In July, Buma sent the Senate Judiciary Committee a 22-page statement full of eye-popping allegations, and the document leaked and was first reported last month by Insider (after a conservative blogger had posted it online). According to Buma’s account, Giuliani was used as an asset by a Ukrainian oligarch tied to Russian intelligence and other Russian operatives for a disinformation operation that aimed to discredit Joe Biden and boost Trump in the 2020 presidential race. Moreover, Buma says he was the target of retaliation within the bureau for digging into this.
Buma’s statement highlights Giuliani’s relationship with Pavel Fuks, a wealthy Ukrainian developer, who in 2017 hired Giuliani and paid him $300,000. Fuks once told the New York Times that he had retained Giuliani to lobby in the United States for the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, where Fuks then lived. Giuliani has denied that he was paid to lobby for Kharkiv, insisting he only provided advice regarding security to the city. And Fuks has changed his tune. Through a spokesperson, he told Mother Jones that Giuliani’s work was limited to advising the city.
In his statement, Buma says that the FBI assessed Fuks to be a “co-opted asset” of Russian intelligence services, meaning a person who Russian intelligence used to advance its goals. Buma’s complaint does not name a specific Russian intelligence agency, but a person who spoke to agents involved in this investigation says that the FBI believes Fuks worked for the FSB, the successor to KGB. All this raises the possibility that Giuliani, a former Republican presidential candidate who became a close adviser to Trump, received a large payment directly from a Russian asset.
Buma alleges that Fuks has carried out various tasks for Russian spies, including laundering money for them. Fuks also reportedly paid locals to spray-paint swastikas around Kharkiv in the weeks before Russia’s invasion. Buma says Fuks did so to bolster Vladmir Putin’s claim that the invasion aimed to achieve the “de-Nazification of Ukraine.”
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I would be much more surprised if Trump and Co. weren't all Russian assets
Pretty wild how all these Republicans hated Russia more than anything else up until the last few years, and now they suddenly love Russia
Remember when the Democratic Party's emails were hacked and it was all over the news? Remember when the same thing happened to the Republic Party emails? Except that there was much less press attention...
I wonder why so many Republicans are publicly pro Russia now.
Member when don Jr just said we get all the money we need from Russia?
I love the name! I've seen a lot of Good Place references here on Lemmy. Personally, Chidi is my favorite.
What up, forknut!
Ahh yes. The notoriously right-wing mass media.
Faux News? That checks out
They hated specifically the Soviet Union, and did so because it was communist. Now that it's gone and Russia is a kleptocratic oligarchy instead, they love it. Republicans admire Russia because it is everything they want the US to be.
Well then I guess they want their government to force them to die in battle. I’m okay with that.
If anything, they want their government to force us to die in battle for them.
While this is true, dictators have historically faced some pretty grisly ends so at least there's that. The older they get, the more time they spend in utter fear. People who are hungry for power never think about the consequences of their actions and it's not like they could possibly enjoy their lives once their house of cards begins to tighten around them, they're just compelled to start and then once they start they can't stop, because stopping means brutal death.
But I doubt Trump gets paid by Putler. It is probalbly more like the Russians have some nice and juicy bits on Trump somewhere in a safe place. Maybe a tape or two, or some documents that Trump really does not want the world to know about.
I'll just leave this here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house-majority-leader-to-colleagues-in-2016-i-think-putin-pays-trump/2017/05/17/515f6f8a-3aff-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html
Man... the way Paul Ryan was walking in that... washington is so shady
Like his actual height and weight?
We all know he fucked kids in a Russian hotel and got recorded, right? That’s the only thing he can’t live down.
My, one would really need to be terminally dense to do that. But indeed, we are speaking of Trump here, and it would be 100% down his alley.
Everyone knows all Russian hotels come with hidden cameras. Well, everyone but him.
No0body ever accused him of being overly smart.
Well, when it comes to republicans, the thing they hate most is usually who they are: Russians, gays, child molesters. You get the point.
What they hate most is people paying attention to their crimes so they'll just spun up the next drama... Hunter Biden! Hillary! Some embassy somewhere! Pizza gate! Look there, look there! Do t look at what I'm doing, don't look at me passing bills that will make me slightly richer and fuck you over good!
“Slightly” richer? ;)
Also medical frauds, tax cheats, benefits cheats, drug abusers, ...
Yes, when the RNC and DNC were hacked by the Russians. Russia has tons of dirt on the GOP because the dumb fuckers have no problem putting all their crimes in email. Russia owns them.
There was also that story a few years back how a bunch of Republicans were in Moscow for the 4th of July, pretty normal American behaviour, right?
Yet when I mention this magically no one remembers because it wasn’t run on the news for days like obama’s tan suit.
And the base: reprogrammable meatbags. Even the ones that lived through the Cold War/Red Scare nonsense now embrace the likes of Putin trying to reify the USSR.
It's amusing how donnie's offspring blurted out the truth about Russia and donnie's family ages ago, Paul Ryan and McCarthy are caught on tape making a "joke" about Russia, and people are still calling their ties to Russia a "hoax".
https://www.politicususa.com/2017/05/17/top-house-gop-ryan-mccarthy-caught-tape-discussing-possibility-putin-paying-trump.html
“He swore them to secrecy, like you would do if you’re joking”
I mean, the Russian thing is so obviously a hoax, as the "centrists", the suspect "leftists" and of course the radicalized right wing and the bothsiderist media keep on saying to anyone that will listen...