(THREAD) MAJOR BREAKING NEWS (CNN): Convicted Kremlin agent Maria Butina's longtime boyfriend confirms that Don Jr. met secretly with Kremlin agents for an hour during the 2015 NRA Conference in Knoxville; Don Jr. therefore lied to Congress about collusion. Please RT and read on.
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1/ This story is still developing—and confusing enough that only those who've researched the Trump-Russia case for years understood its import when it first broke; many others are currently misreporting it. I'm going to do my best to get this 100% right for you—as it's huge news.
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2/ SUMMARY: All agree Butina was a Kremlin agent working for a Kremlin official—Torshin; all agree she used sex to access targets; all agree she infiltrated the NRA and aimed to infiltrate Team Trump; all agree her job was to end sanctions. We *didn't* know Jr. met with her team.
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3/ BACKGROUND (all taken from PROOF OF CONSPIRACY, the Mueller Report, and major-media sources): in early 2015, the future top Trump adviser on Russia, Dmitri Simes, met with Putin; thereafter, he helped Alexander Torshin and Butina gain access to top federal banking officials.
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4/ Torshin and Butina wanted access to banking officials as part of what is now confirmed as a Russian intelligence operation aimed at—among other things—gaining confidential data about the Ziff Brothers, whose Clinton donations the Kremlin thought could be used against Hillary.
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5/ During the period Simes—the former top Trump adviser on Russia who now makes $500,000/year working for the Kremlin's TV network, RT—was aiding Torshin/Butina, he was trying to Torshin's aid for the top funder of his pro-Kremlin think tank, the Center for the National Interest.
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6/ Filings in the Butina case confirm that—in early 2015—Butina/Torshin aimed to infiltrate the NRA and, if possible, Trump's campaign. Butina's ex-boyfriend, Patrick Byrne, has now confirmed Butina *spoke* of infiltrating four campaigns, but in fact only focused on one: Trump's.
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7/ We don't know exactly who puts the FBI onto Russia's activities—though to be clear both the hacking and propaganda operations run by the Kremlin in 2016 had *already begun* by Spring 2015. We also know the FBI was investigating George Papadopoulos as a possible Israeli agent.
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8/ Given that it later prosecuted Butina, made Torshin an unindicted co-conspirator, got warrants on Papadopoulos, and turned Simes into the shocking "star" of Volume 1 of the Mueller Report, there's a reasonable chance—but we don't know—that the FBI was long tracking all four.
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9/ The upshot to this part of the story is this: FBI agent Peter Strzok was running an FBI probe in early 2015 that believed—it turns out, 100% correctly—that Kremlin agents under Putin's control sought to infiltrate Trump's 2016 campaign. Tonight we got *major* new news on this.
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10/ Butina's ex-boyfriend—businessman Patrick Byrne—tonight *confirmed* to CNN that Butina said she had "close ties" to "four of the top seven oligarchs in Russia" and that she was in a position to orchestrate him (Byrne) meeting *one-on-one with Putin himself*. This is 100% new.
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11/ Byrne further *confirms* to CNN that Butina said she was working for Torshin, a Kremlin official, and that she'd been tasked with infiltrating Trump's campaign. She said the purpose was "peace"—which is the term the Kremlin uses (systematically) to refer to sanctions relief.
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12/ We've long known that at the spring 2015 NRA Conference in Knoxville, Donald Trump Jr. made contact with Torshin; both men claimed that they randomly found themselves near one another and spoke only briefly of inconsequential things—and that's what Don Jr. told Congress, too.
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13/ We don't know Torshin's full story—as he fled to Russia. Likewise, we don't know Simes's full story—as he took a job for the Kremlin in Moscow. But in my 2018 book PROOF OF COLLUSION, I wrote of a major-media story that hinted Don Jr. *might* have been lying about Knoxville.
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14/ CORRECTION: I mean Nashville, Tennessee, not Knoxville, Tennessee. My sister went to University of Tennessee in Knoxville, so it's more on my brain than it is with most people. Wherever I wrote Knoxville above, I'm speaking of Nashville. OK, to continue with this major story:
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15/ PROOF OF COLLUSION offered major-media reporting that a) Torshin's meeting with Don Jr. wasn't accidental; b) they discussed more than pleasantries; c) Torshin had been tasked to get Don Jr. to come with him to a second location for a secret meeting. That's what I had *then*.
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16/ According to Byrne, Butina told him that—at a time when she was connected to "four of the top seven oligarchs in Russia" and could orchestrate *face-to-face meetings with Putin*—she and Torshin successfully got Don Jr. to go to a second location for a one-hour secret meeting.
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17/ This secret meeting in Nashville took place in April 2015, per Butina, just 60 days before Trump announced his presidential run. At *any* meeting between Torshin, Butina, Trump Jr., and other Kremlin agents, the topic Torshin and Butina were assigned to discuss was sanctions.
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18/ By 30 days after Trump announced his run in June 2015, he *still* had not made a major official declaration of his policy on Russia sanctions. Then he went to FreedomFest in Las Vegas in July 2015. Butina was there and Byrne was there. Butina was posing as a young journalist.
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19/ The event was televised, so any statement by Trump was certain to be seen by Putin and other leaders. Butina, posing as a journalist, asked Trump to state his position on sanctions. Trump—whose son had apparently secretly met with Butina and her boss—said he wanted them gone.
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20/ It was at the 2015 Las Vegas event that Butina first approached Byrne; at the time she was in a relationship with GOP operative Paul Erickson, who's since been indicted on multiple charges. Butina, the Kremlin agent, seduced Byrne, and they soon began a romantic relationship.
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21/ Byrne is unclear on whether he contacted the FBI about Butina before or after their romantic relationship began. In any case, Byrne is clear he *wasn't* acting as an FBI CI in Las Vegas; he was there as a *speaker*, but had worked with the FBI previously on unrelated matters.
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22/ In any case, Butina's conduct in trying to recruit Byrne is so suspicious that he alerts the FBI because he has prior—unrelated—contacts in the organization. The FBI, which has already—it turns out, 100% correctly—begun investigating Butina, asks Byrne to continue to see her.
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23/ Byrne now says federal officials have told him that the order for him to keep seeing Butina came from Peter Strzok, James Comey and one other person—which would make sense, given that these are the men who were heading up the Russian election-interference probe at that point.
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24/ In the months after Butina—following a meeting with Trump Jr.—gets Trump to oppose sanctions on TV, Butina so infiltrates the NRA that she's able to arrange a trip by the NRA's top brass to Moscow to meet Putin at the same time Trump adviser Flynn is in Moscow to meet Putin.
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25/ Just over a year after meeting with Putin—who has called Simes a "friend"—and during a period he's still in contact with Torshin and Butina, Simes manages to insinuate himself into the Trump during a March '16 Center for the National Interest event that Jared Kushner attends.
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26/ Thereafter, Simes becomes the "Russia whisperer" of the Trump campaign—involving himself in every major Russia-related foreign policy event and policy paper Trump's campaign constructs between March and November 2016. Shortly after Butina is arrested, Simes *flees to Moscow*.
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27/ Don Jr. testifies to Congress that he had no significant contacts with Torshin. But media reports suggest that not only—if Butina's claims are true—did Don Jr. meet with Torshin, but *so did Trump himself*. Torshin ultimately tweets out that he met Trump at an NRA conference.
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28/ Live television, folks. Going to correct one or two things that don't change the story but more properly align events and dates.
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29/ In late 2015, Alexander Torshin claimed on Twitter that he knew Trump from the NRA and could speak to his character. Torshin and Trump both attended the April 2015 NRA Conference in Nashville, so the assumption has been that they met at that time.
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30/ The secret Torshin/Trump Jr. meeting occurred, per Butina's statements to Byrne, at *either* the Nashville NRA Conference in spring 2015 *or* the Louisville NRA Conference in spring 2016 *or* both. Byrne, in speaking to CNN, was not clear on this. But Byrne has corroboration.
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