Thread by @jamesfourm

1/ I found the money.

⬇️⬇️"Peter Munk. The Hungarian-born Canadian billionaire and Holocaust survivor was a close friend and business partner of Deripaska. Munk had business interests in Hungary and was friendly with the authoritarian Orbán regime."
hungarianfreepress.com/2018/04/11/ole…

2/ Russia-Hungary-Montenegro #BudapestBridge

"Once again prime minister Djukanovic was personally involved in the negotiations, which saw an abandoned ex-Yugoslav naval base and dockyard sold to foreign investors in early 2006. Once again there were allegations of underpricing.

3/ The yard was bought by a firm called TriGranit, Hungary's biggest property developer. It is co-owned by a Hungarian-born Canadian billionaire named Peter Munk and Nat Rothschild.

Munk, 80, is owner of Barrick Gold, the world's largest gold producing company. He was advised

4/ to invest in Montenegro by the Rothschild family, with whom he has long enjoyed business ties.

Then he made a call to Deripaska. 'Oleg made the first phone call to the prime minister (Djukanovic) and opened the door for me,' Mr Munk explained."
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…

5/ Yachts! @LincolnsBible @ninaandtito 🚩🚩👆👆

A year earlier (2007), we find that TriGranit, which is based in Budapest, formed a venture with Gazprombank to "build retail and office buildings in several cities, including Moscow and St. Petersburg."
old.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/t…

6/ Also in 2007:

"Budapest-based real estate developer TriGranit is planning to build a major media center in St. Petersburg, Russia."

The total investment for the new media facility and a "second non-related development project" was ~500 million euros.
hollywoodreporter.com/news/trigranit…

7/ From the article above, "The Telefabrika complex will be a full-service film studio serving the television and film industry, according to media reports on the TriGranit expansion into Russia."

So, this deserves more digging. cc @NSAGov @FBIWFO
bloomberg.com/profiles/compa…

8/ In any case, let's stick to Peter Munk (RIP). Reminder, he owned TriGranit. Its HQ = Budapest.

In August 2015, David Bonderman's TPG purchased TriGranit and its more than $547.95 million worth of commercial property assets in Central & Eastern Europe.
reuters.com/article/us-tri…

9/ But who is David Bonderman, you may wonder?

In 2014, "the names of three billionaire U.S. private-equity tycoons have disappeared from the website of a $10 billion Russian state investment fund, although they continue to serve on its international advisory board."

10/ Those three billionaires were Blackstone Group's founder Stephen Schwarzman, TPG founder David Bonderman and Apollo Global Management LLC founder Leon Black. They became advisers to the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) in 2011.

cc @911CORLEBRA777
wsj.com/articles/names…

11/ Blackstone and Apollo Global are linked to Trump and Kushner in numerous ways, which I discussed in the article below.

Remember Trump surrogate Erik Prince's secret meeting in the Seychelles? That was with the head of the RDIF. ICYMI:
medium.com/@JamesFourM/tr…

12/ Maybe it's time to focus a bit more on David Bonderman, however.

Because in 1994, David Bonderman and Richard Blum co-founded an Asian affiliate of TPG called Newbridge Capital.
forbes.com/global/2007/03…

13/ I mention Newbridge Capital's co-founder Richard Blum because he is on the Board of the Endeavor Group.

(I want to make it clear that yes, Blum is Feinstein's husband, but I do not in any way mean to implicate her in any wrongdoing. She is not her husband. He is not her.)

14/ What's The Endeavor Group?

In May 2009, Adam Waldman of the Endeavor Group filed paperwork with the DOJ indicating he would be working with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. Why? Deripaska wants a US visa, but he can't get one.

cc @LouiseBagshawe
businessinsider.com/american-execu…

15/ So many pieces to the puzzle.

"Peter Munk, the Canadian founder and chairman of the world's largest gold-producing corporation, Lord Mandelson, oligarch Oleg Deripaska and financier Nat Rothschild as they visit the Siberian smelter" pictured in 2005.
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2…

16/ In 2013, Uber raised $258 million from TPG and Google Ventures.

TPG's co-founder David Bonderman joined the board of Uber at the same time, and he remained there until he was forced to resign in June 2017 for making sexist comments.
techcrunch.com/2013/08/23/ube…

17/ @emlas, note the date here. February 12, 2016.

"Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman’s LetterOne investment vehicle said on Friday it had made a $200 million investment in U.S. ride-hailing service provider Uber Technologies Inc." Fridman = Alfa Bank
reuters.com/article/us-ube…

18/ So, Lord Mandelson's (Deripaska's friend) international consulting firm is Global Counsel.

The 'network and client' list for Global Counsel includes Ole-Bjorn Sjulstad and Mikhail Gerchuk. They are senior employees of Altima/Alfa Group's VimpelCom.
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2…

19/ Ole Sjulstad is now the CEO of Telenor Bulgaria, but he's been a board member of Vimpelcom (now VEON) since 2008.

Telenor recently started selling off shares in Vimpelcom, but until recently Telenor and Alfa Group were the only major shareholders.

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20/ This is the part I find really interesting though, @LouiseBagshawe @patribotics.

Sjulstad was the head of Telenor Russia from 2009-2015. From 2015-17 (during 2016 election) he worked for Telenor Hungary. Now he's Telenor Bulgaria.

All while remaining on Vimpelcom's board.

21/ Now, this is from November 2015:

"Norwegian telecoms group Telenor said on Wednesday it has suspended two executives, including its chief financial officer, over a probe into the handling of affiliate Vimpelcom’s entry into Uzbekistan."

Which ones?
reuters.com/article/teleno…

22/ Telenor's CFO Richard Olav Aa & General Counsel Paal Wien Espen.

Also..

"Telenor said it has also temporarily relieved two other managers of their responsibilities: Fridtjof Rusten, CFO at Telenor’s Thai subsidiary dtac, and 🚩Ole Bjoern Sjulstad,🚩 head of Telenor Russia."

23/ ICYMI, here's some background on this case:

"VimpelCom, the Russian-Norwegian telecom operator, admitted to bribing Gulnara Karimova, daughter of Islam Karimov, president of Uzbekistan and agreed to pay US$ 795 million in penalties to US and Dutch authorities.

24/ VimpelCom, majority owned by Mikhail Fridman...and Telenor, which is majority-owned by the Norwegian government, was accused of paying more US$ 114.5 million to a 'relative' of Karimov between 2006 and 2012 for mobile phone licenses and frequencies."
occrp.org/en/investigati…

25/ Notice the years 👆👆? The bribes started in 2006.

Well, it matters because of this article from 2008.

"Mr. Deripaska has been working with a small group of advisers in Washington and London who have helped him deal with inquiries and lawsuits over

26/ ..his alleged ties to organized crime, according to business records and interviews with people involved in the work. The advisers include Alexander Mirtchev and Thomas Ondeck, who operate a Washington consulting firm called GlobalOptions Management."
wsj.com/articles/SB122…

27/ Yet, at the same time GlobalOptions worked for Oleg Deripaska, they also worked for "Zeromax, a Swiss-based holding company widely reported to be the property of Gulnara Karimova, the powerful daughter of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov."

So, Vimpelcom.
harpers.org/blog/2007/05/w…

28/ And wouldn't you know it, Bulgarian-born Alexander Mirtchev, who advised Oleg Deripaska on behalf of GlobalOptions all those years ago is "being looked at by special counsel Robert Mueller’s RussiaGate investigation."

Why's there so much overlap? Mob.
washingtonbabylon.com/exclusive-russ…

29/ Rudy Giuliani ↔️Alexander Mirtchev connection.

Aug. 4, 2015: Bracewell & Giuliani LLP and Sale & Quinn PC successfully defend Dr. 🚩Alexander Mirtchev🚩 and Krull Corporation in Hourani v. Mirtchev in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
prnewswire.com/news-releases/…

30/ Worth bringing up, especially w/ Rudy working for Trump, since Robert Mercer's pro-Trump Make American Number 1 super PAC started paying Bracewell & Giuliani in June 2015 (until Feb 2016). The total payments came out to $336,495.

What does Rudy know?
thedailybeast.com/donald-trumps-…

31/ Seems to be quite a bit.

In any case, the link to post 27 on this thread broke, so I ended up looking through the archived copy. I found my way back to a usual place.

Recap: Alexander Mirtchev advised Oleg Deripaska on behalf of GlobalOptions. Also:

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32/ "GlobalOptions has worked for a Cyprus-based firm called Highrock Holdings, which is controlled by a shady Ukrainian businessman named Dimytro Firtash."

There's that name again, right? Firtash.

But who should we always think of when we see his name?
archive.is/XDaeV

33/ Dmytro Firtash, "did not deny having links to those associated with organized crime. Instead, he argued that he was forced into dealing with organized crime members including [Semion] Mogilevich or he would never have been able to build a business."
foreignpolicy.com/2014/03/19/mar…

34/ 👆👆"Highrock’s connection to the Mogilevich Organization was clearly more than just tangential."

34 percent of Highrock was owed by Galina Telesh, Semion Mogilevich's ex-wife.

33 percent of Highrock was owned by Dmytro Firtash and his wife.

So many of #ThoseCoincidences

35/ Here's another:

In July 2017, we learned that Paul Manafort owed $9.9 million to Ivan Fursin.

Who's that?

He's Firtash's partner in RosUkrEnergo, and according to Austrian authorities, he's also a senior member of the Semion Mogilevich Organization.
medium.com/@JamesFourM/tr…

36/ But where does Rudy Giuliani fit in, right? Why was Rudy's firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, defending Alexander Mirtchev of GlobalOptions in the summer of 2015?

Let's see how they know each other...

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37/ Neil Livingstone was the founder of GlobalOptions. In 2011, he sponsored a panel to boost the MEK, an Iranian "opposition group" the US listed as a foreign terrorist organization at the time.

Livingstone did so on behalf of Barbour Griffith & Rogers.
talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/mek-…

38/ Here's where Rudy Giuliani comes in.

39/ "The MeK has paid Giuliani handsomely for years...for brief appearances before the group and for lobbying to have it removed from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), which occurred in 2012."

Go figure, eh @ericgarland?politico.com/magazine/story…

40/ I also mentioned how GlobalOptions founder, Neil Livingstone, did work for MeK on behalf of Barbour Griffith & Rogers.

That's Haley Barbour's firm.

Haley Barbour is on the board of the Saipan casino which has been raided not once...
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

41/ ... but twice by the FBI since Trump took office.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

42/ Who does Haley Barbour works for now?

Oleg Deripaska.

"Deripaska's company has retained other powerful lobbying groups as well, including Barbour, Griffith and Rogers, headed by the former chairman of the Republican Party, Haley Barbour."

Go figure.
rferl.org/a/associated-p…

43/ We also have to mention:

Alfa Bank was a client of Barbour, Griffith and Rogers (BGR Group) starting in 2002. Barbour was elected governor in 2003, but he continued to receive payments for his past work with BGR through a blind trust.

Much more here.
huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/29/hal…

44/ One of the co-founders of BGR Group, along with Haley Barbour, was a guy named Ed Rogers.

Here's an article Rogers wrote yesterday. Does Ed seem worried to anybody else? cc @Grzabjj @lauferlaw @911CORLEBRA777 @ericgarland @LouiseBagshawe @ushadrons
washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-par…

45/ This is NEW today.

Reportedly, Ukraine's government is worried about offending Trump, so they've stopped cooperating with Mueller's investigation.

Why? They don't want Trump to refuse to send Javelin missiles for Ukraine's defense against Russia.
nytimes.com/2018/05/02/wor…

46/ Here's the problem though--the timing of all this, @EdRogersDC.

April 30, 2018 -- Ed Rogers says the Russian collusion story is dead!

May 2, 2018 -- Ukraine won't cooperate with Mueller's investigation!

Is Ed just a really good guesser, or does Ed know something we don't?

47/ First, let's see.

What investigation(s) did the Ukrainian government (reportedly) put on hold?

They were tracing money paid to Mr. Manafort and a New York law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

But there's already been a guilty plea in that case, right?

48/ Yep.

"Van der Zwaan was an associate in the London office of Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom."

Van der Zwaan's father-in-law is German Khan of Alfa Group.

The same Alfa Group who @EdRogersDC at least used to lobby for. But there's more...
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

49/ The Javelin missiles that are being sent to Ukraine for their defense against Russia? Well, the The prime contractors are Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. Source:
dsca.mil/major-arms-sal…

Who has worked for Raytheon for over a dozen years? BGR Group.
washingtonexaminer.com/raytheons-war-…

50/ Raytheon has paid BGR Group $30,000 in 2018, but guess who else BGR works for?

Several of BGR's employees are registered under #FARA to work in Ukraine, including Haley Barbour himself. Seems important. cc @FBIWFO @NSAGov @RealNCIS @counterchekist
reuters.com/article/us-usa…

--End--

But receipts so they're here.

(From Open Secrets) here are the groups that have retained BGR Group in 2018:

Raytheon Co $30,000-Defense Electronics

Government of Ukraine $150,000 National-Reforms Council of Ukraine

There's one more though...
opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.…

LetterOne Holdings has paid BGR Group $110,000 in 2018.

LetterOne Holdings is part of Alfa Group.

Ed Rogers personally lobbies for LetterOne at BGR.

So, Rogers is lobbying for Alfa Group while claiming the Russian collusion story is dead.

Rather problematic. cc @thespybrief

It's getting kinda predictable, isn't it?

cc @AltNellGwyn

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Oh, look. Predictable.

cc @emlas
realclearpolitics.com/authors/ed_rog…