Replies to post #26490 on Franklin, Andrews, Kramer & Edelstein

[scion]

Arron Banks, Brexit and the Russia connection

An 18-month investigation leads to a trail of new evidence showing the ‘bad boys of Brexit’ had closer links to Russia and its ambassador than they have disclosed

Leave.EU faces new questions over contacts with Russia

Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla Sat 16 Jun 2018 16.30 EDT Last modified on Sat 16 Jun 2018 17.54 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jun/16/arron-banks-nigel-farage-leave-brexit-russia-connection

n 11 March 2016, three months before the European referendum, and long before anyone had started to wonder about foreign interference in the two political cataclysms of 2016 – Brexit and Trump – the Russian embassy in London put out a press release.

Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, had made a speech at Chatham House a few days earlier. A speech in which he noted that “the only country who would like us to leave the EU is Russia”. And the embassy had taken exception.

A couple of hundred miles away, in Lysander House, Catbrain Lane, Bristol, a modern office block on a busy roundabout that serves as the headquarters of both Eldon Insurance – owned by local businessman Arron Banks – and the Leave.EU campaign team – funded by Arron Banks – it seems to have caught someone’s eye.

The press release said it showed Russia “being dragged into the domestic debate on Brexit” as part of a “wicked Russia thesis”. Written more in the language of a slighted lover than a nation state, it claimed that “this was “unfair”, and the government needed to “explain itself”. “We wouldn’t have dwelt on it,” it said, had the British government not alluded to the Russian threat “at every opportunity”. The Leave.EU team appeared to think so, too. A message from an employee to Banks and Andy Wigmore, Leave.EU’s press spokesman and Banks’s business partner, sent on the same day – 11 March 2016 – says: “Pretty strong stuff from the Russian embassy! Risky area but this might possibly be worth using for a tile?” (A “tile” is an image that they could use in social media messaging, on Twitter or other platforms.)

Last week, the Observer published details of multiple meetings between Banks and Wigmore and the Russian embassy, the details of which they confirmed when they passed the original emails to the Sunday Times in order to try to scoop us. The documents seen by the Observer suggest Banks replies: “I think we should – let’s draft a press release in response to the Russian letter.”

The documents suggest that the employee’s response included a press release he says he has drafted on “the great looming threat” of Russia, though he notes that one of the sentences is optional as it “may be seen as too overtly Russophile”.

Wigmore responds: “Suggest we send a note of support to the Ambassador.”

It’s a brief exchange between colleagues – the language is matter-of-fact, the tone workaday, the import that there’s nothing unusual here. But two years on, in the midst of the Trump-Russia investigation, against the backdrop of a tumultuous week in parliament, including a parliamentary committee hearing at which Banks and Wigmore attacked MPs and then walked out, it suggests an extraordinary relationship.

The foreign secretary of Britain had made critical remarks about a hostile foreign power. And, so these documents appear to suggest, prompted the Leave.EU team to swing into action in support of the hostile foreign power. And, astonishingly, to write a personal note of support to the country’s ambassador.

...
Much more
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jun/16/arron-banks-nigel-farage-leave-brexit-russia-connection

[scion]

‘It’s Not Responsible’: Mueller’s Office Calls Out New York Times for Incorrect Story About Picking Manafort’s Lock

by Matt Naham | 12:49 pm, June 21st, 2018
https://lawandcrime.com/awkward/its-not-responsible-muellers-office-calls-out-new-york-times-for-incorrect-story-about-picking-manaforts-lock/

Sometimes the stories you really care about start out as mere footnotes to government business.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his office just wanted to set the record straight about how former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort came to be arrested by the FBI. Articles from the New York Times and the Washington Post were both cited in a footnote of a filing as examples of “not responsible” reporting, particularly on the claim that authorities picked Manafort’s lock.

Brad Heath
@bradheath

Mueller's office says in a new court filing that reports that FBI agents conducted a "no-knock" raid of Paul Manafort's condo, or picked his lock, are false.

2:53 PM - Jun 21, 2018

Mueller and his prosecutors took issue with reported details that FBI agents conducted a no-knock raid and picked the lock of Manafort’s front door. In the footnote, they quote the court: “But, I do question the publication of the completely unsupported speculation that this revelation was an intentional leak by the Office of the Special Counsel. No reporter had any facts to base that on, so I’m not sure why anyone printed it. It’s not responsible.”

In other words, the leak about this didn’t come from the special counsel’s office and it didn’t happen.

Mueller, et al. pointed to two links to say there was incorrect reporting that “federal agents who executed search warrant a Manafort’s residence did not knock on the front door and picked the lock to enter.

The opening line of the Times article headlined, “With a Picked Lock and a Threatened Indictment, Mueller’s Inquiry Sets a Tone” says “Paul J. Manafort was in bed early one morning in July when federal agents bearing a search warrant picked the lock on his front door and raided his Virginia home.”

Then there is the Washington Post opinion piece by Radley Balko, “No-knock raids like the one against Paul Manafort are more common than you think.”

Heath added that the raid wasn’t pre-dawn either.

Brad Heath
@bradheath
4h
Mueller's office says in a new court filing that reports that FBI agents conducted a "no-knock" raid of Paul Manafort's condo, or picked his lock, are false. pic.twitter.com/ZAXERFBjKb

Brad Heath
@bradheath
(It also wasn't pre-dawn.)

2:55 PM - Jun 21, 2018

Law&Crime has reached out to both publications for comment on the characterization of the reporting as “not responsible.”

https://lawandcrime.com/awkward/its-not-responsible-muellers-office-calls-out-new-york-times-for-incorrect-story-about-picking-manaforts-lock/