La collusion

[timelets]

Imagine, Marie Le Pen was elected to become the President of France. In view of an e9M loan from a Russian bank and an application to get another e27M from the same(?) bank, would it be reasonable to appoint an independent counsel to investigate whether her campaign had backdoor deals with Russia?

Comments

[tijd]

Britain is in a more urgent need of an investigation. The story is well documented, yet BBC avoids mentioning it.

So Arron Banks, he's a businessman based in Bristol, in the West Country here, and he's the bankroller of it. So Arron Banks gave more money towards the Brexit campaign than any other person in Britain. And he is this strange and - I wouldn't say strange character, but there's just so many questions. Essentially, we don't know where Arron Banks' money comes from. And that is a source of one other investigation into Britain. He's married to a Russian woman, Katya Banks.
One of the things we found out about Arron Banks, which I've reported on in the last sort of six weeks or so, is this close relationship that we have discovered with the Russian ambassador in London. Now, this is a direct link to the Mueller investigation because the Russian ambassador in London, he's called Ambassador Yakovenko, and he turned up in the Mueller indictments in November last year. So it was when George Papadopoulos got indicted. And all sorts of meetings and connections and relationships were uncovered in that, which ran through London. And one of the key people he met in London was Ambassador Yakovenko. And Ambassador Yakovenko is described by Mueller as a high-level contact between the Trump campaign in the Kremlin.
And then six weeks ago, I, with this other journalist here, Peter Jukes, we got hold of a stash of emails from Arron Banks and his associates in which they talked about a whole series of meetings with the Russian ambassador. Now, so to go back to it, Arron Banks is a key associate of Nigel Farage, Mr. Brexit, who's best buddies with Steve Bannon. Arron Banks is the main funder of Brexit. And here we have Arron Banks meeting the Russian ambassador on the same day that he launches his official Brexit campaign in Britain in November 2015.
So this Brexit campaign, this was the one which was headed by Nigel Farage. We had two Brexit campaigns in Britain. That's why I have to make the distinction. And on the same day that he launched it, he went to the Russian Embassy with his associates, and at the Russian Embassy, we know that the Russian ambassador introduced him to an oligarch called Siman Povarenkin, and Povarenkin offered him a couple of lucrative potential business deals. One of them was a gold deal. It was about buying into six separate gold mines and consolidating them. And one was this very intriguing one. Alrosa, it was called. And that was a state diamond mining company in Russia.
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/19/630443485/reporter-shows-the-links-between-the-men-behind-brexit-and-the-trump-campaign