Clinton, Podesta, others, in senate crosshairs over dossier, given two weeks to respond

GOP Congressional investigators have written six letters to individuals or entities involved or thought to be involved in the funding, creation or distribution of the salacious and unverified “Trump-Russia dossier” believed to have been inappropriately used by the FBI, DOJ and Obama Administration in an effort to undermine Donald Trump as both a candidate and President of the United States.

Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SCS) wrote six Judiciary Committee letters requesting information from: John Podesta, Donna Brazille, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Robbie Mook, the DNC, and Hillary For America Chief Strategist Joel Benenson.

A brief refresher of facts and allegations:

• The DNC and Hillary Clinton’s PAC was revealed by The Washington Post  to have paid opposition research firm Fusion GPS for the creation of a dossier that would be harmful to then-candidate Donald Trump.


• Fusion commissioned former UK spy Christopher Steele to assemble the dossier – which is comprised of a series of memos relying largely on Russian government sources to make allegations against Donald Trump and his associates.


• According to court filings, Fusion also worked with disgraced DOJ official Bruce Ohr, and hired his CIA-linked wife, Nellie Ohr, to assist in the smear campaign against Trump. Bruce Ohr was demoted from his senior DOJ position after it was revealed that he met with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson as well as Christopher Steele – then tried to cover it up.


• Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, denied under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee that he knew about the dossier’s funding, while Clinton’s former spokesman, Brian Fallon, told CNN that Hillary likely had no idea who paid for it either.


• Current and past leaders of the DNC, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) also denied knowledge of the document’s funding.


• Podesta met with Fusion co-founder Glenn Simpson the day after the Trump-Russia dossier was published by Buzzfeed News. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee letters read in part:

In October 2017, the Washington Post reported that Hillary for America and the Democratic National Committee had funded, via Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele’s creation of a series of memos relying largely on Russian government sources to make allegations against Donald Trump and his associates. A letter from the law firm Perkins Coie acknowledged that, ” [t]o assist in its representation of the DNC and Hillary for America, Perkins Coie engaged Fusion GPS in April of2016″ and that “the engagement concluded prior to the November 2016 Presidential election

the Committee has been investigating the FBI’ s relationship with Christopher Steele during this time his work was funded by Hillary for America and the DNC. The scope of our review includes the extent to which the FBI may have relied on information relayed by Mr. Steele in seeking judicial authorization for surveillance of individuals associated with Mr. Trump. It also includes whether any applications that may have been made for permission for such surveillance fully and accurately disclosed:

(1) the source of Fusion GPS’s and Mr. Steele’s funding;

(2) the degree to which his claims were or were not verified;

(3) the motivations of Mr. Steele, his clients, and his sources; and

( 4) representations about their contacts with the press.

The letter then goes on to list twelve questions – the last being a request for all communications between a list of 40 individuals or entities – including Christopher Steele, Bruce Ohr, Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, Glenn Simpson and former CIA Director John Brennan. 

The six recipients of letters have two weeks to comply with the following requests (note; “Hillary for America” is replaced by “the DNC” depending on who the letter is addressed to):

1. Prior to the Washington Post ‘s article in October of 2017, were you anyone else at Hillary for America aware of Mr. Steele’s efforts on behalf of the Clinton campaign to compile and distribute allegations about Mr. Trump and the Russian government? If so, when and how did you first learn of his activities on the campaign’s behalf? Please provide all related documents.

2. Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America receive copies of any of the memoranda comprising Mr. Steele’s dossier prior to its publication by Buzzfeed in January of 2017? If so, how and when? Please provide all related documents.

3. Regardless of whether you or your associates received copies of the actual memoranda, did you or anyone else at Hillary for America otherwise receive information contained in the dossier prior to Buzzfeed publishing the dossier in January of 2017? If so, how and when? Please provide all related documents.

4. Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America receive other memoranda written or forwarded by Mr. Steele regarding Mr. Trump and his associates that were not published as part of the Buzzfeed dossier? If so, how and when? Please provide all related documents.

5. Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America distribute outside of the organization any o f the dossier memoranda, information contained therein, or other information obtained by Mr. Steele? If so, please list who distributed the information, what was distributed, and to whom it was distributed. Please provide all related documents.

6. Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America communicate with any government officials – whether in the executive, legislative or judicial branches – regarding the dossier memoranda, information contained therein, or other information obtained by Mr. Steele? If so, please list the parties involved in the communication, the content of the communication, and the date and means of the communication. Please provide all related documents. References such as “anyone at Hillary for America” include all of Hillary for America’s officers, employees, contractors, subcontractors, advisors, volunteers, and, of course, Secretary Clinton herself. Mr. Podesta January 25, 2018

7. Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America instruct, request, suggest, or imply that any individuals should pass along information to Mr. Steele or his intermediaries? Please provide all related documents.

8. Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America communicate with members of the press regarding the dossier memoranda, information contained therein, or other information obtained by Mr. Steele? If so, please list the parties involved in the communication, the content of the communication, and the date and means of the communication. Please provide all related documents.

9. Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America inform Secretary Clinton of Mr. Steele’s efforts, whether by name or not, or of the allegations he was spreading? If so, who and when? Please provide all related documents.

10. Were you or anyone else at Hillary for America aware of Mr. Steele’s contacts with the FBI or other government agencies prior to the 2016 election? If so, who? When and how did you or they become aware? Please provide all related documents.

11. Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America encourage, whether directly or through intermediaries, Mr. Steele to initiate or continue contacts with the FBI or other government agencies? If so, who and when? Please provide all related documents.

12. For the period from March 2016 through January 2017, please provide all communications to, from, copying, or relating to:Fusion GPS; Bean LLC; Glenn Simpson; Mary Jacoby; Peter Fritsch; Tom Catan; Jason Felch; Neil King; David Michaels; Taylor Sears; Patrick Corcoran; Laura Sego; Jay Bagwell; Erica Castro; Nellie Ohr; Rinat Akhmetshin; Ed Lieberman; Edward Baumgartner; Orbis Business Intelligence Limited; Orbis Business International Limited; Walsingham Training Limited; Walsingham Partners Limited; Christopher Steele; Christopher Burrows; Sir Andrew Wood, Paul Hauser; 4 Oleg Deripaska; Cody Shearer; Sidney Blumenthal; Jon Winer; 5 Kathleen Kavalec; Victoria Nuland; Daniel Jones; 6 Bruce Ohr; Peter Strzok; Andrew McCabe; James Baker; 7 Sally Yates; Loretta Lynch; John Brennan.

Via Zero Hedge

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Featured Image: Center For American Progress/Flickr

The post Clinton, Podesta, others, in senate crosshairs over dossier, given two weeks to respond appeared first on Intellihub.

Congress Gives Clinton Operatives TWO WEEKS To Explain Russian Sourced Trump Disinformation Dossier

A group of Republican Congressional investigators has given a group of Clinton operatives two weeks to explain the creation, funding, and distribution of the Russian sourced Trump dossier put together by former spy Christopher Steele.

“As part of their ongoing oversight efforts to ensure that the FBI’s law enforcement activities are free of improper political influence, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) yesterday sent six letters seeking information and documents regarding Christopher Steele’s work on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary for America,” read a statement on Grassley’s website.

“The letters seek information and documents relating to those political organizations’ knowledge of and involvement in Mr. Steele’s work and his reported interactions with the FBI while he was working on behalf of these political organizations.”

The letters were sent to:

• The Democratic National Committee (DNC)


• Hillary for America (HFA)


• Former DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz


• Former DNC Chair Donna Brazile


• HFA Chair John Podesta


• HFA Chief Strategist Joel Benenson

An article published by ZeroHedge detailing the letters provided a refreasher on what we already know about the dossier:

– The DNC and Hillary Clinton’s PAC was revealed by The Washington Post to have paid opposition research firm Fusion GPS for the creation of a dossier that would be harmful to then-candidate Donald Trump.

– Fusion commissioned former UK spy Christopher Steele to assemble the dossier – which is comprised of a series of memos relying largely on Russian government sources to make allegations against Donald Trump and his associates.

– According to court filings, Fusion also worked with disgraced DOJ official Bruce Ohr, and hired his CIA-linked wife, Nellie Ohr, to assist in the smear campaign against Trump. Bruce Ohr was demoted from his senior DOJ position after it was revealed that he met with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson as well as Christopher Steele – then tried to cover it up.

– Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, denied under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee that he knew about the dossier’s funding, while Clinton’s former spokesman, Brian Fallon, told CNN that Hillary likely had no idea who paid for it either.

– Current and past leaders of the DNC, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) also denied knowledge of the document’s funding.

–Podesta met with Fusion co-founder Glenn Simpson the day after the Trump-Russia dossier was published by Buzzfeed News.

The Senate Judiciary Committee letters read in part:

In October 2017, the Washington Post reported that Hillary for America and the Democratic National Committee had funded, via Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele’s creation of a series of memos relying largely on Russian government sources to make allegations against Donald Trump and his associates. A letter from the law firm Perkins Coie acknowledged that, ” [t]o assist in its representation of the DNC and Hillary for America, Perkins Coie engaged Fusion GPS in April of2016″ and that “the engagement concluded prior to the November 2016 Presidential election.

The Committee has been investigating the FBI’ s relationship with Christopher Steele during this time his work was funded by Hillary for America and the DNC. The scope of our review includes the extent to which the FBI may have relied on information relayed by Mr. Steele in seeking judicial authorization for surveillance of individuals associated with Mr. Trump. It also includes whether any applications that may have been made for permission for such surveillance fully and accurately disclosed:

(1) the source of Fusion GPS’s and Mr. Steele’s funding;

(2) the degree to which his claims were or were not verified;

(3) the motivations of Mr. Steele, his clients, and his sources; and

( 4) representations about their contacts with the press.

The letter then lists 12 specific questions for the parties involved:

1. Prior to the Washington Post ‘s article in October of 2017, were you anyone else at Hillary for America aware of Mr. Steele’s efforts on behalf of the Clinton campaign to compile and distribute allegations about Mr. Trump and the Russian government? If so, when and how did you first learn of his activities on the campaign’s behalf? Please provide all related documents.

2. Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America receive copies of any of the memoranda comprising Mr. Steele’s dossier prior to its publication by Buzzfeed in January of 2017? If so, how and when? Please provide all related documents.

3. Regardless of whether you or your associates received copies of the actual memoranda, did you or anyone else at Hillary for America otherwise receive information contained in the dossier prior to Buzzfeed publishing the dossier in January of 2017? If so, how and when? Please provide all related documents.

4. Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America receive other memoranda written or forwarded by Mr. Steele regarding Mr. Trump and his associates that were not published as part of the Buzzfeed dossier? If so, how and when? Please provide all related documents.

5. Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America distribute outside of the organization any o f the dossier memoranda, information contained therein, or other information obtained by Mr. Steele? If so, please list who distributed the information, what was distributed, and to whom it was distributed. Please provide all related documents.

6. Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America communicate with any government officials – whether in the executive, legislative or judicial branches – regarding the dossier memoranda, information contained therein, or other information obtained by Mr. Steele? If so, please list the parties involved in the communication, the content of the communication, and the date and means of the communication. Please provide all related documents. References such as “anyone at Hillary for America” include all of Hillary for America’s officers, employees, contractors, subcontractors, advisors, volunteers, and, of course, Secretary Clinton herself. Mr. Podesta January 25, 2018

7. Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America instruct, request, suggest, or imply that any individuals should pass along information to Mr. Steele or his intermediaries? Please provide all related documents.

8. Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America communicate with members of the press regarding the dossier memoranda, information contained therein, or other information obtained by Mr. Steele? If so, please list the parties involved in the communication, the content of the communication, and the date and means of the communication. Please provide all related documents.

9. Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America inform Secretary Clinton of Mr. Steele’s efforts, whether by name or not, or of the allegations he was spreading? If so, who and when? Please provide all related documents.

10. Were you or anyone else at Hillary for America aware of Mr. Steele’s contacts with the FBI or other government agencies prior to the 2016 election? If so, who? When and how did you or they become aware? Please provide all related documents.

11. Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America encourage, whether directly or through intermediaries, Mr. Steele to initiate or continue contacts with the FBI or other government agencies? If so, who and when? Please provide all related documents.

12. For the period from March 2016 through January 2017, please provide all communications to, from, copying, or relating to: Fusion GPS; Bean LLC; Glenn Simpson; Mary Jacoby; Peter Fritsch; Tom Catan; Jason Felch; Neil King; David Michaels; Taylor Sears; Patrick Corcoran; Laura Sego; Jay Bagwell; Erica Castro; Nellie Ohr; Rinat Akhmetshin; Ed Lieberman; Edward Baumgartner; Orbis Business Intelligence Limited; Orbis Business International Limited; Walsingham Training Limited; Walsingham Partners Limited; Christopher Steele; Christopher Burrows; Sir Andrew Wood, Paul Hauser; 4 Oleg Deripaska; Cody Shearer; Sidney Blumenthal; Jon Winer; 5 Kathleen Kavalec; Victoria Nuland; Daniel Jones; 6 Bruce Ohr; Peter Strzok; Andrew McCabe; James Baker; 7 Sally Yates; Loretta Lynch; John Brennan.

One can imagine that, at this point, all the deep state Clinton operatives listed above are running scared and are using their shills in the media to distract from their corruption by pushing fake news about Trump possibly firing Robert Mueller.

Thankfully, it looks as if no matter how much disinformation is put out by the mainstream media, at least some members of Congress refuse to stop this key investigation.

Podesta Group "Will Not Exist At The End Of The Year"

While all eyes (from the left and the establishment right) remain on Trump  (daring to shake Putin"s hand this weekend), the mainstream media appears to be missing the news that the lobbying firm founded by longtime Democratic operative Tony Podesta is reportedly on the verge of shuttering after being swept up in special counsel Robert Mueller"s Russia probe.

Just three weeks after we reported that special counsel Mueller was targeting lobbying firm Podesta Group. and just two weeks after Tony Podesta resigned from his position at the firm he founded, The Hill reports that Kimberley Fritts, the Podesta Group"s chief executive, told employees on Thursday that the firm would not exist at the end of the year and that they would likely not be paid through the end of November, sources told CNN.

Fritts announced her resignation from the top Washington lobbying group after Podesta left the company amid ties to indictments filed in the Russia investigation. Fritts is beginning work on launching a new firm. Her last day at the company Friday created new uncertainty for the Podesta Group after the departure of Podesta on Oct. 30.

Multiple employees who spoke to The Hill said the mood at the firm was mostly optimistic, though they said many of the firm"s dozens of employees could be in limbo as Fritts sets up the new firm and brings Podesta Group talent and clients with her.

As a reminder, Mueller is now investigating whether the Podesta Group properly identified to U.S. authorities its foreign work on behalf of a Ukrainian advocacy group in Europe, CNN reported.

An NBC report found that the Podesta Group was one of several firms working on Paul Manafort"s public relations campaign for European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, which the Podesta Group claims it thought was a nonpartisan think tank, something which this site reported first last August.

And here is one reason why we suspect more than a few on the left are now concerned...

It goes without saying, that Podesta"s brother, John, is arguably one of the top figure in Democratic politics, serving most recently as chief of staff in the Bill Clinton White House and also as the chairman of Hillary Clinton"s 2016 presidential campaign.

What happens next to Tony (and perhaps his brother John) is to be determined, but one thing is clear: both sides of the swamp should probably control themselves in any premature celebrations as this appears to be far from over.

Tony Podesta Resigns From Lobbying Group Amid Mueller Probe

As the left and the media ramp up their Manafort-ian mania against Trump, it appears the trail of destruction from special counsel Mueller"s probe has spread to Democratic power-lobbyist Tony Podesta.

As we explained in Aug 2016, Paul Manafort - now under indictment on 12 charges - and his deputy Rick gates previously worked with the Podesta Group, run by Tony Podesta, the brother of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

...emails obtained by the Associated Press showed that Gates personally directed two Washington lobbying firms, Mercury LLC and the Podesta Group, between 2012 and 2014 to set up meetings between a top Ukrainian official and senators and congressmen on influential committees involving Ukrainian interests. Gates noted in the emails that the official, Ukraine"s foreign minister, did not want to use his own embassy in the United States to help coordinate the visits.

 

...

 

And this is where the plot thickens, because while the bulk of the press has so far spun the entire Ukraine lobbying scandal, which led to Manafort"s resignation, as the latest "proof" that pro-Moscow powers were influencing not only Manafort but the Trump campaign in general (who some democrats have even painted of being a Putin agent), the reality is that a firm closely tied with the Democratic party, the Podesta Group, is just as implicated.

 

As AP further adds, the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, a Brussels-linked nonprofit entity which allegely ran the lobbying project, paid Mercury and the Podesta Group a combined $2.2 million over roughly two years. In papers filed in the U.S. Senate, Mercury and the Podesta Group listed the European nonprofit as an independent, nonpolitical client. The firms said the center stated in writing that it was not aligned with any foreign political entity.

And now, just hours after Manafort and Gates handed themselves over to the feds, Politico reports, the founder of the Podesta Group, is stepping down from the lobbying shop that bears his name after coming under investigation by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller.

Perhaps Podesta knows what is likely to happen next. Podesta announced his decision during a firm-wide meeting Monday morning and is alerting clients of his impending departure.

“[Tony] was very magnanimous and said, “This is an amazing group of people,” a source said of Podesta’s remarks.

 

Podesta also told staff he “doesn’t intend to go quietly, or learn how to play golf.” He said he “needs to fight this as an individual, but doesn’t want the firm to fight it.”

 

Fritts also addressed the gathering, telling staff that she is “thrilled at this opportunity” and that, “This is not about me, this is about y’all.”

 

Several other senior staff spoke about their excitement about the future of the firm. The meeting ended with a standing ovation for Podesta.

One thing is clear, both sides of the swamp should probably control themselves in any premature celebrations as this appears to be far from over.

Here"s one reason why we suspect more than a few on the left are now concerned...

Maria Bartiromo Slams John Podesta Over His Ties To Russia

Authored by Joseph Jankowski via PlanetFreeWill.com,

Even after James O’Keefe and Project Veritas essentially blew the lid right off the fake ‘Russia hacked the election’ narrative, Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chairman, John Podesta, doubled down on the debunked narrative when challenged by Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on his ties to a Kremlin-backed company.

Podesta met behind closed doors on Tuesday with the members of the House Intelligence Committee as part of the panel’s investigation into supposed Russian efforts to meddle in the presidential election.

When asked what he could tell the Thursday Fox audience about the House Intel meeting, Podesta explained that the panel wanted to know “what had happened to me and the effect on the campaign … the effect of the Russian interference in our democratic process.”

“They’re probing what actually happened, whether if there was collusion and what we’re going to do about,” Podesta told Bartiromo.

“They asked me not to get into specific questions that they asked me and my specific answers but in general terms, they’re taking a bipartisan look at this stage.”

Fox Host Maria Bartiromo then chimes in with a question that digs sharply into the skin of Podesta.

“Don’t you find it odd that there’s been so much attention on the Trump Campaign and the Trump associates and potential collusion with the Russians when in fact it’s really the Democrats who have deeper and stronger ties to Russia,” Bartiromo said.

“I mean John I have to ask your own situation..”

Bartiromo then goes on to break down how Podesta joined the board of the board of a small energy company in 2011 which later received $35 million from a Kremlin-funded entity. According to Bartiromo, Podesta also owns 75,000 shares in a Russian company and failed to disclose this to the Obama administration.

And this is where things got heated…

John Podesta’s ex-sister in law is on D.C. Police Foundation Board: Report

Report suggests D.C. Metro Police collusion

(INTELLIHUB) — According to a recent report, Fmr. Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s ex-sister-in-law serves on the Board of the Washington D.C. Police Foundation along with the police chief who served at the time DNC staffer Seth Rich was murdered.

According to the report:

Heather Podesta serves on the board alongside recent Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier, who served as police chief when DNC staffer and widely-reported WikiLeaks source Seth Rich was murdered in July 2016. Lanier stepped down as police chief the next month.

D.C. power broker Heather Podesta is the ex-wife of John Podesta’s lobbyist brother Tony, whose Podesta Group is one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in the world.

Other board members include representatives of CVS, Enterprise Holdings, Geico, PNC Bank, and Pepco Holdings.

H/T: Patrick Howley

Furthur Reading:

Shepard Ambellas is an opinion journalist, analyst, and the founder and editor-in-chief of Intellihub News & Politics (Intellihub.com). Shepard is also known for producing Shade: The Motion Picture (2013) and appearing on Travel Channel’s America Declassified (2013). Shepard is a regular contributor to Infowars. Read more from Shep’s World. Get the Podcast. Follow Shep on Facebook and Twitter.

Featured Image: Elvert Barnes/Flickr

©2017. INTELLIHUB.COM. All Rights Reserved.

‘His Name Was #SethRich’: Twitter Rages as Media Tries to Silence Public Over DNC Murder

On Monday night a local Fox affiliate out of Washington D.C. dropped a bombshell from a private investigator, and former D.C. homicide detective, Rod Wheeler. The bombshell was in regard to the murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. Wheeler revealed that Rich had been in touch with WikiLeaks prior to his death, and had leaked thousands of internal emails to the transparency group.

“My investigation up to this point shows there was some degree of email exchange between Seth Rich and Wikileaks,” Wheeler said. “The police department nor the FBI have been forthcoming. They haven’t been cooperating at all. I believe that the answer to solving his death lies on that computer, which I believe is either at the police department or either at the FBI. I have been told both.”

When Wheeler was asked if his sources have told him whether there is information that links Rich to Wikileaks, he said, “Absolutely. Yeah. That’s confirmed.”

Additionally, Wheeler, who was hired by the family to investigate Rich’s murder, has received information from his sources inside the D.C. police department that suggest powerful forces are working to cover up the truth about the killing.

“My investigation shows someone within the D.C. government, Democratic National Committee or Clinton team is blocking the murder investigation from going forward,” Wheeler told Fox News. “That is unfortunate. Seth Rich’s murder is unsolved as a result of that.”

After this revelation began to go immediately viral, receiving coverage from nearly every alternative media outlet, a veritable shit storm of Russian scandal began to cloud the digital airwaves.

Headlines like, “Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador,” began appearing almost immediately after the Seth Rich revelation.

On Wednesday, the news of Trump’s alleged Russian ties was then joined by the chanting chorus of calls for his impeachment.

Even Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) on Wednesday said if the reports about Trump’s pressure on Comey are true, it would merit impeachment.

READ MORE:  Hours After Russian Ambassador Assassinated, Top Russian Diplomat Found Murdered in His Home

While Trump’s time in office certainly warrants scrutiny over his lies, flip-flopping, and pandering to the terrorist Saudi Arabian regime, the mainstream media at large is continuing to ignore the information on Seth Rich.

His name was #SethRich. 

Despite the overwhelming amount of hysterical rhetoric being blasted out from mainstream media outlets across the country, social media users have fought back and #SethRich continues to trend.

I don"t agree that it was a robbery gone wrong #SethRich was in contact with #wikileaks 12 days before his death #wednesdaywisdom #MAGA pic.twitter.com/UvgNSfT8fF

— 🇺🇸Jojoh888🇺🇸🌹 (@jojoh888) May 17, 2017

Despite the establishment attempting to divert the conversation toward a non-existent threat of Russian interference in the election, it appears the public — at least those on Twitter — is not buying it.

If one of MY staffers was murdered & it remained unsolved 10 months later, I"d never shut up about it! DNC = #Crickets #SethRich

— Observe Think Create (@get_enlightened) May 17, 2017

The impetus behind sweeping the Seth Rich information under the rug and the overt and futile attempts to cover them up is perfectly clear. If Seth Rich is WikiLeaks’ source for the hacked emails, the mainstream media’s fake news story about Russian meddling coming crashing down.

. @rodwheeler thank you for conducting this investigation. Do not let the system silence you #SethRich

— Rob Dew (@DewsNewz) May 17, 2017

Notably, WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange has been quite outspoken on this topic since it began, noting that Russia was categorically not the source of the DNC emails. While Assange has stopped short of identifying Rich as the source of the emails, as WikiLeaks never divulges sources, he has shown an unusual interest in the case.

#Guccifer2.0 has stated #SethRich was source for #Wikileaks"s #Clinton & #DNC emails. ROBBER left Wallet, Smart-Phone & Expensive Watch… https://t.co/huR5C0jJ1b

— Michael Sweeney (@MIchelSweeney) May 17, 2017

As Jay Syrmopulous notes, while Assange has stopped short of identifying Rich as the source of the emails, as WikiLeaks never divulges sources, he has shown an unusual interest in the case.

READ MORE:  Ron Paul Interviews Assange: "If We Allow Trump to Declare War on Truth, We Are to Blame"

“WikiLeaks has decided to issue a US$20k reward for information leading to conviction for the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich,” the organization announced shortly after his murder.

Wheeler says police need to consider other alternatives, especially given the statements made by Julian Assange in response to questions about Rich’s killing.

After announcing that WikiLeaks would pay $20,000 for information leading to the conviction of Rich’s murderer, Assange went on an interview with Nieuwsurr. During the interview, Assange implied that Rich was his source.

Assange: Whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often significant risks. There was a 27-year old that works for the DNC who was shot in the back… murdered.. for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington.

Host: That was just a robbery wasn’t it?

Assange: No. There’s no finding.

Host: What are you suggesting?

Assange: I am suggesting that our sources take risks and they become concerned to see things occurring like that.

Host: But was he one of your sources, then?

Assange: We don’t comment on who our sources are.

In subsequent appearances on Fox News Channel, Assange confirmed, “We’re interested in anything that might be a threat to alleged WikiLeaks sources.”

Because people on social media have been paying attention and sifting through the disinformation, this story is not getting buried.

🚨 @washingtonpost published the fake #TrumpRussia intel leak story just ONE hour after #SethRich bombshell! DISTRACTION! Keep making noise! pic.twitter.com/Y4xl1j48ry

— Democrats for Trump (@YoungDems4Trump) May 17, 2017

While the issue of Seth Rich seems to be more widely accepted and investigated by those on the right, his death transcends party lines. Those who are paying attention know party lines means nothing.

Now the #Obama regime spied on foreign media its been proven.#Wikileaks was under intel constant probe.#SethRich never stood a chance.

— No Consent! (@ConsentNo) May 17, 2017

Despite overwhelming calls for a closer investigation into the death of Seth Rich, the silence from the Trump administration on the issue is deafening.

READ MORE:  Leaked Docs Expose Media Matters Conspiring with Facebook & Google to Censor Alternative Media

“I’m not aware of that,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer replied when asked by a reporter about the news, adding that it would be “highly inappropriate” to comment on the investigation.

The DNC remains entirely mum as well.

“We know of no evidence that supports these allegations. We are continuing to cooperate with investigators and have no further comment,” DNC spokesperson Xochitl Hinojosa said in a statement.

Representing the Rich family, Brad Bauman, a professional Democratic PR crisis consultant with the recently formed Pastorum group, released a statement denying the allegations as well.

While we certainly do not know who killed Seth Rich, to ignore the information by wholeheartedly dismissing it based on party lines or media talking points is irresponsible at best. It’s high time Americans realize who’s at the helm in this country — people who care not about laying waste to human lives, worldwide, to make a buck and maintain control. To think that the murder of a DNC staffer to cover up information is somehow a crazed and unfounded conspiracy theory is equally irresponsible.

His name was Seth Rich.

Podesta: "I"m definitely for making an example of a suspected leaker whether or not we have any real basis for it." https://t.co/MZ2a9gk5t3 pic.twitter.com/qQ9tO2aimY

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 30, 2016

Sean Hannity exposes Clinton’s Russian State connection to Uranium One

Will Hannity"s proverbial assault be enough to drag Hillary through the mud?

(INTELLIHUB) In a ballsy move for a mainstream news anchor, Fox News’ Sean Hannity delivered the home run we’ve all been waiting for on the Sean Hannity Show Tuesday night when he gave much-needed publicity to Hillary Clinton’s Russian State ties to Uranium One which I first reported on back in January of 2016 in an Intellihub Magazine article titled “Clinton Foundation took massive payoffs, promised Hammond Ranch and other publicly owned lands to Russians along with one-fifth of our uranium ore.”

The issue resurfaced in the media Tuesday after President Donald Trump acknowledged the little-known scandal on Twitter.

“Why doesn’t Fake News talk about Podesta ties to Russia as covered by @FoxNews or money from Russia to Clinton – sale of Uranium?,” the President tweeted.

Why doesn"t Fake News talk about Podesta ties to Russia as covered by @FoxNews or money from Russia to Clinton – sale of Uranium?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2017

Interestingly enough, President Trump also made mention of John Podesta’s Russian State ties to RUSNANO, as I reported for Infowars earlier Wednesday.

However, Sean Hannity knocked it out of the park Tuesday night, when he called out the corporate-controlled media for rarely covering the scandal and for continuing what he called a “media conspiracy narrative” of Trump-Russia collusion.

During the broadcast, Hannity addressed the scandal as “a very big deal” and even mentioned the fact that the chairman of Uranium one made three separate donations totaling millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation in 2009 as Bill Clinton received major contributions from the Russians for speech engagements around the same time.

“[They got a] massive amount of money, they got a huge payback and they now control twenty percent of America’s uranium,” Hannity said in regards to the scandal.

“Uranium One is a Canadian-based multinational corporation and they extract uranium which of corse is a key material that’s used in nuclear weapons Uranium One is responsible for one-fifth of all of the uranium production right here in the United States,” Hannity explained.

That’s right, Hillary Clinton, during her tenure at the State Department facilitated a deal with the Russian State for one-fifth of the U.S. uranium supply, yet no one is talking about it!

Thank-you Sean Hannity! And by the way, I will gladly come on your show to talk about anything we can to stop the Dems. — Shep

Please take the following poll:

Do you think that @HillaryClinton"s and @johnpodesta"s ties to the #RussianState will ruin them or will the MSM bury the truth?

— Intellihub (@intellihubnews) March 29, 2017

Shepard Ambellas is an opinion journalist and the founder and editor-in-chief of Intellihub News & Politics (Intellihub.com). Shepard is also known for producing Shade: The Motion Picture (2013) and appearing on Travel Channel’s America Declassified (2013). Shepard is a regular contributor to Infowars. Read more from Shep’s World. Get the Podcast. Follow Shep on Facebook and Twitter.

Featured Image: Screen capture Fox News/YouTube

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John Podesta Linked to State-Run Russian Company

It should be a non-issue. Doing business in Russia and most other countries is legal, nothing out-of-the-ordinary about it unless laws are broken.

It matters for Podesta because Trump is irresponsibly bashed for alleged ties to Russian investors, banks and officials – besides fabricated claims of Moscow US election hacking, helping him defeat Hillary. Reportedly he explored Moscow real estate development deals never successfully concluded.

He had dealings with numerous individuals in Russia since the late 1980s. It’s common business practice engaged in by most large, medium, and smaller-sized firms – nothing unusual or illegal about it, nothing justifying bashing him for it.

On Tuesday, an “exclusive” Daily Caller report headlined “Podesta Was Board Member of Firms Linked to Russian Investors,” saying:

Texas House Republican Louie Gohmert wants Congress investigating Podesta for his “role with Rusnano, a state-run company founded by Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

If Democrats can target Trump, unjustifiably claiming improper ties to Russia, despite no credible proof, Republicans can play the same game.

Gohmert apparently wants Podesta to squirm the way Democrats are going at Trump.

According to the Daily Caller, Podesta “first made contact with the Russian firm (Rusnano) in 2011, when he joined the boards and executive committees of three related entities: Boston-based Joule Unlimited; Rotterdam-based Joule Global Holdings; Joule Global Stichting, the company’s controlling interest. All are high-tech renewable energy enterprises.”

When he joined Obama’s White House staff in 2014 as a senior counselor, he failed to reveal his Russian business connections on his financial disclosure form.

WikiLeaks revealed he owns 75,000 Joule common stock shares. Gohmert wants his Russian connection investigated “to see if there…is something nefarious going on…”

He’s vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee subcommittee on crime, terrorism and homeland security.

The Daily Caller said a Neas Ltd v. Rusnano federal lawsuit “before the US District Court for Northern California suggests Podesta and others at Joule may have unwittingly assisted Rusnano in a scheme hatched to move billions of weak rubles into valuable US dollars by parking them as ‘investments’ in high-tech companies in Boston and in Silicon Valley.”

Podesta’s emails show he “help(ed) Rusnano (after he) left Joule’s board. Neither he, Joule or Rusnano so far have commented.

Report: John Podesta failed to disclose 75,000 stock shares in Russian financed company

Clinton operative may have violated federal law

Center For American Progress/Flickr

(INTELLIHUB) — Former national campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential campaign John Podesta may have violated federal law when he failed to disclose that he received 75,000 shares of stock from a company financed by the Kremlin upon joining the Obama White House in 2014, according to a report by the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.

The report, citing emails leaked by Wikileaks, notes that Podesta first received 100,000 shares of stock options from Joule Unlimited Technologies when he joined the companies board in 2010 and then another 75,000 common shares when he left the company in 2014.

The DCNF writes, “The Schedule B section of the federal government’s form 278 which — requires financial disclosures for government officials — required Podesta to “report any purchase, sale or exchange by you, your spouse, or dependent children…of any property, stocks, bonds, commodity futures and other securities when the amount of the transaction exceeded $1,000.”

Multiple experts on the left as well as the right told The DNCF that Podesta should have reported the stock, especially considering the companies connection to the Russian government.

“Well Podesta should certainly have been more upfront in filling this out. Clearly, it should have been fully disclosed,” Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the liberal group Public Citizen told The DCNF. “That’s the point of the personal financial disclosure forms, especially for anyone entering the White House.”

“If the transfer of stock took place, it had to be disclosed,” added former U.S. Attorney Joseph DiGenova. “If he didn’t, clearly it’s a violation.”

Consider for a moment the implications of this startling revelation. John Podesta and numerous other Clinton operatives have continually accused the Russian government of helping Donald Trump win the election yet Podesta didn’t even reveal that he was making money off a firm with connections to the Kremlin?!

Remember, in December 2016 Podesta directly accused Russia of working with Donald Trump while trying to use his appearance on Meet the Press to influence the electoral college voters.

“A foreign adversary tried to directly intervene into our Democratic institution and tried to tilt the election to Donald Trump,” Podesta claimed.

Unbelievably, the Washington Post, which has for months attacked Donald Trump for his supposed Russian connections, actually hired Podesta in February to provide “vital insight” to the American people.

“No one knows more about how Washington works, how the White House operates, and how policy ideas are translated into reality than John Podesta,” the Post said at the time. “His long experience in Congress, inside two Democratic White Houses and on the front lines of numerous presidential campaigns, will offer readers vital insight into Washington and politics at the start of a new era.”

Reports such as this only further prove that the entire Russian narrative is a media and deep state invented narrative used to attack a president that has actually taken steps against the globalist world order.

When real connections to Russia, such as Podesta’s link noted here or Clinton selling off one-fifth of the countries Uranium, the media simply ignores them or attacks the people bringing them to light.

Further Reading:

Alex Thomas is an opinion journalist and editor for Intellihub News. He was a founding member of what later became Intellihub.com and an integral part of the team that destroyed the mainstream media blockade on Bilderberg in 2012. You can contact him here.

©2017. INTELLIHUB.COM. All Rights Reserved.

The Evidence That Russia Hacked the DNC Is Collapsing

(ANTIWAR Op-Ed) The allegation – now accepted as incontrovertible fact by the “mainstream” media – that the Russian intelligence services hacked the Democratic National Committee (and John Podesta’s emails) in an effort to help Donald Trump get elected recently suffered a blow from which it may not recover.

Crowdstrike is the cybersecurity company hired by the DNC to determine who hacked their accounts: it took them a single day to determine the identity of the culprits – it was, they said, two groups of hackers which they named “Fancy Bear” and “Cozy Bear,” affiliated respectively with the GRU, which is Russian military intelligence, and the FSB, the Russian security service.

How did they know this?

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These alleged “hacker groups” are not associated with any known individuals in any way connected to Russian intelligence: instead, they are identified by the tools they use, the times they do their dirty work, the nature of the targets, and other characteristics based on the history of past intrusions.

Yet as Jeffrey Carr and other cyberwarfare experts have pointed out, this methodology is fatally flawed. “It’s important to know that the process of attributing an attack by a cybersecurity company has nothing to do with the scientific method,” writes Carr:

“Claims of attribution aren’t testable or repeatable because the hypothesis is never proven right or wrong. Neither are claims of attribution admissible in any criminal case, so those who make the claim don’t have to abide by any rules of evidence (i.e., hearsay, relevance, admissibility).”

Likening attribution claims of hacking incidents by cybersecurity companies to intelligence assessments, Carr notes that, unlike government agencies such the CIA, these companies are never held to account for their misses:

“When it comes to cybersecurity estimates of attribution, no one holds the company that makes the claim accountable because there’s no way to prove whether the assignment of attribution is true or false unless (1) there is a criminal conviction, (2) the hacker is caught in the act, or (3) a government employee leaked the evidence.”

This lack of accountability may be changing, however, because Crowdstrike’s case for attributing the hacking of the DNC to the Russians is falling apart at the seams like a cheap sweater.

To begin with, Crowdstrike initially gauged its certainty as to the identity of the hackers with “medium confidence.” However, a later development, announced in late December and touted by the Washington Post, boosted this to “high confidence.” The reason for this newfound near-certainty was their discovery that “Fancy Bear” had also infected an application used by the Ukrainian military to target separatist artillery in the Ukrainian civil war. As the Post reported:

“While CrowdStrike, which was hired by the DNC to investigate the intrusions and whose findings are described in a new report, had always suspected that one of the two hacker groups that struck the DNC was the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, it had only medium confidence.

“Now, said CrowdStrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch, ‘we have high confidence’ it was a unit of the GRU. CrowdStrike had dubbed that unit ‘Fancy Bear.’”

Crowdstrike published an analysis that claimed a malware program supposedly unique to Fancy Bear, X-Agent, had infected a Ukrainian targeting application and, using GPS to geo-locate Ukrainian positions, had turned the application against the Ukrainians, resulting in huge losses:

“Between July and August 2014, Russian-backed forces launched some of the most-decisive attacks against Ukrainian forces, resulting in significant loss of life, weaponry and territory.

“Ukrainian artillery forces have lost over 50% of their weapons in the two years of conflict and over 80% of D-30 howitzers, the highest percentage of loss of any other artillery pieces in Ukraine’s arsenal.”

Alperovitch told the PBS News Hour that “Ukraine’s artillery men were targeted by the same hackers, that we call Fancy Bear, that targeted DNC, but this time they were targeting cell phones to try to understand their location so that the Russian artillery forces can actually target them in the open battle. It was the same variant of the same malicious code that we had seen at the DNC.”

He told NBC News that this proved the DNC hacker “wasn’t a 400-pound guy in his bed,” as Trump had opined during the first presidential debate – it was the Russians.

The only problem with this analysis is that is isn’t true. It turns out that Crowdstrike’s estimate of Ukrainian losses was based on a blog post by a pro-Russian blogger eager to tout Ukrainian losses: the Ukrainians denied it. Furthermore, the hacking attribution was based on the hackers’ use of a malware program called X-Agent, supposedly unique to Fancy Bear. Since the target was the Ukrainian military, Crowdstrike extrapolated from this that the hackers were working for the Russians.

All somewhat plausible, except for two things: To begin with, as Jeffrey Carr pointed out in December, and now others are beginning to realize, X-Agent isn’t unique to Fancy Bear. Citing the findings of ESET, another cybersecurity company, he wrote:

“Unlike Crowdstrike, ESET doesn’t assign APT28/Fancy Bear/Sednit to a Russian Intelligence Service or anyone else for a very simple reason. Once malware is deployed, it is no longer under the control of the hacker who deployed it or the developer who created it. It can be reverse-engineered, copied, modified, shared and redeployed again and again by anyone. In other words  –  malware deployed is malware enjoyed!

“In fact, the source code for X-Agent, which was used in the DNC, Bundestag, and TV5Monde attacks, was obtained by ESET as part of their investigation!

“During our investigations, we were able to retrieve the complete Xagent source code for the Linux operating system….”

“If ESET could do it, so can others. It is both foolish and baseless to claim, as Crowdstrike does, that X-Agent is used solely by the Russian government when the source code is there for anyone to find and use at will.”

Secondly, the estimate Crowdstrike used to verify the Ukrainian losses was supposedly based on data from the respected International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). But now IISS is disavowing and debunking their claims:

“[T]he International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) told [Voice of America] that CrowdStrike erroneously used IISS data as proof of the intrusion. IISS disavowed any connection to the CrowdStrike report. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense also has claimed combat losses and hacking never happened….

“’The CrowdStrike report uses our data, but the inferences and analysis drawn from that data belong solely to the report’s authors,” the IISS said. “The inference they make that reductions in Ukrainian D-30 artillery holdings between 2013 and 2016 were primarily the result of combat losses is not a conclusion that we have ever suggested ourselves, nor one we believe to be accurate.’

“One of the IISS researchers who produced the data said that while the think tank had dramatically lowered its estimates of Ukrainian artillery assets and howitzers in 2013, it did so as part of a ‘reassessment” and reallocation of units to airborne forces.’

“’No, we have never attributed this reduction to combat losses,” the IISS researcher said, explaining that most of the reallocation occurred prior to the two-year period that CrowdStrike cites in its report.

“’The vast majority of the reduction actually occurs … before Crimea/Donbass,’ he added, referring to the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

The definitive “evidence” cited by Alperovitch is now effectively debunked: indeed, it was debunked by Carr late last year, but that was ignored in the media’s rush to “prove” the Russians hacked the DNC in order to further Trump’s presidential ambitions. The exposure by the Voice of America of Crowdstrike’s falsification of Ukrainian battlefield losses – the supposedly solid “proof” of attributing the hack to the GRU – is the final nail in Crowdstrike’s coffin. They didn’t bother to verify their analysis of IISS’s data with IISS – they simply took as gospel the allegations of a pro-Russian blogger. They didn’t contact the Ukrainian military, either: instead, their confirmation bias dictated that they shaped the “facts” to fit their predetermined conclusion.

Now why do you suppose that is? Why were they married so early – after a single day – to the conclusion that it was the Russians who were behind the hacking of the DNC?

Crowdstrike founder Alperovitch is a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council, and head honcho of its “Cyber Statecraft Initiative” – of which his role in promoting the “Putin did it” scenario is a Exhibit A. James Carden, writing in The Nation, makes the trenchant point that “The connection between Alperovitch and the Atlantic Council has gone largely unremarked upon, but it is relevant given that the Atlantic Council – which is funded in part by the US State Department, NATO, the governments of Latvia and Lithuania, the Ukrainian World Congress, and the Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk – has been among the loudest voices calling for a new Cold War with Russia.” Adam Johnson, writing on the FAIR blog, adds to our knowledge by noting that the Council’s budget is also supplemented by “a consortium of Western corporations (Qualcomm, Coca-Cola, The Blackstone Group), including weapons manufacturers (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman) and oil companies (ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP).”

Johnson also notes that CrowdStrike currently has a $150,000 / year, no-bid contract with the FBI for “systems analysis.”

Nice work if you can get it.

This last little tidbit gives us some insight into what is perhaps the most curious aspect of the Russian-hackers-campaign-for-Trump story: the FBI’s complete dependence on Crowdstrike’s analysis. Amazingly, the FBI did no independent forensic work on the DNC servers before Crowdstrike got its hot little hands on them: indeed, the DNC denied the FBI access to the servers, and, as far as anyone knows, the FBI never examined them. BuzzFeed quotes an anonymous “intelligence official” as saying “Crowdstrike is pretty good. There’s no reason to believe that anything they have concluded is not accurate.”

There is now.

Alperovitch is scheduled to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, and one wonders if our clueless – and technically challenged – Republican members of Congress will question him about the debunking of Crowdstrike’s rush to judgment. I tend to doubt it, since the Russia-did-it meme is now the Accepted Narrative and no dissent is permitted – to challenge it would make them “Putin apologists”! (Although maybe Trey Gowdy, the only GOPer on that panel who seems to have any brains, may surprise me.)

As I’ve been saying for months, there is no evidence that the Russians hacked the DNC: none, zilch, nada. Yet this false narrative is the entire basis of a campaign launched by the Democrats, hailed by the Trump-hating media, and fully endorsed by the FBI and the CIA, the purpose of which is to “prove” that Trump is “Putin’s puppet,” as Hillary Clinton put it. Now the investigative powers of the federal government are being deployed to confirm that the Trump campaign “colluded” with the Kremlin in an act the evidence for which is collapsing.

This whole affair is a vicious fraud. If there is any justice in this world – and there may not be – the perpetrators should be charged, tried, and jailed.

Opinion by Justin Raimondo / Republished with permission / AntiWar.com / Report a typo

Largest Bank in Russia Confirms It’s Hiring Podesta Group to Lobby Against Sanctions

(ZHE) Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, has confirmed that it hired the consultancy of Tony Podesta, the elder brother of John Podesta who chaired Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, for lobbying its interests in the United States and proactively seeking the removal of various Obama-era sanctions, the press service of the Russian institution told TASS on Thursday.

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“The New York office of Sberbank CIB indeed hired Podesta Group. Engagement of external consultants is part of standard business practices for us,” Sberbank said.

Previously, The Daily Caller reported that Tony Podesta was proactively lobbying for cancellation of a range of anti-Russian sanctions against the banking sector. In particular, he represented interests of Sberbank and was paid $170,000 for his efforts over a six-month period last year to seek to end one of the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against that country. Podesta, founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying . His firm received more than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments, to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Former President Barack Obama imposed the Russian following the break out in violence in east Ukraine in 2014.

“Podesta’s efforts were a key part of under-the-radar lobbying during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign led mainly by veteran Democratic strategists to remove sanctions against Sberbank and VTB Capital, Russia’s second largest bank.

“The two Russian banks spent more than $700,000 in 2016 on Washington lobbyists as they sought to end the U.S. sanctions, according to Senate lobbying and documents filed with the Department of Justice.

“The Podesta Group charged Sberbank $20,000 per month, plus expenses, on a contract from March through September 2016.”

Both Sberbank and VTB Capital have faced severe cash shortages due to plunging oil prices, plus the U.S. sanctions. If Obama’s sanctions were lifted, however, both banks could legally seek funds from American financial institutions. The lobbying campaign targeted Congress and the executive branch, with Podesta and other lobbyists arranging at least two meetings between Sberbank officers and Department of State officials, according to Elena Teplitskaya, Sberbank’s board chairman, who spoke to House aides in August.

“’The Democrats are sitting there trying to convince us that the Russians are trying to throw the election to Trump,’ a congressional aide who requested anonymity and met Teplitskaya told TheDCNF.

“’And then they’re with us here in the House and meeting directly with the administration behind closed doors on the issue of the sanctions. The hypocrisy could not be any richer,’ he said.”

As the Caller puts it, “the discovery of high-profile Democrats like Podesta being paid lucrative fees for lobbying to lift U.S. sanctions on Russia contrasts with charges from Democrats that President Donald Trump and his key aides are soft on Russia while the Obama administration was tough on Moscow.”

Podesta is one of the Democrat’s highest profile lobbyists who enjoys close personal and business connections to former Presidents Obama and Bill Clinton. John Podesta was chief of staff in Clinton’s White House and special counselor in the Obama White House.

Some more details on the meeting: joining the Podesta lobbying campaign was David Adams, who describes himself on the Podesta Group website as a “trusted adviser” to Hillary Clinton, serving as her as assistant secretary of state for congressional affairs. Another Podesta lobbyist was Stephen Rademaker, a former Department of State official in the George W. Bush administration. The Podesta Group represented Sberbank and its subsidiaries, Troika Dialog Group in the Cayman Islands, SBGB Cyprus Ltd in Nicosia, Cyprus, and SB International in Luxembourg. Troika Dialog also was related to Klein, Ltd., a Cayman Island organization that once funneled tens of millions of dollars to environmental groups to oppose low-cost fracking in the U.S., which was hurting the Russian oil industry.

Regular readers will recall that the Sberbank-Podesta relationship goes back many years. Sberbank was the lead financial institution in the Russian deal to purchase Uranium One, owned by one of Bill Clinton’s closest friends, Frank Giustra. Giustra and Bill Clinton lead the Clinton-Giustra Enterprise Partnership, an integral part of the Clinton Foundation. Giustra has additionally donated $25 million to the Clinton Foundation.

“Giustra sought to sell his stake in uranium reserves that included ore deposits in the Western United States, and Hillary Clinton, who as secretary of state, approved the sale. And in one felled swoop, 20 percent of America’s uranium ore was sold to the Russian state atomic agency.

“During the pending sale, the Podesta Group represented Giustra’s company and tried to advance the transaction.”

We do not expect to read about the Podesta lobbying relationship with Russia’s largest bank in such truth-seeking, at least according to their ad campaigns, publications as the NYT and/or WaPo.

By Tyler Durden / Republished with permission / Zero Hedge / Report a typo

Lady de Rothschild Tweet’s: Hillary lost because Podesta was “arrogant” and “out of touch”

Esther Vargas/Flickr

(INTELLIHUB) — A tweet made by the host of Showtime’s The Circus John Heilemann garnered an unanticipated response from a well-known elite Wednesday.

Lady de Rothschild (a.k.a. Lynn Forester) showed frustration toward Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager John Podesta on Twitter Wednesday calling him “pathetic.”

Mrs. Rothschild said that Podesta was “out of touch” and blamed him for destroying a “great family.”

@johnpodesta this is pathetic;HRC lost because you ran an arrogant out of touch campaign;you have destroyed a great family and are a loser https://t.co/iHLnQTilhj

— Lynn de Rothschild (@LdeRothschild) February 22, 2017

Lady de Rothschild is an Ameican-British business woman and Chief Executive Officer of E.L. Rothschild holdings.

©2017. INTELLIHUB.COM. All Rights Reserved.

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Assange: ‘Our source is not the Russian government a state party’

(INTELLIHUB) — Wikileaks founder Julian Assange told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Monday that the source of the leaked DNC documents and Podesta emails “is not the Russian government” or any “state party.”

However, the new face-to-face announcement has still not thwarted intelligence agencies and news outlets, who are still claiming that the hacks were derived from Russian factions.

The full Assange interview will air on Hannity’s show Tuesday night.

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Assange To Hannity: “Our Source Is Not The Russian Government”

January 3, 2017   |   admintam

(ZHE) It won’t be the first time Julian Assange was interviewed and asked whether the source of the hacked DNC and Podesta emails was Russia; however, it will be the first time everyone pays attention to his answer. Recall that the first such interview of Assange – when the question of who had sourced Wikileaks with the hacked emails came up – took place exactly two months ago, on November 3. Back then, in an interview televised by RT, John Pilger explicitly asked Asange where the emails in question had come from.

Assange’s response was straightforward: “The Clinton camp has been able to project a neo-McCarthyist hysteria that Russia is responsible for everything. Hillary Clinton has stated multiple times, falsely, that 17 US intelligence agencies had assessed that Russia was the source of our publications. That’s false – we can say that the Russian government is not the source.”

That particular interview took place when Trump has losing badly in the polls, and as such few people paid attention: after all, what difference did it make who had leaked the Podesta emails: Hillary Clinton was assured to win (with a 90%+ probability according to the NYT and other “non-fake news” outlets).

Needless to say, the issue of Russian hacking has since come back with a vengeance, and culminated last week with Obama expelling 35 Russian diplomats in the greatest diplomatic escalation between the US and Russia in decades; an action which took place based on a flimsy 13-page DHS/FBI report which demonstrated that anyone could have hacked the DNC emails if only they spent a few dollars to purchase a piece of Ukranian PHP malware.

Which is why many more will pay attention to Assange’s next interview with Sean Hannity, which will air Tuesday on Fox News. According to a Fox News release, the two will discuss Russian hacking, the 2016 presidential election, and both the Obama and upcoming Trump administrations. It will air at 10 p.m. on Jan. 3, with additional portions of the interview airing throughout the week. As Variety adds, The interview will mark Assange’s first face-to-face cable news appearance. It is not, however, the first time he’s spoken publicly to Hannity. Most recently, in December, Assange called into Hannity’s radio show, in which the host gushed to Assange that “you’ve done us a favor” in exposing gaps in U.S. cybersecurity.

And while what Assange would say was rather predictable, as he would simply reiterate what he has said previously, courtesy of Real Clear Politics, we have an advance glimpse into the punchline, to wit:

HANNITY: Can you say to the American people, unequivocally, that you did not get this information about the DNC, John Podesta’s emails, can you tell the American people 1,000 percent that you did not get it from Russia or anybody associated with Russia?

ASSANGE: Yes. We can say, we have said, repeatedly that over the last two months that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party… Obama is trying to say that President-elect Trump is not a legitimate President.

When asked if  WikiLeaks changed the outcome of the election, Assange replied “Who knows, it’s impossible to tell” but, he added, “if it did, the accusation is that the true statements of Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager, John Podesta, and the DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz, their true statements is what changed the election.”

Which is correct, however admitting as much would shift the blame away from the “Russians” and back to the failures of the Clinton campaign and the shortcoming of the Democrats, and the whole point of this scapegoating campaign is precisely the opposite.

As the Hill adds, Assange said there’s an “obvious” reason the Obama administration has focused on Russia’s alleged role in Democratic hacks leading up to Donald Trump’s electoral win.

“They’re trying to delegitimize the Trump administration as it goes into the White House.”

He then added that “our publications had wide uptake by the American people, they’re all true,” Assange continued. “But that’s not the allegation that’s being presented by the Obama White House.”

However, as we said previously, since at the end of the day it is Assange’s word – unless Wikileaks does actually reveal its source, which would be professional suicide – against the word of Obama and 17 agenices who back him up, despite still having provided no actual evidence in the ongoing, and quite bizarre attempt to force a deterioration of US-Russian relations in the final days of the Obama administration, just so Trump can inherit a complete diplomatic mess and make closer relations with Putin more complicated, this latest interview with Assange will likewise resolve absolutely nothing.

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This article (Assange To Hannity: “Our Source Is Not The Russian Government”) by Tyler Durden originally appeared on ZeroHedge.com and was used with permission. Tune in! Anti-Media Radio airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Help us fix our typos: edits@theantimedia.org.