The Clinton camp and DNC funded what became the Trump-Russia dossier: Here’s what it means

October 26, 2017 by admin
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This post has been updated.

The Washington Post broke the story Tuesday night that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped pay for that now-famous dossier of research on President Trump.

The Post’s Adam Entous, Devlin Barrett and Rosalind S. Helderman report that powerful Democratic attorney Marc E. Elias retained the firm Fusion GPS for information, and Fusion GPS later hired Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent who was versed in Russia-related issues.

The dossier, which was published by BuzzFeed News in January, has been partially confirmed, though its most salacious allegations have not been.

There is a lot to sort through here. Below are four key points.

1) Clinton supporters — though not the campaign itself — were previously reported to fund the dossier

The fact Democrats were behind at least some of the funding for the dossier is not totally new. When CNN first reported on the dossier’s existence back in January, it said it was originally funded by President Trump’s GOP opponents and then, when he won the nomination, by those supporting Clinton.

Until now, though, the dossier had not been tied specifically to the Clinton campaign or the DNC.

Here’s what CNN reported back then:

The raw memos on which the synopsis is based were prepared by the former MI6 agent, who was posted in Russia in the 1990s and now runs a private intelligence gathering firm. His investigations related to Mr. Trump were initially funded by groups and donors supporting Republican opponents of Mr. Trump during the GOP primaries, multiple sources confirmed to CNN. Those sources also said that once Mr. Trump became the nominee, further investigation was funded by groups and donors supporting Hillary Clinton.

2) Trump’s allegation of FBI payments is still dubious

After the story posted, some seized upon The Post noting the FBI had agreed to pay Steele for information after the campaign. The argument seemed to be that the FBI was engaged in a witch hunt against Trump using Democrats’ sources.

But The Post originally reported on the FBI’s agreement back in February. At the time, it also reported it never actually paid for the work after the agent was identified in news reports:

The former British spy who authored a controversial dossier on behalf of Donald Trump’s political opponents alleging ties between Trump and Russia reached an agreement with the FBI a few weeks before the election for the bureau to pay him to continue his work, according to several people familiar with the arrangement.

. . .

Ultimately, the FBI did not pay Steele. Communications between the bureau and the former spy were interrupted as Steele’s now-famous dossier became the subject of news stories, congressional inquiries and presidential denials, according to the people familiar with the arrangement, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

Despite there being no proof the FBI actually paid Steele, Trump suggested it might have in a tweet last week — along with “Russia . . . or the Dems (or all).” Of those three groups, only Democrats have been reported to have actually paid Steele. And again, that was already kind-of known.

Workers of firm involved with the discredited and Fake Dossier take the 5th. Who paid for it, Russia, the FBI or the Dems (or all)?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 19, 2017

3) The appearance problems for Democrats

There is, presumably, a reason Democrats haven’t copped to funding the dossier — something they still haven’t publicly confirmed. Fusion GPS threatening to plead the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination also raised eyebrows last week.

First among those reasons is paying a foreigner for opposition research for an American political campaign. Given Democrats’ argument that Russia’s interference on Trump’s behalf was beyond the pale, the Clinton camp and the DNC paying a Brit for information would seem somewhat problematic.

(The Clinton campaign has also, notably, denied working with the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on Trump. Republicans have pushed dubious comparisons between the Ukraine allegation and Russia’s alleged Trump advocacy.)

Some on the right even alleged that Democrats paying Steele amounts to “collusion” with foreigners. But Russia-Steele comparisons aren’t apples-to-apples. The British after all are, unlike the Russians, America’s allies. Also, Steele was not acting as an agent of a foreign government, which is what would likely be required to prove collusion in the case of the Trump campaign and Russia.

Separately, the firm that the Clinton camp and the DNC paid also has alleged ties to the Kremlin. In Senate testimony in July, Hermitage Capital Management chief executive William Browder accused Fusion GPS and its head, Glenn Simpson, of running a smear campaign against Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian whistleblower who in 2009 was tortured and killed in a Russian prison after uncovering a $230 million tax theft. Magnitsky worked for Browder, and he is the namesake of a law containing sanctions that was passed by Congress and is a sore spot between the U.S. government and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Browder said the smear campaign was run by Fusion GPS with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin. You might remember them from the meeting with Donald Trump Jr. that took place in June 2016. Veselnitskaya was the Russian lawyer with alleged Kremlin ties who arranged the meeting.

As The Post reported in July of Browder’s accusations:

They were all allegedly working with the law firm Baker Hostetler to defend the Russian company Prevezon from charges it laundered funds stolen in the fraud Magnitsky uncovered.

“Veselnitskaya, through Baker Hostetler, hired Glenn Simpson of the firm Fusion GPS to conduct a smear campaign against me and Sergei Magnitsky in advance of congressional hearings on the Global Magnitsky Act,” Browder will testify. “He contacted a number of major newspapers and other publications to spread false information that Sergei Magnitsky was not murdered, was not a whistleblower and was instead a criminal. They also spread false information that my presentations to lawmakers around the world were untrue.”

Fusion GPS has confirmed it worked on a lawsuit involving Veselnitskaya for two years, The Post’s Josh Rogin reported. It denied any involvement in the Trump Jr. meeting.

The firm has worked with both Democrats and Republicans over the years.

4) Yes, the dossier was funded by Democrats

Some of the pushback on the left has focused on the fact that a still-unidentified Republican client retained Fusion GPS to do research on Trump before the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Thus, they argue, it’s wrong to say the dossier was just funded by Democrats.

But the dossier’s author, Steele, wasn’t brought into the mix until after Democrats retained Fusion GPS. So while both sides paid Fusion GPS, Steele was only funded by Democrats.

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Fats Domino, Rock and Roll Pioneer, Dead at 89

October 26, 2017 by admin
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Fats Domino, the genial, good-natured symbol of the dawn of rock and roll and the voice and piano behind enduring hits like “Blueberry Hill” and “Ain’t That a Shame,” died Tuesday at the age of 89. Mark Bone, chief investigator with the Jefferson Parish coroner’s office in Louisiana, confirmed his death to the Associated Press.

A contemporary of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis, Domino was among the first acts inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and was reportedly only second to Presley in record sales thanks to a titanic string of 11 top 10 hits between 1955 and 1960.

Those hits, which also included “I’m Walkin’,” “Blue Monday” and “Walking to New Orleans,” sounded like nothing that came before. Thanks to his New Orleans upbringing, Domino’s signature songs fused Dixieland rhythms, his charming, Creole-flecked voice, and his rolling-river piano style. His hits, most co-written with his longtime producer and partner Dave Bartholomew, became rock standards, covered by Led Zeppelin, Cheap Trick, Randy Newman, Ricky Nelson, and John Lennon, among many others. Lennon, who remade “Ain’t That a Shame” (first called “Ain’t It a Shame” on Domino’s recording) on his 1975 Rock Roll album, said the song had special meaning for him: It was the first tune he ever learned to play, on a guitar bought for him by his late mother. “It was the first song I could accompany myself on,” he said in 1975. “It has a lot of memories for me.”

“After John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Fats Domino and his partner, Dave Bartholomew, were probably the greatest team of songwriters ever,” Dr. John told Rolling Stone in 2004. “They always had a simple melody, a hip set of chord changes, and a cool groove. And their songs all had simple lyrics; that’s the key.” Domino himself, who preferred to let his music rather than image do the talking, was typically modest about his accomplishments: “Everybody started callin’ my music rock and roll,” he once said, “but it wasn’t anything but the same rhythm and blues I’d been playin’ down in New Orleans.”

Born in 1928, Antoine Domino was playing piano and performing in New Orleans honky tonks and bars by the time he was a teenager. At 14, he dropped out of high school, taking jobs like hauling ice and working at a bedspring factory as a way to supplement his music. Domino’s career was effectively kicked off at New Orleans Hideaway Club. While playing piano in local bandleader Billy Diamond’s band, Diamond nicknamed Antoine “Fats” — partly in homage to keyboard-playing predecessors like Fats Waller and partly because, as Diamond told one crowd, “I call him ‘Fats,’ ‘cause if he keeps eating, he’s going to be just as big!” Domino was initially hesitant about the nickname, but it stuck.

Later, at the same club, Domino met Bartholomew and Imperial Records head Lew Chudd, who signed Domino to his label. In 1949, Domino cut his first Imperial single, “The Fat Man,” a rewrite of the drug-addiction song “Junker’s Blues” that many consider one of the earliest rock records. Although it didn’t make the top 40, “The Fat Man” was a huge RB hit and established Domino’s sound and image for decades to come.

From then on, Domino’s hits kept coming. He scored nine gold singles, although he never had a No. 1 record on the pop chart. (Frustratingly, Pat Boone’s vanilla remake of “Ain’t That a Shame” did go No. 1 in pop in 1955.) In his memoir, Chuck Berry wrote admiringly that, in 1955, Domino was making $10,000 a week on tour.

From the start of his career, Domino wasn’t a larger-than-life figure like Presley or Lewis. Married at 20, he was a notorious homebody who eventually had eight children (all of whose names began with the letter “A”). Asked by Rolling Stone in 2007 about riots that took place during early rock and roll shows that featured him and other acts, Domino simply replied, “I don’t know. It wasn’t anything in the music, so it must have been something in the audience.”

Yet Domino’s influence was tangible. In 1968, Paul McCartney wrote the Beatles’ “Lady Madonna” with Domino in mind (Domino would cut his own version that same year). To ensure that bass guitars on his records could be heard above his rumbling piano, Bartholomew would double the bass and guitar parts — a technique later picked up on by Phil Spector for his Wall of Sound. Domino’s dexterous piano style, influenced by pioneering predecessors like Waller and Professor Longhair, also reverberated. “Anytime anybody plays a slow blues,” Dr. John told Rolling Stone, “the piano player will eventually get to something like Fats. It was pre-funk stuff and it was New Orleans and he did it all his way. He could do piano rolls with both hands. He was like Thelonious Monk in that way.”

In 1960, Domino released his last top 10 hit, “Walking to New Orleans.” Soon after, he left Imperial and continued recording for a number of other labels. As with his 1950s peers, he scored few hits from that point on — but more due to changing times than from the scandals or army duty that derailed Presley and Lewis. As Rolling Stone writer Charles M. Young wrote about Domino’s less-than-dark side, “Offstage, he gambled a bit, had a thing for fancy cars and jewelry and was known to cook beans in his hotel room.”

Domino continued to record and tour for decades after his initial success. In 2005, he was back in the news after his Lower Ninth Ward home was flooded to the roof during Hurricane Katrina. After initial reports that he was missing, Domino was eventually rescued and, with his wife Rosemary and one of their children, lifted into a boat. “I ain’t missin’ nothin’,” Domino said after the rescue. “Just one thing that happened, I guess. I’m just sorry it happened to me and everybody else, you know?” In the storm, he lost most of his possessions, including almost all of his gold records.

As disastrous as it was, Katrina also gave Domino a renewed life. Alive and Kickin’, a new album released a year after the storm, became one of his most acclaimed works (RS named it one of the top albums of the year). In 2007, he released Goin’ Home, an all-star Domino tribute album featuring covers by Elton John, Nell Young, Tom Petty, Robert Plant, Willie Nelson, Norah Jones, Lenny Kravitz, and Lucinda Williams.

Of his partner’s contributions to rock history, Bartholomew said Domino is “just like the cornerstone — you build a new church and you lay the cornerstone, and if the church burns down, the cornerstone is still there.”

Fats Domino – “Blueberry Hill”

Fats Domino – “Ain’t That a Shame”

Fats Domino – “I’m Walkin’”

Fats Domino – “Blue Monday”

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The Clinton camp and DNC funded what became the Trump-Russia dossier: Here’s what it means

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Fats Domino, Rock and Roll Pioneer, Dead at 89

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