MESO-Rx
Anabolic Steroids
Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse
- Thread starter CdnGuy
- Start date
Last edited:
A doomed hired gun unburdens himself in a jailhouse interview that sheds light on the shadow battle between Russia and Ukraine.
When they arrested Timur Makhauri with two unregistered pistols and a bogus passport in downtown Kiev earlier this year, police thought they made a breakthrough in a string of unsolved contract murders. A judge saw Mr. Makhauri had a dark history of allegedly assassinating critics of the Kremlin in Turkey, and ordered him held on a high bond.
But soon police learned that nothing about Mr. Makhauri was quite what it seemed. Ukraine’s intelligence service began calling the police to urge his release, interior ministry officials said. Mr. Makhauri, who was mute at first, explained that he had numerous identities over the years—and sometimes acted like an assassin to catch the real Kremlin agents performing what, in Russian underworld parlance, was known as “wet work.”
In a jailhouse interview with The Wall Street Journal in February, Mr. Makhauri expanded upon the murky world he inhabited, politely answering questions about his life for two hours while handcuffed in a hallway. He worked as an agent, he said, wherever there was a fight against Moscow’s influence, including Chechnya, Georgia, Turkey and Syria. Ukraine, his last place of employment, would turn out to be more hazardous than he reckoned.
WASHINGTON — Lawyers for Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, notified the president’s legal team in recent days that they could no longer discuss the special counsel’s investigation, according to four people involved in the case, an indication that Mr. Flynn is cooperating with prosecutors or negotiating such a deal.
Mr. Flynn’s lawyers had been sharing information with Mr. Trump’s lawyers about the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is examining whether anyone around Mr. Trump was involved in Russian efforts to undermine Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
That agreement has been terminated, the four people said. Defense lawyers frequently share information during investigations, but they must stop when doing so would pose a conflict of interest. It is unethical for lawyers to work together when one client is cooperating with prosecutors and another is still under investigation.
The notification alone does not prove that Mr. Flynn is cooperating with Mr. Mueller. Some lawyers withdraw from information-sharing arrangements as soon as they begin negotiating with prosecutors. And such negotiations sometimes fall apart.
Still, the notification led Mr. Trump’s lawyers to believe that Mr. Flynn — who, along with his son, is seen as having significant criminal exposure — has, at the least, begun discussions with Mr. Mueller about cooperating.
Lawyers for Mr. Flynn and Mr. Trump declined to comment. The four people briefed on the matter spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Last edited:
Political guru Paul Manafort took at least 18 trips to Moscow and was in frequent contact with Vladimir Putin’s allies for nearly a decade as a consultant in Russia and Ukraine for oligarchs and pro-Kremlin parties.
Even after the February 2014 fall of Ukraine’s pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych, who won office with the help of a Manafort-engineered image makeover, the American consultant flew to Kiev another 19 times over the next 20 months while working for the smaller, pro-Russian Opposition Bloc party. Manafort went so far as to suggest the party take an anti-NATO stance, an Oppo Bloc architect has said. A key ally of that party leader, oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, was identified by an earlier Ukrainian president as a former Russian intelligence agent, “100 percent.”
It was this background that Manafort brought to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, which he joined in early 2016 and soon led. His web of connections to Russia-loyal potentates is now a focus of federal investigators.
Manafort’s flight records in and out of Ukraine, which McClatchy obtained from a government source in Kiev, and interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with his activities, including current and former government officials, suggest the links between Trump’s former campaign manager and Russia sympathizers run deeper than previously thought.
[Sung to We Wish You a Merry Xmas]
We wish Trump a lengthy sentence
We wish Trump a lengthy sentence
We wish Trump a lengthy sentence
And no chance of parole.
<As a criminal defense lawyer, I've posted on my own blog long ago: "You know your codefendant is a snitch when his lawyer doesn't return your calls.">
I still stand by my 18 months so 2018He was all over Obama for golfing.
It will be over in 2020.
