Posted on 10/15/2018 10:25:29 AM PDT by BeadCounter
U.S. President Donald Trump said in a television interview that he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin probably has been involved in assassinations and reiterated the assertion that Moscow meddled in U.S. politics.
Trump also said he does not know whether U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is planning to step down but that he sees the four-star general as sort of a Democrat who just might leave.
The comments came in a prerecorded interview with CBS televisions 60 Minutes program that aired on October 14. The wide-ranging discussion also touched on North Korea, U.S. hurricane relief efforts, the missing Saudi journalist in Turkey, and climate change.
(Excerpt) Read more at rferl.org ...
sort of a Democrat
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I think this is because Mattis supports the transgenderizing of our military started by the Kenyanesian Usurper.
Mattis knows what it means, too.
Good.
Putin has a *lot* of blood on his (former) KGB/FSB hands.
Depending on who you are, it can be a kill-or-be-killed world.
He is very likely behind the murders of quite a few journalists and various political opponents.
...and former colleagues, be they ex-KGB/FSB, or people who had worked with him in government.
That’s why he is still in power.
Of course Putin was involved in killings. He is an ex-KGB thug, it is written all over his face, in his DNA.
Definitely a big part of the reason. Intimidating when your foes suddenly drop dead like flies or just disappear from sight.
Many Ukrainians believe you need look no further than the face of Viktor Yushchenko to understand Russia's aggression against Ukraine.
Once smooth and ruggedly handsome, it still bears the scars from an assassination attempt when someone slipped dioxin into Yushchenko's food. ..."
Read more here:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24765781.html#storylink=cpy
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November 2015...
Nov 7, 2015
Mikhail Lesin, a prominent Russian political figure and mass media expert credited with inspiring the creation of Russia Today (now RT), has died in Washington, DC after a heart attack.
Lesin, a former press minister and ex-head of Gazprom-Media, Russias largest media holding, died at the age of 57 on Wednesday, according to family members. Mikhail Lesin died from a heart stroke, a family member told RIA Novosti.
Meanwhile, TASS has reported that Lesin was found dead in his hotel room in Washington, DC, citing the Russian Embassy in the US. Police found no signs of foul play, but a formal investigation has been launched. It has been reported that Lesin had been suffering from a prolonged unidentified illness. ..."
https://www.rt.com/news/321121-lesin-dies-heart-attack/
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Nov 2015...
"Nicknamed the 'Bulldozer', Lesin was one of the key props of the Putin presidency, personally masterminding a wide-ranging media crackdown which has left the vast majority of Russian TV stations and newspapers obedient to the Kremlin."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3315994/Vladimir-Putin-s-media-mastermind-dead-DC-hotel-murdered-FBI-informant-alive-claim-Russians.html#ixzz3rOUopg7Q
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"On Friday, November 6 [2015], RIA Novosti reported that Lesin died of a heart attack citing a spokesman for the family as saying: "Today, Mikhail Lesin died ... His death came supposedly from a heart attack."[35][38]
RT [Russia Today] reported the next day that the cause of death was a heart attack.[31][39][40][41]
https://web.archive.org/web/20161026095000/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Lesin
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"Vladimir Putins former media czar "was murdered" in Washington, DC, on the eve of a planned meeting with the US Justice Department, according to two FBI agents whose assertions cast new doubts on the US governments official explanation of his death.
[Lesin] was going to talk about the inner workings of RT basically, how the propaganda machine works. DOJ was investigating RT. ..."
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jasonleopold/putins-media-czar-was-murdered-just-before-meeting-feds?utm_term=.koLV9zmDz#.cuo1YjnWj
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UPDATE: MAR 2016...
A former aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin found dead in a Washington hotel room was killed by a blunt force trauma to the head, U.S. authorities said Thursday.
Mikhail Lesin, 57, was found dead on the floor of his room in Dupont Circle on November 5.[2015]
Autopsy results show that he died from blunt-force injuries of the head, according to a joint statement Thursday from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reported by NBC Washington , but the exact manner of death was undetermined.
Also contributing to his death were blunt-force injuries of the neck, torso, upper extremities and lower extremities, the statement said.
Russian media originally reported that Lesin, a former government minister, had suffered a heart attack. ...
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"...the plot thickened late Thursday with one U.S. official apparently telling
The New York Times that [Mikhail] Lesin's wounds came from an altercation that happened before he staggered back to his hotel room that night.On Friday, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty uncovered another wrinkle, reporting that Lesin had confirmed his attendance at an event in the U.S. capital 48 hours earlier, but he never showed. ..."
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Backup link to NY Times article:
https://web.archive.org/web/20171126103233/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/11/us/former-putin-aide-found-in-washington-died-from-blows-to-head.html?smid=nytcore-iphone-share&smprod=nytcore-iphone&_r=0
Backup link to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty article:
https://web.archive.org/web/20171126104000/https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-lesin-mysterious-death-key-facts/27604577.html
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A onetime aide of Russian President Vladimir Putin whose body was found last year in a D.C. hotel room died of head injuries suffered in accidental falls after days of excessive drinking, authorities in Washington said Friday as they closed the death investigation.
Mikhail Y. Lesin, 57, a former Russian advertising executive who helped create the Kremlins global English-language Russia Today television network, was found dead Nov. 5 in the upscale Dupont Circle Hotel, and for much of a year, the manner of death was ruled undetermined.
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July 28, 2017:
"Two of the agents said they were told that the FBI has obtained evidence and conducted witness interviews that indicate that Lesin was murdered. Neither agent would describe the evidence or give details about who the witnesses were, or what exactly they said. The third said that a colleague working on the case told him in January that Lesin was beaten to death.
The intelligence officer would not say how he knew Lesin was bludgeoned but said that the weapon was a baseball bat. Another source with direct knowledge of the autopsy performed by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Washington, DC offered new information about Lesins injuries: He had fractured ribs, a detail that has not been previously reported.
One of the FBI agents said that he learned Lesin was put up by the Justice Department at the Dupont Circle Hotel a midrange hotel out of keeping with Lesins extravagant lifestyle during an informal water cooler talk with a case agent working on the investigation.
Lesin, he was told, was going to talk about the inner workings of RT basically, how the propaganda machine works. DOJ was investigating RT. These are the types of meetings we have with people when we want to recruit them as informants.
Does he believe Lesin was murdered over RT?
Whether it was over RT, money, pissing off Putin or a combo or all of it, I dont know, he answered. But falling down drunk? Come on. Thats bullshit..
The second FBI agent said he learned that the Justice Department had put Lesin up at the hotel from a DOJ official on the case. The DOJ was investigating something with RT, he recalled being told, and investigators planned to ask Lesin how the station operated how it was run and how the Kremlin used it.
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The following article is from December (2014)
"Mikhail Lesin has stepped down as head of major state-controlled media holding Gazprom-Media, the company said late last week.
Gazprom-Media, whose holdings include independent radio station Ekho Moskvy, said Lesin's resignation was due to family reasons, Russian media reports said Friday.
The holding's board of directors will finalize his resignation at an upcoming meeting, Gazprom-Media was cited by Ekho Moskvy as saying. No replacement has been named.
Earlier, a flurry of reports of Lesin's imminent resignation appeared on Russian news wires, all based on undisclosed sources and giving divergent accounts of the motive.
Forbes Russia cited sources in the media and government as confirming the resignation, with one of the individuals claiming that the decision was made personally by President Vladimir Putin."
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/513690.html
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"When he [Mikhail Lesin] quit Gazprom Media in December [2014], a move seen as a shock, he cited family reasons although there were unconfirmed claims he had fallen out with other influential figures close to Putin. ..."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3315994/Vladimir-Putin-s-media-mastermind-dead-DC-hotel-murdered-FBI-informant-alive-claim-Russians.html
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" [RT (Russia Today) founder, [Mikhail] Lesin was a central figure in the early Putin years, spearheading the Kremlin's effort to silence the country's independent television, the first step in the consolidation of authoritarian rule.
The first target was NTV, at that time Russia's largest and most popular independent TV channel, whose hard-hitting news broadcasts, talk shows, and satirical programs criticized the government over growing corruption and the war in Chechnya and gave airtime to the opposition.
In June 2000, a month after Putin's inauguration, NTV's founder and majority shareholder, Vladimir Gusinsky, was arrested and placed in Moscow's infamous Butyrka prison.
While he was there, the information minister made an offer: Gusinsky could have his freedom if he agreed to transfer his media holdings to Gazprom, the state-owned energy monopoly. ..."
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/vladimir-kara-murza/ominous-return-putins-media-enforcer
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From the New York Times
By NICHOLAS FANDOS and STEVEN LEE MYERS
MARCH 10, 2016
WASHINGTON Mikhail Y. Lesin once occupied the upper stratosphere of Vladimir V. Putins Russia, an advertising executive turned cabinet minister who helped carry out the state takeover of the countrys independent media and later created the Kremlins global English-language television network.
Until late 2014 he ran the media wing of the states energy giant, Gazprom, before stepping down or, more likely, being forced out. He ended up in the United States, where he and his family owned properties in Los Angeles said to be worth far more than the salary of the former government minister.
And then, in November [2015], he was found in a hotel here in Washington, the victim, the Russian state media he had helped build said, of a heart attack.
On Thursday, more than four months later, one of the questions surrounding Mr. Lesins death was answered: The office of the chief medical examiner in Washington announced that he had not died of a heart attack, but rather of blunt force injuries to his head. But the mystery surrounding his rise and fall only deepened.
Although the examiner and the police did not declare his death a criminal act, the authorities clearly no longer consider it to be the result of natural causes.
Mr. Lesins body also showed signs of blunt trauma to his neck, torso, arms and legs, the result, according to one official, of some sort of altercation that happened before he returned to his room at the Dupont Circle Hotel on the night in November when he died at the age of 59.
The medical examiners office did not explain the timing of its announcement, nor why the findings took so long.
Officials there had said as recently as Wednesday that it would not imminently release its findings, only to reverse course the next day.
His death remains the subject of a police investigation, though spokesmen for the Metropolitan Police Department and the F.B.I. in Washington declined to comment.
For months, Mr. Lesins fate has been the subject of much speculation.
In the Russian news media, he was said to have had a falling out with a major shareholder of Gazprom Media, Yuri V. Kovalchuk, an even closer business ally and friend of Mr. Putins.
Some speculated that he had fled to the United States in a kind of self-exile, one that is not unknown among ministers and businessmen who once were in favor inside Mr. Putins Kremlin. ...
“Sort of a Democrat” translates to Globalist.
The death of former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, last week from radioactive Polonium-210 poisoning is the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks on the outspoken opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed112706a.cfm
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"Over the next six years, Litvinenko became an anti-Kremlin journalist, accusing the Russian government of abuses during their battles with Chechen separatists in the 1990s, and the FSB's alleged 1999 bombing of 300 people in explosions at apartments in Russia that was used to justify its second war against Chechnya.
He also claimed two of the Chechen separatists who took hostages at a theater in Moscow in October 2002 during which 162 people died were working for the FSB. He also pointed the finger at the FSB for having trained al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri."
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Litvinenko: A deadly trail of polonium [poisoned by Putin?...case now concluding]
BBC - Magazine ^ | July 28, 2015
"The polonium trail started on 16 October 2006 when Litvinenko met Lugovoi and Kovtun in London. ..."
"When Lugovoi and Kovtun's movements were mapped against the sites of polonium contamination, there was an exact match. The evidence of guilt was strong. In May 2007, the then Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald announced that Andrei Lugovoi was to be charged with murder and his extradition would be sought from Russia. Kovtun was charged in 2010. ..."
Prof Norman Dombey, a physicist who has a deep knowledge of Russian nuclear sites, gave evidence at the public inquiry.
Dombey says there is only one place where it can be produced in the quantities used in the murder - a military nuclear reactor at the Avangard plant in the closed city of Sarov. Sarov was where Russia produced its first nuclear bomb in the days of Joseph Stalin. This is a clear link to the Russian state.
But why would the Russian state want him dead? ..."
It is clear that Alexander Litvinenko had powerful enemies in Russia. ..."
The first red line concerns a book he co-wrote called Blowing Up Russia about a terrorist attack in Moscow in September 1999. Chechen separatists were blamed.
"Litvinenko claimed that Russia's own security services carried out the attack to give Putin the cover to launch a new Chechen war. Some 300 people had died. ..."
His co-author, Felshtinsky, stands by their conclusions and says: "This [attack] helped Putin...the reaction of the population was we now have to have a strong leader. ..."
The inquiry will now hear secret evidence from intelligence agencies in special closed sessions. It will report back at the end of the year and, until then, the mystery will rumble on."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
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BBC, 27 July 2015
Litvinenko inquiry: Key suspect 'cannot testify'
"UK officials believe Dmitry Kovtun and another man, Andrei Lugovoi, poisoned Mr Litvinenko in 2006, which they deny.
Mr Kovtun had been due to appear by videolink from Moscow on Monday, but said he had been unable to get permission from Russian authorities.
Mr Litvinenko's family lawyer said it seemed the case was being manipulated."
Posted on 6/17/2010, 3:32:16 AM by TigerLikesRooster
Police seize 100,000 anti-Vladimir Putin books
Russian police seized 100,000 copies of a book critical of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that activists planned to hand out at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Published: 6:22PM BST 16 Jun 2010
Copies of 'Putin. The Results. 10 Years on', written by opposition politicians Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov were "intended for participants of the forum", starting Thursday, according to Olga Kurnosova, head of the city's branch of the opposition United Civic Front, said.
The reasons for the seizure "are not very clear", she said.
The book, which has a total print-run of one million copies, aims to "tell the truth about the real results of the leadership of Putin and the tandem", Mr Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister, wrote in his blog on Monday.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
One thins is for certain: Ezekiel 38 is coming. This alliance was foretold more than 2,500 years ago in the Word of God. Yes, and the King James says “Latter Days” and “Latter Years”. Libya must join in somehow.
A British judge says Russian President Vladimir Putin probably approved a plan by Russias FSB security service to kill former agent Alexander Litvinenko.
Judge Robert Owen said on Thursday in a lengthy report that he was certain Litvinenko was given tea laced with a fatal dose of polonium-210 at a London hotel in November 2006.
He said there was a strong probability that the FSB directed the killing and the operation was probably approved by Putin.
Litvinenkos widow, Marina, speaking outside Londons High Court, said she was very pleased with the judges conclusion.
The words my husband spoke on his deathbed when he accused Mr. Putin have been proved by an English court, the BBC quoted her as saying.
Two Russians, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, have been accused of killing Litvinenko, an accusation both of them deny.
Russia has consistently denied requests for the two men to be extradited to the UK.
Sir Robert Owen, who chaired the inquiry, wrote in a 300-page report: Taking full account of all the evidence and analysis available to me I find that the FSB operation to kill Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr Patrushev, then-FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev, and also by President Putin. ...
The murder of prominent Putin critic Boris Nemstov in a gangland-style killing steps from the Kremlin came just weeks after the dissident told a magazine his mother worried the Russian leader would have him bumped off for his outspokenness.
" 'When will you stop cursing Putin? He'll kill you for that.' She was completely serious," Nemstov told Sobsesdnik earlier this month, according to the Wall Street Journal. The paper added that the former Deputy Prime Minister under Russian president Boris Yeltsin expressed some worry about his safety but not as much as his mother.
-snip-
Nemtsov, 55, was gunned down in a drive-by shooting Friday near midnight as he walked on a bridge near the Kremlin with a female companion.
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