Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

Business

Sam Bankman-Fried’s ties with the Clintons helped dupe investors

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Sam Bankman-Fried cultivated ties with A-list celebrities, politicians and investors alike — but one power couple in particular was key to boosting his profile in influential and moneyed circles.

Bill Clinton was paid north of $250,000 when he spoke at the disgraced FTX CEO’s Crypto Bahamas Conference in April, sources told The Post. At the over-the-top tropical shindig, the ex-US president along with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair were famously photographed onstage next to Bankman-Fried, who appeared wearing shorts and a T-shirt.

Shortly thereafter, Bill and Hillary Clinton invited the 30-year-old Bankman-Fried — known as “SBF” in crypto circles — to speak at their annual Clinton Global Initiative in New York — an effective endorsement of the former FTX CEO that played a pivotal role in elevating his reputation among politicians and deep-pocketed investors alike, insiders told The Post.

On the Clinton Foundation website, Bankman-Fried’s headshot is placed alongside the likes of Matt Damon, Gavin Newson, Melinda French Gates and Larry Fink as a speaker at the September shindig. He’s also mentioned as a speaker in a press release leading up to the event.

Bill Clinton received hundreds of thousands of dollars to speak at Sam Bankman-Fried’s conference.
Getty Images

Asked for a comment about the event, a spokesperson for the Clintons replied, “SBF was never on stage at CGI,” declining to comment further. Over the past year, Bankman-Fried — who lived full-time in the Bahamas before being extradited to the United States in December — mostly spoke at conferences virtually.

People close to the Clintons say the power couple’s relationship with the scruffy 30-year-old cryptocurrency executive follows a familiar script: buzzy business leaders gain credibility by latching on to the Clintons — and in return, the Clintons get a check.

“The Clintons’ involvement gave SBF some air cover,” one former confidante told The Post.

Sam Bankman-Fried was listed as a speaker at the Clinton Global Initiative in September.

For those who bought into FTX, it has been a painful ride, with the top 50 of the bankrupt firm’s 1 million creditors owed $3.1 billion, according to court papers. This week, FTX’s new management said it aims to recoup tens of millions of dollars in political donations that Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives had made.

In response, many beneficiaries of Bankman-Fried’s money have handed everything back. Political action committees like the Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC vowed to return millions. Beto O’Rourke’s Texas gubernatorial campaign returned $1 million, while Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill) and incoming Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) gave their FTX donations to charity.

The Clintons, on the other hand, have remained silent. Legal experts say it’s unlikely Clinton’s speaking fee will be clawed back, but critics say it’s unseemly to hold onto the cash when thousands of people have lost retirements and savings at the hands of Bankman-Fried.

Bankman-Fried attended Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles alongside many important famous names.
Instagram/Michael Kives

“I don’t think every public figure has to give back every dollar from every tarnished source, but it’s obviously wrong to hold onto money the orchestrator of a Ponzi scheme paid you to lend their grift credibility,” Jeff Hauser, founder and director of the Revolving Door Project, a progressive group that examines money and corruption in politics told The Post.

“They should just apologize and give the money back now,” another insider told The Post. “It’s only going to get messier.”

Sources told The Post it was former Hollywood agent Michael Kives who served as an aide to Bill and Hillary Clinton who helped connect the two. Kives — who now runs a venture firm called K5 Global — nabbed $300 million last year from FTX’s now-defunct investment arm, Alameda Research, according to reports. 

Kives declined to comment. An attorney for Bankman-Fried did not respond to a request for comment.

Bill Clinton was paid north of $250,000 when he spoke at the SBF’s Crypto Bahamas Conference.
FilmMagic

It’s not the first time the Clintons have gotten tangled up with accused fraudsters like Bankman-Fried. In 2015, they famously got tangled up with Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes at the Clinton Global Initiative, where Bill interviewed the convicted fraudster about the future of equality and opportunity.

Holmes had even prepared to host a fundraiser for Hilary’s 2016 presidential campaign — more than five months after a blockbuster story in the Wall Street Journal broke allegations of wrongdoing. It got canceled days before.

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US

6 takeaways from former Vice President Mike Pence’s CNN town hall

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CNN
 — 

Former Vice President Mike Pence in a CNN town hall on Wednesday refused to commit his support to former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign and left the door open to seeking the Republican nomination himself.

Speaking a day after the release of his memoir, “So Help Me God,” Pence was mostly coy when discussing his own plans while touting the Trump administration’s policy agenda.

But Pence was more direct when asked about the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol. The former vice president called it “the most difficult day of my public life.”

Pence also revealed more about his personal feelings about that day and his views on the state of American politics in the aftermath of a presidency that he said did not end well.

Here are takeaways from the town hall:

Asked about Trump’s new campaign for president, which he announced Tuesday, Pence said he believed that there would be “better choices” on the ballot in two years.

Pence left open the possibility that one of those preferable options, as he saw it, might be him.

“I’ll keep you posted,” Pence told CNN’s Jake Tapper, who moderated the event.

Moments earlier, as he grappled with the Trump question, Pence said, “I think it’s time for new leadership in this country that will bring us together around our highest ideals.”

Pressed by Tapper about his future, Pence replied, “There may be someone else in that contest I’d prefer more.”

It was, Pence said, the “most difficult day of my public life.”

“I thought it was important, as vice president, that I offer my advice and my counsel to the president confidentially. And we did,” Pence said of his role that day, when Trump and others allied with the then-president tried to convince him to launch an unconstitutional bid to block or overturn the election results.

Pence said his decision to ignore Trump’s entreaties was rooted in something deeper than their relationship.

“I had one higher loyalty, and that was to God and the Constitution. And that’s what set in motion the confrontation that would come to pass on January 6 because I had taken an oath to the Constitution of the United States,” Pence said.

Breaking with the man who selected him as a runningmate ahead of the 2016 election and elevated him to within a whisper of the Oval Office “was difficult,” Pence said.

“But I’ll always believe,” he added, “that we did our duty that day upholding the Constitution of the United States and the laws of this country and the peaceful transfer of power.”

In the days that followed, Pence said, he was upset with Trump over the then-president’s role in the deadly insurrection.

“The president’s words and tweet that day were reckless,” Pence said. “They endangered my family and all the people at the Capitol.”

But Pence also shut down any speculation as to whether he would testify before the House select committee investigating January 6, saying that “Congress has no right to my testimony.” He said it would set a “terrible precedent” for a congressional committee to summon a vice president to discuss deliberations held at the White House, arguing that it would violate the separation of powers and “erode the dynamic” between a president and vice president.

After CNN played footage of January 6 rioters chanting, “Hang Mike Pence,” the former vice president said he was saddened to see the images again, but that in the moment, “it angered me.”

Pence, who moved to a secure location as the Capitol was breached, said he told Secret Service that he would not leave, insisting he remain at his post, in part because he did not want the mob to see his motorcade speeding away.

“But frankly, when I saw those images, and when I read a tweet that President Trump issued, saying that I lacked courage in that moment, It angered me greatly,” Pence said. But, he added, “I didn’t have time for it.”

After years standing by Trump’s side through assorted scandals and crises – and also benefiting from the former president’s political rise – Pence said he had decided that, in this fight, they would take opposite sides.

“The President had decided in that moment to be a part of the problem,” said Pence, who told Tapper he “was determined to be part of the solution.”

Pence then discussed gathering the Republican and Democratic leadership of the House and Senate on a conference call, reaching out to Pentagon brass and Justice Department officials “to surge additional resources” to assist Capitol Hill police officers.

Congress ultimately reconvened on the same day and, after Republican challenges to the count, finally confirmed Biden as the next president.

“We demonstrated to the American people and the world the strength of our institutions (and) the resilience of our democracy,” Pence said. “But those memories, those images will always be with me.”

Pence described in vivid detail his meetings with Trump in the days after the riot at the Capitol. When he first saw Trump at the White House days after January 6, he said the then-president immediately asked about his family and whether they were OK.

Though it was at odds with the public perceptions of Trump, Pence said, he believed that Trump was “deeply remorseful in that moment.”

“I could tell he was saddened by what had happened,” Pence said. “I encouraged him to pray. He told me many times that he was a believer, and I told him to turn to Jesus hoping that he would find the comfort there – and that I was finding in that moment.”

In the days that followed, Pence said he saw Trump for another meeting and that the president was still “downcast.” After they finished talking through administration business, Pence said, “I reminded him that I was praying for him” and Trump was “dismissive about it.”

“As our meeting came to a close, I stood up,” Pence said. “I looked at him and I said, I guess there’s just two things we’ll probably never agree on. And he looked up and said, ‘What?’”

“I referred to my role on January 6,” Pence said. “And then I said, ‘Never gonna stop praying for you.’”

“He smiled faintly and said, ‘That’s right. Don’t ever change.’ And we parted amicably as much as we could in the aftermath of those events.”

In lamenting Republicans’ underwhelming performance in the 2022 midterms, Pence observed that candidates who talked about the future outshone those who focused more on “relitigating the past.”

“And I expect that’s going to be taken to heart by Republicans,” Pence said.

Asked why, then, he chose to campaign alongside election deniers – including GOP Senate nominees Don Bolduc in New Hampshire and Blake Masters in Arizona, both of whom lost last week – Pence said party loyalty trumped other concerns.

“I’ve often said, ‘I’m a Christian, a conservative and a Republican – in that order. But I am a Republican,” Pence said, “and once Republican primary voters had chosen their nominees I went out and traveled to 35 states over the last year and a half to see if we could elect a Republican majority in the House, Senate, elect Republican governors all across the country.”

Pence added that his appearance on the stump with a candidate “didn’t mean, as it hasn’t meant in the past, that I agreed with every statement or every position candidates that I’m supporting in the Republican Party have taken.”

He also tried to make a false equivalence between Trump’s lies about election fraud in 2020 and Hillary Clinton’s comments after 2016, noting that she said “Donald Trump was not a legitimate president, for years.”

“I think there’s been far too much questioning of elections, not just in 2020 but in 2016,” he said.

Pence has very carefully crafted his explanation of the events leading up to January 6, during that day’s attack on the Capitol and in his conversations with Trump afterward – and isn’t deviating from that explanation.

As he has unspooled those events, Pence’s comments have been virtually identical in his book, in CNN’s town hall and in interviews with other news networks in recent days.

He’d made clear what he is willing to say. Among the key points: That Trump listened to the wrong lawyers in the lead-up to January 6; that he was “angry” watching the attack on the Capitol; that he left Trump with a commitment to continue to pray for him; and that the two no longer talk.

But it’s just as clear where Pence won’t go: He won’t reveal any simmering resentment with Trump, saying his faith commands forgiveness. He won’t place blame fully on Republicans for agitating the party’s base with falsehoods about election fraud. He won’t legitimize the work of the House committee investigating the events surrounding that day.

Pence’s slow, measured delivery of a consistent message is a characteristic that traces back to his days as a self-styled “Rush Limbaugh on decaf” conservative talk radio host in Indiana.

It’s an approach that has remained consistent through his entire political career, including 12 years in the House and four years as Indiana governor. Pence often repeats virtually the same message – line by line, paragraph by paragraph – even when that message doesn’t directly answer the question he was asked.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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US

Trump lawyers sanctioned over RICO lawsuit against Clinton, DNC

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Former president Donald Trump

Erin Scott | Reuters

A federal judge sanctioned attorneys for former President Donald Trump on Thursday as penalty for advancing a “frivolous” lawsuit against a raft of Trump’s political enemies, including Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.

Judge Donald Middlebrooks’ scathing order in Florida federal court suggested Trump’s lawyers had undermined the rule of law by pushing a political narrative in court “without factual basis or any cognizable legal theory.”

“Additional sanctions may be appropriate,” the judge noted, after suggesting the lawyers’ behavior may require the “attention of the Bar and disciplinary authorities.”

The sanctions — which require Trump’s lawyers to pay $50,000 and compensate a defense attorney’s legal fees — came two months after Middlebrooks had tossed out the suit, describing it as a “two-hundred-page political manifesto.”

The former president’s civil action, filed in March, sketched a sprawling conspiracy by dozens of defendants to spread a false narrative of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

Trump sought tens of millions of dollars in damages, alleging violations of the RICO Act, a federal law that aims to combat organized crime, among other claims.

“This was a shotgun lawsuit,” Middlebrooks wrote in Thursday’s order in U.S. District Court in southern Florida. “Thirty-one individuals and organizations were summoned to court, forced to hire lawyers to defend against frivolous claims. The only common thread against them was Mr. Trump’s animus.”

The judge found that four of Trump’s attorneys — Alina Habba, Michael Madaio, Peter Ticktin and Jamie Alan Sasson — should be sanctioned under Rule 11 of the federal rules of civil procedure, which is aimed at deterring litigants from filing frivolous lawsuits.

They are ordered to “jointly and severally” pay $50,000 in sanctions, as well as legal fees totaling $16,274 that were racked up by defendant Charles Dolan, who filed the sanctions request.

The attorneys for Trump did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.

“The failings of the original Complaint were basic and obvious,” Middlebrooks’ order read. He noted that “when those failings were identified” in motions to dismiss the case, Trump’s attorneys merely “added arguments in an attempt to skirt the RICO statute of limitations” and tacked on two more defendants.

“The choice of defendants, combined with the lack of any viable legal theories of liability, reflect an intention to injure rather than to redress legal harm,” Middlebrooks wrote.

Even after the judge pointed out the “deficiencies” of the legal complaint, he wrote, Habba went on Fox News’ “Hannity” and “continued to advance Plaintiff’s claims.”

The judge included an excerpt of Habba’s from that Sept. 10 interview, when she slammed Middlebrooks as a “Clinton judge” who “basically ignored every factual basis” for the lawsuit.

“The rule of law is undermined by the toxic combination of political fundraising with legal fees paid by political action committees, reckless and factually untrue statements by lawyers at rallies and in the media, and efforts to advance a political narrative through lawsuits without factual basis or any cognizable legal theory,” Middlebrooks wrote.

“Lawyers are enabling this behavior and I am pessimistic that Rule 11 alone can effectively stem this abuse. Aspects may be beyond the purview of the judiciary, requiring attention of the Bar and disciplinary authorities. Additional sanctions may be appropriate,” the judge wrote. “But legal filings like those at issue here should be sanctioned under Rule 11, both to penalize this conduct and deter similar conduct by these lawyers and others.”

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Entertainment

James Corden talks the Balthazar incident

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Tiny cretin of a man, James Corden
Photo: Jeff Spicer (Getty Images)

When a well-known, long-time restaurateur calls you “the most abusive customer” to ever patronize an establishment in its 25 years, it might do you some good to grovel, or even spare a crumb of remorse. But it seems late-night jester James Corden feels as though the whole conversation about his table manners is just a little below him.

“I haven’t done anything wrong, on any level,” he tells The New York Times. “So why would I ever cancel this? I was there. I get it. I feel so Zen about the whole thing. Because I think it’s so silly. I just think it’s beneath all of us. It’s beneath you.”

It seems Corden’s opted to take the high road—sorry—the high and mighty road, to cast his eyes down upon people who think treating service workers like shit is detestable. He’d instead rather put on the hater blockers, deny deny deny, and talk about his new series “Mammals,” in which he plays a Michelin star chef, which can only be characterized as laughable after all *widely gestures* this.

“It’s strange. It’s strange when you were there,” Corden says on the subject. “I think I’m probably going to have to talk about it on Monday’s show. My feeling, often, is, never explain, never complain. But I’ll probably have to talk about it.”

He doesn’t seem to internalize this personal mantra of “never complain” too much, as indicative of his reported behavior at Balthazar, but certainly feels compelled to “never explain,” especially when it comes to what the hell an egg yolk omelet is.

G/O Media may get a commission

Corden then takes a strange moment to remind everyone that Twitter is not necessarily reflective of the real world, and in this augmented reality, “Hillary Clinton is the president of the United States.”

“Should we not all be a little grown-up about this?” he says. “I promise you, ask around this restaurant. They don’t know about this. Maybe 15 percent of people. I’ve been here, been walking around New York, not one person’s come up to me. We’re dealing in two worlds here.”

In response, Balthazar’s owner Keith McNally says this:

I’ve no wish to kick a man when he’s down. Especially one who’s worth $100 Million, but when James Corden said in yesterday’s NY Times that he hadn’t done “anything wrong, on any level,” was he joking? Or was he denying being abusive to my servers? Whatever Corden meant, his implication was clear: he didn’t do it. Although I didn’t witness the incident, lots of my restaurant’s floor staff did. They had nothing to gain by lying. Corden did.

I wish James Corden would live up to his Almighty initials and come clean. If the supremely talented actor wants to retrieve the respect he had from all his fans (all 4 of them) before this incident, then he should at least admit he did wrong. If he goes one step further and apologizes to the 2 servers he insulted, I’ll let him eat for free at Balthazar for the next 10 years.

Your move Corden.



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US

Judge throws out Trump’s sprawling lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, ex-FBI officials over Russia probe

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CNN
 — 

A federal judge has dismissed former President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, several ex-FBI officials and more than two dozen other people and entities that he claims conspired to undermine his 2016 campaign by trying to vilify him with fabricated information tying him to Russia.

US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks dismissed the lawsuit Thursday, saying “most of Plaintiff’s claims are not only unsupported by any legal authority but plainly foreclosed by binding precedent.”

“What (Trump’s lawsuit) lacks in substance and legal support it seeks to substitute with length, hyperbole, and the settling of scores and grievances,” Middlebrooks, a Bill Clinton appointee, wrote.

Trump filed his sprawling lawsuit in March, naming a wide cast of characters that Trump has accused for years of orchestrating a “deep state” conspiracy against him – including former FBI Director James Comey and other FBI officials, the retired British spy Christopher Steele and his associates, and a handful of Clinton campaign advisers.

Middlebrooks, of the Southern District of Florida, said there were “glaring problems” with Trump’s “audacious” interpretations of the law, and that many of Trump’s specific factual assertions were “implausible” or unsupported.

Trump “is not attempting to seek redress for any legal harm,” Middlebrooks said. “(I)nstead, he is seeking to flaunt a two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him, and this Court is not the appropriate forum.”

The ruling is a legal victory for the figures that Trump sued, many of whom were involved in Clinton’s campaign in 2016 or were involved in the US government’s efforts to investigate Russian interference in that election.

This includes including Clinton, several of her top 2016 campaign officials, the Democratic National Committee, Comey, his former deputy Andrew McCabe, former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. It also includes Steele, author of the Trump-Russia dossier and the opposition group that Steele worked with, Fusion GPS.

The lawsuit accused a large group of former US government officials and Democratic operatives of orchestrating a “deep state” conspiracy against him and of perpetuating a massive hoax in the form of the Russia investigation. Trump, who has pushed these baseless claims for years and included them in the lawsuit, had asked for $24 million in damages.

Alina Habba, an attorney for Trump, said Trump will “immediately move to appeal this decision.”

“We vehemently disagree with the opinion issued by the Court today,” Habba told CNN in a statement. “Not only is it rife with erroneous applications of the law, it disregards the numerous independent governmental investigations which substantiate our claim that the defendants conspired to falsely implicate our client and undermine the 2016 Presidential election.”

In April, lawyers for Clinton asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit and argued that it had “no merit.”

Clinton’s team had argued that she should not be a defendant in the federal court in South Florida because too many years have passed to allow for a lawsuit centered on events from 2016.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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World

Hillary Clinton tweets in support of Finland PM amid dancing scandal

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Hillary Clinton on Sunday shared her support for Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, who has been in the headlines for videos of her dancing, singing and partying with friends.

“As Ann Richards said, ‘Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels,’” Clinton wrote on Twitter, alongside a blurry photo of the former secretary with her hand raised in a crowd. 

“Here’s me in Cartagena while I was there for a meeting as Secretary of State,” she added.

“Keep dancing @marinsanna.”

Marin faced a mix of criticism and support over videos showing the 36-year-old lip-syncing and dancing at parties.

“I am human. During these dark times, I too need some joy, light and fun. And that involves all sorts of photos and videos which I would not like to see, and I know you would not like to see. It’s private, it’s joyful and it’s life,” Marin said in a tearful address after the video surfaced, per translations.

“But I have not missed a single day of work, a single task, and I never will,” she added.

The prime minister admitted to partying and drinking alcohol at the event, but denied doing any drugs and took a drug test to prove it. The test was negative, according to The Guardian.

She told a Finnish newspaper that “it should be accepted that even decision-makers are dancing, singing and partying.”

Clinton praised Marin back in 2019, when she was sworn in as the world’s youngest prime minister.

Marin’s popularity rating is near a record high, the New York Times reported. She has led Finland through the COVID-19 pandemic with one of Europe’s lowest death rates, and supported the country’s move to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.



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World

Deliberations underway in trial linked to Trump-Russia probe

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign hid his partisan interests from the FBI as he pushed “pure opposition research” related to Donald Trump and Russia in the weeks before the election, a prosecutor asserted Friday during closing arguments of the attorney’s trial.

But Michael Sussmann’s legal team denied prosecutors’ claims that he lied. And even if jurors believed Sussmann did lie, the defense said the alleged false statement did not matter because he was presenting national security information that the FBI would have looked into no matter the source. At the time of Sussmann’s meeting with the FBI in September 2016, the bureau was already investigating whether Russia and the Trump campaign were colluding to sway the election won by Trump that November.

“It was a very contentious time. The Russians had hacked the DNC. They were leaking emails. And there was an ongoing FBI investigation irrespective of this,” Sussmann lawyer Sean Berkowitz told jurors, referring to the Democratic National Committee. “And that was viewed as incredibly serious.”

The case is the first courtroom test of special counsel John Durham’s work since his appointment three years ago to search for government misconduct during the investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s campaign. Jurors began deliberating Friday afternoon.

A guilty verdict would be cheered by Trump and his supporters, who have looked to the Durham investigation to undercut the original Trump-Russia probe that they have long seen as politically motivated. But the case against Sussmann is narrow in nature, involves a peripheral aspect of that probe and alleges misconduct by a tipster to the government rather than by anyone at the FBI or any other federal agency.

Nonetheless, the two weeks of testimony in federal court in Washington have exposed the extent to which Democratic interests, opposition research, the media and law enforcement all came to be entangled in the run-up to the presidential election.

Prosecutors have portrayed Sussmann as determined to gin up investigations into Trump that could then be disclosed to the media and yield stories negative to his campaign.

“It wasn’t about national security,” said Jonathan Algor, a Durham team prosecutor. “It was about promoting opposition research against the opposition candidate, Donald Trump.”

Sussmann is charged with a single count of making a false statement. That charge carries a maximum five-year prison sentence, though if convicted, Sussmann is likely to get far less — if any — prison time. He did not take the stand during the trial.

The case turns on a Sept. 19, 2016, meeting in which Sussmann presented the FBI’s top lawyer, James Baker, with computer data that Sussmann said suggested a secret communications backchannel between a Russia-based bank and the Trump Organization, the candidate’s company.

Such a backchannel, if it existed, would have been explosive information at a time when the FBI was examining links between Trump and Russia. But after assessing the data, the FBI quickly determined that there was no suspicious contact at all.

Prosecutors say Sussmann lied to Baker by saying he was not participating in the meeting on behalf of a particular client. They say he was actually there on behalf of the Clinton campaign and another client, a technology executive whom the Durham team says tasked researchers with looking for internet traffic involving Trump associates and Russians.

Sussmann lied about his clients, prosecutors allege, to give the data extra credibility because he figured the information would not be investigated if the FBI thought it was mere opposition research being pushed by the Clinton campaign.

“The defendant knew he had to hide his clients if there was any chance of getting his allegations to the FBI — and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the defendant lied,” Algor said.

To convict, prosecutors need to show not only that Sussmann lied but that the lie was material — namely, that it mattered or at least could have mattered to the FBI’s work.

Algor said the fact Sussmann repeatedly billed the Clinton campaign for his work on the Alfa Bank matter is proof he was acting on the campaign’s behalf when he met with the FBI. But Berkowitz noted that Sussmann billed his taxi ride to FBI headquarters for the meeting itself to his law firm, rather than to the campaign.

Berkowitz also tried to cast doubt on what exactly was said in the meeting. Prosecutors showed jurors a text message Sussmann sent Baker the night before the meeting in which he requested a sit-down on a sensitive matter and said he would be coming by himself and not on behalf of a client.

But Berkowitz reminded jurors that the only false statement that was charged took place during the following day’s meeting, and that no one can be sure exactly what was said because Baker and Sussmann were the only participants and neither took notes.

Berkowitz also suggested it was technically accurate if Sussmann said he was not acting on behalf of a client because Sussmann never asked the FBI do anything with the information he was providing.

“When you go somewhere on behalf of a client, you’re advocating for the client, you’re asking for something,” Berkowitz said. “Mr. Sussmann didn’t ask Jim Baker for anything.”

The two sides also quibbled over Baker’s testimony, with Berkowitz citing dozens of instances in which Baker said on the stand that he did not recall or could not remember something. Prosecutors, meanwhile, seized on the fact that Baker said he was “100% confident” that Sussmann had told him that he was not acting on behalf of a client and that he probably wouldn’t have taken the meeting if he had been told otherwise.

“Ladies and gentlemen, would James Baker come on the stand under oath, a former high-ranking FBI official, and subject himself to the penalty of perjury if it weren’t true,” another prosecutor, Andrew DeFilippis, told jurors on Friday. “No, he wouldn’t do that. None of us would do that, would take that risk.”

Durham has so far charged three people. The case against Sussmann is the only one to have reached trial.

___

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP



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US

Clinton 2016 campaign, lawyer, tech exec in ‘joint venture’ to smear Trump, Durham alleges

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Hillary Clinton’s campaign, its lawyer and a tech executive took part in a “joint venture” to gather and spread dirt about Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, Special Counsel John Durham charges in a new filing. 

The bombshell claim was made in a 48-page motion filed late Monday arguing for the admission of additional evidence ahead of Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann’s pending trial for allegedly lying to the FBI. 

At the heart of the case is a Sept. 18, 2016 text message Sussmann sent to then-FBI General Counsel James Baker, which was reproduced in Monday’s filing. 

“​Jim – it’s Michael Sussmann. I have something time-sensitive (and sensitive) I need to discuss,” the lawyer wrote. “Do you have availability for a short meeting tomorrow?​ I’m coming on my own – not on behalf of a client or company – want to help the Bureau. Thanks.” 

In fact, prosecutors say, Sussmann — then a cybersecurity lawyer at powerhouse Democratic law firm Perkins Coie — had deceived Baker and was acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign when the two met the following day. 

During that sitdown, Sussmann allegedly gave Baker information suggesting that servers at the Trump Organization were communicating with servers at Moscow-based Alfa-Bank. That claim was amplified by the Clinton campaign to suggest that Trump was colluding with the Kremlin. 

Hillary Clinton’s campaign actively worked to gather and spread dirt about Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.
AFP via Getty Images

According to Monday’s filing, preparation for Sussmann’s meeting with Baker began in “late July and early August,” when “Tech Executive-1,” who has since been identified as Rodney Joffe, began telling employees at Virginia-based Neustar — where he was a senior vice president — to “mine and assemble Internet data that would support an ‘inference’ or ‘narrative’ tying Trump to Russia.” 

Joffe, who is not named in the filing, allegedly said the point of the effort “was to please these ‘VIPs,’” which Durham says refers to Sussmann, his Perkins Coie colleague Marc Elias — the Clinton campaign’s general counsel — and the campaign itself. 

John Durham calls out Hillary Clinton’s campaign and its lawyer Michael Sussmann on gathering information against former President Donald Trump.
Perkins Coie

Prosecutors also allege that Joffe ordered an executive at two other companies he owned to do a data deep-dive into Trump, saying “he was working with a person at a firm in Washington, D.C. with close ties to Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party.” 

The document adds that Joffe even emailed the executive the home addresses, email addresses, IP addresses and other personal information of “various Trump associates,” including spouses and other family members. 

According to Durham, the CEO was “highly uncomfortable” with Joffe’s ask, but complied because he “was a powerful figure.” 

The dive into Trump was given the code name “Crimson Rhino.” 

Eventually, prosecutors say, Joffe and his associates “exploited” Internet traffic relating to a healthcare provider to assemble information from Trump Tower and Trump’s Central Park West apartment building. Among the allegations made by Sussmann were that Trump and his associates were using a type of Russian-made cell phone near the White House and other locations. 

At the same time, Sussman and Perkins Coie allegedly connected Joffe to Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that hired former MI-6 agent Christopher Steele to compile his now-infamous dossier of explosive, debunked allegations about Trump’s supposed links to Russia. 

The most notorious of those claims was that Moscow security services possessed a tape of Trump in a Moscow hotel room with prostitutes who were supposedly urinating on a bed where the Obamas had previously stayed. 

The Clinton campaign to suggests that Donald Trump was colluding with the Kremlin.
AFP via Getty Images

The Clinton campaign kept quiet about its engagement with Fusion GPS — so quiet that last week, the Federal Election Commission fined the campaign and the Democratic National Committee $8,000 and $105,000, respectively, for mislabeling payments to the firm that were routed through Perkins Coie as “legal advice and services” rather than opposition research. 

According to the filing, Sussmann even met with Steele himself (identified as “U.K. Person-1”) and Fusion GPS employees at Perkins Coie’s offices in the summer of 2016. 

Prosecutors say that while Sussmann told Congress in 2017 that he only meant to “vet” Steele, the onetime British spy testified under oath in a UK legal proceeding that Sussmann shared the Alfa-Bank allegation with him and Fusion GPS ordered Steele to “research and produce intelligence reports” about Alfa-Bank. 

Michael Sussmann served as Clinton’s campaign lawyer.
CSPAN

Allegations about the Trump Organization and Alfa-Bank server ties also allegedly were shared by Steele with State Department officials, while Fusion GPS passed them on to at least one Department of Justice official. 

After these introductions were made, Durham alleges, Sussmann and Fusion GPS employees shopped the Alfa-Bank allegations to the mainstream media. The claims about the server traffic between Trump Tower and Alfa-Bank were the subject of several contemporary reports ahead of Election Day 2016. The most notable story, by Franklin Foer, was published by Slate that October and bore the headline: “Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia?” 

Finally, the Alfa-Bank claims were allegedly compiled by Joffe and Sussmann into a “white paper” that Sussmann turned over to Baker when the two met. According to the indictment of Sussmann, the lawyer billed the Clinton for the time drafting the document. 

On the same day the Slate story about the Trump Organization and Alfa-Bank came out, the New York Times reported that the FBI had looked into Sussmann’s allegations and concluded that “there could be an innocuous explanation, like a marketing email or spam, for the computer contacts.” 

According to the indictment, Sussmann pursued the Alfa-Bank angle even after Clinton’s defeat by Trump in the 2016 election. In February 2017, he allegedly provided an “updated set of allegations” about the Russian bank and its relation to the Trump campaign to another US government agency that has since been identified as the CIA. 

Sussmann was indicted in September 2021 and has pleaded not guilty to the charge of making false statements. 

Durham’s motion seeks the admission of documents including notes of conversations two other FBI officials had with Baker about his Sept. 19, 2016 meeting with Sussmann; emails involving Sussmann, Joffe, Elias, Clinton campaign officials and Fusion GPS employees; and a deposition by Sussmann before the House Intelligence Committee in December 2017. 

In that testimony, Sussmann was asked if he was acting on his “own volition” when he contacted Baker and the CIA about the Alfa-Bank allegations. He answered: “No.” 

“So did your client direct you to have those conversations?” he was asked. 

John Durham accused Hillary Clinton’s campaign of steering a misinformation effort on Donald Trump and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
Rick Wilking-Pool/Getty Images

“Yes,” he replied, before attempting to backtrack moments later. 

“[W]hen you say my client directed me, we had a conversation, as lawyers do with their clients, about client needs and objectives and the best course to take for a client,” he said. “And so it may have been a decision that we came to together. I mean, I don’t want to imply that I was sort of directed to do something against my better judgment, or that we were in any sort of conflict.” 

In a flurry of filings Monday, Sussmann’s legal team argued that much of the evidence sought by Durham was either inadmissible as hearsay or irrelevant to the charge against their client. 

“The Special Counsel has not charged a substantive scheme to defraud the government, nor has he charged a conspiracy to defraud the government,” one motion read. “The manner in which the [internet] data was gathered, the objective strength and reliability of that data and/or conclusions drawn from the data, and the information that Christopher Steele separately provided to the FBI all have no bearing on the only crime the Special Counsel chose to charge: whether Mr. Sussmann falsely stated that he was not acting on behalf of a client when he met with Mr. Baker.” 

John Durham alleges, Sussmann and Fusion GPS employees shopped the Alfa-Bank allegations to the mainstream media.
AP

Sussmann’s attorneys further accused Durham of trying to “promote a baseless narrative that the Clinton Campaign conspired with others to trick the federal government into investigating ties between President Trump and Russia. 

“But there was no such conspiracy; the Special Counsel hasn’t charged such a crime; and the Special Counsel should not be permitted to turn Mr. Sussmann’s trial on a narrow false statement charge into a circus full of sideshows that will only fuel partisan fervor.” 

In a separate filing, Sussmann’s attorneys argued that the judge in the case should force Durham to offer Joffe immunity from prosecution or dismiss the case. 

“While Mr. Joffe is prepared to testify in Mr. Sussmann’s defense—and to offer critical exculpatory testimony on behalf of Mr. Sussmann, including that Mr. Joffe’s work was not connected to the Clinton Campaign—the Special Counsel is making it impossible for Mr. Sussmann to call Mr. Joffe as an exculpatory witness at trial,” the document read. “It is simply inconceivable that Mr. Joffe faces any real continuing criminal exposure in connection with the Special Counsel’s investigation. The Special Counsel is yet again overreaching, and doing so in violation of Mr. Sussmann’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights.”

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Business

Russian-backed investment fund tied to U.S. corporate consulting firm

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An investment fund backed by Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the European Union following the invasion of Ukraine has ties to Teneo, an influential corporate-advisory firm based in the United States.

The public relations and strategy giant was hired in 2020 by LetterOne, a private equity firm based out of Luxembourg that counts sanctioned billionaires Mikhail Fridman, who is a native of Ukraine, and Petr Aven among its cofounders. The contract, which was viewed by CNBC, appears to have paid Teneo more than $3.6 million to line up interviews and consult on media strategy in the U.S.

LetterOne was founded by Fridman, Aven, Alexei Kuzmichev, Andrei Kosogov and German Khan — all of whom are some of the wealthiest business leaders based in Russia. All five founders have been on LetterOne’s board, with Fridman as the chairman, according to data from PitchBook reviewed by CNBC. The executives launched the firm in 2013 after establishing Alfa Group, one of the largest conglomerates in Russia.

Fridman and Aven have been accused by the EU of having ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, claims that were denied in an emailed statement to CNBC. The statement did not answer any of CNBC’s questions on LetterOne’s work with Teneo or how the investment fund is planning to move ahead now that two of its founders have been sanctioned. Fridman’s bank, Alfa Bank, has also been sanctioned by the United States. He’s called for an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

After CNBC asked a LetterOne representative on Monday about their business, including their relationship with Teneo, several pages of their website, including the “our people” section, appear to have been wiped as of Tuesday morning. An error message now appears on that section which listed the founders and executives at the firm. The LetterOne board section is still active, but it no longer shows Fridman and Aven as members of the board.

Joshua Hardie, a spokesman for LetterOne, said Fridman and Aven resigned from the board on Tuesday. CNBC first contacted the private equity firm on Monday.

Though emails to Teneo were not returned, Kathleen Lacey, a company senior managing director who was listed in a document as working the LetterOne account, told CNBC in a brief phone call on Monday that they were no longer one of her clients and believed her firm wasn’t representing them anymore.

The Department of Justice’s FARA Unit, which monitors U.S. lobbying and consulting work for foreign representatives, told CNBC on Tuesday that it believes the contract between Teneo and LetterOne “remains active.”

LetterOne has multiple links to Teneo, which was founded by two Democratic consultants who worked for former Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The private equity firm has been involved in almost a dozen deals estimated to be worth over $1 billion, according to PitchBook. Uber, for example, saw a $200 million investment from LetterOne in 2016.

Teneo has since grown into a consulting giant, with past clients including Dow Chemical and Coca-Cola. Foreign clients have included Neom, a company backed the juggernaut Public Investment Fund with the goal of creating a megacity in Saudi Arabia, and a foundation led by an Emirati princess.

Their listed senior advisors is a who’s who of political and business leaders including former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, former IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, former Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris and Harvey Pitt, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Doug Band, who was once one of Bill Clinton’s closest aides, founded Teneo with Declan Kelly and Paul Keary. Kelly worked as the special envoy to Northern Ireland in the Obama administration and helped Hillary Clinton run for president in 2008. Band and Kelly have since left the firm, with the latter resigning from being Teneo’s CEO after reports of him drunk and acting inappropriately at an event organized by the Global Citizen nonprofit. Keary became the CEO after Kelly’s resignation.

A contract between Teneo and LetterOne reviewed by CNBC shows that the consulting firm was hired in 2020 for a retainer of $150,000 per month to advise the fund on their media strategy. Teneo, according to the contract, was expected to “provide strategic counsel and stakeholder engagement advice to the company and its board members (including, without limitation, scheduling media interviews, assisting with media briefings, coordinating stakeholder engagements and related activities).”

Under the contract, LetterOne was on track to pay Teneo more than $3.6 million since September 2020. There were at least four Teneo representatives who worked the account, according to other documents filed to the DOJ.

Further documents show that through last year, Teneo took credit for trying to set up interviews for LetterOne leaders with producers and television anchors, including those at CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox Business. A document shows that a Bloomberg representative was contacted almost a dozen times to see whether LetterOne could sponsor one of their Bloomberg Invest events.

There are other ties between Teneo and LetterOne.

LetterOne’s nonexecutive chairman is Evan Davies, a British businessman who was once the U.K. minister of state for trade, investment and small business. He’s also a senior advisor at Teneo.

VEON, a telecommunications company operating in Russia and Ukraine is listed on LetterOne’s website as one of its active investments. Ursula Burns was chairman of the VEON board for almost three years before stepping down in 2020. She later became the chairwoman of Teneo.

Meanwhile, VEON announced on Tuesday that Mikhail Fridman resigned from their board.

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US

It’s Lady and the Trump for 2024 election

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Donald Trump gave his strongest hint yet at a speech to CPAC conservatives Saturday that he plans to run for president in 2024.

“We did it twice, and we’ll do it again,” Trump said. “We’re going to be doing it again, a third time.”

The longer Joe Biden is in office, the more palatable Trump looks to voters who rejected him in 2020.

But as assorted grifters peddle alleged access to the former president at Mar-a-Lago for candidates desperate for his endorsement, his judgment will be on the line at the midterms. The success or failure of his chosen candidates will likely play a part in Republican calculations about 2024.

Also factored in will be the Democratic ticket in 2024.

After an expected midterm shellacking, Biden will be pressed to announce he is not seeking a second term at age 81.

And, as preposterous as it sounds, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez vs. Hillary Clinton is the matchup to watch, according to former Democratic strategist Dick Morris.

Ticking all the boxes

The wunderkind behind Bill Clinton’s electoral success in the 1990s, Morris contends that the Democratic establishment will first get behind Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whose command of $2 trillion in patronage and jobs via his portfolio gives him an advantage in campaign contributions. On the identity politics card, which is the prerequisite for any Democratic candidate, he ticks the “gay” box, but Morris says that won’t win him black votes.

Trump supporters wave banners at the CPAC event.
Stephen Yang

Instead, a black candidate like Cory Booker will enter the field.

While Kamala Harris ticks two boxes, “female” and “black,” her intractable unpopularity and poor performance as vice president would see her drop out of the primaries before Iowa, as she did in 2016, unless she is a masochist.

The vacuum she leaves will set off “momentum for a woman [candidate] that will benefit Hillary’s candidacy.”

The Democrats’ progressive wing will back AOC, the heir to Bernie Sanders, who ticks two boxes: “female” and “person of color.”

AOC conveniently turns 35 on Oct. 13, 2024, three weeks before the election, meaning she will be constitutionally eligible to be president.

“We did it twice, and we’ll do it again,” Trump said.
Stephen Yang
Former United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton speaking at The New York State Democratic Committee 2022 State Nominating Convention on Thursday, February 17th, 2022.
Steve Sands/NewYorkNewswire/Baue

“They will realize it’s either Hillary or their own woman AOC . . . the progressives will rally behind AOC [and] say the reason we lost in ’22 was we didn’t go far enough left [so] we have to go further to the left.”

Cue Hillary Clinton. “She will come into this race as the savior of the Democratic Party,” Morris told listeners to his WABC radio show last week.

The primary contests “will fuse Hillary as the hope that will save us from the extreme left.”

As the primaries drag on, the contest will come down to Hillary and AOC, Morris contends. The grassroots momentum will be with AOC, just as it was with Sanders, and then the establishment will have to decide whether to snatch the presidential nomination from the left, as it did in 2016 and 2020, and hand the nomination to Hillary.

AOC and her supporters are less likely to accept being stiffed without a fight.

Trump looks more convincing to voters who rejected him in 2020.
Stephen Yang
Trump supporters cheer him on during his speech at the CPAC.
Stephen Yang

Morris is reviled by Democrats for turning on the Clintons and embracing Trump, but his insight into his former comrades is worth considering.

And both Hillary and AOC are everywhere at the moment, showcasing their wares.

The day after Russia invaded Ukraine last week, Hillary weighed in with her best Secretary of State gravitas to blame the Republicans in an interview with MSNBC on “Morning Joe.” She headlined the state Democratic Convention in New York earlier this month, walking onstage to rapturous applause and the song “Unstoppable.”

‘The queen of projection’

If you think Hillary might be stopped by the current drip-drip from the Durham investigation of her scandalous frame-up of Trump as a Russian agent, forget it. Judging by past performance, the liberal media will ignore Durham and no one voting in the Democratic primaries will know or care, just as Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal was kept from voters.

Hillary is the queen of projection, saying last week: “It’s funny, the more trouble Trump gets into, the wilder the charges and conspiracy theories about me seem to get.”

Trump’s big hint to running for President brought excitement to CPAC attendees.
Stephen Yang
Many people believe AOC will run a campaign on promising free tuition, free health care, climate alarm and indulging the grievances of youth.
ZUMAPRESS.com

AOC, meanwhile, is on the cover of New York magazine this week and features in a gushing new biography, “Take Up Space: The Unprecedented AOC,” which compares her to FDR and JFK.

With her baby voice, vacuous ideas and social media narcissism, she seems impossibly unpresidential, but the domestic climate in 2024 may suit her.

Her stint working as a bartender gives her enough credibility to claim membership of the outsider working class, despite the fact she grew up in affluent Westchester suburb.

And with a new cohort of Gen Z voters coming on stream in 2024, brimful of COVID resentment, the chance of a backlash against geriatric candidates is high.

Hillary will be 77 on election day. Trump will be 78, the same age as Biden was when he became president.

There is a rational school of thought that says the older generations have outlived their welcome and screwed up everything royally. Gen Zs had their education and career prospects ruined for a virus that didn’t affect them and have lost respect for selfish elders who betrayed them through the pandemic.

They will drive generational change at the 2024 election, if they have a candidate who speaks their language. Enter AOC, promising free tuition, free health care, climate alarm and indulging the grievances of youth.

President AOC sounds like a joke but so did President Trump.

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