{"id":349252,"date":"2018-02-21T19:22:43","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T18:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=349252"},"modified":"2018-04-13T02:42:16","modified_gmt":"2018-04-13T01:42:16","slug":"russiagate-trump-gets-solved-giant-american-investigative-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/russiagate-trump-gets-solved-giant-american-investigative-journalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Russiagate-Trump Gets Solved by Giant of American Investigative Journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

Lucy Komisar, who is perhaps the greatest living investigative journalist, has discovered \u2014 and has documented in detail \u2014 that the source of the Russiagate charge against Russia, the source of the charge that Donald Trump\u2019s Presidential campaign had connived with Russians in order to be able to win the U.S. Presidency, can be found in explaining the why\u2019s and wherefore\u2019s of the key event, when Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner, met with Russian lawyer Nataliya Veselnitskaya, in Trump Jr.\u2019s Trump Tower office, on 9 June 2016<\/span><\/a>. Komisar figured it out: Veselnitskaya, thinking that Trump might become America\u2019s President, lured (through George Papadopoulos, the Trump-campaign volunteer whom Komisar unfortunately doesn\u2019t mention, but he was the contact between Veselnitskaya and the Trump team) Trump\u2019s team, into that meeting, by promising (as communicated to them via Papadopoulos) to inform them of dirt against Hillary Clinton. But that wasn\u2019t Veselnitskaya\u2019s real purpose, Komisar has found. <\/span><\/p>\n

Komisar\u2019s investigation wasn\u2019t into Russia-Trump, but instead into the actual source of the first set of economic sanctions that were instituted against Russia, the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which source was a major former American investor in Russian companies, Bill Browder. He had successfully lobbied into law, both in the U.S. and in the EU, the Magnitsky Act. Komisar’s focus on this Browder-versus-Russia issue caused her not even to mention George Papadopoulos, the Trump campaign volunteer, who had served as Veselnitskaya\u2019s contact and set up that fateful June 2016 meeting<\/span><\/a>. This non-political focus has also caused Komisar\u2019s brilliant reporting on the matter \u2014 her latest such article being published on 10 February 2018, which article will subsequently be linked-to here \u2014 to have been ignored in the general news-reports about the Russiagate-Trump story. <\/span><\/p>\n

Komisar\u2019s investigation found and reported on 20 October 2017<\/a><\/span>, that the reason why Veselnitskaya wanted to meet Trump Jr., Manafort, and Kushner, was to enable them \u2014 and she hoped ultimately Donald Trump himself \u2014 to come to know that the company she was representing, Prevezon, was being subjected to a lengthy legal battle to defend itself against a lawsuit by the former American, William Browder, the owner of Hermitage Capital Management in Russia, and that:<\/span><\/p>\n

Veselnitskaya says the Prevezon suit <\/i>[suit against Prevezon \u2014 Prevezon was\u2019t actually the bringer of this suit, but was instead the suit’s target] was a distraction Browder used to cover up his own tax evasion and \u2013 she claims \u2013 collusion in the tax refund fraud<\/i> [by Hermitage Capital Management]. She bases her accusation in part on the role of Magnitsky<\/i> [Hermitage\u2019s accountant]. She has lobbied against the Magnitsky Act, deriding it as Browder\u2019s way of protecting himself from Russian legal trouble.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Browder declined repeated requests for an interview about the Russian charges, his time as an investor in Russia, and his campaigns for the Magnitsky Act. Browder went so far as to have the author of this article banned from a public talk he gave at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, in December 2016.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The Magnitsky Act placed sanctions against the Russian Government, on the basis of accusations by Browder and his agents, that Hermitage\u2019s \u2018lawyer\u2019, who was actually no lawyer at all but instead Hermitage\u2019s accountant, Sergei Magnitsky, had been supposedly beaten to death in prison, because he had been, supposedly, a \u2018whistleblower\u2019 against corruption, by those police who, according to Browder\u2019s team, had stolen three companies from Hermitage (i.e., from Browder), not stolen $230 million in taxes from the Russian national Treasury \u2014 as was charged by the Russian Government. Supposedly, these police had supposedly beaten Magnitsky to death, in order to protect themselves. That storyline, that viewpoint, \u2018documenting\u2019 \u2018corruption\u2019 in Russia, is embodied as sacrosanct and unchallengeable fact, in the Magnitsky Act, but Komisar disproves all of its essential assertions, linking to the actual documents in the case, and proves a damning case against Browder and his team.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Browder viewpoint was recently reinforced by an article in National Law Journal<\/i>, as well as in a report by the Council on Foreign Relations, and Komisar exposed their fraudulence, in her 12 January 2018 \u201cEvidence? The National Law Journal doesn\u2019t need it\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and in her 10 February 2018 \u201cCFR Report, with no evidence, promotes fake Browder-Magnitsky story\u201d<\/span><\/a>. The former reported:<\/span><\/p>\n

The fraud was not uncovered by Magnitsky, who was an accountant, not a lawyer.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Magnitsky talked about the matter for the first time in an <\/i>interrogation<\/i><\/span><\/a> by Russian tax investigators in June 2008. (It identifies him as an auditor.) But, he was not a whistleblower. He was called to answer questions as a suspect. He did not expose the fraud. He cited an article by the Russian business daily Kommersant article, which two months earlier had printed the information with Browder\u2019s response.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Magnitsky said: \u201cOn 3 April 2008, Kommersant published an article which, referring to the law-enforcement authorities, reported that Parphenion, Limited Liability Company, Realand, Limited Liability Company, and Machaon, Limited Liability Company, had allegedly used \u00abtax evasion schemes\u00bb and criminal proceedings were launched to prosecute those at fault.\u201d See Kommersant (in Russian) <\/i>April 3, 2008<\/i><\/span><\/a> and <\/i>April 4, 2008 .<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Rimma Starova was a hired \u201cname\u201d fronting as a director of the company to which the shells had been transferred. She saw the Kommersant articles. By then the re-registered companies had participated in the $230 million tax refund fraud. Investigators might have discovered the scam. She didn\u2019t want to take a fall and went to the police. Her complaint April 9th detailed the fraudulent theft of three Hermitage companies.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The latter said:<\/span><\/p>\n

the authors write: \u201c\u2026 the summer of 2012, the U.S. Congress passed the Magnitsky Act \u2014 a set of tough sanctions on eighteen Russian officials involved in the \u201ctorture and death in prison of Russian human rights whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky.\u201d I don\u2019t comment on the rest of the report, but this part shows they didn\u2019t bother to research, ignored facts, or deliberately reported falsehoods.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Torture? The Wall Street Journal links to the definitive prison <\/i>report<\/i><\/span><\/a>. Not exactly a left-wing media. The report describes awful conditions and medical care, says nothing about torture.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Whistleblower? The first step in the theft of budget funds from the Russian Treasury was reported to police April 9, 2008 by Rimma Starova, a hired director for Boily Systems, a shell controlling Browder\u2019s stolen companies. She returned to testify again July 10th. The companies had been used in the scam to get a fake tax refund <\/i>[to the benefit of Browder\u2019s Hermitage] from the Treasury. She didn\u2019t talk about the theft of funds, but she gave police a roadmap.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Rimma Starova July 10, 2008 testimony<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Then, Paul Wrench, director for Browder companies registered in the offshore tax haven of Guernsey, filed complaints of the tax refund fraud July 23. The story was published in <\/i>Vedomosti<\/i><\/span><\/a>, July 24. This link is on Browder\u2019s own website!<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Not till his Oct 7 interrogation did Magnitsky, before his arrest for complicity in tax evasion, refer to \u201cfraud of budget monetary assets in the amount exceeding 5 (five) billion rubles.\u201d A three-months-later whistle-blower? For his Oct 7 testimony, see 100Reporters <\/i>story<\/i><\/span><\/a> with link to what <\/i>Magnitsky said<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

This is what Veselnitskaya was hoping that, if Trump would become President, he\u2019d check out and investigate for himself. But, apparently, Trump wasn\u2019t at all interested.<\/span><\/p>\n

So: You, dear reader, now can investigate it for yourself (clicking onto those links), if you want to understand what may very possibly produce (either in Syria or in Ukraine or elsewhere) what could easily expand to nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, World War III, as a result of those sanctions, and the subsequent Ukraine-war-based sanctions, and the subsequent massing of U.S. missiles and troops on and near Russia\u2019s border in Ukraine and elsewhere, on the basis of almost entirely false allegations by the U.S. Government (plus the latter\u2019s own illegal invasion\/occupation of Syria, plus the latter\u2019s own illegal and very brutal coup in Ukraine during February 2014<\/span><\/a>). The Magnitsky matter was actually a corporate tax dispute, between U.S. investor (now instead a British citizen in order to avoid some U.S. taxes), Bill Browder, versus Russia\u2019s Government. <\/span><\/p>\n

The world could end, over that (and over lots of lies about it, which are routinely spread in the mainstream, and in much of the \u2018alternative news\u2019 media).<\/span><\/p>\n

Some people\u2019s greed, apparently, knows no limits \u2014 not even when it could produce a world-ending nuclear war.<\/span><\/p>\n

PS: As regards the leaks that occurred from the computers of the DNC (in June 2016) and from Hillary Clinton\u2019s Campaign Manager John Podesta (in September 2016), here are articles that set forth evidence these leaks probably were from DNC worker Seth Rich, and-or, from another Democratic Party worker on the inside (angered against Hillary Clinton\u2019s theft of the nomination away from Bernie Sanders), and weren\u2019t hacks, at all, but purely<\/i> leaks:<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/medium.com\/@markfmccarty\/whats-left-of-russiagate-are-we-down-to-the-1-000-paid-trolls-222bb4c3b3ff<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/breaking-seymour-hersh-cracks-russiagate-as-cia-planted-lie-revenge-against-trump\/5602295<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.washingtonsblog.com\/2017\/01\/strong-evidence-obama-lying.html<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

In other words: These probably weren\u2019t authentically \u201chacks\u201d \u2014 not from Russians, nor from anyone else. The Democratic Party didn\u2019t need whatever the Russian Government did (or not) in order to lose the 2016 election; the Democratic Party managed quite well, on their own, to lose \u2014 to lose, by Election Day, enough Sanders-voters (progressive populist Democrats) so that Trump (the pretended-populist Republican) was able to win. Some Sanders-voters hated Hillary Clinton, and were unsure which side of Trump\u2019s mouth to believe and voted for the progressive-populist side of it, because there wasn\u2019t anything at all progressive-populist about Hillary. That\u2019s no real democracy (but instead a choice between two fascists), no honest<\/i> choice at all, and Russia didn\u2019t make it that way \u2014 and going to war as if it had been Russia\u2019s fault, would be entirely<\/i> the U.S. regime<\/span><\/a>\u2019s fault, yet another of its many incredibly vicious lies, such as were used to \u2018justify\u2019 invading Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, and much more.<\/span><\/p>\n

PPS: This was submitted on February 12th offering it as an exclusive individually to each of the major U.S. and UK news-media, and none has yet replied; so, it now is being submitted free-of-charge for publication, to all U.S. and UK news-media, in the hope and expectation that some of them will be sufficiently honest to publish it, so as to provide to their readers the crucial case here, and the key evidence backing it up that\u2019s provided by means of the links hereto. The author does this out of a conviction that the entire world should know these facts. These realities shouldn\u2019t continue to be hidden from the publics in the U.S. and its allied countries, because doing that would likely lead ultimately to an entirely unjustified WW III. Only a truthfully informed public might be able to stop the existing steady movement toward the fatal nuclear cliff. The scammer in these matters is clearly the U.S. Government. But this Deep State is actually international and includes NATO and its lobbyists, who recently got caught manufacturing fake-Russian cyber scams (pumped on CNN, NYT<\/i>, etc.) so as to cause Americans to hate Russia even more<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse Lucy Komisar, who is perhaps the greatest living investigative journalist, has discovered \u2014 and has documented in detail \u2014 that the source of the Russiagate charge against Russia, the source of the charge that Donald Trump\u2019s Presidential campaign had connived with Russians in order to be able to win the U.S. Presidency, can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":349254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,519],"tags":[115,30,32,96,3604,535,524,754,6257,523,49,76,40,1024],"class_list":{"0":"post-349252","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-newswire","9":"tag-barack-obama","10":"tag-big-brother","11":"tag-cia","12":"tag-cover-up","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-global-news","15":"tag-russia","16":"tag-syria","17":"tag-trump","18":"tag-ukraine","19":"tag-usa-news","20":"tag-warfare","21":"tag-white-house","22":"tag-ww3"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}