The Russia watchTrump world's Russian entanglement; NATO practicing cyber-warfare games; Senate's Russia probe to extend deep into 2019, and more
· The president’s misleading statements on Trump Tower Moscow: A timeline
· Trump world’s Russian entanglement captured by one day in June
· How Trump, ISIS and Russia have mastered the internet as a weapon – a review of P. W. Singer and Emerson Brooking, LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media
· Russian cyber operations: State-led organized crime
· Russia and Vladimir Putin tried to interfere in midterm elections, secretary of defense says
· MI6 chief wants new generation of spies to help fight against Russia in cyber war
· Derelict Scottish mill is shadowy hub in UK’s fight against Putin’s propaganda machine
· NATO practicing cyber-warfare games
· How Europe can push back against Putin’s aggression
· Russian hackers haven’t stopped probing the U.S. power grid
· Senate’s Russia probe to extend deep into 2019, chairman says
The president’s misleading statements on Trump Tower Moscow: A timeline (Meg Kelly, Washington Post)
President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his efforts to secure a real estate deal in Moscow for the Trump Organization in 2015 and 2016, while his boss was campaigning for president.
For three decades, Trump had angled to strike a real estate deal in Moscow, but he could never cinch it, even after his Miss Universe pageant was held in Moscow in 2013. In a recent court filing, prosecutors laid out extensive contact on a possible deal through 2016 between Cohen, then an executive vice president of the Trump Organization, Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman with a checkered past, and numerous Russian nationals, including the press secretary for the president of Russia.
Trump has repeatedly claimed he had “nothing to do with Russia,” whether in his business affairs or the 2016 campaign. During a 2017 news conference, three days after Michael Flynn resigned his post as national security adviser, Trump went a step further. He told reporters “to the best of my knowledge, no person that I deal with” has anything to do with Russia.
We’ve previously outlined the connections between members of Trump’s campaign and Russia. But Cohen was technically not part of the campaign, even though he was a close adviser. Because the president’s business and political worlds are intertwined, as a reader service, the Fact Checker compiled a timeline of what happened, what the president knew and what he said publicly about contact between his staff and Russia.
Trump world’s Russian entanglement captured by one day in June (Shannon Pettypiece, Bloomberg)
For a window into the swirl of Russians around Donald Trump’s campaign and his business, look back to a single day in mid-2016: June 9.
On that day, Trump’s lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen fielded emails about a trip he was planning for the following week to Russia, where Cohen’s contacts were dangling the possibility of a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. (Cont.)
