Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #OnAssignment
Most recents (12)
Next up, we’re taking a look at what went down at the #NATOSummit this week and what it all means. #OnAssignment
.@realDonaldTrump promised an “interesting time” and he certainly delivered. Check out this exclusive report by our @NBCNews colleagues nbcnews.to/2zCAOe2
#NATO Sec Gen @jensstoltenberg said the talks between @realDonaldTrump and other leaders had “made NATO stronger.” But some are still fearful about the President’s gravitation towards Putin’s #Russia.
Neil Hobday says @realDonaldTrump paid all of the expenses for the Aberdeen course in cash and that even Trump associates found that “very unusual.”
.@AlanShipnuck says that one of the biggest questions in the golf and political world is “where did the money come from” for the Trump Scottish and Irish courses #OnAssignment
Another golf writer, @jdodsonauthor, said that @EricTrump told him in 2013 “We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” Eric Trump denies saying that and calls Dodson’s report “fake news”.
Tonight @realDonaldTrump is sleeping at #TrumpTurnberry. We’ve been investigating the finances of his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland. They were purchased - and renovated at a cost of tens of millions of dollars– all in cash. #OnAssignment
.@Rob_Weissman, president of @PublicCitizen, a watchdog group which has often criticized the president, says “it’s reasonable to say President Trump is getting a publicity value 100 times over what the cost of him visiting is.”
Weissman and his team at @PublicCitizen crunched the numbers and estimate that @realDonaldTrump’s golf weekend in Scotland is going to cost the US taxpayer around $1.9 mil. #TrumpUKVisit
Now we’ve got a report about the big #TrumpProtest today in London to mark the #TrumpUKvisit. @realDonaldTrump stayed away, complaining the British public had made him feel “unwelcome.”
.@POTUS managed to insult his host @theresa_may within hours of arriving, after @TheSun published this interview bit.ly/2NeCOeC. He slammed her #Brexit strategy, said he would kill a trade deal, and praised her arch rival @BorisJohnson #awkward
At their joint press conference, 40 miles from London, @realDonaldTrump said he’d apologized to the PM – but also said that the recording of the interview would prove it was all #fakenews.
Next up: we’re examining how @AmbJohnBolton and @RudyGiuliani were paid to speak for the MEK, a fringe Iranian opposition group with an extremist past.
The MEK, short for Mojahedin-e Khalq, means “Holy Warriors of the People.” It fought against the Shah & killed 6 Americans in the 1970s. And in 1979 it participated in the storming of the US Embassy in Tehran, where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days. #OnAssignment
All that earned the MEK a spot on the @StateDept’s list of terrorist organizations in 1997. It was removed only in 2012.
Next up: Black Cube — the Israeli private security firm that made headlines for targeting accusers of #HarveyWeinstein — is back in the news. Last yr it tried to dig up dirt on former Obama officials who had worked on the #Iran nuclear — in an effort to discredit the deal itself.
One of those former Obama officials was @ColinKahl. Black Cube tried to get to him through his wife, @RebeccaKahl, a stay-at-home mom. An operative emailed her a year ago about donating to their daughter’s DC public school. nbcnews.com/news/world/bla…
.@RebeccaKahl says the outreach felt strange, and after a brief exchange, she stopped responding. #OnAssignment
First up: the inside story of a daring raid by Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, in Tehran. Part bank heist, part “Mission Impossible,” the intel seized was key to @realDonaldTrump’s decision to pull out of the #Iran nuclear deal.
When @realDonaldTrump withdrew from the #Iran deal, he cited the Israeli docs as proof that the Iranian promise to abandon nuclear weapons was “a lie.” Just days before, Israeli PM @netanyahu had revealed the intel to the world, with the words “Iran lied.”
Leading Mossad expert @ronenbergman says Tehran is “the hardest place for Mossad to act.” He estimates #Israel has “many dozens” of local dissidents working as operatives inside Iran.
Next up: we’re speaking with members of the Russian opposition. In the March presidential election, Putin won nearly 77% of the vote, securing another 6 yrs in power. He controls the airwaves and decides who can run against him. nbcnews.com/news/world/put…
Anti-Kremlin candidates face big obstacles. They get limited airtime and must go through an arduous registration process. Some face trumped-up criminal charges, prison sentences, and death threats. #OnAssignment
Still, independent candidates are vying to be heard despite the odds. @leonidvolkov, who managed @navalny’s aborted presidential bid, was imprisoned for 65 days. His 350 staffers spent a total of 2.5K days in jail last year.
Next up: we’re tracking how the Kremlin has deployed mercenaries to #Syria. #OnAssignment
Russia says it’s had nearly 50K military personnel rotate in and out of Syria since the beginning of the conflict. An additional 2-3K contract soldiers have been deployed there — though the Kremlin won’t admit it.
About 200-300 of those mercenaries were mowed down by U.S. airstrikes on February 7, after attempting to capture an oil refinery in eastern Syria controlled by the U.S. and its Syrian allies. nbcnews.com/video/u-s-coal…
Now for our scoop: we've got new details on Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with top members of the Trump campaign in June 2016. The #TrumpTower meeting is a key part of Robert Mueller’s inquiry into possible collusion between #Russia and the Trump campaign.
Veselnitskaya has said she’s a private lawyer. But we reviewed leaked emails from 2014 in which she appears to direct the official Russian gov’t response to a DOJ information request in a case against her client, a wealthy Russian businessman.
Her behind-the-scenes machinations hindered the work of U.S. prosecutors in that case. They also suggest a far deeper relationship between Veselnitskaya and the Kremlin than she’s previously let on.
And we’re live! This hour we’re examining the Kremlin and its growing influence at home and abroad. In March, Putin — already the longest-serving Russian leader since Stalin — won the presidential election in a landslide and secured his hold on power until 2024. #OnAssignment
We’re airing this episode from Tallinn, the capital of #Estonia — a tiny Baltic country that has had a fraught relationship with its neighbor #Russia. 11 yrs ago today, Russian hackers disabled most of Estonia’s digital infrastructure in a crippling cyber attack.
Estonia bolstered its cyber defenses after the attack. NATO recently ran the world’s largest cyber defense exercise here — practice for any future attacks by Russia. @ccdcoe
The leaked emails indicate that Veselnitskaya had a high degree of influence over Kremlin officials. She drafted the response that they supplied to US prosecutors in an attempt to stymie a DOJ civil lawsuit against her client, a wealthy Russian businessman. @RichardEngel
Tune in tonight for our heated interview with Veselnitskaya, in which @RichardEngel confronts her with the emails and asks her to spell out her relationship with the Kremlin. #OnAssignment
.@nytimes with a preview of that interview. Catch it all tonight at 9PM ET @MSNBC nytimes.com/2018/04/27/us/…
