APP - Deripaska interview wih FBI strongly doubted Russian collusion

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anatta

100% recycled karma
he oligarch who once controlled Russia’s largest aluminum empire has been an international man of intrigue in the now-completed and disproven Trump collusion investigation.

Deripaska was a disaffected former business client of Donald Trump’s fallen campaign chairman Paul Manafort. He also was a legal research client of Trump-hating, Clinton-aiding British spy Christopher Steele. In his spare time, he was an occasional friendly cooperator with the FBI and its fired deputy director, Andrew McCabe.

And, at the height of the Russia collusion hysteria, Deripaska was sanctioned by the Trump administration to financially punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for his meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

With the Russia case, in which he had so many connections, now completed, Deripaska is breaking his silence. And what he has to say could impact Mueller’s July 17 testimony before Congress.

In a wide-ranging interview with me, Deripaska confirmed a story told to me more than a year ago by law enforcement sources: He was indeed interviewed by FBI agents in September 2016 during the early Russia probe, and he told them he strongly doubted the bureau’s theory that the Trump campaign, through Manafort, was colluding with Moscow to hijack the 2016 election.

“I told them straightforward, ‘Look, I am not a friend with him [Manafort]. Apparently not, because I started a court case [against him] six or nine months before … . But since I’m Russian I would be very surprised that anyone from Russia would try to approach him for any reason, and wouldn’t come and ask me my opinion,' ” he said, recounting exactly what he says he told the FBI agents that day.

“I told them straightforward, I just don’t believe that he would represent any Russian interest. And knowing what he’s doing on Ukraine for the last, what, seven or eight years.”

OK, so why should you care if a Russian denied Trump campaign collusion with Russia during the election?

First, Deripaska wasn’t just any Russian. He was closely aligned with Putin and had been helpful to the FBI as far back as 2009. So he had earned some trust with the agents.

Most importantly, Deripaska’s interview with the FBI reportedly was never provided by Team Mueller to Manafort’s lawyers, even though it was potential proof of innocence, according to Manafort defense lawyer Kevin Downing. Manafort, initially investigated for collusion, was convicted on tax and lobbying violations unrelated to the Russia case.

That omission opens a possible door for appeal for what is known as a Brady violation, for hiding exculpatory information from a defendant.

“Recent revelations by The Hill prove that the Office of Special Counsel’s (OSC) claim that they had a legitimate basis to include Paul Manafort in an investigation of potential collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government is false,” Downing told me. “The failure to disclose this information to Manafort, the courts, or the public reaffirms that the OSC did not have a legitimate basis to investigate Manafort, and may prove that the OSC had no legitimate basis to investigate potential collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government.”
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-h...hs-story-could-spell-trouble-for-team-mueller
 
Deripaska’s second relevance to Mueller’s congressional hearings has to do with a series of events that first gained him trust inside the FBI.

Deripaska confirmed a story I reported last year from FBI sources that he spent more than $20 million of his own money between 2009 and 2011 on a private rescue operation to free Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent captured in Iran in 2007 while on a CIA mission.

Deripaska confirmed he paid for the operation at the request of the FBI, which was then under Mueller’s direction. And he added that McCabe, then a rising FBI supervisor who was a former colleague of Levinson and later became a key figure in the Russia collusion probe, was one of those who asked him to help.

“I was approached, you know, by someone that he is under a lot of scrutiny now — McCabe,” Deripaska said. “He also said that it was important enough for all of them [FBI officials]. And I kind of trusted them.”

Deripaska said his privately funded rescue team came very close to a deal with the Iranian captors to secure Levinson’s release but he was told by his FBI handlers that the deal ran into difficulties at Hillary Clinton’s State Department and was scuttled. “I heard that some Russian ‘hand,’ or whatever you call people who are expert on the Russians at the State Department, [said], ‘We just don’t want to owe anything to this guy,’ ” Deripaska told me, adding that he never expected any U.S. favors for his personal efforts to free Levinson.

Asked if he thought the former FBI agent is alive, some dozen years later, Deripaska answered: “I don’t think so.” He pointed out that if Levinson had been alive, he likely would have come home in 2016, after the Obama administration struck a nuclear deal with Iran.

Deripaska said he is continuing to investigate what really happened at State with Levinson, as he tries to fight the sanctions levied against him in 2018. His company, Rusal, has been removed from the sanctions list.

Deripaska’s tale has the potential to raise questions about a conflict of interest, since Mueller’s FBI first received a gift in the form of the privately funded rescue mission before Mueller, as special prosecutor, investigated Deripaska’s ties to key figures in the Russia case.

And Deripaska’s complicated tale goes on: His legal team in 2012 hired Steele, the former British MI6 agent, to do some research for a lawsuit involving a business rival that Deripaska was fighting in London: “It was a research project to support what was the case against me in London. But my understanding is that the lawyers trusted him for some reason, and he was for quite a time on retainer.”

Deripaska was unaware, though, that Steele also was working for the FBI on, among other things, a special program to recruit Russian oligarchs to provide intelligence on Putin and Russian organized crime.

He told me that Steele invited him to a September 2015 meeting with some Justice Department officials, under the guise that they might be able to help with the Russian’s long-running battle with State to get visas to visit the U.S. He said the offer to help with his visa problem was a “pretext” to recruit him.

“They actually never talk, you know, about the [visa] problem. They start talking about anything else. They ask, ‘Do you have anything? Give me names. Cases, whatever,’ ” Deripaska recalled.

He said he later was shocked to learn that Steele eventually went to work for the Clinton campaign through Fusion GPS, and the FBI, and spread allegations of the now-disproven Russia-Trump collusion.

Deripaska’s willingness to do an American interview at this moment undoubtedly has a motive. It’s likely rooted in an American charm offensive, as he sues not only to reverse the sanctions that Trump imposed on him but to challenge the State Department’s 15-year effort to keep him from getting normal visas.

He recently won a lawsuit and forced State to produce the so-called evidence it used to justify denying him a visa for years and imposing the sanctions. It was a thinly sourced file, he said, mostly of old newspaper articles with no real secret intelligence.

So I asked him about the most common allegation levied by his detractors at State — that, earlier in his life while consolidating power in the aluminum industry, he had ties to Russian mobsters and may have killed or encouraged killing critics.

He quickly responded, noting that the file released by the courts offered no such direct proof: “There is no evidence. What is there to dispute? Do you believe that I could kill someone 25 years ago and there will be no victims, no corpses, no names?”

Throughout the interview, it was clear Deripaska chose his words in English carefully. But there was one word he offered only twice — once in response to the Steele dossier’s allegations of Trump-Russia collusion, and the other time to respond to the allegations used to sanction him. “Balderdash,” he insisted.
 
midcan5 said:
Hate to complain but your point is?
Click to expand...
article makes the point of Mueler witholding exculpatory evidene,but more so it's another indication the "Russian hoax" was always just that

Deripaska confirmed a story told to me more than a year ago by law enforcement sources: He was indeed interviewed by FBI agents in September 2016 during the early Russia probe, and he told them he strongly doubted the bureau’s theory that the Trump campaign, through Manafort, was colluding with Moscow to hijack the 2016 election.

“I told them straightforward, ‘Look, I am not a friend with him [Manafort]. Apparently not, because I started a court case [against him] six or nine months before … . But since I’m Russian I would be very surprised that anyone from Russia would try to approach him for any reason, and wouldn’t come and ask me my opinion,' ” he said, recounting exactly what he says he told the FBI agents that day.

“I told them straightforward, I just don’t believe that he would represent any Russian interest. And knowing what he’s doing on Ukraine for the last, what, seven or eight years.”

OK, so why should you care if a Russian denied Trump campaign collusion with Russia during the election?

First, Deripaska wasn’t just any Russian. He was closely aligned with Putin and had been helpful to the FBI as far back as 2009. So he had earned some trust with the agents.

Most importantly, Deripaska’s interview with the FBI reportedly was never provided by Team Mueller to Manafort’s lawyers, even though it was potential proof of innocence, according to Manafort defense lawyer Kevin Downing. Manafort, initially investigated for collusion, was convicted on tax and lobbying violations unrelated to the Russia case.
Click to expand...
 
Sorry but given all the information concerning Russian interference that simply does not pass muster. If you want to understand Russia today read the book below, it covers the topic well.

A fascinating read on Russia is 'The Man without a Face, The unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin' by Masha Gessen, a journalist who lived in Russia during the transition from Soviet regime to whatever they call themselves now.

“No one is easier to manipulate than a man who exaggerates his own influence.” Masha Gessen, The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin

“The Soviet regime robbed people not only of their ability to live freely but also of the ability to understand fully what had been taken from them, and how.” Masha Gessen, The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
 
midcan5 said:
Sorry but given all the information concerning Russian interference that simply does not pass muster. If you want to understand Russia today read the book below, it covers the topic well.

A fascinating read on Russia is 'The Man without a Face, The unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin' by Masha Gessen, a journalist who lived in Russia during the transition from Soviet regime to whatever they call themselves now.

“No one is easier to manipulate than a man who exaggerates his own influence.” Masha Gessen, The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin

“The Soviet regime robbed people not only of their ability to live freely but also of the ability to understand fully what had been taken from them, and how.” Masha Gessen, The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
Click to expand...
old book. Putin is way past expansionism, and ran last time on improving his economy.
In fact NATO expansionism is one very real reason we meddled in the Ukraine Euromaidan-
turning a protest into a police riot- then into a revolution fomented on the ground by John McCain and Vicky Nuland.

The result was another threat by Poroshenko to not renew the lease for the Russian ( Black sea) fleet at Sevastopol..
which forced Putin's hand for the annexation of Crimea

Of course this one article isn't sufficient to show the Russia hoax -you can also see the Strzok/Page texts and the way the Steele dossier was shopped around by Brennan and the FBI/Doj FISA reliance when they knew it was "balderdash" as the article calls it
 
Read the book. Masha Gessen, The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin' and then judge.

As for Putin it doesn't look like much changed.

'Vladimir Putin’s Russia is rehabilitating Stalin. We must not let it happen' Irina Sherbakova
An archive of artefacts from Stalin’s brutal reign should stand as evidence against Putin’s vision of a ‘heroic’ Soviet past'

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...utin-russia-rehabilitating-stalin-soviet-past


'A British woman died after being poisoned with a nerve agent. The UK blames Russia.'

https://www.vox.com/world/2018/7/5/17536286/russia-british-couple-poison-britain-novichok


'Alexander Litvinenko and the most radioactive towel in history'

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...nko-and-the-most-radioactive-towel-in-history
 
Typical western garbage. The same crowd that cries Russian collusion and meddling but never examines the Mueller report for the lies of omission about Konstantin V. Kilimnik..

no thanks. The west has managed to drive Putin and Xi into a real strategic military alliance--what you should be studying is realpolitik and not useless garbage
 
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