Pompeo put Crimea Back in the Headlines

Posted on July 25, 2018July 25, 2018 by Denise Simon

and rightly so.

Primer: 75 years since the US refusal to accept annexation of ...

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday the United States would never recognize Russia’s annexation in 2014 of Ukraine’s Crimea. “As we did in the Welles Declaration in 1940, the United States reaffirms as policy its refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claim of sovereignty over territory seized by force in contravention of international law … [T]he United States rejects Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea and pledges to maintain this policy until Ukraine’s territorial integrity is restored,” Pompeo said in a statement.

The remarks will almost certainly dispel any ambiguity over whether the Trump administration was planning to recognize Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, a Ukrainian territory with close cultural and historic relations with Russia. Pompeo rooted his remarks in the Welles Declaration, which refused to recognize the then-Soviet Union’s invasion of the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The declaration, named for Sumner Welles, the U.S. diplomat who crafted it, remained a cornerstone of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union for the next five decades, and empowered Baltic citizens who wished for independence from the Kremlin.

The Soviet invasion of the Baltic states came after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the 1939 nonaggression accord between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Following that agreement, the Soviets gained influence in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, three countries that the Soviets feared Germany would use as a staging ground for an invasion of the USSR. At first, the Soviet Union only signed mutual-assistance pacts with the three countries, but a year after those accords were signed, Stalin annexed the Baltic states. (Hitler ultimately betrayed Stalin, who joined the Allied nations to defeat the Nazis.) More here.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesperson
For Immediate Release
STATEMENT BY SECRETARY POMPEO
July 24, 2018

Crimea Declaration

Russia, through its 2014 invasion of Ukraine and its attempted annexation of Crimea, sought to undermine a bedrock international principle shared by democratic states: that no country can change the borders of another by force. The states of the world, including Russia, agreed to this principle in the United Nations Charter, pledging to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State. This fundamental principle — which was reaffirmed in the Helsinki Final Act — constitutes one of the foundations upon which our shared security and safety rests.

As we did in the Welles Declaration in 1940, the United States reaffirms as policy its refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claims of sovereignty over territory seized by force in contravention of international law. In concert with allies, partners, and the international community, the United States rejects Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea and pledges to maintain this policy until Ukraine’s territorial integrity is restored.

The United States calls on Russia to respect the principles to which it has long claimed to adhere and to end its occupation of Crimea. As democratic states seek to build a free, just, and prosperous world, we must uphold our commitment to the international principle of sovereign equality and respect the territorial integrity of other states. Through its actions, Russia, has acted in a manner unworthy of a great nation and has chosen to isolate itself from the international community.

About that Time Obama Gave an AQ Affiliate Grant Money

Posted on July 25, 2018July 25, 2018 by Denise Simon

There has been lots of chatter about removing the security clearance access of John Brennan and a few others. No one has asked about Hillary’s or…..Obama’s. There has been lots of chatter of impeachment, traitor and treason….but when it comes to aiding and supporting the enemy….check this out.

Grant money is a gift….by the way.

Islamic Relief Agency Admits Illegal Funds Transfer to ...

Islamic Relief Agency Admits Illegal Funds Transfer to ... story and photo, more detail here.

The Middle East Forum has discovered that the Obama administration approved a grant of $200,000 of taxpayer money to an al-Qaeda affiliate in Sudan — a decade after the U.S. Treasury designated it as a terrorist-financing organization. More stunningly, government officials specifically authorized the release of at least $115,000 of this grant even after learning that it was a designated terror organization.

The story began in October 2004, when the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the Khartoum-based Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA), also known as the Islamic African Relief Agency (IARA), as a terror-financing organization. It did so because of ISRA’s links to Osama bin Laden and his organization Maktab al-Khidamat (MK), the precursor of al-Qaeda.

According to the U.S. Treasury, in 1997 ISRA established formal cooperation with MK. By 2000, ISRA had raised $5 million for bin Laden’s group. The Treasury Department notes that ISRA officials even sought to help “relocate [bin Laden] to secure safe harbor for him.” It further reports that ISRA raised funds in 2003 in Western Europe specifically earmarked for Hamas suicide bombings.

The 2004 designation included all of ISRA’s branches, including a U.S. office called the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA-USA). Eventually it became known that this American branch had illegally transferred over $1.2 million to Iraqi insurgents and other terror groups, including, reportedly, the Afghan terrorist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In 2010, the executive director of IARA-USA and a board member pled guilty to money-laundering, theft of public funds, conspiracy, and several other charges.

ISRA’s influence also spread to Washington. Former U.S. congressman Mark Siljander (R., Mich.) pled guilty in 2010 to obstruction of justice and acting as an unregistered foreign agent after prosecutors found that IARA-USA had paid him $75,000 — using misappropriated USAID grant money — to lobby the government, in an attempt to remove the charity from the government’s terror list.

Despite this well-documented history, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in July 2014 awarded $723,405 to World Vision Inc., an international evangelical charity, to “improve water, sanitation and hygiene and to increase food security in Sudan’s Blue Nile state.” Of these funds, $200,000 was to be directed to a sub-grantee: ISRA.

Responding to a Middle East Forum (MEF) inquiry, a USAID official explains that World Vision had alerted it in November 2014 to the likelihood of ISRA being on the terror list. USAID instructed World Vision to “suspend all activities with ISRA” and informed the State Department, OFAC, and USAID’s Office of the Inspector General. USAID and World Vision then waited for OFAC to confirm whether ISRA was designated or not.

USAID emails obtained by the Middle East Forum reveal that in January 2015, World Vision was growing unhappy while waiting for OFAC’s assessment. Mark Smith, World Vision’s senior director of humanitarian and emergency affairs, wrote to USAID, stating that the Islamic Relief Agency “had performed excellent work” for World Vision in the past, and that “putting contractual relationships in limbo for such a long period is putting a significant strain” on World Vision’s relationship with the Sudanese regime. Smith also revealed that World Vision had submitted a notice to OFAC indicating its “intention to restart work with [ISRA] and to transact with [ISRA]” if OFAC did not respond within a week.

World Vision’s statement stunned USAID officials, who complained that World Vision’s behavior “doesn’t make sense.” USAID official Daniel Holmberg emailed a colleague: “If they actually said that they wanted to resume work with ISRA, while knowing that it was 99% likely that ISRA was on the list then I am concerned about our partnership with them, and whether it should continue.”

On January 23, OFAC confirmed that ISRA was a sanctioned entity and denied World Vision “a license to engage in transactions with [ISRA].” Mark Smith and World Vision’s country program director in Sudan expressed their disappointment, stating that they were in discussions with ISRA as well as the Sudanese regime’s Humanitarian Aid Commission, which regulates the activities of international charities in Sudan.

Despite OFAC’s ruling, in February, World Vision wrote to OFAC and Obama-administration official Jeremy Konyndyk (who then served as director of USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance) to apply to OFAC for a new license from USAID to pay ISRA “monies owed for work performed.” According to Larry Meserve, USAID’s mission director for Sudan, World Vision argued that if they did not pay ISRA, “their whole program will be jeopardized.”

While World Vision waited for a decision, on February 22, a pro-regime Sudanese newspaper, Intibaha, reported that the Sudanese political leaders had requested that World Vision be expelled from Sudan’s Blue Nile state. USAID disaster operations specialist Joseph Wilkes and World Vision’s Mark Smith speculated that this was “punishment” for the cancellation of the grant with ISRA, which a USAID official noted is “well connected with the [Sudanese] government.”

Then, incredibly, on May 7, 2015 — after “close collaboration and consultations with the Department of State” — OFAC issued a license to a World Vision affiliate, World Vision International, authorizing “a one-time transfer of approximately $125,000 to ISRA,” of which “$115,000 was for services performed under the sub-award with USAID” and $10,000 was “for an unrelated funding arrangement between Irish Aid and World Vision.”

An unnamed World Vision official described the decision as a “great relief as ISRA had become restive and had threatened legal action, which would have damaged our reputation and standing in Sudan.” Senior USAID official Charles Wanjue wrote to colleagues: “Good news and a great relief, really!” In August 2015, USAID official Daniel Holmberg even told a State Department official that he had been approached by the executive director of ISRA, and requested guidance on helping ISRA remove itself from the U.S. government’s terror list.

Obama-administration officials knowingly approved the transfer of taxpayer dollars to an al-Qaeda affiliate, and not an obscure one but an enormous international network that was often in the headlines.

How was this prominent terror funder initially approved to receive American taxpayer funds ten years after it had been placed on the “Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons” terror list?

Existing measures to prevent the payment of government monies to designated terrorist organizations include: first, a requirement that all grantees and sub-grantees of U.S.-government grants register for a Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number; and second, a requirement that all government vendors register with the government’s System for Award Management (SAM) database. A designated organization should not be able to acquire a DUNS number, and any designation is explicitly recorded in the SAM database with a note that the designated organization is excluded from government grants.

However, ISRA was in fact assigned a DUNS number — as recorded at the government’s USAspending.gov website — which matched no organization in the government’s SAM database. The only listings for “Islamic Relief Agency” or “ISRA” in the SAM database are the designated Sudanese al-Qaeda affiliate and its branches.

Whoever approved this grant to ISRA either failed to check the government’s database of designated groups or did so and then chose to disregard it. Both explanations are alarming. And neither answer explains how ISRA acquired a DUNS number.

Most important: Now we know that the government deliberately chose to transfer at least $115,000 to ISRA after confirming that it was on the terror-designation list. In other words, an al-Qaeda front received taxpayers’ money with the apparent complicity of public officials.

It is no secret that the Obama administration sought to downplay the threat of Islamism, and even to coopt some Islamist movements to promote its agenda. In its foreign policy, the administration expressed support for Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, while domestically, the White House invited Islamists to design the government’s Countering Violent Extremism program. It is difficult to argue that these efforts were the product of anything but great naïveté and political dogma. Is it possible that this combination extended to deliberately funding an al-Qaeda affiliate?

Congress must investigate this question and, more broadly, where USAID is sending taxpayers’ money, for ISRA might not be the only example. The House’s Foreign Affairs, Oversight, and Financial Services Committees, along with the Senate Finance Committee, must examine how a designated group came to qualify for government monies, why OFAC and the State Department authorized the transfer of funds after learning of ISRA’s terror ties, and which bureaucrat or political appointee was responsible for this mess.

Asked to comment, current State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert told National Review: “As this occurred under the prior Administration, the current Secretary of the State, Secretary of Treasury, and USAID Administrator had no involvement in decisions surrounding this award or subsequent license.”

The American people need to know how their dollars funded an al-Qaeda affiliate. They need to know how deep this problem runs.

*** Millions upon millions come to mind shrink-wrapped on pallets on un-marked airplanes to Tehran comes to mind actually.

Trade: The Pain to the Farmers Just Cost us $12 Billion

Posted on July 24, 2018July 24, 2018 by Denise Simon

BAILOUT

Short term pain? Does that $12 billion in emergency funding come back into the Treasury at some point? Beyond farmers, will there eventually be some emergency funding for those in the energy industry or to the fisherman? China is waiting it out….but was all this thought out?

Anyone remember BRICS?

“the BRICS bloc – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are expected to band together in defense of the multilateralism the United States once championed.”

From threatening to tear up existing trade deals to hiking steel and aluminum tariffs, the U.S. move toward unilateral action has rattled traditional allies and rivals alike. And BRICS nations have been on the frontline of the global tensions.

Last week Trump said he was ready to impose tariffs on all $500 billion of imported goods from rival economic superpower China. But even South Africa – a tiny exporter of steel, aluminum and automobiles to the United States – is facing barriers.

“If you don’t have an agreed rules-based trade system then it’s a matter of power. And unilateralism is not something you want to contemplate,” Rob Davies, trade minister of the bloc’s current chair, South Africa, told Reuters.

BRICS’ dominant member China has stressed the need to fight protectionism and promote multilateral global trade.

*** photo

The Trump administration is planning to ease fears of a trade war by announcing later Tuesday billions of dollars in aid to farmers hurt by tariffs, according to two sources familiar with the plan.

The administration’s plan will use two commodity support programs in the farm bill, as well as the Agriculture Department’s broad authority to stabilize the agricultural economy during times of turmoil.

Or, put another way: The Trump administration has intervened in the economy, and now, to mitigate the consequences of its intervening in the economy, it’s going to intervene in the economy again. In both cases, the taxpayer loses. He loses in the first instance because tariffs are taxes, and because taxes make goods more expensive. And he loses again when the government takes his money (or borrows it against his kids) and gives it to farmers who are down on their luck because the government elected to intervene.

Even worse, both of these actions are being taken not by Congress, but by the executive branch. And even worse than that, they are being taken by the executive using powers that were delegated by Congress for use in emergencies. The laws that accord the president the power to impose tariffs without legislative approval are the the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, which requires the U.S. to be at war at least somewhere in the world; the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, which requires there to be a “national emergency”; the Trade Act of 1974, which requires either that the executive considers there to be “an adverse impact on national security from imports,” or believes a given nation’s behavior to be unfair and in need of an “appropriate and practicable” response; and the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows the executive to “determine the effects on the national security of imports” and to “adjust the imports” if necessary. That President Trump is using these powers so routinely is a problem in and of itself. But that he is then “fixing” the fallout by, in part, using another set of emergency powers renders the whole affair somewhat farcical. This is decidedly not why these laws are on the books. This is not what the executive branch is for.

This tendency is not limited to Trump, of course. Indeed, this is a problem that has been growing for more than eight decades, and under presidents from both parties. And until Congress grows a spine, it is a problem that will continue to grow. But it’s dismaying to watch the move being cheered on — or, at the very least, permitted — by a Republican-led House and Senate. Should Congress want to, it can easily take these powers back — over a veto if necessary. That this idea seems quaint shows how far we have strayed from the system as designed.

Putin vs. McFaul, DHS, Browder and Why

Posted on July 20, 2018July 20, 2018 by Denise Simon

It all comes down to the Magnitsky Act. In short Vladimir Putin is furious over this law and other countries are slowly setting it as law as well, most recently it appears, Spain.

When President Trump met with Putin in Helsinki, that was part of the discussion, repeal the law or apply waivers and allow Moscow access to key people, such as Bill Browder, a British citizen, former Ambassador McFaul, a few DHS investigators and two others, a fellow named Parker and other named Otto. Finally the Trump White House said NYET.

It was in May that Bill Browder, who actually is attending the 2018 Aspen Security Forum was arrested in Spain and almost immediately released due to some major confusion over a Red Notice launched by Russia, one of many times. Why was Browder in Spain? Likely helping authorities there with international crime/money laundering by Russian operatives.

What is that case about exactly? Well it is an extension of the reach of the Magnitsky Act.

As Jamestown reported in February of 2018:

On February 19, after a decade of investigations, Spanish prosecutors finally launched a major trial against notable members of the Russian mafia operating in the Iberian country. All in all, sufficient evidence was collected against 18 persons (cases, however, were opened against 27 alleged members of the Russian mafia and their supporters), of whom 6 are Spanish nationals charged with falsification of documents and auxiliary support. The culprits have been accused of money laundering and the “creation of a criminal community in Spain” (Elmundo.es, February 19). The legal process promises to become one of the most resonant recent cases related to the Russian mafia abroad. The accused are said to belong to the so-called Tambovskaya-Malyshevskaya organized criminal group (OPG)—one of the most formidable Russian mafia operations that emerged in St. Petersburg, in the late 1980s (Elmundo.es, June 13, 2008). Available information on the case suggests that the potential impact of the current investigation might turn out to be much more far-reaching than initially anticipated.

Gennady Petrov (Source: OCCRP)

The Russian mafia has had a long history in Spain. Indeed the current case against members of the Tambovskaya-Malyshevskaya OPG is a continuation of an investigation that Spanish law enforcement initiated in 2008. That year, Spanish prosecutors and the Spanish police (Civil Guard or Guardia Civil, in Spanish) carried out a special operation, code-named “Troika,” against Russian criminals residing in Spain, which resulted in the arrest of several prominent members of the Russian mafia, notably including Gennady Petrov and Alexander Malyshev. The two men were apprehended in their mansions, located in Mallorca and Malaga. After the wave of arrests, investigators named 500 Spanish bank accounts that had been used for money laundering. In the final analysis, Spanish authorities manged to seize €12 million (then worth $18.4 million) in various accounts (Lenpravda.ru, June 16, 2008).

Petrov and Malyshev built their criminal careers (and accumulated most of their financial capital) in Russia. But when their criminal enterprise started to be marginalized in the late 1990s, they were forced to flee Russia and settled in Spain, where they acquired luxurious residential properties. However, they manged to escape justice under various pretexts and eventually returned to Russia (Russiangate.com, August 16, 2017).

Spanish police has revealed that Petrov alone owns financial assets in Spain worth close to €50 million ($62 million). Additionally, Spanish prosecutors allege that Petrov and the other defendants in the current trial have accumulated their wealth from criminal activities such as assassinations, arms and drug smuggling, extortion, abductions for ransom, and the falsification of documents (Elmundo.es, February 19, 2018). In the course of the investigation, prosecutors also ascertained that, over the years, members of the Russian mafia created hundreds of companies that were allegedly selling property in different regions of Spain, primarily in Alicante, Barcelona, Malaga and Mallorca. The real purpose of these companies, however, was to launder funds collected from drug and arms smuggling as well as to “buy up valuable contacts.” After passing through Spanish banks, the laundered money subsequently went to accounts in Liechtenstein or ended up in Panama (and the other way around).

The established criminal network in Spain also developed further close ties with Russian domestic criminal circles. For example, Petrov’s son, Anton, is considered to be a member of the same criminal society. Under his umbrella, dozens of companies are currently operating in St. Petersburg, among them the large jewellery company “585.” According to a ranking published in 2016 by the magazine Delovoy Peterburg, Petrov’s son was the 26^th richest Russian billionaire, with a fortune worth 37 billion rubles ($650 million) (Novyj vzglyad, August 17, 2017).

The current Spanish legal case could shed additional light on the ties between Russian political elites and Russian organized crime abroad. It is curious to note that Spanish prosecutors specifically mentioned the name Vladislav Reznik as a person allegedly tightly related to the criminal group established by Petrov and Malyshev. Reznik chairs the St. Petersburg–based insurance company Rus, is the chairman of the State Duma Committee on Finances, and is a former chairman of the Moscow-based insurance firm Rosgosstrakh (RSG). He has been wanted by Spanish law enforcement since 2016. Considered by Spanish authorities to be one of the most important figures who contributed to expanding the Russian mafia to Spain, he is accused of laundering over $62 million. Yet, until now, he has managed to escape justice (Elmundo.es, June 1, 2015).

Spanish prosecutors have also ascertained the existence of apparent connections between Reznik and Herman Gref, the current CEO and chairman of Russia’s Sberbank. The list of figures named in the Spanish authorities’ indictment also includes such well-known persons as Ilya Taber (a member of the Vyborg OPG), Anatoly Serdyukov (the former minister of defense of Russia), Viktor Zubkov (former Russian prime minister), Boris Gryzlov (former speaker of the Russian parliament) and Leonid Reiman (former minister of communications and information technologies of Russia and a financial tycoon) (Meduza.io, February 19, 2018).

According to Spanish officials, Petrov was closely related to Reznik, whose main responsibilities boiled down to the “corruption of high officials [and] obtaining of classified information in the highest Russian governmental bodies and agencies.” Case materials additionally mention 78 telephone conversations between Petrov and Nikolay Akulov, the former deputy chief of the Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation, who is also wanted by Spanish prosecutors (Svoboda.org, March 31, 2016). On top of that, case materials detail the rapid career growth of Alexander Bastrykin (the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia), allegedly thanks to Petrov’s “advocacy” on his behalf (Openrussia.org, December 2, 2015). Petrov, in turn, was acting through the former top-ranking official from the Investigative Committee of Russia, Igor Sobolevsky (Newtimes.ru, November 30, 2015).

At this point it would be premature to make any far-reaching conclusions. Yet, even if a fraction of the materials presented by Spanish prosecutors turns out to be correct, this will, once again, demonstrate not only the corrupt nature of Russian political elites but also testify to the scale of ties between Russian criminal (and political) circles located in Russia and Russian mafia structures abroad. Given Western economic sanctions (actual and potential), this channel could be activated to avoid or diminish the potential impact of the United States and/or European Union’s economic sanctions directed against Russian elites.

Just in case you need more evidence, here is part ONE of the deeper dive on details. As a sample:

Gennady Petrov: Petrov (also known as Gennadios Vasilevich Petrov) is the “chief” of a criminal group having a clear pyramidal structure. Other gang members are under his ferule. They had named him “chief”, “boss”, “leader”, or “principal”. In the framework of his functions, Petrov had maintained close ties with representatives of the Russian political, economic, judicial, and police authorities, as well as with members of the international organized crime with the purpose to implement joint projects. With the assistance of lawyers, managers, and confidants, he has created in Spain a network of companies in order to cash out monetary funds obtained by the criminal group. In Russia, he maintains close ties with high-ranked officials in the political, criminal, and law enforcement spheres.

If you can stand it, here is part TWO and here is part THREE.

In summary, when Natalia Veselnitskya met with Manafort and others at Trump Tower, the Magnitsky Act was the basis of the meeting. Don’t shoot the messenger here but facts and context matter.

Included in the documents released by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday is a one-page document submitted by Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman for Donald Trump’s 2016 effort. Manafort was serving in that role on June 9, 2016, when he joined Donald Trump Jr. and campaign adviser Jared Kushner in a meeting with a Kremlin-linked attorney who had promised incriminating information about Hillary Clinton.

Those notes, apparently taken on Manafort’s phone, are as follows.

In full:

Bill browder

Offshore — Cyprus

133m shares

Companies

Not invest — loan

Value in Cyprus as inter

Illici

Active sponsors of RNC

Browder hired Joanna Glover

Tied into Cheney

Russian adoption by American families

In the absence of other context, the notes are cryptic and include words that certainly seem to wave red flags. “Offshore,” “Illici[t]” — even an apparent mention of former vice president Richard B. Cheney.

Elections’ Voter Registration System and the Russian Investor

Posted on July 19, 2018July 19, 2018 by Denise Simon

Remember the outrage when sites all over the internet published items that Soros owned the voting machines? Remember that same outrage when Soros invested heavily in the State’s secretaries that were responsible for the respective elections process?

Remember the outrage that a Russian investor was able to buy American uranium in a deal concocted by Hillary? We learned then about the Committee for United States Foreign Investment.

Remember the outrage when Obama deferred the ‘red-line’ chemical weapons removal in Syria to Moscow that killed thousands? Anyone remember the anger when Russia shot down MH17, a civilian airliner, killing everyone on board?

Remember that we have lost regard for the top ranks of the FBI due to the Russian investigation and the Hillary investigation?

Remember

Remember the horror and voting rigging reported across various states in the recent elections?

Our votes are the most sacrosanct privilege Americans have. Okay so how about the very under reported matter in Maryland?

See, it was not until AFTER the Justice Department announced the indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers for computer hacking that Maryland officials reached out to Rod Rosenstein. FBI officials in the Maryland office held a briefing with the Maryland officials and did not want to make the information public….that is due to a wider investigation on the matter. What matter is that?

Well….

In part:

Four FBI agents informed state officials Thursday that a vendor Maryland has contracted with — ByteGrid LLC — to host data for statewide elections has ties to a Russian oligarch, Miller and Busch said.

Vladimir Potanin

Potanin acquired his wealth notably through the controversial loans-for-shares program in Russia in the early to mid-1990s.

He is one of the wealthiest men in Russia, with an estimated net worth of $15.9 billion, ranking 83rd on the 2018 Forbes The World’s Billionaires list, and 6th in Russia. His long-term business partner was Mikhail Prokhorov until they decided to split in 2007. Subsequently, they put their mutual assets in a holding company, Folletina Trading, until their asset division was agreed upon.

In January 2018, Potanin appeared on the US Treasury’s “Putin list” of 210 individuals closely associated with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

ByteGrid LLC owns the servers that hold the data for voter registration, candidacy, election management, and election night results, state elections officials said. An ownership stake in the company was purchased by AltPoint Capital Partners, whose largest investor is a Russian oligarch named Vladimir Potanin, the election officials said.

Busch said that Potanin is “very close” to Russian Pesident Vladimir Putin and that Altpoint’s managing partner is Gerald T. Banks, a Russian millionaire who changed his name from Guerman Aliev.

But Busch said the state has no evidence that Potanin or Banks had done anything untoward.

“We don’t have any idea whether they meddled in any elections at all,” Busch said.

Attempts to reach the companies were unsuccessful.

The Maryland officials also said they had no indication the Russian-linked firm had anything to do with the problems that arose shortly before June’s primary election in which more than 80,000 voters’ change of address and party affiliation requests were never forwarded from the Motor Vehicle Administration to election officials.

The Maryland news came hours after the Department of Justice indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers, charging that they hacked the computer networks of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.The 11-count indictment alleges that the Russian agents infiltrated the networks, implanting malicious computer code and stealing documents on field operations, opposition research and campaign analytics as a way of interfering with the election.

The charges include conspiracy to commit an offense against the U.S., aggravated identity theft and money laundering.

According to the indictment, the Russians posted stolen documents online and worked with an organization — unnamed but believed to be WikiLeaks — to spread them further, and take advantage of continuing tensions between supporters of Clinton and primary opponent Bernie Sanders.

The federal indictment charging 12 Russian includes an allegation that a Twitter account, @BaltimoreIsWhr, was set up to invite people to join a “flash mob” and to post images using the hashtag “#BlacksAgainstHillary.”

It is the latest revelation of how social media were used locally and nationally in an attempt to influence the election. Cyber security analysts in September told The Baltimore Sun that a Facebook ad that referred to the Black Lives Matter movement and targeted Baltimore users in the months following the 2015 riots was likely part of a broader effort by Russia to sow discontent and deepen racial tension.

In response to such ads, the General Assembly in April passed a bill requiring social media platforms and websites with significant traffic to track all political ads and record which users are being targeted. In May, Hogan expressed reservations that the law could be found unconstitutional and allowed the bill to become law without his signature.

The @BaltimoreIsWhr account has been suspended. Read more here.

Election officials in Maryland along with Governor Hogan have asked the Department of Homeland Security for technical assistance to evaluate the network used by the State elections board. ByteGrid, interesting name, was bought by the Russian investor in 2015 without the knowledge of Maryland officials. ByteGrid hosts the entire state system including registration, online ballot delivery systems and unofficial election night results.

Oh yeah, one last item, Maryland was one of the states that had very suspicious online activity in the 2016 election according to DHS and the FBI. That suspicious activity was for online registration and in the ballot request system.

According to the ByteGrid website, they offer: With ByteGrid’s Compliant Hosting Solutions you get security, compliance and control over your business-critical data. Our CISA and CRISC certified experts have you covered. Industry sectors include: Life Sciences, Health IT, Financial and Government.