Polish Politician and US / Ukraine Corruption

[kaima]

POLITICO

POLITICO Influence
Intelligence and analysis on lobbying

More details on Manafort’s 'Hapsburg group'

By THEODORIC MEYER and MARIANNE LEVINE
06/25/2018 02:06 PM EDT
With Daniel Lippman and Garrett Ross

MORE DETAILS ON MANAFORT’S 'HAPSBURG GROUP': We reported earlier this month that a document released as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation shed new light on the former European politicians Paul Manafort considered recruiting as part of the “Hapsburg group.” Mueller has accused Manafort of violating foreign lobbying law by orchestrating the group’s lobbying efforts in the U.S. without registering as a foreign agent. The document, a 2012 memo written by former journalist Alan Friedman and addressed to Manafort, identified eight politicians that Friedman and Alfred Gusenbauer, a former Austrian chancellor, proposed recruiting to lobby.

— Only one of those politicians responded to requests for comment from POLITICO at the time. But we heard from another one, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, a former Polish president, late last week. He said he’d never heard of the Hapsburg group. Kwaśniewski said he met Manafort for the first time on Oct. 23, 2012, “during the international conference in Berlin, so the attached documents from September 2012 are completely unclear to me,” he wrote in an email, referring to the memo in which Friedman proposed recruiting him. Kwaśniewski said he traveled to the U.S. a few months later. On Feb. 1, 2013, he “had a series of meetings in Congress, Senate and State Department about Ukraine, but I cannot find my notes from these meetings and after so many years I do not recall who I was meeting with,” he wrote.

— In a follow-up email, Kwaśniewski wrote that he didn’t recall who had arranged those meetings, but that it wasn’t Manafort. “I have never worked for Mr. Manafort,” he wrote. “I was acting as a Former President of Poland, engaged in the Ukrainian matters since 1991. … The main subject of the meetings was the situation in Ukraine and the relations between Ukraine and the West.”

[kaima]

Specifically, Manafort has pleaded guilty to “intentionally [lobbying] without registering and providing the disclosures required by law” under the FARA and seeking to persuade others he worked with to avoid disclosing their lobbying as well.

As described by the special counsel, Manafort assembled the Hapsburg Group as part of a larger effort to push what he referred to as an “Engage Ukraine” global lobbying push. He used his connections with one member of the group—identified in the information as “a former Polish President” and “representative of the European Parliament with oversight responsibility for Ukraine”—to obtain “inside information” on the parliament’s position toward Ukraine, according to court documents. That member of the Hapsburg Group also lobbied U.S. senators against a resolution critical of Yanukovych’s treatment of his political rival Tymoshenko without disclosing his connections to the Ukrainian government. And another met with “senior United States officials in the executive and legislative branches” along with the president and vice president—who at that time would have been Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

[kaima]

This should also be related to an earlier post on this Forum,

jagahost.proboards.com/search/results?captcha_id=captcha_search&what_at_least_one=manafort&who_only_made_by=0&display_as=0&search=Search

[kaima]

Then it looks like 2 million Euros or $2.5 million were paid to the "Hapsburg Group", a pretty significant sum in most minds, particularly considering only about 3 people have been implied to be members....

From the Washington Post:
www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/24/after-hapsburg-group-disclosure-in-mueller-indictment-former-european-politicians-come-under-scrutiny/?utm_term=.dee8466b3267


WorldViews
The Mueller indictment mentioned the ‘Hapsburg group.’ Now European ex-politicians are under scrutiny.



Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, talks during a 2008 news conference in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia. (Valentina Petrova/AP)

By Adam Taylor
February 24

In an indictment updated Friday, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III accused Paul Manafort and Rick Gates of secretly retaining “a group of
former senior European politicians to take positions favorable to Ukraine, including by lobbying in the United States.”

These former European leaders would claim to provide independent assessments of the Kiev government, but would in fact be “paid lobbyists” for Ukraine. In 2012 and 2013, Manafort used at least four offshore bank accounts to wire more than 2 million euros (roughly $2.5 million) to the group, the indictment states.

Though the group's members weren't named, they are collectively given an informal nickname: the “Hapsburg group,” an apparent reference (using an alternative spelling) to the Habsburg royal dynasty that ruled the Holy Roman Empire for centuries.


If the allegations prove accurate, it would be an example of how the American political operatives sought to influence international politics for Manafort's client, the political party of Viktor Yanukovych, then the Ukrainian president. Yanukovych later fled to Russia after protests against his regime.


In 2016, Manafort and Gates went to work for the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, which is why Mueller's team has been investigating them. Gates on Friday pleaded guilty to conspiracy to evade paying taxes and lying to the FBI over questions about his and Manafort's work with the Ukrainians, while striking a deal to cooperate with federal prosecutors.

Mueller is tasked with looking into Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, including possible interactions with the Trump campaign.


The “Hapsburg group” detail in the indictment released Friday triggered widespread attention in Europe, as well as speculation over which European politicians were in Manafort's alleged group.

One European politician, “Foreign Politician A” in the document, is described as a “former European Chancellor.” In 2013, this politician led a group that “lobbied United States Members of Congress, officials in the executive branch, and their staffs” in coordination with Manafort and Gates, the indictment states.

There are two countries where the word “chancellor” is used to describe the head of state. Both happen to have strong historical links to the Habsburg dynasty — Austria and Germany.

In Europe, speculation quickly fell upon Alfred Gusenbauer, who was Austria's chancellor in 2007 and 2008. Since leaving office, Gusenbauer has been criticized for paid consulting work he has undertaken for autocratic regimes. He was also named in the Panama Papers, an enormous 2016 leak of documents from an offshore banking network.


According to a disclosure form filed retroactively in 2017 by the Manafort-linked lobbying firm Mercury, Gusenbauer in 2013 met with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.), Reps. Tom Marino (R-Pa.) and Robert B. Aderholt (R-Ala.), as well as with committee staffers and others.

Speaking to Die Presse on Saturday, Gusenbauer confirmed that he had met with American politicians around that time and did not deny that he had received money from an “American or English company,” but he said he was not aware of any links to Manafort. In the article, Gusenbauer did say he had met Manafort previously — once in Europe and once in the United States — but it was “just for a coffee.”

Gusenbauer also defended his intentions in an interview with the BBC, saying that he was part of a “noble” effort to bring Ukraine closer to the European Union, but he repeated that he was not aware of Manafort financing this activity. “I was not employed by Mr. Yanukovych's government,” he said. “I was, in the European, and American and general interest, working for an association agreement between Ukraine and Europe.”


A number of other former European politicians can be found in Mercury LLC's filings:

Romano Prodi, Italy's prime minister between 1996 and 1998, and again from 2006 to 2008, was shown as meeting Royce, as well as staffers from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the office of then-Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who was House Majority Leader from January 2011 to August 2014. Prodi told the New York Times that he did not believe he had been paid by Manafort and that he had “never been paid from any lobby group in America.”

Viktor Yushchenko, president of Ukraine from 2005 to 2010, was listed as attending a meeting with then-Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) in 2012.

A separate document listed Aleksander Kwasniewski, president of Poland from 1995 to 2005, as a speaker at "educational events and meetings for members of Congress and staff, think tanks and other nongovernmental organizations, and the media.”

A representative of Kwasniewski, reached on Saturday, declined to comment directly on the matter but pointed toward comments Kwasniewski had made to the New York Times, in which he said that although he had met Manafort a handful of times, he did not have a financial relationship with him and had not heard of the Hapsburg group.

[pieter]

Dear friends,

I add this article to the previous exellent artices and sources of Kaima (Ron) and Jaga. This case shows how much power ancien regimes, people of the old guard can have in present day politics. In advising and being spindoctors of new leaders and new regimes.

Chears,
Pieter




USA

What we know about the ‘Hapsburg group’ named in Manafort lobbying scheme


By Alice Cuddy • last updated: 24/02/2018 ( www.alicecuddy.com/ twitter.com/alice_cuddy?lang=en )



Ex-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort secretly paid a group of former senior European politicians to covertly promote the interests of Ukraine’s previous pro-Russia government in Washington, according to a new indictment.

The superseding indictment filed by special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday says Manafort “secretly retained” the ex-politicians, known as the “Hapsburg group”, to lobby for Ukraine in 2012 and 2013.

Here is everything the indictment tells us about the group and their involvement in the scheme.

Why Ukraine?

The indictment says Manafort earned tens of millions of dollars in income representing the interests of Ukraine, its political parties and leaders in a covert lobbying scheme.

Manafort, who was previously charged with multiple counts of tax and bank fraud, faces new charges of conspiracy, money-laundering, failing to register as an agent for a foreign actor and making false statements as a result of the alleged scheme.

How did the former European leaders get involved?

According to the indictment, acting on behalf of then-Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and his Party of Regions, Manafort in 2012 retained the so-called Hapsburg group to “take positions favorable to Ukraine, including by lobbying the United States.”

The plan was for the group to “appear to be providing their independent assessments of Government of Ukraine actions, when in fact they were paid lobbyists for Ukraine,” the indictment said.

Why did Manafort want them?

Manafort called the group “SUPER VIP” in an “EYES ONLY” memo created around June 2012, in which he explained that he wanted to “assemble a group of high-level European highly influencial [sic] champions and politically credible friends who can act informally and without any visible relationship with the Government of Ukraine."

Who was in the ‘Hapsburg group’?

The indictment says the group was managed by a former European chancellor, who it names as Foreign Politician A, in coordination with Manafort.

While the former chancellor is not named in the filing, the head of government in both Austria and Germany is known as the chancellor.

What did the group actually do?

In 2013, the former chancellor and other former politicians from the group lobbied US Members of Congress, officials in the Executive Branch and their staff in coordination with Manafort, the indictment says.

How much did the group get paid?

According to the filing, Manafort paid the group more than 2 million euros in 2012 and 2013, wiring the money through at least four offshore accounts.

For those who have acces to the following newssources, please read these links too:
The 'Hapsburg group'? European ex-politicians under scrutiny after ...
www.washingtonpost.com/.../after-hapsburg-group-disclosure-in-mueller-indictm...
Feb 24, 2018 - The Mueller indictment mentioned the 'Hapsburg group. ... also defended his intentions in an interview with the BBC, saying that he was part of ...

www.wsj.com/articles/manafort-airs-details-of-ukraine-lobbying-as-he-pleas-guilty-1536955622

www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43177864
www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/world/europe/hapsburg-group-mueller-manafort.html
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/24/mueller-investigation-manafort-accused-of-secretly-funding-pro-russia-group
www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/09/14/how-paul-manafort-is-connected-to-trump-russia-investigation.html
video.foxnews.com/v/5835047209001/?#sp=show-clips
www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2018/09/15/paul-manafort-breaks
ukrainianweek.com/World/212454

The group of politicians who were allegedly paid by Paul Manafort were known as the Hapsburg Group, a reference to the famous Austrian imperial dynasty.

Although the indictment documents did not name the leaders, the former Prime Minister of Italy Romano Prodi stated in an interview on Saturday that he and former Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer were the leaders mentioned.

But Prodi said he was not aware that the funds Gusenbauer had paid him had come from Manafort, and were part of “normal private relations I had with him,” and was “not any money from external sources.”

“I tell you I have never been paid from any lobby group in America,” Prodi added.

According to the Times, Prodi and Gusenbauer had both long believed that closer ties between Ukraine and the European Union were a good thing.

“I always had the point of view that it was important to move Ukraine closer to Europe,” Gusenbauer told the BBC in a statement. “It would have been extremely positive if Ukraine could have agreed” to closer ties, he said. “I was talking to E.U. and U.S. politicians to make that point clear… I stopped this activity when I had the impression that Ukraine was moving in the wrong direction.”

Read further: www.businessinsider.nl/former-european-leaders-manafort-hapsburg-group-2018-2/

[pieter]

News Desk

Parsing Paul Manafort’s Plea Agreement for How Much Dirt He Has on Trump


By Adam Davidson ( www.newyorker.com/contributors/adam-davidson / en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Davidson_(journalist) )

September 14, 2018


Paul Manafort has already deepened our knowledge of blatant corruption and illegality among those close to Trump. No doubt he can help Robert Mueller find even more.Photograph by David Butow / Redux

On Friday morning, Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign manager, pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and conspiracy to obstruct justice. As part of the plea, he agreed to coöperate with the special counsel, Robert Mueller. Manafort will lose several properties, the money in several bank accounts, and a life-insurance policy, which appear to have value well in excess of ten million dollars. In exchange, Manafort was assured that he will spend no more than a decade in prison for the two charges, so long as he fully coöperates with Mueller.

We don’t know much more. The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, both told NPR and Politico that Manafort’s coöperation has nothing to do with Trump’s campaign. If so, it is unclear why Mueller—who is tasked with investigating the possibility of that campaign having colluded with Russia—would make an agreement that is predicated on coöperation. The plea agreement specifically requires Manafort to disclose to the government “his participation in and knowledge of all criminal activities.”

“We might not know what Manafort will tell them, but Mueller knows,” Benjamin Wittes, of the Brookings Institution and the editor of its Lawfare blog, told me. He pointed out that the plea agreement refers to a proffer session, earlier in the week, “in which the prosecutors will have sussed out what Manafort might be able to contribute.”

Wittes said that there is still too little information to draw conclusions about how crucial Manafort’s coöperation will end up being for the Mueller investigation. But, even if Manafort had very little helpful to offer, he said, “this is a good deal for Mueller.” Mueller gets another guilty plea and avoids a potential loss at trial, which serves to undercut Trump’s repeated argument that the Mueller investigation is a “witch hunt.” Even if Mueller already knows everything that Manafort has to offer, it would be helpful to have another voice confirming details at some future criminal trial for some other defendant.

At a minimum, Manafort should be able to provide more information about the Trump Tower meeting, in June, 2016, in which Donald Trump, Jr., Manafort, and Jared Kushner sat down with the Kremlin-associated lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and several others from the former Soviet Union. It is one of the more explicit moments in which senior members of the Trump campaign met with people close to the Kremlin to discuss working together to help elect Trump. Among the Trump team, Manafort would be, by far, the most experienced in dealing with emissaries from Russia and its allies, and the one most likely to understand the various agendas of those present. He surely knows what he told Trump, Jr., Trump himself, Kushner, and others about the significance of the meeting. And, because Manafort has deep ties to many business and political associates of Vladimir Putin, he could well know about other possible connections between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

As Franklin Foer writes in The Atlantic, Manafort can also potentially shed light on several key people and a number of events that the public still knows too little about. Was Manafort’s employee Konstantin Kilimnik a Russian intelligence asset? And did he serve as a channel between the Trump campaign and Moscow? When Manafort pondered giving Oleg Deripaska—a Russian oligarch close to Putin—insider access to the Trump campaign, what did he mean? What, if anything, did he end up offering Deripaska?

Many have imagined that Manafort would have been the person in charge of any relationship between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. Rather than merely informing on others, this theory holds that he would be able to lay out the full story of collusion (if, indeed, there was any). However, this plea agreement is not overly generous. It strips Manafort of much of his wealth and means that the man, who is sixty-nine years old, will likely spend a decade in prison. Perhaps this agreement is subterfuge designed to prevent the news media, the President, and other possible witnesses and defendants from concluding that Manafort’s coöperation is so valuable that the investigation is all but over. That seems unlikely. The simplest reading is that Manafort has offered information with real value to Mueller, but that it’s not so crucial that we can consider the case closed. This could be because Manafort doesn’t know as much as we might imagine, or, more likely, that Mueller already knows most of what Manafort could tell him.

Manafort—through his guilty verdicts in last month’s trial stemming from various financial charges and his guilty plea on Friday—has already deepened our knowledge of blatant corruption and illegality among those close to Trump. No doubt he can help Mueller find even more. (Other potential witnesses, such as Allen Weisselberg and Michael Cohen, surely know far more about Trump’s own shady business dealings). But, in the end, the Mueller investigation will likely come down to one central question: Did senior members of the Trump campaign, with the explicit knowledge of Trump himself, actively work with Russian government actors to help sway the election so that Trump would win? If the answer is yes, then Trump will almost certainly be impeached and removed from office.

If Manafort were in a position to definitively answer that question, it seems unlikely he would have accepted this plea agreement. He would have been in a position to hold out for something far better.

For a spoken version of this article go to this Newyorker link and click on the 'Audio: Listen to this article' part of the page: www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/parsing-paul-manaforts-plea-agreement-for-how-much-dirt-he-has-on-trump

[pieter]

US & Canada

Winners and losers from the Manafort plea deal


Anthony Zurcher North America reporter @awzurcher on Twitter (BBC senior North America reporter. A Texan who explains US politics to Brits, UK politics to Americans & Canadian politics to everyone.)
( everipedia.org/wiki/anthony-zurcher/ )

14 September 2018



Two years after being forced from his position as chair of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, 10 months removed from his indictment on multiple counts of unregistered foreign lobbying and financial fraud, and just days before his second trial was set to begin, Paul Manafort has thrown in the towel.

The long-time Washington power player's fight against the special counsel investigation is over not with a bang, but with a plea deal. In exchange for prosecutors dropping five of the seven remaining charges against him and agreement not to retry portions of his previous case, Manafort agreed to "co-operate fully and truthfully" with their future efforts.

According to the presiding judge, such co-operation includes sitting for interviews and briefings with Robert Mueller's team, handing over any relevant documents, and testifying before any future grand juries or, if necessary, criminal trials.

Even though the Manafort case was tangential to the central thrust of Mr Mueller's inquiry - relating to his work as a lobbyist, and not possible ties between the Russian government and the Trump campaign - this still marks a significant development in the special counsel's investigation.

Here's how it all shakes out.

A good day for Robert Mueller

Another case, another win for the special counsel team. Mr Mueller has filed a total of 187 criminal charges and succeeded in obtaining plea deals from Manafort, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Manafort deputy Rick Gates and former campaign adviser George Papadopolous, as well as two others without direct ties to Donald Trump.

He's also indicted former Manafort business associate Konstantin Kilimnik, currently believed to be in Russia, for obstruction of justice and 25 Russian nationals and three Russian companies for interfering in the US 2016 presidential election.

Mr Mueller's office is notoriously tight lipped, speaking only through its court actions - but those actions have said plenty recently.

There was some concern about the risk Mr Mueller's investigation faced going into the Manafort trials. It was the first time his lawyers had to present evidence in a courtroom and convince a jury of their case.

A defeat would be more than an embarrassment, it would open the door for the president and his supporters to call into question the value of the entire inquiry. Instead, Mr Mueller came out with a conviction on eight of 18 counts in Virginia last month, then sealed the deal with the plea agreement on Friday.

Now the special counsel's office can refocus on the central portion of its investigation - whether there was any co-ordination between the Russian government and the Trump team in 2016. To that end, his plea deal with Manafort could potentially lead to valuable insight into the inner workings of the Trump campaign.

A bad day for Donald Trump

Just over three weeks ago, the president was praising his former campaign chief as a "brave man" who, in contrast to his personal lawyer Michael Cohen, "refused to break and make up stories in order to get a deal.

Mr Trump went so far as to suggest in a television interview that plea deals with prosecutors "should almost be illegal".

Now Manafort is taking exactly such a deal.

For a while it looked like Manafort was going to play the good soldier. Despite word that his lawyers were negotiating with the special counsel's office, there was no indication that any kind of co-operative agreement was on the table.

Even though Manafort and the Trump legal team were operating under a joint defence agreement, in which they would share relevant information, it appears the details of the deal caught Mr Trump's side flat-footed.

Rudy Giuliani, Mr Trump's personal lawyer, originally issued a statement that read: "Once again, an investigation has concluded with a plea having nothing to do with President Trump or the Trump campaign."

"The reason: the president did nothing wrong and Paul Manafort will tell the truth."

In a later version of the statement, the last line about Manafort telling the truth was removed - perhaps an acknowledgement that at some point Mr Trump's side may have to call into question the former top campaign aide's veracity.

The scope of co-operative plea deals is usually vague, and this one is no different. At the moment, there's no indication of what information Manafort might share with the special counsel's office. It could be directly related to the Trump campaign or merely tangential. There are, however, obvious questions that come to mind - and they point to the heart of the Trump operation.

For instance, Manafort was in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner and Russian nationals that was originally presented to Mr Trump's elder son as a chance to obtain damaging information from Russia on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Manafort took cryptic notes about that meeting, including worlds like "Illici" and phrases like "Offshore - Cyprus" and "Active sponsors of RNC". A fully co-operative Manafort can end the mystery.

A necessary day for Paul Manafort

Manafort was going to prison one way or another. His conviction last month in Virginia guaranteed that. Now, by agreeing to the plea, he no longer faces the expense of another trial and the possibility of more prison time. At age 69, anything longer than the 10-year term he negotiated starts looking like a de facto life sentence.

Manafort is still taking a financial hit, forfeiting $45m of criminal assets. The ostrich jacket is gone, as are four of his homes. The once high-flying international political player has been brought crashing down to earth. The ledger is now settled, though, and his loved ones can begin to move on.

"He's accepted responsibility," said Manafort defence lawyer Kevin Downing after Thursday's court appearance. "He wanted to make sure that his family was able to remain safe and live a good life."


Paul Manafort seated (L) as his lawyer speaks in court.

There's been plenty of speculation that Manafort could be rescued by a presidential pardon. Mr Trump has certainly hinted that it's a possibility, calling his former campaign aide's treatment "sad" and the prosecution politically motivated. This plea agreement doesn't preclude that eventuality, although if Manafort incriminates others in Mr Trump's circle - or the president himself - a pardon seems unlikely in the extreme.

A pardon, however, has always been an insecure lifeline for Manafort. While the president could free his former aide from federal convictions, the power does not extend to state crimes. Places like Virginia and New York, both of which have Democratic attorneys general, could prosecute Manafort on state tax violations, for instance.

From the inside of a prison, state and federal convictions all look the same.

A plea deal was light at the end of the tunnel for Manafort - and on Friday that was the direction he chose to travel.

[pieter]

WORLD
TRUMP-RUSSIA INVESTIGATION: PAUL MANAFORT GUILTY PLEA REVEALS DETAILS OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE ON CAMPAIGN CHAIRMAN


BY CRISTINA MAZA ON 9/14/18 AT 12:09 PM (for more info on the writer of this Newsweek article click on this link: www.cristinamaza.com/ )

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort pleaded guilty on Friday to conspiring to defraud the United States and conspiring to obstruct justice.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's office accused Manafort of failing to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, a previously obscure law that was recently catapulted into the public spotlight thanks to Mueller’s investigation into foreign interference in the 2016 presidential race. He was also accused of money laundering, tax fraud and failing to file reports on foreign bank accounts, among other charges.

On Friday, the special counsel filed a criminal information—a charging document that is filed by prosecutors to indicate the criminal conduct to which the defendant will plead guilty—which details Manafort’s numerous connections to foreign governments and the use of foreign bank accounts to funnel millions of dollars into the U.S. without paying taxes. He was primarily involved with a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine, according to the documents.

“Between at least 2006 and 2015, Manafort conspired with Richard W. Gates (Gates), Konstantin Kilimnik (Kilimnik), and others to act, and acted, as unregistered agents of a foreign government and political party. Specifically, Manafort conspired to act and acted as an agent of the Government of Ukraine, the Party of Regions (a Ukrainian political party whose leader Victor Yanukovych was President from 2010 to 2014), President Yanukovych, and the Opposition Bloc (a successor to the Party of Regions that formed in 2014 when Yanukovych fled to Russia),” the court document reads.

“Manafort generated more than 60 million dollars in income as a result of his Ukraine work. In order to hide Ukraine payments from United States authorities, from approximately 2006 through at least 2016, Manafort, with the assistance of Gates and Kilimnik, laundered the money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships, and bank accounts,” the document continues.


Paul Manafort arrives for a hearing at US District Court on June 15, 2018 in Washington, D.C. He pleaded guilty Friday to acting as an unregistered foreign agent. MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Manafort’s ties to Ukraine and the former Soviet Union are well known. In their book, Russian Roulette: the Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump, journalists Michael Isikoff and David Corn write that Victoria Nuland, an assistant secretary of state who oversaw European and Eurasian affairs under former President Barack Obama, claimed that Manafort had been “a Russian stooge for fifteen years.”

According to Mikheil Saakashvili, former president of the post-Soviet Republic of Georgia, Kremlin-linked operatives began hiring Manafort and his associates to push their agenda in the former Soviet Union around a decade ago.

“Manafort first came to Georgia in 2008 to work for [Russian-linked businessman Arkady Shalvovich "Badri"] Patarkatsishvili. [Ukrainian oligarch Rinat] Akhmetov called Manafort and asked him to work against me,” Saakashvili, who touts himself as a pro-Western politician opposing Russian influence in the region, told Newsweek. “Russians are very clearly recruiting Americans because they have high visibility. Why is Washington so expensive? It’s not Silicon Valley. Lobbyists are getting money from dirty origins. We were getting damaged by Manafort starting in 2005. It wasn’t just Ukraine; it was the whole former Soviet space,” Saakashvili adds.

The special counsel’s documents allege that Manafort was aware that he was lobbying illegally on behalf of foreign interests that were in direct opposition to official U.S. foreign policy.

“Manafort knew that Ukraine had a strong interest in the United States’ taking economic and policy positions favorable to Ukraine, including not imposing sanctions on Ukraine,” the criminal information states. “Manafort also knew that the trial and treatment of President Yanukovych’s political rival, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, was strongly condemned by leading United States executive and legislative branch officials, and was a major hurdle to improving United States and Ukraine relations.”


Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was one of Paul Manafort's primary clients. GENYA SAVILOV/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Manafort allegedly hired five companies and a law firm to assist with lobbying activities. Furthermore, he secretly retained four former heads of state and senior officials from Europe, including a former Austrian chancellor, an Italian prime minister and a Polish president, who were all being paid by Ukraine to give favorable assessments of the country. Between 2012 and 2014, Manafort secretly wired over $2 million to these former heads of state, nicknamed the "Hapsburg Group," using offshore accounts.

One of the heads of state was a representative in the European Parliament, and in 2012 Manafort directed this individual to call members of Congress to lobby against legislation that would be unfavorable to Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Yanukovych. Manafort went to great lengths to keep these lobbying activities secret, as well as to conceal the fact that the European Parliament member in question was on Ukraine’s payroll, according to the special counsel.

It is likely the Polish official in question is former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who previously headed a European Parliament monitoring mission to Ukraine, according to experts.

“Today's guilty plea confirms that Trump's former campaign manager was illegally lobbying on behalf of a foreign government and concealing that information from the Department of Justice. While the indictment is focused on Manafort's work for a pro-Kremlin party in Ukraine, it also implicates Manafort's business partner Konstantin Kilimnik, who reportedly has direct ties to Russian intelligence,” Michael Carpenter, senior director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, told Newsweek. “It seems likely, therefore, that Manafort was not just representing the interests of a pro-Kremlin political faction in Ukraine, but that he was directly or indirectly representing the Kremlin's interests as well.”

Manafort and his associates also had a string of companies and bank accounts in countries like Cyprus, the Grenadines and the United Kingdom, according to the court documents, which they used to avoid paying taxes on income earned abroad. The document details 15 separate entities in Cyprus, two in the Grenadines and one in the United Kingdom. Manafort paid vendors in the U.S. using wire transfers from these foreign entities that were worth more than $12 million. He also disguised more than $13 million from Cypriot entities as loans for the purpose of fraudulently reducing his reported taxable income, the special counsel claimed.

Manafort has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel and entered guilty pleas on two charges. The government will take over four of Manafort's properties and money from several bank accounts, according to court records.

The Newsweek version of this article, in the original Newwsweek lay-out: www.newsweek.com/trump-russia-investigation-paul-manafort-guilty-plea-reveals-details-foreign-1121881

More sources on the Habsburg group:

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-13/manafort-pr-bid-led-ex-chancellor-to-vow-discretion-for-a-fee
www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/mueller-accuses-manafort-of-witness-tampering-involving-so-called-hapsburg-group.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates_and_Russian_officials

[kaima]

Poland’s Leader Finds an Ally in Trump, Even as He Brings Courts to Heel

By Marc Santora and Joanna Berendt

Sept. 17, 2018

WARSAW — When President Trump visited Warsaw in the summer of 2017, the Polish government was busy setting up a transformation of the nation’s judicial system in ways that critics found deeply troubling and undemocratic.

Opponents of the overhauls hoped that Mr. Trump would use his visit to urge the government to change course. He did not. Instead, greeted by cheering throngs — many bused in from rural villages where the governing party’s support runs deepest — he warned of the dangers of “radical Islamic terrorism” and “the creep of government bureaucracy.”

“It seems to me it was a green light to push ahead with the radical reforms,” said Adam Bodnar, the Polish ombudsman, a state entity that protects civil liberties.

Now, as President Andrzej Duda sets off for his first official visit to the White House on Tuesday, the project to reshape the courts is nearly complete after a purge of the Supreme Court through the forced retirements of one-third of the justices.



American diplomats have remained largely silent, even as a deep chorus of critics of the government, at home and abroad, have condemned the changes as an attempt to undermine the independence of the judiciary.

The American silence is all the more notable in contrast to escalating steps toward sanctions by Brussels, which has become so concerned about Poland’s anti-democratic drift that it has moved to invoke Article 7 of the European Union treaty for a potential breach of obligations as a member of the bloc.


If the process goes to its conclusion, Poland could lose its voting rights in the European Union. The bloc has also threatened Poland with the loss of millions of euros of European Union subsidies.

The Polish government has argued that the changes are needed to rid the courts of any vestiges of the Communist era. But the effort has sown turmoil at home as thousands of protesters routinely fill the streets in outrage. What prevails is confusion.



Image
President Andrzej Duda of Poland, center, in Brussels in July. He sets off for his first official visit to the White House on Tuesday.CreditChristian Bruna/EPA, via Shutterstock

A law forcing Supreme Court judges to retire at 65 — even if they are currently serving their six-year terms — is being challenged before the European Court of Justice; by the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm; and in a case on behalf of the dismissed judges.




With Polish judges fighting to keep their jobs, it is unclear who is in charge of the court, which judges can sit on which cases, and whether their rulings will later be called into question.

The government’s changes have inspired resistance from the nation’s judges, who have all but boycotted their own posts.

Of about 10,000 qualified judges in the nation, only around 200 judges and other “applicants” have submitted their names to fill dozens of open positions on the Supreme Court. At least 99 cases have had to be postponed as there are simply not enough judges.

Poland’s top Supreme Court justice, Malgorzata Gersdorf, who was targeted by the new law, has refused to retire, and the person named by Mr. Duda as her replacement said he did not consider himself to be the head of the court.

Judges who have publicly condemned the new law have found themselves hauled before disciplinary chambers, denounced in the right-wing media and threatened by party supporters.

Despite the turmoil and the prospect of sanctions from Brussels, Poland’s political leaders have been undeterred.

[pieter]

I will show the rightwing view about Poland in this post of rightwingers outside Poland.

Poland’s justice system is nepotistic and has communist-era judges, Swedish news conservative portal Fria Tider has said while defending government-backed reforms that have been vetoed by the president amid a political storm in december 2017.

According to the Swedish website, Poland’s courts employ even multiple generations of a single family, including those who started serving during the communist-era, newsbook reported.

The website added that a number of judges have committed crimes and are corrupt, but added that they are untouchable because of immunity, newsbook said.

The portal also said that Poland’s planned reforms, two of which President Andrzej Duda announced he would veto, would make Polish courts more independent than those in Sweden, and that Poland was not “marching towards dictatorship”, newsbook said.

The EC has arbitrarily decided that the democratic state of law is best served by a system based on structures directly inherited from the totalitarian communist juridical system of the pre-1989, so called, Polish Peoples Republic. Structures that have never been reformed. The Commission also declared that the interference of the present Polish parliamentary majority in that system is undemocratic. Despite the majority that has been created via honest and democratic elections, the democratic standards of which are questioned by nobody. The Commission has never been interested in the extreme inefficacy of the Polish juridical system so far. Despite Poland frequently losing trials before the ECHR in Strasbourg for excessively long judicial proceedings, which is a practice explicitly condemned in Article 47 of the EUCFR, to which the Commission refers.

Isn’t the Polish judicial system able to reform itself?

The judiciary system in Poland is characterised by nepotism and corruption. The 28 years since 1989 convinces us that it is unable to self-reform. In denying the democratically elected parliamentary majority in Poland its right to reform the structures inherited from its totalitarian communist past, the Commission voluntarily adopts the role of the defender of all the pathologies mentioned above. Who is to reform the post-communist judiciary system in the democratic state of law if not the parliament? Why is the Commission interfering now when Poland has started indispensable reform and had not interfered earlier in favour for the reforms and demanding the change of the sick system?

Sources:
polska.pl/politics/opinions/polish-government-adviser-commission-position-grotesque/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Poland