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President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin made a series of dubious statements at a press conference in Helsinki on July 16.
Trump was asked if he thought Russia had interfered with Russia. Presidential election in 2016, or he believed the denials of Putin. Remarkably, Trump said that he had "confidence in both parties."
This prompted a statement by Dan Coats, the president's national intelligence director. "We have been clear in our assessments of Russian interference in the 2016 elections and their ongoing and pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy," said Coats.
Trump's statement was not the only Putin. We gathered several more of the two presidents
Trump: "My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and others, they said that they thought that it would be a good thing. was Russia.I have President Putin, he just said it was not Russia.I will say this: I do not see why that would be. "
" J & # 39; I have confidence in both parties … I have great confidence in my intelligence, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. "
Putin: "President Trump mentioned the issue of I called Russia's interference with the US elections, and I repeated things that I said many times, including during our personal contacts, that the Russian State has never interfered and is not going to interfere in US domestic affairs. 19659 008] There is overwhelming evidence that Russia has orchestrated a campaign of cyber espionage and propaganda to interfere in the US presidential elections of 2016. The US intelligence community, the Justice Ministry and intelligence committees of the United States House and Senate have reached this conclusion.
Three days before the Trump and Putin summit, a grand jury convened by Special Adviser Robert S. Mueller III indicted 12 Russian intelligence agents working the Mueller indictment described in detail how the GRU officers used phishing techniques in 2016 to hack the computer networks of the Hillary Clinton campaign, the National Democratic Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Russian intelligence officers allegedly stole documents from these democratic committees and liberated them strategically on the eve of the election through a website they called "DCLeaks" by a hacker character fictitious that they nicknamed Guccifer 2.0. an unnamed organization in the indictment, but largely Wikileaks.
In one case, Russian officers "hacked the website of an election council … and stole information about about 500,000 voters, including names, addresses, social security numbers, dates of birth and driver's license numbers, "states the indictment.
Puti L's goal was to help Trump win, according to the assessment of the US intelligence community of January 2017.
"Putin and the Russian government aspired to help the chances of President-elect Trump when it was possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and opposing him publicly unfavorably", said L & # 39; The three agencies agree with this judgment. The CIA and the FBI have great confidence in this judgment; The Senate Intelligence Committee has estimated that the January 2017 assessment by US intelligence agencies "is based on public comments from the Russian leadership, Russian media reports, public examples where Russian interests would have aligned the Candidate policy Statements, and a set of intelligence reports to support the assessment that Putin and the Russian government have developed a clear preference for Trump. "
The Senate Intelligence Committee said that it" approves intelligence and open-source assessments that this campaign of influence By President Putin. "
Asked if he had preferred Trump over Clinton in 2016, Putin said in Helsinki:" Yes, I did it. Yes I did it. Because he talked about bringing American-Russian relations back to normal. "
Shortly after Putin asserted" the Russian state has never interfered and will not interfere in US domestic affairs, "announced the Ministry of Justice. in the United States for conspiring "to infiltrate organizations active in American politics for the purpose of advancing the interests of the Russian Federation without prior notice to the Attorney General."
These charges do not flow from the L & # 39; Mueller's investigation, but the accused, Maria Butina, is accused of working secretly as an agent of the Russian government while she was trying to influence American politics. </ p> <p> The lesson here is that it there is a mountain of evidence contradicting Putin's claims that there is no interference in American politics – new evidence appeared on the same day as this press conference.
US ag intelligence agencies and lawmakers of both sides say that they believe that Russia is considering meddling in this year's mid-term elections. "Russia, like its Soviet predecessor, has conducted covert campaigns of influence centered on the US presidential elections that have used agents and intelligence agents to denigrate candidates perceived as hostile to the Kremlin." 2017.
"The role of the intelligence community is to provide the best information and factual assessments for the president and policy makers," Coats said in a statement on July 16 after Trump's statements in Helsinki. "Our assessments of Russian interference in the 2016 elections and their ongoing and pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy are clear, and we will continue to provide objective and unabashed intelligence in support of our national security. "
Trump: "There was no collusion at all, everyone knows it, and the people are highlighted." As far as I know, there was virtually nothing to do with the campaign And they are going to have to try very hard to find someone who has linked up with the campaign. "
Putin: " Could you name a single fact that would certainly prove collusion? "C & # 39; is a complete nonsense, just as the president recently mentioned. "
The Mueller investigation is ongoing. It is too early to say whether he found or will find evidence of cooperation between Russia and Trump's presidential campaign.
Journalists reconstructed a series of contacts between Russian individuals and Donald Trump's electoral advisers. On June 3, 2016, an advertising reporter named Rob Goldstone emailed Donald Trump Jr. with very high level information that could incriminate Hillary. Goldstone has described it as part of the support of Russia and his government to Mr Trump. Trump Jr replied, "If that's what you say, I especially like it later in the summer." Goldstone arranged a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya.
On June 9, 2016, the meeting at Trump Tower with Veselnitskaya Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Trump, and Paul Manafort, Trump's president at the time, among others, Veselnitskaya said: "she went to the New York meeting to show Trump officials that major Democratic donors had avoided US taxes and to lobby against the Magnitsky law that punishes Russian officials for the murder of a Russian tax accountant accusing the Kremlin of Corruption, "according to Bloomberg News.
" Veselnitskaya also said that Trump Jr. asked for financial documents showing that the money that would have escaped US taxes had gone to the Clinton campaign ", reported Bloomberg. "Ell There was none and described the 20-minute meeting as a failure. "
A memo that she allegedly brought to the Trump Tower meeting was a close correspondence with a document that Russian prosecutors had written two months earlier and shared with US Congressman. This raises the possibility that Veselnitskaya was acting as the Russian government agent at the Trump Tower meeting.
"The memo Natalia Veselnitskaya provided to the Trump campaign last year [2016] focused on the banker turned human rights activist Bill Browder, whose reputation has become inextricably linked to the global campaign for the human rights that he launched in 2009 after the death of tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian prison, "reported Business Insider. "Magnitsky was thrown into jail and beaten to death after discovering a $ 230 million tax evasion scheme that involved senior Kremlin officials," said Browder.The United States passed the Magnitsky Law in 2012 which sanctioned Russian senior officials accused of human rights violations and corruption. "
It should be noted that Putin, at the Helsinki conference with Trump, referred to the same situation. 19659032]" We can talk about Mr. Browder in this particular case, "Putin said." Browder's business associates earned more than $ 1.5 billion in Russia. They have never paid taxes, neither in Russia nor in the United States, and yet the money has escaped the country. They were transferred to the United States. They sent a huge sum of money, $ 400 million, as a contribution to the Hillary Clinton campaign. Well, that's the personal case. It could have been legal, the contribution itself, but the way the money was won was illegal. (There is no indication that Browder or his associates contributed $ 400 million to the Clinton campaign.)
In 2017, Browder testified before the Judiciary Judiciary Committee that, from 1996 to 2005, his firm Hermitage Capital "was one of the largest investment advisers in Russia", with "more than 4 billion dollars invested in Russian equities." His investment company "named and shameful" oligarchs who stole from shareholders an effort, said Browder, that Putin initially supported. That changed in 2003, Browder was expelled from Russia just over two years later.
After the fall with Putin, Browder hired Magnitsky, a Russian tax accountant, to investigate an alleged robbery of his Russian companies. Magnitsky was arrested and died in prison in 2009 under suspicious circumstances. Browder's plea in the Magnitsky case led Congress to enact Magnitsky's 2012 law, which outlaws Russian officials believed to be involved in the death of the accountant to enter the United States or from the United States. use his banking system. In response, Russia has prevented American parents from adopting Russian children.
Since then, the Kremlin has gone to great lengths to discredit Browder. In 2013, a Russian court sentenced him in absentia to nine years in prison for failing to pay $ 500 million in taxes. He was tried again in absentia in 2017.
Putin said that the United States should help Russia investigate Browder, but he gave up his American citizenship and resides in London
Russians and advisers Trump campaign. Several Trump advisers met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign, including Michael Flynn, who later resigned as Trump's national security advisor for failing to disclose these contacts to the vice-president. President Pence. On October 5, 2017, Donald Trump Campaign Counsel George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about his contacts with people with ties to the Russian government during the election campaign
. Information on the race to a Russian billionaire closely aligned with the Kremlin, "Oleg Deripaska."
The Republican majority of the House Intelligence Committee released a report that found "no evidence" of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, but the report says that investigations "conducted by other committees, the special council, the media or interest groups will continue and may find facts that are not easily accessible to the committee or outside our investigation. "Democrats do not agree with the findings of the majority report, noting that there were many documented contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian individuals during the campaign
Putin: "The Concord company that was brought up is charged – it was accused of interference. But this society does not constitute the Russian state. This does not represent the Russian state. Before Mueller's grand jury indicted 12 Russian intelligence agents working directly for Putin's government, he indicted several Russian individuals working for a "troll farm" called Internet Research. Two Russian companies – Concord Catering and Concord Management and Consulting – have provided the Internet search agency with millions of dollars to buy digital ads and to inject pro-Trump and anti-Clinton messages into the ecosystem American in 2016, Mueller
Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin, one of the richest men in Russia, was among the indicted. Prigozhin "controlled" the two Concord companies that financed the troll farm and directed his work, Mueller said. "He is a caterer who has been dubbed" the leader of Putin "because of his close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin," The Post reports. "The New York Times reports that Prighozin has received Russian government contracts worth $ 3.1 billion." Let's cite the research of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, a group of the Russian opposition Aleksei Navalny
The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Prigozhin and Concord on the occupation of Crimea by Russia and military actions in Ukraine in 2016 "Prigozhin has important business relations with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, and a company with significant links with him holds a contract to build an army. base near the border of the Russian Federation with Ukraine, "said the Treasury Department in 2016 when he announced sanctions related to Ukraine Prighozin." Russia has built additional military bases near the Ukrainian border and used these bases as relays to deploy soldiers to Ukraine. "
In Helsinki, Putin declared that Concord did not" represent "or" constitute "the Russian state. The indictment leaves open the possibility that Russian government officials have contributed to the efforts of the Internet Research Agency; "The Moscow campaign of influence followed a Russian messaging strategy that Combines secret intelligence operations – like e-business – with the overt efforts of Russian government agencies, according to the January 2017 assessment by the US intelligence community.
Trump: "Why was the FBI forced to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee?" I wondered this, I had been asking for months and months, and I tweeted it and broadcast on social media Where is the server? … What happened to the servers of the Pakistani gentleman who worked on the DNC? … I have confidence in both parties [Putin and the U.S. intelligence community] I really think it will probably last a while, but I do not think it can go on without knowing what happened to the server. "
Putin: " I would like to add something to this After all, I was an intelligence officer myself, and I know how the records are made. "
There is disagreement as to whether the FBI has requested access to the servers The former FBI Director, James B. Comey, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the FBI had made "several requests "At different levels" to access the DNC servers, but the DNC said the FBI had never asked for access. The DNC finally allowed Crowdstrike, a private company, to review its database and share its findings with the FBI, which Comey said "was a suitable substitute."
IT Security Expert Thomas Rid
"What they must see, is how traffic is moving," said Rid, a professor at the School of Computer Science. Johns Hopkins International Advanced Studies. If the investigators were monitoring a house, Rid says, they would like to know who goes in and out. The same goes for the investigation of server traffic, he added. The physical object, whether it's a house or a server, is not as useful as knowing who will come in and out, Rid said.
The "Pakistani gentleman" Trump quoted is Imran Awan, a naturalized American citizen and former computer scientist. on Capitol Hill. Awan and four other people were banned from the House network after being accused of violating security protocols in February 2017. This investigation fueled several conspiracy theories about right-wing media. Trump has already tried to link the hacking of the DNC server to Awan (not Russia).
On July 3, Awan pleaded guilty to misrepresenting a bank loan application. The plea agreement had nothing to do with his work at Capitol Hill, but federal prosecutors included an unusual passage that debunked several conspiracy theories about Awan's work. Prosecutors said they found no evidence that Awan "engaged in unauthorized or unlawful behavior involving computer systems in the House."
The US Attorney's Office that shot down these theories is headed by Jessie K. Liu, a Trump Elect. "What happened to Hillary Clinton's emails? Thirty-three thousand emails have gone, just gone. I think that in Russia they would not have gone away as easily. 39, it is shameful that we can not receive the 33,000 emails from Hillary Clinton. "
There is no evidence Clinton has removed these 33,000 emails in anticipation of a subpoena , and Comey said that the FBI's investigation had found no evidence.Email was "intentionally suppressed in an effort to conceal it." Clinton staff had requested that these emails be removed several months later. before being cited, according to the FBI's statement of July 2016.
The FBI concluded that Clinton was "extremely careless" in her handling of classified information, but that she had not the intention to violate the laws. "Looking back at our investigations into the Mau If we are to manipulate or delete classified information, we can not find a case that would support criminal charges on these facts, "said Comey in July 2016.
Putin: " I heard these rumors that we would have collected compromising documents about Mr. Trump during his visit to Moscow. Well, distinguished colleague, let me tell you this: when President Trump was in Moscow at the time, I did not even know that he was in Moscow. I treat President Trump with the greatest respect, but at the time, when he was an individual, a businessman, no one informed me that he was in Moscow. "
Trump: " That should have come out a long time ago. "19659062] This is most likely a reference to the" Steele File ", which included several scandalous and unsubstantiated allegations linking Trump to bribes and prostitutes in Russia.Putine was asked in Helsinki where he had compromising documents involving Trump. "Putin said that he" did not even know "that Trump was in Moscow in 2013.
" However, Russian government officials – including Putin's main spokesman – knew that Trump was in Moscow in November 2013 to host the Miss Universe contest and were informed of the real estate developer's eagerness to meet with Putin while he was there, according to people familiar with the conversations that told them to the congressional investigators, "reported Rosalind S. Helderman of the Washington Post
." Russia is known to collect information about foreign government officials Anger and business leaders through surveillance in hotels and other places, "according to The Post. Trump asked for a meeting with Putin in 2013, to be told that the Russian president was too busy to receive the Dutch king, reported Helderman
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