By Lucy Komisar
Jan 19, 2018
More bad Russiagate journalism! This will not soon go out of style. This one from the Left, which has been as clueless as the right. An example.
Bob Dreyfuss in The Nation writes “there‘s a potentially incriminating link between the Trump Tower meeting involving Kushner and a Russian firm enmeshed in a famous money-laundering scandal.
Potentially is a weasel word, means you have no evidence.
“The company, Prevezon, was charged with laundering fraudulently obtained funds through US real-estate investments, according to a 2013 indictment filed by then–US Attorney Preet Bharara. According to that indictment, Prevezon helped launder part of $230 million, through Cyprus, that was looted from a company called the Hermitage Fund, a private hedge fund owned by William Browder.”
But the DOJ DID NOT SAY THAT!
First, Prevezon was charged with laundering $1.9 million, less than 1% of the big $230 million. Don‘t you think you should say that? And the accusation was never proved. Case settled, accusation not proved. Isn‘t that worth a mention?
But more important, to show that Mr. Dreyfuss doesn‘t have a clue, the money was looted from the Russian Treasury, THE RUSSIAN TREASURY! Hey Bob, where did you get the fantasy that it was looted from Hermitage??? It was the Russian Treasury Tax Refund Fraud. Tax refund from the Russian Treasury. The Hermitage Fund did not make tax refunds. Get it?
Therefore, you are telling us you know nothing about the Browder story. Read the DOJ complaint, which you obviously haven‘t done. Or even better, my article on 100Reporters.
Then Dreyfuss says: The lawyer who represents Prevezon is none other than Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian government–linked attorney who led the Russian delegation at the June 9, 2016, session with Kushner and the Trump campaign team.
So what? Do you know what the meeting was about? Or do you just want to suggest something nefarious? It was about the Magnitsky Act, passed 2012, signed by Pres. Obama. She wanted Pres. Trump to counter it – for very good reasons, since it is based on a hoax. But then you have to report that. (Innuendos are so much easier!) Read my article on 100Reporters.
Dreyfuss says: One of Prevezon‘s key partners is a billionaire named Lev Leviev. In 2015, Jared Kushner‘s company engaged in a complex real-estate deal with Leviev to purchase part of a Times Square office building”a deal whose mortgage was underwritten by a loan from Germany‘s Deutsche Bank.
So far, anything illegal? Or just innuendo? I expect this from MSM, but progressive publications should not run such nonsense.
So far, this investigative reporter has copied and theorized about what he read in the MSM, made a very telling mistake (money was not looted from Hermitage) and has not investigated or revealed anything!