Date on the 25th floor

As the eldest son of Donald Trump and his two closest advisers collected a compromising evidence for Hillary Clinton and what results this led

Photo: Google

Donald Trump and his entourage at least 20 times have publicly denied the fact of the contacts of his election headquarters with Russian officials. When such contacts were discovered, Trump's people dismissed-they say, think, these are some impostors, the personalities of the third. When it turned out that the individuals were still primary, like the Russian ambassador in Washington, Sergei Kislyak,-also, nonsense, just congratulated the diplomat on Christmas. And then, finally, it turned out that the eldest son and two closest advisers to the Republican candidate met with Russian nascenters with the aim of getting hold of an incriminating evidence for the main opponent - Hillary Clinton. And again they tell us that nothing special happened. And if you listen to the Donald Sr., then his son is “the personality of the highest category”, and those who accuse him of something there, made “the greatest witch hunt in history”.

However, it is better to make out this new scandalous episode in order, entering it into the context of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Timely gift

On May 26, 2016, Donald Trump ahead of schedule reached the finish line: he secured himself a republican party nomination and completed the primaries season in splendid loneliness-all his competitors-republicans left a distance. Hillary Clinton remained his only rival. Meanwhile, his rating left much to be desired. Hillary, which began the campaign with a two -digit advantage over Trump, still ahead of him by 4-8 percentage points. Trump had to find a strong contrings at all costs.

On June 3, the eldest son of Trump, Donald Trump Jr., received an unexpected gift. His acquaintance Rob Goldstone, in the past, is the “yellow” reporter, and now the entrepreneur, who is working on the organization of various shows in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Baku, sent him an electronic letter of the following content:

“Emin just called me and asked me to contact you on a very interesting subject.

This morning, the Russian State prosecutor met with his father Aras and at this meeting proposed to provide Trump's headquarters with some official documents and information that convict Hillary and its divisions with Russia and can be very useful to your father.

Obviously, this information is extremely confidential, but this is part of the efforts of Russia and its government in favor of Mr. Trump ...

How, in your opinion, it is best to dispose of this information, and can you call Emin yourself on this subject?

I can also send this message to your father through Ron, but the question is so delicate that I decided to write to you first. ”

Aras and Emin are the father and son of the Agalarovs, a Russian billionaire and pop singer. They met Trumps and Goldstone in Moscow in 2013 at the Miss Universe contest, whose co -owner was Trump then, and the Agalarovs became his partners and organizers from the Russian side. Araz Agalarov then promised Trump to introduce him to Vladimir Putin, and Trump was already looking forward to this acquaintance on his Twitter, but only he managed to get acquainted with the chairman of the board of Sberbank German Gref.

President and owner of the Crocus Group Group Aras Agalarov with his son Emin. Photo: aze.az

The Ron mentioned in a letter is almost certainly Ron Graff, a long -term personal assistant to Trump. She does not work now in the White House, but is still able to organize a date with the president to those who do not want to advertise such a meeting. Some Russian media mistakenly translated the Crown Prosecutor expression in the letter as a “prosecutor general”. In fact, Goldstone, being a British, is expressed in British. This is just any prosecutor who always represents the state.

To this message, Trump Jr. answered the famous phrase now: "If everything is as you say, I like it, especially by the end of the summer."

The end of summer is a pause between national party congresses and television battles of the finalists of the race. The period when candidates dream of acquiring a murderous compromise for an opponent.

Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. Photo: govermentpolit.ru

“Emin just called me and asked me to contact you on a very interesting subject. This morning, the Russian State prosecutor met with his father Aras and at this meeting proposed to provide Trump's headquarters with some official documents and information that convicts Hillary and its divisions with Russia and can be very useful to your father ... "

A lady from Russia

Don Jr. really wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. But at that moment he was somewhere in the departure and did not want to talk with people from Russia hastily.

On June 6, 2016, he returned and at the fourth hour in the afternoon (time of New York) wished to contact Emin immediately. Goldstone replied that Emin was currently on the stage, but after 20 minutes he would be free. (We evaluate the hurry and efficiency!) As it appears from further correspondence, Emin Agalarov confirmed the information and invited Trump Jr. to meet with the “lawyer of the Russian government” (expression of Goldstone), who is just in New York (however, the floor of a lawyer in the English phrase cannot be established).

On June 7, Donald Trump Sr. spoke in his own “National Golf Club Trump” in the County Westchester, New York. This is what he told his supporters:

“I'm going to say a big speech. Maybe on Monday next week. We will discuss all these divisions that Clintons were engaged in. I think for you it will be very informative and very, very interesting. ”

Monday is June 13th.

Trump Son to such an extent longed for a meeting with the owner of incriminating evidence that he changed his schedule three times in order to adapt to the schedule of the same lady from Russia, the “lawyer of the Russian government”. On the appointed day and an hour, she was busy in the New York court, then she had not yet arrived in New York from Moscow, and finally she in New York, but does not have time to arrive. In the end, the meeting took place on June 9, 2016 on the 25th floor of the New York Trump Bashny.

On the Russian side, as already mentioned, four people participated in it. The lawyer near Moscow, Natalia Veselnitskaya, to whom the main attention of the press was focused on, was accompanied by translator Anatoly Samochornov, Rinat Akhmetshin, who is called the former officer of the GRU, and now the Washington lobbyist (he was most likely the main person in this delegation), and another American of Russian origin, vice-president of the group of companies Crocus Group, which is owned by Aras Agalarov. From Trump, at the meeting, the head of his headquarters Paul Manafort, his son -in -law and closest adviser Jared Kushner were present.

By inattention, the journalists at first did not notice the phrase of Goldstone: "I will send you the names of two people who will come to the meeting for the security." At the same time, Goldstone reported that he himself would not be present on it. Today we know that there were four Russians at the meeting - a whole delegation.

Trump Son to such an extent longed for a meeting with the owner of incriminating evidence that he changed his schedule three times to adapt to the lady from Russia, the “lawyer of the Russian government”

When The New York Times reported the fact of the meeting, Trump Jr. did not deny it and made a printing statement. The initial version was brief:

“We discussed mainly a program for adopting Russian children, which several years ago operated and popularly enjoyed among American families, but has since been discontinued by the Russian government, but this topic has not played a role in the campaign, and no continuation has followed.”

Perhaps the advisers explained to Trump what soullessness is ugly to orphans, and the next day he corrected:

“I interrupted her and specified that my father is not an elected politician, but a private person and that she should contact him when he takes an official post with her comments and concern.”

In this second text there is an important clarification: in connection with the problem of adoption, the guest “mentioned the Magnitsky law”. As for compromising evidence that they expected from her, “her statements were vague, vague and stupid ... It soon became clear that she had no significant information” and that the promises of Goldstone on this subject were only a pretext for the audience.

Lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya. Photo: ru.aravot.am

A turning point

Trump's threat did not materialize. On June 13, he did not make a speech with accusations against Clintons. His rating in the first two weeks of June collapsed from 43 to 38 percentage points. In his headquarters reigned with inferiority and rivalry. At that moment, the prospect of “riot” at the national congress of Republicans seemed real at that moment: Trump's opponents were looking for a procedural opportunity to cancel the results of the primaries and organize the vote of delegates “from scratch”.

But on June 14, the National Committee of the Democrats announced the hacking of its servers, and on June 15, the mysterious and, apparently, never existing single hacker Guccifer 2.0 posted the first portion of stolen documents in his blog. And then the Wikileaks website connected to the publication.

Candidate Trump quoted these texts in every speech, shouted that “I love you, wikileaks!”, And once he turned to Russia with a rhetorical appeal (he joked how he, temporarily recollected, said later): “Russia, if you hear me, find 30 thousand lost possessions ( Hillary Clannon. - V.A. )!”

It went about the case. By the end of June, Trump first caught up with Hillary in polls, and in some even overtook 43:39. The same four points, but now in his favor!

The Hillary team reigned, close to panic. From the Teflon rival, all the attacks bounced off, as from the wall. Literally on the eve of the Democrats Congress, due to the publications, WikiLeaks was forced to resign as chairman of the National Committee of the Dubbi Wasserman-Shulz Dabbi Democratic Party. Hillary’s campaign never returned to her rut - she and her assistants had to brush themselves, as from annoying flies, from revelations. In the publications of WikiLeaks there were signs of abuse of the official position and the unsightly inside out of the electoral technology. But Trump turned the flies into elephants and promised to wrap Hillary in jail when he became president.

Kazus with Prevezon

We still do not know what the Russian visitors of Trump-Bashni talked with Trump's advisers. But now we know that Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin are really lobbying for the abolition of the Magnitsky law in exchange for the abolition or mitigation of the “law of Dima Yakovlev”. The first messages on this subject appeared a year ago and were already accompanied by both surnames. Veselnitskaya says that she acted in the interests of her client Denis Katzov, whose assets in the United States were frozen on suspicion of laundering of criminal income. According to the plaintiff William Brower, co -founder and general director of the Hermitage Capital Management investment fund , these income was received using tax fraud, which was revealed by lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, for which he paid with life.

Hillary’s campaign never returned to her rut - she and her assistants had to brush themselves, as from annoying flies, from revelations. In the publications of WikiLeaks there were signs of abuse of the official position and the unsightly inside out of the electoral technology. But Trump turned flies into elephants and promised to wrap Hillary in jail when he became president

Veselnitskaya also claims that she is not familiar with the Agalarovs - neither with her father nor with her son. Who offered her to meet with Trump Jr. does not say. And Agalarov Sr. repeats that "these are all fictions."

In general, in this plot, everyone does not agree on something. Therefore, we have every reason to doubt in the assumptions that the deal did not take place.

First of all, because after Donald Trump's office entered the post of president, the case against the group of companies Denis Katzw Prevezon Holdings was closed. On May 12, the US Department of Justice announced a pre -trial deal with Prevezon: the holding agreed to pay a fine of $ 5.9 million, but at the same time the parties in the agreement said that the defendant does not find himself guilty, and the Ministry of Justice agrees and has no complaints about the holding anymore.

Shortly before the agreement was concluded, the Federal District Prosecutor for the Southern District of the state of New York Prut Bharara, who conducted the Prevezon case, refused to write a request for retired and was fired by the Presidential decision. It is unlikely that only because of the Katska case-Bharara was generally famous for its independence and intransigence. But Moscow had a special tooth on him - his name is listed in the Russian sanctions list, compiled in response to the Magnitsky List.

After Donald Trump entered the post of president, the case against the group of companies Denis Katsy Prevezon Holdings was closed, and the Federal District Prosecutor for the Southern District of New York Prut Bharara, who conducted this case, was dismissed by the decision of the president

The US government’s refusal of claims to Prevezon Holdings may have far -reaching consequences: as soon as the prosecutors could not prove Denis Katv’s involvement in the laundering of funds, and maybe there was no criminal scheme revealed by Sergey Magnitsky? It is on this that Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin are building their argument, appealing at the same time to the humanity of Americans, who lost the opportunity to adopt Russian children. On the list of Magnitsky, there are more involved and cognitive Katsy - for example, the chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Alexander Bastrykin ...

What's next

How the scandal will develop further - there is no unequivocal answer yet. According to the father and son of Trumps, as well as their lawyers, since the Russian aliens, according to them, did not live up to expectations, then they say there is nothing to talk about. But the fact of the matter is that even if they did not “justify”, from the point of view of American law, this does not matter. When the FBI conducts a Sting Operation, during which the agents pretend to be terrorists-buyers of American weapons or slip a bribe to an official-there is no crime, but people who fell into trim are still underway: after all, they believed that terrorists and bribes are real. In the Russian law on operational-search activities, such actions are called an “operational experiment”.

Trump wanted to get incriminating evidence for Hillary Clinton, and he eventually received it. It’s just that there are no questions from where he got it, the mythical Guccifer and Wikileaks were connected to the operation, and the hackers made the employees of the National Committee of the Democratic Party to find hacking.

According to the father and son of Trumps, as well as their lawyers, since the Russian aliens, according to them, did not live up to expectations, then they say there is nothing to talk about. But the fact of the matter is that even if they did not “justify”, from the point of view of American law, this does not matter