More.....
I may be getting way ahead of myself, but I see 3 dots and they connect quite nicely. The criminal information on Cohen made available by SDNY today and statement's made today by Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis are 2 dots, the dossier is the third:
A. Relevant portion of Steele Dossier:
COMPANY INTELLIGENCE REPORT 2016/166
FURTHER DETAILS OF SECRET DIALOGUE BETWEEN TRUMP CAMPAIGN TEAM, KREMLIN AND ASSOCIATED HACKERS IN PRAGUE
Summary
- TRUMP's representative COHEN accompanied to Prague in August/September 2016 by 3 colleagues for secret discussions with Kremlin representatives and associated operators/hackers
- Agenda included how to process deniable cash payments to operatives; contingency plans for covering up operations; and action in event of a CLINTON election victory
- Some further details of Russian representatives/operatives involved; Romanian hackers employed; and use of Bulgaria as bolt hole to “lie low”
- Anti-CLINTON hackers and other operatives paid by both TRUMP team and Kremlin, but with ultimate loyalty to Head of PA, and his successor/s
Detail
- We reported previously (2016/135 and /136) on secret meeting/s held in Prague, Czech Republic in August 2016 between then Republican presidential candidate Donald TRUMP's representative, Michael COHEN and his interlocutors from the Kremlin working under cover of Russian “NGO” Rossotrudnichestvo.
- ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████ provided further details of these meeting/s and associated anti-CLINTON /Democratic Party operations. COHEN had been accompanied to Prague by 3 colleagues and the timing of the visit was either in the last week of August or the first week of September. One of their main Russian interlocutors was Oleg SOLODUKHIN operating under Rossotrudnichestvo cover. According to ███████████████, the agenda comprised questions on how deniable cash payments were to be made to hackers who had worked in Europe under Kremlin direction against the CLINTON campaign and various contingencies for covering up these operations and Moscow's secret liaison with the TRUMP team more generally.
- █████████████ reported that over the period March- September 2016 a company ca1led ██████████ and its affiliates had been using botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data and conduct “altering operations” against the Democratic Party leadership. Entities linked to one████████████were involved and he and another hacking expert, both recruited under duress by the FSB, ████████████████were significant players in the operation. In Prague, COHEN agreed contingency plans for various scenarios to protect the operation, but in particular what was to be done in the event that Hillary CLINTON won the presidency. It was important in this event that all cash payments owed were made quickly and discreetly and that cyber and other operators were stood down/able to go effectively to ground to cover their traces. (We reported earlier that the involvement of political operatives Paul MANAFORT and Carter PAGE in the secret TRUMP-Kremlin liaison had been exposed in the media in the run-up to Prague and that damage limitation also was discussed by COHEN with the Kremlin representatives).
- In terms of practical measures to be taken, it was agreed by the two sides in Prague to stand down various "Romanian hackers" (presumably based in their homeland or neighbouring eastern Europe) and that other operatives should head for a bolt-hole In Plovdiv, Bulgaria where they should “lay low”. On payments, IVANOV’s associate said that the operatives involved had been paid by both TRUMP’s team and the Kremlin, though their orders and ultimate loyalty lay with IVANOV, as Head of the PA and thus ultimately responsible for the operation, and his designated successor/s after he was dismissed by president PUTIN in connection with the anti-CLINTON operation in mid August.
13 December 2016
B.
Lanny Davis statement:
“Mr. Cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel and is more than happy to tell the special counsel all that he knows... Not just about the obvious possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system in the 2016 election, which the Trump Tower meeting was all about, but also knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on.”
C. From
Cohen’s criminal information:
(37). In or about January 2017, MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, in seeking reimbursement for election-related expenses, presented executives of the Company with a copy of a bank statement from the Essential Consultants bank account, which reflected the $130,000 payment COHEN had made to the bank account of Attorney-1 in order to keep Woman-2 silent in advance of the election, plus a $35 wire fee, adding, in handwriting, an additional "$50,000." The $50,000 represented a claimed payment for "tech services, " which in fact related to work COHEN had solicited from a technology company during and in connection with the campaign.
Curious what everyone thinks of this. I had not heard of Cohen paying a tech company in connection with the campaign before, so when I read that in the criminal info I immediately thought of Steele's allegation of payments to Russian hackers. I don't think it's likely Cohen was seeking payment for Parscale's operation, and I've seen no indication that Cohen hired them, and see no need for that payment to be farmed out in the same shady fashion that the illegal campaign contributions to Stormy and McDougal were. So that leaves me thinking the contributions to this tech company were illicit in nature.
