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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Yet another court filing in the manafort case. At this point, this is just redundant. [1]
The 21-page document also names members of the so-called “Hapsburg group” – described by Mueller in the February superseding indictment of Manafort as "a group of former senior European politicians to take positions favorable to Ukraine, including by lobbying in the United States.”
According to the document, some of the key participants of the Hapsburg group are former Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, Belgian Judge Jean-Paul Moerman, head of the German Federal Chancellory Bodo Hombach and former Spanish NATO head Javier Solana.
The exhibit containing the names of Alan Friedman, Eckart Sager, Konstantin Kliminck, and Hapsburg group members, was filed by the clerk in an unredacted form on Wednesday afternoon but was re-filed a short time later in a redacted form with those names hidden.
Sager did not respond to ABC News' request for comment. Friedman was unable to be reached for comment
The existence of the text messages first came to light earlier this month, but the content of the messages was not publicly known until Wednesday’s filing. Last Thursday, Mueller, who is investigating Russian meddling during the 2016 election, cited the messages in accusing Manafort and his Russian associate, Konstantin Kliminck, of witness-tampering.
On Friday, Mueller filed a superseding indictment against Manafort that included Kliminck and new charges for obstruction of justice. Manafort faces two indictments in Washington, D.C., and Virginia on charges related to tax fraud and other financial crimes.
The special counsel has asked a federal judge in Washington, DC, to revoke Manafort's current $10 million bail. A hearing on Manafort’s bail is scheduled for this Friday.
Wednesday’s filing names Friedman and Sager – described in previous filings as Person D1 and Person D2 – as the recipients of Manafort and Kilimnik’s text messages.
According to those filings, on Feb. 26, Manafort sent a Business Insider article, in which it is reported that he had been charged with paying European leaders who were part of the Hapsburg group, to lobby on behalf of Ukraine to Friedman. He then wrote. “We should talk. I have made clear that they worked in Europe.”
In a series of messages sent in late February, Kilimnik asks Sager for assistance contacting Friedman.
“Basically P" - referring to Manafort - "wants to give him a quick summary that he says to everybody (which is true) that our friends never lobbied in the US, and the purpose of the program was EU,” Kilimnik wrote to Sager after asking him to mention the messages to Friedman. He then writes, “If you have a chance to mention this to A." - referring to Friedman - "it would be great. It would be good to get them connected to discuss in person. P is his friend.”
In April, Kilimnik reached out to Friedman directly in a message that said, “Hi. This is K. My friend P is looking for ways to connect to you to pass you several messages. Can we arrange that.”
Manafort’s trial in Virginia is slated to begin on July 25. His trial in Washington is scheduled for September 17.
I believe that the only thing putting a hard stop to Trump becoming a dictator is his own incompetence. If he were more competent (which might have killed his campaign to be President, ironically enough), we'd be completely screwed. All of our efforts amount to just slowing him and the Republicans down and stalling for time until the mid-terms and next election. If Trump was more competent, the Mueller investigation wouldn't be happening in the first place, and it's the only thing that really stands a chance of stopping his madness.
I'm honestly scared of the door Trump had metaphorically opened,whoever comes in future may have already started taking notes and will already be more competent then Trump,especially when it comes to shutting down things like Muller investigations,and removing barriers like congress completely so they can rule without opposition
have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Fascism is crazy, but it has its own internal logic.
As someone pointed out a couple posts up, Trump's political ideology is determined by whoever is kissing his ass at the moment. Notice that he ran the North Korean propaganda line to a T after coming out of the negotiations with them, no doubt because they spent the whole time telling him how great he was.
He doesn't really qualify as a fascist, more a garden variety totalitarian.
edited 14th Jun '18 1:40:57 PM by archonspeaks
They should have sent a poet.There was a brief period during the transit period after Trump's election where he suddenly got bizarrely pro-Obama (or at least much less anti-Obama), presumably because during that period he had a few one-on-one sessions where Obama could butter him up. Trump's pro-whatever is saying nice things about him at any given moment. I'm fairly certain that under the right circumstances, ISIS could probably convert Trump to Islam by promising him he'd get to be their Caliph.
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Have you actually tried to parse any of Hitler or Mussolini's works? They really, really are not as constant or consistent as you might think, for all they certainly put Trump in the shade when it comes to writing/ speaking actual sentences that work as sentences.
It's getting the paragraphs to link up that's at issue. They were really good at saying whatever their audience wanted to hear, whatever the logical inconsistencies.
edited 14th Jun '18 1:49:05 PM by Euodiachloris
A good example of how fascism works is the American Nazi party where the leader, Fritz Julius Kuhn, embezzled $14,000 from their funds. The scandal had severe repercussions because the ideology was their leader had absolute power so he couldn't do any wrong.
Fascism is an ideology that benefits its members in whatever way it does. It is a liquid ideology in that respect and conforms to whatever benefits it.
Mussolini hates God then he cites God in his speeches constantly depending on his audience.
So, I'm comfortable saying fascism is a leader-obsessed military worshiping race-baiting nationalist ideaology and that the first example was Sparta.
edited 14th Jun '18 1:55:33 PM by CharlesPhipps
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.I'm reminded of a scene from the TV movie about the Nuremberg Trials where an American psychiatrist asked one of the defendants about the Nazi ideas and thoughts another defendant had been shouting at lunchtime to the rest to keep them from admitting guilt.
The defendant being talked to laughs mockingly. "What ideas? What thoughts!? They were only platitudes. Nazi Germany was built on empty platitudes."
When the psychiatrist expresses disbelief that a man as smart as him could fall for empty platitudes, the defendant just says, "Of course. Because you can hear in then anything you want."
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Yeah, that just about covers it.
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We've been over this at more length in other threads, but Sparta isn't really fascist. That's an anachronistic application of the term, Fascism as we know it would have been incompatible with Sparta. Fascism grew out of a unique set of political and economic circumstances in the early 19th century, and it's pretty inexorably tied to those circumstances.
Fascism relies pretty heavily on a conception of the nation that didn't exist when Sparta was around. That conception informs their obsession with a national struggle, and their hierarchical and economic systems. Militarism is only one aspect of fascism.
The rhetoric may be empty, but fascist states follow a few very distinct patterns.
edited 14th Jun '18 2:13:23 PM by archonspeaks
They should have sent a poet.Sparta's not fascist. Let's not start this nonsense up again. The first proto-fascist movements are the Klan and the Young Turks. That's as far back as we can take it before the term becomes meaningless.
Eh, Sparta more or less created nationalism as we know it. It created a distinct Spartan identity which was separate from all other Greecian cities or cultures of the time.
edited 14th Jun '18 2:37:41 PM by CharlesPhipps
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Sparta created nationalism, really? Most of the arguments I've seen about nationalism place its birth after the Reformation....but Ancient Greece? The Spartans were expansionists and highly mobilized for war, other than that (well, we know a lot about them because we have access to contemporary writings....from their enemies) they aren't unique in the grand scheme of things.
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edited 14th Jun '18 2:45:57 PM by Rationalinsanity
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

As Kazuya notes, the Khmer Rouge did the same thing. Ethnic nationalism and Stalinism go together more often than you might expect.
It's important to distinguish between Trump and the government he "leads". Trump is, personally, a fascist or neofascist. He's a very, very incompetent one, however, which means the state remains a democracy, if a damaged one.