A high-profile case of alleged fraud in Indonesias pilgrimage-to-Mecca industry has provided political ammunition to hard-line Islamists gaining sway in the country and challenging President Joko Widodo.
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8:24 AM 10/23/2017 Christopher Wray: New FBI Director Touts Importance of Partnerships With Local Police
Makeup experts Glenn Hetrick and Neville Page used inspiration from previous "Star Trek" series to create the new characters in "Star Trek: Discovery." The two join CBSN to discuss the process and show off a Klingon helmet.
High-powered Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta and the Podesta Group are subjects of a criminal investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, according to a new report.
Mueller is looking into Podesta and his lobbying firm for potentially violating a federal disclosure lawcalled the Foreign Agents Registration Actfor groups who work on behalf of foreign governments, NBC News reports. The lobbyist has been influential in Democratic politics for years, and his brother, John, was chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.
Mueller is leading the federal investigation into allegations of collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign and the Kremlin in the 2016 election. The investigation into Podesta stemmed from a probe into former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort's finances.
According to NBC News sources, the Podesta Group was one of several firms to work on Manafort's public relations campaign for the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine:
The sources said the investigation into Podesta and his company began as more of a fact-finding mission about the ECMU and Manafort's role in the campaign, but has now morphed into a criminal inquiry into whether the firm violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, known as FARA.
Under FARA, people who lobby on behalf of foreign governments, leaders or political parties must file detailed disclosures about their spending and activities with the Justice Department. Willful failure to file the forms is a felony and can result in up to five years in prison, though such prosecutions are rare.
The Podesta Group filed a FARA registration for its work with ECMU only after the payments were reported by the media. Manafort's firm also filed a FARA registration after media reports in June disclosed its work in Ukraine from 2012 through 2014.
The ECMU was reportedly backed by the Party of Regions, the pro-Russian and oligarch-funded Ukrainian political party for which Manafort worked as a consultant, and which paid his firm millions. Viktor Yanukovych of the Party of Regions, a Manafort client, was president of Ukraine during the ECMU campaign, which ran from 2012 to 2014. He fled the country in 2014.
The Podesta Group said in a statement that the firm "is cooperating fully with the Special Counsel's office and has taken every possible step to provide documentation that confirms timely compliance. In all of our client engagements, the Podesta Group conducts due diligence and consults with appropriate legal experts to ensure compliance with disclosure regulations at all times and we did so in this case."
The Free Beaconreported last year on Tony Podesta failing to file legally required disclosures for his advocacy on behalf of a foreign government in discussions with his brother.
Tony emailed John in January of 2015 wondering if he would attend a meeting with the Indian ambassador to the United States. At the time, the Podesta Group was making $60,000 a month for its work on behalf of the Republic of India:
Tony Podesta sent his email regarding the Indian ambassador on Jan. 1, 2015. The Podesta Group's Foreign Agent Registration Act disclosures list no contact with John Podesta on behalf of a foreign government client in either the second half of 2014 or the first half of 2015.
The latter supplemental does disclose contacts with other government officials on the Indian government's behalf, including dozens of congressional offices and officials at the White House National Security Council, State Department, Commerce Department, and the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
The Podesta Group later admitted the previously undisclosed advocacy in paperwork received three days after Clinton lost to Trump in the 2016 election.
NBC News reported John Podesta is no longer affiliated with the Podesta Group and is not part of Mueller's investigation.
The Reach and Limits of Russian Influence The American Interest Southeast Europe provides a good case study. Russia's influence in the Balkans is real and easily observed. ... Emboldened, Russia has not shrunk from throwing its weight around, putting pressure on Europe and America, the two guarantors of the ...
The deputy editor of the prominent station, Echo of Moscow, was assaulted by a knife-wielding man. The station said her injuries were not life threatening.
6:45 AM 10/17/2017 Selected Posts Tue, 17 Oct 2017 12:51:28 +0200 6:45 AM 10/17/2017 Selected Posts 6:17 AM 10/17/2017 Active and purposeful manipulation of voters psychology and mindsets online Active and purposeful manipulation of voters psychology and mindsets online There is more ominous and the potentially more dangerous aspect and possibility in these types of … Continue reading"9:39 AM 10/17/2017 – Selected Posts: Active and purposeful manipulation of voters’ psychology"
Washington Post Russian Americans divided over Trump, fear another Cold War Washington Post WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Anastasia Kurteeva worries about a new Cold War. She’s afraid that escalating tensions between the United States and Russia will make it harder for people to travel freely between the countries, harder for her parents in … and more »
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Makeup experts Glenn Hetrick and Neville Page used inspiration from previous "Star Trek" series to create the new characters in "Star Trek: Discovery." The two join CBSN to discuss the process and show off a Klingon helmet.
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6:45 AM 10/17/2017 Selected Posts Tue, 17 Oct 2017 12:51:28 +0200 6:45 AM 10/17/2017 Selected Posts 6:17 AM 10/17/2017 Active and purposeful manipulation of voters psychology and mindsets online Active and purposeful manipulation of voters psychology and mindsets online There is more ominous and the potentially more dangerous aspect and possibility in these types of … Continue reading"9:39 AM 10/17/2017 – Selected Posts: Active and purposeful manipulation of voters’ psychology"
The theory was first floated in a documentary broadcast on Russian state television last year, but widely brushed off as crude propaganda. It seemed aimed, as with many Russian disinformation campaigns, at muddying the waters around the issue without necessarily claiming to be credible.
It seems the prosecutors have been assembling the case since last year, but their activities came to light just this month when a lawyer representing Mr. Magnitsky’s family gained access to the court docket containing the information presented as evidence by the prosecutors.
“This is going on because my role in their troubles just seems to be escalating,” Mr. Browder said in a telephone interview, alluding to the sanctions. A Russian court has already convicted Mr. Browder in absentia of fraud in a case he called retaliation for his lobbying against the government of President Vladimir V. Putin.
“Basically, I’m their worst nightmare,” Mr. Browder said. “And their previous attempts to rein me in and get me back to Russia haven’t worked. It went from tax evasion, to more tax evasion, to fraud and libel, and now it is working its way up to murder.”
The case gained new prominence this summer after it emerged that a lawyer supporting the Russian government’s position had met during last year’s presidential election with the senior leadership of the Trump campaign, including the chairman, Paul J. Manafort, and Mr. Trump’s son and son-in-law.
The new accusation is made all the more sinister for its absurd and at times cartoonish details.
Prosecutors contend that Mr. Browder had colluded with an agent of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, MI6, “to cause the death of S. L. Magnitsky,” by persuading Russian prison doctors to withhold care.
The motive, according to what prosecutors said were intelligence intercepts, was to start a scandal, or “a significant news trigger to discredit the Russian Federation in the eyes of the international community.”
While they were about it, the prosecutors used the so-called intercepts, written in grammatically flawed English, to wrap into the plot two other Kremlin nemeses — Grigory A. Yavlinsky and Aleksei A. Navalny, prominent Russian opposition politicians. The supposed scheme was called Operation Quake.
The prosecutors say that Mr. Browder was assigned the code name Agent Solomon by Western intelligence, while Mr. Navalny was called Agent Freedom.
Referring to Agent Solomon, one filing recounts how he “was offered by proxies in the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service to arrange the termination of any medical services for Magnitsky.”
The measure that Mr. Browder campaigned for in the United States passed in 2012 as the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law and Accountability Act. It denied visas and blocked access to the American financial system for Russians deemed to have committed human rights abuses and avoided punishment at home, including those involved in the Magnitsky tax fraud case.
Mr. Putin, perceiving an intrusion into his country’s affairs, campaigned hard against the measure. When it passed, he retaliated by ending American adoptions of Russian children. The law became a prototype for the blacklisting of prominent Russians later applied in new sanctions laws during the Ukraine crisis.
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8:55 AM 10/23/2017 TRUMP-RUSSIA INVESTIGATION: Bipartisan politics stands in the way of an effective investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election
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