Robert Mueller, Former F.B.I. Director, Is Named Special Counsel for Russia Investigation

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A self-described sex expert says she will spill information on Trump and Russia to get out of a Thai jail

By Anton Troianovski February 27, 2018 at 2:49 PM

MOSCOW — A self-described sex expert whose videos highlighted the ties between one of Russia’s richest men and the Kremlin has been jailed in Thailand and is calling for U.S. help, claiming she has information about links between Russia and President Trump.

Anastasia Vashukevich, an escort service worker from Belarus who catapulted to a certain measure of fame after filming a yacht trip with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko, was detained in Thailand over the weekend in a police raid on her “sex training” seminar. While still in custody Tuesday, she published Instagram videos asking U.S. journalists and intelligence agencies to help her.

Deripaska, with whom Vashukevich said she had an affair, used to employ former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. But Vashukevich, better known by the alias Nastya Rybka, provided no evidence Tuesday to back up the claim that she had new information to offer related to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. A post to her Instagram account showed her sitting on the floor of what was described as a Thai jail cell and said she was sick.

“I am the only witness and the missing link in the connection between Russia and the U.S. elections — the long chain of Oleg Deripaska, Prikhodko, Manafort, and Trump,” Vashukevich said in a live Instagram video Tuesday, apparently shot as she was driven in an open-air police van through the Thai resort city of Pattaya. “In exchange for help from U.S. intelligence services and a guarantee of my safety, I am prepared to provide the necessary information to America or to Europe or to the country which can buy me out of Thai prison.”

Vashukevich said in her video that she had already given an interview to U.S. broadcaster NBC. Representatives for Vashukevich and Deripaska did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman declined to comment.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny made Vashukevich famous last month after he broadcast old footage from her Instagram account showing an August 2016 yacht trip with Deripaska and Prikhodko. Navalny used the footage to allege that Deripaska, a metals magnate, had bribed Prikhodko, one of Russia’s most influential government officials, with the luxury getaway accompanied by women from an escort service.

Navalny also speculated that Deripaska and Prikhodko may have served as a link between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign in 2016, although Vashukevich’s videos offered no proof. According to emails described to The Washington Post last year, Manafort — who once worked for Deripaska — directed an associate to offer Deripaska “private briefings” about Trump’s presidential campaign. A Deripaska spokeswoman said he was never offered such briefings.

Prikhodko called Navalny a “political loser” whose investigation combined “the possible and the impossible.” Deripaska said Navalny’s “allegations have nothing to do with reality” and sued Vashukevich for violating his privacy. A court ordered Instagram to remove some of Vashukevich’s posts.

According to her Instagram account, Vashukevich was in Dubai when Navalny’s video came out, and then she traveled to Pattaya in Thailand. On Sunday, according to Russian news reports, Thai police raided a sex seminar for Russian tourists in which Vashukevich was participating. Attendees paid more than $600 each for a five-day course, Russian media said.

A video from a Thai morning news broadcast showed the police operation. Some of those detained were working without a permit, one of the TV hosts said. “Why do they have to use Thailand to teach this course?” he asked.

Russian Embassy consul Vladimir Sosnov told the RIA Novosti Russian state news agency that Vashukevich and several others were detained for being part of an “illegal training session” and that she and her companions would be put on trial and deported. But Vashukevich claimed Tuesday that she was arrested on orders of Russian officials as payback for her video of Deripaska and Prikhodko and that she expected to be sent to Russia, where she would be jailed again.

“Please USA save us from Russia!” said a post in English on her Instagram account. “All this cases are political repressions!”

Coincidentally or not, one of Russia’s most important security and intelligence officials was also in Thailand on Tuesday. Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, former head of the Federal Security Service, held talks in Bangkok on the security of Russian tourists, RIA Novosti reported.

Alisa Tang contributed to this report.
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@BobMueller

 

If what sh claims is true, I expect her to be dead within days.

 

I expect Mueller is pacing his investigation so that Congress would see his report after the elections in November. It would be improper to release it right before elections because it could sway votes, and the Trump sycophant bloc will probably be thinner after.

That's sad. Her arrest probably is Russia's doing. That she's not appealing to her own countrymen for help is a bad sign. But, I don't see our State Dept going out of their way for her if she's threatening to expose the president. I expect she's going to be in Thai prison for awhile, and Thai prison probably really sucks. Once that video had come out, she probably should have run to the EU and stayed there.

 

If Mueller has any connecting/corroborating information, I would surmise she may have an avenue out. Unlikely, but possible.

In regards to the report, considering Dipshit-in-Chief is taking no action to ameliorate continuing Russian interference in the upcoming election, I see no reason for Mueller to wait. In fact, he probably has every reason to bring it in early.

 

Regarding the Russian escort, Mueller doesn't have any authority I'm aware of to negotiate with foreign countries. It would be on Rex Tillerson to bust her out, which I don't see him doing. At best, Mueller might interview her and wish her good luck in prison. I don't think he can help her at all.

On his report, I understand the urgency, but you only get one chance to make a first impression. If he puts it out before a Republican House and they have an opportunity to obfuscate and rationalize a reason to not act, he can get a second bite at the apple when Democrats take control of the House in 2019 (optimistically), but the intransigence will already have set in. So, I don't know what he's actually doing. I guess I think it would be smart to wait for the election to maximize his success. And, given his current pace, that seems like a reasonable timeline.

 

Proper or not, its unlikely it would happen sooner, as Manafort's trial date isn't until September:

September trial date set for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sept...rump-campaign-chairman-paul/story?id=53413913

 

Judge Amy Berman Jackson must be a Democrat or something to set the trial date so that we can Manafort headlines every day heading up toward the election.

(That's a joke. I'm sure Judge Jackson is a consummate professional who considered only the court's calendar and the defendants' right to a speedy trial when she set the date.)

 

Irony...

 

btw... if the answers to the question above are "yes, he knew" that not only opens up collusion but more importantly (from a criminal charges point of view) criminal conspiracy. I suspect what went on leading into and in the room of that meeting between trump Junior, Kushner, Manafort, and the Russians at Trump Tower may become key to this. Records of people in and out of Trump Tower, phone records, and of course, witness testimony will certainly be important. Also remember Bannon says the chances that the Russians weren't brought to meeting with trump senior were "zero".

 

If he claims he doesn't know anything, what are you going to do? Even if someone testify against him, it would be his word against theirs. I do not think GOP congress will do anything if that is the case, I do not believe there are hard evidence for this. I think let him serve out his term and let the voters decide in 2020.

 

Records of trump's own coming and goings. Phone records (recordings). Witness testimony. It may not only be trump's own words against others. Its been a while since the meeting was discussed, but I vaguely recall the story was trump senior wasn't in trump tower that day (maybe on AF1?), but then later reports had him entering the building.

trump's own story about knowledge of the meeting seems to be all over the place.

 

Hmm... didn't see this...

 

*hours

 

May need to transfer this post to the fired/quit thread soon...

 

Definitely a significant happening in this whole thing.

 

Shut this witch hunt down and get back to real news!

 

Man's inhumanity to man. The horror. The horror.

 

Russian, NRA Trump the script gets better.

Russian banker said he met Trump through NRA

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/russian-banker-met-trump-nra-article-1.3850535


The Russian banker under scrutiny for money transfers to the National Rifle Association said that the organization helped him meet President Trump.

Alexander Torshin, a deputy head of Russia’s central bank, is one of his country's strongest supporters of the NRA, even hosting dinners for an American delegation that came to Moscow in 2015.

A report earlier this year said that federal investigators were looking into whether his payments to the group were funneled towards Trump’s election as part of what Fusion GPS investigator Glenn Simpson said was a “very concerted effort” by Russian officials to get in with the gun lobby.

Further digging by NPR into Torshin's prolific Twitter use found that he also mentioned in December 2015 that he knew the then-candidate.

Brooklyn restaurant cancels NRA fund-raiser


Dmitry Rogozin, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, posted these photos of himself with members of a National Rifle Association (NRA) delegation in Russia on December 12, 2015.
(DMITRY ROGOZIN VIA TWITTER)
Responding to a tweet from a Russian journalist about Larry David saying Trump is racist, Torshin said “comics should make people laugh! Right? There he is trying! I know D. Trump (through NRA). A decent person."

Torshin had said earlier that year that he saw Trump, who denies meeting Torshin, in Nashville, where the NRA convention was held in 2015, and that he has “traditional family values.”

Other tweets show Torshin, a lifetime member of the NRA who met with Donald Trump Jr. in 2016, talking about meeting top officials in the group including during the late 2015 Moscow trip that included Trump-supporting Sheriff David Clarke.