It is as much a city of the 19th century or the Cold War as it is of today.
And through the years, Moscow has earned its reputation as an often grey, glum, occasionally even grim kind of place, though apparently not when Donald Trump came to town.
Only one woman in the world will win and stand out above the rest to become Miss Universe.
It was November 2013, and Trump had brought the diamond tiara of his business empire to Russia, the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow for the first time along with Trump's trademark bluster.
President Donald Trump: Well, this'll be a great one, there's no question, because of the fact that it's Miss Universe in Moscow.
This is going to be maybe the best we've ever had.
It certainly was one of the best financially, reported that the fee paid by Russian sponsors to bring it there was over $6 million.
On the big night on the red carpet, alongside rock stars, hockey players, oligarchs and celebrities was this man known as one of the most notorious criminals in the world.
Why he was on Donald Trump's red carpet raises intriguing questions about the Russian connections and the company kept by the man who would become the 45th American president.
Donald Trump has no problem attracting colourful people like Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov.
In Moscow he's known by his crime name, Little Taiwanese.
He's been a fugitive from US justice for years for gambling and money laundering, bribery and fraud.
In 2008, Forbes Magazine named him the world's third most wanted, right after Osama bin Laden and the notorious Mexican drug lord, El Chapo.
In the late '90s we investigated the ties between Russian NHLers and the Russian mob.
Little Taiwanese was one of the mobsters.
Here, he's shown being honoured by a Russian fraternity.
After the 2002 Olympics, we reported how Canadian pairs figure skaters were cheated out of a gold medal when a judge was bribed at the Salt Lake City games.
Who was accused of doing the bribing?
You guessed it.
Little Taiwanese was arrested for that in Italy but fought extradition and returned to Moscow.
And then there was this.
In April 2013, FBI agents in New York raided gamblers operating out of privately owned apartments in the Trump towers.
They busted what's been called the biggest sports book making operation in the world, estimated at over $100 million.
Dozens of people were indicted.
But the ringleader back in Moscow was Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, aka Little Taiwanese.
His role in this was sort of as a guarantor.
You know, he was one of...he was a Russian mob chieftain.
Veteran journalist David Corn investigated the part Little Taiwanese played in the Trump Tower ring.
And if you wanted to have the sort of operation which used a lot of Russian oligarch money, you needed someone to basically insure it.
And he got paid millions and millions of dollars according to to the federal indictment here in the United States to provide that protection service to this, you know, this illegal gambling operation.
It was just a few months later that the Russian mobster, still under US indictment, would appear on Trump's Miss Universe red carpet.
It's some coincidence that a Russian oligarch mobster who was part of a gambling ring working out of Trump Tower would end up at Trump's beauty pageant.
That's the thing.
I mean, there are lots of mysterious coincidences involving Donald Trump and things Russian.
Among the mysteries, Donald Trump's relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his own statements about that raise more questions than answers.
And, of course, the big man on campus, Donald Trump.
Following the 2013 Miss Universe pageant this is what Trump said about Putin.
President Donald Trump: I was in Moscow recently, and I spoke indirectly and directly with President Putin.
But during the 2016 election campaign, he essentially said just the opposite.
President Donald Trump: I never met Putin.
I don't know who Putin is.
And what about this?
17 US intelligence agencies concluded Russian computer hacking was intended to interfere with the presidential election to favour Trump, an order by Putin.
Trump would consistently dismiss those allegations against Russia.
President Donald Trump: I mean, It could be Russia.
But it could also be China.
It could be lots of other people.
It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay?
But the question remained, why has Donald Trump been so unwilling to accept the word of the intelligence community he will now have to work with?
The week before the inauguration, a possible answer.
CNN has learned that the nation's top intelligence officials provided information to President Elect Donald Trump and to President Barack Obama last week about claims of Russian efforts to compromise President-elect Trump.
That CNN report was the first the public heard of the story based on unsubstantiated claims that Trump may have been compromised by Russian spies.
But the buzz about it actually began to circulate in official Washington months earlier.
The allegations are based on this 35 page memo compiled by a former British intelligence agent, hired by Trump opponents to find information damaging to his presidential bid.
The dossier contains details of alleged cooperation with the Russians as well as Trump's possible exposure to blackmail because of suspected bugged phone calls for sexual acts recorded in hotel rooms.
Again, we emphasize the material is unverified.
I spoke to a number of former CIA people and security intelligence people and asked them, you know, what would have Russian intelligence have done if Trump came to Moscow for a couple of days?
And everybody said, they obviously would have done everything they can to spy on him in any way possible.
Almost three months before the CNN report, it actually was investigative journalist David Corn who broke the story in "Mother Jones."
His source now known to be Christopher Steele, the former Russia specialist for Britain's MI6 intelligence service.
He obtained information suggesting Trump might have been targeted during that 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow.
This person who had previously spied on Russia for his own service who had a lot of good sources in Russia came to the conclusion from talking to his sources that for years, five years or so, Russian intelligence had an active program to, as he put it, coopt or cultivate Donald Trump.
And that can mean a lot of different things.
It can mean, you know, creating a partnership in which they help Trump and they get something in return.
Or it could just be getting Trump to look upon Putin and Moscow and Russian interests in a kindly fashion.
Before the election in August 2016, the FBI met with the former British spy, Christopher Steele, in Rome to discuss that information about what might have happened to Donald Trump.
We don't know how much of it is true, but it seems a plausible scenario as reported by David Corn.
That his hotel room would have been bugged.
That where they were, you know, where they were holding the pageant would have been bugged.
They would have made every effort they can to penetrate his phone and any other equipment, electronic equipment, a computer, anything else he may have used.
Corn tried to confirm what security measures there were to protect Trump in Moscow.
So I then asked the Trump... who was now the Trump transition team, what precautions he had taken in 2013.
And they refused to answer the question.
So it just raises, A, I think, significant question whether he was spied upon, and if he was spied upon does he know it and is there any material that the Russians collected that might be inconvenient for him?
President Donald Trump: I was in Russia years ago with the Miss Universe contest which did very well, Moscow, the Moscow area, did very, very well.
And I told many people, be careful because you don't want to see yourself on television.
Cameras all over the place.
At his news conference before inauguration week, Trump insisted he's always aware of the security risks.
He even addressed the allegation he might somehow have been compromised by alleged sexual behaviour.
President Donald Trump: Does anyone really believe that story?
I'm also very much of a germaphobe, by the way.
Believe me.
True or not, much of the furore over Trump and Russia has
taken place since the vote.
And for all the attention paid to Donald Tump now, during the campaign, it was the unprecedented scrutiny of Hillary Clinton, especially by the FBI, that may well have been the crucial factor in the election.
Good morning.
There were people who had been working there for a long time, some stretching back to the '90s.
Others sort of marinated in the culture from their superiors or their colleagues who had stretched back that long that sort of said that Hillary Clinton is guilty of a crime and we'll find
what that guilt is.
President Donald Trump: She has to go to jail.
Everyone: Lock her up!
Lock her up!
Lock her up!
Lock her up!
Election night 2016 would not end until the following morning at 2.49am.
President Donald Trump: Sorry to keep you waiting.
Complicated business, complicated.
The polls and the pundits on neither side saw it coming.
For Donald Trump and the Republicans, the thrill of victory.
For Hillary Clinton and the democrats, it would be the agony of defeat.
But for both, the same confounding question, what just
happened and why?
The New York landmark that embodies the 2016 presidential election is undoubtedly Trump Tower, until election day, the signature triumph of Donald Trump's career.
But a downtown cab ride away is another institution many believe played a key role in deciding the 45th American president.
It is the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau Of Investigation located in this Lower Manhattan building.
Not a place you would normally associate with politics.
But the FBI's part in this most unusual American election may have been a crucial one.
We have reason to think that he drove the van into the World Trade Centre.
And that story begins here with longtime FBI agent, James Kallstrom.
At the heart of the bureau's New York office for almost three decades, he worked his way up to assistant director investigating every kind of federal crime.
All these violent crimes, drugs, the RICO statute for major criminal organizations like the Cosa Nostra, the mafia, I mean that's what the FBI did.
And I got up every morning feeling that I was doing something for American citizens.
But he didn't have that same sense of pride serving under Bill Clinton, whose behaviour in office he considered unpresidential and amoral.
You'd be driving down the street in your car, and you put on the radio, news radio, and you're hearing on there all about oral sex.
And you have a 12-year-old ask you, "Mommy, what's oral sex?"
I mean, it's the president of the United States.
As president, Bill Clinton would face one FBI investigation after another.
And then there was his infamous affair with a White House intern.
I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.
As Kallstrom navigated the ranks of the FBI, one of his colleagues was then US attorney, Rudy Giuliani, a future New York mayor and another member of the federal law enforcement brotherhood.
The two would remain friends for the next two decades.
By 2016, the Clinton name was still anathema to the FBI in New York, only this time, the presidential candidate was Hillary.
By now, Rudy Giuliani's law firm represented the 13,000 members of the FBI Agents Association.
There is a really significant lineage and history in connection between the New York Field Office and Rudy Giuliani.
Spencer Ackerman is US National Security Editor for the British newspaper "The Guardian".
He says enmity at the FBI in New York only increased when Hillary Clinton seemed destined for the White House.
There were people who had been working there for a long time, some stretching back to the '90s, others sort of marinated in the culture from their superiors or their colleagues who had stretched back that long that sort of said that Hillary Clinton is guilty of a crime and we'll find what that guilt is.
And trying to do that, this would be the catalyst.
2012, Islamic militants storm an American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, killing the ambassador and three others.
Republicans blamed President Obama and then Secretary Of State Clinton for not defending their diplomats.
They called it a coverup.
Benghazi would trigger the first Hillary Clinton investigation.
Many FBI agents are ex military.
So it was a sensitive subject.
For Jim Kallstrom, it also was personal because one Benghazi
victim was a family friend.
I have known that kid since he was this high and this high.
And for her to stand in front of those people, the coffins are 50 feet away with the flags on them...that is an outrage.
An outrage to some.
But in the end, the congressional committee investigating Benghazi found no wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton.
It did, however, stumble on something potentially even bigger that struck like a time bomb.
I did not e-mail any, um, classified material to anyone on my e-mail.
There is no classified materials.
In March 2015, it emerged that while Secretary Of State Clinton had used a personal e-mail server for official correspondence, a possible violation of national security.
Despite her denials, both the state department and intelligence community ruled she did indeed receive classified e-mail.
The FBI was assigned Hillary Clinton investigation number two.
And there was more bad news to come.
The timing couldn't be worse.
It started with, of all things, a book called "Clinton Cash" which purported to prove Bill and Hillary Clinton were getting rich from their family charity, the Cilnton Foundation.
"Clinton Cash" was the brain child of Steve Bannon, the man behind the Alt right, some say sexist, racist and xenophobic, website called "Breitbart News".
Bannon ran Donald Trump's election campaign and is now his chief White House strategist.
Bannon is the guy that all the roads kind of lead back to at the beginning.
So he is someone who as long as two or three years ago had mapped out a plan for how to deny Hillary Clinton the White House.
Joshua Green is a reporter with Bloomberg News who says Bannon's plan was audacious, target Hillary Clinton not on right wing fringe websites but through the mainstream media.
Collecting facts about who she's taking money from, who the Clinton Foundation is associating with, what foreign governments they're taking money from and propositioning and what kinds of conflicts of interest that poses.
There was no direct evidence of wrongdoing, but that didn't stop the FBI.
The "Clinton Cash" book was still enough for agents in New York to launch Hillary Clinton investigation number three into the Clinton Foundation.
But apparently there were doubts higher up.
And the Justic Department ordered the investigation discontinued for lack of evidence.
That didn't sit well with Jim Kallstrom and others at the FBI.
There's enough smoke in there.
There's enough probable cause in there to conduct a RICO investigation.
That should be ongoing.
You know, the optics of that was just outrageous.
Well, our next guest not only says folks at the FBI are upset with the way this Clinton investigation was handled.
Now retired, former assistant FBI Director Kallstrom traded his badge for a bullhorn, as a commentator for Fox News, and if the New York FBI had been reined in, Kallstrom had not.
So you say, you know, that actually this blows Watergate away in your view, what the Clintons have done, what Hillary has done.
Why?
I mean, get specific on that?
Well, the pay for play.
I mean, the foundation that gives less than 6% of the money to charity.
In fact, that is completely untrue.
The Clinton Foundation gets high marks from US charity watchdogs.
But that wasn't the story told by Trump supporters or Trump himself.
President Donald Trump: This corruption is just one more reason why I will ask my attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor.
President Donald Trump: She has to go to jail.
The lack of proof notwithstanding, the narrative of a corrupt Clinton Foundation compounded by the e-mail scandal resonated with many American voters.
Lock her up!
"Lock her up,"
"Crooked Hillary,"
"Hillary for prison,"
were bite-sized staples of Trump rhetoric.
And it was all reenforced by powerful Conservative voices
like Rudy Giuliani.
And finally she destroyed 34,000 e-mails.
Do you know what I argue as a prosecutor in court?
That's evidence of the guilty knowledge.
In the FBI, there were two forces about to collide.
At the top levels, the longheld tradition of remaining above politics and beneath the momentum gathering against Hillary Clinton, especially in the New York office, known to some as "Trump-land" according to journalist Spencer Ackerman.
In Washington, also a lot of antipathy towards Clinton, um, somewhat more nuanced, as I understand it, than in New York.
New York, very much a hotbed of anti Clinton sentiment.
Until July 2016, FBI director James Comey had been considered non-partisan, a straight shooter interested in getting the facts, just the facts.
That is, until this.
Good morning.
I'm here to give you an update on the FBI's investigation of Secretary Clinton's use of a personal e-mail system during her time as Secretary Of State.
It was an extraordinary occurrence, not only the FBI commenting on a sensitive investigation, but then Director Comey concluding there should be no charges against Hillary Clinton.
Our judgement is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.
Joining me now with more, James Kallstrom, former Assistant Director in charge of the FBI...
Comey's announcement triggered a firestorm of condemnation from the right and within the FBI.
Yeah, I did.
I have defended him in the past, but those days are over, Megyn.
Were they upset about the fact they were political pawns that were thrown under the bus?
Yeah.
I'm sure they were.
I mean, I was told that the agents would turn their back when he walked down the halls.
For Hillary Clinton for the time being, things seemed to be going her way, the three federal investigations all had ended with no judgement against her.
And finally the spotlight was about to be turned onto Donald Trump.
It was all just a month and a day before the US election when this video went viral.
Trump caught on a live mic before a TV show bragging about sex with women not his wife.
The Republican candidate is facing increasing backlash.
He then grabbed my shoulder and he then kissed me again very aggressively and placed his hand on my breast.
At least four women have now come forward accusing Donald Trump of improper behaviour.
And after the tale of the tape, the polls began to shift.
Hillary Clinton surged ahead.
Pundits predicted the election would be hers.
Jim Kallstrom, former FBI agent and marine, had been morally offended by both Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Now he pleaded for his candidate, Donald Trump.
Please, you women out there, if you want change, vote for Donald Trump.
Put this other stuff aside.
The Trump camp seemed desperate.
But then, on October 25th, Rudy Giuliani began hinting at something big that could swing momentum back to Trump.
And then I think he's got a surprise or two that you're going to hear about in the next few days.
I mean, I'm talking about some pretty big surprises.
I heard you say that this morning.
What do you mean?
You will see.
Stay tuned.
Three days later a surprise would come from none other than the FBI.
11 days to the election, the FBI director informing lawmakers he is reviewing new e-mails related to the Clinton e-mail investigation.
Perhaps looking over his shoulder, after hostility in FBI ranks when he cleared Clinton, perhaps because he feared news of the new e-mails would leak out anyway, Comey went public again writing to congress about the newly discovered e-mails.
Longstanding, decades long Justice Department procedures hold that the FBI does not get involved in a contentious election, certainly not a presidential election.
Comey decided to do that twice.
That is, for whatever reason, a momentous political decision made by the head of the FBI.
James Comey believed that if he got out ahead of this and said, "This is what the story is.
It's not an investigation," that he would contextualize it and frame it accurately.
And, you know, the lesson, at least in hindsight, is, you know, if you let a bull out of the corral, you can't necessarily hold onto the horns and direct where it goes.
President Donald Trump: She has no right to be running.
You know that.
In the final days of the campaign, Comey's letter was a red flag to that bull.
Sexual assault stories about Trump disappeared, the headlines all about the Clinton investigation.
Still under investigation.
She is now on the ropes.
She's on the defence.
He's got the momentum.
And everybody in this country knows, finally after four decades of Clinton corruption, the American people have figured out she's a crook.
The scene was set.
On November 8th, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.
But the crucial Electoral College and the presidency would go to Donald Trump.
The presidential election of 2016 finally was settled.
And it didn't take long for Trump to bring Russia back into the conversation.
President Donald Trump: If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability.
If you have any doubt at all that Hillary Clinton is the illuminati's candidate...
Ever since this video emerged questions about Clinton's health have been raised across the United States.
In fact, Hoff photographed Clinton with two of his bunny ranch girls.
You may not have watched it.
But RT or "Russia Today" broadcasts around the world funded by the Kremlin.
And if it's the voice of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin is not only de facto managing editor but often also leading man.
It's your divorce everybody has been talking about.
We now know that along with computer hacking, RT was part of the Russian disinformation campaign that US intelligence says was intended to interfere with and undermine the presidential election.
RT featured regular attacks on Putin's hated rival, Hillary Clinton, according to former anchor Liz Wahl.
I mean, for political reasons, Vladimir Putin is not a fan of Hillary Clinton, did not want her to get elected.
And you can see it very clearly reflected in the headlines that Russia was rooting for, Russian media was rooting for Donald Trump eventually and just this total demonization of Clinton.
Putin says he doesn't know Trump and has no reason to criticize him.
RT's lineup is always Putin-centric and recently Trump friendly too.
President Donald Trump: I have absolutely no opinion on that.
Like trump himself speaking on his old pal Larry King's show on RT.
US intelligence and law enforcement agencies reportedly are investigating whether Russia launched a covert operation to disrupt the 2016 election.
What do you make of that?
President Donald Trump: I think it's probably unlikely.
I think maybe the democrats are putting that out.
Who knows?
But the coziness wasn't was bothered Liz Wahl.
It was the lying on TV.
I think around the time of Ukraine is when it kind of emerged and became more aggressive and shameless in manipulating the truth and twisting the facts.
As Russian troops poured into Ukraine, Wahl had to report they weren't there.
It was too much for her.
Personally, I cannot be a part of network funded by the Russian government that whitewashes the actions of Putin.
I'm proud to be an American and believe in disseminating the truth.
And that is why, after this newscast, I'm resigning.
Talk TV is one thing.
But something stranger was happening on the US campaign trail.
President Donald Trump: Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.
The mysterious relationship between Russia and Trump raised many eyebrows during the election.
But at least publicly, the FBI didn't seem too concerned.
In contrast, Hillary Clinton was subjected to three separate federal investigations.
There was an obsession with it that didn't match any on the Trump side, there was no obsession with his conflicts of interest, with his mob ties, with any of this Russian business, with the Russian hacking.
But even after the FBI director intervened publicly during the election twice about the bureau's investigations into Hillary Clinton, this is what James Comey said when asked if the FBI now is investigating Russia and the election.
You didn't say one way or another whether there's an investigation underway.
That's correct.
Especially in a public forum, we never confirm or deny an impending investigation.
The irony of your making that statement here, I cannot avoid.
But I'll move on.
Well, we sometimes think differently about closed investigations.
Now that he's president, Donald Trump's relationship with Russia will be put in the spotlight.
President Donald Trump: Well, if Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability.
I think that he thinks that he's going to be able to manipulate or manage Trump.
Journalist Masha Gessen had to flee Putin's Russia for New York.
She's observed both men and says among the similarities between them is a disregard for facts and the truth.
They both lie.
And that's been well documented.
But I think what's less understood is that they don't lie in order to avoid telling the truth.
They lie in order to assert their power over reality.
It's a bully tactic.
It's the sort of "I'm going to say whatever I please.
I assert my right to say whatever I please.
And what are you going to do about it?"
In the end, Masha Gessen says, it won't be the lies Donald Trump tells that really matter but what he does as the 45th president of the US.
It's in his tweets.
It's in his campaign statements.
It's in his statements during the debates.
And it's plenty worrisome on its own.
You don't need a conspiracy theory to worry more.
0 comments:
Post a Comment