doesn’t mean that Trump’s specific claim — that DOJ was involved in all this — is specifically true. It means that before you dismiss it out of hand, you should ask what bread crumbs of reality this probable lie is based on.

When Trump started threatening DeSantis, I immediately thought of Roger Stone, because collecting dirt with which to exert political pressure is what Trump’s rat-fucker does and because Stone was always active in these same circles. And the Broward County Stop the Steal effort may be the least of it.

The Roger Stone Convergence at the Winter Palace

November 2, 2022/60 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, 2018 Mid-Term Election, 2020 Presidential Election, January 6 Insurrection /by emptywheel

There was a status hearing in the Owen Shroyer case last week that was so short it was over by the time I had entered the dial-in code. Shroyer, you’ll recall, is the Alex Jones sidekick who was charged for violating his specific prohibition on being an asshole at the Capitol. His lawyer, Norm Pattis, happens to be the lawyer who sent a large swath of Alex Jones’ data to the Texas Sandy Hook plaintiffs, and then presided over the $1 billion judgement in the Connecticut Sandy Hook lawsuit. On June 14, Pattis noticed his appearance on Joe Biggs’ legal team, effectively giving him visibility on how badly the discovery in the Proud Boy case implicates Shroyer and Jones and Ali Alexander. Shroyer appears to be stalling on his decision about whether he wants to enter a plea agreement — one that would presumably require some cooperation — or whether he wants to stick around and be charged in a superseding indictment along with everyone else.

Shroyer has until November 29 to make that decision, around which time I expect a Roger Stone convergence to become more clear.

The Roger Stone convergence has been coming for some time (I’ve been pointing to it for at 14 months). Yesterday, NYT reported that one means by which it is coming is in the dissemination of the We the People document laying out plans to occupy buildings — under the code “Winter Palace” — which the FBI found on the Enrique Tarrio phone it took over a year to exploit.

As I laid out here, the document is important because it shows Tarrio’s motive on January 6 in his assertion that “every waking moment consists of” planning for revolution.

41. Between December 30 and December 31, 2020, TARRIO communicated multiple times with an individual whose identity is known to the grand jury. On December 30, 2020, this individual sent TARRIO a nine-page document tiled, “1776 Returns.” The document set forth a plan to occupy a few “crucial buildings” in Washington, D.C., on January 6, including House and Senate office buildings around the Capitol, with as “many people as possible” to “show our politicians We the People are in charge.” After sending the document, the individual stated, “The revolution is important than anything.” TARRIO responded, “That’s what every waking moment consists of… I’m not playing games.”

And an exchange he had with now-cooperating witness Jeremy Bertino that they had succeeded in implementing the Winter Palace plan shows that Tarrio recognized that occupying buildings was part of his plan.

107. At 7:39 pm, PERSON-1 sent two text messages to TARRIO that read, “Brother. ‘You know we made this happen,” and “I’m so proud of my country today.” TARRIO responded, “I know” At 7:44 pm. the conversation continued, with PERSON-1 texting, “1776 motherfuckers.” TARRIO responded, “The Winter Palace.” PERSON-1 texted, “Dude. Did we just influence history?” TARRIO responded, “Let’s first see how this plays out.” PERSON-1 stated, “They HAVE to certify today! Or it’s invalid.” These messages were exchanged before the Senate returned to its chamber at approximately 8:00 p.m. to resume certifying the Electoral College vote.

The NYT story reveals that Eryka Gemma is the person who sent the document to Tarrio, but she was not its author.

As a part of the investigation, prosecutors are seeking to understand whether Mr. Engels has ties to a little-known Miami-based cryptocurrency promoter who may have played a role in the Capitol attack.

A week before the building was stormed, the promoter, Eryka Gemma, gave Mr. Tarrio a document titled “1776 Returns,” according to several people familiar with the matter. The document laid out a detailed plan to surveil and storm government buildings around the Capitol on Jan. 6 in a pressure campaign to demand a new election.

[snip]

The federal indictment of Mr. Tarrio says that the person who provided him with “1776 Returns” told him, shortly after it was sent, “The revolution is more important than anything.” That person was Ms. Gemma, according to several people familiar with the matter.

But Ms. Gemma was not the author of “1776 Returns,” which was written by others, first as a shared document on Google, the people said.

It remains unclear who the original authors were.

It may be unclear or detrimental to the sources for this story who originally wrote the document; it’s probably not to investigators who can simply send a warrant to Google.

And whether because investigators know who wrote the document or for some other reason (such as that they have just a few more weeks of pre-sentencing cooperation with Joel Greenberg), they’re trying to understand whether this document, laying out a plan to occupy buildings, had an analogue in the Florida-based riots that key Roger Stone associate, Jacob Engels, staged in 2018 in an attempt to thwart any delays in certification for Rick Scott (and Ron DeSantis, who gets a positive shout out by name in the Winter Palace document).

On Nov. 9, [2018] a group of about 100 angry protesters, including members of the Proud Boys, descended on the Broward County elections office, carrying pro-Scott and pro-Trump signs and protesting the recount.

The event drew support from several far-right activists in Florida linked to Mr. Stone — among them, Ali Alexander, who later organized Stop the Steal events around the 2020 election, and Joseph Biggs, a leader of the Proud Boys who has since been charged alongside Mr. Tarrio in the Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy case.

The NYT describes this line of inquiry as happening via two different sets of prosecutors, which is a sign of either convergence or simply the networked structure that DOJ’s approach, using parallel and (through Stone) intersecting, conspiracy indictments clearly facilitated (Shroyer’s prosecution team, incidentally, features an Oath Keeper prosecutor and a key assault prosecutor).

In recent months, prosecutors overseeing the seditious conspiracy case of five members of the Proud Boys have expanded their investigation to examine the role that Jacob Engels — a Florida Proud Boy who accompanied Mr. Stone to Washington for Jan. 6 — played in the 2018 protests, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The prosecutors want to know whether Mr. Engels received any payments or drew up any plans for the Florida demonstration, and whether he has ties to other people connected to the Proud Boys’ activities in the run-up to the storming of the Capitol.

Different prosecutors connected to the Jan. 6 investigation have also been asking questions about efforts by Mr. Stone — a longtime adviser to Mr. Trump — to stave off a recount in the 2018 Senate race in Florida, according to other people familiar with the matter.

While the NYT describes (breaking news!) that Engels was one of the people who in 2019, along with Tarrio, crafted an attack on the judge presiding over Roger Stone’s case, Amy Berman Jackson, it does not note that the Stop the Steal effort dates back two years earlier than the 2018 riot, to voter intimidation efforts that Stone pursued that look similar to the current drop box intimidation effort being disseminated via Trump’s shitty social media website (NYT does mention the Brooks Brothers riots in 2000 and notes the participants “apparently work[ed] with Mr. Stone” — more breaking news).

Nor does it describe the backstory to how Biggs showed up in Florida in 2018, fresh off his ouster from InfoWars after playing a key role in both the PizzaGate and Seth Rich hoaxes, both part of a Russian info-op that Stone played a key role in. But it’s part of the prehistory of the Proud Boys that prosecutors are now tracing.

I have no idea whether the very clear 2016 precedent is part of this. DOJ wouldn’t need to do (much) fresh investigation of it because Mueller and DC USAO did quite a bit of investigation before Bill Barr torched the investigation all to hell and then Trump pardoned Stone to avoid being implicated himself. But if it was part of this, no one who would share those details with NYT would know about it unless and until it was indicted. That’s even true of the 2019 incident; DOJ did at least some investigative work into the funding of that, the same questions being asked now about how Engels organized the 2018 riot.

But whether this investigative prong extends no further back than 2018 or whether it includes the Stone Stop the Steal activity that demonstrably paralleled a Russian effort, it does seem that DOJ is investigating how the prior history of the Proud Boys parallels these efforts to undermine democracy and did so in the place — Miami — where the Proud Boys, schooled by the master rat-fucker, are increasingly taking on an official role.

That may not be an investigation about Engels’ actions, directly (though he has long been in the thick of things). Rather, it may be an investigation into resources that were consistent throughout these developments.

Rudy Giuliani’s Support Role in the Mueller Report

May 30, 2021/20 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, 2018 Mid-Term Election, 2020 Presidential Election, Impeachment, WikiLeaks /by emptywheel

As I showed in the Rat-Fucker Rashomon series, it can be tremendously useful to compare how different inquiries into Russian interference in 2016 tell that story. That’s true not just of Roger Stone; it’s also true of Rudy Giuliani.

By the time SSCI finished its Russia Report, the shape of the 2020 Russian influence campaign was evident, and it shows up, in redacted form, in the final report. As part of that discussion, the SSCI Report deals with Rudy at least once in almost entirely redacted passages about the ongoing influence campaign involving Russian assets in Ukraine. That is, it clearly suggests the trajectory led to the influence campaigns that were still active in 2020.

Perhaps because SSCI had the advantage of seeing where Rudy would end up, it also included a few more details about Rudy from earlier on of interest. For example, before Paul Manafort discussed how to win Pennsylvania and how to carve up Ukraine on August 2, 2016, he met with Trump and Rudy Giuliani in Trump Tower.

Among the details SSCI shows of the Trump campaign exploiting documents leaked to WikiLeaks is a citation to an email, dated October 11, 2016, showing Rudy was in that loop.

When Rick Gates was asked what kind of contact Paul Manafort retained with Trump after he was ousted from the campaign, Gates revealed that Manafort told Gates that Rudy Giuliani was helping him place people in Administration positions.

And PsyGroup’s Joel Zamel claimed that Rudy introduced him to Jared Kushner some months after the inauguration; Kushner and Zamel had a meeting at the White House to discuss “human rights issues in the Middle East, Iran, and ‘counter-extremism’.”

Aside from the detail that Manafort was using Rudy as a side channel to influence the White House, those aren’t necessarily momentous details.

Still, those details show that Rudy was a participant in these events during 2016. And yet, Rudy doesn’t show up as such in discussions about 2016 in the Mueller Report. Rather, Rudy shows up exclusively as Trump’s lawyer, floating the pardons in an attempt to get witnesses to lie to cover up what really happened in 2016.

Rudy — who was not yet formally Trump’s personal counsel — and his current defense attorney, Robert Costello, didn’t succeed in getting Michael Cohen to shield Trump.

On or about April 17, 2018, Cohen began speaking with an attorney, Robert Costello, who had a close relationship with Rudolph Giuliani, one of the President’s personal lawyers. 1022 Costello told Cohen that he had a “back channel of communication” to Giuliani, and that Giuliani had said the “channel” was “crucial” and “must be maintained.” 1023 On April 20, 2018, the New York Times published an article about the President’s relationship with and treatment of Cohen. 1024 The President responded with a series of tweets predicting that Cohen would not ” flip” :

The New York Times and a third rate reporter . . . are going out of their way to destroy Michael Cohen and his relationship with me in the hope that he will ‘flip. ‘ They use nonexistent ‘sources’ and a drunk/drugged up loser who hates Michael, a fine person with a wonderful family. Michael is a businessman for his own account/lawyer who I have always liked & respected. Most people will flip if the Government lets them out of trouble, even if it means lying or making up stories. Sorry, I don’t see Michael doing that despite the horrible Witch Hunt and the dishonest media! 1025

In an email that day to Cohen, Costello wrote that he had spoken with Giuliani. 1026 Costello told Cohen the conversation was “Very Very Positive[.] You are ‘loved’ … they are in our corner … . Sleep well tonight[], you have friends in high places.”1027

But Rudy, acting as part of Joint Defense Agreement in the role of Trump’s personal counsel, did succeed in getting Paul Manafort to lie about what happened on August 2 and efforts to carve up Ukraine in the aftermath.

Immediately following the revocation of Manafort’s bail, the President’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, gave a series of interviews in which he raised the possibility of a pardon for Manafort. Giuliani told the New York Daily News that “[w]hen the whole thing is over, things might get cleaned up with some presidential pardons.” 856 Giuliani also said in an interview that, although the President should not pardon anyone while the Special Counsel’s investigation was ongoing, “when the investigation is concluded, he’s kind of on his own, right?”857 In a CNN interview two days later, Giuliani said, ” I guess I should clarify this once and for all. . . . The president has issued no pardons in this investigation. The president is not going to issue pardons in this investigation …. When it’s over, hey, he’s the president of the United States. He retains his pardon power. Nobody is taking that away from him.”858 Giuliani rejected the suggestion that his and the President’s comments could signal to defendants that they should not cooperate in a criminal prosecution because a pardon might follow, saying the comments were “certainly not intended that way.”859 Giuliani said the comments only acknowledged that an individual involved in the investigation would not be “excluded from [ a pardon], if in fact the president and his advisors .. . come to the conclusion that you have been treated unfairly.”860 Giuliani observed that pardons were not unusual in political investigations but said, “That doesn’t mean they’re going to happen here. Doesn’t mean that anybody should rely on it. … Big signal is, nobody has been pardoned yet.” 561

[snip]

The President said that flipping was “not fair” and “almost ought to be outlawed.”880 ln response to a question about whether he was considering a pardon for Manafort, the President said, “T have great respect for what he’s done, in terms of what he’s gone through …. He worked for many, many people many, many years, and T would say what he did, some of the charges they threw against him, every consultant, every lobbyist in Washington probably does.”881 Giuliani told journalists that the President “really thinks Manafort has been horribly treated” and that he and the President had discussed the political fallout if the President pardoned Manafort.882 The next day, Giuliani told the Washington Post that the President had asked his lawyers for advice on the possibility of a pardon for Manafort and other aides, and had been counseled against considering a pardon until the investigation concluded.883

On September 14, 2018, Manafort pleaded guilty to charges in the District of Columbia and signed a plea agreement that required him to cooperate with investigators.884 Giuliani was reported to have publicly said that Manafort remained in a joint defense agreement with the President following Manafort’s guilty plea and agreement to cooperate, and that Manafort’s attorneys regularly briefed the President’s lawyers on the topics discussed and the information Manafort had provided in interviews with the Special Counsel’s Office.885 On November 26, 2018, the Special Counsel’s Office disclosed in a public court filing that Manafort had breached his plea agreement by lying about multiple subjects.886 The next day, Giuliani said that the President had been “upset for weeks” about what he considered to be “the un-American, horrible treatment of Manafort.”887

Also, for whatever reason — probably because he had word diarrhea — Rudy provided the best evidence that Trump knowingly lied on his written answers to Mueller when he claimed not to remember the Trump Tower Moscow dangles during the election.

Also in January 2019, Giuliani gave press interviews that appeared to confirm Cohen’s account that the Trump Organization pursued the Trump Tower Moscow project well past January 2016. Giuliani stated that ” it’s our understanding that [discussions about the Trump Moscow project] went on throughout 2016. Weren’t a lot of them, but there were conversations. Can’t be sure of the exact date. But the president can remember having conversations with him about it. The president also remembers-yeah, probably up-could be up to as far as October, November.” 1069

Rudy was treated so persistently as a lawyer in the Mueller Report, but not a participant, that he didn’t even make the Glossary of Referenced Persons.

That’s true even though Rudy did show up in interviews as a topic of interest.

For example, when Mike Flynn was asked on April 25, 2018, just days after Rudy officially became Trump’s defense attorney, who else besides he and Bannon were hunting for Hillary’s missing 33,000 emails, the former Director of Defense Intelligence named Rudy, because he was “a big cyber guy.”

When question[ed] who else might have information about on the email messages, FLYNN mentioned Rudy GIULIANI. GIULIANI was “a big cyber guy” who have a speech on the topic in Tel Aviv. GIULIANI had a ton of contacts and traveled quite a bit with TRUMP (FLYNN surmised approximately half of the time). GIULIANI had a certainty that the emails were out there and available. GIULIANI would have said this directly to TRUMP. The natural response from TRUMP was “why the hell could they not find them?”

After two more questions (about Barbara Ledeen’s efforts), Mueller’s team returned to Rudy. This time, former Director of Defense Intelligence explained that if Rudy said something, you could be sure it was factual.

GIULIANI had contacts at the FBI, though he was pretty “close hold” on who he spoke with there. If GIULIANI said something, you could take it to the bank as factual, FLYNN believed that GIULIANI acted in a manner which indicated had specific knowledge related to the emails. FLYNN reviewed GIULIANI’s speech for Tel Aviv, made some comments, and gave it back to GIULIANI. GIULIANI did not name drop. GIULIANI popped in throughout the campaign to help with certain events. FLYNN did not know if GIULIANI knew Russia hacked the DNC.

Two more questions later, in response to a question about whether Jeff Sessions attempted to find the emails, Flynn brought up Rudy again.

FLYNN was asked whether SESSIONS or CHRISTIE made any efforts to find an answer based on their law enforcement backgrounds. SESSIONS did not make any effort at all. GIULIANI had deeper discussion on the issue with the campaign. CHRISTIE was somewhere between the two in regards to effort. CHRISTIE always seemed to “puff” about what he could do. FLYNN observed that GIULIANI and CHRISTIE had extensive connections and contact in New York. They constantly brought information back to the campaign. They did not do a lot of name dropping but there was a certainty to their information. FLYNN did not remember either of them saying they had contact with WikiLeaks.

Several more questions later, Flynn raised Rudy again in a discussion of whether anyone reached out to other countries for the emails.

Flynn opined that if Russia had them, then China, Iran, and North Korea also had them. Those countries had the cyber capabilities to get them and CLINTON was the Secretary of State. FLYNN also thought hactivist groups operating in the [sic] Ukraine could have them. It was also likely Israel had them. FLYNN did not recall specific discussions on reaching out to these countries to find out what they had. GIULIANI could have reached out to Israel but FLYNN did not know.

In an interview six days later, Mueller’s team asked Flynn more about the role of the guy who had just become Trump’s defense attorney.

FLYNN did not recall Rudy GIULIANI saying specifically what he was doing to learn more about the missing email messages. GIULIANI seemed insightful to FLYNN on knowing when news would break. GIULIANI was working on cyber policy for TRUMP. FLYNN was not sure if GIULIANI got his information from the news or from actual contacts. FLYNN attended a couple of meetings at Trump Tower where GIULIANI was present. GIULIANIs conversations were always that Wikileaks would release the missing email messages, not Russia. FLYNN thought Russia would wait to see who won the election. If CLINTON won, Russia could then use them for leverage over her. Wikileaks claimed to have the desire to put information out in the public to damage CLINTON.

FLYNN did not participate in any conversations with GIULIANI that indicated GIULIANI “cast his net” with his contacts. GIULIANI was one of a number of people around TRUMP’s inner circle. GIULIANI agreed on who was behind the hack but was not really certain. GIULIANI was a close hold guy but might share what he was hearing. FLYNN recently saw a clip that during the campaign, GIULIANI said during an interview that there were more leaks to come. FLYNN recalled that was the kind of thing GIULIANI would say with certainty related to cyber. FLYNN listened to GIULIANI who came across as a judge and made remarks as though they were facts.

I have not done a systematic review of all this (and earlier releases are too redacted to be of much use on such issues). But it’s not just Flynn who had something interesting to say about Rudy. When discussing the Transition (and egregiously downplaying his own role in foreign policy), for example, Steve Bannon described the tension during the Transition because both Jeff Sessions and Rudy wanted to be Secretary of State. “Bannon thought Giuliani would have issues in his confirmation if he was nominated as Secretary of State, however, because of some of his companies and foreign contacts,” Bannon explained, acknowledging even then that Rudy was a foreign influence peddling risk.

Perhaps it’s because, when Rudy became Trump’s defense attorney, it made any inquiry into his role in 2016 awkward. But even though Rudy was a participant in all this, and even though Mike Flynn thought he might be the most likely person to “cast his net” for ways to pursue stolen emails, it’s not clear how aggressively the Mueller team considered what role Rudy had.

Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s Trolls Recoil from Sunlight

December 10, 2019/7 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, 2018 Mid-Term Election, Mueller Probe /by emptywheel

The other day, I noted that the government had turned the table on Concord Consulting, the Yevgeniy Prigozhin company that funded his troll operation, by asking for some pre-trial subpoenas. The reception of that motion by one of our new guests suggested that the trolls were not responding kindly to treatment to their own medicine.

Concord’s response did not disappoint.

The trollish Eric Dubelier complained that if he had to comply with this subpoena, he risks breaking Russian law.

Here, if the Court were to issue the government’s requested subpoena, Concord would be able to demonstrate that the request would cause Concord to violate Russian law on Russian soil— a result that is improper under controlling law. See In re Sealed Case, 825 F.2d at 498 (party challenging subpoena on basis that it would require the party to violate foreign law bears burden of making such a showing) (per curiam). Specifically, if Concord, individuals acting on its behalf, undersigned counsel, or its Russian counsel were to produce the information requested in the government’s proposed subpoena to the government pursuant only to a U.S. subpoena,2 they would likely be subject to legal jeopardy in Russia under criminal and other laws.

Treason, hacking, anti-sanction laws — Concord lists a parade of legal jeopardy with complying with this subpoena.

Dubelier even complains that complying with the parts of the subpoena asking for information on co-defendants charged with identity theft in the US might fall afoul of Russian privacy law.

The materials requested in items 6, 7, 8 and 9 also include documents that, if they exist, would constitute and/or contain personal data that, if Concord had such data, Concord would be generally forbidden by law from producing to the U.S. government or any third-party without each individual’s consent under Article 7 of Russian Federal Law 152-FZ, “On Personal Data,” paragraph 1 of Article 3 of which defines the term “personal data” broadly as “any information relating to an individual who is directly or indirectly identified or identifiable[.]”

I won’t take time to wade through his citations. Some (about the propriety of the subpoena, for example) are bullshit. Others pose interesting questions about the intersection of corporate persons and international law similar to others already raised by this prosecution.

But Concord’s response to some of its own medicine sure has produced an amusing response on the part of the trolls.

Update: Here’s the government’s reply, which lays out details of how it knows Concord has the subpoenaed materials. It also notes that Concord chose to mount a defense, and therefore should not now be able to hide behind its foreign status.

Additionally, Concord voluntarily chose to appear in this case. And, as the Court well knows, Concord has obtained substantial discovery and continues to seek additional information about how the United States detected its activities and detects and responds to related activities more generally. Foreign entities should not lightly be permitted to come to U.S. courts while shielding themselves from the same obligations that would apply to American defendants. Cf. In re Grand Jury Proceedings Bank of Nova Scotia, 740 F.2d 817, 828 (11th Cir. 1984) (explaining that where a bank “voluntarily elected” to do business abroad, it “accepted the incidental risk of occasional inconsistent governmental actions” and “cannot expect to avail itself of the benefits of doing business here without accepting the concomitant obligations”).

[snip]

Concord next contends (Doc. 273, at 13-16) that because it is a foreign corporation located abroad, it cannot be issued a subpoena to produce documents in connection with this case. In particular, Concord urges that its trial counsel “has no authority to accept” a trial subpoena (id. at 14) and that the Court, in any event, lacks personal jurisdiction over Concord and therefore cannot order it to produce records (id. at 14-16). Concord ignores the critical fact that it is properly a party in this case. The Court therefore can issue orders to Concord concerning this case. That includes a trial subpoena—an order to produce records that are relevant to and admissible in the case.

[snip]

In fact, after Concord initially disputed whether it had been properly served with a summons in this case, the Court confirmed that defense counsel was authorized “to enter a voluntary appearance in this matter and to subject [Concord] to the jurisdiction of this Court.” 5/9/18 Tr. 4-5. The Court clarified that Concord understood “that by doing so, it must also comply In fact, after Concord initially disputed whether it had been properly served with a summons in this case, the Court confirmed that defense counsel was authorized “to enter a voluntary appearance in this matter and to subject [Concord] to the jurisdiction of this Court.” 5/9/18 Tr. 4-5. The Court clarified that Concord understood “that by doing so, it must also comply with the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the rules of this Court, and with the orders of this Court,” and defense counsel agreed. Id. at 5. A trial subpoena is an order of this Court issued in this case pursuant to the Federal Criminal Rules. Yet Concord (through that same counsel) now suggests that the Court has no authority to issue such an order to Concord. Indeed, this raises the question whether Concord believes that the Court has personal jurisdiction with respect to other orders issues in this case, such as the protective order governing the extensive discovery provided to the defense, or the Court’s scheduling order requiring Concord to provide the government with trial exhibits.

DOJ Flips the Lawfare on Its Head in Russian Troll Case

December 5, 2019/22 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, 2018 Mid-Term Election, Mueller Probe /by emptywheel

In part because Judge Dabney Friedrich has only recently attempted to impose some control on the case, the prosecution against the Russian troll company Concord Management waddles slowly towards a scheduled trial date of April 6, 2020. As it has throughout this process, Concord continues to make trollish arguments to gum up the prosecution. Of particular note, it continues its efforts to use the prosecution to obtain as much information as it can, including information about intelligence the government has on Concord as well as on the victims.

Don’t get me wrong. That is their right, and one of the dangers of indicting corporate entities for this kind of crime.

But the government just gave Concord a bit of its own medicine. On Tuesday, it moved to obtain an early trial subpoena to serve on Concord. It seeks information on Concord’s communications with the Internet Research Agency, other shell companies, and a list of co-conspirators. Perhaps most concerning, for Concord’s sometime owner Yevgeniy Prigozhin, it asks for his calendar from January 2014 through February 2018, a calendar that — if it’s accurate — likely includes Vladimir Putin.

Calendar entries for Yevgeniy Prigozhin for the time period January 1, 2014 to February 1, 2018.

The motion uses precisely the legal fact that allowed Concord to respond to this indictment with no risk to any biological person against it, arguing that because it is a corporation it has no Fifth Amendment privilege.

Moreover, even though it is a defendant, Concord cannot avoid responding to a trial subpoena requesting the production of records under the Fifth Amendment because corporations have no privilege against self-incrimination. Braswell v. United States, 487 U.S. 99, 102 (1988).

Understand, the government almost certainly has versions of all the things it asks for on the list. But assuming Friedrich approves the subpoena, Concord will be required to submit its own version of these documents, which the government might be able to prove to be false (adding to Concord’s legal jeopardy and putting Concord’s American lawyers on the hook). It’s also likely the government is forcing Concord to do its own parallel construction.

It’s a subtle move, but one that may shift how this proceeds going forward.

The Parnas Family Wire Transfers Released In The Pues Lawsuit Reveal More Than You Think

October 19, 2019/41 Comments/in 2018 Mid-Term Election, Impeachment /by Jim White

Much of what we know about the details of the transactions at the heart of the indictment of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman was revealed in the lawsuit Michael Pues brought against Parnas for a scam in which Parnas got Pues to invest in a movie project that never came about. Because Parnas owed Pues $500,000, Pues was able to obtain Parnas business and family financial records including wire transfer information. Back in June of this year, the Campaign Legal Center obtained those records and included them in its supplemental filing on their complaint about the $325,000 contribution Parnas and Fruman made to America First Action.

The wire transfer records, which include a full page of incoming transactions and a full page of outgoing transactions, can be found as exhibits at the end of this filing by CLC. An accompanying explainer by CLC gives us this background on how the transaction broke the law (GEP is Global Environmental Partners):

And those documents reveal that GEP never contributed to America First Action.

Wire transfer records show that another LLC managed by Parnas. Aaron Investments I, LLC, transferred $325,000 to America First Action on May 17, 2018. The super PAC never disclosed receiving money from Aaron Investments I, LLC—it instead attributed the contribution to GEP.

It is not clear why Parnas or Fruman asked America First Action to misattribute the contribution, nor is it clear why the super PAC went along with this scheme. But in doing so, America First Action violated the straw donor ban: it accepted a contribution from one entity, and reported it as having come from another entity.

The explainer also gives us this on how the funds came into Aaron Investments I, LLC:

Other wire transfer records show that just two days before making the super PAC contribution, Aaron Investments I, LLC received a $1.26 million transfer from the client trust account of a Miami real estate attorney named Russell S. Jacobs (the funds in a client trust account don’t belong to the attorney: they belong to the attorney’s client.) Absent that transfer, it appears that the LLC would not have had the funds to cover the $350,000 contribution.

So the money used for the contribution appears to have come from Jacobs’ client. We don’t know who that client is–but Jacobs, the real estate attorney, specializes in working with foreign real estate buyers and advising realtors on how to avoid federal requirements aimed at disclosure of foreign buyers who use shell companies to launder money through U.S. real estate.In 2016, for example, he hosted a seminar titled “Avoid the Treasury Trap with Foreign Buyers.”

And yes, when we look at the wire transfer records, we see $1,260.329.80 coming in to Aaron Investments I, LLC on May 15, 2018 from Jacobs:

Only two days later ,on May 17, is the transfer of $325,000 back out to America First Action:

But these records also show us two more transfers out of Aaron Investments I, LLC and five more coming into it. There is one more outgoing wire transfer, and it may be the most interesting. It is marked as coming from a personal account for Svetlana Parnas, who married Lev in 2012. The transaction occurred on May 11, or four days before the $1.26 million transfer came in. It is for $3556.75. The recipient is marked as Victor Imber:

That is a very interesting name. The Daily Beast was first to investigate the contribution to America First Action and this is what they found back on July 19 of 2018:

We end today’s edition with a mystery. Leading pro-Trump super PAC America First Action disclosed nearly $5 million in second-quarter contributions this week. Among its donors was a company called Global Energy Producers LLC (GEP). It donated $375,000 in May, putting the company among the deep-pocketed group’s top 20 donors. But there’s very little indication of what the company does or who’s behind it.

It appears that GEP was incorporated in April in Delaware, a notorious black hole for corporate disclosure. But FEC filings listed its address as a Boca Raton, Florida, property owned by someone named Victor Imber. The FEC has no record of the Russian-born Imber or GEP making any previous federal political contributions. Additional public records indicate that Imber may have rented the property to someone named Michael Braid, who likewise has no other apparent connections to the company or history of political contributions. Braid did not respond to questions about GEP. Numerous calls to Imber went unanswered.

Hmm. So six days before Victor Imber’s address was used as a false location for Global Energy ~~Partners~~ Producers in a false representation that GEP made the contribution to America First Action, Sevetlana Parnas wired Victor Imber a little over $3500. Perhaps that is the actual “rental” of this address that was going on. That stands out as pretty significant.

But there’s more! I’ve heard mention of money going back out to Igor Fruman’s company, and yes, there it is. A transfer of $490,000 went out to FD Import & Export on May 16, only one day after the big transfer came in and a day before the America First Action transfer went out:

It’s especially confusing for Fruman’s company to get money from Aaron Investments I, LLC, because Fruman never shows up in any of the corporate filings for it. For further interest, David Correia was originally the Registered Agent and eventually a member, but Lev Parnas filed a form with the state on October 2, 2017 removing Correia from the company and making Svetlana the Registered Agent. Parnas backdated the form to June 15.

Mysteriously, there’s also a transfer into Aaron Investments I, LLC from FD Import and Export for $11,500 on May 10, five days before the big transfer in from the real estate attorney:

Perhaps Parnas had some expenses in getting the large infusion of funds organized? The indictment describes the $1.26 million as coming from “a private lending transaction between Fruman and third parties”. Other reports in the media have said it was a private loan secured by property Fruman owns. At any rate, we can rest assured that the government knows who the third parties are and there’s a good chance we will find out once the case goes to trial. It should also be noted here that in other reports, Parnas has claimed the $1.26 million came from the sale of a condo.

Getting back to the rest of the wire transfers, we find another outgoing transfer on the same day as the funds going to Fruman’s company, May 17. This transfer is for $12,950 and went to JetSmarter, Inc. That company has been described as an Uber service for private aircraft. This could well be payment for one of the many trips Parnas and/or Fruman made. I’ve tried to see if that time coincides with any of the trips we’ve seen reported, but so far nothing:

But the choice of flight provider is very interesting. Virtually every name associated with JetSmarter is Russian. In 2017, the then-CEO, Edward Gennady Barsky, resigned when he was indicted for embezzling $11 million from the real estate investment company he had just left to come to JetSmarter. The current CEO, who is one of the founders, is Sergey Petrossov, who is only 30. His father spent 15 years in Russian prisons and is best friends with “Vyacheslav Ivankov, a.k.a. Yaponchik, who’s been called the John Gotti of the Russian mob and once had a crew of 100 soldiers in Brighton Beach”. Yes, that Brighton Beach, aka South Brooklyn, where Lev Parnas grew up and got his first job selling co-ops for Fred Trump. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first time Ivankov’s name has come up in the stories about Parnas and Fruman.

The earliest transaction we see in the wire transfer records is on May 30, 2017. Since it is so far removed in time from these other events, I’m not going to put the name in here from whom the money came, but it was for $30,000 received into Aaron Investments I, LLC. The name is Russian and comes up on searches as a male in his mid-20’s living in South Florida. The name also turns up in an email address for a Toyota dealership’s Russian flyer, but not on that dealership’s current staff list. The name is also associated with a defunct LLC incorporated in January of 2018 and dissolved by the state last month. At any rate, that’s a lot of money for a kid in his mid-20’s to have if he’s also helping to sell Toyotas.

On December 18, 2017, we have income of $10,000 into Aaron Investments I, LLC from WeHold, LLC. The one person affiliated with this company, which is still active, appears to be quite active in commercial real estate.

The final three wire transfers, which all came into Aaron Investments I, LLC within an 18 day period in the middle of January, 2018, totaled $5,300. These transfers came from Aaron G. Parnas. Aaron Parnas is the son of Lev Parnas and would have been in the middle of his first year of law school at the time of these transfers:

Much about Aaron, Lev and Svetlana Parnas can be read here, where we learn that this summer, Aaron interned at the Miami office of Rudy Giuliani’s former law firm. He also managed to get his undergraduate degree simultaneously with his high school diploma, which enabled him to enter law school at the age of 18. He volunteered for the Trump campaign and has said he wants to be president some day.

We of course don’t know the source of these funds Aaron put into one of many entities his father named after him. Some were incorporated around the time Aaron was born. The money could be as innocent as birthday gifts from friends and family. Recall, though that the Parnas family was at that time actively avoiding paying the $500,000 awarded to Pues in the lawsuit. And to put those funds into an entity that was being used to break the law is not a good plan for someone wanting to be president. That is, unless that someone plans to mirror the path of Donald Trump and the illegal schemes Fred used to funnel money to Donald.