Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team just released a document that buries an important detail about the Trump circle’s ties to Russia on its fourth page: top campaign associate Rick Gates was in touch with a person tied to Russian military intelligence weeks before the presidential election.
The Kremlin’s alleged poisoning of British agent Sergei Skripal on UK soil has made Westminster rethink a lot of things. It’s reinvestigating the unexplained deaths of 14 people allegedly connected to Russia. It has expelled 23 Russian diplomats, whom it says were cloaked spies. And MPs are calling for Russian oligarchs to reveal just where they got their millions to buy London real estate.
The Kremlin isn’t waiting around on its promised “reciprocal” response to America’s expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats and closure of Russia’s consulate in Seattle.
The West’s collective response to Russia’s alleged poisoning of British agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia may not have come at a rapid pace, but after a few weeks, it is here now. Today (March 26), the US and Europe launched a coordinated expulsion of Russian diplomats from more than 15 countries.
The departure of John Dowd, Donald Trump’s lead lawyer in the Russia probe, seems to confirm a shift that started over the weekend: The US president is going to keep attacking special counsel Robert Mueller and his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Mark Zuckerberg woke up to a feisty letter today, requesting his presence at the British parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee to answer questions about Trump consultant Cambridge Analytica obtaining more than 50 million users’ data.
As Vladimir Putin returns to office for a fourth term, criticism is bubbling back up over former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s close relationship with the Russian president.
Correction: The alleged poisoning of a British agent on U.K. soil is an “alleged attempted murder,” not an “alleged murder.” Quartz regrets the error.
No one is holding their breath for the Russian election. Everyone knows that president Vladimir Putin will roll straight back into office and remain there until 2024.
Prime minister Theresa May gave 23 Russian diplomats a week to leave the UK today. All of them, she says, are undercover spies.
Donald Trump may have cemented international fame with his TV catchphrase “You’re fired,” yet he seems to hate using it in real life.
This story has been updated.
Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen has tried his best to distance the president and the Trump Organization from the $130,000 payment he made to Stephanie Clifford, a porn actress also known as Stormy Daniels. Unfortunately, Cohen seems to have used a Trump Organization email address to organize the payment.
The term “anticorruption” has been at the forefront of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s rule. His housecleaning campaign has targeted (paywall) Central Committee and Politburo members, political rivals and powerful tycoons. And as China’s National People’s Congress removes restrictions on presidential terms, it is also expected to shore up Xi’s power by creating an independent anti-corruption agency. But China’s corruption problem extends well beyond its borders.
Christopher Steele, author of the eponymous dossier, has not had a fun couple of years by most people’s standards.
Are you sitting on a trove of information about global kleptocracy? Do you like the idea of up to $5 million and witness protection? If so, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers has the bill for you.
Ben Carson said he “wasn’t happy” with a suggested budget cut of $6 billion to his department, the US housing and urban development (HUD). President Donald Trump’s latest budget proposal would increase the cut to $6.8 billion, or 14% of the agency’s budget. But that didn’t stop Carson’s office from splashing funds on luxury goods.
Jared Kushner has been unable to obtain a permanent security clearance in part because he arranged meetings with officials from foreign countries in unorthodox ways, according to the Washington Post (paywall). Those officials have reportedly discussed “manipulating” president Trump’s son-in-law through his business interests, troubled finances, and inexperience in foreign affairs.
Just weeks from Russia’s presidential election, the race is heating up dramatically, according to Kremlin polls. (Who needs an independent pollster, anyway?)
Paul Manafort secretly paid a former chancellor of a European country to lobby US politicians for the Ukrainian government, special counsel Robert Mueller’s latest indictment charges (pdf).
Rick Gates is the latest to fall before special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump presidential campaign’s Russia ties.
It was 2015, and Trump campaign chair to-be Paul Manafort had a problem. For years, he’d been flush with cash paid by Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych for his firm’s consulting work. When Yanukovych fled to Russia in 2014, however, that money dried up.
US president Donald Trump’s administration today announced sanctions against 27 shipping companies and 28 ships trading with North Korea, in an effort to ratchet up pressure on the regime to end its nuclear program.
The latest Russia investigation indictment shines a light on a little-discussed sector of the global economy: the US and British companies that help foreign kleptocrats clean up their images. The practice is so pervasive that in anti-corruption circles, it’s been dubbed “reputation laundering.”
