The consensus is that the US Congress representative referred to in the 7/13/18 US Department of Justice’s indictments against 12 Russian GRU operatives for having interfered with the 2016 US presidential election’s system in order to effect the outcome in favor of republican President Donald Trump, is none other than the Californian Representative Dana Rohrabacher.
See: Mueller probe indictment of 12 Russians for hacking Democrats/ Washington Post
Remember that over a year ago, there was this news item about a June 2016 off the cuff recorded conversation between the US House Speaker Paul Ryan and another House leader Kevin McCarthy with others present, where Mr. McCarthy BLURTED OUT LOUD that he truly believed that the republicans President Donald Trump and the Californian US House Representative Dana Rohrabacher were being paid off by Russia. All who heard this conversation agreed to keep quiet about it.
The Washington Post reporter Adam Entous who had reported on the above story, was a guest on the MSNBC TV show, Hardball on 5/17/17 where he explained that he had contacted both Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Ryan to request their comments regarding the this story. Both denied that this interaction had ever occurred. Then Mr. Entous mentioned that he had a transcript, but then, again both denied that anything untoward happened and they totally discounted the validity of the transcript. Finally, Mr. Entous explained that he also had a copy of the recording which he had listened to for verification purposes. This time both said that whatever comments that were on the tape, were done in jest.
Here’s what he verified:
“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016 exchange.
“House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) immediately interjected, stopping the conversation from further exploring McCarthy’s assertion, and swore the Republicans present to secrecy.”
Why is this recording so important? It is because these same republicans ended up supporting Mr. Trump as he became the 45th US president and they are the ones who have been covering up for him. The question is, how could they do this when they suspected he was being paid by Russia, months before he was elected.
Link to article: House majority leader to colleagues in 2016: ‘I think Putin pays’ Trump
As per the 7/16/18 Crooks and Liars report by Karoli Kuns, “Is anyone surprised to discover the Congressman appears to be Dana Rohrabacher?
Scott Stedman@ScottMStedmanNEW: I can confirm that the US Congressman who allegedly met with Butina and Torshin in August 2015 in Moscow was Dana Rohrabacher.
Scott Stedman@ScottMStedmanCongressional records show that Rohrabacher and Paul Behrends were in Moscow in August 2015:
Here’s the rest of the story….
As per the 7/16/18 Crooks and Liars report by Karoli Kuns, “Just one month after riding down the escalator and announcing his candidacy for president in 2015, Donald Trump attended FreedomFest, a libertarian event in Las Vegas. During the Q&A, a young Russian woman had the opportunity to ask a question.”
“Mother Jones reports that Maria Butina asked him what he would do about sanctions on Russia, if elected. Trump responded that he would try to get rid of them.”
“I am visiting from Russia,” Butina said into the mic.
“Ahhhhh, Putin!” Trump interjected, prompting laughter from the audience as he added a mocking riff about the current president: “Good friend of Obama, Putin. He likes Obama a lot. Go ahead.”
“My question will be about foreign politics,” Butina continued. “If you will be elected as president, what will be your foreign politics especially in the relationships with my country? And do you want to continue the politics of sanctions that are damaging of both economy [sic]? Or you have any other ideas?”
“After going off on Obama and digressing into trade policy, Trump responded: “I know Putin, and I’ll tell you what, we get along with Putin… I believe I would get along very nicely with Putin, OK? And I mean, where we have the strength. I don’t think you’d need the sanctions. I think we would get along very, very well.”
“Butina was arrested Sunday (7/15/18) (by FBI) on charges that she failed to register as a foreign agent. In the charging documents, she is linked to Alexander Torshin, a Russian oligarch and funder of the NRA. But there’s more:”
“Butina is accused of developing relationships with American politicians and a “gun rights organization,” none of which are named in the affidavit supporting the criminal complaint. FBI Special Agent Kevin Helson wrote that Butina was attempting to “establish a ‘back channel’ communication for representatives of the Government of Russia.”
“The affidavit also contains apparent communications, by direct message on Twitter, between Butina and the unnamed Russian official. “Your political star has risen in the sky,” the official told Butina. “Now it is important to rise to the zenith and not burn out (fall) prematurely,” and they later discussed the “Russia-USA friendship society.”
“It’s pretty clear the gun rights organization is the NRA, who may have laundered Russian money to help elect Donald Trump.”
“Mother Jones has been on this story for a long time. Their Butina timeline lays out how she was promoted by the Republican Party and allowed to infiltrate their ranks, beginning in 2011.”
“Washington Post confirms:”
“She began reaching out to NRA members and other American gun enthusiasts in 2013, on several occasions hosting NRA executives and gun activists in Moscow, including one delegation that included former Milwaukee Sheriff Dave Clarke. She and Torshin also attended a series of NRA events in the United States starting in 2014.”
“As she traveled the U.S., she had a number of key interactions with the Trump campaign. In June 2015, as Trump announced his candidacy, Butina wrote a column in the National Interest, a conservative U.S. magazine, suggesting that only by election a Republican could the U.S. and Russia hope to improve relations.”
“And then came her opportunity in Las Vegas to get Trump on the record about sanctions, which she did.”
“According to the affidavit filed by the FBI, Russians were confident in 2015 that Republicans would take control of the government and used Butina to arrange “backchannel discussions” to promote Russian interests.”
Link to entire article to read affidavit: Russian Operative Maria Butina Arrested By FBI Linked To NRA, Trump, And GOP (UPDATED)
See: Central Figure in the NRA-Russia Scandal Arrested for Acting as Foreign agent/ Rolling Stone
Gronda Morin 
Wow this political war is getting better and better! Putin releases bombshell during summit:
What is the $400 million Putin says was funneled to Hillary Clinton’s campaign?
https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/bill-browder-hillary-clinton-vladimir-putin/
WOW! Putin claims U.S. intelligence helped MOVE $400 MILLION to Hillary’s 2016 campaign
https://thenationalsentinel.com/2018/07/16/wow-putin-claims-u-s-intelligence-helped-move-400-million-to-hillarys-2016-campaign/
This may all be a smokescreen to derail the Trump-Russia investigation, but things are certainly heating up!
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Dear 1EarthUnited,
The great thing about the free press in the USA is that there are already credible fact checking sites like PolitiFact which is republican owned, and which rates this assertion as a “Pants on Fire” lie.
No one is going to be deflected by this obvious, easily checked “fake news.”
I take that back. Maybe FOX TV, the White House and the Russian bots can try to give this tale some traction.
Hugs, Gronda
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LOL, yes i did sense this may be a psy-op tactic by the former KGB officer Putin to deflect some of the pressure off the investigation. So unless Putin personally gets involved and provides hard documentation to Mueller, he’s just blowing smoke up Trump’s butt.
This sensationalist move does placate Trump from asking the pertinent questions which should have been addressed in this meeting, but it all turned out to be a pep rally in Putin’s honour.
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Oh the moxey!
Putin kindly offers to help investigate Russian meddling in the US election!
Trump called it an “incredible offer.”
https://www.vox.com/2018/7/16/17576788/putin-trump-meeting-election-idea-hacking
President Donald Trump just bragged that Vladimir Putin has offered to send Russian government investigators to look into Russian government meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.
That is not a joke.
It’s the “interesting idea” Trump mentioned during the press conference after Monday’s closed-door meeting between the two leaders. An idea he said Putin proposed to address Russian involvement in America’s last election and its potential interference in future ones (including the 2018 midterm elections).
Apparently, the Russian president suggested that he send his own people to investigate the 12 named Russian employees of the GRU (the country’s military intelligence agency) indicted Friday by special counsel Robert Mueller. They were charged in connection with the hack of the email server of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the publishing of hacked emails under the guise of “lone hacker” Guccifer 2.0.
Trump teased Putin’s “interesting idea” in his opening remarks during their joint press conference Monday morning:
During today’s meeting, I addressed directly with President Putin the issue of Russian interference in our elections. I felt this was a message best delivered in person. Spent a great deal of time talking about it. President Putin may very well want to address it and very strongly, because he feels strongly about it. He has an interesting idea.
Putin did, in fact, address the allegations “strongly” — which is to say he denied any meddling in the election. And to prove it, he said, he would have Russian law enforcement question the indicted individuals themselves — and even allow members of Mueller’s investigative team to sit in on the questioning:
We have an existing agreement between the United States of America and the Russian Federation, an existing treaty that dates back to 1999: the mutual assistance on criminal cases. […] This treaty has specific legal procedures we can offer. The appropriate commission headed by Mueller, he can use this as a solid foundation and send an official request to us so that we would interrogate, hold questioning of these individuals who he believes are privy to some crimes. Our enforcement are perfectly able to do this questioning and send the appropriate materials to the United States.
Moreover, we can meet you halfway. We can make another step. We can actually permit representatives of the United States, including the members of this very commission headed by Mr. Mueller, we can let them into the country. They will be present at questioning.
Putin said he’d allow members of Mueller’s team into Russia only if the US allowed him to reciprocate — to allow Russian operatives into the US. Specifically, Putin mentioned allegations against financier and vocal Putin critic Bill Browder — whom he accused of funneling (along with his associates) $400 million in donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
In other words, this is Putin’s “interesting idea” to address exhaustively documented allegations that employees of the Russian government tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential campaign by hacking into, and publishing, private emails from one major party in the campaign:
Have Russian government officials ask other Russian government officials if the Russian government told them to commit a crime.
Let US officials watch Russian officials ask other Russian officials if the Russian government told them to commit a crime.
Send Russian officials into the US to investigate allegations against domestic critics of Vladimir Putin.
But if Putin offered a quid pro quo, Trump appears to have heard only a favor. He later praised Putin for his willingness in cooperating in the investigation into his own government:
What he did is an incredible offer. He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people. I think that’s an incredible offer.
It is “incredible” — in that it is extremely hard to believe that a government whose employees are being investigated by a foreign country is going to participate, in good faith, in that investigation while denying out of hand that any wrongdoing took place. But Trump appears to believe just that.
Mueller’s office has declined to comment.
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Dear 1EarthUnited,
There is no way that the FBI or any other US Intelligence agencies will even respond. I truly don’t believe that Russia expects an answer.
The US will continue its investigations. Russia will simply have to worry about how much the US Intelligence community knows about how it conducts his business.
Hugs, Gronda
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Wouldn’t it be a riot if Trump ORDERS Rosenstein to attend the Russian charade! I can only imagine Rosenstein, Mueller and the FBI team interviewing 12 GRU officials. LOL!
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Now, isn’t this interesting. Rohrbacher may need to change his underwear.
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Dear Keith,
I am getting tired of these interesting times. Rep Rohrbacher had better be wearing clean undies as he could be apprehended at any time by the FBI.
Hugs, Gronda
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