Farage's Bankroller Met Russian Envoy 3 Times, Then Hooked Him Up with Trump Team; MI5 Urged to Act

[louis c]

Source: Daily Mail (UK)

Arron Banks had three meetings with Russian ambassador Alexander Yakovenko. The former Ukip donor is also said to have given Russian officials telephone numbers for members of Donald Trump's presidential transition team

Explosive new claims of Russian meddling in the Brexit referendum emerged last night as it was revealed that the millionaire who bankrolled the Leave campaign had a series of secret meetings with Vladimir Putin's UK envoy.

Arron Banks had three meetings with Russian ambassador Alexander Yakovenko, fresh evidence shows, despite previously claiming to have had only a 'boozy lunch' with him.

Leaked emails written by Banks and his Leave.EU right-hand-man Andy Wigmore - both close friends of ex-Ukip leader Nigel Farage - allegedly show they were in close contact with Russian officials throughout the referendum campaign and afterwards.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5825129/Nigel-Farages-bankroller-met-Russian-envoy-three-times-hooked-Trumps-team.html

[Sneederbunk]

1. It will be interesting to see what the British authorities do about this.

[Sunlei]

7. The European Union's East StratCom Task Force was set up in response to Russia's disinformation camp

The European Union’s East StratCom Task Force was set up in response to Russia's disinformation campaign, they've done some great work

The Task Force’s flagship products are its weekly Disinformation Review of pro-Kremlin disinformation stories, its social media accounts and its new website.

In the course of two years, the Task Force has, in addition to substantially improving the EU’s outreach and positive eastward communications, developed a strong EU understanding of the tools, networks and objectives of disinformation, and raised awareness among millions, establishing itself as a leading international source of expertise on the issue. A network has been developed across the continent to identify and report disinformation, creating new channels to reach new audiences and track the most prevalent disinformation myths.

The EU vs Disinformation campaign has now identified over 3,500 disinformation cases in 18 languages. The team’s research is regularly used and quoted by politicians, governments, state agencies, researchers, think tanks and journalists across Europe and beyond.

It has become evident that the pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign is an orchestrated strategy to broadcast the same false stories in as many languages as possible, through as many channels as possible and as often as possible. Russian authorities are explicit about this too, for example through the Gerasimov doctrine – the amalgamation of war and political activity – as well as in statements by top Russian generals that “false data” and “destabilising propaganda” are legitimate tools.

The aim of this disinformation campaign is to confuse, denigrate, weaken and destabilise the West by exploiting existing divisions or creating new artificial ones. Outright lies are often deployed, but another common strategy is to spread as many conflicting messages as possible, persuading the audience that there are so many versions of events that it is impossible to find the truth. Particularly obvious examples include the clear obfuscation over the downing of flight MH17, Boris Nemtsov’s assassination and the bombing of a humanitarian convoy in Syria.

above comment with FOOTNOTES thanks to Poppin 6/6/2018

1) Video recording of President Trump's statement

2) Reuters - Trump says Russia should be at G7 meeting, Moscow not so sure

3) Forbes - International Criminal Court: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine Is A 'Crime,' Not A Civil War

4) New York Times - Dutch Inquiry Links Russia to 298 Deaths in Explosion of Jetliner Over Ukraine

5) The Independent - Russian disinformation campaign has been ‘extremely successful’ in Europe, warns EU

6) TIME - The E.U. Agency Fighting Russia's Wildfire of Fake News with a Hosepipe

7) Friends of Europe - THE EU RESPONSE TO PRO-KREMLIN DISINFORMATION

To bad the USA has a corrupt President blackmailed by Russia.

[Nitram]

8. Thanks for this, Suniel.

[deminks]

2. My favorite parts

The former Ukip donor is also said to have given Russian officials telephone numbers for members of Donald Trump's presidential transition team

and from the Guardian article:

Continued extensive contact in the run-up to the US election when Banks, his business partner and Leave.EU spokesman Andy Wigmore, and Nigel Farage campaigned in the US to support Donald Trump’s candidacy.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/09/arron-banks-russia-brexit-meeting?CMP=share_btn_tw

[roamer65]

3. I'd love to see Farage in jail.

[turbinetree]

4. So they were in kahoots with Russian spies....................treason is still treason

spies are still spies................even with a "boozy lunch"...............did they happen to call MI6...........

[blue-wave]

5. Well, well, well

Birds of a feather really do flock together. Who'd a thunk it? Could there be a British version of the pee-pee tape?

[MBS]

6. I first started to notice the emerging far-right/autocrat/"populist" alliances

around 2014 - when I noticed a number of far-right political leaders in different countries defending Putin after his invasion of Crimea and games with the "little green men" in Ukraine. With each passing month, those alliances have become ever more evident and more extensive and more entangled.
It's felt like a time-lapse version of Harry Potter, watching Voldemort reassemble himself more powerfully with each new volume of the series.

Now, finally, the facts are being confirmed, in all their horrifying detail.
At least, with the facts now out there, there is something concrete for those of us who care about social justice and the rule of law to fight against.

(Unless, of course, you're a spineless/compromised congressional Republican. I continue to be shocked by the persistence of their complicity in the Trump-Bannon-Manafort-etc-Putin-oligarch-Farage-LePen-Orban-Erdogan web of corruption, autocracy, and bigotry).