That is entirely irrelevant.
All that is relevant is that official representatives of Federal Executive authority abused their power to entrap and destroy an American citizen.
That is all that signifies - if, that is, you think Constitutional Rights should apply to all American citizens at all times, and not just to those persons of whom, and at those times of which, you approve.
It is entirely relevant to making the case that Flynn may well have been a Democrat or Russian stooge on a mission to set Trump up.
Manafort has even more deeply troubling ties to Russia, particularly through Putin's former puppet in the Ukraine (Viktor Yanukovych). ie, the same individual and political party as the scum that Joe Biden's son was working with there. Mykola Zlochevsky owned the gas giant that Hunter Biden was in deep with.
[RT (Russia Today) is a Russia state-owned and controlled propaganda media outlet -ETL]
From The Daily Caller, May 5, 2019
* Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of directors of a Ukranian company [Burisma] as part of an effort to recruit well-connected Americans while the company was under investigation, according to The New York Times.
* Then-Vice President Joe Biden played a role in pressuring Ukraine to oust the countrys top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the company, Burisma.
* Shokins successor initially ended the investigation into Burisma, but decided in March 2019 to reopen it.
https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/05/biden-ukraine-burisma-trump/
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From 2014...
The Federalist
May 13, 2014
Mollie Hemingway
"In late April, around the time the vice president made an official trip to Ukraine, Burisma allegedly appointed Devon Archer, one of Hunter Bidens business partners, to its board as well.
Heres a brief write-up on the story from the Moscow Times, an English-language news service based in Russia.
These dual announcements raise more questions than they answer. The prominence of the individuals involved Hunter Biden is the vice presidents son, while Devon Archer was a major bundler for John Kerry and also his stepsons college roommate
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Mykola Zlochevsky
Same article, Daily Caller, May 5, 2019
Burisma is a natural gas exploration and production company owned by Mykola Zlochevsky, a cabinet member of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich. [Viktor Yanukovich was Putins stooge in the Ukraine -ETL].
Yanukovich was removed from his position in February 2014.
He [Yanukovich] currently lives in exile in Russia and is wanted by Ukraine for high treason.
Zlochevsky later fled the country in late-2014 as Ukrainian prosecutors launched investigations into his time in public office as well as his private businesses.
https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/05/biden-ukraine-burisma-trump/
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Viktor Yanukovych (Party of Regions), Putin's stooge in the Ukraine -ETL]
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His major rival was Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. ..."
The campaign was often bitter and violent.
Yushchenko became seriously ill in early September 2004.
He was flown to Viennas Rudolfinerhaus clinic for treatment and diagnosed with acute pancreatitis, accompanied by interstitial edematous changes, due to a serious viral infection and chemical substances that are not normally found in food products.
Yushchenko claimed that he had been poisoned by government agents.
After the illness, his face was greatly disfigured: jaundiced, bloated, and pockmarked.
British toxicologist Professor John Henry of St Marys Hospital in London declared the changes in Yushchenkos face were due to chloracne, which results from dioxin poisoning.[17]
Dutch toxicologist Bram Brouwer also stated his changes in appearance were the result of chloracne, and found dioxin levels in Yushchenkos blood 6,000 times above normal.[18]
On December 11, Dr. Michael Zimpfer of the Rudolfinerhaus clinic declared that Yushchenko had ingested TCDD dioxin and had 1,000 times the usual concentration in his body.[19]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yushchenko#TCDD_poisoning
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Viktor Yushchenko
Many Ukrainians believe you need look no further than the face of Viktor Yushchenko to understand Russia's aggression against Ukraine.
Once smooth and ruggedly handsome, it still bears the scars from an assassination attempt when someone slipped dioxin into Yushchenko's food. ..."
Read more here:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24765781.html#storylink=cpy
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Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig
Kostiantyn Kulyk, deputy head of Ukraines prosecutor generals international affairs office, said that investigators had evidence that a number of Western figures, such as Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig, also received money from the Party of Regions, the party of ousted Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Craig was recently indicted for allegedly lying about his dealings with Ukraine.
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"Prosecutors who brought charges against Craig, the former Obama White House counsel, focused on a Ukrainian businessman who was also a major donor to Clintons organization, the Clinton Foundation, The Epoch Times reported earlier in April."
Americans who worry about Russia election interference should stop focusing on such trivialities and instead realize that the idea that they have a choice over how they are governed is a mere illusion, Vladislav Surkov, an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, wrote in an op-ed published this week.
The illusion of choice is the most important illusion, the main trick of Western democracy especially .
The rejection of this illusion in favor of the reality that everything is predestined will allow society to reflect first on our vision of democratic development, Surkov wrote.
Foreign politicians talk about Russias interference in elections and referendums around the world.
In fact, the matter is even more serious: Russia interferes in your brains, we change your conscience, and there is nothing you can do about it.
Election interference is not the main thing Americans should be worried about, said an adviser to the Russian president.
In his op-ed for the Russian publication Nezavisimaya Gazeta, or Independent Newspaper, Surkov also laid out Putins vision of returning Russia to its rightful role as a global superpower and exporting Putinism as an ideology to be adopted around the world.
After having fallen from the USSR to the Russian Federation, Russia stopped collapsing and began to recover and return to its natural and only possible state as a large nation that is on the rise, he wrote.
The great role assigned to our country in the history of the world does not allow us to leave the stage or keep silent among the crowd .
It does not promise peace .
Putins great political machine is only gaining momentum and gearing up for a long, difficult, and interesting job, Surkov continued.
He then went on to describe Putin as the founder of modern Russia, similar to the Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk or Frances Charles de Gaulle.
Putinism is the ideology of the future, he wrote.
The political system created in Russia is suitable not only for the future of local areas, it clearly has significant export potential. ...
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-president-vladimir-putin-election-americans-1327793
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May 31, 2019
Nunes: "He [Mueller] was so blatantly dishonest yesterday that he says, well, the Office of Legal Counsel says that you cant indict a sitting president.
Well, he should have been gone after day two.
He has no Russians, except for the Fusion and Clinton Russians, and possibly the dirty cop, the FBIs Russians, those are the only Russians that he has, to show connections to the Trump campaign.
Clearly, the Clinton operation is heavily working with Russians or Russian disinformation.
He didnt take time to look into any of that[!]
Partial transcript above begins at about the 1:34 mark in the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yutgFcr5T9A&list=PLlTLHnxSVuIyw5jPrLmewrpBJAPYKhgml&index=3
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[Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Devin] Nunes said Clinton's campaign and the DNC "plainly colluded" with the Russians to receive and disseminate false information about Trump"
Newly released notes from an Oct. 11, 2016, meeting between Steele and former [Hillary-Obama] Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec cast doubt on the reliability of his dossier and called into question the information provided to the court in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act application that was submitted later that month against onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
The notes, which Kavalec is believed to have emailed to the FBI in mid-October, indicate that Steele knew he had been hired by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee and had been told they wanted his findings made public prior to the 2016 election on Nov. 8.
The Daily Caller reported the notes show Steele identified Russian sources, including former Russian foreign intelligence director Vyacheslav Trubnikov and Vladislav Surkov, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Nunes said Clinton's campaign and the DNC "plainly colluded" with the Russians to receive and disseminate false information about Trump.
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Again, the Wikipedia bits are footnoted.
In February 2016, Manafort approached Donald Trump through a mutual friend, Thomas J. Barrack Jr.
He pointed out his experience advising presidential campaigns in the United States and around the world, described himself as an outsider not connected to the Washington establishment, and offered to work without salary.[49]
In March 2016, he joined Trumps presidential campaign...
In August 2016, Manaforts connections to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his pro-Russian Party of Regions drew national attention in the US, where it was reported that Manafort may have received $12.7 million in off-the-books funds from the Party of Regions.[56]
On August 17, 2016, Donald Trump received his first security briefing.[57]
The same day, August 17, Trump shook up his campaign organization in a way that appeared to minimize Manaforts role.
It was reported that members of Trumps family, particularly Jared Kushner who had originally been a strong backer of Manafort, had become uneasy about his Russian connections and suspected that he had not been forthright about them.[58]
Manafort stated in an internal staff memorandum that he would remain the campaign chairman and chief strategist, providing the big-picture, long-range campaign vision.[59]
However, two days later, Trump announced his acceptance of Manaforts resignation from the campaign after Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway took on senior leadership roles within that campaign.[60][61]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manafort#Chairman_of_Donald_Trumps_2016_campaign
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Thomas J. Barrack Jr
After Trump became president, Barrack acted as a middleman between him and Arab princes.[37]
He denies a quote attributed to him in the 2018 book Fire and Fury that he said Trump was, not only crazy but stupid.[38]
In a 2017 Washington Post article, Barrack commented on Trumps inflammatory rhetoric and proposals to ban immigrants from certain Muslim countries and put up a border wall with Mexico. Hes better than this, he said.[39]
Barrack was interviewed during the Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, in particular regarding Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Konstantin Kilimnik, Cambridge Analytica, the Trump campaign, the Trump transition team, and the financing of the Trump inauguration.[40][41]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Barrack_Jr.#Political_activity
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It's good to be a billionaire!
Thomas J. Barrack Jr.
Guess they didn't know, or thought it would come out, at the time that, according to reports, he was actually working with the Dems to HURT TRUMP and HELP HILLARY! LOL!
His name is Vladislav Surkov also known as Putins Rasputin, the Grey Cardinal of the Kremlin or the Puppet Master.
Here, Gabriel reveals some fascinating things he learned along the way...
1. He is one of the architects of the post-truth world
Long before Donald Trump weaponized the term fake news, Surkov was honing his art.
Today, Moscow is using Surkovs techniques to sow political confusion in democracies throughout the western world.
A former associate said:
Thats a fashion created and nourished by Surkov: this flavour of post-modernism. Nothing is true. There is no truth. There are alternative truths.
2. He rose from nowhere to become the power behind the throne in Putins Russia
He invented Sovereign Democracy, a system in which the illusion of democratic choice only had one outcome: the continuation of Putins rule. One former colleague said of him:
At the ends of his fingers he controlled the threads of so many political structures.
Those structures were so complicated that only Surkov knew where everything was: the opposition, the political parties, MPs, the governors, the creation or closing down of political movements or NGOs, the church, the media, civil society...
3. He started his career as a bodyguard to an oligarch
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russias richest man, hired him as part of his security detail.
The businessman soon realized that Surkovs brains were more valuable than his brawn.
He put him in charge of PR, where he honed his skills in the arts of deception and misdirection at the murky intersection of business and politics.
After they fell out, Khodorkovsky ended up in jail, while Surkov helped run a PR campaign against him.
4. He trained as a theatre director
Surkov studied theatre in Moscow before being expelled, for fighting, or so the legend goes.
These skills would come in handy later on, when he controlled both the pro-Kremlin parties and the opposition.
One former Kremlin advisor said:
He was thinking about himself as the guy who is running the show, trying to find the place of every actor in his play and performance.
5. He controls [pro-Russia] separatist groups in Ukraine
Leaked documents from his office in the Kremlin show Surkov running a network of activists in the eastern Donbas region, where separatist fighters are waging a war against Kiev with support from Moscow.
A former [pro-Russia] rebel leader said:
Periodically I would meet with Vladislav Surkov.
He is one of the cleverest people Ive ever met in my life.
I sometimes think of him as an actor, alone on the stage.
Im watching his show, and at the same time Im learning from him: the art of politics, the art of the possible.
6. He is a fan of Tupac Shakur and beat poetry
In his office in the Kremlin he had a framed portrait of the American rap artist alongside a picture of Vladimir Putin.
Hes also a connoisseur of the abstract artist Jackson Pollock, and can recite beat poet Allen Ginsberg by heart in English.
While he controlled Russian politics with a combination of artistic cunning and political ruthlessness, he also found time to write lyrics for the Russian rock band Agatha Christie.
7. He wrote a postmodernist novel
About Zero is part dystopian fiction, part twisted confession.
The story was published under a pseudonym in 2009, at the height of Surkovs power.
The hero is a ruthless gangster-publisher, a gun-toting poetry nerd, who bribes critics and journalists in the service of corrupt politicians, manipulating the truth to create fake news.
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Dossier author Christopher Steele identified a former Russian spy chief and a top adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin as being involved in handling potentially compromising information about President Donald Trump, State Department notes show.
In her notes, [Hillary Clinton/Obama] State Department official Kathleen Kavalec also referred to the two Russians former Russian foreign intelligence chief Vyacheslav Trubnikov and Putin aide Vladislav Surkov as sources. ...
https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/16/steele-dossier-sources-state-department/