With the recent release of the Senate Judiciary Committee's witness transcripts from those that attended the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting that has been the subject of so many media stories that accused Donald Trump Jr. of some type of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, not only did that narrative crumble when the truth was revealed, but yet more Russia "connections" to Hillary Clinton have emerged.
The Senate Judiciary Committee released the transcripts of co-founder of Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, Donald J. Trump, Jr., Irakly “Ike” Kaveladze, Anatoli Samochornov, Robert Goldstone, Rinat Akhmetshin and the written answers from Natalia Veselnitskaya.
The long story short on the circumstances surrounding the meeting, by all accounts by those participants, was that Donald Trump Jr. thought the other attendees, especially Natalia Veselnitskaya, had some type of opposition research on Hillary Clinton, but none was provided at the meeting and the meeting ended up being focused mainly on the Magnitsky Act. There was no follow-up meeting scheduled.
WHO IS RINAT AKHMETSHIN?
According to an Axios report "Akhmetshin was apparently hired to work with Natalia Veselnitskaya, the lawyer who met with Trump on June 9, 2016, in a lobbying effort against the Magnitsky Act, a congressional measure that sanctions Russia and Russian figures."
That same report described Akhmetshin as a "former Soviet intelligence officer," and "a superlative Washington political operator who over the last two decades has repeatedly been at the center of cases involving corruption, dictators and sometimes war."
While the June 2016 meeting was the first and presumably the last time Akhmetshin met with any of the Trump family or campaign member, what was exposed in his 242 page interview transcript (PDF) however, is yet another Russian involved in the meeting which the media held up as some type of evidence of "collusion," with the Trump campaign, personally "knew" Hillary Clinton and some of her 2016 presidential campaign members.
Akhmetshin, also called Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson a "colleague," but also admitted to knowing Hillary Clinton and members of her 2016 presidential campaign. He described his meetings with Clinton herself as having been in a "social setting."
On page 234 of the Akhmetshin transcript he was asked "Did you ever have any meetings with the Hillary Clinton campaign or campaign officials officials?" His answer was "Not with officials, no." After some back and forth with interviewers clarifying they were talking about her presidential campaign, Akhmetshin was asked "Well, regardless of whether you were involved, did you ever have any meetings?" He answered "I knew her, I knew some people who worked on her campaign."
The questioner then followed up "So you did have meetings with her and -- did you have meetings with Hillary Clinton?" His response was "I met her in a social setting, not on a professional line."
Breitbart reports that Akhmetshin's personal relationship with Hillary Clinton dates back to the 1990s.
On Page 37 of that same transcript Akhmetshin admits to having a business relationship with Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS, after being questioned about an email in an unrelated matter, where he referred to Simpson as a colleague in an email exchange.
Page 38 shows the following exchange:
Q. This is another email provided by your counsel . It's an email from Glenn Simpson to Natalia Veselnitskaya , you , and Murat Glashev . It was sent on February 4 , 2016 . Mr . Simpson writes, "Natalia, I understand the meeting is tonight at 9 : 00 , but Rinat suggested we get together beforehand . Are you free later this afternoon or for dinner? " What is the meeting at 9:00 he refers to ? A. I don't remember exactly. Maybe dinner? Q. Did you meet with Mr . Simpson and Ms. Veselnitskaya along with the legal team working on the Prevezon case at any time? A. I have, yes.
After questioning him at length about his association with Simpson, by page 231 he had denied that he spoke with Simpson about the Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr.
GLENN SIMPSON, FUSION GPS, THE STEELE DOSSIER AND HILLARY CLINTON
The reason I highlighted the connection between Akhmetshin and Glenn Simpson is because Simpson's company, Fusion GPS, hired Christopher Steele to create the unverified Steele dossier. The dossier's information admittedly came from Russia/Kremlin sources, and was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC, via the law firm Perkins Coie, which represented the Clinton campaign and the DNC.
The most troubling issue is that the surveillance orders were obtained by withholding critical information about Mr. Steele from the FISA court. The court was not informed that Mr. Steele was personally opposed to Mr. Trump’s election, that his efforts were funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, or that he was the source of media reports that the FBI said corroborated his dossier. These facts are essential to any judicial assessment of Mr. Steele’s veracity and the applications’ merits.
So, once again, Hillary Clinton is connected to yet another piece of the puzzle that was used to spy on the Trump campaign.
STRZOK/PAGE TEXTS- RUSSIA INSURANCE POLICY - STRZOK MEETING WITH CLINTON FOUNDATION DONOR
Strzok held key positions in both the Hillary Clinton investigation, to the point where he helped change the rough draft of James Comey's statement exonerating her from using the term grossly negligent, which opened her up to criminal charges to the term extremely careless, also indicated that Strzok played a role in starting the Russia probe, which he referenced as an "insurance policy," in the even that Donald Trump won the election.
Strzok is also the agent that was tasked to meet with an Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, who in one version of the Mockingbird Media's ever-changing accounts of how the Russia investigation began, supposedly was told by a Trump campaign member, George Papadopoulos, that Russia had emails that would embarrass Hillary Clinton. There was no indication of whether those alleged emails were the 33,000 missing emails, or the ones published by Wikileaks from the DNC and John Podesta.
Later reports revealed that while the initial NYT claimed it was emails that Russia had, Downer himself says he was only told Russia had "material," that could damage Clinton, and on that basis, they claim, " Crossfire Hurricane," the counterintelligence investigation into possible coordination between members of Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin.
It was also later revealed that it was Peter Strzok who interviewed Alexander Downer in London.
Coincidentally, or not, Alexander Downer was responsible for arranging "one of the largest foreign donations to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charitable efforts," to the tune of $25 million, back in 2006.
Once again, the FBI neglected to inform Congress of the Downer/Clinton connection. Republicans reportedly have expressed deep concern that nearly all the evidence the FBI used to justify the Russian probe, from their Crossfire Hurricane investigation all the way to Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation into collusion, were all connected to Hillary Clinton in some way.
BOTTOM LINE - THE CLINTON TENTACLES ENGULF ALL 'RUSSIA COLLUSION' NARRATIVES
When news of the Trump Tower meeting hits the news, the media and Democrats (yes, I know, redundant) screamed Collusion, yet multiple members of that meeting were Russian, and one admits to having known Hillary Clinton for years.
When the unverified dossier hit the Internet, once again everyone howled it proved collusion, a connection with Russia, to the point where even corrupt senior level members of multiple intelligence agencies, knowing the sources for the allegations were from the Kremlin, used the dossier, while lying to the FISA court about who funded it, to obtain warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.
The media's own narrative that Papadopoulos claimed Russia had "material" that would damage Hillary Clinton, and passed that information on to Alexander Downer, includes the claim that Downer's information "prompted" the Russia investigation, and Downer arranged a $25 million donation to the Clinton Foundation.
The Clinton tentacles engulf every single Russian collusion narrative, yet it is the Trump campaign under investigation by Robert Mueller?
There is something seriously wrong with this picture.
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