To date, no evidence exists of President Donald Trump’s notional collusion with Russia during the 2016 Campaign.

Earlier this week, Trump tweeted:

He was referring to the spurious dossier on his alleged activities in Russia, which emerged in January before his inauguration.

One year ago, Hillary wished herself a happy birthday:

(Be sure to read the comments to that tweet: both Hillary and the Bush family shut down investigations into paedophilia. You will also discover why Chelsea doesn’t go to church.)

This year, Julian Assange retweeted the birthday greeting.

2015: Dems’ Pied Piper plan

Hillary was certain she would win. This is because the Democratic National Committee (DNC) had a campaign plan involving what they called Pied Piper Candidates from the Republican Party.

The plan was revealed in the Podesta emails that WikiLeaks dumped last year. The email number is 1120 and it is dated April 23, 2015. The email came from someone on Hillary’s campaign team:

Below please find the agenda for tomorrow morning’s 8:00 AM ET Strategy Call.

There is a memo for the DNC discussion attached to this email for your review ahead of the call.

AGENDA:

1. Clinton Cash update

2. DNC plan (see attached memo)

3. Phones / Pool plan

Thank you!

The Daily Caller has a link to the memo (PDF).

This is what it says about Pied Piper Candidates:

2016: Paul Manafort, Trump campaign manager

When Trump was the last man standing during the Republican primary season early in May 2016, he still needed to ensure he got delegates at the party’s convention in July.

In order to get the delegates, he appointed a new campaign manager in June: Paul Manafort. Manafort is a political consultant — a ‘fixer’ — as well as a lawyer and lobbyist. He has had clients in the United States and internationally. He has worked on several GOP presidential campaigns, dating back to the 1970s with Gerald Ford.

A few weeks after Manafort completed his work in securing the necessary number of Republican delegates for Trump — an arduous task, by the way — news emerged about work he had done in Ukraine. Thinking it would cast a shadow on Trump’s campaign, Manafort resigned. Kellyanne Conway replaced him.

This year, Manafort has been one of the people investigated by Robert Mueller and his team for Russian collusion. From Wikipedia (emphases mine):

On January 19, 2017, the eve of the Trump’s presidential inauguration, it was reported that Manafort was under active investigation by multiple federal agencies including the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Director of National Intelligence and the financial crimes unit of the Treasury Department.^[85]Investigations were said to be based on intercepted Russian communications as well as financial transactions.^[86] It was later confirmed that Manafort was wiretapped by the FBI “before and after the [2016] election … including a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump.” The surveillance of Manafort began in 2014, before Donald Trump announced his candidacy for President of United States.^[87]

Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed on May 17, 2017 by the Justice Department to oversee the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and related matters, took over the existing criminal probe involving Manafort.^[84][9][88]On July 26, 2017, the day after Manafort’s United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing and the morning of his planned hearing before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, FBI agents at Mueller’s direction conducted a “no-knock” pre-dawn raid on Manafort’s Alexandria, Virginia home, using a search warrant to seize documents and other materials, in regards to the Russian meddling in the 2016 election.^[89][90]Manafort has reportedly been told by Mueller’s office prosecutors that they plan to indict him.^[91]

The pre-dawn FBI raid was particularly vicious. I heard on a talk show from someone close to Manafort that his wife was scared witless, and that’s putting it mildly.

Manafort has also had to appear before two Senate committees:

In May 2017, in response to a request of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), Manafort submitted over “300 pages of documents…included drafts of speeches, calendars and notes from his time on the campaign” to the Committee “related to its investigation of Russian election meddling”.^[92]On July 25 he met privately with the committee.^[93]

A congressional hearing on Russia issues, including the Trump campaign-Russian meeting, was scheduled by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary for July 26, 2017. Manafort was scheduled to appear together with Trump Jr., while Kushner was to testify in a separate closed session.^[94] After separate negotiations, both Manafort and Trump Jr. met with the committee on July 26 in closed session and agreed to turn over requested documents. They are expected to testify in public eventually.^[95]

Personally, I do not think Manafort has done anything wrong in connection with Trump or his campaign.

The Podesta brothers, Russia and Manafort

If you were one of my readers last year, you probably remember my mentions of John Podesta, Hillary’s campaign supremo. The Daily Caller reported in November 2016 that he wrote the memo which included the Pied Piper Candidate strategy.

John’s brother is Tony.

The two founded the Podesta Group in 1988. It went by different names until 2007, when the firm adopted its current name. The company does a lot of work in politics as well as the corporate arena, both in the US and elsewhere in the world.

Now it looks as if Paul Manafort worked for the Podesta Group a few years ago.

Wikipedia tells us:

As of October 2017, the Podesta Group is under investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for potentially violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in the course of its work for the ECMU. The Podesta Group was one of six lobbying firms that participated in a 2012–2014 public relations campaign organized by former Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016 chairman Paul Manafort on behalf of the ECMU and Ukraine’s pro-Russia Party of Regions; the campaign was designed to improve Ukraine’s standing among Western audiences as a possible prelude to Ukrainian membership in the European Union (EU). A Podesta Group spokesman denied any wrongdoing.^[14]

More about this below.

One wonders whether Manafort conveniently happened to work for Trump so that he would become the Pied Piper Candidate. Manafort could then resign, having done his bit for the Democrats.

It is too early to say either way.

———————————————–

On Tuesday, October 24, two big stories about Russian collusion broke. Both involve Democrats.

Tucker Carlson Tonight: Podesta Group’s ties to Russia

Fox’s Tucker Carlson Tonight team received a call from an anonymous source who said he had information about the Podesta Group, Manafort, the Clintons and Russia.

The man went to see Carlson to give him the story. Carlson’s staff fact checked names and dates. The first video talks about him and the second video features Bret Hume’s analysis to Carlson:

The Daily Caller has a summary of what Carlson discovered. Excerpts follow:

Carlson said in his opening segment that, according to a source Mueller is looking into the Podesta Group, a lobbying firm with close ties to Hillary Clinton, over spreading Russian influence in the United States during Barack Obama’s presidency.

Carlson said, “The central effort to extend Russian influence was focused on the executive branch, the Obama administration. The vehicle through which [Paul] Manafort worked for the Russians was a shell group called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine. The group was supposedly based in Belgium but had no offices there. It had only two employees, both based in Ukraine.

“Their telephone number in Brussels rang in Kiev. It was a sham, yet it had a presence in Washington. The European Centre for a Modern Ukraine was a major client of the Podesta Group. Why did the Russians choose the Podesta Group? Because both Podestas were close to the Clintons, and Hillary was then Secretary of State. She could get things done for the Podestas’ Russian clients. It was influence peddling, the most obvious kind,” he continued.

Carlson is the co-founder of The Daily Caller, by the way. Further to the story:

The Daily Caller co-founder added, “At one point, in either 2013 or early 2014, our source says a meeting was held that included both Tony Podesta and a representative of the Clinton Foundation. The explicit subject of that meeting: How to assist Uranium One, the Russian-owned company which controls 20 percent of U.S. uranium production capacity, and whose board members gave more than $100 million dollars to the Clinton Foundation. As our source put it, ‘Tony Podesta was basically part of the Clinton Foundation.’”

According to Carlson, Manafort was in on the scheme.

“According to our source, Manafort was clear that Russia wanted to cultivate ties to Hillary Clinton, in the belief she was likely to become president,” he said during the segment. “These links to Hillary were apparently valuable; our source believes that the Russian money Manafort funneled to the Podesta Group greatly exceeds the roughly $1 million they were officially paid. Some of these payments, he said, could be hidden kickbacks that would be hard to trace. He described the Podesta Group’s books as a ‘treasure trove’ and highly secret. He told us the Podesta Group had no board, and all financial decisions were personally made by Tony Podesta. The Group’s employees, he said, included a person whose only official job was managing Tony Podesta’s art collection. It would be easy for such an organization to conceal financial transactions.”

Tucker was deeply unhappy that the media had not reported on this.

I think they all knew, but nearly everyone in media is a Hillary supporter, anyway. It’s much better from their perspective to rubbish Trump every day with false accusations and fake news.

Hume said that this is much bigger than Watergate and has far greater implications.

Carlson said he would continue reporting on it as he receives further information.

Washington Post: DNC paid for dossier

Returning to the aforementioned spurious dossier released in January, the Washington Post published an article, ‘Clinton campaign, DNC paid for research that led to Russia dossier’.

An excerpt follows:

The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations about President Trump’s connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin, people familiar with the matter said.

Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research.

After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained the company in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Before that agreement, Fusion GPS’s research into Trump was funded by an unknown Republican client during the GOP primary.

We don’t yet know who the Republican was.

The story went viral among Trump supporters:

Bret Baier of Fox News covered it:

This was Trump’s reaction:

The former Republican governor of Arkansas — and father of Trump’s press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders — tweeted:

This brings us back to Uranium One, about which I wrote in the final weeks of the campaign. That post also includes information on Podesta and Clinton dealings with Russia.

Yes, indeed.

This tweet has a lengthy scenario of what has occurred and what might unfold. Click on the tweet to see all 61 points, many of which follow:

2. Two main narratives seem to be emerging, both disastrous for Obama or Clinton.

3. Narrative #1 – illegal spying on US citizens, FISA & the Steele Dossier.

4. Narrative #2 – giving Putin access to the US uranium market for cash, via Uranium One.

5. The two narratives may be linked by recent revelations concerning U1, but let’s consider them apart for the moment.

6. Make no mistake, what’s unfolding on both counts is unprecedented for America. And I suspect we still don’t know the half of it.

14. ‘The Steele Dossier’ now appears to be a DNC/Clinton funded operation that they also ‘loaned’ to Obama & his people. A conspiracy.

15. It was a failure for the Clinton Gang. The aim was using it to use it BEFORE the election, but no one was willing to publish it.

16. We now seem to have the DNC, Bush, Clinton campaign & the Clinton Foundation paying for it. Possibly even Comey’s FBI. And others – TBD.

17. When it failed, I think it was EITHER made available to Obama or CLinton & Obama decided to use it – for illegal spying.

18. It formed the basis of the 2nd FISA request on October 15, 2016. That led to Trump’s wiretapping allegations.

19. Obama and/or Clinton then decided to use the dossier to try and destroy Trump AFTER he was elected, by persuading BuzzFeed to publish.

20. Jan 11 was the date, clearly targeted at preventing the inauguration. It was an act of desperation – and failed.

21. I’m not sure that many people realize just how serious this is – and may become.

22. Apart from the multiple felonies involved, check US Code 2384 & 2385, for starters.

23. US Code 2384 – seditious conspiracy. 2385 – advocating overthrow of government.

24. No one should be in doubt. Trump IS the type to consider them both. He thinks BIG and means to drain the swamp.

Hillary was Secretary of State when Uranium One got past the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States — CFIUS in October 2010. She was also in charge of the Russian ‘reset’ since March 2009. (27)

Therefore, it is implausible that she was unaware of the impact of Uranium One, what Putin’s objectives were, particularly with a company called Tenam (28), which the FBI were watching as the firm’s operations expanded (29).

30. We know that Robert Mueller was ordered by HRC to deliver 10 grams of HEU to Russia in August 2009.

31. The official line is that the HEU was seized in Georgia (East Europe) in 2006 in a joint Georgia/CIA sting of a uranium smuggling gang.

32. I’ve always thought the story to be total BS. It’s as implausible as the Steele Dossier. You know what I think?

33. It was AMERICAN HEU. But anyway, I digress. American or not, it shows that Clinton KNEW that uranium was a national security asset.

34. Therefore, her failure at any time to oppose the deal at CFIUS – knowing what she knew – is more than suspicious. It’s CRIMINAL.

35. Not only that, it is extremely difficult to believe that she was unaware of the MILLIONS flowing into the CF as all this was going on.

36. She ALSO failed to disclose these ‘donations’, in a clear breach of an agreement she made with POTUS Obama in 2008.

44. As more is revealed, the truly dangerous waters that the Clintons have led America into become clearer.

45. Because of them, Putin may well be selling US uranium (illegally) to Iran and NK. Or using it to bolster his own nuke arsenal.

46. THAT’S how serious this could be. Even that fact that the deal gave him leverage within the US energy market is astonishing.

47. Again, apart from.the many crimes committed here, Trump needs to at least consider US Code 2381 & 2382.

48. 2381 – Treason. 2382 – Misprision of Treason (concealment).

It is possible that Obama wanted to cover up Putin’s partial control over the uranium supply chain (51), causing him to make some strange decisions with regard to Russia (52). Then, along came the persistent accusation that Trump colluded with Russia in 2016.

56. The Russians DID interfere, as they always have. BUT Obama knew full well that the Trump-Russia smear was garbage.

60. ‘I’ll have more flexibility after the election’ [2012]

61. You only say this if you’ve agreed to do something but can’t deliver. And a POTUS saying this, to a Putin lackey? Totally BIZARRE.

In 2016, Hillary was furious with the DNC’s Donna Brazile after the Clinton-Trump Commander-in-Chief Forum hosted by NBC’s Matt Lauer. What she said is too foul to post, but this is part of it:

If [Trump] wins, we all hang from nooses!

More to come as news emerges. As Trump would say, ‘This is YUGE!’

In the meantime, please pray earnestly for President Trump’s safety. Also on October 24, a man embedded himself in the press pool at the Capitol building to throw Russian flags at the president, yelling, ‘Trump is treason!’ He was in close proximity to him. Scary. Where were the Secret Service agents?