Author Archives: Denise Simon

Mandatory Anti-Harrassment Training for House Members

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So, members misbehave in this manner, there is no consequence except sign this non-disclosure and the taxpayer pays off the victim to be quiet….nice system….NOT

There is virtually nothing in the Code of Ethics for the House and even if there is a violation, whatever that may be, there is no listed punishment…cool huh? No wonder there are no investigations….

RollCall: Rep. Jackie Speier said Tuesday that the House of Representatives has paid out more than $15 million over the last decade to settle harassment cases, though that number also includes discrimination claims.

Speier made the assertion on “Meet the Press Daily” after testifying in Congress about sexual harassment on Capitol Hill.

“Now, we do know that there is about $15 million that has been paid out by the House on behalf of harassers in the last 10 to 15 years,” the California Democrat told Chuck Todd.

However, when asked how many members were involved in cases, Speier said she did not know the specific answer.

Speier’s office clarified Wednesday that the Office of Compliance, which handles workplace and accessibility issues on Capitol Hill, does not provide a breakdown for the type of discrimination payments made.

The OOC’s $15 million figure covered more than 200 payouts made from fiscal years 1997 to 2016 for all claims the office covered, such as racial and religious discrimination cases, discrimination against people with disabilities and sexual harassment, a Speier staffer said.

During her testimony earlier Tuesday, Speier said that two current members of Congress had sexually harassed women.

“Well, it is my responsibility to address the seriousness of this issue,” she said. “These survivors are subject to a non-disclosure agreement. I’m not going to violate their non-disclosure agreement.”

Paul Ryan orders mandatory anti-harassment training for House

Nov. 14 (UPI) — House Speaker Paul Ryan announced all House members and staff will be subject to mandatory anti-harassment and discrimination training.

Ryan issued a statement Tuesday after the Committee on House Administration held a hearing as part of its review of the House’s sexual harassment policies, which he said was an “important step” to combatting sexual assault.

“Going forward, the House will adopt a policy of mandatory anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training for all members and staff,” he said. “Our goal is not only to raise awareness, but also make abundantly clear that harassment in any form has no place in this institution.”

During the review, two members of Congress, Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., and Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., shared reports that colleagues sexually harassed staffers and others within the House.

“These harasser propositions such as, ‘are you going to be a good girl?’ to perpetrators exposing their genitals, to victims having their private parts grabbed on the House floor. All they ask as staff members is to be able to work in a hostile-free work environment. They want the system fixed, and the perpetrators held accountable,” Speier said.

She added she had been told two sitting members of Congress had allegedly engaged in sexual harassment.

“I have had numerous meetings with phone calls with staffers, both present and former, women and men who have been subjected to this inexcusable and often illegal behavior,” she said. “In fact, there are two members of Congress, Republican and Democrat, right now, who … have engaged in sexual harassment.”

Comstock said she recently had been informed of a current member of Congress who exposed himself to a female staffer who was delivering materials to his home.

“There is a new recognition of this problem and the need for change of culture that looks the other way because of who the offenders are,” she said. “Whether it’s Bill Cosby, Bill O’Reilly, Mark Halperin, Roger Ailes, Kevin Spacey or one of our own, it’s time to say no more.”

Ryan said the House will work to install proper policies to combat sexual harassment as its review of the matter continues.

“As we work with the administration, ethics, and rules committees to implement mandatory training, we will continue our review to make sure the right policies and resources are in place to prevent and report harassment,” he said.

Drug Cartels Upped the Game with Weaponized Drones

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Police in Mexico pulled over four men in a pickup truck near the city of Salamanca in Guanajuato state on October 20 and got a nasty surprise. Along with an AK-47 assault rifle, the men had in their possession an unmanned aerial vehicle fitted with a “large explosive device” and a remote detonator.

That’s right: a weaponized drone.

Police didn’t say whether they suspected the men of ties to drug cartels. But Guanajuato is currently contested by several drug gangs, including the Sinaloa cartel, Los Zetas, and Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación, or CJNG, according to Dr. Robert Bunker, a fellow with Small Wars Journal, a military trade publication.

ISIS set up factories in Iraq and Syria to modify mortar bombs—basically, small artillery shells—to fit on small drones. During intensive fighting in the Iraqi city of Mosul in February, ISIS’s drones were “the main problem” for coalition troops, Captain Ali, an Iraqi officer, told War Is Boring.

The cartels, for their part, have been using so-called “potato bombs”—hand-grenade-size improvised explosive devices—in attacks on each other and authorities. Bunker said the explosive the police found alongside the drone in Guanajuato is “consistent” with a potato bomb.

The cartels could also draw inspiration from online-retailer Amazon and its delivery drones. “As both Islamic State and Amazon have shown, small drones are an efficient way of carrying a payload to a target,” said Nick Waters, a former British Army officer and independent drone expert. “Whether that payload is your new book or several hundred grams of explosive is up to the sender.”

But don’t panic, Waters and other experts said. Drug cartels were plenty dangerous before they weaponized flying robots. Potato bomb-hauling drones might just give narcos more options for perpetrating crimes they are perfectly capable of pulling off some other way. “Considering their already impressive traditional capability, I think this will probably be another tool rather than a game-changing capability,” Waters said.

You should be “no more worried than you should be by cartels also using machine guns, car bombs, machetes, etc,” Singer said. More here.

New report shows how Mexican cartels are infiltrating Texas

Mexican cartels smuggle more drugs into the U.S. than any other criminal group, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration said in a new report.

The 2017 National Drug Threat Assessment released in October lists six cartels as having major influences across the country and Texas.

Cartels’ influence in Texas is far-reaching, affecting cities hundreds of miles from the state’s border with Mexico.

San Antonio is the only city in the state with a drug trade controlled by the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, which deals mostly with methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and marijuana, according to the DEA.

The Gulf Cartel has a hold on cities in Texas’ tip and coastal bend. McAllen, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Galveston, Houston and Beaumont are impacted most by the Gulf Cartel which mostly brings marijuana and cocaine into the area, according to the DEA. Drugs smuggled through the Gulf Cartel are mostly brought in through the area between the Rio Grande Valley and South Padre Island.

Every week in Houston, a relative of a Gulf Cartel leader receives 100 kilograms of cocaine, according to the DEA.

Moving West, Los Zetas control two cities and the Juarez Cartel has a hold on Alpine, Midland, El Paso and Lubbock.

While the arrests of two Los Zetas leaders has weakened the cartel’s influence on Eagle Pass and Laredo, its presence is still felt because of members who have assumed control, bringing cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana into Texas.

The Sinaloa Cartel, formerly run by prison escape artist Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman,” is most found in Dallas, Lubbock and Fort Worth, according to the DEA.

DEA map of Mexican cartels in the US photo

The FY 2017 OCDETF Program Budget Request comprises 2,975 positions, 2,902 FTE,
and $522.135 million in funding for the Interagency Crime and Drug Enforcement (ICDE)
Appropriation, to be used for investigative and prosecutorial costs associated with OCDETF cases targeting high-level criminal drug and money laundering networks as well as priority transnational poly-crime organizations whose primary criminal activity may not necessarily be drug-related. Go here to read the full report.
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Simpson/Dossier Testimony and Why these Wire Transfers?

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Primer: FNC: The co-founder of the firm behind the anti-Trump ‘dossier’ told House investigators Tuesday that he personally discussed with members of the media allegations of Trump-Russia collusion, though he did not speak to the sources behind the claims, a source told Fox News.

According to a source familiar with the matter, Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson refused to answer key questions during his seven-hour, closed-door appearance before the House Intelligence Committee. The source said he would not answer questions on his relationship with specific journalists or ties to the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign, which financed the anti-Trump research via the law firm Perkins Coie.

But the source said Simpson acknowledged he did not personally look into certain aspects of the dossier — which was authored by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and contained salacious allegations about the Trump team’s ties to Russia.

Simpson told investigators he never spoke to the underlying sources of the document, never traveled to Russia and did not verify the dossier beyond comparing the claims to “open source” media reporting.

The source said Simpson also told investigators he was “upset” when then FBI Director James Comey re-opened the Hillary Clinton email investigation in late October 2016, and Simpson wanted to push back.

Simpson’s appearance was arranged last week in coordination with his attorneys.

The committee initially sought to subpoena Simpson, but withdrew it in exchange for his voluntary testimony.

“Throughout this entire year, the White House and its allies on the Hill and elsewhere have attempted at every turn to smear Fusion GPS because of its connection to the Steele Dossier,” Simpson’s attorney Joshua Levy said Tuesday.

He said Steele and Simpson briefed reporters on the dossier, but neither Simpson nor Fusion GPS paid members of the media to publish stories of any kind. The House Intelligence Committee is back in court Wednesday as Fusion tries to prevent the release of its bank records.

Levy, however, said the dossier is solid.

“What they did do is they contracted with Christopher Steele. … This experienced British intelligence official came back with a report. That now in hindsight looks quite accurate,” Levy said.

Fox News reported earlier this month that Simpson met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya before and after the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and others.

Fox News reported that, during that period, bank records show Fusion GPS was paid by a law firm for work on behalf of a Kremlin-linked oligarch while also paying Steele to dig up dirt on Trump.

But Levy said his client was “shocked and surprised” when he learned in media accounts about the Trump Tower meeting and her presence.

The FBI is examining why Russia transferred nearly $400,000 to its embassies ‘to finance’ the ‘election campaign of 2016’

The FBI is reviewing a series of wire transfers totaling more than $380,000 sent in August and September of last year by the Russian government to its embassies around the world — most with the memo “to finance election campaign of 2016” — BuzzFeed News reported on Tuesday.

It is unclear which “election campaign” the money was for — the US campaign was in full swing, but Russia’s lower house of Parliament was also set to hold an election on September 18.

The funds were transferred to about 60 embassies worldwide from August 3 to September 20, 2016, according to BuzzFeed News. At least one transaction originated from VTB Bank, the report said.

VTB, which is majority-owned by the Kremlin and was sanctioned by the US in 2014, transferred $30,000 to the Citibank account of Russia’s Washington, DC, embassy on August 3, prompting the bank to examine VTB’s other transactions over the same period.

Citibank would then have been required to inform the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, if it noticed any suspicious activity.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, which BuzzFeed News says has been made aware of the wire transfers, asked the Treasury for its FinCEN records in April, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time. It received over 2,000 documents from the financial-crimes unit, which monitors over 200 million Bank Secrecy Act records involving more than 80,000 financial institutions.

A dossier compiled by the former British spy Christopher Steele alleging ties between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Moscow claimed that Russian “diplomatic staff” paid “relevant assets” to provide “a two-way flow of intelligence and other useful information.”

“Source E claimed that Russian diplomatic staff in key cities such as New York, Washington DC and Miami were using the emigre ‘pension’ distribution system as cover,” the dossier reads. “The operation therefore depended on key people in the US Russian emigre community for its success. Tens of thousands of dollars were involved.”

The congressional intelligence committees have been examining the dossier’s claims as part of their investigations into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow to influence the outcome of the election.

The special counsel Robert Mueller is leading a parallel investigation into Russia’s election interference. Mueller began hiring lawyers in June with extensive experience in dealing with fraud, racketeering, and other financial crimes. Late last month, the Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and his longtime business associate Rick Gates were indicted by a grand jury as a result of charges stemming from the investigation.

Mueller’s team is reportedly scrutinizing a meeting in December between Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Sergey Gorkov, the CEO of another sanctioned Russian bank, Vnesheconombank.

Related reading: Top Democrat: Trump’s DOJ nominee helped Russian bank sue over Trump-Russia dossier

Secret Planes, Russia, China and the United States oh My

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Primer:

Navigator Holdings Ltd., the shipping firm part-owned by U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, doubled the number of contracts it had with Sibur Holding PJSC just months after the U.S. imposed sanctions on a major shareholder of the Russian petrochemical company in 2014.

Sibur itself wasn’t subject to the restrictions, which the U.S. imposed over the Ukraine crisis, but they led to a broad chill in business ties between the two countries. Sibur’s shareholders have particularly close ties to the Kremlin. Gennady Timchenko, a billionaire energy trader, was cited as a member of the “inner circle” by the U.S. Treasury when it imposed a visa ban and asset freeze on him in March 2014, held a stake of as much as 32 percent by September of that year. Kirill Shamalov, who is married to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s younger daughter isn’t subject to U.S. restrictions, raised his Sibur stake to 21 percent in late 2014. He later sold all but 3.9 percent. More here.

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Mikhelson is the founder and chairman of natural gas producer Novatek. He is also chairman of gas processing and petrochemical company Sibur; Billionaire Gennady Timchenko is his partner in both; Putin’s reported son-in-law, Kirill Shamalov, is a partner in Sibur. Over 2015 and 2016, Mikhelson sold a 16% stake in Sibur to China’s state-owned Sinopec and China’s Silk Road Fund for $2.1 billion. An avid art collector, he has sponsored museum exhibits in Russia and the U.S. His father headed the largest pipeline construction trust in the Soviet Union, and Mikhelson began his career as foreman for a construction company building a gas pipeline in Russia’s Tyumen region.

*** Related reading: The New Silk Road Will Go Through Syria

China and Syria have already begun discussing post-war infrastructure investment with a ‘Matchmaking Fair for Syria Reconstruction’ held in Beijing

From Utah, Secretive
Help for a Russian
Oligarch and His Jet

Records leaked from an offshore law firm show how
the wealthy elite sidestep prohibitions on foreigners
registering private planes in the United States.

SALT LAKE CITY — Bank of Utah has that all-American feel. Founded in the 1950s by a veteran of both world wars, it offers affordable mortgages and savings accounts, sponsors children’s festivals and collects coats for the poor.

But in addition to its mom-and-pop customers, the bank has a lesser-known clientele that includes Russia’s richest oligarch, Leonid Mikhelson, an ally of the country’s president, Vladimir V. Putin. The bank served as a stand-in so Mr. Mikhelson could secretly register a private jet in the United States, which requires American citizenship or residency.

The work on behalf of Mr. Mikhelson, whose gas company is under United States sanctions, is part of a discreet niche business for Bank of Utah that allows wealthy foreigners to legally obtain American registrations for their aircraft while shielding their identities from public view. The bank does this through trust accounts, in its own name, that take the place of owners on plane registration records.

Bank of Utah manages more than 1,390 aircraft trust accounts, most of them for foreigners, generating millions of dollars in fees and making it the second-largest holder of such accounts in the country. A trove of records leaked from an offshore law firm, Appleby, shows that the services offered by Bank of Utah, Wells Fargo and other American companies were sought after by rich jet owners in Russia, Africa and the Middle East.

 

Back Channel Communications Between Wikileaks/Donald Jr.

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CIA Director Mike Pompeo has called WikiLeaks a hostile agent bent on taking down America. Meanwhile, Julian Assange continues to inject himself and WikiLeaks into all political affairs in the United States, to what end has not been determined.

Meanwhile, Congress has all the direct message communications between someone at WikiLeaks and Donald Trump Jr. that was apparently leading the Twitter communications during the campaign season. Many of those communications from WikiLeaks had a response from Donald Jr.

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Immediately after this became public, Julian Assange took to twitter to push back.

He posted on Twitter the following:

I cannot confirm the alleged DM’s from @DonaldJTrumpJr to @wikileaks. @wikileaks does not keep such records and the Atlantic’s presentation is edited and clearly does not have the full context. However, even those published by the Atlantic show that: 1/

WikiLeaks loves its pending publications and ignores those who ask for details. Trump Jr. was rebuffed just like Cambridge Analytica. In both cases WikiLeaks had publicly teased the publications. Thousands of people asked about them. 2/

WikiLeaks can be very effective at convincing even high profile people that it is their interest to promote links to its publications. 3/

WikiLeaks has such chutzpah that it allegedly tried to convince Trump Jr to leak his father’s tax returns & his own “Russian lawyer meeting” emails (he did). WikiLeaks appears to beguile some people into transparency by convincing them that it is in their interest. 4/

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He also asked to be the U.S. ambassador to Australia…sheesh. Anyway….Assange was referring to the Atlantic article about those communications of which Congressional committees have copies provided by his lawyer. Here is that summary:

Just before the stroke of midnight on September 20, 2016, at the height of last year’s presidential election, the WikiLeaks Twitter account sent a private direct message to Donald Trump Jr., the Republican nominee’s oldest son and campaign surrogate. “A PAC run anti-Trump site putintrump.org is about to launch,” WikiLeaks wrote. “The PAC is a recycled pro-Iraq war PAC. We have guessed the password. It is ‘putintrump.’ See ‘About’ for who is behind it. Any comments?” (The site, which has since become a joint project with Mother Jones, was founded by Rob Glaser, a tech entrepreneur, and was funded by Progress for USA Political Action Committee.)

The next morning, about 12 hours later, Trump Jr. responded to WikiLeaks. “Off the record I don’t know who that is, but I’ll ask around,” he wrote on September 21, 2016. “Thanks.”

The messages, obtained by The Atlantic, were also turned over by Trump Jr.’s lawyers to congressional investigators. They are part of a long—and largely one-sided—correspondence between WikiLeaks and the president’s son that continued until at least July 2017. The messages show WikiLeaks, a radical transparency organization that the American intelligence community believes was chosen by the Russian government to disseminate the information it had hacked, actively soliciting Trump Jr.’s cooperation. WikiLeaks made a series of increasingly bold requests, including asking for Trump’s tax returns, urging the Trump campaign on Election Day to reject the results of the election as rigged, and requesting that the president-elect tell Australia to appoint Julian Assange ambassador to the United States.

“Over the last several months, we have worked cooperatively with each of the committees and have voluntarily turned over thousands of documents in response to their requests,” said Alan Futerfas, an attorney for Donald Trump Jr. “Putting aside the question as to why or by whom such documents, provided to Congress under promises of confidentiality, have been selectively leaked, we can say with confidence that we have no concerns about these documents and any questions raised about them have been easily answered in the appropriate forum.” WikiLeaks did not respond to requests for comment.

The messages were turned over to Congress as part of that body’s various ongoing investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. American intelligence services have accused the Kremlin of engaging in a deliberate effort to boost President Donald Trump’s chances while bringing down his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. That effort—and the president’s response to it—has spawned multiple congressional investigations, and a special counsel inquiry that has led to the indictment of Trump’s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, for financial crimes.

It’s not clear what investigators will make of the correspondence, which represents a small portion of the thousands of documents Donald Trump Jr.’s lawyer says he turned over to them. The stakes for the Trump family, however, are high. Trump Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with connections to Russia’s powerful prosecutor general, is already reportedly a subject of interest in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, as is the White House statement defending him. (Trump Jr. was emailed an offer of “information that would incriminate Hillary,” and responded in part, “If it’s what you say I love it.”) The messages exchanged with WikiLeaks add a second instance in which Trump Jr. appears eager to obtain damaging information about Hillary Clinton, despite its provenance.

Though Trump Jr. mostly ignored the frequent messages from WikiLeaks, he at times appears to have acted on its requests. When WikiLeaks first reached out to Trump Jr. about putintrump.org, for instance, Trump Jr. followed up on his promise to “ask around.” According to a source familiar with the congressional investigations into Russian interference with the 2016 campaign, who requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, on the same day that Trump Jr. received the first message from WikiLeaks, he emailed other senior officials with the Trump campaign, including Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Brad Parscale, and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, telling them WikiLeaks had made contact. Kushner then forwarded the email to campaign communications staffer Hope Hicks. At no point during the 10-month correspondence does Trump Jr. rebuff WikiLeaks, which had published stolen documents and was already observed to be releasing information that benefited Russian interests.

WikiLeaks played a pivotal role in the presidential campaign. In July 2016, on the first day of the Democratic National Convention, WikiLeaks released emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee’s servers that spring. The emails showed DNC officials denigrating Bernie Sanders, renewing tensions on the eve of Clinton’s acceptance of the nomination. On October 7, less than an hour after the Washington Post released the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women, Wikileaks released emails that hackers had pilfered from the personal email account of Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta.

On October 3, 2016, WikiLeaks wrote again. “Hiya, it’d be great if you guys could comment on/push this story,” WikiLeaks suggested, attaching a quote from then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton about wanting to “just drone” WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange.

“Already did that earlier today,” Trump Jr. responded an hour-and-a-half later. “It’s amazing what she can get away with.”

Two minutes later, Trump Jr. wrote again, asking, “What’s behind this Wednesday leak I keep reading about?” The day before, Roger Stone, an informal advisor to Donald Trump, had tweeted, “Wednesday@HillaryClinton is done. #WikiLeaks.”

WikiLeaks didn’t respond to that message, but on October 12, 2016, the account again messaged Trump Jr. “Hey Donald, great to see you and your dad talking about our publications,” WikiLeaks wrote. (At a rally on October 10, Donald Trump had proclaimed, “I love WikiLeaks!”)

“Strongly suggest your dad tweets this link if he mentions us,” WikiLeaks went on, pointing Trump Jr. to the link wlsearch.tk, which it said would help Trump’s followers dig through the trove of stolen documents and find stories. “There’s many great stories the press are missing and we’re sure some of your follows [sic] will find it,” WikiLeaks went on. “Btw we just released Podesta Emails Part 4.”

Trump Jr. did not respond to this message. But just 15 minutes after it was sent, as The Wall Street Journal’s Byron Tau pointed out, Donald Trump himself tweeted, “Very little pick-up by the dishonest media of incredible information provided by WikiLeaks. So dishonest! Rigged system!”

Two days later, on October 14, 2016, Trump Jr. tweeted out the link WikiLeaks had provided him. “For those who have the time to read about all the corruption and hypocrisy all the @wikileaks emails are right here: http://wlsearch.tk/,” he wrote.

After this point, Trump Jr. ceased to respond to WikiLeaks’s direct messages, but WikiLeaks escalated its requests.

“Hey Don. We have an unusual idea,” WikiLeaks wrote on October 21, 2016. “Leak us one or more of your father’s tax returns.” WikiLeaks then laid out three reasons why this would benefit both the Trumps and WikiLeaks. One, The New York Times had already published a fragment of Trump’s tax returns on October 1; two, the rest could come out any time “through the most biased source (e.g. NYT/MSNBC).”

It is the third reason, though, WikiLeaks wrote, that “is the real kicker.” “If we publish them it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality,” WikiLeaks explained. “That means that the vast amount of stuff that we are publishing on Clinton will have much higher impact, because it won’t be perceived as coming from a ‘pro-Trump’ ‘pro-Russia’ source.” It then provided an email address and link where the Trump campaign could send the tax returns, and adds, “The same for any other negative stuff (documents, recordings) that you think has a decent chance of coming out. Let us put it out.”

Trump Jr. did not respond to this message.

WikiLeaks didn’t write again until Election Day, November 8, 2016. “Hi Don if your father ‘loses’ we think it is much more interesting if he DOES NOT conceed [sic] and spends time CHALLENGING the media and other types of rigging that occurred—as he has implied that he might do,” WikiLeaks wrote at 6:35pm, when the idea that Clinton would win was still the prevailing conventional wisdom. (As late as 7:00pm that night, FiveThirtyEight, a trusted prognosticator of the election, gave Clinton a 71 percent chance of winning the presidency.) WikiLeaks insisted that contesting the election results would be good for Trump’s rumored plans to start a media network should he lose the presidency. “The discussion can be transformative as it exposes media corruption, primary corruption, PAC corruption, etc.,” WikiLeaks wrote.

Shortly after midnight that day, when it was clear that Trump had beaten all expectations and won the presidency, WikiLeaks sent him a simple message: “Wow.”

Trump Jr. did not respond to these messages either, but WikiLeaks was undeterred. “Hi Don. Hope you’re doing well!” WikiLeaks wrote on December 16 to Trump Jr., who was by then the son of the president-elect. “In relation to Mr. Assange: Obama/Clinton placed pressure on Sweden, UK and Australia (his home country) to illicitly go after Mr. Assange. It would be real easy and helpful for your dad to suggest that Australia appoint Assange ambassador to [Washington,] DC.”

WikiLeaks even imagined how Trump might put it: “‘That’s a real smart tough guy and the most famous australian [sic] you have!’ or something similar,” WikiLeaks wrote. “They won’t do it but it will send the right signals to Australia, UK + Sweden to start following the law and stop bending it to ingratiate themselves with the Clintons.” (On December 7, Assange, proclaiming his innocence, had released his testimony in front of London investigators looking into accusations that he had committed alleged sexual assault.)

In the winter and spring, WikiLeaks went largely silent, only occasionally sending Trump Jr. links. But on July 11, 2017, three days after The New York Times broke the story about Trump Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with connections to Russia’s powerful prosecutor general, WikiLeaks got in touch again.

“Hi Don. Sorry to hear about your problems,” WikiLeaks wrote. “We have an idea that may help a little. We are VERY interested in confidentially obtaining and publishing a copy of the email(s) cited in the New York Times today,” citing a reference in the paper to emails Trump Jr had exchanged with Rob Goldstone, a publicist who had helped set up the meeting. “We think this is strongly in your interest,” WikiLeaks went on. It then reprised many of the same arguments it made in trying to convince Trump Jr. to turn over his father’s tax returns, including the argument that Trump’s enemies in the press were using the emails to spin an unfavorable narrative of the meeting. “Us publishing not only deprives them of this ability but is beautifully confounding.”

The message was sent at 9:29 am on July 11. Trump Jr. did not respond, but just hours later, he posted the emails himself, on his own Twitter feed.