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Business Donald Trump Russia

Does The Insurance Company Guaranteeing Trump’s $91 Million Bond Have Kremlin Ties?

To the surprise of many, failed one-term president Donald Trump was able to secure the financial assistance of a large multinational insurance company to underwrite the $91.6 million bond for his appeal of defamation verdicts awarded to writer E. Jean Carroll in January.

According to the Washington Post, the Federal Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Chubb Group LLC, provided the massive bond guaranty.

The bond document establishes a deal Trump made with Federal Insurance Company, a direct subsidiary of the international insurance behemoth Chubb, with global headquarters in Switzerland. The company, one of the largest insurance firms in the world and worth about $100 billion, offers a wide variety of insurance and bonds.

The company’s filings do not break down in detail its business that backs court appeals, but the larger unit — called a “surety” business — consists of several entities and is a longtime provider of bonds in the United States, according to bonding experts.

Chubb, it turns out, has extensive ties to Russia and the Kremlin, with environmental nonprofit group Rainforest Action Network (RAN) reporting on its website, “Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg talks a big game on climate change, but those words ring hollow when examining his company’s business practices. Chubb insures fossil fuel infrastructure in Russia that is bankrolling Putin’s war on Ukraine, oil and gas extraction off the coast of Brazil, exploratory drilling in the Arctic, and other fossil fuel projects globally.”

Former New York Times investigative reporter Seth Abramson also notes that Chubb has significant Russian connections.

“This is the biggest news in the United States right now. Anyone who reads this article will understand that I’m not exaggerating when I say as a journalist that America is now in the midst of a national security crisis. We are now right back where we were in 2016. It’s bad,” Abramson warned on Twitter/X.”

It has long been suspected that Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, have connections to Russian entities. The disgraced ex-president has repeatedly praised Russian president/war criminal Vladimir Putin, recently saying that if he manages to defeat President Joe Biden in November, he will allow Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO nations who don’t pay enough for their security.

The national security implications of Trump taking money from a company that invests heavily in Russia are massive and terrifying, especially since the ex-president is scheduled to start receiving weekly national security briefings now that he’s been declared the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee by the GOP.

Can we as a country allow this to transpire right in front of our eyes and not demand accountability from both Chubb and Trump? At the very least, the Department of Justice needs to take a long hard look at the bond agreement and see if it violates federal law in any way whatsoever.

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Donald Trump Elections Espionage Russia

DOJ Likely To Offer Assange A Deal For Proof Trump Conspired With Russia To Rig The 2016 Election: Report

Now that a British court has ruled Wikileaks founder Julian Assange can be extradited to the United States to face charges of espionage regarding the publication of State and Defense Department files provided by former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, we may finally get to know the full details about just how much former President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign conspired with Russia to rig the presidential election.

What Julian Assange has to say, according to former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence Frank Figliuzi, may well lead to yet another legal headache for the failed, one-term, twice-impeached president:

Trump better hope that the notorious hacker and leaker never sets foot on U.S. soil. Because If the Department of Justice plays its cards right, it can make the case precisely about those Russian government hacks and WikiLeaks’ dissemination of the content of those hacks by offering a deal to Assange in return for what he knows.

For one thing, Assange could prove helpful in closing the gap between mere collusion and a criminal conspiracy. If crimes can be proven, the Justice Department could then indict anyone who participated in them, including Donald Trump and members of his family and/or campaign who helped Russia tamper with the 2016 election:

Assange got the Democratic National Committee data dump from an entity long suspected to be a front for the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service. In fact, WikiLeaks actively sought them out. Why? The Mueller team indicted 12 GRU officers for that hack. But what did candidate Trump know about the WikiLeaks–Russia connection, and when did he know it?

Obstruction of justice also remains on the table when it comes to Trump and others who were part of his inner circle during the 2016 presidential race:

During his last news conference before the 2016 election, in response to a question about the DNC hack, Trump infamously said, “Russia, if you’re listening — I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens.” Trump says he was kidding, but the Russian intelligence service took him seriously. That same day, Russian intelligence targeted servers and domains related to Clinton and her campaign.

“If he (Trump) was lying to Mueller about his knowledge of any role WikiLeaks or Russia had in assisting his campaign, then he was lying to federal agents and committing a felony. Trump’s lies would also have obstructed the special counsel investigation.”

So while prosecutors in New York and Georgia continue to pursue investigations of Trump and the Trump Organization while the House Select Committee looks closer at Trump’s role in the Capitol insurrection, Assange’s return to the U.S. may wind up opening up another front on the Donald’s endless legal problems.

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Donald Trump Elections Espionage

Quid Pro Quo: Treasury Department Proves Russia Stole The 2016 Election For Trump

The Latin phrase quid pro quo literally means “what for what” or “something for something,” and it defines a favor or advantage granted or expected in return for something.

Ever since 2016, there have been numerous investigations trying to determine if there was indeed a quid pro quo between Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign and Russia, especially the highest levels of Russian intelligence and the Kremlin.

Proof has now been laid out by the Treasury Department that carefully explains how the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia did indeed work in concert with one another to steal the election for Trump, making him an illegitimate president.

CNN reports that the link between the Trump camp and Russia can be found in the person of a man named Konstantin Kilimnik, who has deep links to the intelligence services of Russia:

“The new revelations about Moscow’s election meddling came as part of the Biden administration’s slate of sanctions against Russian actors on Thursday over Russia’s election interference as well as the SolarWinds hack and Russia’s ongoing occupation of Crimea.

“After then-President Donald Trump repeatedly denied or downplayed Russia’s election interference in 2016, senior Trump administration officials, including Trump himself, refused to acknowledge or elevate Russian operations in 2020 and sought to characterize China as the greater threat.

“The sanctions also included the US government’s acknowledgment for the first time that a Russian-linked intelligence operative named Konstantin Kilimnik provided information on Trump campaign polling strategy and data to the Russian intelligence services in 2016.”

The passing of polling information to Russian intelligence was especially helpful to the Kremlin because it allowed so-called “troll farms” to target specific audiences on social media sites in an attempt to turn voters away from 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and toward Trump. That was a huge advantage for Trump because his campaign’s digital operation relied on misinformation and lies about Clinton to place doubt in the minds of American voters.

The Biden administration’s new sanctions are some of the most extensive and far-reaching ever placed on any foreign government, NBC News noted:

“Under the order, the Treasury Department has blacklisted six Russian technology companies that provide support to the cyber program run by Russia’s intelligence services.

“Treasury also sanctioned 32 entities and individuals for ‘carrying out Russian government-directed attempts to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and other acts of disinformation and interference,’ as well as eight individuals and entities associated with Russia’s actions in Crimea.”

For the first time since President Obama left office, the Oval Office is occupied by a man who understands that Russia and Vladimir Putin are a direct and ongoing threat to U.S. national security.

Additionally, Treasury’s report also clears the way for the Department of Justice to file criminal charges against former president Trump and members of his 2016 campaign. Here’s hoping Attorney General Merrick Garland will do exactly that.

 

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Donald Trump Espionage Foreign Policy Russia Trump-Russia

Trump Allowed Russia To Steal The ‘Crown Jewels’ Of U.S. Intelligence: Report

As if it wasn’t bad enough that failed, one-term former President Donald Trump repeatedly kowtowed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, it turns out that Russian hackers also managed to steal what is being called the “crown jewels” from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The Associated Press (AP) reports that hackers from Russia managed to steal emails from top officials in the DHS, which could have serious implications for U.S. national security:

“Suspected Russian hackers gained access to email accounts belonging to the Trump administration’s head of the Department of Homeland Security and members of the department’s cybersecurity staff whose jobs included hunting threats from foreign countries, The Associated Press has learned.

“The intelligence value of the hacking of then-acting Secretary Chad Wolf and his staff is not publicly known, but the symbolism is stark. Their accounts were accessed as part of what’s known as the SolarWinds intrusion, and it throws into question how the U.S. government can protect individuals, companies and institutions across the country if it can’t protect itself.”

The Biden administration is trying to decide exactly what sanctions to impose on Russia for the DHS hack, but based on the AP’s reporting, it seems fair to surmise the punishment will be severe.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) says targeting the DHS allowed Russia to have access to some of the most carefully guarded secrets in the world:

“The SolarWinds hack was a victory for our foreign adversaries, and a failure for DHS. We are talking about DHS’s crown jewels.”

Since Homeland Security is tasked with overseeing several important agencies — including the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Customs Service, the Russian hack means Russian intelligence may have obtained information that could directly impact the security of the United States.

Though it remains unclear exactly how harsh the White House will choose to be with sanctions, it has already become clear to Russia that relations between the two nations will continue to be strained. When Biden was recently asked if he thought Putin was a “killer,” he quickly replied that he did.

Trump, on the other hand, tried to suggest there were many killers in the United States, trying to excuse Putin’s murderous actions.

One thing is certain: Russia and Putin will no longer be coddled by the American head of state. And based on their actions, they damn well shouldn’t be.

 

Categories
Donald Trump Elections Espionage Russia

New Intel Report Suggests Giuliani Worked As Go-Between For Russia In 2020 Election

A bombshell report from the U.S. National Intelligence Council makes clear that Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to once again help Donald Trump win reelection in 2020, and it also seems to suggest that the go-between for Russia was none other than Rudy Giuliani.
The New York Times reports that while the intelligence report doesn’t specifically name any individual, the language used in the report clearly points in Guiliani’s direction:
“President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia authorized extensive efforts to interfere in the American presidential election to denigrate the candidacy of Joseph R. Biden Jr., including intelligence operations to influence people close to former President Donald J. Trump, according to a declassified intelligence report released Tuesday. “The report did not name those people but seemed to be a reference to the work of Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, who relentlessly pushed allegations of corruption about Mr. Biden and his family involving Ukraine. “’Russian state and proxy actors who all serve the Kremlin’s interests worked to affect U.S. public perceptions in a consistent manner,’ the report said.”
Think back several months to when it became clear that Joe Biden had all of the momentum and would be the Democratic nominee. Giuliani made multiple appearances on Fox News and other right-wing media outlets to suggest that he was on the verge of releasing information that would supposedly prove criminal actions on the part of Biden or his son, Hunter. Despite his promises that such information was forthcoming, the former New York City mayor never came up with anything other than rumors and accusations devoid of any substantiation.
At the center of the efforts to smear Biden was the nation of Ukraine, which Giuliani even visited, as The Hill noted back in December of 2019:
“Giuliani met with multiple Ukrainian officials as he continued his effort to counter House Democrats’ impeachment probe and paint an investigation into the Bidens as a matter critical to the relationship between the two countries.”
Additionally, the key figure in the effort to dig up negative information on the Biden family was also of Ukrainian origin:
“Moscow used Andriy Derkach, a pro-Russian member of Ukraine’s parliament, to undermine Mr. Biden, the report detailed. Mr. Derkach, according to the report, released leaked phone calls to undermine Mr. Biden and link him to Ukrainian corruption four times in 2020. The report said Mr. Putin ‘had purview’ over the actions of Mr. Derkach, who had ties to Russian intelligence. “Moscow’s operatives also pushed a false narrative that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for interfering in American politics, according to the report. Last year, American intelligence officials told Congress that Russia was using allies to pushing negative stories about Mr. Biden’s son Hunter and his work in Ukraine.”
Giuliani’s efforts on Trump and Russia’s behalf could place him in severe legal jeopardy if the Department of Justice chooses to file charges against him. Rudy didn’t receive a pardon before Trump left office, and that could come back to be a very big deal. No matter what happens, the intelligence report makes clear that both Russia and Giuliani were working fervently to get Trump reelected. Fortunately for the United States (and the world), they were unsucessful.